THE PROBLEM OF FOREIGN POLICY

THE PROBLEM OF
FOREIGN POLICY

A CONSIDERATION OF PRESENT
DANGERS AND THE BEST
METHODS FOR MEETING THEM

BY
GILBERT MURRAY

AUTHOR OF "THE FOREIGN POLICY OF SIR EDWARD GREY,"
"THE RELIGION OF A MAN OF LETTERS,"
"FAITH, WAR, AND POLICY," ETC.

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1921

COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY GILBERT MURRAY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PREFACE

I start from the profound conviction that what the world needs is peace. There has been too much war, and too much of many things that naturally go with war; too much force and fraud, too much intrigue and lying, too much impatience, violence, avarice, unreasonableness, and lack of principle. Before the war I was a Liberal, and I believe now that nothing but the sincere practice of Liberal principles will save European society from imminent revolution and collapse. But I am conscious of a certain change of emphasis in my feeling. Before the war I was eager for large and sweeping reforms, I was intolerant of Conservatism and I laughed at risks. The social order had then such a margin of strength that risks could safely be taken. Now I feel a need above all things of the qualities that will preserve civilization. For that preservation, of course, Liberality in the full sense is necessary, and constant progress and a great development of democracy.

But what is needed most is a return to a standard of public conduct which was practised, or at least recognized, by the best Governments of the world before the war, and which now seems to have been shaken, if not shattered. I am not demanding in any wild idealist spirit that Governments should act according to the Sermon on the Mount—though they well might study it a good deal more than they do. I am only saying that they must get back to the standard of veracity, of consistency, of honesty and economy, and of intellectual competence, that we had from Peel or Lord Salisbury or Gladstone.

I do not say that is enough. It is emphatically not enough. We need in foreign policy and home policy a higher standard than we had before, the standard implied by the League of Nations in international affairs and the ideal of Coöperation in domestic affairs. But the first thing is to recover our wholesome tradition.

I think few serious students of public affairs will dispute that the long strain of the war, confusing our ideas of good and evil, and at times centring our hopes upon things which a normal civilized man regards with loathing, has resulted in a widespread degradation of political conduct. Things are done now, in time of peace, which would have been inconceivable before 1914. And they are done now because we grew accustomed to worse things during the war. I do not wish to attack any individuals; but, as an instance of what I mean, one finds a Ministerial newspaper complacently remarking that certain country towns sacked by the police in Ireland were very small and poor places in any case, and the sacking not nearly so complete as the sacking of Belgian towns by the Germans on less provocation. I find to-day (November 4, 1920) the Chief Secretary for Ireland announcing in the House of Commons that he has had a court of inquiry into the alleged murder of John Conway by the police, and presenting an official report that Conway "died from natural causes"; while at the same time the Times special correspondent writes: "I went to the cottage in Rock Street of John Conway, who was shot on Monday evening, and saw him lying on his bed with a bullet wound in the temple." This is one case out of dozens. It is not a slip or an isolated crime. I put it to any man who can remember the years before the war that this represents a startling degradation of the standard of government. Such things used to happen in Mexico; now they happen in Great Britain.

Of course I supported the war. I believe it was necessary. I make no self-righteous claim to throw the guilt of it upon others, who did the fighting by which I and mine were saved. Let me therefore try to make clear why certain things shock me profoundly, while I supported others which can loosely be called "just as bad."

One of the worst things about war, as Thucydides has remarked, is that it takes away your freedom and puts you in a region of necessity. You may choose whether or not to fight; but, once fighting, your power of choice has gone.

Take the treaty with Italy in 1915. Italy demanded a certain price, if she was to come into the war on our side. Another party in Italy was negotiating with the Germans, to see what inducement could be offered for Italy to come in on the other side. (I make no complaint whatever of the conduct of these Italian statesmen; they naturally consulted the interests of their country.) The price was high, and involved the transference to Italy of territory to which, on principles of self-determination, she had little claim. But who could refuse the price? War "is a violent master and teaches by compulsion."

Take the blockade of Germany. It was a slow and somewhat cruel weapon to employ, falling most severely on the most innocent classes. But Germany was trying to blockade us, and only our superior strength and skill at sea caused her plan to fail. It was part of the normal means of war, and of course we used it.

Then came an extension of it. Poland, most unhappy of European nations, was swept by alternate armies, conquered by the Germans, devastated and laid bare. The Poles were our allies. Our newspapers had accounts of the appalling distress in Poland—the roads strewn with skeletons, the almost complete blotting-out of children under seven, and the like. The Americans proposed to send food for the relief of the Poles. But we made objection. We did not allow food to go into Poland, to save our own allies, who were starving. Why? Because the Germans were still taking from the miserable country all the food they could wring out of it. And if the Americans brought in more food, undoubtedly the enemy would take more. There was no choice. We had to refuse the entry of the food ships. But the man who had to sign that order may well have wished he had died before the need came to him.

These results and necessities of war, though I have chosen none of a sensational kind, are very horrible. It is not easy to think of actions much more horrible. But they are not exactly crimes, they are not marks of degradation in those who order them, because they are done under the compulsion of war. The alternative in each case is something equivalent to helping the enemy.

At the end of the war, after the signing of an armistice on the basis of the Fourteen Points, there came at last a moment of free choice. It came after five years of unspeakable waste—five years during which the nations of Europe had become habituated to cruelty and "all pity choked with custom of fell deeds." I am anxious to avoid the faintest semblance of heat or exaggeration, but I think it can hardly be disputed that practically every economist agreed that Europe was on the brink of economic ruin and could only be saved by a quick revival of trade; every man of conscience, irrespective of political party, knew that the first condition for the recovery of civilization was a change from the war mind to the peace mind. Such a change could not happen in a night. It must needs be gradual. It could only be brought about by a strong and persistent lead from those who possessed the ear of the world and the confidence of their own people. Never in the whole course of modern history has there been a more magnificent opportunity than then lay before the British Prime Minister, never has there been a clearer call of plain duty. He was free, as men in public life are seldom free. Great Britain hung on his lips, and Europe was waiting for the lead of Great Britain. It was for him to choose plain good or plain evil. And he chose, deliberately, evil. He dissolved Parliament and appealed to the country in a General Election on a programme of frantic war passion, coupled with promises which he knew to be false, and which were ridiculed by every educated man among his surroundings. This man had before him a task and an opportunity so glorious that one can scarcely speak of it except in the language of religion. Many ordinary men would willingly give their lives if they could save their fellow creatures from sufferings and perils far less terrible than those which then threatened. And he could have saved them without any sacrifice. It needed only a little courage. For a week or ten days he hesitated. Then on December 11 he proclaimed his programme: the Kaiser's head; the punishment of enemy war-criminals; Germany to pay the whole cost of the war; Britain for the British; rehabilitation of those whom the war had broken.

At the time when this programme was put forward I felt bewildered. I did not realize that any one could be, I will not say so wicked, but so curiously destitute of generous ambition, so incapable of thinking greatly. And when I tried to find out what motive could lie at the back of a failure so incredible, I was told by his supporters that the Prime Minister was not thinking about the matters of which I was thinking. He was trying to get a very large majority in the House of Commons and to crush his old colleagues, and conceivable rivals, entirely out of existence. Of course he succeeded.

I hope I have put this statement forward without any malice or party feeling. The state of the world is far too serious to permit of either. And I hope that the profound and burning indignation which I undoubtedly feel has not biased my judgment. In any case, the conclusion that I wish to draw is not a personal but a general one. I doubt if such action would have been possible before the war in any constitutional statesman, not to speak of a clever and humane man like Mr. George. I doubt if the public opinion of any nation would have endured it. A nation in which such conduct is tolerated, and even approved, ought surely to pause and bethink itself. For it is not a particular reckless or unfortunate act which is thus condoned; it is a way of behaviour. It is a way of behaviour which has its origin in the methods of war, and of which the characteristic is that it gives the unscrupulous man the advantage over the scrupulous man, the cheat over the honest player, the violent and the criminal over those who obey the law. It fosters exactly those things which it is the business of civilized society to prevent. There are always lawless and dishonest men in every large community, as there are criminals in every army. There are always men who make profit out of their neighbours' extremity, who use advertisement to stifle truth, who jeer at all that is higher than themselves. But in a good social order they are not influential. They acquire power only in a society which, in external conduct, is losing its traditional standards and inwardly, in the words of Tolstoy's great condemnation, has forgotten God.

My criticism here is directed against my own country, and in particular against the British Prime Minister, not in the least because I have any anti-British bias. On the contrary, I think that in most of the international problems of Europe the influence of Great Britain, and in particular of the British Prime Minister, is generally an influence for good, though not nearly such a strong and clear influence as it might be. I confine these criticisms to our own policy because the scolding of foreign countries is a notoriously profitless task. The only criticism that has any chance of being useful is that of matters for which the critic or his readers have some degree of responsibility.

I believe profoundly in the traditions of Liberal England. As every one knows who has cared to read my writings, I look to the League of Nations as the main hope of the world, and to the British Commonwealth as the mainstay of the League of Nations. But, if it was ever doubtful, it is surely clear in the present state of the world that the Commonwealth cannot rest upon any secure foundation except the good-will of its members. And that good-will in its turn depends upon equal law, good government, and good faith.

It is not a new lesson that we have to learn: it is an old lesson that good Englishmen once knew better than any rulers the world has ever seen, though five years of madness have made it largely forgotten. But, as Lord Grey has said, the choice now before us is absolute; we must learn or perish.

It is in this belief and this spirit that I have written the following pages, which I hope, except to those who still live in some unsubstantial paradise of war-bred delusions, will cause no permanent offence, nor leave the impression that where I think others have made mistakes I imagine that I should make none.

Readers will see that I have aimed throughout at simplicity of outline. I have deliberately focused attention on the one central problem, how to avoid the causes of international strife. And out of the many and multifarious difficulties that confront our harassed Foreign Office to-day, I have concentrated on a few typical cases. I have omitted, for instance, any discussion of Turkey, Armenia, Persia, Ireland, and the relations between Great Britain and the United States. I have omitted Africa, where, unless the white man's methods of administration are reconsidered, one of the gravest of the world's future dangers may soon be in fermentation. And I have said nothing of the economic problem in Europe, especially in Austria. The International Financial Commission, summoned at Brussels by the League of Nations, has issued a report on this matter which no government can afford to neglect. Its first recommendations are disarmament and freedom of trade, but they will not be enough without some system of international credits by which production may be set going among those populations which at present have neither food nor raw materials nor the means of buying them.

Since an edition of this little book is asked for in America I feel constrained to add a few words to the Preface. It will be seen that I have said nothing about two subjects of the first importance, the Irish Question and the relations between Great Britain and the United States. The Irish Question is, under present conditions, a domestic matter, since Ireland forms by law part of the United Kingdom and has the right of full representation in the British Parliament. It only touches foreign policy through its effect on foreign opinion.

I do not therefore propose to discuss the Irish Question here. Personally I believe that a favourable prospect of settlement is to be found in the policy advocated by Mr. Asquith and Lord Grey, and loosely called "Dominion Home Rule." This would put Ireland roughly in the same position as the self-governing British colonies, and would at once have two very important effects. It would put an end to the present oppressions and would give Ireland the right to a seat at the Assembly of the League of Nations. But I fear that no settlement whatever is possible in Ireland until the present Government is replaced by some other with more sincerity in its purpose and less blood upon its hands. The accounts of British misdeeds which I read in the Sinn Fein Bulletin and in some American newspapers appear to me to be both exaggerated and one-sided. Men exasperated by persecution are not as a rule capable of giving a perfectly fair and benevolent account of the behaviour of their persecutors. But in spite of the Government's policy of rigorous concealment, the Irish can now appeal to the evidence of a witness as nearly unimpeachable as can be expected in human affairs, a County Court Judge appointed originally by the British Government itself. Judge Bodkin, in a report submitted to the British Government on cases of crime which came before his Court in Clare County at the Hilary Sessions of 1920, states: "There were in all 139 cases in which it was proved that the criminal injuries were committed by armed forces of the Government, and only in the five cases already mentioned were any witnesses examined to justify, deny, or explain. In no case was there any evidence to suggest that the victims had been guilty of any offence."

In answer to a report like this the Government allows no public inquiry, inflicts, so far as is known, no punishment on the criminals, awards no compensation to the victims, and yet does not take any legal steps against its accuser. Such conduct does not seem compatible with innocence. Indeed the complicity of the Government, particularly of Mr. Lloyd George and Sir Hamar Greenwood, in the system of illegal outrages called "reprisals" is no longer disputed, and has especially been brought out in Parliament by a conservative member, Mr. Oswald Moseley. The exact degree of complicity is, of course, open to doubt. If I may give my own opinion for what it is worth, I suspect that at some time when the Irish police forces were disposed to resign or to strike owing to the constant danger of assassination in which the Government's policy required them to live, the Government gave their officers some assurance that, if they would only stay on, their own conduct in dealing with Sinn Feiners would not be too closely scrutinized. That was the usual method pursued by the Czar's Government when arranging pogroms.

The defence of the British Ministers is that they were faced from the outset by a very difficult situation, owing to the irreconcilable differences between the northeast corner of Ulster and the rest of Ireland. Anxious for Tory support they gave pledges, the exact tenor of which has not been divulged, to Sir Edward Carson, the Ulster leader, and thus tied their own hands. The condition of Ireland became increasingly embittered, till, shortly after Sir Hamar Greenwood's appointment, the extreme Sinn Fein party, refusing parliamentary action and unable to meet the English in battle, adopted a policy of assassination. The Government, much embarrassed, did just what most bad governments generally have done in other parts of the world. They tried to stamp out the Sinn Fein terror by organizing a terror of their own, meeting crime by still more formidable crime, and recklessly confusing the innocent with the guilty. At last they have succeeded in uniting all Catholic Ireland in such detestation of the British name that an Irishman will now never betray another Irishman, however guilty, to the British police, nor even feel that the killing of an Englishman is quite the same thing as murder. "Things being in this state," the Government pleads, "how can we be expected to govern Ireland according to civilized standards?" The answer is that they cannot, and had better make room for another Government which can.

I cannot tell how great an effect this Irish calamity has had in embittering the relations between America and Great Britain. I would only venture to lay before Americans of moderate views my conviction that the great mass of educated opinion in England joins with the Free Liberals and the Labour Party in utterly condemning the Government's Irish administration. This conclusion is derived from personal conversation with people of various parties, and from the overwhelming anti-Government votes in the bye-elections, and the increasing protests and rebellions among the Government's supporters in Parliament. I have to admit that this condemnation is not reflected in the House of Commons as a whole, an utterly abnormal House elected in a moment when not only the fever of war, but many other fevers and corruptions of the body politic were at their height. It is not even reflected adequately in the press. For the press in England, with a few most honourable exceptions, is in the hands of a small number of individuals who—to say the least of it—were not elected to their present position of power by the confidence of their countrymen nor appointed thereto on grounds of intellect or character or public spirit. England is admittedly not in a very healthy state of mind. But, even now, at her worst, she is a far better and more decent country than could be concluded from either the London press or the House of Commons.

The picture I have given of European affairs may, I can well see, be taken in either of two ways by an American. It may well confirm his determination to keep absolutely clear of a world at once so ill-directed and so miserable. The case for American isolation is very easy to state and to understand. What is there to attract America towards further coöperation with any of the larger European nations? France? I can imagine no sane statesmen wishing to be drawn into the orbit of France in her present mood or with her present prospects. Germany? The existing German Government seems good, but old enmities do not so quickly die down, and Germany has still to prove that she is an honest and a peaceful power. Russia? To ask the question is to answer it. England? Who would wish to coöperate with the British Government in holding down Ireland by "competition in crime," in reëstablishing her slippery grasp on Mesopotamia, laboriously pacifying India and Egypt, and struggling indefinitely against Russian conspiracies to destroy her influence in the Moslem world? How can an American wish to remit England's debt to America when she is at this moment invading Germany in order to collect "to the last farthing" a claim which the American delegates at the Peace Conference rejected as extortionate? And who would wish to increase the wealth of a Government which, immediately after the War to end War, is lavishing all it can afford, and more, on armaments and military expeditions? Other less plausible arguments could easily be added. The suggestion, for instance, that this country, or any party or any fraction of a party in this country, intends or ever intended to use the Japanese Alliance for a war against the United States is the merest moonshine, and has been repeatedly disproved by the terms of the old treaty and by the public statements of both parties. But, taking only arguments that have some basis of truth, the case for American isolation is very strong.

And yet it is the wrong case. It is based, I venture to think, first on a misunderstanding, and next on too narrow a point of view. A misunderstanding; because it is not coöperation in that sense which is asked of her. She is not asked to support the policies of any European nation. The League of Nations is not an alliance. She is asked only to sit in council with the other nations—as free and unpledged as they, or, if she wishes, still more so—to help those who have suffered, and are in part still sick in body and brain with their suffering, to face the vast problems which now confront mankind, and which the rest of us have pledged ourselves to face in the spirit of peace and justice and common sense which we thought was characteristically American. It is based on too narrow a view, because all summary judgments of foreign nations are that, whether they end in praise or blame. "La noble, l'incomparable Angleterre" of M. Briand is just as remote from fact as the "brutal and bloody Britain" of Mr. Hearst. Nations are made up of masses of individuals, who differ among themselves within each nation just about as much as the citizens of one nation differ from those of another. In every nation there are numbers of criminals and numbers of fine men. In every nation's past there are black places and white. Only it so happens that just now, after a time of hideous suffering and wrong-doing, in the midst of a time of savage resentments and passions and great material difficulties, the nations of the world are from the depth of their hearts longing for some way of avoiding war and treating one another in future a little more openly and fairly than they have in the past. They know they must have disputes, and that when the disputes come it is one of two things; they must either talk them out or fight them out. They are meeting to talk them out. But how can the talk be quite frank and free, or how can the promises of peace and fair dealing carry full conviction, while the greatest and the least wounded of all the nations refuses to join in them, but sits aloof in silence, from time to time sharpening her sword?

G. M.   

CONTENTS

THE PROBLEM
OF FOREIGN POLICY

CHAPTER I

I. The Predicament of Germany

"Herr Justizrat," answered a younger man, "did you take part in the war? I think not—you would be over the age. I was in the war for four years. . . . I agree with you that, in all probability, in thirty or forty years we shall settle our account with France and make tabula rasa. And in thirty or forty years after that France will have her reckoning with us and make tabula rasa of Germany; and then we again, and so on. But, if you will excuse me, Herr Justizrat, I do not find in the prospect any of the satisfaction which it appears to give you."

An incident of this sort may be significant or may not. It may be typical or may be exceptional. But my friend's experience seems exactly to agree with the report made by Herr Simons to the Reichstag in the last week of August, 1920, upon the attitude of the German Government towards the war then proceeding between Poland and Russia. The Entente Powers had invited Germany to take certain unneutral steps on the side of Poland; the Government had, as a matter of course, refused. The Soviet Government had also invited Germany to join in the war on their side, holding out the hope that such action by Germany would precipitate a Bolshevik revolution in Poland and other parts of eastern Europe and lead to an alliance capable of defying the Entente. The German Government, said Herr Simons, carefully considered these proposals, as it felt bound to consider any possible prospect of escape for Germany from the intolerable servitude imposed upon her by the Peace of Versailles, but decided that it was not in the public interest to accept them.

Thus the German Foreign Minister, a man respected by all parties, expresses in sober and thoughtful language much the same sentiment as the Justizrat in his passion. The Peace of Versailles has, like most settlements imposed by conquerors upon their beaten enemies, produced a condition so intolerable that the vanquished must be expected to seize the first favourable opportunity for fighting to free themselves. It has sown the seeds of future war.

Now, it was the great hope of English Liberals and those who agreed with them, that, contrary to almost all precedent, this war might be ended by a peace so high-minded and statesmanlike and far-seeing, so scrupulously fair to the vanquished and so single-mindedly set upon the healing of national wounds and the reconstruction of a shattered society, that the ordinary motives for a war of revenge would not exist, and the nations might really coöperate with one another to save all Europe from a common ruin. In 1914 and 1915, when war still seemed to Englishmen an almost incredible horror, and it was still necessary to appeal to men's consciences if we wished them to fight, volunteers were invited for a "war to end war." The statesmen who, in those days, were still the leaders of the country, were emphatic in stating that we were not engaged in any attempt to destroy or oppress the German people, but only "the military domination of Prussia." Even later, when the Liberal and idealist elements in the country withered in the poisonous air or were supplanted by more robust forces, it seemed as if President Wilson was upholding, with even greater insistence and emphasis, the banner of ultimate reconciliation as the goal of the war. For the war itself he prescribed "Force, Force to the utmost, Force without stint or limit, righteous and triumphant Force, which shall make Right the Law of the World and cast every selfish dominion down in the dust" (April 6, 1918); but, as soon as the Hohenzollerns were overthrown, he was for what he called "peace without victory," a peace with no element of revenge, "a new international order based upon broad and universal principles of right and justice" (February 11, 1918). Especial emphasis was laid on our good-will towards the German people. "We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friendship" (April 2, 1917). "They did not originate or desire this hideous war . . . we are fighting their cause, as they will some day see it, as well as our own" (Flag Day, 1917).

It is not clear that this ideal was an impossible one. The war of Prussia against Austria in 1866 was unscrupulous and aggressive in its origin; but Bismarck meant it to end in a reconciliation after victory, and so it did. He secured a peace which left no sting of injustice behind it, Lincoln did not live to make the settlement with the South after the American Civil War; but enough is known of his intentions to make us sure that he intended to carry through at all costs a peace of reconciliation, extremely different from that which took place when he was gone. The British war against the Boers in 1899-1902, though open to the severest criticism in its origin, ended in a genuine peace of reconciliation in the settlement of 1906, for which the reward came rapidly and in full measure at the outbreak of the Great War. Had things been a little different in 1918, had President Wilson had the same support from his own people that he had from the best elements in Europe, had a Liberal or Labour Government been in power to make a settlement of the Great War like the settlement which followed the Boer War, had the popular influences of the time been better guided, Europe might have had a genuinely Liberal peace. Indeed, it seemed at the last moment almost certain that a Liberal peace had been secured. In an address to Congress on January 8, 1918, President Wilson laid down his memorable Fourteen Points to be observed in any treaty of peace with Germany. The first five may be especially noted:

The Fourteen Points were not only acclaimed by Liberal opinion in England: they were vigorously circulated by our Government propaganda in Germany and Austria, as were all other statements considered likely to induce the enemy peoples to weaken or surrender. On October 5, 1918, the German Republican Government proposed peace on the basis of the Fourteen Points. "They requested President Wilson to take into his hands the task of establishing peace on the basis of the Fourteen Points contained in his message to Congress of January 8, 1918, and on the basis of his subsequent proclamations, especially his speech of September 27, 1918." Later on they asked the President to inquire if the Allied Governments also agreed to them. In response to his inquiries the Allied Governments sent in to him an identical memorandum:

One further "qualification" was made by the Allied Powers: by the "restoration" of the invaded territories they understood "that compensation would be made by Germany for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allies and their property by the aggression of Germany by land, by sea and from the air."

Thus the Fourteen Points were converted into a solemn international agreement. The Allies agreed that the treaty of peace should consist of the application in detail of that fundamental document. On that understanding the Germans laid down their arms and surrendered their means of defence.

It is always difficult in the affairs of a democratic country to determine the exact point where mere inconsistency and laxity of thought, or even mere lack of coördination between the various organs of government, merge into something like deliberate perfidy. It may so easily happen that one set of individuals give the promise and quite another set act in breach of it. But an Englishman who wishes seriously to understand the present international situation must begin by realizing clearly that the treaty imposed on the Germans at Versailles, after they had surrendered their arms, appears to them and to a large number of neutral observers as a monstrous breach of faith. It contravened in spirit and in detail much of what they understood by the Fourteen Points. I confess that, after reading carefully the German Protest and the Allied Reply, it seems to me that the German reading of President Wilson's terms was in some points the natural one; and, apart from the treaty itself, that the action taken against the Germans when they were disarmed was not consistent with the language and the pledges addressed to them while they were still in the field. As a matter of fact, certain of those responsible, or partly responsible, for the negotiations on the Entente side, when they saw the way things were going, recalled bitterly the great historic perfidy by which Rome trapped Carthage to her doom.

A charge of this kind is, of course, very serious; and the results of the action taken at Versailles have been more than serious. I will ask my readers patiently to consider in broad outlines the causes, psychological and other, which seem to have been at work; for of course it is quite possible and even probable that, of the main actors concerned, not one had any intention of trying to trap the Germans by perjury. Some of them doubtless were unscrupulous men, such as wars habitually throw to the surface; but they were not men of the Machiavellian type.

Two broad facts stand out clearly to one who studies the documents. First, the Governments which accepted President Wilson's Fourteen Points as the basis of peace with Germany were from the start quite out of sympathy with his spirit. Why, then, did they accept them? Because they had really no choice. To refuse would not have been only to reject a long delayed and desperately needed peace. It would have been to confess to the world that, contrary to so many previous professions, their aims were frankly what is now termed "imperialistic." Above all, it would have been to alienate Mr. Wilson, without whom victory was impossible. They were bound to accept.

But Mr. Wilson's language was often rather lacking in definiteness. Who knows exactly what "justice" is, or what may be regarded as consideration for "the true interests" of the German people? They accepted the terms; but they were free to use all permissible ingenuity in interpreting a document which they had not drawn up, and which had been forced upon them in a time of need.

Furthermore, one who labours through the four hundred and forty articles of the treaty, with their innumerable subdivisions, will find not merely that the treaty represents broadly the victory of the right side over the wrong, and is a charter of emancipation to large parts of Europe. He will find also that four hundred or more of the detailed articles are reasonable enough and many of them excellent. The injustice arises in two ways. First, that on every doubtful point, and there are many, the decision is apt to be given against the enemy; and next, that behind the respectable structure of the treaty there existed in fact a flood of white-hot war-passion—revenge, hate, terror, suspicion, and raging covetousness—which poisoned the atmosphere and here and there made a breach in the protecting wall.

A great English military critic somewhat shocked public opinion by saying at the time of the armistice, "This armistice is wrong. We have got them down, and now we ought to kick them till we have had enough." The French, he said, ought to have continued the war and marched on to Berlin, plundering and ravaging till they had satisfied their revenge. The words sound like insanity, but the speaker explained them later on. A war of revenge, he argued, is within the limits of pardonable human nature. And it comes to an end. But, being cheated of their decisive campaign of victory, the French were making a peace of revenge; and that is a thing which is apt to admit of no forgiveness and no finish.

I quote these words not because I agree with them in practical policy, but because of the profound psychological truth that they express. Behind the statesmen who had pledged their words, however unwillingly, remained masses of ignorant, violent, and war-maddened people, many of them with terrible wrongs to avenge and no guide or leader to help them against themselves. We need not recall, though few sensitive people will ever forget, the horrors of the propaganda of hate. It is only worth realizing that the mob-inspired journalists and journalist-inspired mobs who clamoured for an utter and all-devouring peace of revenge, including the starvation and enslavement of half Europe for thirty or fifty or a hundred years, had never themselves signed the Fourteen Points and felt no personal inconsistency or turpitude if they compelled the Supreme Council of the Allies to break its faith.

The first step in this policy lay outside the treaty. The third of the Fourteen Points established "equality of trade conditions" and the "removal of economic barriers" between all the nations consenting to the peace. Immediately after the armistice a proposal was made, and met with strong American support, that the Allies should set themselves at once to attempting to cope with the threatened famine and the lack of raw materials in Central Europe, and thus get European trade on its legs again as early as possible. This would relieve a vast amount of distress, serve as a stepping-stone to reconciliation, save many nations from the danger of irremediable collapse, and also make far more possible the restoration of the invaded areas and the payment of large reparations by Germany. It was proposed to follow the analogy of the peace of 1871; to draw up a preliminary peace agreement, stating principles and limits but not details. For example, it might be agreed that Germany must surrender some territory in the West and in Poland, but not beyond certain geographical lines; must pay an indemnity to be fixed on certain principles, but not to exceed a certain sum, and the like. The territorial agreement, again, might be based on the elaborate statement of war aims issued by the British Government on January 10, 1917. The Germans could have accepted this, and the work of reconstruction been begun immediately. Incalculable distress and suffering would thus have been saved.

But another view prevailed. With the short-sightedness that so often accompanies brutality, the German High Command had, in the very last months of the war, when their defeat was certain, tried systematically to cripple the industry of Belgium and France by destroying mines, breaking machinery, carrying off movable plant, and the like. Their own manufacturing plant was undamaged, and they indulged in the fatuous expectation that they might recapture their lost markets and spring into prosperity, while France and Belgium were still too crippled to commence work. Of course, this could not be allowed. The obvious alternatives, such as allocating certain German factories to French or Belgian companies whose plant had been destroyed, or simply allocating the profits to purposes of reparation, appear not to have been considered. The blinder motives were too strong, and no statesman arose to give guidance. All Germany must be punished. She had not been invaded and ravaged. She must be made to suffer the pains of invasion. She must be ravaged in cold blood. The complete ruin of Germany, argued certain French journalists and politicians, was demanded by all considerations both of justice and of safety, and it had not by any means been attained. Russia was paralyzed and wrecked by Bolshevism. But the German Revolution had been carried successfully through. The people were not yet demoralized, and the problem was how to demoralize them. Perhaps starvation would do it. Hence was started the policy of deliberately ruining Germany, after her surrender, by a long blockade in time of what, to the ordinary man, appeared to be peace, and immediately after a promise of "the removal of economic barriers and the establishment of equality of trade conditions." This was not a technical breach of faith; technically we were still at war with Germany, and we had never promised not to starve our enemies after their surrender. The promise of equality of trade conditions only applied to conditions after the peace. Nevertheless, a historian will probably regard the establishment and continuance of this blockade of the enemy lands after their surrender as one of those many acts of almost incredible inhumanity which have made the recent Great War conspicuous in the annals of mankind and shaken thoughtful men's faith in the reality of modern civilization. Certain articles in the Matin discussing the exact dose of famine desirable in order to create the maximum of individual suffering and public weakness in the Boche are difficult to parallel in the literature of morbid hate, except among some of the German war pamphlets.

Thus the Fourteen Points, besides a regrettable indefiniteness of phrasing, had the fatal fault of being utterly out of touch with the feeling of most of the belligerents. As the time wore on this feeling asserted its influence on the terms of the treaty. The Boche had deliberately and treacherously plunged Europe into war; he had waged the war with revolting cruelty; he had inflicted unheard-of suffering on the innocent, and, by a miracle, he had been beaten. Now let him pay the penalty! President Wilson had pledged the Allies "to be just to the German people as to all others. . . . To propose anything but justice to Germany at any time would be to renounce our own cause." "Very good," answered the dominant voices of 1918; "the criminal asks for justice, and so far as our power reaches, justice he shall have!" The total of wrongs done by Germany, in plotting the war, in waging it, and in the destruction of life and property, could easily be regarded as an almost infinite sum, and "Justice" surely demanded for that an almost infinite punishment.

The first concession to this insistent pressure was on a point of form. The language of the Fourteen Points and the accompanying documents implied that the treaty would be a matter of discussion and negotiation. The basis was agreed upon; it seemed natural to suppose that the next step was to negotiate. But popular feeling had caught at the phrase "unconditional surrender"; and, though nothing could be clearer than the fact that the German army had surrendered on perfectly explicit conditions, signed and agreed to by every Government concerned, it was decided that terms were not to be negotiated but "imposed." Mr. Keynes has shown in an interesting way how great was the effect of this decision. Terms were drawn up with a view to bargaining, leaving a margin for possible concessions; and then there was no bargaining. The whole demand was suddenly enforced.

Questions of territory outside Europe were decided purely by conquest. Immense areas in Asia and Africa were seized as spoil by the strongest Powers, though the conditions of their tenure were, so it was hoped, to be regulated by the League of Nations. In some cases there was a pretence of consulting the wishes of the inhabitants; in most cases this was not practicable. In Syria and South Tyrol the wishes of the inhabitants were notoriously overridden. In Europe as a whole, however, the decisions were made on Wilsonian principles. True, they told heavily against Germany. But as a matter of fact the Germans and German Austrians, by reason of their great strength and high organizing power, had an imperial position in Europe, and any liberation of subject or quasi-subject nationalities was bound to be at the expense of the Germans. The territorial settlement, in spite of the great and needless distress produced by the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian system, is on principles of nationality juster than that which preceded it. The more extreme anti-German claims were successfully resisted. France was not allowed to annex Germany up to the Elbe, as M. Hanotaux wished; nor even up to the Rhine. No partition of Germany by force was permitted, though an agitation for that purpose still continues in France and the prohibition of any future union between German-Austria and the rest of Germany was actually embodied in the treaty. The treaty of Berlin had in just the same way attempted to forbid the unity of Bulgaria.

As regards the penal clauses, it may be convincingly argued that the great crimes and cruelties and breaches of law which have signalized this war ought emphatically to meet with judgment and punishment from some tribunal representing the conscience of civilized mankind. On grounds of justice the presence of such penal clauses in the treaty could be amply justified, though considerations of policy make it more questionable. But all thoughts of equal justice disappeared in derision when it was found that only crimes committed by the enemies of the Entente were to be punished; crimes committed by British, French, Italian, Serbian or American criminals were privileged acts, to which "Justice" had nothing to say.

This absurd clause has, of course, given rise to suspicions, more absurd than itself, of dark crimes committed by Entente generals which must be concealed at any cost. Such suggestions are nonsense. Indefensible as it is, the clause was dictated by no more sinister passion than ordinary national vanity. The economic clauses were open to graver suspicions. It was whispered that trade interests of not quite unimpeachable character had some influence with members of the French, the Italian, and even the English Government; and the old German accusation that England entered the war in order to destroy a trade rival, utterly untrue at the time, seemed to receive some colour by the terms of peace. Germany depended for her prosperity on her industry and her overseas trade. Her industry was wrecked by an immense demand upon her coal. The mines of Lorraine, the Saar Valley, and, subject to plebiscite, of Silesia, were handed over to other states; and out of the remainder Germany was condemned to pay an amount of coal which proved, on investigation at Spa, two years later, to be beyond her powers. Her overseas trade was annihilated at a blow by the seizure of all the vessels of her mercantile marine exceeding 1600 tons gross and a large proportion of her small vessels and fishing-boats, combined with a demand upon such ships as she might build in future. Her voice was stifled by the seizure of all her telegraphic cables: news henceforth was to be a monopoly of the conquerors. At the same time all her colonies were taken from her. She was forbidden to set up any tariffs for her own protection. Her navigable rivers were put under the control of international commissions on which the Germans or Austrians were a small minority. And while it was somewhat unctuously explained to Germany that in a virtuous world trade would be free and untrammelled, and that the commissions only intended to see that she did not erect barriers against her innocent neighbours, there was no provision whatever made to debar the Allies from erecting what barriers they pleased against Germany. "It would appear to be a fundamental fallacy," declared the Allied Reply, "that the political control of a country is essential in order to procure a reasonable share of its products. Such a proposal finds no foundation in economic law or history." It has found some foundation in history since.

The triumph of penal ingenuity, however, was the indefinite indemnity. It was agreed on both sides that Germany was to pay an indemnity. She did not demur. Indeed, her mouth was closed by the monstrously oppressive and inhuman proposals various Germans had themselves put forward when they expected to win the war. She had openly intended to "bleed France and England white." Now that she was beaten she was prepared to pay. She accepted the duty of "restoring" the invaded territories. This was defined as "reparation for all damage done to the civil population of the Allies by German aggression." The Germans probably understood this to mean the damage done to civilian life and property by invasions or raids; but they were told that this view was too narrow. Every soldier killed or wounded had civilians dependent on him; nay, he himself was really a civilian forced by German aggression to desert his business. All his business losses, the separation allowances to his wife, the pensions to ex-soldiers or to their dependents, all damage to any one's "health or honour," were ultimately "due to German aggression" and should be paid by Germany. No such terms had ever been heard of before, true; but the British electors had been promised that "Germany should pay the whole cost of the war"; and the sense of the solemn contract was distorted to suit the election cry. After 1871 the Germans had imposed on France what was then considered the extremely severe indemnity of two hundred million pounds sterling. Some experts now proposed two thousand million sterling as an adequate indemnity to be paid by Germany, others three thousand million. That was emended by popular orators to ten thousand million; thirty thousand million; fifty thousand million. Absurd to say that Germany could not pay! If all German property were confiscated and all Germans for seventy-five years were made to work for the Allies at a bare subsistence wage, a well-known English public man was prepared to get more than fifty thousand million out of them.

The Americans bluntly refused to endorse demands which they considered extortionate. The indemnity was left unspecified. It should depend on Germany's capacity to pay. Let the Germans get to work at once and do their best. The more they produced, the more the Allies would take; and if, after two years or so, it became necessary to fix the sum, the less the Germans had produced in those two years the less they would eventually have to pay. It is said that some of the British Ministers, secretly anxious to be more reasonable than was consistent with popularity at the moment, wished to postpone the fixing of the indemnity until the rage of their own "Khaki Election" should have cooled down. But their calculation was a bad one. As the German delegation observed: "The German people would feel themselves condemned in slavery, because everything they accomplished would benefit neither themselves nor even their children, but merely strangers. But the system of slave labour has never been successful."

For the purpose of raising money the proposal was merely fatuous. It took away from the Germans every possible motive for producing wealth. But its object in some minds was not money: its object was the permanent ruin of Germany. It was feared in France that, though the Germans were now exhausted and beggared, their notorious industry and ingenuity might in time enable them to pay off their indemnity and rise again to affluence and strength. So it was arranged that, for some years at least, they should be deprived of every motive for industry.

Lastly, a new provision was made about private property. The rule hitherto observed in the land wars of civilized states was that enemy private property was respected, and if seized during the war was restored at the conclusion of peace. This rule was, of course, enforced in favour of any property belonging to nationals of the Entente countries situated in enemy lands; but reciprocity was not admitted. The private property of any German situate in any part of the world which was under the control of the Ententes was ipso facto confiscated. "The Allied and Associated Powers reserve the right to retain and liquidate all" such property. Every German, however innocent, who had settled in our territory before the war was thus exposed to be robbed of everything he possessed. Nay, it seems almost incredible, but in the original form of the treaty which was put before the enemy for signature the stipulation seems actually to have been laid down that any property which a German might hereafter make or acquire in Entente territory should be liable to confiscation at the will of the Entente Governments! This clause was too much even for the atmosphere of Versailles, and in response to the German protest the stipulation about the future was dropped.[2] For the rest of the confiscation, the Entente Reply brazens it out with the remark that the property is not really taken from the individual, as his own Government can always pay him back! And in case the private property of Germans in neutral countries should have an unfair advantage, the Reparation Commission obtained special powers for confiscating that too, up to the limit of £100,000,000.

We need not stop to consider whether there was any extraordinary exhibition of "Teutonic insolence" in the action of certain German officials who resigned their offices rather than sign this treaty; nor need we swell the chorus of English, French, Italian, and American newspapers in expressing the natural horror of those refined nations at the bad manners of Count Brockdorf-Rantzau in actually breaking a paper-knife in the stress of his emotion, when, under protest, he consented to sign. There was one man among the British representatives who had known what it was to be conquered after a desperate war. General Smuts was a man of imagination as well as a soldier and a statesman. He hesitated long before signing the treaty; and when, in the end, he decided that it was necessary to do so, he immediately published a statement of protest. "I have signed the peace treaty, not because I consider it a satisfactory document, but because it is imperatively necessary to close the war. . . . The six months since the armistice was signed have perhaps been as upsetting, unsettling, and ruinous to Europe as the previous four years of war. I look upon the peace treaty as the close of those two chapters of war and armistice, and only on that ground do I sign it." Liberal opinion in England muttered assent. Some important officials resigned. But the fear of upsetting peace altogether prevented any open protest in Parliament. We need not lose ourselves in speculations as to the strange devices to which public men can sink when their self-interest is clear and their responsibility can be denied or evaded; nor yet as to the infinite ramifications by which war spreads its poison through human society, a thing twice-cursed, cursing him that strikes and him that suffers. The old German Government had committed a vast crime against humanity; its people had backed it up, as all European peoples back up their own Governments, and could not expect to escape heavy punishment. The one question we need ask ourselves is this: Is it not as certain, as anything in human nature can be, that a treaty of such a character, imposed on a conquered nation by force, if not also by treachery, will, as a matter of course and without the faintest scruple, be broken as soon as there is a favourable opportunity for breaking it? Of course the Germans will break it if they can; and of course they will make another war, call it a war of revenge or a war for freedom as you please, as soon as there is any chance of winning it.

So said the Justizrat in the train. So, in effect, says Herr Simons; so almost ad nauseam repeat all the German Conservative and patriotic newspapers. It is difficult to see how any German who is not a convinced pacifist should do otherwise than prepare with all his energies for the next war, unless some other way is made possible of escape from a tormenting servitude.

II. The Position of France

If that is so, what is the position of France? France in 1914 was forced into a war which she tried hard to avoid. The French suffered horribly and fought heroically. They sacrificed everything to the war. And we, who know what our own people paid in broken nerve, in bitterness, and in economic dislocation, cannot be surprised that France has paid a heavie price. They escaped defeat by the help of England, Russia, Italy, and America; without these powerful allies they would certainly have been defeated. We need not try to estimate exactly what their fate would have been if they had lost the late war, because if they lose the next their treatment will be infinitely worse. It will be, as far as possible, tabula rasa. It will be the passing of the horse-hoofs of Attila. Meantime France's allies are, naturally enough, going home and attending to their own businesses; her population is much smaller than Germany's and increases even more slowly.

A French statesman of the type of M. Poincaré or M. Hanotaux makes himself no illusions. Germany is the enemy. Germany will fight again as soon as she is strong enough. Therefore she must never be allowed to become strong enough. M. Hanotaux, who was Foreign Minister during the years 1894-98, when French foreign policy was more ably managed than now, has recently published a book in criticism of the Treaty of Versailles. He does not deal in any Wilsonian phrases about justice or humanity; he considers the treaty solely with a view to the security of France, and he finds it sadly wanting. And a large mass of opinion, probably the prevailing opinion, in France supports him.

First of all, it must be remembered, France wanted, and thought she had received, a special guarantee against future German attacks in the form of a defensive Alliance between France, England, and America. The representatives at Paris had agreed to this treaty, which definitely pledged England and America to come again to the help of France in case of another unprovoked attack by Germany. The English Parliament amid some protests, ratified the treaty, but the United States Senate threw it out, and therewith the treaty ceased to be binding on England.

I think, after considerable hesitation, that the rejection of the treaty was a misfortune. Formally, no doubt, it was open to objection. It seemed like an unnecessary excrescence upon the Covenant of the League of Nations, which already gave guarantees against war. It contravened one of Mr. Wilson's principles, and a very sound one, laid down on September 27, 1918: "Thirdly, there can be no leagues or alliances or special covenants and understandings within the general and common family of the League of Nations." Yet the practical importance of reassuring France was so urgent that a little formal incorrectness might have been worth incurring; and even formal incorrectness could have been avoided by the simple expedient of making this guarantee to France take the form of a special rider to Article XVI of the Covenant.

That article provides: "Should any member of the League resort to war in disregard of its covenants under Articles XII, XIII, or XV, it shall ipso facto be deemed to have committed an act of war against all other members of the League, which hereby undertake immediately to . . ." To do what? One expects that they will undertake to declare war, and this is what the French wanted. But no. They only undertake to apply an economic boycott to the offending state, while the Council may "recommend to the several Governments concerned what effective military, naval, or air force they shall severally contribute to the armed forces to be used to protect the covenants of the League." In case of a future attack by Germany on France, France's late allies are bound to boycott German trade, but are not explicitly bound to give military help to France. I suggest that it would have been possible for Great Britain and America to add a rider stating specifically that in one of the cases contemplated by this article, namely, an unprovoked attack on France by Germany, they would not merely proclaim a blockade and consider what to do next, but would immediately and unconditionally declare war. Such an undertaking would involve some risk and be contrary to our usual policy; but I am inclined to suggest that the risk would have been worth taking.

However, this was not done. France was left with the impression that if attacked she could not count with confidence on the military support of her late allies or of the other Powers of the League. The result was disastrous. While the rest of Europe, supported by a small but generous and brilliant band of French radicals and Socialists, considered the Treaty of Versailles intolerably harsh, the dominant French policy complained that it was inadequate for her protection. The line of criticism was somewhat as follows: