But when these same words
were uttered in the intervals of mighty battles, they fell on
expectant and anxious ears: they were regarded as a ray of light in
the fearsome darkness of uncertainty, and everybody listened to them,
not only because the President was the authorized exponent of a
great nation, of a powerful people, but because he represented an
inexhaustible source of vitality in the midst of the ravages of
violence and death. President Wilson's messages have done as much as
famine and cruel losses in the field to break the stubborn resistance
of the German people. If it was possible to obtain a just peace, why
go to the bitter end when defeat was manifestly inevitable? Obstinacy
is the backbone of war, and nothing undermines a nation's power of
resistance so much as doubt and faint-heartedness on the part of the
governing classes.
[Footnote 1: "President Wilson's State Speeches and Addresses," New
York, 1918.]
President Wilson, who said on January 2, 1917, that a peace without
victory was to be preferred ("It must be a peace without victory"),
and that "Right is more precious than peace," had also repeatedly
affirmed that "We have no quarrel with the German people.
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