Слике страница
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

INTRODUCTION

Argumentum ad Humanitatem

A

MERICAN intervention in the War of the Nations was most timely, and most untimely. That is a paradox that is in both its statements entirely true and pertinent.

ance.

It was timely and something more, so far as the needs of the Allies were concerned, for they were approaching perilously near to the limit of their strength and their endurThe greatness of their need and the imminence of their peril were not generally understood, or known. It was not the policy of governments to publish all the facts of their extremities and distresses to the world. But though unpublished, the grim facts were there. For the third time a psychological moment had come, and the cry "Help, or we perish!" was heard.

The first such occasion was at the very beginning, when Belgium with almost godlike heroism and sacrifice withstood for a little space the German onset, holding out in sheer desperation for a few days until France could mobilize her forces. Then Belgium broke, and the burden of the day fell upon France.

The second was when, after the immortal Marne, the rallied armies of France "against great odds bare up the war" until England could be aroused from her non-militarist lethargy and could be brought to the aid of France. Not Leonidas at Thermopylae was more resolute than France when she said of the Hunnish hordes, "They shall not pass. The third came when the allied hosts of France and Eng

« ПретходнаНастави »