Peace negotiations

“ And it is a treaty of peace which embodies such understanding.
Peace Negotiations.
§ 267. However, as the outbreak of war interrupts all regular non-hostile intercourse between belligerents, negotiations for peace are often difficult of initiation. Each party, although willing to negotiate, may have strong reasons for not opening negotiations. Good offices and mediation on the part of neutrals, therefore, always are of great importance, as thereby negotiations are called into existence which otherwise might have been long delayed. ”

“ However, it may be said that the German people unanimously desire a settlement which will guarantee a lasting peace and which will prevent further wars. Moreover, the wish is general that, when it is time for peace negotiations, not only professional diplomats, but also representatives of the various professions and industries shall be consulted. Just as war is an affair of the whole people, so, in its conclusion, the voice of the whole people should have due weight. ”

“ The whole story of attempts to negotiate a peace is grotesque, yet the conditions surrounding the North and the South and the stress of the times speak in defence of the ambitious spirits who came to the front and essayed, by negotiations, to put an end to the war. ”

“ The deliberations of the warring nations at the close of the war, when they conclude their negotiations for the peace of Europe, will be one of the most important and far-reaching events of all history. It will be an event that will not only profoundly affect the future fortunes of Europe, but will be of vital importance to the whole civilized world. ”

“ First is our deep conviction that, where there is no lack of goodwill, all international disputes can be resolved through negotiations, without recourse to violence. An inevitable corollary of this belief is our firm conviction that all nations, whatever their political persuasions, can live together in peace. ”

“ While the war operations during the first three months of 1895 were in progress, peace negotiations too were actively under way. The annals of the hostilities which have occupied the last few chapters might have been interrupted by paragraphs telling of the progress and defeat of different efforts to secure peace; but it seemed more intelligible to the prospective reader to place him in full possession of the particulars of the military affairs as they developed, without interruption. ”

“ So that the greater the prestige, the armed force, of our nation is, the more likely is it that all our negotiations will be settled by peaceful compromise, and the longer we shall enjoy peace.
112 Therefore, under this consideration, those who would reduce our national forces are deeply mistaken, for such action would imperil our prestige, imperil our negotiations, imperil our peace, and perhaps lead eventually to a war that we might otherwise have avoided. Therefore no such deeply mistaken economy for us. ”

“ She asked us to support, not the terms of peace—that would have been premature—but merely the general proposition for an armistice in order that the belligerent parties might have time to consider whether, under the totally altered state of circumstances, it would not be possible to substitute negotiations for further bloodshed, and to obtain the results of the war without continuing the war itself. ”

“ You were speaking of peace. We need peace and quickly. And after that—what? We were more or less prepared for war, but who thought while we were at war about preparing for peace? Not one of the countries sent delegates with a workable plan. Part of our preparedness should have been a peace program. Nobody thought a year ago to call a conference of specialists. That's why negotiations drag on forever. ”

“ It is evident that the President is determined to incorporate in the peace treaty an elaborate scheme for the League of Nations which will excite all sorts of opposition at home and abroad and invite much discussion. ”

“ The present convulsion demonstrates the impotence toward permanent peace of secret negotiations, of unpublished agreements, of treaties and covenants that can be broken on grounds of military necessity, of international law if without sanctions, of pious wishes, of economic and biological predictions, and of public opinion unless expressed through a firm international agreement, behind which stands an international force. When that international force has been firmly established it will be time to consider what proportionate reductions in national armaments can be prudently recommended. ”

“ The government has charge of the foreign political relations, conducts negotiations, makes preliminary stipulations, signs and causes to be signed and concluded all treaties of peace and alliance, truce, neutrality, commerce, and other conventions. ”

“ The proposition is peace. Not peace through the medium of war; not peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and endless negotiations; not peace to arise out of universal discord, fomented from principle, in all parts of the empire; not peace to depend on the juridical determination of perplexing questions, or the precise marking the shadowy boundaries of a complex government. It is simple peace, sought in its natural course and in its ordinary haunts. It is peace sought in the spirit of peace, and laid in principles purely pacific. ”

“ It would indeed seem that when nations shall learn that their real interests are not antagonistic, that they cannot afford to go to war with one another, peace would then prevail as a policy not less than as a principle. ”

“ Every nation in negotiating has its right hand upon the hilt of its sword, and at intervals playfully unsheaths a little of its gleaming blade. As things stand at present, war and peace are bound together like the vicissitudes of day and night, of Castor and Pollux. ”

“ The best thought of the world demanded that a serious attempt be made by the leaders of the allied governments to formulate a treaty of peace which would prevent the recurrence of war. Every rightful impulse of the human heart was in accord with that purpose. ”

“ Now what is the issue for which we are fighting? In due time the terms of peace will be put forward by our Allies in concert with us—in accordance with the alliance that exists between us—and published to the world. ”

“ You see then, Sir, by this summary sketch of the points in contest, that the war being once engaged, it will not be so easy a matter as many in Europe imagine, to adjust the pretensions, so various and so important, of the respective nations, so as to be able to procure a peace. ”

“ Sir, it has been over and over stated, and is public, that we have ratified a treaty, of course a treaty of peace, and, as the country has been led to suppose, not of an uncertain, empty, and delusive peace, but of real and substantial, a gratifying and an enduring peace, a peace which would stanch the wounds of war, prevent the further flow of human blood, cut off these enormous expenses, and return our friends, and our brothers, and our children, if they be yet living, from the land of slaughter, and the land of still more dismal destruction by climate, to our firesides and our arms. ”

“ Let the true purpose of our party be clearly understood. We stand squarely for the same ideals of peace as those for which the war was fought. We do not propose to submit to the whittling down of the peace treaty to the vanishing point. ”

“ To accomplish this, little more is generally required than a simple observance of the rule of reciprocity, and were it possible for the states-men of one nation by stratagem and management to obtain from the weakness or ignorance of another an over-reaching treaty, such a compact would prove an incentive to war rather than a bond of peace. ”

“ Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?
It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world. ”

“ Nothing shall be said about them in the treaty, and both sides will be left in the next war to act on their own. No doubt the meaning of this is, that all the Continental powers of Europe will form themselves into an armed neutrality, to enforce their own principles. Should peace be made, we shall have safely rode out the storm in peace and prosperity. ”

“ The nations engaged, at least the chief of them, are fixed irrevocably in their determination that peace, when it comes, shall be no temporary patching up of hostilities and arranging of indemnities, but a solid, lasting settlement, which shall, as far as possible, place another vast European war out of the range of practical politics. ”

“ ARTICLE II. If by reason of unprovoked attack or aggressive action, wherever arising, on the part of any other power or powers either contracting party should be involved in war in defense of its territorial rights or special interests mentioned in the preamble of this agreement, the other contracting party will at once come to the assistance of its ally and will conduct the war in common and make peace in mutual agreement with it. ”

“ The treaties and agreements which bring it to an end must embody terms which will create a peace that is worth guaranteeing and preserving, a peace that will win the approval of mankind; not merely a peace that will serve the several interests and immediate aims of the nations engaged. ”

“ That simple and beautiful thing, minding our own affairs and leaving our neighbours to mind theirs, is unhappily not possible for allies. Neither is a keen and common desire for peace a sufficient basis for agreement. Peace must have terms, and terms require a basis of their own—justice, reason, and the limited gains which are based on mutual concessions. ”

“ Without entering into a minuter discussion of the merits of the peace, we may observe, in the imprudent hurry with which the first overtures from France were accepted, in the conduct of the negotiation, and terms of the treaty, the strongest marks of that precipitate spirit of concession, with which a certain part of your subjects have been at all times ready to purchase a peace with the natural enemies of this country. ”

“ Let the friends of peace concentrate their exertions in Peace Societies; and let the press proclaim throughout our land, in all its length and breadth, the folly, the wickedness, and the horrors of war; and call on our rulers to provide for the amicable adjustment of national differences. In the first treaty that shall be formed for this purpose we shall behold the dawn of that glorious day, the theme of prophets and the aspirations of saints, when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. ”

“ Having considered the war as it is and the injury which it does neutrals, and then the origin of the war and the causes which led up to it, we are now ready to make inquiry as to the way out—that is, the means by which hostilities can be brought to an end and permanent peace restored. To state in a sentence the propositions which I shall proceed to elaborate: Mediation is the means, provided by international agreement, through which the belligerent nations can be brought into conference ”

“ The war has demonstrated that the international agreements for the mitigation of the horrors of war, made by treaties, conferences, and conventions in times of peace, may go for nothing in time of war ”

“ There must be a clear understanding that Germany accepts certain principles as indisputable, and reserves for negotiation only such details as, in the opinion of the Associated Powers, are negotiable.
"In the full conviction of the power and the will of the Associated Powers to enforce a peace that shall be just and lasting, we shall thankfully accept conclusive evidence that the peoples of our present enemies are willing to co-operate in the establishment of such a peace. ”

“ To the average mind it is clear that the terms on which peace might be negotiated, if the end of the war were also to be the end of the struggle, might differ considerably from those on which a statesman would properly insist, were he convinced that the sheathing of the sword marked but the opening of a new phase of the duel. And it is this alternative which it behoves us to lay at the foundation of our peace treaty, if it should rest with the Allies to impose their terms. ”

“ All agree that some general formal arrangements between nations must be substituted for 'the clash of competing ambitions, of groupings and alliances and a precarious equipoise', and that only by such stable agreement can disarmament be got and peace rendered secure. All agree that the instrument of this international government must be a general treaty to which a number of states must be parties and that the terms of this treaty must require them to submit all forms of disputes to some pacific mode of settlement. ”

“ That the Democracies shall press for some kind of international agreement by which all the nations shall put themselves at the back of any one lawabiding nation that is aggressively attacked, or of any small country that is menaced by a stronger Power. ”

“ With a view to establishing the equilibrium of power and the peace of that part of the world, all the resources of negotiation were exhausted, and triple and quadruple alliances were formed; but they were scarcely formed before they were broken, giving an instructive but afflicting lesson to mankind, how little dependence is to be placed on treaties which have no other sanction than the obligations of good faith ”

“ The Americans yielded the point, and thus it appears that the British Government secured the accession of the principle of the great concealed objective on a matter of minor importance. Thus the word “possessions” was admitted into the mutual restoration clause of the peace treaty. ”