liament; given the fact that Russia,
faithful to her traditional policy, aimed to draw into her political
orbit all the Slav peoples right down to the Adriatic and the Aegean
and Austria, was leaning toward the creation of a third Slav monarchy
in the dual kingdom, it was inevitable that sooner or later the
violence, intrigue and corruption with which we are familiar should
culminate in open conflict. Bismarck always saw that putting Russia
and Germany up against each other meant war.

Peoples, like individuals, are far from representing with anything
approaching completeness such social conceptions as we call violence
and right, honesty and bad faith, justice and injustice; each people
has its different characteristics, but no one people represents good,
or another bad, no one represents brutality, or another civilization.
All these meaningless phrases were brought out during the War,
according to which, as was said by one of the Prime Ministers of the
Entente, the War was the decisive struggle between the forces of
autocracy and liberty, between the dark powers of evil and violence
and the radiant powers of good and right. To-day all this causes
nothing but a smile. Such things are just speechifying, and banal at
that. Perhaps they were a necessity of War-time which might well be
made use of; when you are fighting for your very life you use every
means you have; when you are in imminent danger you do not choose your
weapons, you use everything to hand. All the War propaganda against
the German Empires, recounting, sometimes exaggerating, all the crimes
of the enemy, claiming that all the guilt was on the side of Germany,
describing German atrocities as a habit, almost a characteristic of
the German people, deriding German culture as a species of liquid
in which were bred the microbes of moral madness--all this was
legitimate, perhaps necessary, during the War. The reply to the
asphyxiating gas of the enemy was not only the same gas, but a
propaganda calculated to do more damage, and which, in fact, did do as
much damage as tanks and blockade.

But, when war is over, nothing should be put into a peace treaty
except such things as will lead to a lasting peace, or the most
lasting peace compatible with our degree of civilization.

On January 22, 1917, President Wilson explained the reasons why he
made the proposal to put an end to the War; he said in the American
Senate that the greatest danger lay in a peace imposed