I said that it was certainly a serious thing, and no doubt would be
     treated seriously.

     I asked him if he knew what would be contained in the proposed
     representations from his government.

He said that he did not; but as he understood that they were to be made to all the belligerents, he did not think that they could be much more than a pious aspiration for peace; since that was the only thing that was equally applicable to the Germans and to us.

     As he was leaving he suggested that the German note might be
     published in our press.

     I am, etc.,

     ROBERT CECIL.

This so-called German “peace proposal” began with the statement that the war “had been forced” upon Germany, contained the usual reference to the military might of the Central Powers, and declared that the Fatherland was fighting for “the honour and liberty of national evolution.”  It is therefore not surprising that Lord Robert received it somewhat sardonically, especially as the communication contained no specific proposals, but merely a vague suggestion of “negotiations.”  But another spectacular performance now drove the German manoeuvre out of everybody’s mind.  That President Wilson resented this German interference with his own plans is well known; he did not drop them, however, but on December 18th, he sent his long-contemplated peace communication to all the warring Powers.  His appeal took the form of asking that they state the objects for which they were fighting, the Presidential belief evidently being that, if they did this, a common meeting ground might possibly be found.  The suggestion that the Allied war aims were not public property, despite the fact that British statesmen had been broadly proclaiming them for three years, caused a momentary irritation in England, but this was not a serious matter, especially as the British Cabinet quickly saw that this request gave them a position of advantage over Germany, which had always refused to make public the terms on which it would end the war.  The main substance in this Presidential approach, therefore, would have produced no ill-feeling; as usual, it was a few parenthetical phrases—­phrases which were not essential to the main argument—­which set the allied countries seething with indignation.  The President, this section of his note ran, “takes the liberty of calling attention to the fact that the objects which the statesmen of the belligerents on both sides have in mind in this war, are virtually the same, as stated in general terms to their own people and to the world.  Each side desires to make the rights and privileges of weak peoples and small states as secure against aggression and denial in the future as the rights and privileges of the great and powerful states now at war.”  This idea was elaborated in several sentences of a similar strain, the general purport of the whole passage being that