Trafalgar was not a battle between equal forces, and still less so was Tsushima; hence, as regards their military value, they cannot be compared with Skagerrak. In this battle for the first time there were two sides equally well trained, equally imbued with the same spirit, equally determined. Here also the smaller force won. The superior force had to quit the battle area, and only the power it retained within itself saved it from annihilation. This battle gave us, in the military sense, a victory such as naval history has never yet recorded. Its moral effect upon our fleet, especially after the long harassing wait, cannot be expressed in words. It did not end the war, but it gave us more confidence and startled England, who always thought she had an invincible fleet.
On the victory of Trafalgar England founded her colonial world power, because she thereby obtained the mastery of the seas, which remained unchallenged. Tsushima gave Japan the sea power in the East which she needed to carry out her military plans on land. It no more ended the Japanese-Russian war than Trafalgar had ended the struggle of that day, but it gave Japan a military success which was of great value to her in peace negotiations. We hope that Skagerrak is a blow against the victory of Trafalgar and the first step toward the smashing of British sea power, and that other mighty hammer blows will fall against the barriers which shut off other peoples from the freedom of the seas.
International Socialists' Peace Campaign
A Message Sent to the Socialists of the Central Powers by Those of the Entente Nations
Emile Vandervelde and Camille Huysmans, the Chairman and Secretary of the International Socialist Bureau, on March 1, 1918, signed and transmitted a message to the Socialists of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria, inviting them to consider the declaration on war aims adopted by the Interallied Labor and Socialist Conference in London, Feb. 23, and asking them to propose conditions of their own for comparison. The communication was printed April 17 without comment in the German Socialist organ, Vorwärts, being reproduced by it from the Paris Humanité. It is as follows:
The third Interallied Socialist Conference, which was held in London from Feb. 20 to Feb. 23, has commissioned the President and Secretary of the International Socialist Bureau to communicate to you the authentic text of the memorandum which has been adopted by the meeting: of delegates of the Labor and Socialist organizations of Great Britain, France, Italy, and Belgium. The main ideas of this document have received, or had received in advance, the approval of the parties of Serbia, Portugal, Greece, Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.
A special mission, consisting of Stuart, Bunning, (England,) Jouhaux and Cachin, (France,) a Belgian delegate, an Italian delegate, and the Secretary of the International Socialist Bureau, Camille Huysmans, has gone to the United States in order to obtain the adhesion of the American working class to this memorandum, which expresses the point of view of the organized proletariat of the Entente countries with regard to the necessary foundations of a democratic peace and the principal conditions for a general international Labor and Socialist conference, which has been summoned to a neutral country by "a committee which provides all guarantees of impartiality toward the various elements which are called to take part."
In making this communication to you the signatories of this message consider it profitable to recall objectively the reasons which determined the acceptance of the procedure proposed by the London Conference.
The conference was of the opinion that it would be of no use to assemble a general congress unless its aim had been established in principle.
The conference was of the opinion that "the principal condition for the holding of a plenary assembly of the International consists in its organizers satisfying themselves that all the organizations to be represented formulate in precise terms and by a public declaration their peace conditions upon the basis of the principles of peace without annexations and without indemnities of a punitive character, and the right of the peoples to self-determination," and, further, that these organizations will "work with all their power to obtain from their Governments the necessary guarantee that these principles shall be applied honestly and without arriere-pensées in the settlement of all questions raised at the official peace conference."
In order itself to satisfy these conditions, the London Conference has considered it necessary to state precisely its views and its action in the memorandum which we are commissioned to communicate to you.
The conference expects that your party, following the same idea, will resolve to issue a public declaration of a similar kind, whether separately or jointly with the Labor and Socialist organizations of Central Europe.
In the opinion of those who took part in the London Conference the comparison of these documents will be of the greatest importance. It will be a principal means of establishing whether a sufficient agreement of views exists between the proletariats of the two belligerent groups to make possible a common action against imperialism and for a democratic peace. This preliminary examination is all the more necessary, because it is obvious that no important party, conscious of its responsibility, will run the risk of having the resolutions of an international congress imposed upon it by the will of a majority. Only resolutions which were the expression of a general and common will would possess moral authority and practical effect.
The sum of the matter is that the Socialists of the Entente countries request you in this grave hour, in which it is necessary to know whether the world is to be freed by democracy or to be handed over to imperialism, to ask your consciences whether a real, sincere, and effective agreement of the wills of the proletariats is possible in order to put an end to the law of violence, in order to lay the foundations not of a peace, but of the peace, and in order to help the peoples to liberate themselves from the endless chain of military war which leads to economic wars, and of economic wars which will again produce military wars.
We add to the messages only one observation. Since the London Conference momentous events have taken place which constitute the gravest menace for the workers of all countries. The principles to which they appeal have been shamefully violated. The right of the peoples to self-determination has been openly disregarded. In Austria and Germany themselves Socialists have expressed the fear that Russia, disarmed and for the moment impotent, might become a battleground in which the rival imperialisms and their claims would meet and ultimately satisfy themselves jointly at the cost of the defeated revolution.
The working classes have a common interest in protesting against such events and in preventing the realization of such projects.
That is the wish of the authors and the signatories of the memorandum. In the same spirit we beg you to subject this document to a conscientious and thorough examination.
In communicating this request to you we address to you, comrades, our Socialist greetings.
At a meeting of the Socialist Party Committee in Berlin on May 31, according to the Vorwärts, Friedrich Ebert, Vice President of the Social Democrats, announced that the party leaders had indirectly received a copy of the Entente Socialist memorandum on war aims. Philipp Scheidemann declared that the aims of the Entente Socialists were to a great extent in complete accord with the annexationist aims of the Entente Governments. The committee adopted a resolution pledging continued adherence to the Reichstag peace resolution of July, 1917, which declared for no annexations and no indemnities.