Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

After all, the test of whether it is possible for either government to go any further in this comparison of views is simple and obvious. The principles to be applied are these:

First, that each part of the final settlement must be based upon the essential justice of that particular case and upon such adjustments as are most likely to bring a peace that will be permanent;

Second, that peoples and provinces are not to be bartered about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were mere chattels and pawns in a game, even the great game, now forever discredited, of the balance of power; but that

Third, 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 amongst rival states; and

Fourth, that all well defined national aspirations shall be accorded the utmost satisfaction that can be accorded them without introducing new or perpetuating old elements of discord and antagonism that would be likely in time to break the peace of Europe and consequently of the world.

A general peace erected upon such foundations can be discussed. Until such a peace can be secured we have no choice but to go on. So far as we can judge, these principles that we regard as fundamental are already everywhere accepted as imperative except among the spokesmen of the military and annexationist party in Germany. If they have anywhere else been rejected, the objectors have not been sufficiently numerous or influential to make their voices audible. The tragical circumstance is that this one party in Germany is apparently willing and able to send millions of men to their death to prevent what all the world now sees to be just.

WE CANNOT TURN BACK.

I would not be a true spokesman of the people of the United States if I did not say once more that we entered this war upon no small occasion, and that we can never turn back from a course chosen upon principle. Our resources are in part mobilized now, and we shall not pause until they are mobilized in their entirety. Our armies are rapidly going to the fighting front, and will go more and more rapidly. Our whole strength will be put into this war of emancipation, emancipation from the threat and attempted mastery of selfish groups of autocratic_rulers,-whatever the difficulties and present partial delays. We are indom itable in our power of independent action and can in no circum

stance consent to live in a world governed by intrigue and force. We believe that our own desire for a new international order under which reason and justice and the common interests of mankind shall prevail is the desire of enlightened men everywhere. Without that new order the world will be without peace and human life will lack tolerable conditions of existence and development. Having set our hand to the task of achieving it, we shall not turn back.

I hope that it is not necessary for me to add that no word of what I have said is intended as a threat. That is not the temper of our people. I have spoken thus only that the whole world may know the true spirit of America-that men everywhere may know that our passion for justice and for self-government is no mere passion of words but a passion which, once set in action, must be satisfied. The power of the United States is a menace to no nation or people. It will never be used in aggression or for the aggrandizement of any selfish interest of our own. It springs out of freedom and is for the service of freedom.

FEBRUARY 18, 1918-GERMANY RESUMES WAR ON RUSSIA.

(Perhaps one of the most colossal of Germany's many stupid blunders. Nothing she had done so firmly consolidated against her the thought of the free world. This action over a fallen foe, which she had herself previously seduced into a state of physical, mental and spiritual helplessness, startled from their dreams many who had still built castles of peace out of the fatuous faith that there was some moral foundation in Germany upon which to build.)

FEBRUARY 19, 1918-BOLSHEVIKI ACCEPT GERMAN TERMS, BUT DRIVE CONTINUES.

(Here brute force and treachery threw off the mask. Even Germans squirmed at this; while Austria was understood to have refused to take part in the game, as a mark of her disapproval.) FEBRUARY 19, 1918-LLOYD GEORGE DEFENDS ALLIED UNIFIED CONTROL.

(This marked the final triumph in England of the policy of unified control and direction, consistently supported by the United States from the first. Lloyd George referred to American arguments as having “irresistible power and logic.")

109

FEBRUARY 24, 1918-Bolsheviki GovernmENT ACCEPTS FOR RUSSIA FURTHER German PEACE TERMS.

(These terms, imposed by bullying force, were much_worse than the first ones, surrendering to Germany-under a German "self-determination" pretext that the inhabitants desired the change-one-fourth of European Russia.)

FEBRUARY 25, 1918-Von HERTLING, FOR GERMANY, CONTINUES PEACE OFFENSIVE.

(Chancellor Von Hertling, while Germany was overrunning Russia, overcome with a "scrap of paper," informed the world in a speech that he could "fundamentally agree" with President Wilson's peace terms, as expressed in the speech of February 11.)

MARCH 11, 1918-PRESIDENT WILSON SENDS MESSAGE TO RUSSIAN SOVIETS.

(He expressed sympathy and declared it to be America's intention to help Russia maintain her existence and freedom.) MARCH 11, 1918-AMERICAN TROOPS GO "OVER THE TOP" FOR THE FIRST TIME.

MARCH 13, 1918-GERMANY FORCIBLY OCCUPIES ODESSA.

(She ratified her treaty of peace with the Ukraine by occupying the capital with troops and beginning to strip_the_country of supplies. Peasants hid, buried and destroyed grain to prevent the Germans from getting it.)

MARCH 18, 1918-ALLIED NATIONS DENOUNCE GERMANY'S POLITICAL ASSASSINATION OF RUSSIA AND REPUDIATE THE PEACE TREATIES.

MARCH 21, 1918-GREATEST OFFENSIVE OF THE WAR LAUNCHED BY GERMANS.

(With armies swollen by troops drawn from the Russian front, the German High Command, after months of preparation, special training of "shock troops" and diligent publicity in the neutral and enemy press, launched the greatest offensive of the war against the British army, with the general purpose of forcing favorable peace by a decision at arms before the arrival of help from America. The objectives were either the channel ports or Paris, as the battle might develop. The Germans succeeded in

driving a deep, broad salient into the British lines, being stopped only short of Amiens. The threat for an anxious week was critical, but the Germans were finally held. This supreme effort was enormously costly in men to the Germans, and gained no vital objectives. American troops were brigaded with English and French, General Pershing offering all the soldiers he had to the Allied Command.)

MARCH 28, 1918-GENERAL PERSHING OFFERS FRANCE All THE AMERICAN SOLDIERS ON HAND.

MARCH 29, 1918-GENERAL FOCH MADE GENERALISSIMO, IN SUPREME COMMAND OF ALL Allied ARMIES.

APRIL 4, 1918-GERMANS RENEW SUPREME OFFENSIVE.

(This time they struck at the junction of the French and British armies at Amiens, gaining ground, but failing to break through as they had purposed.)

APRIL 6, 1918-FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF AMERICA'S ENTRANCE INTO THE WAR; PRESIDENT WILSON DELIVERS AN ADDRESS AT BALTIMORE.

(Both Germany, through von Hertling, and Austria, through Czernin, made welcoming gestures with one hand toward the principles laid down in President Wilson's speech of February 11th, while with the other they were signing a treacherous peace with Russia which wrested from her vast areas under hypocritical pretexts, subjected millions of people to the German world-will, and cynically ignored every principle for which President Wilson so clearly showed the Allies were sacrificing all. Whereupon President Wilson in an address in Baltimore launched at the Prussian Autocracy possibly the most penetrating and crushing arraignment any nation has ever suffered since the days of the prophets. The peroration of this address, in which President Wilson, in the name of the United States, accepts the German challenge of force, seen in the Brest-Litovsk treaty, will doubtless be pronounced one of the great passages of English speech.)

"FORCE TO THE UTMOST!"

PRESIDENT WILSON ACCEPTS GERMANY'S CHALLENGE. (Complete) Fellow Citizens:

This is the anniversary of our acceptance of Germany's challenge to fight for our right to live and be free, and for the sacred

rights of free men everywhere. The Nation is awake. There is no need to call to it. We know what the war must cost, our utmost sacrifice, the lives of our fittest men and, if need be, all that we possess. The loan we are met to discuss is one of the least parts of what we are called upon to give and to do, though in itself imperative. The people of the whole country are alive to the necessity of it, and are ready to lend to the utmost, even where it involves a sharp skimping and daily sacrifice to lend out of meagre earnings. They will look with reprobation and contempt upon those who can and will not, upon those who demand a higher rate of interest, upon those who think of it as a mere commercial transaction. I have not come, therefore, to urge the loan. I have come only to give you, if I can, a more vivid conception of what it is for.

The reasons for this great war, the reason why it had to come, the need to fight it through, and the issues that hang upon its outcome, are more clearly disclosed now than ever before. It is easy to see just what this particular loan means because the Cause we are fighting for stands more sharply revealed than at any previous crisis of the momentous struggle. The man who knows least can now see plainly how the cause of Justice stands and what the imperishable thing is he is asked to invest in. Men in America may be more sure than they ever were before that the cause is their own, and that, if it should be lost, their own great Nation's place and mission in the world would be lost with it.

OUR HANDS ARE CLEAN.

I call you to witness, my fellow countrymen, that at no stage of this terrible business have I judged the purposes of Germany intemperately. I should be ashamed in the presence of affairs so grave, so fraught with the destinies of mankind throughout all the world, to speak with truculence, to use the weak language of hatred or vindictive purpose. We must judge as we would be judged. I have sought to learn the objects Germany has in this war from the mouths of her own spokesmen, and to deal as frankly with them as I wished them to deal with me. I have laid bare our own ideals, our own purposes, without reserve or doubtful phrase, and have asked them to say as plainly what it is that they seek.

We have ourselves proposed no injustice, no aggression. We are ready, whenever the final reckoning is made, to be just to the German people, deal fairly with the German power, as with all others. There can be no difference between peoples in the final judgment, if it is indeed to be a righteous judgment. To

propose anything but justice, evenhanded and dispassionate justice, to Germany at any time, whatever the outcome of the war, would be to renounce and dishonour our own cause. ask nothing that we are not willing to accord.

For we

It has been with this thought that I have sought to learn from those who spoke for Germany whether it was justice or dominion and the execution of their own will upon the other nations of the world that the German leaders were seeking. They have answered, answered in unmistakable terms. They have avowed that it was not justice but dominion and the unhindered execution of their own will.

Now GERMANY'S PURPOSES Stand Naked.

The avowal has not come from Germany's statesmen. It has come from her military leaders, who are her real rulers. Her statesmen have said that they wished peace, and were ready to discuss its terms whenever their opponents were willing to sit down at the conference table with them. Her present Chancellor has said—in indefinite and uncertain terms, indeed, and in phrases that often seem to deny their own meaning, but with as much plainness as he thought prudent-that he believed that peace should be based upon the principles which we had declared would be our own in the final settlement. At Brest-Litovsk her civilian delegates spoke in similar terms; professed their desire to conclude a fair peace and accord to the peoples with whose fortunes they were dealing the right to choose their own allegiances. But action accompanied and followed the profession. Their military masters, the men who act for Germany and exhibit her purpose in execution, proclaimed a very different conclusion. We can not mistake what they have done-In Russia, in Finland, in the Ukraine, in Roumania. The real test of their justice and fair play has come. From this we may judge the rest. They are enjoying in Russia a cheap triumph in which no brave or gallant nation can long take pride. A great people, helpless by their own act, lies for the time at their mercy. Their fair professions are forgotten. They nowhere set up justice, but everywhere impose their power and exploit everything for their own use and aggrandizement; and the peoples of conquered provinces are invited to be free under their dominion!

BEWARE OF THEM!

Are we not justified in believing that they would do the same things at their western front if they were not there face to face with armies whom even their countless divisions can not

« AnteriorContinuar »