IN ARMS FOR DEMOCRACY

THE WORLD CONFLICT IN ITS RELATION TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY1

WALTER LIPPMANN

[Walter Lippmann (1889- -) was born in New York City. He was graduated from Harvard in 1910, and for a time was assistant in philosophy in that institution. Later he formed editorial connections in New York, writing much for the periodical press. He is the author of several books dealing with politics and kindred subjects. The article here reprinted, which gives a comprehensive review of the conditions leading to America's entering the world war, was originally read before a meeting of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, in the summer of 1917, shortly after this step had been taken.]

I

The way in which President Wilson directed America's entrance into the war has had a mighty effect on the public opinion of the world. Many of those who are disappointed or pleased say they are surprised. They would not be surprised had they made it their business this last year to understand the policy of their government.

In May, 1916, the President made a speech which will be counted among the two or three decisive utterances of American foreign policy. The Sussex pledge had just been extracted from the German government, and on the surface American neutrality seemed assured. The speech was an announcement that American isolation was ended, and that we were prepared to join a League of Peace. This was the foundation of all that followed, and it was intended to make clear to the world that America would not abandon its traditional policy for imperialistic adven1From Annals of the American Academy of Social and Political Science, vol. lxxii, p. 1 (July, 1917.)

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ture, that if America had to fight it would fight for the peace and order of the world. It was a great portent in human history, but it was overshadowed at the time by the opening of the presidential campaign.

Through the summer the President insisted again and again that the time had come when America must assume its share of responsbility for a better organization of mankind. In the early autumn very startling news came from Germany. It was most confusing because it promised peace maneuvers, hinted at a separate arrangement with the Russian court party, and at the resumption of unlimited submarine warfare. The months from November to February were to tell the story. Never was the situation more perplexing. The prestige of the Allies was at low ebb, there was treachery in Russia, and, as Mr. Lansing said, America was on the verge of war. We were not only on the verge of war, but on the verge of a bewildering war which would not command the whole-hearted support of the American people.

With the election past, and a continuity of administration assured, it became President Wilson's task to make some bold move which would clarify the muddle. While he was preparing this move, the German chancellor made his high-handed proposal for a blind conference. That it would be rejected was obvious. That the rejection would be followed by the submarine war was certain. The danger was that America would be drawn into the war at the moment when Germany appeared to be offering the peace for which the bulk of American people hoped. We know now that the peace Germany was prepared to make last December was the peace of a conqueror. But at the time Germany could pose as a nation which had been denied a chance to end the war. It was necessary, therefore, to test the sincerity of Germany by asking publicly for a statement of terms. The President's circular note to the powers was issued. This note stated more precisely than ever before that America was ready to help guarantee the peace, and at the same time it gave all the belligerents a chance to show that they were fighting for terms which could be justified to American opinion. The note was very much misunderstood at first because the President had said

that, since both sides claimed to be fighting for the same thing, neither could well refuse to define the terms. The misunderstanding soon passed away when the replies came. Germany brushed the President aside, and showed that she wanted a peace by intrigue. The Allies produced a document which contained a number of formulas so cleverly worded that they might be stretched to cover the wildest demands of the extremists or contracted to a moderate and just settlement. Above all, the Allies assented to the League of Peace which Germany had dismissed as irrelevant.

The war was certain to go on with America drawn in. On January 22, after submarine warfare had been decided upon but before it had been proclaimed, the President made his address to the Senate. It was an international program for democracy. It was also a last appeal to German liberals to avert a catastrophe. They did not avert it, and on February 1, Germany attacked the whole neutral world. That America would not submit was assured. The question that remained to be decided was the extent of our participation in the war. Should it be merely defensive on the high seas, or should it be a separate war? The real source of confusion was the treacherous and despotic Russian government. By no twist of language could a partnership with that government be made consistent with the principles laid down by the President in his address to the Senate.

The Russian Revolution ended that perplexity and we could enter the war with a clear conscience and a whole heart. When Russia became a republic and the American republic became an enemy, the German empire was isolated before mankind as the final refuge of autocracy. The principle of its life is destructive of the peace of the world. How destructive that principle is, the everwidening circle of the war has disclosed.

II

Our task is to define that danger so that our immense sacrifices shall serve to end it. I cannot do that for myself without turning to the origins of the war in order to trace the logical steps by

which the pursuit of a German victory has enlisted the enmity of the world.

We read statements by Germans that there was a conspiracy against their national development, that they found themselves encircled by enemies, that Russia, using Serbia as an instrument, was trying to destroy Austria, and that the Entente had already detached Italy. Supposing that all this were true, it would remain an extraordinary thing that the Entente had succeeded in encircling Germany. Had that empire been a good neighbor in Europe, by what miracle could the old hostility between England and France and Russia have been wiped out so quickly? But there is positive evidence that no such conspiracy existed.

Germany's place in the sun is Asia Minor. By the AngloGerman agreement of June, 1914, recently published, a satisfactory arrangement had been reached about the economic exploitation of the Turkish empire. Professor Rohrbach has acknowledged that Germany was given concessions "which exceeded all expectations," and on December 2, 1914, when the war was five months old, von Bethmann-Hollweg declared in the Reichstag that "this understanding was to lessen every possible political friction." The place in the sun had becn secured by negotiation.

But the road to that place lay through Austria-Hungary and the Balkans. It was this highway which Germany determined to control absolutely; and the chief obstacle on that highway was Serbia backed by Russia. Into the complexities of that Balkan intrigue I am not competent to enter. We need, however, do no more than follow Lord Grey in the belief that Austria had a genuine grievance against Serbia, a far greater one certainly than the United States has ever had against Mexico. But Britain had no stake in the Austro-Serbian quarrel itself.

It had an interest in the method which the central powers took of settling the quarrel. When Germany declared that Europe could not be consulted, that Austria must be allowed to crush Serbia without reference to the concert of Europe, Germany proclaimed herself an enemy of international order. She preferred a war which involved all of Europe to any admission of the fact

that a coöperative Europe existed. It was an assertion of unlimited national sovereignty which Europe could not tolerate.

This brought Russia and France into the field. Instantly Germany acted on the same doctrine of unlimited national sovereignty by striking at France through Belgium. Had Belgium been merely a small neutral nation the crime would still have been one of the worst in the history of the modern world. The fact that Belgium was an internationalized state has made the invasion the master tragedy of the war. For Belgium represented what progress the world had made towards coöperation. If it could not survive then no internationalism was possible. That is why through these years of horror upon horror, the Belgian horror is the fiercest of all. The burning, the shooting, the starving, and the robbing of small and inoffensive nations is tragic enough. But the German crime in Belgium is greater than the sum of Belgium's misery. It is a crime against the bases of faith at which the world must build or perish.

The invasion of Belgium instantly brought the five British democracies into the war. I think this is the accurate way to state the fact. Had the war remained a Balkan war with France engaged merely because of her treaty with Russia, had the fighting been confined to the Franco-German frontier, the British empire might have come into the war to save the balance of power and to fulfil the naval agreements with France but the conflict would probably never have become a people's war in all the free nations of the empire. Whatever justice there may have been in Austria's original quarrel with Serbia and Russia was overwhelmed by the exhibition of national lawlessness in Belgium.

This led to the third great phase of the war, the phase which concerned America most immediately. The Allies directed by Great Britain employed sea power to the utmost. They barred every road to Germany, and undoubtedly violated many commercial rights of neutrals. What America would do about this became of decisive importance. It if chose to uphold the rights it claimed, it would aid Germany and cripple the Allies. If