Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-12-04

allies up on both main fronts, and
while she can compel us to fight half
| q year for a mile or two of Belgium,
she is not beaten to a degree which
makes the slightest whisper of peace
talk possible.
Whining to Deceive Allies
Can you conceive what the kaiser s
plenipotentiaries would say il an
1 armiStice were declared tomorrow
| His spokesman cringe and whine a
| little in the Reichstag just now in
! order to deceive us, but their de-
meanor would change in an instant
If we were foolish enough to direct
our guns to cease firing. They have
tramp cards in their hands. They
would say: Beaten? The mere suS-
gestion is ridiculous. Why, we have
won! You only consented to talk
about peace because you could fight
no longer. You have been fighting be-
yond Ypres on the very ground
where you fought three years ago.
| The French line in front of Verdun
| is not even where it was in January,
1916. France says she wants back
Alsace and Lorraine. We won them
with the sword; has she been able to
win them back with the sword?
You talk of reconstituting Serbia.
Have YOU recovered a yard of Ser
| bia? Italy wants Trieste and the
Trentino. Then why did she not con-
quer them? Your talk of Poland and
western Russia is absurd. Poland has
disappeared. How can you claim to
settle the future of Constantinople
when you could not advance five
miles toward it? You say you have
! beaten us in Belgium. Then why
| didn't you turn us off the Belgian
coast? We have invaded immense
regions, and in three years you nave
not wrested from us much more than
the area of single English county.
We are the victors and the solld
proof that we are unbeaten lies IN
the ground we continue to hold, al,
though the whole world is arrayed
| against us"
SuppIiants Till We Rctake Spoils
OF course this would not be true
and balanced picture of the situation
but it is just the picture with which
Germany would confront us If
peace conference were summoned
now. These considerations shatter the
nonsensical contention of the experts
that we do not want to win ground.
Until we have recovered the lost ter
ritories of the allies, until we have
stripped Germany of her conquests,
we are suppliants What are our
troops fighting for on the Passchen-
daele Ridge? For ground, for the
positions which will enable them to
turn the forest of Houthoulst and
make the Belgian coast untenable Tor
the enemy. So long as the Germans
can offer the resistance they nave
shown in the little district between
Poelcappele and Passchendaele they
are, for practical purposes, able to
AnI11l terms III
we listened to proposals for peace
negotiations, the kaiser would very
soon unroll his map and point to all
mid Europe from Nieuport to the
Bosphorous, striped like a zebra in
German black and white, and where
then would be the gentlemen VINO
spend their time in the amiable oc-
cupation of building imaginary king
doms in lands which the allies have
not yet retrieved?
We speak of a reconstructed Bel
GUM, of a France extended to her
old boundaries of new and greater
Serbia, of an enlarged Rumania, OIL
the recovery of unredeemed Italy, OF
a resuscitated kingdom of Poland;
but what is the use of talking these
things and defining all the wonder
full states we mean to create when
the one plain and obvious task is to
get the ground first? Those who
talk of peace now seem to assume
that we are to say to the Germans:
Theoretically you are done for 1t
is true that in three years we have
not been able to drive you back even
thirty miles, and that you are still
holding out; but all our experts have
proved to you on paper thousand
times that you have been overwhelm-
ingly defeated and therefore we shall
be glad if you will consider your
selves crushed. If you will accept
our verdict we will then decide how
you are to be punished" Germany
and the gods would laugh and we
should end with just the kind of
patched up peace which Mr.. Asquith
has rightly said is the worst thing
that could happen for the world y
Germans Have Map, but Allies Men
We cannot talk with Germany
while she is the conqueror and the
Allies are the conquered; and when
we strip the situation of all pretense,
that is how it stands on the surface
in Europe. The German colonies
were weak outposts, but on her main
front Germany has conquered far
and wide, We will talk with her
when we have driven her armies out
of the lands they have blighted and
befouled; but so long as she has
strength to hold Allied territory she
is strong enough to make Ger
man peace.
Germany is moving heaven and
earth to induce the Allies to discuss
peace terms, for her rulers know the
dread alternative. If they cannot en-
trap the Allies into a peace confer
ence this winter, their doom is seal
ed. ] sincerely believe, despite their
brave show, despite their remarkable
stand northeast of Ypres, that their
military collapse Is not distant. Ire
mendous issues hang upon the pres
ent operations in West Flanders,
which are much more than strug-
gle for a couple of battered ridges.
IF the enemy lose the ridges now,
they will lose the coast in the spring,
and when their right band in the
west is uncovered, when the Ameri-
cans are thrusting hard at their line,
when the French are giving their
final blows, when swarms of airmen
are smashing their communications
and bombing the Rhine cities, well,
then we should soon see smash as
colossal in it's way as Germany's ORR
ginal scheme of world conquest
What the Allies have to do is to
keep staunch throughout the winter
and never talk to German except
behind a gun. We will talk to them
on German soil and nowhere else.
They have got the map, but the AL
lies have got the men, the money,
the munitions, the food and the
time. There is not too much time,
but before very long we ought to
have the map also. Just as we can
not talk peace with the Germans
while they hold these conquered
lands, so we can never talk peace on