14. It is therefore futile to say that the future congress must not interfere in the internal government of any belligerent Power. If any European Power after this war were still to be ruled by a reactionary government based on brute force and oppression, that government would still have to maintain a large army in order to keep down the liberties of its people, and such an army would sooner or later be used against the foreign enemy in the name of imperial national aspirations, in the name of a higher civilizing mission.
15. Therefore, the one problem before the European Congress is to establish government in Europe on a constitutional and democratic basis, and to grant a Magna Carta to all nations, great and small. The establishment of such a government, and not any annexations or compensations, would alone guarantee a permanent peace.
16. All civilized nations must be equally interested in the maintenance of peace and in the establishment of the new international order. Therefore, all neutral nations, including the United States of America, must join the congress as signatories and guarantors of the peace settlement.
17. The new democratic charter shall be placed under the guardianship of a Supreme Constitutional Court. Such a Court would not be a secret diplomatic Sanhedrin, but a democratic Tribunal. Such a Court would be essentially different from the Hague Tribunals of the past, and the democracies of the world would be directly interested in enforcing its decrees.
18. There is one immediate sanction to the constitutional settlement just outlined—namely, the Sovereign Will of the people of Europe. Revolution is knocking at the door. Unless a constitutional charter be granted, unless democratic government be firmly established in Europe, it will be wrested from their rulers by the nations themselves. All the signs of the times confirm us in the conviction that the only alternative to the establishment of democratic government for all the nations participating in the congress is universal civil war. The peacemakers of to-morrow have it in their power not only to crush “Prussian militarism,” but to prevent an appalling upheaval which would shake human society to its foundations.
APPENDIX
THE PRIVATE MORALITY OF THE PRUSSIAN KINGS
FREDERICK WILLIAM II.: THE HOHENZOLLERN POLYGAMIST
By Albert Sorel
It is generally assumed, even by those writers who are most strongly opposed to the sinister policy of the Hohenzollerns, that at least their domestic relations present an edifying contrast with the private immorality of the other Royal Houses of Europe. The world has been made familiar with the Court scandals of the Habsburgs, the Bourbons, and the Georges, and has heard little of the Hohenzollern Dynasty. But that is merely because the “amours” and the family squabbles of the Hohenzollerns are so much less picturesque and so much less interesting than those of a Henry IV. or of a Louis XIV., and because they have been hidden under a thick cloud of hypocrisy. The most brilliant of French historians, Monsieur Albert Sorel, has torn the veil from this hypocrisy and has laid bare the sordid story of Frederick William II.