Germany, although under protest, has been forced to accept the statement of the Versailles Treaty to the effect that she is responsible for the War and that she provoked it. The same charge has been levelled at her in all the Entente States throughout the War.
When our countries were engaged in the struggle, and we were at grips with a dangerous enemy, it was our duty to keep up the morale of our people and to paint our adversaries in the darkest colours, laying on their shoulders all the blame and responsibility of the War. But after the great world conflict, now that Imperial Germany has fallen, it would be absurd to maintain that the responsibility of the War is solely and wholly attributable to Germany and that earlier than 1914 in Europe there had not developed a state of things fatally destined to culminate in a war. If Germany has the greatest responsibility, that responsibility is shared more or less by all the countries of the Entente. But while the Entente countries, in spite of their mistakes, had the political sense always to invoke principles of right and justice, the statesmen of Germany gave utterance to nothing but brutal and vulgar statements, culminating in the deplorable mental and moral expressions contained in the speeches, messages and telegrams of William II. He was a perfect type of the miles gloriosus, not a harmless but an irritating and dangerous boaster, who succeeded in piling up more loathing and hatred against his country than the most active and intelligently managed enemy propaganda could possibly have done.
If the issue of the War could be regarded as seriously jeopardized by England's intervention, it was practically lost for the Central Empires when the United States stepped in.
America's decision definitely crippled Germany's resistance—and not only for military, but for moral reasons. In all his messages President Wilson had repeatedly declared that he wanted a peace based on justice and equity, of which he outlined the fundamental conditions; moreover, he stated that he had no quarrel with the Germans themselves, but with the men who were at their head, and that he did not wish to impose on the vanquished peace terms such as might savour of oppression.
President Wilson's ideas on the subject have been embodied in a bulky volume.[1] Turning over the pages of this book now we have the impression that it is a collection of literary essays by a man who had his eye on posterity and assumed a pose most likely to attract the admiration of generations as yet unborn. But when these same words were uttered in the intervals of mighty battles, they fell on expectant and anxious ears: they were regarded as a ray of light in the fearsome darkness of uncertainty, and everybody listened to them, not only because the President was the authorized exponent of a great nation, of a powerful people, but because he represented an inexhaustible source of vitality in the midst of the ravages of violence and death. President Wilson's messages have done as much as famine and cruel losses in the field to break the stubborn resistance of the German people. If it was possible to obtain a just peace, why go to the bitter end when defeat was manifestly inevitable? Obstinacy is the backbone of war, and nothing undermines a nation's power of resistance so much as doubt and faint-heartedness on the part of the governing classes.
[Footnote 1: "President Wilson's State Speeches and Addresses," New
York, 1918.]
President Wilson, who said on January 2, 1917, that a peace without victory was to be preferred ("It must be a peace without victory"), and that "Right is more precious than peace," had also repeatedly affirmed that "We have no quarrel with the German people."
He only desired, as the exponent of a great democracy, a peace which should be the expression of right and justice, evolving from the War a League of Nations, the first milestone in a new era of civilization, a league destined to bind together ex-belligerents and neutrals in one.
In Germany, where the inhabitants had to bear the most cruel privations, President Wilson's words, pronounced as a solemn pledge before the whole world, had a most powerful effect on all classes and greatly contributed towards the final breakdown of collective resistance. Democratic minds saw a promise for the future, while reactionaries welcomed any way out of their disastrous adventure.
After America's entry in the War, President Wilson, on January 8, 1918, formulated the fourteen points of his programme regarding the finalities of the War and the peace to be realized.