Richard Joseph Beamish

“ New life came into the war-weary ranks of heroic poilus and into the steel-hard armies of Great Britain. "The Americans are as good as the best. There are millions of them, and millions more are coming," was heard on every side. The transfusion of American blood came as magic tonic, and from that glorious day there was never a doubt as to the speedy defeat of Germany. From that day the German retreat dated. The armistice signed on November 11, 1918, was merely the period finishing the death sentence of German militarism, the first word of which was uttered at Chateau-Thierry. ”

“ Throughout the entire summer Verdun, with the whole population of France roused to the supreme heights of heroism behind it, held like a rock. Wave after wave of Germans in gray-green lines were sent against the twenty-five miles of earthworks, while the French guns took their toll of the crack German regiments. German dead lay upon the field until exposed flesh became the same ghastly hue of their uniforms. No Man's Land around Verdun was a waste and a stench. ”

“ One English officer described the ravages of modern artillery fire, not only upon all men, animals and buildings within its zone, but upon the very face of nature itself: "In the trenches crouch lines of men, in brown or gray or blue, coated with mud, unshaven, hollow-eyed with the continual strain." ”

“ We are now about to accept gauge of battle with this natural foe to liberty and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to check and nullify its pretensions and its power. We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretense about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world must be made safe for democracy. ”

“ If ever the true mettle and temper of a people were tried and exemplified in the crucible of battle, that battle was the naval and land engagement embracing Gallipoli and the Dardanelles and the people so tested, the British race. ”

“ It must be a league of honor, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles who could plan what they would and render account to no one would be a corruption seated at its very heart. Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own.
Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia? ”

“ Germany knew that a test of its empire had come. To break the wall of American might it threw into the van of the attack the Prussian Guard backed by the most formidable troops of the German and Austrian empires. The object was to put the fear of the Hun into the hearts of the Yankees, to overwhelm them, to drive straight through them as the prow of a battleship shears through a heavy sea. If America could be defeated, Germany's way to a speedy victory was at hand. If America held—well, that way lay disaster. ”

“ Again and again, during that period, it seemed that in the Balkan mountains might be kindled a blaze which might set the world afire. Balkan politics is a labyrinth in which one might easily be lost. The inhabitants of the Balkans represent many races, each with its own ambition, and, for the most part, military. There were Serbs, and Bulgarians, and Turks, and Roumanians, and Greeks, and their territorial divisions did not correspond to their nationalities. ”

“ For days the British troops bivouacked in driving rain on soaked and sodden ground. Three times they were called upon to advance over a perfectly flat country, deep in mud, and absolutely devoid of cover against well-constructed and well-planned trenches, manned by a brave and stubborn enemy, approximately their equal in numbers. They showed a spirit of endurance and self-sacrifice of which their country may well be proud.
But the repulse at Hanna did not discourage the British army. It was decided to move up the left bank of the Tigris and attack the Turkish position at the Dujailah redoubt. ”

“ We make war on your government, which is the enemy of the liberty of nations,—on your blind, wanton, cruel government, which gives you neither peace nor bread, and nurtures you on hatred and delusions. People of Vienna, you have the reputation of being intelligent, why then do you wear the Prussian uniform? Now you see the entire world is against you, do you wish to continue the war? Keep on, then, but it will be your suicide. What can you hope from the victory promised to you by the Prussian generals? ”

“ The great admiral's work was done on land; he was an organizer, a diplomatist, and a politician. He created nothing new; in all its details he merely copied the English fleet. He is tall, heavily built, with a great white beard, forked in the middle. He is a man of much dignity, with a smile which has won him renown. He might have been Chancellor of the Empire but he preferred to devote himself to the navy, to prove that the future of Germany is on the seas. His glories are the Lusitania, the fleet safely anchored at Kiel, and the long rows of innocent victims of the submarine. ”

“ The Italians had a "lagoon fleet" ranging from the swiftest of motor boats, armed with machine guns, small cannon, and torpedo tubes, to huge, cumbersome, flat-bottomed British monitors, mounting the biggest guns.
The Italian vessels navigated secret channels dug in the bottom of the shallow lagoons. Only the Italian war pilots knew these courses. Even gondolas straying out of the channels were instantly and hopelessly stranded. Not only this, but as the muddy flats and marshy islands did not permit of artillery emplacements the Italians developed an immense fleet of floating batteries. ”

“ Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people can not be. The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind.
It is a war against all nations: American ships have been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of, but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no discrimination. The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation must decide for itself how it will meet it. ”

“ The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs; they cut to the very roots of human life.
With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the government and people of the United States; that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it ”

“ It was the beginning of Germany's military debacle. The time was ripe for the coup-de-grace soon to be delivered by Americans co-operating with the Allies on a seventy-one mile front.
The Kaiser, Ludendorf and von Hindenburg abandoned hope. The command went forth from the German general headquarters to retreat, retreat, retreat, while Prince Maximilian of Baden appealed to America for an armistice. The sword in Germany's hand was broken. Autocracy, defeated in the eyes of its deluded subjects and discredited in the eyes of the world, was in headlong flight. ”

“ Hunger does not breed reform; it breeds madness and all the ugly distempers that make an ordered life impossible.
For with the fall of the ancient governments, which rested like an incubus on the peoples of the Central Empires, has come political change not merely, but revolution; and revolution which seems as yet to assume no final and ordered form, but to run from one fluid change to another, until thoughtful men are forced to ask themselves, with what governments and of what sort are we about to deal in the making of the covenants of peace? ”

“ We know only that this tragical war, whose consuming flames swept from one nation to another until all the world was on fire, is at an end and that it was the privilege of our own people to enter it at its most critical juncture in such fashion and in such force as to contribute, in a way of which we are all deeply proud, to the great result. ”

“ The only legitimate power in Belgium is that which belongs to our King, to his government, to the representatives of the nation; that alone is authority for us; that alone has a right to our heart's affection and to our submission. ”

“ Internal troubles have threatened to compromise the progress of the war. The destinies of Russia, the honor of her heroic army, the happiness of her people, and the whole future of our beloved country demand that at all costs victory shall be won. The enemy is making his last efforts, and the moment is near when our gallant troops, in concert with their glorious Allies, will finally overthrow him.
In these days of crisis we have considered that our nation needs the closest union of all its forces for the attainment of victory. ”

“ The position of the Allies was that a submarine, even though without guns or torpedoes, was practically a vessel of war from its very nature, and for it to pretend to be a merchant vessel was as if some great German man-of-war should dismount its guns and pass them over to some tender and then undertake to visit an American port. They argued that if the submarine would come out from harbor it might be easily fitted with detachable torpedo tubes, and become as dangerous as any U-boat. Even without arms it might easily sink an unarmed merchant vessel by ramming. ”

“ The prompt resolve of Canada to give us such valuable assistance has touched us deeply. . . .
"We are fighting a nation which looks upon the British Empire as a barrier to her development, and has in consequence, long contemplated our overthrow and humiliation. To attain that end she has manufactured a magnificent fighting machine, and is straining every nerve to gain victory.... It is only by the most determined efforts that we can defeat her."
And this superb German military organization, created by years of tireless effort, was that which Canadian civilians had volunteered to fight. ”

“ America's outstanding authority on matters of international conduct, former Secretary of State Elihu Root declared that the World War was a mighty and all-embracing struggle between two conflicting principles of human right and human duty; it was a conflict between the divine right of kings to govern mankind through armies and nobles, and the right of the peoples of the earth who toil and endure and aspire to govern themselves by law under justice, and in the freedom of individual manhood. ”

“ There are things worse than war, but delay, due to calm deliberation, cannot change the situation or minimize the effect of what we finally conclude to do.
"With the present condition of the war in Europe, our action, if it is to be extreme, will not lose efficiency by giving time to the people, whose war it will be, to know what they are facing.
"A demand for war that cannot survive the passion of the first days of public indignation and will not endure the test of delay and deliberation by all the people is not one that should be yielded to." ”