A few years after this address had been delivered threatening clouds
began to gather. Germany, who had prevented, at the first conference of
The Hague, anything being done toward a limitation of armaments as
proposed by Russia,[261] suddenly, in full peace, when other nations
were inclined to think that they were rather too much armed than not
enough, passed a law increasing, in a prodigious degree, her military
forces.
On this move of hers, on what peace-loving democracies ought to do in
the presence of such an unexpected event, on the future of the peace and
arbitration ideas, after such a blow, the former president of the French
delegation at The Hague, Mr. Léon Bourgeois, wrote in May, 1913, little
more than a year before the present war, a noteworthy letter,[262] in
which we read:
"One fact strikes us most painfully and might at first disturb our
minds. The bills presently submitted to the Reichstag are going to
increase in a formidable manner the armaments of Germany, and to
necessitate on the part of France an extraordinary effort, and
sacrifices to which we must manfully and promptly consent....
"No one more than myself deplores that folly of armaments to which
Europe is yielding, and I do not forget that it was I who, in 1899,
at the first Hague Conference, drew up and defended the resolution
in favor of a limitation of the military load weighing on the
world. But I do not forget either what I said before the Senate, in
1907, after the second conference: 'As for us, confirmed partisans
of arbitration and peace, _disarmament is a consequence, not a
preparation_. For disarmament to be possible, one must first feel
that one's right is secure. The security of right is what must be
organized first of all. Behind that rampart alone, nations will be
able to lay down their arms....
"Let us be pacific, but let us be strong. And let us know how to
wait. The very excess of the load weighing on Europe will
originate, sooner than is sometimes believed, that irresistible
movement of opinion which will cause a policy of wisdom, mutual
respect, and real security, to become an unavoidable necessity."
The chief factor will be public opinion. Present events will, one may
hope, have served to educate public opinion throughout the world.