VOL. LVIX

The Ordeal and the

For many years past we have been accustomed in each succès

Prospect sive January number of this REVIEW to make a survey from the standpoint of the world's progress towards peace and international harmony. One of the chief objects of this periodical, from the time of its beginning, has been to advocate all measures that could be taken to lessen the evils of war and to promote the cause of freedom everywhere. Moreover, a cardinal tenet upon which the REVIEW was established, under the present editorship twenty-eight years ago, was the unity of the English-speaking peoples. This was the great dream of the late William T. Stead, founder and editor of the English Review of Reviews; and our American periodical, though distinct in its editorship and control, was in hearty coöperation with Mr. Stead in his unceasing labors for a better world organization against war and for especially close relations among all the English-speaking communities. As most of our readers will remember, Mr. Stead was one of those who perished in the sinking of the Titanic, April 15, 1912, when on his way to this country to aid in promoting the objects to which he was most devoted. Since his death the world has been through a more terrible experience of warfare than the most pessimistic had believed to be possible. Yet it has come out of that frightful ordeal with betters prospects for permanent peace and for an orderly control of its affairs than at any other time in these later centuries.

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have been better qualified to survey the results, to interpret the signs of the times, and to exhort all right-thinking men to help in making the permanent results commensurate with the great effort. Mr. Stead was sometimes called a pacifist, and for a time he carried on a special magazine entitled "War Against War"; but he was at the very opposite pole from the other type for whom that word pacifist is now more usually reserved -the type opposed to military and naval preparedness, and opposed to the use of force for the maintenance of justice. From an early period in his career as a London editor, Mr. Stead had been the foremost champion of the doctrine of the large British Navy. When in the early '80's the efficiency of that navy had somewhat sagged, he had written a series of brilliant articles which appeared in a volume called "The Truth About the Navy." He was in close touch with the ablest of the British Admirals; and the agitation which he led had the result of bringing about a greatly expanded naval program, this work in which he was so active being also enormously stimulated by the writings on "sea power" of our own Mahan.

English-Speak

Accord

There has long been a school of ing People in English publicists and statesmen who have refused to think of the progress of the United States as other than beneficial to the well-being of Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and all parts of the political combination known as the British Empire. In Mr. Stead's doctrine of the "union of English-speaking peoples" there was no tinge of unfriendliness towards the civilized nations of Europe, Asia, or Latin America who speak and read other languages. Nor by the word "union" did he mean necessarily to imply any arrangements of a formal kind. He was, of course, in favor of unlimited arbitration treaties. But especially he de

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sired to bring about an association between the United States and Great Britain that should represent the triumph of those principles of public and private life which are the common heritage of all who use the language of Shakespeare and Milton and of the English Bible. We have known in our own country the evils of sectional prejudice, and the danger of fomenting disagreements instead of seeking union and accord. The time has come for strengthening the forces of right and justice by harmonizing the British and American peoples.

Peace on a Basis of

In the working out of principles, the best results come through Facts the clear recognition of actualities. We shall do well, therefore, if we turn away from theories at this historic juncture and try to find upon what concrete foundation the prospect of future peace rests. When the United States entered the war in the spring of 1917 we declared in this REVIEW that our country had then and there joined a league to enforce peace. We set forth the view that the very fact of our joining the Allies had so enlarged the issues involved as to change the character of the war and to make it "a war to end war" and to establish permanent security against the menace of aggression. Future peace does not rest upon any paper scheme or project for a league of nations, but upon the united effort that has now brought about the peace which began on November 11.

Support for a League of Nations

Gradually, through the years to come, there may grow out of this joining of hands in the Great War an elaborate system for the improvement of international law, the settling of disputes, and above all for the administrative conduct of certain large and responsible tasks such as the government of equatorial Africa. But a mere project of a League of Nations, written out as a theory and apart from the concrete facts, would not of itself give peace and security to the world, even though at first it were unanimously adopted. The Constitution of the United States with its Supreme Court and with the Army and Navy of the Union did not of itself avail to hold together the sisterhood of sovereign States. The thing that finally welded us into our firm American union was the intense conviction of the need and the value of that union, on the part of a major group of the States, a group so intrinsically strong that

it was able when the test came to establish its principles and to cause them finally and completely to be accepted. Whatever may be the nominal form of a League of Nations, as adopted by the master minds of the Peace Conference now assembling at Versailles, the underlying facts are the important thing to observe, not the mere phrase "League of Nations," or the language that may clothe the accepted scheme. The Hague treaties looked like a long movement towards international harmony and agreement; but they fell apart when Germany and her allies challenged the "balance of power," and undertook to secure the dominance of Europe and Asia, which would have meant, in the end, the dominance of the world.

The Existing World Control

This

The essential fact to-day is the complete disappearance of that system heretofore known in Europe as the balance of power. Germany, Austria, and Russia, in their former character as great military systems and as dynastic Empires-with their policies uncontrolled by the will of the people-have forever dis appeared. Upon the ruins of the old system there has arisen a new power, capable of controlling the destinies of the world. new power consists of the combination for international purposes of Great Britain, France, Italy, the United States, and Japan. If this combination holds together in generous good-will, and in adherence to the high aims which these nations have professed and vindicated, there will still remain many perplexing problems to be dealt with; but there will be no further danger, for a long time to come, of war on a large scale. The best mode of approach, therefore, to the socalled League of Nations is to start with the existing facts, and then to think through them into the improvements that can be made to grow out of them. This way of proceeding will lead us to a better understanding of several points that need clearing up.

United States and the governments of Great Britain and France. Sending a drafted army of more than two million men, gathered from every neighborhood of the Union across a wide ocean, and then putting them under the absolute command-along with the armies of three other great nations-of a General-in-Chief and his staff, constitutes an alliance more sweeping and profound than any that the world has ever known before. This great military fact of alliance has been, and still is, visible to all men; but other facts and evidences of alliance have been less apparent to the onlooker. These have had to do with the union of credit and financial strength among the Allies, by means of which the resources of the greater part of the world have been massed and effectively pooled for the attainment of the desired results. Behind the scenes there have been inter-Allied boards to apportion maritime tonnage, boards accumulating and distributing foodstuffs, boards giving common effectiveness to munition supplies and so on, in amazing extent and variety.

Unions Not to be Dissolved

If not quite so complete as the union of land forces under General Foch, there has been a union of naval forces of very large scope, and one far more complete and harmonious than any other in the history of coalitions. American admirals were glad to use powerful fleets as portions of the Grand Fleet under supreme command of Admiral Sir David Beatty, as head of the British Navy. In the face of facts like these, to say that we are not in alliance with Great Britain, is merely to play with words. Our operations in France have been on a scale of magnitude -of which some understanding can be gained by reading General Pershing's notable report, to which we give several pages of the present number of the REVIEW. We had an alliance with France in the time of our Revolutionary War; but that, though of vital importance to us, was a merely incidental affair when compared with the closeness of official coöperation resulting from the part we have taken on French soil in the present war. There is only one proper way to proceed in view of such facts, and that is reso lutely forward. We are not going to dis solve the alliance with Great Britain, nOT the alliance with France. These arrangements are in the form of partnerships which must continue, in order to secure the larger purposes for which they were formed.

An Historical Example

The partnership of our original thirteen American colonies had first to deal with the emergencies that resulted from their decision to secure independence. When they had ended the war, they had created a state of facts which made it impossible for them to dissolve the partnership. Financial conditions had arisen which they had to work out in common. Large areas of undeveloped lands had fallen to them as responsibilities which could only properly be met by their turning the partnership into a permanent union. It is quite clear to good financial brains that in the gigantic operations of this recent war we

the Allied nations-have created stupendous financial problems which cannot be worked out separately, but which must be met by some kind of united policy and program. It is too soon to attempt to outline the nature of that common effort to deal with financial burdens; but there will emerge some workable scheme which will require united councils and harmonious plans through years to come. Furthermore, it will be found that a series of responsibilities for the protection and the development of backward regions will have to be faced, and that this can only be accomplished through the continuance in time of peace of the generous union of moral and material forces which has been brought about under the stress of war.

Naval Control as Things Stand

When one lays aside mere words and legal distinctions, and looks at hard facts, there is little left to be said about alliances. With hundreds of thousands of Americans at this moment encamped as an occupying army along the Rhine, it would be the height of absurdity to pretend that we are not concerning ourselves in the liveliest possible way in the adjustment of European affairs. Then comes the question, so much discussed in the newspapers last month, of the future of navies and the control of the seas. Here again the solution becomes simple enough if we proceed from the place where we actually are, rather than from some imaginary place. The existing alliance is for the suppression of disorder and the maintenance of justice and the freedom of self-governing communities. This will require the abandonment of the militaristic methods that have kept Europe an armed camp for the past generation or two. Germany will have no need to rebuild the military machine that has now been broken. France may gradually relieve herself of the

If we had owned half a dozen more good war vessels in 1898, Spain would have evacuated Cuba on terms advantageous to everybody concerned. We shall never have trouble with Japan, because the best sentiment here and among the Japanese leaders is firmly for good relations and helpful coöp.eration in the Pacific Ocean and the Far East. Nevertheless, our having a strong navy will enable us to be of more use to ourselves, to Japan, to China, and to Australia than we could be if we were without the means by which to do our proportionate share. The only navy with which, since the Spanish War, we had not been on good terms was the navy of Germany; and that defeated country will have to rely for several decades to come upon the justice of the British people and their Allies in the control of the seas.

The German

Fleet

It was on November 21, ten days. after the signing of the armisDelivered tice, that there occurred the most notable event in the history of modern navies. This consisted of the surrender of the German battleships, battle cruisers and destroyers to the British Grand Fleet, which was accompanied by an important squadron of American battleships and another of French cruisers. The Grand Fleet had been lying in the Firth of Forth, not far from Edinburgh, and it went out some forty miles, in two long lines six miles apart, to meet the German ships, the surrendered fleet moving up so as to form a central line. About 400 warships of the Allies witnessed the surrender. A great many submarines were delivered by the Germans on the same day at a more southern port. There were 71 German vessels escorted to anchorage in the Firth of Forth on that memorable day. The number of U-boats delivered amounted altogether to 122, the last ones having left Heligoland November 29. Early in December the naval surrender was completed by the delivery of the battleship Koenig, the cruiser Dresden and a torpedo boat. Thus, what had been the second naval power in the world submitted to the superior forces which had been created by the addition of the military and naval efforts of the United States to those of the Allies.

Underwood & Underwood

KING GEORGE AND ALLIED NAVAL LEADERS ON THE BATTLESHIP "NEW YORK"

(From left to right, are: Admiral Sir David Beatty, Admiral Rodman, U. S. N., King George, the Prince of Wales, and Admiral Sims, commander-in-chief of the American fleet in European waters. The group was awaiting the approach of the German fleet, for surrender under the terms of the armistice.)

After a

shall never again be permitted to disturb the peace of the world such a thing as control of the common seas by hostile fleets of rival powers which deny the rights of non-belligerents and assume that the oceans are primarily a place for warfare. Existing navies must coöperate, and must maintain the freedom and security of the oceans for the lawful use of all nations, great and small. brilliant record in the North Sea, in the Atlantic and along the European coasts, the American battle fleet sailed homeward in the middle of December, and was expected to arrive at New York and anchor in the Hudson just before Christmas. The American Navy in European waters was so admirable in personnel and so satisfactory, ship for ship, in construction and arrangement, that American reason for pride in the praise that Competent European authorities so freely bestowed. Admiral Mayo returns on the dreadnaught Pennsylvania as his flagship; and Admiral Hugh Rodman, who has been serving under the British naval chief, returns on the New York, which was one of the best ships in the Firth of Forth.