St. Louis Post-Dispatch
February 4, 1917

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ight, 1916. by R. L. Trade Mark Reg. U.S. Pat. Office | (Copyright, 1917, ad a. oO Fr fared HaT's asx! > MAKE A DASH RR MISS SPRINGER) . Not Interested. ly farmer from the border e country wandered into a ¥ goods store where @ sale ii was in progress. © *up one of the garments, loosened its folds, curtayaly to- it. is Sell you a night shirt?” asked rl. d the farmer, his articulation 7 impeded by e’ “chew,” “‘you sell me one, but they do gay - housands that wear ’em.” A Set Back. tty girl of the party w ng the genial bachelor on his remaining single. I never was exactly disap- love,”’ he meditated. “I was it you might call discouraged. when I was very young I be- | much enamored of a young — acquaintance; I was y 1 tell her of my feeling, but at ] ed up my courage to the pro- — oint. T said, ‘Let’s get married.’ she said, ‘Good Loré! A Transfer ipment- Filing , inet Supplieaa| | f # S } ; yetem. Direct from our ge —_— and pron ¥ he | Who'd q hing, you require for your 4G which adorn the a with all | with Jackson's “I $2. Fae ae F 3 ag oe - Sey See ee pe i "would not be there. peal to the country in rounded and ringing sentences. E pility,” o Cleveland's +: are confronted by 3 - Roosevelt’s - desirable citli- _ Sens.” phrases “as ee meme ter — ee wr ee eee, eel Nl A OM “VOL. 69. No. 170. ST. LOUIS, SUN DAY MORNING, ‘FEBRUARY 4, 1917. PAGES 1—12. a eee . ea 1 aE ——_: President s Peace the World Analyzed bu © Call Prof. Afbert Bushnell Hart ‘Noted Harvard Scholar Shows How It Points the Way to Peace, With Honor for All Men, Trough Many Obstacles Must Be Overcome. By Prof. Albert Bushnell Hart ‘Harvard Exchange Professor at Berlin University.) ‘Written for the New York Times and reproduced by the Post-Dispatch by special arrangement.) S HLDOM has any event in American history been more dramatically staged than President Wilson’s peace address to the United States. 4 It was a reminder of Washington’s entrance into the first Senate 4 to discuss 4 treaty with that august body, which threw away its chance of doing good by postponing the matter to an occasion when the President It recalled the great speches of Webster, in its ap- AS a State paper this address will take its place alongside the most famous utterances oF Presidents. Besides its breadth of view and{ chance of a decided victory on either lucidity of atyle and expression, the) side is to wear the other combination address bristles with some of those( out; and that, again, can only be successful if one quotable phrases utterances of a few of our great statesmen. It goes into .the same “lass with Wash- Ington’s -‘entan:;- ling alliances,” Jefferson's Re- publicans, we are Federalisrs,” "We are all take the respynsi- with “Let us with “We Grant's have peace,” a condition, not theory,” with *un- Tt almost measures up to some of the terse and lofty mes- literature will way to liberty,” “the organized\ 9 PROF. A. B. HART, 3 pages Of LINCOM mmc rw - American ' gide shows far more staying power than the other. Upon this remote chance that Germany can be starved before England and France are worn out, or that the .Germans will cut off the food supplies from the British Islands by. a na- val power which has only once during the war taken to the open sea in great force, on this bal- ance of unlikely chances the war is proceeding; and from two million to four million men may be sacrificed in : incorpo-{.order at the: ‘end to arrive at about rate out of Wilson's address stich’{ the same kind of peace that apparent- “we show mankind a; ly might be had now. For it is manifest that Germany has major force of mankind,” a communi-) other plans for the future than the | ty of power,” “a peace without vic- (holding of Belgium or Northern tory,” “freedom of life, not equipoise) France, or even Poland; that Ger- of power,” ‘“‘the free, constant, un- many longs for peace, in order to con- threatened intercourse of nations.” It | solidate the new empire in Asia. ig a high doctrine, calling upon the Whether, as President Wilson | world to be consistent with itself, to| thinks, both groups of Powers are > put into practice the principles of gov- upon which it professes to found civ- . lization. 2 The World Situation. The foundation stone of the address a and of the policy which Wilson ad- vocates is set forth in a single sen- tence: “I am seeking only to face 4 realities, and to face them without a soft concealments.”’ ground of safety That is the only from which the American people may bope “‘to exer- cise influence in the saving of man- a kind from the terrible losses and the | possible destruction of their political | organization.” ditions. “— fay that Germany has been a dread- va ful sinner, brought on the war, con- ‘quered Belgium, a land (which bas not made clear to the The trouble with a large pari of the > discussions of the present situation a and of the prospects of peace is that a they ignore the present physical con- It does not help matters to overw helmed Po- World {ts protest against separation a from Russia), obliterated Servia, is | fesponsible for the Armenian massa- “ eres; and that therefore no peace can | be made til) “Prussian militarism is crushed.” If all that is truc, it does not affect the real question, which is Whether Germany can be crushed by any forces that will be brought to- as cide the question either of war or > Peace. At the present moment, when ete only notable advances in the last > months have been made by Ger- Austrian and Bulgarian troops, to a frightful catastrophe for nia, something more than and a sense of duty to man- l is required to make the allies so helmingly victorious that they, dictate terms of peace. On the Other hand, successes in the Balkans fo not mean the invasion of England, or the capture of Paris, or another oc- “MPAt of Moscow, Which bas not _,.” since Napoleon's retreat in mB 1812. t Now a Deadlock. © the layman the war appears to De desdioc, in which : the only( | ‘ anxious to enter some kind of world » ornment and international intercourse { Organization which will insure not simply peace in 1917, but peace for 50 years, is not so certain; but any dispassionate survey of the field seems to show that “peace without victory’ is the only likely peace. The President squarely faces the difficult question, the almost insolu- ble question, of the conditions upon which a permanent peace may be ob- tained, and first of all he places a peace which is not “a victor’s terms imposed upon the vanquished.” The history of Poland and of Al- sace-Lorraine are a sufficient proof that a nation may lose territory, or even national existence, while - the people remain what they are. Con- quest of territory, Governments, gar- risons and military law for civilians do not conquer men’s souls or their national spirit. “Equality of Right.’’ President Wilson's insistence on the protection of small Powers also falls in with the experience of man- kind and the sympathies of great numbers of people in neutral coun- tries. The President does not men- tion Belgium, Servia or Montenegro or Rumania, evidently because he considers it a foregone conclusion that they must be reinstated. His ideal of “equality of rights” corre- sponds with the fundamental prin- ciple of sovereignty and of the state. Nevertheless, the United States of America does not recognize the “equality of rights” of the small Powers that are nearest to us. What rights have Cuba, Panama, Santo Do- mingo, Nicaragua‘and Haiti which the United States is bound to respect? In what way is our policy of prac- tical annexation of these neighbor-. ing American states different from the British occupation of Cyprus and Egypt, the Italian conquest of Tripoli, or the French advance on Morocco? The United States cannet lead the na- tions in the defense of weak powers without itself respecting weak Pow- ers. One of the strongest sentences in ‘the address is: “No right anywhere exists to hand peoples about from i a eee Continacd on Page Nine. Ns a ne by-——. How Germany Expects to Win the War os a The New Prussian War Minister Gen. von Stein Believes the Energy of His People Is So Much Su- perior to That of Belligerents That Germany’s Enemies Will Blood and Disaster. By Cyril Brown,, (Special Staff Correspondent of The World.) Copyright, 1917, by the Press Publishing Co. BERLIN, Feb. 3. NERGY, energy is the. key of.the world war's fF problem in its last phase, according to the Prussian War Minister, General of Artil- lery von Stein, one of the few German Generals who have escaped American interviewers. the velops greatest energy,” he philosophized quietly and confidently regarding the war’s out- | come. the near-great with the Kaisér’s armies at tre front and rear, Be Overwhelmed in a Welter oi ; | “Everything depends now on which side de- ) ( In over two years spent tracking the great and | \ I have seldom run down a tt-r- ( man General with greater psychological profit or - grappled with a more interesting, personality than that of this grim yet not un- gentle, prematurely old, veteran Somme fighter. Standing against six-fold odds alone with his steel-sinewed | corps, he caught the full shock of the whole En- | glish army after-a seven days’ played the overture to the Somme battle. staff officers and line officers between Bapaurme and Peronne still speak reverently as one of th outstanding heroes of that bacchanale of bleod. drumfire had ( Of him } GEN. VON STEIN. ogy snd military public opinion at home, conver- The new War Minister, who is Commander in ‘' great military trust, embracing all the human pire, which is turning out new armies for Hin- denburg, more and more cannon and vaster quan- tities of ammunition, is outwardly as hard as his Chief of all the home forces and chairman of the } and material resources of the whole German em- ) sation turned to the evolution of the Prussian War Ministry during the war. Learning From Experience. “Even before the new Kriegs-Amt was organ- ized under Gen. Groener,” said the General, “the War Ministry had grown immensely, and its rapid name—although on cautiously sounding a staff ? expansion since then is by no means the result junior I was tipped off that he had a heart and was a thoroughly good soul beneath. - Carries “Somme Look.” He is scarred with the ¢haractefistic Somme lines of a grizzled, close-cropped. battle head, and has an iron-gray mustache; his forehead is fur- rowed with heavy responsibility. He has flinty eye, from which the wonder has not yet quite gone—the strange faraway Somme look of one wings of the angel of death day after day for over three months, as he told me. His present functions include being a high- pressure transformer for turning Hindenburgian will power and Ludendorfian energy into armies and ammunition, as well as being something of a human dynamo on his own account, with his store of Somme experience as the driving power. He has no peace hallucinations. ‘The Crown Prince Rupprecht told me recently on the Somme that he did not take much stock in peace talk—not with the men at present at the head of the entente,’ I offered tentatively. “That's ‘erledigt’ (settled) now,” he snapped quietly and thoughtfully, in short, what the Ger- mans call “‘markige” phrases. “I don’t break my head over peace, because that isn’t my business. For the soldier what matters in the first line is to seek the decision on the battlefield. There is too much talk about peace. I consider it superflu- ous. For peace can only be made when the out- come of the war is clear. What is the use of racking one’s brains on both sides about the peace question? Whoever wins the decisive vic- tory will dictate peace. tattle ad Fight and Not Flinch. ! NO OT COC ONO ON LO acy “As a soldier I don’t rack my brains about peace speculations. The war will go on because every man must still believe in and hope for final vic- tory. No doubt about it. We must fight on and fight the war out to a finish without flinch- ing. It must go on to a victorious end. That is the spirit of the whole army. And it is what I want, too.” - I suggested an illuminating remark made to me by Gen. Groener, the labor and economic educa- tor, that regardless of the possibility that Russia or England or any other enemy might be ready to make peace at this or that point of time, he whs going right on doubling and trebling Ger- many’s ammunition output. “Naturally,” Stein answered. “As a soldier I can only deal with facts. What might happen I don’t know. I only figure with the actualities of war. Of course, one also ponders the possibilities. /That every soldier does, but we do not let our- selves be influenced by them. Otherwise one would get into fantastic regions. Groener is re- sponsible for the work of the new war office and will solve his task. I, too, am going on with my work, uninfluenced by peace possibilities and peace talk.” Referfing to the Kaiser’s recent army order and the appeal to the nation evoked by the statement of the entente’s peace conditions, Gen. von Stein added: army and express its spirit. The army would not : the bitter end.” After this sound and, at the present stage of the war, not unimportant summary of front psychol- ; ) who has heard the rustle of the feathers of the :. : t ) ‘ of the Somme battle, but of experience accumu- lated during the whole war. Everything we have learned, all the experience we have gained, has been and will continue to be booked so that noth- ing shall be lost to future generations. | “A commission of scientists—nonmilitary men— is constantly studying and working over this mass of material, and I have given orders that books shall be conscientiously kept on all mistakes that have been made as well, so that those who come after us shall also profit by the experience we have bought with blood. “All German industry and the greater part of her civil life is now being absorbed by, and or- ganized only for, war. But the foundation of the War Ministry laid by Roon, the old ‘organizer of victory,’ and his predecessors, were such that without any trouble or more ado we have been able to expand into this vast organization and make all the necessary innovations. The spirit of Roon persists.” . Rising warily to a discreet correspondential angling for his opinion regarding the probable in- fluence of the lessons learned in the Somme bat- tle on the future German conduct of the war, he said, with a flash of his stern smile: en = p= a at ” - = = ag ag Oa ON ONO a tay tO al tt ll ips gg Ol tty tl r | ; nounced French and English | } { ) | Cannot Break Through. “IT opened the battle of the Somme. For my corps was attacked by the whole English army after continuous drumfire and gas attacks last- ing from June 24 to June 30, I had very scant forces against these attacks—only five divisions— and despite it they could not get through. From which fact I draw the conclusion that as they then failed, so also in the future the English will not break through our front. They thought our troops had been made groggy by their drumfire, but they found out that such was not the case.” I mentioned the remark of a high staff officer that at the retardando tempo of the Somme of- fensive, it would take the English at least 10' years to reach the Rhine. “There is no chance even of that,” he smiled. “The war will not last so long.” While not speaking disparagingly of his English foes, Von Stein remarked significantly: “I con- sider the French better soldiers than the En- glish.’”’ He cautiously refused on principle to ex- press any judgment of English leadership, high or low, saying: “I will express no verdict as to their leadership, because one does not know all the facts—we could not see behind their line. “I had fought against the English for a long while, off and on, before the battle of the Somme, and it was always curious to note the behavior of the English prisoners. They were astounded by our good treatment of them. They must have been persuaded by their press into believing they would not encounter good treatment as prisoners. it was the same with French prisoners—they thought they would be shot to death and were astonished when given food’and drink.” Somme Not a Precedent. L PES eer Asked if he thought the fighting of the future would bear the characteristic stamp of the Som- “The Kaiser's words touch the whole me battle, Von Stein replied thoughtfully: “l take a standpoint different from that main- > fighting is not a model for the future, that the character of the Somme battle was conditioned by the momentary operative situation, and that you | } further to intensify artillery fire. “All of Our ar Is Absorbed by the War and Enemy’s Pros- pects of Breaking Through Are Helpless’’-—*‘I Don’t Rack Mv Brain About Peace Specula- tions’”—‘‘French Better Sol- diers Than Inglish.”’ cannot draw any conclusions from the Somme battle for the future.’ ISTRATEGY AND POLICY OF IMPENDING SEA BATTLE AS SEEN BY ADMIRAL FISKE American Naval Authority Tells Why British Are Forcing the Issue Into the North Sea and What, in General Terms, We May Ex- pect in Great Conflict. An Authorized Interview With Rear Admiral A. Fiske, U. 8. Navy. mind of every alert man and woman a sudden realization: that a T= present crisis, which has put the world tip toe, stirs up in the battle involving more stupendous forces than have ever fought against each other, is now possible. Having recently been occupied in “Can German defense in the west be strength- | writing “The Navy as a Fighting Machine,” I find my imagination ex- cited over the idea that the two most enormous and effective fighting ened and increased as fast or faster than the French and English preparations for attack; can the German defense keep pace with the possible future allied offensive?” 1 suggested. “I cannot express judgment as to that because I do not know what the enemy are doing behind their front in the way of preparations. We cannot know all the enemy are doing. But true it is that we have made al] our preparations on a great- er scale than for the Somme battle,”” the War Minister answered. ’ He thought it extremely probable that. the an- spring offensive would prove another Somme battle. “I cannot say whether it will be still greater—whether it will be physically possible to surpass that gigantic struggle. I cannot say. whether it is possible still If it is pos- sible, both Sides will-do it. In any event the spring offensive will find the German front ready. | Greater Fire Still. pS Ae aD NGO ee SENN ES SO “A curious phenomenon of the Somme battle was that cannon could hold out under the ter- rible strain of the fire of larger quantities of am- munition than anyone had ever dreamed of, and still live: No man would have belieyed it for- merly.” | He intimated that the possible longevity of heavy guns was still underrated, and that it might still be physically possible to increase the mass of metal hurled at the enemy by extending the guns to their limit. Of the German counter preparations for the spring offensive he remarks cautiously: ‘Our care is to see that there is enough reserve war mate- rial on hand.” Commenting on the frank statements made to me by several Generals and staff officers on the Somme that the surprising magnitude of the French and English preparations for that of- fensive had unfortunately been underestimated, but that the German army would not let itself be taken by surprise again, and that never again would such a favorable opportunity for breaking through the front recur as at the beginning of July, Gen. von Stein remarked significantly: “Ja —as far as men and war material come in ques- tion, we shall see to that. The enemy’s prospects of breaking through in the west are hopeless.” To the German military mind the long deadlock in the west is thoroughly distasteful and ob- noxious. “Mobile warfare,’ said von Stein, ‘is the form which one must ever seek to reach. The losses are less because you cannot bring up such a mass of heavy artillery and the heaviest caliber guns in mobile as in trench warfare, and the strategic results are more satisfactory. Prefers Opens Warfare. “Mobile warfare in the west wouid be very dear to me, but’’-—he smiled easily—‘‘there is no use of our retiring in the hope of coaxing the English into such warfare, because the English, and the French as well, go slowly and methodically for- ward, and would be chary of engaging in anything that looked like mobile warfare.” The canny veteran Somme fighter as a War Minister takes no more stock in/an excessively Jong war than in premature peace talk and scouts as absurd the current discussion about preparing for a war of indeterminate length, or of carrying it on, if necessary, to all eternity. “No state can wage war to all eternity except in theory. You have a new crop of men, a certain quantity of useful human material each year. Theoretically, this war could never cease, because the Nachwucbs—the young growth—fully covers the losses.” He added the statement that now the German losses were much more than counterbalanced by the new crop of German recruits. “If our enemies believe that Germany is at the end of her reserves or near the end, and are bank- ing on it, they will be disillusioned. It has not been and will not be necessary for us to extend the age limit. We have got along very well with the age limit of 45, and have always followed the principle of gradually withdrawing the oldest men. “We also lack no necessary raw materials. We shall pull through with what we have. German science has worked with us and created substi- tutes for all sorts of things. So far we bave not been in embarrassment on the score of raw mate- rials. “German science and technology have created Snuch during the war which will become known and be further developed in peace times, and understand it if we did not want to fight it out to tained by many others, namely, that this form of { these discoveries, inventionszand processes, such as making alcohol from cellulose—many of which are still military secrets today—will be of the ut- Centinaeé of Page EKigt« machines the world has ever seen, may soon come into collision, head on, . | and at full speed. The fact that the fleet of one of the Powers has been able to impris- on the fleet of the other Power, and practically drive all the foreign | commerce of that Power from all the seas has been often referred to as presenting the most important fact of this great war. But the pos- sibility is suggest- ed to us that this condition may cease to exist, and that both fleets may meet in some decisive. battle of battle If so, the great- est naval spec- tacle in the his- tory of the world will probably be staged in conse- quence, and the battles _ of the angels, imagined by the mind of Mil- ton, which, in the splendor of his “Paradise Lost” have survived the centuries, will seem like a vaudeville performance in comparison with the tragedies enacted by mortal man, in the mist-covered waters of the cold North Sea. It will be noted that each of the opposing Powers declares that its fleet is going to act in defense of{- its nation. Perhaps a few reflec- tions regarding ‘“defense,”’ especially naval defense, may be interesting. What Defense Means. In the minds of some of the people the idea of what constitutes ‘‘defense is deemed almost synonymous with “resistance.” Naval defense, like military defense, fense only, but contains an element of “offense” as well. For these rea- sons the dividing line between offense and defense is very vague; and it is made more vague through a realiza- tion by all military people that the offense has certain decided advan- tages over the defense: so that when strained relations between two nNna- tions come, each is so fearful that the other will take the offensive first, when the two nations are near each } other, that it is apt to take the of- fensive first—in real self-defense. A striking illustration of this is the action of certain European Powers in the latter part of July, 1914. In addition to the sincere convic- tions of both parties, there is also) apt to be considerable yielding to( the temptation to persuade tlie world | that the other party is the aggressor, merely to get the sympathy that usu- ally goes o the innocent victim—the support of what Bismarck called “The fmponderables.” The impending battle, which may be the most terrific battle in the history of the world, is the logical result of the study of war. This study has taught its students for many centuries that a merely passive defense wil] finally be broken down and that the most effective defense is the “offensive-defensive.” The clearest case of a correct of- fensive-defensive is Nelson's defense of England, which he carried out in the Mediterranean, in the West In- dies and wherever the enemy's fleet might be, finally defeating Napo- leon’s plan for invading England— not by waiting off the coast of En- gland, but by attacking and crippling Napoleon's fleet off the Spanish coast, near Trafaiger. Principals of Naval Defense. These facts bring us to see that naval defense consists of three parts: 1. Defense of the coast against bombardment and invasion. > ® Defense of the trade routes | traversed by ships carrying the | ADMIRAL FISKE, ‘sea-borne commerce, ) } | is not passive 3 ( exports and imports of the coun- yt . Defense of the national] pol- acy, including defense of the nation’s reputa- . tion, honor and prestige. To most people | in the United States naval de. fense means merely defense against invasion. This notior is 6f recent growth, and certainly was not held by the framers of our Constitution, Seo- tion 8 of article. the - I defines powers of Con- gress; and al- though eight of the 18 paragraphs deal exclusively ™ with measures of and land, only one of these para- graphs (the fifteenth) deals with in- “2 vasion. The first paragraph—reads: “The Congress shall have pow- er to lay and collect taxes, du- ties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general wel- fare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the Unit- ed States.” The general welfare of every mara- ‘time Power has always been inti- mately concerned with its sea-borne commerce. It is only by means of for instance, that Americans can live in the way Americans wish to live. The gen- eral welfare of the country requires the safety of its exported ‘and im- ported goods while on the sea, and. includes the right of a citizen. to travel: with safety in every land, to buy and sell in foreign ports, to feel a proper measure of self-respect and national respect wherever they may , go, and to command from the people of the lands they visit a proper rec- ognition of their claims to justice. Defense of Trade. It is with the “defense of the pay routeftraversed by ships carrying the exports and imports of the country” that the set drama, so obviously fore- shadowed in the present war, is chief- ly concerned. In that part of the naval defense which ts concerned witb trade routes, the strategical ad- vantage must go, in generdl, te that side which is nearer to the locality where the decisive battle may oceur. If we conceive that the greatest tea battle in the history of the world may take place, even perhaps while these words are being read, we can assume that {t will be somewhere off the coasts of the warring nations which are close together. As a rule, no na- tion can ever tell whether its naval defense will have to be exerted di- rectly for the “defense of the coast”— for “defense of the trade routes”— a or for “defense of the national pole but the present case is a simple one, because — es icy’—or all three at once; of this closeness together coasts. that in nearly all naval wars te eageane ot Se ing events have been battles t | ween the two fleets that were from the land of either. a Most of the wars, howeven @ “entinued es ; a . 5. v In mm mu a : DT ET ee ee a ee eneniliieith ;