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are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them.

Just because we fight without rancor and without selfish objects, seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belligerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for.

SOME IMPORTANT DATES

July 28, 1914: Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia.
August 1, 1914: Germany declares war on Russia.
August 3, 1914: Germany declares war on France.
August 4, 1914 (A. M.): Germany invades Belgium.

August 4, 1914 (P. M.): Great Britain declares war on Germany.
August 6, 1914: Austria-Hungary declares war on Russia.
August 8, 1914: Montenegro declares war on Austria-Hungary.
August 23, 1914: Japan declares war on Germany.
October 29, 1914: Turkey attacks Russia.

May 23, 1915: Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary.
October 14, 1915: Bulgaria declares war on Serbia.

August 28, 1916: Rumania declares war on Austria-Hungary.
April 6, 1917: United States declares war on Germany.

December 7, 1917: United States declares war on AustriaHungary.

WAR ADDRESSES OF WOODROW WILSON

PERMANENT PEACE

ADDRESS TO THE UNITED STATES SENATE, JANUARY 22, 1917

GENTLEMEN OF THE SENATE:

On the 18th of December last I addressed an identic note to the Governments of the nations now at war, requesting them to state, more definitely than they had yet been stated by either group of belligerents, the terms upon which they would deem it possible to make peace. I spoke on behalf of humanity and of the rights of all neutral nations like our own, many of whose most vital interests the war puts in constant jeopardy.

The Central Powers united in a reply which stated merely that they were ready to meet their antagonists in conference to discuss terms of peace.

The Entente Powers have replied much more definitely, and have stated, in general terms, indeed, but with sufficient definiteness to imply details, the arrangements, guaranties, and acts of reparation which they deem to be the indispensable conditions of a satisfactory settlement.

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 concept which must hereafter hold the world at peace. In

every discussion of the peace that must end this war it is taken for granted that that peace must be followed by some definite concert of power, which will make it virtually impossible that any such catastrophe should ever overwhelm us again. Every lover of mankind, every sane and thoughtful man, must take that for granted.

I have sought this opportunity to address you because I thought that I owed it to you, as the council associated with me1 in the final determination of our international obligations, to disclose to you without reserve the thought and purpose that have been taking form in my mind in regard to the duty of our Government in those days to come when it will be necessary to lay afresh and upon a new plan the foundations of peace among the nations.

It is inconceivable that the people of the United States should play no part in that great enterprise. To take part in such a service will be the opportunity for which they have sought to prepare themselves by the very principles and purposes of their polity and the approved practices of their Government, ever since the days when they set up a new nation in the high and honorable hope that it might in all that it was and did show mankind the way to liberty. They cannot, in honor, withhold the service to which they are now about to be challenged. They do not wish to withhold it. But they owe it to themselves and to the other nations of the world to state the conditions under which they will feel free to render it.

That service is nothing less than this: to add their authority and their power to the authority and force

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