England, Canada and the Great War Part 33

"Count Czernin's reply, which is directed chiefly to my own address, on the eighth of January, is uttered in a very friendly tone.

"He finds in my statement a sufficiently encouraging approach to the views of his own government to justify him in believing that it furnishes a basis for a more detailed discussion of purposes by the two governments. He is represented to have intimated that the views he was expressing had been communicated to me beforehand and that I was aware of them at the time he was uttering them; but in this I am sure he was misunderstood. I had received no intimation of what he intended to say. There was, of course, no reason why he should communicate privately with me. I am quite content to be one of his public audiences.

"Count von Hertling's reply is, I may say, very vague and very confusing. It is full of equivocal phrases and leads, it is not clear where. But it is certainly in a very different tone from that of Count Czernin and apparently of an opposite purpose. It confirms, I am sorry to say, rather than removes, the unfortunate impression made by what we had learned of the conferences at Brest-Litovsk. His discussion and acceptance of our general principles leads him to no practical conclusions. He refuses to apply them to the substantiate items which must const.i.tute the body of any final settlement. He is jealous of international action and of international council. He accepts, he says, the principle of public diplomacy, but he appears to insist that it be confined at any rate in this case, to generalities and that the several particular questions of territory and sovereignty, the several questions upon whose settlement must depend the acceptance of peace by the twenty-three states now engaged in the war, must be discussed and settled, not in general council but severally by the nations most immediately concerned by interest of neighbourhood. He agrees that the seas should be free, but looks askance at any limitation to that freedom by international action in the interest of the common order. He would, without reserve, be glad to see economic barriers removed between nation and nation, for that could in no way impede the ambitions of the military party with whom he seems constrained to keep on terms. Neither does he raise objection to a limitation of armaments. That matter will be settled of itself, he thinks, by the economic conditions which must follow the war. But the German colonies, he demands, must be returned without debate. He will discuss with no one but the representatives of Russia what disposition shall be made of the peoples and the lands of the Baltic provinces; with no one but the Government of France the "conditions" under which French territory shall be evacuated and only with Austria what shall be done with Poland. In the determination of all questions affecting the Balkan states he defers, as I understand him, to Austria and Turkey and with regard to the agreements to be entered into concerning the non-Turkish peoples of the present Ottoman Empire, to the Turkish authorities themselves. After a settlement all around effected in this fashion, by individual barter and concession, he would have no objection, if I correctly interpret his statement, to a league of nations which would undertake to hold the balance of power steady against external disturbance.

"It must be evident to everyone who understands what this war has wrought in the opinion and temper of the world that no general peace, no peace worth the infinite sacrifices of these years of tragical suffering, can possibly be arrived at in any such fashion. The method the German Chancellor proposes is the method of the Congress of Vienna. We cannot and will not return to that. What is at stake now is the peace of the world. What we are striving for is a new international order based upon broad and universal principles of right and justice--no mere peace of shreds and patches. Is it possible that Count von Hertling does not see that, does not grasp it, is in fact living in his thought in a world dead and gone? Has he utterly forgotten the Reichstag resolutions of the 19th of July, or does he deliberately ignore them? They spoke of the conditions of a general peace, not of national aggrandizement or of arrangements between state and state. The peace of the world depends upon just settlement of each of the several problems to which I adverted in my recent address to Congress. I, of course, do not mean that the peace of the world depends upon the acceptance of any particular set of suggestions as to the way in which those problems are to be dealt with. I mean only that those problems, each and all, affect the whole world; that unless they are dealt with in a spirit of unselfish and unbia.s.sed justice, with a view to the wishes, the natural connections, the racial aspirations, the security and peace of mind of the peoples involved, no permanent peace will have been attained. They cannot be discussed separately or in corners. None of them const.i.tutes a private or separate interest from which the opinion of the world may be shut out. Whatever affects the peace affects mankind, and nothing settled by military force, if settled wrong, is settled at all. It will presently have to be re-opened.

"Is Count von Hertling not aware that he is speaking in the court of mankind, that all the awakened nations of the world now sit in judgment on what every public man, of whatever nation, may say on the issues of a conflict which has spread to every region of the world? The Reichstag resolutions of July 19 themselves frankly accepted the decisions of that court. There shall be no annexations, no contributions, no punitive damages.

Peoples are not to be handed about from one sovereignty to another by an international conference or an understanding between rivals and antagonists. National aspirations must be respected; peoples may now be dominated and governed only by their own consent. "Self-determination," is not a mere phrase.

It is an imperative principle of action, which statesmen will henceforth ignore at their peril. We cannot have general peace for the asking, or by the mere arrangements of a peace conference. It cannot be pieced together out of individual understandings between powerful states. All the parties to this war must join in the settlement of every issue anywhere involved in it because what we are seeking is a peace that we can all unite to guarantee and maintain whether it be right and fair, an act of justice, rather than a bargain between sovereigns.

"The United States has no desire to interfere in European affairs or to act as arbiter in European territorial disputes.

We would disdain to take advantage of any internal weakness or disorder to impose her own will upon another people. She is quite ready to be shown that the settlements she has suggested are not the best or the most enduring. They are only her own provisional sketch of principles, and of the way in which they should be applied. But she entered this war because she was made a partner, whether she would or not, in the sufferings and indignities inflicted by the military masters of Germany, against the peace and security of mankind; and the conditions of peace will touch her as nearly as they will touch any other nation to which is entrusted a leading part in the maintenance of civilization. She cannot see her way to peace until the causes of this war are removed, its renewal rendered, as nearly as may be, impossible.

"This war had its roots in the disregard of the rights of small nations and of nationalities which lacked the union and the force to make good their claim to determine their own allegiances and their own forms of political life. Covenants must now be entered into which will render such things impossible for the future; and those covenants must be backed by the united force of all the nations that love justice and are willing to maintain it at any cost. If territorial settlements and the political relations of great populations which have not the organized power to resist are to be determined by the contracts of the powerful governments which consider themselves most directly affected, as Count von Hertling proposes, why may not economic questions also? It has come about in the altered world in which we now find ourselves that justice and the rights of peoples affect the whole field of international dealing as much as access to raw materials and fair and equal conditions of trade. Count von Hertling wants the essential basis of commercial and industrial life to be safeguarded by common agreement and guarantee, but he cannot expect that to be conceded him if the other matters to be determined by the articles of peace are not handled in the same way as it was in the final accounting. He cannot ask the benefit of common agreement in the one field without according it in the other. I take it for granted that he sees that separate and selfish compacts with regard to trade and the essential materials of manufacture would afford no foundation for peace. Neither, he may rest a.s.sured, will separate and selfish compacts with regard to the provinces and peoples.

"Count Czernin seems to see the fundamental elements of peace with clear eyes and does not seek to obscure them. He sees that an independent Poland, made up of all the indisputably Polish peoples who lie contiguous to one another, is a matter of European concern and must of course be conceded; that Belgium must be evacuated and restored, no matter what sacrifices and concessions that may involve; and that national aspirations must be satisfied, even within his own empire, in the common interest of Europe and mankind. If he is silent about questions which touch the interest and purpose of his Allies more nearly than they touch those of Austria only, it must, of course, be because he feels constrained, I suppose, to defer to Germany and Turkey in the circ.u.mstances. Seeing and conceding, as he does, the essential principles involved and the necessity of candidly applying them, he naturally feels that Austria can respond to the purpose of peace as expressed by the United States with less embarra.s.sment than could Germany. He would probably have gone much farther had it not been for the embarra.s.sments of Austria's alliance and of her dependence upon Germany.

"After all the test of whether it is possible for either Government to go any further in this comparison of views is simple and obvious. The principles to be applied are:

"First, that each part of the final settlement must be based on the essential justice of the particular case, and upon such adjustments as are most likely to bring a peace that will be permanent.

"Second, that peoples and provinces are not to be bartered about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were mere chattels and p.a.w.ns in a game, even the great game, now for ever discredited, of the balance of power; but that,

"Every territorial settlement involved in this war must be made in the interest and for the benefit of the populations concerned and not as a part of any mere adjustment of compromise of claims amongst rival states; and,

"Fourth, that all well defined national aspirations shall be accorded the utmost satisfaction that can be accorded them without introducing new or perpetuating old elements of discord, and antagonism that would be likely in time to break the peace of Europe and consequently of the world.

"A general peace entered upon such foundations can be discussed.

Until such a peace can be secured we have no choice but to go on. So far as we can judge, these principles that we regard as fundamental are already everywhere accepted as imperative except among the spokesmen of the military and annexationist party in Germany. If they have anywhere else been rejected, the objectors have not been sufficiently numerous or influential to make their voices audible. The tragic circ.u.mstance is that this one party in Germany is apparently willing and able to send millions of men to their death to prevent what all the world now sees to be just.

"I would not be a true spokesman of the people of the United States if I did not say once more that we entered this war upon no small occasion, and that we can never turn back from a course chosen upon principle. Our resources are in part mobilized now, and we shall not pause until they are mobilized in their entirety. Our armies are rapidly going to the fighting front, and will go more rapidly. Our whole strength will be put into this state of emanc.i.p.ation--emanc.i.p.ation from the threat and attempted mastery of selfish groups of autocratic rulers--whatever the difficulties and present partial delays. We are indomitable in our power of independent action, and can in no circ.u.mstances consent to live in a world governed by intrigue and force. We believe that our own desire for a new international order under which reason and justice and the common interests of mankind shall prevail, is the desire of enlightened men everywhere. Without that new order the world will be without peace, and human life will lack tolerable conditions of existence and development. Having set our hand to the task of achieving it, we shall not turn back.

"I hope that it is not necessary for me to add that no word of what I have said is intended as a threat. That is not the temper of our people. I have spoken thus only that the whole world may know the true spirit of America--that men everywhere may know that our pa.s.sion for justice and for self-government is no mere pa.s.sion of words, but a pa.s.sion which, once set in act, must be satisfied. The power of the United States is a menace to no nation or people. It will be never used in aggression or for the aggrandizement of any selfish interest of our own. It springs out of freedom and is for the service of freedom."

APPENDIX--B.

TEXT OF UNITED STATES REPLY TO AUSTRIA.

On the 18th of September, 1918, the Secretary of State made public the official text of the letter he sent, to Mr. W. A. F. Ekengren, the Swedish Minister, in charge of Austro-Hungarian affairs, conveying President Wilson's rejection of the Austrian peace proposals. It reads as follows:--

"Sir,--I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note, dated September 16, communicating to me a note from the Imperial Government of Austria-Hungary, containing a proposal to the Government of all the belligerent States to send delegates to a confidential and unbinding discussion on the basic principles for the conclusion of peace. Furthermore, it is proposed that the delegates would be charged to make known to one another the conception of their Governments regarding these principles, and to receive a.n.a.logous communications, as well as to request and give frank and candid explanations on all those points which need to be precisely defined.

"In reply, I beg to say that the substance of your communication has been submitted to the President, who now directs me to inform you that the Government of the United States feels that there is only one reply which it can make to the suggestion of the Imperial Austro-Hungarian Government. It has repeatedly, and with entire candor, stated the terms upon which the United States would consider peace, and can and will entertain no proposal for a conference upon the matter concerning which it has made its position and purpose so plain.

"Accept, sir, the renewed a.s.surances of my highest consideration.

"(Signed), ROBERT LANSING, "Secretary of State."