New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1918-12-08

"a
Ia problems of the forthcoming Peace
Congress at Versailles. The great
variety of questions to be decided ter
ritorial, financial and POLITICAL since a
very large portion Of Europe is to be re-
arranged, has already served to confuse
the mass of observers, and this con-
fusion has not been lessened by the adj
diton of the supreme puzzle, which is
The League of Nations.
In the present article, however, in
tend to deal, not with the problems which
are to be submitted to the decision of
the congress, but with the equally i'm
portant question of the view of the va
rious European peoples still our asso-
ciates against Germany as it affects and
will hereafter affect our influence at
Versailles Such observations as I here
make are based upon the comment of
my French and English friends and the
reading of the various foreign journals
which come TO this country.
In the beginning it must be said that
there is singular unanimity abroad in
recognizing the plain fact that without
America Germany could not have been
beaten The war has ended in 1918 be-
cause we supplied Foch with the neces-
sary reserve, available and prospective,
TO push his great offensive. In the
spring the Germans won great initial
successes. but the cost was so great that
their man power gave out at the precise
moment when there was needed a great
reserve to enforce victory. On July Is
The first American divisions entering
the battle gave Foch the advantage of
numbers at the decisive point. There
after he was always able to count upon
perfectly regular new contribution
month by month.
Only less decisive was our aid in ma .
terial directions, in money and in sup
plies; while, small as our naval contribu~
ton was, measured by comparison with
hat of Britain, it was precious aid at
the moment when the submarine peril
was at its height.
Europe, then, and particularly our
British and French allies, feels toward
this country gratitude which is spread
over the whole population, and is no.
where more genuine and intense than
among the poorer classes, whose irn-.
mediate sufferings were greatest and
whose gain through peace is swiftest in
arriving. This is the foundation of the
influence which we have to-day in Eu-
rope and the basis of the appeal our
voice will have in conference.
But along with gratitude, which would
express itself in a prompt compliance
with any request Of ours made in our
own interest, made for the safeguarding
of any policy of ours, there is an I'M
mistakable apprehension born of the
suspicion that our great influence may
be exerted to procure things of little
real value to us and carrying a future
menace to our associates. For example,
it is customary in America to say that
we make war not upon the German
people, but upon their rulers. We have
always in certain official quarters made
clear distinction between the masses
of the German people and their rulers
But no such distinction exists in the
minds Of the French people, and It has
practically disappeared from British
minds.
The Frenchman does not see in his
ruined villages, his ravaged fields, his
murdered and dishonored women, an
evidence of the exclusive spirit of the
Prussian or of the official caste What
has been done is, to his mind, pc
culiarly and characteristic German
thing. He reasons, without exception,
that the excuses and crimes which have
been committed on his territory and
against his brethren have been the last
ing expression in deed of what the Ger
man is, not the high born German, not
the prince or the baron, but the German
of all classes. And in this view the
Frenchman fortifes the evidence of
present experiences with those of the
past, for the German has come into
France many times since the days of
Caesar, and the Latin descriptions. of
German methods are almost identical
with the reports, say, of the Bryce
Committees
For the Frenchman, therefore, there
is the realization of what the German
is, what he has always been, emphasized
by the events of recent years, but il
Illustrated by all German history. And
in the Frenchman's mind the German
VIII not change easily, probably never.
In any event, a new form of government
will not transform millions of men who
yesterday, and for four years past, con-
Quoted themselves in the spirit of bar
harism on French soil