he Russian Ambassador to Paris,
very properly remarked: "C'est ma guerre." She planned it, she gave
Austria-Hungary no chance to live on peaceful terms with her neighbors,
she forced it upon us, she drew France into it by offering her a bait
which that poor country could not resist, she created the situation
which England considered as her best opportunity for crushing Germany. I
must repeat it over and over again: it is in its origin a Russian war,
with a clearly outlined Russian program of conquest.

Here, then, you have a real clash between two principles; not shades of
principles as these may subsist between Germany and her western foes,
but principles in all their essential features; not between different
tints of gray, but between black and white, between affirmation and
negation; affirmation of the principle of human dignity, liberty,
safety, and negation of the same; western evolution and eastern
reaction.

I wonder why those prominent Americans who are so deeply impressed by
the comparatively slight shades of liberalism differentiating Germany
from England and France are not struck by the absolute contrast existing
between Muscovitism and western civilized rule as represented by
Austria-Hungary and Germany; that they overlook the outstanding fact
that while in the western area the conflict has nothing whatever to do
with the principles embodied in the home policy of the belligerents, in
the east, on the other hand, these principles will in truth be affected
by the results of war, since a Russian victory, followed by a Russian
conquest, would mean the retrogression of western institutions and the
corresponding expansion of eastern ones over a large area and large
numbers of men.

It is the consciousness of fighting in this war which has been forced
upon us, against the direst calamity threatening our kind and on behalf
of the most precious conquests of progress and civilization, which
enhances our moral force so as to make it unconquerable. The hope which
I expressed in my first letter, that Serbia's doom would soon be
fulfilled, has been prostrated by the mistakes of an over-confident
Commander in Chief; but that means postponement only and does not alter
the prospects of war in their essentials.

Good progress is achieved in the campaign against Russia; a chapter of
it may be brought to a happy close before long. The spirit of the
country shows no symptom of weakening; it is really wonderful what a
firm r