Vol. LIX, No. 7

Whole Number 1491

W

HEN THE WAR ENDED, the German armies were in headlong flight from the last fringe of French territory and the American advance at Sedan was cutting off their retreat through Belgium; besides, the whole southern frontier of Germany lay open to an Allied invasion through the surrender of Austria. In short, Germany was doomed from a military standpoint when her representatives met Marshal Foch to conclude an armistice. Yet even so, the Teuton forces could have held out longer and the acknowledgment of defeat might have been delayed but for the menace of revolation at home. Before the drastic terms of the arinistice were accepted on the morning of the 11th, the Kaiser had abdicated and was a refugee with his family and the Germas General Staff in Holland, a Socialist was issuing Covernment orders from Berlin, the minor princes of Germany were scurrying to safety, and the red flag was flying in the chief cities of the Empire. As the “verboten" signs come down and the German people wreak their longpent-up wrath upon the Junkers and war-profiteers, it seems to the New York Tribune that it is here that "God intends to take up the work of the Allies and begin to punish the Hun." It was the fear of this rising sea of revolt behind them rather than the foe before them, many of our editors agree, that led the late rulers of Germany to seek an ignominious peace. "These titled murderers," to use the Socialist New York Call's apt characterization, "had in their rear the rising rage of the millions of people who had suffered under their autocratic rule, and this rage made any terms that the Allies might propose seem mild compared with the penalties that the German people were preparing to exact from the Junker class, who had sent millions of their sons to slaughter and maimed 'millions more, consigning them to the horrors of a living death." Here The Evening Post finds justification for that policy of delay, that "dangerous" policy of "negotiation" against which President Wilson's critics have cried out. It is now clear enough, at least to this editor, that "it is not the morale of the Allies that has been imperiled, but the morale of the German people that has been broken." And the peace offensive worked hand in hand with the military offensive which has so nearly cleared France of the Teuton invader. "Foch, the master, has played with skilled touch on the keys of a mighty organ from the North Sea to the Meuse; and in the final harmony the American Army has rung true." To the New York Globe the capitulation of Germany seems to come after all through a military decision." It says: "The brave men, living and dead, who have appeared on the battle-field have created the conditions of peace. The toast

of the hour is to the soldiers and such decisions as to introduce conscription in this country and to send a great American Army across the seas. Joffre saved civilization at the Marne by his military skill. He saved it again by his robust common sense when he induced our Government, when minds were not made up, to dispatch armed men across the seas."

If Joffre and Foch won the battle for civilization, Germany's generals must be held responsible for losing the battle for Kultur, thinks the Brooklyn Citizen, which sees in the inferiority of German military leadership the chief reason why Germany accomplished " downfall" and not "world dominion." As we read:

"It was said of the French armies in 1870 that they were lions led by jackasses. The German armies in this war have proved their courage and iron discipline. They, too, were lions in the field, but their generals were jackasses."

Yet, tho the German may have been a lion in the field, he was getting to be a very tired lion. An appeal to the German people from the Berlin Government admitted that the commanders of the Army and Navy as well as the men wanted peace, and the soldiers and sailors were told that continued discipline and order would help to bring it speedily to pass. But the sailors at Kiel thought otherwise and precipitated an outbreak which resulted in the mutiny of practically the entire German Fleet and was a signal for revolutionary outbreaks throughout all northern Germany. There was an unconfirmed report that the immediate cause of the mutiny was an order to sail out and attack the British Fleet in a "forlorn-hope" battle. But Mr. William L. McPherson reminds us in the New York Tribune that-

"The German Navy has been honeycombed for a couple of years past with disaffection. There was a serious mutiny at Wilhelmshaven in 1917. And it was developed by a debate in the Reichstag that the Admiralty had accused certain Minority Socialist Deputies of complicity in an effort to Bolshevize the fleet. Conditions in the Navy made such propaganda fruitful. Most of the sailors were inactive. Morale decayed while the ships lay idle in port. Volunteering failed to supply crews for the submarines, and the Admiralty had to resort to drafts for this service, which carried with it a practical sentence of death.”

Orderly progress toward either a constitutional limited monarchy or a republic seems rather unlikely to our editors as they note the raising of the red flag in the great industrial centers of northern Germany. They remember what happened in Russia and what is happening in Austria and expect to see a spread of Bolshevism to Germany. The Newark News reminds us that "it has been the history of countries when their defeat was so utter as to produce a revolution that the transition was accompanied by the temporary ascendency of an extremely radical element." The New York Call, a spokesman of the American Socialist party, sees a race between reform and revolution in Germany and believes that power is drifting toward the Socialists. It says "the Russian revolutionists have been sending an average of fifty revolutionary propagandists over the German frontier each day." One of these propagandists, apparently, was the Bolshevik Ambassador at Berlin, whose activities in this direction recently led to his dismissal by the German Government and the rupture of diplomatic relations between Berlin and Moscow. While this Socialist paper naturally welcomes these developments, other journals of more conservative views are

presence, and none the less loudly because supprest by the ruthless hand of militarism. Germany has long been the home of radical ideas, and from Germany have gone out leaders in the radical movements of other lands.

"Nor can we close our eyes to the fact that the German people, who now must take into their hands the control of the state, are almost entirely untrained in self-government, that they have throughout their history displayed no capacity for managing their own affairs."

But whatever the immediate cause of her downfall, whether we think of Germany as yielding to the threat of Foch's victorious armies on the west, or of the British blockade on the north, or of Bolshevism in Russia on the east, or of Austrian anarchy on the south, the hour had come, declares Mr. Frank H. Simonds in the New York Tribune, when "Germany must surrender or die; die as Russia has died, and as Austria is dying." Mr. Simonds continues:

The

"Whatever Germany saves from the wreck now she will save by negotiation and not by fighting. military phase of the war is already over, and the problem which remains is whether Germany in the peace conference can repeat the triumph of Talleyrand at the Congress of Vienna and save by diplomacy what she has lost by arms. This is the great peril; this is the remaining danger for our alliance."

While the armistice terms were doubtless formulated by the Versailles conference some days before the meeting of Marshal Foch with German representatives, they were not given out, but a statement was made public which contained the chief conditions of peace with Germany. Thus the country knew the broad conditions of permanent peace before it knew the terms on which the fighting was actually to stop. In a note sent to the Swiss Minister for transmission to Germany, Secretary Lansing quoted the following memorandum from Versailles:

"The Allied Governments have given careful consideration to the correspondence which has passed between the President of

the United States and the German Government. Subject to the qualifications which follow, they declare their willingness to make peace with the Government of Germany on the terms of peace laid down in the President's address to Congress of January, 1918, and the principles of settlement enunciated in his subsequent addresses.

"They must point out, however, that Clause 2, relating to what is usually described as the freedom of the seas, is open to various interpretations, some of which they could not accept. They must, therefore, reserve to themselves complete freedom on this subject when they enter the peace conference.

"Further, in the conditions of peace, laid down in his address to Congress of January 8, 1918, the President declared that invaded territories must be restored as well as evacuated and freed. The Allied Governments feel that no doubt ought to be allowed to exist as to what this provision implies. By it they understand that compensation will be made by Germany for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allies and their property by the aggression of Germany by land, by sea, and from the air." The Secretary of State added that the President had instructed him "to say that he is in agreement with the interpretation set forth in the last paragraph of the memorandum above quoted," and to notify Germany that Marshal Foch was authorized to meet representatives of the German Government "and to communicate to them terms of an armistice."

The two amendments to President Wilson's fourteen points, insisting on reparation and limiting the "freedom of seas" clause, seem altogether satisfactory to our press. In insisting on its own interpretation of the "freedom of the seas" the Versailles Council, notes the New York Evening Sun, "has avoided the subscribing of a pledge to a catch word that Germany long used as a cloak for its own commercial and naval propaganda." Furthermore, this New York daily can see no reason why the right to collect indemnity for damages sustained from a defeated enemy was not recognized from the start. "Peace without victory might have eliminated the restitution due to victims," says The Evening Sun; "but we are to have peace with victory." This note of President Wilson's is "acceptable to the advocates of a strong and just peace," the New York Globe believes, because it is "not a dialectical one and makes no attempt to camouflage what it means." The New York Evening Post is convinced that it was "good sense and good tactics" for the Allies before imposing upon Germany an armistice which was to leave her at their mercy to announce "that the peace

FRAMING THE TERMS OF PEACE.

-Orr in the Chicago Tribune. terms which they are to exact will be in general only those to which Germany had profest willingness to submit."

The armistice terms to be submitted to Germany were foreshadowed by those granted to her subordinate accomplices. The beginning of the end of the war was seen when Bulgaria

threw up the sponge on September 30 and gave the Allies full military use of her territory and means of transportation. Almost exactly a month later, at noon on the 31st of October, the terms of the armistice between Turkey and the Allies went into effect. They were described by Lord Robert Cecil as "complete and unconditional surrender," and Turkey was at once reduced to military impotence. The Dardanelles and the Bosporus with their fortifications were opened to the Allies, who entered Constantinople a few days later. All Allied prisoners were to be handed over to the Allies without reciprocity; the Turkish Army was demobilized, and her Navy surrendered. Turkish troops were to withdraw from northern Persia and other occupied non-Turkish territory. The Allies were given the use of all means of transportation and communication; all garrisons in Arabia, Syria, and Mesopotamia were at once surrendered. Turkey was to cease all relations with the Central Powers; the Allies were, of course, given such rights and facilities as were necessary to enforce all the provisions of the armistice.

islands. Thus the irredenta is in Italy's grasp and the Allies control the shores of the Adriatic. The armistice gave the Allies free use of all roads, railways, and waterways in Austria and the control of all necessary strategic points. As in the case of Turkey, Austria was obliged to give up all Allied prisoners without reciprocity. The naval conditions of the armistice included the surrender of most of the Austrian Navy and the laying up of the rest, and the freedom of Allied navigation in Austrian waters, without any modification of the Allied blockade. The terms to Austria, as several American editors remarked,

The collapse of Turkey gave the Allies at once a new responsibility, as the Newark News points out. There are four million utterly destitute people whom we must care for and several new nations which must be started on the road to self-government. The great and crying need of the situation, says the New York Evening Post, is that these races be given the assurance at the peace table that they will have the separate and independent political life they have for generations been fighting for. France and Great Britain have officially stated that their aim "is the complete and final liberation of the peoples so long opprest by the Turks and the establishment of governments and administrations deriving their authority from the initiative and the free choice of the native populations," and have announced that they will encourage and help the establishment of native governments in Syria and Mesopotamia.

American responsibility in the old Turkish Empire is recognized by a number of authorities. A former American Ambassador to Turkey, Mr. Oscar S. Straus, thinks "it will be to the welfare of the Turkish people if Turkey would be apportioned among England, France, and Italy, and be ruled in the same manner as Egypt is ruled." Another former American representative at the Porte, Mr. Henry Morgenthau, has publicly asserted that America must play a large part in rebuilding Turkey. Dr. James L. Barton, a missionary authority on the Near East, hears that Viscount Bryce favors the United States taking the major part in reorganizing and reshaping the government of Turkey, Bulgaria, and the Balkan peninsula. For one thing, says Dr. Barton, this nation is not suspected of colonial ambitions in that part of the world, and would not be likely to stir up jealousy. Furthermore, "there is no country in the world which stands so close to Turkey as does the United States, as a result of missionary work which it has done there."

Austria's defeat in the field at the hands of the Italians and their Allies was accompanied by the break-up of the Hapsburg Empire and appearance of the red flag in Vienna, Budapest, and other Austro-Hungarian cities. Austria was in no condition to object to the drastic terms submitted to her, altho Emperor Charles refused to sign them as humiliating and dishonorable, and the armistice finally received the signature of the Austrian Chief of Staff. The Austrian terms, which went into effect on November 4, included the cessation of hostilities, the demobilization of the Austrian Army, the withdrawal of all forces on the Italian front, and the surrender of half the Austrian military equipment. Besides evacuating invaded territory, Austria was to withdraw from the Trentino and part of the Tyrol, and from Istria, Dalmatia, and most of the Adriatic

THE AFTER-WAR MAP OF EUROPE, As envisaged by Mr. Frank H. Simonds, of the New York Tribune. were drastic enough to please everybody. After their publication it was learned that in the last Italian offensive Austria had lost 300,000 men in prisoners alone and not less than 5,000 guns. The retreat developed into a rout, and after the armistice was signed dispatches told how for many days the hungry, disorderly soldiers of what was once the Austrian Army poured through the passes of the Alps, while the citizens of Vienna feared that they would sweep down into the capital as a destroying mob. It has been difficult to keep up with the dissolution and democratization of the Austrian Empire. The most important fact is the split into Hungarian, German, Czech, and Slav nations. In Hungary, Count Tisza, the former Premier and a leader in the moves which brought on the war, was assassinated by soldiers, according to one story, in his own home. Count Karolyi, whose grandmother's famous curse on the Hapsburg has found complete fulfilment, seems to have resigned his leadership of the new Hungarian Government and a plebiscite is promised to determine the permanent government régime. Both CzechoSlovaks and Jugo-Slavs have adopted the republican form of government and have elected presidents. In Bulgaria, King Boris, who succeeded his father, Ferdinand, on the latter's abdication, was deposed after a few weeks' reign and made way for an agrarian republic headed by the peasant leader Stambuliwsky. In German Austria a socialist republic was proclaimed, altho there seemed to be no great haste in getting rid of Emperor Charles. The New York Tribune reminds us that German Austria is itself as much of a mosaic as was the Austrian Empire. Vienna may be "red," but the Tyrol and upper Austria are even now "antisocialist and monarchical," serving "as a makeweight against excesses of radicalism and Bolshevism" in the industrial centers. Whatever happens to Germany, concludes The Tribune, "the end of the war will see Central Europe turned into a vast proving-ground for the democratic experiment."