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Wilson that the German government turned in its distress, knowing that America had no imperialistic ambitions to gratify, no European territory or colonies to claim, no ancient grudges or enmities to satisfy. On October 4 Chancellor Max approached us through the Swiss minister at Washington with the following appeal: "The German Government ["Imperial" omitted!] requests the President of the United States to take in hand the restoration of peace, acquaint all the belligerent states with this request, and invite them to send plenipotentiaries for the purpose of opening negotiations. It accepts the program set forth by the President of the United States in his message to Congress of January 8 [the fourteen points] and in his later pronouncements, especially his speech of September 27, as a basis for peace negotiations. With a view to avoiding further bloodshed, the German Government requests the immediate conclusion of an armistice on land and sea."

President Wilson neither refused nor complied with this request. Before he could act as the peace broker he must have certain capital points made clear. There could be no terms made while the armed German or Austrian troops were on the soil of France or Belgium. There could be no dealing with "the military masters and monarchical autocrats" of Germany. For whom was the chancellor speaking? If for the Hohenzollern war lord and his satellites, then the appeal was vain. During the month of October, while our troops were fighting their way through the Argonne to the Meuse, several notes passed between President Wilson and the German foreign office. The latter protested Germany's willingness to withdraw her troops from French and Belgian territory, and insisted on the genuineness of the reforms in the German government, which was in "complete accord with the wishes of the people." The request for a peace conference and an armistice had come from a people "free from arbitrary and irresponsible influences." The chancellor's word seemed confirmed when General Ludendorff resigned his command toward the end of October, and the Reichstag subjected the military power to the civil authority. There was a wide

spread demand for the abdication of the Kaiser and the end of the Hohenzollern dynasty.' When he was at last satisfied of the good faith of the new German government, President Wilson submitted the correspondence to the allied governments, with the suggestion that if they were disposed to effect peace on the principles indicated, they should authorize their military authorities to submit the details of an armistice.

I

On November 1 the Supreme War Council of the Allies at Versailles, attended by President Wilson's representative, Colonel House, the foreign ministers of Great Britain, France, and Italy, Marshal Foch, Field Marshal Haig, General Tasker H. Bliss, and a number of military and civilian dignitaries, began the preparation of the terms, which they completed on November 4. The next day Secretary Lansing asked the Swiss minister to inform the German government that Marshal Foch had been authorized to conclude an armistice. Germany accepted promptly. Her delegates, headed by Matthias Erzberger, were conducted, blindfolded, within the allied lines late in the evening of November 7, and the next morning were received by Marshal Foch at his headquarters in a car of his special train at Rethondes in the forest of Compiègne. When their credentials had been verified, Marshal Foch, without ceremony, read in a clear, slow voice the terms of the armistice. They called for the immediate evacuation of France, Belgium, Alsace-Lorraine, and Luxemburg. All of Germany west of the Rhine, together with the bridgeheads at Mainz, Coblenz, and Cologne, with the territory on the east bank of the river in a radius of thirty kilometers, was to be occupied by the allied troops. A strip ten kilometers wide on the right bank of the Rhine, extending from Switzerland to Holland, was to be a

1 The Kaiser and the Crown Prince signed letters of abdication and renunciation at General Headquarters at Spa on November 9. The next day they fled to Holland, where the Kaiser was "interned" in Count Bentinck's castle at Amerongen, which had once housed an English prince (later Charles II) in his exile. In the week from November 8 to 14 German crowns and coronets fell from royal and ducal heads like apples shaken from a tree in autumn. Three kings (besides the emperor-king of Prussia), four grand dukes, three princes, and two dukes renounced their ruling titles and became plain German citizens.

neutral zone. The Germans were to surrender a vast amount of war material (including 5000 guns, 25,000 machine guns, 5000 locomotives, 150,000 cars, 5000 motor lorries, 10 battleships, 6 cruisers, 50 destroyers, and all their submarines). They were to withdraw all troops from Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Rumania, and Russia, and to renounce the treaties of BrestLitovsk and Bucharest. They were to repatriate all prisoners of war, restore money and valuables taken from invaded countries, and annul all preferential commercial agreements imposed upon neutral countries.

The time accorded the German delegates for signing the armistice was seventy-two hours. The terms were drastic. Protest against signing came from the Kaiser at headquarters. But Germany's hour of extremity had come. Even Von Hindenburg insisted that the terms must be accepted. The revolution which stalks in the wake of fallen autocracies was threatening the country. The red flag was flying in half the cities of Germany. There was mutiny in the fleet at Kiel. The frightful sacrifices of the German people for the sake of the Hohenzollern autocracy were at an end. The Kaiser was about to flee across the border, imploring the people to save the Fatherland from anarchy and famine. A few hours before the expiration of the time limit the German delegates signed the armistice, and at II A.M. of November 11, 1918, the last gun was fired on the front.

Throughout the world the cessation of the four years of carnage was hailed with wild demonstrations of joy-in Berlin and Vienna as well as in London, Paris, and New York. Shortly after noon President Wilson drove to the Capitol through the avenue lined with cheering crowds to announce to a joint session of Congress the terms of the armistice and "the attainment of the object upon which all free men had set their hearts." "It is not now possible," he said, "to assess the consequences of this great consummation. We know only that this tragical war, whose consuming flames swept from one nation to another until all the world was on fire, is at an end, and that it was the privilege of our own people to enter it at its most critical juncture, in such fashion and such force as to contribute in a way in which we are

all deeply proud to the great result." On the same day the President issued the following proclamation to the American people: "My Fellow Countrymen, The armistice was signed this morning. Everything for which America fought has been accomplished. It will now be our fortunate duty to assist by example, by sober friendly counsel, and by material aid in the establishment of just democracy throughout the world."

THE TREATY AND THE LEAGUE

Peace had its problems no less staggering than those of war. For in this war the entire resources of three fourths of the nations of the world had been involved. Food, fuel, textiles, minerals, shipping, railroads, banking, insurance, science, labor-in short, every material and moral asset-had been summoned to aid the gigantic strife of the armies at the battle front. About sixty million men had been mobilized and taken from the constructive work of peace in agriculture and industry. Hundreds of billions of the world's wealth had been destroyed. Great areas of Europe had not only been depleted of workers, but had been temporarily lost to cultivation by ravages of bomb and shell. Towns and villages had been wiped out by the thousands, and their starving inhabitants thrown upon the mercy of a heroic charity. The eight million dead in battle alone far outnumbered all the hosts ever marshaled by Julius Cæsar or Napoleon Bonaparte. The map of Europe east of the Rhine, and of Asia west of the Euphrates, had to be redrawn. The fall of the autocratic governments of Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey had liberated peoples oppressed for centuries and had rekindled the national aspirations of Finns, Letts, Poles, Czechs, Jugoslavs, Rumanians, Ukrainians, Syrians, and Arabs. Bolshevist propaganda threatened to complete the wreckage which defeat had brought to the countries of eastern and central Europe, by the proscription of what remained of the property and influence of the upper and middle classes and by the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat in politics and industry. The prewar debt of Germany had been multiplied thirty-two-fold, of

Great Britain tenfold, of Austria-Hungary sixfold, of Russia fivefold, of France and Italy fourfold, until it stood at over 60 per cent of the national wealth in Italy, 50 per cent in Germany, and 40 per cent in Great Britain and France. Victory, fortunately, rested with the Entente nations. But it was a victory whose costs were heavier than the penalties which any defeated nation had ever had to bear in a previous war. It was under the lowering clouds of bankruptcy, famine, and anarchy that the delegates of twenty-eight victorious nations assembled at Paris in January, 1919, to undertake the appalling task of concluding peace.

We can no more attempt in these pages to describe the negotiation of the European treaty than we have attempted to describe the operations of the European war. America is our theme. And it is only as America's participation affected the results that we can speak. Three important points must be borne in mind. In the first place, when the war ended, America's strength was on the upward curve. Instead of being at the point of exhaustion, like the European nations, we were just beginning to marshal our enormous resources. We were planning to have an army of 5,000,000 in France in 1920. In the month of the armistice we constructed 171 vessels, with a tonnage of 357,668. From July to September we had manufactured 27,270 machine guns and 233,562 rifles, as against 10,947 guns and 112,000 rifles manufactured in Great Britain and 12,126 guns and 40,000 rifles manufactured in France. We had been entirely dependent upon the Allies (especially France) for airplanes, tanks, and heavy guns, but the American planes began to arrive in large numbers in the closing months of the war. There were 1400 De Havilands in France when the armistice was signed, and we were planning to send 10,000 a month after January, 1919. A $60,000,000 gas plant in Maryland, completed just as the armistice was signed, was ready to turn out three or four times as much mustard, phosgene, and chlorine gas as the output of England, France, and Germany combined. Though our debt had increased nearly twentyfold (from $1,300,000,000 to $24,000,000,000), it was still only about 10 per cent

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