World War I Endings (2)

The Russian revolution was in some respects a blow to the central
powers. In the first place the fact that Russia had a despot for a
ruler while England, France, and Italy were countries where the people
elected their law makers, made it impossible that there should be the
best of understanding between the allies. Then, again, the various
peoples of Austria-Hungary, while they were not happy under the rule
of the Hapsburg family, were afraid lest, if they became subjects of
the Czar, it would be "jumping from the frying pan into the fire."
They would rather bear the evils of the Austrian rule than risk what
the Czar and the grand dukes might do to them. Turkey, likewise, was
bound to stick to Germany to the end, because of her fear that Russia
would seize Constantinople. When the new government of Russia, then,
announced that they did not desire to annex by force any territory,
but only wished to free the peoples who were in bondage, it removed
the fear of the Turks as far as their capital city was concerned; it
showed the Poles, Ruthenians, and Czechs of Austria that they were in
no danger of being swallowed up in the Russian empire, but that, on
the other hand, the Russians wanted them to be free, like themselves;
it showed the German people how easily a whole nation, when united,
could get rid of its rulers, and encouraged the bold spirits who had
never favored the military rule.

The nations of the Entente, including the United States, are now
united in an effort to stamp out the curse of feudalism in Austria and
in Germany--a curse which has disappeared from all other parts of the
civilized world. They are united to crush the military spirit of
conquest which exists among the war leaders of the Prussians. They are
pledged "to make the world safe for democracy" as President Wilson has
said; to do away with the rule of force. So long as the governments of
Germany, Austria, and Turkey place the military power at all times
above the civil power, so long will it be necessary to police the
world. There must be no repetition of the savage attack of August,
1914. There was a time when many of us believed that some one nation,
by disbanding its army and refusing to build warships, might set an
example of disarming which all the world would finally follow. It now
is plain that there must be a "League to Enforce Peace" as
Ex-President Taft and other American statesmen have declared. The
United States, Great Britain, Russia, France, Italy, Belgium,
Portugal, Serbia, Greece, together with Spain, Holland, Norway,
Sweden, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and other nations where the will of
the people is the law, must unite in an alliance which will insist on
arbitration as a means of settling disputes.

In 1870, Great Britain and the United States had a dispute which might
well have led to war. Instead of fighting over it, however, they laid
their trouble before a court of five men, a Swiss, an Italian, a
Brazilian, an Englishman, and an American. This court, by a vote of
four to one, decided against England, and England accepted the
decision as final, although it cost her many millions of dollars.

The League to Enforce Peace must insist that each nation in the world
maintain only a small force of soldiers, to be used as police for its
own affairs, and there must be an international police to settle all
differences between nations and to enforce the orders of the court of
arbitration. In time (no one knows how soon) the people of Germany and
Austria will be freed from the military rule which now has the power
to hurl them into war. When that day arrives and they learn that they
have been led astray by Treitschke and Bernhardi, who preached that
war was a blessing to a nation and that only the powerful nations had
the right to survive, they will know that "Thou shalt not kill" is
just as strong a commandment today as when it first was uttered.

Sometime, nations will learn that other nations have the right to
live, and that no country can wrong another through force of arms
without suffering for it in the end. In a blunted conscience, in the
loss of the sympathy of the rest of the world, in a lessening of the
Christ-spirit of doing good to others, the nation which resorts to
force to gratify its own selfish ends, like the individual, pays the
full penalty for its misdeeds. It, was a great American who said, "The
world is my country and mankind are my brothers."