dependence, Great Britain regards the Czecho-Slovaks as an allied nation and recognizes the unity of the three Czecho-Slovak armies as an allied and belligerent army waging regular warfare against AustriaHungary and Germany. Great Britain also recognizes the right of the Czecho-Slovak National Council as the supreme organ of national interests and as the present trustee of the future Czecho-Slovak Government to exercise supreme authority over this allied and belligerent army."

Professor Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, President of the Czecho-Slovak National Council and Commanderin-Chief, is now in Washington. Under his direction Czecho-Slovak units

are fighting with French and Italian armies, and the Czecho-Slovak army is the nucleus of anti-German and anti-Bolshevik organizations in Siberia and other parts of Russia.

This double role of the CzechoSlovaks is one of the most amazing developments of the war. Driven by their German-Magyar masters to fight in the Austro-Hungarian army against their Slavic kinsmen, 250,000 or more surrendered to Russia. Some 50,000 sought to get into the European fighting lines via Vladivostok, but having to fight their way along the Siberian railroad they were hailed as saviors from Bolshevik rule by the Russian people there. A policy of cooperation with them by American, Japanese and other Allies takes the place of recognition of the Soviet or any other Russian claims to government at present. The object is to help Russia to come to herself and counteract the demoralization of the Brest-Litovsk treaties with Germany.

Back in Austria-Hungary the Czecho-Slovaks have also been busy in open opposition to their Imperial war makers. Czech deputies in 1917 declared their resolution to unite with Slovaks of Hungary, and in January of this year met with representatives from Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia to affirm their purpose to secure justice for their oppressed peoples at the peace table. In May at Prague with Jugoslavs, Slovenes and Croats, Poles, Italians and Rumanians, they joined in demands for freedom and unity. Recognition of the independent Czecho-Slovak state, Masaryk says, means "the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary, reducing Germany to her own national forces." It will complete the check to Pan-German schemes of aggression, he declares, and an anti-German barrier formed by the Czecho-Slovak state, Poland, Jugoslavia, Rumania and Italy will be the surest help to Russian revival and to the small nations now under Austro-German domination.

Of course the Austro-Hungarian government denounces the entente policy of recognition and declares the Czecho-Slovak nationalists to be traitors. But the German-Magyar policy of setting up plunder states "by request" from the Baltic to the Black Sea needs absolute checkmating. The "profound sympathy" expressed by Secretary Lansing with the Congress of Oppressed Nationalities which met in Rome last April has now become support to break the weakest link in the German Imperial chain.

C

ONTRARY to the roseate ex

pectations of the Germans at the commencement of the campaign of 1918, there will be no military decision this year. The hopes inspired among the peoples of the Central Empires by the Teutonic successes attending the opening of the enemy offensive movements on March 21 have been utterly destroyed by the later counter strokes of Marshal Foch. The brilliant defeat of the Austrians on the Piave came at a moment when the situation in France appeared to be most desperate. Whether greater credit is due to the splendid Italian example, which indisputably improved the morale of the Allied armies, or to the arrival of redoubtable American forces on the Western front, for the change in the direction of military developments, the fact is that consequently to General Diaz's victory and to the throwing into the battle in France of an American army, the military perspective was reversed, and it is confidently asserted now that the Germanic power has passed its meridian and is declining.

This truth admitted, it does not necessarily follow that the enemy is near a collapse. The weapon in which he placed his fullest trust, the submarine, has failed to achieve what it was essential that it should achieve, the prevention of the rationing of

the Allies, and the thorough disorganization of their overseas communications. It was hardly to be depended upon to prevent the dispatch of American troops to France, seeing that it had failed to interrupt the flow of soldiers from Canada and other British Dominions. What the Germans most miscalculated upon was the inexhaustible resourcefulness of the United States, and America's determination, once in the war, to see the job through, regardless of cost, of sacrifices and of its duration.

Likewise the German land forces have failed. They have not yet been driven back to the lines occupied by them at the beginning of 1918, but the initiative has been wrenched from them, their morale weakened, and the Imperial Government faces the necessity of instituting a new peace offensive, as much for internal reasons as for attempting to conclude the war by negotiation, foreseeing the unavoidable ultimate loss of the war.

/Two months more, and the fighting will be over until Spring. Major operations are unlikely during the winter months, and in that period the political resources of Berlin will be used, in secret and in public, to induce the Allies and America to enter upon a discussion of the preliminaries of peace. A necessary prerequisite, recognized to be such in Germany as well as in the United States, is an unambiguous, unconditional guaran

tee of the evacuation of Belgium. Such a promise, most probably, will be given by the German emissaries, as bait. Berlin will offer to discuss the questions of Alsace-Lorraine, Italia Irredenta, and the colonies, but will insist upon the exclusion from the conference of the subjects of Russia and Roumania, insofar as the occupied territories in Russia are concerned. She will be willing to come to an accommodation, also, in regard to the Balkans and Turkey. As a special appeal to President Wilson, Berlin will declare in favor of those principles proclaimed by him in various addresses defining America's aims. Such, at least, is the prospect in the opinion of important dip

lomatic circles here.

Germany is not without hope that sooner or later she will be listened to by the Allies. She possesses a strong argument in favor of negotiation, from the German viewpoint, and that is her armies. The German armies are still capable of tremendous resistance. They are sustained by German public opinion, which propaganda has convinced that the Allies are seeking the complete destruction of Germany. The German people remember the lessons of the Napoleonic wars, when they were split into an infinitude of principalities. Historically they have seen the Powers of Europe engaged in preventing the unification of the German race. The Germans, therefore, while depressed by the failure of their forces to compel the conclusion of peace, have no thought of surrendering. While their supreme offensive power has

has

been broken, they are yet numerically and materially strong enough to conduct efficient defensive warfare, and they appreciate the value of fighting such a war upon enemy ground. It is nonsense to look for the downfall of the German war party so long as the German army occupies territories several times the size of Germany in enemy countries. Even socialism in Germany has subordinated itself to the military machine.

These considerations have un

doubtedly played their important part in all the peace moves made by the German Government. Except for the United States, which intervened not a moment too soon to prevent Germany from snatching a victorious peace from the Allies, France, England and Italy, exhausted by the terrible strain and drain of the conflict, could not be expected to continue the combat if seemingly "fair" terms should be offered. Those countries would be obliged to consider the inescapable cost of prolonging the war, with Germany occupying the most advantageous positions on every field. Even with America bending her every energy in war work and in rushing millions of soldiers to France and Italy, there is no certainty that a peace will be forced in 1919. The terms of America and the Allies have decided the German rulers to fight to the last moment rather than yield, recognizing the possibility of history repeating itself, as, for instance, in the wars of Frederick the Great. What appears to be most fatal to Germany, there

fore, is the intervention of the United States, and it may be expected that Germany's political offensive will comprise two distinct phases, one devised for the Allies, the other for the United States.

To the Allies, Germany will address arguments appealing to their self-interests-the maintenance of their international positions and prestige; the preservation of their races, deteriorating under the hardships and privations of war; the avoidance of further mounting indebtedness, and the recovery of trade and commerce. To America, Germany will speak of the political ideals to be realized, the reorganization of international society, the constitution of a tribunal for the judicial consideration of disputes between nations, and, in addition to schemes for the establishment of the freedom of the seas, the German philosophical mind, profoundly efficient in such tasks, will outline a basis for the creation of a league of nations.

One of the unhappy circumstances in connection with the associated Governments at war with Germany is the fact that on political questions they are far from being united. None has spoken with the same clarity and with the simple justice of President Wilson. The Entente Powers have not, it seems, been able to grasp the fundamentals of some of the most important utterances of the President. There are two striking instances of this want of appreciation, one in Britain's seeming lack of understanding concerning President Wilson's dicta relative to

free seas; the other Britain's apparent inability to divorce the idea of selfish interest from the President's proposal of a league of nations. Germany will seek to take advantage of London's backwardness in these themes.

What neither Germany nor the Allies seem fully to understand, however, is the most important fact of all. President Wilson is now both war maker and peace maker supreme. Foch may be commander-in-chief in the field, but towering immeasurably above him and above the Prime Minister of Great Britain is President Wilson, whose authority and breadth of power to-day exceeds that ever possessed by any man. The destinies. of the world are in his hands. The responsibilities of no man ever approached his. He is the savior, not of the Allies alone, but of Russia, who backslided, and of Roumania no less, who was betrayed. President Wilson is the one living man who can decide for peace or the continuation of the war, and there is no question concerning what attitude he will take towards German advances. They will have no effect upon him at all. Germany must enter upon the performance of things required before President Wilson will converse with her. Whenever Germany, therefore, is prepared to do what she may to right the wrongs she has done, and actually undertakes the task of restitution and reparation, President Wilson then, and not before, will hear her.

possessed by any man.

Such a proposition, to the practical mind, would appear chimerical.