If America does not come into the arrangement it may well come to nothing much more than a further continued defensive alliance of the belligerent nations now opposed to the German coalition.

In any case it is still a point in doubt whether the league so projected is to be merely a compact of defensive armament against a common enemy--in which case it will necessarily be transient, perhaps ephemeral--or a more inclusive coalition of a closer character designed to avoid any breach of the peace, by disarmament and by disallowance and disclaimer of such national pretensions and punctilio as the patriotic sentiment of the contracting parties will consent to dispense with.

The nature of the resulting peace, therefore, as well as its chances of duration, will in great measure be conditioned on the fashion of peace-compact on which it is to rest; which will be conditioned in good part on the degree in which the warlike coalition under German Imperial control is effectually to be eliminated from the situation as a prospective disturber of the peace; which, in turn, is a question somewhat closely bound up with the further duration of the war, as has already been indicated in an earlier passage..