e sword shall perish by the sword, they will overthrow their leaders
and agree to disarm and live at peace in future with their neighbors.

The military parties in Austria and Germany wanted war. The only way
by which these people can be convinced is by brute force. When they
realize that they have not gained by war, but have lost, not only a
great deal of their wealth, through the terrific cost of the war, but
the friendship and respect of the whole world, when they realize that
the nations allied against them will push the war relentlessly until
these military chiefs confess that they never want to hear the word
"war" again, then, and only then, will they be ready to throw down
their arms and agree to join a league of the nations whose object
shall be to prevent any future wars.

As long as Germany was victorious and her people thought that they
were going to come out of the conflict with added territory and big
money indemnities, war was popular. But with the flower of their young
men slain, and the prospect of conquest and plunder growing smaller
and smaller with each passing month, the Germans, too, are beginning
to hate the thought of war.

The American army can give the finishing touch to the German downfall
along the western front, and the sooner the Germans realize that they
cannot win from the rapidly growing number of their enemies, the
sooner will come the the end of this greatest tragedy in the civilized
world.

The war lords knew that if the war lasted long enough they must be
defeated and they were striving hard all through the years 1916 and
1917 to make peace while they had possession of enough of the enemy's
lands so that they could show their own people some gain in territory
to pay them back for their terrible sufferings. The German war debt
was so great that the war lords dreaded to face their own people after
the latter realized that they had been deceived as well as defeated.
The government had told them (1) that England, France, and Russia
forced this war upon Germany, (2) that the German armies would win the
war in short order, and (3) that a huge sum of money would be
collected from France, Belgium, and Russia to pay the expenses of the
war. The war lords dreaded to think of the time when their people,
knowing that they themselves will have to bear the fearful burden of
war debt, learned also that the whole tragedy was forced upon the
world by the pride and ambition of their own leaders. By