d not have been completed. We
have the testimony of the Allied chiefs in June that without American
man-power they faced defeat. It is equally obvious that without the
1,390,000 American troops which, by November, had appeared on the
fighting line, the autumn of 1918 would not have witnessed the military
triumph of the Allies.

CHAPTER IX

THE PATH TO PEACE

The armistice of November 11, 1918, resulted directly from the military
defeat of German armies in France, following upon the collapse of Turkey,
Bulgaria, and Austria-Hungary. But there were many circumstances other
than military that led to Germany's downfall, and by no means of least
importance were the moral issues so constantly stressed by Wilson. His
speeches had been carefully distributed through the Central Empires; they
had done much to arouse the subject peoples of Austria-Hungary to revolt
for their freedom, and also to weaken the morale of the German people. The
value of Wilson's "verbiage drives" was questioned in this country.
Abroad, his insistence upon a peace of justice was generally reckoned a
vital moral force in the political movements that supplemented the
victories of Marshal Foch. Jugoslavs consented to cooeperate with their
Italian enemies because they felt that "Wilson's justice" would guarantee
a fair court for their aspirations in the Adriatic; Magyars and Austrians
threw down their arms in the belief that his promise to "be as just to
enemies as to friends" secured a better future than they could hope for
through the continuance of the war; the leaders of the German Reichstag
demanded the Kaiser's abdication in November, under the impression that
Wilson had laid it down as a condition of peace.

From the time when the United States entered the war it was obvious that
Wilson placed less emphasis upon defeating Germany than upon securing a
just peace. Military victory meant nothing to him except as the road to
peace. In his first war speeches the President, much to the irritation of
many Americans, insisted that the United States was fighting the
government and not the people of Germany. "We have no quarrel," he said,
"with the German people. We have no feeling towards them but one of
sympathy and friendship." In his Flag Day address he was careful not to
attack "Germany" but only "the military masters under whom Germany is
bleeding." Certain effects of this attitude were to be seen in the
Reichstag revolt of July, 1917, led by