Is it not easy to understand the eagerness for peace that has been
manifested from Berlin ever since the snare was set and sprung?
Peace, peace, peace has been the talk of her Foreign Office for now a
year and more; not peace upon her own initiative, but upon the
initiative of the nations over which she now deems herself to hold
the advantage. A little of the talk has been public, but most of it
has been private. Through all sorts of channels it has come to me,
and in all sorts of guises, but never with the terms disclosed which
the German Government would be willing to accept. That Government has
other valuable pawns in its hands besides those I have mentioned. It
still holds a valuable part of France, though with slowly relaxing
grasp, and practically the whole of Belgium. Its armies press close
upon Russia and overrun Poland at their will. It cannot go farther;
it dare not go back. It wishes to close its bargain before it is too
late, and it has little left to offer for the pound of flesh it will
demand.
The military masters under whom Germany is bleeding see very clearly
to what point Fate has brought them. If they fall back or are forced
back an inch, their power both abroad and at home will fall to pieces
like a house of cards. It is their power at home they are thinking
about now more than their power abroad. It is that power which is
trembling under their very feet; and deep fear has entered their
hearts. They have but one chance to perpetuate their military power,
or even their controlling political influence. If they can secure
peace now, with the immense advantages still in their hands which
they have up to this point apparently gained, they will have
justified themselves before the German people; they will have gained
by force what they promised to gain by it--an immense expansion of
German power, an immense enlargement of German industrial and
commercial opportunities. Their prestige will be secure, and with
their prestige their political power. If they fail, their people will
thrust them aside; a government accountable to the people themselves
will be set up in Germany, as it has been in England, in the United
States, in France, and in all the great countries of the modern time
except Germany. If they succeed they are safe and Germany and the
world are undone; if they fail Germany is saved and the world will be
at peace. If they succeed, America will fall within the menace. We
and all the rest of the world must remain armed, as they will remain,
and must make ready for the next step in their aggression; if they
fail, the world may unite for peace and Germany may be of the union.