lyg EMPLOYMENT OF THE PLEBISCITE C47^ 



declared on January 5, 1918, that "the days of the Treaty 

 of Vienna are long past, . . . government with the consent 

 of the governed must be the basis of any territorial settle- 

 ment. . . ."^® The same principles were voiced by the 

 Italian Prime Minister, Vittorio Orlando, on December 12, 

 1917,^^ and for France by Stephen Pichon, then Minister of 

 Foreign Affairs, on December 28, 191 7, and on January 

 II, I9i8.==<' 



The statesmen of the Central Powers have been much 

 less specific in their professions of acceptance of the new 

 principle, and where they are explicit they follow with a 

 qualification. In the German reply to the Pope's peace pro- 

 posal, " the Imperial Government greets with special sym- 

 pathy the leading idea of the peace appeal wherein his Holi- 

 ness clearly expresses the conviction that in future the 

 material power of arms must be superseded by the moral 

 power of right. "^^ The Austrian version states that " with 

 deep-rooted conviction we agree to the leading idea . . . 

 that the future arrangement of the world must be based 

 on the elimination of armed forces and on the moral force 

 of right and on the rule of international justice and 

 legality."-^ In their peace proposals of December, 1917, 

 they profess that " forcible annexation of territories seized 

 during the war does not enter into the intentions of the 

 allied [Teutonic] powers" and that "in accordance with 

 the declaration of statesmen of the Quadruple Alliance, the 

 protection of the rights of minorities constitutes an essential 

 component part of the constitutional rights of peoples to 

 self-determination, indicated by a constitution. The allied 

 [Teutonic] Governments also grant validity to this principle 

 everywhere, in so far as it is practicably realizable."-^ By 

 the signing of the Armistice Germany has unconditionally 

 accepted President Wilson's Fourteen Points and his later 



^^ Ibid., vol. vii, part 2, pp. 266-271. 



'" Ibid., vol. vii, part 2, p. 272. 



20 Ibid., vol. vii, part 2, pp. 210-212; see also above, p. 177, note 15. 



21 Ibid., vol. vii, part I, p. 285. 

 2' Ibid., vol. vii, part i, p. 286. 

 *8 Ibid., vol. vii, part 2, p. 263. 



