On completing the reading of the official communication of Austria, President Wilson at once gave his reply, authorizing the Secretary of State to issue the following statement, dated the 16th of September and published broadcast on the next day:—
"I am authorized by the President to state that the following will be the reply of this Government to the Austro-Hungarian note proposing an unofficial conference of belligerents:
"'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 a matter concerning which it has made its position and purpose so plain.'"
On the eleventh day of February, 1918, President Wilson, instead of addressing as usual a message to the two Houses, went personally to meet the Senate and the House of Representatives, in Congress assembled, and, in a most admirable speech, replied to the then recent peace utterances of Count von Hertling, the German Chancellor, and Count Czernin, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, fully explaining the only principles by which the Government of the United States would be guided when peace negotiations do take place. This most important statement is published as an appendix to this book. It is worthy of the great statesman who made it, and deserves the most attentive reading on account of the lofty views and noble principles it expresses, of the large issues it involves and of the ardent patriotism it inspires.
The prime ministers of Great Britain and France have signified their entire assent to the energetic stand taken by President Wilson in the above quoted reply to Austria's peace communication.
The whole British Empire, France, the United States and Italy are a unit in refusing to consider for a moment Austria's cynical peace proposals.
Belgium, from the cross of martyrdom to which the Huns' barbarity has nailed her, has summoned all her wonderful courage, in her long and cruel agony, to repudiate with scorn the infamous German proposition to betray those who are pledged to be her saviours.
Consequently, the peace offensive, so cleverly planned by Germany and opened by her contemptible Austrian satellite, has met with as dismal a failure as the military offensive launched on the twenty-first day of March last, with such superior numerical forces, and unbounded confidence that this gigantic effort would at last smash the Allies' resistance.
Just as the Teutonic hordes are hurled back by the matchless strategy of the Chief Commander of the Allied armies and their incomparable heroism, the Austrian peace offensive communication is returned to their authors a miserable "scrap of paper".
And the grand and noble fight will go on until Germany is brought to her knees and forced to recognize that "the resources of Civilization are not yet exhausted."