some security before it would pronounce judgment. Nevertheless, more than half the States of the world had now declared war on, or broken off diplomatic relations with, Germany and her three allies; the Entente had become a War League of Nations; and the peace that would be made in case of victory would represent the judgment of the world and be very different from that con- templated in the secret agreements.
But there was a yawning gulf between judgment and execution, and a painful interval between the President's declaration and the time when, in Ludendorff's words, " America became the decisive power in the War." Financial cooperation began to relieve the strain at once, and naval cooperation to ease the sub- marine situation in May; and at the end of June the so-called " sentimental Division " arrived as an earnest of what was to follow on the field of battle. But as late as March 1918 there were only five American divisions in France, of which two were untrained; and meanwhile the endurance of the European Allies was sorely tried. The French army was seriously demoralized by the failure of Nivelle's offensive, and Caillaux began to under- mine its political fortitude. The sinking of 25% of British merchantmen at sea in April was an almost more fearful menace; Russia had become a broken reed; the British campaign in Flanders proved a disappointment; Stockholm was holding out the lure of a "peace by negotiation" to Labour: Mr. Henderson resigned from the British Cabinet on Aug. n; the Pope had appealed on the ist for a peace on the basis of the status quo, disarmament, and arbitration; and tentative discussions were proceeding by more or less authorized agents in Switzerland. Michaelis secured-an equivocal answer to the Pope's note in his effort to please both his militarist and his parliamentary masters. But the situation in Germany was as equivocal as its Chancellor: for while at the end of Oct. he was replaced by Hertling, a per- sona grata to the Pope as the first Roman Catholic Chancellor of Protestant Germany, for receding from the July resolutions, Germany was receding quite as fast with the apparent improve- ment in her military situation. " The future will show," declared Czernin after the Armistice, " what superhuman efforts we made to induce Germany to give way. That all proved fruitless was not the fault of the German people . . . but that of the leaders of the German military party, which had attained such enormous power in the country."
Greece in the War. The only set-back had been the con- strained entry of Greece into the Entente fold. Since the dis- missal of Venizelos in Oct. 1915, Constantino had governed by means of phantom ministers; and in May 1916, acting under his orders, the Greek commanders admitted Bulgarian forces into Forts Rupel and Dragotin, the keys of the Struma valley, while in Aug. Greek garrisons surrendered Seres, Kavalla, and Demir- hisar to the same racial enemies. This was too much for the better part of Greece. A revolution broke out at Salonika, which swept over Crete, Mytilene, Samos, Chios, and the other Greek islands in Sept. ; and a provisional government of insurgent Greece was formed under Venizelos, Condouriotes, and Danglis, which was tardily owing to Russian and Italian influence recognized by the Entente and declared war on Bulgaria. But Constantine controlled the mainland of Old Greece, and constantly intrigued against the Entente. At length, in June 1917, Tsarist protection having been removed by the Russian revolution, the Entente intervened by force of arms, and Constantine was deposed on the nth and removed to Switzerland. Venizelos returned to Athens on the 2 ist, and on the 3oth diplomatic relations were severed with Germany and Austria. The high-handed proceedings of the Entente were, no doubt, necessary measures of war; but Venizelos had to pay the penalty later for the violent patronage he had enjoyed, and the Entente needed the moral support which President Wilson gave it in' the drastic reply he returned to the Pope's peace note on Aug. 27. To deal with Germany by way of peace upon the plans proposed by His Holiness would, the President declared, " involve a recuperation of its strength and a renewal of its policy."
Brest Litovsk. The recuperation of its strength was exem- plified in Oct. by the further advance into Russia and the
Italian disaster at Caporetto: and the renewal of its policy was seen at Brest Litovsk. On Nov. 20, a fortnight after the successful Bolshevik revolution, Lenin proposed to all the belligerents a general armistice and discussion of peace, and on the zqth Germany accepted the invitation. The armistice was concluded at Brest Litovsk on Dec. 15. The Bolsheviks inserted a clause to the effect that German troops were not to be transferred from the eastern to the western front; but the Germans simply ignored it. It was mainly for that purpose that they signed the armistice; the idea of a great offensive on the W. had already occurred to them, and in Nov. and Dec. 24 divisions were transferred. Aus- tria's main idea was much the same: " peace at the earliest moment," said Czernin, " is necessary for our own salvation, and we cannot obtain peace unless the Germans get to Paris, and they cannot get to Paris unless the eastern front is free." Czernin, and possibly even Kiihlmann, the German Foreign Secretary, were prepared for such terms as might have secured this freedom and given Ludendorff a reasonable prospect of getting to Paris; but the grasping nature of the militarists stood in their own way. A preliminary conference at German Headquarters on Dec. 18 agreed to demand the acquisition of a protective belt of territory along the Russian-Polish frontier, and a personal union of Cour- land and Lithuania with Germany or Prussia, and to suggest the evacuation of Esthonia and Livonia by the Russians in the interests of self-determination.
At the Conference of Brest Litovsk, which opened on the 22nd, Kiihlmann and Gen. Hoffmann represented Germany, Trotsky and Joffe -the Bolsheviks, and Czernin Austria-Hungary. The Bolsheviks insisted on open diplomacy, and the arguments of the diplomatists were published throughout Europe from day to day by wireless telegraphy. This was essential for their schemes, for they relied upon propaganda to rouse the pro- letariats in all the belligerent countries to demand a cessation of the national wars which divided their forces, in order to combine them in a universal revolutionary movement. Their proposals were the evacuation of all conquests, restoration of independence to all nations subjected during the war, self- determination for those which had not previously secured independence, and no indemnities. Czernin replied for the Central Powers on the 25th, accepting the principles of no forcible annexations and no indemnities, but making the whole bargain conditional upon the acceptance of a general peace by the Allied and Associated Powers, who were given until Jan. 4 to signify their assent. No formal reply was made by them to the invitation; but one of the most important results of the Brest Litovsk negotiations was to clinch the case for a restate-: ment of the Entente aims in the war.
Peace Moves, 1917-8. Russia had asked for that restatement as far back as May 30, and in a communication addressed to the Provisional Government on June 9 President Wilson had replied that " no people must be forced under sovereignty under which it does not wish to live. No territory must change hands except for the purpose of securing those who inhabit it a fair chance of life and liberty. No indemnities must be insisted on except those that constitute payment for manifest wrongs done. No readjustments of power must be made except such as will tend to secure the future peace of the world and the future happiness of its peoples. And then the free peoples of the world must draw together in some common covenant . . . that will in effect combine their force to secure peace and justice in the dealings of nations with one another." On Nov. 18 M. Clemenceau, the new French premier, spoke slightingly of a League of Nations, remarking that he was only out to win the war; and the Bolshevik publication of the Secret Agreements which began on the 22nd revealed the gulf which separated the Old World ambitions of the Entente Powers from the objects for which Mr. Wilson had told revolutionary Russia " we can afford to pour out blood and treasure." On the 2gth Lord Lansdowne published a letter in the Daily Telegraph (The Times having declined to give it publicity) coupling a demand for a restatement of war aims with a more dubious proposal for peace negotiations. To the latter suggestion Wilson made an
