New-York tribune., 1919-11-09
The Peace Hoped for Year
AGO Is Still To Be Attained----
Many Wars Still Going On
By Frank H. Simonds

NV pass the first anniver.
sary Of the armistice, anc
this milepost will natu-
rally excite many comments. Beyond
all else It Is inevitable that the
publics Of all the nations, which one
year ago welcomed the cessation of
hostilities. with the concomitant
surrender Of Germany. as not merely
an end Of immediate horror, but the
beginning Of period of peace and
prosperity, will confess alike to dis
appointment and to disillusionment
At the end of a year of so-called
peace, war is still going forward in
many portions Of Europe, new dis
putes have arisen in place of the
old issues Of year ago, and, tech
nically at least, the condition of
peace between Germany and the
United States has not been restored.
When one seeks to analyze the
events Of the last twelve months, it
Is apparent at once how confused
and confusing the circumstances
big and little alike, have been. A
year ago we in America celebrated
g false report of peace with an en-
thusiasm hardly paralleled in our
history, and still preserved a sur
plus sufficient to make the arrival
Of the veracious tidings the signal
for an even greater outburst.
Quick Settlement Vas Expected
In that hour it was the belief in
America, II not in Europe, that the
military decision in the case Of Ger
many, which had preceded the
actual armistice, would supply the
opportunity for a settlement, not
mere settlement of the single issue
raisel by the German attack in
August, 1914, but Of the innumera-
be issues stirred up in the course of
the war The phrase making the
world safe for democracy" had been
accepted with something Of lit
eral Interpretation, and the people
of the United States looked forward
to a peace conference as calcul ated
not alone to restore immediate
peace, but to eliminate causes Of
war and dispose of those issues out
Of which conflicts had risen or
threatened during the troubled gen.
Grafton preceding.
Exactly what the European emo
tion was at the same moment it is
exceedingly difficult to say. The
exhaustion Of the war had reached
o point hardly equaled before in
history, not individuals, not classes
Of society. but whole nations had
been so racked with the strain of
more than four years Of conflict.
Enthusiasm and even expectation,
such as there were in the United
States, we're certainly not to be
found in Europe, but, by contrast,
there was a certain emotional out
burst.
Old Customs We're Changed
Looking backward over the course
Of the last year much that was OBJ
scure in November, 1918, becomes
clear. I'm the first place, we are all
now painfully aware that the war
80 thoroughly uprooted institutions,
habits, systems that the chance of
a return to before-the-war condi-
ditions is impossible, not alone po-
ntically but economically.
On the political side two Of the
great empires Of modern history, the
Hapsburg and the Romanoff, had
been destroyed, blown into frag-
ments, and between the fragments
there had developed hostilities, an
cient and new, which continued and
seemingly will long continue to
plague and to puzzle. A third and
even more powerful empire, that of
the Hohenzollerns, had crashed
down. after military defeat, and for
the moment seemed likely to dis
solve into another Russian chaos.
The task of those upon whom the
duty developed to make peace was,
therefore, thing entirely different
from the problem which might have
peen posed had Germany been de-
feated In 1914, or even in 1916,
while the Russian and the Austro-
Hungarian empires still stood and
the German Empire itself had not
undergone the disintegrating strain
Of four years Of conflict.
The decisions Of the Conference
Of Paris have been universally as
sailed, attacked alike by the repre-
sentatives Of progress and of reac-