New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-08-03
What We Have Escaped =
August, 1914-1916.

y
opens mems eyes and their thoughts are
fixed upon the tremendous conflicts going
forward in France, in Russia and in Aus
tria. The world is still under the spell Of
battle. and judgment of results is deferred
till the time when the verdict on the bat
tlefeld shall be defnitive.
And yet the truth is-the truth that Will
impress those who come hereafter aud
look upon the battle and the suffering
with the calm eye permitted to those who
view things from distance-that the vital
things for which the war has been fought,
the things that count most for all time
have already been preserved established.
placed beyond the danger of that destruo-
ton which two years ago, and even one
year ago. seemed impending.
For more than forty years before
Armageddon came there had grown. year
by year. q menace to the whole fabric and
foundation of human life and human
institutions. One nation. one race, had
boldly. persistently, brutally affirmed that
there was no other right in the world than
that which was bestowed by force and
earned by the sword.
For more than a decade before the Aus
trian ultimatum 10 Serbia unclaimed the
foods and the storms the world had been
uneasily conscious Of peril, Of threat,
Of a danger, which at one time seemed so.
unreal as to defy credibility and so threat
ening as to insure a universal conflict. In
all this time the world was torn by two
utterly different views as to the German
menace.
To all of US, to men Of all races save
the Teutonic, it seemed incredible that the
doctrines preached by German scholars,
soldiers, statesmen could be an actual
expression of a political and moral faith
held by those who preached. Despite all
that Germans said the rest Of the world
declined TO believe that in the Twentieth
Century a nation giving every outward
manifestation Of civilization could
actually be following the example and
accepting the principles Of that barbar-
ism which had more than once swept
Europe, coming out of the darkness be
yond the Rhine and the Danube.
And yet with the opening years Of the
new century the German voice grew ever
more shrill and the German tone ever
more violent Year after year Europe
was more and more brought into the
presence of the German doctrine; what
seemed an absurd and exaggerated ma
tionsl consciousness. a ridiculous and al
most insane conception Of national policy
and purpose, became more and more IN
mistakably the solid fact of German
minds. Reluctant to believe that any
people could hold to doctrines so vicious
and SO brutal, the world was still each
year compelled to recognize more clearly
that what seemed absurd, ridiculous, be-
vond belief was the dominant idea in a
nation Of nearly seventy millions.
Again and again this German gospel
brought the world to the edge OF
war. Again and again this wholly indc-
scribable German idea that it was the
mission and the duty Of Germany to de-
stroy nations, rob neighbors, crush small
y powers, that Germany might expand and
German power and influence in the world
increase. was brought forward, and new
world crisis warned statesmen and stu
dents of contemporary history that the
German nation had become the greatest
peril to our common civilization that had
existed in centuries.
Despite all these warnings, despite ali
the outward manifestations Of German
purpose which precipitated the crises from
Tangier through Bosnia TO Agadir, de-
spite all the inward revelations Of brutal
ity that made Saverne byword the world
over, the fact remains to puzzle and 10
plague future generations that no one Of
all the nations threatened by the new Ger
man doctrine could quite bring itself to
believe that what German writers AID
teachers said was, in truth, the faith Of
the German nation and the programme
&c a mighty pcOple