I will not enlarge here upon the tedium and difficulties such an undertaking would present.  I will dismiss it as being not only impossible, but also as an insanely wicked project.  The second alternative, therefore, remains as our War Aim.  I do not see how the sloppiest reasoner can evade that.  As we do not want to kill Germany we must want to change Germany.  If we do not want to wipe Germany off the face of the earth, then we want Germany to become the prospective and trust-worthy friend of her fellow nations.  And if words have any meaning at all, that is saying that we are fighting to bring about a Revolution in Germany.  We want Germany to become a democratically controlled State, such as is the United States to-day, with open methods and pacific intentions, instead of remaining a clenched fist.  If we can bring that about we have achieved our War Aim; if we cannot, then this struggle has been for us only such loss and failure as humanity has never known before.

But do we, as a nation, stick closely to this clear and necessary, this only possible, meaning of our declared War Aim?  That great, clear-minded leader among the Allies, that Englishman who more than any other single man speaks for the whole English-speaking and Western-thinking community, President Wilson, has said definitely that this is his meaning.  America, with him as her spokesman, is under no delusion; she is fighting consciously for a German Revolution as the essential War Aim.  We in Europe do not seem to be so lucid.  I think myself we have been, and are still, fatally and disastrously not lucid.  It is high time, and over, that we cleared our minds and got down to the essentials of the war.  We have muddled about in blood and dirt and secondary issues long enough.

We in Britain are not clear-minded, I would point out, because we are double-minded.  No good end is served by trying to ignore in the fancied interests of “unity” a division of spirit and intention that trips us up at every step.  We are, we declare, fighting for a complete change in international methods, and we are bound to stick to the logical consequences of that.  We have placed ourselves on the side of democratic revolution against autocratic monarchy, and we cannot afford to go on shilly-shallying with that choice.  We cannot in these days of black or white play the part of lukewarm friends to freedom.  I will not remind the reader here of the horrible vacillations and inconsistencies of policy in Greece that have prolonged the war and cost us wealth and lives beyond measure, but President Wilson himself has reminded us pungently enough and sufficiently enough of the follies and disingenuousness of our early treatment of the Russian Revolution.  What I want to point out here is the supreme importance of a clear lead in this matter now in order that we should state our War Aims effectively.