that the Allies "refuse to consider a proposal which is empty and insincere."

The Allied answer amounted to this:

(1) "Reparation for violated rights and liberties." (2) "Recognition of the rights of nationality.”

(3) "Free existence of small states."

In this it will be seen that Great Britain and France were championing the rights of nationality and of small states as early as 1916 in the war, as sine qua non of peace.

It was about this time (December 18, 1916, to be exact) that President Wilson addressed his first feeler and peace note to the belligerent powers. The main features of this communication are:

(1) Each side professes to be fighting defensive war.

(2) Each side professes to be the champion of small nations, and

(3) Each side professes to be "ready to consider the formation of a League of Nations to insure peace and justice throughout the world;" and therefore,

(4) "The objects for which both sides are fighting, stated in general terms, seem to be the same"; therefore, (5) Each side might state in definite terms what would satisfy them and their people, or in other words, what they are fighting for.

(6) The President is justified in making this request because the United States is “as vitally interested as the Governments now at war," in the "measures to

be taken to secure the future peace of the world.” So, we see, in his first general communication to the warring countries President Wilson declared that the United States must have a part in the settlement of world peace. This, we must remember was four months before our entry into the war. But the emphasis the President put upon the part United States must play in the determination of peace was lost sight of in the violent criticism that was voiced in Great Britain and France, as well as in some portions of our own country, from the fact that he did not distinguish in

this note between the different aims and states of the Allied and Central Powers in the war. And many still believe that in stating that in general terms the objects of both sides seem to be the same, President Wilson was justly offending the Allied powers and stretching the attitude of neutrality to wholly unjustifiable bounds. However that be, this note of inquiry elicited answers from the Allies that were far more definite terms than had ever been stated before.

The Central Powers in their united reply merely stated that they were "ready to meet their antagonists in conference to discuss terms of peace." This was conclusive proof that the Central Powers did not desire the world and much less their own people to know for what aims of conquest and domination their autocratic governments were sacrificing them by the millions. Such always is the secret diplomacy of irresponsible kings and greedy, unscrupulous militarists.

The Entente (Allied) Powers, as President Wilson pointed out, "have replied much more definitely, and have stated, in general terms indeed, but with sufficient definiteness to imply details, the arrangements, guarantees, and acts of reparation which they deem to be indispensable conditions of a satisfactory settlement." To quote further from this address to the Senate (January 22, 1917), "We are that much nearer a definite discussion of the peace which shall end the present war. We are that much nearer the discussion of the international concert which must hereafter hold the world at peace." And as the President here stated, he had brought the peace settlement just that much nearer, by revealing to the world the essential democracy of the Allies' cause as against the sinister, secret, Machiavellianism of the Central Powers. And just to that extent, also, he was preparing the United States for the day soon to come, when she must vindicate her right to be called a democracy by throwing in her powerful aid with the other liberal governments of the world to save to the world the cardinal American principle of "government by the consent of the governed."

This speech of President Wilson (Jan. 22, 1917), as well

as his reply to the Pope (Aug., 1917), was treated in last month's article, and therefore will not be further analyzed here.

"The general effect of these events was to bring into clearer light the fundamental issues of the war," especially, after the Russian revolution which overthrew the Czar (March, 1917), and the entry of the United States into the war (April 6, 1917). Sixteen more states now declared war on Germany or severed diplomatic relations with her. This all brought on an internal crisis in Germany, with the upshot that the Reichstag on July 11 refused to vote war credits for the time being, and repudiated the annexationist scheme of the war party (which was in power). BethmannHollweg resigned the imperial chancellorship, and the Reichstag resolutions were published to the world. They are worth noting in this connection:

(1) Germany fights in self-defence, to preserve her territories.

(2) The Reichstag is for peace and "lasting reconciliation among the nations."

(3) It is against "forced acquisitions of territory, and political, economies and financial violations."

(4) It rejects all plans for an economic blockade and the stirring up of enmity among the peoples after the war.

(5) The freedom of the seas must be assured.

(6) The Reichstag will work for international arbitration -"jurisdictional organizations.”

From the above points it is easily seen that the Reichstag was moving for peace; it was answering to the world what the Kaiser and his government and army disdained to answer. It was the voice of the German people that the Reichstag had heard,-their reaction to the democratic peace terms that President Wilson and the peoples and governments of the Allies had forced upon their attention. But what did the voice of the German people or the resolutions

of the Reichstag amount to, at that stage of the war? Kaiser Wilhelm with his war lords rode rough-shod and defiantly over the German people and their representatives, brandished again his "shining sword," and with God's help, promised a German junker's peace. And the people and the Reichstag were not again heard from until the last days of the war. The "shining sword" had so dazzled them that they were again ready to follow their "God's anointed"; and the collapse of Russia confirmed their belief in victory.

IN

CHAPTER XVIII

OFFICIAL PEACE NEGOTIATIONS (Concluded)

N our last chapter we gave some space to a consideration of the German-Bolshevik peace developments and their effects on peace negotiations throughout the world. A further examination of this conspiracy is necessary to a proper conception of its nature and results, especially, upon Russia and upon German honor before the world.

Brest-Litovsk Conference and Peace Treaty

Winning support, as it did, among Socialists and certain labor and pacifist elements everywhere, this abortive peace offensive of the Bolshevists and Germans constituted for months a distinct danger and threat to the Allies and the cause of democracy. Tremendous pressure was brought to bear upon the Allied governments to "negotiate peace” with their enemies. But the defiant refusal of the heads of the Allied and American governments to surrender the principles for which they fought soon brought all effective opposition to an end, as their peoples became aware of the nature of these German-Anarchist schemes.

The exact nature of the Russian surrender to the German government is revealed in the following statement in the introduction to "War Information Series" No. 20, (Oct., 1918): "The documents show that the Bolshevik revolution was arranged for by the German Great General Staff and financed by the German Imperial Bank and other German financial insitutions.

"They show that the treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a be