To us, in our continental position, all this means much less than it means to you. It does not endanger our prospects. We feel comparatively stronger every day. Our losses, though enormous, are only one-half of those of the Entente armies, according to the Geneva Red Cross Bureau's calculation. The astounding number of unwounded prisoners of war which Russia loses at every encounter, and even in spaces of time between two encounters, shows that the moral force of her army is slowly giving way, while the vigor of our troops is constantly increasing. After six months of severe fighting our military position is certainly stronger than the position of the Entente powers, though the latter represent a population of 250,000,000, (English colonies and Japan not included,) against the 140,000,000 of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey. Who can doubt on which side superior moral power fights? Who can doubt, therefore, what the ultimate result promises to be?
If it takes more time to bring matters to a decision—and a decision must be obtained at any price, if there is to follow a period of permanent peace—part, at least, of the responsibility for the horrors of the protracted war, for the slaughter of many hundred thousands more of human beings, rests on America. But for the American transports of guns and ammunition, the power of Russia would give way in a shorter time, considering her enormous losses in that respect and her inability to supplement them from her own workshops.
It is very edifying that American pacifists are exerting themselves against the current of militarism which appears to spread in their country; but wouldn't it be better still, more to the purpose and certainly practically more urgent, to insist upon a truly neutral attitude of the great republic, to protest against her feeding the war by providing one belligerent side with its implements? Do American pacifists really fail to see that their country by such proceedings disables herself from being the peacemaker of the future? Do they think it immaterial from the standpoint of her moral power, as well as of her material interests, how central Europe, a mass of 120,000,000, think of her, feel about her?
I hope my readers will not find fault with me for using such plain language. My well-known enthusiastic regard for the great American commonwealth makes it unnecessary that I should protest against the charge of meaning disrespect or anything else whatever but a sincere desire to state with absolute sincerity how we feel about these matters, in what light they appear to us. I think America must know this, because it is part of the general situation she has to reckon with when shaping her policies. I fervently hope these policies will remain in concordance with the great principles on which the commonwealth is built and with the teaching embodied in that farewell address which is read once a year in Congress and in which the greatest American emphatically warns his countrymen from becoming entangled in the conflicts of European nations.
A few words more about the future of Europe may be said on this occasion. I have read with the keenest interest your own and Mr. Carnegie's statements concerning a future organization of Europe on the pattern of the United States. My personal views concerning this magnificent idea have been expressed in anticipation in my America lectures of the year 1911. Allow me to quote my own words:
Analogies are often misleading, the most obvious ones especially so. Nothing seems more obvious than to draw conclusions from the existing union of American States to a possible union of European nations; but no fancied analogy is to be applied with greater caution than this one. The American Union's origin was the common struggle of several English colonies, now States, for their emancipation; unity of purpose was the main principle of their growth, union its natural result.
Europe, on the other hand, is, in her origin and in her present state, a compound of conflicting interests and struggling potentialities. Mutual antagonism remained the principle of growth embodied in the several national lives. The juridical formula of this system is the principle of national sovereignty in its most uncompromising interpretation and most limitless conception. As such it is the natural result of a historical growth mainly filled with antagonism; in the consciousness of (European) nations it lives as synonymous with national honor, as something above doubt and discussion.
Let me add to this the following remarks:
1. Any sort of union among the nations of Europe appears impossible if it is meant to include Russia. Russia represents eastern mentality, which implies an unadmissible spirit of aggression and of conquest. It seems to be a law of nature on the old Continent that eastern nations should wish to expand to the west as long as they are powerful. Not to mention the great migration of nations which gave birth to mediaeval organizations, you may follow this law in the history of the Tartars, of the Turks, and of Russia herself. The spirit of aggressiveness vanishes only when decay sets in, which is still far from being the case of Russia, or when a nation is gradually converted to Occidental mentality, which, I hope, will some day be her happy lot. But till then, and that may mean a century or two, any sort of union including Russia would mean a herd of sheep including a wolf.
2. What I hope then, for the present, as the most desirable result of the war, is a thorough understanding between the nations of the Western European Continent, construction of a powerful political block, corresponding to the area of western mentality, in close connection with America; such a block would discourage aggression from the east; it would urge Russia on the path of reform and home improvement. England would be welcome to join it, on condition of renouncing those pretensions to monopolizing the seas which are as constant a menace to peace as Russian aggressiveness is. So we should have, if not "the United States of Europe," which at present lies beyond the boundary lines of possibilities, a strong peace union of the homogeneous western nations. Alas! this result can be reached only by destroying the present unnatural connections, which mean the continuance of war till a crushing decision is obtained.