Page:Democratic Ideals and Reality (1919).djvu/92

80 case of the neutral coasts—and then running as a sinuous line through Belgium and France to the Jura border of Switzerland. West of that boundary, whether by land or sea, the two Powers could make ready their defence against the enemy. Nine months later Italy dared to join the Allies, mainly because her ports were kept open by the Allied sea-power.

On the Eastern front also the old style of war held. Land-power was there divided into two contending forces, and the outer of the two, notwithstanding its incongruous Czardom, was allied with the sea-power of the Democratic West. In short, the disposition of forces repeated in a general way that of a century earlier, when British sea-power supported the Portuguese and Spaniards in 'the Peninsula,' and was allied with the autocracies of the Eastern land-powers. Napoleon fought on two fronts, which in the terms of to-day we should describe as Western and Eastern.

In 1917, however, came a great change, due to the entry of the United States into the War, the fall of the Russian Czardom, and the subsequent collapse of the Russian fighting strength. The world-strategy of the contest was entirely altered. We have been fighting since, and can afford to say it without hurting any of our allies, to make the world a safe