The Germans would ask nothing more. They would enter upon peace negotiations with the following astute idea. If, hypothetically, the Allies should make the enormous blunder of discussing terms of peace on bases so craftily devised, Germany, being still intrenched behind her fronts which had been made almost impregnable, would end by saying, ‘I am not in accord with you. After all is said, you cannot demand that I evacuate territory from which you are powerless to expel me. If you are not satisfied, go on with the war.’
Inasmuch as, during the negotiations, everything essential would have been done by German agents to accentuate the moral relaxation of the country which was most exhausted by the conflict, as they succeeded in doing in Russia in the first months of the Revolution, the immense military machine of the Entente could not again be set in motion in all its parts. The result would be the breaking asunder of the anti-German coalition, and, finally, the conclusion of peace substantially on the basis of existing conquests. Thus Berlin’s object would be attained.
6. The ‘status quo ante’ trick
The last of the German schemes, and the most dangerous of all, is that concealed under the formula, ‘No annexations or indemnities’—a formidable trap, which, as I have pointed out in earlier chapters, has for its object to confirm Germany in the possession of the gigantic advantages which she has derived from the war, and which would assure her the domination of the world, leaving the Allies with their huge war-losses, whose inevitable economic after-effects would suffice to reduce them to a state of absolute servitude with respect to Berlin.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See Atlantic Monthly, June, 1917, p. 721.
CHAPTER VII
The Best Way to Crush Pan-Germany
I
THE UNITED STATES AND THE VASSALS OF BERLIN
In the wholly novel plan which I am about to set forth, the United States may play a preponderating and decisive part; but by way of preamble I must call attention to the fact that the United States is not, in my judgment, as I write these lines, in a position to give its full effective assistance in the conflict, because it is not officially and wholeheartedly at war with Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey—states in thrall to Berlin and constituent parts of Pan-Germany. This situation is, I am fully convinced, unfavorable to the interests of the Allies, and it paralyzes American action, for these reasons.