The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-11-20
THE HOUSE THAT PEACE

T. Der, the pregnant instant of silence \ announced that hostilities had ceas. ed, the world drew long breath It was moment of optimism; war . in spite of the distance, had come close to Americans, had engulfed many of it's best and bravest: had . driven the ranks of society into rtv- al camps; had strained the nerves ot
 humanity to the snapping point; had
 driven us, ever faster and madder
 toward a goal which loomed blood red wherever it was reached.
 The paper was signed; guns ceas- ed; men camped in their tracks.
 slowly the cloud of smokt that had l floated for four years over those
 fields night and day drifted away fo-
 ward the east and no new vapors pursued it. The aircraft drifted down: the warships 1olled in the trough of the North Sea. It was, in the mind of a weary world, peace; one of the
 sublime moments of history.
 One year. Twelve months in which 1 the world could take stock of the 1 calamity and dress it's wounds, as-
 say it's position and estimate it's dam ages. One year of irreclain able time
 during which the single purpose of 1 the war has given away to the jeal- 1 oustes of peace, ] he one camp 1 or the Allies has bec-me a score of | camps, each with it's own interests, | The historical hronical is simple l At the armistice or on it's eve. the 1 thrones of the German Empire. the Dual Monarchy of Bulgar.a collaps- ed; the triumvirate, William, Charles
 and Ferdinand were fugitives~ Almost overnight the structure caved in and deposited those three among the de- brls. Normally, the least of them
 would have excited the worlds inter- est So accustomed had We become to stupendous events it hardly stirred our pulse. Yet the dissolution of the ancient Hapsburg dominion did stir men everywhere as a mighty portent. and the flight of the Hohenzollern monarch, bringing to an inglorious wreck a marvellous dream and great nation, left a deep impress on every mind.
 History wrote fast those days.
 The armistiee conciuded with Ger many, with Austria-Hun gary, and with the lesser Allies of the Central Powers, the world faced itself to- wards the situation, and realized. with grim foreboding, the mighty task before it. In truth, it looked
 
 dwarf the task of war; as it does, The war was only the preliminary; the aftermath has been and is today of far greater importance. More vital history has been made in the past year than in all the 50 months of warfare. If the world was paralyzed during the war itself by the kaleid- oscopic changes, it is now bewildered by the great forces it has released by it's works of peace, all of them rushing headlong to their destiny, en- gulfing the past in their course.
 All the voices, repressed during the crisis of actual hostiIities pent-up by the exigencies of actual wartime yielded to their emotions until the heavens echoed with the c1amor. The i Allies must demand this; Germany 1 must he forced to do that; America l must stand fast on this; France must l yield that; Italy will demand this; i Greece has been promised that; Tur- key must be dealt with thus; Asia Minor must be treated so. Back and forth went the tunlult, rising and ever rising in volume and intensity, and while the nations, hyst -rical with the reaction from the strain of war, tried to stiffen themselves for the task at the Peace Conference
 Gradually the delegates got ap- pointed, slowly the machinery began to revo1ve; bit by bit out of the chaos individual demands began to fornu- late themselves, and as these became clear, men looked grave and troubl- ed. Italy produced her secret treaty; France hers; Japan hers. Other doc uments and understandings were hinted at.
 From the Balkans came a chorus of voices; old nations clamored and new nations lifted insistent voices; boundaries changed overnight; lead CTS vanished and new men came into office.
 Within the old German Empire chaos was replacing the old federa- ion; first Maximilian the Chancellor went, and with him most of the old corps of diplomats; gradually from he body of that betrayed people anne the harn maker, Frederick = Ebert and, on a tide of moderate So- ,ialisnl, navigated the troubled seas States broke away; Bavaria gave it-i elf up to a Communist experiment, which was to end with the assassin Ltion of it's leader, Kurt Eisner. Princes and petty monarchs vanished , Il all directions and governments vent through all the phases of a de-i nora1izing period, generally finding bottom on some Socialist theory
 Austria-Hungary merely dissolved nto its component parts; the Mag ars of Hungary reclaimed their an- ient independence; to the north the ;zechs Bohemians and Slovaks gath red themselves together as Czecho- ;lovakia. To the south the Slovenes md their kin become Jugo-S1avia, , ater to absorb Montenegro and ally = themselves with Serbia. German Aus ria was left, a pitifu1 remnant, to :, attle it's way through isolation to itiful future.
 Hungary, lacking leaders, caught he fire of neighboring Russia, and urned Soviet, when Bela Kun and lis associates seized their brief op- They, too, passed along V fter some months of rule.
 While these events were in their eginning, casting long shadows over Il of Europe; and while distant peo-l les, such as the Koreans, the Arme- ians and others were struggling to = oice their claims to release from = ppression the world turned dogged- l.