The war thus comes to an
end."
Speaking to the Congress and the people of the United States, President
Wilson made this declaration on November 11, 1918. A few hours before he
made this statement, Germany, the empire of blood and iron, had agreed
to an armistice, terms of which were the hardest and most humiliating
ever imposed upon a nation of the first class. It was the end of a war
for which Germany had prepared for generations, a war bred of a
philosophy that Might can take its toll of earth's possessions, of human
lives and liberties, when and where it will. That philosophy involved
the cession to imperial Germany of the best years of young German
manhood, the training of German youths to be killers of men. It involved
the creation of a military caste, arrogant beyond all precedent, a caste
that set its strength and pride against the righteousness of democracy,
against the possession of wealth and bodily comforts, a caste that
visualized itself as part of a power-mad Kaiser's assumption that he and
God were to shape the destinies of earth.
When Marshal Foch, the foremost strategist in the world, representing
the governments of the Allies and the United States, delivered to the
emissaries of Germany terms upon which they might surrender, he brought
to an end the bloodiest, the most destructive and the most beneficent
war the world has known.
Pages:
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34