"The same spirit of equity and justice must guide the examination of the other territorial and political questions, notably those relative to Armenia, the Balkan States, and the territories forming part of the old Kingdom of Poland, for which, in particular, its noble historical traditions and suffering, particularly undergone in the present war, must win with justice, the sympathies of the nations."
The deep esteem in which the Allies and the rest of the nations held the Pontiff assured an attentive and respectful hearing of his appeal. But his intervention was nevertheless denounced as an espousal of a German peace, in that it would enable Germany to take her place at the peace council table with all her lost colonies restored, exempt from every demand for reparation for the ruin she had wrought, secure in the possession of all her territory, and with the future of Alsace-Lorraine, Trent, Trieste, Poland, Rumania, and Serbia left for settlement by negotiation by the parties in conflict. The Papal proposals were also objected to in making no distinction between the combatants, but placed them all on the same footing as apparently "stricken by a universal madness."
It soon became apparent that the Allied Powers, including the United States, were a unit in agreeing that the Papal note, because it overlooked the issues for which the Entente was fighting, must be respectfully rejected. President Wilson became their spokesman in a note he addressed to the Pontiff on August 27, 1917. While recognizing the Pope's "moving appeal" and the "dignity and force of the humane motives which prompted it," the President considered it would be folly to take the path of peace the Pope pointed out if that path did not in fact lead to the goal proposed. As to the Pope's proposals generally, he said:
"It is manifest that no part of this program can be successfully carried out unless the restitution of the status quo ante furnishes a firm and satisfactory basis for it. The object of this war is to deliver the free peoples of the world from the menace and the actual power of a vast military establishment, controlled by an irresponsible Government, which, having secretly planned to dominate the world, proceeded to carry the plan out without regard either to the sacred obligations of treaty or the long-established practices and long-cherished principles of international action and honor; which chose its own time for the war; delivered its blow fiercely and suddenly; stopped at no barrier, either of law or of mercy; swept a whole continent within the tide of blood—not the blood of soldiers only, but the blood of innocent women and children also and of the helpless poor; and now stands balked, but not defeated, the enemy of four-fifths of the world.
"This power is not the German people. It is the ruthless master of the German people. It is no business of ours how that great people came under its control or submitted with temporary zest to the domination of its purpose; but it is our business to see to it that the history of the rest of the world is no longer left to its handling.
"To deal with such a power by way of peace upon the plan proposed by his Holiness, the Pope, would, so far as we can see, involve a recuperation of its strength and a renewal of its policy; would make it necessary to create a permanent hostile combination of nations against the German people, who are its instruments; and would result in abandoning the newborn Russia to the intrigue, the manifold subtle interference, and the certain counter-revolution which would be attempted by all the malign influences to which the German Government has of late accustomed the world.
"We cannot take the word of the present rulers of Germany as a guaranty of anything that is to endure unless explicitly supported by such conclusive evidence of the will and purpose of the German people themselves as the other peoples of the world would be justified in accepting. Without such guaranties treaties of settlement, agreements for disarmament, covenants to set up arbitration in the place of force, territorial adjustments, reconstitutions of small nations, if made with the German Government, no man, no nation, could now depend on.
"We must await some new evidence of the purposes of the great peoples of the Central Powers."
In other words, the Pope's proposals were regarded as untenable because the Allies could not trust the kaiser and his government to respect any covenants that might flow from them. There was no responsible person to negotiate with. The Vatican was disappointed, the German press greeted the President's answer with abuse, and the Allies found the American note so comprehensive and satisfying in expressing their views that they paid no further attention to the proposal.
Germany and Austria were more responsive; but the Allies' rejection through President Wilson of the papal suggestions imparted something of an anticlimax to the Teutonic replies when they were forthcoming a month later. Both reflected an earnest desire for peace; both gave whole-hearted support to the Vatican's efforts. Austria was especially eager to enter into negotiations on the basis the Pope proposed. But neither was specific. The Austrian emperor favored disarmament and arbitration in a cloud of platitudes. The kaiser accepted the Pope's general aims, but was mute on particularizing the German aims. Both suppressed whatever terms of peace they longed to offer. Sifted down to essentials, and extricating their meaning from a welter of unctuous verbiage, the Teutonic answers merely conveyed an eager desire to reach a peace conference, withholding terms for submission until such parleys could begin. As each evaded any suggestion of definite concessions on vital points, the absence of which constituted the principal obstacles to peace, and as the Allies had already refused to negotiate with the German Government in any event, the Teutonic answers lost all significance except as diplomatic courtesies in response to the Pope's well-meant mediation. That was probably their main purpose.