“MORAL CONQUESTS”
with the whole world. And now is the most favourable time to make these moral conquests. Let us show the world that the Pangermans have no right to speak in the name of the German people in Germany and Austria that we do not wish to overcome our opponents by blood or violence, but desire an honest understanding and lasting reconciliation; that we do not wish to build our future on the power of the sword, but on the common right of all peoples to prevent violence being done by one against the other.
The Pangermans promise the German people power; but no people’s power is firmly based if all others are its enemies. The Pangermans have promised us economic welfare; but hatred is a bad customer, and even the most complete victory cannot force anyone to order German goods. The Pangerman greed of power and riches has attained the very opposite of what it sought. The dreadful experience of the war is forcing the German people on to new paths, and the peace negotiations are the best opportunity of proving to the world that we are resolved to tread them. Hence away with all talk of territorial conquests! We desire to conquer nothing save friendship and peace with all nations of the world.
Trotski and Czernin
The contrast between two such negotiators as Mr. Trotski and Count Czernin has acquired an added piquancy from a speech delivered on 17 January by the Austrian Minister of the Interior, Count Toggenburg (of whom the correspondent of the Vossische Zeitung wrote on 22 January that “he of all ministers has played the most unfavourable rôle in these days, and that “the contempt which greeted his speech shows that in so great a struggle of principle nothing can be attained by weak-kneedness and Jesuitical allures”).
“You may think,” he said, “that there is a certain difficulty in the fact that at the peace negotiations at Brest an Excellency, who happens to be a Count, is opposed to a man of the people of the type of Trotski. Unfortunately, I have not the honour to know Trotski. I only know him by the accounts of the Social Democrats and descriptions in the press. On the other hand, I know Count Czernin fairly well, and though it may perhaps seem a paradox, I can tell you with full conviction that there are many resemblances between Count Czernin and Trotski, and that this very accident, that two similar men confronted each other at Brest, offers a guarantee that the negotiations will go well. It is said that Trotski would not hesitate a moment to go out into the world again as a cabin boy or to end as a convict, or perhaps even worse. Exactly the same is true of Count Czernin. He is a man who does not yield one step from his convictions, even if it should cost him all his position and make a beggar of him. That he does not care about: he follows his straight course, and is one of the stiffest and most logical natures that I have ever met. He is so little attached to traditional or feudal ideas or the like, that he stands in a quite vital conflict with many Excellencies and Counts. And so I believe that Czernin really has no
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