THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Malbone W, Graham
 
 2>V?^
 
 THE END OF THE WAR
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK • BOSTON - CHICAGO • DALLAS 
 ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO
 
 THE 
 END OF THE WAR 
 
 BY 
 
 WALTER E. WEYL 
 
 Author of "The New Democracy," American 
 World Policies," etc. 
 
 Jl5eto gork 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1918 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 COPTEIQHT, 1918 
 
 bt the macmillan company 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published, May, 1918
 
 jy 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 Postscript 1 
 
 I The Elusive Victory 17 
 
 II Pacifists and Patriots 38 
 
 III The Conversion of America 50 
 
 IV The War Against Militarism 73 
 
 V Spoiling the Enemy 98 
 
 VI Sacred Egoism 121 
 
 VII America as Arbiter 139 
 
 VIII The True Alignment 157 
 
 IX The War Beneath the War 174 
 
 X Is Germany Incorrigible? 189 
 
 XI A Conclusive Peace 207 
 
 XII Guarantees 224 
 
 XIII The Grand Alliance 232 
 
 XIV Obstacles to Internationalism .... 248 
 XV At the Peace Conference 273 
 
 XVI After the Peace Conference 296 
 
 15%!-^-^
 
 POSTSCRIPT 
 
 As I write this postscript, which is also an intro- 
 duction, the fate of the world is being decided upon 
 the fields of Picardy. Hundreds of millions in all 
 the Allied countries are praying for the success of 
 the British, French and American soldiers, who are 
 seeking to stem the tide of German invasion and end 
 for all time the dream of a German world-dominion. 
 While that battle rages all other pre-occupations are 
 thrust from our minds. If, by evil chance, the Ger- 
 man arms are crowned with success, the end of the 
 war will be one that we cannot contemplate except 
 with horror. The Allies must hold, must fling back 
 this gigantic onrush, or the power of decision will 
 pass from them and will rest with their German 
 conquerors. 
 
 The book to which this is a postscript is based 
 upon the assumption that the Allies can hold their 
 own and can thus exert a decisive influence upon 
 peace and upon the diplomacy that leads to peace. 
 The book is an appeal to America to assume leader- 
 ship in that diplomacy, to eliminate imperialistic 
 elements from the demands of our Allies, and to at- 
 tempt a settlement based on internationalism. Dur- 
 ing the period while the book was being written the 
 chances for such an American leadership were ex-
 
 2 POSTSCRIPT 
 
 cellent and the President showed signs of moving in 
 this direction. He made repeated advances, though 
 frequently too late. But at all times he met with 
 obstinate and usually successful resistance. As a 
 consequence less was accomplished than might have 
 been desired. 
 
 During the six months from April 1 until October 
 1, 1917, and even afterwards, the war might have 
 been concluded on the basis of internationalism and 
 democracy. The Germans were discouraged; their 
 U-boat campaign had netted less than had been ex- 
 pected and America's participation promised an 
 eventual victory to the Allies. Russia, although 
 tottering, was still capable of offering resistance; 
 the Italian army, as yet undefeated, stood firm in 
 the Julian Alps; in Germany itself a democratic 
 movement was in full swing. German discontent 
 was stronger than at any previous time, and clamor- 
 ous demands were being made, as also in Austria, 
 for a democratic peace. It was a golden oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 That opportunity has now been lost. By mal- 
 adroitness, by diplomatic errors and by a display of 
 callousness and insincerity, our Allies proved that 
 they did not understand and could not act. The 
 Allies revealed an inelasticity, an intolerance of the 
 new Russian democracy and a thinly disguised de- 
 sire for conquered territories that made diplomacy 
 on a high level impossible. Rather than revise their
 
 POSTSCRIPT 3 
 
 imperialistic war aims, they permitted Russia to go 
 down, almost forced her to make a separate peace, 
 and allowed Germany to break her up into a number 
 of smaller states, easy to pit against one another. 
 Italy's desire to gain hasty possession of coveted 
 territory and lack of unity among the Allies led to 
 Italian defeat in the fall of 1917 and to a further 
 strengthening of the autocratic and militaristic 
 classes in Germany. Finally, by permitting, if not 
 encouraging, Japan to invade Siberia, in circum- 
 stances which indicated that the proposed interven- 
 tion was to be a predatory attack, our AUies set upon 
 themselves the stamp of imperialism. 
 
 To these short-sighted actions and omissions of 
 our Allies the President of the United States has 
 been steadfastly opposed. Repeatedly he has stood 
 alone for the long-time policy based on principle, 
 while statesmen in the Allied countries clamoured 
 for immediate ends, a profitable victory and a puni- 
 tive peace. For his owm country President Wilson 
 has made no special claims and he has insisted re- 
 peatedly that America fights only for democracy. 
 His influence has been cast on the side of a reason- 
 able peace based on internationalism. If hitherto 
 he has failed to bring the Allied governments to 
 his point of view, it may be argued in his defence 
 that the task was difficult and the opposition strong. 
 
 It may be conceded, perhaps, that President Wil- 
 son's ideals were sometimes left to hang high in the
 
 4 POSTSCRIPT 
 
 diplomatic heavens and were not always brought 
 down to solid earth. As in his protests to the 
 belligerents before our entrance into the war, so in 
 his world-addresses since, there have been at times 
 a lack of reality, a failure to put force back of ideas, 
 an unwillingness to use even the pressure of world 
 opinion to compel opponents to accept his con- 
 clusions. The crucial defect of his policy has been 
 its detachment. Here was a great man uttering 
 noble sentiments in noble language, yet missing one 
 chance after another to translate those sentiments 
 into decisive action and to force adherence upon un- 
 willing Allies. 
 
 It is notoriously easy to judge after the event and 
 notoriously difficult to be fair towards those com- 
 pelled to make immediate decisions. We cannot 
 reasonably demand that President Wilson should 
 have foreseen all the incalculable events of the world 
 war. He made errors, but he avoided innumerable 
 worse errors, and in his ideals, in his sympathy for 
 democracy, as also in his broad view of the whole 
 situation he proved himself immeasurably superior 
 to the statesmen of our Allies. In the light of sub- 
 sequent events, however, it now seems obvious that 
 before our declaration of war we should have at- 
 tempted a firm settlement with our Allies. At that 
 time, when we had already broken off negotiations 
 with Germany but had not yet begun hostilities, we 
 already surmised, if we did not actually know, that
 
 POSTSCRIPT 5 
 
 our co-belligerents had entered into mutual agree- 
 ments hostile in spirit to all that we hoped to achieve 
 in this war. Instead of merely insisting upon our 
 individual innocence we should have demanded, as 
 a condition of our belligerency, a general statement 
 of the terms of the Allies. We might quietly have 
 said to their governments: ''Either revise your 
 war aims in conformity with principles of interna- 
 tionalism, so as to rob them of all tinge of imperial- 
 ism and vindictiveness, or we will not join. We 
 will arm and build merchant ships and shall be ready 
 when you have so changed your terms, but until then 
 not a man, nor a ship, nor a dollar. We are willing 
 to fight on your side for world-democracy but not 
 for secret treaties which you may have made among 
 yourselves." 
 
 A second opportunity to urge an international 
 peace presented itself when the Russian Republic 
 published its formula of ''no annexations and no in- 
 demnities." We should immediately have accepted, 
 if not that exact formula, at least one that breathed 
 the same spirit, and should have insisted upon its 
 acceptance by our Allies. We should thus have 
 strengthened the Kerensky Government and retained 
 the aUogiance of Russia. The projected Stockholm 
 Conference was another of our failures. Again we 
 were given the chance to invite publicity and again 
 we refused. Like our Allies, we pretended to con- 
 sider this Conference a mere German subterfuge;
 
 6 POSTSCRIPT 
 
 in other words we played the German game. If 
 Allied imperialism had more to fear from open dis- 
 cussion than had German militarism, if we were 
 afraid to risk a clarification and publication of war 
 aims, then our moral position in the war was pre- 
 carious. 
 
 Nor does this end the list of our disastrous omis- 
 sions. In July, 1917, the majority of the delegates 
 in the German Reichstag offered peace resolutions 
 which for many months President Wilson ignored, 
 although it was obvious, from the President's own 
 speeches, that only by strengthening this inconstant 
 and insecure parliamentary majority could we hope 
 to achieve the peace for which we fought. Similarly, 
 our attitude towards the secret treaties of the Allies, 
 of which the President learned in the late spring of 
 1917, revealed an uncertain and hesitating diplo- 
 macy. It must be remembered that it was the knowl- 
 edge of these treaties that enabled the German 
 rulers to smother the discontent of their own peo- 
 ple ; the Junkers appealed to German democrats on 
 the plea that the AUies wished to crush Germany. 
 At any time after June, therefore, the President, by 
 calling a public inter- Allied conference, might have 
 forced a denunciation of these treaties and a revision 
 of peace terms. On the other hand, without such 
 action it was impossible, as events proved, to hold 
 Russia to our side. For the Russians, fully ac- 
 quainted with these secret imperialistic compacts,
 
 POSTSCRIPT 7 
 
 entered into by England, France, Italy, Roumania 
 and Japan, firmly believed that the governments of 
 those nations were as grasping as was that of Ger- 
 many. If America had a different policy, why did 
 she consort with these nations? Why did she not 
 frankly state her opinion concerning those secret 
 agreements, published in Petrograd but not pub- 
 lished in the leading journals of London, Paris and 
 New York? 
 
 It would be quite unfair to describe this American 
 diplomacy as tepid and timid ; and equally unfair to 
 represent Mr. Wilson as a man who is always missing 
 trains. Such general accusations do not justly ap- 
 praise the moral quality and the intellectual percep- 
 tions of the President, who with little forewarning 
 was faced with a new, menacing, complicated, and, 
 above all, a constantly and rapidly changing situa- 
 tion. It was difficult for him (or us) to apply 
 coercion to friends and Allies and ungracious to dis- 
 trust the aims of nations, whose sacrifices in this 
 war had been larger and their loyalty older than 
 our own, and it was equally difficult to know how far 
 we might trust even the most fair-spoken of our 
 enemies. Moreover, the defect of the President's 
 policy was a defect, in a sense even a function, of 
 its qualities. A policy that aims at international- 
 ism, at mutual confidence among nations, must rely 
 in large measure upon moral forces, must be patient 
 and tolerant, even at the risk of becoming leaden-
 
 8 POSTSCRIPT 
 
 footed. It cannot always make quick decisions or 
 summary judgments. Its path is not laid out in 
 advance, and its errors must be judged more lightly 
 than are those of the traditional diplomacy with its 
 narrower and more selfish aims and its more ancient 
 rules of procedure. 
 
 Whatever the cause of our inability to influence 
 our Allies, however, it is within the province of fair 
 criticism, even in these dangerous times, to suggest 
 that this failure of ours to act decisively has dimin- 
 ished the moral value of our participation. We have 
 erred on the side of caution and generosity. We 
 have too highly valued the intelligence of Allied 
 statesmen and too sharply discounted our own. 
 Striving for concord within the Alliance, we have 
 feared to speak the truth lest it offend one or another 
 of the nations heroically fighting by our side. But 
 a true concert among allies is attained not when each 
 is promised everything but when all are inspired by 
 a single ideal. We have been silenced by what we 
 were assured was the superior wisdom and the older 
 experience of European statecraft. We have held 
 our peace. 
 
 In so doing we have involved ourselves in a grave 
 and general error. We have forced ourselves to 
 believe that we could fight for democracy and main- 
 tain the integrity of the Alliance despite secret ar- 
 rangements violating the principles for which we
 
 POSTSCRIPT 9 
 
 fight. We have believed that we could trust to 
 selfishness, enlightened and unenlightened, to over- 
 come the brutal militaristic spirit of Germany. We 
 have fought fire with fire and been burned in the 
 process. We have kept our own skirts clean and not 
 considered whether those of our Allies were clean or 
 filthy. We have believed that an alliance could be 
 half-moral and half-immoral, half-democratic and 
 international and half-imperialistic. We have not 
 faced the problem squarely. By not facing the prob- 
 lem we have allowed the military supremacy to pass 
 temporarily to our enemy and have destroyed for 
 the time being our moral advantage, the greatest 
 source of our strength. 
 
 Today the chance for a peace based on interna- 
 tionalism is slimmer than at any time since our en- 
 trance into the war. Having handed over Russia 
 to the Germans and isolated and lost Roumania, we 
 now seem likely to force Russia to become a politi- 
 cal, as well as an economic ally to Germany. We 
 have created conditions where time no longer fights 
 decisively in our favour and where the pressure of 
 war begins to bear as heavily upon our associates as 
 upon our enemies. We have robbed ourselves of 
 the solace and unifying power of a great ideal, and 
 have made it possible, both in the countries of our 
 Allies and in those of our enemies, for tlie worst 
 elements in the population to gain control and to
 
 10 POSTSCRIPT 
 
 end the war by a compromised imperialist peace. 
 We have failed because we did not have the courage 
 of our convictions. 
 
 The opportunity is lost, and yet it may return. 
 If I believed that no chance remained for a peace 
 based upon international principle, I should be loth 
 to publish this book. The chance, though dwindling, 
 still exists. There may again come about, perhaps 
 as a result of the gigantic battle now fought in 
 France, such a balancing of belligerent forces as will 
 permit the United States once more to occupy the 
 favourable moral and strategic position which she 
 held during the months from April to October 1917, 
 and, to a less degree, even until February 1918. If 
 the opportunity again occurs, if we are no longer 
 faced with the naked need of defence against a mili- 
 taristic Germany entrenched and fortified by our 
 mistakes, we cannot afford to repeat the vital errors 
 which render our present situation so hazardous. 
 
 Yet it is exactly these errors which we are again 
 urged to commit. In our present mood of exag- 
 gerated depression the claim is made that the policy 
 of reconciliation has failed. But, in truth, it has 
 not failed; it has not been tried. Indeed what has 
 so signally failed has been the exactly contrary 
 policy of fighting imperialism with imperialism and 
 greed with greed. Today we are again exhorted to 
 shut our eyes, to offer no negotiated peace and ac- 
 cept none, to make no distinction among Germans,
 
 POSTSCRIPT 11 
 
 all of whom are equally brutal and hypocritical, and 
 not to think of peace until the enemy is prostrate, 
 starved, shattered, beaten to a pulp. Then we may 
 talk terms. 
 
 Doubtless this advice is a natural reaction from 
 the new revelation of German militarism vouchsafed 
 to the Russians. The punitive peace inflicted by 
 Germany upon Russia and Roumania has once more 
 proved, what was painfully familiar before, that the 
 Imperial German Government is still heartless, 
 truculent and utterly remote from considerations of 
 common decency and even of larger statesmanship. 
 The Junkers, again in the saddle, are the same swag- 
 gering brood, unrepentant and exultant. The radi- 
 cal and democratic movement in Germany seems at 
 low ebb, for German liberals are crushed by German 
 victories and are overborne by a rising flood of 
 jingoism. 
 
 Yet the task of all democrats opposed to German 
 militarism, tliough now more difficult, is the same as 
 before. Our aim is to end this menace, to end it 
 once for all, to end it in the only way it can be 
 ended, by the creation of a secure international sys- 
 tem. Today we still strengthen German militarism 
 when we threaten Germany with destruction ; we still 
 tie German democrats to the Junker chariot wliecl 
 when we fight for conquests and punitive indemni- 
 ties instead of for the things that they, as well as 
 we, desire. It will now take longer and more des-
 
 12 POSTSCRIPT 
 
 perate fighting to gain our ends than if we had 
 adopted a wiser policy, and we, like our enemies, 
 must pay a heavier toll. At our own great cost we 
 must break down anew the Junker prestige, which 
 was sinking in 1917 but has again risen. Unless, 
 however, we fight for a program to which German 
 democrats also can subscribe, unless we fight liter- 
 ally to make the world safe for democracy, for the 
 German as well as the American, British and Rus- 
 sian democracies, all our new expenditure of blood 
 will be futile. We shall accomplish nothing even 
 if after unparelleled sacrifices we gain the supreme 
 military victory and our khaki-clad soldiers march 
 in triumph down the silent Unter den Linden. 
 
 If we and our Allies fight this war as we have 
 fought it for almost four years, for Dalmatia, Con- 
 stantinople and various Turkish islands, if we fight 
 for a peace in which we at our own will and pleasure 
 are to determine German and Austrian boundaries 
 as Germany now determines those of Russia, the 
 war is lost. Not necessarily, or at least not pri- 
 marily, in a military, but in a moral sense. We may 
 end the dream of German world dominion but shall 
 not have come nearer to a peace based on interna- 
 tionalism, and shall have incurred the danger of 
 a compromised imperialist peace. The war might 
 have ended in a compromise which would have been 
 a victory had the compromise been based on a new 
 international order. If, however, the compromise
 
 POSTSCRIPT 13 
 
 ending the war is nothing but a dividing up of Rus- 
 sia, China and a few other countries by nations too 
 tired to fight, by nations reconciled solely by the 
 privilege of spoiling enemy and ally, then we have 
 an ignoble peace, and the war for democracy is a 
 failure and our high pretensions are a mockery. 
 
 The opportunity for a democratic peace may again 
 recur. By pressure upon the Western front, the 
 Allies may force democratic groups in Germany to 
 make overtures for a peace based on international- 
 ism and on a true self-determination of Russia, for 
 a peace free of all taint of spoliation. It will be 
 difficult to do this, however, unless our Allies refrain 
 from giving final sanction to plans of Japanese con- 
 quest in Siberia. Once we concede to Japan the 
 right to conquer this territory we shall find it im- 
 possible, except by sheer force, to prevent German, 
 Austrian and Turkish aggressions against Russia. 
 
 The war for democracy and internationalism will 
 not end, however, with the treaty of peace. The 
 present war is but an incident, disastrous and 
 ghastly, in a larger development, in a struggle be- 
 tween two principles: the principle of autocracy, 
 militarism and nationalistic imperialism, and the 
 principle of democracy. The moment the war ends 
 the struggle wall change its form, though not its 
 character. There will be renewed the same conflict 
 which we have witnessed for several generations, 
 the same steady upward push of the masses of all
 
 14 POSTSCRIPT 
 
 nations. A victory for Germany would immensely 
 hamper this movement and delay an eventual victory 
 of the democratic principle. It would re-establish 
 the prestige of autocracy. Not even such a catas- 
 trophe, however, would end the struggle between 
 democracy and the autocratic principle, though the 
 centre of conflict might shift from Manchester, 
 Roubais and Pittsburg to Essen and Leipzig. 
 
 To a great extent, moreover, the war, even if its 
 outcome be calamitous, mil have contributed to the 
 victory of the democratic principle. The war has 
 meant nothing if it has not meant enlightenment. 
 To the peoples of all countries it has shown the lack 
 of prevision and of moral quality of the governments 
 which they have so long obeyed. Not only the 
 autocracy of Germany, but the English, French and 
 Italian rulers as well, have revealed crassly egoistic 
 class motives concealed under pious phrases. The 
 wage-earners of the world and the hundreds of mil- 
 lions who make up the poor and disinherited will 
 have long years in which to reflect upon the lessons 
 of this conflict. They will come to see that back of 
 the struggle between nations lay a more permanent 
 conflict between ideas. They will see the war be- 
 neath the war, and will realize that whatever the 
 immediate issue, the victory is to the group in tlie 
 community that is most conscious of its interests and 
 most insistent upon its riglits. 
 
 It is this self-revelation of our modern ultra-na-
 
 POSTSCRIPT 15 
 
 tionalism and this baring of the nakedness of class 
 pretensions that will constitute in the end one of the 
 great permanent victories of the war. Whatever 
 the outcome, there will remain after the w^ar the 
 same clash within the nations as before. A present 
 victory for internationalism and democracy, how- 
 ever, a present destruction of German militarism, 
 and with it of all other militarisms, is the goal to be 
 achieved in the present war and a step in the direc- 
 tion of an ultimate victory in the years to come.
 
 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE ELUSIVE VICTORY 
 
 In this fourth year of the war all the world longs 
 for peace. The fever has almost run its course. 
 Much hatred remains, much greed for territory and 
 wealth, much reliance on the strength of armies and 
 navies. Yet the world over men are sickened by the 
 eternal bloodshed. The early optimistic enthusiasm 
 has vanished, and there opens up the vista of an end- 
 less prolongation of a senseless slaughter. No 
 longer is there hope of an easy victory over 
 dispirited foes. Instead earnest peace-loving men 
 are asking themselves whether this conflict, like the 
 Thirty Years' War, will not long endure and end 
 only in the utter decivilization of Europe and of the 
 world. 
 
 Precisely such a situation as we are now facing 
 was presaged in a remarkable anticipation by an 
 English philosopher in the spring of 1914. ''Let a 
 European war break out," wrote Mr. Graham Wal- 
 las, "perhaps between the Triple Alliance and the 
 Triple Entente, which so many journalists and poli- 
 
 17
 
 18 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 ticians in England and Germany contemplate with 
 criminal levity. If the combatants prove to be 
 equally balanced, it may, after the first battles, 
 smoulder on for thirty years. What will be the 
 population of London, or Manchester, or Chemnitz, 
 or Bremen, or Milan, at the end of it ? " ^ 
 
 A thirty years' war, lasting until 1944, still 
 seems to us impossible. Flesh and blood could not 
 stand the intolerable strain ; the war must come to 
 its end earlier. Yet we are as far from a decision 
 as at the beginning. On land the Central Powers 
 are victorious ; at sea the Allies ; and both are strain- 
 ing their resources and wasting their energies at a 
 speed inconceivable four years ago. The war's con- 
 tagion has spread, and nations, uninterested in Ser- 
 bia's fate and other controversies which gave rise 
 to the contest, now marshal their forces, sacrifice 
 their young men and put their whole future to the 
 test. The chances of victory for the one side or the 
 other alter continually, and statesmen and publicists, 
 once possessed of calm judgment, are elated or panic- 
 stricken by the news of successive days. Through- 
 out the nations the gambling spirit is rife, and the 
 fate of the world is the stakes. 
 
 From the gigantic battling of more than three 
 years there emerges a sense of the elusiveness of 
 the victory sought. In the beginning, when Ger- 
 man armies were rapidly invading France, the 
 
 1 "The Great Society" by Graham Wallas, New York, 1914, p. 12.
 
 THE ELUSIVE VICTORY 19 
 
 Fatherland believed that the present struggle, like 
 those of '66 and 70, was to be "a fresh and merry 
 war," and just before the Marne, and afterwards, 
 France was dismembered in numberless Kneipes 
 throughout the German Empire. Similarly in the 
 optimistic spring of 1915, English and French, rely- 
 ing upon the coming Big Push and the Slavic steam- 
 roller, amused themselves by dividing up enemy ter- 
 ritories in anticipation of an early decisive victory. 
 Since then, however, much water has flowed \inder 
 the bridge. Millions of careless boasting boys have 
 been buried deep and other millions are hobbling 
 about on crutches, or, blinded or diseased, are seek- 
 ing to live out mangled lives until Death comes to 
 this generation and the curtain goes dowTi upon the 
 grotesque tragedy. During all this time amid 
 alarms of defeat there have been exultant shrieks for 
 the victory about to be grasped. The victory has 
 never been grasped. It has always been three 
 months ahead, always needed just one more million 
 deaths, a few billion dollars more. And so, on both 
 sides of that grim fighting line, which has suddenly 
 replaced old political boundaries, men stumble for- 
 ward, their eyes blinded by the flowing blood, their 
 hearts inspired by an inner ideal, by a primitive, in- 
 vincible pride and by the persistent hope of a vic- 
 tory that is always to be and never is. 
 
 Yet however patriotic, men remain men, and all 
 the obsession of the present cannot deaden the mem-
 
 20 THE END OF THE WAE 
 
 ory of happier days. Even the Junker, steeled in a 
 philosophy of war, has his moments of regret for the 
 time before sons and brothers died daily in un- 
 romantic ways on distant battle-fields, when men 
 might meet present enemies on terms of friendship, 
 and the world was not divided against itself by bul- 
 warks of bayonets, ships and lies. To the common 
 run of unmartial people who form a majority of all 
 nations, the war has become odious. The illusion is 
 gone. It is no ** merry war" but a desperate, un- 
 honourable conflict, a war of money, deceit, bribery, 
 murder and ruthlessness both against neutrals and 
 enemies. To what does it lead? What will be the 
 gain in the long years of post-bellum reckoning? 
 Sober people begin to see beyond the conflict to the 
 grey years to come. They still hope for victory, but 
 it is a lesser victory than that once envisaged, a vic- 
 tory in which the victors themselves will be over- 
 burdened with debt and the care of the victims who 
 achieved the victory. The hope of adequate in- 
 demnities has vanished ; the war as a gigantic whole 
 is unprofitable. It does not pay. From a material 
 point of view even a victory will not pay. 
 
 Will it pay morally? Will the losses in blood and 
 treasure be made good by permanent gains in ideals ? 
 
 Here lies the real issue, and it is the afifirmative 
 answer to this question which prolongs the war. So 
 universal is the abhorrence of the ceaseless carnage 
 that nothing but the deepest ideals could reconcile
 
 THE ELUSIVE VICTORY 21 
 
 men to the struggle. Millions of us believe, how- 
 ever, that to give over the battle without attaining 
 the war's supreme goal would be to suffer disaster. 
 The war is as odious as ever, cruel, barbaric, vile; 
 and yet there seems no alternative than a submis- 
 sion to enduring evil. Victory will consist in bring- 
 ing about a new state of the world in which men will 
 be unharassed and free, and in which great nations 
 and small will live together in peace. 
 
 Today there has arisen a new attitude toward 
 peace and a larger hope for peace, because of the 
 very conditions which make the present war differ- 
 ent from any other in history. In the past wars 
 were limited by the narrow bounds given to political 
 integration, narrow bounds within which all inter- 
 course between the nations took place. And peace 
 was limited by the same conditions. A world peace 
 was impossible in a world divided up into thousands 
 of separate communities unconnected by industrial, 
 social and intellectual bonds. Today the increas- 
 ingly close integration of the world, which makes 
 wars utterly destructive, makes a world peace con- 
 ceivable. For the first time there is possibility of 
 a close co-operation among nations, a sense of like- 
 ness in aim and destiny. There is a dream of mu- 
 tual understanding and common concert. There is 
 a propagation of an international faith and of an 
 international allegiance. 
 
 This conception, at best merely struggling for ex-
 
 22 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 pression, distorted and disfigured in the throes of 
 its birth, this faith in a new world society, in a new 
 unity and a new concert, is the one fact which gives 
 this world conflict a rational and moral base. De- 
 stroy that base and nothing remains but the maniac 
 clashing of rival peoples, a war which leads to a 
 senseless peace, which again leads to war. Destroy 
 this faith, and the war is but one of an endless chain 
 of wars. In some manner and to some extent all the 
 warring nations, including even those opposed to us, 
 accept this faith. They cling to it despite many 
 facts which should tend to make them sceptical. It 
 is the vindication of this faith which alone makes 
 the war anything more than a mere grotesque trag- 
 edy. It is by this vindication alone that a victory 
 can be won. 
 
 But is not this real moral victory itself elusive, 
 and do we not clutch at it ignorantly, and with 
 clumsy hands'? It is significant that our enemies, 
 against whom we are fighting for tlie security of 
 this better world, are themselves fighting for secu- 
 rity, so that echoes of our ambitions come to us 
 from across enemy frontiers. Can we attain inter- 
 nationalism, democracy and permanent peace by the 
 mere expedient of fighting? In the beginning, it 
 must be admitted, we envisaged the whole problem 
 too simply. Wrapped up in a sense of the perfect 
 justice of our cause, we believed that our enemy must 
 soon discern and acknowledge that he was fighting
 
 THE ELUSIVE \aCTORY 23 
 
 against the light. Many idealists among the Allies 
 expected that in a few months — in a year at most — 
 they would overturn the Imperial German Govern- 
 ment and confer upon the un-hated German people 
 the blessings which they themselves enjoyed. Bet- 
 ter still, the Germans, perceiving the abyss towards 
 which their dynasts were leading them, would them- 
 selves revolt, and stretch out their hands in friend- 
 ship to their rescuing enemy. None of all this has 
 happened; on the contrary the Germans have made 
 common cause with their rulers, and believe, quite 
 sincerely, that they, and they alone, are fighting for 
 the right, fighting that we and our Allies may not 
 crush, dismember and humiliate the Fatherland. 
 From the beginning they have opposed to us ideals 
 as firmly held as those that we hold. 
 
 All our millions of soldiers, our hundreds of w^ar- 
 ships, our mountains of explosives, have failed to 
 persuade them that we are fighting their cause. We 
 are unable to convince them and to their surprise 
 they are unable to convince us. 
 
 The difficulty seems to be that we and our Allies 
 are bringing to this problem a blunt war mind and 
 are seeking a somewhat impalpable solution by ex- 
 cessively palpable instruments. We have tried to 
 hammer the enemy into a confession of sin and into a 
 state of grace, not realizing that for this purpose 
 machine guns and asphyxiating gas are no adequate 
 instruments. Though we cannot win this war with-
 
 24 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 out arms, we cannot win it by arms alone. The con- 
 sequence of our exclusive preoccupation with the 
 war tends to obscure the very purposes for which 
 it is fought, with the result that the ideal victory, 
 which we seek, eludes us. 
 
 This is true of our enemies and our allies as of our- 
 selves. The simple faith of 1914 is gone. In Ger- 
 many millions now perceive that they were enrolled 
 in this conflict by a conscription of lies and that the 
 real objects of their exalted rulers were different 
 from those avowed. They begin to doubt the wis- 
 dom and justice of invading Belgium, of submarine 
 warfare and the bombarding of peaceful cities ; and 
 a few are wondering whether a German victory 
 might not be a victory over Germany. The chains 
 fastened upon Belgium would clank upon German 
 ankles, for foreign aggression means unfreedom at 
 home. Similarly, though in a lesser degree, the 
 Allied peoples are beginning to dread too complete 
 a victory. What advantage will there be in a mere 
 overpowering of Germany? The German menace 
 will be gone, but new menaces will have been created. 
 Crush Germany to place Italy on the East Adriatic 
 and the seeds are sown for a fresh war between 
 Italy and Serbia and their respective allies, a war 
 potentially as destructive as that under which we 
 now live. Dismember Austria, split up that loose 
 aggregation into a larger Balkans, and what is the 
 permanent gain to England or France ? Again, what
 
 THE ELUSIVE VICTORY 25 
 
 new wars are to be staged by the Peace Conference 
 in Asia Minor? Everywhere dangers spring up like 
 armed men from the ground. Every\vhere victory 
 promises to create new warring nations, young, un- 
 wise, over-confident, over-ambitious, ruthless. Such 
 a victory is no victory. Divide all conquered terri- 
 tories according to the clashing desires of the flushed 
 Allies and you have a state of Europe and of the 
 world, no better than that from which men sought to 
 escape in the insane venture of 1914. 
 
 Humankind is proverbially disregardful of dis- 
 tant dangers and Europe might be willing to pur- 
 chase immunity from immediate aggression at the 
 risk of a greater peril fifty years hence. But the 
 menace is far more proximate. In 1912 the Balkan 
 States declared w'ar against Turkey upon the basis 
 of a division of conquered territories more carefully 
 considered than that which today binds the Allies; 
 within a year they were at war among themselves. 
 Can the Allies, in the event of their success, surely 
 hold together in the precarious days of victory, while 
 distributing territories newly acquired? Let Ger- 
 many lay down her arms — is peace then assured? 
 In a division of spoils there is no true harmony. 
 What Italy wants Serbia wants. We can imagine 
 the ironic laughter of the defeated Central Powers if 
 at the final grand inquest the victorious Allies split 
 upon the rock of clashing expansions, and each 
 courted the aid of the German victim. For unless
 
 26 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 some new principle is evoked, other than that of giv- 
 ing to each what has been promised to each, the di- 
 vision will be made according to the strength of the 
 respective victorious nations, according to the Bal- 
 ance of Power within the Alliance, and in case of 
 conflict the unsuccessful group may appeal to the 
 victim to redress the balance. 
 
 It is a discouraging outlook, a vista of ever new 
 dangers, a dread that the world will escape from the 
 consuming fire of this war only to fall into hotter 
 conflagrations. A real victory, a victory of peace, 
 eludes us. And when we inquire why it eludes us we 
 see that we, the Allied nations, carry into the conflict 
 something of that evil principle against which we 
 fight. The war is against German militarism, ag- 
 gression and imperialism, but the Allied nations are 
 also militaristic, aggressive and imperialistic. ' Be- 
 tween Germany and Japan there is little to choose in 
 the matter of imperialistic ambition; between the 
 autocratic Russia that was and the Germany that is 
 there is nothing to choose. The war in its origin was 
 an alignment of aggressive nations against aggres- 
 sive nations. Moreover, in carrying on the war each 
 combatant group has gained the adhesion of former 
 neutrals by appealing to greed and ambition. The 
 Allies made promises to Italy, Roumania and Greece, 
 as Germany made promises to Bulgaria. The ce- 
 ment of both alliances has been the very thing which 
 caused the war. The Allies, fighting fire with fire.
 
 THE ELUSIVE VICTORY 27 
 
 cannot be depended upon to control their own fire. 
 A war for internationalism has been conducted by 
 expedients opposed to the principle of interna- 
 tionalism. 
 
 Small wonder then that the world is disillusioned 
 and war-weary, that the peoples ask themselves if 
 wisdom and justice, moderation and tolerance are 
 not more likely to solve problems than is the clash 
 of brutal armies, let loose by stupid, if astute, diplo- 
 mats. No wonder that tens of millions are seeking 
 a way out of the banal slaughter to a victory that 
 will not be empty and to a peace that will not be 
 transient. 
 
 In this search they are everywhere impeded. 
 They cry "peace, peace," meaning thereby a settle- 
 ment that is lasting and just, but the echo answers 
 "there is no peace." Those who desire terms which 
 will make for progress and civilization find their 
 efforts frustrated by two groups, by sincere, dog- 
 matic pacifists, who desire immediate peace on any 
 terms, and by equally sincere bitter-enders, jusqu'd 
 houtistes, who are either imperialists, conscious or 
 unconscious, or mere instinctive haters, loving the 
 war more than the peace that is to be gained. The 
 first group, if successful, would pluck the fruit be- 
 fore it was ripe ; the second would fight on until the 
 fruit was rotten. 
 
 To tlie irreconcilable pacifist the war has brought 
 an endless series of disillusionments. He has an in-
 
 28 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 vincible repugnance to warfare, not because he is a 
 coward (on the contrary he is often fanatically 
 brave) but because in him the tribal instinct is weak. 
 He tends to believe in the inherent goodness and 
 reasonableness of men. Often he is a pacifist and a 
 non-resister because he is a Christian; more often 
 he is a rationalist holding fast to reason and dis- 
 trusting instinct. He is not objective; few extrem- 
 ists are. He is not bound by conclusions drawn 
 from history, for he looks to the future and believes 
 implicitly in the revolutionary conversion of whole 
 peoples. He holds to his dogma that nothing can 
 be gained by war. The nearer the war the less par- 
 donable. 
 
 The dogmatic pacifist has seen the ground drift 
 from beneath his feet. In the beginning he hoped 
 that all nations would be reasonable ; they were not. 
 He hoped that non-resistance would evoke non- 
 aggression; it did not. He believed that the sober 
 reason as well as the economic and cultural inter- 
 ests of the world would prevent nations from going 
 to war ; they did not. Even in the midst of the gen- 
 eral conflagration he believed that a semi-isolated 
 nation, like the United States, could remain out of 
 the war, could maintain a solitaire peace; he has 
 discovered that it could not. He has seen great peo- 
 ples, ardently desiring peace, continue to fight as 
 though driven by an invisible maleficent god. 
 
 These disillusionments have confused the judg-
 
 THE ELUSIVE VICTORY 29 
 
 ment, if they have not altered the convictions of the 
 pacifist. Though he at first held that we in America 
 should preserve an oasis of peace, and not add to the 
 universal frenzy, he now discovers, when it comes to 
 a question of ending the war, that peace is more than 
 a mere cessation of fighting. It is a thing of diflBcult 
 terms and conditions; a thing easier broken than 
 made. 
 
 To the militarist also the war has been disillusion- 
 izing. In the beginning he thought of it as a mere 
 conflict of arms and as a chance for valour and dis- 
 tinction in the ''imminent deadly breach." There 
 was something mystical, romantic and sentimental 
 in his concepton. War was utterly different from 
 the dead monotony of industrial life, with its glut- 
 tonous production of standardized goods, its hum- 
 drum collocation of grimy men in grimy factories, 
 its plethoric endless heaping up of commodities. 
 With the outbreak of hostilities all that would be 
 over. To his confusion the war turns out to be 
 nothing but the same industrial process in a differ- 
 ent form. He discovers that not armies but fac- 
 tories give the decision. Back of the soldiers stand 
 the same grimy workers. The Brigadier-Generals 
 in their resplendent uniforms are supplanted by 
 manufacturers, merchants, bankers and advertising 
 men, for the war has proved that war is business, 
 and that military eflBcicncy is useless without eco- 
 nomic efficiency. Success in war depends upon the
 
 30 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 identical men and processes as does success in peace. 
 As a consequence the military man of the old type 
 is disappointed. 
 
 Yet though pacifists and warriors are alike dis- 
 illusioned, the war drags on. Men die on the battle- 
 field and women and children and old people die at 
 home. Food becomes scarce, fuel scarcer and the 
 whole industrial machine creaks. The birth-rate 
 falls; the death rate rises. Tuberculosis spreads 
 through vast sections of the populations and vene- 
 real diseases make fearful ravages. Everjnvhere 
 are sick who cannot be tended, and weak who die un- 
 necessarily. The nations, not comprehending each 
 other, vainly strive for a mutual understanding that 
 will relieve them from this excruciating agony. 
 Then failing to reach any end or attain any concord 
 they listen to the counsel of despair, "Fight on, you 
 peoples; cut your throats, lose your lives and with 
 them your doubts and qualms and hesitations. 
 There is peace in death on the battlefield; there is 
 peace in the insensate struggle itself, in which men 
 cease to think, and mechanically shoot at an unseen 
 enemy; as much automata as are the machine guns 
 under their hands." 
 
 It is as though we were driven by an inner impulse 
 to mass suicide. Whoever seeks a rational escape 
 from the slaughter is exposed to a merciless fire 
 from the rear, to appeals to hatred, revenge, nation- 
 alistic gain. Constantly we are told not to look
 
 THE ELUSIVE VICTORY 31 
 
 within but outward to the enemy. All the suffering 
 is attributed to the foe and not to the struggle itself. 
 If the loved ones at home starve, the enemy is at 
 fault, not the war. If fathers, husbands, sons die on 
 distant fields, it is the enemy who has killed them, 
 not the war. In each country we forget that war is 
 the opponent and remember only a grinning, con- 
 temptuous foe. Those who have something to gain 
 or nothing to lose from the conflict insist on a mere 
 fighting. So also do those who have forsworn 
 thought *'for the duration of the war." They urge 
 the nation to grasp that ever-elusive victory, to gain 
 by just a little more effort the balm that is to salve 
 all wounds, to save itself from the last unutterable 
 calamity of destruction. They demand that the 
 nation fight that 'Hhese honoured dead shall not 
 have died in vain." Foolish, vainglorious hope. 
 More millions may die and more and more millions, 
 and yet die in vain. For unless the war is rational- 
 ized, spiritualized, saved from gross corrupting ele- 
 ments, unless it is fully harmonized with the new 
 spirit struggling to be born, all who die, die in vain. 
 Until then, those who cry for "peace, peace," even 
 though the military victory be won, must be answered 
 "there is no peace." 
 
 Could there be a more striking illustration of our 
 tragic incapacity to rise above a fighting clan spirit 
 to a view of humanity in its world relations? The 
 war lasts because we, like our foes, cannot put our-
 
 32 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 selves in the enemy's place, cannot view the world 
 from his standpoint, or test our ideals by his needs. 
 We do not concede to him a common humanity or a 
 common rationality, but see in him only the brute 
 and moral idiot. We close our ears to what he has 
 to say, as he closes his ears, and both sides hurl 
 threats across the national boundaries. The loose 
 curses of some unrepresentative Englishman or 
 Frenchman, printed in large type in German papers, 
 shut the mouths and consciences of patriotic Ger- 
 mans, clamouring for a democratic peace. People in 
 Britain or America, who stretch out their hands in 
 the dark to feel the friendly touch of peace-lovers in 
 enemy lands, are struck by a Reventlow or von Tir- 
 pitz, and are silenced. In these circumstances there 
 is no peace. 
 
 For the peace that is desired, the only peace 
 worthy of the name or worth fighting for, is more 
 than a pact between diplomats coming to the rescue 
 of tired warriors. What is needed is a constructive 
 peace, that will mean the progress of humanity, not a 
 peace of subjugation nor a peace precedent to a new 
 war. To such a true peace all the war irreconcilables 
 of all countries are unitedly opposed. For these 
 Maxses and Barres and Reventlows, though revil- 
 ing each other, are true allies. Theirs is a curious 
 unconscious internationalism. Leagued tog;ether for 
 war, imperialism and subjection, they are the real 
 censors both of democratic speech and thought.
 
 THE ELUSIVE VICTORY 33 
 
 They keep the flame alive, arousing for ever the war 
 spirit at home and abroad. Against these strutting 
 little men, with their vicarious heroism and their 
 prestige manufactured in enemy lands, the advocates 
 of an honourable peace struggle ineffectually. For 
 these little war-makers, though not intrinsically pow- 
 erful, represent the vast unreason of the world. 
 
 Thus the nations long for a true peace and fight 
 on. Great is the contagion of war, and so near lies 
 the fighting spirit to our primitive instincts, and so 
 easy is the refuge from the task of solving prob- 
 lems to the thoughtless routine of battle, that one 
 nation after another is dragged into the contest. 
 Finally the United States, the last great neutral, was 
 forced into the war. 
 
 There was no way out. The struggle was on 
 whether we were in or not, and our participation 
 seemed to promise the end. It was for us, we be- 
 lieved, to resolve the problem, to untie the knot that 
 had resisted Europe's efforts. To this task we 
 brought men, munitions and money, and also a new 
 spirit. We wanted no conquests or indemnities, 
 nothing but an honourable permanent peace. War- 
 weary even before we entered the war, we strove to 
 be disinterested, to fight without hatred and with- 
 out ambition. We were literally fighting for peace. 
 
 Thus America became the chief hope of the 
 world's peace. We were cast for this role not be- 
 cause we were better people than Europeans — we
 
 34 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 were neither better nor worse — ^but simply because 
 our safe geographical and economic position not only 
 permitted us to develop ideals of internationalism 
 but also took from us any powerful selfish interest in 
 the conflict. As peace-makers we had an advantage 
 over other great Powers. 
 
 We had a corresponding disadvantage. As a 
 nation we were ignorant of those complex historical 
 and political problems of Europe, those intimate 
 repulsions and inherited prejudices out of which 
 wars arise. We knew little about Russia, less about 
 Austria-Hungary, still less about the Balkan situa- 
 tion, and our ignorance concerning the intricate prob- 
 lems of Asia Minor was almost complete. Before 
 the war few Americans had even heard of the Bag- 
 dad Railway. Disregarding these problems we be- 
 lieved that peace could be maintained by keeping 
 things as they were and we never asked ourselves 
 whether things could be kept as they were. Ignoring 
 their difficulties and their temptations we felt a con- 
 tempt for nations which sought to fight out problems, 
 not realizing that in like circumstances we too should 
 have fought. We thought of peace as a self -regulat- 
 ing device, as a thing natural and good and easy, and 
 of any people that broke the peace as a self-confessed 
 malefactor. 
 
 Since then we have learned much. We have in- 
 vestigated the rotting foundations upon which peace 
 in the past has been built and we have come to rec-
 
 THE ELUSIVE VICTORY 35 
 
 ognize that in some cases the peace-breaker is 
 blessed. We have learned that not every peace will 
 do ; that peace is a highly perishable integument, to 
 be adjusted or fitted, so to speak, to the needs of 
 peoples, to the spread of ideas, ideals, interests, an- 
 tagonisms ; that it must grow with the growth of the 
 nations it holds together. It is not a glass case, 
 rigid and fragile, but a living container, a web, 
 of the nature of the things it holds, growing, chang- 
 ing, alive — and mortal. It is a condition, good, 
 bad, improving, degenerating. It is a part of the 
 enveloping atmosphere of the nations, and the na- 
 tions may grow up healthy in its atmosphere or they 
 may stifle and die. 
 
 We have also learned that no nation, nor all 
 nations together, can proclaim '^Let there be Peace" 
 and there will be peace. For that peace which the 
 world desires is an organic and vulnerable thing, 
 which must grow out of the ideals and passions of 
 men, which must be better or worse, which must die 
 day by day and be renewed day by day, as our skin 
 dies and is renewed. We have only begun to learn 
 the vast toxicolog}^ of peace; the virulent, recondite 
 poisons that destroy it, poisons not placed there by 
 wicked men but, like fatigue germs, generated by the 
 international body itself. We find the enemy of 
 peace to be not Germany alone but also those dis- 
 tract iugly difficult questions, which Peace must con- 
 front and answer or be herself destroyed. Our own
 
 36 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 pat replies of three years ago, as we now realize, 
 were no answers, but mere evasions. We have 
 studied and learned though we are still ignorant. 
 So is the rest of the world. The blind lead the blind ; 
 the ignorant teach the ignorant; the passionate 
 preach to the passionate the virtues of peace. 
 
 Disheartening? Surely. Yet so the world has 
 always been governed and the race survived. To- 
 day if our difficulties are intricate we have at least 
 a broader basis, in a new world created under our 
 feet, upon which to build for the future. More men 
 and more women than ever before are striving not 
 for any peace but for one that is true and perma- 
 nent and just. The task of attaining such a peace is 
 paralyzingly difficult, but we hope and believe that it 
 is not impossible. 
 
 But to attain it requires a larger spirit than to 
 fight a war. It requires broader sympathies, a 
 clearer vision, a greater faith and a nobler charity. 
 The problem is no less than the planning of the 
 world, the provision of a place in the sun for all the 
 nations (including our enemies), the evening of the 
 path over which all peoples in their daily arduous 
 lives must pass. The peace to be attained must be a 
 peace that lays the foundations upon which a world 
 society may be built. Such a peace does not come 
 automatically, nor is it attained by fighting, which 
 can achieve only the removal of some of the ob- 
 stacles. The end of the war does not of itself
 
 THE ELUSIVE VICTORY 37 
 
 bring peace, just as the battle won does not bring the 
 victory; all that war assures us is a partial cleaning 
 of the slate upon which a new message may be writ- 
 ten. What that message will be depends upon what 
 spirit animates the peoples who are to do the writing. 
 It is in something of this mood and with the sense 
 that she is a nation chosen by circumstances to lead, 
 that America must approach the problem of world 
 peace. The task comes to us more immediately than 
 ever before. Plunged into the World War to sink or 
 rise with the other nations, we may either fight on to 
 the elusive victory that is defeat, or may strive by in- 
 telligence and a true spirit to attain to that moral 
 victory without which this war is an unmeaning 
 curse.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 PACIFISTS AND PATRIOTS 
 
 Superficially there could have been no more star- 
 tling volte face than that of America in April, 1917. 
 We had just re-elected Mr. Wilson, who had "kept 
 us out of war ' ' ; immediately afterwards, and under 
 his leadership, we entered the war. 
 
 Since then we have quickly learned to despise our 
 former attitude, and men who have recently boasted 
 of their staunch pacifism now hold that point of view 
 to be obnoxious and contemptible. Yet to those who 
 look beneath the surface the basic impulse which 
 caused us to fight was the same that had long kept 
 us from fighting. It was in the main idealism which 
 thrust us in as it had once held us aloof. Beneath 
 our sudden change in policy lay a perfect continuity 
 in sentiment and conviction. 
 
 To understand our present attitude and to for- 
 mulate an American policy, we must understand and 
 emotionally experience that strong sentiment out 
 of which our actions flowed. For we are today and 
 will be tomorrow essentially what we were a year 
 ago. A traditional popular impulse manifests it- 
 self differently under varying conditions, but itself 
 does not quickly change. Consequently we approach 
 
 38
 
 PACIFISTS AND PATRIOTS 39 
 
 the end of the war with much the same instinctive 
 reactions, with much the same tenacious but undi- 
 rected idealism as in the days in which we held our- 
 selves aloof from the conflict. 
 
 It was not to be anticipated that our present Al- 
 lies ^ should regard our past abstention as heroic or 
 indeed as anything but materialistic and selfish. 
 Themselves bearing the brunt of a desperate strug- 
 gle, they naturally believed that all neutrals were 
 careless of great moral issues and shortsighted in 
 their national egoism. America especially was de- 
 nounced, since of all neutrals she was the strongest 
 and most prosperous. It was inevitable that all the 
 ancient accusations against Yankee callousness 
 should be raised against us. 
 
 These accusations fitted in with the traditional 
 dispraise of America. We were held to be the most 
 unidealistic of nations — in our land birds had 
 no 'Song, flowers no scent, and men no souls. To 
 myriads of Europeans our life seemed cold, clear, 
 hard, without shade or colour or atmosphere, un- 
 romantic, unmysterious. They found in us a narrow 
 and ill-informed rationalism, a grotesque emphasis 
 upon the practical, a materialistic self-seeking. 
 Our cis-Atlantic civilization was styled gaunt, 
 ugly, monotonous, clamourous. Americans were the 
 
 1 Technically America is not an ally of Great Britain. France and 
 Italy, but merely an associate or co-belligerent. For the sake of 
 convenience, however, it is often better to use the word "ally" since 
 it corresponds with general usage.
 
 40 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 slaves of a tyrannical money instinct. We had no 
 soul roots in a distant past, no long national conti- 
 nuity. How could one expect idealism from a mere 
 accidental assemblage of transplanted humans ? 
 
 Doubtless, as our critics allege, we have missed 
 some of the virtues and much of the charm inhering 
 in the more ripely developed nations whose history 
 runs back to an ancient folk childhood. Our people, 
 coming from many sources, have had their dim 
 lights extinguished in the glare of American life. 
 We speak of the American crucible, but, in a true 
 sense, nations are not chemically fused but grow as 
 do the plants, slowly and obscurely. All this makes 
 us different. 
 
 Yet it is only the less sympathetic European 
 observer who misses the deep note of idealism in 
 American character. The popular misconception 
 arises because in America so much of our spiritual 
 life seems flat and arid, because we have not been 
 chastened by suffering, but have always been chil- 
 dren of plenty and of a strenuous uncomfortable 
 comfort. Our idealism itself bears the traces of its 
 derivation in being cheerful, self-conscious and 
 somewhat pragmatic, worshipping the thing that is 
 to be and ignoring what was. It is, like ourselves, 
 mechanical and rationalistic, holding fast to steam, 
 electricity, power and bigness. It is the idealism of 
 a wealthy society of jostling, unsqueamish men, 
 above all, an idealism of success. It is a vent for all
 
 PACIFISTS AND PATRIOTS 41 
 
 those impulses which are not used up in our struggle 
 for wealth, and it adopts unconsciously the methods 
 and spirit of that struggle. In this check-book ideal- 
 ism, the widow's mite is less regarded than the mil- 
 lionaire's donation, and the one sheep less than the 
 ninety and nine. It is the idealism of a people sat- 
 isfied, perhaps over-satisfied with itself, giving of its 
 plenty and determined to raise the world to what it 
 considers its own level. There is in it little humility 
 but much good will, good sense and practical wis- 
 dom. Moreover, it is an idealism with its feet on the 
 ground, an idealism which works, which enters into 
 the core of our day-by-day life and powerfully influ- 
 ences our actions and decisions. 
 
 It was this unromantic and perhaps unlovely ideal- 
 ism which was enlisted a year ago in the effort to 
 keep America out of the war. It was a powerful 
 ideal motive drawn from the brief traditions of 
 American history, and buttressed by economic, polit- 
 ical and geographical considerations. It was a mo- 
 tive that was rooted in a belief that men are inher- 
 ently good, that the free man is the good man and 
 the good citizen. It believed theoretically in an 
 equality, liberty and fraternity, transcending na- 
 tional boundaries. Intensely democratic, it de- 
 manded the equalization of opportunities, though it 
 narrowly conceived of equality as an equal chance 
 to compete under unequal conditions. Its faith was 
 strong in the right of a nation or a people to self-
 
 42 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 government. It disbelieved in repression, regimen- 
 tation, rigid discipline, abject respect for the pub- 
 lished law. ''Do not obey the law too much," ad- 
 vised the great American prophet, Walt Whitman. 
 
 This attitude led, and still leads, to opposition to 
 war. The liberal does not believe in propaganda by 
 force. He distrusts the arbitrament of battle much 
 as he distrusts duelling. To the American, more- 
 over, a belief in the efficacy of peace has been all 
 the more natural since his nation was never called 
 upon to fight a serious foreign war. In a fluid 
 society in which there was elbow-room and the right 
 to use one's elbows, in which a man might easily 
 change his home, city, trade, or wife, it was easier to 
 move than fight. We had no fighting traditions and 
 no specialized fighting class, no samurai and no 
 Junkers. Consequently, our patriotism was strongly 
 pacific. 
 
 This American pacifism was on the whole conde- 
 scendingly benevolent. Believing piously in our 
 own wisdom and good fortune, we experienced a mis- 
 sionary desire to spread our virtue to foreign coun- 
 tries. We believed that we were, or were to become, 
 the most inspiring nation in the world, and that we 
 gratefully owed it to Divine Providence to bring to 
 other nations the blessings that were ours. We must 
 spread our civilization by example and free gift. 
 But if there was a touch of Pharisaism in our atti- 
 tude, there was also a deeply sincere and generous
 
 PACIFISTS AND PATRIOTS 43 
 
 emotion. We wished unselfishly to create peace for 
 the entire world. 
 
 It is easy to ridicule this attitude, to see in it an 
 intellectual unripeness and a blindness to complex 
 facts. We lacked detailed knowledge; we were far 
 too simple in our hypotheses and far too summary 
 in our judgments. We conceived of Europe as 
 merely a more densely populated America, and we 
 failed to grasp the infinitely involved problems of 
 nations living throughout their long history in hos- 
 tile juxtaposition, with their martial instincts forti- 
 fied by the constant need of self-defence. We were 
 inclined to pass a hasty equal judgment upon all 
 combatants, as does the lazy police magistrate who 
 is too busy to investigate a petty wrangle. But all 
 this intellectual immaturity was natural. If our 
 people as a whole failed to bring to this problem a 
 full and dispassionate mind, other neutrals and com- 
 batants equally failed. As one looks deeper and en- 
 gages the situation from a moral rather than an in- 
 tellectual point of view, our attitude, fairly radiat- 
 ing good-will, was far from ridiculous. It was an 
 effort to apply to the relations between nations cer- 
 tain obvious moral formulae. If the formula were 
 too simple, the effort none the less lay in the line of 
 future progress.^ 
 
 1 The state of mind above described was far from being universal. 
 Not a few Americans envisaged the European War from a purely 
 personal, financial point of view and millions of others were indif- 
 ferent.
 
 44 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 Obviously this idealism in the first instance held 
 the United States to non-intervention. Nations and 
 men tend to discover a deep moral justification for 
 whatever lies in their interest, but apart from the 
 obvious benefit to us of non-interference, there was 
 reason to believe that such a do-nothing policy 
 would also inure to the ultimate advantage of 
 Europe. Our underlying thought was that, as a 
 combatant, we should lose not only moral prestige, 
 but also a disinterestedness without which we could 
 never become impartial mediators. The ambition to 
 settle the war obsessed the nation. It was in this 
 hope that President Wilson adjured us to remain 
 neutral even in thought, and in this spirit he made 
 his famous declaration that a nation may be too 
 proud to fight. We did not seem to recognize that 
 in our efforts to preserve a rigidly neutral atti- 
 tude we were sacrificing our right even to pass a 
 moral judgment. Thus the President refused to 
 state his opinion concerning the morality of the Bel- 
 gian invasion and made no protest against German 
 atrocities in Belgium or Russian atrocities in Gali- 
 cia. In this abstention, moreover, he was supported 
 by the general sentiment. ''Why protest," asked 
 Americans, *' since we do not intend to back up our 
 protests by force? A protest will do no good and 
 will destroy our chance to become the peacemaker." 
 
 Naturally our internal racial divisions emphasized 
 the necessity of neutrality and peaceful abstention
 
 PACIFISTS AND PATRIOTS 45 
 
 from European quarrels. We were no longer re- 
 quired to be neutral because of weakness and we had 
 long ceased to believe that the democratic institutions 
 of the United States needed protection from the 
 *' despotic European system." Neutrality had be- 
 come a policy of convenience; a confirmation of an 
 economic process by which American interests were 
 centered in the home territory. But our attitude 
 towards our immigrants confirmed our unwilling- 
 ness to interfere as a belligerent in European wars. 
 We were the refuge of the world, the one country in 
 which war-weary citizens of all the nations could 
 drown their ancient embittered animosities in the 
 new and unifying aspirations of American life. To 
 these immigrants from war-threatened nations, 
 moreover, we felt ourselves bound to offer surcease 
 of warfare that they might forget the unhappy days 
 in their native land. Thus and thus only could we 
 create a United States of Europe on American soil. 
 If we waged war against one or another of the Euro- 
 pean peoples we should only rekindle old hatreds. 
 The bitter feelings aroused in America during the 
 first two years of the European War, the only half- 
 suppressed warfare of invective between American 
 partisans of the Allied and of the German cause, 
 seemed to us a forecast of the much deadlier conflict 
 that was to be feared in the event of any actual par- 
 ticipation by the United States. To attack Cicr- 
 many, we believed, would be to de-Americanize the
 
 46 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 Germans in our midst. If we adopted a policy ad- 
 verse to Italy, Austria-Hungary, Sweden or Great 
 Britain, we should stir up new racial antipathies 
 within our borders. Our internal peace, our integ- 
 rity as a composite nation, depended upon our neu- 
 trality. The better part of wisdom was to remain, 
 we thought, a friend to all nations and an ally of 
 none. 
 
 It soon became obvious, however, that our policy 
 of non-intervention led to difficulties. The role of 
 receptive peacemaker was hardly dignified and we 
 were the alternate victim of all combatants. Our 
 failure to repel the aggression of one group led to 
 attacks by the other, and as the months passed our 
 neutrality evaporated. We were hated, distrusted 
 and coldly despised by both sides. Germany claimed 
 that we were aiding the Allies ; British and French 
 publicists intimated that we were subtly pro-Ger- 
 man. 
 
 To what lengths this suspicion of America went 
 is revealed by the attitude of one of the more violent 
 of British imperialists, Mr. L. J. Maxse. In an arti- 
 cle appearing in the National Revieiv of February, 
 1917, entitled, '* 'Ware Washington," Mr. Maxse 
 claimed that the United States was Germany's secret 
 ally, that a war between those two countries was 
 practically impossible, but that a war with England 
 would be immensely attractive to Americans. *'It 
 is common ground," he said, ''that had the Pan-
 
 PACIFISTS AND PATRIOTS 47 
 
 German program materialized and the Mailed 
 Fist been triumphantly installed from Petrograd to 
 Calais the United States would have preserved a 
 scrupulous neutrality based on excess profits. But 
 from the moment failure overtook Germany at Ver- 
 dun and on the Somme, American action became in- 
 evitable, because German failure meant British suc- 
 cess, and their ingrained jealousy of this country 
 would preclude *our American kinsmen' remaining 
 quiet while we * came into our own. ' " " The fall of 
 France," he asserted, "the fall of Russia, the fall 
 of Italy would have found American altruists look- 
 ing the other way, as did the fate of Belgium, Serbia, 
 Montenegro, Roumania, and Poland. Any catas- 
 trophe to the British Empire would have aroused 
 unconcealable glee from the Atlantic to the Pa- 
 cific. " * In the same manner and to an even greater 
 extent our quasi-neutrality exposed us to the gibes 
 and the violent abuse of German critics. 
 
 It must be conceded that our policy of theoretical 
 neutrality completely failed, and that in our efforts 
 to apply a few moral formulae to the complex and 
 embittered European situation we barely escaped 
 appearing irresolute and even ridiculous. We fol- 
 lowed no one lead and carried out no one consistent 
 policy. Had we really wished to defend the prin- 
 ciple of neutrality we should have formed a League 
 of Neutrals, and organized the combined neutral 
 
 1 T/ie National Revieic, Vol. 68, p. 810.
 
 48 THE END OF THE WAE 
 
 strength to enforce our decisions. Had we desired 
 to exercise a moral influence we should have boldly 
 passed judgment upon such open violations of inter- 
 national law as the invasion of Belgium, and pre- 
 pared ourselves for an eventual vindication of such 
 judgments. Nor did we, during the first two and a 
 half years, take really effective steps towards bring- 
 ing about peace upon the basis of a firm internation- 
 alism. If after mobilizing our economic and mili- 
 tary forces we had put pressure upon both groups of 
 belligerents to force them to state terms, we should 
 perhaps have aided in the clarification of the issues 
 and in progress towards a mutual understanding. 
 
 Actually our laissez-faire attitude towards the 
 war, our policy of waiting to be called upon as peace- 
 maker, led insensibly to a conservative, tepid and 
 constantly shifting program, and in the end to a 
 seeming pettiness in promoting small commercial 
 interests while ignoring vaster moral interests. We 
 kept silent about Belgium, but protested vehemently 
 in behalf of American lard. The European infer- 
 ence was obvious. 
 
 "If the man who turnips cries 
 Cry not when his father dies 
 'Tis a proof that he had rather 
 Have a turnip than his father." 
 
 But the inference was false. We did not care 
 more for American lard than for human rights, al-
 
 PACIFISTS AND PATRIOTS 49 
 
 though as a matter of tradition we protested about 
 the first, while we were inhibited by our fundamental 
 policy towards the war from saying a word in behalf 
 of the second. 
 
 It was not cowardice on our part, nor timidity, 
 nor callousness. Our policy of non-interference, 
 though unintelligent and uninspired, was the result 
 not only of an old tradition coming into conflict with 
 a new state of the world, but of our strong idealistic 
 belief that we could aid internationalism by doing 
 nothing, and our hope that we could gain the friend- 
 ship of both groups of belligerent nations, and thus 
 gently bring them to a common peace, by studiously 
 refraining from giving offence to either. If we stag- 
 gered from one error to another and from one pro- 
 gram to another, if in the end we entered the conflict 
 abruptly under sudden provocation as though we 
 had stumbled into the war, the cause of our vacilla- 
 tion was in the main a not ungenerous aspiration. 
 We longed for a universal peace, in which men would 
 no longer kill, and though all other swords in the 
 world dripped with blood, ours at least should be 
 clean. 
 
 Such was the pacifist patriot attitude of America 
 in November, 1916. Yet in April, 1917, the United 
 States '*to make the world safe for democracy" was 
 engaged in a great war with Germany.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE CONVERSION OF AMERICA 
 
 The entrance of America into the war raised in 
 many minds a seeming dilemma. Why did we take 
 part in April, 1917, and not in August, 1914? If it 
 was not a war for democracy, why were we in ; if it 
 was, why had we not been in from the beginning? 
 
 Though we are now at war, and war inhibits a true 
 freedom of thought, yet as the foundations of our 
 morality are concerned, we must face this problem 
 honestly. What figure have we cut in this titanic 
 shock in which we have allowed France to bleed and 
 Serbia to be crushed, permitted Armenians to be 
 slaughtered and suffered the democratic nations, in- 
 cluding Australia and our neighbour Canada, to 
 make supreme sacrifices, while we withheld even our 
 approbation? Why did we not protest even after 
 the fact against the invasion of Belgium? How can 
 we today justify our minatory letters to England con- 
 cerning our corn and beef and pig-iron? If this was 
 a war for democracy, as the Allies claimed and as we 
 today claim, were we not culpably blind or viciously 
 neutral? — knowing and not caring, like "that caitiff 
 choir who were not rebels, nor were faithful to God, 
 but were for themselves." 
 
 50
 
 THE CONVERSION OF AMERICA 51 
 
 As we look this dilemma over, however, we shall 
 find that there is a wide space between the horns. 
 There were reasons for our participation in 1917 
 which were absent before. In the early stages of 
 the war we believed that we had no responsibility 
 for wars in Europe, and at all events did not con- 
 sider this conflict as in any true sense a war for 
 democracy. We were free therefore to go in or stay 
 out. Within three years, however, we had lost this 
 liberty of choice. We no longer could decide 
 whether to take sides but only which of two sides 
 to choose. Moreover, as the issue now presented 
 itself, the problem was not whether the war was al- 
 ready a war for democracy, which we did not be- 
 lieve, but whether by our participation it could be 
 converted into a war for democracy. If by adher- 
 ing to the Allies we could persuade their govern- 
 ments to recede from their extreme and unjustified 
 demands (of which we knew much and surmised 
 more), we should make success in war a real victory 
 for a democratic internationalism. 
 
 Our moral right to remain aloof seemed to us 
 indisputable. All through our history we had 
 sought to remain neutral, even where our sym- 
 pathies were strongly engaged. We had not inter- 
 fered in behalf of Greece struggling against Turkish 
 oppression nor in behalf of Hungary fighting against 
 Austrian domination. Our ofTlcial attitude towards 
 Europe was not Quixotic nor even generous. Ours
 
 52 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 was a conservative, non-propagandistic, non-inter- 
 fering diplomacy. There were cogent reasons for 
 this policy of non-interference. We were weak; we 
 wished Europe not to interfere with us, and we 
 believed, quite properly, that our slack democracy 
 was no match for the subtle European diplomacy, 
 habituated for generations to all the intricacies of 
 the Balance of Power. True, we occasionally failed 
 to observe this rule of non-abstention, as when we 
 made representations to Russia and Roumania in 
 behalf of their Jews. On the whole, however, we 
 sought to adhere to a policy limiting our diplomatic 
 activity to those parts of the world in which that 
 activity could be decisive. We were willing to sym- 
 pathize with alien causes but not to fight for them. 
 Nor did this American policy of not taking up 
 cudgels in defence of oppressed nationalities and of 
 broken treaties really differ from that of other na- 
 tions. Great Britain had been no more willing to 
 fight for the maintenance of the Korean Treaty, 
 which she had guaranteed than was the United 
 States, and what actually forced her to intervene 
 in Belgium was a controlling and decisive intej-est 
 in that country's neutrality. No mere sentimental 
 regard for Belgians drove England into the war, 
 any more than a sentimental regard for Serbians 
 and Austrians brought Russia and Germany into the 
 conflict. Belgium was Britain's flying buttress, as 
 Austria was the flying buttress of Germany.
 
 THE CONVERSION OF AMERICA 53 
 
 That the war did not appeal to all Americans as a 
 war for democracy was due to the duality of its 
 issues. On the one hand was the assertion of a cer- 
 tain internationalism against the exaggerated and 
 febrile nationalism of Germany ; a ranging of politi- 
 cal democracy, of respect for international law, and 
 of a desire for international government against the 
 enemy's disregard and distrust of these things. On 
 the other hand there was a group of issues consist- 
 ing of nationalistic demands, which violated the fun- 
 damental principle of internationalism. The Allies, 
 as accumulating evidence proved, were at war among 
 themselves ; they fought against the things for which 
 they fought. In each of the Allied nations high in- 
 ternational ideals were in conflict with selfish nation- 
 alistic plans. Which issue overweighed? The an- 
 swer obviously was quantitative and difficult to make. 
 
 To many Americans the preponderance seemed 
 on the side of the nationalistic aims. We found 
 both groups of nations selfish, were irritated at both. 
 Undoubtedly the Junkertum was the stronghold of 
 autocracy, and therefore the supreme enemy, but the 
 spectacle of the Czar of Russia leading democracy 
 to a victory over absolutism was ridiculous. We 
 believed that Germany had precipitated the war, but 
 in the long course of events leading up to the inevi- 
 table declaration there had been so much aggression 
 and duplicity on both sides that we were forced to 
 reserve judgment. We trusted neither group. The
 
 54 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 aggressions against the Transvaal, Korea, Morocco, 
 Persia, Egypt, Tripoli were too recent to allow us to 
 believe that the Allies in the present war were meek 
 nations overrun by arrogant tyrants. In Morocco 
 not all the good faith was on one side; in Persia 
 neither England nor Russia was blameless. The 
 very fact that the war broke out in Serbia clearly re- 
 vealed that some of its origins lay in gross nation- 
 alistic impulses and in a struggle for prestige and 
 power. 
 
 While, therefore, we recognized a fundamental 
 democratic purpose in the war, we believed that in 
 no real sense did this ideal unite the Allied nations. 
 The chief cement of the Alliance seemed to lie in 
 fear, greed and nationalistic ambition, not in any 
 conception of a true harmony among the nations of 
 Europe. To militaristic and autocratic Japan, for 
 example, the ideals of democracy meant little. She 
 played her own game, hoping not for a speedy Allied 
 victory but for a protracted struggle. To the Rus- 
 sian autocracy the war reduced itself to specific 
 imperialistic aims. Italy stood on the brink, bar- 
 gaining with both sides, willing to be neutral or 
 partisan, according to the price. Roumania was in 
 like position. Even in France and England senti- 
 ment was divided. Weighing the preponderant ele- 
 ments in the minds of the hundreds of millions 
 opposed to Germany, balancing the democratic, inter- 
 national ideals against the desire for concrete and
 
 THE CONVERSION OF AMERICA 55 
 
 sometimes unjustifiable nationalistic gains, we were 
 forced to conclude that the war was not wholly a war 
 for democracy. 
 
 Given this state of mind and this judgment of the 
 causes and tendencies of the war, we not unnaturally 
 preferred the maintenance of our technical neutral- 
 ity. Several factors, however, made this impos- 
 sible. Forces stronger than our will drove us into 
 the conflict. Indeed we were in the war long before 
 we made our formal declaration. 
 
 That we were forced may not at first glance be 
 obvious. We seemed to have had an opportunity 
 to maintain neutrality. As late as April, 1917, we 
 might conceivably have raised the cry ''Reparation 
 after the war," pursuing a policy towards Germany 
 like that towards England in the case of the Alabama 
 claims. Actually, however, our only choice was 
 either to defeat the Allies or attempt the defeat of 
 Germany. 
 
 The resulting declaration of war was merely the 
 culmination in an unavowed participation which had 
 been increasing for over two years. Powerful un- 
 conscious forces had been driving us from neutrality 
 to belligerency — a gradual process, divisible into 
 three parts. First we were neutral, favouring the 
 Allies in our hearts, but holding the balance of action 
 even. The illuminating act of this period was the 
 President's plea that we remain neutral in thought. 
 The second stage was one of "benevolent neutral-
 
 66 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 ity," of unconscious belligerency. During this pe- 
 riod we sent money and munitions to the Allies, re- 
 sisted the German blockade, but did not effectively 
 oppose the British blockade. The illuminating act 
 of this period was our permission to Allied merchant- 
 men to carry guns. Last stage of all, the declaration 
 of war. 
 
 We ourselves did not fully understand this drift 
 of our policy, and throughout this gradual transition 
 we find a curious retardation in the intellectual prog- 
 ress of the nation. Our thought moved slower than 
 our action. While helping the Allies, partly from 
 inclination and partly from necessity, we sincerely 
 protested our neutrality. At one moment Mr. Lan- 
 sing refused merchantmen permission to arm, al- 
 though we were already committed to a policy of 
 fighting the submarines. Our leaders vaguely saw 
 the drift to war, but strove against it; Mr. Wilson's 
 peace proposals in December were an attempt to pre- 
 clude the necessity for a war message in April. We 
 were willing to accept any semi-reasonable settle- 
 ment in Europe rather than ourselves take part in 
 the contest. And this not from timidity. What re- 
 strained us was a deep conservative instinct; a jeal- 
 ous desire to hold America apart from these strug- 
 gles. We hesitated to commit our bark to untried 
 waters. We wanted to live our old life, develop our 
 democracy at home, protect with the aid of Latin 
 America the isolation and immunity of the two
 
 THE CONVERSION OF AMERICA 57 
 
 Americas. Not wishing to coerce other nations nor 
 endure their coercion, preferring our independence 
 narrow and free, to a wider, more exacting and more 
 perilous interdependence, we were as regards Eu- 
 rope separatist. Even as late as March, 1917, we 
 sought to establish an armed neutrality instead of 
 going to war. Anything but war. 
 
 That our resistance was vain was through no 
 fault of ours, nor in a larger sense through the 
 specific inclination of any nation. It was the shrink- 
 ing of the earth that flung us so violently against 
 the European continent. We had little volition in 
 the matter. 
 
 What actually ended our neutrality long before we 
 recognized that it had ended, was the supreme fact 
 that the growth of industry, interlacing the nations 
 of the world, had made a complete and real neutral- 
 ity impossible. The traditional concept of neutral- 
 ity had been based upon the idea of one independent 
 and self-contained nation fighting another independ- 
 ent and self-contained nation, while the neutrals held 
 the ring, kept the scales even, and did ''nothing, 
 neither way." But today there are no economically 
 independent and self-contained nations. The change 
 in the nature of war, with the ultimate dependence 
 of each state upon its neighbours, completely alters 
 the character of neutrality. A nation may be tech- 
 nically neutral and yet trade ad libitum with either 
 belligerent. It is, however, this peaceful trading
 
 58 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 which today is of enormous and even decisive influ- 
 ence. A war of attrition is in large part economic ; 
 each belligerent seeks to secure goods from neutrals 
 in order to save its own labour for war purposes 
 while depriving antagonists of a like advantage. 
 The war becomes a war for the trade, labour, sup- 
 plies, capital and credit of neutrals. 
 
 Here geographical position plays the controlling 
 role. Denmark, Sweden, Holland and Switzerland 
 may love Germany or hate her, but cannot in the cir- 
 cumstances be anything but her partial economic al- 
 lies, except by a policy which would make them ac- 
 tual enemies. Sweden either sends Germany iron or 
 does not ; if she does, she aids Germany ; if she does 
 not, she injures her disastrously and invites repris- 
 als. A belligerent today may be shattered by a neu- 
 tral's economic action, which in peace time might be 
 wholly unobjectionable. 
 
 Of all neutrals America was incomparably the 
 most important. Indeed, when the war had settled 
 down to a test of endurance, American influence be- 
 came decisive. The Allies, controlling the sea, could 
 import munitions and food from America, and as a 
 corollary borrow money. In other words, the United 
 States automatically became the economic ally of the 
 nations opposed to Germany. The German-Ameri- 
 can farmer in Illinois freed a British agricultural 
 labourer for the trenches; the Hungarian labourer 
 at Wilkesbarre or Bridgeport unintentionally fought
 
 THE CONVERSION OF AMERICA 69 
 
 against his native country. To Germany, on the 
 other hand, no imports, and therefore no direct eco- 
 nomic aid could come from America. Even had our 
 antagonism to Germany been less strong, that coun- 
 try would have borne the brunt of our economic 
 alliance with her enemies. 
 
 In this contingency Germany's policy seemed to 
 her obvious. Either she must secure our goods or 
 prevent the Allies from securing them. The former 
 result she could accomplish only if we forced Great 
 Britain to mitigate what we ourselves had declared 
 to be an illegal blockade. She could accomplish the 
 latter either by persuading us not to ship munitions 
 or by means of submarine warfare. She must force 
 us either to put pressure upon her enemies or else 
 to permit her to put pressure upon them. 
 
 In both efforts she failed. True, we protested 
 against the British blockade, but as we did nothing 
 but protest, and Great Britain was convinced that we 
 would do nothing, the effect was almost nil. Nor 
 did we stop our shipments of munitions, although a 
 threat to do so might possibly have brought Great 
 Britain to terms. On the other hand, not only did 
 we protest against the submarine blockade, but we 
 threatened war unless Germany desisted. Though 
 technically, we were not really, neutral; ours was a 
 ** benevolent neutrality," a limited and uncon- 
 scious belligerency. We threw our economic weight 
 against Germany because our economic interests lay
 
 60 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 witli the Allies, and because, for other compelling 
 reasons, we wished the Allies to win or at least not 
 to lose. 
 
 Why we wished thena to win reveals a force, at 
 first weak but constantly growing, which in the end 
 was to throw us into the battle line and alter our 
 whole relation to the world. That force was a new 
 extension, amplification and self-propagating ten- 
 dency of American democracy. It was a repercus- 
 sion of democracy. So long as we had to take sides, 
 so long as economically we were forced to throw our 
 weight on one scale or the other, we determined that 
 America's influence should be in favour of what we 
 considered democracy and against autocracy and 
 militarism. 
 
 Through all our decisions during the period of 
 technical neutrality this principle may be observed 
 to run. Ours, it is believed, was an excellent legal 
 case. We could cite precedents for what we did and 
 for what we did not do. To threaten Germany with 
 war over the submarine issue was within our rights ; 
 it was doing only that which she would have done 
 to us in reversed circumstances. On the other hand, 
 though we had the right to insist that England ad- 
 here to the old rules of the blockade, we also had the 
 right not to insist. Actually, what determined those 
 of our actions which were truly decisive was not a 
 desire to defend neutral rights, in which direction we 
 made little progress, but a determination to prevent
 
 THE CONVERSION OF AMERICA 61 
 
 our inevitable and rather unwelcome influence from 
 being cast against the Allies. Who was justified in 
 any particular controversy, Germany or the Allies, 
 was not the momentous factor; in the aggregate of 
 her policies and ideals we held Germany to be wrong, 
 or at least opposed to us. 
 
 This is the escape from the seeming dilemma con- 
 fronting our entrance into the war. We had not in- 
 tended to sacrifice ourselves in order to secure a de- 
 cision in Europe which in any case we believed would 
 be obscured by the nationalistic aims of the Entente 
 Powers. Only when it became obvious that we were 
 already in the war and that we were forced to choose 
 sides did we issue our declaration. We could 
 either aid the Allies to defeat Germany or, by ac- 
 cepting Germany's ultimatum, withhold the assist- 
 ance without which the Allies would have been de- 
 feated. 
 
 There were several reasons which made our choice 
 obvious. In the first place, we had learned much 
 during the past two and a half years, and our early 
 impressions of German policy derived from Liege, 
 Louvain and Rheims had been reinforced by the 
 Lusitania and other incidents. We began to dread 
 the power and ulterior ambitions of a greater Ger- 
 many. More or less vaguely we realized that Eng- 
 land stood as a bulwark between us and this great 
 continental military power, as France and Belgium 
 stood between her and England. Our commercial
 
 62 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 expansion had more to fear from a successful Ger- 
 many than from a successful Britain or France. 
 While we discovered imperialistic ambitions on both 
 sides we believed that the preponderance of respon- 
 sibility, both for the war and for autocracy and mili- 
 tarism, lay with Germany, and if imperialism were 
 to triumph, we preferred a British to a German im- 
 perialism. We felt that in taking our stand with 
 the Allies we were contributing upon the whole to the 
 hope of democracy and international peace, and 
 in these we had both a sentimental and a material 
 interest. 
 
 There is another theory at variance with that 
 just given concerning the reasons why the United 
 States intervened. According to this theory large 
 financial interests in America discovered that it 
 would be profitable to have the United States enter 
 the war and through their control of the press were 
 able to create so strong a sentiment for belliger- 
 ency that the government was forced to intervene 
 as soon as Germany gave it an opportunity. On 
 this hypothesis all our desire for internationalism 
 and democracy was merely the sentimental covering 
 for the crude economic interests of our unacknowl- 
 edged but omnipotent financial rulers. 
 
 This theory errs on the side of over-simplicity. 
 It assumes an overwhelming preponderance of 
 power on the part of our financiers. It presupposes 
 a pure passivity on the part of the nation.
 
 THE CONVERSION OF AMERICA 63 
 
 It cannot, of course, be denied that the economic 
 forces pushing America towards war were less weak 
 in 1917 than they had been two years before. A 
 stupendous exportation from the United States to 
 the Allied countries had created in this country an 
 economic condition which would have been seriously 
 damaged by a cessaton of that trade. Had we 
 accepted the principle of the German blockade, 
 which was our only alternative to war, the prices 
 of food stuffs, cotton, steel and other products would 
 have fallen and the result might have been a disas- 
 trous commercial and financial crisis. 
 
 It is doubtful whether most of our American 
 farmers, tradesmen and wage-earners ever gave this 
 question of economic advantages an hour's steady 
 thought. Their consciously determining motives 
 were of quite a different sort. The same is equally 
 true of the majority of our financiers, even when they 
 believed, rightly or wrongly, that their interests lay 
 upon the side of war. Yet these economic interests 
 were not, and never are, without their influence. 
 Conditions had changed since the invasion of Bel- 
 gium, and indeed since the sinking of the Lusitania. 
 We had loaned large sums to the belligerent nations ; 
 we had accumulated an exportable surplus of capi- 
 tal, and had begun to think in terms of foreign trade 
 and foreign investment. 
 
 It does not follow that this is a "Wall Street 
 war because many financiers desired it. To jump
 
 64 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 from this premise to that conclusion is to ignore 
 manifold non-economic influences, working upon our 
 professional and other classes, the nation's idealism, 
 the pent-up irritation at Germany's brutalities, the 
 sympathies and antagonisms and fears of mil- 
 lions of citizens. Yet the economic interests push- 
 ing us towards the struggle have a direct bearing 
 on the future conduct of the war. It would be 
 stupid in us not to recognize that mundane and cal- 
 culable motives merged with our idealism and still 
 form a part of our war motive. If by victory we 
 are to gain the things that most Americans really 
 desire, if we are to know how to fight and on what 
 terms to stop fighting, if we are to prevent the con- 
 duct of the war and the resulting peace negotiations 
 from being wrenched out of our hands by men with 
 special group interests to serve, we must recognize 
 this inmixture of the economic interests of financiers 
 in the general body of motives, for the most part 
 idealistic, with which we entered the fight. 
 
 What specifically did our financiers, or at least 
 certain of them, hope to gain from our participation? 
 
 In the first place their loans to the Allies had al- 
 most reached the maximum. The continuance of 
 our profitable trade with the Allies depended upon 
 England's ability to finance the payments, and as 
 that nation could not continue to export gold, and as 
 Americans would not buy many more European se- 
 curities, American financiers welcomed any arrange-
 
 THE CONVERSION OF AMERICA 65 
 
 ment by which our government would guarantee fu- 
 ture obligations. If the United States loaned money 
 to Russia at four per cent, and thereby enabled that 
 country to place profitable orders in America, the 
 operation benefited the vendors. Moreover, the 
 huge military and naval expenditures which the 
 American government would be compelled to make 
 in the event of war would be of benefit directly to cer- 
 tain corporations and indirectly to others. 
 
 There were still other interests and still wider 
 plans. To a few far-seeing men a successful par- 
 ticipation seemed to offer an opportunity to extend 
 American trade in alliance with England and at the 
 expense of Germany. An even greater opportunity 
 would be afforded for the profitable investment of 
 the new exportable surplus of America, then already 
 amounting to billions, and liable to be vastly in- 
 creased in the future. If we refrained from partici- 
 pation, the growing enmity and envy toward Amer- 
 ica, manifested by the rival belligerents, might end 
 in an adverse coalition which would deprive us forci- 
 bly of all future investment opportunities. On the 
 other hand, our aid to Great Britain in her extremity 
 might easily lead to a profitable co-operation with 
 that nation, in which our capital and her knowl- 
 edge, experience and prestige would be united. We 
 could lay the foundations for a vast, overpowering 
 and ostensibly pacific imperialism. 
 
 It would be idle to deny that such an imperialism
 
 66 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 would benefit our American financiers. The rise in 
 wages, a rise likely to continue as a result of lessened 
 immigration, tends to make future returns on Amer- 
 ican capital invested at home somewhat smaller than 
 in the past. On the other hand, could the united 
 British and American financiers find a non-competi- 
 tive field for investment in Russia, South America, 
 Africa and Asia, where wages are low, the advan- 
 tages would be obvious. Moreover, the mere ac- 
 quisition of a powerful army and navy would not 
 only render America secure from invasion, but 
 would enable the United States to put pressure upon 
 countries like Japan and thus open up the vast in- 
 vestment field of China. Finally, apart from any 
 direct advantage, many financiers probably desired 
 a large army as a bulwark to property rights in 
 general. An army was necessary for the war, but 
 a war was equally necessary for an army. 
 
 That these considerations were the sole determin- 
 ing factor in deciding the belligerent attitude of our 
 financial groups is improbable. Idealistic factors 
 also worked upon them, such as patriotism, the de- 
 sire for prestige abroad, oppositon to the German 
 militaristic system and morality. Nor did the war- 
 like attitude of our financiers determine the Nation 's 
 policy. In numerous cases the Administration had 
 clearly demonstrated its unwillingness to permit 
 either its foreign or domestic program to be dictated 
 by financial groups. To cite only a few cases, Presi-
 
 THE CONVERSION OF AMERICA 67 
 
 dent Wilson's refusal to endorse the Six-Power 
 agreement with China, his resolutely pacific attitude 
 toward Mexico, his treatment of the Filipinos, his 
 consistent antagonism to Dollar Diplomacy, his atti- 
 tude towards the LaFollette Shipping Bill, and 
 finally his action in the threatened railway strike of 
 1916 indicated anything but subservience to Wall 
 Street influences. In the presidential election of 
 1916 our financial interests were opposed to Mr. 
 Wilson and there was no reason to believe that the 
 action of the American government would be pri- 
 marily influenced, if at all, by a conscious effort to 
 do what the financiers desired. 
 
 Motives and influences of a different sort were 
 decisive. Our declaration of war was due upon 
 the whole to a necessity, imposed upon us by the 
 general situation, to take sides and upon a recogni- 
 tion of the fact that we could not fight with Ger- 
 many and could not help figliting with the Allies. 
 Whatever Wall Street thought the average Ameri- 
 can on the farms and in the offices and factories be- 
 lieved that if we entered the conflict we must import 
 into it the firm intention to aid in making our own 
 democracy safe and in adding to the democracy of 
 the world. 
 
 This decision was enormously accelerated by an 
 event which took place between the demission of the 
 German Ambassador in February and the Declara- 
 tion of War in April. The final impelling reason
 
 68 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 for this declaration was the Russian Revolution, 
 which cast the influence of a great nation in favour 
 of a true democratization of the war, and against a 
 merely imperialistic use of victory. We could stand 
 shoulder to shoulder with the peasants and workmen 
 of Russia, whereas we could not without blushing 
 have accepted the leadership of Nicholas Romanoff. 
 The change in Russia gave body to our hope that we 
 might succeed in making the conflict a war for de- 
 mocracy and internationalism. 
 
 For us today this ambition is still the overriding 
 consideration. We must gain a measure of democ- 
 racy and internationalism or go down to moral de- 
 feat. 
 
 Not only is this striving for internationalism 
 necessary to the attainment of a moral victory, but 
 it is actually essential to the winning of the war. 
 We cannot succeed in this struggle without national 
 unity and popular enthusiasm, and we cannot secure 
 this unity and enthusiasm except upon a program 
 of internationalism. 
 
 What still holds many Americans from an enthu- 
 siastic endorsement of our participation is the be- 
 lief that no real national issue is involved, that the 
 war is European in its causes, methods and ideals ; 
 not American. Had Germany sent an army to Long 
 Island, had she owned Canada or Mexico, countries 
 at which we might have struck, the conflict would 
 have gained in immediacy and proximateness. The
 
 THE CONVERSION OF AMERICA 69 
 
 issues could not possibly appeal to the Iowa farmer, 
 for example, as they appealed to the Norman peas- 
 ant. The latter, born in the shadow of 1870, grow- 
 ing up under a German menace, acutely suffering 
 from each of the calculated atrocities inflicted on 
 men of his blood in Belgium and France, met the 
 German invasion with an instant, because slowly 
 prepared, hatred. But all these interwoven strands 
 of patriotic antagonism, found in the Norman, were 
 necessarily absent from the lowan. The Iowa 
 farmer was not afraid for himself or his country, 
 and would hardly have believed in a German inva- 
 sion had it occurred. Though he condemned Em- 
 peror William and von Tirpitz as he disapproved 
 of Attila and Apollyon, he rather liked Karl 
 Schmidt, who lived unobtrusively in the neighbour- 
 ing township. 
 
 Because of this obsolescent though still prevalent 
 belief that we have little concern with Europe, it was 
 difficult, even with the frankest discussion, to make 
 the war's issues as clear as were those, for example, 
 of 1861. The Civil War was patently almost tan- 
 gibly American. Deeply rooted in a complex sec- 
 tional antagonism, it sprang out of very intimate 
 and vital repulsions. That war was long in prepa- 
 ration and slow in approach. Therefore the cry, 
 "The Union must be preserved," found a quite dif- 
 ferent audience than does the slogan today that a 
 world democracy is assailed by an East Prussian
 
 70 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 group, whose name we have not yet learned to pro- 
 nounce. We must fight as best we can with this 
 derived and relatively distant impulse. 
 
 It is this derived impulse, however, that forms, 
 and must continue to form, our reason for fighting. 
 We cannot secure a real unity by an appeal to 
 hatred. To create a sentiment of hate against the 
 German and Austrian is far more difficult in the 
 United States, and far more ineffective and injuri- 
 ous, than it would be in England or France. There 
 are too many people of these nationalities within 
 the nation, people upon whose assistance or qui- 
 escence we depend for victory. Moreover, an attack 
 upon the people of German or Austrian birth or 
 descent extends insensibly to people of Bulgarian, 
 Swedish, Swiss and Dutch origin; it extends to the 
 Jews; it tends to develop a general anti-alien atti- 
 tude, a contempt for Hungarians, Poles, Slovaks, 
 Italians and others. The appeal to hatred breaks 
 down because it is too generalized and because the 
 assailed groups are able to strike back in the polling 
 booths. Such an appeal destroys instead of creating 
 unity. To maintain a united front in this w^ar we 
 must refrain from race hatred, which does not in any 
 case correspond with our traditions and instincts. 
 We must justify the war by an appeal to American 
 idealism and American traditions. 
 
 This President Wilson has sought to do. In his 
 war message he attempted to show that his proposal
 
 THE CONVERSION OF AMERICA 71 
 
 to guarantee a European treaty, providing for a 
 new international order, is not "a breach in either 
 our traditions or our policy as a nation, but a fulfil- 
 ment, rather, of all that we have professed or striven 
 for." The freedom of the nations to be guaranteed 
 is, he asserts, but the promise of the Monroe Doc- 
 trine, written large ; a concert of democratic nations 
 is no ''entangling alliance"; the freedom of the seas 
 has been long the aim of American diplomacy. 
 ** These are American principles, American poli- 
 cies." In other words, our support, even by force 
 of arms, of an international order in Europe is but 
 an extended Americanism. 
 
 It is in some such spirit, though with some mis- 
 givings, that we break with our old tradition of 
 aloofness from Europe to enter upon a new crusade. 
 We stand like the emigrant who casts a last longing 
 glance at the home about which cluster his youthful 
 memories and then faces forward to the inconstant 
 ocean beyond which lies the new hope. But each 
 emigrant no doubt pictures his new home as merely 
 the old home glorified, seeing the familiar and there- 
 fore beautiful surroundings with all the old evils 
 gone. 
 
 Thus we leave our policy of isolation for a new 
 policy of intervention in Europe. We leave behind 
 our old Americanism to find abroad a new and 
 broader Americanism; an Internationalism. Our 
 most sanguine optimists believe that we are to repro-
 
 72 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 duce our Supreme Court in a Supreme Court of the 
 Nations ; that we are to introduce our federal system 
 to Europe, establish disarmament among nations as 
 among our States, empty European frontiers of 
 troops as our Canadian frontier is empty. We are 
 to do this for Europe in return for all that Europe 
 has done for us and in obedience to the same spirit 
 that sends out our missionaries to Asia. We are to 
 do it also in self-defence, for if we are to remain 
 disarmed we must disarm Europe. We are going 
 abroad to protect our own American democracy, as 
 an emigrant may fare forth to new lands to earn 
 the wherewithal to protect his own home. 
 
 Such is the vision of idealists who have accepted 
 the new doctrine. It is with this ideal that we join 
 hands with our Allies seeking to destroy the hostile 
 spirit of Prussian militarism, and to evoke the new 
 spirit, by which the world is henceforth to be gov- 
 erned.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE WAB AGAINST MILITARISM 
 
 There is an apparent confusion in our claim that we 
 are fighting "to make the world safe for democ- 
 racy. ' ' 
 
 We do not always mean the same thing by this 
 luminous phrase. At one time we appear to be at- 
 tacking the principle of autocracy as represented by 
 the Kaiser and the undemocratic Prussian constitu- 
 tion; at another moment we assail Prussia's mili- 
 tarism, her insistence upon force, her policy of ter- 
 rorization, the irresponsibility of her military or- 
 ganization. From the charge of autocracy and mili- 
 tarism the accusation shifts to a claim that Germany 
 is quarrelsome and unreasonable, demanding vast 
 rearrangements both in the colonial and the Euro- 
 pean world. We emphasize the quality of this dan- 
 ger, the principle of militarism; again we emphasize 
 its magnitude, and oppose Germany because of the 
 size and power she seeks to attain. We declare, for 
 example, that the Berlin-Bagdad scheme will destroy 
 Europe's Balance of Power and that Germany's 
 neighbours will dwindle in the shadow of her vast 
 empire and lose their initiative and independence. 
 
 To know when we have achieved a real victory 
 
 73
 
 74 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 in this war, and how to achieve it, we must define 
 our purpose more clearly. We fight against Prus- 
 sian autocracy ; are we then to continue the war until 
 Germany completely changes her political system? 
 Shall we reject all guarantees from her present gov- 
 ernment? Will Germany consent to change under 
 pressure or retain an imposed constitution after the 
 pressure has been removed? Will a German democ- 
 racy refrain from militarism and aggression? 
 What are we attacking, a principle or a power, a 
 political institution or a state of mind, autocracy, 
 militarism or world dominion? And what is our 
 aim? Are we seeking to reform Germany or protect 
 ourselves ? 
 
 Such a definition of our fundamental policy is 
 peculiarly important because there exists among 
 many Americans a vague, half-formed distrust of 
 the formulae *Ho make the world safe for democ- 
 racy" and "to destroy Prussian militarism." 
 Many ask themselves, "What is German militarism 
 to us? Is there such an institution except as a part 
 of a general European militarism? ' ' Others believe 
 that it is necessary to Germany. In any case are 
 we, with our leaking democracy, fit champions of 
 democracy? They even predict that, in seeking to 
 free our foe, we shall fasten militarism upon our- 
 selves. These doubts are dangerous. They impel 
 us to accept an unripe peace in order to escape from 
 an impossible war. Moreover, similar doubts are
 
 THE WAR AGAINST MILITARISM 75 
 
 expressed by men of totally different temperament, 
 who wish to continue the war, not for rainbows and 
 iridescent bubbles but in pursuit of concrete, valu- 
 able American interests.^ They are willing to fight 
 for territory, trade, power and the prestige which 
 leads to power, but not for democracy, of which in 
 their opinion we already have too much. 
 
 To meet all this criticism, much of it unexpressed, 
 is difficult and tedious, yet it is essential if we are 
 to maintain our war solidarity. We must not only 
 explain, but vivify and dramatize our real conflict 
 with German militarism. Only so can we create a 
 conviction that America has a substantial and per- 
 manent interest in overcoming this institution, that 
 it is an interest worth fighting for and not to be 
 attained without fighting; that we are waging war 
 for this purpose and no other, and that we do not 
 intend that the war shall be diverted to any other 
 end. 
 
 Our vagueness of attack upon the German sys- 
 tem is met by an equal vagueness in the defence. 
 In perfect honesty, though with a misapprehension 
 of the true issue, apologists for Germany insist that 
 
 1 "Without taking too seriously the fascinating program 'of mak- 
 ing the world safe for democracy,' " writes Dr. H. H. Powers in an 
 illuminating and candid book, "it is well to remember that the war 
 is to be fought on Eurojican soil and in conjunction with nations 
 having possessions in every part of the world. When the peace con- 
 ference meets we shall hear very little of the sonorous slogans which 
 heralded the war's beginning and much of the concrete problems for 
 which these phrases suggest no very tangible solution." "America 
 Among the Nations," by H. H. Powers, New York, 1917, p. 160.
 
 76 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 there is no Prussian militarism, except as there is 
 also a French, Italian and Russian militarism. 
 They prove that in 1913 Germany had fewer sol- 
 diers than certain of her opponents, both absolutely 
 and in proportion to population, and that her per 
 capita military and naval expenditures were con- 
 siderably smaller than those of France or Great 
 Britain. But all this is beyond the point, for mili- 
 tarism does not depend exclusively upon the size, 
 cost, efficiency or readiness of armies. It is a social, 
 not merely a military, phenomenon, a form of social 
 organization and a state of mind. 
 
 That Russia in 1914 was more autocratic than 
 Germany and in some respects as militaristic was a 
 telling argument disquieting to liberals in England, 
 France and America. That Japan was militaristic 
 and autocratic was equally evident. If the Allies, 
 therefore, had designed immediately to destroy all 
 militarism they should logically have refused the 
 assistance of Russia and Japan and thus added 
 them to their enemies. Naturally no such suicidal 
 policy was considered. To England and France 
 autocracy and militarism presented themselves not 
 as abstract principles, but as part of a vast com- 
 plex and menacing system, and the war appeared 
 to them a war of defence. They fought German 
 militarism, not because opposed to its principle but 
 because endangered by its power, just as they would 
 have fought a menacing imperialistic German de-
 
 THE WAR AGAINST MILITARISM 77 
 
 mocracy. The militaristic nations, Russia and Ger- 
 many, being mutually antagonistic, the western Al- 
 lies enlisted the former against the latter. They em- 
 ployed a future against a present foe, following not 
 counsels of perfection but a law of necessity. 
 
 In a real sense, however, Germany was a more 
 avowed and logical representative and champion 
 of militarism than was autocratic Russia. Su- 
 premely capable she had wedded her efficiency to the 
 militaristic principle. She had harnessed her in- 
 dustry, commerce and educational system to a 
 policy hostile to the democracy of the Western 
 World. With a philosophy .justifying warfare and 
 aggression she had indoctrinated her millions. In- 
 tellectually and physically she was a gigantic pro- 
 tagonist. On the other hand, Russian militarism 
 was uninspired, inefficient and unoriginal; the sort 
 of thing which liad once been and now no longer was 
 in Western Europe. German militarism was based 
 materially on a rapidly growing wealtli and intellec- 
 tually on a neo- Darwinism, which envisaged all his- 
 tory as a biologic struggle between growing and de- 
 caying nations, in which the strong destroj-ed and 
 devoured the weak. It was a very old, very new sys- 
 tem, which threatened to subvert Europe. 
 
 The German apologists, even when they admit the 
 existence of this system, deny that it was a menace. 
 It was, they claim, a sort of Cinderella militarism, 
 modest, stay-at-home, pacific. "German militar-
 
 78 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 ism," says Dr. Bernard Dernburg, ''has kept the 
 peace for forty-four years. While Russia went to 
 war with Turkey and China and, after having pro- 
 moted The Hague Conference, battled with Japan 
 and 'protected' Persia, conquering territory double 
 the size of the United States on the might-is-right 
 principle ; while England, the defender of the rights 
 of the small states, smashed the Boer republics, took 
 Egypt, Cyprus and South Persia; while the French 
 Republic conquered the Sudan, Tunis, Madagascar, 
 Indo-China and Morocco ; while Italy possessed itself 
 of Tripoli and the islands in the ^gean Sea ; while 
 Japan fought China, took Formosa, Korea and 
 Southern Manchuria and has now, with the aid of 
 her allies, invaded China, a neutral country; there 
 is not one annexation or increase of territory to the 
 charge of Germany. She has waged no war of any 
 kind and has never acquired a territory in all her 
 existence except by treaty and with the consent of the 
 rest of the world." * 
 
 Disregarding the exaggeration and disingenuous- 
 ness of this statement, which gives a totally false 
 impression of recent German foreign policy, we 
 might accept it as literally true and still find in 
 German militarism a menace more ominous than the 
 land-greed of Great Britain, France, Italy and Rus- 
 sia. Not for a moment may we compare the grav- 
 
 1 "Germany and England. The Real Issue," by Dr. Bernard Dern- 
 burg. Chicago, 1914, page 6.
 
 THE WAR AGAINST MILITARISM 79 
 
 ity of invoking the present European condict with 
 that of the conquest of Morocco, the "strangling" of 
 Persia or the assault on the Boer republics. War 
 against semi-civilized, half-organized collections of 
 tribes, or even against the Boers, whether justifiable 
 or not, is on a different plane from an attempt to 
 overturn and subdue long-established, highly organ- 
 ized national states like France and Belgium. And 
 this many Germans believed to be necessary. It had 
 long been an axiom of German policy that colonial 
 possessions could be secured only by direct pressure 
 upon European neighbours. African colonies must 
 be won by invading Belgium and Russia, by bleed- 
 ing France white, by destroying British sea-power. 
 To secure what she wanted and believed she had a 
 right to possess, Germany conceived that she was 
 forced to strike at the heart of enemies who blocked 
 her colonial development. Her militarism, there- 
 fore, presented itself to such enemies as a mortal 
 peril. 
 
 It is not a question of morals that is involved but 
 of necessity. Germany insists that even if she began 
 the war (which she denies) she was justified by the 
 selfish policy of enemies seeking to thwart and 
 strangle her. Were this true, however, the mere 
 fact that she could gain what she wanted only by 
 overcoming those established nations would alone 
 render her a menace to the world. But it does not 
 appear that Germany used conciliatory methods to
 
 80 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 gain her place in the sun.^ That she was constricted 
 in her colonial expansion is true, for the Allies were 
 neither generous nor far-seeing. But such halting 
 advances as were made struck against an arrogant 
 and irreconcilable spirit in Germany. Her rulers 
 were victims of their own philosophy, believing in 
 their military invincibility and in the doctrine that 
 only by threats could concessions be enforced. 
 They interpreted peace offers therefore as weak- 
 ness, and entered so uncomprehendingly into nego- 
 tiations as to make favourable results impossible. 
 Their manners were, if anything, worse than their 
 morals. They began negotiations by pounding the 
 table, by an imperial visit to Tangier, or a sudden 
 spring of the Panther at Agadir. They talked 
 loud, rattled the sabre, appeared in the council cham- 
 ber *4n shining armour." And back of the equivo- 
 cating diplomats stood the mob of clumsy pan-Ger- 
 mans, shrieking insults at France and England, 
 proposing gross plans of conquest to Germany's 
 rulers, thus reminding the world that whatever was 
 given would be merely an occasion for new de- 
 mands. The result was a diplomatic failure. If 
 concession was to be interpreted as weakness, the 
 neighbours of Germany would concede nothing. In 
 
 1 On the other hand it must be admitted that in the negotiations 
 leading up to the attempted settlement of the Bagdad Railway ques- 
 tion (1914) Germany showed a willingness to meet England half- 
 way. Nor were England, France and Russia always conciliatory.
 
 THE WAR AGAINST MILITARISM 81 
 
 the years during which France deftly secured large 
 additions to her colonial empire, Germany's blus- 
 tering gained nothing but disappointments and ill- 
 will. 
 
 At bottom, of course, the question whether the 
 one group or the other or both were at fault is quite 
 irrelevant. What was revealed by the impotent 
 deliberations between Germany and her present 
 enemies was the fact that tw^o opposing policies 
 were in conflict and that these policies gained ad- 
 herents because they represented the antagonistic 
 interests of two groups of nations. Each group 
 believed that to accept its opponent 's principle would 
 be fatal. England's international theory was pre- 
 dicated on the assumption that the British Empire 
 must increase or at least maintain itself, while the 
 theory of Germany assumed that the Fatherland 
 must grow. The new German Empire (so, at least, 
 it appeared to Englishmen) must be founded upon 
 the ruins of the British Empire, must live off the 
 lands upon which Britain had lived, must break Eng- 
 land 's resistance and if necessary destroy England's 
 independence. The two principles had impinged be- 
 cause the two nations had impinged. The menace of 
 militarism became for Great Britain the menace of 
 an expanding Germany. 
 
 To understand what this peril really meant to 
 Western Europe we must consider what might have
 
 82 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 occurred had Germany succeeded in her first West- 
 ern drive. Belgium would have gone down and 
 France been crushed. A secure Germany army, 
 occupying Paris, Calais, Havre, Verdun could have 
 kept the dispirited French troops beyond the Loire 
 and intercepted any effective aid from England. A 
 treaty with France might have given Germany large 
 tracts of land, immense mineral resources, a firm 
 footing on the English Channel and a stupendous in- 
 demnity, together with the French colonies and per- 
 haps the French navy. It would have been an im- 
 mense booty. Belgian independence gone, Holland, 
 Denmark and Switzerland would have become vassal 
 states. In the Balkans, on the road to Constanti- 
 nople and Bagdad, no power could have resisted a 
 future German advance, since Russia, without 
 France's support, would have been impotent. Even 
 Great Britain could have done nothing. ''When the 
 mighty German Empire," wrote Mr. Frederic Har- 
 rison, *'soon to be increased to a population double 
 our own, is master of the whole seaboard of North 
 Europe from Havre to Hamburg — a coast more 
 fitted for navies than is our own coast between Dover 
 and Aberdeen, when their aeroplane and Zeppelin 
 stations look across the Channel from a dozen head- 
 lands, and the mouths of great tidal rivers gape 
 upon our shores, and behind these fortresses and 
 docks there lies in wait a mighty nation having a 
 fleet then larger than ours, and armies of three or
 
 THE WAR AGAINST MILITARISM 83 
 
 four millions of men — would the flag of Britain float 
 quietly at ease ?' ' ^ 
 
 Such was the menace of German militarism as 
 viewed by British statesmen in August, 1914. Eng- 
 land's participation was not decided by the Belgian 
 invasion nor by the Belgian atrocities. These were 
 mere incidents. Had Germany observed all the 
 rules of war, killed with punctilio, conferred warm 
 soup and iron crosses on enemy non-combatants 
 and generally behaved like a twentieth-century Ro- 
 land, had she invaded France at Verdun and not at 
 Namur, the result of her victory would have meant 
 an equal disaster to England. A crushing of France 
 meant an ultimate crushing of Great Britain.^ 
 
 While a complete German victory would have de- 
 stroyed England, even the danger of such a victory 
 would have blasted the hope of a British democracy. 
 Democracy is a luxury. It can be developed and 
 maintained only in a moderately secure and pacific 
 world. This is due to the superior fighting efficiency 
 of militaristic states. In a war between nations of 
 equal resources, population and intelligence, one of 
 which is devoting its energies and thought to social 
 reconstruction and the other primarily interested in 
 
 1 "The Meaning of the War," by Frederic Harrison, London, 1915, 
 p. 2. 
 
 2 To destroy Britain large armies would not have been necessary; 
 she could have been starved financially ami economically by depriv- 
 ing her of markets, raw materials and food. Without a German sol- 
 dier on British soil, England could have been forced to surrender.
 
 84 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 preparing for war, the advantage lies enormously 
 with the latter. The great military superiority of 
 Gennany over other nations, the unlimited devotion 
 of her people and the skill and foresight with which 
 her martial operations are conceived and carried out, 
 reveal an alarming military advantage of the auto- 
 cratic state over the democratic nation. The dan- 
 ger cast its shadow far during the ten years pre- 
 ceding the conflict. The fear of Germany in both 
 England and France was one of the greatest ob- 
 stacles to democracy and social reform. In England 
 Lord Roberts urged conscription and was opposed 
 by the great masses of the wage-earners. In France 
 the Socialists vigorously combated the reintroduc- 
 tion of the three years' military service. So long as 
 one nation remained supremely efficient in its mili- 
 tarism and ready to attack at any moment, the other 
 nations were hampered in their efforts to achieve 
 progress toward political, industrial or social de- 
 mocracy. 
 
 We in America are forced to view the menace 
 of German militarism in the same light as do the 
 democrats of England and France. If we are to 
 achieve democracy, or even to maintain such democ- 
 racy as we now have, conditions must be established 
 in the rest of the world which will render us safe. 
 
 In the past we have tacitly assumed that our 
 safety would be permanent. We were so far re- 
 moved from Europe that we believed that no great
 
 THE WAR AGAINST MILITARISM 85 
 
 power could attack us. Isolation, however, is meas- 
 ured not in miles of distance but in the difficulty and 
 delay of transporting troops, and in this respect the 
 technical progress of the last thirty years has vastly 
 diminished our immunity. Our enemy will no 
 longer transport his troops with slow-sailing vessels 
 of small burden as during our wars with England, 
 but will use gigantic and rapid steamships. Our 
 first line of defence is almost gone. 
 
 Our second protection from the superior strength 
 of Europe lay in her balance of power. No nation 
 wished to embroil herself with America so long as 
 she feared enemies nearer home. A hostile coalition 
 of states, as was threatened during our war with 
 Spain, would have found us defenceless. But if 
 Germany were to succeed in crushing France and in 
 destroying England, the balance of power would 
 come to an end, and ultimately the victor could com- 
 bine against us a large proportion of the superior 
 military and economic resources of Europe. In such 
 a case it would have been difficult to defend the in- 
 tegrity of our territory or to find leisure to develop 
 our democracy. We should have had other preoccu- 
 pations. 
 
 This brings us to the point where the questions 
 with which this chapter opened can be answered. 
 We combat German autocracy because it is a princi- 
 ple adverse to the democracy for which we strive. 
 We combat German militarism because it, also, rep-
 
 86 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 resents an antagonistic principle. But against 
 neither of these should we have gone to war but for 
 the fact that these principles so present themselves 
 as to menace our democracy and our safety. We are 
 opposed to German autocracy because it aids German 
 militarism ; to German militarism because it leads to 
 German aggression ; to German aggression because, 
 owing to Germany's strategic position and her im- 
 mense strength, owing to conditions which in large 
 measure are not Germany's fault, her aggression 
 may overturn the balance of power in Europe, de- 
 stroy our security, and render it difficult for us to 
 develop a democracy at home, or even to maintain 
 our independence. We are therefore compelled at 
 the worst to fight for a return to the Balance of 
 Power, although theoretically we are opposed to this 
 system, or at the best for an internationalism, in 
 which all peril will disappear. The one thing, how- 
 ever, which we cannot view with equanimity is the 
 marshalling of Europe's strength under the leader- 
 ship of a single mighty state, autocratic, militaris- 
 tic and aggressive. We are therefore fighting both 
 a principle and a power; we are opposed to Ger- 
 many, not only because of the quality but also be- 
 cause of the magnitude of her menace. 
 
 For us as for Britain the Mame was a sav- 
 ing victory, at least temporarily. It is true that 
 the danger to us from a defeat at the Marne would 
 have been delayed, for between us and Germany lay
 
 THE WAR AGAINST MILITARISM 87 
 
 Great Britain, as between her and Germany lay 
 France and Belgium. When we contemplate, how- 
 ever, the ravages of German submarines operating 
 under grave difficulties we gain some conception of 
 what a Germany, possessed of the French fleet and 
 a part of the French coast, could eventually have 
 achieved against the commerce of the British Isles. 
 At best Great Britain could only have maintained 
 her existence; at worst she might have been con- 
 quered and her navy and a part of her industrial 
 power annexed. Against such a combination of 
 navies and resources, against even a Franco-Ger- 
 man navy (Great Britain remaining neutral) the 
 United States could accomplish little. AVe should 
 face a hostile combination of the immensely more 
 powerful and better organized resources of Western 
 Europe. By what means could we uphold the Mon- 
 roe Doctrine or maintain our commerce? Could we 
 even be sure of defending our o\\ti soil? 
 
 Had Germany won that battle, we should instantly 
 have recognized the sinister menace of her militar- 
 ism. With her defeat, however, we again breathed 
 lightly, for in due course Britain, France and Russia 
 would break down the Central Empires. We there- 
 fore composedly returned to our discussions con- 
 cerning White Papers, provocations, counter-provo- 
 cations, the rights of neutrals, the wrongs of com- 
 batants. Yet though the danger of a victory for 
 German militarism seemed to have passed, we were
 
 88 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 gradual!}- familiarizing ourselves with the quality of 
 that institution. 
 
 It was its f ormidableness that most astounded us. 
 We were outraged by Louvain, Rheims, the Zeppe- 
 lin raids, the submarine atrocities, the execution of 
 Edith Cavell, the murder of Captain Fryatt, but 
 what brought us definitely into opposition was the 
 sheer power and viability of a principle which we 
 had believed to be half-dead. Militarism had al- 
 ways been associated in our minds with autocracy, 
 and that we had conceived as a weak-minded and 
 hoary immigrant from an outlived age, a sort of 
 political Fafner, surviving through mere inertia. 
 It was preindustrial, which is our modern and secu- 
 lar synonym for pre-Adamitic. It had no more 
 raison d'etre than the fact that it was still half- 
 alive and not worth killing. We no longer had any 
 quarrel with kings and emperors, who had had their 
 claws cut and had become gracious layers of corner- 
 stones and innocent symbols of democratic power. 
 Autocracy, we believed, would disappear gradually 
 and in fractions, tail, body and head, like the Chesh- 
 ire cat, until, as with British royalty, nothing re- 
 mained but the smile. 
 
 The war taught us that autocracy was not a thing 
 of kings and crown-princes, but a living principle, 
 an efficient form of social organization. Instead of 
 dying decently at the first whiff of factory smoke, 
 instead of being run over by the new railroads or
 
 THE WAR AGAINST MILITARISM 89 
 
 crowded to death in our modern cities, it con- 
 verted industrialism to its own uses and seated it- 
 self in the centre of the economic system. It did not 
 die of education, but made of the school-teacher one 
 of its main supports. The university and the news- 
 paper became, not its executioners, but its servile 
 handmaidens. Autocracy was efficient. It per- 
 sisted in living. It persisted in growing. 
 
 Therein lay its menace. It was expansive, nec- 
 essarily expansive. 
 
 It was expansive because of its origin and the law 
 of its being. The autocratic principle persisted in 
 modern intelligent Germany because it grew out of 
 foreign relations, was born of danger and lived on 
 danger. It was her external menace that fastened 
 autocracy and militarism on Germany. During two 
 long centuries her invaders (Swedes, French, Croats 
 and others), by keeping the nation divided, had cre- 
 ated German autocracy and militarism by giving the 
 people so ardent a desire for security that they wel- 
 comed any social organization by which it could be 
 attained. To this day the German lives under the 
 shadow of the Thirty Years' War and remembers 
 Tilly, Wallenstein and Gustavus Adolphus, as he 
 remembers Louis XIV and Napoleon. Even the 
 liberal German tends to regard an autocratic mili- 
 tarism as an insurance premium. He feels toward 
 it as we toward our police; we may not love the 
 policeman but prefer him to the thief.
 
 90 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 The power to defend, however, means the power 
 as well as the temptation to attack, and Germany like 
 other nations is not beyond such temptation. All 
 the European peoples were menaced. We have read 
 recent history wrongly if we conceive of it in terms 
 of an aggressive Germany constantly planning to 
 attack nations wholly devoted to peace. Both 
 groups of allies meditated both aggression and de- 
 fence. Justified or not, Serbian ambitions in Aus- 
 tria and Russian ambitions in the Balkans were 
 aggressive, as were also Austria's designs on Ser- 
 bia. Because Germany needed defence, because she 
 wanted to aggress, because she believed that only 
 by military effort could she achieve her ends, and 
 finally because she was in a geographical situation 
 in which a successful war could destroy the security 
 of other great nations, German imperialism became 
 a deadly menace. 
 
 Thus the Western World, including America, 
 comes into conflict with a nation, representing power, 
 aggression, and an alien philosophy. Of these 
 opposed philosophies one is based on an autocratic, 
 militaristic foundation, emphasizing the virtues 
 of order, discipline, endurance, subordination, pro- 
 lificity, stoicism, and laying stress on loyalty 
 and a traditional personal honour. It believes in 
 compulsion, the omnipotence of the state, the empti- 
 ness and worthlessness of plans to avert warfare. 
 The other philosophy is more democratic and pacifis-
 
 THE WAR AGAINST MILITARISM 91 
 
 tic, emphasizing individual freedom, the quest of 
 pleasure, the virtues of prosperity. It is melioristic 
 and legalistic, stressing rights and privileges and 
 underemphasizing duties. It is progressive and con- 
 fident. It believes in a low birth rate, in ease and 
 protection from danger. It is optimistic and 
 money-making. 
 
 Of course not all Germans uphold one philosophy 
 nor all British, French and Americans the other; 
 there are millions of exceptions on both sides. 
 Bemhardi himself is our witness to the demoraliz- 
 ing, by which he means demilitarizing, influence upon 
 Germany of recent wealth. On the other hand, there 
 are always a few American, French and British fire- 
 breathers, with little to learn from their more nu- 
 merous and loquacious German compeers. Not the 
 exception, however, but the rule determines. For 
 reasons, partly beyond its own control, Germany be- 
 came the exponent and protagonist of the militarist 
 philosophy, and sought to live up to its doctrines in 
 a war, which had she been victorious would for a 
 time have subverted the democratic civilization of 
 the West. 
 
 It is of course not to be assumed that of these 
 opposed philosophies autocracy was aggressive 
 and democracy not; both principles were, and are, 
 aggressive and intensely missionary. The very 
 phrase ''Making the world safe for democracy" 
 suggests how encroaching was our own principle.
 
 92 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 England, France and the United States had hitherto 
 prospered because of historical and geographical 
 reasons, and had sanctified their gains by a glori- 
 fying possession. The course of historic evolution 
 in its larger bearings had worked for them, and they, 
 its beneficiaries and disciples, saw everything that 
 it had made; *'and behold, it was very good." On 
 the other hand the German principle was disturb- 
 ing and revolutionary because Germany had every- 
 thing to gain from a change. 
 
 The indefatigable traveller from Mars, arriving 
 at this green earth in the spring of 1914, might have 
 come to the typically Martian conclusion that the 
 Earth was most unfortunately divided, that an in- 
 efficient and garrulous democratic spirit had con- 
 quered the greater area while the unique and saving 
 principle, an efficient, industrialized, moral autoc- 
 racy was dying of inanition within narrow confines. 
 With all of which many Germans would agree. 
 They would proudly admit that militarism is pecul- 
 iar to Germany, but in the same breath they would 
 insist that it is excellent, the last word in our mod- 
 ern development towards equality, democracy and 
 subordination. 
 
 When a new recruit enters the army, says N. Gold- 
 mann, a young defender of the principle of militar- 
 ism,^ two things occur: he is given a uniform and 
 
 1 Goldmann (N.) "Der Geist des Militarismus." ("Der Deutsche 
 Krieg.") Borlin and Stuttgart, 1915.
 
 THE WAR AGAINST MILITARISM 93 
 
 is told to do whatever his superiors command. 
 These two acts typify our modern civilization. The 
 uniform is the expression of the democratic idea, the 
 suppression for the time being of all differences 
 among men; ''in uniform no one is noble or com- 
 moner, millionaire or beggar, artist or philistine, 
 orthodox or atheist," but all are members of the 
 army. By the distinction between those who com- 
 mand and those who obey, on the other hand, the 
 ** aristocratic idea" is maintained. Democracy and 
 subordination — the union of these two creates mili- 
 tarism — and civilization. 
 
 Therefore, writes Goldmann, *'the battle cry of 
 the opponents of Germany is justified. The Ger- 
 man spirit may be called the militaristic spirit." 
 But far from being alien to modern development or 
 opposed to West European civilization, militarism 
 is their distinguishing characteristic. The great 
 city, the factory and our whole industrial system 
 are based on its principles of uniformity and 
 subordination, in other words, on regimentation. 
 Therefore we speak of the ''barracks" of the work- 
 ing-men and of the industrial "reserve army." The 
 individual workman, technician, engineer, director 
 counts for little; the enterprise is all-important. So 
 in our intellectual life militarism is supreme and 
 "the German spirit rules the world." The opposi- 
 tion to militarism comes not from Western civiliza- 
 tion but from the "atomism" of English life, from
 
 94 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 the English incapacity to generalize, to sacrifice for 
 the common good, even to recognize the existence of 
 a common good.^ 
 
 Germany has become great, continues Goldmann, 
 through her militarism, just as Great Britain became 
 great through "her anti-militaristic, individualistic 
 spirit. ' ' In the world struggle between the two prin- 
 ciples militarism must be victorious. *' Germany 
 will conquer and the world will be ruled by the mili- 
 taristic spirit." Only such a victory will permit 
 the present age to solve its problems. 
 
 Despite Mr. Goldmann 's prediction, the world, in 
 the event of an Allied victory, will seek to solve our 
 modern problems without the assistance either of 
 autocracy or of militarism. It will see what it can 
 do with democracy. 
 
 But the democracy which can be utilized in such 
 a vast reorganization will of necessity be something 
 different from the lax, inefficient and brutal plutoc- 
 racies which we find in several of the nations 
 opposed to Germany. It must be a socialized de- 
 
 1 Militarism is not identical with the maintenance of an army, as 
 the Swiss experience proves. In a recent booklet the German Social- 
 ist, Karl Kautsky, clearly makes this distinction. "We (the Ger- 
 man Socialists) have fought against the military system not to make 
 the land defenceless, but in order to introduce another system in its 
 place, which will give us the necessary guarantees that the army will 
 always be the tool of the civil authorities and never their master. 
 When the latter is the case we call such a condition 'militarism,' and 
 it is against that alone that we fight." "Die Internationalitaet und 
 der Krieg," Berlin, 1915, p. 26. quoted by Thomas F. A. Smith, 
 "What Germany Thinks," New York, 1915, p. 112.
 
 THE WAR AGAINST MILITARISM 95 
 
 mocracy, not a mere popular government based on 
 money and on the exploitation of the poor. 
 
 It is sometimes alleged that, because we in Amer- 
 ica have not attained to such a socialized democracy, 
 we are not fit to become the champions of the demo- 
 cratic principle. Critics point to our lynchings, our 
 political corruption and ineptitudes and our gross 
 economic inequalities. They point out that it is our 
 o^vn Prussian-blue reactionaries, grown fat and no- 
 torious in their warfare against a true American 
 freedom, who are loudest in their defence of our 
 democracy. But what else could be expected? 
 No war was ever won by the virtuous alone, and it 
 is inevitable that tax-dodgers, union-smashers, 
 monopolists, cadets, ward-politicians, sweat-shop 
 proprietors and desultory burners of Negroes, to 
 say nothing of criminals, lunatics and aging keepers 
 of houses of prostitution should be enlisted side by 
 side with other elements in the population. We 
 are a full democracy not in being but in process. 
 It is a war for the bases of democracy, for the safety 
 of a capitalistic society developing rapidly towards 
 democracy. Like several of our Allies, we are fight- 
 ing not only for freedom from alarms over our in- 
 dependence but also for a chance to try out the 
 Great Experiment, to struggle forward towards the 
 ultimate attainment of a great ideal. And in this 
 struggle we can count upon the willing assistance of
 
 96 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 men who do not grasp the implications of their 
 adhesion. 
 
 America therefore is at war because her growing 
 democracy is in conflict with the militaristic insti- 
 tutions and philosophy of Germany, and because her 
 democracy and her entire national development 
 would be endangered by the German victory, which 
 would have been probable had we not entered. We 
 thus have both a general and a specific interest; a 
 desire to promote a better system in Europe and 
 a wish to maintain our own democracy intact. In 
 a sense we are fighting a preventive war, seeking to 
 destroy the menace of German militarism before it 
 can attack us in our own home. Just as we sink 
 submarines at sight, rather than by ''armed neu- 
 trality" limiting ourselves to defence, so we assail 
 Germany in concert with her present enemies rather 
 than attend her possible attack after her victory in 
 Europe. 
 
 How much further should we go? Have we an 
 interest, and has the world, in proceeding beyond 
 the destruction of German militarism to the perma- 
 nent building up of a British, French, Italian, Rus- 
 sian or American militarism? 
 
 The danger is not fictitious. Germany developed 
 her militarism out of a sense of external peril, and 
 if the war goes against her, and the old European 
 system remains, she will still be menaced and at 
 least potentially militaristic. Furthermore if we en-
 
 THE WAR AGAINST MILITARISM 97 
 
 courage Serbia and Italy, Greece and France, Brit- 
 ain, Japan and Russia to develop new antagonisms, 
 we shall be planting the seeds of militarism through- 
 out the world. Germany will have been defeated, 
 but German militarism will have triumphed.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 SPOILING THE ENEMY 
 
 Since the imperialism of the Allies in the present 
 war is less sweeping and drastic than that of Ger- 
 many, we are sometimes urged to close an eye or turn 
 our back. When we are trying to capture an armed 
 burglar we do not inquire too curiously into the ques- 
 tion whether a few of the posse comitatus are modest 
 confidence men. There is a sense of proportion in 
 these things, and there are diplomatic convenances. 
 
 Even were our co-belligerents twice as imperial- 
 istic as they are, we should still be compelled to make 
 common cause with them against the still more men- 
 acing German aggression. Our secure loyalty to 
 our Allies is not in question. But to make common 
 cause, to maintain a real concert of action, requires 
 harmony in ideals and unity of aims. It is for 
 this reason that we are forced to review the instincts, 
 motives and demands that lie behind the armies of 
 our Allies. When we are united we shall have a 
 chance to win the war. Until then we shall drag 
 along, working at cross-purposes. 
 
 The truth must be faced. The efforts of the Allies 
 to gain a victory for democracy and internationalism 
 have everywhere been impeded by their own na- 
 
 98
 
 SPOILING THE ENEMY 99 
 
 tionalistic ambitions. It is trebly unfortunate that 
 this has been the case. Not only have these ambi- 
 tions vitiated their good faith in their war against 
 German autocracy, not only have they made the 
 eventual victory far less valuable, but they have 
 delayed and jeopardized that victory. Because of 
 their clashing territorial ambitions our co-belliger- 
 ents find it difficult even today to achieve unity of 
 purpose or action, and as their plans of aggrandize- 
 ment become known in Germany and Austria, and 
 are there exaggerated, they tend to unify the entire 
 population of the Central Powers, reactionaries and 
 democrats, conservatives and liberals, Germans, 
 Austrians, Hungarians, and even the exploited races 
 of the Dual Monarchy. The secret treaties into 
 which the Allies entered make the whole war for 
 democracy appear to our enemies as a sham and as 
 an excuse for their own imperialism. 
 
 To many it will seem mal-a-propos and perhaps 
 even unpatriotic to state these facts. Why should 
 we injure our own side even by telling the truth? 
 Will not a revelation of these covert ambitions of 
 our Allies have the effect of demoralizing the En- 
 tente Powers and of destroying their solidarity? 
 When our sons and brothers are risking their lives 
 on the battle front is it time for academic discussions 
 of past events, discussions which cannot but give aid 
 and comfort to the enemy? 
 
 But what if the enemy already knows ? The news-
 
 100 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 papers in the hostile countries have printed long ac- 
 counts, true and false, of the designs of each of the 
 Allied nations. By suppressing such facts we do 
 not prevent Germany's knowing them. Today we 
 of the Allied countries by reason of a supposedly 
 patriotic silence are fighting in the dark and risking 
 lives that might be saved. We are standing in the 
 way of our own solidarity, and are making our task 
 harder and more dangerous than it need be. Be- 
 cause we do not properly consider and duly assess 
 facts which are important elements in our war prob- 
 lem, we weaken our morale and strengthen that of 
 the Imperial German Government. If we face the 
 truth and intelligently guide our action by the con- 
 clusions we reach, our enemy will be welcome to any 
 comfort he may derive from the result. 
 
 There is an even more important reason for dis- 
 cussing this question. When we entered the war we 
 already had an inkling of the imperialistic aims of 
 several of our Allies. If, notwithstanding this 
 knowledge, we took sides with them, we did so be- 
 cause we vaguely felt that this imperialism was not a 
 necessary and inevitable part of the allied program, 
 that by our concert with these nations we might aid 
 in the democratization of their peace terms, that we 
 might raise a standard about which the more demo- 
 cratic of our Allies and the more democratic classes 
 within these Allied nations could rally. Unless we 
 can do this we can gain no moral victory. And we
 
 SPOILING THE ENEMY 101 
 
 can make no progress in this direction so long as we 
 seek to remain silent on this delicate question. 
 
 It is not necessary in discussing the territorial am- 
 bitions of our Allies to pass a moral judgment or to 
 assume an ethical superiority on our own part. No 
 demand by any of our Allies has been more flagrant a 
 breach of international morality than were the claims 
 which led to our war with Mexico. It is superla^ 
 tively easy to indict nations for concealing selfish am- 
 bitions under protestations of international recti- 
 tude. But such an indictment does not help us, for 
 our problem is not to distribute praise or blame but 
 to seek a true basis for an international civilization 
 and thus secure a real victory. It is far more impor- 
 tant to understand these nationalistic ambitious, to 
 recognize how deeply they are rooted in the whole 
 history of modern Europe and to acknowledge their 
 inevitableness in the circumstances than to appraise 
 and judge. 
 
 What was the diplomatic state of Europe out of 
 which grew these demands of our Allies? What 
 chance was there for any nation following the even 
 path of rectitude and abnegation? 
 
 In his defence of Sir Edward Grey's foreign pol- 
 icy, Sir Gilbert Murray deplores the fact that the 
 diplomacy of the nations has been frankly egoistic, 
 cruel nnd dishonest. "There is," he says, about the 
 ordinary processes of Foreign Policy, "a constant 
 suspicion of intrigue, a constant assertion of 'inter-
 
 102 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 ests,' a dangerous familiarity with thoughts of force 
 or fraud, and a habit of using silken phrases as a 
 cover for very brutal facts. . . . Foreign Politics are 
 the relations between so many bands of outlaws. ' ' ^ 
 As a consequence even the nations with high ideals 
 must go into international conferences with a big 
 knife, ready to carve out a slice of territory or carve 
 up the plausive foe. 
 
 In 1914 therefore the enemies of Germany, though 
 fighting a war for their very existence, were nei- 
 ther more nor less scrupulous than they had been 
 in former years. These Western and Eastern Allies, 
 defending themselves against Germany, conceived 
 the problem of the division of the world somewhat 
 as did Germany, simply because it was the only con- 
 ception then admitted in diplomatic Europe. Ac- 
 cording to this conception each nation was bound to 
 grow, expand, get what it could, make the best bar- 
 gain with enemy and ally. To take, was not only 
 directly advantageous but also had the merit of pre- 
 venting the enemy from taking. 
 
 Of all the original allies in the struggle against 
 German aggression, Imperial Russia was probably 
 the most avid of territory and the least concerned 
 with the ideals that inspired many Englishmen, 
 Frenchmen and Belgians. From the Czar's point 
 of view the war was not a struggle of democracy 
 
 1 "The Foreign Policy of Sir Edward Grey," by Sir Gilbert Mur- 
 ray, Oxford, 1915, p. 41.
 
 SPOILING THE ENEMY 103 
 
 against militarism but a contest for supremacy in 
 the Balkans and for domination of the Straits. The 
 Imperial Russian Government wanted no barren vic- 
 tory but a visible expansion. To meet these large 
 demands France and Great Britain presented 
 counter-demands, and from that moment the war 
 became a feverish scramble for spoils. Arising thus 
 out of national struggles for territory and military 
 prestige, the contest was carried on by the enticement 
 of new Allies through promises of material reward. 
 It was fought not only for democracy but for lands, 
 indemnities and trade privileges. With many peo- 
 ple in the Allied nations the purpose of the war was 
 to discredit "the aggressive objects and the unscru- 
 pulous methods of the Central Powers"; with others 
 the purpose was to secure definite material national- 
 istic aims. 
 
 These aims were not new ; they have always existed 
 and are indeed inseparable from the long struggle 
 for power in Europe and for dominion beyond Eu- 
 rope. No one can study the devious course of in- 
 ternational politics since the Congress of Berlin 
 (and before) without recognizing that European na- 
 tions have long carried on a ruthless, aggressive 
 policy both within Europe and in Asia and Africa. 
 To take a single example; there was little concern 
 for internationalism in the attitude of any of the 
 European Powers towards Turkey, the Balkan 
 States, Persia, Morocco or China. "The history of
 
 104 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 international diplomacy in the Islamic world," 
 writes Professor Gibbons/ "is an unbroken record 
 of bullying and blundering on the part of all the 
 Powers. In governmental policies one searches in 
 vain for more than an occasional ray of chivalry, 
 uprightness, altruism, for a consistent line of ac- 
 tion in attempting to solve the problems that were 
 leading Europe from one war to another, for con- 
 structive statesmanship." ''The indictment of Eu- 
 ropean diplomacy in the Near East is terrible." ^ 
 
 It would be profitless to cite further instances of 
 the callousness and blindness of the past foreign 
 policies of all the great European nations. Though 
 in Great Britain, France and several other coun- 
 tries, many high-minded men strove for interna- 
 tional concord and not for nationalistic gain, foreign 
 policy was determined not by the ideals of these lib- 
 erals and democrats, but by necessities imposed by 
 a dangerous and thoroughly anarchic condition of 
 the world. Europe was a trembling balance of hos- 
 tile powers, and each state stood by its allies, right 
 or wrong, in order that they, in turn, might come 
 
 1 "The Reconstruction of Poland and the Near East," by Herbert 
 Adams Gibbons, New York, 1917, pp. 115, 116, 117. 
 
 2 "The evolution of Serbia, of Roumania, of Bulgaria, of Greece, 
 of Crete ; the suflFerings of Armenia and Syria ; the anarchy of 
 Arabia; the vacillating policy in Egypt and Northern Africa; the 
 intrigues at Constantinople; the handling of Persia and Afghanistan, 
 give us the formula of European diplomacy. It is this: selfish 
 national interest end.eavouring to thicart other selfish national tn- 
 interests." Gibbons op. cit, pp. 118, 119. (My italics.)
 
 SPOILING THE ENEMY 105 
 
 to its aid in time of trial. From 1870 to 1905 Ger- 
 many, by means of her alliances, maintained a cer- 
 tain supremacy on the Continent, while Great Britain 
 held first place in colonial development. From 1905 
 to 1914, however, there was waged an embittered, 
 secret and desperate contest between Germany, seek- 
 ing to dominate, and France, Russia and Britain de- 
 termined to break her hegemony. The struggle for 
 control in Europe merged with a conflict of rival 
 imperialisms in which there was little pretence of 
 disinterestedness. Among all these nations there 
 was not much to choose in the matter of comparative 
 international morality. Germany's Chinese policy 
 was brutal and hypocritical, but no worse than the 
 corrupt and ruthless policy of Russia. As for the 
 long struggle between Austria and Russia for dom- 
 ination of the Balkans, neither nation was squeam- 
 ishly virtuous.^ Had the Allies in this war abjured 
 all hopes of aggrandizement and limited themselves 
 to an idealistic sacrifice for small nationalities, the 
 step would have marked a complete moral revolution, 
 a religious conversion hitherto unknown in European 
 diplomacy. 
 
 They had not abjured such hopes. It is true that 
 progress has been made towards a liberalization of 
 allied war-aims, partly as a result of Russian and 
 
 1 For a partisan history of this confliot, from the Austrian point 
 of view, see "Der Gegennatz zwischcn Oe8terre[ch-Un{;arn und Russ- 
 land," by Dr. Alexander Redlich, Stuttgart and Berlin ("Deutsche 
 Verlags-Anstalt") 1915.
 
 106 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 American influence and partly because of untoward 
 events upon tlie battle-field. The January (1918) 
 speech of Lloyd George marks a recession from 
 a former imperialistic position, and a similar at- 
 titude is being crystallized all over Europe. Even 
 today, however, the Allies are inspired by motives 
 of national gain as well as by a sincere reprobation 
 of Germany's crimes; the idealistic motive is still 
 weighed to earth by a thousand gross desires and 
 an inveterate predatory habit. A new and better 
 spirit, though seeking expression, fails completely 
 to inspire the vigorous, short-sighted men who con- 
 duct national policy. These diplomats of the old 
 school want from this war something concrete and 
 tangible, that they can tack on to their kingdom or 
 empire, and that will show on the map and in the 
 balance sheet. They want all they can get, even if 
 they pay for it by future wars. 
 
 Thus in every country, not even excluding the 
 United States, two motives enter into the war spirit. 
 One is the ambition to end war, to promote interna- 
 tionalism, to destroy militarism ; the other is a desire 
 for concrete imperialistic gains. Upon the whole, 
 the average soldier and the average citizen are more 
 aware of the first than of the second motive. Of 
 the British volunteers hundreds of thousands would 
 never have enlisted save for Belgium; you could not 
 have bribed these men by any hope of trade advan- 
 tage or other aggrandizement. In France also, as
 
 SPOILING THE ENEMY 107 
 
 in Italy, Belgium and Russia, millions wanted noth- 
 ing but justice and international peace. Yet, as 
 matters then stood, these millions did not decide 
 the joint policy of the Alliance. That Alliance, 
 growing out of the former European anarchy, was 
 held together by greed, revenge and the lust for con- 
 quered territory. From the Allied point of view 
 the war threatened to become, what from the Ger- 
 man side it had largely been from the beginning, a 
 war of national aggression, a war for booty.^ 
 
 That booty took three forms: money, trade ad- 
 vantages, territory. The money was to be secured 
 by the levy of crushing indemnities; the trade ad- 
 vantages by a commercial war after the war; the 
 territory desired was to be taken from Austria- 
 Hungary and Turkey, from Germany, and possibly 
 Bulgaria.^ 
 
 A demand for indemnities lay on the surface. It 
 sought justification in the desire to be recompensed 
 for actual losses incurred, in a wish to punish Ger- 
 many and finally in the theory that a Germany weak- 
 
 1 It may perhaps be urged that not only are many of the terri- 
 torial demands of the Allies reasonable and just (which claim of 
 course would be readily granted) but that it is better to concede 
 even an unjust and exorbitant demand of a potential ally than, by 
 alienating him, permit the victory of the enemy. There is of course 
 no hard and fast line to be drawn here. \\*hat seems actually to 
 have Iiappened, however, is that the Allies have really weakened 
 their morale, and with it their military power, with every new 
 engagement, violative of internationalism, into which tliey have en- 
 tered. 
 
 - To say nothing of Persia, Albania, Abyssinia and China.
 
 108 THE END OP THE WAR 
 
 ened by such exactions would be unable to renew the 
 attack upon the Allies. 
 
 To begin with the more extreme advocates of in- 
 demnities, let us quote Mr. L. J. Maxse, editor of the 
 National Review. ''The main object of peace," he 
 contended, "should be to crush and permanently 
 cripple Prussia. . . . Surely if the Prussians lose it 
 is for them to pay and for the Allies to receive the 
 milliards. If the process of payment reduces Ger- 
 man Kultur to be a hewer of wood and drawer of 
 water for the rest of the century for European civil- 
 ization, so much the better for the world. ' ' ^ 
 
 From France one heard the same cry. Here is 
 how M. Stephen Pichon of the (Paris) Petit Journal 
 addressed Germany. "You will have to reimburse 
 the Allies for all the costs of the w^ar, and this will 
 be an enormous sum. But this is not all. You will 
 have to pay for the cathedrals, the museums, the 
 palaces, the huts, you bombarded and burned, the 
 butcheries you committed, for the widows and 
 orphans you have made. That will make billions 
 and billions that you will have to pay us. no! 
 Not at once, for you could not do that. ... It will 
 
 1 Cited by Stoddard, op. cit. p. 30. Mr. Maxse, who may be pre- 
 sumed to know England, obviously feared, however, that many Eng- 
 lishmen would desire to be lenient towards a defeated Germany. 
 "We know the Rt. Hon. Faintheart and the Rt. Hon. Feebleguts too 
 well to suppose that the (present stern) mood will last and that 
 he will remain robust when the Rhino Whine sets in. Then our 
 bleaters will give tongue and our 'blighters' will chip in. We shall 
 see the old Potsdam Press in full working order, devoted by day 
 and by night to the sacred cause of 'letting off the Boche.' "
 
 SPOILING THE ENEMY 109 
 
 take you a long time — ten years, twenty years, thirty 
 years. . . . Until Germany has paid this off, Rus- 
 sian garrisons will occupy Breslau and Dresden, 
 English garrisons Hamburg and Frankfort, a Bel- 
 gian garrison shall occupy Cologne, a French one 
 Coblenz and IMainz. Only after tlie last penny has 
 been paid will the Allies withdraw, and even then 
 not until after they have blown up the last German 
 fortress." ^ 
 
 In similar vein, M. Onesime Reclus: *'The stink- 
 ing beast is down! We are going to divide up its 
 flesh and its bones. We will make of it (Germany) 
 an insolvent debtor."- Other writers desire to an- 
 nex the great coal and iron deposits of Western 
 Germany as part of a readily collected indemnity. 
 
 The argument against punitive indemnities levied 
 upon Germany does not rest upon any assumption 
 of her innocence or modest}'. Germany has de- 
 prived herself of the right to protest. No one can 
 read the terrifying anthology of her imperialistic 
 literature, collected by S. Grumbach,^ without con- 
 stantly encountering the most brutal plans for mulct- 
 ing her victims. Her record in 1871 and in the illegal 
 and extortionate requisitions upon Belgium since 
 
 1 Stoddard, op cit. pp. 51, 52. 
 
 2Publishod in "Tx- Rhin Fraiicais" in the summer of 1015; quoted 
 by Stoddard, op cit. pp. 53. 54 
 
 ^ Das annexionistischc Dcutschland, Einc Sammhing von Dokumen- 
 tev, die scit dem .}, August. /.''/}, i»i Dtuischland orffnttlich oder 
 geheim verbreitet umrden, by S. Grumbach, Laueanne, i917.
 
 110 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 1914 is irredeemably bad. Yet a similar attitude on 
 the part of Germany's enemies is irreconcilable with 
 the higher principles they profess. Moreover ade- 
 quate compensation is utterly impossible. The al- 
 lied losses incurred in this War will by August, 1918 
 far exceed a hundred billion dollars, a sum in excess 
 of the total national wealth of the Central Powers. 
 The indemnity is uncollectible. Even an attempt 
 to collect would reduce Germany to starvation by 
 annihilating her industry. Facing such terms any 
 nation would fight until her entire wealth, to be used 
 for an eventual indemnity, was spent in killing her 
 enemies. To occupy Germany until the Allied de- 
 mands were met would be to occupy her for ever. 
 It cannot be done. *' Non-German Europe," says 
 Mr. Bernard Shaw, "is not going to spend the re- 
 mainder of the duration of this planet sitting on Ger- 
 many 's head. A head with the brains of sixty mil- 
 lions of people in it takes more sitting on than we 
 shall have time for. ' ' ^ 
 
 Even a lesser indemnity, an infliction of a few 
 tens of billions, would meet with insuperable diffi- 
 culties. Experience teaches that punitive imposi- 
 tions are likely to reach enormous proportions, when 
 each of a group of Powers seeks to secure the largest 
 share. The Boxer indemnities are a case in point. 
 Here exorbitant demands were made on China by 
 six nations, especially by Germany, France and Rus- 
 
 iThe New Republic, Vol. 9; Jan. 6, 1917.
 
 SPOILING THE ENEMY 111 
 
 sia. Similarly an attempt by a group of exigent 
 victors to levy indemnities upon a prostrate Ger- 
 many might cause dangerous dissensions.^ 
 
 There remains one form of indemnification which 
 would bring in large sums, what we may perhaps 
 call the indemnity by evacuation. It is a device by 
 which the inhabitants of a conquered territory, such 
 as French Lorraine or Westphalia, are to be driven 
 from the land, and their property seized, with an 
 amiable recommendation to their own government 
 to reimburse them. Such a savage proposal has 
 actually been made by the cartell magnates of Ger- 
 many. It is difficult to believe, however, that a plan, 
 so abhorrent to our fundamental conceptions of in- 
 ternational morality will be adopted by the Allies. 
 
 The demand for trade discrimination after the 
 war is in accord with the same principle of seeking 
 to punish the German people. Its central idea is 
 the permanent crushing of Germany. She is to be 
 denied access to foreign markets, refused raw ma- 
 terials, slowly throttled by an economic constriction. 
 If the military war were nothing but an incident in 
 an abiding struggle, such a commercial policy would 
 be a legitimate act of defence and aggression, since 
 a nation may be wounded and destroyed economically 
 
 1 Against an indemnification by Germany of Belgium alone, or of 
 a rebuilding of devastated portions of Europe at the joint expense 
 of all Powers, the same objections do not apply. Such costs could 
 be assessed by a Board of Arbitration working under rules agrcH>d 
 to at the Peace Conference.
 
 112 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 as effectively as by arms. If Germany were to re- 
 main bellicose and were to continue the contest in 
 the shape of an intensified military preparation, 
 ivJiich is war, the Allies would be justified in using 
 their deadliest economic weapons. Today this Al- 
 lied threat of a war after the war merely emphasizes 
 the fact that though Germany holds certain terri- 
 tory of the Allies, they in turii hold the key to her 
 economic life. It is a conclusive answer to her tri- 
 umphant demand that we look *'at the war map." 
 As an enduring institution, however, in a world look- 
 ing to peace, such a boycotting of the victim is utterly 
 destructive and reactionary. Its adoption would set 
 back the world many decades. It would injure both 
 the boycotted and the boycotters. It would be a con- 
 tinuation of war, a new incentive to war.^ 
 
 1 The economic war after the war is not to be interpreted as a 
 mere continuation of the old protectionist policy of the nations. The 
 primary aim of that policy was to benefit the home industry whereas 
 the avowed object of the economic war is to injure the enemy. 
 What the effect would be upon the home industry has been described 
 by several free traders. "French protectionists demand the repeal 
 of Article II of the Treaty of Frankfort, which assured most favoured- 
 nation treatment to France and the German Empire. Many who are 
 most anxious to annihilate German trade propose to keep out Ger- 
 man <joods by means of more or less prohibitive customs duties. 
 They forget, in their simplicity, that customs duties are paid by the 
 consumers, not the producers. Suppose they treble the duty on 
 coal coming from Germany. It is the French metallurgical industry 
 which suffers. If they increase the duties on dyes they injure the 
 French textile industries. If they want to make at home the ma- 
 chinery which France imported to the value of £5,000,000 in 1913, 
 they adversely affect all French industries dependent on it." 'The 
 Causes and Consequences of the War," by Yves Guyot. Translated 
 by F. Appleby Holt, London, 1916, p. 325.
 
 SPOILING THE ENEMY 113 
 
 The demands for new territorial possessions is 
 the greatest obstacle of all, both to a peace based on 
 internationalism and to the winning of the war. 
 Serbia, Roumania, Italy and Russia have staked out 
 claims in Austria-Hungary ; Greece, Italy, England, 
 France, and Russia have wished to divide the Turk- 
 ish Empire, while the former German Colonies were 
 destined to be delivered to various new owners. 
 The demands of the extremists went very far in- 
 deed. The imperialists suddenly awakened and de- 
 manded that their dreams be realized. 
 
 Ignoring all extremists, however, what were the 
 official demands of the Allied governments? 
 
 On January 10, 1917, the Allied governments ad- 
 dressed a note to President Wilson in reply to his 
 request that they definitely state terms. It was a 
 cleverly written note, designed to unite all the na- 
 tions opposed to Germany by giving to each what 
 each demanded. It was a glorified Rivers and Har- 
 bours Bill. 
 
 Today (February, 1918), this note is out of date 
 and without further sanction. Yet it has not been 
 withdrawn, nor has it been superseded by a subse- 
 quent joint statement of Allied terms. For this 
 reason and because of the expression that it gives to 
 the former hopes of Allied imperialists, the note 
 is still worthy of quotation. Their ''objects" 
 in this war, the Allies explained, ''will not be 
 made known in detail with all the equitable com-
 
 114 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 pensation and indemnities for damages suffered 
 until the hour of negotiations. But the civilized 
 world knows that they imply, in all necessity and 
 in the first instance, the restoration of Belgium, of 
 Serbia and of Montenegro, and the indemnities which 
 are due them; the evacuation of the invaded terri- 
 tories of France, of Eussia and of Rumania, with 
 just reparation ; the reorganization df Europe, guar- 
 anteed by a stable regime and founded as much upon 
 respect of nationalities and full security and liberty 
 of economic development, which all nations, great or 
 small, possess, as upon territorial conventions and 
 international agreements, suitable to guarantee ter- 
 ritorial and maritime frontiers against unjustified 
 attacks; the restitution of provinces or territories 
 wrested in the past from the Allies by force or 
 against the will of their populations ; the liberation 
 of Italians, of Slavs, of Rumanians, and of Tcheco- 
 Slovaques from foreign domination; the enfran- 
 chisement of populations subject to the bloody 
 tyranny of the Turks; the expulsion from Europe 
 of the Ottoman Empire. . . . The intentions of His 
 Majesty, the Emperor of Russia, regarding Poland 
 have been clearly indicated in the proclamation 
 which he has just addressed to his armies." 
 
 Upon investigation this Allied statement proved to 
 be intentionally ambiguous. Designed to hold to- 
 gether both liberals and imperialists, it might be in- 
 terpreted as a minimum and as a maximum pro-
 
 SPOILING THE ENEMY 115 
 
 gram. What, however, it was obviously intended 
 to mean to the interested parties, was that their in- 
 terests would be maintained. All past promises, 
 however dubious, were to be fulfilled. Into the 
 moral system of the Allies, into a demand for 
 "Restitution, Reparation and Guarantee" the 
 rights of small nations and the destruction of Prus- 
 sian militarism, there was to be woven a fabric of 
 specific national demands, in real opposition to the 
 idealistic program. To defeat Prussian Militar- 
 ism, Japan was to keep Chinese territory, while Rus- 
 sia was to be given Constantinople, Roumania the 
 sovereignty of territories in which were few of her 
 nationals, and Italy lands to which she had no just 
 claim. 
 
 What these dubious statements really meant to 
 the imperialists was later revealed. ''The secret 
 agreements entered into by the Allies," says a 
 writer in The New Europe in July, 1917, "are not 
 consistent with the ideals of their populations. The 
 secret Convention of April 27, (26), 1915, with Italy, 
 the treaty with Roumania are both based on the prin- 
 ciple of grab." "The arrangement concluded with 
 Roumania last year, after much bargaining, as- 
 signed to Roumania regions outside her ethnograph- 
 ical limits, to which she has no publicly defensible 
 moral claim. For those arrangements the respon- 
 sibility belongs chiefly to the pre-Revolutionary 
 Government of Russia and to the Roumanian Pre-
 
 1X6 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 mier, Mr. Bratianu. While upholding to the full the 
 claims of Roumania to national unity, the Allied 
 peoples cannot in conscience sanction the allotment 
 to Roumania of districts in the Banat and the Cen- 
 tral Hungarian plain where the Roumanian popula- 
 tion is either non-existent or is vastly outnumbered 
 by Serbs and Magyars." ^ 
 
 Nor were the Italian and Roumanian agreements 
 unique in violating the spirit of internationalism. 
 On November 22nd, 1914, Russia, England and 
 France offered to Greece the southern portion of 
 Albania, with the exception of Valona, in the event 
 of her immediate entry in aid of Serbia, and on Jan- 
 uary 12th, 1915, important territorial acquisitions on 
 the coast of Asia Minor.^ As a result of negotia- 
 tions in London and Petrograd in the spring of 1916 
 the British, French and Russian governments agreed 
 with regard to the future distribution not only of 
 
 1 The New Europe, 7/19/17, An interesting revelation of the state 
 of mind produced among the Allied diplomats by all this haggling 
 over territories is revealed by a report of General Polivanoflf on 
 November 7-20, 1916, suggesting a revision of the terms of territorial 
 compensations to Roumania. This Russian General seems not at all 
 disconcerted by the Roumanian defeat. "If," he says, "things had 
 developed in such a way that the military and political agreement 
 of 1916 with Roumania had been fully realized, then a very strong 
 State would have arisen in the Balkans . . . with a population of 
 about 13,000,000. In the future this State could hardly have been 
 friendly disposed towards Russia." "Consequently the collapse of 
 Roumanians plans as a Great Power is not particularly opposed to 
 Russia's interests " 
 
 2 See the confidential memorandum (exact source not indicated) 
 made public by the Bolsheviki at Petrograd and republished with the 
 secret treaties in the New York Evening Post.
 
 SPOILING THE ENEMY 117 
 
 their territorial acquisitions, but also of their zones 
 of influence in Asiatic Turkey. The agreement, 
 which is detailed, provides that these powers ''as- 
 sume a proportionate share of the Ottoman debt 
 equivalent to their respective acquisitions."^ 
 
 These plans of conquest were far-reaching, and no 
 attempt was made to bring them into harmony with 
 the aspirations of the Entente peoples. In a secret 
 telegram to the Russian Ambassador in Paris, dated 
 February 24, 1916, the Russian Foreign Secretary 
 reveals the policy and spirit of these governments 
 and their future attitude toward a defeated Ger- 
 many. ''Political agreements," he says, "entered 
 into among the Allies during the war should 
 remain unalterable and are not subject to revision. 
 This refers to our agreement with France and Eng- 
 land about Constantinople and the Straits, Syria 
 and Asia Minor, and also to the London agreement 
 with Italy. All propositions as to future boundaries 
 as to Central Europe are at this moment premature, 
 but at the same time it is to be remembered that we 
 are ready to grant to France and England complete 
 freedom in fixing the limitations of the western 
 German boundary, depending that the Allies in their 
 turn will grant to us freedom in fixing our boundar- 
 ies with Germany and Austria. It is important to 
 insist on the exclusion of the Polish question as a 
 
 1 Information on the question of Aaia Minor February 21, 11)18, 
 included in the statements given out bv the BolBheviki.
 
 118 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 subject matter for international discussion, and on 
 elimination of all attempts to place the future of 
 Poland under the guarantee and control of the 
 powers." 
 
 Just what territorial claims Russia would have 
 made had Germany been completely defeated can- 
 not yet be known in detail, but the French claims are 
 revealed in a note of the Russian Minister of Foreign 
 Affairs to the French Ambassador in Petrograd un- 
 der date of February 1st, 1917. 
 
 "In your note of this date," writes the Foreign 
 Minister, ''your Excellency was good enough to 
 communicate to the Imperial Government, that the 
 Government of the Republic intended to include 
 among the terms of peace which will be offered to 
 Germany the following demands and guarantees of 
 territorial character: 
 
 *'l. Alsace and Lorraine to be returned to France. 
 
 *'2. The boundaries will be extended at least to 
 the limits of the former principality of Lorraine, 
 and will be fixed under the direction of the French 
 Government. At the same time strategic demands 
 must be taken into consideration, so as to include 
 within the French territory the whole of the indus- 
 trial iron basin of Lorraine and the whole of the 
 industrial coal-basin of the Valley of the Saar. 
 
 *'3. Other territories located on the left bank of 
 the Rhine, and not included in the composition of 
 the German Empire, will be completely separated
 
 SPOILING THE ENEMY 119 
 
 from Germany and shall be freed from all political 
 and economic dependence on her. 
 
 *'4. The territory on the left bank of the Ehine 
 not included in the composition of French territory, 
 shall form an autonomous and neutral government, 
 and shall be occupied by French armies until such 
 time as the enemy governments completely fulfil all 
 the conditions and guarantees mentioned in the 
 treaty of peace. 
 
 "Your Excellency stated that the Government of 
 the Republic shall be happy to have the opportunity 
 of counting upon the support of the Imperial Gov- 
 ernment in order to bring its intentions to accom- 
 plishment. In accordance with the order of his Im- 
 perial Majesty, my august sovereign, I have the 
 honour to communicate in this note in the name of 
 the Russian Government, to your Excellency that 
 the Government of the Republic may count on the 
 support of the Imperial Government to bring to ful- 
 filment of its aforementioned intentions." 
 
 What is most highly objectionable in all these 
 treaties is that they constitute a program, not dic- 
 tated by a sense of international justice, nor by a 
 desire to produce a better international order, but 
 by self-interest. Moreover that self-interest is not 
 of the Allies as a whole but of each individual Ally. 
 In this war the aid of nations has been bargained 
 for in much the spirit in which George the Tliird 
 bargained for his Hessians. Herein lies a manifold
 
 120 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 danger. Not only is it likely to prolong the war 
 beyond the time when a real victory for internation- 
 alism has been secured, not only may it make the 
 issue itself dubious, but it is exactly the sort of 
 situation out of which arose the Second Balkan War 
 and many other wars in history. Even the pre- 
 sumed beneficiaries of these arrangements may ul- 
 timately regret their having been made. A promise 
 to Italy of the East Adriatic might be pleasing to 
 Italians today but in the end might prove a fatal 
 gift.
 
 CHAPTEE VI 
 
 SACRED EGOISM 
 
 In this war Italy has suffered at the hands of her 
 friends. It is her own statesmen as well as many 
 of her oflScious apologists in foreign countries who 
 have lauded her policy as one of naked egoism, un- 
 ashamed and boastful. Yet there is another Italy, 
 fine-spirited and generous, which fights for as high 
 ideals and as noble purposes as in the days of the 
 Risorgimiento and is heavens above the chaffering 
 group of politicians and journalists who have ac- 
 tually controlled her policy in this war. When, 
 therefore, in this chapter I speak of Italy I have in 
 mind not the whole population, and not at all her 
 ardent democrats and liberals, but a little band of 
 ultra-nationalists, who at a critical moment caught 
 the common imagination and confidently and igno- 
 rantly led the people to disaster. 
 
 Italy, declare her apologists, "is waging above all 
 a war of expansion and conquest." The Italian 
 population ''set out for this war, for *its war,' with 
 the most definite idea of its interests. It was in- 
 formed, and it perfectly understood, that it was not 
 waging a war for the sake of magnificence nor for 
 the sake of principles; that it was fighting for it- 
 
 121
 
 122 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 self, but not for its neighbours." Italy ''does not 
 care to be generous and to lose thereby. She 
 strongly objects to sacrifice; so that this State, 
 founded on the principle of nationalities, which has 
 benefitted in the past by the enthusiasm aroused by 
 the cause of the peoples, refuses — and quite frankly 
 — to obey this principle blindly, unreservedly to 
 champion this cause. ' ' ^ Italy has no patience, with 
 what Benedetto Croce calls, ** hollow theories con- 
 cerning the democratic ideal and the reign of peace 
 and justice. ' ' - Italy is no sentimental ideologist, 
 but is realistic, as Germany is. She sees her in- 
 terests and pursues them, as Germany pursues her 
 interests. She knows what she wants and how to 
 get what she wants. At least she thinks she knows. 
 From the beginning of the war Italy made her 
 national interest the controlling factor in her policy. 
 Although a member of the Triple Alliance, she 
 promptly — and properly — refused to march with 
 Austria. This decision was of immense value to 
 the Allies, for had she invaded France in August, 
 1914 the Marne would have been lost and a perma- 
 nent German victory assured. Many reasons jus- 
 tified Italy's rupture of her union with Austria. 
 She had been ignored by her titular allies; neither 
 her interests nor her ideals had been considered. 
 
 1 "Italy and the War," by Jacques Bainville; translated by Bernard 
 Miall, London, New York and Toronto, 1916, pp. 237-238. 
 
 2 Benedetto Croce, in the Critica ; quoted by Bainville, op. cit., 
 p. 123.
 
 SACRED EGOISM 123 
 
 Her world position would have been made worse, 
 not better, by a German- Austrian victory. 
 
 For nine months thereafter, Italy preserved a 
 neutral attitude. She was internally divided. The 
 majority of Italians, especially the Republicans, 
 Radicals and Syndicalists sympathized with the Al- 
 lies, while many of her Catholics and Conservatives 
 favoured the Teutonic Powers. As time passed, 
 however, as the early expectations of a rapid Ger- 
 man victory were extinguished and as news came of 
 German brutalities, a somewhat inconstant enthusi- 
 asm for France, heroically bearing the brunt of in- 
 vasion, spread through the peninsula. 
 
 Nevertheless potent reasons inclined the nation 
 to neutrality. Italy is desperately poor. She has 
 neither the fertile lands nor the rich mineral wealth 
 of her great neighbours, and her increasing popula- 
 tion, despite an immense emigration, presses heavily 
 upon her resources. Politically she is unstable. 
 The roseate dreams of a healthy national Italian 
 development, which filled the minds of idealists a 
 generation ago, have not been realized. Until 1913 
 the government was in the hands of a selfish, narrow 
 group, recruited from the upper and middle classes, 
 and maintained in power by a limited parliamentary 
 franchise. Political corruption flourished under the 
 system of trasformismo and a government by *' po- 
 litical war-horses" evoked bitter reactionary and 
 revolutionary opposition, and promoted a danger-
 
 124 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 ous anti-parliamentarism. Social conditions were 
 bad; illiteracy was common; and enlightened pa- 
 triotism, rising above factional and personal inter- 
 ests, rare. The need of the nation was peace and 
 a steady economic development. 
 
 But peace was impossible for the very reasons 
 which made it imperatively necessary. The fragil- 
 ity and disequilibrium of the social structure cre- 
 ated an unrest, which among many Italians found ex- 
 pression in a crude, pretentiously realistic, but, in 
 any true sense, completely unrealistic, Imperialism. 
 Though urged to remain neutral by its unprepared- 
 ness, its internal divisions and by the economic ad- 
 vantages of peace the nation was forced, partly by 
 its idealists but chiefly by its vaulting imperialists 
 into a policy of war and conquest. 
 
 To analyse the motives of a government with 
 which we are acting in concert is a thankless task. 
 It is impossible, however, properly to prepare for 
 the difficult problem of working out a peace policy 
 without understanding the curiously dual nature of 
 this war, and in no instance is that duality so il- 
 luminating as in the Italian intervention. For while 
 not a few Italians urged participation because de- 
 sirous of ending German militarism, the main cur- 
 rent bearing the nation into war was avowedly 
 egoistic, nationalistic and imperialistic. Italy, 
 weak, ignorant, distracted, sought to become a World 
 Power, to revive the glories of Venice, to restore in
 
 SACRED EGOISM 125 
 
 some part the vast Mediterranean Empire of An- 
 cient Rome.^ 
 
 All through the recent Italian nationalistic litera- 
 ture runs this disconcerting parallel between the 
 new Kingdom and the Ancient Empire. The poet 
 d'Annunzio, to take but a single example, is for ever 
 recalling the glory of Rome, the deeds of Rome, the 
 heritage of Rome. What Rome accomplished in the 
 days of the Caesars, Italy in her narrow peninsula, 
 surrounded by more powerful nations, must aspire 
 to achieve in these days of steam, electricity and 
 cartells. Admitting the virility and sheer propul- 
 sive force of the Italian population, the ambition 
 still remains grotesque. Under the most favourable 
 circumstances, Italy's future role in the economic 
 and political world must necessarily be secondary. 
 Compared to Russia, the British Empire, the United 
 States or Germany, Italy is small and will remain 
 
 1 "As in all great moments of national decision, the motives which 
 inspired Italy were mixed; being compounded of every shade of opin- 
 ion, from the purest Mazzinian idealism to the sacro er/oismo of cer- 
 tain government circles and the naked and unashamed Jingoism of 
 the so-called Nationalists. \Miile the latter were never tired of 
 pouring ridicule on the assumption that the great struggle is one 
 between Imperialism and Democracy, and insisted on regarding it as 
 an open hid by rival forces for the mastery of Kurope, even the Cor- 
 rierc deU<i Hera, whose immense influence in Italy is due to the fact 
 that it voices the opinion of the more sober and constructive elements 
 in the country, justified action as follows: 'Politics are the quint- 
 essence of egoism, and we are egoists Let us simplj" reckon up our 
 rights and our aspirations in relation to our forces ' " Review of 
 L'ltalie et le Conflit Europ4en (1D1J,-16): Jean Alazard. Paris, 1916, 
 by R. W. S. W. The Xew Europe, Vol. IV, September 20, 1917, 
 p. 317.
 
 126 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 small, yiie has no more chance of emulating Home 
 than has Greece of becoming a second Byzantium 
 or Spain of restoring the empire of Philip the Sec- 
 ond. She may possibly succeed in a policy of timid 
 imperialism, in getting and holding the East Adri- 
 atic and a part of Asia Minor. To dream of a vast 
 Empire, however, to dissipate her energies in the 
 ambitious project of resurrecting Ancient Rome is 
 not only a perilous task, ludicrously beyond her ca- 
 pacity, but a menace to Italy's neighbours only less 
 serious than to Italy herself. 
 
 Today this imperialistic ambition overwhelms mil- 
 lions of Italians. The words Per la piu grande 
 Italia are scribbled on blank walls and on infinite 
 reams of patient paper. This conception of a 
 Greater Italy is an ideal of a sort, and, as Mr. Syd- 
 ney Low approvingly remarks in a fawning book, 
 which one wonders how he could have written, ''The 
 ideal is to be attained by the highly practical method 
 of seizing territory, ports, islands, railways, strips 
 of coast-line, naval bases." These imperialists 
 "are dreamers whose heads are not in the clouds, 
 poets who will not be content with a diet of the most 
 inspiring phrases, enthusiasts who mean busi- 
 ness." ^ 
 
 Some of the business, upon which these Italian im- 
 perialists are engaged, is legitimate and proper. 
 Italy was not without justification for her hatred of 
 
 1 "Italy in the War," by Sydney Low, New York, 1916, p. 238.
 
 SACRED EGOISM 127 
 
 Austria, whose long persecution might in time have 
 been forgotten had not the stupid government of 
 Francis Joseph persisted in petty persecution of 
 the Italians in Trieste, and had not Austria long in- 
 sisted upon retaining the Trentino, which geograph- 
 ically, ethnologically and economically belongs to 
 Italy. Much of the territory to which Italy has a 
 real right had indeed been promised by Austria as 
 the price of neutrality, but whether Austria could 
 have been trusted to keep her promises, or whether 
 she might not have taken away what she had given 
 under duress, was a serious question.^ 
 
 The demands of the extreme Imperialists of Italy, 
 however, went much furtlier. Several of them de- 
 sired not only the Trentino, Istria and Dalmatia but 
 had lingering hopes of eventually securing Corsica, 
 Savoy, Nice and Tunis from France, Malta from 
 England, and the Ticino from Switzerland. Natur- 
 ally these latter desires were inopportune, but in 
 their stead, other lands lay at the disposal of the 
 victorious Allies. There was Rhodes lying off the 
 coast of Asia Minor, there were several ^gean 
 islands and there was a large tract of Asiatic 
 Turkey, which might properly fall to Italy. **We 
 trust," said the Rassenna Nazionale, in the spring 
 of 1915, ''that there will be reserved for us, in the 
 
 1 "Austria had indeed just offered Italy the Trentino, the west 
 bank of the Isonzo, special privilejies and full cultural puaranteee 
 for all Italians left under Austrian rule, and a free hand for Italy 
 in Albania" Stoddard, p. 108.
 
 128 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 Mediterranean, in the ^gean, and in Asia Minor, a 
 share proportionate to the requirements of our posi- 
 tion. " ^ It was obvious that Italy was still un- 
 satisfied with vast desert Tripoli, which she had 
 recently conquered. She wanted more fertile soils. 
 ** There is only one land," said an Italian writer in 
 the Edinburgh Review, ''wherein Italy can still hope 
 to found colonies of Italian laborers, and that is 
 Asiatic Turkey. "^ 
 
 In the end these Italian imperialists captured the 
 government. A protracted bargaining with Aus- 
 tria raised the price which the importunate Allies 
 were willing to pay.^ Finally the terms were ac- 
 cepted and Italy declared war. 
 
 Since the bargain was struck, hardly a month has 
 passed that the Allies have not been disagreeably 
 reminded of these pledges.^ Uncomfortable indeed 
 
 1 Stoddard, 165. 
 
 2 Stoddard, 165. 
 
 3 "When we review such semi-official press utterances . . ., together 
 with the numberless imperialistic incitements to war . . ., it is 
 difficult not to believe that the Salandra Cabinet had already made 
 up its mind on intervention, and that it was using the negotiations 
 with the Teutonic Powers, as part of a clever combinazione to extract 
 the largest possible concessions from the Allied Powers, with whom 
 parallel negotiations were going on at the same time." "Present- 
 Day Europe. Its National States of Mind," by T. Lathrop Stoddard, 
 New York, 1917, p. 166. 
 
 * According to a telegram from Petrograd to the Manchester 
 Guardian. December 1, 1017. "A treaty between the Allies and 
 Italy is published today (November 28) according to which Italy 
 receives the Trentino, Soutli Tyrol, Trieste, Istria, Dalmatia, with 
 the neutral zone between the latter region and Serbia. In the south 
 the Adriatic region from the river Planka to the Drina goes to 
 Serbia. Italy receives Vallona and the hinterland. Italy agrees not
 
 SACRED EGOISM 129 
 
 are some of the implications of this solemn covenant 
 between the nations fighting for democracy and the 
 Italian Royal Government inspired by sacred ego- 
 ism. Were Austria willing to make a separate 
 peace, acceptable to England, France and the United 
 States, would Italy consent? Would she not de- 
 mand a full liquidation of her bond, Istria, Dalmatia 
 and the rest? And if the Allies agree to a partial 
 dismemberment in the interest of Italy, can they 
 refuse the less shadowy claims of Serbia and 
 Roumania? Is any separate peace with Turkey 
 possible which takes from the Turks a part of Asia 
 Minor, and subjects to Italian domination a territory 
 in which there is not even a trace of Italian blood or 
 culture? That way Italy blocks. 
 
 Again, take the Balkan situation. Though the 
 question is too complicated to be put into a para- 
 graph, yet according to experts it is believed to have 
 been possible to discover a reasonably satisfactory 
 solution of the problem and to have settled the rival 
 claims of Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece along approx- 
 
 to oppose England, France, and Russia in the partition of Albania 
 between Montenegro and Serbia, if such be deemed desirable Italy 
 receives Dodecanese and Adalia in Asiatic Turkey. In the event of 
 British-French colonial expansion in Africa at the expense of Ger- 
 many, Italy receives compensation in the right to expand the terri- 
 tory of Eritrea, Somaliland, Livia, into the hinterland. England, 
 France, and Russia undertake to support Italy against the Holy See 
 if the latter attempts to take steps toward peace " The full text of 
 this treaty, which was signed on April 2(». 1015, by Sir Edward 
 Grey, Cambon, Marquis Iraperiali, and Count Benckendorf, is pub- 
 lished in full (in English) by the New York Evening Post, January 
 25, 1918.
 
 130 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 imately nationalistic lines. Such a settlement would 
 not have been perfect but might at least have pro- 
 moted peace in that distracted quarter.^ Had some 
 such arrangement been possible in 1915, the Balkan 
 Confederation might have been restored, the 
 Balkan corridor closed, Turkey isolated, and the 
 war brought a year or more nearer to a conclu- 
 sion. But against such a solution the claims of the 
 Italian government proved an insuperable obstacle. 
 Italy stood opposed to any solution which would rob 
 her of her desired control of the East Adriatic.^ 
 
 Among the Allies there are many eloquent and 
 sincere defenders of this narrow policy of Italy. 
 ''Egoism," insists M. Bainville, "when it is the ego- 
 ism of a nation, becomes a duty and a virtue. It be- 
 comes purified. Does it not affect the fate of mil- 
 lions of living creatures, millions of millions of men 
 
 1 See for the general outline of such a plan "The Reconstruction 
 of Poland and the Near East," by Herbert Adams Gibbons, N. Y., 
 1917, pp. 194-202. 
 
 2 "The contemporary school of Italian imperialists have lost their 
 heads entirely. If the statesmen of the Entente Powers had 
 studied closely the literature and the programs of the Dante Ali- 
 ghieri Society and the Dalmatian League, and followed the develop- 
 ment of the colonial and irredentist propagandas during the last 
 decade, they would have supported with all their power Signor Gio- 
 litti and the non-intervention elements in the spring of 1915." Italy's 
 "active participation in the war on the side of the Entente has been 
 benelicial neither to the Entente nor to Italy. The statesmen of 
 France, Great Britain and Russia have come to realize that Italian 
 irredentists and imperialists are without shame or limit in their 
 ambitions and are incapable of constructive political vision. They 
 have had to yield to Italian demands, though, in order to keep the 
 coalition intact. The result has been the sacrifice of the Serbians 
 and the loss of Greek aid." Gibbons, op cit., pp. 181, 182, 183.
 
 SACRED EGOISM 131 
 
 yet to be bom? Those Governments which have not 
 this sense of egoism arc guilty; they are danger- 
 ously mischievous." 
 
 National egoism may be good or bad, wise or fool- 
 ish, according to the circumstances, though it be- 
 comes neither good nor wise by being called sacred. 
 It is, however, an interesting question in interna- 
 tional morality at exactly what point the interest of 
 these "millions of living creatures" should be ac- 
 commodated to the interests of other millions living 
 across the border. To be guided by national egoism 
 alone is to justify the invasion of Belgium, the sub- 
 jection of minor nationalities, and other acts which 
 nations as egoistic but less frank than Italy have 
 repeatedly committed. It is not for us to pass judg- 
 ment. We need not answer the question whether 
 Italy was justified in standing upon the side-lines 
 and offering her army and navy at a price. Nor is it 
 our special concern whether in their extremity the 
 Allies, to gain an ally, were justified in making con- 
 cessions which violated their principles. What 
 does seem evident, however, is that we who were not 
 consulted in all this grandiose huckstering, are not 
 bound by the bargain. We accepted no responsibil- 
 ity. We are fighting for democracy and interna- 
 tionalism and against militarism. We are fighting 
 for the freedom of the Italians of the Trentino and 
 Trieste, as for other oppressed peoples, but we are 
 not fighting for Italian imperialism. We will not
 
 132 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 send our young men to die that Italy may rule over 
 
 the Slavs and Dalmatia. 
 
 And this for four reasons. The Italian scheme of 
 conquest is not in the true and permanent interest of 
 Italy herself. A giving to Italy of all that has been 
 promised would mean new wars. The program for 
 which Italy fights is opposed to the ideals for which 
 we fight. Finally to continue the war until Italy 
 gets what she wants is to prolong the contest, to 
 make victory dubious and peace dangerous. 
 
 Not that Italy should be content with the ante- 
 bellum conditions. Wlien we consider the mag- 
 nitude of her emigration we cannot but sjnnpathize 
 with her desire for lands under her own flag to which 
 these emigrants might go. The need of Italy in this 
 respect is far greater than that of Germany. Today 
 there are some six million Italians under foreign 
 flags, or one seventh of the entire Italian people. On 
 the other hand, no one can study contemporary 
 Italian conditions without realizing how immature, 
 politically and economically, the nation is, and there- 
 fore how ill-equipped for a stem imperialistic strug- 
 gle. 
 
 The facts, upon which this conclusion is based, 
 lie upon the surface. Italy's excessive death rate, 
 her high, though decreasing, illiteracy rate, the rudi- 
 mentary character of her national education, the vast 
 amount of her semi-pauperism, her low standards of 
 living, her heavy taxes, her unstable and low-grade
 
 SACRED EGOISM 133 
 
 political life, her lack of great resources — all these 
 indicate an internal weakness, as compared with her 
 great imperialistic competitors, a weakness which 
 almost hopelessly handicaps her in her ambitious 
 projects. For Italy to be awarded the East Adriatic 
 might be a curse instead of a blessing. It would 
 create for her what Giolitti called "an inverse irre- 
 dentism," forcing her to maintain great armies in 
 order to suppress unruly Slavs. It would mean op- 
 pression abroad and reaction at home. It would 
 bring her into eventual conflict with Serbia, with 
 Greece, possibly with greater nations. It might 
 mean defeat, it might even mean catastrophe. 
 
 That such a victory would render new wars prob- 
 able is made evident by present currents of opinion 
 in the peninsula. Italy today hates Serbia more 
 than Germany, and Greece more than Serbia. She 
 distrusts Russia. Her attitude towards the Adri- 
 atic Slavs can be read in d'Annunzio's speeches. 
 Dalmatia, he asserts, "belongs to Italy by human 
 law and divine. Under the Latin rule of Rome, of 
 the Popes and of Venice, as under the barbarian rule 
 of the Goths, the Lombards, the Franks, the Ger- 
 manic Othos, the Byzantines, the Hungarians, tlie 
 Austrians, the civil life of yonder shores, like the 
 civil life of our own, has always been Italian in 
 essence and origin. It has been; it is; it will bo. 
 Neither the German, coming from the Alps, nor the 
 Slovenian of the Carso, nor the Magyar of La Putza,
 
 134 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 nor the Croat, who ignores or falsifies history, nor 
 the Turk, who disguises himself as an Albanian — no 
 one, I say, will succeed in arresting the inevitable 
 rhythm of accomplishment, the Roman rhythm. ' ' ^ 
 Of this Dalmatian population, so confidently an- 
 nexed, only three per cent is Italian ; yet millions of 
 Slavs are to be shut off from the sea in order not to 
 arrest the Roman rhythm. Out of this same fear of 
 a future Slav and Greek opposition, Italy seems to 
 desire that Austria, after being weakened by her, 
 shall be kept strong enough to hold the Balkan peo- 
 ples in check. She apparently does not desire a dis- 
 solution of the Dual Monarchy. She wishes to rest 
 upon the *' Austrian cushion" after abstracting as 
 many feathers as she pleases. 
 
 The Italian imperialists frankly avow that their 
 demands are opposed to the policies of internation- 
 alism, in defence of which we are fighting. Influ- 
 ential elements in the population are strongly in 
 sympathy with German militarism and envy Ger- 
 many's army and the power which brought her great 
 plans of expansion within the expectation of suc- 
 cess. The Italian program is like the German; it 
 takes no account of the rights of lesser nationali- 
 ties, or of the economic demands of German and 
 Slavic Einterlaender which it would deprive of their 
 outlet by an occupation of Trieste and the East 
 Adriatic. 
 
 1 Bainville, op. cit., pp. 254-5.
 
 SACRED EGOISM 135 
 
 Finally to satisfy Italy's ambitions means to pro- 
 long the war. Nothing has so strengthened the re- 
 sistance of the Austro-Hungarian Empire as the 
 unjust and unreasonable Italian demand for the 
 cession to her of territories inhabited by Slavs. ''In- 
 stead of coming into the war as the open friend of 
 aU oppressed Habsburg peoples, Italy allowed it to 
 appear that for some of them her victory would 
 mean not freedom but merely a change of masters ; 
 and that others who might escape her rule — a rule 
 as alien to them as that of Austria — would find her 
 opposed to a realization of their national ideal of 
 independence and union with their kith and kin. 
 Every attack in the Italian press upon the Southern 
 Slavs, every allusion to 'the Croats, the Cossacks of 
 Austria, ' every denunciation of Southern Slav exiles 
 as 'the paid agents of Austria,' has, under skilful 
 Austrian manipulation, reacted to the military dis- 
 advantage of Italy." ^ These ambitions mean a 
 more desperate Austrian resistance, a longer war, 
 and as a consequence greater sacrifices from Amer- 
 ica and the Allies. But on what principle can Italy 
 appeal to us to make sacrifices for her imperialism? 
 How can she demand from us an ungrudging gen- 
 erosity to further her ovm sacred egoism? 
 
 There are men in Italy of exactly the same opinion. 
 The opposition to imperialism, strong in 1915, still 
 exists. It has even been increased by the events of 
 
 1 The New Europe, Vol. IV, July 19, 1917.
 
 136 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 the war. There have been no great victories and 
 there have been disastrous defeats. The economic 
 conditions are bad. Food is dear and coal scarce, 
 while the small success of the domestic war loans 
 reveals a disquieting lack of confidence. Imperial- 
 ism is on trial, as in Germany. Indeed the situation 
 of the government is similar to that of the German 
 government, and in either country a complete vic- 
 tory might prove a menace to a healthy democratic 
 development. To save itself the Government must 
 win. Otherwise it goes down in disgrace, and even 
 the Monarchy might not survive. The government 
 is therefore desperate. It opposes any Anglo- 
 French leaning towards a Greater Serbia, which 
 would lessen Italy's gains; it attacks any co-opera- 
 tion with Greece which would give that country lands 
 that Italy covets; it protests; it threatens. It has 
 chosen the imperialistic path and dares not wander 
 from that path. It fears to disappoint the ardent 
 hopes it has itself evoked. 
 
 The American people, like all other nations, owe 
 infinitely much to Italy, to her art, her literature, her 
 culture, to the hardiness of her adventurers, from 
 the days of Columbus to the day before yesterday 
 when millions of Italians came to build our railroads, 
 work our mines, and enter and enrich our civiliza- 
 tion. We have only admiration and affection for 
 the Italian people, so lately emerged from foreign 
 subjection and political oppression. We sympathize
 
 SACRED EGOISM 137 
 
 with Italy's heroic effort to achieve her independ- 
 ence, to educate her people and take her true place 
 among the civilizing peoples. But Italy's imperial- 
 ism is nothing to us. We do not desire her do- 
 minion of the Adriatic or of the Mediterranean.^ 
 We could not if we wished revive the dominion of 
 Venice which ended when the Byzantine Empire was 
 destroyed and America discovered. The Republic of 
 Venice is dead, and the Italians of the Twentieth 
 Century have quite other tasks than to resurrect it, 
 and should have other preoccupations. 
 
 Italy is a case in point. Italian imperialism is 
 much less menacing than is that of Germany, but it 
 is also a menace, and spiritually of the same quality. 
 It is one of the things to which we are, or should be, 
 opposed. To fight for Italian imperialism, or for 
 Russian, French, British or American imperialism, 
 is to fight against internationalism. To fight in 
 order that Italy may obtain Dalmatia and Asia 
 Minor, to rule over Slavs and Austrians, to main- 
 her imperiuyn by means of the sword is no way in 
 which to make the world safe for democracy. 
 
 Italy has sought to bargain away her future secur- 
 
 1 It must be admitted, however, that to Italy a domination of the 
 Adriatic by any foreign power would be a menace in exactly the 
 Bamo manner (and to an even preat extent) as the control of the 
 Caribbean by Germany would be a menace to the United States. 
 But a domination by Italy of tin- Adriatic would be equally intoler- 
 able to her neighbours. Until some international system can be 
 created that will adequately [irotect the interests of all adjacent 
 nations no solution of the Adriatic problem is at all possible.
 
 138 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 ity for an imperialistic mess, which she cannot hope 
 to digest. It would be better for her and better for 
 the world if she returned to her sanity, if she sur- 
 rendered her extreme pretensions and made a renun- 
 ciation, while there is still virtue in it. The true 
 interest of Italy, as of other states, lies in an interna- 
 tionalism which will safeguard her and us and all 
 nations, and not in an imperialism, doomed to ex- 
 haust her strength and destroy her idealism and to 
 end in wars in which her feebleness wiU fare hard in 
 a life and death contest with stronger powers. The 
 earthen pot has no place among these crushing iron 
 vessels.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 AMERICA AS AEBITEB 
 
 In one of the ablest books that have appeared 
 during the war the English internationalist, Mr. 
 Henry Noel Brailsford, speaks as follows concerning 
 the entrance of the United States into the world 
 conflict: "It may be said that America is no longer 
 the impartial and uncommitted Power, which might, 
 by its balancLQg weight, render a League of Nations 
 workable during the first difficult years. The loss 
 is only apparent, for the neutrality of America was 
 always differential. On the other hand, though her 
 view on the broad issues of the war is decided and 
 clear, she is not, nor will she become, an interested 
 partisan, enmeshed in the territorial questions and 
 the military issues of the European Balance of 
 Power. Her influence as a moderating force re- 
 mains uncompromised. " * 
 
 Since Mr. Brailsford wrote his book. President 
 Wilson has taken several long steps towards acting 
 as moderator or arbitrator between the more ad- 
 vanced claims of our Allies and our enemies. From 
 tlie beginning America refrained from entering a 
 formal alliance with our co-belligerents. We were 
 
 1 "The League of Nations," by Henry Noel Brailsford, London, 
 1917, p. vi. 
 
 139
 
 140 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 willing to concert our military efforts and to adjust 
 the distribution of our capital, food and military 
 supplies, but we refused to tie our hands by agree- 
 ments already made with regard to the individual 
 ambitions of these Powers. We retained our liberty 
 of action. Furthermore, in his Reply to the Pope 
 Mr. Wilson differentiated our American war pur- 
 poses from those of other enemies of Germany. He 
 declared himself against '' political or economic re- 
 strictions meant to benefit some nations and cripple 
 or embarrass others." He opposed "vindictive ac- 
 tion of any sort or any kind of revenge or deliberate 
 injury," as well as any ''reprisal upon the German 
 people." He set his face against "punitive dam- 
 ages, the dismemberment of empires, the establish- 
 ment of selfish and exclusive leagues." Speaking 
 for the United States, Mr. Wilson agreed to enter 
 into peace negotiations upon generous terms with 
 a democratized and responsible German govern- 
 ment. 
 
 The Reply to the Pope was only the beginning 
 of this form of negotiation between the United States 
 and Germany and between the United States and her 
 co-belligerents. In a series of messages the Presi- 
 dent, despite a few regressions, moved towards an 
 outlining in concrete terms of a moderate and liberal 
 peace, not based upon conquest or even upon the 
 assertion of military superiority, but upon a state of 
 Europe and the world, in which internationalism
 
 AMERICA AS AEBTTER 141 
 
 and progress towards democracy would be possible. 
 Finally on January 8th, 1918, he outlined the Amer- 
 ican demands in terms more definite and language 
 more explicit than had yet been used by any re- 
 sponsible head of a government. Those terms pro- 
 vided for open diplomacy, the freedom of the seas, 
 the establishment of trade equality, the reduction of 
 armaments, the adjustment of colonial claims with 
 regard to the wishes of the inhabitants, the indem- 
 nification of Belgium, a league of nations to enforce 
 specific agreements, autonomy for oppressed nation- 
 alities, as well as changes in national frontiers along 
 approximately nationalistic lines. It is true that 
 this public statement of President Wilson, like all 
 statements of terms, retains a certain nimbus of 
 ambiguity, and has been variously interpreted. But 
 no one can escape its conciliatory spirit. A truly 
 democratic Germany might find these terms accept- 
 able or unacceptable, but could not discern in them 
 any desire to crush or humiliate. The note is a test 
 of the repeated protestations of pacific intent of the 
 Imperial German Government.^ 
 
 To what extent we have as yet advanced in the sev- 
 eral countries toward a composition of differences 
 it is difficult to determine. What informal and un- 
 official negotiations or interrogatories, if any, are in 
 progress we cannot pretend to know. The casual 
 
 1 See also President Wilson's Fobruary notr, outlining tho four 
 principles of settlement.
 
 142 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 colloquies between unacknowledged representatives 
 of the belligerent powers are not made public and 
 we never see the successive steps but only the end. 
 Nor is a real advance towards a mutual understand- 
 ing always recognized as such, for every statement 
 issued by each belligerent is capable of a wide range 
 of possible interpretation and a promise is often 
 couched in the form of a threat. 
 
 It is a rarefied atmosphere in which we here move 
 and one in which it is difficult to measure progress 
 or note direction. Yet the essential fact remains 
 that one nation, the United States, preserves its lib- 
 erty of negotiation. By this it is not meant that we 
 alone have been the moderators of this war. A far 
 stronger impulse to a liberalization of the war came 
 from Russia, and a statement, quite as clear as any 
 that we have made, and equally liberal in spirit, is- 
 sued from the British Labour Party. But there is 
 a vast distinction between a Labour Party, however 
 powerful, and the government of a sovereign nation 
 of one hundred millions, and there is an equally wide 
 gulf between the Russian influence, as it was exerted 
 in January, 1918, and that of the United States. To 
 a considerable degree Russia's influence, like ours 
 before we entered the war, was moral, her military 
 weakness robbing her decisions of all physical sanc- 
 tion. On the other hand, America has both a moral 
 and a physical influence, the latter being enforced by 
 economic and military weapons. The nation is un-
 
 AMERICA AS ARBITER 143 
 
 bound, disinterested, powerful, and free to deal dip- 
 lomatically with both sides.^ 
 
 Had it been Japan, Roumania or Italy which had 
 preserved such an independence, the influence upon a 
 future peace would have been less potent and less 
 salutary. None of these nations can effect a de- 
 cision in this war, which would go on despite their 
 defection. 2 Moreover, none of these Powers would 
 have used its freedom to seek a permanent and 
 universal peace. America is in different case. She 
 can exert a powerful influence upon the whole course 
 of peace negotiations because of her unexcelled 
 strategic position. 
 
 That position results from several factors, the 
 greatest of which is our relative security. Of all 
 belligerents we are the most immune from serious 
 German attack, since Germany cannot assail us 
 except after the overthrow of the other Powers. 
 In that sense, though not intentionally, the Allies, 
 
 1 As this book goes to press (March 9, 1918) the strategic posi- 
 tion in the war held by the United States from April to October, 
 1917 (and, in some sense, even up to the Ix'frinning of February, 
 1918), has been temporarily, and, perhaps, permanently destroyed. 
 So long as Russia remained an ally, America occupied a middle 
 ground. She could act with democratic Russia and use the joint 
 influence of the two nations to compel a re-statement of Allied peace 
 terms and a liberalization of the war. She could appeal to demo- 
 cratic sentiment both in Allied and in enemy lands. With the loss of 
 Russia and, as a consequence of Roumania, the (ierman government 
 is strengthened, the German liberal sentiment is weakened, and the 
 former advantageous position of the I'nited States is lost. America 
 is far less able to make up for a possible new defection of an ally 
 than she was during the period in which Russia was in the war. 
 
 2 See note above.
 
 144 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 before the period of our neutrality, were fighting 
 our battle. Nor do we enter into German animosi- 
 ties and plans of conquest to the same degree or with 
 the same immediacy as do England, France and Rus- 
 sia. We still preserve a remnant of our former phy- 
 sical and moral isolation. 
 
 Moreover, America is the least exhausted of the 
 belligerent nations. Having just begun to fight, our 
 military strength is on a sharply ascending curve. 
 With our surplus food, war materials and money, 
 we are more indispensable to our Allies than they 
 to us. We could better survive a drawn battle or 
 even a German victory than could France, Great 
 Britain or Italy. 
 
 Finally, our strategic position is enhanced by our 
 having no obvious, direct, material interest in the 
 war. We have the freedom of wanting nothing. 
 Undoubtedly certain individuals and groups in 
 America do profit by the conflict, but as affecting 
 the nation's present determination to fight, these 
 profits are incidental and are largely to be diverted 
 to meet war expenses. Our true interests in the 
 war are broader and less tangible than those im- 
 puted. We have in internationalism and peace a 
 valuable, substantial and permanent interest, and 
 we cannot afford to have that interest destroyed by 
 a militaristic Germany. But we have no ax to 
 grind, no special national interest to subserve as 
 opposed to the common interest. We are therefore
 
 AMERICA AS ARBITER 145 
 
 in a better position to represent and pursue that 
 common interest. 
 
 It follows that our American policy should be so 
 to moderate and transform the war aims of our 
 Allies, so to revise the terms upon which they will 
 cease from fighting that we may win over the demo- 
 cratic elements in Germany and thus aid them to 
 overcome their militarist groups. Upon a peace so 
 obtained we may lay the foundations of a new inter- 
 national order. We are seeking the higher path for 
 the nations by attempting to block the lower paths. 
 
 But we can accomplish this, as our past efforts 
 have shown, only against the will not only of our 
 enemies but of influential groups among our Allies. 
 
 In eveiy alliance, as in each individual nation, we 
 discover a conflict of aims. In England there are 
 democrats and internationalists on one side and im- 
 perialists on the other, and France, Italy, Russia, 
 the United States, as well as Germany and Austria, 
 reveal similar cleavages. Within every country the 
 relative strength of the two groups varies. In 
 Japan, for example, the preponderance of power lies 
 in the hands of men who seek purely nationalistic 
 aims, whereas in America the weight of influence lies 
 with the opposite group. The main cleavage in the 
 struggle for internationalism and democracy is not 
 between nations. Men find their natural allies 
 among the populations against whom tliey fight. 
 
 A war policy, inspired by internationalism, there-
 
 146 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 fore, should seek to enlist behind its program all 
 the progressive forces on both sides of the fighting 
 line. 
 
 It will doubtless be urged against such a policy 
 that it is impossible within the frame-work of an 
 alliance. It will be urged that our concert with our 
 co-belligerents, the very instrument by which we are 
 to accomplish our purpose, will be destroyed if we 
 in America insist upon plans antagonistic to those 
 of our Allies. Without unity of conception and pur- 
 pose among its members no coalition can endure. 
 Thus in 1914 the union between Austria and Italy 
 broke down utterly because in a matter vital to both 
 the two allies were fundamentally opposed. There- 
 fore caution must be exercised in every league, all 
 useless recriminations avoided, and even fair criti- 
 cism on points not essential minimized. If Allies 
 are to pull together, good nature, generosity, a will- 
 ingness to forego minor rights and unimportant 
 precedences, a greater readiness to praise than 
 blame, are indispensable. Each ally must be ex- 
 pected to *' swallow" a good deal. 
 
 This very care, however, with which we must re- 
 spect the rights and susceptibilities of our Allies 
 reveals more than do the terms of any treaty the real 
 nature and essential weakness of the bonds that 
 unite. An alliance is a compromise. It is a union 
 of nations with diverse and even opposed interests on 
 the assumption that larger interests will be con-
 
 AMERICA AS ARBITER 147 
 
 served or gained by the union than will be lost. The 
 more accurately these rival interests are adjusted the 
 more effective the alliance. 
 
 Almost every coalition, however, develops a tend- 
 ency towards internal strain and fissure. Though 
 in the First Balkan "War Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia 
 were able to agree upon a common policy; the real 
 opposition of their ambitions was tragically revealed 
 in the Second Balkan War. Today a similar conflict 
 of interest lies hidden in both alliances. Bulgaria 
 and Austria have interests not identical with those 
 of Germany. France has no interest in Italian 
 claims in Dalmatia, and Serbia is bitterly opposed 
 to them. Russia and Roumania have found it diffi- 
 cult to agree. None of the Allies is over-anxious to 
 keep Japan in Shantung. The whole alliance is an 
 unstable equilibrium, maintained only by fear of a 
 formidable enemy. 
 
 When we reflect that almost every coalition is 
 thus a log-rolling arrangement, insecure in direct 
 proportion to its freedom from outside pressure, we 
 are forced to recognize that any reform in an entente 
 can be secured only at the cost of internal fric- 
 tion. The cost and danger of this friction must be 
 set against the value of the object sought. We have 
 no right to jeopardize harmony for any trivial gain. 
 We must not use our freedom of action to injure 
 our co-belligerents, to aid the enemy, to disrupt the 
 Alliance. In honour and decency we are bound not
 
 148 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 to make sudden and unheralded decisions, but must 
 enforce our policy with forewarning and tact. On 
 the other hand, we dare not surrender the real pur- 
 poses for which we entered the war in order to 
 maintain the adhesion of nations and groups op- 
 posed to those purposes. 
 
 What, then, concretely, is the method which 
 America should pursue? How are we to further 
 clear up the issues ? How remove or lessen the war 's 
 aggressive, imperialistic features and make the con- 
 flict in fact a war for democracy, internationalism 
 and peace? 
 
 Our first great opportunity to secure an assimila- 
 tion of the aims of our Allies to our own principles 
 arose before we declared war. If in March, 1917, we 
 had made our entrance into the struggle upon the 
 side of the Allies contingent upon their agreeing with 
 us upon a set of war aims, which would really lead to 
 a peace based upon internationalism, we should have 
 been in a far better position to carry our point than 
 we have been at any subsequent time. The Allies' 
 needed our aid far more than we ourselves knew, and 
 doubtless they would have been willing to make terms 
 with us as they made terms (of quite a different 
 character) with Italy and Roumania. Until they 
 agreed to our conditions, at least in principle, we 
 might have armed and prepared for war without any 
 actual declaration. Entering the war on these terms 
 we should have been able to prove to Russia that the
 
 AMERICA AS ARBITER 149 
 
 Alliance was not imperialistic and to German demo- 
 crats that the Alliance had no intention of crushing 
 Germany. The Allies might well have granted to 
 us as the price of our adhesion what they were un- 
 willing to concede once we had declared war without 
 conditions. 
 
 Having missed this opportunity we cannot do bet- 
 ter than to continue in the path we have already 
 chosen of defining our owti national policy in detail 
 and seeking to win over our co-belligerents to the 
 same general program. 
 
 We may do this in several ways. A convention 
 of the Allied Powers may be called to revise war 
 aims, or there may be an exchange of notes with 
 those Powers for the elimination of extreme de- 
 mands. Finally we may publicly set forth our o\vti 
 policy towards the war, a precise, emphatic and un- 
 ambiguous statement of the things for which Amer- 
 ica will fight and of the things for which she wiU 
 not fight, leaving perhaps certain matters to future 
 negotiation. 
 
 The first and second plans are more desirable than 
 the third, since they constitute an action within the 
 cadre of the Alliance. The third should not be tried 
 if it can be avoided. The more our policy is one 
 of persuasion and not of coercion the better. 
 
 Is any coercion, resulting from a limitation of 
 our war aims, moral? And can we carry out such 
 a program? Will the mere attempt split up the
 
 150 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 Alliance, assure a German victory, and defeat the 
 purposes for which we entered the war! 
 
 Not only is such a policy not immoral, but no 
 other policy is moral. Though the Allies may use 
 our armies and navy and draw upon our food, muni- 
 tions and credit, they may not control our funda- 
 mental purposes. It would be unworthy of us not 
 to take our full share in the struggle, to fight with 
 one hand, to save our own men and let our Allies 
 be killed in their stead. It would be immoral, as 
 well as unwise, to escape our burden or postpone our 
 assistance. But we are neither obliged to fight, nor 
 justified in fighting, for things to which we are 
 actually opposed. Nor is such refusal a disadvan- 
 tage to our Allies ; in the long run it is in their own 
 interest. Peace and security are better for them 
 than an increase of territory or pa\Tnents of money. 
 
 Whether such a policy is in itself dangerous to 
 the Alliance and to our own purposes is a question 
 requiring consideration. Clearly tact, caution and 
 candour are necessary, since any mistake would be 
 exploited by a resourceful enemy. Time and oc- 
 casion are of the essence of the problem. Much 
 depends upon the forces in control of the Central 
 Alliance and also upon the internal Balance of 
 Power within our own group. Had the Allies in 
 January, 1917, declared that they would not insist 
 upon Russian conquests in the Turkish Empire, the 
 Czar might have concluded a separate peace. At
 
 AMERICA AS ARBITER 151 
 
 that time, when the Entente could be maintained 
 only by the assistance of land-hungry Powers, and 
 a triumphant and unregenerate Germany was striv- 
 ing to disintegrate the alliance against her, any 
 revision of terms likely to disappoint any ally might 
 have spelled disruption and defeat. Because it was 
 inopportune. President Wilson's December request 
 that the Allies state their terms resulted in only an 
 exaggeration of their demands. But after the Rus- 
 sian Revolution the situation changed. The New 
 Russia was opposed to conquest, and the adhesion of 
 America to the Alliance tended to make the defection 
 of one or more of the smaller powers less dangerous. 
 
 The conditions for an explicit and detailed state- 
 ment of liberal terms, not only by the United States 
 but by all the Allies jointly, are already present. In 
 the first place, the desire for peace seems to be grow- 
 ing in Germany, and is especially insistent in 
 Austria. The Revolution in Russia has introduced 
 a new factor making for internationalism, and Amer- 
 ica's entry into the war contributes to the same re- 
 sult. We are today in a position to urge upon the 
 world a peace of internationalism. The Alliance 
 will bear the strain.^ 
 
 For the morality of any alliance is that of the 
 least moral (or most necessitous) nation essential 
 to the alliance and capable of deserting. If today 
 Japan could safely and profitably withdraw, and 
 
 1 See, however, note on page 143.
 
 152 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 leave her Allies to the certainty of defeat, it might 
 be incumbent upon them to make all possible con- 
 cessions to her to prevent this catastrophe. H, how- 
 ever, as a result of changed conditions, Japan were 
 no longer indispensable, if she were unable to cause 
 the Allies greater damage by withdrawal than she 
 caused herself, her bargaining power would be less. 
 The importance of this point cannot be over-empha- 
 sized; the elTective resistance of any one ally to a 
 policy which threatens to deprive it of anticipated 
 war gains is measured exactly by that nation's nui- 
 sance value, by the amount of injury it can safely 
 inflict by defection or by an actual union with an 
 enemy bent on conquest. In other words, each na- 
 tion relies upon its irreplaceability to extort the sort 
 of peace it desires. 
 
 It will be urged that it also relies upon solemn 
 agreements entered into by the Allies among them- 
 selves. Italy and Roumania have sacrificed much; 
 can England and France treat their promises to 
 these Allies as "scraps of paper"? But if the 
 United States, which w^as not a party, refuses to fight 
 for the fulfilment of those secret engagements, and 
 if without her assistance England and France cannot 
 bring about conditions under which the promises can 
 be redeemed, what is to be done? They are offers, 
 like Germany's offer of Arizona to Mexico, worthless 
 unless fulfilled. Assuming that Germany docs not 
 suddenly collapse, Italy can hardly hope to gain all
 
 AMERICA AS ARBITEE 153 
 
 that has been promised her without America's aid. 
 We will not accept this burden. We are more likely 
 to end the war when the international purposes for 
 which we entered it are achieved. As far as we are 
 concerned, the general nature of the peace we desire 
 has been outlined by Mr. W^ilson in his January 
 and Februar}^ (1918) notes. AVhether in the near 
 future we can impose these general principles upon 
 the Allies will depend, first, upon Germany's atti- 
 tude, and, secondly, upon the nuisance value of vari- 
 ous imperialistic groups controlling national policies 
 within the Alliance itself. Which of these Allies, by 
 making peace with Germany, or even aiding that na- 
 tion, can prohibit the adoption of such a program? 
 
 Clearly Great Britain cannot make a separate 
 peace, and would not if she could. A victory for 
 Germany would mean for her a partial eclipse. 
 France cannot make a separate treaty more valuable 
 to her than the peace that we seek. Belgium has 
 nothing with which to make terms, and in any case 
 would gain all that she wants from a peace for which 
 America is wiUing to fight. Serbia, Montenegro and 
 Portugal are negligible, as far as discretion in peace 
 making goes. Democratic Russia may make a sep- 
 arate peace, but not because of any refusal on our 
 part to fight for imperialistic aims. There remain 
 Italy and Japan. It is possible that Italian im- 
 perialists are already reconciling themselves to a 
 limitation of nationalistic aims (with which Italian
 
 154 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 democrats have never been in sympathy), and even 
 if an imperialistic government were tempted to make 
 a separate peace rather than surrender promised 
 territories, it would hesitate. By ceasing hostilities 
 Italy would release hundreds of thousands of Aus- 
 trian troops. But in the long run she would lose. 
 Better for her to gain little from an Allied victory 
 than eventually to lose all, since if Germany wins 
 Italy becomes little better than a vassal state.^ 
 
 The situation of Japan is anomalous. The Island 
 Empire has been taught imperialism in the bitter and 
 unscrupulous conflict of Europe in the Far East, and 
 she has learned not to be too magnanimous. Her 
 own necessities and the aggressions of the European 
 nations have forced her also to be aggressive. She 
 hurriedly entered the war for very concrete national 
 purposes, and in the apparent belief that the contest 
 would be short and that the Central Empires would 
 soon collapse. When Germany proved stronger than 
 
 1 As yet (March 9, 1918) no revision of the Italian treaty has 
 been made. "Lord R. Cecil, speaking on the subject of secret 
 treaties, contended that they were thoroughly justifiable in the 
 circumstances, and that so long as they exist we are bound by them. 
 It seemed to him, when asked to repudiate them, that the pacifists 
 did not understand the elements of their own creed, for how should 
 we make any progress in international affairs unless we regarded 
 such obligations as sacred? (Cheers.) These treaties were entered 
 into for obvious reasons. ("Annexation.") Not at all; they were 
 undertaken as part of the war measures of this coimtry. He knew 
 how much these treaties lent themselves to misrepresentation, and 
 that tliey were not popular, but a Government which for that reason 
 would not do what they thought right was unfit to hold office." 
 ^lanohester Guardian, February 14, 1918.
 
 AMERICA AS ARBITER 155 
 
 had been expected, Japan hesitated. She remained 
 technically an ally but morally she became an in- 
 terested neutral. Today, having no international 
 purposes to serve in the war, her interest would 
 seem to lie in a long and indecisive conflict, in a 
 permanent balancing of opposed European forces, 
 which would give her a free hand in Asia. Condi- 
 tions determine her policy. Fortunately for the Al- 
 lies, however, Japan's power depends upon her com- 
 merce and navy, and the vast preponderance of naval 
 power lies with the enemies of Germany. Japan, 
 even though she wished to do so, and that itself is ex- 
 tremely doubtful, would hesitate to change sides, 
 wliatever the provocation, so long as Russia held and 
 the Allies maintained control of the sea and of the 
 world's markets. Though a disappointed Japan 
 might damage the Allies, it would be only at an 
 excessive cost to herself. She can gain more from 
 the grudging generosity of the sea powers than from 
 any promise of eventual benefit from the enemy. 
 Even if her defection threw the war to Germany, 
 she herself would suffer too much from the hostiUty 
 of nearer neighbours to render such a venture wise.^ 
 
 1 Today (March 9, 1918) this situation has lar^'ely cnanged be- 
 cause Russia has not "held." Japan's strategic position, weakened 
 by America's entrance into the war, has been enormously strength- 
 ened by the dissolution of Russia. As a consequence we find Japan 
 proposing an invasion of Siberia, and England, France and Italy 
 vociferously applamiing. Whether the assent of these Powers to 
 Japan's proposal resulted from fear we are in no position to state. 
 It seems probable, however, that only dire necessity reconciled the
 
 156 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 Thus the situation so shapes itself as to open up 
 the possibility of America's further carrying out a 
 policy of destroying the imperialistic character of 
 the war and of converting it into a real war for 
 democracy and internationalism. 
 
 West-European Powers to this proposed invasion of Siberia, which 
 is likely to alienate Russia, deflect Japanese shipping from the inter- 
 national trade and, perhaps, in the end, to lead to a community of 
 interests between Japan and Germany.
 
 CHAPTER Vm 
 
 THE TRUE ALIGNMENT 
 
 ''In the peace to be concluded we demand an inter- 
 national arrangement for general disarmament, as 
 being the chief means of strengthening the debili- 
 tated states. General disarmament is the only way 
 to break any militarist supremacy and to secure a 
 lasting and peaceful understanding between the na- 
 tions. 
 
 **We demand the fullest freedom for international 
 trade and intercourse, as well as an unlimited right 
 of migration. We condemn any economic barriers 
 or any economic struggle between states. 
 
 *'A11 disputes between states must be settled by 
 compulsory international arbitration. 
 
 ''Equal rights should be granted for all the inhab- 
 itants of any country without regard to tongue, race 
 or religion. This would also mean the securing to 
 national minorities the right to develop their national 
 life. 
 
 "With all firmness we object to the violation in 
 any form of any nation. 
 
 "The re-establishment of Serbia as a self-govern- 
 ing, independent state is our absolute demand. 
 
 "We understand the deep feeling of the Poles 
 
 157
 
 158 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 for national unity. To admit the right of Russian 
 Poland to national independence but to deny that 
 same right to Prussian and Austrian Poland is con- 
 tradictory. 
 
 ''The full independence and economic self-depend- 
 ence (i. e., freedom from economic interference) of 
 Belgium is inevitable. In fulfilment of the German 
 government's promise at the beginning of the war, 
 the Belgian nation has to be compensated for the 
 damage caused by the war, and especially for the 
 economic values that have been taken way. Such a 
 repayment has nothing to do with the various kinds 
 of indemnities, which simply mean the plundering 
 of the vanquished by the victor, and which we there- 
 fore reject." ^ 
 
 The memorandum from which the above is quoted 
 is not a British, French, Russian or American mani- 
 festo, but was written and endorsed by Germans. 
 It is the deliberate statement of principles and aims 
 by the German Minority Socialists, and it represents 
 the views of hundreds of thousands of workers in 
 
 1 Extract from the Memorandum of the German Minority Social- 
 ists in reply to the questionnaire of the Dutch Scandinavian Com- 
 mittee. This memorandum, which was not allowed to be circulated 
 in Germany, can be read in full (in English) in the New York 
 Tribune, Aug. 12, 1917. See also the Statement of the Austrian So- 
 cialist Delegates, as well as the Statement of the Hungarian Socialist 
 Delegates (to the Dutch-Scandinavian Socialist Committee), trans- 
 lated from the Holland Neics, Review of the Nederlandsche Anti- 
 Oorlag Raad (June 20. Ifll7) and published in Approaches to the 
 Groat Settlement by Professor Emily Balch, New York, 1918, pp. 
 1S6 to 193 conclusive. Through the courtesy of Professor Balch the 
 present author was permitted to read her book in proof.
 
 THE TRUE ALIGNMENT 159 
 
 Leipzig and Chemnitz, in Berlin and Jena and in 
 all the great industrial centres of the Empire. De- 
 manding that Belgium be evacuated and indemnified, 
 that Prussian Poland be turned over to an inde- 
 pendent Polish Commonwealth, that Germany (as 
 well as her allies and enemies) refrain from making 
 conquests and exacting indemnities, insisting, finally, 
 on the establishment of a democratic international 
 system, this memorandum stands on a complete 
 parity with the declarations of the most liberal and 
 progressive elements in the Allied nations. Between 
 the Junkers and the German Minority Socialists 
 there is as wide a gulf as between any two groups in 
 Europe. They are both German, but are at opposite 
 poles. 
 
 We are likely to ignore the obvious fact that not 
 all Germans are alike, that a nation is a very com- 
 posite and heterogeneous thing, a vast agglomera- 
 tion of unlike and even antagonistic groups. 
 
 In war times especially we tend to think of a nation 
 as a unit for the reason that it fights as a unit. A 
 new solidarity springs up. Eich man, poor man, 
 beggar-man, thief; philanthropist and pickpocket, 
 society lady and kitchen maid, banker and janitor, 
 seem to be fused by compulsion, conviction and mob 
 psychology. The nation becomes a regimented thing 
 and the most unlike citizens are apparently reduced 
 to a common denominator. It is a Procrustean 
 process by which those who stand too high above
 
 160 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 the crowd have their feet or heads cut off and those 
 who are too small for the general patriotic sentiment 
 are painfully stretched. By one means or another, 
 however, the society achieves, if not an intellectual 
 uniformity, at least a unanimity of response to a 
 few simple appeals. 
 
 In countries with astute and powerful autocracies 
 this process of intellectual regimentation usually 
 takes place more completely than in democratic 
 countries. The pacifist, the conscientious objector 
 and the protestants of all sorts disappear beneath 
 the surface of the national consciousness. Rapidly 
 the nation becomes intolerant and united. This 
 more rapid cohesion of divergent groups constitutes 
 a great advantage for a nation like Germany, and, 
 parenthetically, a corresponding menace to neigh- 
 bouring democracies. For the true progress of 
 democracy depends upon the maintenance of an 
 intellectual independence among its groups, and this 
 becomes an obstacle to the instantaneous mobiliza- 
 tion of public opinion, to that concentration and in- 
 tensification of the general mind, which accompanies 
 every great war, just or unjust. If the democratic 
 nations are to live within the constant menace of 
 sudden war, they must either adapt themselves to 
 the German system or prevent Germany from main- 
 taining conditions which permit so instantaneous a 
 mobilization. 
 
 Yet in all countries, democratic and autocratic, we
 
 THE TRUE ALIGNMENT 161 
 
 find dissent, and, as the German Minority Socialist 
 memorandum and many other facts prove, the regi- 
 mentation of thought turns out to be in part a sup- 
 pression rather than a destruction of differences. 
 Latent, these differences reappear when a crucial 
 issue is raised. On the question of repelling in- 
 vaders, all Frenchmen stand united, but on whether 
 France should fight for an indemnity, or even to 
 reconquer Alsace-Lorraine, divergences appear. 
 The same is true of the public opinion of Great 
 Britain, Russia, Italy, the United States, Germany 
 and Austria. All Germans are determined that their 
 country shall not be crushed, but over the issue 
 whether Germany should war for conquests there is 
 the gravest conflict. 
 
 The issue of internationalism versus militarism 
 uncovers, therefore, a new cleavage, cutting athwart 
 the alignment between the hostile nations. Upon 
 this issue British Liberals and German Liberals 
 stand closer together than do British Liberals and 
 Conservatives or German Liberals and Conserva- 
 tives. So long as the war remains a war for national 
 security each nation is compacted and indivisible. 
 As soon, however, as men fight for principles, those 
 of one type, irrespective of nationality, range them- 
 selves against those of another, for opinions, beliefs, 
 and traditions are partly independent of frontiers. 
 
 This fact influences the relations of American lib- 
 erals to all the peoples at war. In actual fighting
 
 162 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 our Allies are certain nations with definite geo- 
 graphical boundaries. These nations may be demo- 
 cratic, semi-democratic or undemocratic. On the 
 other hand, in our effort to achieve our ultimate 
 purposes in the war, our Allies are found among the 
 democratic elements in all countries. 
 
 Not all the tories are in Germany. They abound 
 and multiply in every country where conditions are 
 favourable to their survival, and they are found in 
 democratic nations as well as in those ruled by auto- 
 crats. When, for example, in August, 1917, Presi- 
 dent Wilson demanded democratization in Germany 
 and promised a non-punitive peace, he proposed a 
 general test of liberalism. Immediately the major- 
 ity of German papers described his message as in- 
 solent, stupid, "grotesque nonsense," but the Social- 
 journal Vorwdrts gave its immediate adhesion. It 
 insisted that "it would be unworthy" of Germany 
 "to refuse to give the guarantees demanded by Mr. 
 Wilson." In other words, certain groups in Ger- 
 many vaguely recognized that American democrats 
 were fighting for principles by which they themselves 
 had long been inspired. Similarly, a few isolated 
 Hungarian journals praised the note, which also 
 found wide favour with British and French liberal 
 journals. On the other hand, certain Tory papers of 
 London found this democratic message less to their 
 taste. Said the Saturday Revieiv: "No punitive 
 damages, no dismemberment of empires, no eco-
 
 THE TRUE ALIGNMENT 163 
 
 nomic boycott, these three negatives are an epitome 
 of what the representative of the United States will 
 say when peace comes to be seriously discussed. 
 But these three negatives bar the war aims of Eng- 
 land, France, and Italy, as up to date they have been 
 formulated by their statesmen." ^ 
 
 The issue is not yet clearly drawn, but as it be- 
 comes sharper it will be obvious that although we 
 are fighting Germany and aiding Great Britain, we 
 are in our final policy in closer union with the Vor- 
 wdrts of Berlin than with the Saturday Review of 
 London. 
 
 Our policy, therefore, aims at the ultimate union 
 of all the democratic groups. Unfortunately these 
 groups, upon which we must build in formulating 
 a peace based upon internationalism, are not clearly 
 defined. Men are not militarists or pacifists through 
 and through, but in tens of millions of cases the same 
 man is one or the other, according to changing con- 
 ditions. The ordinary man who has boasted of his 
 pacifism will fight on occasion, and if the fighting 
 goes well may not even be averse to his country's 
 gaining something from the war. On the other hand, 
 in certain circumstances the militarists, the instinct- 
 ive fighters and the whole little world of "bloody- 
 minded Sir Lucius 'Triggers" are now and again 
 anxious for peace. Millions of men swing from one 
 attitude to the other. Still, certain economic and 
 
 "i^ Saturday Remew, Vol. 124, September 8, 1017, p. 177.
 
 164 THE END OP THE AVAR 
 
 intellectual groups in each nation incline to a policy 
 of conquest, imperialism and aggression, while other 
 groups incline to one of internationalism and peace. 
 What is needed for an international policy is the 
 unification and crystallization of a mass of diverse 
 elements in the various countries. 
 
 The adhesion of many differing groups in coun- 
 tries at war with each other, however, is not easy 
 to compass. For a policy of conquest nothing is 
 needed but the unity of a single nation, and this can 
 be secured by a stirring appeal to tradition and 
 patriotism. Each nation has long been taught to 
 hold itself intellectually apart from other nations, 
 and the war instinct is not only ancient and powerful, 
 but is cultivated by strong class interests and is 
 stimulated by a government, expressing the national 
 unity and controlling the sources of information 
 upon which public opinion is based. International 
 jealousy, malice, misrepresentation, all of which 
 flourish luxuriantly in wartime, work in favour of a 
 policy of national aggression. On the other hand, 
 a desire for internationalism, a new and weak desire 
 at best, cannot become effective until it brings about 
 a coalition of groups in hostile countries, groups 
 which do not always understand each other, do not 
 speak the same language and are not, in war time, 
 permitted to come together to discuss issues or seek 
 an international solidarity.
 
 THE TRUE ALIGNMENT 165 
 
 Moreover, in very few countries are these groups 
 given as full freedom of expression as are those 
 which are frankly imperialistic. The German Gov- 
 ernment suppresses the memorandum of the Minor- 
 ity Socialists, censors liberal papers and incarcerates 
 men like Liebknecht, while rabid annexationists are 
 permitted the utmost freedom of speech. Nor have 
 the Allied states always encouraged those of their 
 citizens who seek to meet the enemy and by discus- 
 sion to arrive at a common basis, whereas they have 
 given full sway to those who threaten and endeavour 
 to terrify the enemy. The Daily Mail and the Morn- 
 ing Post of London have always been permitted to 
 be sent abroad, although it is by quoting from jour- 
 nals like these that German imperialists attempt to 
 prove to their people that the Allies wish to crush 
 them. On the other hand, liberal papers like The 
 Nation (of London) are often considered too dan- 
 gerous to export. *'One might assume," remarks 
 Mr. Norman Angell . . . ''that tlie foreign circula- 
 tion of this latter group — Socialist papers, or Liberal 
 journals in favor of a moderate settlement — would 
 be encouraged. In every case, however, it is these 
 papers that the various Ccnsorsliips prevent from 
 going abroad, that they sometimes suppress at home 
 and always discourage. It is the former group," 
 (journals favouring a punitive and severe settle- 
 ment with Germany), it is these journals that are
 
 166 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 ''used by the enemy governments, that are immune 
 from such prohibition or embarrassment. ' ' ^ 
 
 Perhaps we should not blame the poor censor too 
 harshly. After all, he is only expressing the gen- 
 eral intolerance and nervous irritability of the war 
 temper. Like the common run of men, the censor, 
 even though he be a mild-mannered man, cannot con- 
 ceive of a nation at once energized for war and recep- 
 tive to proposals of peace. To think of peace, to 
 think even of the true objects of the war, seem to him 
 relaxing and weakening. Let jingoes and imperial- 
 ists, the men who love war or the profits of war, whip 
 us into a frenzy, but let those who think in terms of 
 ultimate reconciliation and world-reorganization be 
 shamed and silenced. 
 
 Fortunately, however, the mere instinctive fighting 
 temper is mortal, and as this first mood passes 
 serious men begin to reflect upon the war, and to en- 
 visage it in a larger way than is at first possible. 
 The sheer duration of the conflict makes for a re- 
 vision of judgments. Thus it happens that powerful 
 forces in all belligerent countries tend to create a 
 union of like-minded groups disposed toward the 
 attainment of a permanent international organiza- 
 tion. One of these forces is war-weariness. To 
 disgust with the slaughter, waste and brutal- 
 ity of the war, there is added a sense of its 
 
 1 Norman Angell. Introduction to "Approaches to the Great Set- 
 tlement," by Emily Greene Balch, New York, 1918, p. 7.
 
 THE TRUE ALIGNMENT 167 
 
 futility, its essential indecisiveness, its moral 
 ineffectiveness. The feeling is gaining ground, 
 moreover, that whatever the war's immediate occa- 
 sion, its ultimate cause — the outstanding fact which 
 made it sooner or later inevitable — was the interna- 
 tional anarchy in which the nations have so long 
 lived. There is no desire among democrats to re- 
 peat the ghastly struggle, to begin other wars when 
 this war is ended. And such new conflicts must 
 inevitably occur unless a real solution is found for 
 our international problems. Not alone and not au- 
 tomatically will the war bring internationalism and 
 peace. "War can do many things," says Bernard 
 Shaw, "but it cannot end war." Only a peace, in- 
 formed by a spirit of internationalism, can lead to 
 this result. If we leave the making and keeping of 
 peace to the ultra-nationalists we shall have had the 
 war for our pains. 
 
 When we look about the world for the allies of 
 internationalism, therefore, we find them in the 
 democratic, liberal and socialistic groups of all 
 nations. These groups desire a fair peace, though 
 they differ as to what the words mean. In prin- 
 ciple and from interest these groujDS are opposed 
 to the militaristic classes in their own nations. They 
 are interested in economic development, social bet- 
 terment, progress through free international inter- 
 course, and are of necessity opposed to a destruction 
 of their industrial and social life by war, though
 
 168 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 they are not opposed to every war. Politically they 
 are the enemies of those exploitative groups which 
 maintain power by an appeal to the war spirit and 
 to international jealousy. The democratic classes 
 were forced into the present war through the break- 
 down of the old industrial system under which they 
 lived. That system was excessively nationalistic, 
 was based on an economic competition between 
 nations, which inevitably led to war. So long as 
 there existed a cut-throat competition in trade and 
 armaments, each group of producers, however nat- 
 urally pacific, was pushed towards war. But even 
 while going to war all these groups vaguely appre- 
 hended the possibility of a better system, in which 
 industry could develop, nations expand and democ- 
 racy live without incessant conflict. 
 
 The intellectual chasm between these groups of 
 democrats and the opposed groups of militarists and 
 reactionaries is wide and deep. * ' The difference be- 
 tween those who believe and those who disbelieve in 
 the Stockholm idea," says a writer in the (London) 
 Nation Supplement of October, 1917, *4s so tre- 
 mendous that one fears to appear exaggerated and 
 hysterical by stating it. If one begins by saying that 
 it is the difference between 'open diplomacy* and 
 'secret diplomacy' one has only touched the fringe 
 of the truth; it is the difference between a secret 
 peace, between an armed peace and a people's peace, 
 between the dry bones of the eighteenth century and
 
 THE TRUE ALIGNMENT 169 
 
 the fresh hopes of a new generation, between *The 
 Prince' of Machiavelli and the Sermon on the Mount. 
 There are, in fact, two irreconcilable worlds — the 
 world of Willy and Nicky, of the Congress of Vienna, 
 the Congress of Paris, the Congress of Berlin, the 
 Triple Alliance, the Dual Alliance, the Triple En- 
 tente, the Congress of Algeciras, and the world still 
 struggling to be born in the Conference which never 
 met at Stockholm. Sweep away all the deadwood 
 of political phrases, and you find that the two worlds 
 are based on two irreconcilable ideals — the ideal of 
 international competition and the ideal of interna- 
 tional co-operation. Therefore, the question as to 
 which ideal and which world will issue victorious out 
 of the war depends simply on the question what it is 
 that we believe and what it is that we want. ' ' ^ 
 
 In Germany we find this cleavage between the 
 groups extremely sharp. On the one hand we have 
 the left wing of the socialists who desire a peace 
 without annexations or indemnities and are striv- 
 ing to attain an international organization. On the 
 other hand, in no other country have we so strong 
 and violent a group of expansionists and imperial- 
 ists. Between these extremes we find the Majority 
 Socialists, the Radicals and Liberals and a large 
 section of the Catliolics, all of which groups united 
 in the adoption of the Reichstag declaration of July 
 19, 1917. In Austria and even in Hungary, as also 
 
 1 "\\ ar and Peace," The \ation Supplement, October, 1917.
 
 170 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 in France, Italy, England and America, we find tbc 
 same general cleavage. 
 
 In this alignment we often find men of different 
 social classes united and men of the same social 
 class disunited. Of two brothers, both carpenters 
 or peasants, one may be an imperialist and the other 
 an internationalist. Upon the whole, however, the 
 centre and core of the democratic international 
 movement in each country lies in the labour group. 
 
 During the last forty years these labour groups 
 have developed a strong interest in international- 
 ism, due in part to economic conditions. Long be- 
 fore Karl Marx urged proletarians of all lands to 
 unite, and ever since, the wage-earners of each coun- 
 try, recognizing their similarity of position with 
 wage-earners in other lands, have developed a cer- 
 tain degree of international consciousness. They 
 have discovered that the workers in one land 
 are affected favourably or unfavourably by the same 
 circumstances that affect their fellows in foreign 
 lands. A rise of wages in Germany accrues in- 
 directly to the benefit of the British workman, and 
 vice versa, and many have been the attempts made 
 to secure a co-operation between British, French 
 and German workmen, in the matter of wages, hours 
 of labour, factory protection, social legislation and 
 other conditions. There has steadily gro^vn up an 
 international labour legislation which has had the 
 indirect effect of increasing the number of those
 
 THE TRUE ALIGNMENT 171 
 
 wage-earners in various countries who perceived that 
 they had interests in common. It is, of course, not 
 to be denied that the wage-earners of one nation 
 may benefit at the expense of those of another, as 
 when by means of a protective tariff a given industry 
 is destroyed in Austria or Switzerland and is re- 
 established in the United States. On the whole, 
 however, the wage-earners have more to gain and 
 less to lose from international peace than have their 
 employers. As a consequence we find in the labour 
 programs of all nations this common ideal of the 
 internationalism of the workers. This is especially 
 true in the socialist movement where, although in 
 recent years there has been a recrudescence of 
 labour nationalism, the international spirit still 
 holds sway. 
 
 One of the firmest hopes of a democratic peace, 
 therefore, and of the laying of a solid foundation 
 for internationalism, lies in an increasing influence 
 of the labour element in all countries upon the course 
 of the war. The war has moved in this direction. 
 True, like other conflicts, this war has also led to an 
 initial restriction of individual rights, especially of 
 wage-earners. The trade unions were obliged to 
 surrender many of their old restrictions and privi- 
 leges and the principle of conscription was applied 
 to a considerable extent to industrial life. But for 
 even these developments there have been offsets. 
 The surrender of trade union privileges has tended
 
 172 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 to break down barriers within the labour ranks and 
 thus to unite workers, and the common pressure laid 
 upon all wage-earners by conscription not only in- 
 creased their solidarity, but also educated them in 
 the facts of the war. The wage-earners are willing 
 to accept sacrifices so long as they believe that they 
 are fighting for a principle. But they will not make 
 them for the sake of conquests or indemnities. They 
 will not sell their lives or their liberties for money or 
 national prestige. 
 
 What gives the wage-earners, however, their 
 greatest influence in this war is the old law of supply 
 and demand which, for once, works in their favour. 
 Theirs is a scarcity value, as it was in England after 
 the Black Death. So great is the demand for labour- 
 ers, not only on the battle line and in the war indus- 
 tries but also for the task of keeping the civil popula- 
 tion alive, that there are not enough men and women 
 to go around. The industrial reserve army van- 
 ishes ; each worker becomes a marginal man, essen- 
 tial to the welfare of society. Their scarcity enables 
 the workers not only to secure better conditions, but 
 also greater political influence. They are far 
 stronger, however, than their votes. Today no na- 
 tion can win the war unless it has the enthusiastic 
 support of the men indispensable to the maintenance 
 of production. 
 
 If, therefore, the wage-earners of all the countries 
 refuse to fight except for terms which come within
 
 THE TRUE ALIGNMENT 173 
 
 the meaning of their principles, the imperialistic ele- 
 ments in the war will be swept away. This process 
 has already begun and is making rapid headway. 
 In England we find the Premier giving heed to the 
 trade unions and assimiliating his peace terms to 
 those that they have formulated. In France and 
 Italy the same tendency is at work, though it mani- 
 fests itself somewhat differently. We know less 
 about Germany and Austria, although there, too, the 
 governments seem increasingly concerned over the 
 wage-earners' reaction towards the war,^ We are 
 still only in the beginnings of the movement. How 
 far the nations may go in this direction under the 
 impetus of the workers is indicated by the change 
 which has come over Russia since the old bureau- 
 cratic government gave way to a democratic gov- 
 ernment, proletarian and socialistic in character. 
 What has happened in Russia foreshadows changes, 
 not necessarily similar, in other countries, in which, 
 the working classes are forced up to a position of 
 influence and domination. 
 
 1 Since the conclusion of a peace between the Central Powers on 
 the one side and th«> T'krainc and Russia on <hf other, the labour un- 
 rest in Germany and Austria has probably been lessened, although 
 we have no accurate information on the subject.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE WAE BENEATH THE WAE 
 
 There was little chance of any peace based on in- 
 ternationalism so long as Eussia was ruled by its 
 old reactionary government. The Czardom was per- 
 haps the lowest form of political organization under 
 which any great people lived, and to the Russian 
 bureaucracy our Western ideals were simply a 
 weapon to be used against the rival bureaucracy of 
 Prussia. The Revolution, however, brought the 
 working classes into control of the Russian govern- 
 ment and for the first time we had one of the great 
 belligerents dominated by a proletarian, socialistic 
 group. It was from this group, saturated with Marx 
 and Engels and the whole literature of social revolu- 
 tion, that there issued an appeal for a settlement of 
 the war based not on conquest but on international- 
 ism. The Russian Democracy demanded peace 
 without punitive indemnities or forced annexations. 
 For this utterance the allies of New Russia w^ere 
 unprepared. Suddenly out came this blunt pro- 
 posal, and decorous diplomats shuddered at its crud- 
 ity. In polite circles one does not do such tilings. 
 Besides, the plan had not been thought out. Indem- 
 nities — there are many kinds of indemnities; and as 
 for annexations and qua si-annexations and the innu- 
 
 174
 
 THE WAR BENEATH THE WAR 175 
 
 merable adumbrations of annexation, they may be 
 for the lasting good of the people annexed. It was 
 with neat rapier-like thrusts that the spokesmen of 
 the Allies punctured this preposterous pacifism of the 
 Russians, this absurd generosity, which offered to 
 forgo Constantinople and other valuable considera- 
 tions in return for a just peace. Yet all this criti- 
 cism fell short in that it failed to grasp the situation 
 emotionally. The arguments were good enough, but 
 more than arguments are needed to sway a big cub of 
 a republic like Russia. 
 
 It was a crude republic — in those far-away days 
 of Kerensky — crude, ear-splitting and hobble-de-hoy. 
 It was a pathetic republic, rent by dissensions and 
 lacerated by endless talk. It was a republic con- 
 ceived in the spiritual and physical hunger of gaunt, 
 big-boned men, a republic bom in the mud and 
 blood of the trenches, and reeking of its birth-place. 
 The government of New Russia was too jammed 
 with intellectuals to be superlatively wise, and doubt- 
 less it said and did things which to the sophisticated 
 seemed ridiculous. For all tliat, however, it was a 
 government with a certain half-blind sense of reali- 
 ties, a government that felt with the common people 
 of the world, and, feeling, understood. It was a 
 young, impulsive, aspiring republic, not pre- 
 tentiously wise, not blase, not middle-aged. Yet it 
 was wiser than the democratic governments of 
 Britain, France, Italy and America.
 
 176 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 Herein lay its wisdom; it dealt with men and not 
 with diplomats ; it dealt with hunger, cold, wretched- 
 ness, ^vith death on the battle-field and with the 
 aspirations of the unlettered, and not with musty- 
 formulas, diplomatic traditions and arid abstrac- 
 tions. It knew that the dull millions of Russia de- 
 sired peace and it believed that if the Allies could be 
 brought to a renunciation of their own secret im- 
 perialistic designs, they could force the German Gov- 
 ernment to recede from its false position, or failing 
 to do this could incite the German people to revolt. 
 The heady Russian democrats had a supreme faith in 
 revolutions — even in a German revolution. 
 
 Whether they were right or wrong, who can tell? 
 For my part I believe that President Wilson was 
 clear-sighted when in December, 1917, he placed him- 
 self — perhaps too late — in a sympathetic attitude to- 
 wards the Russian position.^ At the time, however, 
 the Russians found scant sympathy in the British, 
 French and Italian Foreign Offices. They were told 
 to hold their tongues and fight. They were willing 
 to fight ; this pleading Russian republic was patheti- 
 
 1 "All these things have been true from the very beginning of 
 this stupendous war; and I cannot help thinking that if they had 
 been made plain at the very outset the sympathy and enthusiasm of 
 the Russian people might have been once for all enlisted on the side 
 of the Alli(^s, suspicion and distrust swept away, and a real and 
 lasting union of purpose effected. Had they believed these things 
 at the very moment of their revolution and had they been confirmed 
 in that belief since, the sad reverses which have recently marked the 
 progress of their affairs toward an ordered and stable government of 
 free men might have been avoided."
 
 THE WAR BENEATH THE WAE 177 
 
 cally loyal to the Alliance. Though Russia had lost 
 far more heavily than any other nation, though its 
 unshod half-armed soldiers had been killed by the 
 millions, it was still willing to keep on with the drag- 
 ging, disastrous battle, if only the Allies would con- 
 tribute their share towards bringing on a democratic 
 peace. Russia asked for a restatement of terms, 
 eliminating all imperialistic plans. The Allies 
 evaded, delayed, talked. And by evading, delaying 
 and talking they killed or at least helped to kill the 
 Kerensky government. They did what Germany 
 alone could never have accomplished — made way for 
 a Bolshevik government, willing to sign an armistice 
 with Germany, willing, perhaps, even to sign a sep- 
 arate peace. 
 
 Russia is utterly weary of war. Not only of this 
 war, but of the war which is to come out of this war, 
 and of wars and wars to follow. She knows in her 
 own person, what we in America do not yet truly 
 know, that war is the negation of civilization. To 
 the Russian, war is a familiar and odious companion. 
 He has seen the death, disease and maiming of mil- 
 lions; the hunger, the sorrow, the weakening dread; 
 the brutalization of soldiers; the bestiality of life 
 and death in the trenches. He knows of the graft 
 of contractors and camp-followers; of the poor, dis- 
 eased women who accompany the soldiers; of the 
 rape, mutilation, wilful murder, that occur even in 
 the best regulated armies. They are philosophers
 
 178 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 in their way, these Russians, university graduates 
 and peasants alike. They believe that under all the 
 rank phrases of humanity and whatnot there lies in 
 the warring nations the serpent of self-justification 
 for brutal instincts, for the raw, blatant desire of 
 national prestige and aggrandizement, for the in- 
 dividual's secret will to hate and slay. They look 
 out upon the carnage, which to them seems avoid- 
 able, and sadly repeat, ''With how little wisdom is 
 the world governed ! ' ' They see through their own 
 pretensions to their own raw appetites and passions 
 beneath. 
 
 They see more. The Russian Revolutionists 
 opened not only the prisons but the Imperial ar- 
 chives, wherein political secrets are condemned to lie 
 for a century and more. In cubbyholes in formal 
 offices within the Petrograd palace they found solemn 
 compacts, sealed no doubt with hard red wax, con- 
 cerning the "equitable indemnities" and "valuable 
 compensations" which were to accrue to Nicholas 
 and his bureaucrats in consideration for the mute 
 mujiks to be butchered on the Vistula. These docu- 
 ments revealed a devious diplomacy. Having seen 
 these papers, though they had already suspected 
 their existence, how could the Russians place faith 
 in their own justification for the war? Who was to 
 blame? Was the militarism of Germany unique in 
 the world? Had Imperial Russia been faultless? 
 Would war be for ever banished when some victori-
 
 THE WAR BENEATH THE WAR 179 
 
 ous Russian general rode home triumphantly from 
 Berlin as Bonaparte returned to Paris from Italy? 
 To the Russian the analogy was uncomfortable. 
 
 Russia wanted peace. The Revolution was over; 
 the Little Father had crumpled up into a wealthy* 
 and innocuous citoyen and the whole imperialistic 
 system in all its loud and pretentious emptiness had 
 burst. But everything remained to be done. There 
 were lands to be divided and ploughed; factories to 
 be built, a new government and a new polity to be 
 created. To the peasant a tight little farm seemed 
 more attractive than a damp grave in the marshes, 
 and to Russia as a whole the chance for a peaceful 
 economic development more worth than dominion 
 in Asia Minor. And in choosing the right to develop 
 its own resources rather than secure Constantinople, 
 the nation showed a sure instinct and a sense of 
 its larger national interests. Time works on the 
 side of Russia, and the Revolution gives it time. 
 If Russia could secure a fair peace for herself, her 
 allies and her enemies, a peace without annexations 
 and without indemnities, she could afford to give up 
 her imperialistic dreams. Like the United States, 
 Russia is one of the big, uncrowded, and eventually 
 secure nations. 
 
 What Russia offered therefore was a common 
 peace and a mutual forgiveness. To the mujik, with 
 his deep sense of a primitive Christianity, with his 
 good nature and his unwillingness to make fine dis-
 
 180 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 tinctions, all nations and peoples were alike sinners, 
 responsible for this war. "We are all so much at 
 fault, ' ' he might have said, ' * that who struck the first 
 blow or struck foul is less important than how we 
 can once more be brothers. We peoples of Europe 
 are not enemies but common victims of a single 
 tragedy. Let there be no punishment or even as- 
 sessment of blame, for all have been punished 
 enough. Let us not ask what lands belong to what 
 people by evil right and usage, but only 'What 
 sovereignty does each of these free peoples wish to 
 acknowledge?' Let Alsace go wherever Alsatians 
 freely choose. Let there be no compulsion, for com- 
 pulsion is evil, no revenge, for revenge is evil, and let 
 there be peace." 
 
 Considering the nation as a continuous historical 
 entity, the change from Imperial to Democratic Rus- 
 sia was in the nature of a conversion, a deep re- 
 ligious houleversement. And it was with the en- 
 thusiasm of a new convert that Russia appealed to 
 the world to end the war. It was at this moment that 
 one of the greatest opportunities presented itself for 
 a truly international peace. Had the United States 
 at that time endorsed the proposals of the Kerensky 
 government, or had she later attempted to come to 
 an understanding with the Bolsheviks, the two na- 
 tions, Russia and America, might have forced their 
 Allies to agree upon a reasonable peace and have 
 compelled the German ruling classes to come to
 
 THE WAR BENEATH THE WAR 181 
 
 terms. Unfortunately, President Wilson did not rise 
 to the unique ojjportunity, and the Allies presented a 
 solid opposition to Russia's request. **To end the 
 war now," they replied, "is to play into the enemy's 
 hands, to allow her to prepare for a new attack." 
 As for the German Government, it saw in Russia's 
 generous proposals merely a chance for a subtle 
 diplomatic chicanery. It made overtures. It filled 
 the land with its emissaries, to whom Russia, 
 anxious for peace, listened patiently. But it soon 
 appeared that what Germany wanted was not what 
 Russia wanted, a universal peace based on justice, 
 but a separate peace and a free hand against her 
 Western enemies. Germany's ideals and ambitions 
 were those of the parchments in the Russian ar- 
 chives. What Russia had been Germany still was. 
 Therefore Russia fought on as she was compelled 
 to do. She fought because she desired to retain her 
 democracy and believed that she could not retain it 
 unless Germany secured hers. But her metliod of 
 fighting was different from any the war had yet 
 seen. She used intellectual and moral rather than 
 physical weapons. Unable to invade Germany, or 
 even to resist invasion, finding it impossible to feed 
 her immense army, she changed her tactics. As she 
 grew weaker she became more assertive. She felt 
 no respect for iho Kaiser and his bemodalled Gen- 
 erals and Gcheimrafp and did not pretend to respect 
 them. She treated these worthy dignitaries as
 
 182 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 though she and not Germany were the conqueror. 
 
 This was a new and maddening diplomacy ; a novel 
 defiance in the name not of intrinsic power and 
 formidableness but of the better nature of the very 
 people defied. The Russian democracy had a vast 
 moral asset, a vast moral resource. It knew that 
 it stood for progress, and for enlightened and pacific 
 international relations. It enjoyed the prestige of 
 standing for the democracies of the world, that of 
 Germany included. The Russian delegates at Brest- 
 Litovsk were constantly threatening the dignified 
 German plenipotentiaries with the displeasure of 
 the German working classes; they talked over the 
 heads of these generals to the German people be- 
 yond. They made no pretence of military strength, 
 relying not upon their own soldiers but upon the 
 mere physical difficulty of overrunning Russia and 
 the moral reluctance of the German people to attempt 
 the task. Take Petrograd if you wish, they prac- 
 tically said; take Moscow, Irkutsk, Vladivostok. It 
 will merely mean that you have more people to feed 
 and keep in order, more territory to cover. Conquer 
 us by all means. It was passive resistance carried 
 to its logical conclusion. 
 
 The real strength of the Bolsheviki, however, lay 
 in the fact that they represented the working classes 
 of the world. The war is approaching a stage 
 where the workers in all the countries are rapidly 
 gaining in power and influence. And what they de-
 
 THE WAR BENEATH THE WAR 183 
 
 sire is something deeper than the democracy which 
 prevailed in Europe and America in 1914; they de- 
 mand economic and social, as well as political de- 
 mocracy. They do not wish the world to be made 
 safe for societies ruled by trust magnates and lesser 
 capitalists, with all their sinuous retainers and wrig- 
 gling hangers-on. They have nothing to do with a 
 democracy based upon the exploitation of the poor. 
 Here we have a new variant of the theory of a 
 democratic war. No longer does the issue hinge 
 chiefly upon the relations between states but be- 
 tween social classes. The doctrine is obviously early 
 socialist, before socialism had been toned down by 
 half a century of parliamentarianism and com- 
 promise, and before it had become realistic or 
 learned to make distinctions. This proletarian de- 
 mocracy is different, in aspiration at least, from any 
 other that we know. Its temper bears the same rela- 
 tion to that of the channelled democracies of West- 
 em Europe as did Primitive Christianity to some of 
 our well-starched faiths of today. It is violent, ex- 
 treme, vaguely generous, vaguely denunciatory, car- 
 ing more for the idea than for the narrow reality, 
 preferring a large failure to a little victory. It is a 
 Democracy with more faith than knowledge, bound 
 to be disappointed, and prepared for disappoint- 
 ment.^ It is a Democracy which opposes not only 
 
 I Today (March 0, lOlS) the Holsheviki seem to have failed com- 
 pletely either to make a reasonnMe peace, to ofTer passive resistance, 
 or to awaken the German proletariat to revolt.
 
 184 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 Militarism, Autocracy and Conquest but also such 
 cherished institutions as Private Property and 
 Privilege. 
 
 To us this sudden jump of the Bolsheviki into the 
 saddle is not only of intrinsic interest but is of even 
 greater importance as a symptom of a world-wide 
 revelation, and of a coming world-wide revolution. 
 This Democracy of the Proletariat or Dictatorship 
 of the Proletariat — whichever it is — will not guide 
 Russia permanently, for it will either go down or 
 change. Yet it is not only the father to more stable 
 democracies to follow but is above all else the de- 
 tached interpreter of the war. To these Bolshe\'iki, 
 this portentous war of ours is not the true war, but 
 a superficial conflict. There is a tear beneath, the 
 war, a war of the poor and exploited of all the world 
 against all exploiters, big and little, respectable and 
 disreputable. The goal to which the Bolsheviki look 
 is a society in which all shall have an equal opportun- 
 ity to develop latent faculties, where every child born 
 of woman is to have his place in the sun. Compared 
 to this projected revolution of the entire world what 
 matter whether the poor of Trieste are exploited by 
 Austrian or Italian capitalists'? 
 
 All through the dualized world this conception 
 of the war beneath the war appears in one form or 
 another. In Italy, France, England, Germany, the 
 United States there runs a current, weak or strong, 
 against class domination. The victory is to be
 
 THE WAR BENEATH THE WAR 185 
 
 gained by and for the only class that has never been 
 victorious. Already labour has to be placated. 
 What labour thinks, what labour will do in a given 
 contingency, is the overriding problem. This pro- 
 letarian impulse, which may be traced in its growth 
 and its growing severance from the governments, 
 was obvious even before the war. The Russian 
 revolt es welcomed the world conflict because they 
 hoped that it would precipitate the social revolution, 
 as the Crimean War had emancipated the serfs and 
 the Japanese War inaugurated the constitutional 
 system. So, too, in Italy, syndicalists hoped that the 
 war would disrupt their own inefficient capitalistic 
 system. Today similar ideas reveal themselves else- 
 where. To what was Lord Lansdowne's appeal at- 
 tributed, rightly or wrongly, except to the fear that 
 the war, if continued, would bring to the surface 
 the greater war beneath the war, and this social 
 upheaval would consign all lords, spiritual and 
 temporal, as well as lords by the grace of financial 
 accumulation, to one indiscriminate scrap heap? If 
 that were democracy, and it were to leave the mas- 
 ters of the world penniless, might they not fight too 
 long for it? 
 
 Such is the meaning of the Russian propaganda 
 as it has culminated in the activities of the Bolshe- 
 viki. It is tlie impulse and sentiment behind this 
 movement, not its specific manifestations, that are 
 significant. Undoubtedly these Russian revolution-
 
 186 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 ists have committed absurdities because they are an 
 unbelievably literal folk, taking their religion and 
 economics so textually that we temporizing people, 
 who like even our virtues in decent moderation, are 
 bewildered and repelled. But absurdities, excesses 
 and boundless inefficiencies do not count in the long 
 run, and what remains is an essential truth hidden 
 under grotesque exaggerations, a real fidelity to a 
 crude force working for a true socialized democracy. 
 And all this is not a Russian, but a world phenome- 
 non. The Russian Revolution is merely the visible 
 part of the iceberg. 
 
 Some of the actions of these wild Bolsheviki have 
 been wise. We have long talked about open diplo- 
 macy but no government ever before picked up an 
 armful of secret treaties and threw them out of the 
 window to the journalists below. By so doing the 
 Russians cleared the atmosphere astonishingly. 
 They were also able to achieve what the Allied 
 diplomats had failed to accomplish — to reveal the 
 German Government's plans of conquest. It would 
 be a world tragedy, however, if the Bolsheviki were 
 to be induced to sign a permanent treaty with Ger- 
 many. An exploitation of Russian socialism by 
 German imperialists would be a disastrous blow 
 against world democracy. 
 
 What eventual success the Bolsheviki will have, 
 even if they secure a long lease of political control, 
 is problematical. They are attempting in the face of
 
 THE WAR BENEATH THE WAR 187 
 
 opposition at home and abroad to perform a difficult, 
 perhaps an intrinsically impossible task. They are 
 seeking to erect a full-fledged socialistic state upon a 
 society which has not gone through the long dis- 
 cipline of capitalism. They are dealing with un- 
 educated people, who have not yet made themselves 
 into the acquisitive, short-sighted but clear-viewed 
 men and women who constitute the population of 
 capitalistic countries. They are working with a so- 
 ciety in which resources are undeveloped and eco- 
 nomic organization is primitive, in competition 
 with higlily organized and efficient capitalistic so- 
 cieties. Can they hold together? Can they bind 
 into some sort of union the miscellaneous artisans, 
 peasants and shopkeepers of the vast Russian re- 
 public? Can tliey enthuse with a common inspira- 
 tion millions of different race and language \sithin 
 their country? Or will they not break down through 
 a lack of internal cohesion and be forced to take up 
 again the long march toward social co-operation 
 through a gradually enfolding capitalistic develop- 
 ment? 
 
 If they do fail, they will still have succeeded. 
 Though the Russian socialistic democracy prove 
 blind, unripe and incapable of immediate sun-ival, it 
 will have spoken a word that has appealed to mil- 
 lions, not only in Russia but in other lands. What 
 the Bolsheviki do, even though they end ingloriously 
 in some morass, will break the spell of centuries and
 
 188 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 give a new hope to men who have always devoutly 
 believed that only those who were born with spurs 
 could ride, and all others must look up to the riders 
 reverently. They have given birth to the hope that 
 the time is not far off when the common people of the 
 world will be wise enough to rule. In the long, slow- 
 moving history of democracy the Bolsheviki, what- 
 ever their disasters, will take their place. For to 
 these unlettered workmen the war has become, in a 
 sense which we in America can hardly comprehend, a 
 war for democracy. The War Beneath the War 
 stands revealed. 
 
 Yet war is not won by inspiration alone, nor by 
 a vision of a beautiful society to come. It is won 
 in the present against present obdurate enemies, and 
 those who do not see quite so far into the future have 
 often an advantage over those who look a century 
 ahead. Whatever the ultimate hope of the great 
 ascension of the working classes of the world, there 
 lies today athwart the path of these workers a power- 
 ful and aggressive nation in which the wage-earners, 
 though class-conscious, are held down by force and 
 prestige. Whether we seek the democracy that 
 Earl Grey and Lloyd George seek or the broader 
 democracy demanded by the Bolsheviki, we must 
 sooner or later obtain the adhesion of our last aUy, 
 the democratic masses of Germany.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 IS GERMANY INCORRIGIBLE t 
 
 Much ink has been spilled over the question whether 
 the German people — as distinguished from its Gov- 
 ernment — is responsible for this war. Some writers 
 attach blame to the Emperor alone, to the Crown 
 Prince, to a few military chiefs and Hotspur profes- 
 sors; others accuse the clamorous sect of Pan-Ger- 
 mans; still others widen the charge to include the 
 whole aristocratic brood of Junker landlords and the 
 big, upstart industrialists of the Khine, with their 
 pliant accomplices in the banks, government offices 
 and newspapers of Berlin. Finally the German 
 people as a whole — the sixty-seven millions of it — is 
 indicted. By sins of commission and omission, by 
 truculence, moral insensibility or sheer lamblike obe- 
 dience, the whole German population — officials, 
 wage-earners, artists, musicians; the quaint toy- 
 makers of Niirnberg, the half-fed mill-girls of Chem- 
 nitz; hotel-keepers, pawnbrokers, insurance agents, 
 hucksters, peasants, philanthropists, prostitutes and 
 poets, all of the vast German people in its complete 
 integrity has, it is claimed, brought upon itself this 
 sin. It has at least a secondary guilt as an accom- 
 plice after the fact. 
 
 Our official theory absolves the German people. 
 
 189
 
 190 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 We, the American nation, are alleged to be fighting 
 against an autocratic government but are on terms 
 of friendship and amity with the excellent German 
 people. "We have no quarrel," said President 
 Wilson in his war message of April 2, 1917, "with the 
 German people. We have no feeling towards them 
 but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not 
 upon their impulse that their Government acted in 
 entering this war. It was not with their previous 
 knowledge or approval." 
 
 Obviously this theory cannot be carried over into 
 the actual conduct of the war. We speak of "alien 
 enemies" and place moderate restrictions upon the 
 Germans within our midst. It is the German peo- 
 ple, not the Kaiser alone, against whom we shoot 
 our guns and whom we seek to starve. We fight not 
 only against Germany's armed forces but as far as 
 necessary against her whole population. Nor can 
 we assume that the German people is out of sym- 
 pathy with its government. Though there was a 
 German peace party in 1914, it was less strong than 
 similar peace groups in England and America. We 
 cannot honestly claim that in joining the Alliance 
 we are meeting the wishes of the German rank and 
 file. The most we can assert is that this deluded 
 people will eventually recognize that we, its apparent 
 enemies, are forwarding its cause. We are fighting, 
 says Mr. Wilson, for the liberation of the world's 
 peoples, ^ ' the German peoples included, ' '
 
 IS GERMANY INCORRIGIBLE? 191 
 
 To Germans who are making the last sacrifice 
 for their Government this large assumption of ours 
 seems insolent and hypocritical, a calculated appeal 
 to our own citizens of German birth. Yet in the 
 past similar claims have often been validated. In 
 our Revolutionary War Americans did fight the 
 battle of British Liberals against George the Third, 
 and in the Civil War the victory of the North proved 
 in the end a benefit to the white majority of the 
 South. The very fact that the claim can be honestly 
 advanced is an indictment against a semi-autocratic 
 government. Because the German political system 
 is so largely unrepresentative, the charge that its 
 government may be fought by a nation friendly to its 
 people is likely to be made. 
 
 The question whether government or people is 
 our enemy is not purely academic, since upon its 
 answer depend the terms of peace which, in the 
 event of victory, we can safely propose. We are en- 
 deavouring to base peace upon a new state of world 
 society, in which all the nations will live together 
 under a common international morality and a com- 
 mon international law. But such a system is impos- 
 sible if one of the greatest of the world's peoples is 
 hopelessly militaristic and aggressive and cannot be 
 trusted. We are not soon likely to place our faith 
 in the German Government. Wo fear the over-might 
 and irresponsibility of the ruling class. The mili- 
 tarists are too powerful, and their minds too set
 
 192 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 upon adventure and dominion. They can evoke war 
 too suddenly. Under such a government, says Mr. 
 Wilson, ''cunningly contrived plans of deception or 
 aggression, carried, it may be from generation to 
 generation, can be worked out and kept from the light 
 — within the privacy of courts or behind the carefully 
 guarded confidences of a narrow and privileged 
 class. ' ' With a republic in Germany we should feel 
 more secure if the nation as a whole were fair-minded 
 and pacific. 
 
 Since our actual entrance into the war, however, 
 a change in our mood has come about in our attitude 
 towards the German people similar to that which 
 took place in England after 1914. At first the 
 British leaders, hoping for a German revolution, 
 made much of this distinction between government 
 and people, but when the anticipated revolt did not 
 occur, the German people were harshly condemned. 
 They were described as docile, brutal, scientifically- 
 barbarous state-worshippers and self-worshippers. 
 The Germans, wrote Professor Sayce, "are still what 
 they were fifteen centuries ago, the barbarians who 
 raided our ancestors ( !) and destroyed the civiliza- 
 tion of the Roman Empire. " "No terms, ' ' wrote Sir 
 Alfred E. Turner, "can safely be made with such a 
 people of outsiders, to whom the quality of mercy 
 is not known, and who, like all other savages, regard 
 generosity and forbearance as signs of weakness." * 
 
 1 Saturday Review, Vol. 120, Sept. 18, 1915.
 
 IS GERMANY INCORRIGIBLE? 193 
 
 The German nation, said Major General C. E. Call- 
 well, is "a nation of barbarians, a nation without 
 honour, without chivalry, and without shame, ' ' a na- 
 tion from whom "paper guarantees are worse than 
 worthless," ^ a nation that must be crushed and per- 
 manently held down by force. 
 
 Today many Americans think likewise. It is 
 claimed that the whole present generation of Ger- 
 mans is so inoculated with the vices of submissive- 
 ness, militarism and regimentation that there re- 
 mains no hope for them except killing. No one is 
 quite logical enough to advocate the surgical ster- 
 ilization of sixty-seven millions or their wholesale 
 slaughter in cold blood, but one encounters here and 
 there the more modest program of killing and maim- 
 ing a dozen million Germans to encourage the others 
 to a peace-loving life. 
 
 "Without quite this amiable ferocity other Amer- 
 icans permit themselves to be guided by conceptions 
 equally rigid. They despair of Germany ever en- 
 tering into a better state of mind. Tliey pretend to 
 believe that Germans are universally and inerad- 
 icably bi-utal, aggressive and militaristic, without 
 honour or compunction, the mad dogs of the world, 
 to be shot at sight. They ridicule the clumsy dis- 
 tinction between Prussians and non-Prussians, be- 
 tween militarists and gentle, beer-drinking idealists, 
 since not every one who lives in Prussia is in this 
 
 i Blackwood's Magazine, Vol. 200, Aug., li)16, p. 283.
 
 194 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 sense a Prussian and many Saxons, Bavarians and 
 Hessians are more Prussian than the Junker. Some 
 Americans even claim that all Germans are respon- 
 sible specifically, for all the outrages committed by 
 the German armies, since at no time has an effective 
 protest been levelled despite numberless atrocities. 
 There is unfortunately much truth in this charge. 
 Admitting that Germans receive a false account of all 
 happenings, there still remain a popular insensibility 
 and an unwillingness to express even disapproval, 
 which are discouraging features of a lack of a revo- 
 lutionary sense. 
 
 To some extent, however, war brutalizes all na- 
 tions. But for the passions evoked by war, the 
 Allied nations could not view with their present 
 peace of mind the tragedy of the slow starvation of 
 the German people, the death of babies and of 
 the aged and the fearful ravages of tuberculosis. I 
 do not claim that this starvation policy is unjustified, 
 but only that it is tragic. Similarly we in the Allied 
 countries have read with pain of Russian atrocities 
 against Polish Jews and did not protest. Instead we 
 passed over hastily to the story of Belgium, where 
 our pity and horror might find free vent. "War de- 
 grades and solidifies nations. Primitive passions 
 rise to the surface, and remorse and justice are re- 
 pressed. If in the future all the peoples of the world 
 were to remain what they are in war time, cruel, 
 mendacious and crassly unfair, little hope could be
 
 IS GERMANY INCORRIGIBLE? 195 
 
 found for international life. Even though we indict 
 the whole German people of today, we should not 
 carry over our conclusions into the future. Our re- 
 liance upon the German people must depend pri- 
 marily upon what it will prove to be in 1930, not on 
 what it is today under the stress of war. 
 
 In seeking to look into this future we are met by 
 the disconcerting fact that in the past Germans, as 
 compared with English, French, Italians and Rus- 
 sians, have been afflicted by an extraordinary sub- 
 servience and political servility. Though not true 
 of all Germans this quality is characteristic of the 
 traditional and admired type. Such men place an 
 exaggerated value on duty, especially to superiors. 
 They worship law and order, as though these were 
 the supreme good instead of a mere means. Though 
 they possess initiative, it lies too narrowly within 
 prescribed bounds. They live too much by order; 
 accept too willingly their place in a scheme of things, 
 which is not an entirely bad scheme, but which leans 
 to an excess of rigidity. The average German is too 
 philosophical and above all too subjective concerning 
 political arrangements. He believes that freedom 
 lies in one's own soul, that a man is free if his mind 
 travels at ease over all the facts of life, though a 
 police official stand outside his study door. At once 
 constrained and protected, he is not at liberty to 
 indulge wayward impulses though he is safe from 
 the wayward impulses of neighbours. He has gro^\^l
 
 196 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 to love his neat routine, his clean streets, his Sunday 
 music, his ordered life, in which many things which 
 more restless peoples lose are conserved for him. 
 The vice of the German, in other words, is that 
 he has too many virtues; he is too disciplined, 
 contented, submissive, unrevolutionary. Long and 
 loudly have we praised this modest, dutiful and self- 
 abnegating German, who meddles with no man. 
 Possibly, however, it is this very man who is most to 
 blame for Germany's aggressive policy, if indeed we 
 can speak in terms of praise or blame on this high 
 level, where opposing nations, institutions and prin- 
 ciples clash. 
 
 Fortunately, however, this docile and dutiful subr 
 ject does not constitute the whole German popula- 
 tion. A new man comes to the fore, more nervous, 
 mobile and discontented. One finds him among the 
 pushing business organizers, among wage-earners, 
 schooled in the trade union and the Socialist party; 
 one finds him even among peasants. This new Ger- 
 man holds but weakly to the traditions of subservi- 
 ence and to love of dynasty. He is more likely to 
 fight for democracy and liberty. Such men have not 
 yet been willing to die by thousands for their new 
 ideal, and on the contrary they have died by hun- 
 dreds of thousands for the things against which they 
 strive. Yet here a leaven works. Here is a growing 
 force, opposed to the prevailing submissiveness. 
 
 When, therefore, we inquire whether after the war
 
 IS GERMANY IXCOP.RIGIBLE? 197 
 
 the German people will be strongly militaristic we 
 are met by perplexing difficulties. There are three 
 general theories supporting the prophecy of a per- 
 manent German militarism. The first is that Ger- 
 mans are by heredity submissive and militaristic ; the 
 second, that they are so by reason of a thousand- 
 year-long discipline, during which these qualities 
 have become fixed mental habits, in harmony with 
 their whole body of habits, and, therefore, not to be 
 uprooted in a few generations. The third theory is 
 more optimistic. It asserts that the submissive and 
 militaristic quality of the Germans has been bred by 
 an intensive education lasting forty years, and that 
 at best we must wait for a new generation before we 
 may expect a reassuring change. 
 
 All of these theories seem exaggerated. The last 
 thousand years have doubtless tended to produce 
 habits of submissiveness in Germans, and popular 
 education since 1870 has more obviously worked in 
 this direction than in other countries. We have, 
 therefore, to deal not only with conviction but habit. 
 In these days, however, habits are easily broken. 
 Five years of city life so completely transform the 
 young peasant, despite a thousand years of rural 
 habituation, tliat lie can never return to his country- 
 life. Ancient loyalties vanish swiftly; Russia 
 changes overnight and China itself accepts now val- 
 uations of life. And even as early as 1914 the Ger- 
 innri" -^^oro not mere tools. They read newspapers.
 
 198 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 and even a government-controlled press cannot in 
 peace time keep out all the news. The Germans 
 amused themselves with all sorts of mild insubordi- 
 nations and gently insurrectionary ideas. There 
 were millions who were not submissive and not mil- 
 itaristic. 
 
 So real was this latent refractoriness of certain 
 elements of the German population that the Gov- 
 ernment was forced to resort to falsehood to secure 
 a united public opinion. It alleged that the Cos- 
 sacks had already invaded Prussia, that the French 
 had bombarded German cities, that a league of na- 
 tions had plotted against the Fatherland, and that 
 the Kaiser had done all he could to avert the conflict. 
 Upon this distortion of facts it was difficult for a 
 patriotic German, however democratically and inter- 
 nationally inclined, to refuse to defend his country. 
 Moreover, following the war's outbreak the entire 
 history of forty years was reinterpreted to make 
 Germany appear the attacked party. The theory of 
 encirclement, the theory of Russian ambition, French 
 revenge and British envy, united against a pious 
 and contented German people, the theory of a crafty 
 world-destroyer in the person of Edward the Sev- 
 enth, were resurrected and revamped. Unfortu- 
 nately there was just enough in the past actions of 
 Russia, France and England to give a measure of 
 plausibility to these charges. Further, a deep-lying 
 economic unrest and an uncertainty concerning Ger-
 
 IS GERMANY INCORRIGIBLE? 199 
 
 many's economic future rendered the Germans more 
 than usually credulous. The Slav invasion seemed 
 a real peril; the attempted forcible dissolution of 
 Austria-Hungary could not but be envisaged as a 
 menace to Germany's safety. Moreover certain 
 groups, far from following a mere instinct of loy- 
 alty, confidently expected a concrete economic gain 
 from the war. Not sheer love of dominion recon- 
 ciled the Germans to this conflict but an intricate 
 complex of ideas and emotions of which greed, fear, 
 and a desire to preserve class prestige and power 
 formed a part. Finally stupidity and bad-faith on 
 the part of Germany's neighbours rendered the 
 growth of a war-spirit, once war began, absolutely 
 certain. 
 
 With the early German victories a sinister change 
 came over the population. Even before the war 
 there had been manifested an insolent and pedantic 
 self-exaltation, accompanied by an immoderate de- 
 preciation of other nations. German faith, German 
 virtue, das deutsche Wesen were fulsomely praised, 
 and the real successes of Germany in science, music, 
 business and government were grossly exaggerated. 
 A febrile chauvinism, due to Germany's rapid prog- 
 ress, was exploited, and plans of conquest were read 
 by millions of once placid people, devoutly believing 
 that Germany should have its wide place in the sun. 
 Finally this self-exaltation became monstrous. De- 
 rided by all other cultural nations, Germany fell back
 
 200 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 upon herself, appealing from the adverse judgment 
 of the civilized world to fantastic self-laudation. 
 **If God is for us," said Pastor Walter Lehmann, 
 **who can be against us? It is enough for us to be a 
 part of God." ''Germany is the centre of God's 
 plans for the world," we are "a nation which is 
 God's seed-corn for the future." "Germany is the 
 future of humanity." ^ 
 
 To those who wish to observe how abruptly Ger- 
 many's critical spirit crumbled under the stress of 
 war, hundreds of pamphlets and books are now avail- 
 able. ^ They show a dismal mental degeneration, an 
 illimitable self-praise bordering on insanity, and to- 
 wards foreign nations a fury of vindictive hatred 
 which must have left the intellectual gutter-snipes of 
 other lands speechless with envy. This violent self- 
 laudation, moreover, was but the floral decoration 
 for a mania for conquest, which spread like fire over 
 the country. It was held that Germany, having been 
 successful in her defensive war, was justified in 
 utilizing the chance of a thousand years to redress 
 the injustices of geography and history. The wild- 
 est programs of annexation were boldly announced. 
 
 This is the case against the German people. They 
 are still at a comparatively low stage in democratic 
 
 iBang (J. P.) "Hurrah and Hallelujah," p. 75 
 
 2 Of these perhaps the best compilation is the heavily documented 
 little book of Dr. J. P. Bang, Professor of Theolosry at the University 
 of Copenhagen, entitled "Hurrah and Hallelujah, The Teaching of 
 Gernjany's Poets, Prophets, Professors and Preachers."
 
 IS GERMANY INCORRIGIBLE? 201 
 
 evolution, enduring an unrepresentative govern- 
 ment and displaying as yet little talent for revolu- 
 tion; they were, before 1914, in a mood of self- 
 exaltation ; they made few and weak protests against 
 the barbaric conduct of their war; finally they con- 
 curred, to a surprising extent, in plans of aggression 
 and conquest. 
 
 The admission of every count of this indictment, 
 however, does not leave us hopeless for the future. 
 These German failures are accounted for by the 
 events of the last half-century. The success of Bis- 
 marck's diplomacy, the easy victories over Austria 
 and France, a rapidly growing sea-power, an ex- 
 panding German industry', the ultra-sudden trans- 
 lation of the peasant to new industrial cities — in 
 short an astounding revolution in German life, both 
 in external and internal aspects, sufTicos to explain 
 this change in mentality. Yet what has been altered 
 can be altered again, and what destroyed restored. 
 The popular German conceptions of 1914 have been 
 vastly changed. Unless Germany wins this war, as 
 a result of the blunders and short-sightedness of the 
 Allies, the Germans will never again believe that 
 France is decadent, Russia barbarous, Great Britain 
 incapable. Never again will they believe that Ger- 
 many is the only land of Kultur. Nor, barring such 
 a victory, will it longer seem wise to entrust tlioir 
 affairs to a fist-banging Junkertum, efficient in war- 
 fare but bungling in the large diplomacy without
 
 202 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 which war plans are like playing with tin soldiers. 
 The Germans have been on an emotional debauch. 
 They have refused to be sobered. Yet sober, never- 
 theless, they must inevitably become. As nation 
 after nation enters the war, registering its protest 
 against German polity, as these external admoni- 
 tions become reinforced by the tedium of a war, 
 which persists tragically despite German conquests, 
 the mood in Germany changes. A spirit of ques- 
 tioning begins to manifest itself. 
 
 The beginnings of this change in mood are already 
 discernible although they are obscured by the strict 
 and subtle German censorship which tells the news- 
 papers not only what not to say but also what to 
 say. The courageous action of Karl Liebknecht, 
 the strong protests of the Minority Socialists, to say 
 nothing of the famous Reichstag Majority program, 
 (in which Socialists, Clericals and other parties 
 joined), indicate, as do also the frequent suppres- 
 sions of the Vorwdrts and other journals, that there 
 is a real sentiment in Germany for a constructive 
 peace making for internationalism. In Austria this 
 sentiment appears to be even stronger. It is easy to 
 belittle this underground movement and to deride 
 it because it is suppressed. But for twelve years 
 (from 1878 to 1890), the German Socialist Party was 
 itself suppressed, and yet grew rapidly under the 
 clamped lid. When the official pressure relaxes a 
 little we may be surprised at the rapidity with which
 
 IS GERMANY INCORRIGIBLE? 203 
 
 liberalism, democracy and revolt against autocracy 
 have been swelling under the heel of the militarists.' 
 
 From the mass of evidence on both sides, there- 
 fore, it is safe to conclude that the Germans are not 
 by race or heredity militaristic, and that their tra- 
 ditions and education, which incline them in that 
 direction, are being negated by powerful influences, 
 springing out of new industrial conditions and out 
 of contact with foreign nations. The discipline of 
 the great city, factory, trade union, co-operative so- 
 ciety, is relentlessly opposed to submissiveness. 
 This new discipline, although unfavourably influ- 
 enced by the barracks, tends to become stronger. 
 The will to revolt grows, even though the revolt 
 seems superficially to be a very German, slow and 
 scientifically predetermined and bloodless revolt,^ 
 
 On the other hand the revolt, when it comes, if it 
 
 1 It is not improbable, however, that this very frrowth of liberal 
 sentiment, to which President Wilson has repeat(Hily appealed, will 
 be a factor in postponint; the end of the war. The more insecure 
 the German autocracy feels itself the harder and longer will it fight 
 in the hope of a saving victory. 
 
 2 Even Professor Vcblen, who believes that Germany, like Japan, is 
 relatively unchangeable, and must be "eliminated,'" is not hopeless 
 concerning the ultimate growth of parliamentary discretion in Ger- 
 many. "It may be true that, for the present, on critical or weighty 
 measures the parliamentary discretion extends no farther than re- 
 spectfully to say '•/« ivnhl.' But then, Ja wohl is also something; 
 and there is no telling where it may all lead to in the long course 
 of years. One has a vague appreliension that this 'Ja uohV may 
 some day come to be a customarily necessary form for authentication, 
 so that withholding it (fichiit ea (lottj may even come to count 
 an an effectual veto on measures so pointedly neglected. " The 
 Nature of Peace, by Thorstein Veblen, New York, 1917, pp. 191-92.
 
 204 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 does come, may not be at all slow or bloodless. It 
 is true that we are here trenching upon the field of 
 speculation, where we must trust to insecure esti- 
 mates of vague facts. What is clear, however, is 
 that the much derided submissiveness of the Ger- 
 mans finds its cause, not only in an unfortunate his- 
 torical development, but equally in the fact that the 
 government against which the German people woul^ 
 have to revolt is in the highest degree both capable 
 and ruthless. To overthrow the Russian bureau- 
 cracy required many decades of propaganda and 
 preparation, and yet that task was child's play com- 
 pared to an attempt to destroy the immensely com- 
 petent, long-headed, and heavy-fisted Prussian oli- 
 garchy. Prestige, wealth, science, organizing ability, 
 as well as a remarkable capacity for tempering au- 
 tocracy to the governed, all work in favour of the 
 German ruling classes and against any overt revolu- 
 tionary act. To assail with bare hands the effi- 
 cient German government, propped up by a million 
 loyal civil servants and a million bayonets, is a task 
 likely to appeal to none but a desperate man. 
 
 At the end of this war, however, assuming that 
 Germany does not win the war, there are likely to 
 be many such desperate men in Germany. The 
 war has taught the soldier not to over-value life, 
 not to care overmuch whether he is shot in the 
 trenches, starved in his home, or garroted by the 
 public executioner. There will be many who will
 
 IS GERMANY INCORRIGIBLE? 205 
 
 not hold their life at a high price. If then, by any- 
 chance, a stray shot starts a popular uprising, and if, 
 as is not inconceivable, the army itself proves to be 
 infected with revolutionary ideas, the change that 
 will come over the spirit of German life may be as 
 complete and startling as any in human history. 
 The millions of intelligent German workers, who 
 have so wonderfully managed their trade unions, 
 their co-operative stores and their Socialist Party 
 would be able to organize a revolution quite as thor- 
 oughly. Of course they will not rebel while they 
 believe that a collapse of Germany would mean her 
 spoliation by enemies at the frontier. They may 
 not even rebel after the war. And yet they may. 
 Only a rash prophet would predict tliat German so- 
 ciety and the German state of mind will be the same, 
 ten, five or even two years hence as they are today. 
 
 Even before the war the prestige of the German 
 ruling classes was gradually sinking, and a few 
 more decades of peace might easily have brought it 
 to an end. Nothing but a complete German victory 
 can now make the war worth its cost, and even a 
 complete victory may fail to do so. Defeated, or 
 merely frustrated, Germany's rulers would have to 
 go back to their people comparatively em-pty-handed. 
 It would be the beginning of the end of her militar- 
 ism. 
 
 The education of the German people during the 
 war will be continued in peace. They will then have
 
 206 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 ample time to count their dead and maimed, cast up 
 their losses, and apportion the blame — and the taxes. 
 They will not be entirely proud of their record. The 
 German commercial traveller in foreign lands will 
 hear many unpleasant truths, and what is told him he 
 will tell again. Credulity, prejudice, passion will in 
 a measure pass. The judgment of the outside world, 
 tempered by the calmness of peace, will have its ap- 
 peal. The foreign arraignment of their ruling 
 classes will eventually be accepted as true by those 
 Germans who for political reasons desire to attack 
 their government. 
 
 A frustration of Germany thus means a growth of 
 democracy, a change in her political balance of 
 power and a revolution in her opinions and pre- 
 possessions, which will cause submissiveness to de- 
 cline and render improbable a new attack.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 A CONCLUSIVE PEACE 
 
 In a speech delivered in January, 1918, former Pres- 
 ident Koosevelt said: ''We must accept no peace ex- 
 cept the peace of overwhelming victory. To accept 
 an inconclusive peace would mean that the whole war 
 would have to be fought over again by ourselves or 
 our children. To accept an inconclusive peace would 
 really mean to work for a German victory." 
 
 According to Mr. Roosevelt there is no ''half way 
 ground." "Either we are fighting to give liberty to 
 the subject races in Austria and Turkey, either we 
 are fighting for the complete independence of the 
 Czecho-Slovaks, the Jugo-Slavs, the Poles, the 
 Rumanians, and Italians under the Austro-Hun- 
 garian yoke, and the Armenians and Jews and Syr- 
 ian Christians and Arabs under the Turkish yoke, 
 or else we were guilty of hypocrisy when we an- 
 nounced that our purpose was to make the world 
 safe for democracy. Unless Belgium is restored and 
 indemnified and France restored and indemnified 
 justice will not have prevailed." ' 
 
 The fundamental assumptions in this vigorous 
 speech of Mr. Roosevelt's are that no peace can be 
 
 » New York Times, January 13, 1918. 
 
 207
 
 208 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 conclusive unless the victory is overwhelming, and 
 that such a conclusive victory can be rendered more 
 secure by the imposition of drastic terms. In mak- 
 ing these assumptions, Mr. Roosevelt has gone back 
 to the methods of thought which prevailed on both 
 sides in the early part of the war. First victory, 
 then onerous terms imposed upon the defeated 
 enemy, and finally the furtherance of such aims as 
 the victors consider essential. That some of those 
 aims may be imperialistic, and may have the effect of 
 undermining any international basis for the peace 
 proposed does not seem to enter into his serious con- 
 sideration. The internationalism which is associ- 
 ated with this method of thought is not in any 
 sense unforced, but rather the imposition upon the 
 law-breaking nations of an international law in 
 the interests of the victors. That in each country 
 the law-breaking nation is assumed to be the enemy 
 goes without saying. 
 
 The remainder of Mr. Roosevelt's speech indicates 
 clearly the state of international relations which he 
 anticipates in the event of his overwhelming victory. 
 After, as before, we shall be required to arm to the 
 teeth in order permanently *Ho guarantee future 
 peaceful and just development at home, and future 
 immunity from attacks by outside nations." Mr. 
 Roosevelt's overwhelming victory does not lead to 
 peace, but merely to a permanent military prepared- 
 ness and a permanent liability to attack.
 
 A CONCLUSIVE PEACE 209 
 
 Even though we hoped for nothing but this in- 
 definite perpetuation of latent hostilities, it is doubt- 
 ful whether Mr. Roosevelt's overwhelming victory 
 would be efficacious. Its effect, of course, would be 
 to annihilate the military strength of Germany, 
 which might or might not be a permanent advantage. 
 Assuming a continuance of hostile international re- 
 lations, it does not follow that our next enemy will 
 surely be Germany. But the chief argument against 
 the presumed necessity of a conclusive victory is 
 that such a victory does not necessarily lead to a 
 conclusive peace, but may have an exactly opposite 
 effect. 
 
 In 1866, when Prussia won a decisive victory over 
 Austria, the peace was conclusive not because the 
 victory was overwhelming, but because the natural 
 evolution of the German nation made impossible a 
 leadership by Austria, a preponderatingly non-Ger- 
 man state. On the other hand, the German \^ctory 
 over France in 1870 was crushing, but the peace 
 was inconclusive. It was a punitive peace, based on 
 outlived conceptions of international life, and did 
 not, in effect, solve the outstanding problems be- 
 tween the two countries. The result was that for al- 
 most half a century the war between France and Ger- 
 many continued under a different form. Similarly a 
 nonconclusive war may lead to a conclusive peace. 
 In 1812 the United States fought a somewhat inglo- 
 rious war with Great Britain, which ended in no vie-
 
 210 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 tory, but with both countries, and especially the 
 United States, anxious to make peace. The issues 
 which led to the struggle were not even mentioned 
 in the resulting treaty, for during the war the con- 
 ditions leading to the raising of those issues had 
 ended. The inconclusive war was followed by a hun- 
 dred years of peace, whereas had a completely vic- 
 torious England imposed punitive terms, the peace 
 would have been inconclusive. 
 
 Nor to be conclusive must a peace be onerous or 
 vindictive. It is a common feeling that no settle- 
 ment is conclusive unless the enemy is so weakened 
 that he will not again dare to resort to arms. ''It is 
 all very well to forgive," say many of our spokes- 
 men, 'Ho look ahead, to seek to promote a distant 
 internationalism, but in the meanwhile we must live, 
 and we cannot live under the menace of a new Ger- 
 man attack. With Germany permanently weak- 
 ened, we are safe for a generation or two, but if 
 remaining strong she returns to her militarism, our 
 last case will be worse than the first." 
 
 The argument deserves consideration. However 
 much we desire internationalism, we can accept it 
 only on the condition of security. Safety comes 
 first. Therefore we cannot permit Germany to palm 
 off upon us a false and specious internationalism, 
 and we cannot accept a truce which will give an un- 
 regenerate enemy time to recover. All proposals 
 must be examined with care and even a shade of
 
 A CONCLUSIVE PEACE 211 
 
 suspicion and we must insist that the international- 
 ism secured be more than a matter of words. 
 
 But the policy of weakening the enemy, which is 
 offered as a real security against the war's renewal 
 is, as has often been proved, no security at all. The 
 difficulty lies not in downing a nation but in keeping 
 it down. The Treaty of Frankfort again illustrates 
 the point. In 1871 the German generals, believing 
 that France would begin a war of revenge at the 
 earliest moment, sought to weaken her by levying 
 a heavy indemnity and annexing territories of eco- 
 nomic and strategic value. This, however, far from 
 ending, merely increased the French menace. 
 France became irreconcilable; thenceforth she was 
 the perpetual enemy, the centre of every antag- 
 onistic alliance. The resulting fear dictated the 
 entire foreign policy of Bismarck; all his alliances 
 were an attempt to isolate this ancient enemy and 
 keep her helpless. But year by year "the French 
 mortgage," incurred or at least enhanced by the 
 harsh Treaty of Frankfort, weighed heavier. Ger- 
 many could not compete with Great Britain, could 
 not enter into vast colonial enterprises without rec- 
 ognizing that in whatever war she engaged France, 
 weakened in 1871, would be her powerful enemy. 
 Germany would probably have been stronger during 
 the last forty years had she trusted to a future recon- 
 ciliation with France, as Prussia trusted Austria in 
 the years following 1866.
 
 212 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 Crush Germany today, if that indeed is possible, 
 and one of two things will happen : Either she will 
 recover and fight again, or she will seek safety and 
 power in new and hostile alliances. To place a re- 
 vengeful, even though a weakened, Germany in the 
 middle of Europe is to lay a train which will blow 
 up the peace of the world. No controversy there- 
 after can arise between any of the nations now in 
 concert but Germany will seek to fan the flame and 
 offer aid to one or the other of the combatants. A 
 debilitated Germany suffering under a sense of per- 
 secution and injustice would be only a little less dan- 
 gerous than a strong Germany in like mood, and 
 would be far more dangerous than would be a strong 
 nation permitted to develop and interested in main- 
 taining the peace. 
 
 Neither by an overwhelming victory, nor by a 
 crushing or weakening of the enemy, nor by any 
 form of negotiated peace which does not recognize 
 new principles of international relationship, can se- 
 curity be maintained. All these suffer from the 
 cardinal defect that they leave nations at enmity and 
 the peoples of the world insecure. 
 
 This fact becomes apparent on considering the 
 possible terms of peace between the two coalitions 
 in the conflict that now rages. Theoretically there 
 are five general forms which peace might take. 
 These are, an Overwhelming German Peace, a Par- 
 tial German Victory, the Peace of the Drawn Game,
 
 A CONCLUSIVE PEACE 213 
 
 a Negotiated Allied Peace, and a Dictated Allied 
 Peace. These five forms run the full gamut from 
 a crushing German victory to a crushing Allied vic- 
 tory. 
 
 From every point of view a complete German vic- 
 tory, followed by a dictated German peace, would 
 be the worst conceivable result of the war. A new 
 Eoman Empire, more powerful than any that has 
 existed in the world, would be set up in the middle 
 of Europe. It would be for decades a bulwark of 
 autocracy and militarism, and the teacher of these 
 social forms to vassal and outside nations. The 
 world would either be one great empire with de- 
 pendencies and intimidated outlying states, or it 
 would be an armed camp. Against such a German 
 victory, liberals the world over must fight to the last 
 ditch. 
 
 Even a partial German victory would be exces- 
 sively dangerous. What Germany seeks today is a 
 peace of give and take, of Ver standi gun g und Aus- 
 gleich, as former Chancellor Michaelis styled it. 
 She seeks a ''cashing in" on her "paper profits." 
 So far she has won the war on land but as against 
 her conquests the Allies possess an ultimate superi- 
 ority in men, money and munitions, a superiority, 
 however, which depends upon their ability to bring 
 America's full force to boar upon the Western front. 
 The joint resources of tlio Allies are still increasing 
 while those of Germany diminish. Like Japan in
 
 214 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 1905, Germany today has won battles but runs the 
 danger of losing if the war continues. Having what 
 she wants she sees no further reason for fighting. 
 
 The present conquests of the Central Powers are 
 in the West (Belgium and France), the East (Rus- 
 sia), in the Southeast (Serbia, Montenegro and Rou- 
 mania) and the Southwest (Italy). They are ap- 
 parently willing to give up one or two of these 
 conquests to preserve the rest. It is a wise modera- 
 tion. But for us such a peace is difficult to accept. 
 To allow an unregenerate Germany to emerge from 
 this war with immense visible territorial gains 
 would be not only to give her an enormous over- 
 weight in Europe but to strengthen the power of 
 her imperialistic group. The Junker might then 
 abandon his pretence of a defensive war and openly 
 boast of his conquests. The world contest of 1914 
 might even be proclaimed as a continuation of the 
 succession of "glorious" wars which made Ger- 
 many a World Power. Renewed in their prestige, 
 the feudal rulers might snap their fingers at radi- 
 cals, liberals and socialists, repeating what Bis- 
 marck wrote to von Biilow: *' Germany does not 
 look for her salvation to Prussia's liberalism but to 
 Prussia's power." Therefore any German victory, 
 either partial or complete, is dangerous.^ 
 
 1 "The German sword is our best protection." Telegram of Kaiser 
 Wilhelm II, reproduced in the New York Evening Post, March 8, 
 1918.
 
 A CONCLUSIVE PEACE 215 
 
 It is through fear of this partial German victory 
 that the Allied nations have wisely refused to enter 
 into an unlimited conference with the enemy. To do 
 so without a definite statement in advance of Ger- 
 many's demands and concessions would be to deliver 
 themselves unreservedly into hostile hands. In such 
 a blind conference Germany might break up the alli- 
 ance by playing off one Ally against the otlier. The 
 Allies dare not even consider terms unless in ad- 
 vance Germany contents herself with the status 
 quo ante. 
 
 Can they, however, accept even these terms ? 
 
 Quite apart from other objections, the status quo 
 is difficult, perhaps even impossible, to establish. 
 It would be a delicate task to return to Germany her 
 colonies without enraging Australians, South Afri- 
 cans and Japanese, though, of course, it would be 
 feasible to give her equivalent rights in otlier parts 
 of the world. But the main objection to the status 
 quo ante is that it is more than a mere territorial 
 arrangement. It is a state of world society and a 
 state of mind. To re-establish it means to return to 
 the execrable conditions existing in Austria-Hungary 
 and Turkey before the war. It means a recrudes- 
 cence of ancient embittered hostilities in the Balkans 
 and an accentuation of the old colonial strife between 
 imperialistic powers. It would reawaken old jeal- 
 ousies and hatreds and revive the old insecurity. 
 
 Moreover, if Germany remains militaristic, im-
 
 216 THE END UE THE WAR 
 
 perialistic and aggressive, the restoration of the 
 status quo ante, without any provision for a system 
 based upon internationalism, would constitute, if not 
 a victory for her, at least a defeat for her enemies. 
 Whatever lands she gave back, she would still hold 
 Austria-Hungary. Her officers now control Austro- 
 Hungarian troops; her railway managers Austro- 
 Hungarian railways; her influence at Vienna and 
 Budapest is overwhelming. The same rule extends 
 to Bulgaria and Turkey, united with Germany, and 
 exultant over their victories. End the war on the 
 basis of the status quo ante, and a militaristic auto- 
 cratic Mittel-Europa stretching from Hamburg to 
 Bagdad is a reality, except for a small strip of Ser- 
 bian territory. 
 
 Nor would Serbia again resist. We have read 
 much of the futility of German terrorism and ulti- 
 mately it was, doubtless, as stupid as brutal. But in 
 its effect upon the populations afflicted it proved a 
 definite asset to the German militarist. If, after 
 the war, Austria and Bulgaria were to make sudden 
 demands upon Serbia, where would that nation find 
 the courage to oppose? She knows the heavy Ger- 
 man fist ; she knows that she could be destroyed be- 
 fore help came from the Allies, if it came at all. 
 Even more difficult to resist would be a gradual, 
 thumb-screw pressure, by which Austria might 
 make successive inroads upon Serbian independence. 
 Greece too would be quiescent ; Roumania also. Hoi-
 
 A CONCLUSIVE PEACE 217 
 
 land, Belgium, Scandinavia and Switzerland, while 
 they might preserve their dignity and independence, 
 would never forget Germany's terrible attack upon 
 Belgium and the incompleteness of the reparation. 
 Germany has secured the prestige of terror; in 
 terms of the old diplomacy it is a valuable prestige. 
 
 Further, if the status quo ante is re-established and 
 the war in peace continues after the war, Germany 
 will have gained relatively by the fact that she has 
 fought her battles upon the soil of her enemies. 
 Who under such an arrangement would rebuild 
 French, Serbian, Roumanian and Russian villages? 
 The losses of the Allies from such depredations are 
 many billions of dollars, and if each nation pays for 
 its own broken windows the Allies suffer far more 
 grievously than does Germany. Because of this 
 smaller loss, because of her prestige of terror in 
 neighbouring countries, and because of the cement- 
 ing of a stronger union among the four central pow- 
 ers, Germany might claim to have gained something 
 from the war, or at least to have lost less than her 
 opponents. Her Junkers, decimated and impover- 
 ished though they might be, would still claim a quasi- 
 victory. 
 
 The final objection to the status quo ante, how- 
 ever, is that it is utterly impossible. Even though 
 we keep former boundaries, we can no longer ])lace 
 the old Humpty-Dumpty of Russian imperialism 
 back upon his throne, nor can we change back Brit-
 
 218 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 ish and American sentiment to what they were be- 
 fore the war. 
 
 Had Russia not collapsed, a peace, which though 
 inconclusive, would have at least rendered a new 
 assault by Germany improbable, might have been 
 easily possible, owing to the fact that by its very 
 momentum the war has called into being forces that 
 did not exist in 1914. The very strength of the at- 
 tack has evoked a defence equally strong. The 
 probability that Germany would not again lightly 
 assail Serbia, Belgium or France, would have lain, 
 even more in the forces called forth in this war than 
 in the specific guarantees which it might be hoped to 
 embody in a treaty of peace. 
 
 War today is a deliberate operation, planned, pre- 
 pared, and at a favourable moment, launched. The 
 determination to wage war is an intellectual process. 
 When on a certain day Germany's leaders agreed on 
 a policy of war, their decision was based upon a 
 multitude of convictions, opinions and guesses, some 
 true, others false. They probably believed, rightly, 
 that their big guns could smash the French for- 
 tresses; otherwise they might not have declared for 
 war. They probably believed that an early decision 
 could be obtained against France, and that Russia 
 could be defeated at leisure; had they not thought 
 so they might have hesitated. They seemed to have 
 believed that Belgian resistance would be negligible; 
 that England would be disinclined to intervene, and
 
 A CONCLUSIVE PEACE 219 
 
 would probably hesitate until her intervention was 
 ineffective. If she did intervene, troubles in Ire- 
 land and her colonies might hamper her movements. 
 The leaders of Germany apparently counted upon 
 no assistance from Italy but they hardly anticipated 
 an alliance of Italy with France and Britain. What- 
 ever they thought, however, it is clear that consid- 
 erations of this general nature did enter into their 
 calculations, and these considerations were not ab- 
 surd and unreal, but were based upon such knowl- 
 edge as they had and could grasp. Weighing the 
 ponderables and ignoring the imponderables, as 
 militarists are likely to do, the German leaders con- 
 cluded that a speedy victory was probable. The 
 chances were in their favour. 
 
 After this war what would have been the chances 
 in favour of a second attack by Germany had Russia 
 maintained her military strength? Obviously Ger- 
 many's formidableness would have increased, since 
 from the beginning her leaders could count on the ac- 
 tive co-operation of four nations and upon the qui- 
 escence of Serbia. But the defensive forces would 
 be seen to have growTi even more largely. The war 
 has established the fact that the British Empire (or 
 at least its self-governing colonies) is a unit. The 
 immediate military strength of Groat Britain is 
 increased ten to twenty times. No longer would 
 France and Belgium alone be forced to bear the brunt 
 of the attack, since Great Britain and possibly
 
 220 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 Italy could immediately range themselves behind 
 France, and behind these would be an American 
 army, and the resources of a country richer than 
 Germany and Austria combined. Moreover the in- 
 troduction of trench warfare has rendered it more 
 difficult than four years ago to gain, by an initial 
 superiority in numbers, a rapid decisive victory. 
 Germany could no longer overrun France in a month, 
 and almost from the beginning she would fight 
 against superior forces on her Western front. 
 
 But the collapse of Russia changes all this. Ger- 
 many's eastern barriers are now broken down, and 
 if her present ruling classes remain in power she 
 will, in the event of a re-established status quo, be 
 able to exert a preponderating military influence on 
 Russia. She can keep her eastern neighbour dis- 
 tracted, intimidated, weak. She can bribe her offi- 
 cials, secure political and economic concessions, per- 
 haps even dictate her form of government. Able to 
 defend herself, at least temporarily, on the west, she 
 will have an almost free hand on the east. It will 
 be extremely difficult for the Allies, even with their 
 control of the sea, to interfere with German plans in 
 Russia. 
 
 The inevitable conclusion is that the status quo 
 ante, like a German victory, offers no satisfactory 
 solution to internationalists and no security to the 
 nations.^ 
 
 1 Today (March 1918) such a solution seems even more imde-
 
 A CONCLUSIVE PEACE 221 
 
 Nor does a mere victory, either partial or com- 
 plete, for the Allies necessarily mean a satisfactory 
 state of the world. A victory may lead to a retribu- 
 tive peace, to a vindictive policy, or to a mere bar- 
 gaining and haggling, out of which the nations may 
 gain territory but no real advantage. Such a vic- 
 tory does not automatically solve the infinitely com- 
 plex questions of Poland, Alsace-Lorraine, Istria, 
 Dalmatia, Asia Minor, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 
 Macedonia. Distribution of these by mere force will 
 leave many injustices. 
 
 It follows that there can be no conclusive peace 
 that is not based upon internationalism and jus- 
 tice. The peace that democrats should desire is not 
 retributive, but preventive and curative, a peace 
 not productive of future wars; a peace based pri- 
 marily not on historical precedents, or historical 
 claims, or the status quo ante, but on a reorganiza- 
 tion and democratization of Europe and the world. 
 It must be a peace that aims at the establishment 
 and steady evolution of a new world allegiance and 
 of a new democratic world society. It must be a 
 constructive peace, a peace based on principle, not 
 a mere patchwork. We should desire a moderate 
 
 sirable. Russia has now been divided into a group of new states, 
 most of which, even if unannoxcd, will be under the inducnce of 
 whatever groups rule CJermany Tf we are to have new wars after 
 this war, a Cermany. permitted to dismember Russia, would be 
 equipped and fortified for these struggles as never before. The 
 m<'nace of 1914 would be increased ten-fold.
 
 222 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 peace permitting the future healthful development 
 of all nations, our enemies included. We must base 
 our peace, not on temporary, but on permanent eco- 
 nomic processes.^ 
 
 Only so can we hope to gain any measure of se- 
 curity. It is not by victory alone, though a victory 
 may or may not be essential, but by the fixing of 
 just terms, that we make progress. We may drive 
 the Germans back to the Rhine and still not be se- 
 cure, and we may not completely defeat them and yet 
 gain full security. A revolution in Germany would 
 be more advantageous to our safety and to the 
 progress of the world than a dozen Jenas. We can- 
 not live for another generation under the old ten- 
 sion from which this war came almost as a relief. 
 We cannot for ever remain on our guard against a 
 nervous, frightened and threatening Germany seek- 
 ing to win away our allies, as we should be seeking 
 to seduce hers. We do not desire an economic war 
 after the war, which will be inevitable if the po- 
 litical tension remains. Finally we do not wish to 
 hand over Russia to the machinations of German 
 imperialists, nor to create in that country a state 
 
 1 What made the victories of the North in the Civil War and of 
 Great Britain in the Boer War conclusive was that the resulting 
 peace and the legislation thereafter furnished a permanent base for 
 the defeated peoples. As Mr. A. F. Whyte says, "Victory to be com- 
 plete must be more than the defeat of the enemy. It must provide 
 a foundation on which the security and peace of Europe can be built, 
 for only then can we say that our ends have been secured " La 
 Victoire Int^grale, The New Europe, Vol. IV, September 6, 1917.
 
 A CONCLUSIVE PEACE 223 
 
 of mind which will develop a Muscovite imperi- 
 alism, determined to destroy the '' effete and rot- 
 ten" civilization of the West. All these possibil- 
 ities, and many more, lie hidden in the old concep- 
 tions of our international life. All these dangers 
 are those which have come again and again in the 
 history of the world, despite overwhelming ''vic- 
 tories" and innumerable reversions to the status 
 quo. 
 
 There can be no conclusive peace following a war 
 based on greed and ending in aggrandizement. The 
 only conclusive peace is a peace that concludes, a 
 peace that foreshadows the end of an era, a peace 
 that is in harmony, not only with the coming eco- 
 nomic development of the world, but with the polit- 
 ical aspirations of millions of men whose allegiance 
 today transcends national boundaries and reaches 
 out feebly towards an international loyalty.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 GUAEANTEES 
 
 All the nations now at war protest that they desire 
 peace but all insist upon guarantees against a re- 
 newal of the struggle. Germany demands security 
 against any recurrence of what she calls the unpro- 
 voked war against her; Great Britain, France and 
 Russia demand like guarantees against Germany. 
 Each group of belligerents wishes to bind over the 
 other to keep the peace. 
 
 This demand for specific guarantees appears and 
 reappears in all official utterances. In the German 
 Peace Note of December 12, 1916, neutrals are as- 
 sured that 'Hhe propositions" which the Central 
 Powers will bring forward "have for their object 
 a guarantee of the existence, of the honour and lib- 
 erty of evolution for their nations." The Allies, 
 insists Lord Curzon, are fighting for '' security that 
 those [German] crimes shall not be repeated, and 
 that those sacrifices shall not have been made in 
 vain." The peace must "give guarantees for the 
 future." "The war would be vain if we had no 
 guarantees and securities against a repetition of 
 Germany's offence." "Restitution, reparation, 
 guarantee against repetition" is the phrase accepted 
 
 224
 
 GUARANTEES 225 
 
 by Lloyd George; "reparation for the past and 
 security for the future" echoes Mr. Asquith. "We 
 are fighting for peace now," says Mr. Bonar Law, 
 "but we are also fighting for security for peace in 
 the time to come." No peace is possible, says the 
 Reply of the Allied Governments to Germany's Note, 
 which is not calculated in some way to afford "ef- 
 fective guarantees for the future security of the 
 world." 
 
 Undoubtedly guarantees in some form are nec- 
 essary. To end the war without security to the 
 belligerent nations is not to end it at all ; a peace that 
 fails to give this sense of safety will soon be broken. 
 
 There is much virtue, therefore, in this word 
 "guarantee" and like all virtuous things it is 
 dearly loved by diplomatists. But it is an ambig- 
 uous word covering not only the most universal and 
 most primitive desire of all nations, that of safety, 
 but very much more. Under the demand for guar- 
 antees lurk all sorts of gross, staring, brazen cupid- 
 ities, the grinning hypocrisy of the predator}' state, 
 the sleek rapacity of acquisitive classes, to whom 
 peace and war, international law and international 
 discord are all "business." We must distinguish 
 clearly among all these honest guarantees. 
 
 As an illustration, consider again the German 
 formula of December, 1916. This seeming virtuous 
 manifesto demands a gunrantee of existence, hon- 
 our and "liberty of evolution," a perilously elastic
 
 226 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 phrase which may mean little or everything. Under 
 this modest title deed Germany might logically claim 
 all Europe, Asia and Africa as well as the Islands 
 of the Sea. A guarantee of "liberty of evolution" 
 is an oceanic phrase, a demand carte blanche. Sim- 
 ilarly the guarantees demanded by the Allies are 
 susceptible of an interpretation requiring many 
 changes of frontiers and many acts of spoliation. 
 
 The basic difficulty with these current demands is 
 that the thing really desired is the relative weak- 
 ening of the opponent. The nations seem to have 
 lost all faith in treaties, conventions and solemn 
 agreements to keep the peace. Disbelieving in all 
 moral sanctions, they have reverted to the doctrine 
 of self-help. Each believes that it must defend it- 
 self by its own strength and that of its allies ; it must, 
 therefore, be stronger than its foe. Its security 
 must consist in a condition which renders its antag- 
 onist insecure. 
 
 All of which doctrine sounds both familiar and 
 plausible. 
 
 Yet if the war and the antecedent history of 
 European diplomacy prove anything, they demon- 
 strate that no lasting security lies in this process of 
 debilitating the enemy. If we might follow the 
 ancient policy of completely annihilating the foe, 
 something might possibly be accomplished. Today, 
 however, it would be repugnant to cultivated people 
 to assassinate all men and women and all male and
 
 GUARANTEES 227 
 
 female children of the hostile population. Yet short 
 of such extermination nothing permanent is attained. 
 The spirit of nationality, crushed to earth, arises 
 with new vigour, and the weakened nation, gaining 
 in resolution what it loses in material strength, be- 
 comes the centre of new hostile coalitions. In our 
 unstable and eternally transient European balance 
 there is no sucli thing as permanent debilitation. 
 
 Were the Allies to be completely successful and 
 were they to seek to destroy the Central Powers, it 
 would be possible to crush Germany and dismember 
 Austria. But the national groups represented by 
 these nations would remain and would form a po- 
 tential centre of resistance. The veiy superiority 
 in strength of the Allies would develop among them 
 differences of policy on matters of secondary in- 
 terest, while the insecurity of the Central Powers 
 would lead to an enforced cohesion. The smaller 
 group would create dissension in tlie larger, and 
 in the end the unsteady balancing of eiiual coali- 
 tions would be restored. The whole principle is 
 vicious. A security gained at the expense of an 
 opponent results in the insecurity of that opponent, 
 which in turn makes the first nation insecure. In 
 such arrangements no guarantee of peace can be 
 found. 
 
 In these matters we have been more fortunate in 
 America. After this war Canada will lie exposed to 
 attack by a nation of fully ten times its strength, and
 
 228 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 will be unable to resist. She will have no guaran- 
 tees, in the sense in which that term is used in dip- 
 lomatic negotiations. Nevertheless Canada will be 
 unafraid, as she would be though our two nations 
 stood alone in the world. She will know that the 
 United States does not wish to attack her. She finds 
 a greater security in our friendliness than in any 
 possible defensive measures. 
 
 It is of course not assumed that conditions in 
 Europe are the same as in America or the relations 
 between Bulgaria and Serbia, or France and Ger- 
 many, identical with those between Canada and 
 the United States. What is clear, however, is that 
 not only does a weakening of one's neighbour not 
 constitute a real guarantee against attack, but that 
 such guarantees may conceivably be found by ways 
 other than those approved upon the balance of 
 power theory. 
 
 Apart from the theory of guarantee by debilita- 
 tion there are two methods by which it is sought to 
 make a nation secure against attack. These are in- 
 ternational in scope. They are the method of the 
 covenant and the method of the destruction of mo- 
 tive. 
 
 Since the invasion of Belgium we have tended to 
 regard all covenants between nations as of dubious 
 value. If Germany could violate a treaty to which 
 she had attached her signature, what reason have we 
 for supposing that she, or any nation, would scru-
 
 GUARANTEES 229 
 
 pulously observe future obligations? Today there 
 is no longer any supernatural sanction to the King's 
 oath, and if he swear to his hurt, he will break his 
 word. The history of dijolomacy is filled with scraps 
 of paper. Moreover a solemn treaty once broken 
 is worse than if it had never been made. Had there 
 been no guarantee of Belgian neutrality, France 
 could better have defended her own frontier. 
 
 Nevertheless, future treaties, agreements and 
 covenants between nations are absolutely essential 
 to the maintenance of a world civilization. If 
 treaties have been broken in the past we must seek 
 to arrange matters so that they shall be less likely 
 to be broken hereafter. We must study the pathol- 
 ogy of solemn treaties, discover the diseases of 
 which they died, and seek by all means to prevent 
 these diseases. 
 
 That treaties have been violated in the past has 
 been due to two main causes, the insecurity of the 
 nation violating them, and the absence of a real 
 international sanction. No nation can be secure un- 
 less all nations are secure. Belgium was invaded 
 and Holland, Switzerland, Denmark and Greece felt 
 insecure, because Germany, France, Russia and 
 England were insecure. Moreover, the treaties 
 which have been violated might have been respected 
 had they been more definite in their terms and more 
 explicit in the penalties for tlieir infraction. Had 
 England and the United States, prior to 1914, def-
 
 230 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 initely agreed to declare war against any invader 
 of Belgium, and had they in the past by force of 
 arms maintained similar treaties, Germany might 
 not have dared invade Belgium. 
 
 The guarantees that we seek, therefore, must be 
 secured in two ways — by making the cost of aggres- 
 sion greater, and by making the temptation to be ag- 
 gressive less. We may accomplish this in two ways, 
 by international leagues to prevent aggression, and 
 by a series of economic, political and socio-psycho- 
 logical transformations changing the direction of 
 thought of the nations. If we can secure conditions 
 among nations analogous to those which prevent the 
 United States from attacking Canada we shall have 
 gone far in the direction of providing guarantees 
 for all peoples. 
 
 This policy of effecting economic changes making 
 for peace may lead to startling results. It may, in 
 given circumstances, prove desirable actually to rec- 
 ompense the enemy instead of punishing him, just 
 as we find jobs for convicted criminals, not as a re- 
 ward for their crime but as a means of preventing 
 their again being tempted. This method is not the 
 same as that of buying off an antagonist, which, be- 
 cause it places a premium on lawlessness becomes the 
 worst guarantee of peace. The idea underlying the 
 policy is that those nations are normally aggressive 
 which do not find vent for their activities in peace- 
 ful pursuits, and are therefore forced outwards.
 
 GUARANTEES 231 
 
 The most effective prophylactic against crime, in- 
 dividual or national, is prosperity and content. 
 
 We have seen that a crushing of the enemy and 
 still less his humiliation will not have the effect of 
 guaranteeing the security of the victorious nations. 
 In only one way can that security be obtained, by 
 strengthening international law (by providing it 
 with a sanction) and by reversing the current of 
 thought and changing the needs of the Gorman peo- 
 ple. If Germany has no more desire to attack her 
 neighbours than the United States has of attacking 
 Canada, France and Belgium need no better guar- 
 antee. If, moreover, to this absence of motive there 
 is added a series of treaties, underwritten by a 
 League of Nations pledged to fight for their main- 
 tenance, and securing France and Belgium against 
 attack, the guarantee is as strong as it can be made. 
 But this security of France and Belgium presup- 
 poses that of all other nations, including Germany. 
 It presupposes a new international organization, 
 new international concepts, a new allegiance and an 
 end to the anarchy between states which has existed 
 for so many centuries.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE GRAND ALLIANCE 
 
 If we are to realize the ideal of an international or- 
 ganization, such as that for which the liberals of 
 America and other nations are striving, we may find 
 in the present alliance opposed to Germany and in 
 the economic and political concert which that alli- 
 ance has been forced to adopt, an embryonic form, 
 which in the years after the war may develop a rela- 
 tively permanent and more or less complete unity. 
 
 There have been other Grand Alliances, preten- 
 tious and feeble, but being mere accumulations of 
 soldiers, they have meant nothing. This Alliance is 
 a totally new thing. It is a union, at least in aspira- 
 tion, of peoples and not of kings. It is a coalition, 
 economic and political, of states that had formerly 
 lived an independent life. 
 
 To gauge this Alliance properly we must look at 
 it from a distance. There are innumerable seams 
 and crevices in it and unlike things are joined incon- 
 tinently instead of being fused. But these short- 
 comings are inevitable.^ The marvellous thing is 
 that there should be an alliance at all. 
 
 1 "Napoleon was not so great as we all thought. After all he only 
 fought coalitions." Premier Clemenceau, quoted by Paul U. Kellogg, 
 TA« Survey, New York, March 19, 1918 
 
 232
 
 THE GRAND ALLIANCE 233 
 
 An Alliance of a billion people — at least of a few 
 hundred millions who rule a billion, extending its 
 sway over twenty million square miles which is many 
 times the maximum extent of the Roman Empire. 
 Look at the map, as our German opponents insist, 
 and we shall see that the territory belonging to it 
 covers three-fourths the earth's land surface. Add 
 to this other nations which are in sympathy and we 
 almost literally have a world in arms, and, what is 
 more important, a world in concert. We are wit- 
 nessing a spectacle in which the most unlikely hu- 
 man beings are in surprised co-operation. 
 
 All this, if impermanent, is highly unimportant; 
 its mere grandiose magnitude will not save the oc- 
 currence from being episodical. But what if this 
 gigantic coming together is the sign and seal of 
 a New Order? What if we are witnessing the convo- 
 cation of a vast kindergarten of Internationalism? 
 
 If it is so, will not the event be the greatest in 
 the War, greater even than the stupendous Russian 
 Revolution? The war will then be remembered not 
 by German ambitions nor by Ilindenburg or Joffro 
 victories but by the fact of this concert alone. 
 We shall be at the beginning of a New Stage in His- 
 tory. 
 
 Let us, however, not be precipitate nor over-opti- 
 mistic, judging those events in years and imagining 
 that our Grand Alliance will immediately succeed 
 in securing a permanent peace. We dare not expect
 
 234 THE END OP THE WAR 
 
 a juggler 's trick that will bring a newly painted, cast- 
 iron international system out of the bag. What we 
 must strive and hope for is something less palpable, 
 a new allegiance to a slowly forming World Society. 
 This new allegiance, at first unconscious, then con- 
 scious, at first unwilling, then willing, will be a con- 
 tinuation and fortification of habits of mind and 
 action that spring out of the temporary needs of the 
 present Alliance. A war that produces this — or even 
 advances it in time — will have more than paid for 
 its tremendous cost. 
 
 The great hope then is that the ranging of the 
 world against Germany has made possible a nearer 
 approach to Internationalism. A union caused by 
 temporary opposition may be made permanent. A 
 union for defence and destruction may be used after 
 the war for vast constructive purposes. 
 
 The hope of a degree of permanency lies in the na- 
 ture of the Alliance. It is more than a mere dip- 
 lomatic union. Money, food and men have been 
 held in common and an international organization, 
 admittedly primitive and very defective, has been 
 created in which all the nations have worked for one 
 common aim. 
 
 It is in some respects an astounding union. There 
 has been a unification of classes within each nation 
 as well as a unification of nations. There has been 
 a merging of groups hitherto hostile and an attenua- 
 tion of separating interests. Nothing before has
 
 THE GEAND ALLIANCE 235 
 
 ever revealed so great a capacity of the infinitely di- 
 vided nation to prove its essential unity. We had 
 come to doubt the strength of this unity, cemented, 
 and at the same time sharply limited, by the desire 
 for individual gain. In the economic system of all 
 great industrial nations men worked to feed, clothe 
 and comfort other men they had never seen but 
 each man worked for his own wages and his own 
 profits. We did not recognize how tough and re- 
 sistant were the loose fibres of this fragile organ- 
 ism, in which, it seemed to us, half the people 
 devoted their sedulous lives to obstructing con- 
 scientiously the efforts of the other half. In all 
 countries the Government was over-manned and un- 
 der-minded. Class distinctions were strong and 
 class prejudices bitter. And here out of this an- 
 archic mass there appeared suddenly in the hour of 
 threatened destruction and at its behest a startling 
 unity. Not that the unity was complete. Ver>^, 
 very far from it. Even during the war countries like 
 England and the United States suffered tremend- 
 ously from their ingrained economic individualism. 
 Yet there was at least some progress towards unifi- 
 cation. 
 
 For the first time each nation's full productive 
 capacity stood revealed. It was like the sudden dis- 
 covery of eoncoalod faculties when other faculties 
 are destroyed ; like the delicate sense of touch which 
 comes to the blinded man. There was also revealed
 
 236 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 in all the nations the immense increase in power 
 which has been slowly accreted during several gen- 
 erations of popular education. 
 
 What was true of the nation was also true, though, 
 of course, to an even less extent, of the larger unit, 
 the group of nations. Almost unconsciously there 
 was formed, or revealed, a vague super-organization, 
 a partial fellowship of nations united by the same 
 sort of compulsions and attractions as those which 
 cement a nation. As a result of new necessities 
 states hitherto seemingly autonomous and self-cen- 
 tred learned to co-ordinate and to sacrifice certain 
 special national interests to the larger group inter- 
 ests of the Alliance. 
 
 This co-operation was partly military but above 
 all economic. It was found necessary to apportion 
 the shipping under the control of the Allied Powers 
 to the needs of the several nations. England could 
 not benefit by diverting shipping from Italy to her- 
 self if as a result Italy's army was insufficiently 
 supplied or the morale of her population menaced. 
 It was necessary for the United States to export 
 wheat and meat in order that the resistance of her 
 Allies should not break down through actual hunger. 
 In the same way coal was distributed as well as cop- 
 per, iron, wool and other materials. 
 
 All this has not yet been fully developed, and 
 many inequalities remain. Certain of the Allied na- 
 tions have suffered an excessive strain as the result
 
 THE GRAND ALLIANCE 237 
 
 of an insufficient supply of commodities, of which in 
 other Allied nations there has been a sufficiency or 
 even an abundance. But the underlying theory is 
 obvious. It was acknowledged in principle that the 
 welfare of the group took precedence over that of 
 any one nation and therefore that it had become es- 
 sential to pool the supplies of all commodities nec- 
 essary to the winning of the war. England no 
 longer pursued an industrial or a commercial policy 
 dictated by English needs alone, but subordinated 
 her own interests to the larger economic and military 
 necessities of all the Allies. The same was true in 
 greater or less degree of the United States, France 
 and Italy. Unless all the nations combating Ger- 
 many could draw upon a common source the danger 
 of defeat was imminent. 
 
 This close co-operation of the Allies in times of 
 war sharply accentuates a development which has 
 long been in process, the loss by the several na- 
 tions of their full economic independence. Before 
 the war a country like Holland or Greece believed 
 that it was self-sufficient, in the sense that it 
 could get what it wanted and sell what it had for 
 sale ; its custom was competed for by other nations. 
 So accustomed were the Dutch and Greeks to the 
 siglit of foreign vessels thronging their ports and 
 bringing them the produce of the world that they 
 did not recognize the precariousness of this trade. 
 The actual though concealed dependence of the na-
 
 238 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 tion, while recognized by economists, was for the 
 mass of the people a vague and unreal thing. It 
 did not affect a man's action today or tomorrow. 
 The cord is now snapped and the economic inde- 
 pendence of the nations, and not only of the small na- 
 tions, is perceived to be gone. We are in an era of 
 obvious and perilous interdependence. Even the 
 strong state, though conscious of a greater strength 
 than ever, has become easily vulnerable. It may die 
 of a mere blockade. As in a military sense, so also 
 economically a state can no longer stand alone. 
 To stand alone is to be a shadow of a nation, an 
 outcast from the close family of nations. 
 
 At the present time all this is a curious revela- 
 tion. For forty years there had been a definite or- 
 ganization of industry along national lines, a promo- 
 tion of the ''national economy" and a rapid national- 
 ization of industry as of other phases of life. On 
 the one hand we had protective tariffs, export boun- 
 ties and transportation rebates in the interest of the 
 home industry and at the expense of foreigners ; on 
 the other a national competition for colonies and 
 exclusive spheres of interest. We had witnessed an 
 intensification of the national interest in industry, 
 similar in kind (though vastly greater in extent) to 
 that adopted in France two hundred years ago. 
 What Colbert and the Mercantilists did in a small 
 way, all nations were now doing on a vast scale. 
 The result was that merchants and manufacturers
 
 THE GRAND ALLIANCE 239 
 
 of different countries no longer competed as indi- 
 viduals, but the whole industry of one nation com- 
 bated the whole industry of another. It was the 
 German steel industry as a unit against the French 
 industry, not Schulz & Co. against the firm of 
 Machaud or Le Brun. This nationalism of industry 
 has by no means reached the limits of its develop- 
 ment. It is still in its beginnings and in the future 
 we may expect to see business in the various coun- 
 tries organized on a far more closely co-ordinated 
 national basis. The improvement of transportation, 
 the wide extension of advertising, the increasing 
 standardization of industries, the successes of trusts 
 and cartels have put an end to industrial organiza- 
 tion on a smaller scale. The increasing interest of 
 states in the promotion of the economic welfare of 
 their citizens renders the success of economic na- 
 tionalism assured. 
 
 While industry, however, has now compassed the 
 nation it begins to stretch forth beyond the frontiers, 
 and the same impulse which made it national is lead- 
 ing it to become supra-national or international. It 
 seems likely therefore that the growing economic 
 nationalism will be infused with a super-nationalism 
 as a result of the growing dependence of the nations 
 and of their industrial systems upon one another. 
 National economic warfare, like military warfare, is 
 too dangerous a conflict to permit of its indefinite 
 continuance.
 
 240 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 It may perhaps be urged that with the resumption 
 of peace the economic self-sufficiency of nations will 
 immediately return, and as a consequence the grand 
 economic alliance of the Allied nations will suddenly 
 cease. Actually, however, the conditions created 
 during the war are likely to last at least for several 
 years after the war. The withdrawal of millions of 
 men from industry has caused an enormous reduc- 
 tion in the available stocks of many important com- 
 modities. There is not enough food in the world 
 adequately to feed the world population. Nor is 
 there enough copper, steel, coal, cotton and wool. 
 There is a startling lack of essential raw materials. 
 The available supplies can be distributed fairly only 
 by a recognized international organization. 
 
 Moreover, the power of any one nation to harm 
 its neighbours economically by the withdrawal of 
 raw materials is likely to be greater after the war 
 than it has ever been before. If the United States 
 and Great Britain refuse to export raw cotton, the 
 textile industries of other countries will break down 
 completely. The same would be true of w^ool and 
 of several other commodities. For England and 
 the United States, or either of them, however, to 
 adopt such a selfish and monopolistic policy would 
 be to alienate all other nations. In such circum- 
 stances there could be no peace. The various Al- 
 lied nations therefore will be obliged to pool all re- 
 sources and distribute the product in proportion to
 
 THE GRAND ALLIANCE 241 
 
 the estimated needs of the nations within the Alli- 
 ance. For several years after the war Italy, France, 
 England, the United States, as well as other nations, 
 will probably receive such amounts of the food, tex- 
 tiles and minerals of the world, at a fixed price and 
 under agreed conditions, as shall be determined upon 
 in the permanent international economic conference 
 having the disposal of these materials. 
 
 The economic co-operation of the present Grand 
 Alliance is likely to become more definite and 
 thorough owing to the fact that it will not only con- 
 stitute an effective weapon against Germany during 
 the war and, perhaps, a means of securing a just 
 peace, but also, for some time after the war, a regu- 
 lator of German trade and of German competition. 
 Germany is beginning to recognize the enormous in- 
 fluence of the economic factors in the decision of this 
 war. In the beginning, slie hoped for a speedy vic- 
 tory which would lessen the economic strain. When 
 that victory failed and when the British block- 
 ade became more effective, the pressure increased 
 painfully. With this increasing pressure came an 
 enormously increased fear of an economic boycott. 
 So long as the United States and Latin America re- 
 mained out of the war, Germany had comparatively 
 little to fear from such an attack, since she could 
 always play off these great neutrals, with their re- 
 sources in raw materials and their markets for fin- 
 ished products, against her great European enemies.
 
 242 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 With the entrance of the United States, however, 
 followed by that of China and Brazil, the situation 
 changed for her alarmingly. It is this which ex- 
 plains the emphasis which Germany has ever since 
 laid upon the necessity of the Allies not using against 
 her their economic weapons. 
 
 The present situation is that if Germany fails to 
 gain a complete military victory she can be compelled 
 to accept reasonable terms by force of the enormous 
 economic superiority of the Allies. The Central 
 Empires have almost completely used up their sup- 
 plies of raw material. Their factories, railroads 
 and other instruments of production have been in- 
 jured by the strain of a three-and-a-half years ' war. 
 What they require is not alone the repair of the 
 military machine and the storage of a surplus of 
 goods for the future, but also a supply of commodi- 
 ties for the satisfaction of their daily needs. They 
 cannot secure all these goods except by drawing upon 
 the Allies or upon countries completely or partially 
 dominated by the Allies.^ 
 
 It is impossible to exaggerate the urgency of this 
 need. Unless Germany can make satisfactory treaty 
 arrangements she cannot buy the goods she requires, 
 and in return for those that she can buy, she must 
 export gold, of which she has not enough today to 
 maintain her paper currency. Failing to solve this 
 
 1 Since the dissolution of Russia and the signing of a separate 
 peace with the Ukraine the situation of Germany in this respect 
 has vastly improved.
 
 THE GRAND ALLIANCE 243 
 
 problem, her export trade cannot be re-established, 
 her wages will fall while her prices rise, and the 
 resulting unemployment and discontent may bring 
 the nation to the verge of revolution. Not to get raw 
 materials means decivilization. As one writer has 
 said: ''The Germans have discovered by painful 
 experience . . . that life in a community without an 
 adequate supply of cotton, wool, silk, leather, and 
 jute, of animal and vegetable fats, of lubricating oil, 
 of tea, coffee, and cocoa, of copper, tin, nickel, and 
 other even more indispensable metals, not to speak 
 of foodstuffs, is so squalid and lowering as to be al- 
 most unendurable." To obtain these materials Ger- 
 many, unless she obtains her decisive military vic- 
 torj^ wnll be obliged to make concessions. 
 
 And the chance of a real military decision becomes 
 less every day. Even General von Freytag-Loring- 
 hoven admits (in the Frankfurter Zeitung) that 
 **the power of a radical decision of a world-war has 
 slipped away from the armies and that the strategi- 
 cal situation is conditioned by the world-economic 
 situation." "It is owing to Germany's unfavour- 
 able position in this regard," he continues, that ''vic- 
 tories which once would have been absolutely deci- 
 sive, and the conquest of whole Kingdoms, have not 
 brought us nearer to peace." ' 
 
 It is quite possible tlierefore that the very element 
 
 1 See also "Deductions from the (^.reat War" hv T-ieiitenant-gen- 
 eral Baron von Freytag-Loringhoven, New York, lOlS, p. 10.
 
 244 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 which has created a partial economic unity among 
 tlie Allies will be effective in establishing, at least 
 temporarily, an internationalism broader than the 
 present alliance. In all probability it will be the 
 dread of a throttling by the Allied nations, and this 
 dread alone, which will compel the Central Powers 
 to accede to some measure of joint action with the 
 present Allies. The economic weapon is likely to 
 prove decisive. It is that which, aided by the mili- 
 tary weapon, will enable the Allies to put enough 
 pressure upon the German ruling classes and to ap- 
 peal to the industrial and commercial classes of Ger- 
 many, as well as to its proletariat, to bring the war 
 to a reasonable end. 
 
 That end cannot be a mere resumption of the eco- 
 nomic war which preceded the war. 
 
 What may eventually result we cannot yet foresee, 
 but for a period of, let us say, at least five years, 
 Germany will be able to receive her raw materials 
 and her full access to foreign markets only on con- 
 dition that she applies to her own industries the same 
 rules and limitations as do the Allies. 
 
 In return for such a reopening of trade, and for 
 the resulting economic security, Germany may well 
 be willing to accept a peace which she might other- 
 wise reject. There is no advantage to her in holding 
 territories if she cannot feed her people and can- 
 not maintain their standard of living.^ 
 
 1 Today (March 9, 1918) Germany's situation in respect to her
 
 THE GRAND ALLIANCE 245 
 
 Tt is also quite possible that the economic superi- 
 ority of the world opposed to Germany will be a 
 factor not only in ending the war, but in creating a 
 new international system. 
 
 Into this international system Germany would 
 have to be admitted on equal terms. Not to admit 
 her into the new economic league would be to make 
 her an enemy and to force her again to resort to mili- 
 tary action at the earliest advantageous moment. 
 The Allies can afford to be generous even beyond the 
 point of Germany's ability to extort terms. They 
 will be wise if they see in their own temporary eco- 
 nomic union the hope of a vast future international 
 system which in the end will determine problems 
 other than economic. For if the nations can learn 
 to agree on the disposition of the available raw ma- 
 terials of the world and on the opening of markets, 
 they should also be able in time to agree upon the 
 question of the distribution of trade and investment 
 opportunities in all colonies old and new. If they 
 can learn to agree on these subjects it should not 
 be impossible for them to find some sort of an ap- 
 proach to an understanding on such intricate inter- 
 national questions as the freedom of the sea and 
 rules for the regulation and limitation of armaments. 
 If they can agree upon so complicated a question as 
 the internationalization of the Straits, will it prove 
 
 food and raw material supply has hcen vastly improved by arrange- 
 ments with Russia, Rumania and the Ukraine.
 
 246 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 impossible to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion con- 
 cerning the status of the Balkan States? The na- 
 tions, temporarily at least, are forced to come to an 
 arrangement concerning the distribution of the avail- 
 able raw material in the world. It is a necessity 
 which will be universally acknowledged. Will it be 
 impossible to use this temporary and partial neces- 
 sity for co-operative effort between the nations to 
 form the beginnings of a new and larger co-ordina- 
 tion, not only specifically economic, but also polit- 
 ical? 
 
 If this turns out to be the case, not immediately 
 but in the course of years, the present Grand Alliance 
 may be converted into a limited economic union of all 
 the nations, and eventually into a new system of in- 
 ternationalism in which there will be room for the 
 gradual growth of an allegiance wider than the pres- 
 ent allegiance to the state. 
 
 What the present economic concert among the 
 Allies offers is perhaps only a vague hope, only the 
 beginning of a beginning of a really effective and 
 plenary international system. The Alliance may not 
 even outlast the war. It may show signs of inter- 
 nal strain and its component states may revert to 
 their former cut throat competition. The essential 
 and encouraging element in the situation, however, 
 is that we shall be faced after the war with a strong, 
 though temporary, economic pressure, which is not 
 unlikely to force states, enemy and allied, to act in
 
 THE GRAND ALLIANCE 247 
 
 concert. Lideed this economic co-operation may be 
 presented as one of the conditions of the treaty of 
 peace. If these specific and transient problems can 
 be solved temporarily, a basis will possibly be laid 
 for a wider and more permanent international co-op- 
 eration, such as President Wilson has in mind in his 
 prophecies of a concert of the peoples.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 OBSTACLES TO INTERNATIONALISM 
 
 Nothing is more enticing than a large word which 
 idealizes our ambitions and justifies our hopes. 
 Once we discover this all-solving word we embrace 
 it eagerly and never seek to ask whether to others 
 it means the same wide salvation as to us. If it un- 
 locks our doors, if it opens our windows upon a 
 glorious vista of liberty, we cannot conceive that 
 it may not unlock all other doors and open all other 
 windows. We assume a universal validity for any 
 theory, premise or ideal which suits our circum- 
 stances. 
 
 In the past the nations have had many of these 
 all-embracing words. Authority, Conformity, 
 Faith, Liberty, Equality, Democracy, Nationalism 
 — one after another these keywords came to the peo- 
 ples and were adopted and fought for, though to 
 some of the peoples they meant release and to others 
 tears and chains. 
 
 It is indeed when a word, phrase or slogan com- 
 pletely epitomizes the desires of a nation or a class 
 and arouses the greatest enthusiasm that it becomes 
 most cruel. The noblest aspirations translate them- 
 selves somewhere into misery and pain. There were 
 
 248
 
 OBSTACLES TO INTERNATIONALISM 249 
 
 no better intentioned men in the world than many 
 who inspired the soul-saving Inquisition. The wars 
 of religion were in part fought for high ideals, 
 which seemed to the fighting nations of universal 
 validity. The democratic crusade of the French 
 Revolution, which sought to make the world ripe for 
 democracy (and in the end contributed to that re- 
 sult), brought to some peoples a useless and heavy- 
 burden. So too, the Holy Alliance was animated 
 by a belief which seemed to the believers incontest- 
 able and yet met opposition. In the middle of the 
 Nineteenth Century many nations clamoured for 
 an era of peace, but for others peace would have 
 meant disaster, for it would have left their problems 
 unsolved, their democracy depressed, and their peo- 
 ple disunited. It was not because these ideals were 
 bad that they bore so hardly upon certain peoples, 
 but usually because they were envisaged too nar- 
 rowly. Altruistic ideals were tinged with the self- 
 ish interests of their protagonists. 
 
 Today we are standing behind another world-em- 
 bracing word, internationalism. In one sense it is 
 a very old conception since its roots run far back into 
 the past. But never before has this ideal seemed so 
 near fruition, never before has it been so rich in con- 
 tent, and never has it stirred so many millions to 
 such depths. It is a noble and a generous ideal, a 
 gracious conception of peoples big and little living 
 together in harmony, each developing its separate
 
 250 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 abilities and characteristics, yet all united by a com- 
 mon humanity. Above all, it is an ultimately prac- 
 ticable ideal. 
 
 Does this noble idea, however, in its usual in- 
 terpretation, make for the freedom and full evolu- 
 tion of all nations or does it benefit some and in- 
 jure others? If it does injure some, can they be 
 reconciled to or dragooned into internationalism? 
 And if they are dragooned, does that fact impair 
 the spirit of internationalism and defeat its pur- 
 poses? 
 
 There are many variants of internationalism. 
 Under this one word are included plans, simple and 
 complex, definite and indefinite, practicable, imprac- 
 ticable, impossible, ranging from the first halting 
 step toward a co-operation between states to w^hole- 
 sale programs for wiping out all nations, and con- 
 verting humanity into one inseparable people. Yet 
 as we view this theory in the light of its interpreta- 
 tion by the average thinker in Western Europe we 
 find certain rather clearly defined elements. These 
 are disarmament, international arbitration and 
 mediation, the reinforcement of treaties, especially 
 of treaties of neutralization, and finally the grant- 
 ing of the right of self-determination to each con- 
 scious nationality. While other elements are some- 
 times comprised and sometimes excluded, these five 
 constitute the core of international thought as de- 
 veloped in the United States, England and France.
 
 OBSTACLES TO INTERNATIONALISM 251 
 
 It is essentially this internationalism for whicli 
 we believe that we are fighting. 
 
 Unfortunately it is doubtful whether this form 
 of internationalism is one which will be acceptable 
 to our present enemies or to all of our allies. To 
 our enemies it seems a cramping, one-sided, selfish 
 proposal, not a cure for present-day evils but a 
 sword, the hilt of which lies in the hands of the Allies 
 while the blade points at the heart of the Central 
 Powers. It seems to them a glittering mask, cov- 
 ering the grim reality of a group of prosperous, self- 
 ish nations seeking to injure others ; a weapon, not 
 a cure. 
 
 What truth is there in this point of view? Are 
 there interests in the world worthy of conservation 
 which would be destroyed by any such application 
 of internationalism? Why have Germany and Aus- 
 tria so long antagonized the proposals of the West- 
 ern democracies to replace an international anarchy 
 with a responsible international government? 
 
 The essence of this antagonism is to be seen in 
 the clash between the State Idea {Staatsidee), as 
 strikingly represented by Germany, and an Inter- 
 nationalism represented by Germany's enemies. 
 Month by month it becomes more apparent that Ger- 
 man policies are closely associated with a new, or 
 at least a newly emphasized conception of an omnip- 
 otent state, largely free from international restraints 
 and consideration for subject nationalities, and
 
 252 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 with the right to impress into its service the lives, 
 goods and opinions of its subjects. As opposed to 
 this conception stands that of Internationalism, 
 which subordinates state policy to the larger inter- 
 ests of the whole family of nations, which empha- 
 sizes the right of nationalistic self-determination, 
 and the desirability of peace. 
 
 In democratic countries liberals have long believed 
 that the ultimate triumph of this Internationalism 
 was assured. All considerations of wisdom, justice 
 and moderation, all the common sense and common 
 morality of the world were to lead to an easy, al- 
 most automatic, victory for the international prin- 
 ciple. As peoples became educated, intelligent and 
 free, they would recognize that the exacerbated na- 
 tionalism of today was an absurdity. Men would 
 see that they were brothers, that their interests 
 were identical, that they could not strike blows with- 
 out hitting themselves. Under the banner of In- 
 ternationalism mankind would move steadily for- 
 wards towards civilization, democracy and peace. 
 
 For the moment at least the war has stripped us 
 of this smiling illusion. It has revealed to us how 
 for forty years one of the most powerful and in- 
 telligent of nations, one which by most criteria must 
 be adjudged highly civilized, has been wedded to 
 an exactly opposite doctrine. Germany has devel- 
 oped an allegiance to the state beyond anything 
 known in modern times. This German state is a
 
 OBSTACLES TO INTERNATIONALISM 253 
 
 jealous god, visiting the iniquities of the disloyal 
 most heavily, and tolerating no other allegiance. 
 The state is an end in itself, not a means to the 
 happiness of its subjects. Its first law is not serv- 
 ice but survival and power.^ Therefore Interna- 
 tional Law is valid only in so far as it lies within 
 the interests of the state. Within the state minor 
 nationalities, minor economic groups, minor organ- 
 izations of all kinds possess only such rights as the 
 state in its own interest chooses to accord, and rights 
 so accorded may be withdrawn. The state is su- 
 preme ; the individual within the state and the great 
 inchoate world on the outside are subordinate. 
 
 It was commonly believed that this formidable 
 doctrine, the outcroppings of which we have dis- 
 covered in recent grim events, was an anachronism, 
 like the belief in witches, and that it must give way 
 before the more modern conceptions of the demo- 
 cratic nations. Yet this State Idea, or, as we may 
 call it, this Neo-Nationalism, far from dying as a 
 result of external intellectual pressure, has actually 
 grown with the growth in literacy and education. 
 The Germans today read more widely than in the 
 idealistic period of Schiller and Kant, and they dis- 
 cuss political questions, not always wisely perhaps 
 
 1 There is today a new type of German imperialist who would insist 
 that the first law of the state is survival for aorviot-. CuTman im- 
 perialists of this type have absorbed mtu-h of the British imporialistin 
 spirit, and men like Rohrbach read occasionally like prosy transla- 
 tions of Kipling.
 
 254 THE END OF THE WAE 
 
 but interminably. And out of this discussion has 
 come a fortification of Neo-Nationalism. Even the 
 peasant on liis five-acre farm, or the hod-carrier on 
 a Berlin tenement is more or less in agreement with 
 the current doctrine of a strong, highly organized, 
 centralized state, for which an almost exclusive al- 
 legiance may be demanded. He may perhaps ex- 
 press the doctrine sentimentally; at bottom, how- 
 ever, he vaguely believes in the sort of national and 
 international organization in which his rulers be- 
 lieve. 
 
 At first glance the German socialists seem to form 
 an exception. Despite their internationalism, how- 
 ever, their conception of the state bears a certain 
 likeness to that of the professors. Their co-opera- 
 tive commonwealth reproduces much of the method, 
 philosophy and morale of the German state. The 
 Socialist party itself, despite its democratic basis, 
 is unitary, centralized, all-powerful, and toward 
 minorities not a little intolerant. It is regimented 
 and over-disciplined. The trend of the German 
 revolutionary and semi-revolutionary movement is 
 not only national — in its decisive relations — but 
 overwhelmingly political.* Her Socialists do not 
 aim at a limitation of the immense authority of the 
 state, let alone at its destruction, but at its conver- 
 
 1 Unlike France, Italy and the United States, Germany has little 
 anti-political or syndicalist sentiment.
 
 OBSTACLES TO INTERNATIONALISM 255 
 
 sion into a centralized, omnipotent, socialistic organ- 
 ization. 
 
 Nor has this weighty emphasis upon the state 
 idea, this subordination of individuals, classes and 
 interests to a unitary and internationally irrespon- 
 sible state resulted in any decline in national effi- 
 ciency. Rather it seems to have had the opposite 
 effect. Both in peace and war Germany has been 
 singularly successful. The tight national cohesion 
 has not destroyed private initiative nor prevented 
 a growth of effective group action. The German 
 conception of the state has not been discredited by 
 any marked inefficiency. 
 
 What then will be the war's result in destroying 
 or propagating this doctrine of Neo-Nationalism? 
 Will Italy, Japan, Serbia, Roumania, and perhaps 
 England, France and the United States embrace the 
 doctrine which Germany has upheld? Will a feeble 
 and languidly-aspiring Internationalism be wor- 
 shipped in our studies while in actual life we go over 
 to a strenuous and powerful, if narrow Neo-Nation- 
 alism? It is conceivable that the war will end with 
 a stronger assertion of the omnipotence and irre- 
 sponsibility of the state, with a naked Neo-Nation- 
 alism covering itself pro forma with a few inter- 
 nationalist phrases. The New Nationalism may 
 triumph even although its titular champions be de- 
 feated.
 
 256 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 This is one of the deepest issues of the war. The 
 outcome of this contest between the New National- 
 ism, aggressive, and confident and an International- 
 ism, as yet unsure of itself or its purpose, will vitally 
 affect the coming generations. 
 
 Historically these two opposed doctrines, Neo- 
 Nationalism and Internationalism, are twin daugh- 
 ters of a single development. Whether in any given 
 case the one or the other has taken root has depended 
 upon the conditions surrounding the community dur- 
 ing the period in which it attained to nationhood. 
 
 Of our present-day nations, England, France, 
 Spain, Portugal and others, reached nationhood cen- 
 turies ago, while Italy, Germany, Hungary, Serbia, 
 Bulgaria and Roumania did not become independent 
 full-fledged nations until recently. All these na- 
 tions desire approximately the same things; a nu- 
 merous homogeneous population permanently inhab- 
 iting a coherent territory; a well-defined and easily 
 defended frontier ; a population with a common lan- 
 guage, literature and institutions ; a unitary govern- 
 ment and an organic, intellectual and political 
 solidarity; a population composed, if possible, of 
 only one nationality.^ If these elements are essen- 
 tial to full nationhood, then France and Spain are 
 nations in a fuller sense than Austria, Hungary or 
 
 1 See definition of nation by F. Lieber, "Fragments of Political 
 Science on Nationalism and Internationalism," New York, 1868; 
 quoted by Krehbiel (Edward), "War and Society," New York, 
 1916, p. 1.
 
 OBSTACLES TO INTERNATIONALISM 257 
 
 Russia. The latter are impeded by conflicts between 
 the state and the nationalities within their borders. 
 
 What nationalities are is easier to sense than to 
 define. Broadly speaking a nationality is ^'a race 
 which possesses its own language, customs and cul- 
 ture, and enough self-consciousness to preserve 
 them" ^ even though it does not possess its own 
 government, as does a nation. Serbia is a nation; 
 the Serbs of Austria are only a nationality. Flem- 
 ings, Walloons, Alsatians, Poles and Italian Swiss 
 all form nationalities. In a nation comprised of 
 various nationalities there is usually, but not always, 
 an antagonism between the state and the national- 
 istic spirit. The Roumanians of Hungary are not 
 a loyal part of the Magyar state; their sympathies 
 are nationalistic and cross the boundary into 
 Roumania. The same conditions exist everyu^here 
 in the more or less coherent states of Central and 
 Eastern Europe. The resulting conflict between 
 state and nationality is a grave danger to the peace 
 of the world. 
 
 This antagonism did not always exist. Two cen- 
 turies ago the various language groups vegetated 
 together harmoniously, because not shai*ply con- 
 scious of their nationality. The state in those days 
 was a loosely-integrated thing, amorphous and com- 
 fortably inefficient. Czech and German, Hungarian 
 
 1 "The War and Democracy," by J. Dover Wilson and others, Lon- 
 don, 1915, p. 19.
 
 258 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 and Slovak lived under one distant Emperor, whom 
 they never saw. There was not much more friction 
 than today between the various national groups com- 
 prised within the Roman Catholic Church. But all 
 this comfortable co-habitation of dormant nationali- 
 ties has been ended by a series of economic, political, 
 social and psychological changes, which have oc- 
 curred during the last few centuries. A new sense 
 has been given to nationality and a new vigour to the 
 nationalistic principle. 
 
 The internal and external difficulties in which this 
 growth of nationalistic ambitions has placed states 
 composed of several nationalities are immensely in- 
 creased by the fact that these groups are perma- 
 nent, unabsorbable and almost impenetrable bodies. 
 It is often asked why Germany cannot absorb its few 
 Danes or Poles as we in America our millions of 
 aliens. The answer is that in Europe these nation- 
 alities are growing things, whereas what we in 
 America have are but up-rooted fragments of na- 
 tionalities, that cannot again take root. 
 
 It is this conflict of growing nations with minor 
 nationalities, either within or without their borders, 
 that largely inclines such nations either towards 
 the New Nationalism or towards Internationalism. 
 Those nations whose extension strikes against small 
 but stubborn nationalities incline to a policy of Xeo- 
 Nationalism, while those whose expansion is free 
 tend on the whole to a policy of Internationalism.
 
 OBSTACLES TO INTERNATIONALISM 259 
 
 The United States is a case of a nation freely- 
 developing without the restraint of hostile nationali- 
 ties. The same freedom to expand without striking 
 against a nationalistic opposition has also been true, 
 though in a less degree, of Great Britain and of 
 France. The Boer War was an apparent excep- 
 tion to the rule. But the conquered Dutch burghers 
 lay six thousand miles from London ; they were not 
 in a vital part of the Empire ; and they could be ab- 
 sorbed linguistically if not racially. On the other 
 hand, the expansion of Germany and Austria-Hun- 
 gary was halted on every side by small nationali- 
 ties, within and without the Empires. The Dutch 
 and Belgians hemmed in Germany on the west. Li 
 the south-east, Serbia stood solidly opposed, while 
 within the Dual Monarchy, the Southern Slavs were 
 large disaffected. The Central Empires could not 
 make gains in Europe without trenching on the spirit 
 of nationality. They could not even maintain their 
 actual frontiers without violating the nationalistic 
 principle.* 
 
 It is self-evident that nations so situated find it 
 difficult under present conceptions of national strug- 
 gle to subscribe to the doctrine of the self-deter- 
 mination of nationalities.^ To them, the principle 
 
 1 The problem for Germany would have been less difficult had she 
 been able to expand colonially as frwly as Britain and France. Un- 
 fortunately for her she entered too late upon the colonial competition. 
 
 2 It is obvious that Austria is willing to have tiie principle of self- 
 determination applied in Russia but not in her own dominions.
 
 260 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 seems destructive. If it were to be rigorously ap- 
 plied, Austria-Hungary would break to pieces, Swit- 
 zerland would disappear, Germany would lose many 
 of her subjects (perhajjs advantageously), Britain 
 might lose Ireland, and Ireland Ulster, and Ulster 
 perhaps a part of its territory. Turkey would be 
 pared down to a fragment of its present territory. 
 Self-determination is a principle which we in the 
 United States did not admit in the case of the South- 
 ern Confederacy. We insisted that the seceding 
 states should remain within the Union, whatever 
 their desire or interests. So far as inclination went, 
 the Southern States were no more a part of the 
 nation in 1861 than was Canada. 
 
 Against this principle of self-determination the 
 Austrians and Germans oppose a rival conception, 
 the State Idea. It is upon this fundamental theory, 
 that the state is a larger concept than nationality, 
 that Austria-Hungary, Switzerland, and Belgium 
 are built. 
 
 Which of these two principles is to prevail? If 
 the State Idea, then to a certain extent we suppress 
 nationalities; if the Nationality Idea, then to an 
 equal extent we dissolve states. 
 
 The question is not one of mere logic. Behind 
 the State Idea there lies a powerful economic pur- 
 pose. The tendency of modern times is for the 
 economic unit to grow until it transcends the bounds 
 of nationality.
 
 OBSTACLES TO INTEKX.VTIONALTSM 261 
 
 Herein lies the deep antagonism between the 
 Mittel-Enropa idea and the unrestricted recogni- 
 tion of the rights of nationalities. Mittel-Europa 
 contravenes many of the ideals of internationalism. 
 It is based on the Staatsidee and is a political equiv- 
 alent for a closed economic unity much larger than 
 the nationality. Its principle is not only not inter- 
 national but not even democratic. Actually Mittel- 
 Europa would work out along the lines of a de- 
 crease in parliamentarism. The greater part of the 
 administration of this vast federation would be in 
 the hands of experts, military, financial and eco- 
 nomic, and the control which could be exerted by 
 the legislative bodies of the several states composing 
 the union would be slight indeed. A Bohemian 
 legislature would not be permitted to veto a law, 
 agreed upon by the experts of Mittel-Europa. Un- 
 der such a system the subject nationalities would be 
 still further dwarfed. 
 
 Why then does Germany desire Mittel-Europa 
 while the Allies want the self-determination of na- 
 tionalities — or at least of certain nationalities? 
 Fundamentally, the Germans by means of tliis fed- 
 eration are seeking to secure for themselves what the 
 Allies wish to secure by their internationalism, 
 namely growth, extension and a political and eco- 
 nomic security. The creation of a Mittel-Europa 
 may or may not be a prelude to new German ag- 
 gression. It may prove to be merely an effort to de-
 
 262 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 velop a state upon so large a basis that it will be 
 economically self-supporting and politically without 
 fear of attack. To the Germans this coalition seems 
 the easiest and perhaps the only path to security. 
 The forces, therefore, which cause men in the West- 
 ern nations to demand internationalism make Ger- 
 many and Austria sceptical of it and desirous of 
 Mittel-Europa. The same motives work on the two 
 groups of nations variously, because their basic con- 
 ditions are different. 
 
 This different working out of similar motives 
 causes the widest possible divergences and the 
 strongest antagonisms. One of the obvious implica- 
 tions of Neo-Nationalism is militarism. The theory 
 of the subordination of minor racial groups to a 
 theoretically omnipotent state might have some- 
 thing to commend it if the state were always the 
 true and equal representative of the constituent na- 
 tionalities. As a rule, however, the formula is used 
 as a cover for the suppression of one nationality 
 by another. In Austria- Hungary the state is Ger- 
 man-Magyar, and minor nationalities acquire at best 
 a subordinate position or are ruthlessly exploited. 
 To hold these minor nations down military power is 
 necessary. 
 
 For the same reasons the Neo-Nationalist states 
 are likely to oppose other parts of a program of in- 
 ternationalism. Being hemmed in by minor nation- 
 alities, they can upset the status quo with which they
 
 OBSTACLES TO INTERNATIONALISM 263 
 
 are dissatisfied only by force of arms. Therefore 
 they usually oppose disarmament, which they be- 
 lieve to be to their own disadvantage and to the ad- 
 vantage of the favourably situated states. Similarly 
 they oppose arbitration, since it would apply to 
 problems, which to them are vital, the current public 
 law of nations, which law, they feel, presses unduly 
 hard upon them. They are against any interna- 
 tional law, which is based upon the equal right of 
 small nations, hemming in the growing nations. 
 They believe that these small nations must always 
 and inevitably become the allies and bulwarks of the 
 larger homogeneous states.' 
 
 As opposed to these Neo-Nationalist states, the 
 more favourably located states tend to be in favour 
 of internationalism, public law and peace, because 
 of the advantages to them of such a policy. 
 
 They can usually afford peace, since they have 
 what is desired and what the war-like, ill-placed na- 
 tions lack. If these favourably placed nations fight 
 at all, it is in outlying semicivilized districts against 
 unorganized bodies of men, to whom the rules of 
 civilization and internationalism need not apply. 
 
 1 To this Neo-Nationalism, also, there are many minor Implications. 
 Because of their careful military organization and their supposed 
 need of repressing minor nationalities, especially if these are frap- 
 ments or fringes of independent neighbouring states of like national- 
 ity, neo-nationalist states are usually ruled by politically conserva- 
 tive governing classes and an- nifhless in diplomacy and war. The 
 ruling nationality is as a rule more cohesive than in nations more 
 favourably situated.
 
 264 THE END OP THE WAR 
 
 They favour arbitration, because, in its usual in- 
 terpretation, it is based on the principle of the status 
 quo. They favour mediation because, being less 
 military than their neighbours, they gain by delay. 
 They favour peace because they (usually) gain in 
 strength with each decade and are frequently, though 
 not always, pre-eminent in the economic competition 
 which goes on in time of peace. They want peace 
 because Time is their ally. 
 
 Above all they desire justice for oppressed na- 
 tionalities. Not all oppressed nationalities but only, 
 or at least chiefly, those in potentially hostile coun- 
 tries. By thus agitating and fighting for the op- 
 pressed nationalities under enemy rule they make 
 for themselves new allies not only of these minor na- 
 tionalistic groups but also of the adjoining nations 
 to which by nationalistic claims these fragments 
 belong. The enemies of Germany and Austria can 
 always win the sympathies of the Poles, Danes, 
 Serbs and Roumanians within those Empires. 
 
 Like the well-placed and compactly organized 
 states, so also the neutral and neutralized small 
 states advocate the cause of internationalism. Bel- 
 gium, Holland, Scandinavia and Switzerland have a 
 vital interest in an internationalism which preserves 
 them from attack. Even where they block the eco- 
 nomic and political progress of the large constricted 
 nations, internationalism renders them secure 
 Their neutralization, and their separate sovereignty,
 
 OBSTACLES TO INTERNATIONALISM 265 
 
 are based upon international law and upon the sup- 
 port of nations willing to fight for internationalism. 
 
 From all of which it appears that international- 
 ism, according to its interpretation, may be a weapon 
 or a cure. It may be used by certain nations to bat- 
 ter down others. It may conceal national greed and 
 national aggression. 
 
 To take a hypothetical and exaggerated case, what 
 remedy under existing theories of international re- 
 lations could a future democratic Germany have 
 against a Belgium which in the fixing of its tariffs, 
 practically shut out German goods from passage 
 through her territory? Against such an injurious 
 action Germany might not be able to reply except by 
 a violation of Belgian neutrality, which would bring 
 on a new war. Actually there is no danger in this 
 specific case, since Belgium is more dependent eco- 
 nomically upon Germany than Germany upon her. 
 But the general problem none the less exists. Va- 
 rious nations hold the road to the ocean, control of 
 the seas, access to markets and raw materials, and 
 they are able to exert pressure upon other nations by 
 the threat of withdrawing conceded rights. An Aus- 
 tria at Constantinople could levy tribute as could 
 Greece at Salonica or Italy at Trieste. Under our 
 present static conceptions of internationalism each 
 nation might levy tribute at will. 
 
 An internationalism which would permit such con- 
 ditions is a barren and negative doctrine, holding
 
 266 THE END OF THE WAE 
 
 forth no hope of justice or peace. It is a purely con- 
 servative internationalism, a mere glorification of 
 possession. It has no vitality since it is not flex- 
 ible and easily adjusted to an ever-changing environ- 
 ment. 
 
 To secure a real internationalism we must go fur- 
 ther. We must revolutionize conditions and con- 
 cepts and secure an international machinery for the 
 progressive adjustment of the ever-changing needs 
 of all the nations. The war has again shown, what 
 was manifest before, that the economic interests of 
 the nations transcend boundary lines. 
 
 Such a wider internationalism cannot consist of 
 treaties alone. Even though we formulate new rules 
 of international law and give to them a new sanction 
 we shall have gone but part of the way. Nothing less 
 is required than a complete revolution of our in- 
 ternational life, a binding together by new bonds of 
 all the peoples. Internationalism, moreover, must 
 be more than a mere legal compact. The crucial 
 defect of such compacts is that they are speedily 
 destroyed by evasion if not by open breach. Back 
 of whatever legal formulation is necessary must 
 lie a support for the new system in the public opin- 
 ion of the world. The international court may en- 
 force as well as declare the law, but the enforcement 
 must find approval with the vast majority of the 
 peoples. Internationalism will evolve, moreover,
 
 OBSTACLES TO INTERNATIONALISM 267 
 
 only as it develops side by side with new habits of 
 thought. Its growth is an evolutionary process, re- 
 flecting a similar growth in the minds of hundreds 
 of millions of people. 
 
 At this stage it is unnecessary to map out a plan 
 for such internationalism. Plans are easy enough ; 
 a plan for common action by all nations could be 
 formulated in a month if the will to lead an in- 
 ternational life were present. The will, based on 
 a common consciousness, is the important element. 
 
 That consciousness will grow as a result of this 
 war. In a very real sense the war has not only 
 negated itself but has irreparably discredited the in- 
 ternational anarchy out of whicli it sprang. It has 
 shown that no hope of an ordered international life 
 is to be found in a balancing of rival Powers. It 
 has proved that no nation is secure without arma- 
 ments and none is secure with them; that the ma- 
 terial weapons, indispensable to safety and yet not 
 providing safety, are themselves automatic, and 
 often actually precipitate the wars they are intended 
 to avert. The old system, it is now seen, is so 
 barren of criteria, of sanctions, of safeguards, that 
 arbitration becomes impossible, except in controver- 
 sies which do not matter, and even mediation is prac- 
 tically worthless, in an atmosphere of suspicion, 
 especially since every delay in declaring war favours 
 certain nations and handicaps others. There is no
 
 268 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 way out except forward to a plenary international- 
 ism, giving security, both political and economic, to 
 all nations. 
 
 What exact forms that internationalism may ulti- 
 mately take is of importance; what matters most, 
 however, is its quality, intent and spirit. We want 
 a true internationalism, adapted to the needs of all 
 the nations, and not a German internationalism, or 
 a British, French, Russian or American internation- 
 alism. No pseudo-international system, giving se- 
 curity and growth to one nation and denying them to 
 others, is worth considering. All the nations must 
 be accorded some opportunity to develop, and all 
 must obtain political security and the chance of a 
 free economic life. 
 
 Nor may the internationalism which is to be 
 achieved be founded in the main upon compulsion 
 exerted upon the nations. We shall not by means of 
 war be able to force states to enter into a permanent 
 league and we may even discover at the close of 
 the conflict that the forces which are in the end to 
 establish internationalism are totally different from 
 those that have been created by the war. Undoubt- 
 edly some power of compelling members of any in- 
 ternational league and of defending international 
 rights against outsiders will probably prove neces- 
 sary especially in the beginning, but in the last anal- 
 ysis, the system must rest upon a willing consent of 
 the peoples. Just as a democratic state, though pro-
 
 OBSTACLES TO INTERNATIONALISM 269 
 
 tecting itself against anti-social classes, yet depends 
 for its real power upon the voluntary adhesion of 
 its citizens, so must any international organization 
 rest upon a similar acquiescence. But to secure and 
 maintain that consent the international organization 
 dare not be conservative, static, unchanging. If it 
 merely sanctifies the possession by certain nations 
 of special national advantages, it will evoke an in- 
 ternal opposition, by which in the end it will be de- 
 stroyed. It can hold its own in a constantly chang- 
 ing world society only by a continuous progressive 
 evolution. It must change, as in a municipal so- 
 ciety the law changes, moving forward constantly 
 yet preserving continuity. 
 
 On the economic side this new international or- 
 der must grow with the increasing business inter- 
 relation of the peoples of the world. The war has 
 shown how complete is the economic interdepend- 
 ence of the nations and how shadow^^ and incomplete 
 is any political independence where economic inde- 
 pendence is lacking. This economic interdependence 
 of nations is rapidly becoming obvious. Despite 
 proposals like that of Mittel-Europa and of an 
 Economic Union Against Germany the trend of eco- 
 nomic development is strongly towards a closer co- 
 hesion, and even these projected economic super- 
 states, although in intent mutually hostile, would be 
 in large measure mutually dependent. 
 
 Without such progress towards joint economic ac-
 
 270 THE END OP THE WAR 
 
 tion and equal economic opportunity among the na- 
 tions no internationalism is permanently possible. 
 Many plans have been proposed looking towards 
 such an increased community of interest between na- 
 tions. If instead of returning her colonies to Ger- 
 many, the Allies would constitute the whole of Cen- 
 tral Africa as an international colony, to be ruled 
 by an international body and open on equal terms 
 to Germans as well as to the citizens of other na- 
 tions, we should have the beginnings of a joint eco- 
 nomic action. The same principle might be applied 
 to a part of Asiatic Turkey and to other colonies, 
 old and new. A similar principle might also cover 
 investments in countries like China. Similarly the 
 question of economic rights of way for one nation 
 over the territory of another might be amicably 
 settled either by arrangements between the nations 
 immediately aiTected or by international agreement. 
 It would not be impossible to devise plans by which 
 certain cities, like Trieste and Salonica, might be 
 made free ports, whatever flag they flew, or by which 
 Serbia could be assured of an access to the sea and 
 Germany of an uninterrupted passage of her mer- 
 chandise through Belgium and Holland. 
 
 More and more the economic needs of the nations 
 will demand the granting of rights which it is in the 
 present power of other nations to refuse. Arrange- 
 ments, rendered necessary by such demands, would
 
 OBSTACLES TO INTERNATIONALISM 271 
 
 of course conflict with our present theories of ab- 
 solute and uncontrolled national sovereignty. But 
 that conception must vanish in any case if we are 
 to secure any effective international organization. 
 
 The time for this shrinking of sovereignty, for this 
 creation of a larger loyalty, for the laying of the 
 foundation of a new internationalism is now. With- 
 out such an end the war will have been a fail- 
 ure. There will be no true victory, for none will 
 have gained anything except a return to the old in- 
 security, the old injustice, the old fear and cruelty 
 and bloodshed of the past. 
 
 Yet we do not know and cannot surely know 
 whether this victory is to be really won and inter- 
 nationalism secured or whether the whole war has 
 been nothing but a laboratory demonstration to 
 prove the evils of the old system. We may discover 
 at the Peace Conference that we are to be permitted 
 only to secure a distant vision of internationalism, 
 are to be permitted only to take a few short steps in 
 that direction. We may even learn that war reveals 
 rather than changes, and that we must look to long 
 years of peace under evil conditions to evolve the 
 forces which in the end are to give us a permanent 
 peace and internationalism. If this proves to be 
 the case we shall have won from the war only the 
 chance to begin the struggle anew. But we should 
 not accept this disheartening conclusion until it is
 
 272 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 forced upon us. Until the war ends and the Peace 
 Conference is over we must carry on the conflict for 
 democracy and internationalism with the same high 
 spirit of confidence as that with which we entered 
 the war.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 AT THE PEACE CONERENCE 
 
 The war does not end when the last shot is fired 
 but continues to be fought at the peace table in the 
 same spirit as on the battle-field. Though the tone 
 of the peace conference is different, its spirit is not 
 unlike that of the physical war. There is a clash of 
 interests, a politely embittered conflict. Even the 
 weapons are identical. There is the same cold diplo- 
 macy and, although actual violence is barred and the 
 august plenipotentiaries are in no danger of bodily 
 injury, there is the same reliance upon the power of 
 armies and navies to effect a decision as during the 
 actual war. 
 
 For those who have the cause of internationalism 
 at heart it is salutary to remember that wars have 
 been won on the battle-field and lost at the peace 
 table. In peace negotiations, as in war, it is the 
 group that is entrenched and prepared that is the 
 more likely to win. Tomorrow the same ambitions, 
 the same points of view, the same inveterate interests 
 that proved obstacles to a democratic settlement dur- 
 ing the war will become obstacles to a satisfactory 
 conclusion of the peace negotiations. The same op- 
 positions will arise. Not only will the Central Pow- 
 ers and the Allies be mutually opposed but the na- 
 
 273
 
 274 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 tionalistic, imperialistic principle and the principle 
 of internationalism as well. If internationalists are 
 not to lose in the end whatever they may have gained 
 by the war, they must come to the Peace Congress 
 thoroughly prepared. 
 
 Tomorrow that Peace Congress will meet. A few 
 months or years will see their various Excellencies 
 travelling by boat and train to some capital of Eu- 
 rope, prepared to settle the acrid controversies of the 
 war and decide in council room and lobby the fate 
 of the world. There may be all sorts and kinds and 
 varieties of Excellencies. For the most part, how- 
 ever, unless the democratic elements in the various 
 nations prevent, these peace representatives are 
 likely to be of the approved diplomatic type, the 
 aged, bemedalled, chilly, narrow and conservative 
 Excellency, very gentlemanly, very astute, funda- 
 mentally stupid. 
 
 Visualize it. Here again, we may have the Berch- 
 tolds, and Tiszas, and Cambons, and Greys, and 
 Goschens, and Sasonofs, and Salandras, and Mil- 
 ners, and Curzons, together with the small fry of 
 Excellencies from little countries, who resemble 
 their big brothers as the stiff little courts of the 
 Eighteenth Century Germany resembled adored 
 Versailles. These nimble intellects, which played 
 and parried and thrust so perfectly and with such 
 punctilio in the year while the Great War was pre- 
 paring — fiddled while the world was aflame — are to
 
 AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE 275 
 
 meet again, and play and parry and thrust over the 
 graves of ten million men. What will they have 
 learned? What will they have forgotten? Whence 
 will come the inspiration to these closed minds? 
 Again we may hear from these lips the same old 
 phrases of vested interests and vital rights and na- 
 tional honour and guarantees and securities. Again 
 they may argue and debate over "equitable consid- 
 erations" and "proper indemnities." The ten mil- 
 lion slain will be a pawm in the game, a something 
 to trade with. It may prove to be the most gran- 
 diose huckstering the world has ever seen. 
 
 Will these gentlemen and noblemen be guided by 
 the unique desire "to make the world safe for 
 democracy"? They haven't the remotest concep- 
 tion of what the words mean. Will their Excellen- 
 cies, guided by a common inspiration, unanimously 
 agree to work in harmony for a New Europe and a 
 New World? To attempt this would be beyond their 
 imagination and powers, while to succeed would 
 "spoil their addition." Or will each Excellency be 
 fighting singly for all the possible and impossible 
 interests of his own nation? Will he ask for more 
 than he expects, conceding gracefully that to which 
 he has no right the better to secure that to which 
 he also has no right? Will there be friction and 
 cross lines of interests between allies and a furious 
 scrambling for spoils? Will internationalism be 
 "shelved"?
 
 276 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 Surely whatever progress we are to make toward 
 a better Europe and a better world will depend in 
 some measure upon the character of these delegates. 
 If they are to be the same mentally bewigged diplo- 
 mats with whom the world is so painfully familiar, 
 the course of negotiations will not diverge from what 
 it has been in the past. There will be secret com- 
 pacts, quiet coalitions between allies and enemies, 
 the playing off of one group against another, a 
 manoeuvring for position, an attempt to gain dubious 
 ends by intrigue and manipulation. Let the Peace 
 Congress run along lines parallel to those at Vienna 
 or at Berlin and there will be little chance of a 
 peace in the interests of a broad internationalism. 
 
 Of this grave danger many liberals are aware. 
 Consequently there is an insistent demand that the 
 negotiations be public and that the whole world be 
 taken into confidence. Much progress has lately 
 been made toward such a public diplomacy. Lloyd 
 George, Woodrow Wilson, Czernin, Hertling and 
 Clemenceau, to say nothing of the Bolsheviki, have 
 been shouting their peace terms, or what is often 
 the same, their war threats, at the top of their lungs. 
 It is a democratic diplomacy par excellence, a talk- 
 ing to your opponent, not in a quiet room over a 
 cup of black coffee, but openly and publicly through 
 newspapers which reach hundreds of millions. 
 
 To some extent similar results will be attained 
 at the Conference. The journalists will outnumber
 
 AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE 277 
 
 the diplomats, and their newspapers will carry much 
 of the news and all of the rumours that breed so 
 luxuriantly in such an atmosphere. Doubtless, if 
 negotiations are continued long, popular interest will 
 relax, especially in America. Nevertheless what is 
 said at the public conferences, and much that is 
 whispered in the lobbies, will become the common 
 property of the world. The peoples will have some 
 opportunity of expressing their opinions, although 
 they may not always be able to secure the reliable 
 information upon which a fair judgment must be 
 based. 
 
 In the end, however, it will be the plenipotentiaries 
 who count. Once these representatives agree upon 
 a peace, good or bad, it will be difficult for the 
 democrats in the various countries to make their 
 opposition effective, especially since the only alter- 
 native to an unsatisfactory settlement will be a re- 
 sumption of the war. It would therefore be desir- 
 able, if possible, that these plenipotentiaries be 
 chosen democratically and be truly representative of 
 the peoples. 
 
 It has been proposed that the delegates to the 
 Peace Conference be elected in each country by the 
 most popular branch of the national legislature 
 upon a basis of proportional representation. If, 
 for example, in any parliament two-fifths of the 
 members are liberals, two-fifths conservatives and 
 one-fifth socialists, then the delegates should be ap-
 
 278 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 pointed in the same proportion; two conservatives, 
 two liberals and one socialist. These representa- 
 tives might constitute the Second Chamber of the 
 Peace Conference, with the right to reject any set- 
 tlement reached by the smaller body of diplomats 
 nominated by the executives. It has been suggested 
 that the members of this Second Chamber might 
 vote as individuals and not as national units, in 
 order that the liberal and democratic elements in 
 the various countries might coalesce, and thus pre- 
 vent the drafting of a merely imperialistic treaty. 
 
 Such a direct representation of the democracy, 
 however, is hardly probable. The proposal that the 
 legislative body elect representatives to a peace con- 
 ference, is revolutionary, being in obvious conflict 
 with all traditions of treaty-making. It would be 
 urged against such a procedure that it violated na- 
 tional constitutions and precedents, and that it 
 would delay peace and perhaps render it unattain- 
 able. Before such a group could be called together, 
 the nations, large and small, powerful and weak, 
 would have to agree upon a just basis of represen- 
 tation, and the controversies over these prelimina- 
 ries might be protracted for months. Germany and 
 her allies would stubbornly object to any system 
 which would permit the Allies to outvote them. In 
 all likelihood the opposition of conservatives would 
 be sufficient to obstruct and finally to nullify the 
 proposal. The most that could probably be secured
 
 AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE 279 
 
 would be the creation of an advisory body elected 
 according to this method, a body with no veto power, 
 but with a right to make representations to the dip- 
 lomats and publicly to discuss all proposals. Even 
 the election of such an advisory body, though it 
 would meet with strong opposition, would be a long 
 advance towards a democratic diplomacy. 
 
 Moreover, the crucial problem is not one of demo- 
 cratic forms but of organized democratic sentiment 
 all over the world. To secure a peace based on in- 
 ternationalism and to prevent the Conference from 
 degenerating into a mere scramble for territories, a 
 supreme vigilance is necessary. If we go into the 
 Congress blindfolded, there will be a grave danger 
 that the essential peace negotiations will be carried 
 on secretly and without due consideration of the 
 wishes of the majority of belligerents or of perma- 
 nent world interests. 
 
 Though it is not wise to borrow trouble, it would 
 be folly to disregard possible and not wholly im- 
 probable contingencies, which, if they occur may rob 
 the peoples of all direct benefit from their sacrifices. 
 When we remember how treaties have been made 
 before and when we regard the types of men who 
 are interested in making the same kind of treaty to- 
 day, it ceases to appear impossible that the stately 
 peace congress may prove to be a farce. The repre- 
 sentatives of three or four strong nations may meet 
 in secret conference and agree upon the essentials of
 
 280 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 peace while the delegates are noisily discussing un- 
 important questions. At the open sessions we may 
 listen to an interminable wrangling over minor de- 
 tails, such as whether the Italian boundary shall 
 run two miles to the east or west of a certain point, 
 or a certain rocky isle shall belong to Austria or to 
 Greece. We may hear inconsequent discussions, 
 frivolous claims and trivial counterclaims, while the 
 real work of dividing up the world is carried on by 
 unseen gentlemen in a quiet room, with telephonic 
 connections with their capitals. Under such an 
 arrangement the Congress would have the speeches 
 and the fireworks while the manipulators would gain 
 the tangible benefits. Those familiar with the 
 method in which our American presidential nominat- 
 ing conventions were once handled will easily grasp 
 the significance of a like control of the Peace Confer- 
 ence. 
 
 The improbability of such a lobby peace is dimin- 
 ished by the fact of the large number of participants 
 at the Congress and the multiplicity and baffling com- 
 plexity of the problems. Fully twenty-three nations 
 will be represented and many hundreds of claims will 
 demand consideration. The conference will seethe 
 with arguments, economic, political, strategic, ethno- 
 logical, historical; arguments good, indifferent, 
 utterly bad ; arguments backed up not only by logic 
 but by the threat of armies and navies. There will 
 be re-alignments within the alliances. Although
 
 AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE 281 
 
 Ruritania is one of the Allies, she is likely, if her 
 interests are opposed by France or Italy to grav- 
 itate diplomatically towards Germany. Moreover, 
 no single one of these hundreds of questions is iso- 
 lated and independent of others. Each, according 
 to the tradition of the Balance of Power, is united 
 with all.^ If you are to give certain territories to 
 Bulgaria, the cession affects the interests of Greece 
 and Roumania, the relations of Serbia to Italy, the 
 claims of Italy to Turkish territory, and so ad 
 infinitum. Each nation, if we assume such a na- 
 tionalistic trend in the discussions, will demand com- 
 pensation for any advantage accruing to a rival. 
 How, on what principle, in what manner, by what 
 method, can a few hundred irreconcilable and un- 
 reasonable representatives of twenty greedy and an- 
 tagonistic nations settle hundreds of diverse and 
 bristling problems in open conference? The solu- 
 
 1 In his address to Congress on February 12, 1918, President 
 Wilson strongly opposed any such concatenation or kiting of issues. 
 He insists "that each part of the final settlement must be bastxi 
 upon the essential justice of that particular case," and that "every 
 territorial settlement involved in this war must be made in the 
 interest and for the benefit of the populations concerned, and not 
 as a part of any mere adjustment or compromise of claims among 
 rival States." But in actual practice these claims cannot be settled 
 even to the approximate satisfaction of the nations, if each part of 
 the settlement is based upon "the essential justice of that particular 
 case." Forty years of discussion over the question of Alsace-Tyor- 
 raine have brought Germans and Frenchmen not a step nearer to 
 agreement. What new argument will carry conviction today? Simi- 
 larly a freely negotiating Roumania will never admit that she ought 
 to give up the Dobrudja, unless Bessarabia is oflfered as an argu- 
 ment.
 
 282 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 tion that will appeal to diplomats of the old type 
 is obvious and it is the same solution that has always 
 appealed. The conference will be the grand per- 
 formance which will attract all eyes; the actual 
 business will be off-stage. 
 
 Even were this form of negotiations to be adopted 
 it is not utterly impossible that the resulting peace 
 might be dictated by a desire to end the old interna- 
 tional anarchy and to advance toward international- 
 ism. More probably, however, the resulting peace 
 would in the main be imperialistic. It would be a 
 peace worked out by men who had laid aside all 
 recent prejudices. Englishmen, Frenchmen and 
 Germans would meet on friendly terms and discuss 
 problems of Realpolitik most concretely. They 
 would not dilate upon Belgian atrocities nor declaim 
 about democracy. They would deal with such ques- 
 tions as. What is there to divide? What shares must 
 we give to what powerful nations? Which of our 
 enemies or allies must be sacrificed? How can we 
 coat the pill? 
 
 In such a conference the cards would lie on the 
 table and there would be little necessity for pretence. 
 These Realpolitiker would recognize strength where 
 they see it, and would know how to treat strong 
 states and how to treat weak states. Of course, an 
 imperialistic or semi-imperialistic peace would be 
 carefully veiled. To the internationalist at least a 
 sop would be given. It would, however, be quite
 
 AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE 283 
 
 possible to accept ''in principle" a program of dis- 
 armament without putting it into practice, and to 
 make apparent concessions to arbitration and media- 
 tion while really strengthening imperialistic prece- 
 dents and creating a territorial status which would 
 make all the specious approaches to internationalism 
 a mere diplomatic camouflage, the old, old window- 
 dressing in which simple souls delight. At bottom, 
 however, there would under such an arrangement be 
 small regard for sentimental considerations. A 
 Realpolitiker can no more afford sentiment than a 
 burglar or railroad wrecker. 
 
 All this is speculation or at best a forecast of pos- 
 sibilities, not prophecy. What we are dealing with 
 is not an inevitable happening, but a possible con- 
 tingency, against which we must, if we can, protect 
 ourselves. Another danger, moreover, lies even 
 nearer. Instead of the Peace Conference ending 
 with a quiet little group of diplomatic surgeons cut- 
 ting up the world carcase, this work may actually be 
 completed before the Congress meets. A few diplo- 
 mats may come together at some neutral capital and 
 agree in advance upon the bases of peace. England 
 and France went to Algegiras with a secret agree- 
 ment in their pockets (an agreement violating the 
 principles of the public treaty which they subse- 
 quently signed). Is it inadmissible to fear that, un- 
 less precautions are taken, certain great states may 
 come to the coming conference with a like equip-
 
 284 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 ment? The rulers of these states may believe that 
 they represent valuable interests which they will fear 
 to place in hazard through the free play of idealistic 
 impulses, which in any case they consider imprac- 
 ticable and noxious. 
 
 In the present state of the world and of the world 
 alliances this danger of a secret peace prior to the 
 meeting of the Congress is sufficiently imminent to 
 warrant the utmost efforts at frustration. England, 
 France and Italy will quite naturally fear to enter 
 into a blind conference with the Central Alliance, the 
 internal cohesion of which is greater than their own. 
 If at the Peace Congress Germany could detach 
 Italy, France, or any other powerful opponent, she 
 might, by a threat to throw over the whole proceed- 
 ings and return to a war status, force great conces- 
 sions from all her former antagonists. She could 
 play off one against the other. The Allies, there- 
 fore, may well hesitate to enter upon negotiations un- 
 less the general boundaries of all discussions and 
 decisions are determined in advance. But if this 
 must be done what is more tempting than to go 
 further and agree in common, prior to the confer- 
 ence, concerning the actual detailed terms of peace. 
 Such a treaty, even if in part secret, would be suf- 
 ficiently binding. It would be a treaty based not 
 upon generalities and aspirations, but upon terri- 
 torial changes, trade rights, economic privileges, and 
 other concrete advantages. It would tend to be a
 
 AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE 285 
 
 peace of give and take, a giving to the strong and a 
 taking from the weak. 
 
 If such an imperialistic peace is made it will take 
 place not because of the wickedness of individual 
 men, but because, given the old standards, the line of 
 least resistance runs in this direction. The funda- 
 mental result of this war, the one over-riding event, 
 has been the temporary dissolution of Russia. 
 Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Courland and the 
 Ukraine are falling away from the government at 
 Petrograd, and the Ukrainians have gone so far as 
 to declare their independence and sign a separate 
 treaty with Germany. What was once the powerful 
 unitary state, Russia, has now become a series of 
 separate states, no one of which is strong enough 
 to deal on equal terms with Germany, or resist her 
 economic, financial, intellectual, political or military 
 penetration. The situation thus created is in one 
 respect similar to that established in the Eighteenth 
 Century by the gradual paralysis of Poland. It was 
 not alone the greed of Prussia, Russia and Austria 
 that caused the successful partition of that unhappy 
 land, but the fact that here in the east of Europe lay 
 a great hulk of a state, ready to be seized. Russia 
 today is in much the same situation; for the time 
 being she is a derelict. The essential fact of the 
 present problem, moreover, is that because of geo- 
 graphical reasons the chief beneficiary of the Rus- 
 sian collapse is likely to be Germany. In no way
 
 286 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 can England or France secure a share, (even if they 
 wish) of this vast territory. While Austria-Hun- 
 gary, Roumania, Turkey and Japan may gain certain 
 advantages, territorial or other, the bulk of the gain 
 seems likely to go to Germany. 
 
 To secure the benefits from this dissolution of 
 Russia no crude annexation is necessary. Germany 
 by reason of her power and proximity should be 
 able to penetrate Russia, secure a dominant eco- 
 nomic position and a preponderatingly political in- 
 fluence, and these, once secure, might gradually be 
 strengthened. All rights necessary to assure this 
 special position could be obtained under the guise of 
 a pious adherence to the canons of democracy and 
 internationalism. The full right of self-determina- 
 tion might be granted to Poland, Lithuania and 
 Courland and yet result in the establishment of 
 German dominance, or even of patent German 
 sovereignty. Under a hundred smiling disguises 
 Russia might be turned over to German exploitation. 
 In the same manner England might secure rights in 
 Mesopotamia, Central Persia or Arabia (as a coun- 
 terweight to German claims) without apparently vio- 
 lating the principles for which British and American 
 liberals are fighting. True, British imperialists 
 might not relish this hard bargain, any more than 
 would French and Italian imperialists. If, however, 
 they found German imperialism unconquerable, they 
 might conclude that it would be safer to permit Ger-
 
 AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE 287 
 
 many to expand in a quarter where it would mean the 
 least danger to them rather than to fight longer for 
 an internationalism which they do not wish. More- 
 over, to many imperialists in all countries the fear of 
 revolution, which has been brought to the surface by 
 this war, seems more menacing than that of a Ger- 
 man imperialism with its eyes set towards the east. 
 If such an imperialistic settlement were to be 
 sprung suddenly upon the Peace Conference, or be 
 revealed gradually during the negotiations, Ameri- 
 can representatives, or indeed the United States as a 
 nation, would be practically impotent to remedy the 
 evil. It would be too late to interfere. So long as 
 the two groups of nations stand opposed, whether at 
 war or in a Peace Conference, the American influ- 
 ence, because of our middle position and our relative 
 disinterestedness, is powerful. By granting or with- 
 holding our aid we can influence each group. If, 
 however, the major nations agree upon a peace, how- 
 ever unworthy, there is nothing for us to do except to 
 pack our trunks and return to our homes. Our in- 
 terposition in Europe is only necessary or possible 
 when an irreconcilable conflict arises between embit- 
 tered and approximately equal coalitions; when, on 
 the other hand, these groups are of one mind they 
 will naturally consider the making of any treaty as 
 their business, not ours. We cannot force them to 
 return to the struggle nor compel them to remain at 
 enmity. If prior to the Peace Conference we have
 
 288 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 allowed such an agreement, secret or open, to be 
 made, we shall be helpless before an imperialistic 
 impulse backed up by the overwhelming force of 
 the world. 
 
 It would be almost equally difficult for the liberal 
 elements of the Entente nations effectively to oppose 
 such a fait accompli. Once the diplomats have 
 agreed upon a peace, whatever its terms, a reversal 
 of their action becomes almost impossible. Demo- 
 crats in the several nations can make protests, can 
 even ultimately punish their representatives. As- 
 suming, however, that the imperialistic features of 
 the treaty are not too flagrant, and that the nation's 
 obvious material interests are not sacrificed, the 
 resistance to the treaty is not likely to be formidable. 
 While the war lasts democrats and liberals are in an 
 excellent strategic position, since inclining to a mod- 
 erate peace they must be won over to a vigorous con- 
 duct of the war. If, at the close of the war, however, 
 these democrats can offer no substitute for an unsat- 
 isfactory treaty except an indefinite continuance of 
 the conflict under adverse conditions, is it not prob- 
 able that their opposition will be overborne? 
 
 In favour of such an imperialistic peace many per- 
 suasive appeals would be made. The peace would 
 be described as the best attainable, as a real triumph 
 for internationalism, or, at worst, as a necessary 
 preliminary to an ultimate triumph. It would be 
 argued that a peace of this nature is the best that we
 
 AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE 289 
 
 may hope for in the present generation, since we are 
 not yet ripe for a full internationalism. 
 
 The argument might run somewhat as follows: 
 Seventy years ago socialists in England, France and 
 Germany were appealing to proletarians to unite in 
 a struggle which would bring about the co-operative 
 commonwealth. The great revolution was at hand. 
 Yet we know now that the world was not ripe for 
 socialism, and that an attempt to introduce the sys- 
 tem prematurely would not only have ended in 
 failure but would have delayed its ultimate advent. 
 The factories of the world were then too small, the 
 wage-earners too few and undisciplined ; the capital- 
 istic development was only at its beginning and not, 
 as was assumed, at its height. The world needed 
 many decades of capitalism. 
 
 Today, it will be argued, the task of creating at 
 once a full international organization presents equal 
 and similar difficulties. There are too many small 
 states, too many unbridled nationalistic anil)itions, 
 too much economic and political backwardness. In- 
 ternational co-ordination and co-operation are in 
 their infancy. We have hardly begun to solve the 
 problems of international economic adjustment. 
 We have not yet learned how to create a larger eco- 
 nomic unit without destroying iiolitical autonomy. 
 Internationalism cannot be made; it must grow. 
 We have not yet even assembled all the elements out 
 of which it nmst grow.
 
 290 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 It might further be argued that just as socialism 
 required decades of capitalism to bring it to fruition, 
 so internationalism may require that slow integra- 
 tion of the world which we call imperialism. 
 The unattached and unorganized raw material of 
 the political world must first be grouped and crys- 
 tallized about a few centres. It would be difficult to 
 base internationalism upon the assent of a large 
 and motley group of independent nations, some 
 great and others small, some progressive and others 
 reactionary, some advancing and some hopelessly 
 backward, some well-ordered and others in a state 
 of chronic revolution for profits. It would, on the 
 other hand, be easy to base internationalism upon a 
 few large federal units, the British Commonwealth, 
 the American Commonwealth, a German Common- 
 wealth, a Russian Commonwealth, each of which 
 would act in concert with a number of nations, peo- 
 ples or states, with which it had a more or less vol- 
 untary union, and the interests of which it would be 
 obliged to represent. Once the present nations of 
 the world were united in a few large groups, interna- 
 tionalism would grow automatically, not only from 
 self-interest but also out of mutual relations of 
 fear and respect between these well co-ordinated 
 federal bodies, each of which represented a merg- 
 ing and compromising of divergent interests. The 
 analogy with the development of a socialized democ- 
 racy is obvious. It would be far easier to create
 
 AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE 291 
 
 a socialist industry by the merger of a dozen cartells 
 than to create it out of innumerable small businesses 
 operated by tens of thousands of short-sighted men. 
 
 If this be true then the path of internationalism, 
 according to this hypothetical argument, might run 
 parallel for a part of the way with the gradual de- 
 velopment of a higher form of imperialism. Accept- 
 ing this premise, what valid objection could be urged 
 against a German organization of the Ukraine and 
 the Baltic Provinces or a British administration of 
 Mesopotamia? Might not such an imperialistic 
 peace lead to the gradual creation of a group of 
 large federated world commonwealths, upon which 
 internationalism would finally be built? 
 
 Undoubtedly the world is not to go over immedi- 
 ately to a full international system. But no serious 
 thinker ever conceived of that possibility; we shall 
 be satisfied with a far more tentative approach to 
 that goal. It may also be admitted that a coales- 
 cence of the present nations into large freely organ- 
 ized groups might render peace and an eventual in- 
 ternational world-system more probable. The real 
 objection to an imperialistic settlement, however, is 
 that the resulting coalescence is not free, but forced. 
 It does not represent the will and probably would not 
 protect the interests of the peoples annexed or incor- 
 porated. Such an imperialistic peace would destroy 
 the Russian Revolution, intensify the enmity be- 
 tween Teuton and Slav and in the end create
 
 292 THE END OF THE AVAR 
 
 new wars. The defect of such a peace lies in its 
 essential spirit. Fundamentally that spirit is the 
 old inveterate desire for nationalistic gain, for na- 
 tional prestige, for strategic advantage. It is the 
 same old preference of the nation's interests to the 
 interest of the world. It might be admitted that it 
 would be better for Mesopotamia to be British than 
 to remain Turkish, and for the Ukraine to be dom- 
 inated by Germany than be ruled by the Czar. But 
 that argument might equally well be made for most 
 of the imperialistic extensions of the last fifty years. 
 A far wiser solution presents itself for both these 
 problems. We are approaching the time when the 
 backward countries may be ruled, not in the in- 
 terest of a single nation but in the common interest 
 of all. It would be extremely bad if an extension 
 of German rule in Russia meant a new suppression 
 of vital nationalistic interests; it would be almost 
 equally bad if Mesopotamia were made a private 
 reserve for British capitalists. Even though we 
 are not ready for a full internationalism, we may 
 make rapid and above all steady progress in that 
 direction. We shall not immediately after this war 
 end all insecurity and all causes of friction between 
 nations, but we may mitigate the evil and can at 
 least lay the bases of internationalism. A peace 
 that fails to make whatever progress is possible in 
 this direction is no peace; a settlement that goes 
 back to old precedents of conquest, of needless sup-
 
 AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE 293 
 
 pression of nationalities, of a bartering over terri- 
 tories, is a retrograde step, an incitement to new 
 wars and a reversion to international anarchy. 
 
 The time to prevent the danger, however, remote, 
 of such an imperialistic peace is 7iow. We can gain 
 our ends only by uniting the liberal elements in all 
 countries. If we wish to influence the action of 
 British imperialists we must reinforce the great 
 mass of British democratic sentiment, while that 
 sentiment is at its strongest. If we are to prevent 
 the dismemberment of Russia we must act by an ap- 
 peal to British, French, Italian, and even German 
 liberals, and by a generous recognition of the de- 
 jected and seemingly abandoned democracy of 
 Russia. 
 
 Already there are evidences of American action in 
 this direction. The speech of Mr. Lloyd George in 
 January, 1918, was interpreted by certain critics as 
 indicating an eventual willingness to consider the 
 making of a treaty of peace with Germany at the ex- 
 pense of Russia. Although this policy would meet 
 with the determined opposition of all liberal ele- 
 ments in Great Britain, it would not be deemed 
 unworthy of consideration by British imperialists. 
 The reference by President Wilson to Russia re- 
 veals a position wliicli is not capable of the same 
 equivocal interpretation. Among other things Mr. 
 Wilson demands "The evacuation of all Russian ter- 
 ritory and such a settlement of all questions affect-
 
 294 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 ing Russia as will secure the best and freest co- 
 operation of the other nations of the world in obtain- 
 ing for her an unhampered and unembarrassed 
 opportunity for the independent determination of 
 her own political development and national policy 
 and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society 
 of free nations under institutions of her own choos- 
 ing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of 
 every kind that she may need and may herself desire. 
 The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations 
 in the months to come will be the acid test of their 
 good-will, of their comprehension of her needs as 
 distinguished from their own interests, and of their 
 intelligent and unselfish sympathy." ^ 
 
 I have emphasized the danger of a possible imperi- 
 alistic peace somewhat strongly, and have run the 
 risk of appearing to scent peril where there may be 
 none, because it would seem that our only chance of 
 making the Peace Conference worthy of the immense 
 sacrifices of this war, and of the splendid idealism 
 with which it has been fought, lies in a union of all 
 liberal elements in all nations prior to the meeting of 
 the conference. The imperialists plan ahead; their 
 ''hole in the corner" treaties are prepared well in 
 advance. They come to the table with the cards 
 stacked against their opponents. Those who desire 
 
 1 In his handling of the problem of a Japanese intervention in 
 Siberia and in his telegram to the Soviet (March 12, 1918) President 
 Wilson made his position even clearer.
 
 AT THE PEACE CONFERENCE 295 
 
 a democratic peace must also prepare. The Peace 
 Conference, if it is not to be a mere repetition of the 
 chicaneries of the past, must meet in an atmosphere 
 of public discussion and of intolerance for all secrecy 
 and deviousness. Important as is the form or struc- 
 ture of the Peace Congress, important as is the 
 method by which the delegates are to be elected, the 
 crucial factor is the state of mind of the world when 
 the Congress meets. In turn this depends upon the 
 possibility of bringing intellectual and moral pres- 
 sure to bear upon the several governments before the 
 war comes to an end.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 AFTER THE PEACE CONFERENCE 
 
 After the Peace Conference there will remain a 
 sense of frustration. However intelligent or well- 
 intentioned the delegates, they cannot, from the na- 
 ture of the case, find solutions for all the intricate 
 economic, nationalistic and territorial problems 
 which led to this war. The most that can be accom- 
 plished will be the creation of a machinery of inter- 
 national government. How that machinery will 
 work will depend upon the spirit governing the na- 
 tions after the war. 
 
 The problem of attaining internationalism is not 
 one of form but of substance and intent. Even 
 should we secure general promises of disarmament, 
 mediation, arbitration, and of a freedom of the seas 
 in war, even should we begin to construct a league 
 to enforce peace, the machinery would break do-^Ti 
 unless upheld by the pacific intentions of the nations. 
 If several members of the League believed that their 
 interests were being sacrificed, they would openly 
 or covertly seek to ruin the international machinery. 
 It is easy to destroy, to take advantage of technical 
 points, to promise and not fulfil, to be unfair and 
 allege unfairness in others. For any fundamental 
 
 296
 
 AFTER THE PEACE CONFERENCE 297 
 
 and permanent success of internationalism we must 
 rely upon the good intentions of states, which per- 
 ceive that their true interest no longer lies in a re- 
 sumption of the old strife. 
 
 Whether an effective internationalism is possible 
 at all under the present economic and political 
 regime in Western lands is doubtful. It is true that 
 even the greatest financiers find war and provoca- 
 tions to war on the whole unprofitable. Even were 
 all profit-seeking activities of a nation organized 
 nationally, and were the interest of each nation in 
 any specific quarrel intensified by the fact that the 
 beneficiary was a small social class, there would 
 still remain an advantage in the maintenance of 
 peace. But the temptation to war in such circum- 
 stances is enormous. If conditions within a country 
 are such that the nation is forced to seek its ad- 
 vantage in foreign economic adventures, and if the 
 profits from those adventures accrue to a small co- 
 hesive group, with vast political influence, the temp- 
 tation to seek undue advantage over rivals is likely 
 to lead the nation to the brink of war. Were each 
 Frenchman or German to gain or lose only a few 
 dollars as the result of an international decision, 
 compromise would be more profitable than war. 
 When, however, as in the past, the rights or priv- 
 ileges contended for mean not a dollar or two to 
 each citizen but hundreds of millions to either a 
 French or a German sjaidicate, then patriotism
 
 298 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 flares up menacingly. The masses in eacli commun- 
 ity have a smaller economic interest in the contro- 
 versies leading to war, and have more to lose from 
 war, than do the special economic groups which now 
 control national decisions. 
 
 This disequilibrium of our modem economic sys- 
 tem constitutes the gravest menace to peace and will 
 continue to be dangerous, whatever the machinery 
 for international government. The fact that small 
 economic groups possessing vast influence find their 
 interest in striving for special advantages in back- 
 ward countries, even at the risk of war, makes any 
 progress toward internationalism under the existing 
 system extremely difficult. Under any system, of 
 course, many differences between nations can be 
 obviated. Profit-sharing privileges can be pooled, 
 and states can be prevented from taking toll upon 
 the international highways. But at best the result- 
 ing internationalism is insecure. If after the war 
 each nation is to be controlled by the same groups 
 and ideas as in July 1914, the divisive and war pro- 
 voking economic interests will remain strong, and 
 peace will be unstable. Imperialism will be in full 
 tide. 
 
 Moreover, and this is an important fact to Ameri- 
 cans, the United States, which in the present war 
 has been a champion of internationalism, is as likely 
 to become imperialistic as are the other nations. 
 After the war we too have a victory to win, over 
 
 ^
 
 AFTER THE PEACE CONFERENCE 299 
 
 ourselves. Unless we achieve that victory, here, at 
 home, we may become an aggressive and imperialis- 
 tic power, a menace to the nations, a foe to interna- 
 tionalism, a nation against which other nations may 
 league in order *'to make the world safe for de- 
 mocracy. ' ' 
 
 It is diflScult for Americans, with our subjective 
 attitude toward ourselves, to realize that any such 
 menace exists. We have always had the effortless 
 virtue that inheres in a comfortable competence. 
 Our foreign policy has been "a diplomacy de luxe," 
 and we were not obliged, as were other nations, to 
 fight hard for what we needed. We therefore came 
 to believe, that by reason of our peculiarly pacific 
 nature we were immune from imperialism. 
 
 It was sheer self-delusion. Undoubtedly we have 
 usually had what we wanted and our sense of na- 
 tional security has made it seem unnecessary for us 
 to fight for strategic positions. Nevertheless we 
 have been gradually strengthening our strategic 
 positions in the approved English, Russian and Ger- 
 man manner. We have acquired Ilawciii to protect 
 our Western shores, the Canal Zone to permit the 
 passage of our warships from Atlantic to Pacific, 
 and finally, in order to maintain our supremacy in 
 the Caribbean and to guard the Canal Zone, we have 
 taken over Porto Rico, a few naval stations in Cuba, 
 and the Danish West Indies, and have acquired a 
 quasi-protectorate over Nicaragua, Hayti and Santo
 
 300 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 Domingo. We seem to be moving toward some form 
 of domination, open or concealed, partial or com- 
 plete, over all Caribbean countries. Moreover, while 
 strengthening our defences, we have also begun to 
 enter upon the phase of financial imperialism. W^e 
 long refrained from this policy because we had no 
 large surplus capital to export. We did not need 
 to invest money in Brazil or China so long as there 
 were opportunities in Oklahoma and New York. 
 Our abstention, therefore, was the result of mere 
 convenience, and represented a stage in our economic 
 development in which our home industry absorbed 
 our capital. Today we are coming into a new phase 
 in which, unless we change conditions, we shall de- 
 sire to take our part in a furious international strug- 
 gle for spoils. 
 
 The war has immensely increased this danger of 
 an eventual American imperialism. We have ac- 
 quired the military means, and are becoming one of 
 the strongest and certainly the least assailable of 
 countries. We have acquired a *' stake" in the out- 
 side world, for over-night we have become a capital- 
 exporting country. The initiative and the main 
 profits of this capital export fall to a relatively small 
 class, largely controlling our economic, political and 
 intellectual life. Will these men be less concerned 
 with profitable chances in Russia, China and Latin 
 America than in plans of internationalism? How- 
 ever unimpeachable their intentions, will they recog-
 
 AFTER THE PEACE CONFERENCE 301 
 
 nize a clear mandate for internationalism if it runs 
 counter to anticipated gains? 
 
 We must face this issue honestly. Never before 
 have we been so likely to become a danger to our- 
 selves and to the world. It is no man's fault nor 
 even the nation's, but the inevitable result of our 
 own economic development. Doubtless the process 
 has been hastened by our entrance into the war, but 
 had the change not come now it would have come in 
 another ten or twenty years. 
 
 If we become imperialistic we shall act much as do 
 other imperialistic nations. Our financiers are es- 
 sentially like those of Britain or Germany. True, 
 Americans as a whole do not as yet desire the an- 
 nexation of other lands (although not a few would 
 like to ''take" Mexico) but there are other ways of 
 being imperialistic. There is a financial imperial- 
 ism, which retains, after eviscerating, the native po- 
 litical government, and which buys control of for- 
 eign nations as it buys lands, mines or railroads. 
 Our future imperialists (and it is only their actions 
 which are in the future) may give rein to all their 
 ambitions without hoisting the flag over a single 
 islet. They can get what they want in ways seem- 
 ingly innocuous. And in getting what they want 
 they will be bolstered up by the arguments that have 
 aided imperialism since the beginning. All the shin- 
 ing moral panoply that has once been used can be 
 used again.
 
 302 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 This means tension — and war. 
 
 The point of conflict between the rival imperial- 
 ists, of which we may be one, may be anywhere. A 
 long slow conflict, for example, may break out ten 
 years hence in Russia, Latin America, Africa or 
 China. Such a struggle would not confine itself to 
 economic weapons. If British, German, American 
 and French capitalists are competing for strategic 
 investments, a financial coalition is likely to lead to 
 political coalitions in case these prospective in- 
 vestors are able to involve their states. Naturally 
 the issue will never appear as a naked struggle for 
 economic advantage. When the financial dispute is 
 brought to a head, the resulting war will be evoked 
 upon high moral grounds. 
 
 Such an American imperialism, though possible, 
 and, perhaps, even probable, is not predestined. It 
 will almost surely come to pass if we permit an in- 
 creasing proportion of our national surplus to pass 
 into the control of a few politically powerful men, 
 and allow this surplus to fight its way into backward 
 countries. But these conditions are not inevitable. 
 It is possible on the contrarj^ to accelerate the move- 
 ment toward a greater social control of the national 
 surplus and toward a deflection of that surplus into 
 channels where there will be the least danger of pre- 
 cipitating international conflicts. 
 
 We cannot do this, however, without revolutionary 
 changes in our whole economic system.
 
 AFTER THE PEACE COXFEREXCE 303 
 
 The war has revealed the feebleness of that sys- 
 tem. At the outbreak of the war not only did we 
 not possess economic democracy but we lacked even 
 an economic unity. Industrially we were working 
 at cross purposes and with only a small fraction of 
 our real power. We were wasting energy in inter- 
 nal friction. Conditions tolerable in peace became 
 unendurable in a war against a resourceful enemy. 
 
 Because of the proved defects of our system of 
 production there is a greater likelihood of our at- 
 taining an industrial reorganization tending to pre- 
 vent our launching into a financial imperialism. 
 The breakdown of the old system has been astonish- 
 ingly rapid. First went the old unregulated play 
 of supply and demand. We began to fear the 
 vagaries of the market and were forced to regulate 
 prices. Our system of private railroad manage- 
 ment under conditions of forced competition proved 
 utterly inadequate and we were obliged to pool our 
 several railway systems and make a common use of 
 our whole transportation machinery. By national- 
 izing the railroads we probably added billions to the 
 country's real wealth and hundreds of millions to its 
 future annual product. 
 
 What we have learned in war we shall hardly for- 
 get in peace. We shall no longer be content with an 
 industrial machine which is so ill-regulated that it 
 loses its force in waste heat and develops little drive. 
 We shall be obliged to retain conceptions and prac-
 
 304 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 tices acquired during the war. The new economic 
 solidarity, once gained, can never again be surren- 
 dered. 
 
 For however the war ends we shall require the 
 full use of our productive machinery. If no inter- 
 national system is developed we shall be involved in 
 new conflicts in which economic capacity and the 
 possibility of immediate economic mobilization will 
 be decisive factors. On the other hand, if we are 
 fortunate enough to secure a stable international 
 system guaranteeing peace, the economic competi- 
 tion between nations will for a time at least remain. 
 For our own progress and influence the best possi- 
 ble utilization of our resources will be essential. 
 
 The chief obstacle in the way of such improve- 
 ment is the multiplicity of our conflicting economic 
 interests due to our extreme solicitude for special 
 privilege. We still hold sacred all rights to exploit 
 and monopolize and we divert an immense share of 
 the wealth and income of the nation to a small social 
 class. Our trust movement, though it has proved 
 itself superior to industrial anarchy, has led to a 
 further accentuation of inequality and to a further 
 increase in the power of financially privileged 
 classes. Everywhere we find a stark insistence on 
 special rights not only by the very wealthy but by 
 men of moderate and even of small means. As a 
 consequence, although our industrial plants are in- 
 dividually effective, they are collectively ineffective.
 
 AFTER THE PEACE CONFERENCE 305 
 
 There is no unifying concept to our economic system. 
 
 More important, however, even than the question 
 of our economic efficiency is that of regulating the 
 flow of profits both within the nation and outward to 
 foreign countries. If we permit an enormous ac- 
 cumulation of wealth and profits to be deflected, as 
 in the past, to a few small groups, we shall find that 
 these groups, in control of billions of dollars, will 
 force the country to undertake imperialistic proj- 
 ects. Our financiers will discover that there is a 
 much greater profit in foreign than in home invest- 
 ments. The rise in our wages, the slackening of our 
 immigration and the general movement toward a 
 betterment of working conditions tend generally to 
 reduce the rate of returns upon new home ventures, 
 and therefore increase the tendency toward a forced 
 export of capital, irrespective of the political conse- 
 quences of such export. We are approaching a 
 stage in our economic evolution similar to that which 
 England reached some sixty years ago. And the 
 impulse with us is likely to be equally strong and 
 even more dangerous, for in the early days England 
 stood alone as the purveyor of capital, whereas to- 
 day we enter the imperialistic competition at a time 
 wlien many nations strive desperately for their 
 shares of the profits. 
 
 It would not, of course, be wise, even were it pos- 
 sible, to prohibit the export of capital. It is emi- 
 nently proper that a certain portion of the suriilus
 
 306 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 income of America and of Western Europe should 
 go to backward countries where capital is more nec- 
 essary. It should be the endeavour of the great in- 
 dustrial nations, however, to regulate this outflow 
 and seek to convert the present imperialistic scram- 
 ble into an international imperialism, in which all 
 investment in backward countries would be made on 
 joint international account and under joint man- 
 agement, with full consideration given to the needs, 
 both economic and political, of the indigenous races. 
 Though we must export a certain portion of our sur- 
 plus capital, it will be disastrous if the expulsive 
 force of our economic system should be so great as 
 to cause an exaggeration of this tendency, an in- 
 crease in its violence, and an enhanced liability to 
 drive us into war. 
 
 Our policy, therefore, should be in the direction of 
 a deflection of wealth and income from special groups 
 to the general community, an increase in the expendi- 
 ture of national income upon the general welfare, 
 and finally an extension of democratic control over 
 industry and other phases of national life. The first 
 object can be attained partly by taxation and partly 
 by nationalization. By means of steeply graduated 
 income, inheritance and excess profit taxes we may 
 largely prevent the present perilous concentration of 
 our national surplus. We should hesitate to reduce 
 to any great extent the present high income and ex- 
 cess profit taxes and we should supplement them
 
 AFTER THE PEACE CONFERENCE 307 
 
 with heavy and sharply graduated inheritance taxes. 
 Every form of unearned increment, whether from 
 lands, mines or public service corporations, should 
 be carefully scrutinized and as far as possible turned 
 to public account. 
 
 An equally effective method of diverting wealth 
 and income to the general community is by means of 
 the nationalization of industries. Not only should 
 our railroads become national property, but also our 
 coal, iron, gold, silver, copper and zinc mines. The 
 government should progressively extend its power 
 over all basic industries with the double intention of 
 effecting unity and of securing profits. Under such 
 a system of nationalization it would be possible to 
 make vast expenditures upon purposes which do not 
 now pay the financier, but which would be of incal- 
 culable advantage to the community. We should 
 act upon the principle that large quantities of capi- 
 tal should not be exported until we can properly feed, 
 clothe and house all our citizens and can give them 
 education, recreation and all other essentials of a 
 full and healthful life. In other words, we should 
 take from the small ruling groups the control which 
 they now possess over our national revenue. With- 
 out destroying all private property and incentive to 
 gain, without undermining individual initiative but 
 by canalizing it, we should conduct our national busi- 
 ness as though all this wealtli belonged to the nation 
 as a whole, as though all income were primarily for
 
 308 THE END OF THE WAR 
 
 the common benefit. In other words, we should 
 move toward an industrial and social democracy. 
 
 No such democracy will, of course, be possible 
 without at the same time furthering, and being fur- 
 thered by, a political democracy. The entire pro- 
 gram depends upon the ability of the masses of the 
 community politically to control the social machin- 
 ery and thus secure the national product. Such a 
 democracy cannot be attained in our country by a 
 mere struggle between the wage-earning proletariat 
 and all who possess capital, since the latter consti- 
 tute the majority of the people and the overwhelm- 
 ingly preponderant group. It can be achieved only 
 by the alignment of the great mass of non-favoured 
 Americans against those who are the signal bene- 
 ficiaries of our present industrial process. 
 
 It is upon such a democracy, not only in America 
 but in all countries possessing potential military 
 power, that the hope of a true and permanent inter- 
 nationalism must primarily rest. If we can divorce 
 the economic advantages accruing to each nation 
 from the special privileged groups who now chiefly 
 monopolize them, we shall have at least a basis for 
 an international concert. Doubtless many differ- 
 ences in interest will continue to exist. The Ger- 
 man people as a whole will be benefited or hindered 
 by the same sort of international decisions as now 
 benefit or hinder their capitalist classes. But the 
 gain or loss will then be less and will be more equally
 
 AFTER THE PEACE CONFERENCE 309 
 
 divided, and there will be more possibility of com- 
 promise and of adjustment when the new spirit, 
 which we seek to incorporate in the relations be- 
 tween nations, will already be represented within 
 the nations themselves. It will then be seen that 
 while the economic interests of the peoples still di- 
 verge, these differences are not sufficiently great to 
 warrant the costly and dangerous expedient of war. 
 There will be no special group financially interested, 
 as at present, in stirring up national animosity, and 
 there will be no groups at all who will gain by war 
 although their country loses. The problem of secur- 
 ing internationalism is not one of intelligence alone 
 but also of good-will; it is not a problem of discov- 
 ering intricate devices but of eliminating real dilTer- 
 ences of interest. Since these conflicts of interest 
 lie largely within the nations themselves in tlie form 
 of internal mal-adjustments, the progress toward a 
 democracy will of necessity be a progress toward 
 internationalism. 
 
 The war has proved that the present control of 
 the great industrial nations by militaristic, bureau- 
 cratic and financial groups is a complete and tragic 
 failure. It has shown tliat in these classes the group 
 interest so overweighs the national interest and so 
 destroys any international interest as to preclude 
 all far-sightedness and to make a true concert among 
 the nations almost impossible. It was recently pre- 
 dicted by Count Okuma, the experienced and far-
 
 310 THE END OP THE WAR 
 
 sighted Japanese statesman, that the war would lead 
 to the death of European civilization. According to 
 the British Labour Party, *'we can so far agree in 
 this estimate as to recognize, in the present world 
 catastrophe, if not the death, in Europe, of civiliza- 
 tion itself, at any rate the culmination and collapse 
 of a distinctive industrial civilization. ' ' * The reign 
 of profiteering must cease ; otherwise Western civil- 
 ization itself will come to an end. 
 
 In the Reconstruction program, proposed for 
 adoption by the British Labour Party, a document 
 which has been described as ''probably the most 
 mature and carefully formulated program ever put 
 forth by a responsible political party," the issue be- 
 tween a full democracy on the one hand and national 
 imperialism and war on the other is trenchantly 
 stated. ''If," it says, "we in Britain are to escape 
 from the decay of civilization itself, which the Japa- 
 nese statesman foresees, we must ensure that what 
 is presently to be built up is a new social order, 
 based not on fighting but on fraternity — not on the 
 competitive struggle for the means of bare life, but 
 on a deliberately planned co-operation in production 
 and distribution for the benefit of all who participate 
 by hand or by brain — not on the utmost possible 
 inequality of riches, but on a systematic approach 
 
 1 Labor and the New Social Order. A Report on Reconstruction 
 by the Sub-Committee of the British Labor Party. Published by 
 the New Republic as a supplement. Vol. XIV, No. i72, February 16, 
 1918.
 
 AFTER THE PEACE CONFERENCE 311 
 
 towards a healthy equality of material circumstances 
 for every person born into the world — not on an 
 enforced dominion over subject nations, subject 
 races, subject colonies, subject classes, or a subject 
 sex, but, in industry as well as in government, on 
 that equal freedom, that general consciousness of 
 consent, and that widest possible participation in 
 power, both economic and political, which is char- 
 acteristic of democracy." 
 
 The final war for democracy will begin after the 
 war. It will be a wider conflict than that which now 
 rages and the alignment will be by classes and inter- 
 ests rather than by nations. It will be a war wliich 
 will be waged until separate interests within each 
 nation are completely extinguished. 
 
 THE END
 
 INDEX 
 
 Allies, diplomatic errors and ap- 
 parently imperialistic purposes 
 of, 2-3; opposition of Presi- 
 dent Wilson to aims of, 3-4; 
 course that might have been 
 taken with, by America, 4-6 ; 
 hesitatinw diplomacy of Amer- 
 ica concerning secret treaties 
 of, 6-7; dangers of a victory 
 to, 25-26; a real moral victory 
 endangered by war aims of, 
 26-27; reasons for desire of 
 America for victory of, 00; 
 confessed nationalistic ambi- 
 tions of, 98-99; both morale 
 and military power of, weak- 
 ened by engagements among 
 themselves violative of inter- 
 nationalism, 107 n; disposi- 
 tion of conquered territories 
 among, by terms of secret 
 treaties, 115-120; specially ob- 
 jectionable character of secret 
 treaties among, 119-120; bar- 
 gain made by Italy with, 127- 
 128; course pursued by, re- 
 garding New Russia's appeal 
 for peace without indemnities 
 and annexations, 176-177. 
 
 America, lost ojjportunities of, 
 for declaration of principles 
 in world conllict, 1-7; reasons 
 to be found for course of, 7-8; 
 diminution of moral value of 
 participation of, in war, 8; 
 false position occupied by, 8- 
 9; discouraging elTects of lack 
 of courage of convictions by, 
 9-10; chief hope of the world's 
 
 313 
 
 peace found in, 33-34; lea- 
 sons concerning peace learned 
 by, 34-36; mood in which 
 problem of world peace must 
 be approached by, 37; ideals 
 of people of, before and after 
 entering war, 38; pacifists, 
 patriots, and the policy of 
 neutrality in, 38-49; reasons 
 for conversion of, to war. 50 ff; 
 effect of modern growth of in- 
 dustry upon entrance into 
 war, 57-62 ; theory of respon- 
 sibility of financial interests 
 for war, 62-60; idealistic fac- 
 tors influencing decision, 66- 
 67; influence of Russian Revo- 
 lution, 07-68; obsolescent be- 
 lief still prevalent that Amer- 
 ica has little concern with Eu- 
 rope, 68-70; war justified by 
 appeal to old ideals of, 70- 
 71; forced to admit menace of 
 German militarism, 84-85; 
 democratic ideal of, menaced 
 by Cierman autocracy and mili- 
 tarism, 85-90; not bound by 
 Italy's bargain with the Al- 
 lies, 131-138; position of, as 
 arbitrator between claims of 
 her Allies and of her enemies. 
 139 fT ; President Wilson's 
 statement of peace terms, 
 139-141; difference between 
 position of, and that of Russia 
 and British I,nl)our Party, 
 142; strategic position of, 143- 
 145; necessity of going against 
 will both of enemies and of
 
 314 
 
 INDEX 
 
 influential groups among Al- 
 lies, 145; concrete policy to be 
 followed by, 148-156; failure 
 of, to respond to appeal of 
 New Russia for a common 
 peace and mutual forgiveness, 
 180-181; the present the time 
 for preventing an imperialistic 
 settlement, 287-288; likely to 
 become as imperialistic as 
 other nations, 298-299; steps 
 taken by, on road to imperial- 
 ism, 299-300; phase of finan- 
 cial imperialism entered upon 
 by, 300; danger of imperial- 
 ism in, increased by the 
 war, 300-301 ; revolutionary 
 changes in whole economic sys- 
 tem demanded, 302-304; so- 
 licitude for special privilege 
 in, 304-305; importance of 
 regulation of flow of profits 
 within the nation and outward 
 to foreign countries, 305-308 ; 
 the kind of democracy in, upon 
 which hope of a true interna- 
 tionalism rests, 308. 
 
 Angell, Norman, quoted on curb- 
 ing of foreign circulation of 
 Liberal journals, 165-166. 
 
 Arbitration and mediation, in- 
 ternational, an element of in- 
 ternationalism, 250. 
 
 Asia Minor, proposed disposition 
 of, among Allies, 116-117; 
 Italian aspirations for col- 
 onies in, 127-128; disposition 
 of, under program of interna- 
 tionalism, 270. 
 
 Autocracy, principle of, ranged 
 against democratic principle in 
 present war, 13; significance 
 to, of victory for Germany, 
 14; special reasons for Amer- 
 ica's combating German, 85- 
 90; surprising power and vi- 
 
 tality of, revealed by the war, 
 88-89; expansiveness of, 89. 
 
 Bainville, Jacques, "Italy and 
 the War," quoted, 122; defence 
 of narrow Italian policy by, 
 130-131. 
 
 Balkans, character of struggle 
 between Austria and Russia 
 for domination of, 105 ; Italian 
 claims as an obstacle to peace 
 arrangement on nationalistic 
 lines in, 129-130. 
 
 Bang, Dr J. P. "Hurrah and 
 Hallelujah" by, 200 n. 
 
 Benevolent neutrality, America's 
 period of, 55-56. 
 
 Bitter-enders, efi'orts for an ideal 
 peace frustrated by, 27; pres- 
 ent attitude of, 29-30. 
 
 Bolshevik government, respon- 
 sibility of Allies for rise of, 
 176-177; source of strength 
 of, found in fact that it repre- 
 sents working classes of the 
 world, 182-183; significance of 
 rise of, as a symptom of a 
 world-wide revelation and a 
 coming revolution, 184; mean- 
 ing of Russian propaganda 
 which has culminated in ac- 
 tivities of, 184-185; mingled 
 absurdities, excesses, and wis- 
 dom of, 185-186; question of 
 eventual success of, 186-188. 
 
 Brailsford, H. N., quoted on ef- 
 fect on America's position, of 
 her entrance into the war, 139. 
 
 British Labour Party, statement 
 of liberal peace terms issued 
 by, 142; culmination and col- 
 lapse of European industrial 
 civilization recognized by, 310; 
 Reconstruction program pro- 
 posed for adoption by, 310-311.
 
 INDEX 
 
 315 
 
 Callwell, Gen. C. E., on the Ger- 
 mans, l'J3. 
 
 Classes, struggle between, seen 
 as the war beneath the war, 
 184-185. 
 
 Colonial possessions, disposition 
 of, under program of interna- 
 tionalism, 270. 
 
 Convention of April 27, 1915, 
 disposing of territory among 
 Allied powers, 115. 
 
 Croce, Benedetto, quoted on 
 Italy's attitude in the war, 
 122.' 
 
 Democracy, diminishing chances 
 of settling war on basis of, 
 2-3; attempt of America to 
 fight for, while countenancing 
 imperialistic aims, 8-9; only 
 course open to. to break down 
 German militarism, 11-1.3; 
 principle of autocracy ranged 
 against, in the war, 13; what 
 victory by Germany would 
 mean to, 14; victory for inter- 
 nationalism and, the goal to be 
 achieved, 15; recognized by 
 America as a fundamental 
 purpose in the war, 54; the 
 force that caused America to 
 take sides with the .'Mlica, 
 60; how German autocracy 
 and militarism are a menace 
 to American principle of, 85- 
 90; like autocracy, is aggres- 
 sive and intensely missionary, 
 91; distinction between a so- 
 cialized, and an InefTicient and 
 brutalized plutocracy, 94-95; 
 the war beneath the war a war 
 for, 188; final war for, to be- 
 gin after the war, 311, 
 
 Democratic groups, common 
 ground of feeling amt)ng, in 
 
 different countries, 159-1 02; 
 true American policy aims at 
 union of all the, l<;3-lt)4; dif- 
 ficulty of uniting those of war- 
 ring countries. 104-hJt;; points 
 that help in uniting, lGO-107; 
 sharp cleavage between mili- 
 tarists and. found in all coun- 
 tries, 108-170; danger of too 
 long delay by, in exercising in- 
 fluence against an imperialis- 
 tic peace, 2KK 
 
 Dernburg, Dr Bernard, defence of 
 German militarism by, 77-78. 
 
 Disarmament, an element of in 
 ternationalism, 250. 
 
 Economic interdependence of na- 
 tions, 235-238. 
 
 Economic system, menace to 
 peace found in disequilibrium 
 of modern, 298. 
 
 Economic war after the war, un- 
 advisability of, 11 1-112. 
 
 Election of delegates to future 
 Peace Conference proposed, 
 277-279. 
 
 England, Dr. Dernburg's i-om- 
 parison of Germany and. 77- 
 78; meaning to, of a complete 
 German victory. 82-83; influ- 
 ence of trade unions felt in, 
 173. See Great liritain. 
 
 Europeans, misconceptions of. 
 concerning Americans and the 
 American mind. 39-41. 
 
 E.xccss profits taxes, mainte- 
 nance of. after the war, 30(5- 
 307. 
 
 Exploiters and exploited. Bol 
 shevik conception of war be- 
 tween. 184-185. 
 
 Financial imperialism in Amer- 
 ica, 300-301.
 
 316 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Financial interests, theory of re- 
 sponsibility of, for America's 
 entrance into the war, 62-67. 
 
 Foreign policies of European 
 powers in modern times, 101- 
 105. 
 
 France, nationalistic aims and 
 demands of, early in war, 103 ; 
 agreement between Great Brit- 
 ain and Russia and, as to ter- 
 ritorial acquisitions, 116-119; 
 influence of labour groups felt 
 in, 173. 
 
 Freytag-Loringhoven, General 
 von, "Deductions from the 
 Great War" by, 243. 
 
 German Minority Socialists, 
 statement of principles and 
 aims by, 157-158; hope for 
 future found in protests of, 
 202. 
 
 Germany, causes leading to over- 
 ruling of liberalism in, 11; 
 militarism of, to be conquered 
 only by creation of secure in- 
 ternational system, 11-13; vic- 
 tory by, would re-establish 
 prestige of autocracy, 14; early 
 hopes in, of a speedy victory, 
 18-19; not the sole enemy of 
 peace, 35; America's reasons 
 for taking sides against, 60- 
 62; discussion of the militar- 
 ism of, against which war is 
 being waged, 74 ff. ; results to 
 Western Europe in case of vic- 
 tory of, in first Western drive, 
 81-83; foreign policy of, com- 
 pared with that of other pow- 
 ers, 104-105; impossibility of 
 collecting indemnities from, 
 110; policy of trade discrimi- 
 nation against, ill advised, 
 111-112; resemblance of Ital- 
 ian program to that of, 134; 
 
 sharp cleavage between demo- 
 cratic group and militarists 
 in, 109; question of possibility 
 of distinguishing between peo- 
 ple and government, iHOff. ; 
 submissive and militaristic 
 character of people, 197; sinis- 
 ter change in population with 
 early victories, 199-200; 
 wherein hope lies for people of, 
 201-202; signs of beginning of 
 change of mood in, 202-203; 
 possibilities for development 
 of democracy in, 20.3-206 ; 
 power of Grand Alliance over, 
 through economic co-operation. 
 241-244; should be admitted 
 to new international system in 
 which the war may result, 
 245; the State Idea in, 251, 
 252-254 ; probable domination 
 of, in Russia, under an im- 
 perialistic peace, 286-287. 
 
 Gibbons, H. A , quoted on bully- 
 ing and blundering record of 
 European diplomacy, 103-104; 
 quoted concerning Italian im- 
 perialists, 130 n. 
 
 Goldmann, N., defender of mili- 
 tarism, quoted, 92-94. 
 
 Grand Alliance, the, 232 ff.; eco- 
 nomic co-operation of. 234- 
 241. 
 
 Great Britain, material national- 
 istic aims of, in the war, 103; 
 agreement between France and 
 Russia and, as to disposition 
 of territorial acquisitions, 
 116-119. 
 
 Greece, offer of conquered terri- 
 tory to (November, 1914), 116. 
 
 Grumbach, S., anthology of Ger- 
 man imperialistic literature 
 by, 109. 
 
 Guarantees, demand for, by the 
 warring powers, 224-225 ;
 
 INDEX 
 
 31' 
 
 necessity for, 225; distinguish- 
 ing between honest and ques- 
 tionable, 225-220; method of 
 securing, by debilitating the 
 enemy, 226-227 : the method of 
 the covenant and the method 
 of destruction of motive, 228- 
 230; should be secured by 
 making cost of aggression 
 greater and the temptation to 
 be aggressive less, 230; new in- 
 ternational organization and 
 international spirit essential 
 for enduring, 231. 
 
 Harrison, Frederic, "The Mean- 
 ing of War," quoted, 82-83. 
 
 Idealism, American, before and 
 after entering war, 38-40 
 
 Imperialism, stamp of, upon Al- 
 lied cause, 2-3; ideal victory 
 imperilled by element of, 
 among Allies, 26-27; discus- 
 sion of aims of Allies based on 
 ideas of, 08 ff. ; the demand for 
 indemnities, 107-111; trade 
 discrimination against Ger- 
 many, 111-112; demands for 
 new territorial possessions, 
 113-120; of the Italian pro- 
 gram, 121-138; possible ef- 
 fect of labour groups upon, 
 172-173; menace of, seen in 
 America, 208-300. 
 
 Tinperiiilistic peace, the danger 
 of an, 282-287; possible argu- 
 ments in favour of, by oppo- 
 nents of internationalism, 288- 
 201 ; disastrous consequences 
 of, 201-202; danger of. to be 
 averted only by union of lib- 
 eral elements in all nations 
 prior to Peace Conference, 
 204-205. 
 
 Income taxes, continuation of, 
 after the war, 30G-3U7. 
 
 Indemnities, the Allied de- 
 mand for, 107-100; argument 
 against, 100-111; impossibil- 
 ity of collecting, from Ger- 
 many, 110-111. 
 
 Industry, neutrality impossible 
 luider modern conditions of, 
 57-58. 
 
 Internationalism, lost opportu- 
 nities for settling war on basis 
 of, 2-3; necessary characteris- 
 tics of a poliey aiming at, 7-H; 
 the lessening chances of a 
 peace based on, 0-10; the only 
 means of ending menace of 
 German militarism, 11-13; 
 victory for, should be the goal 
 to be achieved in the war, 15; 
 question of the achievement of, 
 by fighting, 22-24 ; danger of 
 fighting war for, by expedients 
 opposed to, 26-27 ; doctrine of, 
 viewed as a new and broader 
 Americanism, 71-72; little at- 
 tention paid to, in modern Eu- 
 ropean politics, 103-104; mo- 
 rale and military power of Al- 
 lies weakened by engagements 
 violative of, 107 n.; Italian im- 
 perialistic designs opposed to 
 policies of, 134; America's war 
 aims inspired by, 130 (T ; true 
 alignment in the war found in 
 militarism versus, 157-173; 
 centre and core of, located in 
 labour groups of different 
 countries, 170-171; shown tt) 
 be the only basis for a con- 
 clusive peace, 212-222; a 
 nearer approach to, madi- pos- 
 sible by the grand alliance 
 against Germany. 234 ; analy- 
 sis of prineii)nl obsta<'les to. 
 248 ff. ; question of aeceptabil-
 
 318 
 
 INDEX 
 
 ity of, to our enemies or all of 
 our allies, 251; antagonism 
 to, in clash between the State 
 Idea and an internationalism 
 represented by Germany's 
 enemies, 251 ; contest between 
 State Idea or New National- 
 ism and, one of the deepest is- 
 sues of the war, 256; condi- 
 tions inclining nations toward 
 New Nationalism or, 257-258; 
 ideals of, contravened by Mit- 
 tel-Europa idea, 261; narrow 
 type of, favoured by favour- 
 ably located states, 263-266; 
 steps for securing a real, 266 
 ff. ; program of, 268-269; the 
 present the time for laying 
 foundation of the new, 271; 
 fate of, at the future Peace 
 Conference, 275; supreme vig- 
 ilance necessary to secure 
 peace based on, 279; possible 
 persuasive arguments against, 
 at Peace Conference, 288-291; 
 peace which makes no progress 
 in direction of, a failure, 292- 
 293; possibility of, doubtful 
 under present economic and 
 political regime, 297; basis for 
 firm foundation for, in Amer- 
 ica and other countries, 308- 
 309. 
 Italy, events leading to defeat of, 
 in 1917, 3; bargaining attitude 
 of, in the war, 54; selfish aims 
 and motives of, 121 ff.; na- 
 tional interest the controlling 
 factor in policy of, 122-123; 
 egoistic, nationalistic, and im- 
 perialistic motives of, 124-128; 
 bargain made by, with Allies, 
 128 ; defence and criticism of 
 national egoism of, 130-131 ; 
 reasons why America should 
 not lend aid to encouraging 
 
 imperialistic aims of, 131- 
 138; question of Americas 
 course in regard to, 152-151; 
 weight of influence of labour 
 groups in, 173. 
 
 Japan, significance of invasion 
 of Siberia by, to cause of .\\ 
 lies, 3; necessity for 8top])iiig 
 plans for conquest in Siberia, 
 to secure lasting peace, 13; 
 slight significance of demo- 
 cratic ideals to, 54; militaris- 
 tic and autocratic charactrr 
 of, 76; Chinese territory ac- 
 corded to, by secret treaties, 
 115; position of, as afi'ectiug 
 America's policy and war 
 aims, 154-155; President Wil- 
 son and the problem of inter- 
 vention by, in Siberia, 294 n. 
 
 Junkers, present ascendancy of, 
 11; course to be followed to 
 break down prestige of, 11-13. 
 
 Kautsky, Karl, quoted on So- 
 cialist attitude toward mili- 
 tary system, 94 n. 
 
 Labour, the necessity for placat- 
 ing, 185. 
 
 Labour groups, hope of inter- 
 nationalism placed in, 170- 
 172; reason for great influence 
 of, in the war 172-173; pos- 
 sibility of sweeping away im- 
 perialistic elements by 173. 
 
 League of Nations, for strength- 
 ening guarantees, 231. 
 
 League to Enforce Peace, pacific 
 intentions of nations necessary 
 to machinery of, 296 
 
 Lehmann, Pastor Walter, lauda- 
 tion of Germany by. 200. 
 
 Lieber, F., cited on definition of 
 "nation," 256,
 
 INDEX 
 
 319 
 
 lyiheralism. 
 groups. 
 
 See Democratic 
 
 Maxse, L. J., attack on Amer- 
 ica's neutral policy by, 46- 
 47 ; quoted as an advocate of 
 indemnities, 108. 
 
 Militarism, destruction of all 
 kinds of, one chief aim in the 
 war, 15; what is meant by the 
 war against, 73 ff. ; defence of 
 German system, 77-78; par- 
 ticular reasons why America 
 combats German, 85-90; argu- 
 ments in defence of German, 
 n2-!»4; not identical with 
 maintenance of an army, 94 ii ; 
 intt'rnationalism versus, the 
 true alignment in the war, 
 157-173; an obvious implica- 
 tion of Neo-Nationalism. 2(52. 
 
 Militarists, as a chief obstacle 
 to an ideal peace, 27, 29-30; 
 intellectual chasm between 
 democratic groups and, in all 
 countries, 168-170. 
 
 Mittel-Europa, antagonistic to 
 doctrine of unrestricted rights 
 of nationalities, 261 ; why 
 Germany desires a, 261-262. 
 
 ^loney power, extent of respon- 
 sibility of the, for America's 
 entrance into the war, 62-67. 
 
 Monroe Doctrine, to carry o\it 
 promise of the, one object of 
 America in entering the war, 
 71. 
 
 Murray. Sir Gilbert, "The For- 
 eign Policy of Sir Edward 
 Grey," quoted, 101-102. 
 
 Nationalistic ambitiona of Al- 
 lies, 08-106; intcrnationalistic 
 motive opposed to, 106-107; 
 iho demand for indemnities. 
 ]07-l 1 ! ; the demand for trade 
 
 discrimination against Ger- 
 many, 111-112; the d.-mand 
 for new territorial possessions, 
 113-120. 
 
 Nationality, definition of a, 257. 
 See Self-determination of na- 
 tionalities. 
 
 Nationalization of industries, de- 
 sirability of, in America, 307- 
 308. 
 
 Neo-Nationalism doctrine of, 
 253-254; question of efTect of 
 war on, 255; conditions inclin- 
 ing nations toward interna- 
 tionalism or, 257-25S; mili- 
 tarism an obvious implication 
 of, 262; minor im|ilicalit)n8 of, 
 263 n. 
 
 Neutrality, causes leading to 
 American, early in war, 38- 
 44; necessity of, emphasized 
 by internal racial divisions in 
 America, 44-46; dilliculties of 
 policy of, 46-47; failure of 
 policy, 47-49; the period of 
 "benevolent neutrality," 55- 
 56; impossibility of a real, 
 under modern industrial con- 
 ditions, 57-58. 
 
 Non-intervention. See Neutral- 
 ity. 
 
 Okuma, Count, death of Kuro 
 pean civilization predicted by, 
 309-310. 
 
 PacifistB, 89 obstacles to an ideal 
 peace, 27; the present condi 
 tion of, 27-29; reasons for 
 existence of. in .\merica, 3S- 
 42; condescendingly benevolent 
 character of American type. 
 42-43. 
 
 Patriotism, pacific character of 
 .Xmerican, 42 
 
 Peace, th<' search fur, and ob-
 
 320 
 
 INDEX 
 
 stacles to, 27-32; need of a 
 constructive, 32-33 ; position 
 of America as the chief liope 
 of, 33-34; lessons learned by 
 America concerning a real, 
 34-36; not brought by the 
 end of the war alone, 36-37; 
 mood in which America must 
 approach problem of, 37 ; 
 terms of, as outlined by Presi- 
 dent Wilson, 140-141; the 
 means of attaining a conclu- 
 sive, 207-223. See also Im- 
 perialistic peace. 
 
 Peace Conference, supposititious 
 activities of diplomats at fu- 
 ture meeting of, 273 S. ; will 
 internationalism be shelved 
 at? 275; importance of char- 
 acter of delegates to, 276; de- 
 mand for public and not secret 
 diplomacy at, 276-277; elec- 
 tion of delegates to, proposed, 
 277-279; supreme vigilance 
 necessary to secure peace based 
 on internationalism, 279; con- 
 tingencies which may rob peo- 
 ple of benefit of their sacri 
 fiees, 279-282; the danger of 
 an imperialistic peace, 282- 
 287; America's present oppor- 
 tunity to prevent an imperial- 
 istic settlement, 287-288; pos- 
 sible appeals in favour of an 
 imperialistic peace, 288-291 ; 
 importance of union of liberal 
 elements in all nations, prior 
 to, 294-295. 
 
 Pichon, Stephen, a French advo- 
 cate of indemnities, 108-109. 
 
 Powers, H. H , 'Wmerica among 
 the Nations," quoted, 75 n. 
 
 Punitive indomnities. the pro- 
 posed policy of, to be adopted 
 by Allies. 107-109: the argu- 
 ment against. 109-111. 
 
 Railroads, benefits from nation- 
 alizing of, 303. 
 
 Reclus, On^sime, policy of in- 
 demnities advocated by, 109. 
 
 Reichstag Majority program, 
 202. 
 
 Reinforcement of treaties, an 
 element of internationalism, 
 250. 
 
 Reply to the Pope, President 
 Wilson's, 140. 
 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, criticism of 
 views of, expressed in spwch 
 calling for a peace of over- 
 whelming victory, 207-208. 
 
 Roumania, a bargainer in the 
 war, 54; territories to be ac- 
 corded to, 115-116. 
 
 Russia, course of Allies toward, 
 2-3 ; conditions resulting in 
 handing over of, to Germany. 
 9; autocratic and militaristic 
 character of, in 1914, 70; mili- 
 tarism of, compared with that 
 of Germany, 77; nationalistic 
 aims of Imperial, at beginning 
 of war, 102-103; territory ac- 
 corded to, by terms of secret 
 treaties, 115; territorial ac- 
 quisitions of, under agreement 
 with Great Britain and France, 
 116-119; impulse toward lib- 
 eral peace terms from Repub- 
 lic of, 142; appeal issued by 
 Republic of, for peace with 
 out punitive indemnities or 
 forced annexations, 174; eflFects 
 of utterance on allies of New 
 Russia, 174-175; wisdom of 
 new-born Republic shown by 
 statement, 175; President 
 Wilson's sympathetic attitude. 
 176: procrastinating course of 
 Allies, resulting in rise of Bol- 
 shevik government, 176-177; 
 war-weatiness and clear-sight-
 
 INDEX 
 
 321 
 
 edncss of, 177-170; steps lead- 
 ing to the appeal by, for u com- 
 mou peace and mutual forgive- 
 ness. 170-180; disposition of, 
 und<r an imperialistic peace, 
 2S5-2S7; President Wil- 
 son's announcement concerning 
 treatment of, by sister nations, 
 293-204. 
 
 Russian Republic, right spirit 
 shown in declaration by, for 
 "no annexations and no in- 
 demnities," 5, 174-175; at- 
 titude of, toward secret com- 
 pacts of Allies, G-7 
 
 Russian Hevolution, effect of, on 
 deciding America to enter the 
 wiir, (i7-()S; destruction of, by 
 an imperialistic peace, 291. 
 
 Saturday Review, reception by, 
 of President Wilson's demand 
 for democratization in Ger- 
 many and promise of a non- 
 pimitive peace, 162-163. 
 
 Sayce, Professor, quoted on the 
 Germans, 102. 
 
 Secret treaties of Allies, to be 
 disapproved by America, 4-5; 
 hesitating diplomacy of Amer- 
 ica in regard to, 6-7; effect of, 
 upon the enemy, 90; disposi- 
 tion of territorial possessions 
 under terms of, 113-120; 
 specially objectionable fea- 
 tures of, 119-120. 
 
 Self-determination, granting of 
 right )f, to each conscious na- 
 tionality, an element of in- 
 ternationalism, 250. 
 
 Self-determination of national- 
 ities, nations which find it dif- 
 ficult to subscribe to doctrine 
 of, 2.")0-'260; effect upon .Aus- 
 tria Hungary, Switzerbind. 
 
 Great Britain, and othtr coun- 
 tries, 260; the Statt Idea op 
 posed as a rival eunception, 
 260. 
 
 Shaw, Bernard, quoted on im- 
 possibility of collecting dam- 
 ages from Germany. 110. 
 
 Socialized democracy, the brand 
 of democracy for reorganizing 
 the world after the war, 04- 
 05. 
 
 State Idea, the, as represented 
 by Germany, 251, 2r)2-2.")4; re- 
 lation of (Jerman socialism to, 
 254-255; question whether 
 war will result in destroying 
 or propagating the, 2.")5; eon- 
 test between internationalism 
 and, one of the deep issues of 
 the war. 256; oppose<l as a 
 rival conception to doctrine of 
 self-determination of nation- 
 alities. 2()0. 
 
 Status quo ante, impossibility of 
 ending war on basis of, 215- 
 220. 
 
 Stockholm Conference, a lost op- 
 portunity for .-Kmerica. 5-6. 
 
 Stoddard, T Lathrop. "Present- 
 Day Europe," quoted, 12S 
 
 Taxes on incomes, inheritances, 
 and excess profits, as a means 
 of deflecting wealth to general 
 community. 306-307. 
 
 Territorial possessions. .-Mlied 
 demands for, as an obstacle to 
 peace. 113-120 
 
 Threats, Germany's use of, to se- 
 cure concessions. HO. 
 
 Trade discrimination, discussion 
 of the .Allied demand for. af 
 ter the war, 111-112. 
 
 Trade unions. Sec l>al>our 
 groups 
 
 Treaties, reinforcement of, nn
 
 322 
 
 INDEX 
 
 element of internationalism, 
 250. See Secret treaties. 
 Turner, Sir Alfred E., quoted on 
 the Germans, 192. 
 
 Veblen, Thorstein, "The Nature 
 of Peace," quoted, 203. 
 
 Victory, present elusiveness of, 
 17-19; in what it will really 
 consist, 20-22 ; elusiveness 
 even of a real moral, 22-24 ; 
 dangers lurking in a merely 
 material, 24-2G; reasons for 
 elusiveness of a real, found in 
 war aims of Allies, 26-27; ob- 
 stacles to an ideal, found in 
 both pacifists and militarists, 
 27-30; the need for a construc- 
 tive peace to follow, 32-33; 
 criticism of Mr. Roosevelt's 
 call for an overwhelming, 207- 
 208; a conclusive peace not 
 necessarily the result of a con- 
 clusive victory, 209-212. 
 
 Vorwdrts, reception by, of Presi- 
 dent Wilson's demand for 
 democratization in Germany 
 and promise of a non-punitive 
 peace, 162. 
 
 Wage-earners, promotion of in- 
 ternationalism by, 170-172: 
 great influence of, in the war, 
 due to law of supply and de- 
 mand, 172-173; imperialistic 
 elements may be swept away 
 by, 173; strength of Bolsheviki 
 found in fact that they repre- 
 sent the, 182-183. 
 
 Wallas, Graham, early forecast 
 of present situation by. 17-18. 
 
 Wall Street and the war, 62-67, 
 
 War against militarism, mean- 
 ing of the, 73-97. 
 
 War beneath the war, meaning 
 of phrase, 14, 184. 
 
 Whyte, A F., quoted on the 
 basis of a eom|)lcte victory, 
 222 n. 
 
 Wilson, President, efforts of, to 
 secure for America position of 
 arbiter in settlement of war, 
 1-2; opposition of, to imper- 
 ialistic designs of Allies, 3; 
 reasons for failure of, to hit 
 his mark, 3-4; course that 
 might have been followed by, 
 4-5 ; lost opportunities of, for 
 declaration of principles, 5-7; 
 possible explanations of policy 
 and apparent errors of, 7-N; 
 the thought behind the "too 
 proud to fight" speech, 44; the 
 plea by, that Americans re- 
 main neutral in thought, 55 ; 
 demonstrated unwillingness of, 
 to permit financial groups to 
 dictate national policy, 66- 
 67; significance of war mes- 
 sage of, in relation to uphold- 
 ing of America's traditions. 
 70-71; steps taken by, toward 
 acting as arbitrator between 
 claims of Allies and of ene- 
 mies, 139-140; principles 
 enunciated in his Reply to the 
 Pope, 140; terms of peace as 
 further outlined by, 140-141; 
 reception in Germany and in 
 England of demand for democ- 
 ratization and promise of 
 non-punitive peace, 162-163 
 sympathetic attitude of, to- 
 w^ard Russian Republican ap- 
 peal for peace without in 
 demnities or annexations, 176; 
 failure of, to meet promptly 
 the Russian appeal for a com- 
 mon peace and mutual for- 
 giveness, 180-181; statement 
 by, as to basis of settlement of 
 disputed issues, 281 n; an-
 
 INDEX 323 
 
 nouncoment hy, in ropard to World wxiety, the hope of a new, 
 treatment to ho accorded KMis- 21-22. 
 
 sia by sister nations, 2d3-2'J4. 
 
 PKiNTcn rv TFTf: rvirrn tTATits or AVitmcA
 
 "THE following pages contain advertisements of boolcs by the 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIKRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 p, \^^|^is book is UUE on the last date stamjjed below. 
 
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