New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-09-07

have been left the battle with England,
hut who can doubt what the end Of that
battle would have been, with Germany at
the Straits Of Dover, at the lsthmus Of
Suez and in a little time at the gates Of
India?
Bernhard had written that the next
war would mean for Germany World
Empire or Downfall" and on the night Of
September 3, 1914, when General Joffre
issued the laconic order which will sur
vive even his fame in the memory Of
Frenchnen. that world empire seemed in
the hands Of those generals who had car
ried the German flag far down into the
heart Of France. On that night Jofre
called upon his soldiers, all his men from
Paris to the mountains, TO advance and
bade those who could no longer advance
die in the trenches they had won. What
were his thoughts on that night?
And on the next morning there began
that advance which did not end until the
great peril had passed. Along the whole
front Of a hundred and fifty miles the
beaten French took the offensive. The
tide was not instantly turned. There were
retreats. but there were more examples
of the obedience of the men to their gen
cral. Eric Fisher Woolf, an American, at
tached TO the Paris Embassy, reports Of
a trip to the battlefield a few days later
that there he found in one instance a
whole French regiment which had died as
they stood; their bodies still lay where they
Rad been cut down. Over and over again
he found the same proof of final sacrifice,
reaching south first as the German flood
still pounded on. then turning back TO the
point where the German recoil degen-
Grated into something approximating
flight.
More than all else this Battle Of the
Marine was the death grapple Of two
IDEAS Had France failed then, Democracy
would have failed. All that we and the
French have wrought, all that France
Great Britain and the United States have
meant in the recent centuries would have
gone down before the supreme efficiency
of something which was not Democracy
but a strange new fusion Of ancient
Sparta and modern science-an autocracy
which based its claim 70 power upon It's
efficiency and was fighting for world
power. What Valmy meant TO the French
Revolution the Marine meant to all that
had followed and extended the victories
fol human liberty which the Revolution
marked.
France and Democracy won. After the
Marine there was no more danger Of
vassal France, Of a France no longer
free. erect. the soldier of civilization. Her
time of trial has not yet passed. Lille
and St. Quentin are still in German
hands, as Strassburg and Metz have been
for so many years. Other cities have
fallen to ashes, and the storm Of Krupp
still opens new breaches in the walls Of
Rheims. But the end is not longer in
doubt. There will be a strong, demo
cratic. glorious France hereafter as be
fore. The France that checked Attila
and overcame the Saracen has flung back
one more invasion Of barbariSm.
But the victory, like all other French
victories, was only in a small measure
won for France. 1t was a victory Of
ideas, won for all mankind-a gift Of new
life to Democracy sealed in French blood
England, America, but most Of ALL Ger
many, will profit from this great victory
This is what the German quoted above
already felt. only a year after his nation
had been defeated. Already he perceived
in the consequences new progress for his
own nation. lie realized that had the
battle for world empire been won there
might have been a defeat for something
that to him seemed far greater for
Germany.
The Great War has seen two decisive
battles: the Marine and the fight along
the Dunajec. which was the beginning Of
Russian disaster Each terminated a
great invasion, each rolled back flood
which threatened to destroy a nation and
a civilization. Not impossibly in the years
that are to come the victory Of the Ger
mans will seem but little less Of a contri-
button to human progress than that Of
the French When the passions of the
present hour have passed it is far from
unlikely that the turning back Of the
Slav, with his form of autocracy, may
appear almost as real a victory for De
mocracy as that repulse Of the Teuton al
the Marine.
Yet on the anniversary of the Marine
Americans, looking back to the fact that
the opening day Of the battle was also
the birthday of Lafayette, will be re-
minded again of the great debt they are
under TO the French, a debt which began
with our own history, which was increased
by the triumph Of last year, which insured
the survival of the ideas and ideals which
we in America have held to since our