Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-05-03

,Ome Vne great permhn OnenSlNe. III
las swept everything before it. 1t has
seen as surprising as was tln great
lrivc toward Amicns a year ago.
Wilson. Lloyd George and Clcmen-
eau sat confidently in their trenches
lightly debating the eminent strategy of
making all future wars impossible, when
.hc Germans adopted the UNEXPECTED
! :actics of making the present peace i'm.
possibTe-cxcept on their own terms.
Every one familiar with the great
war as it evolved insisted that il was
war of surprises. No one could tell
: when something new, some gas attack,
tanks, novel massing of men. would not
Utterly change its character and destroy
The best laid plans for victory. 1t has
been followed by peace of surprises
II you can call that a peace which may
IT'LL eventuate in war. with all central
md eastern Europe, inspired by new
economic religion. joined in combat
against western Europe and America.
Tables Turned on Nictors
This is the possibility that looks big
gest today-not probability. should
say, for all the world wants peace, the
one thing the Peace Conference seems
incapable of producing. In this peace
of surprises the biggest surprise of all
was for the victors and vanqushed sud
denly to find their roles reversed. There
is no precedent for it in history.
The 1919 German offensive on Paris
began at Spa, when certain American.
English and French commissioners went
there to demand as victors certain Ger
man mercantile ships which the Ger
mans, as vanquished, had promised to
give them. The Germans said firmly
mo" unless on certain terms. The
Allied advance guard ut Spa fell back
on Paris and, scarcely as became vic
tors, granted the terms the Germans
had demanded of them.
All Paris Trembles
All Paris tremblcd. It has not since
ceased to tremblc. 1t thinks of Spa and
writes terms Of peace. thinks again of
Spa and rewrites. thinks again of Spa
{ and reorganizes itself into small and
theoretically highly efficient body and
goes into hiding. Spa was not fore
seen. President Wilson is, by univer
sal account, great statesman. who is
capable of seing farther into Germany
than any one else at Paris. He did
not Sec Spa. He did not see the great
GermaH offensive upon Paris in the
year 1919.
A few weeks before he went away
b fn
confident. 1t is currently reported that
he said to his friends before leaving
that the intention of the Peace Confer
ence was to write the treaty of peace
invite Germany in and say to her, moi
unkindly but firmly: "Sign here !!
He did Lot see in February that that
could not be done-that the time hat
passed when an imperative could be ad
dressed from Paris that would carry
across the Rhine.
This is recorded merely to show how
immense was the surprise OF the great
German offensive of 1919. The man
who was making the, peace of the world
was taken off his feet by it.
Wilson Caught Mapping
How did it happen that great
I statesman like Mr.. Wilson, the Bis
marck of the present Peace Conference
was thus taken off his guard? 1t hap
pened because of the power Of words, q
power which Mr.. Wilson understands
thoroughly and uses with tremendous
effect. Words had made him the Bis
marck of the present Peace Conference
Words made him forget the essenta
y difference between Wilson in 1919 ant
Z Bismarck in 1871. These words wert
victor" and "vanquished.' Had mo-
these words always meant certain sole
substantial things highly satisfying tt
the man who could apply the former
of them to himself?
Was not tradition all one way? Hat
not the victor from Roman days always
come to town with splendid procession
of bounden captives, magnifying hi
dignity and gladdening the eyes of hi
fellow citizens? There could be n,
doubt what was the import of victor an,
vanquished. The. victor Wrote the term
.s.sof peace. The vanquishcd walked in
:, laid his own head on the ground. pickc'
up the victor's right foot and placed /
upon the abascd head as a sign of hov
much he liked the peace.
Wilson Was Leuient
Mr. Wilson was 1919 victor. II
was willing to abatc this ancient cere
mony. The vanquishcd would walk in
The victor would thrust fountain pc
at him, indicate dotted line and sa
''Sign here all in his (the victor
own good time.
What, everybody forgot was that wit
H every day that passed after the sign
ing of the armistice the power to ''sig
here lesscned. When the arnistiC
was offerel, with II gun at Germany
heart, with million men within wee
of capture, the Allies could say and di
say. Sign here" But with the ces
sation of hostilties the armies bega
TO disintegrate. When Bismarck an
his predecessors made peace, the wi
to fight was in the head of the stat,
That was enough. Today the will I
fight has to be in the army itself or
the nation itself. No one can now re
sumo war upon Germany.
New Kind of Victor
A victor today is something differer
from a victor generation or two age
Ii he wants to assume the effective 20:
of the past he must put on his pater
leather shoes az once, to use Il
yanquished head like bootblack's boz
No time is to be lost, The age is Ia