lson
called on all the belligerents to state publicly what they were
fighting for. This demand caused a searching of hearts everywhere, led
to a restatement of aims on the part of the Allies, and threw the
Central Governments on the defensive. In formulating their replies the
Allies were somewhat embarrassed by the secret treaties relating to
Russia and Italy, which were later made public by the Bolsheviki. In
March, 1915, England and France had made an agreement with Russia by
which she was to get Constantinople, the aim of her policy since the
days of Peter the Great. By the secret Treaty of London, signed April
26, 1915, England, France, and Russia had promised Italy that she
should receive the Trentino and Southern Tyrol, including in its
population more than 250,000 Germans. Italy was also promised Trieste
and the Istrian peninsula, the boundary running just west of Fiume,
over which city, it should be remembered, she acquired no claim under
this treaty. Italy was also to receive about half of Dalmatia,
including towns over half of whose population were Jugo-Slavs. To
President Wilson's note the Allies had to reply, therefore, in somewhat
general terms. Their territorial demands were: "The restitution of
provinces formerly torn from the Allies by force or against the wish of
their inhabitants; the liberation of the Italians, as also of the
Slavs, Roumanes, and Czecho-Slovaks from foreign domination, the
setting free of the populations subject to the bloody tyranny of the
Turks; and the turning out of Europe of the Ottoman Empire as decidedly
foreign to Western civilization." The German reply contained no
statement of territorial claims and gave no pledge even as to the
future status of Belgium.

In reporting the results of this interchange of views to the Senate,
January 22, 1917, President Wilson delivered the first of that series
of addresses on the essentials of a just and lasting peace which made
him the recognized spokesman of the liberal element in all countries
and gained for him a moral leadership that was without parallel in the
history of the world. "In every discussion of the peace that must end
this war," he declared, "it is taken for granted that that peace must
be followed by some definite concert of power which will make it
virtually impossible that any such catastrophe should ever overwhelm us
again. Every lover of mankind, every sane and thoughtful man must take
that for granted." In f