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Title: The Problem of Foreign Policy
Author: Gilbert Murray
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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
The publication of this little book was interrupted by an incident which
made me realize how easy it is for one who spends much time in trying to
study sincerely a political problem to find himself out of touch with
average opinion. The discovery has made me re-read what I have written.
But re-reading has not led to any weakening of my expressions, rather
the reverse. I wish only to make a brief general statement about the
point of view from which I write.
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
PREFACE v
I. GERMANY AND FRANCE 1
I. THE PREDICAMENT OF GERMANY 1
II. THE POSITION OF FRANCE 33
III. THE SOLUTION 42
II. THE EAST 58
I. SYRIA, MESOPOTAMIA, EGYPT, AND INDIA 58
II. AN EASTERN POLICY 70
III. RUSSIA AND ITS BORDERS 80
I. THE CIVIL WAR 82
II. RUSSIA'S NEIGHBOURS 90
IV. PRE-WAR AND POST-WAR CAUSES OF STRIFE 98
I. ARMAMENTS 100
II. MARKETS AND FOOD 107
V. THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 114
BOOKS FOR FURTHER READING 125
THE PROBLEM
OF FOREIGN POLICY
CHAPTER I
GERMANY AND FRANCE
I. THE PREDICAMENT OF GERMANY
A friend of mine was recently travelling in Germany in a third-class
railway carriage. The engine was slow and in lack of oil. The carriages,
once so clean, warm, and well lighted, were unlit, dirty, and bitterly
cold. There was an air of broken nerves and misery among the passengers,
and one woman was still sobbing from some indignity offered to her by a
foreign official in the occupied area. Presently an old gentleman,
apparently a lawyer of some eminence, broke out: "A reckoning must come.
My little grandchildren are drinking in revenge with their mother's
milk. In thirty years or thereabouts we shall settle accounts with
France, and then we shall make"--he swept the air with his
hand--"_tabula rasa!_"
"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:
1. Open covenants of peace openly arrived at, after which there
shall be no private international understandings of any kind, but
diplomacy shall always proceed frankly and in the public view.
2. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas outside territorial
waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed
in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of
international covenants.
3. The removal as far as possible of all economic barriers, and the
establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all nations
consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its
maintenance.
4. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will
be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.
5. A free, open-minded and absolutely impartial adjustment of all
colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle
that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests
of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the
equitable claims of the Government whose title is to be
determined.[1]
[Footnote 1: The other points were briefly: Evacuation of Russia:
restoration of Belgium; of France; transference of Alsace-Lorraine;
territorial settlement of Italy; autonomy of peoples of Austria-Hungary;
settlement of Balkan States; of Turkey; restoration of Poland; and
lastly a League of Nations--though President Wilson never used that
somewhat inaccurate phrase. I should like to acknowledge here my
indebtedness to the admirable and convenient series of publications
issued by the American Association for International Conciliation, 407
West 117th Street, New York.]
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:
The Allied Governments have given careful consideration to the
correspondence which has passed between the President of the United
States and the German Government. Subject to the qualifications
which follow, they declare their willingness to make peace with the
Government of Germany on the terms of peace laid down in the
President's address to Congress of January 8, 1918, and the
principles of settlement enunciated in his subsequent addresses.
They must point out, however, that what is usually described as the
Freedom of the Seas is open to various interpretations, some of
which they could not accept. They must therefore reserve to
themselves complete freedom on this subject when they enter the
Peace Conference.
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.
[Footnote 2: See Keynes, pp. 60-102. A provision was kept enabling all
such private property to be confiscated in case the German Government
should "voluntarily fail" to fulfil its engagements. But this also was
dropped by the British Government in October, 1920.]
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 heavier
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:
1. Germany should have been broken up. No peace should have been made
with Germany as a whole, but separate treaties of peace with Saxony,
Bavaria, Westphalia, Prussia, etc. These states should have been
provided with separate systems of coinage, postage, tariffs, laws, etc.,
so as to make the diversity stable and permanent. They should be
forbidden ever to unite. Also, France should have annexed a large part
of Germany; not up to the Rhine--which was the view of Marshal Foch--but
up to the Elbe. The occupation of this territory might impose a burden
on France, but burdens must be borne when such important purposes are
involved. And after all the cost could be charged to the Germans! . . .
As this simple precaution was not taken, the next best thing is to keep
Germany weak. Starve her by the blockade till sheer misery produces a
Bolshevik revolution and society collapses in common ruin. Then apply
the indefinite indemnity, not from the desire to get money, but to
prevent Germany again raising her head.
2. Since France's late allies cannot be relied upon, she must make by
diplomacy new allies whose hands she can force, and who occupy a
convenient geographical situation. Poland is in just the right place.
Let France help Poland and stimulate Polish ambitions. She too is a
nation maddened by suffering and now dazzled by success. A great
imperialist Poland, on bad terms with her neighbours, but backed by
France, will need a large and effective army, and will be ready to
strike at Germany's rear the moment she attempts to move westward.
Unfortunately, Poland is apt to be on bad terms with Russia; and as
things now are Russia is so much the enemy of the Entente that she is
thrown into the arms of Germany. That is deplorable and must not be
allowed to continue. The Bolsheviks must be overthrown and a Government
set up in Russia which is dependent for its existence on French support.
As an additional safeguard, perhaps it will be necessary to secure a
pro-French Hungary, to back up the pro-French Poland. But we must not
despair yet of overthrowing the Bolsheviks.
3. Lastly, France herself needs more soldiers. And she knows where to
get them! The late King Leopold of Belgium once said to M. Hanotaux,
"Qu'est-ce que vous cherchez en Afrique, vous autres Français?" and M.
Hanotaux replied, "Sire, des soldats!" France during the war established
conscription in her African territories and, in spite of a somewhat
bloody rebellion by the ignorant savages, who thought the slave trade
was being reëstablished, succeeded in importing to France a black army
which at one time numbered 600,000 fighting men. With a little more
energy and greatly increased territories, that number might be trebled.
France is a smaller nation than Germany; but France plus Algeria, Tunis,
Morocco, Senegambia, French Congo, and the new German territories is a
much larger nation than Germany without colonies. And blacks fortunately
have not the same rights as white men!
A permanently wrecked Germany, vast black armies for France, armed
allies always ready on Germany's eastern frontier; with these conditions
fulfilled, France, it is hoped by these politicians, may at last breathe
freely.
* * * * *
What is wrong with this policy? You may call it devilish, if you will,
since it is based on the deliberate and artificial creation of human
misery; but is it bad policy? After all, air-bombs and poison gas and
the like may be called devilish. But, devilish or not, they have
sometimes to be used. If Germany is certainly and confessedly looking
out for the next opportunity of escaping from the consequences of the
treaty and retrieving her fortunes on the battlefield, is not France
bound to take every precaution to see that Germany shall never be strong
enough to do so with success? The next war will be far worse than the
last. The terms imposed on the beaten party will be even more desolating
and destructive. France is probably a less vigorous plant than her
enemy. She has failed to kill Germany, but Germany might succeed in
killing her.
It seems that Germany is absolutely bound to fight, if there is no other
way of recovering her freedom and her right to live, while France is
absolutely bound to hold her enemy down mercilessly, if there is no
other way of securing her own safety.
III. THE SOLUTION
But perhaps after all there is. Last among the Fourteen Points came the
proposal to found "A general Association of Nations under specific
covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political
independence and territorial integrity to small and great states alike."
The Treaty of Versailles has after all two faces. It had to express two
great waves of feeling and two international necessities. Mr. Wilson was
not so utterly "bamboozled" as Mr. Keynes would have us believe. General
Smuts and Lord Robert Cecil were not so utterly without influence on the
settlement. The least depressing paragraphs in the Allied Reply to the
German delegation are those in which they explain that the terrific
severity of the greater part of the treaty applies only to a "transition
period" of punishment, of reparation and of trial, at the end of which
they see the realization of Mr. Wilson's promises. "The conditions of
peace contain some provisions for the future which may outlast the
transition period during which the economic balance"--between Germany
and the invaded countries--"is to be restored; and a reciprocity is
foreseen after that period which is very clearly that equality of trade
conditions for which President Wilson has stipulated." The phrasing of
the paragraph is awkward, but the main drift is clear. The Fourteen
Points are accepted, but adjourned; when Germany has been punished and
reparation made, they will come into force. "The Allied and Associated
Powers look forward to the time when the League of Nations established
by this treaty shall extend its membership to all peoples." "They see no
reason why Germany should not become a member of the League in the early
future," provided she satisfies certain tests. "It has never been their
intention that Germany or any other Power should be indefinitely
excluded from the League of Nations." They are convinced that the
Covenant of the League "introduces an element of progress into the
relations of peoples which will develop and strengthen to the advantage
of justice and of peace."
This is as it should be; but the world does not stand still while
Germany is making reparation and being taught gradually to love her
chastisers. If the League "introduces an element of progress," the
sooner it gets to work the better. It is only too clear that every month
which passes with the League entirely dominated by England, France, and
Italy encourages and deepens the suspicion with which the League is
regarded by its critics. I say nothing of American criticisms, in which
many factors coöperate. But the Swiss Federal Council, in the very able
and persuasive message which it issued to the Assembly on February 17,
1920, in favour of joining the League, has to deal with this suspicion.
"One has been tempted at times to consider the League as an alliance of
the conquerors against the conquered. The fact that Germany, Austria,
and the former Russian Empire remain provisionally excluded from the
League may have given a semblance of truth to this manner of thinking."
The suspicion is afterwards described as "this apparently accurate
criticism." Switzerland as a whole has fortunately rejected the
suspicion and by a small majority joined the League. But in most of
Central Europe the League of Nations movement is strangled in its birth
by the general feeling that the present League means merely the Entente
Powers and their clients, and the elements for starting a counter-league
are consolidating month by month. This counter-league would probably not
be an open and confessed alliance. But Russia, Germany, and the United
States are still outside, and there are many unpaid grudges amongst the
Moslems of Asia. The test which is exacted by Article I from any new
state desiring to become a member of the League is that "it shall give
effective guarantees of its sincere intention to observe its
international obligations." Interpreted with theological strictness,
this would probably result in the rejection of all candidates, to say
nothing of the expulsion of many of the original members. Perfect
sincerity in observing unpleasant obligations is not a common
characteristic of human societies. But in the ordinary sense of the
words the test is already satisfied by Germany and Austria and most of
the succession states. The Assembly of the League meets for the first
time on November 15, 1920. It ought not to dissolve without admitting to
its membership Germany and Austria, as well as several other candidates
who have already applied. At the moment of writing (November, 1920),
Lord Grey, Lord Selborne, and Mr. Barnes have issued a joint appeal for
the immediate admission of Germany, which has long been the accepted
policy of the League of Nations Union. There are many obstacles, but the
result will doubtless be known before these words are in print.
Fortunately, the admission of new members is decided by a two-thirds
majority of the Assembly and does not require a unanimous vote. Once the
League is established on a broad base, including the conquered nations
on equal terms with the victorious, the prospect of that war of revenge
which has hitherto seemed almost inevitable will dwindle and become
remote.
* * * * *
The hope expressed above has not been realized. Austria, Bulgaria, and
many less important states applied for admission to the League and were
accepted, but French feeling was known to be very strong, and Germany
did not even apply. Had she done so she would probably have had a
majority in her favour, and it was considered until the beginning of
March, 1921, that she was certain of admission at the next meeting of
the Assembly in September. But in the meantime untoward events have
taken place.
The French Government, like the English, obtained success at the
elections by wild promises to make Germany pay all the costs of the war.
As M. Poincaré has observed, "the French people will not understand how
the victors in a great war can be on the verge of bankruptcy."
Consequently they think their rulers are cheating them. Educated people,
in France as in England, have long since ceased to expect much from
German indemnities, but the Governments still depend on their appeal to
mob-psychology; and it was believed that if M. Briand ventured to make
any concessions in the direction of reason or moderation he would lose
his majority in the Chamber. The proposals made at the Inter-Allied
Conference at Brussels and drawn up by the French expert, M. Seydoux,
had been silently dropped as unsatisfying; the subsequent British
proposals made at Boulogne had been rejected for the same reason. It was
necessary, however, to make some definite proposals to Germany without
much further delay, since the treaty had laid down May 1, 1921, as the
time for a settlement. Germany was by that time to have paid a thousand
million pounds on account, and was to learn the extent, finite or
infinite, of the total bill. Mr. Lloyd George, as might have been
expected, showed much sympathy with M. Briand in his awkward position,
and agreed to a demand for reparations on a scale which was obviously
fantastic. It began, reasonably enough, with a system of annuities,
though the first figure was probably too high and the last figures can
scarcely have been meant seriously. Germany was to pay £150,000,000 a
year for the first five years; then the annual sum was to increase at
intervals for the extraordinary period of forty-two years, towards the
end of which time Germany was expected to pay annually £300,000,000, or
half as much again every year as the total indemnity exacted from France
after the war of 1870. Even that was not enough for a population which
had been sedulously fed on lies by a class of politician who at times
seem to possess among them no single sane and honest man. And an
additional payment was demanded of a yearly sum equivalent to a duty of
twelve per cent _ad valorem_ on all German exports.
Opinion in Germany was sharply divided. All they had to pay with was an
enormous deficit on the Budget, with the prospect of presently losing
the Silesian coal-mines and having prohibitive duties placed by the
Allies upon their exports. One party insisted that the Government should
make no promise which it could not expect to perform; another, that what
Germany wanted was peace, and that they had better sign anything
required of them. The first party, on the whole, carried the day. The
German delegation in London made a counter-proposal based, very
sensibly, on the idea of finding the present value of the forty-two-year
annuities and raising that sum by means of a loan; but as they worked
out the idea they favoured Germany on every detailed calculation to an
extent which they must have known to be unacceptable. Apparently they
expected a long and serious bargaining march. But, to most people's
surprise, Mr. George leapt with alacrity at the prospect of a rupture.
The proposal was rejected with every semblance of virtuous indignation.
No time was allowed for the delegation to consult the German Government.
A hurried second proposal, to pay the terms demanded for five years and
then have the matter reconsidered, was tossed aside without
consideration, and French and British troops proceeded to invade
Germany, occupy more territory, and set up a new and artificial
customs-barrier in the most unsuitable places, at which they proceeded
themselves to collect the German customs.
The plan is very expensive, and utterly unprofitable. It involves a
straining if not a breach of the treaty,[3] and it is likely, if any
untoward event occurs, to provoke a war of the most humiliating and
embittered kind--the war of a desperate and helpless population trying
to rid themselves of foreign oppressors. But it has saved M. Briand's
Government. If he had agreed to accept any German terms whatever, he
would have been upset for not exacting more. But if he marches French
and British troops into the heart of Germany no one can accuse him of
lack of spirit. So for the present all is well; and as for the future,
it is conceivable that the Germans will give way and make some
impossible promise. That will increase M. Briand's prestige. It is more
likely that they will simply sit still and let the Allied armies do
their worst. Then there will be a chance of carrying out one of the
darling aims of the French chauvinists, and annexing, or at least
separating from Germany, all the German provinces which they occupy.
[Footnote 3: The Allies are apparently acting under Part VIII, clause
18, of the treaty. This gives them the right to "take such other
measures as the respective Governments may determine to be necessary" in
case of "voluntary default" by Germany in the payment of her dues under
Part VIII (Reparations). A failure by Germany to disarm sufficiently
gives the Allies no right to increase the area of their occupation,
since the present occupation is specifically laid down in the treaty
negotiations as the means of enforcing disarmament. Nor has Germany yet
actually committed a voluntary default in the payment of her
reparations, since the first payment, £100,000,000, is not to be
completed until May 1, 1921. I am informed on high authority that the
Allied case probably rests on the point that they judge by their
debtor's manner and by statements which she has made that she intends
not to pay by May 1; according to English law this would apparently give
them some right of taking immediate action.]
In face of these lunatic proceedings the German Government has behaved
with considerable dignity and good sense, though naturally the German
newspapers are running a little wild. It has announced its intention of
appealing to the Assembly of the League of Nations, and although, not
being a member, Germany cannot herself raise the subject, it may be
taken as certain that some member will take it up on her behalf. This
produces a most critical situation.
According to the Covenant, Article III, the Assembly may be summoned to
meet "from time to time as occasion may require." But presumably it is
the Council which decides whether occasion does require it or not, and
no one can expect the Council to favour Germany's appeal. The appeal
will only be considered when the Assembly has its next regular meeting
in September. We shall then see whether the Assembly possesses the force
and courage necessary to discuss freely and, if necessary, to condemn
the actions of the two leading European Powers; or if the two can
successfully silence all criticism. For my own part I think the
discussion will take place; and that, for the first time since the war,
the voice of an impartial third party wilt be heard in discussing the
terms imposed on Germany by her conquerors. That does not mean the
realization of the "enthronement of public right on the common law of
nations," but it is one of the first steps toward it.
* * * * *
The League of Nations is in a position to say to France: "You are afraid
of another attack by Germany; and to avert that danger you propose in
various ways to follow a policy which will plunge Europe into continued
distress. We hereby guarantee you against attack. Thirty-nine nations
at present, who will shortly be increased to fifty-one, if not more,
have signed a definite and unqualified contract to preserve your
'existing political independence and territorial integrity' against any
'external aggression'; and further, if you are attacked in such a way as
not actually to threaten your territory or independence, all the States
of the League will consider that an act of war has been committed
against themselves, will apply the complete economic boycott to your
enemy, and arrange plans for giving you immediate military support. We
offer you here a far more effective guarantee of safety than you can
possibly attain by your own diplomacy. But we demand in return that your
foreign policy shall be frankly and sincerely a League of Nations
policy; that you shall not make secret treaties, not set up inequitable
tariffs, not plot the ruin of your late enemies or any other people; but
work as a loyal member of the League with a view to the welfare of the
whole."
The League says to Germany: "You complain of the undue severity of the
treaty and the impossibility of carrying out its economic provisions.
Commissions already exist, and you have taken part in them, for
discussing these latter and fixing the terms of the reparation which you
owe. But, beyond that, if there is any clause in the treaty which
appears to any member of the League as 'threatening to disturb
international peace or the good understanding between nations upon which
peace depends,' it will, under Article XI, be brought before the League
and considered. Further, if any clause in the treaty appears to 'have
become inapplicable' or to give rise to 'international conditions which
might endanger the peace of the world,' under Article XXIII the Assembly
of the League may at any time 'advise their reconsideration.' You
complain that the terms of the present treaty were imposed upon you,
without discussion, by implacable enemies who had you at their mercy;
that you have been made a sort of outlaw nation, without freedom,
without colonies, without ships, sitting apart while the world is
administered by your enemies. But at our Assembly table you will sit as
an equal and free member, with the same rights as those who were lately
your conquerors. We submit to you that this gives you a far better
chance of improving your condition than another war could. Your lot must
be for some time a hard one. That is inevitable, and we cannot think it
unjust. You challenged the Entente to war, you staked all on victory,
and you were beaten. Now you have to make reparation. But the
recuperative power of a great nation is immense; and wherever you have
been subjected to a definitely unjust or dangerous condition, we offer
you a remedy. Wherever you may have a dispute with any other Power, we
offer you a Court of Arbitration as impartially constituted as the wit
of man could devise."
* * * * *
At present neither party quite believes this guarantee. If they did, it
would probably be enough for them. It used to be said of Sir Edward Grey
in the Balkan Conferences that he was not only sincere; he had the power
of making other people see that he was sincere. If Europe is to be saved
from new Great Wars, the Powers of the League must first of all be
sincere in their undertakings, and next, they must convince the world in
general of their sincerity. To that subject we must return later.
CHAPTER II
THE EAST
But the world is not merely threatened by the prospect of future wars.
It is filled with wars at the present moment. There are quarrels and
bickerings between most of the newly liberated states in eastern Europe;
there is a war, sometimes avowed and sometimes underground, between
Communist Russia and all her neighbours and rivals, a war whose
tentacles reach far throughout Europe and Asia; and there are wars
against the British and French in various parts of the East. Let us
briefly touch upon a few sample cases.
I. SYRIA, MESOPOTAMIA, EGYPT, AND INDIA
The simplest case is Syria. In 1915, during the war, a Syrian National
Committee, including representatives from Damascus and Mosul, negotiated
with us through Sherif Husein, and we signed a document promising to
"recognize and uphold Arab independence" in an area including the whole
of Arabia, Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia, except (1) Aden and (2)
the Syrian coast. Within the independent area we merely claimed for
ourselves "a measure of administrative control" in Bagdad and Bosra--not
in Mosul--and reserved any special interests of France. The French were
informed of the negotiations immediately. They expressed themselves
content with the possession of the Syrian coast, and agreed in our
promises to Husein. On the strength of this agreement the Hejaz
revolted, and Feisul's army, consisting mainly of Syrian and
Mesopotamian soldiers who had formerly been in the Turkish service,
fought as our allies to the end of the war. An attempted rising in Syria
proper was crushed with great severity by the Turks.
In 1918 the Syrians welcomed the Entente armies as liberators, and were
again promised their national independence, though this time it was to
be under the guidance of one of the Entente Powers as mandatory. They
asked that the mandatory should be England, but England had too much on
her hands. The Syrians next asked for America; but America refused all
mandates. France, meantime, had always claimed special rights in Syria,
and England by a treaty made during the war had recognized Syria as a
French interest. If they must be under France, the Syrian
representatives specially demanded pledges that the government should be
a civil government, that a certain degree of independence should be
allowed to the natives, and that the country should not be occupied by
French troops. How far these pledges were given and broken by the
French; how far it was only we ourselves who gave assurances which we
had neither the right nor the power to carry out, and thus unconsciously
deceived Feisul, these are questions still in dispute. It seems
unfortunately certain that the Syrians considered themselves betrayed.
In the end, Syria was occupied by French troops; the native government
was not recognized, but dispersed; there were raids and pitched battles,
and the Emir Feisul, one of our most popular heroes during the Great
War, was expelled from his throne and country. He is now an exile, and
was for a time officially forbidden to land in England.
France so far has neither accepted nor asked for any mandate from the
League of Nations, and appears not fully to realize the obligations
undertaken by her in signing the Covenant of the League, or the pledge
repeated in the Reply of the Allied Powers to Germany, "that the
Mandatory Powers, in so far as they may be appointed trustees by the
League of Nations, will derive no benefits from such trusteeship."
In Mesopotamia the British established themselves during the war after a
long and chequered campaign by defeating the Turks and capturing Bagdad.
The Indian soldiers and officials who were in command showed the most
praiseworthy zeal and energy in proceeding at once to develop the
country: to drain and irrigate, to plant crops, to establish order and
good government in regions which had not known such things since a
remote antiquity. The English were welcomed as liberators and made
explicit promises to set up an independent Arab kingdom under a "measure
of British administrative control." So much propagandist literature was
poured forth on the glories of the independent Arab nation which the
English were to create, that serious discontent was caused in Egypt. "Is
a half-naked Arab to have independence, and am I not good enough to have
even self-government?" wrote a highly educated Egyptian to a British
official. Meantime the actual government of Mesopotamia became more and
more severely effective, and remained entirely concentrated in the hands
of the British. The expenses were enormous and the rate of taxation per
head appears to have risen to four times what it had been under the
Turks. The productivity of the country, however, was so great as to hold
out a prospect of almost making up the loss, and the important oil-wells
at Mosul were expected to do so completely. The native cultivators
profited by the improved harvests and the increased area of cultivation,
and the expenses of government were in part to be met out of the future
oil profits. And the best British administrators were certainly beloved
by their people.
The educated classes in Bagdad, the sheikhs and the ex-Turkish
officials, became restive at the high taxation and the indefinite delay
of "Arab independence." The turbulent desert tribes and the disorderly
elements in general were disgusted at the good policing. But there was
no general discontent, because personal assurances were given to leading
Arabs that the Covenant of the League of Nations, which Great Britain
had signed, laid down definitely that Mesopotamia was to be recognized
provisionally as an independent nation and that the mandate was to be
given to Great Britain. There would be, it was promised, a native
Government with a British Resident to advise it, as in an Indian native
state. Doubtless the Government would also ask for other help from
England, especially in the matter of public works, irrigation, and the
engineering of the oil-wells.
But the League issued no mandate. According to rumour, it had offered a
scheme of mandate to the Great Powers concerned, and one at least of
them had refused the terms. The precious oil, it was discovered, had
already been divided by a private treaty between France and England,
which left only a small fraction for the Mesopotamians and none for the
rest of the world. There was no attempt to set up an Arab Government.
Some beginnings were occasionally made of associating Arab officials
with the Englishmen who did the real work of governing. But they were
not whole-hearted. A letter was accidentally divulged in which an
English soldier said of the high Arab official attached to him, "I will
soon make him lick my boots." There were symptoms of disaffection,
non-payment of taxes, the resurgence of old discredited Turkish and
German agents, open rebellions. And the Government replied by numerous
executions and punitive expeditions. The bombing aeroplane, which had
revealed itself as a very convenient weapon of war, proved an utterly
disastrous instrument of police. The British liberators, who had come by
the special desire of the population to establish a free Arab nation
helped by friendly advice from British Residents, ended, according to
Colonel Lawrence's estimate, in killing ten thousand Arabs and setting
the whole country in a blaze of war. An army of over one hundred
thousand men is now reconquering it. And at the same time, perhaps at
the eleventh hour and perhaps too late altogether, that section in the
British Government which believed in the League of Nations and wished
scrupulously to carry out in victory the pledges it had given in time of
distress, prevailed to bring about a definite change of policy. Sir
Percy Cox and Mr. Philby were sent to Mesopotamia with instructions, so
it was stated, to reverse the previous policy and try to set up that
independent Arab Government which we had promised in 1915 and again in
1917, and ought to have set working before the end of 1919. The
"rebellion" will doubtless be crushed, and the native Government may or
not be successfully organized. There is a strong desire among the Arab
leaders to have it based on a treaty of alliance with Great Britain
after the Egyptian model, and not on Article XXII of the Covenant. In
any case the task is infinitely more difficult than it was before so
much blood was shed, and the original friendship of the Arabs turned to
hatred. On simple men executive action makes a much deeper impression
than policy. In Mesopotamia our policy itself was bad because it was not
consistent. It was a muddle of two contradictory policies, resulting in
confusion and hypocrisy. But the executive action seems to have been
such as to make the chances of even the best policy very precarious. A
government which multiplies the taxes by four and shoots and hangs its
subjects in batches is seldom excused because of its good drainage or
its progressive ideas.
The story in Egypt is shorter and perhaps less unhappy, but essentially
similar. Early in the war, when Turkey joined the enemy, we declared a
British protectorate over Egypt, accompanied by a promise to give the
country independence or free institutions at the end of the war. This in
itself was a perfectly good and defensible policy, though, to be
correct, it should have had the concurrence of Egypt. But in the course
of the war Egypt became full of discontent. Experienced officials were
wanted elsewhere, and inexperienced substitutes made mistakes. Labour in
great quantities was required for the Army, and was obtained through
native contractors or headmen, who practised the ordinary Oriental
methods of extortion and corruption while professing to act by orders of
the English. The peasant who was dragged off to forced labour, or
compelled to buy his freedom by heavy bribes, blamed the British for
both. At one time Egypt was garrisoned by large numbers of Australian
troops, who had the habit of thinking of all Asiatics as "blackfellows,"
and whose ways of dealing with "blackfellows" were not of the gentlest.
The seed was thus sown of a passionate hatred, partly just and partly
unjust; and feeling was already ripe for explosion when it transpired at
the end of the war that the British Government had no apparent intention
of fulfilling their promise to confer on Egypt "free institutions." Open
rebellion was impossible, owing to the presence of overpowering numbers
of British troops; but a time of danger and infinite trouble, well
controlled by Lord Allenby, led at last to the appointment of a
Commission under Lord Milner, which grasped its almost desperate problem
with great courage and skill.
Among other curious misfortunes, it turned out that the word
"protectorate" had been translated into Arabic by a term which denoted
the sort of protection that is extended to an outcast or a person with
no national rights. The Commissioners were met on their arrival by a
universal boycott, and by constant threats of assassination. They lived
in considerable danger, and no Egyptian would be seen speaking to them.
But tact and patience gradually broke down the boycott; and a much
larger measure of agreement was obtained with Zaghlul and the moderate
Nationalists than had at the outset seemed possible. After inquiry, the
Commission has taken the line of recommending, first, the cancellation
of the Capitulations, or special privileges granted to European states,
which have paralyzed the progress of Egypt for several generations; the
separation from Egypt of the Canal zone, as a special British interest
and of vital importance to the Empire; the retention of British advisers
in two posts, the ministries of Justice and of Finance--a safeguard
without which the European Powers would not consent to forgo the special
protection of the Capitulations; and in other respects the establishment
of Egypt as an independent national state. As far as is possible to
forecast, it looks as if this settlement would succeed.
The history of recent events in India is too large and complicated a
subject to be dealt with here. But in its main outline it has been
curiously similar to that of the other regions of the East. A wonderful
response from almost the whole continent to the need of Great Britain
during the war; blunders of the War Office and reactions of discontent;
German propaganda; Turkish and Pan-Islamic intrigue; repressive Press
Acts and Conspiracy Acts; passive resistance, dangerous riots, and
widespread conspiracies; the severe and sometimes lawless coercion of
the Punjab; the savage massacre of Amritsar, and at last, amid great
obstructions and hesitations, the passing of the Montagu-Chelmsford Act
and the conferring of a new and liberal constitution upon India. It is
the same story as in Egypt and Mesopotamia. So much time was wasted in
doing the wrong thing, that when at last resort was had to the right
thing the right time was past. The Indian Government was faced with
great difficulties and very real dangers. Its errors have been so signal
and notorious that public opinion is apt to forget or ignore the
admirable skill and patience with which most officials steered their
districts through periods of extreme strain. But reforms long promised
were delayed until too late. The executive plunged into excesses which
will not be forgotten for centuries. And when the long-hoped-for reforms
at last have come, it may be that they come to a people too exasperated
to give them a fair trial.
II. AN EASTERN POLICY
The policies here described have been so full of errors that it is hard
to derive from them a very clear moral. Government without principle
has many conveniences; if life consisted of isolated moments it might be
entirely successful. But life is continuous, and human beings have
memories and expectations. And almost any policy that is continuous and
consistent and true to itself is more likely to succeed in the end than
a mixture of momentary expedients and plunges for safety. It is
conceivable that a perfectly resolute and unfaltering military coercion
of India, Egypt, and Mesopotamia might have succeeded. But such a
policy, if it was ever possible, is certainly so no longer; and also it
would hardly be a policy for avoiding international strife. And that is
the subject we are considering.
If we look below the mistakes of policy and administration committed by
the British or French Governments, we find underneath the surface a
profound and instinctive resentment of the Moslem East against the
Western Powers. The Western Powers, which for convenience we term
Christian, have been for some centuries far more efficient than any
Moslem state. The West has increasingly taken charge of the East;
beaten it, managed it, "run" it, governed it, and in some cases
exploited it. Western government, or at least British government, has
been just, incorruptible, impartial, strong, intelligent, far beyond
ordinary Eastern standards. It may have been unsympathetic and grossly
expensive; it may, in spite of the unexampled personal integrity of the
whole governing class, have led to the presence in Eastern countries of
undesirable money-seekers. But it has been, on the whole, essentially
and undeniably good, efficient government, backed by a military power
which committed few excesses, lived on its own pay, and never failed in
an emergency. No one who studies even superficially the history of
average Oriental governments, from Morocco or Bokhara to Oudh, can be
surprised or sorry that they have been superseded by the better
governments of the West. The peoples of the East themselves have gained
by Western penetration; nay, more, they are conscious of their need of
the West. But they have had too much of it; they resent it, and they
are frightened of it. The Moslem nations have lost their independence
one after another. At the beginning of the Great War only one Moslem
Power remained free and powerful--the Turkish Empire. At the end of the
war there was not one.
The Turks were not popular in the East. The Syrians and Arabs hated them
almost as much as their Christian subjects did. The Turkish peasants of
Anatolia suffered cruelly under the exactions of Constantinople,
especially in the matter of military service. But all through the Moslem
East ran the consciousness that the Sultan, with all his faults, was
their own man. He was the acknowledged Head of the great majority of
Moslems in the world. He was, above all, the last barrier that seemed to
protect them from the overwhelming flood of Western aggression, and the
last great Moslem figure which enabled them to preserve their
self-respect.
While the Turkish Empire stood, the Moslem peoples, though fallen on
evil days, could think of Islam as an independent and even an imperial
entity. In places, doubtless, they had to kiss the feet of dogs; but
their Caliph still ruled masses of Christian subject populations and
still was master of the capital city of the world. With the fall of
Turkey, the last free Moslem state was gone. Not here and there, but
everywhere throughout the whole world, the faithful were set beneath the
heel of these rich, drunken, pork-eating idolaters with their indecent
women, their three Gods, and their terrific material civilization.
"Pan-Islamism," as Mr. Toynbee says, "is only an extreme example of the
feeling at the back of almost any modern Oriental movement we may
examine. It may take aggressive forms, but the essence of it is a
defensive impulse. Its appeal is to fear, and if the fear of the West
could be lifted from off the minds of the Oriental peoples, its
mainspring would be gone."
The problem of our Eastern policy is to remove that fear. And that ought
not to be so very difficult. The essential fact to grasp is that the
East needs us far more than we need the East. We need markets; but that
idea is only suggested to us by the fact that Eastern peoples want our
goods. We do almost everything better than they do. They want our
textiles, our knives and tools, our engines and ploughs, our books, our
learning. They cannot make railways or ships without us. They cannot
work their mines or oil-wells except by Western help. They cannot really
govern their countries satisfactorily without European advisers. The
language of Article XXII of the League of Nations Covenant is quite
correct when it says that "Certain communities formerly belonging to the
Turkish Empire have reached a stage of development where their existence
as independent nations can be provisionally recognized, subject to the
rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a mandatory until
such time as they are able to stand alone." At present "they are not yet
able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern
world."
They ought to want us, and if left alone they would want us. We have
frightened them into fighting and hating us by forcing ourselves upon
them instead of waiting to be asked. We have conferred incalculable
benefits on India: the benefit of protection from invasion, of
comparative protection from plague and famine, of social order, of
administrative justice, to say nothing of roads and railways, and the
enlivening force of Western knowledge. We have immensely increased the
prosperity of Egypt, we have put down all kinds of Oriental abuses and
protected the fellaheen against _corvées_ and extortions and tortures.
We were in process of beginning to perform the same services for
Mesopotamia. But in the latter regions at any rate--for in India our
roots are far deeper and the problem is more complex--the people did not
want us. We only held them and did them good by force. And the chief
reason why they did not want us was fear. We came to them with machine
guns and bombing planes as conquerors and masters, having destroyed the
only free Moslem Power; and they found it difficult to believe in our
good intentions. We came to them, most unfortunately, also with
specious promises which we made in time of need and broke in the days
of victory.
The right policy is something very easy to state and extremely difficult
to carry out, even for a single-minded and clear-headed Government. It
needs first, perhaps, an effort of imaginative understanding more
far-reaching than has ever yet in history been demanded of an Imperial
Power. Only those who understand the East can win the respect and
confidence of the East. But in the meantime, if we cannot fully
understand, there is a way at least to make ourselves understood.
Justice is the passport to confidence all the world over. And our first
business is to act quite simply and sincerely up to all our engagements.
We undertook certain obligations when we signed Article XXII of the
Covenant. We should make the "wishes of these communities a principal
consideration" in deciding whether we should go to them at all. We
should really treat them "as independent nations," and should honestly
give them "administrative advice and assistance until they shall be able
to stand alone." And we should not allow our minds to be confused by
thoughts of gain, nor our advice to take the form of horse, foot, and
artillery. Two illustrations may make this point clear. An experienced
and very successful administrator was asked a few weeks ago whether he
would accept the post of adviser to a certain Moslem Government. He
said, "Yes, upon one condition. That there is no British army anywhere
in the country." That is the right and wise spirit. The second is even
simpler. One of the most obvious and matter-of-course obligations laid
upon imperial administrators and civil servants is that they shall not
embark in trade or in any way make a profit out of the administration of
their office. That is the right rule. The Empire should set an example
of the behaviour that it expects from its best servants.
When we apportioned to ourselves the German colonies, we specially
declined to take over their public debts. And when protest was raised
against this proceeding, we stated definitely in our official Reply: "It
would be unjust to make this responsibility rest on the Mandatory
Powers, which, in so far as they may be appointed trustees by the League
of Nations, will derive no benefit from such trusteeship." Is it
entirely quixotic and idealist to hope that, even in post-war
conditions, a great nation may remain true to her word?
It seems at least as if the only alternative was to hold these Eastern
territories by armed force, and that is no longer possible. It might be
possible to hold by force India alone, or Egypt alone, or Mesopotamia
alone. It is not possible so to hold all three. We must govern by
consent of the governed or not all.
CHAPTER III
RUSSIA AND ITS BORDERS
Another group of wars and threats of war has its centre in Moscow. All
the States on the borders of Russia--Finland, Lithuania, Poland, the
Ukraine, Hungary, Rumania, the new republics of Georgia, Armenia, and
Azerbaijan, and the kingdom of Persia--are either at war or in fear of
war or just recovering from war with Russia, or from civil war fomented
by Russian agents and propagandists. Inside Russia itself, civil war has
never ceased since the first outbreak of the Revolution in 1917. It is
true that the civil war has been largely helped by foreign munitions and
stirred up by foreign intrigues. But that only shows that--as the world
is now organized--there is something in the present Russian Government
which makes foreigners as well as Russians wish to take up arms against
it. It may have been--I think strongly that it was--exceedingly unwise
for the foreign Governments to intervene in the domestic troubles of
Russia, but no one can pretend that the civil war was entirely created
by foreigners. The rebellions were there before the foreigners joined
in, and it is even thought by good judges that the opposition to the
Bolsheviks might by this time have been successful if it had not been
damned in Russian eyes by its foreign alliances.
For us the question is how the Russian Revolution has become such a
plenteous and intense cause of strife. It is, of course, impossible to
pass judgment on the whole of a vast movement with the very inadequate
information that is now accessible to an average Englishman about
Russia. Even the French Revolution, which has been studied by thousands
of observers and historians, is not yet judged. The sum of infamies and
high achievements is too complicated to add up. And the Russian
Revolution is probably even harder to value than the French.
I. THE CIVIL WAR
It would be a mistake to forget the elements of simple early-Christian
brotherhood which seem to characterize the Russian peasant. It was well
known before the war how the members of a workmen's _artel_, or trade
community, when trade was bad, would divide their earnings equally and
all starve, if need be, together, without any attempt by the luckier
workmen to save themselves at the expense of the others. The glowing
descriptions of Mr. Stephen Graham cannot be entirely without any basis
in fact. And the people of Tolstoy and Dostoievsky have evidently a most
rare capacity for sainthood and martyrdom, as well as for aberration of
mind. Present-day Russia has been described by an eminent Socialist as
"a nation of artists governed by brutes," and the phrase is probably
true of the old Russia also, and the Russia of centuries back. Communism
comes easily in Russia, and so does submission to tyranny.
It must also be remembered that the Great War, among its many aspects,
involved the most frightful and bewildering oppression of the poor and
weak. As was said quite truly: "Millions of poor men in divers regions
of the world have been dragged suddenly and without any previous action
of their own into a quarrel which they neither made nor desired nor
understood, and in the course of that quarrel have been subjected again
and again to the very extremity of possible human suffering." The war
naturally and inevitably created in Europe a passionate wish for some
revolutionary transformation of a world in which rich and clever people
in parliaments and governments had the power of inflicting such pains
upon the poor. The peculiarity of the Bolshevik movement was, as one of
its rare English admirers puts it, not so much that it wanted a
particular kind of Socialism or Communism, but that it wanted it _now_.
The world has seen many revolutions and many Socialist governments; but
they have never really established that paradise of the poor which was
advertised in their prospectuses and doubtless nursed in their hopes.
Most failed altogether. And those which succeeded went wrong. They
coöperated with "bourgeois Liberals." They extended the franchise, they
improved the condition of the working classes, they established
well-to-do workmen and peasants with a stake in the country and a
conservative bias; but they never really did what was wanted. They
always stopped short. They developed the middle-class virtues. They left
still in existence a capitalist class which preached the merits of
thrift and hard work and was interested in trade; and of course they
left always somewhere an oppressed class. The under dog was still under.
The Bolshevik remedy was very direct and simple. It was to disarm
everybody who had any share in prosperity, and distribute firearms to
those who had nothing else. Only when he was armed and the rest of the
people unarmed could the real proletarian--the man who had no savings,
no talent, no education, no notable good qualities, nothing that makes
for success in life--hope to beat the men who always outstripped him. It
is strange that even in a moment of extreme misery such a theory could
have established itself in any country as a principle of government. But
the military collapse of Russia gave it a unique chance. The common
soldiers, anxious to fight no more, already possessed arms. They had
merely to murder their officers and the thing was done. The rest of the
population was unarmed and helpless. And meantime the peasants, though
almost untouched by revolutionary ideas, were amenable to one particular
bribe. The revolutionaries offered all the peasants of Russia their
masters' land without any payment. They could simply take the land, and
kill or not kill the owner as they pleased. There was no punishment for
such killing. According to strict Communist principles, the land was not
to remain in the peasants' possession. It was to be the property of the
State. But this principle had to be dropped in order to induce the
peasants to coöperate with the revolutionary town workmen. Whatever may
be said in favour of this revolution, there can at least be no surprise
at what Lenin calls "the frantic resistance" of the upper and middle
classes of Russia. The policy of the Government was announced on January
23, 1919: "The present is the period of destruction and crushing of the
capitalist system of the whole world. . . . In order to establish the
dictatorship of the proletariate it is necessary to disarm the
bourgeoisie and its agents and to arm the proletariate." It is to be
dictatorship in the strict sense: the power of a man with a gun to do
what he likes with those who have no guns. There is to be no democracy
or representation of the dispossessed classes. If they were represented
they might recover power. Only those known to be faithful to the new
Government are to vote. All persons of property must be dispossessed,
from landlords to small shop-keepers. Rich peasants must go; even
"middle peasants" at one time had to go; only the poorest peasants and
the poorest town workmen should rule, assisted, of course, by those
educated people who would accept the new régime and establish by deeds
beyond doubt their hatred of the bourgeoisie.
The control of a country by a small minority is always difficult. It
needs methods of "terror." But this minority had first to acquire the
control and then to maintain it. Its task was more difficult and its
methods had to be more violent than those of its predecessors. The
"terror" of the old Czarist Government or of the French Revolution must
be superseded by the more drastic method of what was called "mass
terror." The secret police, whose activities had made hideous the record
of the Czarist Government, and who had fled for their lives at the first
outbreak of the Lvof and Kerensky Revolution, returned from their
lurking-places to put themselves at the disposal of the Bolsheviks. This
legion of devils had something to sell which the new Government badly
needed. On the analogy of the _Comité de Salut Public_ there was
established the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for stamping out
all trace of resistance to the new order. Spies were placed everywhere
(Proclamation, October 17, 1918). No distinction was to be made between
Czarist reactionaries and unorthodox Socialists, such as the Mensheviks
and Social Revolutionaries (_Russkaya Zhizn_, May 10, 1919). Enormous
numbers of "hostages" were arrested. At any sign of conspiracy outside,
large numbers of these were shot. The assassination of the Bolshevik
Uritzky was repaid by the execution of five hundred citizens. Yet, just
as in the most furious days of the French Revolution, the terrorists
were always complaining that there was not enough terror. "The continual
discovery of conspiracies in our rear . . . the insignificant extent of
serious repressions and mass shootings of White Guards and bourgeoisie
on the part of the Soviets, show that notwithstanding frequent
pronouncements urging mass terror against the Social Revolutionaries,
White Guards, and bourgeoisie, no real terror exists" (Official Weekly
of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission, No. 1, Moscow, September
21, 1918).
Trotzky in comforting language explained that the object of the mass
terror was not really the extermination of all non-communists, or all
Russians who did not attain the full standard of poverty and orthodoxy.
"The proletariate says: 'I shall break your will because my will is
stronger than yours, and I shall force you to serve me.' . . . Terror as
the demonstration of the will and strength of the working class is
historically justified" (Trotzky in _Izvestia_, January 10, 1919).
Eventually, of course, when all Russia was submissive and all Europe
Communist, there would be a gentler régime, and the proletariate would
show their true beauty of character. And it would be a mistake to ignore
the real reforms which seem to have been carried through in certain
social services, notably in the care of children, the attempt to develop
popular education and the putting down of drink. But in the meantime
terror was reënforced by ingenious petty persecutions and indignities,
reënforced by starvation. Those who joined the Red Army had three times
the ration of food allowed to several categories of the civil
population. No one can wonder that suicide--that last irrefutable
evidence of unbearable oppression--became extraordinarily common,
especially among the educated classes,[4] and that "frantic resistance"
broke out where it had any prospect of success.
[Footnote 4: The remnants of the more distinguished "intellectuals" are
now gathered into two or three "salvage houses" and looked after by
Maxim Gorky. [He has now fled.]]
II. RUSSIA'S NEIGHBOURS
But what of the war outside Russia? Why could not the Russians be
allowed to conduct their revolution and settle their form of government
by themselves? It would be very desirable if they could. And doubtless
it is the aim to be striven for. But the trouble is that Bolshevism is
to its adherents a revelation and a new gospel, and they have the same
zeal for converting the rest of the world as had the French
Revolutionaries or the followers of Mohammed. "The program of the
Communist Party is not merely a program of liberating the proletariate
of one country; it is the program of liberating the proletariate of the
world" (authorized pamphlet by N. Bukharin, July 24, 1918). This is to
be achieved by "a bloody torturing and heroic fight." The methods are to
include every known form of intrigue, corruption, forgery, and the
like, and the plan is to be the same in all countries. Revolutionary
workmen are to be armed, including common soldiers, tramps, prisoners,
and all the utterly dispossessed of the earth, except, of course, those
who have Conservative, Liberal, or Labour Party views; and then are to
work their proletarian will on the rest of the community. The "national
will" is to be disregarded: "The interests of Socialism stand far above
the interest of the right of nations to self-determination" (Trotzky,
_Izvestia_, March 8, 1918). "All our hopes for the definitive triumph of
Socialism are based on this conviction and on this scientific prevision,
i.e. that a revolution like the Russian can be produced in all the
nations of Europe" (_ib._). In the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk the
Bolsheviks were compelled to sign a clause promising not to conduct "any
agitation against the State and military institutions of Germany." "But
both the Russian Government as a whole and its accredited representative
in Berlin never concealed the fact that they were not observing this
article, and did not intend to do so" (Joffe, _Izvestia_, January 1,
1919).
The belief that by some single violent change in social, political, or
economic conditions human life as a whole can be suddenly transfigured
is one that clings to many minds, and by no means the stupidest minds,
of the present age, in spite of much disillusioning experience. It does
seem to them at moments as if only some one thing was wrong with the
world, and as if that one flaw must surely be definite and remediable:
some one bold step is all that is needed--say, the abolition of the
family, or of property, or of competition, or of wages, or of interest,
or of compulsory law, or some other of the fundamental institutions of
society.
To our ancestors it was the abolition of heresy. To the Turks, the
abolition of all Christians in Turkey. To such people at such times the
normal method of trying to correct the worst abuses by persuading the
majority that they ought to be corrected, and of seeking individually to
live a better life and to help one's neighbours, seems tedious and
ineffective, if not hypocritical. But one thing that is clear is that
revolution means "frantic resistance," and the stronger the faith and
energy behind the revolution the more deep-reaching is the resistance
likely to be.
Russia's neighbours see what seems to them the infinite misery and
impoverishment and retardation inflicted by Bolshevism; and they are
naturally indignant and alarmed at the secret propaganda of Bolshevism
within their own borders. In normal times perhaps they need not have
been afraid. But since the war every state is unstable; every state has
a large discontented class. The small republics in the Caucasus, barely
able to support themselves in freedom, are maddened to find their
constitution threatened by Russian bribes, their malcontents and bad
characters armed with Russian rifles and machine guns, and their public
men assassinated. Georgia and Armenia are probably doomed. Hungary and
Finland have gone Bolshevik and returned, each process being accompanied
by hideous persecutions and murders, the reprisals being naturally the
worst. Germany, in spite of all treaties, has been exposed to constant
propaganda and has had one or two bad outbreaks of violence. Poland has
been and still is--whether through her own bad policy or otherwise--on
the brink of compulsory Bolshevism. Human nature being what it is, and
human politics a little worse than private human nature, it is
inevitable that Russia's neighbours should be constantly afraid of her
and intensely anxious to see her again under some more normal
government; some government which, whatever its political bias, would
leave its neighbours to govern themselves and accept the ordinary
conventions of civilized society.
Nay, one can even understand anti-Russian policies that seem at first
sight intolerably aggressive. The Poles, among other demands, are
anxious for the independence of White Russia, the region north of the
Pripet, of which Minsk is the chief town. They wish it either annexed to
Poland or else made independent, but at any rate cut off from Russia.
The claim seems monstrous. But it has its excuse. The White Russian
peasantry are said to be peculiarly ignorant and devoid of national
feeling; the land-owners and well-to-do classes are mostly Poles. Is it
surprising that the Poles of Poland hate the idea of handing their
countrymen over to a Russia which will, as a matter of course, set the
peasants to burn their houses, destroy their cattle, and hunt them
themselves down like vermin? And when that is done, they reflect,
Bolshevism will only be nearer to Warsaw.
Like the early Moslems, the true Bolsheviks care more for their faith
than for territory. In dealing with Lithuania, which is at present a
comparatively quiet little peasant republic, the Russians offered her a
large slice of territory beyond what she was entitled to or wanted. Why?
Because it was a thoroughly Bolshevized area, and might be expected to
spread the faith--or the poison--into all Lithuania. A nation, or a
government, in that state of mind cannot be surprised if its neighbours
regard it with anxiety.
* * * * *
It is a curious fact that revolutionists so often regard themselves as
pacifists. Many were even conscientious objectors during the war, and
there is no reason to doubt that they were sincere. But they do seem to
be confused thinkers. To hate your neighbours, whom you know, and love
your neighbours' enemies, whom you do not know, is a consistent and not
uncommon frame of mind; though the element of love in it seems less
important and prominent than the hate. But to expect European peace and
good-will by means of a revolution in all countries argues a lack of
understanding not far removed from madness. Every revolutionary outburst
since the war has been marked by ferocious cruelties and followed by
still more ferocious reprisals. Revolution leads not to peace, but to
reciprocal reigns of terror, first Red and then White, till the
exhaustion of suffering produces some sort of equilibrium.
The war, among its many evil lessons, has inculcated the gospel of
impatience and of force. "When you want a thing, take it from some one,
and if he resists, knock him down." It is the doctrine which destroys
human societies as it destroys the peace in men's own hearts. If we
want peace, we must simply unlearn that creed and go back to the old
Liberal doctrine that is at the root of sound politics everywhere: "If
you think something is right, try to persuade your fellow citizens of
it; try your hardest, but remember that you may be wrong, and until you
succeed, have patience."
CHAPTER IV
PRE-WAR AND POST-WAR CAUSES OF STRIFE
The war has left behind it a great number of small wars or guerrillas.
Most of them have their explanation in some ordinary excess of
nationalism or revenge or greed. The Serbs, intoxicated with their new
greatness, are still causing war in Albania and Montenegro. The
Rumanians recently invaded Hungary, in spite of all the thunders of the
Peace Conference, because they had been robbed by Austria-Hungary and
wanted revenge and reparation. The Hungarians have alarmed all their
neighbours and forced them into a defensive alliance, which now calls
itself the "Little Entente." The Lithuanians and Poles have fought, but
been reconciled by the mediation of the League of Nations. The Armenians
have been massacred again, under the eyes of the French army of
occupation in Cilicia, where they had gathered under a repeated
guarantee of safety given by France and England. The Turkish
Nationalists are holding out very unsuccessfully in the centre of
Anatolia against a Greek army carrying out the directions of the Supreme
Council. The Turkish peasants are increasingly reluctant to take arms
again. The Koreans have helplessly declared their right to independence
from Japan, and are apparently being reduced by a terrible persecution.
These are the mere belated effervescence of the passions of the Great
War. The hate and pride which are the basis of nationalism and which
were so violently stimulated by the events of the war cannot be expected
to die out at once. It was calculated a short time ago that there were
twenty-seven "wars" of one sort or another in progress. But they will
presumably simmer down as social conditions become more normal.
It is interesting to observe that two of the greatest causes of war,
according to the judgment of normal times, are now not actively
operating. Before 1914, if one was asked to name the main causes of
war, the answer would have been, first, competitive armaments, and,
second, protective tariffs and the competition for markets. These causes
will remain fully as dangerous for the future, but it so happens that
none of the existing wars is directly due to either.
I. ARMAMENTS
In one sense, indeed, armaments are actually operating now as a cause of
war. There are far too many firearms lying about. America, England, and
France have made very lavish gifts or sales of lethal weapons to various
bodies with whom they sympathized. And the arms have by no means always
stayed in the place for which they were intended. Guns which we sent to
Denikin were sold by corrupt officials to the Bolsheviks, and passed on
by them to the Afghans to use against us on the Indian frontier. Such
things cause some deaths and some laughter, but are not permanent evils.
No European nation, except those actually compelled, has made much
progress towards disarmament. It is said that Great Britain has
actually made the greatest reduction, but both in numbers of men and in
expenditure our standard is fantastically higher than what was forced
upon us by German competition in 1914. It is impossible to reduce our
forces in a really drastic way as long as our commitments are so large
and--perhaps we must add--our policy so inconsistent and provocative.
Peace with Russia, a settlement with Mesopotamia and Egypt on the lines
laid down by the Covenant and the Milner Report, the evacuation of
Ireland, the execution of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms in India, and
the extension of similar reforms to Burmah and the much-suffering
Ceylon, will permit us really to envisage for the first time a
satisfactory measure of disarmament. The air force is already greatly
reduced. The vast size of the navy appears to be utterly unjustified, at
any rate by conditions in Europe. The French army is far beyond the
economic powers of France to support. The same seems to be true of
Italy, and is certainly true of Serbia, which is still calling
conscripts to the colours. Greece is vastly overarmed; but Greek
policy, though erring on the ambitious side, has probably been more
sagaciously guided under M. Venizelos than any in Europe. The fall of
that great man, due mainly to the prolonged economic distresses of
Greece, will probably cause a resurgence of Mustapha Kemal and the
Turkish nationalists. Meantime the Russian conscript army, though
apparently ill-armed and ill-supplied, is overwhelming in numbers and is
led by officers of the old régime, experienced and not absolutely
incompetent. The Russian army is far the greatest and, in a political
sense, the most dangerous, in the world.
But it is not the actual armaments, ruinous as they are, that are the
essential poison to civilized society. It is the competition in
armaments. That has now been abolished throughout Europe. Slowly,
unequally, reluctantly, the armaments which, in Lord Grey's words, went
uphill under the lead of Germany, are now, under the same lead, groping
their way downhill. There is only one great nation which, if words are
to be believed, thinks seriously of starting a competition in armaments.
It has been announced, more than once, by the American Government that,
like Germany in the years before 1914, they have arranged a naval
programme which will effectually put an end to the British command of
the seas and give the United States "world primacy" (see speech of Mr.
Daniels, Secretary of the Navy, in the _Times_ of September 1, 1920).
Since the British Empire is a scattered series of communities dependent
for their communications upon the sea, and in particular since the
population of Great Britain is absolutely dependent for its food on the
free use of sea transport, it has been generally acknowledged in Europe
that the sea-power of Great Britain was necessary to its existence.
British sea-power has never been challenged except by definite enemies
in pursuit of a definite war policy. If the United States were seriously
to embark on the same policy as the late German Government, it seems as
if all other causes of war must sink into insignificance beside this
gigantic and deliberate one. But, in spite of some bewildering
symptoms, it can hardly be believed that this conclusion is possible, at
any rate until America has definitely and finally refused to be a member
of the League of Nations.
Relations between Great Britain and America have of late been
dangerously strained, partly owing to causes outside our Government's
control, but in part owing to the scandal caused in America by certain
developments of the Peace Treaty, and by the excesses of the Government
forces in Ireland. A wise policy may help to heal this growing breach,
and if America accepts in some form or other membership of the League of
Nations, it ought to be possible in friendly discussion to arrive at
some understanding on the question of naval armaments.
The problem of armaments is put in the very forefront of the Covenant of
the League, immediately after the constitution of the League itself. By
Article VIII--
The members of the League recognize that the maintenance of peace
requires the reduction of national armaments to the lowest point
consistent with (_a_) national safety and (_b_) the enforcement by
common action of national obligations.
The Council, taking account of the geographical situation and
circumstances of each State, shall formulate plans for such
reduction for the consideration and action of the several
Governments.
Such plans shall be subject to reconsideration and revision at
least every ten years.
After these plans shall have been adopted by the several
Governments the limits of armament therein fixed shall not be
exceeded without the concurrence of the Council.
The article goes on to recognize that private munition factories are
objectionable, and must somehow be dealt with, and to lay down that all
members must interchange "full and frank information" about their
armaments and programmes. And the next article constitutes a permanent
Commission to advise the Council on the execution of the provisions of
Article VIII and other similar matters.
The cautious language of the Covenant on this subject is due to the
inherent difficulty of the subject itself. It would be absurd to lay
down that every member of the League must disband its forces forthwith;
the League could hardly undertake to go to war in order to compel some
strong Power to disarm. And it is obvious that different nations need
different degrees of armament. The chief difficulty is that disarmament
ought in justice and prudence to be simultaneous all round. It is only
by the compulsion of a lost war that Germany has been compelled to
disarm while her enemies stand round her with large armies, and even in
Germany the process is evidently very difficult to enforce. Too many
rifles and machine guns have got loose in private hands. No League could
compel Poland or Rumania to disarm while the Red Army of Russia stood
waiting across the frontier; or compel Great Britain to disarm while the
northwest frontier of India is constantly attacked, while the Bolsheviks
are in Persia and British officials are besieged in Mesopotamia. This
difficulty will remain even when the world begins to settle down and the
countries of Europe are no longer governed by their War Offices. On the
other hand, economic pressure, as well as Liberal feeling, will make for
the reduction of armies and navies. It may be difficult to get
volunteers for military service, and it will certainly be dangerous to
impress conscripts. There will be a stronger and more genuine popular
demand for disarmament than for most of the desirable provisions of the
League Covenant, and Governments dependent on the popular will may find
their hands forced. But in the main disarmament must depend on the
restoration of confidence; though probably it is true in most cases that
if the disarmament comes first the confidence will follow.
II. MARKETS AND FOOD
The second of these great causes of war, protection and the competition
for markets, has somewhat changed its aspect since the comparative
exhaustion of the world supplies of food and raw material. Before the
war, nations chiefly wanted to sell. Markets were the great object of
ambition, and tariff walls the great means of offence. Great Britain, of
course, kept her doors everywhere open to the trade of the world. It is
one of the decisive marks to her credit in the apportionment of the
comparative guilt of the nations in preparing that international
atmosphere which made the war of 1914 possible. But if she had chosen at
any moment to close her doors, she could have injured grievously every
other great nation throughout the globe; and the British Tariff Reform
Campaign was one of the excuses used by the German Government to
frighten their people into a war spirit. When Austria wished to ruin
Serbia she simply put a prohibitive duty on the import of pigs.
Now, since the war, what most nations want is not in the first place
markets; it is food and raw materials. They have not, of course,
abolished their tariffs, but their first anxiety is to be able to buy
food. Austria does not want to keep out Serbian pigs. She begs for them,
and Serbia will not let her have them. The most consistently and
narrowly protectionist nations, like France or Australia, no longer
concentrate on forbidding their neighbours to sell to them. On the
contrary, they refuse to sell food and raw material to their neighbours.
The policy of keeping the food and raw materials of the British Empire
for British consumption is already widely advocated and has powerful
champions in the Government. As long as it is confined to palm kernels,
this policy, though bad from almost every point of view, is not fatal.
But if ever it were to be carried consistently through, it would mean
war. The British Empire holds such a vast extent of the earth's surface
that it has inevitably given hostages to fortune. So huge an empire can
only be tolerated if it behaves tolerably. If we keep to ourselves and
use for our own profit all the overwhelmingly large stores of food and
raw material which by our vast annexations of territory we now control,
thereby reducing other nations first to a stagnation of trade and then
to starvation, the natural and inevitable answer to such a proceeding
would seem to be a world crusade for our destruction.
This is the chief point, apparently, in which the influence of what is
called "capitalism" seems to be a direct cause of war. Great
capitalists, or those impersonal organizations of capital which seem
likely now to supersede the individual capitalist, are normally strong
influences for peace. They need peace for the success of their
undertakings and are in danger of ruin if war breaks out. But they do at
times stand to gain enormous sums by concessions and monopolies and by
control over materials which are the subject of an intense demand from
great masses of people. And no doubt one way in which they will seek to
get these monopolies and controls is by putting pressure on Governments
for so-called patriotic reasons to exclude foreign competition. This is
a very real danger.
The Covenant of the League of Nations has not dared to insist on free
trade. Obviously it could not, since the majority of the member nations
are against free trade. But it does lay down certain rules to check
aggressive protection.
All the territories transferred by the war from the possession of
Germany and Turkey to their conquerors are subjected to the principle of
mandate. They are not held as possessions. They are held "as a sacred
trust for civilization" with the express purpose of securing the
"well-being and development" of the native populations. In particular,
the mandatories agree to guarantee "equal opportunities for the trade
and commerce of other members of the League." As the membership of the
League is increased, this will practically ensure the "open door" to all
nations in the mandated areas. It seems also clearly to forbid the
establishment of national monopolies. If a mandatory finds copper-mines
or oil-wells in its territory, it is bound to develop them as "a trust
for civilization." Any profit it receives must be in the nature of wages
for work done. A mandatory may not exclude or hamper the trade of
another member of the League by tariffs,[5] much less keep the oil for
the exclusive use of itself and its friends, as is at present proposed
by England and France in Mesopotamia. The condemnation of this proposal
by the Assembly of the League in November, 1920, backed by a vigorous
protest from the United States, has, it may be hoped, made such a
violation of the Covenant impossible.
[Footnote 5: Except in Mandates C (Pacific Islands, etc.), where
Australia successfully refused to submit to any economic restrictions.
See, however, the definite pledge given by the Allied Reply, p. 78,
above.]
In territories not mandated as a result of the war, but otherwise
similar to the mandated areas, such as the pre-war colonies of the
various Powers, these rules, of course, do not hold. Yet it may be hoped
that at least they will be recognized as good rules, to which
approximation should be made as circumstances permit.
In all their dealings, moreover, members of the League agree (Article
XXIII) to "secure and maintain freedom of communications and of transit,
and equitable treatment for the commerce of all members of the League."
The language of this article is a little vague. One can trace in it the
influence of a struggle. But at least it forbids tariff wars, and it
gives the League a handle for interference in case of any very great
iniquity. It does not forbid national monopolies; but a monopoly in
foodstuffs which came near to inflicting famine on other members of the
League would, under it, at least give cause for remark. And no clause,
however strong, could in practice be sure of attaining more. The League
has to be built out of nations as they already exist, and the rules of
the League out of their public opinion. The real danger here, as in so
many other cases, lies not in the caution and moderation of the language
used in the Covenant, but first in the questionable sincerity of the
nations in carrying out the pledges signed by their representatives, and
secondly in the possibility that, through ill-will, or fear, or
self-interest, or mob-passion, or some other disastrous influence, the
ex-enemy Powers be not quickly included in the League. Not until all
Central Europe is in the League can the world begin to breathe freely.
CHAPTER V
THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
We have considered many parts of the world and many aspects of the
present world settlement to see what seeds of future war may now be
germinating and what means we have of making them harmless. And in every
case we are brought back to the one great creative idea which this war
has produced, the League of Nations. The earlier notions of the League,
as issued, for example, about the year 1909 by certain American bodies,
centred upon the development of compulsory mediation or arbitration and
the setting up of a recognized permanent Court of International Law. The
flaw in this conception, operating alone, is a certain rigidity and
barrenness. It left states to work separately until they quarrelled or
saw a quarrel approaching, and only then, when the atmosphere was
already bad, it expected them to meet and accept arbitration. A great
addition to this was Sir Edward Grey's conception, already put in
practice during the Balkan Wars, of an extended _entente cordiale_
embracing all Europe and America. In his time France and England,
England and America, England and Italy, had formed a habit of cordiality
and frank dealing. When any trouble arose, the ambassadors had the habit
of meeting freely and discussing the trouble with perfect frankness,
almost as members of the same Ministry might do. This tendency was
helped by the enormous increase in international conferences,
commissions, and bureaux. And during the Balkan crisis of 1912-13 it was
in process of being extended to include Germany. Thus there was the
habit of frequent coöperation and mutual confidence. Unfortunately, this
friendly spirit depended on all parties being generally content with the
present condition of affairs; Germany was not content, and so the
_entente_ idea was balked. Under the League the nations are already
forming a habit of consultation and coöperation on non-controversial
matters which should be of immense help in dealing with differences
when they arise. Another great formative idea was contributed by General
Smuts, the principle of the mandate. He foresaw that there would be at
the end of the war an immense appropriation of tropical colonies; he
knew that the rivalry of the Great Powers for the possession of such
colonies was one of the chief sources of international strife; and he
saw that the right outlet was to put an end to the treatment of colonies
as "possessions" or mere sources of wealth to the colonizing Power. The
populations that are not able to stand alone should be taken in trust by
the whole League of Nations, which should appoint a particular Power in
each particular case to carry out the trust. Again, the great stirring
of discontent among the labouring classes in almost all parts of the
world led to the formation of a special International Commission on
Labour, which has so far met with great success. It will in general have
the effect of raising the conditions of the most backward peoples to
something like the level of the best.
And lastly, when all these things were in train, the policy for which
both Great Britain and the late Czar of Russia had striven so long and
vainly would at last become feasible, and the nations might consent to
disarm.
Thus the Covenant of the League, an unpretentious but well-considered
document, the result of repeated criticism and study by many of the best
minds in Europe and America, attempts to meet and check all the visible
and predictable causes of war.
There should be no wars of ambition. They are to be met by absolute
coercion. The League can make it certain that deliberate war undertaken
for national aggrandizement will end, not in profit, but in ruinous
loss.
There should be no wars caused by the irresistible desire to escape from
foreign oppression or intolerable conditions. They are made unnecessary
by provisions enabling any oppressed nation to lay its case before the
Assembly or Council and obtain such redress as the most disinterested
tribunal can give.
A war which is caused by the emergence of some clash of interest or
unforeseen dispute between two states cannot, in the nature of things,
be made absolutely impossible. The League opposes to that danger, not a
blank wall, but, as it were, a series of springs calculated to exhaust
its force; a court for points of law, mediation for points of policy,
compulsory delay and reconsideration for all disputes whatsoever. It
will be a strange dispute which, given honest intentions on both sides,
lasts through all the checks provided by Articles XII to XVII and
plunges nations into war at the end of them.
Wars caused by rivalry for the possession of colonies and rebellions
caused in colonies by unjust exploitation are, as far as regards
mandated areas, provided against by Article XXII; for the other colonial
territories, which do not come under a mandate, at least the way of
safety is shown.
Wars caused, or made more likely, by the mutual prejudices of nations,
by their habit of working always apart and in secrecy, are met by the
immense field of international coöperation which the League proposes,
and its absolute insistence upon frank interchange of information.
Wars caused by exclusive tariffs or national monopolies of material are
in part provided against by Articles XXII and XXIII and in part by XI.
Wars which might be caused by domestic revolutions, as in Russia, are
made less likely by the Labour Commission, which assures a remedy for
any labour conditions in a particular country which are so bad as to
incur the active condemnation of the world.
But it is impossible by mere enumeration to be sure of meeting all the
causes from which some new war may start. The League, in the last
resort, falls back on the mutual trust and good-will of its members, and
particularly of its members' representatives, secured partly by the
common interest in peace and partly by the habit of coöperation for
ordinary affairs. The _esprit de corps_ of the League's permanent
Secretariat, with a professional interest in the preservation of peace
and good-will, is a new and important factor in the world's life. Any
member of the League has the right to bring to the attention of the
Assembly or Council "any circumstance whatever affecting international
relations which threatens to disturb international peace or the good
understanding between nations upon which peace depends."
In America the Covenant of the League is apt to be represented as a
terribly drastic and tyrannical document. Cartoons show John Bull, or
some equally repulsive abstraction, dressed in khaki, dragging away
American youths to fight enemies of the League in remote parts of Asia
or Africa. But on this side of the Atlantic it is generally criticized
for not being drastic enough. It does not make war formally impossible.
It does not bind all its members to make war on any Covenant-breaker. It
does not even bind any member of the League to accept the decision of
the majority. It leaves its members almost as free as if they were
outside. They are pledged to accept, if they ask for it, a decision of
the International Court; they are pledged to the principle of mandate;
they are pledged to boycott any deliberate war-maker. But that is
practically all. The League's true weapon is not force, but publicity.
The truth is, and it is a truth of fundamental importance in political
matters, that no structure can be more rigid than the material of which
it is made. Engagements between human beings must needs be as elastic as
human nature itself. Had the Covenant laid down that every member of the
League was to make war or peace, or change its foreign policy, in
obedience to the majority of the Council or Assembly and in disregard of
the wishes of its own parliament, the result would have been either that
no nations would join such a League or that, if they did, the League
would break at the first strain.
The principles laid down in the Covenant are, in the judgment of the
present writer, principles long recognized and absolutely right. If
generally acted on, they will prevent war. If generally neglected and
broken, they will allow wars to ensue. This fact seems to be pretty
generally recognized among the more reputable statesmen of Europe. But
it remains unfortunately true that they are principles implying a
considerably higher standard of international morality than has
hitherto been consistently observed by any nations, even the best. If
absolute fidelity to the Covenant by all its signatories were necessary
for the peace of the world, the world would have a very poor prospect
before it. What we must aim at is as much fidelity as possible. There
are great difficulties. America is absent. Germany and Russia are
absent. France cannot yet quite escape from her war psychology. But if
Great Britain is faithful, it will be hard for other nations to be
obviously and grossly false. The European neutrals, like Switzerland,
Holland, and Norway, will be clear voices for justice and fair dealing.
The beaten nations, when once admitted, will probably be on the same
side, since when wrong-doing begins it is the weak who are first to
suffer. And, after all, all human beings have a strong dislike of
injustice, when they do not directly gain by it. The great majority of
the fifty-one members of the League will be disinterested on most
questions of dispute, and will therefore form a good tribunal of
opinion.
But the mere clash of contrary selfishnesses produces no sound
equilibrium. The League will not succeed unless in some of the great
nations, above all in Great Britain, there are at the head of affairs
statesmen who believe firmly in the principles of the League and are
capable both of effort and of self-sacrifice for the sake of them, and
behind the statesmen a strong and intelligent determination in the mass
of the people to see that the League is made genuinely the leading force
in international politics.
The present disorder of the world is one of those in which the remedy is
not obscure, but perfectly ascertained. The only difficulty lies in
applying it. The nations of the world must coöperate; and for that they
must trust one another; and for that the only way is for each Government
separately to be worthy of trust.
It will be long, no doubt, before this end is consummated or even
approached. The foregoing pages have shown how far from perfect is the
practice of even the most stable and advanced nations. And the
tendencies set up by the war, with its infinite reactions and
ramifications, are almost all such as to make vastly more difficult in
each case the necessary effort towards good faith and good-will. Yet, if
the difficulties are greater, the necessity is greater also; and after
all the war has brought its inspirations as well as its corruptions. The
craving for this Peace which has not come is, I believe, still the
unspoken and often unconscious motive of millions who seem, at first
glance, to be only brawling for revenges or revolutions; it lies, like a
mysterious torment, at the heart of this storm-tossed and embittered
world, crying for it knows not what.
THE END
BOOKS FOR FURTHER READING
The Series published by the American Association for International
Conciliation, 1-150, comprising the text of all the most important
official statements, treaties, agreements, etc., dealing with
International Affairs.
The League of Nations Union pamphlets for Study Circles: _The League and
its Guarantees_, by Gilbert Murray; _The League in the East_ by Arnold
Toynbee; _The League and Labour_, by Delisle Burns; _Economic Functions
of the League_, by Norman Angell; _Mandates and Empire_, by Leonard
Woolf; _The Future of the Covenant_, by G. Lowes Dickinson.
_The League of Nations, Nine Essays_, by Viscount Grey and others.
Oxford University Press, 1919.
_The Idea of a League of Nations_, H. G. Wells and others, for the
Research Committee of the League of Nations Union. Oxford Press, 1917.
_Economic Foundations of Peace_, J. L. Garvin. Macmillan, 1917.
Report of the International Financial Conference, printed for the League
of Nations. Brussels, 1920.
Complete Official Proceedings of the same, 3 vols. London and Brussels.
Report of the Economic Conference summoned by the Fight the Famine
Council.
_Foreign Policy of Sir Edward Grey_, Gilbert Murray. Clarendon Press,
Oxford.
_A Century of British Foreign Policy_, G. P. Gooch and Canon Masterman.
Allen and Unwin.
_Economic Consequences of the Peace Treaty_, J. Maynard Keynes.
Macmillan, 1919.
_The Making of the Reparation and Economic Sections of the Treaty_, B.
M. Baruch. Harpers, 1920.
_The Choice Before Us_, G. Lowes Dickinson. Allen and Unwin, 1918.
_Causes of International War_, G. Lowes Dickinson. Swarthmore Press.
_International Politics_, Delisle Burns. Methuen, 1920.
_International Government_, L. S. Woolf. Allen and Unwin.
_Empire and Commerce in Africa_, L. S. Woolf. Allen and Unwin.
_The War of Steel and Gold_, H. N. Brailsford. 1913.
_After the Peace_, by H. N. Brailsford. 1920.
_The Eastern Question_, J. A. R. Marriott. Oxford Press, 1917.
The Official Reports of the First Meeting of the Assembly of the League
of Nations, Nov. 15-Dec. 18, 1920, are most instructive, and will
probably be published in book form.
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
U.S.A.
Transcriber's Notes
Original spelling, including that of proper names retained.
Minor punctuation errors and omissions corrected.
Page 105 "for the conside ation" ==> "for the consideration"
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