The Days of a Man 1918 



Holland. After a discussion of the difficulties which 

 lay in the way, the signers said: 



Ought we not to consider that the time has come for neutrals 

 to construct a bridge between the contending parties, who do 

 not seem able to get near each other without help from outside ? 



By the proposed basis for mediation Germany 

 was to be asked to evacuate Belgium and France, 

 acknowledge the right of nations to decide their own 

 fate, and be willing to join a League of Nations. As 

 for the Entente, it was suggested that they should 

 pledge themselves not to dismember Austria-Hungary 

 nor launch an economic war after the treaty of peace, 

 at the same time officially accepting President 

 Wilson's four imperatives. 



The voca- Having expanded the above propositions in some 

 l ^ n ,, of ^ detail, the committee questioned if it might "not be 



Holland? , . r TT 11 i i i 1 i 



the vocation of Holland to do a great deed in the 

 interest of peace by taking some initiative in that 

 direction then." They also asked judgment on a 

 formal resolution adopted at meetings held by the 

 Netherlands Anti-war Council at Amsterdam, Rotter- 

 dam, and The Hague on July 31, 1918, but never 

 acted on by the Dutch government. This read as 

 follows: 



Considering that both belligerents have repeatedly declared 

 their willingness to consider peace proposals of their opponents, 

 but that each group persists in its refusal to make peace pro- 

 posals itself, for fear that this would be interpreted as a sign of 

 weakness; 



Convinced that at the present moment each belligerent party 

 considers the prevention of a recurrence of this war to be its 

 supreme war aim, and is desirous in order to attain this aim of 

 cooperating towards the formation of a League of Nations, and 

 that, moreover, pronouncements of statesmen of belligerent 



