They have answered--answered in unmistakable
terms. They have avowed that it was not justice, but dominion and the
unhindered execution of their own will. The avowal has not come from
Germany's statesmen. It has come from her military leaders, who are her
real rulers. Her statesmen have said that they wished peace, and were
ready to discuss its terms whenever their opponents were willing to sit
down at the conference table with them. Her present Chancellor has
said--in indefinite and uncertain terms, indeed, and in phrases that
often seem to deny their own meaning, but with as much plainness as he
thought prudent--that he believed that peace should be based upon the
principles which we had declared would be our own in the final
settlement.
At Brest-Litovsk her civilian delegates spoke in similar terms;
professed their desire to conclude a fair peace and accord to the
peoples with whose fortunes they were dealing the right to choose their
own allegiances. But action accompanied and followed the profession.
Their military masters, the men who act for Germany and exhibit her
purpose in execution, proclaimed a very different conclusion.
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