4166 HOW THE WAR CAME TO AMERICA
with which our Government viewed the crisis. From this point, events
moved rapidly. The powers of the Entente replied to the German peace
note. Neutral nations took action on the note of the President, and from
both belligerents replies to this note were soon in our hands.
The German reply was evasive-in accord with their traditional preference
for diplomacy behind closed doors. Refusing to state to the world their
terms, Germany and her allies merely proposed a conference. They adjourned all discussion of any plan for a league of peace until after hostilities
should end.
The response of the Entente Powers was frank and in harmony with our
principal purpose.' Many questions raised in the statement of their aims
were so purely European in character as to have small interest for us; but
our great concern in Europe was the lasting restoration of peace, and it was
clear that this was also the chief interest of the Entente Nations. As to
the wisdom of some of the measures they proposed toward this end, we
might differ in opinion, but the trend of their proposals was the establishment
of just frontiers based on the rights of all nations, the small as well as the
great, to decide their own destinies.
The aims of the belligerents were now becoming clear. From the outbreak of hostilities the German Government had claimed that it was fighting
a war of defense. But the tone of its recent proposals had been that of
a conqueror. It sought a peace based on victory. The central empires
aspired to extend their domination over other races. They were willing
to make liberal terms to any one of their enemies, in a separate peace which
would free their hands to crush other opponents. But they were not willing
to accept any peace which did not, all fronts considered, leave them victors
and the dominating imperial power of Europe. The war aims of the Entente
showed a determination to thwart this ambition of the Imperial German
Government. Against the German peace to further German growth and
aggression the Entente Powers offered a plan for a European peace that
should make the whole continent secure.
At this juncture the President read his address to the Senate, on January
22, 1917, in which he outlined the kind of peace the United States of America
could join in guaranteeing. His words were addressed not only to the Senate
and this Nation but to people of all countries.
"May I not add that I hope and believe that I am in effect speaking for
liberals and friends of humanity in every nation and of every program of
liberty? I would fain believe that I am speaking for the silent mass of
mankind everywhere who have as yet had no place or opportunity to speak