NECESSARY PEACE CONDITIONS.
It can be positively affirmed that, taking no account whatever of the
treasonable views of the _defeatists_, and no more of the disloyal
opinions of the _pacifists_--because they only deserve absolute contempt
and reprobation--the peoples called the Allies have been long ago, are
now, and will remain to the last, unanimous on the essential PEACE
CONDITIONS without which all the sacrifices they have made and are
making would be a total irreparable loss.
It has been proclaimed with the highest authority, and universally
approved, that henceforth PEACE MUST BE JUST AND DURABLE. Such it should
always have been.
The principle is no doubt very easily enunciated. It is applauded by all
and every where, even by Germany and Austria. The great, the
insuperable, difficulty is to agree upon SUCH CONDITIONS as will
PERMANENTLY, and to the COMPLETE SATISFACTION OF ALL CONCERNED, bless
the world with the maintenance of a TRULY JUST AND DURABLE PEACE.
It is better to admit at once that the very moment the question is
considered, the presently contending belligerents are as far apart as
the two poles of the earthly globe.
It is extremely easy to prove it.
No one now ignores--or at least should fail to realize--what kind of
peace would be accepted by Germany as JUST AND DURABLE.
To be satisfied with a settlement of peace, Germany would require the
sanction by her opponents of her right to maintain, develop and
strengthen her MILITARISM so threatening to the universe.
At the time she was exulting over the great and crushing victory which
she was sure to have within her powerful grasp, in debating with her
vanquished enemies, the conditions of peace, Germany, elated as she
would certainly have been by her triumph, would have positively claimed
the annexation of Belgium and of all the northern part of France by
right of conquest. She would not have been less exacting than she was,
in 1870, when in the face of indignant but powerless Europe, she
stripped France of her two fine and wealthy provinces, Alsace and
Lorraine.
She would have claimed the right to supersede England as mistress of the
seas,--German supremacy replacing the British and henceforth ruling the
waves.
She would have claimed the annexation of Russian Poland, and that of
Servia to Austria.
She would have claimed the recognition of her imperial paramount power
over the Balkans, which she would have united under the direct sway of
her ally and vassal, Bulgaria.
Victorious over all continental Europe and equally over Great Britain,
she would most likely have claimed the cession to her of the great
British autonomous Colonies for the purpose of pouring over to Canada,
Australia and South Africa her increasingly overflowing population. And
to better achieve that most coveted result, she would have destroyed at
once the free institutions they enjoy under the British Crown to replace
them by her autocratic rule.
In one of his illogical pamphlets, abounding in extravagant views, the
Nationalist leader has denied with scorn that Germany had ever intended
to acquire Canada by force of arms. He supported his assertion by the
declaration made to the contrary by a German Minister. But he failed to
explain that this German public man said so only when the Berlin
Government had fully realized that they could not succeed in breaking
asunder the mighty British Empire. The Teutonic declaration was
hypocritical, intended to deceive, and to supply our Nationalist
"_pacifists_" with what would seem a plausible argument to cover their
sympathies for the gentle cause of the tender hearted Huns. It is very
easy to disclaim any aspiration to possess what one is sure never to
get.
Triumphant Germany would have bargained very hard to lay her powerful
hand on the great Indian Empire.
She would have dismembered Russia, as she has effectively done--at least
temporarily--by the infamous Brest-Litovsk treaty.
She would have strongly supported Austria in destroying for ever Italy's
legitimate aspirations to round off her national territory by the
annexation of that part of Austria's possessions called _The Trentino_,
which is hers by nature.
Following the precedent she had laid down, in 1870, after her triumph
over France, Germany would undoubtedly have exacted from her fallen
enemies, billions and billions of dollars as indemnities of war.
And Germany, with such a peace treaty imposed to her despairing enemies
with her sanguinary sword at their throat ready to murder them--as she
did at Brest-Litovsk--would have swayed the world with her UNIVERSAL
DOMINATION.
But I hear--I must say without being the least frightened--the
thundering clamour of the Nationalist leader crying that Germany does
not NOW claim such peace conditions as above enumerated.
Very true, and why?
Only because she is no longer able to exact and impose them!
In 1914, Germany being victorious over all Europe, England included,
after a four months overpowering campaign, as she expected, would
certainly not have been satisfied with less than the conditions just
specified. They were the goal for which she had been strenuously
preparing for fifty years, her success, in 1870, being the preliminary
opening of her conquests.
To bring Germany to renounce--temporarily--to her fond hopes of
domination, it has required the heroic efforts and the untold
sacrifices, in men and money, which Great Britain, her Colonial Empire,
France, Italy, Belgium, Japan, betrayed Russia, and, LAST BUT NOT LEAST,
the United States, have made during more than the last four years and
which they are pledged to make until a successful issue.
The kind of peace as above would have been what can be very properly
called--Germany's "OFFENSIVE PEACE." In Germany's opinion this would
have been the just and durable peace dear to her so kind heart.
But having failed to carry the tremendous victory for which she had so
powerfully prepared, Germany would NOW likely agree to negotiate what
can be as properly called a "DEFENSIVE PEACE."
By "DEFENSIVE PEACE", I mean Germany negotiating NOW with her opponents
with the determination to repulse, as much as possible, their just
claims, to prevent them to the utmost limit to reap the legitimate
fruits of their admirable endeavours, to thwart the realization of their
noble aspirations to protect the world hereafter against her guilty and
barbarous militarism.
Germany--I mean, of course, the Teutonic Imperial Government--has yet
given no sign of a change of mind on the vital points at stake in the
consideration of the restoration of peace. If the fortune of arms was
once more to favour her armies, her blood stained for Colours, she
would, to-morrow, be as mercilessly exacting as she would have been, in
1914, had she triumphantly entered Paris inside of two months after her
challenge to the civilized world.
Germany is surely not a convert to sound Christian principles. She will
not repent for her crimes. She does not feel the tortures of remorse at
her foul deeds. She would certainly be a relapser, in the near future,
if the Allies, unwisely heeding the clamour of the "_pacifists_",
imprudently gratified her ACTUAL wish for a peace compromise.
And before long Humanity would be forced to go again, in much aggravated
conditions, over the way of the cross she has been threading along for
nearly five years, steeped to the knees in the blood of millions of her
heroic sons, with a reorganized Germany this time straining all the
Huns' accumulated power to lead Civilization to her Calvary.
With God's grace, that shall not be. Five years of martyrdom have
deserved and will receive JUSTICE.
After having explained what Germany, from her stand-point, considers a
JUST AND DURABLE PEACE, let us see what such a peace means from the
Allies' stand-point.
Every free man has a right to his own opinion. However, he must never
forget that Liberty of opinion does not mean--never meant--absence of
knowledge, ignorance of the basic principles of political society.
I do not hesitate to expound what the real conditions of the coming
peace MUST BE to make it JUST AND DURABLE.
Let the inveterate opponents of Political Liberty say what they please,
it is undeniable that the present war has rapidly developed into a
deadly conflict between Autocratic Power and Political Freedom.
Consequently a peace patched up to uphold Autocracy and destroy free
institutions could not be JUST and DURABLE.
Under the dominating circumstances of the present struggle, to bring it
to a satisfactory conclusion, peace, to be Just and Durable, must be
restored with all the necessary guarantees that Political Liberty will
hereafter be safe against the foul attempts of military despotism.
This _sine qua non_ condition is general in its nature and equally
interests all the contending Allied nations.
Let us now consider the peace conditions which, though of general
importance so far as they are NECESSARY for its permanency, are
essential from the particular stand-point of each one of the Allies
separately.
I shall begin the review by considering the particular case of Great
Britain.
To be JUST and DURABLE for the British Empire, the future peace treaty
must not be so drafted as to supersede British sea supremacy by that of
Germany.
The question of what is to be done with the great German African
Colonies, conquered by the South African Dominion army, is next in
importance to England's sea supremacy, from the British Empire
stand-point.
Germany, very far from foreseeing what was to happen, deliberately
opened that question when she precipitated the present conflict by
coercing Austria to crush weak Servia, herself challenging Russia and
France, and thundering at Belgium in violation of her most sacred treaty
obligations.
Great Britain, as in honour bound, standing by Belgium, was forced to
fight with Germany. The great autonomous Colonies nobly rallying to her
support, the South African Dominion, Boers and British admirably united
for the purpose, undertook for her share to conquer the German African
Colonies. She has grandly succeeded.
If, as we all hope, the Allies are finally victorious, would it be just
to relinquish Great Britain's right over the German African Colonies,
more especially if the South African Dominion is strongly opposed--as
there is no doubt she will be--to their retrocession?
And what about Belgium and France? No peace treaty could be called JUST
nor could be DURABLE, which would not completely restore Belgium's
independence; which would not oblige Germany to indemnify Belgium for
the damages wrought upon her, more especially those which were inflicted
to the Belgian weak but heroic nation out of sheer barbarous
destruction.
To France, the northern part of her presently occupied territory,
together with Alsace and Lorraine, MUST be restored.
The Germans are loudly crying that in exacting the restoration to France
of the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, the Allies would be partly
dismembering the German Empire.
Quite so, and why not? Does the victim of the highway man lose the right
to claim his property from the ruffian who has stolen it by brutal
force?
In 1870, under the circumstances all know, Prussia imposed upon France
the cession of Alsace and Lorraine, rounding off the territory of the
new German Empire.
France naturally smarted under the cruelty of the condition which she
could not help accepting. For many years she cherished the hope that the
lost provinces would ultimately return to the parental home.
But it is well known how TIME is an efficient cure of many ills.
France's yearning for the restoration of Alsace and Lorraine had
gradually subsided. The general opinion was spreading that the
Alsace-Lorraine matter was more and more becoming a finally settled
question.
Before the war, no Power, European or American, would have countenanced
France in any attempt to break peace to run her chance of reconquering
Alsace and Lorraine. France knew it perfectly well and at last bowed to
her fate.
Who has reopened the closed question of Alsace and Lorraine? Is it not
Germany herself?
Great Britain, Russia, the United States and Italy, who would not have
supported France in an OFFENSIVE WAR with the objective of getting back
her lost provinces, are now a most determined unit in favour of the
restoration of Alsace and Lorraine to France as a result of the
DEFENSIVE war Germany forced her to wage.
That would be JUSTICE pure and simple: the peace treaty MUST do it.
Germany having run the risk of reopening the Alsace-Lorraine acute
question, the Allies MUST close it anew but this time against the Huns.
Germany MUST also pay for the devastation she has savagely spread in
France.
I stand firm for a final settlement of the Austro-Italian too long
pending question by giving to Italy the Trentino territory to which she
has an evident national claim supported by the best of geographical
conditions.
Servia's independence MUST be once more secured, and Poland SHOULD be
resuscitated.
The United States part in the war is truly a grand, a noble one. They
have no particular territorial interest to serve. Their only object is
the general public good. They will be the benefactors of Humanity in
claiming for their Allies the above enunciated conditions without which
no JUST and DURABLE peace can be expected nor obtained.
It is most important to caution the public against the insidious
clamours of our _"pacifists"_, trying again to deceive the people by
asserting that Germany is ready to negotiate for peace on fair terms.
The Huns will acquiesce only to such peace terms as they will be forced
to.
The Allies are better to be guided in consequence in their unfaltering
determination to realize a JUST and DURABLE peace by a GLORIOUS
VICTORY.