The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1917-05-18
is HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF A

(kdOAJ Vi OCCURRENCE
would not fall to the lot of the pres
ent ruler of Germany and release him
from the pressing embarrassments in
which he now finds himself, as was
the good fortune of his illustrious for
bear, Frederick the Great, two hun
dred years before.
| 1t will be remembered that that
rugged and conspicuous figure in his
tory, on almost If not quite as f1imsy
a pretext as that upon which Kaiser
Wilhelm has plunged nearly the whole
world into the vortex of war, made
war on Maria Theresa, the beautiful
and accomplished empress of Aus
tria, whose title to the Austrian throne
he had but a short while before SOL
EMMY pledged his sacred honor to de-
fend at all hazards.
But sacred pledges then were but
mere scraps of paper, as they have
ever since been regarded by those po-
tentates who are ambitious for power,
I
plumber and a name and place in the
sun.
Frederick the Great, without a mo-
ment's warning, and merely for the
purpose of extending his dominions
and seeing his name in the public
prints and discussed in the courts of
Europe, invaded Silesia, which result
ed in plunging nearly the whole of Eu-
rope into a long, bloody and desolating
war.
Two hundred years later, for pur-
pose no holier and a pretext more
! frivolous, we see his murderous and
criminal act repeated in the invasion
of Belgium, without warning or her
consent
| Bavaria, France, Poland, Russia
and England became involved in the
Seven Years War.
Frederick, to the surprise of his an
tagonists and his own countrymen, de-
veloped remarkable generalship. On
more than one occasion he found him.
self hemmed in on all sides, but in
some manner, almost miraculous, he
| found means to extricate himself.
On the seventh year of the war
when his case seemed more than hope
less, and he expected annihilation-
Elizabeth, the empress of Russia, died,
and the Grand Duke Peter. her
nephew, assembled the throne, and not
only Immediately concluded peace
with Frederick, but furnished him
with food, ammunition and troops,
which enabled him to conclude an adj
vantageous peace, and he was every
where heralded as the greatest living
mortal
| We said we have wondered if any
such good luck would befall the pres
ent king of Prussia and the emperor
of Germany?
There is change in the govern
ment of Russia now as then, and it is
not impossible that a separate peace
may be effected
The New York World says that Rus
STA must now be regarded as a liability
and not as an asset.
If such unfortunately should be the
case and Russia now, as in the days of
| Frederick the Great, should furnish
| Germany with food, soldiers and the
munitions of war, the present tremen-
dous struggle could be carried on for
some years.
And then, again, if Germany's sub
marine blockade of England should
prove successful, and England is starv-
ed into submission, Germany would
compel the surrender of her fleet, and
thus strengthened she would be ena-
bled in short time to bring France
to her knees, and with the combined
fleets of Great Britain, France and
her own, she would be in a position
to give us a great deal of trouble; so
1t is the part of wisdom, it seems to
us, for the United States to assist the
allies to crush Germany now, for if
she does not she will have to perform
that task single-handed and alone, or
herself be crushed
And think not for moment that if
we had not declared that a state of
war exists between the United States
and Germany that we would have es-
capped the iron and despotic hand of
Germany's ruler.
When he assembled the throne he
was bold enough to proclaim that
world-dominion was his ambition, and
in the Monroe doctrine he would have
found an easy and convenient pretext
to make war on us, and would have
done so.
Our duty is to assist the allies in
crushing Germany without a moments