Middletown transcript., 1917-06-23


war or wish that we should be drawn
into it; and we are vaguely conscious
that we are fighting their cause. as
| they will some day see it as well
as our own. They are themselves
in the grip Of the same sinister power
that has now at last stretched it's ugly
talons out and drawn blood from US.
The whole world is at war because
the whole world is in the grip of
that power and is trying out the great
battle which shall determine whether
it is to be brought under it's mastery
or fling itself free.
The war was begun by the military
masters of Germany, who proved to
be also the mastrs of Austria-Hun-
gary. These men have never regard
ed nations as peoples, men, women,
and children of like blood and frame
as themselves, for whom governments
existed and in whom governments had
their life. They have regarded them
merely Is serviceable organizations
which they could by force or intrigue
bend or corrupt to their own pur-
pose. They have regarded the smaller
states, in particular, and the peoples
who could be overwhelmed by force,
as their natural tools and instruments
of domination. Their purpose has
long been avowed. The statesmen
of other nations, to whom that pur-
pose was incredible, paid little at
tention; regarded what German pro-
fessors expounded in their classrooms
and German writers set forth to the
world as the goal of German policy
as rather the dream of minds detach-
ed from practical affairs, as prepos-
ferrous private conceptions of German
destiny, than as the actual plans of
responsible rulers; but the rulers of
Germany themselves knew all the
while what concrete plans, what well
advanced intrigues lay back of what
the professors and the writer's were
saying, and were glad to 60 forward
unmolested, filling the thrones of Bal
kan states with German princes, put
ting German officers at the service
of Turkey to drill her armies and
make interest with her government,
developing plans of sedition and re-
bellion in India and Egypt, setting
their fires in Persia. The demands
made by Austria upon Servia were
a mere single step in a plan which
comprised Europe and Asia, from
Berlin to Bagdad. They hoped those
demands might not arouse Europe, but
they meant to press them whether
they did or not, for they thought them
selves ready for the final issue of
arms.
Their plan was to throw broad
belt of German military power and
political control across the very centre
of Europe and beyond the Mediterran-
can into the heart of Asia; and Austria
Hungary was to be as much their tool
and pawn as Servia or Bulgaria or
Turkey or the ponderous states OF
the East. Austria-Hungary, indeed,
was to become part of the central
German Empire, absorbed and domi-
mated by the same forces and in
fuences that had originally cemented
the German states themselves. The
dream had it's heart at Berlin. 1t
could have had heart nowhere else!
1t rejected the idea of solidarity of
race entirely. The choice of peoples
played no part in it at all. 1t con-
templated binding together racial and
political units which could be kept
together only by force,-Czechs, Mag
vars, Croats, Serbs, Roumanians,
Turks, Armenians,-the proud states
of Bohemia and Hungary, the stout
little commonwealth of the Balkans,
the indomitable Turks, the subtitle |
peoples of the East. These peoples
did no wish to be united. They ar
IDENTIFY desired to direct their own
affairs would be satisfied only by un-
disputed independence. They could
be kept quiet only by the presence
or the constant threat of armed men.
They would live under common
power only by sheer compulsion and
await the day of revolution. But the |
German military statesmen had reck- |
oned with all that and were ready |
to deal with it in their own way.
And they have actually carried the |
greater part of that amazing plan into
execution! Look how things stand.
Austria is at their mercy. 1t has !
acted not upon it's own initiative or
alo Of a
but at Berlin's dictation ever since
the war began. It's people now de-
sire peace. but cannot have it until
leave is granted from Berlin. The
so-called Central Powers are in fact |
but single Power. Servia is at it's
mercy should it's hands be but for
a moment freed. Bulgaria has con-
scented to it's will and Roumania is
overrun The Turkish armies. which
Germans trained, are serving Ger
many, certainly not themselves, and
the guns of German warships lying |
in the harbor at Constantinople re-
mind Turkish statesmen every day
that they have no choice but to take
their orders from Berlin. From Ham
burg to the Persian Gulf the net is
spread.
Is it not easy to understand the
eagerness for peace that has been
manifested from Berlin ever since the
snare was set and sprung? Peace,
peace, peace has been the talk of her
Foreign Office for now year or more;
not peace upon her own initiative, but
upon the initiative of the nations over
which she now deems herself to hold
the advantage. A little of the talk has
been made public, but most of it has
been private. Through all sorts OF