a War of Liberation. Your Allies would win
liberty from external menace, but you would also see the bonds of internal
tyranny broken. The TSAR, the little father of his people, had a chance,
such as falls to few, of giving to his nation something of the true freedom
that we in England know.

"He missed his chance. We will not ask why, but he missed it. Yet by other
means the War has been for you a War of Liberation, and, if you break your
pledge to see it through, you do not deserve your freedom. Nay more, you
run the risk of losing it; or, if, through the steadfastness of your sworn
Allies, you keep it, then you keep it at the cost of sacrificing the
friendship and sympathy of all free nations who are fighting in the cause
of liberty; and, on those terms, your own freedom is not worth having.

"Some of you argue that Russia's pledge to her Allies was an Imperialist
pledge and that you have the right to ignore it. Have you forgotten so soon
that the prime cause of Russia's entry into this quarrel was that Austria
had threatened to crush a free nation, Serbia, whose race and faith are
yours? Besides, a pledge like that is still a pledge, though governments
may change. Would you have it so that no people, from this time on, shall
trust the word of Russia for fear that a new _regime_ might repudiate it?

"We have been patient and made allowances. We know that a great nation like
yours cannot overthrow an age-long tyranny without being shaken through
every fibre of its being. Time was needed for you to recover your balance
and to resume a sane view of your obligations to others than yourselves. So
we have been patient, and are patient still, though the inaction on your
Front and your withdrawal from your part in the common struggle have made
our burden in France far harder to bear.

"If you fail us, we shall no less fight on, we others. 'We shall march
prospering--not through your presence.' We shall fight on till the ideals
of Kaiserism, your worst enemy, are crushed. America, that great Republic
that loves peace as passionately as you, will take your place, will fill up
the gap that you leave in the ranks of those who fight for freedom. And we
shall fight till we get the true peace that we want--not the peace which
some of you have advocated, fraternising with the common foe, listening to
the specious pleas of those who shirk the one test of their honesty when
they are asked to revolt against a tyranny as least as deadly