Evening star., 1918-10-20

ceive from Rumania some portion or
her old Dobrudja province, also lost
in 1913. but unnecessary to the safety
of Rumania now become really
considerable state.
The Decentralization Of the
Dardanelles and of Constantinople,
which is part of Mr.. Wilson's pro-
gram, is equally a part of the pro.
gram of the allies. The restriction OF
the Turk to the Osmani -peopled re-
gions of Anatolia exists in both pro-
grams, as does a liberated and pro-
tected Armenia. AS to Mesopotamia
and Syria. the French and British
who have liberated them are likely to
stay, with the full approval of the in
habitants; Palestine may be an inter-
the Arabian districts have already
achieved independence under their
own sovereign.
Poland, Difficult Question.
There is left the question of Poland.
and it is the most difficult of all. If
you give to the new Poland. which
will indubitab1y include Russian and
come a state of upward of l8,OOO.0Oo
people, those German. or, rather,
Prussian, circles in which the Poles
are clearly majority. you Will DE,
prive Germany of much OF Slesla, an
of Posen and a considerable fractlon
of both East and West Prussia. East
Prussia will be isolated from the main
German mass by a strip of territory
extending down the west bank of the
vistula to the Baltic at Danzig. A
hostile frontier will be carried almost
to Frankfort-on-Oder, and this within
striking distance of Berlin itself. :.
But, by contrast. without Posen and
Silesia, so far as it is Polish, the new
Poland will be incomplete. and there
will survive a Polish question. ana
without DanZig and window on the
sea the new Poland will be economic
Germany, exactly as Serbia was at the
mercy of Austria Hungary in the evil
times before the present war. And
the Serbian grievance was one OF the
causes of the world conflagration
Finally, nowhere in Europe has the
more brutal than in the Polish circles
of Prussia To turn the Prussian
Poles back to the old slavery would
thus be to do violence to all the spirit
of the Presidents declaration.
A1sace-Lorraine, Pivot.
In all human probability the ques-
ton of peace or war will turn on
Germany's willingness to evacuate
4Alsace-Lorraine- If she is in earnest
and acting in good faith. then she will
agree to the surrender Of Merz and
Strassburg.
But if Germany is acting in bad
faith, then she will refuse to surren-
der Metz and Strassburg, she will at
tempt to rouse the people of America.
Britain and Italy by arguing that
they are kept in the fight because of
French ambitions; she will seek to
SOW discord among her enemies.
Our greatest peril now lies in think
ing of the war as over or accepting
the words of the German. when these
words are not translated into corre-
spending deeds.
We have come to the most critical
moment in more than four years of
struggle. We have won the war. we
have beaten the German. but we have
not vet reached the point where we
can safely accept his verbal assur-
ances that he desires to make peace
on our terms.
We cannot forget that the German
attacked the civilized world four
years ago and in defiance of all his
written and spoken pledges. We can
not forget that for four years he has
continued to disregard all pledges
until the moment when his armies
were beaten and all chance of a VIC