New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-08-03

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France were unready. In both democra
cies the radical and socialistic elements
had gained an ascendancy. and both were
too busily occupied with reforming the
internal conditions TO give true regard TO
external perils. Wise words of warning
were spoken by few. but the mass OF
Englishmen and Frenchmen, until the
very closing hours of the final crisis, con
tinued TO believe that German madness
was a madness Of words, and that behind
the violence of rhetoric there lay so
briefly of thought and honesty of purpose
which would prevail.
II was not until the war came that we
saw the depth of the abyss that opened at
cur feet. 1t was not until the German
invasion of Belgium had taken place and
the treaty which bound German honor had
been described by German minister as
"a scrap of paper" that men OF other ma
tions understood that German scholars
and teachers had completed their task and
a German nation believed that there was
no law. no honor, no right which was not
subordinate TO German purpose.
But this was only the beginning 10
disregard treaties was to shock whole
class of men in our world who had come
TO believe that paper has a value that
flows from something outside the will and
determination and power of those who put
their names to the agreement to make 1t
hold. 1t was a wholly different order of
things when the German murders and
crimes in Louvain taught all mankind that
Germany had also meant what she said
when she had declared that it was German
right to crush all who stood between her
end world power.
In the ashes and blood of Louvain, in
the sordd crime. in the orgy Of sadism, in
all the terrible. the brutal and the beastly
that was revealed by Germans in the open
ing hours of the war there was a fresh
revelation of what the German thing had
meant and how grave was the German
peril to all Of US, to all that our civiliza-
ton and our tradition had meant.
OF a sudden the pleasant land Of France
was transformed into a land stricken with
horror. Once more, as in the far-off days
Of the other Huns, the people fed down
the roads, women and children, fleeing
from murder and from rape, fleeing from
the violence which had written its in
celble imprint over Belgium and was now
writing it from the Meuse TO the Marine.
The weak, the helpless, the aged-these
were the victims Of German might and
German lust, while all that was beautiful
and dear to the world that loved beautiful
things fell beneath the German artillery.
1t needed only the opening salyos Of Ger
man guns playing upon the Rheims cathe-
dral to demonstrate anew what the Ger
man concention meant.
And so in the opening days Of August
and September two years ago the world
at last took full measure of the German
peril. At last we saw what Germany had
come TO mean in the world and what a
German victory would mean to the things
that we loved and to the ideas and the in
stitutions which had come down to US from
cur fathers and represented the effort and
the sacrifice of many generations. 1t was
all clear now. The danger was no longer
hidden, nor could any man or woman fail
10 appreciate the magnitude of it.
But when the storm was at last recog-
nized. when we at last saw Germany as
she was and our own world as it would be
if German might prevailed, there remained
the awful period in which each day
seemed to bring Germany nearer to the
realization of her dreams and to bring
still closer to us the ruin of all we loved.
Week after week men and women all over
the world waited anXiously to know
whether the destruction that threatened
them was to be avoided.
Looking backward after two years, it is
still impossible TO forget the agony and
the terror of those opening weeks, the
nightmare that Law between Liege and the