movement from Italy, a false step made upon the banks of the Marne;
and we can picture Paris falling; France overrun and fighting
heroically to her last gasp; Russia, not crushed, but weary of seeking
victory and making terms for good or ill with a conqueror impotent to
harm her; the neutral nations more or less reluctantly siding with the
strongest; England isolated, giving up her colonies to staunch the
wounds of her invaded isle; the fasces of justice broken asunder by a
separate peace here, a separate peace there, each equally humiliating;
and Germany, monstrous, ferocious, implacable, finally towering alone
over the ruins of Europe.


3

Now it seems that we have turned aside the inflexible decree. It seems
that we have averted the fate that was about to be accomplished. It
was bearing down upon us with the weight of the ages, with all the
weight of all the vague but irresistible aspirations of the past and,
perhaps, the future. Thanks to the greatest effort which mankind has
ever opposed to the unknown gods that rule it, we are entitled to
believe that the decree has broken down and that we have driven it
into the evil cave where never human force before had compelled it to
hide its defeat.

I say, "It seems;" I say, "We are entitled to believe." The fact is
that the ordeal is not yet past. Even on the day when the war is ended
and when victory is in our hands, destiny will not yet be conquered.
It has happened--seldom, it is true, but still it has happened twice
or thrice--that a nation has compelled the course of fate to turn
aside or to fall back. The nation congratulated herself, even as we