New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-12-10
The End of an Illusion.

. SuOQlQ destroy COIlpiCbS4y NiO 44I""4Oii'
common in America, less common else
where, that peace is possible at the present
time, or that any one Of the larger nations
involved is ready to discuss the question
of peace on terms that any other would
consider possible.
A peace to-day could only be a truce.
Another Peace Of Nimwegen or AmienS.
A peace now would be a time of
preparation for another trial of strength
because the issue Of the war remains unde-
cided And the war has but one issue.
Until the German people are ready to
recognize, what the French recognized a
century ago, that there can be no dominant
and compelling nation in Europe, that the
task of world supremacy is beyond the re
sources of any one people, any settlement
would be transitory, a mere truce.
What the world now faces is one Of the
great conflicts which represent the bid Of
a race for world mastery, an effort to re-
produce more or less completely that great
ness which Rome did realize, which Spain
and France in their turn strove for and
failed to realize.
When Louis XIV began his long reign
and his great wars with an attack upon
the Dutch his position was not largely diff
ferent from that of William II. He had
an organized and centralized country. He
had the best army in Europe. He faced a
disotganiaed and unsuspecting Continent.
He faced an England become negligible in
foreign affairs.
Yet under the shadow Of the French
peril Europe rallied. Louis XIV's first
drive from Charleroi to the very gates Of
Amsterdam was as brilliant as the German
advance Of last year over many Of the same
roads. But Louis XIV failed, paused
agreed to the Peace of Nimwegen, which
was but a truce, breathing spell, period
in which to prepare for a new blow while
guarding against previous errors. Nearly
forty years Of war were to follow before
the Peace of Utrecht ended the first bid
of France for the supremacy of Europe.
France, exhausted, bankrupt, fell away to
the abyss of the Revolution.
In the Napoleonic time the situation was
but little different. France, united again
by the first wars Of the Revolution, break
ing forth into new strength and power,
organized by the genius Of Napoleon,
paused only for the briefest time, in 1902
at the Peace of Amiens, and Europe knew
that new wars were soon to come.
1t was not until the Moscow campaign
and the Leipzig disaster that France gave
over her dream Of world empire and aban-
doned Napoleon, who fell because France
did not rise to the invasion Of 1914 as it
had to that of 1892 Not all the splendid
victories of the French Empire, not Aus
terlitz, Jena, Friedland and Wagram, not
all the glorious march Of victorious French
armies from Madrid to Moscow awaited to
conquer Europe permanently, but for ten
years France gave herself unquestioningly
to the Emperor, who fought to give her a
place in the sun"
What is taking place in Europe now is
nothing more nor less than a new bid for
world power by another race relatively re-
Gently united, now feeling the greatness
Of its power and accepting the teachings
of its rulers and teachers that it has a
mission Of world supremacy to fulfil.
Until Germany renources this dream
there cannot be peace. And how can Ger
many renounce it when her triumphant
armies are in Warsaw, in Belgrade in
Brussels, when her frontiers have reached
the Dwina and the Aisne and her generals
are at the gates of Riga and approaching
the frontiers of Albania and Greece?
! Peace under existing conditions would
be the vanest of decisions. Germany
would return tomorrow or the next day.
She would seek to separate the present
coalition, she would await the moment
when Russia and Great Britain were again
at odds to strike one and then the other,
she would recoi to leap farther a year
hence or two years hence
i A great deal Of nonsense, first and last,
has Deen talked ABOUT herman mllltarlSm
and the fashion in which the German peo-
pie have been led TO slaughter by ambitious
kings. The present war is not king-made
and William ii has followed rather than
led his people 1t is the united, sponta-
neous, inevitable outburst Of a mighty race
following the path that other races have
. 4.,J o,J -ookipe, tho coal tho Cpapich n nd
French had sought before them.
/ There can be no peace until the Germans
realize that they cannot dominate Europe
or rule the world. They cannot realize
this in victory or believe it when they are
at least half way on the road to complete
attainment. 1t may take one year, it may
take ten, it may take another war or five
more wars to establish the fact, but until
!