England, Canada and the Great War

The whole British Empire, France, the United States and Italy are a unit in refusing to consider for a moment Austria's cynical peace proposals.

Belgium, from the cross of martyrdom to which the Huns' barbarity has nailed her, has summoned all her wonderful courage, in her long and cruel agony, to repudiate with scorn the infamous German proposition to betray those who are pledged to be her saviours.

Consequently, the peace offensive, so cleverly planned by Germany and opened by her contemptible Austrian satellite, has met with as dismal a failure as the military offensive launched on the twenty-first day of March last, with such superior numerical forces, and unbounded confidence that this gigantic effort would at last smash the Allies' resistance.

Just as the Teutonic hordes are hurled back by the matchless strategy of the Chief Commander of the Allied armies and their incomparable heroism, the Austrian peace offensive communication is returned to their authors a miserable "scrap of paper".

And the grand and noble fight will go on until Germany is brought to her knees and forced to recognize that "the resources of Civilization are not yet exhausted."

The modern Huns are doomed to a very sad awakening from their dream of universal domination.

Germany has challenged the world to a deadly struggle. She must bear the consequences, however sad they may be. Four years ago, anticipating a crushing victory, she exulted over the early fall of her enemies, madly certain that in a few weeks they would kneel down crying for mercy. She trusted her all to the fortunes of war. They will at last go against her. She would have been cruelly triumphant. Will she be cowardly in defeat?

Austria has blindly served Germany's criminal ambition. She must abide by the result of her blindness.

Both carried away by passion, they forgot that there would be a terrible reckoning day for their atrocious crime. It is near at hand, and they cannot avoid being called to a severe account for their foul deeds.

Kaiser Wilhelm II will soon find out that Divine Justice is very different from what he fondly believed. He will receive the proper answer to his blasphemous appeals to the Almighty to bless with success his guilty ambition to dominate the world. He will learn that from above the innocent victims whom he has mercilessly sacrificed to his lust of autocratic power, have cried for vengeance and have been heard. He bears the guilt of blood and sacrilegious war. He shall receive his deserts in due time.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Necessary Peace Conditions

It can be positively affirmed that, taking no account whatever of the treasonable views of the defeatists, and no more of the disloyal opinions of the pacifists– because they only deserve absolute contempt and reprobation – the peoples called the Allies have been long ago, are now, and will remain to the last, unanimous on the essential Peace Conditions without which all the sacrifices they have made and are making would be a total irreparable loss.

It has been proclaimed with the highest authority, and universally approved, that henceforth Peace must be just and durable. Such it should always have been.

The principle is no doubt very easily enunciated. It is applauded by all and every where, even by Germany and Austria. The great, the insuperable, difficulty is to agree upon SUCH CONDITIONS as will PERMANENTLY, and to the COMPLETE SATISFACTION OF ALL CONCERNED, bless the world with the maintenance of a TRULY JUST AND DURABLE PEACE.

It is better to admit at once that the very moment the question is considered, the presently contending belligerents are as far apart as the two poles of the earthly globe.

It is extremely easy to prove it.

No one now ignores – or at least should fail to realize – what kind of peace would be accepted by Germany as JUST AND DURABLE.

To be satisfied with a settlement of peace, Germany would require the sanction by her opponents of her right to maintain, develop and strengthen her MILITARISM so threatening to the universe.

At the time she was exulting over the great and crushing victory which she was sure to have within her powerful grasp, in debating with her vanquished enemies, the conditions of peace, Germany, elated as she would certainly have been by her triumph, would have positively claimed the annexation of Belgium and of all the northern part of France by right of conquest. She would not have been less exacting than she was, in 1870, when in the face of indignant but powerless Europe, she stripped France of her two fine and wealthy provinces, Alsace and Lorraine.

She would have claimed the right to supersede England as mistress of the seas, – German supremacy replacing the British and henceforth ruling the waves.

She would have claimed the annexation of Russian Poland, and that of Servia to Austria.

She would have claimed the recognition of her imperial paramount power over the Balkans, which she would have united under the direct sway of her ally and vassal, Bulgaria.

Victorious over all continental Europe and equally over Great Britain, she would most likely have claimed the cession to her of the great British autonomous Colonies for the purpose of pouring over to Canada, Australia and South Africa her increasingly overflowing population. And to better achieve that most coveted result, she would have destroyed at once the free institutions they enjoy under the British Crown to replace them by her autocratic rule.

In one of his illogical pamphlets, abounding in extravagant views, the Nationalist leader has denied with scorn that Germany had ever intended to acquire Canada by force of arms. He supported his assertion by the declaration made to the contrary by a German Minister. But he failed to explain that this German public man said so only when the Berlin Government had fully realized that they could not succeed in breaking asunder the mighty British Empire. The Teutonic declaration was hypocritical, intended to deceive, and to supply our Nationalist "pacifists" with what would seem a plausible argument to cover their sympathies for the gentle cause of the tender hearted Huns. It is very easy to disclaim any aspiration to possess what one is sure never to get.

Triumphant Germany would have bargained very hard to lay her powerful hand on the great Indian Empire.

She would have dismembered Russia, as she has effectively done – at least temporarily – by the infamous Brest-Litovsk treaty.

She would have strongly supported Austria in destroying for ever Italy's legitimate aspirations to round off her national territory by the annexation of that part of Austria's possessions called The Trentino, which is hers by nature.

Following the precedent she had laid down, in 1870, after her triumph over France, Germany would undoubtedly have exacted from her fallen enemies, billions and billions of dollars as indemnities of war.

And Germany, with such a peace treaty imposed to her despairing enemies with her sanguinary sword at their throat ready to murder them – as she did at Brest-Litovsk – would have swayed the world with her UNIVERSAL DOMINATION.

But I hear – I must say without being the least frightened – the thundering clamour of the Nationalist leader crying that Germany does not NOW claim such peace conditions as above enumerated.

Very true, and why?

Only because she is no longer able to exact and impose them!

In 1914, Germany being victorious over all Europe, England included, after a four months overpowering campaign, as she expected, would certainly not have been satisfied with less than the conditions just specified. They were the goal for which she had been strenuously preparing for fifty years, her success, in 1870, being the preliminary opening of her conquests.

To bring Germany to renounce – temporarily – to her fond hopes of domination, it has required the heroic efforts and the untold sacrifices, in men and money, which Great Britain, her Colonial Empire, France, Italy, Belgium, Japan, betrayed Russia, and, LAST BUT NOT LEAST, the United States, have made during more than the last four years and which they are pledged to make until a successful issue.

The kind of peace as above would have been what can be very properly called – Germany's "OFFENSIVE PEACE." In Germany's opinion this would have been the just and durable peace dear to her so kind heart.

But having failed to carry the tremendous victory for which she had so powerfully prepared, Germany would NOW likely agree to negotiate what can be as properly called a "DEFENSIVE PEACE."

By "DEFENSIVE PEACE", I mean Germany negotiating NOW with her opponents with the determination to repulse, as much as possible, their just claims, to prevent them to the utmost limit to reap the legitimate fruits of their admirable endeavours, to thwart the realization of their noble aspirations to protect the world hereafter against her guilty and barbarous militarism.

Germany – I mean, of course, the Teutonic Imperial Government – has yet given no sign of a change of mind on the vital points at stake in the consideration of the restoration of peace. If the fortune of arms was once more to favour her armies, her blood stained for Colours, she would, to-morrow, be as mercilessly exacting as she would have been, in 1914, had she triumphantly entered Paris inside of two months after her challenge to the civilized world.

Germany is surely not a convert to sound Christian principles. She will not repent for her crimes. She does not feel the tortures of remorse at her foul deeds. She would certainly be a relapser, in the near future, if the Allies, unwisely heeding the clamour of the "pacifists", imprudently gratified her ACTUAL wish for a peace compromise.

And before long Humanity would be forced to go again, in much aggravated conditions, over the way of the cross she has been threading along for nearly five years, steeped to the knees in the blood of millions of her heroic sons, with a reorganized Germany this time straining all the Huns' accumulated power to lead Civilization to her Calvary.

With God's grace, that shall not be. Five years of martyrdom have deserved and will receive JUSTICE.

After having explained what Germany, from her stand-point, considers a Just and Durable Peace, let us see what such a peace means from the Allies' stand-point.

Every free man has a right to his own opinion. However, he must never forget that Liberty of opinion does not mean – never meant – absence of knowledge, ignorance of the basic principles of political society.

I do not hesitate to expound what the real conditions of the coming peace MUST BE to make it JUST AND DURABLE.

Let the inveterate opponents of Political Liberty say what they please, it is undeniable that the present war has rapidly developed into a deadly conflict between Autocratic Power and Political Freedom.

Consequently a peace patched up to uphold Autocracy and destroy free institutions could not be Just and Durable.

Under the dominating circumstances of the present struggle, to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion, peace, to be Just and Durable, must be restored with all the necessary guarantees that Political Liberty will hereafter be safe against the foul attempts of military despotism.

This sine qua non condition is general in its nature and equally interests all the contending Allied nations.

Let us now consider the peace conditions which, though of general importance so far as they are NECESSARY for its permanency, are essential from the particular stand-point of each one of the Allies separately.

I shall begin the review by considering the particular case of Great Britain.

To be Just and Durable for the British Empire, the future peace treaty must not be so drafted as to supersede British sea supremacy by that of Germany.

The question of what is to be done with the great German African Colonies, conquered by the South African Dominion army, is next in importance to England's sea supremacy, from the British Empire stand-point.

Germany, very far from foreseeing what was to happen, deliberately opened that question when she precipitated the present conflict by coercing Austria to crush weak Servia, herself challenging Russia and France, and thundering at Belgium in violation of her most sacred treaty obligations.

Great Britain, as in honour bound, standing by Belgium, was forced to fight with Germany. The great autonomous Colonies nobly rallying to her support, the South African Dominion, Boers and British admirably united for the purpose, undertook for her share to conquer the German African Colonies. She has grandly succeeded.

If, as we all hope, the Allies are finally victorious, would it be just to relinquish Great Britain's right over the German African Colonies, more especially if the South African Dominion is strongly opposed – as there is no doubt she will be – to their retrocession?

And what about Belgium and France? No peace treaty could be called Just nor could be Durable, which would not completely restore Belgium's independence; which would not oblige Germany to indemnify Belgium for the damages wrought upon her, more especially those which were inflicted to the Belgian weak but heroic nation out of sheer barbarous destruction.

To France, the northern part of her presently occupied territory, together with Alsace and Lorraine, MUST be restored.

The Germans are loudly crying that in exacting the restoration to France of the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, the Allies would be partly dismembering the German Empire.

Quite so, and why not? Does the victim of the highway man lose the right to claim his property from the ruffian who has stolen it by brutal force?

In 1870, under the circumstances all know, Prussia imposed upon France the cession of Alsace and Lorraine, rounding off the territory of the new German Empire.

France naturally smarted under the cruelty of the condition which she could not help accepting. For many years she cherished the hope that the lost provinces would ultimately return to the parental home.

But it is well known how TIME is an efficient cure of many ills. France's yearning for the restoration of Alsace and Lorraine had gradually subsided. The general opinion was spreading that the Alsace-Lorraine matter was more and more becoming a finally settled question.

Before the war, no Power, European or American, would have countenanced France in any attempt to break peace to run her chance of reconquering Alsace and Lorraine. France knew it perfectly well and at last bowed to her fate.

Who has reopened the closed question of Alsace and Lorraine? Is it not Germany herself?

Great Britain, Russia, the United States and Italy, who would not have supported France in an OFFENSIVE WAR with the objective of getting back her lost provinces, are now a most determined unit in favour of the restoration of Alsace and Lorraine to France as a result of the DEFENSIVE war Germany forced her to wage.

That would be Justice pure and simple: the peace treaty MUST do it.

Germany having run the risk of reopening the Alsace-Lorraine acute question, the Allies MUST close it anew but this time against the Huns.

Germany MUST also pay for the devastation she has savagely spread in France.

I stand firm for a final settlement of the Austro-Italian too long pending question by giving to Italy the Trentino territory to which she has an evident national claim supported by the best of geographical conditions.

Servia's independence MUST be once more secured, and Poland SHOULD be resuscitated.

The United States part in the war is truly a grand, a noble one. They have no particular territorial interest to serve. Their only object is the general public good. They will be the benefactors of Humanity in claiming for their Allies the above enunciated conditions without which no JUST and DURABLE peace can be expected nor obtained.

It is most important to caution the public against the insidious clamours of our "pacifists", trying again to deceive the people by asserting that Germany is ready to negotiate for peace on fair terms.

The Huns will acquiesce only to such peace terms as they will be forced to.

The Allies are better to be guided in consequence in their unfaltering determination to realize a Just and Durable peace by a Glorious Victory.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

CONCLUSION

My ardent desire to speak the plain truth and only the truth, is just as strong to-day as it was when, in concluding my French work, I summarized the situation such as it was at the end of the year 1916, to show the hard duty incumbent on all the Allies, Canada included. It has been perhaps still more intensified by the outrageous efforts of those amongst us whose sole object has been, since the outbreak of the hostilities, to discourage our people from the herculean task they had bravely undertaken.

Two years have since elapsed – years full of great events, and of untiring heroism on the part of the glorious defenders of Justice and Right – and I do not see the slightest reason to modify the conclusions I then arrived at as a matter of strict duty. Unworthy of public confidence is the man who, pandering to the supposed prejudices of his countrymen, refrains out of weakness, or of more guilty considerations, to tell them what they are bound to do for their own country, for their Empire, for the world, in the supreme crisis of our time.

True every one is longing for the restoration of peace. But few are those who, even before being tired of the war, were ready to curb their heads under the German yoke, are now praying for a compromise between the Allies and their enemies. There are some left, it is sad to admit. Everywhere they are chased by the indignant public opinion daily growing more determined that millions of heroes shall not have given their lives in vain, that millions of others, wounded on the fields of battles, shall not, until the last of them is gone for ever, be the betrayed victims of Teutonic dastardly ambition.

True, peace is sorely wanted, and would be welcomed by the thanksgivings to the Almighty of grateful peoples, who have borne with undaunted courage such untold and admirable sacrifices to uphold their Rights and their Honour. But it cannot be sued for by the nations whom Germany wanted to enslave by the might of her crushing militarism operating under the dictates of a new code of International Law of her own barbarous creation.

Thank God, the flowing tide of unlimited Teutonic ambition let loose over the world, more than four years ago, has met with inaccessible summits where love of Justice, respect of Right, devotion to human Civilization, obedience to Christian Law, heroism of sacrifices, were so deeply entrenched, that they could not be reached and conquered. From this commanding altitude, they not only continue to defy the tyrants bent on dominating the universe, but they are mightily smashing their power.

From the overshadowing point of view which cannot be forgotten, or wilfully abandoned, nothing has changed since the German Empire, in her delirious aspirations, challenged the world to the almost superhuman conflict by which she felt certain to succeed in realizing her fond dream of universal domination.

At the outbreak of the war, ever since, to-day, to-morrow, there were, there are and there will be but three alternatives to the restoration of peace: —

1. – A victorious German peace imposed on beaten and cowed belligerents: the peace of the "defeatists."

2. – A peace by compromise, patched up by disheartened "pacifists," lured by cunningness, winning where force would have failed to succeed, to agree to conditions pregnant with all the horrors of a new and still greater struggle in the near future.

3. – A peace the result of the indomitable courage and perseverance of all the nations who have joined together to put an end to Germany's ambition to rule the world, and to destroy the instrument created for that iniquitous purpose: Prussian militarism.

There could be a fourth alternative to peace, but it would be possible only by a miracle which, we can grant without hesitation, the world has perhaps not yet deserved.

It would be peace restored by the sudden conversion of Germany to the practice of sound Christian principles, acknowledging how guilty she has been, repenting for her crimes, agreeing to atone for them as much as possible, and taking the unconditional pledge to henceforth behave like a civilized nation.

All must admit that there is not the slightest hope of such a move from a nation whose autocratic Kaiser, answering, in February last, an address presented to him by the burgomaster of Hamburg, thundered out, in his usual blasting manner, that the neighbouring peoples, to enjoy the sweetness of Germany's friendship, "must first recognize the victory of German arms."

As an inducement to the Allies to bow to his wishes, he pointed to Germany's achievement in Russia, where a beaten enemy, "perceiving no reason for fighting longer," clasped hands with the generous Huns. The world has since learned with appalling horror with what tender mercy the barbarous Teutons reciprocated the grasping of hands of defeated Russia, tendered to them by the "bolshevikis" traitors.

The Allies had then to select one of the three above mentioned alternatives.

They have made their choice and they will stick close to it until it is achieved by the victory of their arms.

Knowing as they do that the future of their peoples, and that of the whole world, are at stake, they will not waver in their heroic determination to free Humanity from Germany's cruel yoke.

Viewed from the commanding height it requires to be worthily appreciated, the joint military effort of the Allies offers a truly grand spectacle, daily enlarging and getting more gloriously magnificent.

All the Allies – every one of them – are doing their duty and their respective share in the great crisis they are pledged to bring to a triumphant conclusion.

Belgium and Servia were the first to be martyred, but the hour of their resurrection is getting nearer every day.

France, the British Empire, the United States, Italy, have done and are doing wonders. There can, there must be no question of appraising their respective merit with the intention of giving more credit either to the one or to the other. With the greatest possible sincerity, I affirm my humble, but positive, opinion that each one of the Allies has done and is doing, with overflowing measure, all that courage could and can earnestly perform, all that patriotism and the noblest national virtues can inspire.

France has been heroic to the highest limit.

The British Empire – Great Britain and her Colonies – has been grand in her unswerving determination to fight to a finish.

The great American Republic is putting forth a wonderful exhibition of pluck, of strength, of boldness, of inexhaustible resources.

Italy has stood nobly with her new friends ever since she broke away from the Triple Alliance, to escape the dishonour of remaining on good terms with the Central Empires in the shameful depth of their ignominious course. She has bravely gone through days of disaster which she has heroically redeemed.

All the Allies, bound together by the most admirable unity of purpose, only rivalling in the might of their respective patriotic effort, having nobly "chosen their course upon principle," can never turn back. They must move steadily forward until victorious. They are indomitable in their decision not to live, under any circumstances, "in a world governed by intrigue and force."

Echoing the wise and inspiring words addressed by President Wilson to Congress, on the eleventh of February last, we can affirm that the "desire of enlightened men everywhere is for a new international order under which reason, justice and the common interests of mankind shall prevail. Without that new order the world will be without peace, and human life will lack tolerable conditions of existence and development."

A most encouraging achievement was realized, a few months ago, emphasizing to the utmost the unity of purpose of the Allies. Every one of them have millions of men under arms and at the front. It is easily conceived how tremendous is the task of properly directing the military operations of such immense armies, unprecedented in the whole human history. Most patriotically putting aside all national susceptibilities, the statesmen governing the Allied nations acknowledged the necessity of supporting unity of purpose by unity of military command. Their decision was heartily approved and applauded by all and every where.