fulfilled without wholesale spoliation. Moreover,
each coalition will wish to weaken the future power of its opponents.
A request by the United States that the victorious alliance deal
generously with the defeated nations in order to create the conditions
of a permanent peace would therefore probably meet with a more or less
courteous denial. On the other hand, a drawn battle, or one in which
the defeated party asking for peace still retained a considerable power
of resistance, might lead to conditions in which the influence of the
neutral nations, led by the United States, would be all-decisive. A
situation might be created out of which no further fighting could bring
a tolerable peace, and the nations might agree to some form of
incipient international organisation, to which the United States could
contribute.

The problem of Constantinople illustrates this possibility. That city,
with the command of the straits, is likely to go to Russia if the
Allies win, and to fall under a disguised German-Austrian domination if
the Central Powers are victorious. Either situation would be vicious;
{291} either would leave the commerce of the defeated nations at the
mercy of the great power that held the Bosphorus. If on the other
hand, the two opposed alliances were almost equally formidable at the
end of the war, or if England and France became unwilling to fight
longer in order to give Russia a strategic position at Constantinople,
a true solution of the problem might be obtained by neutralising the
straits. A union of all the powers might guarantee the free passage of
these waters at all times, and an American commissioner in command of a
small American army might carry out the wishes of an international
council. It would not be a pleasant or in any sense a profitable
adventure for the United States, and we should accept the task most
unwillingly. Our sole motive would be the belief that our acceptance
of this responsibility would remove one of the greatest causes of
future war.

Such an assumption of obligations at Constantinople would constitute
for us a new and dangerous international policy. While Constantinople
is easily defended and while ample assistance would be forthcoming if
defence were necessary, it can hardly be doubted that a rupture of such
an international agreement guaranteeing the neutrality of the straits
would bring on a war in which we should be obliged to take our part.
Yet the danger which we