November 7, 1918 
LAND &> WATER 
The Alternatives : By Arthur Pollen 
THE events of the last week face us with an 
impenetrable position. The difficulty it presents 
arises not from it being complex, but from its 
being simple. The question we want answered 
is : will Germany fight on, or will she capitulate ? 
Since the fall of Hertling we have had many indications of 
the enemy's mind. But each curiously enough lends itself 
with equal plausibility to either of two contradictory inter- 
pretations. 
Is Surrender Inevitable ? 
The deciding factor in the fall of Hertling and the establish- 
ment of a government virtually chosen by a majority of the 
Reichstag was, as every one remembers, the sudden surrender 
of Bulgaria. Within very few days Germany had made 
to President Wilson the offer of a conditional surrender. 
Before the President's reply had been received the first 
steps were taken in those changes of the German constitution 
that would make the Government actually liberal and repre- 
sentative. Their pace became greater as one Wilson note 
followed another. It is already more than a week since 
political provisions — as profound as they are in form 
complete — were passed into law. If there is still a German 
Emperor he is certainly a War Lord no longer. He com- 
mands neither the Army nor the Navy ; he can neither 
break the peace noi: remake it. He has no free choice in 
appointing ministers, nor can he dismiss them if he dislikes 
their policy. Save for the Imperial title, the Government 
of Germany is as free, as pxjptilar, as representative, as written 
law can make it. So drastically unlike is the new order 
from the old, that reports are current that the Emperor has 
abdicated even his nominal power, both for himself and the 
Crown Prince, and that an infant sovereign, governed by a 
Reichstag-chosen regency, is to take his place. The Presi- 
dent's note did more than comment on the autocratic charac- 
ter of the German Government. They demanded a cessation 
of illegal and inhuman war. Here, too, Germany has hastened 
to conform. 
At first sight, there seems but one possible explanation of 
this tremendous revolution. The Allies, as Mr. Asquith said 
in 1914, went to war primarily to end the military domina- 
tion of Prussia. Five weeks ago Germany requested them 
to define their terms of peace. It is surely of vital moment 
to the enemy that the Allies, in framing their conditions, 
should do so persuaded that their chief objective is already 
gained. It must make a profound difference to the condi- 
tions, both of armistice and of peace, if we know that the 
military power of Prussia is defeated, and for the best of all 
reasons, because the German people will have none of it 
again. "If your objects," Prince Max and his colleagues 
seem to say, "are security and reparation, the first you have 
already. A democracy will never offend, as did our power- 
maddened Emperor in 1914. As reparation, we have 
already promised all that Mr. Wilson asked for ten months 
ago. Alsace and Lorraine we have already freed. The 
Poles, we agree, shall be a nation. The French and Belgian 
, provinces we will evacuate and restore. In the conduct of 
hostilities we have yielded everything you asked. We do 
not pillage or burn ; our submarines shsill sink no more 
ships at sight. The Russian treaties are no bar to peace. 
What further terms can you ask ? " 
And this, of course, is only part of the story. The internal 
political changes in Germany, made seemingly at an enemy's 
dictation, coupled with the surrender of Alsace and the 
abandonment of all (iermany's objects in the war, have been 
fiercely assailed by the Junker Press and critics. These 
things have been dubbed "a shameful surrender," "a 
cowardly sacrifice of Germany's honour," and so forth. 
The retort has been significant — and unanswerable. It was 
at I.udendorff's and Hindenburg's instigation that the over- 
tures to Washington were opened ; it was with their approval 
that the text of the replies was drawn. It was, in fact, the 
military position that made the offer of conditional surrender 
obligatory. 
Now all this is admitted fact, and represents the position 
as it was ten days ago. Mark what has happened since the 
Allied I'remicrs, with their naval and military advisers, met 
in Versailles to discuss and concert their terms. Two catas- 
trophic — indeed, cataclysmic — events have happened. Turkey 
has surrendered unconditionally ; Austria, her army in 
Italy defeated and in flight, has ceased to exist as a political 
unit. Thus, Italy has no opponent in the field ; Allenby 
and Marshall have nothing to impede their progress. It 
can only be a matter of time before the Black Sea will be in 
the grip of Allied sea-power. The last of all Germany's 
dreams is gone for ever. The road from Berlin to Bagdad 
is barred, not only by the new States that have sprung into 
existence where Austria was, not only by the restoration of 
Serbia and the passing of Bulgaria under Allied influence, 
not only by the elimination of Turkey in Europe, but by Ihe 
fact that the British Fleet henceforth extends its power 
— through the Dardanelles and the^ Bosphorus — to Odessa, 
Batoum, and Trebizonde. It is an astounding, a dramatic, 
and an incredibly far-reaching change. 
Does it not seem to follow, if there was no alternative 
to conditional surrender on October 4th, that there can now 
be no alternative to unqualified capitulation ? 
Will Germany Fight ? 
Yet from these same facts an exactly opposite conclusion 
can quite logically be drawn. Because Germany has become 
democratic it does not at all follow that Germanj' has become 
unwarlike. The Government of that country was Imperial 
and autocratic because the people were without any ambition 
to take the responsibility of p(jlitical control upon them- 
selves. The Government was brutal, hectoring, militarist, 
and predatory because it was exactly such a goverrment 
and no other that satisfied the natural taste of the German 
nature. In making war at all, and in making war by the 
methods it chose, autocracy acted with the enthusiastic 
approval and applause of the nation as represented in the 
Reichstag. If the nation has virtually deposed the Emperor 
and taken the Government upon itself, it is primarily because 
the Emperor, and the organ through which he acts, have 
failed in gaining the objects which the nation had in view. 
Autocracy has fallen, not because it was cruel, not because it 
was without honour, without mercy, and without conscience, 
but simply because it was unsuccessful. It is now nearly a 
month since the popular Government has existed. It 
claimed at the outset to be parliamentary, and now the law 
has made it so. Yet in this month there has not been a 
single admission that any act of Germany's has been a crime, 
nor the smallest offer of indemnity to anyone who, by land 
or sea, has suffered by those crimes. The Government of 
Germany may be truly democratic, but it is as truly blind to 
right and wrong as was its predecessor ; or, if not blind, 
then as Ijlatantly unrepentant. Now, if this is the case 
— and cannot be disputed — can we suppose that Germany 
has become unmilitary ? This, at least, is not its profession. 
Since the great change was made, 'the statesmen and 
publicists of the Fatherland have made many a speech and 
written many an article setting forth the hopes and the 
intention of the New Order. -All put in the forefront the 
demand of Germany for a "peace of justice," the abandon- 
ment of every hope — though not the fear — of a "peace of 
force." Not one of them has admitted that it is Germany 
that stands before the throne of justice, and can avoid its 
sentence being made effective by force, only by volunteering 
the reparation that is due. So far from this, it is the contrary 
note that we find in the speeches of Prince Max and in the 
articles of Harden. "A free Government leading a free 
people," said the former, "can alone be strong enough to 
offer terms of peace." But if what Germany thinks fair 
terms are rejected, then it is only a free Government leading 
a free people that can marshal the nation for its last great 
fight." Harden takes up the tale : " The ideals of America 
have become, or are becoming, the ideals of Germany. Do not 
drive us back into the hopeless barbarism of battle by seeking 
to impose upon us the vindictive conditions that vengeful 
F^rance and grasping England will urge. Push us too far, 
and we will fight as we have never fought before." All this 
puts a new meaning and a new significance on what has 
happened in the last five weeks. The problem it sets is 
just this. Are we any nearer having an enemy with whom 
we can, after hostilities have ceased, treat as we have treated 
with other Powers with whom we have been at war ? 
A month's experience is not encouraging. I have noted 
already there is no consciousness of guilt, no admission of 
responsibility for any of the crimes or destruction not enu- 
riierated in President Wilson's fourteen points. But even these 
have been faced in anything but a spirit of good faith. To 
pass a law making Alsace-Lorraine completely autonomous 
— so that the ultimate destiny of those provinces shall be 
settled by the principle of self-determination — is certainly 
