Following the precedent she had laid down, in 1870, after her triumph over France, Germany would undoubtedly have exacted from her fallen enemies, billions and billions of dollars as indemnities of war. And Germany, with such a peace treaty imposed to her despairing enemies with her sanguinary sword at their throat ready to murder them--as she did at Brest-Litovsk--would have swayed the world with her UNIVERSAL DOMINATION. But I hear--I must say without being the least frightened--the thundering clamour of the Nationalist leader crying that Germany does not NOW claim such peace conditions as above enumerated. Very true, and why? Only because she is no longer able to exact and impose them! In 1914, Germany being victorious over all Europe, England included, after a four months overpowering campaign, as she expected, would certainly not have been satisfied with less than the conditions just specified. They were the goal for which she had been strenuously preparing for fifty years, her success, in 1870, being the preliminary opening of her conquests. To bring Germany to renounce--temporarily--to her fond hopes of domination, it has required the heroic efforts and the untold sacrifices, in men and money, which Great Britain, her Colonial Empire, France, Italy, Belgium, Japan, betrayed Russia, and, LAST BUT NOT LEAST, the United States, have made during more than the last four years and which they are pledged to make until a successful issue. The kind of peace as above would have been what can be very properly called--Germany's "OFFENSIVE PEACE." In Germany's opinion this would have been the just and durable peace dear to her so kind heart. But having failed to carry the tremendous victory for which she had so powerfully prepared, Germany would NOW likely agree to negotiate what can be as properly called a "DEFENSIVE PEACE." By "DEFENSIVE PEACE", I mean Germany negotiating NOW with her opponents with the determination to repulse, as much as possible, their just claims, to prevent them to the utmost limit to reap the legitimate fruits of their admirable endeavours, to thwart the realization of their noble aspirations to protect the world hereafter against her guilty and barbarous militarism. Germany--I mean, of course, the Teutonic Imperial Government--has yet given no sign of a change of mind on the vital points at stake in the consideration of the restoration of peace. If the fortune of arms was once more to favour her armies, her blood stained for Colours, she would, to-morrow, be as mercilessly exacting as she would have been, in 1914, had she triumphantly entered Paris inside of two months after her challenge to the civilized world.