WHAT AMERICA GAVE

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 113, 8 November 1918, Page 13

WHAT AMERICA GAVE

DECISIVE AID AT CRITICAL MOMENT

COMPENSATION FOR RUSSIA'S FALL

A DEMOCRATIC ALLY IN PLACE OP TSARISM

Britain came into the war in one fateful step; she had no second thoughts, because" none was needed. The United States came into the war by inches, after the' laps© of years. After thirty-two months spent in a diplomatic argument, which appeared as if it would never end in action, the American declaration of war was made on 6th April, 1917. • ' The American declaration is vitally connected with two other and earlier dates—7th November, 1916, and 14th March, 1917. On 7th November Woodrow Wilson was re-elected President of the United States, and on 14th March the Tear abdicated. The first event eliminated all possible dissension in the United States. The second event was destined to lead up to Russian dissensions that would paralyse the ..Allies' Eastern partner The pre-election Witeon and the postelection Wilson appear to be two different men. The pre-election Wilson could have found a ground for declaring war in the Lusitania crime (7th May, 1915), and again in the torpedoing (April, 1916) of another merchantman carrying Americans, tho Sussex. These, and other opportunities for war, produced only Notes. But when Germany notified the United States (31st January, 1917) that she would sink at sight, as from tho. next day, all ships within "the barred zone," President Wilson reeponHed (3rd February) by dismissing the German Ambassador, Count Bernstorff. ■ On 18th March three American ships were torpedoed without warning, and within three weeks tfcte United States declared war. What caused tho diplomatic Wilson of 1916 to become the militant Wilson of 1917? Is it possible that the President was dominated in 1916 by election considerations, of which he got rid on 7th November? PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. To suggest election considerations _ is not necessarily to impute a mean motive. It is true that Mr. Wilson was_ elected by a very narrow margin, and it is arguable that his non-committal attitude towards intervention in 1916 was dictated by a desire to turn away no vote on which he might otherwise rely. But it is also arguable, on the broader ground, that a President in the last quarter of his four-year term might well prefer to have a fresh mandate before committing his country to war. Whatever the explanation, it is a, fact that, in a very few months, the Note-writer was merged in the man of action. To the world at large the transformation was tremendous. The fables of 1916 V "America at War' 1 and "America under Conscription"—became the facts of 1917, and for the first time in history armies of the New World intervened in the affairs of the Old. It iB, of course, fair to add that tne German action in 1917—the immediate cause of the war—was not exactly parallel with the German, actions in 1916 and 1915. In thoee years there had been ruthlessness; but in 1917 it was a resumed rnthlessness, carrying with it the element of a_ renewed defiance of things that America had postulated as essential. At the moment we are too near to these wente to see them in perspective and to give them the close study which historical analysis demands. Indeed.it is not too much, to say_ that the causation of America's entry into the war will probably be a matter of difference of opinion for years to come^— a difference not only aa to impelling motives, but as to the exact relative degree in which thoee motives operated. A PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT. But if an analysis of President Wilson's pre-war mind is premature,_ the success of his policy is plain to the sight. He kept a huge and partly heterogeneous nation of over 100 millions well in hand until there came a time when the Allied cause, freshly purified of Teariran, was about to become embarrassed with Bolshevism ; a time ■ when true democracy stood in real need of the services of all true democrats. And it was at this psychological moment that America struck, and struck home. The disa.ppearance of Tearism freed the Republic from political scruples j • and, later on, i the melting away of the Russian armies, destroyed by a tyranny which was no less a tyranny because of its Red vestments, constituted a solid military obligation which a nation pledged to demo-' cracy could no longer ignore. The irony of history is seen in the fact that Yon Tirpitz framed his submarine policy to prevent Britain from using "a bridge-head on the Continent," and to separate Britain from the United States. But what he accomplished was the political alignment—as against Prussianism—of the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon family, and the confluence at bridge-head and on battlefield of the mightiest armed forces they have ever put in the field. Without Prussia and Tirpitz, could Britain and the United • States have become colleagues and partners in the political readjustment of the modern world? PRESIDENT AND PREMIER. Wilaon in 1917 stood before the world , backed with all the authority of a. fouryear commission as President of the United States-^-such authority as no A!lie<l leader in Europe, except the lately-overthrown Tsar, could even have pretended to. One of the central facts of the situation was the immense constitutional and executive capability of an American President, which far exceeded that of a Frencfi President, and which was sharply diff6rentiated from the curbed power of a British, French, or Italian Prime Minister. Lloyd George, Clemeuceau, and Orlando at no lima held the mastery of their domestic situations in the manner or degree in ■which tho new-elected President mastered America. When the need arose for tii single command on the Western front, Lloyd Hecrge, the self-styled political strategist, was forced to dissemble to the House of Commons, to equivocate and compromise, and to mask his plan. In strong contrast, President Wilson declared unequivocally for united control, and led the way with the broadminded policy stroke by which American units were brigaded with British and French armies. No wonder that sucr constitutional authority, wielded by such a man, speedily made him the moral leader of the Allied force 3, their main political motive-power, and iv largo measure their law-giver. DEMOCRATIC CONSCRIPTION. America's naval contribution, in the atf;i.y of the blockade, rationing of new-

txalfi, submarine-hunting, shipbuilding and food exporting, with which must be associated voluntary rationing, have been dealt with elsewhere. Before the war, the Americans were regarded as one of the last peoples likely to accept conscription in order to right the wrongs of the world. Yet conscription came into being with a minimum of friction, and the United States stands forth, with Britain (less Ireland) and New Zealand, as an inspiring proof of democracy's ability to arm itself in its own defence—an example that Canada followed, but which Australia failed to follow. Probably the historian of the future will admit that militarism received the greatest blow of all when the non-compelled Anglo-Saxon communities accepted the sacrifice of compulsion, and successfully took up the weapons of militarism, in order to combat, and to slay for ever, the spirit of militarism itself.' A war to end war, a conscrintion to end conscription—that was the ideal to which the English-speaking peoples rallied, and which made them, once and for ever, comrades-in-arms. The first contribution of the United States to the Allied fighting forces' was money, or rather credit, which was immediately available. The second contribution was naval, and was speedily in evidence; a. squadron was brought to European waters by Baar-Admiral Sims. The third contribution was ships, food, material, etc. The fourth was trained soldiers. On 6th June, two months after the declaration of war, Major-General John J. Pershing arrived in London at the hand of the advance guard of the United States Army, and on 29th October the Americans fired their first shots in France. Not till 1918 did they possess a .self-contained army, but in the meanwhile had done much heavy fighting as units in British and French armies. THE HAPSBURGS AND ITALY. For some time President Wilson adopted a tolerant tone towards AustriaHungary. His Government did not declare war on the Austro-Hungarians till 7th December, 1917, by which time Italy wag quaking under the disastrous defeat they had inflicted on her, and she badly needed a tonic. Even then President Wilaon showed an inclination to listen to the plausible appeals of Count Czernin, th,e Hapaburg Foreign Minister; and thtt President's Fourteen Points (Bth January) suggested autonomy (not indegendence) for the Austro-Hungarian lays. But Gnernin's despoliation of Rumania exposed his real character, and the United States 'Government grad/ii-' ally worked round' to a full recognition of the nationalistic claims of the Czechoslovaks (in. which Britain led the way, by recognising the Czecho-Slovak Nafcional Council as an Allied Belligerent Government) and the Jugo-Slavs. Already, m the Fourteen Points, the United States had recognised the claim of the Poles both to independence and to a sea-outlet at Prussia's expense. Tjjough the United States Government broke off relations with the Sultan's Government, it made no declaration of war _ against. Turkey, and! it maintained official relations with Bulgaria, whose subsequent surrender, in October, 1918, started the "rot" among the enemy Powers.