Still, the scarcity of gold, copper, gasolene, or rubber, or all combined, might not force Germany to sue for peace.

What I give a final verdict on is the tremendous human sacrifice that is exhausting both Austria and Germany.  I do say from good sources that in the first twenty weeks of the war the German casualties—­wounded, prisoners, missing, and killed—­were above 1,700,000, while Austrian casualties are now approaching a million and a half.

In the first six months of the year Germany and Austria will have suffered not less than three million casualties.  Of course, more than half these people are wounded, who may go back to the firing line.  But the three hundred thousand and more dead will never go back; and many vitally wounded and many cripples will be hereafter useless in peace or war; and the prisoners that are exchanged with France through Geneva are under pledge and mutual government agreement not to take up arms again.

I have also more confidence in the Russian position, numbers, supplies, and strategy than is generally possessed in America.

We hear in the press reports of generals at the head of the armies in Russia and France.  We do not hear of the wonderful younger generals that war is developing, and who are coming forward more rapidly there than from any similar developments under the bureaucracy of Germany.

The two greatest military strategists the war has developed are not in Germany or England.  They are in Russia and France, and their names have not yet crossed the Atlantic in the press reports.

However long Germany may fight on, offensively or defensively, her retreat must begin this year.  Then the world will be increasingly interested in the terms of peace.

Balfour, the English statesman, says privately, “I know the people look for the dismemberment of Germany, and some look for her destruction, but this is not the intelligent opinion or intelligent desire.  Germany is an indispensable part of the world’s industrial, commercial, financial, and political organization.  To destroy Germany would be a world loss.”  The opinion of eminent political and financial people in England is that Germany can never repair the total damage she may inflict.  So far as England is concerned, next after the destruction of Germany’s war-power, giving insurance of a European peace, comes first the indemnification of every financial loss that Belgium suffers.  This is now estimated at from $1,500,000,000 to $2,500,000,000.

What there will be left over in the way of Germany’s ability to pay, aside from the Kiel Canal, Alsace and Lorraine, and German Poland, is problematical.

To have Germany able to pay even a part of the damage she is inflicting upon the world, she must be put back upon her industrial feet.  Therefore, I have declared, when asked about this matter, that in the end England would be found the best friend of Germany.  But conquered and destroyed must be the Prussian war-machine of aggression, or crumbles the art and industry of republican France and the democracy of English speech, thought, and government.