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INTERESTING AND PERTINENT TOPICS OF THE DAY WHY GERMANY MUST BE BEATEN The world has never believed that a safe or nri adequate peace could be made with Germany until the German nnnles had been decisively defeated in the field until German military power had had its Waterloo or its Sedan SedanThe The reasons for this belief are deep and funda ¬ mental The whole Gentian structure political economic and social rests upon the doctrine of military force and military prestige Generation after generation lins Ixsen taught that Germany is the German army that Germany is great only in the degree that the army is great and that Ger ¬ many can maintain its proper place among the nations only through military power employed to create and establish German prestige prestigeThis This is no casual delusion such as afflicted the French people when distracted by the banalties of inconutetent politicians they rededicated them ¬ selves to the Napoleonic legend and gave them ¬ selves over to the rule of a charlatan Although Napoleon III might proclaim that the empire is peace no Frenchman was weakminded enough to think that Napoleon III was France lie knew better than that But to the vast majority of Ger ¬ mans the Hohenzollerns are Germany in the sense that they embody the military might of Germany of which the army is the visible and inextinguish ¬ able evidence evidenceHad Had it been otherwise this war would not have taken place and Germany will never be weaned from its idols until these idols are broken It is not easy to change the habits of thought that a strongly centralized paternalistic government lias cunningly inculcated in the minds of its rigidly disciplined subjects for decade after decade Some thing more than the ordinary processes of history are required requiredTo To make peace whatever the terms before the German armies have been beaten is to leave the German people enslaved to the Junker doctrine that might makes right They know nothing about the origins of this war except what the government has permitted them to know Most of them ardently believe that it is a defensive war undertaken to protect the fatherland against British and Russian aggression and that but for the military power of Germany the empire would long ago have been dis ¬ membered and destroyed destroyedIf If they were able to achieve peace now with their armies still intact they would continue to believe that it had been a defensive war and that their military power had successfully preserved them from ruin They would see clearly enough that their armies had not been able to gain them a victory but they would attribute defeat only to the superior numbers of the enemy The one certain lesson that they would draw from these four years of blood ¬ shed is that if Germany had been as strong ou the sea as it was on the land the war would have been won The thing to do then would be to make all possible sacrifices to put German sea power ou a footing with German land power in preparation for another war in which Germanys destiny would be realized realizedWhatever Whatever the follies of the German government iu dealing with others nations it knows the German people It knows how they think because it taught them to think the way it wanted them to think When it asks for peace now with President Wil ¬ sons program as a basis for peace negotiations it has calculated the exact reaction of these pro ¬ posals upon the German mind and is confident that a peace at this time will save the institutions of Prussianism intact intactThis This is obviously the time for a German peace The 1918 offensive is a disastrous failure The Ger ¬ man armies are steadily retiring They will soon be compelled to abandon most of Belgium Every foot of territory they surrender is that much less to trade with at the peace table AustriaHungary and Turkey are botli crumbling and may soon follow Bulgaria into a surrender Peace is not only highly desirable but peace is necessary to the German pro ¬ gram as necessary as war was in July 1914 1914It It is highly improbable that Berlin expected its new proposals to be accepted but at home they will be taken as evidence of the governments good faith By bringing in President Wilsons program as a basis the government will have no difficulty in making the German people believe that it actually accepted the Presidents program and that the warmad entente refused to make peace even ou its own terms Then the kaiser can make a new appeal to every German to exert all his efforts and to make every sacrifice in defense of a fatherland embattled on its own frontiers That is a part of the play playThis This is a war that for the future of free govern ¬ ment must be wholly won or it will be wholly lost There is no middle ground There is no point at which compromise is possible No war is ever wholly won until the military power of the enemy has been shattered and scattered There must be either unconditional surrender or unqualified defeat Until the German people have learned from bitter experience that their religion of military prestige is a tragic myth there can be no security of peace for the world on any terms whatsoever New York World
