Various

“ The American soldier, a part of the life of his nation, imbued with devotion to his country, has something in him that no system or mere military training and discipline as applied to automatons of an absolute Government can ever give. The most priceless heritage which this war will leave to a war-torn and weary world is the demonstrated fact that a free people of a free Government can make war successfully and triumphantly, can defy and defeat militarism and preserve through it all their independence, their freedom, and the integrity of their institutions. ”

“ We cannot mistake what they have done—in Russia, in Finland, in the Ukraine, in Rumania. The real test of their justice and fair play has come. From this we may judge the rest.
They are enjoying in Russia a cheap triumph in which no brave or gallant nation can long take pride. A great people, helpless by their own act, lies for the time at their mercy. Their fair professions are forgotten. They nowhere set up justice, but everywhere impose their power and exploit everything for their own use and aggrandizement, and the peoples of conquered provinces are invited to be free under their dominion! ”

“ We can and should keep the issue clear of all selfish and imperialistic ambitions, but the issue itself cannot be compromised. Cost what it may in treasure and blood, the burden, as if by fate, has been laid upon us, and we must meet it manfully and successfully. To compromise is to acknowledge defeat. The policies of Frederick the Great, which would make of all human souls mere cogs in a vast military machine, and the policies of Washington, which would make government the expression and the instrument of popular power, are contending for supremacy on the battlefield of Europe. ”

“ We can defend ourselves successfully in France, and we can also hold our empire against any one who assails it in any part of the world at the same time.
May I, before I leave this topic, say how much gratitude we owe to India for the magnificent way in which she has come to the aid of the empire in this emergency?
It is not the fact that we have got three British divisions in Egypt and Palestine and one in Mesopotamia that has enabled us to hold our own, but it is the fact that we have had these splendid troops from India. ”

“ The first question that occurred to me on reading your appeal was, Is it really a more inhumane method of waging war when Germany, in defending herself against an immensely superior force of enemies in a fight for existence forced upon her, makes use also of poisonous gas, than when her enemies pour over our armies, so much weaker in numbers, devastating and disintegrating showers of iron, lasting days and weeks, and to which we cannot reply in such volume because we have not so many human hands at our disposal for the manufacture of munitions as our enemies have? ”

“ A third phase has now followed in this northern blow and once again the British have had to sustain the abominable pressure of German divisions constantly relieved and supported by fresh divisions passing through them, while the British troops fight on and on, killing the enemy in large numbers, but having to withdraw to new lines of defense. Under these enormous odds their heroism and their sacrifices are beyond words that may be uttered except in the silence of one's heart. ”

“ Whatever may happen, we shall not sacrifice German interests any more than Germany will desert us. Loyalty on the Danube is not less than German loyalty. We are not fighting for imperialist or annexationist ends, either for ourselves or for Germany, but we shall act together to the end for our defense, for our political existence and for our future.
The first breach in the determination of our enemies to war has been driven by the peace negotiations with Russia. ”

“ When the enemy was advancing in masses the British flying men flew as low as 100 feet, dropping bombs among them and firing into them with machine guns. They attacked German patrols of cavalry and scattered them and machine-gunned trenches full of men, batteries in action and transport crowding down narrow roads. They fought German scouts and crushed them, and there are several cases in which they fought German airplanes at night, so that it was like a fight between vampire bats up there where the clouds were touched by moonlight. ”

“ But, obscured by the débris of European life, confused with the dynastic quarrels and racial bitterness of the Old World, it was difficult to discern, and still more difficult to realize, that the very life of our institutions was at stake, that the scheme of the enemy, amazing and astounding, was not alone to control territory and dominate commerce, but to change the drift of human progress and to readjust the standards of the world's civilization. Perhaps, too, our love of peace, our traditional friendship for all nations, lulled suspicion and discouraged inquiry. ”

“ A republic can make war. It can make war successfully and triumphantly and remain a republic every hour of the conflict. The genius who presided over the organization of this Republic, whose impressive force was knit into every fibre of our national organization, was the greatest soldier, save one, of the modern world; and the most far-visioned leader and statesman of all time. He knew that though devoted to peace the time would come when the Republic would have to make war. ”

“ That program once carried out, America and all who care or dare to stand with her must arm and prepare themselves to contest the mastery of the world—a mastery in which the rights of common men, the rights of women and of all who are weak, must for the time being be trodden underfoot and disregarded and the old, age-long struggle for freedom and right begin again at its beginning. Everything that America has lived for and loved and grown great to vindicate and bring to a glorious realization will have fallen in utter ruin and the gates of mercy once more pitilessly shut upon mankind! ”

“ There are resemblances between the Russian revolution and the French Revolution, but from our point of view, and from the point of view of the war and of how we are to secure in the future the freedom of small nationalities, and how we are to save the world from the domination of one overgreedy power, from that point of view no greater misfortune could have occurred than the coincidence between the Russian revolution and the fact that a war was being conducted in which Russia was one of the great Allies. ”

“ The British had machine guns well placed with a wide field of fire, and as the Germans came down the slopes they were swept with streams of bullets, which cut swaths in their formations, but once again, as on March 21, the enemy was reckless of life, theirs as well as the British, and always his tide of men flowed forward, passing over dead and wounded, and creeping forward like flowing water. ”

“ There were strange and terrible scenes on all the roads leading to the battle zone where British infantry and gunners were going forward to stem the tide. Masses of transport moved and civilians passed them in retreat to villages outside the wide area of shell range, and wounded men came staggering down afoot, if they could walk, or were brought down by ambulances, threading their way through all this surge and swell of war. ”

“ It is but the assurance of the effort to give to the world its chance to take democracy. This war of America is the announcement that we, by our entrance into the conflict, will prevent any despot from depriving any people of the right to exercise their free will in rejecting despotism and choosing democracy. The United States does not fight [283] to force any Government to adopt the theory of our Government, nor does the United States fight to force any foreign people to take our form of government against any form of government they may choose for themselves. ”

“ I should be ashamed in the presence of affairs so grave, so fraught with the destinies of mankind throughout all the world, to speak with truculence, to use the weak language of hatred or vindictive purpose. We must judge as we would be judged. I have sought to learn the objects Germany has in this war from the mouths of her own spokesmen, and to deal as frankly with them as I wished them to deal with me. I have laid bare our own ideals, our own purposes, without reserve or doubtful phrase, and have asked them to say as plainly what it is that they seek. ”

“ Our men have been fighting for six days and nights like this, after the first storm of shells and gas, until their beards have grown long and their faces haggard and worn for lack of sleep, and their clothes have become torn on wire and covered with dust of mud and chalk. I saw a small party of them today so weary with this endless battle they could hardly walk, and they were holding hands like tired children and leaning against each other like drunken men, but for the most part they hold their heads up gamely, because so far luck has been against them. ”

“ It is easy to see just what this particular loan means, because the cause we are fighting for stands more sharply revealed than at any previous crisis of the momentous struggle. The man who knows least can now see plainly how the cause of justice stands, and what the imperishable thing he is asked to invest in. Men in America may be more sure than they ever were before that the cause is their own, and that, if it should be lost, their own great nation's place and mission in the world would be lost with it. ”

“ I saw their flames and their great, rolling clouds of smoke rise this morning from places where the day before I had seen French peasants plowing as though no war were near, and young girls scattering grain over the fields harrowed by their small brothers, and old women bending to the soil in the small farmsteads where all their life was centred, until suddenly the frightful truth touched them and they had to leave their homes. ”

“ The muffled echo of distant guns is heard by day and the crash of bombs by night. Just outside the city is a little cemetery where are gathered the bodies of the Italian and French aviators who have died defending these shores. The marble pavement of the Piazza and Piazzetta is torn in places, and the swarming pigeons of other days have dwindled sadly, for no tourists come to feed them. In the sky over the lagoon, where the gulls once reigned supreme, airplanes now keep watch against the ceaseless threat in the direction of the Piave. ”

“ Is it not intelligible that our enemies declare that they will not rest until a system is destroyed which constitutes a permanent threatening of our neighbors? Must they not otherwise fear that in a few years they will again have to take up arms, and again see their provinces overrun and their towns and villages destroyed? Were these people not right who prophesied that the spirit of Treitschke and Bernhardi dominated the German people—the spirit which glorifies war as an aim in itself and does not abhor it as an evil ”

“ The people of the modern world shun them and hold as their boast before earth how they disdain to pattern after them, and turning the face of all those that are new and hopeful to the one standard, approach the United States of America, and bowing in admiration, ask but to follow her past growth, hold her guiding hand, and walk beside her in the light of approving heaven.
Then who are they who misrepresent the purpose of democracy under Wilson that they may defeat all democracy to all men? ”

“ Thanks to their union, with the generous co-operation of all nationalities, my empire and monarchy have succeeded in resisting the gravest assaults for nearly three years. Nobody can question the military advantages secured by my troops, particularly in the Balkans.
France, on her side, has shown force, resistance, and dashing courage which are magnificent. We all unreservedly admire the admirable bravery, which is traditional to her army, and the spirit of sacrifice of the entire French people. ”

“ I ask further, Is it more humane to set the whole world in motion in order by starving it to prevent a great nation that, with its noble, chivalrous Kaiser at its head, has manifested clearly enough its unbounded love of peace, from taking the place to which it is entitled by the side of other nations than when this nation uses every means of defense that its enlightened scientists have discovered? ”

“ I had abandoned opposition to our mad Triple Alliance policy, because I saw that it was useless and that my warnings were represented as Austrophobia and an idée fixe. In a policy which is not mere gymnastics, or playing with documents, but the conduct of the business of the firm, there is no such thing as likes and dislikes; there is nothing but the interest of the community; but a policy which is based merely upon Austrians, Magyars, and Turks must end in hostility to Russia, and ultimately lead to a catastrophe. ”

“ There was a bloody struggle in some old chalk quarries, where many German dead now lie, and after the enemy had come some way forward ten British tanks drove into him and shattered some of his battalions with their machine-gun fire, dispersing groups of his advancing units. The tanks manoeuvred about, firing continually on each flank and causing terror among the enemy's foremost assault troops. ”