Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-09-17
THE VIENNA PEACE OFFER
High Angle Propaganda Written Not for
Governments But for the Peoples
Behind Them

nuVe Always pioneered, SpeCUacleu per
verts in the German universities wrought
from this science the most effective
weapons of the war. "Men," they said,
"do not fight with their hands alone.
That belief is ancient and outworn. Ma
tional energies are rooted in the emo
tions, the fears, the prejudices, the wills
and the spirits of groups and indi-
viduals. Strike at these sources"
And so, though Germany brought an
extraordinary array of new weapons
into the war-poison, disease germs,
deadly gas, flame throwers, Zeppelins and
submarines-her only major victories
were won by subtler means When Italy
became menace she was deluged from
end to end with lies as adroit as labora-
tory minds could devise to strike disas-
trously at the emotions of the Italians.
Italy for time was defeated and rem
dered almost helpless. German special
lists in corruption sought out the vuner
able places in the Russian character
the credulity and the idealism and the
ignorance of the people-and by false
Russia over to destruction.
Now this method of attack is tried
openly upon the 1Oestern Allies IN the so
called peace proposal Of the Austrian
Emperor.
The pronouncement issued to the world
through Vienna is an extraordinary
stroke. 1t is far more adventurous, far
more daring than anything which the
Allied councils had reason to expect. 1t
is move that can have no merely mega
tive result. The appeal from Vienna
will leave the German Empire far more
powerful than it was or incomparably
weaker, according to the manner IN
1ohich it is received By the peoples Of
France, England, Italy and the United
States. The President has rejected the
offer for its obvious spuriousness. But
this will not trouble the German diplo-
matists very much.
Emperor William did not speak to the
Allied governments. The appeal issued
through the dupe at Vienna aimed, in
this instance over the heads of the gov
ernments. Germany can have had little
hope of anything so fantastic as a secret
peace conference. The suggestion is di-
rectly opposed to the method of pro-
cedure outlined by President Wilson on
behalf of the United States and the
Allies. The German appeal is directed
with infinite skill at what is presumed to
be the weak point in the Allied psy-
chology 1t is written for groups in
England and in France and in Italy, for
those who have every reason to be war
weary, who have endured to the point of
exhaustion and heartbreak and disillu-
sionment or suffered intimately and for
long years such pain as we in this coun-
try cannot yet understand. And in the
background, as an attendant force of
which Germany is we'll aware, are the
northumberland groups which have
consistently tried to use the sorrow and
hardships of those about them as a po-
litical force. To these elements, rather
than to governments, Emperor Charles
has sent his cry for peace.
The actual organization of a confer
ence such as is proposed, even an obvious
tendency on the part of any of the Allied
governments to take the suggestion Sc
riously, would represent triumph for
| Germany greater than any yet achieved
on the battlefields and victory for Ger
man corruptionists greater than the
masterwork which they left behind them
| in Russia. Indeed, the men who pre-
pared the note for the Austrian En-
peror can already feel sense of
triumph Some myopic newspapers, as
we'll as impressionable idealists without
number in this country, fell at the first
word and began to talk of "the power
of reason" But Germany is not con-
sidering reason Germany hopes less
than anybody for "secret conference "
What Germany aCants to do is to create
an dtmosphere-the sort of atmosphere
referred to an the proclamation ITSELF
and no more. The intention of the appeal
is to perUade the Allied nations with the
enerUattng consciousness of a peace con-
| ference an preparation or in prospect
That in itself ,Vould be equiralent to an
overwhelming triumph of the German
armies in France.
Such prospect would, of course, ap-
peal powerfully to the emotions and the
imagination of all the peoples opposed to
Germany. A force greater than deliber-
ate will, greater than human intelligence
itself, would begin at once to undermine
the strength and lessen the determina-
tion and the resisting power of the ma
tions. This would be the subconscious
sense of an approaching peace. 1t would
be founded on the conviction that peace
talk, once formally begun, must inevitably
result in a truce of some sort. The ner.
Yous tension and the spiritual strength