New-York tribune., 1917-07-28

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the world war.
The Russian collapse impresses US the
more because we had few weeks ago
little Russian offensive, momentarily sue
cessful, which suddenly. transformed all
our fears into hopes more unreasonable
than our fears had been. Six months ago
it had been recognized in Paris, London
and Rome that Russia was to all practica!
purposes out of the war. Before the
Romanoff dynasty fell it was known of all
men that it was seeking to make sepa-
rate peace with Germany.
Russia has now struck and collapsed
What had been feared has become in great
degree an actuality; but what would have
been the situation in the world if Russia
had collapsed two years ago, when there
was no British army? Let us not be too
ready to accept the arrival on the Western
front Of the troops now occupied with the
Russian retreat. They may come in time,
and they may not But when they do como
they will not give the Germans the ad-
vantage of numbers on the Western front
to-day possessed by the Allies, and to-
morrow we may hope that some thousands
and hundreds of thousands of American
troops will also be on the Western front.
Let no man imagine that Germany has
gone through three years Of this bitter,
grueling struggle without suffering as
intensely as any participant in it. The
pick of her manhood has gone. Isolated
from the world, suffering hardships which
are only just beginning to be felt in
France and England, for more than two
years conscious that whatever the issue OF
the war the German commercial and indus
trial future is doomed, it is not with en-
thusiasm and it is not with an overplus.
age of hope that the German people are
now looking forward to another winter Of
war and another summer Of carnage.
There is a balance somewhere between
that alert appreciation of the difficulties
of a situation which is necessary to the
performance of duty and that blind, un-
reasoning fear which magnifies each de-
feat, minimizes each victory and plays the
enemy's game by making him out not only
stronger than he is, but also stronger than
he possibly could be.
To believe that Germany can win this
war would be to believe that all our faith
is empty; that all we have loved and be-
lieved and trusted in the years of our life
time and all that has been believed AMI
trusted by our fathers and grandfatherS
is now going into the melting pot; that
barbarism is at last to prevail over civili-
zation, and brute force to replace humanity
and Justice. To believe that Germany can
win this war is to cease to believe in all
that life holds for any of us.
And there is nothing in the present out
look or the past history of this war to war
rant such belief. In August and Sep
tember, 1914, the German army, prepared
for forty years, superior in numbers, in
all that mechanical devices can do for an
army, was defeated along the Marne, and
that defeat made inevitable the ultimate
defeat of Germany. The drive to Paris
failed; the drive to Calais failed; the drive
to Verdun failed. Along the Chemin-des-
Danes still another German drive is fail.
ing, and before many weeks have passed
we shall see another British victory greater
than the Somme, or Arras, or Ypres.
General Foch, who won the Battle of the
Marine, wrote years before that battle is
only lost when people believe it to be lost.
On the battlefield he sent to Joffre mes
sage we may we'll remember now: "My
left is shaken, my centre is retreating, my
right is routed; shall attack" He did
attack and won the Marne. We shall no,
lose this war with the Germans unless we
will to lose it, unless we consent to lose it,
unless we permit ourselves to be conquered
in spirit while we still have weapons in
our hands and strength in our bodies. 1t
is time for the people Of the United States
to seek to acquire something of the spirit
and something of the determination of the
French soldiers who said at Verdun, "They
shall not pass"