The Tabor independent. [volume] (Tabor, S.D.) 1913-19??, 1918-01-17

closely united IL sympathy and in
~terostS with her present allies, while
France is equally sure 10 emerge from
the war territorially intact. On the West
the sole questions tnat nay be debated
today are whether Germany will keep
or lose Alsace-Lorraine and whether
she can be compelled TO indemnify Bel
GUM and France for wanton deStruc-
ton, while, so far as Britain is con-
cerned. Germany has to face the possi-
bility Of a final loss to the British Of
all her overseas possessions.
We may say quite accurately, then.
that he last yea has served to make
patent the fact that all of GerInany's
western hopes have been destroyed,
France will survive the val strong and
bound in firm alliance with q British
empire now prepared for war and pos
sessing an army which, joined to the
French, will. make a repetition Of the
events of 1914 impossible. in our own
generation at least. And Belgian in
dependence is ultimately certain, be-
cause unless Germany agrees to this
she will have to fight the United States,
britain n France for an indefinite
time.
But by contrast we are bound to per-
.ceive that many of the eastern plans
OF the allies seem to have come to an
end. .Assailed by Germany the western
powers at h outset were moved by the
conviction that one consequence of an
unsought war would be the liberation
Of those subject races whose sufferings
had been a constant reproach to Nine
tesnth century humanity. On the NOR
row OF the Marine, when the allies first
realized that they would not be con-
quered by a sudden thrust, they began
to frame a program which looked to
the liberation of the Poles of Austria
and of Germany, to the recreation OF
a free Poland: they began to design a
new map OF Europe which should see
the southern Slavs rescued from Aus
TRAN tyranny, the CZechs emancipated,
the Balkans remade, the Rumanians
delivered from Hungarian chains. In
Turkey, too, the Armenians and the
Syrians were to be freed and the Turk
was to be elected from Constantinople,
which was to fall to the car, and thus
n q problem three centuries old.
The collapse of Russia has, temper
arily Mt least, endangered some OF these
grandiose schemes which did not rep
resent selfish ambitions, as did the Ger
man program, but rather were founded
upon n liberal and democratic spirit.
Without Russia the allies canno hope
TO erect a Poland which shall include
Posen and DanZig as well as Warsaw
anA LodZ; in fact, unless the war is
~protracted for years it must be a ques-
ton whether they car prevent Ger
many and Austria from arranging their
eastern frontiers as they choose and,
temporarily at least, remaining masters
of the Polish state which must now be
established.
Italian ambitions belong to a differ
ent order of ideas. In addition to the
liberation Of her Italian speaking
brethren in the Trcntino and in Trieste,
Italy cherished the dream of restoring
the Venetian tradition along the eastern
shores of the Adriatic and in the
Aegean. Istria, DaLnatia, Albania were
in part or in totality to fall to the Ital-
ians, who were likewise to take a foot
hold upon the mainland OF Asia Minor.
But such ambitions were only to be