determination ?
In 1919, when the German nation was burdened with the Peace Treaty, there was justification in hoping that that document of oppression would help on the cry for Germany’s liberation. It happens sometimes that treaties of peace whose conditions beat upon a nation like scourges sound the first trumpet call for the resurrection which follows later.
How much might have been made out of the Treaty of Versailles !
Each point of it might have been burnt into the brains and feelings of the nation, till finally the common shame and the common hatred would have become a sea of flaming fire in the minds of sixty millions of men and women ; out of the glowing mass a will of steel would have emerged, and a cry : We will be armed as others are armed !
Every opportunity was missed, and nothing was done. Who will wonder that our nation is not what it ought to be, and might be ?
A nation—in a position such as ours—will not be considered fit for alliances unless Government and public opinion determine to co-operate in proclaiming and defending their will to fight for freedom.
The cry for a new war fleet, restoration of our colonies, etc., is obviously more empty talk, since it contains no idea of practical possibility ; calm con¬ sideration shows this at once. Those who protest are exhausting themselves in harmful demonstrations against God and the rest of the world, and they forget the first principle, which is essential to all success : what thou doest do thoroughly. By howling against five or ten States, we neglect to concentrate all the forces of the national will and physique for a blow at the heart of our most impassioned enemy, and we are sacrificing the possibility of acquiring strength by means of alliances for a revision of the shame.