the Germans presently destroyed it. They wanted a peace
conference with no terms stated beforehand, where they could play on
the divergent interests of the allied countries; nor did they want the
President to have anything to do with the making of peace, lest, as
Bethmann Hollweg expressed it to Bernstorff, the Germans should be
"robbed of their gains by neutral pressure." So the German reply on
Dec. 26 politely observed that a direct conference between the
belligerents would seem most appropriate, which conference the German
Government proposed. For the general idea of a League of Nations the
Germans expressed their approval, but they wanted peace of their own
kind first.

The allied reply was delayed until Jan. 11, but at least it met the
President's request for details. It laid down the specifications of
what the allied powers would regard as a just peace, and the bulk of
that program was eventually to be written into the Treaty of
Versailles. But at the time, of course, it was evident that the
belligerents were further from agreement than they thought, or at any
rate than the President thought. Of such terms Germany would hear
nothing; nor would her Government give to the President, even in
confidence, its own idea of the specifications of a just peace.

So the President, determined to carry out his program in spite of all
obstacles, finally went before the Senate on Jan. 22, 1917, and laid
down some general considerations of what he thought a just peace should
be like. It was the logical next step in his effort to stop the war
before America should become involved, but it was taken under
conditions which made success impossible. As a matter of fact, the
Germans had already decided to resume the unrestricted submarine war;
the decision had been taken on Jan. 9, but was not to be announced till
Jan. 31. Moreover, in America and the allied countries public sentiment
was unprepared for anything like the speech of Jan. 22. Few people in
the United States realized the danger. Mr. Lansing had followed upon
the December note with a statement to correspondents that if the war
were not soon stopped America might be drawn into it. That was the
fact, but it depended on information unknown to the public; and though
the most natural inference was that a new crisis with Germany was at
hand no one knew exactly how to take it--particularly as Lansing, on
orders from the White House, hastened to explain that he had been
misunders