p. 98 | The End of the War

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 14, 1871

The End of the War.

THE long, the terrible, war in Europe, it seems, is over; for while our paper is going to press, the preliminaries of peace have been signed by the French Commissioners. What its issue, as well as what the chief conditions of peace, would be, has long been anticipated; and in this respect no one is taken by surprise as in 1866, when a reconstruction of Germany on an entirely unexpected and by no means popular basis, was announced by the Prussian Government as the chief result of the brilliant war.

The sufferings of the French people in this war have been terrible; and every philanthropist will be glad to learn that so strenuous efforts are now being made all over the world to relieve them. But still more terrible than its sufferings must be the mortification of the nation which has long been the vainest in Europe, at the course which the war has taken and the results which now follow it. The largest cession of territory which France has had to make for centuries—of territory, moreover, which, since its annexation to France, has been the pet of all the administrations; the entrance of the victors into the capital, in utter disregard of all the threats and whinings of the Parisians up to the last moment; and the payment of an indemnity equal to about one-half of our enormous debt—conditions like these will always count, in the history of France, among the greatest calamities that have befallen her.

We waive the question whether the victors might not have acted more magnanimously in offering easier terms, and more wisely in concluding a peace less revolting to the feelings of a great nation; but we are satisfied that every historian who lays any claim to impartiality will proclaim the German terms moderate and lenient in comparison with those which the French, under Louis XIV. and Napoleon I., imposed upon Germany. No one can doubt that if Germany had been humbled as France is now, her war indemnity would not have been less. Berlin would no more have been spared seeing the triumphal march of the French under Napoleon III., than it was under Napoleon I., and the territory demanded from Germany would have considerably exceeded that which is now lost by France. The fate of France has been something terrible; but who will say that it was undeserved?—The Methodist.