Слике страница
PDF
ePub

this general scheme. The maintenance of the Turkish Empire was, during many generations, regarded by statesmen of world-wide authority as essential to the maintenance of European peace. Why, is it asked, should the cause of peace be now associated with a complete reversal of this traditional policy?

The answer is that circumstances have completely changed. It is unnecessary to consider now whether the creation of a reformed Turkey, mediating between hostile races in the Near East, was a scheme which, had the Sultan been sincere and the powers united, could ever have been realised. It certainly can not be realized now. The Turkey of "Union and Progress" is at least as barbarous and is far more aggressive than the Turkey of Sultan Abdul Hamid. In the hands of Germany it has ceased even in appearance to be bulwark of peace and is openly used as an instrument of conquest. Under German officers Turkish soldiers are now fighting in lands from which they had long been expelled, and a Turkish Government, controlled, subsidized and supported by Germany, has been guilty of massacres in Armenia and Syria more horrible than any recorded in the history even of those unhappy countries. Evidently the interests of peace and the claims of nationality alike require that Turkish rule over alien races shall if possible be brought to an end; and we may hope that the expulsion of Turkey from Europe will contribute as much to the cause of peace as the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine to France, of Italia Irredenta to Italy, or of any of the other territorial changes indicated in the Allied Note.

Evidently, however, such territorial rearrangements, though they may diminish the occasions of war, provide no sufficient security against its recurrence. If Germany, or rather those in Germany who mould its opinions and control its destinies, again set out to domineer the world, they may find that by the new order of things the adventure is made more difficult, but hardly that it is made impossible. They may still have ready to their hand a political system organized through and through on a military basis; they may still accumulate vast stores of military equipment; they may still persist in their methods of attack, so that their more pacific neighbours will be struck down before they can prepare themselves for defence. If so, Europe when the war is over will be far poorer in men, in money, and in mutual good will than it was when the war began but it will not be safer; and the hopes for the future of the world entertained by the President will be as far as ever from fulfilment.

There are those who think that for this disease International Treaties and International Laws may provide a sufficient cure. But such persons have ill learned the lessons so clearly taught by recent history. While other nations, notably the United States of America and Britain, were striving by treaties of arbitration to make sure that no chance quarrel should mar the peace they desired to make perpetual, Germany stood aloof. Her historians and philosophers preached the splendors of

war, power was proclaimed as the true end of the State, and the General Staff forged with untiring industry the weapons by which at the appointed moment power might be achieved. These facts proved clearly enough that Treaty arrangements for maintaining peace were not likely to find much favour at Berlin; they did not prove that such Treaties once made would be utterly ineffectual. This became evident only when war had broken out, though the demonstration, when it came, was overwhelming. So long as Germany remains the Germany which without a shadow of justification overran and barbarously ill-treated a country it was pledged to defend, no State can regard its rights as secure if they have no better protection than a solemn Treaty.

The case is made worse by the reflection that these methods of calculated brutality were designed by the Central Powers not merely to crush to the dust those with whom they were at war but to intimidate those with whom they were still at peace. Belgium was not only a victim, it was an example. Neutrals were intended to note the outrages which accompanied its conquest, the reign of terror which followed on its occupation, the deportation of a portion of its population, the cruel oppression of the remainder. And lest the nations happily protected either by British Fleets or by their own from German Armies should suppose themselves safe from German methods, the submarine has (within its limits) assiduously imitated the barbarous practices of the sister service. The War Staffs of the Central Powers are well content to horrify the world if at the same time they can terrorize it. If then the Central Powers succeed, it will be to methods like these that they will owe their success. How can any reform of International relations be based on a peace thus obtained? Such a peace would represent the triumph of all the forces which make war certain and make it brutal. It would advertise the futility of all the methods on which civilization relies to eliminate the occasions of International dispute and to mitigate their ferocity. Germany and Austria made the present war inevitable by attacking the rights of one small State, and they gained their initial triumphs by violating the Treaty guarantees of the territories of another. Are small States going to find in them their future protectors or in Treaties made by them a bulwark against aggression? Terrorism by land and sea will have proved itself the instrument of victory. Are the victors likely to abandon it on the appeal of neutrals? If existing Treaties are no more than scraps of paper, can fresh Treaties help us? If the violation of the most fundamental canons of International Law be crowned with success, will it not be in vain that the assembled nations labor to improve their code? None will profit by their rules but Powers who break them. It is those who keep them that will suffer.

Though, therefore, the people of this country share to the full the desire of the President for peace, they do not believe peace can be durable if it be not based on the success of the Allied cause. For a durable peace can

hardly be expected unless three conditions are fulfilled. The first is that existing causes of international unrest should be, as far as possible, removed or weakened. The second is that the aggressive aims and the unscrupulous methods of the Central Powers should fall into disrepute among their own peoples. The third is that behind international law and behind all Treaty arrangements for preventing or limiting hostilities some form of international sanction should be devised which would give pause to the hardiest aggressor. These conditions may be difficult of fulfilment. But we believe them to be in general harmony with the President's ideas and we are confident that none of them can be satisfied, even imperfectly, unless peace be secured on the general lines indicated (so far as Europe is concerned) in the joint note. Therefore it is that this country has made, is making, and is prepared to make sacrifices of blood and treasure unparalleled in its history. It bears these heavy burdens not merely that it may thus fulfil its Treaty obligations nor yet that it may secure a barren triumph of one group of nations over another. It bears them because it firmly believes that on the success of the Allies depend the prospects of peaceful civilization and of those International reforms which the best thinkers of the New World, as of the Old, dare to hope may follow on the cessation of our present calamities.

[blocks in formation]

The Chargé of Greece to the Secretary of State.

No. 64.]

ROYAL LEGATION OF GREECE, Washington, January 15, 1917. MR SECRETARY OF STATE: Pursuant to the orders I have just received from my Government, I have the honor to communicate herein below to Your Excellency the answer of the Royal Government to the communication of the peace proposal which the Government of the United States was pleased to forward to it through its representative at Athens.

The note bore date of January 8.

"The Royal Government acquainted itself with the most lively interest with the step which the President of the United States of America has just taken with a view to the termination of a long and cruel war that is raging among men. Very sensible to the communication that has been made to it, the Royal Government highly appreciates the generous impulse as well as the thoroughly humane and profoundly politic spirit which prompted the suggestion.

"Coming from the Learned Statesman who presides over the destinies of the great American Republic and looking

to a peace honorable for all as well as to the strengthening of beneficent stability in international relations, it constitutes a memorable page in History. The remarks therein made about the sufferings of neutral nations by reason of the colossal conflict and also about the guarantees which would be equally desired by the two belligerent parties for the rights and privileges of every State have particularly struck a sympathetic echo in the Greek soul. Indeed there is no country that has had so much to suffer from that war as Greece, although it kept aloof from it.

"Owing to exceptionally tragic circumstances it has been less able than the other neutral countries to escape a direct and pernicious action of the hostilities between the belligerents. Its geographical situation contributed to weakening its power to resist violations of its neutrality and sovereignty to which it had to submit for the sake of self-conservation.

"At this very moment deprived of its fleet and nearly disarmed, our country, pestered by a sham revolt which is taking advantage of foreign occupation, is hemmed in through a strict blockade which cuts off all communication with neutrals and exposes to starvation the whole population, including absolutely harmless persons, old men, women, who under the elemental principles of the law of nations should be spared, even though Greece were a belligerent. Yet Greece is still endeavoring to remain neutral by every possible means. Nothing more need be said to show how any initiative conducive to peace, apart from humane considerations of a general character, is apt to serve Greece's vital interests.

"The Royal Government would certainly have hastened to the front rank of those who acceded to the noble motion of the President of the United States of America in order to endeavor as far as it lay in its power to have it crowned with success. If it had not been excluded from communication with one of the belligerents while with the others it had to wait for a settlement of the grievous difficulties which now bear upon the situation of Greece.

"But the Royal Government with the full intensity of its soul watches the invaluable effort of the President of the United States of America, desiring its earliest possible success, and forms the most sincere wishes that it will succeed. Having from the very first days of the European war had in mind the establishment of a contact among the neutrals for the safeguard of their common interests, it is glad of the opportunity now offered to have an early exchange of views should it be deemed opportune and declare itself ready to join when the time comes in any action aiming at the consolidation of a stable state of peace by which the rights of all the States will be secured and their sovereignty and independence guaranteed.

"Be pleased, etc.,

"A. VOUROS."

File No. 763.72119/352.

No. 390.]

Minister Ewing to the Secretary of State.

AMERICAN LEGATION, Tegucigalpa, January 19, 1917.

SIR: I have the honor to submit herewith a translation of the Honduran Government's reply to this Legation's note of December 20th, last, transmitting the text of the

Department's cabled circular of December 18th, paraphrasing the note addressed to the several belligerent nations by the President of the United States.

I have, etc.,

JNO. EWING.

[Inclosure Translation.]

MINISTRY OF FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE REPUBLIC OF HONDURAS, Tegucigalpa, December 23, 1916. MR. MINISTER: I have had the honor to receive Your Excellency's courteous communication dated the twentieth of the present month, in which was inserted the text of an important note addressed recently, at the order of His Excellency, the President of the United States, by the Honorable Robert Lansing, Secretary of State, to the Nations at present at war, with the design to support and foment, if possible, a sentiment for peace.

While the transmission of this document is only for information, as expressed in Your Excellency's note, my Government can not do less than to accord it the most attentive consideration and to applaud the noble and humanitarian suggestion of Your Excellency's Government that the Belligerent Nations consider the terms under which the war might be terminated and the guarantees each considers necessary to avoid its repetition or renewal in the future.

The enormous sacrifices which are occasioned to the whole world by the present war, which is, without question, the greatest and most destructive recorded in human history, is an argument in favor of the opportuneness of all movements for peace suggested at whatever time, and Your Excellency's Government will receive the credit for the attempt, no matter what definite results may be obtained.

The Government of Honduras desires to express to the illustrious Government of the United States, through the medium of Your Excellency, its high appreciation of that Government's attitude in favor of peace, as expressed in the note to which I have made reference.

Thanking Your Excellency for the terms in which you were pleased to address to me the document mentioned, I take, etc.,

MARIANO VÁSQUEZ.

File No. 763.72119/393.

Minister Caldwell to the Secretary of State.

[Telegram-Paraphrase.]

AMERICAN LEGATION,

Teheran, January 19, 1917.

Mr. Caldwell transmits at request of the Persian Minister for Foreign Affairs the more important portion of the reply to the peace suggestions of the President of the United States, as follows:

"The Minister for Foreign Affairs acknowledges receipt of the circular note of the President of the United States, which was communicated by the American Minister.

"The Persian Government appreciates and would help in this high-minded step. In associating themselves with this plea they earnestly hope it will bear fruit. The Gov

« ПретходнаНастави »