Waterloo put an end to _gloire_, but it did not quite end the idea of the legitimacy of conquering civilized people and good neighbors--it did not make impossible the attitude of the German statesman who, when asked by our ambassador Hill why Germany did not conciliate Alsace-Lorraine, answered without the slightest suspicion that he was showing himself a barbarian: "But we have conquered them." It was this attitude which gradually changed Germany's preparations against France's possible _revanche_ after 1870, into a scheme to conquer the world. This antiquated idea of right by conquest, and this barbarous passion for it, have done more than anything else, except perhaps dogmatic religions, for the misery of mankind. This attitude survives, among lettered nations, only in Germany and her allies. We have got to fight until we kill it, no matter how many treaties of peace intervene: and it will not be killed as long as Germany is left in possession of a foot of the territory she has seized during the present war. All these considerations render the idea of a "Peace without victory" worse than a mere disgusting piece of sentimentalism. They render it a danger, and one that unless obliterated, sooner or later must explode. But behind all that, it is absurd in its very conception. What could be more ridiculous than a treaty with Germany? It would of course be ridiculous on the part of a nation that did not intend to keep it, but on the part of a nation that did intend to keep it, it would be doubly ridiculous. Nothing can be plainer than that real peace cannot be reached, no matter what treaties and intervals of nominal peaces intervene, before Germany has her conceit whipped out of her, and whipped out so thoroughly that, as in Napoleon's case, there will be no need for discussion or pretended agreements, but that she will simply be told what she must do, and made to do it. At one time there was hope that the kindly and modest German the elders among us knew, would take hold and attend to the matter himself. But he is not here to do it: we have got to do it ourselves, and we cannot afford to flinch, or dally, or stop half way. _What the Cat Thinks of the Dog_