It has been proclaimed with the highest authority, and universally approved, that henceforth Peace must be just and durable. Such it should always have been.
The principle is no doubt very easily enunciated. It is applauded by all and every where, even by Germany and Austria. The great, the insuperable, difficulty is to agree upon SUCH CONDITIONS as will PERMANENTLY, and to the COMPLETE SATISFACTION OF ALL CONCERNED, bless the world with the maintenance of a TRULY JUST AND DURABLE PEACE.
It is better to admit at once that the very moment the question is considered, the presently contending belligerents are as far apart as the two poles of the earthly globe.
It is extremely easy to prove it.
No one now ignores—or at least should fail to realize—what kind of peace would be accepted by Germany as JUST AND DURABLE.
To be satisfied with a settlement of peace, Germany would require the sanction by her opponents of her right to maintain, develop and strengthen her MILITARISM so threatening to the universe.
At the time she was exulting over the great and crushing victory which she was sure to have within her powerful grasp, in debating with her vanquished enemies, the conditions of peace, Germany, elated as she would certainly have been by her triumph, would have positively claimed the annexation of Belgium and of all the northern part of France by right of conquest. She would not have been less exacting than she was, in 1870, when in the face of indignant but powerless Europe, she stripped France of her two fine and wealthy provinces, Alsace and Lorraine.
She would have claimed the right to supersede England as mistress of the seas,—German supremacy replacing the British and henceforth ruling the waves.
She would have claimed the annexation of Russian Poland, and that of Servia to Austria.
She would have claimed the recognition of her imperial paramount power over the Balkans, which she would have united under the direct sway of her ally and vassal, Bulgaria.