If necessary, the number of men in arms will be doubled to 4,000,000 and the enormous subscription just made to England’s war loan will be doubled and quadrupled.

The life of the empire as respects money and men is at stake, and no sacrifice is too great.  If treaties are “scraps of paper” and neutral states are to have no rights or protection, there is no safety in the world, no sacredness of contracts; the world is at an end and chaos reigns.

CHAPTER IV

PEACE PROPOSALS

The Bagdad Railroad—­The English Oil Concession—­The German Alliance with Turkey—­Austria the Hand of Germany—­The Decay of Turkey—­The New Map.

How ridiculous are American peace proposals concerning the Audacious War of 1914 may be judged from this announcement which I am able to make:—­

The return of the French government from Bordeaux to Paris was determined upon from two points of view:  safety and political necessity.  The French people were angered that Paris should have been deserted, but notwithstanding the political reasons, which were more forceful than the public will be permitted to know, the return would not have been undertaken had not the military authorities considered the move a safe one.  How safe will be evidenced by this—­that at both Bordeaux and Paris this problem was before the authorities:  “Events have now progressed so far that it is time for the Allies to consider what will be their terms of peace.  These terms must be divided into many classes, ranging from those in which only one of the Allies has an interest to those in which all have an interest.  Of course, the latter will be the most complex, and it is time now to begin with the complexities of the most far-reaching situation.  This is Mesopotamia and the Bagdad railroad.”

Now who in Washington knows anything about Mesopotamia or the Bagdad railroad?  Yet here is the key of the most far-reaching problem in any peace proposals.  It is because this matter can now be settled that the plunging of Turkey into the war by Enver Bey has made all Europe rejoice.  The Germans think Turkey is another 16 1/2-inch howitzer or “Jack Johnson” putting black smoke over the British empire.  The rest of Europe now knows the whole of Turkey is on the table, and the carving, it is believed, will be had with no plates extended from either Austria or Germany.  For the first time the Turkish problem can be really settled instead of patched.

Some years ago I was astonished to learn in Europe that American banking interests, and American contracting and engineering firms in alliance therewith, had their eyes upon Asia Minor and the possibility of its development by American railroad enterprise.  I was astonished to learn that some people at Constantinople had authority for the use of the name of J. P. Morgan & Co.  Indeed, a railroad concession in Asia Minor, the details of which it is not now necessary to go into, had been arranged, I was told, and lacked only signatures.  The American people felt that the Germans were the little devils under the table who stayed the hand of the Sultan, and kept his pen off the parchment.  Never would the signature come down on that paper, although declared to have been many times promised.