New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-12-13
German Peace Terms to Russia

Of the world will find illumination in the
terms which the Germans have now pro
posed for final peace on the East front.
Shouting their battle cry of mo anneXa-
tons and no indemnities," Lenine, Trotz-
XIV and the rest of their tribe have de-
stroyed the military organization Of Rus
STA, have brought the great empire to the
position Of absolute impotence, and now
they have the answer from the enemy.
Stripped Of all unnecessary verbiage,
Germany proposes that Russia shall sur
render some 10000 square miles of her
territory, holding population of between
twenty and thirty millions; that she shall
give Germany complete control of her
wheat supplies for a term Of years, and
that she shall admit German manufactures
free of duty henceforth in the Russian
Empire. A far less humihating proposal
made by Austria to Serbia in July, 1914,
precipitated the world war. The Bolshe-
Wiki have their answer.
Those Utopians in the rest of the world
who are seeking to destroy the funda-
mental unity of the Allies by fomenting
discussion of peace terms may we'll re-
feet upon the Russian situation. If they
had their way and could produce quar-
rel between France and England over
Frances lust claims to Alsace-Lorraine;
if they had their way and could produce
q break between Italy and the other Al
lies over Italys claims to Trieste and the
Trentino, we might expect, first, the disso-
luton of the alliance against Germany
and. second, a PRONUNCIATION OF further
German terms which would include con-
ouered Belgium, occupied France, North
ern Italv and the Balkan conquests. There
is no reason to suspect that Germany
would deal more tenderly with the dlsor-
canized Allies on the West than she has
with the Bolsheviki in the East.
Bethmann-H ollweg long ago announced
that Germany would make peace as a vic
tor and on the basis Of the war map.
Russia now having asked for separate
neace. Germany has offered her peace on
the basis of the war map plus industrial
and economic subordination to Germany.
The reactionary elements which control
Germany seek now only to procure in the
West the same disorganization which they
have procured in the East to consolidate
the gains of their armies and to complete
the construction Of that Central Empire
which is TO dominate Europe and the
world.
Is it too much to hope that some por-
ton of the folly of the cracked brains,
the ignorant and the visionary will be
abolished by the hard facts of Germany's
peace proposals in the East? Is it too
much TO hope that those who are now
pattering about a revision Of the Allied
peace terms will hold their discussion UNI
I'll such time as it seems possible that the
Allies can attain any peace terms that do
not mean slavery and destruction of the
idealism of Russia 10 destroy Russian en-
deavor, to undermine Russian powers Of
resistance, and having achieved those ends
she has thrust aside the mask and de-
mands the extreme of possible profit in
the territory that she has conquered and
in addition economic supremacy hence
forth in the Slav states.
1t seems almost incredible that after
three years of warfare, Of the most ter
rible struggle that human history records,
after years in which German armies have
outraged every tradition of humanity,
every fundamental decency. every treaty,
defied every convention, there should still
be in all the countries fighting for their
lives those whose attention remains fixed
not upon the firing lines of the enemy
but upon utopian dreams which were shat
tered on that day when the first gray
clad soldiers Of the Kaiser crossed the
peI0ian frontier. II seems unbelievable,
now that the fate of France and Italy
L IN the balance, when German shells
are still falling upon Rheims Cathedral,
and Venice may be the next victim of
Tsutonic kultur. that there should be