This 1915 essay, portions of which appeared in revised form in Du Bois’s 1920 book Darkwater, identifies imperial rivalry as the root cause of the First World War. It asks why democracies had embraced imperial expansion and elaborates a new concept, the paradoxical “democratic despotism.” The new age of imperialism was distinctive in that the democratic nation, rather than the merchant or monopoly company, had become the agent of imperialism. The expansion of European empires throughout Africa had in fact been essential to the development of democracy in nineteenth century Europe, easing class conflict between workers and capitalists through the sharing of imperial spoils, wealth acquired through the subjection of “the darker nations of the world.” This global color line was incomplete, because Japan and China showed signs of independence from white hegemony. But pacifists and humanitarians must recognize that until the democratic ideal was extended to non-white peoples, not only would the majority of humanity suffer injustice but also war would continually threaten Europe and the world.