André Chéradame

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ A vigorous offensive on the Eastern front is also in harmony with the Pangermanist plan, which for twenty-five years has looked forward to the seizure by Germany of Riga, Little Russia, and Odessa. And a German success in the south of Russia would be big with economic, naval, military, and moral consequences of world-import. The Germans would become masters of the rich and boundless wheat-lands of Little Russia, which, from the midst of their food-problems, they watch with greedy eyes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Moreover, at the present crisis, these 55,000,000 human beings, subjected to the most heartless German and Bulgarian terrorism, are coming to understand better and better that the only means of escape from a ghastly slavery, from which there is no appeal, is to contribute at the earliest possible moment to the victory of the Entente. The insurrectionary commotions that have already taken place in Poland, Bohemia, and Transylvania, prove what a limitless development these outbreaks might take on if the Allies should do what they ought to do to meet this psychological condition. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Certain Allied groups having apparently made up their minds that the ‘democratization’ of Germany would suffice to put an end automatically to Prussian militarism and to German imperialism, it was concluded at Berlin that a considerable number, at least, of their adversaries, being weary of the war, might be willing to content themselves with a merely formal satisfaction of their demands, in order to have an ostensibly honorable excuse for bringing it to an end. ”

“ No parallel situation is to be found among the Entente powers. The ruin of Russia, for example, would simply make the ruin of France more inevitable, unless a decisive victory of the Allies were to rob Germany of her iniquitous spoils and at the same time guarantee to France the legitimate reparation which alone can save her from irretrievable financial disaster. ”

“ Everything favors concerted action by the United States and the Allies. Their material and moral interests are identical, and, in doing away with autocracy, Russia removed the well-justified distrust felt in the United States for the land of the Tsars. As we have seen, a German victory over Russia, involving the fall of Saloniki and, later, the breaking of the Western front, would be unquestionably the most dangerous eventuality imaginable for the future security of the United States. ”