Part 26

The transformation of these articles of the Church into war munitions will be, therefore, a flagrant violation of international law, an act of force perpetrated on the weaker by the stronger because he is the stronger.

We Belgians, who have never wished nor acted other than well toward Germany, we are the weak ones. I call you all to witness, brethren, is it not true that prior to 1914 a current of sympathy, of esteem, of generous hospitality was turning our trusting hearts toward those who are today so harshly oppressing us? You will remember that on the very day of the invasion the first lines that flowed from my pen spoke to you of those "whom we have the sorrow to call our enemies." For four years Germany has been rewarding us. Nevertheless, we will not rebel. You will not seek in desperate recourse to material force the sudden triumph of our rights.

Courage does not reside in passionate impulse but in self-mastery. We will offer to God in reparation for the sacrilege which is about to be committed against Him, and for the final success of our cause, our supreme sacrifice.

Let us pray, one for the other, that the arm of the All-Powerful may lend us support; "Lord," says the Holy Spirit, in the Book of Esther, "Lord, Sovereign Master, all is subject to Thy authority. Nothing, nobody, is capable of resisting Thee if Thou shalt decide to save Israel. * * * Grant our prayer, Lord! Transform our grief into joy, so that, living, we may glorify Thy name. * * * Thou art just, Lord. Now they are no longer satisfied to weigh us down under the most grievous servitude, they intend to silence the voices that praise Thee and to tarnish the glory of the temple. Remember us, O Lord. Reveal Thyself to us in this hour of our tribulation. * * * O God, Thou art exalted above all, hearken to the voice of those who place their hopes in Thee. Deliver us from the blows of injustice and grant that our courage may control our fears."

In the name of the freedom of the Church, in the name of the sanctity of the Catholic religion, in the name of international law, we condemn and reprove the seizure of the bells and organs of our churches; we forbid the clergy and faithful of our diocese to co-operate toward their removal; we refuse to accept the price of the sacred objects taken from us by violence.

Strong in invincible hope, we await the hour of our God.

D. J. CARDINAL MERCIER, Archbishop of Malines.

Belgium's Appeal to the Bolsheviki

_The Belgian Government, shortly after the Bolshevist Government of Russia deserted the Allies and disbanded its armies, sent this eloquent appeal to Petrograd:_

By the treaty of April 19, 1839, Russia placed her guarantee upon the independence and neutrality of Belgium. On Aug. 4, 1914, when Germany had violated this neutrality--which the German Government also had guaranteed--Belgium appealed to Russia for aid. To this appeal Russia replied on Aug. 5 by promising the assistance of her arms. Thus Belgium entered into the struggle for independence and neutrality, trusting in the unswerving loyalty of the Russian people.

On Feb. 14, 1916, Russia undertook to renew by a solemn act the pledges she had made regarding Belgium, "heroically faithful to her international obligations." Russia declared before a listening world that she would not cease hostilities until Belgium should be re-established in her independence and liberally indemnified for the losses she had endured. Furthermore, Russia promised her aid in assuring the commercial and financial rehabilitation of Belgium.

The authorities placed in power by the Russian revolution have just signed--on Feb. 9 and March 3, 1918--treaties under which they lay down their arms before the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires.

Yet Belgium is still the prey of the imperial armies, which oppress her, decimating her population by privations and pitiless repressions, and overwhelming her with the worst kind of moral tortures. To these violences the Belgian Nation continues to oppose forces of resistance drawn from a consciousness of right, from the beauty of her cause, from her love of liberty.

Respect for treaties is the basis of the moral and juridical relations of States and the condition of an honest and regular international order. Carried into the war by a will to compel respect for a treaty which Russia had guaranteed, Belgium is pursuing the struggle without wavering, and at the price of the most cruel sacrifices. She considers that the promise of Russia, in which she trusted, is still binding. She refuses to believe that the Russian people, master of its destinies, will irrevocably abandon the promises made in its name. Confident in the honor and loyalty of the Russian people, Belgium reserves to herself the right to implore the execution of obligations whose permanent character places them outside any internal changes of régime in the State.

Serbia's Hopes and Russia's Defection

By Nikola Pashitch

_Premier and Foreign Minister of Serbia_

[Speech delivered March 31, 1918, before the Skupshtina at Corfu and especially translated for CURRENT HISTORY MAGAZINE]

Since the last meeting of this Assembly a great number of events have come to pass which have measurably modified the general military and political situation. One of our greatest allies, Russia, has retired from the battlefield, but another ally, quite as powerful as Russia, but doubtless not yet bringing to bear all the force of which she is capable, has rushed to our aid.

These two principal events, with others of less importance, have perceptibly changed the situation which existed more than a year ago, when Germany proposed to us the conclusion of a peace "honorable" for both the belligerent groups. Already at that time had Germany perceived the impossibility of fighting her adversaries by military force alone, and was obliged to resort to other means, which she had already employed, although in a more restrained fashion. So Germany decided to make more energetic use of her hidden channels with the idea of disorganizing in the quickest possible time the unity of her adversaries. She contrived intrigues, employing different methods according to the country where they were to be used and where she believed they would succeed.

You still remember the case of Miassoyedov, which was perpetrated with the aim of annihilating an entire Russian army. You also remember the attempt of the enemy to have Ireland revolt, an experiment which dismally failed owing to the prompt and energetic measures taken by the British Government. Surely you have a vivid memory of the criminal exploitation which the enemy Governments made in Italy of the Papal note in favor of peace. Also, you remember the numerous cases of arson of munition plants by the action of their agents, and the enemy propaganda of a premature peace for the benefit of Germany, employed to the limit by pacifists and certain imperialist and international adventurers through lectures and "defeatist" newspapers in neutral countries.

RUSSIA ALONE DECEIVED

All these intrigues were clothed in fine phrases and put forward with high humanitarian ideals, by which the enemy propagated monarchistic ideas in republics and republican ideas in monarchies, eulogizing a military régime in democratic countries and in autocracies democratic, republican, and even anarchistic ideals.

They all had one sole end--to provoke internal disorders and discord among the Allies in order to divert the attention of Germany's adversaries from the principal aim. In every allied country these secret machinations of our enemies were unmasked and repelled. Repelled--except in Russia. All these intrigues and secret machinations could not succeed anywhere except in Russia, where there are many Germans, and where our enemies managed to concentrate the entire attention of a people in the midst of war upon their internal organization. In this way the possibility was placed in the hands of enemies--most dangerous to the liberty of the people and to their right to dispose freely of their destiny--to guide more easily the struggle with free and democratic nations reared against Prussianism in order to defend the rights of the weak and prevent the enslaving of other countries and other peoples.

RUSSIAN LIBERTY DESTROYED

The first revolutionary movement in Russia was directed against an autocratic and irresponsible Government. On the side of the revolution they pretended that the Government had initiated pourparlers for a separate peace with Germany unknown to the Russian people and the Allies. After this first movement, a second took place in Russia demanding a democratic peace "without annexations and indemnities" on the basis of the right of peoples to determine their destiny freely and for themselves.

This second revolutionary provisional Government not having the desire to cut the bonds which attached Russia to the democratic and allied countries, a third movement followed, which did not hesitate to cut the bonds uniting Russia to the Allies, to demobilize the Russian armies--an

## act contrary to all reason, even revolutionary--and to initiate

pourparlers with the enemy at Brest-Litovsk for a separate peace.

The result of these pourparlers was the capitulation of the Maximalists to Prussian militarism, the disguised annexation by Germany of the great Baltic provinces of Russia, and the conclusion of peace between the Central Powers and the Ukraine, by which the latter separated from her enfeebled sister in order consciously to aid the enemies of the Slav race. The recognition of the independence of Finland, Caucasia, and Poland by the Central Powers followed, and, upon its heels, disintegration and general discord in Russia finally giving place to the present civil and fratricidal war.

We would not wish to deny that the Russian revolution counted for something in the ranks of its sincere combatants in the way of high social ideals, for democratic reforms, and for liberty. But, judging from its results, it is impossible to deny that the Russian revolution sustained a German influence, and that this influence so far has been useful only to Germany, who still makes war on Russia in order to prevent the latter from unifying her enfeebled peoples and re-establishing her position in the world.

A SHAMEFUL CATASTROPHE

The Russian revolutionists fell before the blow of Prussian militarism and surrendered to it the peoples who had hoped to obtain the right of self-determination. It is possible, even probable, that the situation in Russia may improve. But at present what the Germans aimed at in Russia has been attained. They have taken away Russian provinces, incited civil war in the Russian fatherland, and removed the danger of the Russian armies which threatened them. These armies having been prematurely demobilized for incomprehensible reasons, the enemy is able to direct all his forces against his other adversaries. He has also obtained in this way a considerable amount of war material and food.

This catastrophe, which has covered the Russian people with shame, has been a lesson to all other nations, for it has definitely confirmed the conviction that it was certainly Germany who provoked this terrible war with the aim of conquest and hegemony.

But the great and free America did not wait for this moment before deciding to declare war on Germany, who had placed above the principles of right and justice that of brute force. On account of the Germans' conduct in the war, which surpassed all known horror and barbarism, not sparing even neutral nations, the United States became convinced that it was its duty to restrain this bestial force if the world were not to fall under the yoke of Prussian militarism. America entered the war to defend civilization and the right of people to dispose of themselves.

AMERICANS TO THE BREACH

The appearance of North America on the war stage filled the place made vacant by the surrender of Russia. Our allies having come to the conviction that they could count no longer on Russia, and that it would even be dangerous to regard her as a military asset, have employed all their forces in conformity with the new situation in order to fortify the solidarity which unites them and to augment their military and material force in proportion to what they had lost by the withdrawal of Russia, all with the idea of assuring the world a just and durable peace based on the liberty of the people to be self-determining. The strength of the army of our allies is greater by far than that of the enemy, not only in man power but also in material. Organization is improving, and on all questions there is complete accord. Quite recently German war atrocities decided Japan to participate still more actively in the struggle.

The Serbian people, who have made the greatest sacrifice and given the finest proofs of their loyalty and fidelity toward the Allies, may therefore be certain that their sacrifices have not been in vain, and that their ideals will be realized if they continue to give in the future the evidence of their military and civil virtues, and if, as in the past, they abhor all intrigues having for their aim the destruction of our concord and union in defense of the interests of our people, who bear three names, but who form but one nation. We have observed that Austria-Hungary, particularly in these latter days, has intensified her intrigues and her calumnies against the Serbian people. She began by spreading in Western Europe the false rumor that Serbia had tried, in an indirect way, to initiate pourparlers for a separate peace, because in our country and on the front of the Serbian Army she had suggested that she would be disposed to end the war against Serbia were it not for the fact that King Peter and the Serbian Government were opposed to the project. All such intrigues and calumnies have only one end--to destroy the faith which our allies have in the Serbian people, to rupture the national concord, and by our discord and quarrels to assure the conquest of the Serbian Nation.

SERBIA STILL FAITHFUL

But our people know Austria-Hungary too well to be taken in by these infamous intrigues and to believe her lying words. The nation remains faithful to her noble allies, who are pouring out their blood for little and weak nations, and will not deviate one hair's breadth from her stand until the end. The Serbian people have given all that they have, and now, although few in numbers, they still stand faithfully by the side of the Allies. They should never lose sight of the fact that it was Austria-Hungary who provoked the war with the idea of annihilating Serbia.

Our allies will not fail to acquire the conviction that the various peoples of Austria-Hungary cannot be free, and that a durable peace cannot be guaranteed so long as these peoples shall live in the State of the Hapsburgs, who from peoples once free have made Germano-Magyar slaves and have prevented their development by subjecting them to Germano-Magyar exploitation.

Germanism in its drive toward the Orient hurled itself upon Serbia, and only as a single united nation of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, closely bound to Italy, can we obstruct the German push toward the Orient and Adriatic, and aid in the establishment of a durable peace.

We ask only justice. We demand that slavery of peoples be abolished, just as slavery of individuals was suppressed. We demand equality among all nations, whether great or small, the fraternity and equality of all nationalities, and the foundation of a free State of all the reunited Jugoslavs. The return of Alsace-Lorraine to France and the complete re-establishment of independent Belgium; the re-establishment of the kingdom of all the Czechs, also that of all the Poles, the union of Italians with Italy, of Rumanians with Rumania, of Greeks with Greece, all of which would constitute the greatest and most solid guarantee for a just and lasting international peace. Hence we proclaim what should be realized soon or later--if not after this war then after a new shedding of blood--because this realization is identified with the progress of civilization and of humanity.

These great ends, humane and just, which are incarnated with the life and growth of civilization, we repeat, should be realized. They embrace those great ideals which spring from the soul and sentiments of individuals and races, and which will vanquish the brute force of certain anachronistic States, just as, in the last century, they vanquished the brute force of the individual.

Let us pledge our honor and eternal gratitude to all the peoples who are fighting for the right of all nations to shape their own destiny and for an international peace both just and lasting.

Rumania's Peace Treaty

Why the Onerous Terms of the Central Powers Had to be Accepted

The peace treaty between Rumania and the Central Powers was signed at Bucharest May 6, 1918, and is called "the peace of Bucharest." Dr. von Kühlmann, the German Foreign Secretary, was Chairman of the plenipotentiaries representing the Central Powers. A comprehensive synopsis of the terms of the treaty appears elsewhere in this issue of CURRENT HISTORY MAGAZINE.

A writer in The London Times explains why Rumania was compelled to accept the enemy's exacting terms. He quotes General Averescu, the Rumanian Prime Minister, in these words:

If Rumania accepts the humiliating German peace terms and is ready to yield to her enemies the dearest part of her territory, she does not do it only to spare the lives of the remnants of her army, but for the sake of her allies, too. If Rumania refuses the German conditions today she may be able to resist another month, but the results will be fatal. A month later she might have to lose even the shadow of independence which is left to her now; and then, no doubt, the Germans would deal with her in the same way as they dealt with occupied France and with Belgium. The whole Rumanian army would be made prisoners, and would be sent to work on the western front against the Allies, while the civilian population would be compelled to work in ammunition and other factories for the Kaiser's army. I fought in the ranks in 1877 to help my country to win the Dobrudja. You may imagine how I feel now, having to sign the treaty which gives it to our worst enemies. But we are compelled to amputate an important part of our body in order to save the rest of it. However painful it may be, we are bound to do it.

DESERTED BY RUSSIA

To understand Rumania's situation, as The London Times correspondent goes on to say, we have to consider her position since Kerensky's fall. At the end of November, 1917, the front from the Bukowina to the Black Sea was held by a Russo-Rumanian force. Its flanks from Dorna-Watra to Tergu-Ocna and from Ivesti to the Black Sea were held by three Russian armies, numbering about 450,000 men, and by two Rumanian armies of about 180,000 men. The Russian armies were, of course, weakened by many desertions and by lack of discipline, so that their actual was much less than their nominal strength. Nevertheless, about 350,000 Russians were still holding the front at that time. When the Russian armistice was signed, Rumania was compelled, by the joint threats of Germany and the Soviets of the Rumanian front, to adhere to it. From that day the Russian troops began to leave the trenches, not in hundreds, as they did before, but in masses of thousands at a time. Thus, at the end of January, 1918, hardly 50,000 Russians remained on the whole Rumanian front, and they had no desire to fight the enemy, but, being from Siberia or some other remote part of Russia, found it more convenient to spend their time in Rumania than to go back to their own country. They could easily raise money by selling to the highest bidder (Austrian or Rumanian) their guns, rifles, motor cars, &c.

For a certain time many--especially the French--believed strongly in the Ukraine and in the promises of the Rada. Much money had been spent in recruiting an army of the Ukraine which was supposed to fill the gaps left by the Russian Army on the southwestern front. All that I saw of this army was a group of about 150 boys, none of them over the age of 16, armed with rifles with fixed bayonets, a pistol, a sword, and a dagger. All wore spurs, though none of them had a horse. They paraded in the main streets of Jassy daily between 11 and 12. I calculated that every one of these boys cost the Entente well over £10,000. But in time the most incorrigible dreamers realized that the Ukraine had played a trick on Rumania. Then the handsome Ukrainian toy soldiers were withdrawn from circulation, and no army ever replaced the Russians.

In the meantime, the Rumanian Government decided, for political and military reasons, to occupy Bessarabia. This operation required no less than seven divisions. Thus at the beginning of February the same front which was held in November by over 500,000 men was occupied by barely 120,000. Army supplies were getting shorter every day; and Rumania, being in a state of war with the Bolshevist Government, was completely cut off from the rest of her allies. In these circumstances Germany had an easy prey, and dealt with it in true German fashion.

AN IMPERIOUS SUMMONS

When the treaty with the Ukraine was signed Rumanian Headquarters received a note from General Morgen, the German Commander in Chief, saying that, as peace with Russia had been concluded, the Rumanian armistice had come to an end, and that delegates should be sent without delay to Focsani to examine the new situation. The Rumanian delegates arrived at Focsani next day. They were received with such insolence by the German delegates that the Chief of the Rumanian General Staff, General Lupesco, threatened to leave immediately. The discussions, however, did not last very long, and the mission came back with the announcement that Rumania had to decide within four days whether she was ready to discuss peace terms or not. A Crown Council was held immediately; and the majority of the Generals declared that the army could resist for a month at the most. M. Bratiano and M. Take Jonescu, who could not consent to make peace with the enemy, resigned, and the King asked General Averescu, the most popular man in Rumania, to form a new Cabinet.

Meanwhile, King Ferdinand received a telegram from Berlin, by which he was warned that the Austro-German Government would not discuss peace terms with a Cabinet which included M. Bratiano or any member of his former Cabinet. The feelings of the King of Rumania--when he saw that even before peace discussions had begun the enemy had begun to interfere in Rumania's internal politics--can be appreciated. But King Ferdinand carried his head high, as he had done all through the tragic misfortunes of his country, and was indifferent to German arrogance. He replied to Herr von Kühlmann that Rumania was an independent country, and had a right to any Government she pleased. But none of the members of the former Cabinet came into the new one. General Averescu formed a Government which had the tragic task of concluding peace, and thus of annihilating, temporarily at least, all the tremendous efforts that Rumania had made during the preceding fifty years to become, economically as well as politically, the leading power in the Balkans.

THREE HUNGRY ENEMIES