enemy peoples and a lasting peace except the predatory designs of their ruling dynasties and military and economic castes; that the design of the Allies is not to crush any people, but to assure the freedom of all on a basis of self-determination to be exercised under definite guarantees of justice and fair play; that, unless enemy peoples accept the Allied conception of a world peace settlement, it will be impossible for them to repair the havoc of the present war, to avert utter financial ruin, and to save themselves from prolonged misery; and that the longer the struggle lasts the deeper will become the hatred of everything German in the non-German world, and the heavier the social and economic handicap under which the enemy peoples will labour, even after their admission into a League of Nations.
"The primary war aim of the Allies thus becomes the changing of Germany, not only in the interest of the Allied League, but in that of the German people itself. Without the honest co-operation of Germany, disarmament on a large scale would be impossible, and, without disarmament, social and economic reconstruction would be impracticable. Germany has, therefore, to choose between her own permanent ruin by
