André Chéradame

“ Let us face the cruel truth and say: the Allies may yet be completely vanquished if certain developments come about, or if new strategic mistakes are added to those portentous ones which nearly lost them the fight, in spite of the righteousness of their cause and their immense, if badly employed, latent resources. If we wish, then, really to understand the crisis of to-day and the mighty peril which still menaces the world’s liberty, we must not shrink from meeting the realities of the military situation. We must be ready to face the most serious developments that can be conceived. ”

“ Therefore we must all impress it clearly on our minds, that the battles now being fought in so many parts of the world touch us very closely; that this war is our war, a war for our liberty, for our independence, for the integrity of the territory of our native land, and that we should wage it wherever our forces can strike the heaviest blow at the power of Germany. ”

“ The last of the German schemes, and the most dangerous of all, is that concealed under the formula, ‘No annexations or indemnities’—a formidable trap, which, as I have pointed out in earlier chapters, has for its object to confirm Germany in the possession of the gigantic advantages which she has derived from the war, and which would assure her the domination of the world, leaving the Allies with their huge war-losses, whose inevitable economic after-effects would suffice to reduce them to a state of absolute servitude with respect to Berlin. ”

“ There are surely in the Allied Western countries many worthy people who, at present, no more see the result of such a peace, than a year ago they understood the enormous influences which the Balkans would exert on the course of the war. These good creatures, weary of the prolonged strife, would at once say: “After all, these are most acceptable terms: Alsace-Lorraine, the left bank of the Rhine!... let us make peace.” ”

“ Granting for a moment that Germany were victorious, Russia, after a frightful reign of anarchy, would be forced to submit once more to the yoke of autocracy. As for the peoples of Western Europe, reduced to worse than slavery, they could only renounce their dearest ideals—the ideals for which they have shed their blood for centuries. ”

“ If Serbia is re-established, Greece is certain to draw all the profits from this new situation. On the contrary, were the Pangerman designs in the Balkans to succeed, it would be Great Germany that would secure for herself all the advantages to be got from the great new trunk railway through the Balkans, the control of which she covets as usual. But it is clear that if Germany triumphed, nothing could prevent her from stretching her economic tentacles over Salonika, the Piræus, and the whole of Greece, so that in this form also the independence of Greece would be doomed. ”

“ If one deducts the 115 billions of francs devoted by Germany to the war from the total represented by all the elements of advantage already enumerated, one begins to realize that Germany has really wrung from the war present and future profits which can be computed only in hundreds of billions of francs. This war, therefore, has brought Germany boundless material gain, such as no war in history has ever brought to one people. ”

“ Moreover, an exact knowledge of the Pangerman political and military plot throws a flood of light on all the essential problems of the war: it brings out the deep-seated cause of the war; it explains the immediate causes, which are still almost unknown; it shows why it is indispensable to the freedom of the world that the Allies should achieve, not a hollow and treacherous peace, but a complete victory resulting in the destruction of Prussian militarism, which alone can put an end to the great armaments in Europe and ensure a really lasting peace. ”

“ The extent, the vigor, and the persistence of the amazing ‘pacifist’ offensive launched by Germany were such that the expressions ‘peace without indemnities or annexations,’ ‘drawn game,’ ‘white peace,’ ‘paix boiteuse,’ have become as current in the Allied countries as if [Pg 4] they had some established connection with reality. This is entirely contrary to the fact: with the best intentions in the world, peace without annexations or indemnities, as things stand now, is impossible. ”

“ No one can for a moment doubt that so long as the existing political systems of Germany and Austria endure, such a monstrous combination would be a permanent danger against which we should constantly be obliged to be on our guard. And as for the Slav populations reduced again to slavery, as for the Czechs, the Poles, the Yougo-Slavs, the Serbians, they would naturally think of nothing but of revenge in order to escape from serfdom and recover their national rights, which had been trampled under foot. ”

“ To-day Berlin, by means of Prussian terrorism methodically and pitilessly employed, disposes of the military and economic resources of one hundred and seventy-six million people, occupying a strategic position in the centre of Europe which is all to her profit. It is this very state of things, founded on the slavery of eighty-two millions of human beings, which is intolerable. ”

“ The Allies pretended that they made war on Germany because we violated the neutrality of Belgium. This cant only serves as a cloak for their own hypocritical cupidity. It is not for the Allies to reproach Germany, seeing that they have themselves violated the neutrality of Greece.
To the Allies, who can have no doubt as to the premeditated character of the German aggression, these main arguments, on which the German propaganda rests, of course, are nothing more nor less than “colossal” lies, as absurd as they are cynical. ”

“ What chance would the Allied powers, exhausted by a deadly peace, have against the thirty million soldiers of Pan-Germany, when Berlin, refreshed by a short respite, should choose to renew her hold over those western territories which she had temporarily relinquished?
Is it not plain what depths of deception lie beneath that formula, ‘peace without annexations and indemnities,’ which the Russian Socialists, ignorant of the vast advantages accruing to Germany from the war, have adopted at the suggestion of Berlin’s Leninist agents? Let us look at the facts, not at the words. ”

“ From the point of view of defending their own material interests, it is not certain that enough Americans even yet understand the magnitude of the formidable problem which the European war compels them to face and solve. It is quite natural that it should be so. In many circles of France and England it is only quite lately that people have come clearly to apprehend, as a whole, the real, the gigantic objects pursued by Germany in the war. ”

“ If you, Americans, had cast your lot with us a year ago, it would be ending about now. If you act to-day, with all your energies, and especially if you compass the Japanese intervention, you will save the lives of millions of men who, without your military and diplomatic support, will surely be sacrificed.
The real problem for America is clearly to discern Pan-Germany lurking beneath the Quadruple Alliance of the Central Powers, and to decide to strike this Pan-Germany quick and hard. This is the one and only way to foil the odious Prussian militarism which threatens the liberty of the world. ”

“ To allow it to be supposed that the project of an economic union between Germany and Austria-Hungary could be even contemplated by the Allies, would be to give over to an agony of despair the 28 million Slav and Latin subjects of the Hapsburg Monarchy, who look to the Allies as their deliverers, and who, just because of their sympathies with the Allied cause, are subjected to the most atrocious persecution. ”

“ If the Allies are to understand the crucial situation which lies before them, they must realize that, as Lloyd George said, ‘The security of civilization is directly involved in the independence of Serbia.’ But the independence of Serbia can never be assured so long as Germany practically exercises hegemony over the 50 million people of Austria-Hungary, for the Austro-German unit of 118 million inhabitants, all subject to Berlin, is geographically the mistress of the Balkans. ”

“ When they comprehend better by what an atrocious plan of slavery the world is threatened, they will understand more fully for what a sublime, what a stupendous cause their husbands, their sons, their plighted lovers, are fighting or dying with such heroic self-sacrifice. May that larger understanding of the formidable events now occurring yield to the women of the Allies at least some alleviation of their sufferings. ”

“ The Allied Socialists who have placed themselves in the spotlight have shown themselves to be, generally speaking, utopists, entirely ignorant of Germany, of the German mind, of geography, ethnography, and political economy, pinning their faith, before all else, to formulas, and knowing even less than the official diplomats of the technique of the multifold problems imposed by war and peace. ”

“ Always on the supposition that this scheme succeeded, it would, regarded from the general economic point of view, place Germany in every respect in an infinitely superior position to that of the Allies. Her direct or indirect seizure of Austria-Hungary, of the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire would secure for Germany an extraordinary economic power, against which all eventual combinations of the Allies would be impotent. The German dogged power of work, spirit of enterprise and organizing skill need no further demonstration. ”

“ Who could believe in the sincerity of a proposition which, on the face of it, is rendered impossible of fulfillment by the ‘no indemnities’ clause. And what guaranty would the Allies hold that Germany, Austria, and Bulgaria would withdraw from Serbia at the same time, in view of the fact that such a withdrawal, if bona fide, would imply Berlin’s renunciation of the whole Central Pan-German scheme and its vast attendant profits? ”

“ Then Berlin will say to the Chinese, as she now says to the Turks, “See, we are bold financiers, enterprising manufacturers, energetic business men. We will help you to turn your country to account. We shall procure for you the experts whom you need. We will give you the means of defending yourselves against your neighbours. We, who are the finest soldiers in the world, will bring up to a proper standard your endless and magnificent military forces, now in embryo. With your 300 millions of inhabitants you can be the absolute rulers of all Asia. ”

“ Every one, therefore, has a direct interest in knowing clearly why these inevitable reverberations of the immense struggle will be produced, and on what fundamental conditions those of them which bode ill for the Allies, and are yet but imperfectly understood, can and must be avoided. Hence every one of the Allies should acquire an exact notion of the present realities. Once fortified by the evidence, his opinion will become a force for the Allied Governments; it will then contribute to the victory and to the imposition of the conditions necessary for the peace. ”

“ Moreover, if Germany achieved the ruin of the Allies, it is entirely probable that the General Staff of William II would launch a formidable expedition against the United States without delay, in order to allow her no time to organize herself against the Prussian tyranny hypothetically dominating Europe. Even if Berlin felt it necessary to defer this step, Americans would none the less be forced to prepare for the inevitable struggle and to serve an apprenticeship to militarism which would be odious to them. ”

“ It is manifest that Germany cannot maintain a war against Europe except with the help of the Austro-Hungarian soldiers, whom she has dexterously contrived to enlist in her cause, and of whom the vast majority only fight because they are forced to do so by the brutal German Staff Officers who command them. ”

“ In particular, those Americans who imagine that they can stand aloof from the present formidable conflict, will then clearly understand that their future liberty really depends on the victory of the Allied soldiers, who are fighting not only for their own independence, but in reality for the independence of the whole civilized world, and particularly for that of the United States. ”

“ We need only glance at the map to realize that a really free Russian republic could never range itself on the side of Pan-Germany. It is self-evident that, if Pan-Germany were to succeed in splitting Europe in two, her economic and military pressure toward the East would be irresistible. The countless agents whom Berlin already maintains in the immense territory of Russia would find their work becoming easier and easier. ”

“ The prejudices of the Americans against Russia and England have been to a great extent mitigated, and the grand, the noble attitude of the people of France, the tenacity and the heroism of her soldiers, have proved that France is far indeed from decadent. To-day we may say, for it is the truth, that France has won the deep and enthusiastic admiration of all the really independent American citizens of the United States. This progressive change of opinion has ranged the Americans more and more on the side of the Allies. ”

“ No student outside of Germany itself has studied the Pan-German scheme in all its details more thoroughly than the distinguished French publicist, André Chéradame. For more than twenty years he has devoted all his energies and resources, physical and intellectual alike, to a vigorous and exhaustive investigation of the origin and progress of the monstrous conspiracy which threatens to overwhelm the liberties of the entire world. ”

“ It is clear that if Bulgaria and Turkey, by the help of Germany, were finally victorious, these 2,500,000 Greeks would be lost once and for all to Greece. Therefore, if the government of Athens would save the Greeks, it has a primary and fundamental reason for speedily withstanding the progress of the Bulgarians as well as of the Turks. In point of fact the Ottoman Greeks are actually harassed most systematically by the fanatical young Turks. On the other hand the Russian successes in Armenia make a profound impression on public opinion at Athens, if not on the government of King Constantine. ”

“ The present war, then, is manifestly a struggle à outrance between democracy and feudalism. To Americans as well as to Europeans falls the task, not only of preserving their corporeal independence, but of saving our common civilization. This can be accomplished only by the destruction of Pan-Germanism.
It is plain that Berlin, failing so far to crush the Allies completely, is bending every effort to maintaining Pan-Germany in its present position, so that, after peace is declared, it may crystallize and swiftly develop its full power. ”