Tros Tyriusque mihi nullo discrimine agetur NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW APRIL, 1918 VICTORY-PEACE-JUSTICE OUR FIRST YEAR IN THE GREAT WAR ANOTHER year!-another deadly blow! No American poet, if one did live today, could say with truth as Wordsworth said of his countrymen a century ago, that "We are left, or shall be left, alone; the last that dare to struggle with the Foe"; never before, praise be to God, were England's hearts of oak less daunted or the souls of France more valiant. And yet, indeed, ""Tis well," if at last, as we stand upon the threshold of " another year," distressed if not dismayed by the spectacle of " Another mighty Empire overthrown," we know "That in ourselves our safety must be sought; That by our own right hands it must be wrought." How blind we were this one short year ago! We had elected to keep out of the war. "All the while," said the President in his second inaugural address, we have been conscious that we were not part of it," and, even though Copyright, 1918, by NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW CORPORATION. All Rights Reserved. we should "be drawn on, by circumstances, to a more active assertion of our rights and a more immediate association with the great struggle itself," the "shadows that now lie dark upon our path will soon be dispelled and we shall walk with the light all about us if we be but true to ourselves." As late as February 26, he had "thought that it would suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms" and on April 2 he felt that assurance had been added "to our hope for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening happenings in Russia. War there needs must be, but it shall be an academic war and soon ended-this was the great illusion pressed, with utmost good faith, no doubt, for months and months, by the President and his associates upon the minds of the people. We say it in no captious spirit but we say it, as a fact which has been attended by consequences whose continuance and repetition must be averted in the future if the world is to be saved. We have been at war a year, come April 6-technically and confessedly, though Germany had been waging war against us for many months before. What have we accomplished in that year? In the first place, we have suffered disillusionment. We have indeed suffered that in several respects. One relates to our prestige and authority in the world. There were thoseIlium fuit!-who thought, or who thought that they thought, that no nation in the world would dare to stand up against us. Let the United States so much as threaten to take a hand, and the offending nation would incontinently drop its guns and raise the white flag of unconditional surrender. It may be that such was the case at some point in our history. What is certain is, that it was not the case in April, 1917. It may be that such might have been the case then, if we had acted differently during the few preceding years. But we had not acted differently. And so Germany refused to be scared at the prospect of having to fight us in addition to the other Allies. On the contrary, she regarded our advent among the belligerents with at least an affectation of unconcern if not of contempt. Now it may be that Germany made a mistake in so doing; just as she did when she spoke so slightly of "Britain's contemptible little army." We rather think that before the end is reached the Huns will find that it was a very serious thing to them for America to enter the war. Yet now, as the net result of the first year of our participation, what is there to show that Germany underrated us or that we deserved the prestige which the event proved we had not? In another respect we have suffered disillusionment. This year has demonstrated that despite the President's ill-advised protestation that "we have not been neglectful" all that was said about our unpreparedness and about the urgent need of preparation, was true, and not only true but most tremendously timely and pertinent. It is officially confessed that we were grossly and grotesquely unprepared; and that even in the tense weeks between our severance of relations with Germany and the actual declaration of war, when it was obvious that the chances were a thousand to one that we should very soon be at war, even then there was scarcely a single prudent and resolute step taken toward preparation. Indeed, after the declaration of war lack of preparation continued to prevail. Money in plenty was provided, and the Administration was invested with such power as never was exercised before save by a dictator or a czar. But it was months before any adequate army began to be raised and months more before it was equipped with the necessities; and it was months before there was any real beginning of shipbuilding; though of course it was obvious to everybody from the very beginning that men and ships were the very Alpha and Omega of our war needs. Utter unpreparedness before the war began, and sluggishness in making amends for that neglect after it began; these were the two circumstances which should have yanked us out of our fool's paradise of dreams of formidable invincibility. We Nor can we escape the conviction that this first year of our war has been less effective than it should have been, because of a certain irresolution-shall we say, an inclination toward "watchful waiting "?-in what should have been the supreme and unwavering leadership of the nation. would not for a moment minimize the tremendous burden of care and responsibility which rested upon the President, nor would we demand that every man shall have infallible vision and a conviction of the end from the beginning. But we must believe that far more would have been achieved during our first year of war, and that consequently the cost of the whole war to us in treasure and in lives would have been greatly lessened, if there had been a greater degree of con |