Identifier: literarydigesthi10hals (find matches)
Title: The Literary digest history of the world war, compiled from original and contemporary sources: American, British, French, German, and others
Year: 1919 (1910s)
Authors: Halsey, Francis W. (Francis Whiting), 1851-1919, comp
Subjects: World War, 1914-1918
Publisher: New York, London, Funk & Wagnalls Company
Contributing Library: Columbia University Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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challenge Germany had flung down. Almost from the firstday of the war President Wilson had preached from the text of dutyand sei\ice, for the high privilege of championing the rights of man-kind. When war first broke out, however, he had tried to play thepart of mediator, and his offer was declined. Many Americans con-demned him for counseling neutrality and continuing in that state. But, looking back afterward, many could see how, in some sense, itwas fortunate that the United States did not take up arms in 1914,but that more than two years and a half elapsed before she began toplay her part. Had the United States declared war in 1914, or in theearly months of 1915, when the costly and tragic experiences of Eng-land and France had still to be learned, it seems more than doubtfulif Congress could have been induced to impose on the country the 282 :s o d 55 r< O e3 O . O g- iH ^S:; o ^ <D s o a 01 ^- O rt fcJ of 5^ bofcouth thelis cOthe ; M » H ^°il5
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283 SKETCHES, PEACE TREATY, CHRONOLOGY selective draft; but even if Coiiiiress had done so, America, like Eng-land and France, would have had to pay the dear price of iirnorance.American armies, insulliciently trained, insufliciently equipped, know-inj^ little or nothinj^ of the art of modern war, would have beenthrown into that furnace of death to be slaughtered as the Britishand French w-ere slaughtered; bravely they would have had to facemachine-guns, their bravery futile. But in 1918, when America had marshaled her legions, the technicalsuperiority of Germany was no longer feared. The advantage Ger-many had at the beginning, because she alone of all nations was pre-pared, had definitely passed. Even more than that gain was thespiritual strength gained by the delay. What Mr. Wilson said in hisaiipeal for neutrality in August, 1914, and what he said in his addressto Congress on April 2, 1917, he had said scores of times in the in-tervening months, and was to say again and again betw

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