There can no longer be any doubt that Germany is anxious to end the war in the stage which it now has reached. Even if we discount the news from Amsterdam that German finance is wavering on the verge of state bankruptcy, we can accept as true the fact that, in spite of all the victories of the Teutonic armies on dry land, the position of the Central Powers has become very uncomfortable by reason of the French and British blockade. The foes of the Central Powers, as Germany and Austria are called, do not show any willingness, any desire to stop the war at this stage. The reason is obvious: Peace at this time would be Germany's victory, a victory almost as perfect as complete, as if it had been visualized by her statesmen when they were in Karlsbad preparing the World War. Not only that: It would be a foundation from which to launch further aggression, wage further wars by which the realization of the ambitious plan of the leading men of the Pan-Germanic movement may be accomplished.

A peace, if at all, must be based on conditions prevailing before the war. Even if we suppose, for the sake of argument, that Germany would agree to the evacuation of Belgium, Northern France, and Poland, on the condition that her colonies be returned--although Japan and South Africa would hardly agree to that--what would be the situation? In the course of the war, the Germans have destroyed almost all of the industry in Belgium, Northern France, and Poland, with the exception of that part which they are now using for the manufacture of war materials, and that part they would certainly destroy before the evacuation. As soon as peace was signed, Germany would immediately resume her industrial activities, thus eliminating rivals along her borders, because no part of her territory, with the exception of the agricultural East Prussia and a section of Alsace, has been affected by the war's destruction. But this is only the industrial aspect of the problem. There is another aspect, the military one, and that is more important.

Who could believe that Belgium, after her war experiences with the modern Huns, would dare to oppose Germany's intimidations? We know how Russia 3was for centuries at the mercy of Turkish raiders, and how the Bohemian spirit has been enslaved by the centuries of Hapsburg tyranny. The same applies to France. Up to the present time it has been France that has borne the brunt of the fighting on the Western Front, protecting decadent England, and suffering most severe losses; and the more severe these losses are the more important is her population problem. For France, peace at this time would mean the end of armed resistance for all time to come. Never again could French democracy hope to offer successful resistance to the armed autocracy of her northern neighbor, because democracy can never hope for success in a war with an autocratic power. Here it should be stressed that Germany has secured possession not only of Belgium, Northern France, and Poland, but also of the supreme rule over Austria-Hungary and Turkey. Should the war end now. Austria would become Germany's vassal and Turkey would serve merely as a complacent bridge in the realization of Germany's aims as expressed in her "Drang nach Osten" (Thrust toward the East).

All that would mean that all non-German nations of Austria would become involved in an endless struggle with their oppressors. This applies not only to the non-German nations of Austria, but to the Balkan nations as well. All that would mean that the Bohemians, Slovaks, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Ruthenians, and even Italians and Rumanians, would be thrown under a crueler yoke than they have known up to this time, and God knows that has been bad enough. Close to thirty million people would be thrown into a most abject political serfdom and would be the constantly smoldering germ of a new European conflagration. The German and, alas, the Bohemian, socialists may talk as much as they will about the necessity of preserving the Austrian State; the truth remains that such a state could be nothing but an agency, a tool, of Pan-Germanic dreams and conquests, and would cause increasingly severe political and national clashes which would make a calm, continuous economic development quite impossible. Similarly, German overlordship in Constantinople would be a permanent breeding place of Pan-Germanic propaganda which, by inspired actions of the Sultan as head of the Mohammedan faith, would cause continual troubles between 5the Mohammedan colonies of France and Great Britain--that is, according to present day experiences, a perpetual civil war in India, Morocco, and Egypt.

As the war is today, Germany is the victor. She has not destroyed her foes, but she has defeated them. The mistakes Germany has made were not military, but rather diplomatic mistakes. But Germany is willing to learn, and learns quickly. We may be sure that she will not repeat her mistakes. It would be very easy for Germany to defeat and destroy her foes one after another, in spite of the fact that today there is not one nation in sympathy with Germany--we say nation, and not government, because these two are very different conceptions. The fact is that it was only very recently that the Allies started some sort of co-operation. A case in point is Italy, which is now sending her armies to the Dardanelles, a move that should have been made right at the beginning of her military campaign, instead of knocking her head bloody on the impenetrable slopes of the Alps. Had Europe shown such co-operation at the beginning of the Napoleonic wars as it showed in 6the battle of Leipzig, such names as Jena, Marengo, Wagram, and Slavkov would never have appeared on the pages of history; however, once cooperation started among Napoleon's foes, the end of the great Corsican's dreams of world domination was here. Not until now have the Allies realized the magnitude of the task they have undertaken; St. Petersburg, Paris, and London see now with one eye how great must be their effort if they want to remove the danger which threatens the world by the domination of one aggressor nation. But the Allies know quite well that the task is not beyond their power; therefore all German attempts to sell them on a not new "great peace plan" which the men around the green table are concocting in Berlin will be in vain. Both sides have risked everything they have on one card; but it would be against all logic if a comparatively small minority, no matter how well organized, how efficient, and how reckless it may be, should, in the end, defeat the remaining part of the world.