to an attempt by Germany to start peace
negotiations in September, 1914, after the Battle of the Marne. This is
described in the next chapter.]

CHAPTER XIII

GERMANY'S FIRST PEACE DRIVES

The Declaration of London was not the only problem that distracted Page
in these early months of the war. Washington's apparent determination to
make peace also added to his daily anxieties. That any attempt to end
hostilities should have distressed so peace-loving and humanitarian a
statesman as Page may seem surprising; it was, however, for the very
reason that he was a man of peace that these Washington endeavours
caused him endless worry. In Page's opinion they indicated that
President Wilson did not have an accurate understanding of the war. The
inspiring force back of them, as the Ambassador well understood, was a
panic-stricken Germany. The real purpose was not a peace, but a truce;
and the cause which was to be advanced was not democracy but Prussian
absolutism. Between the Battle of the Marne and the sinking of the
_Lusitania_ four attempts were made to end the war; all four were set
afoot by Germany. President Wilson was the man to whom the Germans
appealed to rescue them from their dilemma. It is no longer a secret
that the Germans at this time regarded their situation as a tragic one;
the success that they had anticipated for forty years had proved to be a
disaster. The attempt to repeat the great episodes of 1864, 1866, and
1870, when Prussia had overwhelmed Denmark, Austria, and France in three
brief campaigns, had ignominiously failed. Instead of beholding a
conquered Europe at her feet, Germany awoke from her illusion to find
herself encompassed by a ring of resolute and powerful foes. The fact
that the British Empire, with its immense resources, naval, military,
and economic, was now leading the alliance against them, convinced the
most intelligent Germans that the Fatherland was face to face with the
greatest crisis in its history.

Peace now became the underground Germanic programme. Yet the Germans did
not have that inexorable respect for facts which would have persuaded
them to accept terms to which the Allies could consent. The military
oligarchy were thinking not so much of saving the Fatherland as of
saving themselves; a settlement which would have been satisfactory to
their enemies would have demanded concessions which the German people,
trained for forty years to expect an unparalleled victory, w