WAR MEMOIRS OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 1917

VATICAN AND KUHLMANN PEACE MOVES 287
treaties of settlement, agreements for disarmament, covenants
to set up arbitration in the place of force, territorial adjustments,
reconstitutions of small nations, if made with the German Government,
no man, no nation, could now depend on. We must
await some new evidence of the purposes of the great peoples of
the Central Empires. God grant it may be given soon, and in a
way to restore the confidence of all peoples everywhere in the
faith of the nations and the possibility of a covenanted peace.
ROBERT LANSING,
Secretary of State of the
United States of America.
This reply put a definite termination to the Vatican
efforts for peace. The "scrap of paper" had shattered confidence
in German Imperialism. President Wilson, like the
Asquith Government, came to the conclusion that its over*
throw was a condition precedent to a durable peace.
The German reply to the Papal Note was not given until
the 21st of September. In spite of the Pope's explicit
declaration that the complete restoration of Belgian independence
was a sine qua non, the German answer contained
no reference to Belgium. That reply caused profound disappointment
even amongst the Germanophiles of the Continent.
It was said that the Giolittians in Italy were "almost
angry" while the clerical papers did not hesitate to manifest
their disappointment or discouragement. In Vatican circles
the sterility of the reply was attributed to the fact that the
answer of the Central Empires had been completely reconstructed
since the taking of Riga. (The German army leaders
by this date were so confident that they could finally repel
the British attack on Flanders that they organised an advance
in Russia which ended in the capture of the important
port of Riga.) We know now what took place in official circles
in Germany between the date of the Reichstag resolution and
their reply to the Papal Note. The facts have been revealed