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Page 91
* * * * *
I need not dwell upon details of the German-American Peace Conference
which occupied the month of February, 1922. These are matters of familiar
record. The country went from one surprise to another as Germany yielded
point after point of her original demands. Under no circumstances would
she withdraw her armies from the soil of America unless she received a
huge indemnity, but at the end of a week she agreed to withdraw without
any indemnity. Firmly she insisted that the United States must abrogate
the Monroe Doctrine, but she presently waived this demand and agreed that
the Monroe Doctrine might stand. Above all she stood out for the
neutralisation of the Panama Canal. Here she would not yield, but at the
close of the conference she did yield and on February 22nd, 1922, Germany
signed the treaty of Pittsburg which gave her only one advantage, namely,
the repossession of her captured fleet.
It was not until a fortnight later, after the invading transports had
sailed for home and the last German soldier had left America, that we
understood why the enemy had dealt with us so graciously. On March 4th,
1922, the news burst upon the world that France and Russia, smarting
under the inconclusive results of the Great War, had struck again at the
Central Empires, and we saw that Germany had abandoned her invasion of
America not because of our air victory, but because she found herself
involved in another European war. She was glad to leave the United States
on any terms.
A few weeks later in Washington (now happily restored as the national
capital) I was privileged to hear General Wood's great speech before a
joint committee of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The
discussion was on national preparedness and I thrilled as the general
rose to answer various Western statesmen who opposed a defence plan
calling for large appropriations on the ground that, in the present war
with Germany and in her previous wars, America had always managed to get
through creditably without a great military establishment and always
would.
"Gentlemen," replied General Wood, "let us be honest with ourselves in
regard to these American wars that we speak of so complacently, these
wars that are presented in our school books as great and glorious. How
great were they? How glorious were they? Let us have the truth.
"Take our War of the Revolution. Does any one seriously maintain that
this was a great war? It was not a war at all. It was a series of
skirmishes. It was the blunder of a stupid English king, who never had
the support of the English people. Our revolutionary armies decreased
each year and, but for the interposition of the French, our cause, in all
probability, would have been lost.
"And the war of 1812? Was that great and glorious? Why did we win?
Because we were isolated by the Atlantic Ocean (which in these days of
steam no longer isolates us) and because England was occupied in a death
struggle with Napoleon.
"In our Civil War both North and South were totally unprepared. If either
side at the start had had an efficient army of 100,000 men that side
would have won overwhelmingly in the first six months.
"Our war with Spain in 1898 was a joke, a pitiful exhibition of
incompetency and unreadiness in every department. We only won because
Spain was more unprepared than we were. And as to our great naval
victory, the truth is that the Spanish fleet destroyed itself.
"Gentlemen, we have never had a real war in America. This invasion by
Germany was the beginning of a real war, but that has now been
marvellously averted. Through extraordinary good fortune we have been
delivered from this peril, just as, by extraordinary good fortune, we
gained some successes over the Germans, like the battle of the
Susquehanna and our recent seaplane victory, successes that were largely
accidental and could never be repeated.
"I assure you, gentlemen, it is madness for us to count upon continued
deliverance from the war peril because in the past we have been lucky,
because in the past wide seas have guarded us, because in the past our
enemies have quarrelled among themselves, or because American
resourcefulness and ingenuity have been equal to sudden emergencies. To
permanently base our hopes of national safety and integrity upon such
grounds is to choose the course adopted by China and to invite for our
descendants the humiliating fate that finally overwhelmed China, which
nation has now had a practical suzerainty forced upon her by a much
smaller power.
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