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Show t I No Promise of Peace K HTHE fighting in Europe is not relaxed; rather i I it indicates that the animosities of a year i P ago have crystalized into settled hates; but there I are indications that the resources of the several nations are being strained to the limit. When I two such powers as Great Britain and France I seek a loan of a billion dollars from the outside, f that is a confession that their own resources , are so drained that their governments do not want J to ask their own people for another great sacri fice. Russia, like a bear, is fighting in silence save now and then a growl that she has no idea of crying for quarter, but rather that this business busi-ness is to go on until it can be settled her way. Not much comes to indicate conditions in Ger-f Ger-f many and Austro Hungary, but it is clear that I they both are consuming themselves, as they have no outside trade and the stress in many directions di-rections must be growing more -severe. At this , writing the Teutons seem to be trying merely to hold their positions on the northwest and south fronts, but are fighting Russia on the north and east fronts and are maneuvering to force a way to the relief of Turkey on the southeast. Evidently Evi-dently to prevent this a mighty drive seems to be on by the French and British along the northwest front. If this is true, it cannot accomplish much except ex-cept to possibly recall the contemplated drive down the Danube, for fortress after fortress guards all the way from Alsace-Lorraine to Berlin. Ber-lin. Germany has gained no ground to the north-i north-i west since the first month of the war, and the French and English if they attempt a drive into German territory will find the same obstacles in their path that Germany found in Belgium when I she hoped, by a swift and fearful advance to, in a ' few days, be thundering at the gates of Paris, and j to control the cities and ports on the Straits of 1 Dover. There is already snow in Alsace and Lor raine, and on the mountains where the Austrians ! and Italians are fighting. The winter is close L upon-the-contcnding-imniesrinid wheTr"a11"'the:s"G ' powers contemplate how little has already been I gained at the cost of millions of brave lives and f the bankruptcy of states, one would think they would all be willing to call it a drawn battle and j quit. But such is not the case. Russia does not I fear a winter campaign. She thinks of that win ter when the "Grand Army" was distroyed by her agents the Icy winds, the frosts and the snow and, even above her mountains of dead, smiles defiantly. ; England knows that her rule will never more i be safe in India or Egypt if the Moslem power is r not broken, while since the days of Catherine, ,. Russia's dream has been of an open way from the Euxine to the Mediterranean. France and Italy understand that they must win or become subject powers to Germany. While Germany and Austro-Hungary say: "Look, combined com-bined Europe has been hurling its hosts against us for fourteen months and they have not tainted one foot of German territory." Thus the tempest of war rages and the world looks on, amazed and horrified. The air is darkened by more and more airships, air-ships, the sea is vexed by more and more submarines; sub-marines; the earth is heavy under its weight of dead. And there is no promise of an early peace. |
