first suitable occasion. The Austrian Emperor and Burian emphasized the need on the isth, and wanted to begin at once. A fortnight was spent in arguing, and on the 3oth Austria threatened an independent overture. But both parties assumed that defensive war could still be successfully carried on in France, while the offensive submarine inclined the enemy to a peace which would leave the Central Empires their ill-gotten gains in the east; and they were at the moment engaged on the supplementary treaties of Brest Litovsk, which, as signed on the 27th, compelled the Bolsheviks to oppose the Entente forces in N. Russia, to renounce sovereignty over Esthonia, Livonia, and Georgia and to pay heavy gold indemnities, and riveted the German economic yoke more firmly than ever. The German public and even the civil government looked helplessly on while G.H.Q. wasted their opportunities for peace. There was no foresight, and no discussion of any terms that might have satisfied enemies whom Germany found it increasingly difficult to resist. Civil intelligence had abandoned its functions for so long to the soldier that it was simply atrophied for lack of use; and it was not until late in Oct. that ministers screwed up their courage to action independent of General Headquarters.
Concluding Stages. By that time the Hindenburg defences on which the army and public relied had broken down. On Sept. 2 the Wotan line was pierced, on the i2th the Americans wiped out the St. Mihiel salient, and on the I5th, the day on which the Bulgarian line in the Balkans was broken, Austria addressed a peace-note to belligerents, neutrals, and the Pope proposing a confidential and non-committal discussion in some neutral country. President Wilson replied on the following j day that the United States " can and 'will entertain no proposal for conference upon a matter concerning which it has made its position and purpose so plain "; and Austria retired from the diplomatic struggle. German G.H.Q. were not reduced to a , suppliant attitude until the zpth, the day on which Bulgaria signed her armistice and went out of the war, abandoning the
- whole of the Balkans to the Entente. Meanwhile Allenby had
' destroyed the Turkish armies in Palestine, the Hindenburg ' lines in front of Cambrai had been broken, and a combined I offensive in Belgium had undermined Germany's hold on the ' coast. On the 2yth President Wilson added " Five Particulars "
- to his " Fourteen Points," " Four Principles," and " Four
Ends." Some details, he said, were needed to make his general terms " sound less like a thesis and more like a practical pro- gramme." But even these particulars were less terms of peace than principles which must govern those terms, and they were I as follows:
First, The impartial justice meted out must involve no discrimina- tion between those to whom we wished to be just and those to whom j we did not wish to be just.
Second, No special or separate interest of any single nation or any group of nations can be made the basis of any part of the settle- [ merit which is not consistent with the common interest of all.
Third, There can be no leagues or alliances or special covenants and understandings within the general and common family of the League of Nations.
Fourth, And, more specifically, there can be no special selfish economic combinations within the League, and no employment of any form of economic boycott or exclusion, except as the power of economic penalty, by exclusion from the markets of the world, may be vested in the League of Nations itself as a means of discipline and control.
Fifth, All international agreements and treaties of every kind must be made known in their entirety to the rest of the world. Two days later Hertling and all his ministers resigned in order that the Kaiser might be provided with an administration sup- ported by the Reichstag to meet the President's objection to negotiating with an autocratic government; but the Kaiser in accepting this principle would only say that it was his " will that men who are supported by the confidence of the people should, to a large extent, participate in the rights and duties of the Government." Prince Maximilian of Baden was appointed German Chancellor, and he had to deal with a veritable panic ' at G.H.Q. Ludendorff was in despair. " To-day, " he declared, ".the soldiers hold their ground; it is impossible to foresee what may happen tomorrow . . . the peace offer must be made
to-day." Hindenburg was hardly less emphatic: " Every day of delay will cost thousands of brave soldiers their lives." So on Oct. 4 a first peace-note was despatched by Germany. The appeal was to President Wilson alone, asking him to take steps for the restoration of peace. The German note accepted the Fourteen Points as a programme; the Austro-Hungarian note, which followed on Oct. 7, accepted also the Four Principles of Feb. 1 1 and agreed that the Five Particulars should " also be taken into account."
The President's replies to these and- to the succeeding notes constituted a process of depriving the German Government one by one of possible loopholes of escape, and of the means, such as defensive warfare on French soil, delay for recuperation, and the submarine campaign, by which Ludendorff still hoped that the situation might be improved. On Oct. 8 he pressed for more specific acceptance of his principles, declined to propose an armistice unless the Central Powers consented " immediately to withdraw their forces everywhere from invaded territory," and pointedly asked whether the German Chancellor was merely speaking for the imperial authorities who had so far conducted the war. Satisfactory assurances were given by Germany on the 1 2th with regard to the first; but as to the second she proposed a mixed commission, and as to the third was not conclusive. Her acceptance of the first justified the President, as he said on the I4th, in being frank with regard to the other two points;, the process of evacuation and terms of the armistice must be left to the advice of the military authorities, but no arrangement could be accepted which did not guarantee the present military supremacy of his Government and its Allies. Nor would he or they consent to consider an armistice so long as German sub- marines continued their sinking of passenger ships, and German troops the pillage and destruction which marked their with- drawal. With regard to the democratic character of the German Government, he referred to his " Four Ends " speech of July 4,. in which he had plainly intimated that if the Germans wanted peace they must change their constitution. To the Austro- Hungarian note he returned a separate reply on the i8th, ex- plaining his change of attitude toward Czechoslovak and Yugo- slav " autonomy."
Both Governments made in reply concessions, in view of which the President said on the 2$rd he could not decline to take up the question of an armistice with his Allies. He had therefore transmitted the correspondence to them; but he pointed out that extraordinary safeguards would have to be demanded in view of the fact that " the power of the King of Prussia ta control the policy of the Empire is unimpaired . . . that the nations of the world do not and cannot trust the word of those who have hitherto been the masters of German policy." If the Government of the United States " must deal with the military masters and the monarchical autocrats of Germany ... it must demand not peace negotiations but surrender. Nothing can be gained by leaving this essential thing unsaid."
The German reply was dated the 27th. Incidentally that was the date of the Austrian debacle on the Piave; but Germany's action was dictated by events nearer home. Almost the last vestige of the Hindenburg defences had disappeared. But Ludendorff had recovered his obstinacy, if not his nerves, and urged the rejection of Wilson's terms. At last the civilian ministers acted on their own responsibility, and Ludendorff had to resign on the 27th. Next day, when the High Seas Fleet, the submarine having been barred, was ordered out, it mutinied; and the German note merely intimated that the German Govern- ment awaited the proposals for an armistice. But the Presi- dent's Allies had still to be heard; and on Nov. 5 he informed Germany that they reserved complete freedom of action at the Peace Conference with regard to the freedom of the seas, and understood by " restoration " " compensation for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allies and their property by the aggression of Germany by land, by sea, and from the air." No reference was apparently made to the Secret Agree- ments, which therefore would not be binding on the Conference. 1
1 See PEACE CONFERENCE for the actual proceedings.
