The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-03-13

his eyes France isolated France ner-
vous, France desperate, was a constant
menace to the peace of the world. At
any moment she might make a plunge
by which she might hurl not only her
self, but all other nations into the hell
of general war. To prevent this, it
was necessary to offer her inducements
sufficient to lead her to acquiesce in
the status quo. There were two perils
or war before Europe, both threatened
by France. She had never accepted
either the German possession of AL
sace-Lorraine or the British occupation
of Egypt. To attempt to re-establish
her position either in Metz or in Cairo
meant war. To minimize the risk of
any such peace shattering policy, Alex
ander III, without asking for any ex-
press disclaimer by his ally of hostile
designs, directed either against Ger
many or Britain, virtually secured the
practical acceptance of the status quo
by Offering France an alliance which
was guaranteed to fall to pieces if she
undertook an aggressive war. Russia
flung over the French republic the i'm
mense aegis of her alliance, delivering
France from all dread of attack from
without, and restoring her at once to
the position in Europe which she had
lost in 1870. But all these advantages
were forfeited if France drew the
sword against the existing order, the
status quo de facto on the Rhine and
the Nile. Hence the Franco-Russian
alliance became, as it was intended it
should become, solid security for Eu-
ropean peace, and, therefore, little as
the French like 1t, virtual consecra-
ton of the treaty of Frankfort. 1t was
acclaimed, no doubt by the Chauvin-
lists of the boulevards as if it were the
first step to the Revanche. 1t was ex-
actly the opposite But Baron Mohren-
helm appears to have fooled the self
deluded Frenchmen to the top of their
bent, while the car, conscious that he
had made the limitation of the alliance
absolutely clear to the rulers of the
republic, felt under no obligation to
make public declarations which might
have annulled the whole object of his
policy of peace. The czar knew also
that, although the boulevards of Paris
might revel in the delirium of antici-
pated war, the French nation pacific
and industrious, hailed with immense
relief an alliance which delivered it at
once from all risk from foreign at
tack, or from the still greater peril of
such headlong rush to ruin as that
which eliminated on the battlefield of
Sedan.
THE DREYFUS CASE.
France is preoccupied with the Drey-
fus case. And the Dreyfus case is
militarism come to judgment, militar-
ism made manifest before the world.
The tree is known by its fruits, and the
impeachment of militarism on econom-
ic grounds contained in the Murayieff
circular is supplemented and made
complete by the revelation of the out
come of militarism in the moral field.
"Militarism," says the car. ."empties
the pockets of the nations" And
France, responding across the CONT
nent, as deep answers unto deep, an
swers, And destroys their souls!''
France preoccupied, absorbed, pos
sessed by the Dreyfus case, is the
drunken helot of militarism today
She is as one bewitched. the prey of
some foul, obsessing demon, which
takes a perverse delight in compelling
her to wallow in all manner of defile- !
ments, from which ideal France. the
deathless, the divine. would have re-
coiled with angry scorn 1t is the
nemesis of the system against which
the car has taken the fleld.t France
never had a more numerous or better
equipped army than she possesses at |
present. But France never was weak }
er, more tinorous. more under the
terror of those Nightmares which dis
turb the sleep of nations. 1t is not an |
to say that the net re-
suit uD to date of all the sacrifices !
which France has made over her arma-
mentS is to make her a prey to panic |
to an extent almost uncomfortable to
anyone outside Paris. You ask in
''Why all this tremendous |
hubbub over the revision of a sentence |
Illegal, defended by evil I
dence admittedly forged?'' and the OPP I
ponents of revision whisper with white /
lips that revision would inevitably /