 There, what Winterset knew as the six-month-long "War of 1914" had degenerated into a mass four-year-long bloodletting (i.e.the First World War), followed by the rise of various dictatorships and tyrannies, more terrible wars and unimaginable mass murders, and finally the development of terrible destructive weapons capable of utterly destroying the world.The calamity also involved the complete dissolution of the British Empire, which Winterset regards as the main guarantor of the world's peace and stability.