Small wonder that the Cabinet at Westminster hesitated!

We used to say during the war that if Prussia conquered civilization
failed, but that if the Allies conquered civilization was
reestablished--What did we mean? We meant, not that the New Barbarians
could not handle a machine: They can. But we meant that they had learnt all
from us. We meant that they cannot _continue of themselves_; and that we
can. We meant that they have no roots.

When we say that Vienna was the tool of Berlin, that Madrid should be
ashamed, what do we mean? It has no meaning save that civilization is
one and we its family: That which challenged us, though it controlled
so much which should have aided us and was really our own, was external
to civilization and did not lose that character by the momentary use of
civilized Allies.

When we said that "the Slav" failed us, what did we mean? It was not a
statement of race. Poland is Slav, so is Serbia: they were two vastly
differing states and yet both with us. It meant that the Byzantine
influence was never sufficient to inform a true European state or to teach
Russia a national discipline; because the Byzantine Empire, the tutor of
Russia, was cut off from us, the Europeans, the Catholics, the heirs, who
are the conservators of the world.

The Catholic Conscience of Europe grasped this war--with apologies where
it was in the train of Prussia, with affirmation where it was free. It
saw what was toward. It weighed, judged, decided upon the future--the two
alternative futures which lie before the world.

All other judgments of the war made nonsense: You had, on the Allied side,