initial commit of ebook 10090HEADmain

8 files changed, 26588 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/10090-0.txt b/10090-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e979c8b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/10090-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,8576 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10090 ***
+
+PEACELESS EUROPE
+
+By
+
+FRANCESCO S. NITTI
+
+
+1922
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+In this book are embodied the ideas which, as a parliamentarian, as
+head of the Italian Government, and as a writer, I have upheld with
+firm conviction during the last few years.
+
+I believe that Europe is threatened with decadence more owing to the
+Peace Treaties than as a result of the War. She is in a state of daily
+increasing decline, and the causes of dissatisfaction are growing
+apace.
+
+Europe is still waiting for that peace which has not yet been
+definitely concluded, and it is necessary that the public should be
+made aware that the courses now being followed by the policy of the
+great victorious States are perilous to the achievement of serious,
+lasting and useful results. I believe that it is to the interest of
+France herself if I speak the language of truth, as a sincere friend
+of France and a confirmed enemy of German Imperialism. Not only did
+that Imperialism plunge Germany into a sea of misery and suffering,
+covering her with the opprobrium of having provoked the terrible War,
+or at least of having been mainly responsible for it, but it has
+ruined for many years the productive effort of the most cultured and
+industrious country in Europe.
+
+Some time ago the ex-President of the French Republic, R. Poincaré,
+after the San Remo Conference, _à propos_ of certain differences of
+opinion which had arisen between Lloyd George and myself on the one
+hand and Millerand on the other, wrote as follows:
+
+    "Italy and England know what they owe to France, just as France
+    knows what she owes to them. They do not wish to part company with
+    us, nor do we with them. They recognize that they need us, as we
+    have need of them. Lloyd George and Nitti are statesmen too shrewd
+    and experienced not to understand that their greatest strength
+    will always lie in this fundamental axiom. On leaving San Remo
+    for Rome or London let them ask the opinion of the 'man in the
+    street.' His reply will be: '_Avant tout, restez unis avec la
+    France_.'"
+
+I believe that Lloyd George and I share the same cordial sentiments
+toward France. We have gone through so much suffering and anxiety
+together that it would be impossible to tear asunder links firmly
+welded by common danger and pain. France will always remember with a
+sympathetic glow that Italy was the first country which proclaimed her
+neutrality, on August 2, 1914; without that proclamation the destinies
+of the War might have taken a very different turn.
+
+But the work of reconstruction in Europe is in the interest of France
+herself. She has hated too deeply to render a sudden cessation of her
+hate-storm possible, and the treaties have been begotten in rancour
+and applied with violence. Even as the life of men, the life of
+peoples has days of joy and days of grief: sunshine follows the storm.
+The whole history of European peoples is one of alternate victories
+and defeats. It is the business of civilization to create such
+conditions as will render victory less brutal and defeat more
+bearable.
+
+The recent treaties which regulate, or are supposed to regulate,
+the relations among peoples are, as a matter of fact, nothing but a
+terrible regress, the denial of all those principles which had been
+regarded as an unalienable conquest of public right. President Wilson,
+by his League of Nations, has been the most responsible factor in
+setting up barriers between nations.
+
+Christopher Columbus sailed from Europe hoping to land in India,
+whereas he discovered America. President Wilson sailed from America
+thinking that he was going to bring peace to Europe, but only
+succeeded in bringing confusion and war.
+
+However, we should judge him with the greatest indulgence, for his
+intentions were undoubtedly sincere and honest.
+
+France has more to gain than any other country in Europe by reverting
+to those sound principles of democracy which formed her erstwhile
+glory. We do not forget what we owe her, nor the noble spirit which
+pervades some of her historic deeds. But _noblesse oblige_, and all
+the more binding is her duty to respect tradition.
+
+When France shall have witnessed the gradual unfolding of approaching
+events, she will be convinced that he who has spoken to her the
+language of truth and has sought out a formula permitting the peoples
+of Europe to rediscover their path in life, towards life, is not only
+a friend, but a friend who has opportunely brought back to France's
+mind and heart the deeds of her great ancestors at the time when fresh
+deeds of greatness and glory await accomplishment. The task which we
+must undertake with our inmost feeling, with all the ardour of our
+faith, is to find once more the road to peace, to utter the word of
+brotherly love toward oppressed peoples, and to reconstruct Europe,
+which is gradually sinking to the condition of Quattrocento Italy,
+without its effulgence of art and beauty: thirty States mutually
+diffident of each other, in a sea of programmes and Balkan ideas.
+
+Towards the achievement of this work of civilization the great
+democracies must march shoulder to shoulder. At the present moment I
+hear nothing but hostile voices; but the time is not far distant when
+my friends of France will be marching with us along the same road.
+They already admit in private many things which they will presently be
+obliged to recognize openly. Many truths are the fruit of persuasion;
+others, again, are the result of former delusions.
+
+I place my greatest trust in the action of American democracy.
+
+By refusing to sanction the Treaty of Versailles and all the other
+peace treaties, the American Senate has given proof of the soundest
+political wisdom: the United States of America has negotiated its own
+separate treaties, and resumes its pre-war relations with victors and
+vanquished alike.
+
+It follows that all that has been done hitherto in the way of
+treaties is rendered worthless, as the most important participant
+has withdrawn. This is a further motive for reflecting that it is
+impossible to continue living much longer in a Europe divided by two
+contending fields and by a medley of rancour and hatred which tends to
+widen the chasm.
+
+It is of the greatest interest to America that Europe should once more
+be the wealthy, prosperous, civilized Europe which, before 1914, ruled
+over the destinies of the world. Only by so great an effort can the
+finest conquests of civilization come back to their own.
+
+We should only remember our dead in so far as their memory may prevent
+future generations from being saddened by other war victims. The
+voices of those whom we have lost should reach us as voices praying
+for the return of that civilization which shall render massacres
+impossible, or shall at least diminish the violence and ferocity of
+war.
+
+Just as the growing dissolution of Europe is a common danger, so is
+the renewal of the bonds of solidarity a common need.
+
+Let us all work toward this end, even if at first we may be
+misunderstood and may find obstacles in our way. Truth is on the march
+and will assert herself: we shall strike the main road after much of
+dreary wandering in the dark lanes of prejudice and violence.
+
+Many of the leading men of Europe and America, who in the intoxication
+of victory proclaimed ideas of violence and revenge, would now be very
+glad to reverse their attitude, of which they see the unhappy results.
+The truth is that what they privately recognize they will not yet
+openly admit. But no matter.
+
+The confessions which many of them have made to me, both verbally and
+in writing, induce me to believe that my ideas are also their ideas,
+and that they only seek to express them in the form and on the
+occasions less antagonistic to the currents of opinion which they
+themselves set up in the days when the chief object to be achieved
+seemed to be the vivisection of the enemy.
+
+Recent events, however, have entirely changed the situation.
+
+As I said before, the American Senate has not sanctioned the Treaty
+of Versailles, nor is it likely to give it its approval. The United
+States of America concludes separate treaties on its own account.
+
+Agreements of a military character had been arrived at in Paris: the
+United States of America and Great Britain guaranteed France against
+any future unjust attack by Germany. The American Senate did not
+sanction the agreement; in fact, it did not even discuss it. The House
+of Commons had approved it subordinate to the consent of the United
+States. Italy has kept aloof from all alliances. As a result of this
+situation, the four Entente Powers, "allied and associated" (as
+formerly was the official term), have ceased to be either "allied" or
+"associated" after the end of the War.
+
+On the other hand, Europe, after emerging from the War, is darkened
+and overcast by intrigues, secret agreements and dissimulated plots:
+fresh menaces of war and fresh explosions of dissatisfaction.
+
+Nothing can help the cause of peace more than giving a full knowledge
+of the real situation to the various peoples. Errors thrive in
+darkness while truth walks abroad in the full light of day. It has
+been my intention to lay before the public those great controversies
+which cannot merely form the object of diplomatic notes or of
+posthumous books presented to Parliament in a more or less incomplete
+condition after events have become irreparable.
+
+The sense of a common danger, threatening all alike, will prove the
+most persuasive factor in swerving us from the perilous route which we
+are now following.
+
+As a result of the War the bonds of economic solidarity have been
+torn asunder: the losers in the War must not only make good their own
+losses, but, according to the treaties, are expected to pay for all
+the damage which the War has caused. Meanwhile all the countries of
+Europe have only one prevailing fear: German competition. In order
+to pay the indemnities imposed upon her (and she can only do it by
+exporting goods), Germany is obliged to produce at the lowest possible
+cost, which necessitates the maximum of technical progress. But
+exports at low cost must in the long run prove detrimental, if not
+destructive, to the commerce of neutral countries, and even to that of
+the victors. Thus in all tariffs which have already been published or
+which are in course of preparation there is one prevailing object in
+view: that of reducing German competition, which practically amounts
+to rendering it impossible for her to pay the War indemnity.
+
+If winners and losers were to abandon war-time ideas for a while,
+and, rather, were to persuade themselves that the oppression of the
+vanquished cannot be lasting, and that there is no other logical way
+out of the difficulty but that of small indemnities payable in a
+few years, debiting to the losers in tolerable proportion all debts
+contracted towards Great Britain and the United States, the European
+situation would immediately improve.
+
+Why is Europe still in such a state of economic disorder? Because the
+confusion of moral ideas persists. In many countries nerves are still
+as tense as a bowstring, and the language of hatred still prevails.
+For some countries, as for some social groups, war has not yet
+ceased to be. One hears now in the countries of the victors the same
+arguments used as were current coin in Germany before the War and
+during the first phases of the War; only now and then, more as a
+question of habit than because they are truly felt, we hear the words
+justice, peace, and democracy.
+
+Why is the present state of discomfort and dissatisfaction on the
+increase? Because almost everywhere in Continental Europe, in the
+countries which have emerged from the War, the rate of production is
+below the rate of consumption, and many social groups, instead of
+producing more, plan to possess themselves with violence of the wealth
+produced by others. At home, the social classes, unable to resist,
+are threatened; abroad, the vanquished, equally unable to resist, are
+menaced, but in the very menace it is easy to discern the anxiety
+of the winners. Confusion, discomfort and dissatisfaction thus grow
+apace.
+
+The problem of Europe is above all a moral problem. A great step
+toward its solution will have been accomplished when winners and
+losers persuade themselves that only by a common effort can they be
+saved, and that the best enemy indemnity consists in peace and joint
+labour. Now that the enemy has lost all he possessed and threatens
+to make us lose the fruits of victory, one thing is above all others
+necessary: the resumption, not only of the language, but of the ideas
+of peace;
+
+During one of the last international conferences at which I was
+present, and over which I presided, at San Remo, after a long exchange
+of views with the British and French Premiers, Lloyd George and
+Millerand, the American journalists asked me to give them my ideas
+on peace: "What is the most necessary thing for the maintenance of
+peace?" they inquired.
+
+"One thing only," I replied, "is necessary. Europe must smile once
+more." Smiles have vanished from every lip; nothing has remained but
+hatred, menaces and nervous excitement.
+
+When Europe shall smile again she will "rediscover" her political
+peace ideas and will drink once more at the spring of life. Class
+struggles at home, in their acutest form, are like the competition of
+nationalism abroad: explosions of cupidity, masked by the pretext of
+the country's greatness.
+
+The deeply rooted economic crisis, which threatens and prepares new
+wars, the deeply rooted social crisis, which threatens and prepares
+fresh conflicts abroad, are nothing but the expression of a _status
+animae_ or soul condition. Statesmen are the most directly responsible
+for the continuation of a language of violence; they should be the
+first to speak the language of peace.
+
+F.S. NITTI.
+
+ACQUAFREDDA IN BASILICATA.
+
+_September_ 30, 1921.
+
+
+P.S.--"Peaceless Europe" is an entirely new book, which I have written
+in my hermitage of Acquafredda, facing the blue Adriatic; it contains,
+however, some remarks and notices which have already appeared in
+articles written by me for the great American agency, the _United
+Press_, and which have been reproduced by the American papers.
+
+I have repeatedly stated that I have not published any document which
+was not meant for publication; I have availed myself of my knowledge
+of the most important international Acts and of all diplomatic
+documents merely as a guide, but it is on facts that I have solidly
+based my considerations.
+
+J. Keynes and Robert Lansing have already published some very
+important things, but no secret documents; recently, however, Tardieu
+and Poincaré, in the interest of the French nationalist thesis which
+they sustain, have published also documents of a very reserved nature.
+Tardieu's book is a documentary proof of the French Government's
+extremist attitude during the conference, amply showing that the
+present form of peace has been desired almost exclusively by France,
+and that the others have been unwilling parties to it. Besides his
+articles in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, Poincaré has recently
+published in the _Temps_ (September 12, 1921) a whole secret
+correspondence between Poincaré, President of the Republic,
+Clemenceau, President of the Council of Ministers, the American
+Delegation, and, above all, Lloyd George.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+1. EUROPE WITHOUT PEACE
+
+2. THE PEACE TREATIES AND THE CONTINUATION OF THE WAR
+
+3. THE PEACE TREATIES: THEIR ORIGIN AND AIMS
+
+4. THE CONQUERORS AND THE CONQUERED
+
+5. THE INDEMNITY FROM THE DEFEATED ENEMY AND THE ANXIETIES OF THE
+VICTORS
+
+6. EUROPE'S POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTION AND PEACE POLICY
+
+INDEX
+
+
+
+
+_The author includes in the book numerous secret official documents
+that emanated from the Peace Conference and which came into his hands
+in his position, at that time, as Italian Prime Minister. Among these
+is a long and hitherto unpublished secret letter sent by Lloyd George
+to Nitti, Wilson, Clemenceau, and the other members of the Peace
+Conference_.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+EUROPE WITHOUT PEACE
+
+
+Is there anyone who still remembers Europe in the first months of 1914
+or calls to mind the period which preceded the first year of the War?
+It all seems terribly remote, something like a prehistoric era, not
+only because the conditions of life have changed, but because our
+viewpoint on life has swerved to a different angle.
+
+Something like thirty million dead have dug a chasm between two ages.
+War killed many millions, disease accounted for many more, but the
+hardiest reaper has been famine. The dead have built up a great cold
+barrier between the Europe of yesterday and the Europe of to-day.
+
+We have lived through two historic epochs, not through two different
+periods. Europe was happy and prosperous, while now, after the
+terrible World War, she is threatened with a decline and a reversion
+to brutality which suggest the fall of the Roman Empire. We ourselves
+do not quite understand what is happening around us. More than
+two-thirds of Europe is in a state of ferment, and everywhere there
+prevails a vague sense of uneasiness, ill-calculated to encourage
+important collective works. We live, as the saying is, "from hand to
+mouth."
+
+Before 1914 Europe had enjoyed a prolonged period of peace, attaining
+a degree of wealth and civilization unrivalled in the past.
+
+In Central Europe Germany had sprung up. After the Napoleonic
+invasions, in the course of a century, Germany, which a hundred years
+ago seemed of all European countries the least disposed to militarism,
+had developed into a great military monarchy. From being the most
+particularist country Germany had in reality become the most unified
+state. But what constituted her strength was not so much her army and
+navy as the prestige of her intellectual development. She had achieved
+it laboriously, almost painfully, on a soil which was not fertile and
+within a limited territory, but, thanks to the tenacity of her effort,
+she succeeded in winning a prominent place in the world-race for
+supremacy. Her universities, her institutes for technical instruction,
+her schools, were a model to the whole world. In the course of a few
+years she had built up a merchant fleet which seriously threatened
+those of other countries. Having arrived too late to create a real
+colonial empire of her own, such as those of France and England, she
+nevertheless succeeded in exploiting her colonies most intelligently.
+
+In the field of industry she appeared to beat all competitors from a
+technical point of view; and even in those industries which were not
+hers by habit and tradition she developed so powerful an organization
+as to appear almost uncanny. Germany held first place not only in the
+production of iron, but in that of dyes and chemicals. Men went
+there from all parts of the world not only to trade but to acquire
+knowledge. An ominous threat weighed on the Empire, namely the
+constitution of the State itself, essentially militaristic and
+bureaucratic. Not even in Russia, perhaps, were the reins of power
+held in the hands of so few men as in Germany and Austria-Hungary.
+
+A few years before the World War started one of the leading European
+statesmen told me that there was everything to be feared for the
+future of Europe where some three hundred millions, the inhabitants
+of Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary, about two-thirds of the whole
+continent, were governed in an almost irresponsible manner by a man
+without will or intelligence, the Tsar of Russia; a madman without a
+spark of genius, the German Kaiser, and an obstinate old man hedged in
+by his ambition, the Emperor of Austria-Hungary. Not more than
+thirty persons, he added, act as a controlling force on these three
+irresponsible sovereigns, who might assume, on their own initiative,
+the most terrible responsibilities.
+
+The magnificent spiritual gifts of the Germans gave them an Emanuel
+Kant, the greatest thinker of modern times, Beethoven, their greatest
+exponent of music, and Goethe, their greatest poet. But the imperial
+Germany which came after the victory of 1870 had limited the spirit of
+independence even in the manifestations of literature and art. There
+still existed in Germany the most widely known men of science, the
+best universities, the most up-to-date schools; but the clumsy
+mechanism tended to crush rather than to encourage all personal
+initiative. Great manifestations of art or thought are not possible
+without the most ample spiritual liberty. Germany was the most highly
+organized country from a scientific point of view, but at the same
+time the country in which there was the least liberty for individual
+initiative. It went on like a huge machine: that explains why it
+almost stopped after being damaged by the war, and the whole life of
+the nation was paralysed while there were very few individual impulses
+of reaction. Imperial Germany has always been lacking in political
+ability, perhaps not only through a temperamental failing, but chiefly
+owing to her militaristic education.
+
+Before the War Germany beat her neighbours in all the branches of
+human labour: in science, industry, banking, commerce, etc. But in one
+thing she did not succeed, and succeeded still less after the War,
+namely, in politics. When the German people was blessed with a
+political genius, such as Frederick the Great or Bismarck, it achieved
+the height of greatness and glory. But when the same people, after
+obtaining the maximum of power, found on its path William II with his
+mediocre collaborators, it ruined, by war, a colossal work, not only
+to the great detriment of the country, but also to that of the victors
+themselves, of whom it cannot be said with any amount of certainty,
+so far as those of the Continent are concerned, whether they are the
+winners or the losers, so great is the ruin threatening them, and so
+vast the material and moral losses sustained.
+
+I have always felt the deepest aversion for William II. So few as ten
+years ago he was still treated with the greatest sympathy both in
+Europe and America. Even democracies regarded with ill-dissimulated
+admiration the work of the Kaiser, who brought everywhere his voice,
+his enthusiasm, his activity, to the service of Germany. As a matter
+of fact, his speeches were poor in phraseology, a mere conglomerate
+of violence, prejudice and ignorance. As no one believed in the
+possibility of a war, no one troubled about it. But after the War
+nothing has been more harmful to Germany than the memory of those ugly
+speeches, unrelieved by any noble idea, and full of a clumsy vulgarity
+draped in a would-be solemn and majestic garb. Some of his threatening
+utterances, such as the address to the troops sailing for China in
+order to quell the Boxer rebellion, the constant association in
+all his speeches of the great idea of God, with the ravings of a
+megalomaniac, the frenzied oratory in which he indulged at the
+beginning of the War, have harmed Germany more than anything else. It
+is possible to lose nobly; but to have lost a great war after having
+won so many battles would not have harmed the German people if it
+had not been represented abroad by the presumptuous vulgarity of the
+Kaiser and of all the members of his entourage, who were more or less
+guilty of the same attitude.
+
+Before the War Germany had everywhere attained first place in all
+forms of activity, excepting, perhaps, in certain spiritual and
+artistic manifestations. She admired herself too much and too openly,
+but succeeded in affirming her magnificent expansion in a greatness
+and prosperity without rival.
+
+By common accord Germany held first place. Probably this consciousness
+of power, together with the somewhat brutal forms of the struggle for
+industrial supremacy, as in the case of the iron industry, threw a
+mysterious and threatening shadow over the granitic edifice of the
+Empire.
+
+When I was Minister of Commerce in 1913 I received a deputation of
+German business men who wished to confer with me on the Italian
+customs regime. They spoke openly of the necessity of possessing
+themselves of the iron mines of French Lorraine; they looked upon war
+as an industrial fact. Germany had enough coal but not enough iron,
+and the Press of the iron industry trumpeted forth loud notes of war.
+After the conclusion of peace, when France, through a series of wholly
+unexpected events, saw Germany prostrate at her feet and without an
+army, the same phenomenon took place. The iron industry tends to
+affirm itself in France; she has the iron and now she wants coal.
+Should she succeed in getting it, German production would be doomed.
+To deprive Germany of Upper Silesia would mean killing production
+after having disorganized it at the very roots of its development.
+
+Seven years ago, or thereabouts, Germany was flourishing in an
+unprecedented manner and presented the most favourable conditions for
+developing. Her powerful demographic structure was almost unique.
+Placed in the centre of Europe after having withstood the push of so
+many peoples, she had attained an unrivalled economic position.
+
+Close to Germany the Austro-Hungarian Empire united together eleven
+different peoples, not without difficulty, and this union tended to
+the common elevation of all. The vast monarchy, the result of a slow
+aggregation of violence and of administrative wisdom, represented,
+perhaps, the most interesting historic attempt on the part of
+different peoples to achieve a common rule and discipline on the same
+territory. Having successfully weathered the most terrible financial
+crises, and having healed in half a century the wounds of two great
+wars which she had lost, Austria-Hungary lived in the effort of
+holding together Germans, Magyars, Slavs and Italians without their
+flying at each others' throats. Time will show how the effort of
+Austria-Hungary has not been lost for civilization.
+
+Russia represented the largest empire which has ever been in
+existence, and in spite of its defective political regime was daily
+progressing. Perhaps for the first time in history an immense empire
+of twenty-one millions and a half of square kilometres, eighty-four
+times the size of Italy, almost three times as large as the United
+States of America, was ruled by a single man. From the Baltic to
+the Yellow Sea, from Finland to the Caucasus, one law and one rule
+governed the most different peoples scattered over an immense
+territory. The methods by which, after Peter the Great, the old Duchy
+of Muscovy had been transformed into an empire, still lived in the
+administration; they survive to-day in the Bolshevist organization,
+which represents less a revolution than a hieratic and brutal form of
+violence placed at the service of a political organization.
+
+The war between Russia and Japan had revealed all the perils of
+a political organization exclusively based on central authority
+represented by a few irresponsible men under the apparent rule of a
+sovereign not gifted with the slightest trace of will power.
+
+Those who exalt nationalist sentiments and pin their faith on
+imperialistic systems fail to realize that while the greatest push
+towards the War came from countries living under a less liberal
+regime, those very countries gave proof of the least power of
+resistance. Modern war means the full exploitation of all the human
+and economic resources of each belligerent country. The greater a
+nation's wealth the greater is the possibility to hold out, and the
+perfection of arms and weapons is in direct ratio with the degree
+of technical progress attained. Moreover, the combatants and the
+possibility of using them are in relation with the number of persons
+who possess sufficient skill and instruction to direct the war.
+Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy, the United States of America,
+were able without any appreciable effort to improvise an enormous
+number of officers for the War, transforming professional men,
+engineers and technicians into officers. Russia, who did not have a
+real industrial bourgeoisie nor a sufficient development of the middle
+classes, was only able to furnish an enormous number of combatants,
+but an insufficient organization from a technical and military point
+of view, and a very limited number of officers. While on a peace
+footing her army was the most numerous in the world, over one million
+three hundred thousand men; when her officers began to fail Russia was
+unable to replace them so rapidly as the proportion of nine or ten
+times more than normal required by the War.
+
+Russia has always had a latent force of development; there is within
+her a _vis inertiae_ equivalent to a mysterious energy of expansion.
+Her birth-rate is higher than that of any other European country;
+she does not progress, she increases. Her weight acts as a menace
+to neighbouring countries, and as, by a mysterious historic law the
+primitive migrations of peoples and the ancient invasions mostly
+originated from the territories now occupied by Russia, the latter has
+succeeded in amalgamating widely different peoples and in creating
+unity where no affinity appeared possible.
+
+At any rate, although suffering from an excessively centralized
+government and a form of constitution which did not allow the
+development of popular energies nor a sufficient education of the
+people, Russia was perhaps, half a century before the War, the
+European country which, considering the difficulties in her path, had
+accomplished most progress.
+
+European Russia, with her yearly excess of from one million and a
+half to two million births over deaths, with the development of
+her industries and the formation of important commercial centres,
+progressed very rapidly and was about to become the pivot of European
+politics.
+
+When it will be possible to examine carefully the diplomatic documents
+of the War, and time will allow us to judge them calmly, it will be
+seen that Russia's attitude was the real and underlying cause of the
+world-conflict. She alone promoted and kept alive the agitations
+in Serbia and of the Slavs in Austria; she alone in Germany's eyes
+represented the peril of the future. Germany has never believed in a
+French danger. She knew very well that France, single handed, could
+never have withstood Germany, numerically so much her superior. Russia
+was the only danger that Germany saw, and the continual increase of
+the Russian army was her gravest preoccupation. Before the War, when
+Italy was Germany's ally, the leading German statesmen with whom I
+had occasion to discuss the situation did nothing but allude to the
+Russian peril. It was known (and subsequent facts have amply proved
+it) that the Tsar was absolutely devoid of will power, that he was led
+and carried away by conflicting currents, and that his advisers were
+for the most part favourable to the War. After the Japanese defeat the
+militarist party felt keenly the need for just such a great military
+revival and a brilliant _revanche_ in Europe.
+
+Possessing an enormous wealth of raw materials and an immense
+territory, Russia represented Europe's great resource, her support for
+the future.
+
+If the three great empires had attained enviable prosperity and
+development in 1914, when the War burst, the three great western
+democracies, Great Britain, France and Italy, had likewise progressed
+immensely.
+
+Great Britain, proud of her "splendid isolation," and ruler of the
+seas, traded in every country of the world. Having the vastest empire,
+she was also financially the greatest creditor country: creditor of
+America and Asia, of the new African states and of Australia. Perhaps
+all this wealth had somewhat diminished the spirit of enterprise
+before the War, and popular culture also suffered from this
+unprecedented prosperity. There was not the spasmodic effort
+noticeable in Germany, but a continuous and secure expansion, an
+undisputed supremacy. Although somewhat preoccupied at Germany's
+progress and regarding it as a peril for the future, Great Britain
+attached more importance to the problems of her Empire, namely to her
+internal constitution: like ancient Rome, she was a truly imperial
+country in the security of her supremacy, in her calm, in her
+forbearance.
+
+France continued patiently to accumulate wealth. She did not increase
+her population, but ably added to her territory and her savings.
+Threatened with the phenomenon known to political economists under the
+name of "oliganthropy," or lack of men, she had founded a colonial
+empire which may be regarded as the largest on earth. It is true that
+the British colonies, even before the War, covered an area of thirty
+million square kilometres, while France's colonial empire was slightly
+over twelve millions. But it must be remembered that the British
+colonies are not colonies in the real sense of the word, but consist
+chiefly in Dominions which enjoy an almost complete autonomy. Canada
+alone represents about one-third of the territories of the British
+Dominions; Australia and New Zealand more than one-fourth, and
+Australasia, the South African Union and Canada put together represent
+more than two-thirds of the Empire, while India accounts for about
+fifty per cent. of the missing third. After England, France was the
+most important creditor country. Her astonishing capacity for saving
+increased in proportion with her wealth. Without having Germany's
+force of development and Great Britain's power of expansion, France
+enjoyed a wonderful prosperity and her wealth was scattered all over
+the world.
+
+Italy had arisen under the greatest difficulties, but in less than
+fifty years of unity she progressed steadily. Having a territory
+too small and mountainous for a population already overflowing and
+constantly on the increase, Italy had been unable to exploit the
+limited resources of her subsoil and had been forced to build up her
+industries in conditions far less favourable than those of other
+countries. Italy is perhaps the only nation which has succeeded in
+forming her industries without having any coal of her own and very
+little iron. But the acquisition of wealth, extremely difficult at
+first, had gradually been rendered more easy by the improvement in
+technical instruction and methods, for the most part borrowed from
+Germany. On the eve of the War, after a period of thirty-three years,
+the Triple Alliance had rendered the greatest services to Italy, fully
+confirming Crispi's political intuition. France, with whom we had had
+serious differences of opinion, especially after the Tunis affair, did
+not dare to threaten Italy because the latter belonged to the Triple
+Alliance, and for the same reason all ideas of a conflict with
+Austria-Hungary had been set aside because of her forming part of the
+"Triplice."
+
+During the Triple Alliance Italy built up all her industries,
+she consolidated her national unity and prepared her economic
+transformation, which was fraught with considerable difficulties.
+Suddenly her sons spread all over the world, stimulated by the
+fecundity of their race and by the narrowness of their fields.
+
+The greater States were surrounded by minor nations which had achieved
+considerable wealth and great prosperity.
+
+Europe throughout her history had never been so rich, so far advanced
+on the road to progress, above all so united and living in her unity;
+as regards production and exchanges she was really a living unity. The
+vital lymph was not limited to this or that country, but flowed with
+an even current through the veins and arteries of the various nations
+through the great organizations of capital and labour, promoting a
+continuous and increasing solidarity among all the parties concerned.
+
+In fact, the idea of solidarity had greatly progressed: economic,
+moral and spiritual solidarity.
+
+Moreover, the idea of peace, although threatened by military
+oligarchies and by industrial corners, was firmly based on the
+sentiments of the great majority. The strain of barbaric blood which
+still ferments in many populations of Central Europe constituted--it
+is true--a standing menace; but no one dreamt that the threat was
+about to be followed, lightning like, by facts, and that we were on
+the eve of a catastrophe.
+
+Europe had forgotten what hunger meant. Never had Europe had at her
+disposal such abundant economic resources or a greater increase in
+wealth.
+
+Wealth is not our final object in life. But a minimum of means is an
+indispensable condition of life and happiness. Excessive wealth may
+lead both to moral elevation and to depression and ruin.
+
+Europe had not only increased her wealth but developed the solidarity
+of her interests. Europe is a small continent, about as large as
+Canada or the United States of America. But her economic ties and
+interests had been steadily on the increase.
+
+Now the development of her wealth meant for Europe the development of
+her moral ideas and of her social life and aspirations. We admire a
+country not so much for its wealth as for the works of civilization
+which that wealth enables it to accomplish.
+
+Although peace be the aspiration of all peoples, even as physical
+health is the aspiration of all living beings, there are wars which
+cannot be avoided, as there are diseases which help us to overcome
+an organic crisis to which we might otherwise succumb. War and peace
+cannot be regarded as absolutely bad or absolutely good and desirable;
+war is often waged in order to secure peace. In certain cases war is
+not only a necessary condition of life but may be an indispensable
+condition towards progress.
+
+We must consider and analyse the sentiments and psychological causes
+which bring about a war. A war waged to redeem its independence by a
+nation downtrodden by another nation is perfectly legitimate, even
+from the point of view of abstract morality. A war which has for
+its object the conquest of political or religious liberty cannot be
+condemned even by the most confirmed pacificist.
+
+Taken as a whole, the wars fought in the nineteenth century, wars of
+nationality, of independence, of unity, even colonial wars, were of a
+character far less odious than that of the great conflict which has
+devastated Europe and upset the economic conditions of the world. It
+has not only been the greatest war in history, but in its consequences
+it threatens to prove the worst war which has ravaged Europe in modern
+times.
+
+After nearly every nineteenth-century war there has been a marked
+revival of human activity. But this unprecedented clash of peoples
+has reduced the energy of all; it has darkened the minds of men, and
+spread the spirit of violence.
+
+Europe will be able to make up for her losses in lives and wealth.
+Time heals even the most painful wounds. But one thing she has lost
+which, if she does not succeed in recovering it, must necessarily lead
+to her decline and fall: the spirit of solidarity.
+
+After the victory of the Entente the microbes of hate have developed
+and flourished in special cultures, consisting of national egotism,
+imperialism, and a mania for conquest and expansion.
+
+The peace treaties imposed on the vanquished are nothing but arms of
+oppression. What more could Germany herself have done had she won the
+War? Perhaps her terms would have been more lenient, certainly not
+harder, as she would have understood that conditions such as we have
+imposed on the losers are simply inapplicable.
+
+Three years have elapsed since the end of the War, two since the
+conclusion of peace, nevertheless Europe has still more men under
+arms than in pre-war times. The sentiment of nationality, twisted and
+transformed into nationalism, aims at the subjugation and depression
+of other peoples. No civilized co-existence is possible where each
+nation proposes to harm instead of helping its neighbour.
+
+The spread of hatred among peoples has everywhere rendered more
+difficult the internal relations between social classes and the
+economic life of each country. Fearing a repetition of armed
+conflicts, and owing to that spirit of unrest and intolerance
+engendered everywhere by the War, workers are becoming every day more
+exacting. They, too, claim their share of the spoils; they, too,
+clamour for enemy indemnities. The same manifestations of hate, the
+same violence of language, spread from people to people and from class
+to class.
+
+This tremendous War, which the peoples of Europe have fought and
+suffered, has not only bled the losers almost to death, but it has
+deeply perturbed the very life and existence of the victors. It
+has not produced a single manifestation of art or a single moral
+affirmation. For the last seven years the universities of Europe
+appear to be stricken with paralysis: not one outstanding personality
+has been revealed.
+
+In almost every country the War has brought a sense of internal
+dissolution: everywhere this disquieting phenomenon is more or less
+noticeable. With the exception, perhaps, of Great Britain, whose
+privileged insular situation, enormous mercantile navy and flourishing
+trade in coal have enabled her to resume her pre-war economic
+existence almost entirely, no country has emerged scatheless from
+the War. The rates of exchange soar daily to fantastic heights, and
+insuperable barriers to the commerce of European nations are being
+created. People work less than they did in pre-war times, but
+everywhere a tendency is noticeable to consume more. Austria,
+Germany, Italy, France are not different phenomena, but different
+manifestations and phases of the same phenomenon.
+
+Before the War Europe, in spite of her great sub-divisions,
+represented a living economic whole. To-day there are not only
+victors and vanquished, but currents of hate, ferments of violence, a
+hungering after conquests, an unscrupulous cornering of raw materials
+carried out brutally and almost ostentatiously in the name of the
+rights of victory: a situation which renders production, let alone its
+development and increase, utterly impossible.
+
+The treaty system as applied after the War has divided Europe into
+two distinct parts: the losers, held under the military and economic
+control of the victors, are expected to produce not only enough
+for their own needs, but to provide a super-production in order to
+indemnify the winners for all the losses and damages sustained on
+account of the War. The victors, bound together in what is supposed to
+be a permanent alliance for the protection of their common interests,
+are supposed to exercise a military action of oppression and control
+over the losers until the full payment of the indemnity. Another part
+of Europe is in a state of revolutionary ferment, and the Entente
+Powers have, by their attitude, rather tended to aggravate than to
+improve the situation.
+
+Europe can only recover her peace of mind by remembering that the
+War is over and done with. Unfortunately, the treaty system not only
+prevents us from remembering that the War is finished, but determines
+a state of permanent war.
+
+Clemenceau bluntly declared to the French Chamber that treaties were a
+means of continuing the War. He was perfectly right, for war is being
+waged more bitterly than ever and peace is as remote as it ever was.
+
+The problem with which modern statesmen are confronted is very simple:
+can Europe continue in her decline without involving the ruin of
+civilization? And is it possible to stop this process of decay without
+finding some form of civil symbiosis which will ensure for all men a
+more human mode of living? In the affirmative case what course should
+we take, and is it presumable that there should be an immediate change
+for the better in the situation, given the national and economic
+interests now openly and bitterly in conflict?
+
+We have before us a problem, or rather a series of problems, which
+call for impartiality and calm if a satisfactory solution is to be
+arrived at. Perhaps if some fundamental truths were brought home to
+the people, or, to be more exact, to the peoples now at loggerheads
+with each other, a notion of the peril equally impending upon all
+concerned and the conviction that an indefinite prolongation of the
+present state of things is impossible, would prove decisive factors in
+restoring a spirit of peace and in reviving that spirit of solidarity
+which now appears spent or slumbering.
+
+But in the first place it is necessary to review the situation, such
+as it is at the present moment:
+
+Firstly, Europe, which was the creditor of all other continents, has
+now become their debtor.
+
+Secondly, her working capacity has greatly decreased, chiefly owing to
+the negative change in her demographic structure. In pre-war times the
+ancient continent supplied new continents and new territories with a
+hardy race of pioneers, and held the record as regards population,
+both adult and infantile, the prevalence of women over men being
+especially noted by statisticians. All this has changed considerably
+for the worse!
+
+Thirdly, on the losing nations, including Germany, which is generally
+understood to be the most cultured nation in the world, the victors
+have forced a peace which practically amounts to a continuation of
+the War. The vanquished have had to give up their colonies, their
+shipping, their credits abroad, and their transferable resources,
+besides agreeing to the military and economic control of the Allies;
+moreover, despite their desperate conditions, they are expected to
+pay an indemnity, the amount of which, although hitherto only vaguely
+mentioned, surpasses by its very absurdity all possibility of an even
+remote settlement.
+
+Fourthly, considerable groups of ex-enemy peoples, chiefly Germans
+and Magyars, have been assigned to populations of an inferior
+civilization.
+
+Fifthly, as a result of this state of things, while Germany, Austria
+and Bulgaria have practically no army at all and have submitted
+without the slightest resistance to the most stringent forms of
+military control, the victorious States have increased their armies
+and fleets to proportions, which they did not possess before the War.
+
+Sixthly, Europe, cut up into thirty States, daily sees her buying
+capacity decreasing and the rate of exchange rising menacingly against
+her.
+
+Seventhly, the peace treaties are the most barefaced denial of all the
+principles which the Entente Powers declared and proclaimed during the
+War; not only so, but they are a fundamental negation of President
+Wilson's famous fourteen points which were supposed to constitute a
+solemn pledge and covenant, not only with the enemy, but with the
+democracies of the whole world.
+
+Eighthly, the moral unrest deriving from these conditions has divided
+among themselves the various Entente Powers: United States of America,
+Great Britain, Italy and France, not only in their aims and policy,
+but in their sentiments. The United States is anxious to get rid,
+as far as possible, of European complications and responsibilities;
+France follows methods with which Great Britain and Italy are not
+wholly in sympathy, and it cannot be said that the three Great Powers
+of Western Europe are in perfect harmony. There is still a great deal
+of talk about common ends and ideals, and the necessity of applying
+the treaties in perfect accord and harmony, but everybody is convinced
+that to enforce the treaties, without attenuating or modifying their
+terms, would mean the ruin of Europe and the collapse of the victors
+after that of the vanquished.
+
+Ninthly, a keen contest of nationalisms, land-grabbing and cornering
+of raw materials renders friendly relations between the thirty States
+of Europe extremely difficult. The most characteristic examples of
+nationalist violence have arisen out of the War, as in the case of
+Poland and other newborn States, which pursue vain dreams of empire
+while on the verge of dissolution through sheer lack of vital strength
+and energy, and becoming every day more deeply engulfed in misery and
+ruin.
+
+Finally, Continental Europe is on the eve of a series of fresh and
+more violent wars among peoples, threatening to submerge civilization
+unless some means be found to replace the present treaties, which are
+based on the principle that it is necessary to continue the War, by a
+system of friendly agreements whereby winners and losers are placed
+on a footing of liberty and equality, and which, while laying on the
+vanquished a weight they are able to bear, will liberate Europe from
+the present spectacle of a continent divided into two camps, where one
+is armed to the teeth and threatening, while the other, unarmed and
+inoffensive, is forced to labour in slavish conditions under the
+menace of a servitude even more severe.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE PEACE TREATIES AND THE CONTINUATION OF THE WAR
+
+
+The various peace treaties regulating the present territorial
+situation bear the names of the localities near Paris in which they
+were signed: Versailles, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Trianon and Sèvres.
+The first deals with Germany, the second with Austria, the third
+with Hungary, and the fourth with Turkey. The Treaty of Neuilly,
+comparatively far less important, concerns Bulgaria alone. But the one
+fundamental and decisive treaty is the Treaty of Versailles, inasmuch
+as it not only establishes as a recognized fact the partition of
+Europe, but lays down the rules according to which all future treaties
+are to be concluded.
+
+History has not on record a more colossal diplomatic feat than this
+treaty, by which Europe has been neatly divided into two sections:
+victors and vanquished; the former being authorized to exercise on the
+latter complete control until the fulfilment of terms which, even at
+an optimistic point valuation, would require at least thirty years to
+materialize.
+
+Although it is a matter of recent history, we may as well call to mind
+that the Entente Powers have always maintained that the War was
+wanted and was imposed by Germany; that she alone, with her Allies,
+repeatedly violated the rights of peoples; that the World War could
+well be regarded as the last war, inasmuch as the triumph of the
+Entente meant the triumph of democracy and a more human regime of
+life, a society of nations rich in effects conducive to a lasting
+peace. It was imperative to restore the principles of international
+justice. In France, in England, in Italy, and later, even more
+solemnly, in the United States, the same principles have been
+proclaimed by Heads of States, by Parliaments and Governments.
+
+There are two documents laying down and fixing the principles which
+the Entente Powers, on the eve of that event of decisive importance,
+the entry of the United States into the War, bound themselves to
+sustain and to carry on to triumph. The first is a statement by Briand
+to the United States Ambassador, in the name of all the other Allies,
+dated December 30, 1916. Briand speaks in the name of all "_les
+gouvernements alliés unis pour la défense et la liberté des peuples_."
+
+Briand's second declaration, dated January 10, 1917, is even more
+fundamentally important. It is a collective note of reply to President
+Wilson, delivered in the name of all the Allies to the United States
+Ambassador. The principles therein established are very clearly
+enunciated. According to that document the Entente has no idea of
+conquest and proposes mainly to achieve the following objects:
+
+1st. Restoration of Belgium, Serbia and Montenegro, with the
+indemnities due to them.
+
+2nd. Evacuation of invaded territories in France, Russia and Rumania
+and payment of just reparations.
+
+3rd. Reorganization of Europe with a permanent regime based on the
+respect of nationalities and on the right of all countries, both great
+and small, to complete security and freedom of economic development,
+besides territorial conventions and international regulations capable
+of guaranteeing land and sea frontiers from unjustified attacks.
+
+4th. Restitution of the provinces and territories taken in the past
+from the Allies by force and against the wish of the inhabitants.
+
+5th. Liberation of Italians, Slavs, Rumanians and Czeko-Slovaks from
+foreign rule.
+
+6th. Liberation of the peoples subjected to the tyranny of the Turks
+and expulsion from Europe of the Ottoman Empire, as being decidedly
+extraneous to western civilization.
+
+7th. The intentions of his Majesty the Emperor of Russia in regard
+to Poland are clearly indicated in the proclamation addressed to his
+armies.
+
+8th. The Allies have never harboured the design of exterminating
+German peoples nor of bringing about their political disappearance.
+
+At that time the autocratic form of government still prevailed in
+Russia, and the Allies still considered themselves bound to Russia's
+aspirations; moreover there existed, in regard to Italy, the
+obligations established by the Pact of London. That is why in the
+statements of the Entente Powers of Europe the restoration of
+Montenegro is regarded as an obligation; mention is made of the
+necessity of driving the Turks out of Europe in order to enable Russia
+to seize Constantinople; and as to Poland, there are only vague
+allusions, namely, the reference made to the Tsar's intentions as
+outlined in his proclamation.
+
+The Entente has won the War, but Russia has collapsed under the
+strain. Had victory been achieved without the fall of Russia, the
+latter would have installed herself as the predominating Power in the
+Mediterranean. On the other hand, to unite Dalmatia to Italy, while
+separating her from Italy, according to the pact of London, by
+assigning the territory of Fiume to Croatia, would have meant setting
+all the forces of Slav irredentism against Italy.
+
+These considerations are of no practical value inasmuch as events have
+taken another course. Nobody can say what would have happened if the
+Carthagenians had conquered the Romans or if victory had remained with
+Mithridates. Hypotheses are of but slight interest when truth follows
+another direction. Nevertheless we cannot but repeat that it was a
+great fortune for Europe that victory was not decided by Russia, and
+that the decisive factor proved the United States.
+
+It is beyond all possible doubt that without the intervention of
+the United States of America the War could not have been won by the
+Entente. Although the admission may prove humiliating to the European
+point of view, it is a fact which cannot be attenuated or disguised.
+The United States threw into the balance the weight of its enormous
+economic and technical resources, besides its enormous resources in
+men. Although its dead only amount to fifty thousand, the United
+States built up such a formidable human reserve as to deprive Germany
+of all hopes of victory. The announcement of America's entry in the
+War immediately crushed all Germany's power of resistance. Germany
+felt that the struggle was no longer limited to Europe, and that every
+effort was vain.
+
+The United States, besides giving to the War enormous quantities of
+arms and money, had practically inexhaustible reserves of men to place
+in the field against an enemy already exhausted and famine-stricken.
+
+War and battles are two very different things. Battles constitute an
+essentially military fact, while war is an essentially political fact.
+That explains why great leaders in war have always been first and
+foremost great political leaders, namely, men accustomed to manage
+other men and able to utilize them for their purposes. Alexander,
+Julius Caesar, Napoleon, the three greatest military leaders produced
+by Aryan civilization, were essentially political men. War is not only
+a clash of arms, it is above all the most convenient exploitation of
+men, of economic resources and of political situations. A battle is a
+fact of a purely military nature. The Romans almost constantly placed
+at the head of their armies personages of consular rank, who regarded
+and conducted the war as a political enterprise. The rules of tactics
+and strategy are perfectly useless if those who conduct the war fail
+to utilize to the utmost all the means at their disposal.
+
+It cannot be denied that in the War Germany and Austria-Hungary scored
+the greatest number of victories. For a long period they succeeded in
+invading large tracts of enemy territory and in recovering those
+parts of their own territory which had been invaded, besides always
+maintaining the offensive. They won great battles at the cost of
+enormous sacrifices in men and lives, and for a long time victory
+appeared to shine on their arms. But they failed to understand that
+from the day in which the violation of Belgium's neutrality determined
+Great Britain's entry in the field the War, from a general point of
+view, could be regarded as lost. As I have said, Germany is especially
+lacking in political sense: after Bismarck, her statesmen have never
+risen to the height of the situation. Even von Bülow, who appeared
+to be one of the cleverest, never had a single manifestation of real
+intelligence.
+
+The "banal" statements made about Belgium and the United States of
+America by the men who directed Germany's war policy were precisely
+the sort of thing most calculated to harm the people from whom they
+came. What is decidedly lacking in Germany, while it abounds in
+France, is a political class. Now a political class, consisting of
+men of ability and culture, cannot but be the result of a democratic
+education in all modern States, especially in those which have
+achieved a high standard of civilization and development. It seems
+almost incredible that Germany, despite all her culture, should
+have tolerated the political dictatorship of the Kaiser and of his
+accomplices.
+
+At the Conferences of Paris and London, in 1919 and 1920, I did all
+that was in my power to prevent the trial of the Kaiser, and I am
+convinced that my firm attitude in the matter succeeded in avoiding
+it. Sound common sense saved us from floundering in one of the most
+formidable blunders of the Treaty of Versailles. To hold one man
+responsible for the whole War and to bring him to trial, his enemies
+acting as judge and jury, would have been such a monstrous travesty
+of justice as to provoke a moral revolt throughout the world. On the
+other hand it was also a moral monstrosity, which would have deprived
+the Treaty of Versailles of every shred of dignity. If the one
+responsible for the War is the Kaiser, why does the Entente demand of
+the German people such enormous indemnities, unprecedented in history?
+
+One of the men who has exercised the greatest influence on European
+events during the last ten years, one of the most intelligent of
+living statesmen, once told me that it was his opinion that the Kaiser
+did not want the War, but neither did he wish to prevent it.
+
+Germany, although under protest, has been forced to accept the
+statement of the Versailles Treaty to the effect that she is
+responsible for the War and that she provoked it. The same charge has
+been levelled at her in all the Entente States throughout the War.
+
+When our countries were engaged in the struggle, and we were at grips
+with a dangerous enemy, it was our duty to keep up the _morale_ of our
+people and to paint our adversaries in the darkest colours, laying on
+their shoulders all the blame and responsibility of the War. But after
+the great world conflict, now that Imperial Germany has fallen, it
+would be absurd to maintain that the responsibility of the War is
+solely and wholly attributable to Germany and that earlier than 1914
+in Europe there had not developed a state of things fatally destined
+to culminate in a war. If Germany has the greatest responsibility,
+that responsibility is shared more or less by all the countries of the
+Entente. But while the Entente countries, in spite of their mistakes,
+had the political sense always to invoke principles of right and
+justice, the statesmen of Germany gave utterance to nothing but brutal
+and vulgar statements, culminating in the deplorable mental and moral
+expressions contained in the speeches, messages and telegrams of
+William II. He was a perfect type of the _miles gloriosus_, not a
+harmless but an irritating and dangerous boaster, who succeeded in
+piling up more loathing and hatred against his country than the most
+active and intelligently managed enemy propaganda could possibly have
+done.
+
+If the issue of the War could be regarded as seriously jeopardized
+by England's intervention, it was practically lost for the Central
+Empires when the United States stepped in.
+
+America's decision definitely crippled Germany's resistance--and
+not only for military, but for moral reasons. In all his messages
+President Wilson had repeatedly declared that he wanted a peace
+based on justice and equity, of which he outlined the fundamental
+conditions; moreover, he stated that he had no quarrel with the
+Germans themselves, but with the men who were at their head, and that
+he did not wish to impose on the vanquished peace terms such as might
+savour of oppression.
+
+President Wilson's ideas on the subject have been embodied in a
+bulky volume.[1] Turning over the pages of this book now we have the
+impression that it is a collection of literary essays by a man who had
+his eye on posterity and assumed a pose most likely to attract the
+admiration of generations as yet unborn. But when these same words
+were uttered in the intervals of mighty battles, they fell on
+expectant and anxious ears: they were regarded as a ray of light in
+the fearsome darkness of uncertainty, and everybody listened to them,
+not only because the President was the authorized exponent of a
+great nation, of a powerful people, but because he represented an
+inexhaustible source of vitality in the midst of the ravages of
+violence and death. President Wilson's messages have done as much as
+famine and cruel losses in the field to break the stubborn resistance
+of the German people. If it was possible to obtain a just peace, why
+go to the bitter end when defeat was manifestly inevitable? Obstinacy
+is the backbone of war, and nothing undermines a nation's power of
+resistance so much as doubt and faint-heartedness on the part of the
+governing classes.
+
+[Footnote 1: "President Wilson's State Speeches and Addresses," New
+York, 1918.]
+
+President Wilson, who said on January 2, 1917, that a peace without
+victory was to be preferred ("It must be a peace without victory"),
+and that "Right is more precious than peace," had also repeatedly
+affirmed that "We have no quarrel with the German people."
+
+He only desired, as the exponent of a great democracy, a peace which
+should be the expression of right and justice, evolving from the War a
+League of Nations, the first milestone in a new era of civilization, a
+league destined to bind together ex-belligerents and neutrals in one.
+
+In Germany, where the inhabitants had to bear the most cruel
+privations, President Wilson's words, pronounced as a solemn pledge
+before the whole world, had a most powerful effect on all classes
+and greatly contributed towards the final breakdown of collective
+resistance. Democratic minds saw a promise for the future, while
+reactionaries welcomed any way out of their disastrous adventure.
+
+After America's entry in the War, President Wilson, on January 8,
+1918, formulated the fourteen points of his programme regarding the
+finalities of the War and the peace to be realized.
+
+It is here necessary to reproduce the original text of President
+Wilson's message containing the fourteen points which constitute a
+formal pledge undertaken by the democracy of America, not only towards
+enemy peoples but towards all peoples of the world.
+
+These important statements from President Wilson's message have,
+strangely enough, been reproduced either incompletely or in an utterly
+mistaken form even in official documents and in books published by
+statesmen who took a leading part in the Paris Conference.
+
+It is therefore advisable to reproduce the original text in full:
+
+    1st. Honest peace treaties, following loyal and honest
+    negotiations, after which secret international agreements will be
+    abolished and diplomacy will always proceed frankly and openly.
+
+    2nd. Full liberty of navigation on the high seas outside
+    territorial waters, both in peace and war, except when the seas be
+    closed wholly or in part by an international decision sanctioned
+    by international treaties.
+
+    3rd. Removal, as far as possible, of all economic barriers and
+    establishment of terms of equality in commerce among all nations
+    adhering to peace and associated to maintain it.
+
+    4th. Appropriate guarantees to be given and received for the
+    reduction of national armaments to a minimum compatible with
+    internal safety.
+
+    5th. A clear, open and absolutely impartial settlement of all
+    colonial rights, based on a rigorous observance of the principle
+    that, in the determination of all questions of sovereignty, the
+    interests of the populations shall bear equal weight with those of
+    the Government whose claims are to be determined.
+
+    6th. The evacuation of all Russian territories and a settlement
+    of all Russian questions such as to ensure the best and most
+    untrammelled co-operation of other nations of the world in
+    order to afford Russia a clear and precise opportunity for the
+    independent settlement of her autonomous political development and
+    of her national policy, promising her a cordial welcome in the
+    League of Nations under institutions of her own choice, and
+    besides a cordial welcome, help and assistance in all that she may
+    need and require. The treatment meted out to Russia by the sister
+    nations in the months to come must be a decisive proof of their
+    goodwill, of their understanding of her needs as apart from
+    their own interests, and of their intelligent and disinterested
+    sympathy.
+
+    7th. Belgium, as the whole world will agree, must be evacuated
+    and reconstructed without the slightest attempt at curtailing the
+    sovereign rights which she enjoys in common with other free
+    nations. Nothing will be more conducive to the re-establishment
+    of confidence and respect among nations for those laws which they
+    themselves have made for the regulation and observance of their
+    reciprocal relations. Without this salutary measure the whole
+    structure and validity of international law would be permanently
+    undermined.
+
+    8th. All French territories will be liberated, the invaded regions
+    reconstructed, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871,
+    in the question of Alsace-Lorraine, and which has jeopardized the
+    peace of the world for nearly half a century, must be made good,
+    so as to ensure a lasting peace in the general interest.
+
+    9th. The Italian frontier must be rectified on the basis of the
+    clearly recognized lines of nationality.
+
+    10th. The people of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations
+    we wish to see safeguarded and maintained, should come to an
+    agreement as to the best way of attaining their autonomous
+    development.
+
+    11th. Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro are to be evacuated and
+    occupied territories restored: a free and secure access to the
+    sea for Serbia; mutual relations between the Balkan States to be
+    determined on a friendly basis by a Council, following the lines
+    of friendship and nationality traced by tradition and history; the
+    political and economic integrity of the various Balkan States to
+    be guaranteed.
+
+    12th. A certain degree of sovereignty must be assigned to that
+    part of the Ottoman Empire which is Turkish; but the other
+    nationalities now under the Turkish regime should have the
+    assurance of an independent existence and of an absolute and
+    undisturbed opportunity to develop their autonomy; moreover
+    the Dardanelles should be permanently open to the shipping and
+    commerce of all nations under international guarantees.
+
+    13th. An independent Polish State should be founded, comprising
+    all territories inhabited by peoples of undoubtedly Polish
+    nationality, with a free and secure access to the sea and its
+    political and economic independence and territorial integrity
+    guaranteed by international agreements.
+
+    14th. A League of Nations must be formed with special pacts and
+    for the sole scope of ensuring the reciprocal guarantees of
+    political independence and of territorial integrity, in equal
+    measure both for large and small States.
+
+The Peace Treaty as outlined by Wilson would really have brought about
+a just peace; but we shall see how the actual result proved quite the
+reverse of what constituted a solemn pledge of the American people and
+of the Entente Powers.
+
+On February 11, 1918, President Wilson confirmed before Congress that
+all territorial readjustments were to be made in the interest and for
+the advantage of the populations concerned, not merely as a bargain
+between rival States, and that there were not to be indemnities,
+annexations or punitive exactions of any kind.
+
+On September 27, 1918, just on the eve of the armistice, when German
+resistance was already shaken almost to breaking point, President
+Wilson gave it the _coup de grâce_ by his message on the _post-bellum_
+economic settlement. No special or separate interest of any single
+nation or group of nations was to be taken as the basis of any
+settlement which did not concern the common interest of all; there
+were not to be any leagues or alliances, or special pacts or ententes
+within the great family of the society of nations; economic deals and
+corners of an egotistical nature were to be forbidden, as also all
+forms of boycotting, with the exception of those applied in punishment
+to the countries transgressing the rules of good fellowship; all
+international treaties and agreements of every kind were to be
+published in their entirety to the whole world.
+
+It was a magnificent programme of world policy. Not only would it have
+meant peace after war, but a peace calculated to heal the deep wounds
+of Europe and to renovate the economic status of nations.
+
+On the basis of these principles, which constituted a solemn pledge,
+Germany, worn out by famine and even more by increasing internal
+unrest, demanded peace.
+
+According to President Wilson's clear statements, made not only in
+the name of the United States but in that of the whole Entente, peace
+should therefore have been based on justice, the relations between
+winners and losers in a society of nations being exclusively inspired
+by mutual trust.
+
+There were no longer to be huge standing armies, neither on the
+part of the ex-Central Empires or on that of the victorious States;
+adequate guarantees were to be _given and received_ for the reduction
+of armies to the minimum necessary for internal defence; removal of
+all economic barriers; absolute freedom of the seas; reorganization
+of the colonies based on the development of the peoples directly
+concerned; abolition of secret diplomacy, etc.
+
+As to the duties of the vanquished, besides evacuating the occupied
+territories, they were to reconstruct Belgium, to restore to France
+the territories taken in 1871; to restore all the territories
+belonging to Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro, giving Serbia a free and
+secure access to the sea; to constitute a free Poland with territories
+_undoubtedly Polish_ to which _there might_ be granted a free and
+secure access to the sea. Poland, founded on secure ethnical bases,
+far from being a military State, was to be an element of peace, and
+her political and economic independence and territorial integrity were
+to have been guaranteed by an international agreement.
+
+After the rectification of the Italian frontier according to the
+principles of nationality, the peoples of Austria-Hungary were to
+agree on the free opportunity of their autonomous development. In
+other terms, each people could freely choose autonomy or throw in its
+lot with some other State. After giving a certain sovereignty to the
+Turkish populations of the Ottoman Empire the other nationalities were
+to be allowed to develop autonomously, and the free navigation of the
+Dardanelles was to be internationally guaranteed.
+
+These principles announced by President Wilson, and already proclaimed
+in part by the Entente Powers when they stoutly affirmed that they
+were fighting for right, for democracy and for peace, did not
+constitute a concession but a duty towards the enemy. In each of the
+losing countries, in Germany as in Austria-Hungary, the democratic
+groups contrary to the War, and those even more numerous which had
+accepted the War as in a momentary intoxication, when they exerted
+themselves for the triumph of peace, had counted on the statements, or
+rather on the solemn promises which American democracy had made not
+only in the name of the United States but in that of all the Entente
+Powers.
+
+Let us now try to sum up the terms imposed on Germany and the other
+losing countries by the treaty of June 28, 1919. The treaty, it is
+true, was concluded between the allied and associated countries and
+Germany, but it also concerns the very existence of other countries
+such as Austria-Hungary, Russia, etc.:
+
+
+I.--TERRITORIAL AND POLITICAL CLAUSES
+
+Until the payment of an indemnity the amount of which is as yet not
+definitely stated, Germany loses the fundamental characters of a
+sovereign state. Not only part of her territory remains under the
+occupation of the ex-enemy troops for a period of fifteen years but a
+whole series of controls is established, military, administrative, on
+transports, etc. The Commission for Reparations is empowered to effect
+all the changes it thinks fit in the laws and regulations of the
+German State, besides applying sanctions of a military and economic
+nature in the event of violations of the clauses placed under its
+control (Art. 240, 241).
+
+The allied and associated governments declare and Germany recognizes
+that Germany and her allies are solely responsible, being the direct
+cause thereof, for all the losses and damages suffered by the allied
+and associated governments and their subjects as a result of the War,
+which was thrust upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies
+(Art. 231). Consequently the resources of Germany (and by the
+other treaties those of her allies as well) are destined, even if
+insufficient, to ensure full reparation for all losses and damages
+(Art. 232).
+
+The allied and associated Powers place in a state of public accusation
+William II of Hohenzollern, ex-German Emperor, charging him with
+the gravest offences against international morality and the sacred
+authority of treaties. A special tribunal composed of representatives
+of the five great Entente Powers shall try him and will have the
+right of determining his punishment (Art. 227). The German Government
+likewise recognizes the right of the allied and associated Powers to
+try in their courts of justice the persons (and more especially the
+officers) accused of having committed acts contrary to the rules and
+customs of war.
+
+Restitution of Alsace and Lorraine to France without any obligation
+on the latter's part, not even the corresponding quota of public debt
+(Art. 51 _et seq_.).
+
+The treaties of April 19, 1839, are abolished, so that Belgium, being
+no longer neutral, may become allied to France (Art. 31); attribution
+to Belgium of the territories of Eupen, Malmédy and Moresnet.
+
+Abolition of all the treaties which established political and economic
+bonds between Germany and Luxemburg (Art. 40).
+
+Annulment of all the treaties concluded by Germany during the War.
+
+German-Austria, reduced to a little State of hardly more than
+6,000,000 inhabitants, about one-third of whom live in the capital
+(Art. 80), cannot become united to Germany without the consent of the
+Society of Nations, and is not allowed to participate in the affairs
+of another nation, namely of Germany, before being admitted to the
+League of Nations (Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Art. 88). As the
+consent of the League of Nations must be unanimous, a contrary vote on
+the part of France would be sufficient to prevent German-Austria from
+becoming united to Germany.
+
+Attribution of North Schleswig to Denmark (Art. 109).
+
+Creation of the Czeko-Slovak State (Art. 87), which comprises the
+autonomous territory of the Ruthenians south of the Carpathians,
+Germany abandoning in favour of the new State all her rights and
+claims on that part of Silesia mentioned in Art. 83.
+
+Creation of the State of Poland (Art. 87), to whom Posnania and part
+of Western Prussia are made over. Upper Silesia is to decide by a
+plebiscite (Art. 88) whether it desires to be united to Germany or to
+Poland. The latter, even without Upper Silesia, becomes a State of
+31,000,000 inhabitants, with about fifty per cent. of the population
+non-Polish, including very numerous groups of Germans.
+
+Creation of the Free State of Danzig within the limits of Art. 100,
+under the protection of the League of Nations. The city is a Free
+City, but enclosed within the Polish Customs House frontiers, and
+Poland has full control of the river and of the railway system.
+Poland, moreover, has charge of the foreign affairs of the Free City
+of Danzig and undertakes to protect its subjects abroad.
+
+Surrender to the victors, or, to be more precise, almost exclusively
+to Great Britain and France, of all the German colonies (Art. 119 and
+127). The formula (Art. 119) is that Germany renounces in favour of
+the leading allied and associated Powers all her territories beyond
+the seas. Great Britain has secured an important share, but so has
+France, receiving that part of Congo ceded in 1911, four-fifths of the
+Cameroons and of Togoland.
+
+Abandonment of all rights and claims in China, Siam, Liberia, Morocco,
+Egypt, Turkey, Bulgaria and Shantung (Art. 128 and 158).
+
+Creation of a League of Nations to the exclusion, practically, of
+Germany and of the other losing countries, with the result that the
+League is nothing but a juridical completion of the Commission of
+Reparations. In all of the various treaties, the pact of the League of
+Nations, the Covenant, left standing among the collapse of President
+Wilson's other ideas and proposals, is given precedence over all other
+clauses.
+
+
+II.--MILITARY CLAUSES AND GUARANTEES
+
+Germany is obliged, and with her, by the subsequent treaties, all the
+other losing countries, to surrender her arms and to reduce her troops
+to the minimum necessary for internal defence (Art. 159 and 213). The
+German army has no General Staff; its soldiers are mercenaries who
+enlist for a period of ten years; it cannot be composed of more than
+seven infantry and three cavalry divisions, not exceeding 100,000
+men including officers: no staff, no military aviation, no heavy
+artillery. The number of gendarmes and of local police can only be
+increased proportionately with the increase of the population. The
+maximum of artillery allowed is limited to the requirements of
+internal defence. Germany is strictly forbidden to import arms,
+ammunition and war material of any kind or description. Conscription
+is abolished, and officers must remain with the colours at least till
+they have attained the age of forty-five. No institute of science or
+culture is allowed to take an interest in military questions. All
+fortifications included in a line traced fifty kilometres to the east
+of the Rhine are to be destroyed, and on no account may German troops
+cross the said line.
+
+Destruction of Heligoland and of the fortresses of the Kiel Canal.
+
+Destruction under the supervision of the allied commissions of control
+of all tanks, flying apparatus, heavy and field artillery, namely
+35,000 guns, 160,000 machine guns, 2,700,000 rifles, besides the tools
+and machinery necessary for their manufacture. Destruction of all
+arsenals. Destruction of the German fleet, which must be limited to
+the proportions mentioned in Art. 181.
+
+Creation of inter-allied military commissions of control to supervise
+and enforce the carrying out of the military and naval clauses, at the
+expense of Germany and with the right to install themselves in the
+seat of the central government.
+
+Occupation as a guarantee, for a period of fifteen years after the
+application of the treaty, of the bridgeheads and of the territories
+now occupied west of the Rhine (Art. 428 and 432). If, however, the
+Commission of Reparations finds that Germany refuses wholly or in part
+to fulfil her treaty obligations, the zones specified in Article
+421 will be immediately occupied by the troops of the allied and
+associated Powers.
+
+
+III.--FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC CLAUSES
+
+The principle being recognized that Germany alone is responsible for
+the War which she willed and which she imposed on the rest of the
+world, Germany is bound to give complete and full reparation within
+the limits specified by Art. 232. The amount of the damages for which
+reparation is due will be fixed by the Commission of Reparations,
+consisting of the representatives of the winning countries.
+
+The coal fields of the Saar are to be handed over, in entire and
+absolute ownership, free of all liens and obligations, to France, in
+compensation for the destruction of the coal mines in the north of
+France. Before the War, in 1913, the output of the Saar basin amounted
+to 17,000,000 tons. The Saar is incorporated in the French douane
+system and after fifteen years will be submitted to a plebiscite.
+
+Germany may not charge heavier duties on imports from allied countries
+than on those from any other country. This treatment of the most
+favoured nation to be extended to all allied and associated States
+does not imply the obligation of reciprocity (Art. 264). A similar
+limitation is placed on exports, on which no special duty may be
+levied.
+
+Exports from Alsace and Lorraine into Germany to be exempt from duty,
+without right of reciprocity (Art. 268).
+
+Germany delivers to the Allies all the steamers of her mercantile
+fleet of over I,600 tons, half of those between 1,000 and I,600 tons,
+and one-fourth of her fishing vessels. Moreover, she binds herself to
+build at the request of the Allies every year, and for a period of
+five years, 200,000 tons of shipping, as directed by the Allies, and
+the value of the new constructions will be credited to her by the
+Commission of Reparations (Part viii, 3).
+
+Besides giving up all her colonies, Germany surrenders all her rights
+and claims on her possessions beyond the seas (Art. 119), and all
+the contracts and conventions in favour of German subjects for the
+construction and exploiting of public works, which will be considered
+as part payment of the reparations due. The private property of
+Germans in the colonies, as also the right of Germans to live and
+work there, come under the free jurisdiction of the victorious States
+occupying the colonies, and which reserve unto themselves the right to
+confiscate and liquidate all property and claims belonging to Germans
+(Art. 121 and 297).
+
+The private property of German citizens residing in Alsace-Lorraine is
+subject to the same treatment as that of residents in the ex-German
+colonies. The French Government may confiscate without granting any
+compensation the private property of Germans and of German concerns in
+Alsace-Lorraine, and the sums thus derived will be credited towards
+the partial settlement of eventual French claims (Art. 53 and 74).
+The property of the State and of local bodies is likewise surrendered
+without any compensation whatever. The allies and associates reserve
+the right to seize and liquidate all property, claims and interests
+belonging, at the date of the ratification of the treaty, to
+German citizens or to firms controlled by them, situated in their
+territories, colonies, possessions and protectorates, including the
+territories surrendered in accordance with the clauses of the treaty
+(Art. 217).
+
+Germany loses everything with the exception of her territory:
+colonies, possessions, rights, commercial investments, etc.
+
+After giving the Saar coal fields in perpetual ownership to France in
+reparation of the temporary damages suffered by the French coal mines,
+the treaty goes on to establish the best ways and means to deprive
+Germany, in the largest measure possible, of her coal and her iron.
+The Saar coal fields have been handed over to France absolutely, while
+the war damages of the French mines have been repaired or can be
+repaired in a few years. Upper Silesia being subject to the plebiscite
+with the occupation of the allied troops, Germany must have lost
+several of her most important coal fields had the plebiscite gone
+against her.
+
+Germany is forced to deliver in part reparation to France 7,000,000
+tons of coal a year for ten years, besides a quantity of coal equal
+to the yearly _ante-bellum_ output of the coal mines of the North of
+France and of the Pas-de-Calais, which were entirely destroyed during
+the War; the said quantity not to exceed 20,000,000 tons in the first
+five years and 8,000,000 tons during the five succeeding years (Part
+viii, 5). Moreover, Germany must give 8,000,000 tons to Belgium for a
+period of ten years, and to Italy a quantity of coal which, commencing
+at 4,500,000 tons for the year 1919-1920, reaches the figure of
+8,500,000 tons in the five years after 1923-1924. To Luxemburg Germany
+must provide coal in the same average quantity as in pre-war times.
+Altogether Germany is compelled to hand over to the winners as part
+reparation about 25,000,000 tons of coal a year.
+
+For three years Polish exports to Germany, and for five years exports
+from Luxemburg into Germany, will be free of all duty, without right
+of reciprocity (Art. 268).
+
+The Allies have the right to adopt, on the territories left of the
+Rhine and occupied by their troops, a special customs regime both as
+regards imports and exports (Art. 270).
+
+After having surrendered, as per Par. 7 of the armistice terms,
+5,000 locomotives and 150,000 trucks and carriages with all their
+accessories and fittings (Art. 250), Germany must hand over the
+railway systems of the territories she has lost, with all the rolling
+stock in a good state of preservation, and this measure applies even
+to Prussian Poland occupied by Germany during the War (Art. 371).
+
+The German transport system is placed under control, and the
+administration of the Elbe, the Rhine, the Oder, the Danube, owing to
+the fact that they pass through more than one state and give access
+to the sea, is entrusted to inter-allied commissions. In all these
+commissions Germany is represented by a small minority. France
+and Great Britain, who are not directly interested, have numerous
+representatives on all the important river commissions, while on the
+Rhine commission Germany has only four votes out of nineteen (Art. 382
+to 337). A privilege of first degree is established on all production
+and resources of the German States to ensure the payment of
+reparations and other charges specified by the treaty (Art. 248).
+
+The total cost of the allied and associated armies will be borne by
+Germany, including the upkeep of men and beasts, pay and lodging,
+heating, clothing, etc., and even veterinary services, motor lorries
+and automobiles. All these expenses must be reimbursed in gold marks
+(Art. 249).
+
+The privilege, as per Art. 248 of the treaty, is to be applied in the
+following order:
+
+(a) Reimbursement of expenses for the armies of occupation during
+the armistice and after the peace treaty.
+
+(b) Payment of the reparations as established by the treaty or
+treaties or supplementary conventions.
+
+(c) Other expenses deriving from the armistice terms, from the peace
+treaty and from other supplementary terms and conventions (Art. 251).
+Restitution, on the basis of an estimate presented sixty days after
+the application of the treaty by the Commission of Reparations, of the
+live stock stolen or destroyed by the Germans and necessary for the
+reconstruction of the invaded countries, with the right to exact from
+Germany, as part reparations, the delivery of machinery, heating
+apparatus, furniture, etc.
+
+Reimbursement to Belgium of all the sums loaned to her by the allied
+and associated Powers during the War.
+
+Compensation for the losses and damages sustained by the civilian
+population of the allied and associated Powers during the period in
+which they were at war with Germany (Art. 232 and Part viii, I).
+
+Payment, during the first two years, of twenty milliard marks in
+gold or by the delivery of goods, shipping, etc., on account of
+compensation (Art. 235).
+
+The reparations owed by Germany concern chiefly:
+
+1st. Damages and loss of life and property sustained by the civilian
+population.
+
+2nd. Damages sustained by civilian victims of cruelty, violence or
+ill-treatment.
+
+3rd. Damages caused on occupied or invaded territories.
+
+4th. Damages through cruelty to and ill-treatment of prisoners of war.
+
+5th. Pensions and compensations of all kinds paid by the allied and
+associated Powers to the military victims of the War and to their
+families.
+
+6th. Subsidies paid by the allied and associated Powers to the
+families and other dependents of men having served in the army, etc.,
+etc. (Part viii, I). These expenses, which have been calculated
+at varying figures, commencing from 350 billions, have undergone
+considerable fluctuations.
+
+I have given the general lines of the Treaty of Versailles.
+
+The other treaties, far less important, inasmuch as the situation
+of all the losing countries was already well defined, especially as
+regards territorial questions, by the Treaty of Versailles, are cast
+in the same mould and contain no essential variation.
+
+Now these treaties constitute an absolutely new fact, and no one can
+affirm that the Treaty of Versailles derives even remotely from the
+declarations of the Entente and from Wilson's solemn pledges uttered
+in the name of those who took part in the War.
+
+If the terms of the armistice were deeply in contrast with the pledges
+to which the Entente Powers had bound themselves before the whole
+world, the Treaty of Versailles and the other treaties deriving
+therefrom are a deliberate negation of all that had been promised,
+amounting to a debt of honour, and which had contributed much more
+powerfully towards the defeat of the enemy than the entry in the field
+of many fresh divisions.
+
+In the state of extreme exhaustion in which both conquerors and losers
+found themselves in 1918, in the terrible suffering of the Germanic
+group of belligerents, deprived for four years of sufficient
+nourishment and of the most elementary necessaries of life, in the
+moral collapse which had taken the place of boasting and temerity, the
+words of Wilson, who pledged himself to a just peace and established
+its terms, proclaiming them to the world, had completely broken down
+whatever force of resistance there still remained. They were the most
+powerful instruments of victory, and if not the essential cause,
+certainly not the least important among the causes which brought about
+the collapse of the Central Empires.
+
+Germany had been deeply hit by the armistice. Obliged to hand over
+immediately 5,000 locomotives and 150,000 railway trucks and carriages
+at the very time when she had to demobilize, during the first months
+she found her traffic almost completely paralysed.
+
+Every war brings virulent germs of revolution in the vanquished
+countries. The war of 1870 gave France the impulsive manifestations of
+_La Commune_ in exactly the same manner as war gave rise in Germany
+during the first months after the armistice to a violent revolutionary
+crisis, overcome not without difficulty and still representing a grave
+menace.
+
+Forced to surrender immediately a large quantity of live stock, to
+demobilize when the best part of her railway material had gone, still
+hampered by the blockade, Germany, against the interest of the Allies
+themselves, has been obliged to sacrifice her exchange because, in the
+absence of sufficient help, she has had to buy the most indispensable
+foodstuffs in neutral countries. Her paper currency, which at the
+end of 1918 amounted to twenty-two milliard marks, not excessive as
+compared with that of other countries, immediately increased with a
+growing crescendo till it reached, in a very short time, the figure of
+eighty-eight milliards, thus rendering from the very first the payment
+of indemnities in gold extremely difficult.
+
+The most skilled men have been thrust into an absolute impossibility
+of producing. To have deprived Germany of her merchant fleet, built up
+with so much care, means to have deprived the freight market of sixty
+thousand of the most skilled, intelligent and hard-working seamen.
+
+But what Germany has lost as a result of the treaty surpasses all
+imagination and can only be regarded as a sentence of ruin and decay
+voluntarily passed over a whole people.
+
+Germany, without taking into account the countries subject to
+plebiscite, has lost 7.5 per cent. of her population. Should the
+plebiscites prove unfavourable to her, or, as the tendency seems to
+be, should these plebiscites be disregarded, Germany would lose 13.5
+per cent. of her population. Purely German territories have been
+forcibly wrenched from her. What has been done in the case of the
+Saar has no precedents in modern history. It is a country of 650,000
+inhabitants of whom not even one hundred are French, a country which
+has been German for a thousand years, and which was temporarily
+occupied by France for purely military reasons. In spite of these
+facts, however, not only have the coal fields of the Saar been
+assigned in perpetuity to France as compensation for the damages
+caused to the French mines in the North, but the territory of the Saar
+forms part of the French customs regime and will be subjected after
+fifteen years to a plebiscite, when such a necessity is absolutely
+incomprehensible, as the population is purely German and has never
+in any form or manner expressed the intention of changing its
+nationality.
+
+The ebb and flow of peoples in Europe during the long war of
+nationalities has often changed the situation of frontier countries.
+Sometimes it may still be regarded as a necessity to include small
+groups of alien race and language in different states in order to
+ensure strategically safe frontiers. But, with the exception of the
+necessity for self-defence, there is nothing to justify what has been
+done to the detriment of Germany.
+
+Wilson had only said that France should receive compensation for
+the wrong suffered in 1871 and that Belgium should be evacuated and
+reconstructed. What had been destroyed was to have been built up
+again; but no one had ever thought during the War of handing over to
+Belgium a part, however small, of German territory or of surrendering
+predominantly and purely German territories to Poland.
+
+The German colonies covered an area of nearly 3,000,000 square
+kilometres; they had reached an admirable degree of development and
+were managed with the greatest skill and ability. They represented an
+enormous value; nevertheless they have been assigned to France, Great
+Britain and in minor proportion to Japan, without figuring at all in
+the reparations account.
+
+It is calculated that as a result of the treaty, owing to the loss
+of a considerable percentage of her agricultural area, Germany is
+twenty-five per cent. the poorer in regard to the production of
+cereals and potatoes and ten to twelve per cent. in regard to the
+breeding of live stock.
+
+The restitution of Alsace-Lorraine (the only formal claim advanced by
+the Entente in its war programme) has deprived Germany of the bulk of
+her iron-ore production. In 1913 Germany could count on 21,000,000
+tons of iron from Lorraine, 7,000,000 from Luxemburg, 138,000 from
+Upper Silesia and 7,344 from the rest of her territory. This means
+that Germany is reduced to only 20.41 per cent. of her pre-war wealth
+in iron ore.
+
+In 1913 the Saar district represented 8.95 per cent. of the total
+production of coal, and Upper Silesia 22.85 per cent.
+
+Having lost about eighty per cent. of her iron ore and large stocks
+of coal, while her production is severely handicapped, Germany,
+completely disorganized abroad after the suppression of all economic
+equilibrium, is condemned to look on helplessly while the very sources
+of her national wealth dry up and cease to flow. In order to form a
+correct estimate of the facts we must hold in mind that one-fifth of
+Germany's total exports before the War consisted of iron and of tools
+and machinery mostly manufactured with German iron.
+
+If we now consider the fourteen points of President Wilson, accepted
+by the Entente as a peace programme, comparing the actual results
+obtained by the Treaty of Versailles, we are faced with the following
+situation:
+
+1. "_After loyal peace negotiations and the conclusion and signing
+of peace treaties, secret diplomatic agreements must be regarded as
+abolished_," says Wilson. On the contrary, secret peace negotiations
+have been protracted for more than six months, and no hearing was even
+granted to the German delegates who wished to expose their views. By a
+system of treaties France has created a military alliance with Belgium
+and Poland, thus completely cornering Germany.
+
+2. _Absolute freedom of the sea beyond territorial waters_. Nothing,
+as a matter of fact, has been changed from the pre-war state of
+things; with the difference that the losers have had to surrender
+their mercantile fleets and are therefore no longer directly
+interested in the question.
+
+3. _Removal of all economic barriers and equality of trade
+conditions_. The treaty imposes on Germany terms without reciprocity,
+and almost all Entente countries have already adopted protectionist
+and prohibitive tariffs.
+
+4. _Adequate guarantees to be given and received for the reduction of
+armaments to a minimum compatible with home defence_. The treaties
+have compelled the vanquished countries to destroy or to surrender
+their navies, and have reduced the standing armies of Germany to
+100,000 men, including officers, of Bulgaria to 23,000, of Austria to
+30,000 (in reality only 21,000), of Hungary to 35,000. The conquering
+states, on the other hand, maintain enormous armies numerically
+superior to those which they had before the War. France, Belgium
+and Poland have between them about 1,400,000 men with the colours.
+Germany, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria altogether have only 179,000
+men under arms, while Rumania alone has 206,000 and Poland more than
+450,000 men.
+
+5. _Loyal and straightforward settlement of colonial rights and
+claims, based chiefly on the advantage of the peoples directly
+concerned_. All her colonies have been taken from Germany, who needed
+them more than any other country of continental Europe, having a
+density of population of 123 inhabitants per square kilometre (Italy
+has a density of 133 per square kilometre) while France has 74, Spain
+40, and European Russia before the War had only 24.
+
+6. _Evacuation of all Russian territories and cordial co-operation for
+the reconstruction and development of Russia_. For a long time the
+Entente has given its support to the military ventures of Koltchak,
+Judenic, Denikin and Wrangel, all men of the old regime.
+
+7. _Evacuation and reconstruction of Belgium_. This has been done, but
+to Belgium have been assigned territories which she never dreamt of
+claiming before the War.
+
+8. _Liberation of French territories, reconstruction of invaded
+regions and restitution of Alsace-Lorraine to France in respect of
+the territories taken from her in 1871_. France occupies a dominating
+position in the Saar which constitutes an absolute denial of the
+principle of nationality.
+
+9. _Rectification of the Italian frontier, according to clearly
+defined lines of nationality_. As these lines have never been clearly
+defined or recognized, the solution arrived at has been distasteful
+both to the Italians and to their neighbours.
+
+10. _The peoples of Austria-Hungary to be left free to unite together
+or to form autonomous states in the manner best suited to their
+development_. As a matter of fact the treaties have taken the greatest
+possible number of Germans from Austria and of Magyars from Hungary in
+order to hand them over to Poland, to Czeko-Slovakia, to Rumania and
+to Jugo-Slavia, namely to populations for the most part inferior to
+the Germans.
+
+11. _Evacuation of Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro_. This has been
+effected, but whereas the Entente Powers have always proclaimed their
+fundamental duty for the reconstruction of Montenegro, they all
+contributed to its disappearance, chiefly at the instigation of
+France.
+
+12. _A limited sovereignty to the Turkish parts of the Ottoman Empire,
+liberation of other nationalities and freedom of navigation in the
+Dardanelles placed under international guarantees_. What really
+happened was that the Entente Powers immediately tried to possess
+themselves of Asia Minor; but events rendered it necessary to adopt
+a regime of mandates because direct sovereignty would have been too
+perilous an experiment. A sense of deep perturbation and unrest
+pervades the whole of Islam.
+
+13. _An independent Polish state with populations undoubtedly Polish
+to be founded as a neutral State with a free and secure outlet to the
+sea and whose integrity is to be guaranteed by international accords_.
+In reality a Polish state has been formed with populations undoubtedly
+non-Polish, having a markedly military character and aiming at further
+expansion in Ukranian and German territory. It has a population of
+31,000,000 inhabitants while it should not exceed 18,000,000, and
+proposes to isolate Russia from Germany. Moreover the Free State of
+Danzig, practically dependent from Poland, constitutes a standing
+menace to Germany.
+
+14. _Foundation of the League of Nations for the sole purpose
+of re-establishing order among nations, and laying the basis of
+reciprocal guarantees of territorial integrity and political
+independence for all states, both great and small_. After more than
+two years have elapsed since the conclusion of peace and three since
+the armistice the League of Nations is still nothing but a holy
+alliance the object of which is to guarantee the privileges of the
+conquerors. After the vote of the Senate, deserving of all praise
+from every point of view, the United States does not form part of the
+League nor do the losing countries, including Germany.
+
+It is therefore obvious that the most solemn pledges on which peace
+was based have not been maintained; the noble declarations made by the
+Entente during the War have been forgotten; forgotten all the solemn
+collective pledges; forgotten and disregarded Wilson's proclamations
+which, without being real contracts or treaties, were something far
+more solemn and binding, a pledge taken before the whole world at its
+most tragic hour to give the enemy a guarantee of justice.
+
+Without expressing any opinion on the treaties it cannot be denied
+that the manner in which they have been applied has been even worse.
+For the first time in civilized Europe, not during the War, when
+everything was permissible in the supreme interests of defence, but
+now that the War is over, the Entente Powers, though maintaining
+armies more numerous than ever, for which the vanquished must pay,
+have occupied German territories, inhabited by the most cultured,
+progressive and technically advanced populations in the world, as an
+insult and a slight, with coloured troops, men from darkest and most
+barbarous Africa, to act as defenders of the rights of civilization
+and to maintain the law and order of democracy.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE PEACE TREATIES--THEIR ORIGIN AND AIMS
+
+
+How, after the solemn pledges undertaken during the War, a peace could
+have been concluded which practically negatives all the principles
+professed during the War and all the obligations entered into, is
+easily explained when the progress of events is noted from the autumn
+of 1918 to the end of the spring of 1919. I took no direct part in
+those events, as I had no share in the government of Italy from
+January to the end of June, 1919, the period during which the Treaties
+of Versailles and Saint-Germain-en-Laye were being prepared. The
+Orlando Ministry was resigning when the Treaty of Versailles was drawn
+up for signature, and the situation which confronted the Ministry
+of which I was head was clearly defined. Nevertheless I asked the
+Minister of Foreign Affairs and the delegates of the preceding Cabinet
+to put their signatures to it. Signing was a necessity, and it fell to
+me later on to put my signature to the ratification.
+
+The Treaty of Versailles and those which have followed with Austria,
+Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey have been validly signed, and they pledge
+the good faith of the countries which have signed them. But in the
+application of them there is need of great breadth of view; there is
+need of dispassionate study to see if they can be maintained, if the
+fulfilment of the impossible or unjust conditions demanded of the
+conquered countries will not do more harm to the conquerors, will not,
+in point of actual fact, pave the way to their ruin.
+
+If there is one thing, Lloyd George has said, which will never be
+forgotten or forgiven, it is arrogance and injustice in the hour
+of triumph. We have never tired of saying that Germany is the most
+barbarous among civilized countries, that under her civilization
+is hidden all the barbarism of mediaeval times, that she puts into
+practice the doctrine of might over right. At the present moment it is
+our duty to ask ourselves if something of the principles which we have
+for so long been attributing to Germany has not passed over to the
+other side, if in our own hearts there is not a bitterness of hatred
+clouding our judgment and robbing our programme of all action that can
+do real good.
+
+Prussia won the war against Austria-Hungary in 1866, and did not ask
+for or impose any really onerous terms. It was contented with having
+regained hegemony among the German people. Prussia conquered France
+in 1870. It was an unjust war, and Prussia laid down two unjust
+conditions: Alsace-Lorraine and the indemnity of five milliards. As
+soon as the indemnity was paid--and it was an indemnity that could be
+paid in one lump sum--Prussia evacuated the occupied territory. It did
+not claim of France its colonies or its fleet, it did not impose the
+reduction of its armaments or control of its transport after the
+peace. The Treaty of Frankfort is a humanitarian act compared with the
+Treaty of Versailles.
+
+If Germany had won the War--Germany to whom we have always attributed
+the worst possible intentions--what could it have done that the
+Entente has not done? It is possible that, as it is gifted with more
+practical common sense, it might have laid down less impossible
+conditions in order to gain a secure advantage without ruining the
+conquered countries.
+
+There are about ninety millions of Germans in Europe, and perhaps
+fifteen millions in different countries outside Europe. But in the
+heart of Europe they represent a great ethnic unity; they are the
+largest and most compact national group in that continent. With all
+the good and bad points of their race, too methodical and at the same
+time easily depressed by a severe setback, they are still the most
+cultivated people on earth. It is impossible to imagine that they can
+disappear, much less that they can reconcile themselves to live in a
+condition of slavery. On the other hand, the Entente has built on a
+foundation of shifting sand a Europe full of small States poisoned
+with imperialism and in ruinous conditions of economy and finance, and
+a too great Poland without a national basis and necessarily the enemy
+of Russia and of Germany.
+
+No people has always been victorious; the peoples who have fought most
+wars in modern Europe, English, French and Germans, have had
+alternate victories and defeats. A defeat often carries in its train
+reconsideration which is followed by renewed energy: the greatness of
+England is largely due to its steadfast determination to destroy the
+Napoleonic Empire. What elevates men is this steadfast and persevering
+effort, and a series of such collective efforts carries a nation to a
+high place.
+
+There is nothing lasting in the existing groupings. At the moment of
+common danger eternal union and unbreakable solidarity are proclaimed;
+but both are mere literary expressions.
+
+Great Britain, the country which has the least need to make war, has
+been at war for centuries with nearly all the European countries.
+There is one country only against which it has never made war, not
+even when a commercial challenge from the mercantile Republics of
+Italy seemed possible. That country is Italy. That shows that between
+the action of Italy there is not, nor can there be, contrast, and
+indeed that between the two nations there is complete agreement in
+European continental policy. It is the common desire of the two
+nations, though perhaps for different reasons, that no one State shall
+have hegemony on the continent. But between the years 1688 and 1815
+Great Britain and France were at war for seventy years: for seventy
+years, that is, out of a hundred and twenty-seven there was a state of
+deadly hostility between the two countries.
+
+General progress, evinced in various ways, above all in respect for
+and in the autonomy of other peoples, is a guarantee for all. No
+peoples are always victorious, none always conquered. In the time of
+Napoleon the First the French derided the lack of righting spirit
+in the German peoples, producers of any number of philosophers
+and writers. They would have laughed at anyone who suggested the
+possibility of any early German military triumph. After 1815 the
+countries of the Holy Alliance would never have believed in the
+possibility of the revolutionary spirit recovering; they were sure of
+lasting peace in Europe. In 1871 the Germans had no doubt at all that
+they had surely smothered France; now the Entente thinks that it has
+surely smothered Germany.
+
+But civilization has gained something: it has gained that collection
+of rules, moral conditions, sentiments, international regulations,
+which tend both to mitigate violence and to regulate in a form which
+is tolerable, if not always just, relations between conquerors and
+conquered, above all, a respect for the liberty and autonomy of the
+latter.
+
+Now, the treaties which have been made are, from the moral point of
+view, immeasurably worse than any consummated in former days, in that
+they carry Europe back to a phase of civilization which was thought
+to be over and done with centuries ago. They are a danger too. For
+as everyone who takes vengeance does so in a degree greater than the
+damage suffered, if one supposes for a moment that the conquered
+of to-day may be the conquerors of to-morrow, to what lengths of
+violence, degradation and barbarism may not Europe be dragged?
+
+Every effort, then, should now be made to follow the opposite road to
+that traversed up to now, the more so in that the treaties cannot be
+carried out; and if it is desired that the conquered countries shall
+pay compensation to the conquerors, at least in part, for the most
+serious damage, then the line to be followed must be based on
+realities instead of on violence.
+
+But before trying to see how and why the treaties cannot be carried
+out, it may be well to consider how the actual system of treaties
+has been reached, in complete opposition to all that was said by the
+Entente during the War and to President Wilson's fourteen points. At
+the same time ought to be examined the causes which led in six months
+from the declarations of the Entente and of President Wilson to the
+Treaty of Versailles.
+
+The most important cause for what has happened was the choice of Paris
+as the meeting-place of the Conference. After the War Paris was the
+least fitted of any place for the holding of a Peace Conference, and
+in the two French leaders, the President of the Republic, Poincaré,
+and the President of the Council of Ministers, Clemenceau, even if the
+latter was more adaptable in mind and more open to consideration of
+arguments on the other side, were two temperaments driving inevitably
+to extremes. Victory had come in a way that surpassed all expectation;
+a people that, living through every day the War had lasted, had passed
+through every sorrow, privation, agony, had now but one thought, to
+destroy the enemy. The atmosphere of Paris was fiery. The decision of
+the peace terms to be imposed on the enemy was to be taken in a city
+which a few months before, one might really say a few weeks before,
+had been under the fire of the long-range guns invented by the
+Germans, in hourly dread of enemy aeroplanes. Even now it is
+inexplicable that President Wilson did not realize the situation
+which must inevitably come about. It is possible that the delirium of
+enthusiasm with which he was received at Paris may have given him the
+idea that it was in him alone that the people trusted, may have made
+him take the welcome given to the representative of the deciding
+factor of the War as the welcome to the principles which he had
+proclaimed to the world. Months later, when he left France amid
+general indifference if not distrust, President Wilson must have
+realized that he had lost, not popularity, but prestige, the one sure
+element of success for the head of a Government, much more so for the
+head of a State. It was inevitable that a Peace Conference held
+in Paris, only a few months after the War, with the direction and
+preparation of the work almost entirely in French hands and with
+Clemenceau at the head of everything, should conclude as it did
+conclude; all the more so when Italy held apart right from the
+beginning, and England, though convinced of the mistakes being made,
+could not act freely and effectively.
+
+The first duty of the Peace Conference was to restore a state of
+equilibrium and re-establish conditions of life. Taking Europe as an
+economic unity, broken by the War, it was necessary first of all and
+in the interests of all to re-establish conditions of life which would
+make it possible for the crisis to be overcome with the least possible
+damage.
+
+I do not propose to tell the story of the Conference, and it is as
+well to say at once that I do not intend to make use of any document
+placed in my hands for official purposes. But the story of the Paris
+Conference can now be told with practical completeness after what
+has been published by J.M. Keynes in his noble book on the Economic
+Consequences of the War and by the American Secretary of State, Robert
+Lansing, and after the statements made in the British and French
+Parliaments by Lloyd George and Clemenceau. But from the political
+point of view the most interesting document is still André Tardieu's
+book _La Paix_, to which Clemenceau wrote a preface and which
+expresses, from the point of view of the French Delegation at the
+Conference, the programme which France laid before itself and what it
+obtained. This book explains how the principal decisions were taken,
+and indeed can be fairly considered to show in a more reliable way
+than any other publication extant how the work of the Conference
+proceeded. For not only was M. Tardieu one of the French Delegates to
+the Conference, one of those who signed the Versailles Treaty, but
+also he prepared the plan of work as well as the solutions of the most
+important questions in his capacity of trusted agent of the Prime
+Minister.
+
+The determination in the mind of President Wilson when he came to
+Paris was to carry through his programme of the League of Nations. He
+was fickle in his infallibility, but he had the firmest faith that he
+was working for the peace of the world and above all for the glory of
+the United States. Of European things he was supremely ignorant. We
+are bound to recognize his good faith, but we are not in the least
+bound on that account to admit his capacity to tackle the problems
+which with his academic simplicity he set himself to solve. When he
+arrived in Europe he had not even prepared in outline a scheme of what
+the League of Nations was to be; the principal problems found him
+unprepared, and the duty of the crowd of experts (sometimes not too
+expert) who followed him seemed rather to be to demonstrate the
+truth of his idea than to prepare material for seriously thought out
+decisions.
+
+He could have made no greater mistake than he did in coming to Europe
+to take part in the meetings of the Conference. His figure lost relief
+at once, in a way it seemed to lose dignity. The head of a State was
+taking part in meetings of heads of Governments, one of the latter
+presiding. It was a giant compelled to live in a cellar and thereby
+sacrificing his height. He was surrounded by formal respect and in
+some decisions he exercised almost despotic authority, but his work
+was none the less disordered; there was a semblance of giving in to
+him while he was giving away his entire programme without being aware
+of it.
+
+In his ignorance of European things he was brought, without
+recognizing it, to accept a series of decisions not superficially in
+opposition to his fourteen points but which did actually nullify them.
+
+Great Britain is part of Europe but is not on the Continent of Europe.
+While Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Russia, Hungary, Holland,
+Belgium, etc., live the same life, are one in thought, Great Britain
+lives in her superb insularity. If she had any moment of supreme
+anxiety during the War, it was in the spring and summer of 1917 during
+the terrible threat of the destruction of her shipping by submarines
+and the inability of construction to keep pace with it. But after
+the defeat of Germany Great Britain found herself with a fleet far
+superior to those of all the rest of Europe put together; once more
+she broke away from Continental Europe.
+
+Lloyd George, with swiftly acting brain and clear insight, undoubtedly
+the most remarkable man at the Paris Conference, found himself in a
+difficult situation between President Wilson's pronouncements, some
+of them, like that regarding the freedom of the seas, undefined and
+dangerous, and the claims of France tending, after the brutal attack
+it had had to meet, not towards a true peace and the reconstruction of
+Europe, but towards the vivisection of Germany. In one of the first
+moments, just before the General Elections, Lloyd George, too,
+promised measures of the greatest severity, the trial of the Kaiser,
+the punishment of all guilty of atrocities, compensation for all who
+had suffered from the War, the widest and most complete indemnity. But
+such pronouncements gave way before his clear realization of facts,
+and later on he tried in vain to put the Conference on the plane of
+such realization.
+
+Italy, as M. Tardieu says very plainly, carried no weight in the
+Conference. In the meetings of the Prime Ministers and President
+Wilson _le ton était celui de la conversation; nul apparat, nulle
+pose. M. Orlando parlait peu; l'activité de l'Italie à la conference
+a été, jusqu'à l'excès, absorbée par la question de Fiume, et sa part
+dans les débats a été de ce fait trop réduite. Restait un dialogue à
+trois: Wilson, Clemenceau, Lloyd George_. The Italian Government came
+into the War in May, 1915, on the basis of the London Agreement of the
+preceding April, and it had never thought of claiming Fiume either
+before the War when it was free to lay down conditions or during the
+progress of the War.
+
+The Italian people had always been kept in ignorance of the principles
+established in the London Agreement. One of the men chiefly
+responsible for the American policy openly complained to me that when
+the United States came into the War no notification was given them of
+the London Agreement in which were defined the future conditions
+of part of Europe. A far worse mistake was made in the failure to
+communicate the London Agreement to Serbia, which would certainly have
+accepted it without hesitation in the terrible position in which it
+then was.
+
+But the most serious thing of all was that Italian Ministers were
+unaware of its provisions till after its publication in London by the
+organ of the Jugo-Slavs, which had evidently received the text from
+Petrograd, where the Bolsheviks had published it. In Italy the London
+Agreement was a mystery to everyone; its text was known only to the
+Presidents of the Council and the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the
+War Cabinets. Thus only four or five people knew about it, secrecy was
+strictly kept, and, moreover, it cannot possibly be said that it was
+in accordance either with national ideals or the currents of public
+opinion, much less with any intelligent conception of Italy's needs
+and Italy's future.
+
+The framers of the London Agreement never thought of Fiume. Indeed
+they specifically expressed their willingness that it should go to
+Croatia, whether in the case of Austria-Hungary remaining united or of
+the detachment of Croatia from it. It is not true that it was through
+the opposition of Russia or of France that the Italian framers of the
+London Agreement gave up all claim to Fiume. There was no opposition
+because there was no claim. The representatives of Russia and France
+have told me officially that no renunciation took place through any
+action on the part of their Governments, because no claim was ever
+made to them. On the other hand, after the armistice, and when it
+became known through the newspapers that the London Agreement gave
+Fiume to Croatia, a very strong movement for Fiume arose, fanned by
+the Government itself, and an equally strong movement in Fiume also.
+
+If, in the London Agreement, instead of claiming large areas of
+Dalmatia which are entirely or almost entirely Slav, provision had
+been made for the constitution of a State of Fiume placed in a
+condition to guarantee not only the people of Italian nationality but
+the economic interests of all the peoples in it and surrounding it,
+there is no doubt that such a claim on the part of Italy would have
+gone through without opposition.
+
+During the Paris Conference the representatives of Italy showed hardly
+any interest at all in the problems concerning the peace of Europe,
+the situation of the conquered peoples, the distribution of raw
+materials, the regulation of the new states and their relations with
+the victor countries. They concentrated all their efforts on the
+question of Fiume, that is to say on the one point in which Italian
+action was fundamentally weak in that, when it was free to enter into
+the War and lay down conditions of peace, at the moment when the
+Entente was without America's invaluable assistance and was beginning
+to doubt the capacity of Russia to carry on, it had never even asked
+for Fiume in its War Treaty, that it had made the inexplicable mistake
+of neglecting to communicate that treaty to the United States when
+that country came into the War and to Serbia at the moment when
+Italy's effort was most valuable for its help. At the conference Italy
+had no directing policy. It had been a part of the system of
+the German Alliance, but it had left its Allies, Germany and
+Austria-Hungary, because it recognized that the War was unjust, and
+had remained neutral for ten months. Then, entering into the War
+freely and without obligation, there was one road for it to follow,
+that of proclaiming solemnly and defending the principles of democracy
+and justice. Indeed, that was a moral duty in that the break with the
+two countries with which Italy had been in alliance for thirty-three
+years became a matter not only of honesty but of duty solely through
+the injustice of the cause for which they had proclaimed an offensive
+war. It was not possible for Italy to go to war to realize the dream
+of uniting the Italian lands to the nation, for she had entered the
+system of Alliance of the Central Empires and had stayed there long
+years while having all the time Italian territories unjustly subjected
+to Austria-Hungary. The annexation of the Italian lands to the
+Kingdom of Italy had to be the consequence of the affirmation of the
+principles of nationality, not the reason for going to war. In any
+case, for Italy, which had laid on itself in the London Agreement
+the most absurd limitations, which had confined its war aims within
+exceedingly modest limits, which had no share in the distribution
+of the wealth of the conquered countries, which came out of the War
+without raw materials and without any share in Germany's colonial
+empire, it was a matter not only of high duty but of the greatest
+utility to proclaim and uphold all those principles which the Entente
+had so often and so publicly proclaimed as its war policy and its war
+aims. But in the Paris Conference Italy hardly counted. Without any
+definite idea of its own policy, it followed France and the United
+States, sometimes it followed Great Britain. There was no affirmation
+of principles at all. The country which, among all the European
+warring Powers, had suffered most severely in proportion to its
+resources and should have made the greatest effort to free itself
+from the burdens imposed on it, took no part in the most important
+decisions. It has to be added that these were arrived at between March
+24 and May 7, while the Italian representatives were absent from Paris
+or had returned there humbled without having been recalled.
+
+After interminable discussions which decided very little, especially
+with regard to the League of Nations which arose before the nations
+were constituted and could live, real vital questions were tackled, as
+is seen from the report of the Conference, on March 24, and it is a
+fact that between that date and May 7 the whole treaty was put in
+shape: territorial questions, financial questions, economic questions,
+colonial questions. Now, at that very moment, on account of the
+question of Fiume and Fiume alone, for some inscrutable reason the
+Italian delegates thought good to retire from the Conference, to which
+they returned later without being invited, and during that time all
+the demonstrations against President Wilson took place in Italy, not
+without some grave responsibility on the part of the government. Italy
+received least consideration in the peace treaties among all the
+conquering countries. It was practically put on one side.
+
+It has to be noted that both in the armistice and in the peace treaty
+the most serious decisions were arrived at almost incidentally;
+moreover they were always vitiated by slight concessions apparently
+of importance. On November 2, 1917, when the representatives of the
+different nations met at Paris to fix the terms of armistice, M.
+Tardieu relates, the question of reparation for damages was decided
+quite incidentally. It is worth while reproducing what he says in his
+book, taken from the official report:
+
+M. CLEMENCEAU: _Je voudrais venir maintenant sur la question des
+réparations et des tonnages. On ne comprenderait pas chez nous, en
+France, que nous n'inscrivions pas dans l'armistice une clause à
+cet effet. Ce que je vous demande c'est l'addition de trois mots:
+"Réparations des dommages" sans autre commentaire.
+
+Le dialogue suivant s'établit_:
+
+M. HYMANS: _Cela serait-il une condition d'armistice_?
+
+M. SONNINO: _C'est plutôt une condition de paix_.
+
+M. BONAR LAW: _Il est inutile d'insérer dans les conditions
+d'armistice une clause qui ne pourrait être exécutée dans un bref
+délai_.
+
+M. CLEMENCEAU: _Je ne veux que mentionner le principe. Vous ne devez
+pas oublier que la population française est une de celles qui ont
+le plus souffert. Elle ne comprendrait pas que nous ne fissions pas
+allusion à cette clause_.
+
+M. LLOYD GEORGE: _Si vous envisages le principe des réparations sur
+terre, il faut mentionner aussi celui des réparations pour les navires
+coulés_.
+
+M. CLEMENCEAU: _Je comprends tout cela dans mes trois mots,
+"Réparations des dommages." Je supplie le Conseil de se mettre dans
+l'esprit de la population française...._
+
+M. VESSITCH: _Et serbe_....
+
+M. HYMANS: _Et belge_....
+
+M. SONNINO: _Et italienne aussi_....
+
+M. HOUSE: _Puisqu'est une question importante pour tous, je propose
+l'addition de M. Clemenceau_.
+
+M. BONAR LAW: _C'est deja dit dans notre lettre au Président Wilson,
+qui la comuniquera à l'Allemagne. Il est inutile de la dire deux
+fois_.
+
+M. ORLANDO: _J'accepte en principe, quoiqu'il n'en ait pas été fait
+mention dans les conditions de l'armistice avec l'Autriche_.
+
+_L'addition "Réparations des dommages" est alors adoptée. M. Klotz
+propose de mettre en tête de cette addition les mots: "Sous réserve
+de toutes revendications et restaurations ultérieures de la part des
+Alliés et des Etats-Unis." Il est ainsi décidé_.
+
+If I were at liberty to publish the official report of the doings of
+the Conference while the various peace treaties were being prepared,
+as MM. Poincaré and Tardieu have published secret acts, it would be
+seen that the proceedings were very much the same in every case.
+Meanwhile we may confine ourselves to an examination of the report as
+given by M. Tardieu.
+
+The question of reparation of damages was not a condition of the
+armistice. It had not been accepted. Clemenceau brings the question up
+again solely in homage to French public opinion. The suggestion is to
+write in simply the three words: _Reparation of damages_. It is true
+that these three words determine a policy, and that there is no
+mention of it in the claims of the Entente, in the fourteen points
+of President Wilson, or in the armistice between Italy and
+Austria-Hungary. In his fourteen points Wilson confined himself, in
+the matter of damages, to the following claims: (1) Reconstruction
+of Belgium, (2) Reconstruction of French territory invaded, (3)
+Reparation for territory invaded in Serbia, Montenegro and Rumania.
+There is no other claim or statement in the fourteen points. On the
+other hand the pronouncement, "_Réparation des dommages_," included,
+as in fact was afterwards included, any claim for damage by land or
+sea.
+
+The representatives of Belgium, Italy and Great Britain remark that it
+is a condition of peace, not of armistice. But Clemenceau makes it
+a question of regard and consideration for France. France would not
+understand there being no mention of it; there was no desire to define
+anything, only just to mention it, and in three simple words. "I ask
+you," says Clemenceau, "to put yourselves into the spirit of the
+people of France." At once the British representative notes the
+necessity of a clear statement regarding reparations for losses at sea
+through submarines and mines; and all, the Serbian, the Belgian and,
+last of all, the Italian, at once call attention to their own damages.
+Mr. House, not realizing the wide and serious nature of the claim,
+says that it is an important question for all, while America had
+already stated, in the words of the President of the Republic, that it
+renounced all indemnity of any nature whatsoever.
+
+So was established, quite incidentally, the principle of indemnity for
+damages which gave the treaty a complete turn away from the spirit
+of the pronouncements by the Entente and the United States. Equally
+incidentally were established all the declarations in the treaty, the
+purpose of which is not easy to understand except in so far as it is
+seen in the economic results which may accrue.
+
+Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles states that the allied and
+associated governments affirm, and Germany accepts, the responsibility
+of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which
+the allied and associated governments and their peoples have been
+subjected as a consequence of the War imposed on them by the
+aggression of Germany and her allies.
+
+Article 177 of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye states in the
+same way that the allied and associated governments affirm, and
+Austria-Hungary accepts, the responsibility of Austria and her allies,
+etc.
+
+This article is common to all the treaties, and it would have no more
+than historic and philosophic interest if it were not followed by
+another article in which the allied and associated governments
+recognize that the resources of Germany (and of Austria-Hungary, etc.)
+are not adequate, after taking into account permanent diminutions of
+such resources which will result from other provisions of the present
+treaty, to make complete reparation for all such loss and damage.
+The allied and associated governments, however, require, and Germany
+undertakes, that she will make compensation for all damage done to the
+civilian population of the allied and associated powers and to their
+property during the period of the belligerency of each as an allied or
+associated power against Germany by such aggression by land, by sea
+and from the air, and in general all damage as defined in the treaty,
+comprising many of the burdens of war (war pensions and compensations
+to soldiers and their families, cost of assistance to families of
+those mobilized during the War, etc.).
+
+There is nothing more useless, indeed more stupid, than to take your
+enemy by the throat after you have beaten him and force him to declare
+that all the wrong was on his side. The declaration is of no use
+whatever, either to the conqueror, because no importance can be
+attributed to an admission extorted by force; or to the conquered,
+because he knows that there is no moral significance in being forced
+to state what one does not believe; or for third parties, because they
+are well aware of the circumstances under which the declaration was
+made. It is possible that President Wilson wanted to establish a moral
+reason--I do not like to say a moral alibi--for accepting, as he was
+constrained by necessity to accept, all those conditions which were
+the negation of what he had solemnly laid down, the moral pledge of
+his people, of the American democracy.
+
+Germany and the conquered countries have accepted the conditions
+imposed on them with the reserve that they feel that they are not
+bound by them, even morally, in the future. The future will pour
+ridicule on this new form of treaty which endeavours to justify
+excessive and absurd demands, which will have the effect of destroying
+the enemy rather than of obtaining any sure benefit, by using a forced
+declaration which has no value at all.
+
+I have always detested German imperialism, and also the phases of
+exaggerated nationalism which have grown up in every country after the
+War and have been eliminated one after the other through the simple
+fact of their being common to all countries, but only after having
+brought the greatest possible harm to all the peoples, and I cannot
+say that Germany and her allies were solely responsible for the War
+which devastated Europe and threw a dark shadow over the life of the
+whole world. That statement, which we all made during the War, was a
+weapon to be used at the time; now that the War is over, it cannot be
+looked on as a serious argument.
+
+An honest and thorough examination of all the diplomatic documents,
+all the agreements and relations of pre-war days, compels me to
+declare solemnly that the responsibility for the War does not lie
+solely on the defeated countries; that Germany may have desired
+war and prepared for it under the influence of powerful industrial
+interests, metallurgic, for instance, responsible for the extreme
+views of newspapers and other publications, but still all the warring
+countries have their share of responsibility in differing degree. It
+cannot be said that there existed in Europe two groups with a moral
+conception differing to the point of complete contrast; on one side,
+Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria, responsible for the
+War, which they imposed by their aggression; on the other, all the
+free and independent nations. By the side of England, France, Italy
+and the United States there was Russia, which must bear, if not the
+greatest, a very great responsibility for what happened. Nor is it
+true that armament expenses in the ten years preceding the War were
+greater in the Central Empires, or, to put it better, in the States
+forming the Triple Alliance, than in the countries which later formed
+the European Entente.
+
+It is not true that only in the case of Germany were the war aims
+imperialist, and that the Entente countries came in without desire of
+conquest. Putting aside for the moment what one sees in the treaties
+which have followed the War, it is worth while considering what would
+have happened if Russia had won the War instead of being torn to
+pieces before victory came. Russia would have had all the Poland of
+the eighteenth century (with the apparent autonomy promised by the
+Tsar), nearly all Turkey in Europe, Constantinople, and a great part
+of Asia Minor. Russia, with already the greatest existing land empire
+and at least half the population not Russian, would have gained
+fresh territories with fresh non-Russian populations, putting the
+Mediterranean peoples, and above all Italy, in a very difficult
+situation indeed.
+
+It cannot be said that in the ten years preceding the War Russia did
+not do as much as Germany to bring unrest into Europe. It was on
+account of Russia that the Serbian Government was a perpetual cause
+of disturbance, a perpetual threat to Austria-Hungary. The unending
+strife in the Balkans was caused by Russia in no less degree than
+by Austria-Hungary, and all the great European nations shared, with
+opposing views, in the policy of Eastern expansion.
+
+The judgment of peoples and of events, given the uncertainty of policy
+as expressed in parliament and newspapers, is variable to the last
+degree. It will be enough to recall the varying judgment upon Serbia
+during the last ten years in the Press of Great Britain, France and
+Italy: the people of Serbia have been described as criminals and
+heroes, assassins and martyrs. No one would have anything to do with
+Serbia; later Serbia was raised to the skies.
+
+The documents published by Kautsky in Germany and those revealed from
+time to time by the Moscow Government prove that the preparation for
+and conviction of war was not only on the part of the Central Empires,
+but also, and in no less degree, on the part of the other States. One
+point will always remain inexplicable: why Russia should have taken
+the superlatively serious step of general mobilization, which could
+not be and was not a simple measure of precaution. It is beyond doubt
+that the Russian mobilization preceded even that of Austria. After
+a close examination of events, after the bitter feeling of war had
+passed, in his speech of December 23, 1920, Lloyd George said justly
+that the War broke out without any Government having really desired
+it; all, in one way or another, slithered into it, stumbling and
+tripping.
+
+There were three Monarchies in Europe, the Russian, German, and
+Austro-Hungarian Empires, and the fact that they were divided into
+two groups necessarily led to war. It was inevitable sooner or later.
+Russia was the greatest danger, the greatest threat to Europe; what
+happened had to happen under one form or another. The crazy giant was
+under the charge of one man without intelligence and a band of men,
+the men of the old regime, largely without scruples.
+
+Each country of Europe has its share of responsibility, Italy not
+excluded. It is difficult to explain why Italy went to Tripoli in the
+way in which she did in 1911, bringing about the Italo-Turkish war,
+which brought about the two Balkan wars and the policy of adventure of
+Serbia, which was the incident though not the cause of the European
+War.
+
+The Libyan adventure, considered now in the serene light of reason,
+cannot be looked on as anything but an aberration. Libya is an immense
+box of sand which never had any value, nor has it now. Tripolitania,
+Cyrenaica and Fezzan cover more than one million one hundred
+thousand square kilometres and have less than nine hundred thousand
+inhabitants, of whom even now, after ten years, less than a third are
+under the effective control of Italy. With the war and expenses of
+occupation, Libya has cost Italy about seven milliard lire, and for a
+long time yet it will be on the debit side in the life of the nation.
+With the same number of milliards, most of which were spent before the
+European War, Italy could have put in order and utilized her immense
+patrimony of water-power and to-day would be free from anxiety about
+the coal problem by which it is actually enslaved. The true policy
+of the nation was to gain economic independence, not a barren waste.
+Ignorant people spoke of Libya in Italy as a promised land; in one
+official speech the King was even made to say that Libya could absorb
+part of Italian emigration. That was just a phenomenon of madness,
+for Libya has no value at all from the agricultural, commercial or
+military point of view. It may pay its way one day, but only if all
+expenses are cut down and the administrative system is completely
+changed. It may be that, if only from a feeling of duty towards the
+inhabitants, Italy cannot abandon Libya now that she has taken it, but
+the question will always be asked why she did take it, why she took
+it by violence when a series of concessions could have been obtained
+without difficulty from the Turkish Government.
+
+The Libyan enterprise, undertaken on an impulse, against the opinion
+of Italy's allies, Austria and Germany, against the wish of England
+and France, is a very serious political responsibility for Italy.
+
+The European War was the consequence of a long series of movements,
+aspirations, agitations. It cannot be denied, and it is recognized by
+clear-thinking men like Lloyd George, that France and England too
+have by their actions taken on themselves their part in the serious
+responsibility. To say that in the past they had never thought of
+war is to say a thing not true. And there is no doubt that all the
+diplomatic documents published before and during the War show in
+Russia, above all, a situation which inevitably would soon lead to
+war. In the Balkans, especially in Serbia, Russia was pursuing a
+cynical and shameless policy of corruption, nourishing and exciting
+every ferment of revolt against Austria-Hungary. Russian policy in
+Serbia was really criminal. Everyone in Germany was convinced that
+Russia was preparing for war. The Tsar's pacificist ideas were of no
+importance whatever. In absolute monarchies it is an illusion to think
+that the sovereign, though apparently an autocrat, acts in accordance
+with his own views. His views are almost invariably those of the
+people round him; he does not even receive news in its true form, but
+in the form given it by officials. Russia was an unwieldy giant who
+had shown signs of madness long before the actual revolution. It
+is impossible that a collective madness such as that which has had
+possession of Russia for three years could be produced on the spur of
+the moment; the regime of autocracy contained in itself the germs
+of Bolshevism and violence. Bolshevism cannot properly be judged by
+Western notions; it is not a revolutionary movement of the people; it
+is, as I have said before, the religious fanaticism of the Eastern
+Orthodox rising from the dead body of Tsarist despotism. Bolshevism,
+centralizing and bureaucratic, follows the same lines as the imperial
+policy of almost every Tsar.
+
+Undoubtedly the greatest responsibility for the War lies on Germany.
+If it has not to bear all the responsibility, as the treaties claim,
+it has to bear the largest share; and the responsibility lies, rather
+than on the shoulders of the Emperor and the quite ordinary men
+who surrounded him, on those of the military caste and some great
+industrial groups. The crazy writings of General von Bernhardi and
+other scandalous publications of the same sort expressed, more than
+just theoretical views, the real hopes and tendencies of the whole
+military caste. It is true enough that there existed in Germany a real
+democratic society under the control of the civil government, but
+there was the military caste too, with privileges in social life and a
+special position in the life of the State. This caste was educated in
+the conception of violence as the means of power and grandeur. When a
+country has allowed the military and social theories of General von
+Bernhardi and the senselessly criminal pronouncements of the Emperor
+William II to prevail for so many years, it has put the most
+formidable weapons possible into the hands of its enemies. The people
+who governed Germany for so long have no right to complain now of the
+conditions in which their country is placed. But the great German
+people, hardworking and persevering, has full right to look on such
+conditions as the negation of justice. The head of a European State, a
+man of the clearest view and calmest judgment, speaking to me of the
+Emperor William, of whose character and intellect he thought very
+little, expressed the view that the Emperor did not want war, but that
+he would not avoid it when he had the chance.
+
+The truth is that Germany troubled itself very little about France.
+Kinderlen Wächter, the most intelligent of the German Foreign
+Ministers, and perhaps the one most opposed to the War, when he
+outlined to me the situation as it was ten years ago, showed no
+anxiety at all except in regard to Russia. Russia might make war, and
+it was necessary to be ready or to see that it came about at a moment
+when victory was certain if conditions did not change. Germany had no
+reason at all for making war on France from the time that it had got
+well ahead of that country in industry, commerce and navigation. It
+is true that there were a certain number of unbalanced people in the
+metal industry who talked complacently of French iron and stirred up
+the yellow press, just as in France to-day there are many industrials
+with their eyes fixed on German coal which they want to seize as far
+as possible. But the intellectuals, the politicians, even military
+circles, had no anxiety at all except with regard to Russia.
+
+There were mistaken views in German policy, no doubt, but at the same
+time there was real anxiety about her national existence. With a huge
+population and limited resources, with few colonies, owing to her
+late arrival in the competition for them, Germany looked on the
+never-ceasing desire of Russia for Constantinople as the ruin of her
+policy of expansion in the East.
+
+And in actual fact there was but one way by which the three great
+Empires, which in population and extension of territory dominated
+the greater part of Europe, could avoid war, and that was to join in
+alliance among themselves or at least not to enter other alliances.
+The three great Empires divided themselves into two allied groups.
+From that moment, given the fact that in each of them the military
+caste held power, that the principal decisions lay in the hands of a
+few men not responsible to parliament; given the fact that Russia,
+faithful to her traditional policy, aimed to draw into her political
+orbit all the Slav peoples right down to the Adriatic and the Aegean
+and Austria, was leaning toward the creation of a third Slav monarchy
+in the dual kingdom, it was inevitable that sooner or later the
+violence, intrigue and corruption with which we are familiar should
+culminate in open conflict. Bismarck always saw that putting Russia
+and Germany up against each other meant war.
+
+Peoples, like individuals, are far from representing with anything
+approaching completeness such social conceptions as we call violence
+and right, honesty and bad faith, justice and injustice; each people
+has its different characteristics, but no one people represents good,
+or another bad, no one represents brutality, or another civilization.
+All these meaningless phrases were brought out during the War,
+according to which, as was said by one of the Prime Ministers of the
+Entente, the War was the decisive struggle between the forces of
+autocracy and liberty, between the dark powers of evil and violence
+and the radiant powers of good and right. To-day all this causes
+nothing but a smile. Such things are just speechifying, and banal at
+that. Perhaps they were a necessity of War-time which might well be
+made use of; when you are fighting for your very life you use every
+means you have; when you are in imminent danger you do not choose your
+weapons, you use everything to hand. All the War propaganda against
+the German Empires, recounting, sometimes exaggerating, all the crimes
+of the enemy, claiming that all the guilt was on the side of Germany,
+describing German atrocities as a habit, almost a characteristic of
+the German people, deriding German culture as a species of liquid
+in which were bred the microbes of moral madness--all this was
+legitimate, perhaps necessary, during the War. The reply to the
+asphyxiating gas of the enemy was not only the same gas, but a
+propaganda calculated to do more damage, and which, in fact, did do as
+much damage as tanks and blockade.
+
+But, when war is over, nothing should be put into a peace treaty
+except such things as will lead to a lasting peace, or the most
+lasting peace compatible with our degree of civilization.
+
+On January 22, 1917, President Wilson explained the reasons why he
+made the proposal to put an end to the War; he said in the American
+Senate that the greatest danger lay in a peace imposed by conquerors
+after victory. At that time it was said that there must be neither
+conquerors nor conquered. A peace imposed after victory would be the
+cause of so much humiliation and such intolerable sacrifices for the
+conquered side, it would be so severe, it would give rise to so much
+bitter feeling that it would not be a lasting peace, but one founded
+on shifting sand.
+
+In the spring of 1919, just before the most serious decisions were to
+be taken, Lloyd George put before the conference a memorandum entitled
+"_Some considerations for the Peace Conference before they finally
+draft their terms_."
+
+With his marvellously quick insight, after having listened to the
+speeches of which force was the leading motive (the tendency round him
+was not to establish a lasting peace but to vivisect Germany), Lloyd
+George saw that it was not a true peace that was being prepared.
+
+On March 25, 1919, Lloyd George presented the following memorandum to
+the conference:
+
+I
+
+When nations are exhausted by wars in which they have put forth all
+their strength and which leave them tired, bleeding and broken, it is
+not difficult to patch up a peace that may last until the generation
+which experienced the horrors of the war has passed away. Pictures
+of heroism and triumph only tempt those who know nothing of the
+sufferings and terrors of war. It is therefore comparatively easy to
+patch up a peace which will last for thirty years.
+
+What is difficult, however, is to draw up a peace which will not
+provoke a fresh struggle when those who have had practical experience
+of what war means have passed away. History has proved that a
+peace which has been hailed by a victorious nation as a triumph of
+diplomatic skill and statesmanship, even of moderation, in the long
+run has proved itself to be short-sighted and charged with danger to
+the victor. The peace of 1871 was believed by Germany to ensure not
+only her security but her permanent supremacy. The facts have shown
+exactly the contrary. France itself has demonstrated that those who
+say you can make Germany so feeble that she will never be able to hit
+back are utterly wrong. Year by year France became numerically weaker
+in comparison with her victorious neighbour, but in reality she became
+ever more powerful. She kept watch on Europe; she made alliance with
+those whom Germany had wronged or menaced; she never ceased to warn
+the world of its danger, and ultimately she was able to secure the
+overthrow of the far mightier power which had trampled so brutally
+upon her. You may strip Germany of her colonies, reduce her armaments
+to a mere police force and her navy to that of a fifth-rate power; all
+the same, in the end, if she feels that she has been unjustly treated
+in the peace of 1919, she will find means of exacting retribution from
+her conquerors. The impression, the deep impression, made upon the
+human heart by four years of unexampled slaughter will disappear with
+the hearts upon which it has been marked by the terrible sword of the
+Great War. The maintenance of peace will then depend upon there
+being no causes of exasperation constantly stirring up the spirit of
+patriotism, of justice or of fair play to achieve redress. Our terms
+may be severe, they may be stern and even ruthless, but at the same
+time they can be so just that the country on which they are imposed
+will feel in its heart that it has no right to complain. But
+injustice, arrogance, displayed in the hour of triumph, will never be
+forgotten nor forgiven.
+
+For these reasons I am, therefore, strongly averse to transferring
+more Germans from German rule to the rule of some other nation than
+can possibly be helped. I cannot conceive any greater cause of future
+war than that the German people, who have certainly proved themselves
+one of the most vigorous and powerful races in the world, should be
+surrounded by a number of small states, many of them consisting of
+people who have never previously set up a stable government for
+themselves, but each of them containing large masses of Germans
+clamouring for reunion with their native land. The proposal of the
+Polish Commission that we should place 2,100,000 Germans under the
+control of a people of a different religion and which has never proved
+its capacity for stable self-government throughout its history, must,
+in my judgment, lead sooner or later to a new war in the East of
+Europe. What I have said about the Germans is equally true about the
+Magyars. There will never be peace in South-Eastern Europe if every
+little state now coming into being is to have a large Magyar Irredenta
+within its borders.
+
+I would therefore take as a guiding principle of the peace that as
+far as is humanly possible the different races should be allocated
+to their motherlands, and that this human criterion should have
+precedence over considerations of strategy or economics or
+communications, which can usually be adjusted by other means.
+
+Secondly, I would say that the duration for the payments of reparation
+ought to disappear if possible with the generation which made the war.
+
+But there is a consideration in favour of a long-sighted peace which
+influences me even more than the desire to leave no causes justifying
+a fresh outbreak thirty years hence. There is one element in the
+present condition of nations which differentiates it from the
+situation as it was in 1815. In the Napoleonic Wars the countries were
+equally exhausted, but the revolutionary spirit had spent its force
+in the country of its birth, and Germany had satisfied the legitimate
+popular demands for the time being by a series of economic changes
+which were inspired by courage, foresight and high statesmanship. Even
+in Russia the Tsar had effected great reforms which were probably
+at that time even too advanced for the half-savage population. The
+situation is very different now. The revolution is still in its
+infancy. The extreme figures of the Terror are still in command in
+Russia. The whole of Europe is filled with the spirit of revolution.
+There is a deep sense not only of discontent, but of anger and revolt
+among the workmen against pre-war conditions. The whole existing
+order, in its political, social and economic aspects is questioned by
+the masses of the population from one end of Europe to the other. In
+some countries, like Germany and Russia, the unrest takes the form of
+open rebellion, in others, like France, Great Britain and Italy, it
+takes the shape of strikes and of general disinclination to settle
+down to work, symptoms which are just as much concerned with the
+desire for political and social change as with wage demands.
+
+Much of this unrest is healthy. We shall never make a lasting peace by
+attempting to restore the conditions of 1914. But there is a danger
+that we may throw the masses of the population throughout Europe into
+the arms of the extremists, whose only idea for regenerating mankind
+is to destroy utterly the whole existing fabric of society. These
+men have triumphed in Russia. They have done so at a terrible price.
+Hundreds and thousands of the population have perished. The railways,
+the roads, the towns, the whole structural organization of Russia has
+been almost destroyed, but somehow or other they seem to have managed
+to keep their hold upon the masses of the Russian people, and what is
+much more significant, they have succeeded in creating a large army
+which is apparently well directed and well disciplined, and is, as to
+a great part of it, prepared to die for its ideals. In another year
+Russia, inspired by a new enthusiasm, may have recovered from her
+passion for peace and have at her command the only army eager to
+fight, because it is the only army that believes that it has any cause
+to fight for.
+
+The greatest danger that I see in the present situation is that
+Germany may throw in her lot with Bolshevism and place her resources,
+her brains, her vast organizing power at the disposal of the
+revolutionary fanatics whose dream it is to conquer the world for
+Bolshevism by force of arms. This danger is no mere chimera. The
+present government in Germany is weak; its authority is challenged; it
+lingers merely because there is no alternative but the Spartacists,
+and Germany is not ready for Spartacism, as yet. But the argument
+which the Spartacists are using with great effect at this very time is
+that they alone can save Germany from the intolerable conditions which
+have been bequeathed her by the War. They offer to free the German
+people from indebtedness to the Allies and indebtedness to their own
+richer classes. They offer them complete control of their own affairs
+and the prospect of a new heaven and earth. It is true that the price
+will be heavy. There will be two or three years of anarchy, perhaps
+of bloodshed, but at the end the land will remain, the people will
+remain, the greater part of the houses and the factories will remain,
+and the railways and the roads will remain, and Germany, having thrown
+off her burdens, will be able to make a fresh start.
+
+If Germany goes over to the Spartacists it is inevitable that she
+should throw in her lot with the Russian Bolshevists. Once that
+happens all Eastern Europe will be swept into the orbit of the
+Bolshevik revolution, and within a year we may witness the spectacle
+of nearly three hundred million people organized into a vast red army
+under German instructors and German generals, equipped with German
+cannon and German machine guns and prepared for a renewal of the
+attack on Western Europe. This is a prospect which no one can face
+with equanimity. Yet the news which came from Hungary yesterday shows
+only too clearly that this danger is no fantasy. And what are the
+reasons alleged for this decision? They are mainly the belief that
+large numbers of Magyars are to be handed over to the control of
+others. If we are wise, we shall offer to Germany a peace, which,
+while just, will be preferable for all sensible men to the alternative
+of Bolshevism. I would therefore put it in the forefront of the peace
+that once she accepts our terms, especially reparation, we will open
+to her the raw materials and markets of the world on equal terms with
+ourselves, and will do everything possible to enable the German people
+to get upon their legs again. We cannot both cripple her and expect
+her to pay.
+
+Finally, we must offer terms which a responsible government in Germany
+can expect to be able to carry out. If we present terms to Germany
+which are unjust, or excessively onerous, no responsible government
+will sign them; certainly the present weak administration will not.
+If it did, I am told that it would be swept away within twenty-four
+hours. Yet if we can find nobody in Germany who will put his hand to
+a peace treaty, what will be the position? A large army of occupation
+for an indefinite period is out of the question. Germany would not
+mind it. A very large number of people in that country would welcome
+it, as it would be the only hope of preserving the existing order of
+things. The objection would not come from Germany, but from our own
+countries. Neither the British Empire nor America would agree to
+occupy Germany. France by itself could not bear the burden of
+occupation. We should therefore be driven back on the policy of
+blockading the country. That would inevitably mean Spartacism from the
+Urals to the Rhine, with its inevitable consequence of a huge red army
+attempting to cross the Rhine. As a matter of fact, I am doubtful
+whether public opinion would allow us deliberately to starve Germany.
+If the only difference between Germany and ourselves were between
+onerous terms and moderate terms, I very much doubt if public opinion
+would tolerate the deliberate condemnation of millions of women and
+children to death by starvation. If so, the Allies would have incurred
+the moral defeat of having attempted to impose terms on Germany which
+Germany had successfully resisted.
+
+From every point of view, therefore, it seems to me that we ought
+to endeavour to draw up a peace settlement as if we were impartial
+arbiters, forgetful of the passions of the war. This settlement ought
+to have three ends in view.
+
+First of all it must do justice to the Allies, by taking into account
+Germany's responsibility for the origin of the War, and for the way in
+which it was fought.
+
+Secondly, it must be a settlement which a responsible German
+government can sign in the belief that it can fulfil the obligations
+it incurs.
+
+Thirdly, it must be a settlement which will contain in itself no
+provocations for future wars, and which will constitute an alternative
+to Bolshevism, because it will commend itself to all reasonable
+opinion as a fair settlement of the European problem.
+
+
+II
+
+It is not, however, enough to draw up a just and far-sighted peace
+with Germany. If we are to offer Europe an alternative to Bolshevism
+we must make the League of Nations into something which will be both
+a safeguard to those nations who are prepared for fair dealing with
+their neighbours and a menace to those who would trespass on the
+rights of their neighbours, whether they are imperialist empires or
+imperialist Bolshevists. An essential element, therefore, in the
+peace settlement is the constitution of the League of Nations as the
+effective guardian of international right and international liberty
+throughout the world. If this is to happen the first thing to do is
+that the leading members of the League of Nations should arrive at an
+understanding between themselves in regard to armaments. To my mind
+it is idle to endeavour to impose a permanent limitation of armaments
+upon Germany unless we are prepared similarly to impose a limitation
+upon ourselves. I recognize that until Germany has settled down
+and given practical proof that she has abandoned her imperialist
+ambitions, and until Russia has also given proof that she does not
+intend to embark upon a military crusade against her neighbours, it
+is essential that the leading members of the League of Nations should
+maintain considerable forces both by land and sea in order to preserve
+liberty in the world. But if they are to present a united front to the
+forces both of reaction and revolution, they must arrive at such an
+agreement in regard to armaments among themselves as would make it
+impossible for suspicion to arise between the members of the League
+of Nations in regard to their intentions towards one another. If the
+League is to do its work for the world it will only be because the
+members of the League trust it themselves and because there are no
+rivalries and jealousies in the matter of armaments between them. The
+first condition of success for the League of Nations is, therefore, a
+firm understanding between the British Empire and the United States
+of America and France and Italy, that there will be no competitive
+building up of fleets or armies between them. Unless this is arrived
+at before the Covenant is signed the League of Nations will be a sham
+and a mockery. It will be regarded, and rightly regarded, as a proof
+that its principal promoters and patrons repose no confidence in its
+efficacy. But once the leading members of the League have made it
+clear that they have reached an understanding which will both secure
+to the League of Nations the strength which is necessary to enable
+it to protect its members and which at the same time will make
+misunderstanding and suspicion with regard to competitive armaments
+impossible between them its future and its authority will be assured.
+It will then be able to ensure as an essential condition of peace that
+not only Germany, but all the smaller States of Europe, undertake to
+limit their armaments and abolish conscription. If the small nations
+are permitted to organize and maintain conscript armies running each
+to hundreds of thousands, boundary wars will be inevitable, and all
+Europe will be drawn in. Unless we secure this universal limitation we
+shall achieve neither lasting peace nor the permanent observance of
+the limitation of German armaments which we now seek to impose.
+
+I should like to ask why Germany, if she accepts the terms we consider
+just and fair, should not be admitted to the League of Nations, at
+any rate as soon as she has established a stable and democratic
+government? Would it not be an inducement to her both to sign the
+terms and to resist Bolshevism? Might it not be safer that she should
+be inside the League than that she should be outside it?
+
+Finally, I believe that until the authority and effectiveness of the
+League of Nations has been demonstrated, the British Empire and the
+United States ought to give France a guarantee against the possibility
+of a new German aggression. France has special reason for asking for
+such a guarantee. She has twice been attacked and twice invaded by
+Germany in half a century. She has been so attacked because she has
+been the principal guardian of liberal and democratic civilization
+against Central European autocracy on the continent of Europe. It is
+right that the other great Western democracies should enter into an
+undertaking which will ensure that they stand by her side in time to
+protect her against invasion should Germany ever threaten her again,
+or until the League of Nations has proved its capacity to preserve the
+peace and liberty of the world.
+
+III
+
+If, however, the Peace Conference is really to secure peace and prove
+to the world a complete plan of settlement which all reasonable men
+will recognize as an alternative preferable to anarchy, it must deal
+with the Russian situation. Bolshevik imperialism does not merely
+menace the States on Russia's borders. It threatens the whole of Asia,
+and is as near to America as it is to France. It is idle to think that
+the Peace Conference can separate, however sound a peace it may have
+arranged with Germany, if it leaves Russia as it is to-day. I do not
+propose, however, to complicate the question of the peace with Germany
+by introducing a discussion of the Russian problem. I mention it
+simply in order to remind ourselves of the importance of dealing with
+it as soon as possible.
+
+The memorandum is followed by some proposals entitled "General Lines
+of the Peace Conditions," which would tend to make the peace less
+severe. It is hardly worth while reproducing them. As in many points
+the decisions taken were in the opposite sense it is better not to go
+beyond the general considerations.
+
+Mr. Lloyd George's memorandum is a secret document. But as the English
+and American Press have already printed long passages from it, it
+is practically possible to give it in its entirety without adding
+anything to what has already been printed.
+
+M. Tardieu has published M. Clemenceau's reply, drawn up by M. Tardieu
+himself and representing the French point of view:
+
+I
+
+The French Government is in complete agreement with the general
+purpose of Mr. Lloyd George's Note: to make a lasting peace, and for
+that reason a just peace.
+
+But, on the other hand, it does not think that this principle, which
+is its own, really leads to the conclusions arrived at in the Note in
+question.
+
+II
+
+The Note suggests that the territorial conditions laid down for
+Germany in Europe shall be moderate in order that she may not feel
+deeply embittered after peace.
+
+The method would be sound if the recent War had been nothing but a
+European war for Germany; but that is not the case.
+
+Previous to the War Germany was a great world Power whose _future
+was on the sea_. This was the power of which she was so inordinately
+proud. For the loss of this world power she will never be consoled.
+
+The Allies have taken from her--or are going to take from her--without
+being deterred by fear of her resentment, all her colonies, all her
+ships of war, a great part of her commercial fleet (as reparations),
+the foreign markets which she controlled.
+
+That is the worst blow that could be inflicted on her, and it is
+suggested that she can be pacified by some improvements in territorial
+conditions. That is a pure illusion. The remedy is not big enough for
+the thing it is to cure.
+
+If there is any desire, for general reasons, to give Germany some
+satisfaction, it must not be sought in Europe. Such help will be vain
+as long as Germany has lost her world policy.
+
+To pacify her (if there is any interest in so doing) she must have
+satisfaction given her in colonies, in ships, in commercial expansion.
+The Note of March 26 thinks of nothing but satisfaction in European
+territory.
+
+III
+
+Mr. Lloyd George fears that unduly severe territorial conditions
+imposed on Germany will play into the hands of Bolshevism. Is there
+not cause for fear, on the other hand, that the method he suggests
+will have that very result?
+
+The Conference has decided to call into being a certain number of new
+States. Is it possible without being unjust to them to impose on them
+inacceptable frontiers towards Germany? If these people--Poland and
+Bohemia above all--have resisted Bolshevism up to now it is through
+national sentiment. If this sentiment is violated Bolshevism will find
+an easy prey in them, and the only existing barrier between Russian
+and German Bolshevism will be broken.
+
+The result will be either a Confederation of Eastern and Central
+Europe under the direction of a Bolshevik Germany or the enslavery of
+those countries to a Germany become reactionary again, thanks to the
+general anarchy. In either case the Allies will have lost the War.
+
+The policy of the French Government, on the other hand, is to give
+the fullest aid to those young peoples with the support of everything
+liberal in Europe, and not to try to introduce at their expense
+abatements--which in any case would be useless--of the colonial, naval
+and commercial disaster which the peace imposes on Germany.
+
+If it is necessary, in giving these young peoples frontiers without
+which they cannot live, to transfer under their sovereignty some
+Germans, sons of the men who enslaved them, we may regret the
+necessity, and we should do it with moderation, but it cannot be
+avoided.
+
+Further, when all the German colonies are taken from her entirely and
+definitely, because she ill-treated the natives, what right is there
+to refuse normal frontiers to Poland and Bohemia because Germans
+installed themselves in those countries as precursors of the tyrant
+Pan-Germanism?
+
+IV
+
+The Note of March 26 insists on the necessity of a peace which will
+appear to Germany as a just peace, and the French Government agrees.
+
+It may be observed, however, that, given the German mentality, their
+conception of justice may not be the same as that of the Allies.
+
+And, also, surely the Allies as well as Germany, even before Germany,
+should feel this impression of justice. The Allies who fought together
+should conclude the War with a peace equal for all.
+
+Now, following the method suggested in the Note of March 26, what will
+be the result?
+
+A certain number of total and definite guarantees will be given to
+maritime nations whose countries were not invaded.
+
+Total and definite, the surrender of the German colonies.
+
+Total and definite, the surrender of the German war fleet.
+
+Total and definite, the surrender of a large part of the German
+commercial fleet.
+
+Total and lasting, if not definite, the exclusion of Germany from
+foreign markets.
+
+For the Continental countries, on the other hand--that is to say, for
+the countries which have suffered most from the War--would be reserved
+partial and transitory solutions:
+
+Partial solution, the modified frontiers suggested for Poland and
+Bohemia.
+
+Transitory solution, the defensive pledge offered France for the
+protection of her territory.
+
+Transitory solution, the regime proposed for the Saar coal.
+
+There is an evident inequality which might have a bad influence on
+the after-war relations among the Allies, more important than the
+after-war relations of Germany with them.
+
+It has been shown in Paragraph I that it would be an illusion to hope
+that territorial satisfaction offered to Germany would compensate
+her sufficiently for the world disaster she has suffered. And it may
+surely be added that it would be an injustice to lay the burden of
+such compensation on the shoulders of those countries among the Allies
+which have had to bear the heaviest burden of the War.
+
+After the burdens of the War, these countries cannot bear the burdens
+of the peace. It is essential that they should feel that the peace is
+just and equal for all.
+
+And unless that be assured it is not only in Central Europe that there
+will be fear of Bolshevism, for nowhere does it propagate so easily,
+as has been seen, as amid national disillusionment.
+
+V
+
+The French Government desires to limit itself for the moment to these
+observations of a general character. It pays full homage to the
+intentions which inspired Mr. Lloyd George's memorandum. But it
+considers that the inductions that can be drawn from the present Note
+are in consonance with justice and the general interests.
+
+And those are the considerations by which the French Government will
+be inspired in the coming exchange of ideas for the discussion of
+conditions suggested by the Prime Minister of Great Britain.
+
+These two documents are of more than usual interest.
+
+The British Prime Minister, with his remarkable insight, at once notes
+the seriousness of the situation. He sees the danger to the peace
+of the world in German depression. Germany oppressed does not mean
+Germany subjected. Every year France becomes numerically weaker,
+Germany stronger. The horrors of war will be forgotten and the
+maintenance of peace will depend on the creation of a situation which
+makes life possible, does not cause exasperation to come into public
+feeling or into the just claims of Germans desirous of independence.
+Injustice in the hour of triumph will never be pardoned, can never be
+atoned.
+
+So the idea of handing over to other States numbers of Germans is not
+only an injustice, but a cause of future wars, and what can be said
+of Germans is also true of Magyars. No cause of future wars must be
+allowed to remain. Putting millions of Germans under Polish rule--that
+is, under an inferior people which has never shown any capacity for
+stable self-government--must lead to a new war sooner or later. If
+Germany in exasperation became a country of revolution, what would
+happen to Europe? You can impose severe conditions, but that does not
+mean that you can enforce them; the conditions to be imposed must be
+such that a responsible German Government can in good faith assume the
+obligation of carrying them out.
+
+Neither Great Britain nor the United States of America can assume
+the obligation of occupying Germany if it does not carry out the
+excessively severe conditions which it is desired to impose. Can
+France occupy Germany alone?
+
+From that moment Lloyd George saw the necessity of admitting Germany
+into the League of Nations _at once_, and proposed a scheme of treaty
+containing conditions which, while very severe, were in part tolerable
+for the German people.
+
+Clemenceau's reply, issued a few days later, contains the French point
+of view, and has an ironical note when it touches on the weak points
+in Lloyd George's argument. The War, says the French note, was not a
+European war; Germany's eyes were fixed on world power, and she
+saw that her future was on the sea. There is no necessity to show
+consideration regarding territorial conditions in Europe. By taking
+away her commercial fleet, her colonies and her foreign markets more
+harm is done to Germany than by taking European territory. To pacify
+her (if there is any occasion for doing so) she must be offered
+commercial satisfaction. At this point the note, in considering
+questions of justice and of mere utility, becomes distinctly ironical.
+
+Having decided to bring to life new States, especially Poland and
+Czeko-Slovakia, why not give them safe frontiers even if some Germans
+or Magyars have to be sacrificed?
+
+One of Clemenceau's fixed ideas is that criterions of justice must not
+be applied to Germans. The note says explicitly that, given the German
+mentality, it is by no means sure that the conception of justice of
+Germany will be the same as that of the Allies.
+
+On another occasion, after the signing of the treaty, when Lloyd
+George pointed out the wisdom of not claiming from Germany the
+absurdity of handing over thousands of officers accused of cruelty
+for judgment by their late enemies, and recognized frankly the
+impossibility of carrying out such a stipulation in England,
+Clemenceau replied simply that the Germans are not like the English.
+
+The delicate point in Clemenceau's note is the contradiction in which
+he tries to involve the British Prime Minister between the clauses of
+the treaty concerning Germany outside Europe, in which no moderation
+had been shown, and those regarding Germany in Europe, in which he
+himself did not consider moderation either necessary or opportune.
+
+There was an evident divergence of views, clearing the way for a calm
+review of the conditions to be imposed, and here two countries could
+have exercised decisive action: the United States and Italy.
+
+But the United States was represented by Wilson, who was already in a
+difficult situation. By successive concessions, the gravity of which
+he had not realized, he found himself confronted by drafts of treaties
+which in the end were contradictions of all his proposals, the
+absolute antithesis of the pledges he had given. It is quite possible
+that he had not seen where he was going, but his frequent irritation
+was the sign of his distress. Still, in the ship-wreck of his whole
+programme, he had succeeded in saving one thing, the Statute of the
+League of Nations which was to be prefaced to all the treaties.
+He wanted to go back to America and meet the Senate with at least
+something to show as a record of the great undertaking, and he hoped
+and believed in good faith that the Covenant of the League of Nations
+would sooner or later have brought about agreement and modified the
+worst of the mistakes made. His conception of things was academic,
+and he had not realized that there was need to constitute the nations
+before laying down rules for the League; he trusted that bringing them
+together with mutual pledges would further most efficiently the cause
+of peace among the peoples. On the other hand, there was diffidence,
+shared by both, between Wilson and Lloyd George, and there was little
+likelihood of the British Prime Minister's move checking the course
+the Conference had taken.
+
+Italy might have done a great work if its representatives had had
+a clear policy. But, as M. Tardieu says, they had no share in the
+effective doings of the Conference, and their activity was almost
+entirely absorbed in the question of Fiume. The Conference was a
+three-sided conversation between Wilson, Clemenceau and Lloyd George,
+and the latter had hostility and diffidence on each side of him, with
+Italy--as earlier stated--for the most part absent. Also, it was
+just then that the divergence between Wilson and the Italian
+representatives reached its acute stage. The essential parts of the
+treaty were decided in April and the beginning of May, on April 22
+the question of the right bank of the Rhine, on the 23rd or 24th the
+agreement about reparations. Italy was absent, and when the Italian
+delegates returned to Paris without being asked on May 6, the text of
+the treaty was complete, in print. In actual fact, only one person did
+really effective work and directed the trend of the Conference, and
+that person was Clemenceau.
+
+The fact that the Conference met in Paris, that everything that was
+done by the various delegations was known, even foreseen so that
+it could be opposed, discredited, even destroyed by the Press
+beforehand--a thing which annoyed Lloyd George so much that at one
+time he thought seriously of leaving the Conference--all this gave
+an enormous advantage to the French delegation and especially to
+Clemenceau who directed the Conference's work.
+
+All his life Clemenceau has been a tremendous destroyer. For years and
+years he has done nothing but overthrow Governments with a sort of
+obstinate ferocity. He was an old man when he was called to lead the
+country, but he brought with him all his fighting spirit. No one
+detests the Church and detests Socialism more than he; both of these
+moral forces are equally repulsive to his individualistic spirit. I do
+not think there is any man among the politicians I have known who is
+more individualistic than Clemenceau, who remains to-day the man of
+the old democracy. In time of war no one was better fitted than he to
+lead a fighting Ministry, fighting at home, fighting abroad, with
+the same feeling, the same passion. When there was one thing only
+necessary in order to beat the enemy, never to falter in hatred, never
+to doubt the sureness of victory, no one came near him, no one could
+be more determined, no one more bitter. But when War was over, when it
+was peace that had to be ensured, no one could be less fitted for the
+work. He saw nothing beyond his hatred for Germany, the necessity
+for destroying the enemy, sweeping away every bit of his activity,
+bringing him into subjection. On account of his age he could not
+visualize the problems of the future; he could only see one thing
+necessary, and that was immediate, to destroy the enemy and either
+destroy or confiscate all his means of development. He was not
+nationalist or imperialist like his collaborators, but before all
+and above all one idea lived in him, hatred for Germany; she must be
+rendered barren, disembowelled, annihilated.
+
+He had said in the French Parliament that treaties of peace were
+nothing more than a way of going on with war, and in September, 1920,
+in his preface to M. Tardieu's book, he said that France must get
+reparation for Waterloo and Sedan. Even Waterloo: _Waterloo et Sedan,
+pour ne pas remonter plus haut, nous imposaient d'abord les douloureux
+soucis d'une politique de réparation_.
+
+Tardieu noted, as we have seen, that there were only three people
+in the Conference: Wilson, Clemenceau and Lloyd George. Orlando, he
+remarks, spoke little, and Italy had no importance. With subtle irony
+he notes that Wilson talked like a University don criticizing an essay
+with the didactic logic of the professor. The truth is that after
+having made the mistake of staying in the Conference he did not
+see that his whole edifice was tumbling down, and he let mistakes
+accumulate one after the other, with the result that treaties were
+framed which, as already pointed out, actually destroyed all the
+principles he had declared to the world.
+
+Things being as they were in Paris, Clemenceau's temperament, the
+pressure of French industry and of the newspapers, the real anxiety to
+make the future safe, and the desire on that account to exterminate
+the enemy, France naturally demanded, through its representatives,
+the severest sanctions. England, given the realistic nature of its
+representatives and the calm clear vision of Lloyd George, always
+favoured in general the more moderate solutions as those which were
+more likely to be carried out and would least disturb the equilibrium
+of Europe. So it came about that the decisions seemed to be a
+compromise, but were, on the other hand, actually so hard and so stern
+that they were impossible of execution.
+
+Without committing any indiscretion it is possible to see now from
+the publications of the French representatives at the Conference
+themselves what France's claims were.
+
+Let us try to sum them up.
+
+As regards disarmament and control there could have been and there
+ought to have been no difficulty about agreement. I am in favour
+of the reduction of all armaments, but I regard it as a perfectly
+legitimate claim that the country principally responsible for the War,
+and in general the conquered countries, should be obliged to disarm.
+
+No one would regard it as unfair that Germany and the conquered
+countries should be compelled to reduce their armaments to the measure
+necessary to guarantee internal order only.
+
+But a distinction must be drawn between military sanctions meant to
+guarantee peace and those which have the end of ruining the enemy.
+In actual truth, in his solemn pronouncements after the entry of the
+United States into the War, President Wilson had never spoken of a
+separate disarmament of the conquered countries, but of adequate
+guarantees _given and received_ that national armaments should
+be reduced to the smallest point compatible with internal order.
+Assurances given and received: that is to say an identical situation
+as between conquerors and conquered.
+
+No one can deny the right of the conqueror to compel the conquered
+enemy to give up his arms and reduce his military armaments, at any
+rate for some time. But on this point too there was useless excess.
+
+I should never have thought of publishing France's claims. Bitterness
+comes that way, responsibility is incurred, in future it may be an
+argument in your adversary's hands. But M. Tardieu has taken this
+office on himself and has told us all France did, recounting her
+claims from the acts of the Conference itself. Reference is easy to
+the story written by one of the representatives of France, possibly
+the most efficient through having been in America a long time
+and having fuller and more intimate knowledge of the American
+representatives, particularly Colonel House.
+
+Generally speaking, in every claim the French representatives started
+from an extreme position, and that was not only a state of mind, it
+was a tactical measure. Later on, if they gave up any part of their
+claim, they had the air of yielding, of accepting a compromise. When
+their claims were of such an extreme nature that the anxiety they
+caused, the opposition they raised, was evident, Clemenceau put on
+an air of moderation and gave way at once. Sometimes, too, he showed
+moderation himself, when it suited his purpose, but in reality he only
+gave way when he saw that it was impossible to get what he wanted.
+
+In points where English and American interests were not involved,
+given the difficult position in which Lloyd George was placed and
+Wilson's utter ignorance of all European questions, with Italy keeping
+almost entirely apart, the French point of view always came out on
+top, if slightly modified. But the original claim was always so
+extreme that the modification left standing the most radically severe
+measure against the conquered countries.
+
+Many decisions affecting France were not sufficiently criticized on
+account of the relations in which the English and Americans stood
+to France; objections would have looked like ill-will, pleading the
+enemy's cause.
+
+Previously, in nearly every case when peace was being made, the
+representatives of the conquered countries had been called to state
+their case, opportunity was given for discussion. The Russo-Japanese
+peace is an example. Undoubtedly the aggression of Russia had been
+unscrupulous and premeditated, but both parties participated in
+drawing up the peace treaty. At Paris, possibly for the first time
+in history, the destiny of the most cultured people in Europe was
+decided--or rather it was thought that it was being decided--without
+even listening to what they had to say and without hearing from their
+representatives if the conditions imposed could or could not possibly
+be carried out. Later on an exception, if only a purely formal one,
+was made in the case of Hungary, whose delegates were heard; but it
+will remain for ever a terrible precedent in modern history that,
+against all pledges, all precedents and all traditions, the
+representatives of Germany were never even heard; nothing was left to
+them but to sign a treaty at a moment when famine and exhaustion and
+threat of revolution made it impossible not to sign it.
+
+If Germany had not signed she would have suffered less loss. But at
+that time conditions at home with latent revolution threatening the
+whole Empire, made it imperative to accept any solution, and all the
+more as the Germans considered that they were not bound by their
+signature, the decisions having been imposed by violence without any
+hearing being given to the conquered party, and the most serious
+decisions being taken without any real examination of the facts. In
+the old law of the Church it was laid down that everyone must have a
+hearing, even the devil: _Etiam diabulus audiatur_ (Even the devil
+has the right to be heard). But the new democracy, which proposed to
+install the society of the nations, did not even obey the precepts
+which the dark Middle Ages held sacred on behalf of the accused.
+
+Conditions in Germany were terribly difficult, and an army of two
+hundred thousand men was considered by the military experts the
+minimum necessary. The military commission presided over by Marshal
+Foch left Germany an army of two hundred thousand men, recruited by
+conscription, a Staff in proportion, service of one year, fifteen
+divisions, 180 heavy guns, 600 field-guns. That is less than what
+little States without any resources have now, three years after the
+close of the War. But France at once imposed the reduction of the
+German army to 100,000 men, no conscription but a twelve years'
+service of paid soldiers, artillery reduced practically to nothing, no
+heavy guns at all, very few field-guns. No opportunity was given for
+discussion, nor was there any. Clemenceau put the problem in such a
+way that discussion was out of the question: _C'est la France qui,
+demain comme hier, sera face à l'Allemagne_. Lloyd George and Colonel
+House confined themselves to saying that on this point France formally
+expressed their views, Great Britain and the United States had no
+right to oppose. Lloyd George was convinced that the measures were
+too extreme and had tried on May 23, 1919, to modify them; but
+France insisted on imposing on Germany this situation of tremendous
+difficulty.
+
+I have referred to the military conditions imposed on Germany:
+destruction of all war material, fortresses and armament factories;
+prohibition of any trade in arms; destruction of the fleet; occupation
+of the west bank of the Rhine and the bridgeheads for fifteen years;
+allied control, with wide powers, over the execution of the military
+and naval clauses of the treaty, with consequent subjection of
+all public administrations and private companies to the will of a
+foreigner, or rather of an enemy kept at the expense of Germany itself
+and at no small expense, etc. In some of the inter-allied conferences
+I have had to take note of what these commissions of control really
+are, and their absurd extravagance, based on the argument that the
+enemy must pay for everything.
+
+The purport of France's action in the Conference was not to ensure
+safe military guarantees against Germany but to destroy her, at any
+rate to cut her up. And indeed, when she had got all she wanted and
+Germany was helpless, she continued the same policy, even intensifying
+it. Every bit of territory possible must be taken, German unity must
+be broken, and not only military but industrial Germany must be
+laid low under a series of controls and an impossible number of
+obligations.
+
+All know how, in Article 428 of the treaty, it is laid down, as a
+guarantee of the execution of the treaty terms on the part of Germany,
+or rather as a more extended military guarantee for France, that
+German territory on the west bank of the Rhine and the bridgeheads
+are to be occupied by allied and associated troops for fifteen years,
+methods and regulations for such occupation following in Articles 429
+and 432.
+
+This occupation not only gives deep offence to Germany (France has
+always looked back with implacable bitterness on the few months'
+military occupation by her Prussian conquerors in the war of 1870),
+but it paralyses all her activity and is generally judged to be
+completely useless.
+
+All the Allies were ready to give France every military guarantee
+against any unjust aggression by Germany, but France wanted in
+addition the occupation of the left bank of the Rhine. It was a very
+delicate matter, and the notes presented to the Conference by Great
+Britain on March 26 and April 2, by the United States on March 28 and
+April 12, show how embarrassed the two Governments were in considering
+a question which France regarded as essential for her future. It has
+to be added that the action of Marshal Foch in this matter was
+not entirely constitutional. He claimed that, independently of
+nationality, France and Belgium have the right to look on the Rhine as
+the indispensable frontier for the nations of the west of Europe, _et
+par là, de la civilisation_. Neither Lloyd George nor Wilson could
+swallow the argument of the Rhine a frontier between the civilization
+of France and Belgium, all civilization indeed, and Germany.
+
+In the treaty the occupation of the left bank of the Rhine and the
+bridgeheads by the allied and associated powers for fifteen years
+was introduced as a compromise. Such districts will be evacuated by
+degrees every five years if Germany shall have faithfully carried out
+the terms of the treaty. Now the conditions of the treaty are in large
+measure impossible of execution, and in consequence no execution of
+them can ever be described as faithful. Further, the occupying troops
+are paid by Germany. It follows that the conception of the occupation
+of the left bank of the Rhine was of a fact of unlimited duration.
+The harm that would result from the occupation was pointed out at the
+Conference by the American representatives and even more strongly by
+the English. What was the use of it, they asked, if the German army
+were reduced to 100,000 men? M. Tardieu himself tells the story of all
+the efforts made, especially by Lloyd George and Bonar Law, to prevent
+the blunder which later on was endorsed in the treaty as Article 428.
+Lloyd George went so far as to complain of political intrigues for
+creating disorder on the Rhine. But Clemenceau took care to put the
+question in such a form that no discussion was possible. In the matter
+of the occupation, he said to the English, you do not understand the
+French point of view. You live in an island with the sea as defence,
+we on the continent with a bad frontier. We do not look for an attack
+by Germany but for systematic refusal to carry out the terms of
+the treaty. Never was there a treaty with so many clauses, with,
+consequently, so many opportunities for evasion. Against that risk the
+material guarantee of occupation is necessary. There are two methods
+in direct contrast: _En Angleterre on croit que le moyen d'y réussir
+est de faire des concessions. En France nous croyons que c'est de
+brusquer_.
+
+On March 14 Lloyd George and Wilson had offered France the fullest
+military guarantee in place of the occupation of the left bank of the
+Rhine. France wanted, and in fact got, the occupation as well as the
+alliances. "_Notre but_?" says Tardieu. "_Sceller la garantie offerte,
+mais y ajouter l'occupation_." Outside the Versailles Treaty the
+United States and Great Britain had made several treaties of alliance
+with France for the event of unprovoked aggression by Germany. Later
+on the French-English Treaty was approved by the House of Commons, the
+French-American underwent the same fate as the Versailles Treaty. But
+the treaty with Great Britain fell through also on account of the
+provision that it should come into force simultaneously with the
+American Treaty.
+
+In a Paris newspaper Poincaré published in September, 1921, some
+strictly reserved documents on the questions of the military
+guarantees and the occupation of the left bank of the Rhine. He
+wished to get the credit of having stood firm when Clemenceau himself
+hesitated at the demand for an occupation of the left bank of the
+Rhine for even a longer period than fifteen years. He has published
+the letter he sent to Clemenceau to be shown to Wilson and Lloyd
+George and the latter's reply.
+
+He said that there must be no thought of giving up the occupation and
+renouncing a guarantee until every obligation in the treaty should
+have been carried out; he went so far as to claim that in occupation
+regarded as a guarantee of a credit representing an indemnity for
+damages, there is nothing contrary to the principles proclaimed by
+President Wilson and recognized by the Allies. Nor would it suffice
+even to have the faculty of reoccupation, because "this faculty" could
+never be a valid substitute for occupation. As regards the suggestion
+that a long occupation or one for an indeterminate period would cause
+bad feeling, M. Poincaré was convinced that this was an exaggeration.
+A short occupation causes more irritation on account of its arbitrary
+limit; everyone understands an occupation without other limit than the
+complete carrying out of the treaty. The longer the time that passes
+the better would become the relations between the German populations
+and the armies of occupation.
+
+Clemenceau communicated Poincaré's letter to Lloyd George. The British
+Prime Minister replied on May 6 in the clearest terms. In his eyes,
+forcing Germany to submit to the occupation of the Rhine and the Rhine
+Provinces for an unlimited period, was a provocation to renew the war
+in Europe.
+
+During the Conference France put forward some proposals the aim of
+which was nothing less than to split up Germany. A typical example
+is the memorandum presented by the French delegation claiming the
+annexation of the Saar territory. This is completely German; in the
+six hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants before the War there were
+not a hundred French. Not a word had ever been said about annexation
+of the Saar either in Government pronouncements or in any vote in the
+French Parliament, nor had it been discussed by any political party.
+No one had ever suggested such annexation, which certainly was a far
+more serious thing than the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany,
+as there was considerable German population in Alsace-Lorraine. There
+was no French population at all in the Saar, and the territory in
+question could not even be claimed for military reasons but only for
+its economic resources. Reasons of history could not count, for they
+were all in Germany's favour. Nevertheless the request was put forward
+as a matter of sentiment. Had not the Saar belonged in other days
+entirely or in part to France? Politics and economics are not
+everything, said Clemenceau; history also has great value. For the
+United States a hundred and twenty years are a long time; for France
+they count little. Material reparations are not enough, there must be
+moral reparations too, and the conception of France cannot be the same
+as that of her Allies. The desire for the Saar responded, according
+to Clemenceau, to a need of moral reparation. On this point, too,
+the extreme French claim was modified. The Saar mines were given to
+France, not provisionally as a matter of reparations, but permanently
+with full right of possession and full guarantees for their working.
+For fifteen years from the date of the treaty the government of the
+territory was put in the hands of the League of Nations as trustee;
+after fifteen years the population, entirely German, should be called
+to decide under what government they desired to live. In other words,
+in a purely German country, which no one in France had ever claimed,
+of which no one in France had ever spoken during the War, the most
+important property was handed to a conquering State, the country was
+put under the administration of the conquerors (which is what the
+League of Nations actually is at present), and after fifteen years of
+torment the population is to be put through a plebiscite. Meanwhile
+the French douane rules in the Saar.
+
+It was open to the treaty to adopt or not to adopt the system of
+plebiscites. When it was a case of handing over great masses of German
+populations, a plebiscite was imperative--at any rate, where any doubt
+existed, and the more so in concessions which formed no part of the
+War aims and were not found in any pronouncement of the Allies. On the
+other hand, in all cessions of German territory to Poland and Bohemia,
+no mention is made of a plebiscite because it was a question of
+military necessity or of lands which had been historically victims
+of Germany. But only for Schleswig, Upper Silesia, Marienwerder,
+Allenstein, Klagenfurth and the Saar were plebiscites laid down--and
+with the exception that the plebiscite itself, when, as in the case of
+Upper Silesia, it resulted in favour of Germany, was not regarded as
+conclusive.
+
+But where the most extreme views clashed was in the matter of
+reparations and the indemnity to be claimed from the enemy.
+
+We have already seen that the theory of reparation for damage found
+its way incidentally, even before the treaty was considered, into the
+armistice terms. No word had been said previously of claiming from the
+conquered enemy anything beyond restoration of devastated territories,
+but after the War another theory was produced. If Germany and her
+allies are solely responsible for the War, they must pay the whole
+cost of the War: damage to property, persons and war works. When
+damage has been done, he who has done the wrong must make reparation
+for it to the utmost limit of his resources.
+
+The American delegation struck a note of moderation: no claim
+should be made beyond what was established in the peace conditions,
+reparation for actions which were an evident violation of
+international law, restoration of invaded country, and reparation for
+damage caused to the civil population and to its property.
+
+During the War there were a number of exaggerated pronouncements on
+the immense resources of Germany and her capacity for payment.
+
+Besides all the burdens with which Germany was loaded, there was a
+discussion on the sum which the Allies should claim. The War had cost
+700 milliard francs, and the claims for damage to persons and property
+amounted to at least 350 milliards for all the Allies together.
+
+Whatever the sum might be, when it had been laid down in the treaty
+what damage was to be indemnified, the French negotiators claimed
+sixty-five per cent., leaving thirty-five per cent. for all the
+others.
+
+What was necessary was to lay down proportions, not the actual amount
+of the sum. It was impossible to say at once what amount the damages
+would reach: that was the business of the Reparations Commission.
+
+Instead of inserting in the treaty the enormous figures spoken of, the
+quality, not the quantity, of the damages to be indemnified was laid
+down. But the standard of reckoning led to fantastic figures.
+
+An impossible amount had to be paid, and the delegations were
+discussing then the very same things that are being discussed now. The
+American experts saw the gross mistake of the other delegations, and
+put down as the maximum payment 325 milliard marks up to 1951, the
+first payment to be 25 milliard marks in 1921. So was invented the
+Reparations Commission machine, a thing which has no precedent in any
+treaty, being a commission with sovereign powers to control the life
+of the whole of Germany.
+
+In actual truth no serious person has ever thought that Germany can
+pay more than a certain number of milliards a year, no one believes
+that a country can be subjected to a regime of control for thirty
+years.
+
+But the directing line of work of the treaties has been to break down
+Germany, to cut her up, to suffocate her.
+
+France had but one idea, and later on did not hesitate to admit it:
+to dismember Germany, to destroy her unity. By creating intolerable
+conditions of life, taking away territory on the frontier, putting
+large districts under military occupation, delaying or not making any
+diplomatic appointments and carrying on communications solely through
+military commissions, a state of things was brought about which must
+inevitably tend to weaken the constitutional unity of the German
+Empire. Taking away from Germany 84 thousand kilometres of territory,
+nearly eight million inhabitants and all the most important mineral
+resources, preventing the unity of the German people and the six
+million and five hundred thousand of German Austrians to which
+Austria was then reduced, putting the whole German country under an
+interminable series of controls--all this did more harm to German
+unity than would have been done by taking the responsibility of a
+forcible and immediate division to which the Germans could not have
+consented and which the Allies could not have claimed to impose.
+
+What has been said about Germany and the Versailles Treaty can be said
+about all the other conquered countries and all the other treaties,
+with merely varying proportions in each case.
+
+The verdict that has to be passed on them will very soon be shown by
+facts--if indeed facts have not shown already that, in great measure,
+what had been laid down cannot be carried out. One thing is certain,
+that the actual treaties threaten to ruin conquerors and conquered,
+that they have not brought peace to Europe, but conditions of war and
+violence. In Clemenceau's words, the treaties are a way of going on
+with war.
+
+But, even if it were possible to dispute that, as men's minds cannot
+yet frame an impartial judgment and the danger is not seen by all,
+there is one thing that cannot be denied or disputed, and that is that
+the treaties are the negation of the principles for which the United
+States and Italy, without any obligation on them, entered the War;
+they are a perversion of all the Entente had repeatedly proclaimed;
+they break into pieces President Wilson's fourteen points which were a
+solemn pledge for the American people, and to-morrow they will be the
+greatest moral weapon with which the conquered of to-day will face the
+conquerors of to-day.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE CONQUERORS AND THE CONQUERED
+
+
+How many are the States of Europe? Before the War the political
+geography of Europe was almost tradition. To-day every part of
+Europe is in a state of flux. The only absolute certainty is that in
+Continental Europe conquerors and conquered are in a condition of
+spiritual, as well as economic, unrest. It is difficult indeed to say
+how many political unities there are and how many are lasting, and
+what new wars are being prepared, if a way of salvation is not found
+by some common endeavour to install peace, which the peace of Paris
+has not done. How many thinking men can, without perplexity, remember
+how many States there are and what they are: arbitrary creations of
+the treaties, creations of the moment, territorial limitations imposed
+by the necessities of international agreements. The situation of
+Russia is so uncertain that no one knows whether new States will
+arise as a result of her continuous disintegration, or if she will be
+reconstructed in a solid, unified form, and other States amongst those
+which have arisen will fall.
+
+Without taking into account those traditional little States which are
+merely historical curiosities, as Monaco, San Marino, Andorra, Monte
+Santo, not counting Iceland as a State apart, not including the
+Saar, which as a result of one of the absurdities of the Treaty
+of Versailles is an actual State outside Germany, but considering
+Montenegro as an existing State, Europe probably comprises thirty
+States. Some of them are, however, in such a condition that they do
+not give promise of the slightest guarantee of life or security.
+
+Europe has rather Balkanized herself: not only the War came from the
+Balkans, but also many ideas, which have been largely exploited in
+parliamentary and newspaper circles. Listening to many speeches and
+being present at many events to-day leaves the sensation of being in
+Belgrade or at Sarajevo.
+
+Europe, including Russia and including also the Polar archipelagos,
+covers an area of a little more than ten million square kilometres.
+Canada is of almost the same size; the United States of America has
+about the same territory.
+
+The historical procedure before the War was towards the formation of
+large territorial unities; the _post-bellum_ procedure is entirely
+towards a process of dissolution, and the fractionizing, resulting a
+little from necessity and a little also from the desire to dismember
+the old Empires and to weaken Germany, has assumed proportions almost
+impossible to foresee.
+
+In the relations between the various States good and evil are not
+abstract ideas: political actions can only be judged by their results.
+If the treaties of peace which have been imposed on the conquered
+would be capable of application, we could, from an ethnical point of
+view, regret some or many of the decisions; but we should only have to
+wait for the results of time for a definite judgment.
+
+The evil is that the treaties which have been signed are not
+applicable or cannot be applied without the rapid dissolution of
+Europe.
+
+So the balance-sheet of the peace, after three years from the
+armistice--that is, three years from the War--shows on the whole a
+worsening of the situation. The spirit of violence has not died out,
+and perhaps in some countries not even diminished; on the other hand
+the causes of material disagreement have increased, the inequality
+has augmented, the division between the two groups has grown, and the
+causes of hatred have been consolidated. An analysis of the foreign
+exchanges indicated a process of undoing and not a tendency to
+reconstruction.
+
+We have referred in a general manner to the conditions of Germany as a
+result of the Treaty of Versailles; even worse is the situation of the
+other conquered countries in so far that either they have not been
+treated with due regard, or they have lost so much territory that they
+have no possibility of reconstructing their national existence. Such
+is the case with Austria, with Turkey and with Hungary. Bulgaria,
+which has a tenacious and compact population composed of small
+agriculturists, has less difficult conditions of reconstruction.
+
+Germany has fulfilled loyally all the conditions of the disarmament.
+After she had handed over her fleet she destroyed her fortifications,
+she destroyed all the material up to the extreme limit imposed by the
+treaties, she disbanded her enormous armies. If in any one of the
+works of destruction she had proceeded with a bad will, if she had
+tried to delay them, it would be perfectly understandable. A different
+step carries one to a dance or to a funeral. At the actual moment
+Germany has no fleet, no army, no artillery, and is in a condition in
+which she could not reply to any act of violence. This is why all the
+violence of the Poles against Germany has found hardly any opposition.
+
+All this is so evident that no one can raise doubts on the question.
+
+Everyone remembers, said Hindenburg, the difficult task that the
+United States had to put in the field an army of a million men.
+Nevertheless they had the protection of the ocean during the period
+when they were preparing their artillery and their aerial material.
+
+Germany for her aviation, for her heavy artillery, for her armaments,
+is not even separated by the ocean from her Allies, and, on the
+contrary, they are firmly established in German territory; it would
+require many months to prepare a new war, during which France and her
+Allies would not be resting quietly.
+
+General Ludendorff recently made certain declarations which have a
+capital importance, since they fit the facts exactly. He declared
+that a war of reconquest by Germany against the Allies and especially
+against France is for an indefinite time completely impossible from
+the technical and military point of view. France has an army largely
+supplied with all the means of battle, ready to march at any time,
+which could smash any German military organization hostile to France.
+The more so since by the destruction of the German war industries
+Germany has lost every possibility of arming herself afresh. It is
+absurd to believe that a German army ready for modern warfare can be
+organized and put on a war footing secretly. A German army which could
+fight with the least possible hope of success against an enemy army
+armed and equipped in the most modern manner would first of all have
+to be based on a huge German war industry, which naturally could not
+be improvised or built up in secret. Even if a third power wished
+to arm Germany, it would not be possible to arm her so quickly and
+mobilize her in sufficient time to prevent the enemy army from
+obtaining an immediate and decisive victory.
+
+It would be necessary, as everyone realizes even in France, that
+Germany should wish to commit suicide. In consequence of the treaty
+there is the "maximum of obstacles which mind can conceive" to
+guard against any German peril; and against Germany there have been
+accumulated "_such guarantees that never before has history recorded
+the like_" (Tardieu), and Germany cannot do anything for many years.
+Mobilization requires years and years for preparation and the greatest
+publicity for its execution.
+
+Wilson spoke of guarantees _given and received_ for the reduction of
+armaments. Instead, after the treaties had been concluded, if the
+conquered were completely disarmed, the conquering nations have
+continued to arm. Almost all the conquering nations have not only high
+expenses but more numerous armies. If the conditions of peace imposed
+by the treaties were considered supportable, remembering the fact that
+the late enemies were harmless, against whom are these continuous
+increase of armaments?
+
+We have already seen the military conditions imposed on Germany--a
+small mercenary army, no obligatory conscription, no military
+instruction, no aviation, no artillery except a minimum and
+insignificant quantity required by the necessities of interior order.
+Austria, Bulgaria and Hungary can only have insignificant armies.
+Austria may maintain under arms 30,000 men, but her ruined finances
+only permit her, according to the latest reports, to keep 21,700;
+Bulgaria has 20,000 men plus 3,082 gendarmes; Hungary, according to
+the Treaty of Trianon, has 35,000. Turkey in Europe, which hardly
+exists any more as a territorial State, except for the city of
+Constantinople, where the sovereignty of the Sultan is more apparent
+than real, has not an actual army.
+
+Taken all together the States which formed the powerful nucleus of war
+of Germany as they are now reduced territorially have under arms fewer
+than 180,000 men, not including, naturally, those new States risen on
+the ruins of the old Central Empires, and which arm themselves by the
+request and sometimes in the interest of some State of the Entente.
+
+The old enemies, therefore, are not in a condition to make war, and
+are placed under all manner of controls. Sometimes the controls are
+even of a very singular nature. All have been occupied in giving the
+sea to the victors. Poland has obtained the absurd paradox of the
+State of Danzig because it has the sea. The constant aim of the
+Allies, even in opposition to Italy, has been to give free and safe
+outlets on the sea coast to the Serb-Croat-Slovene State.
+
+At the Conference of London and San Remo I repeatedly referred to
+the expenses of these military missions of control and often their
+outrageous imposition on the conquered who are suffering from hunger.
+There are generals who are assigned as indemnity and expenses of all
+sorts, salaries which are much superior to that of the President of
+the United States of America. It is necessary to look at Vienna and
+Budapest, where the people are dying of hunger, to see the carnival of
+the Danube Commission. For the rest it is only necessary to look at
+the expense accounts of the Reparations Commissions to be convinced
+that this sad spectacle of greed and luxury humiliates the victors
+more than the conquered.
+
+German-Austria has lost every access to the sea. She cannot live on
+her resources with her enormous capital in ruins. She cannot unite
+with Germany, though she is a purely German country, because the
+treaty requires the unanimous consent of the League of Nations, and
+France having refused, it is therefore impossible. She cannot unite
+with Czeko-Slovakia, with Hungary and other countries which have
+been formed from the Austrian Empire, because that is against the
+aspirations of the German populations, and it would be the formation
+anew of that Danube State which, with its numerous contrasts, was one
+of the essential causes of the War. Austria has lost every access
+to the sea, has consigned her fleet and her merchant marine, but in
+return has had the advantage of numerous inter-allied commissions of
+control to safeguard the military, naval and aeronautic clauses. But
+there are clauses which can no longer be justified, as, for instance,
+when Austria no longer has a sea coast. (Art. 140 of the Treaty of St.
+Germain, which forbids the construction or acquisition of: any sort of
+submersible vessel, even commercial.) It is impossible to understand
+why (Art. 143) the wireless high-power station of Vienna is not
+allowed to transmit other than commercial telegrams under the
+surveillance of the Allied and Associated Powers, who take the trouble
+to determine even the length of the wave to be used.
+
+Before the War, in 1914, France desired to bring her army to the
+maximum of efficiency; opposite a great German army was to be found a
+great French army.
+
+Germany had in 1913, according to the Budget presented to the
+Reichstag, a standing army of 647,000 soldiers of all arms, of which
+105,000 were non-commissioned officers and 30,000 officers. It was the
+greatest army of Europe and of the world, taking into account its real
+efficiency.
+
+Whilst Germany has no longer an army, France on July 1, 1921, had
+under arms 810,000 men, of which 38,473 were officers, therefore many
+more than Germany had before the War. Given its demographic character,
+it is the greatest military force which has been seen in modern times,
+and can only have two reasons--either military domination or ruin. The
+military budget proposed for the present year in the ordinary section
+is for 2,782 millions of francs, besides that portion paid by Germany
+for the army of occupation; the extraordinary section of the same
+budget is for 1,712 millions of francs, besides 635 millions for
+expenses repayable for the maintenance of troops of occupation in
+foreign countries.
+
+Austria-Hungary had in 1913 a total of 34,000 officers and 390,249
+men; the States which have arisen from her ruins have a good many
+more. Whilst German-Austria has, as a matter of fact, only 21,700 men
+and Hungary has only 35,000, Czeko-Slovakia has 150,000 men, of which
+10,000 are officers; Jugo-Slavia has about 120,000, of which 8,000 to
+10,000 are officers.
+
+But the two allies of France--Belgium and Poland, Belgium no longer
+neutral, Poland always in disorder and in a state of continual
+provocation abroad and of increasing anarchy at home--have in their
+turn armies which previous to the War could have been maintained only
+by a first-class power. Belgium has doubled her peace effectives,
+which now amount to 113,500 men, an enormous army for a population
+which is about equal to that of the city of New York or London.
+
+Poland, whose economic conditions are completely disastrous, and may
+be described as having neither money nor credit any more, but which
+maintains more employees than any other country on earth, has under
+arms not fewer than 430,000 men, and often many more, and possibly has
+to-day many more--about 600,000. Her treaty with France imposes on her
+military obligations the extension of which cannot be compatible with
+the policy of a country desiring peace. Poland has, besides, vast
+dreams of greatness abroad, and growing ruin in the interior. She
+enslaves herself in order to enslave others, and pretends in her
+disorder to control and dominate much more intelligent and cultured
+peoples.
+
+Rumania has under arms 160,000 men besides 80,000 carabineers and
+16,000 frontier guards. Greece has, particularly on account of her
+undertakings in Asia Minor, which only the lesser intelligence of her
+national exaltations can explain, more than 400,000 men under arms.
+She is suffocating under the weight of heavy armaments and can move
+only with difficulty.
+
+The two pupils of the Entente, Greece and Poland, exactly like naughty
+children, have a policy of greed and capriciousness. Poland was not
+the outcome of her own strength, but of the strength of the Entente.
+Greece never found the way to contribute heavily to the War with a
+strong army, and after the War has the most numerous army which she
+has ever had in her history.
+
+Great Britain and Italy are the only two countries which have largely
+demobilized; Great Britain in the much greater measure. It is
+calculated that Great Britain has under arms 201,000 men, of which
+15,030 are officers. In this number, however, are not included 75,896
+men in India and the personnel of the Air Force.
+
+In Italy, on July 31, 1921, there were under arms 351,076 soldiers
+and 18,138 officers, in all 369,214, of which, however, 56,529 were
+carabineers carrying out duties almost exclusively of public order.
+
+Under the pressure and as a result of the example of the States which
+have come through the War, those States which did not take part have
+also largely augmented their armies.
+
+So, whilst the conquered have ceased every preoccupation, the neutrals
+of the War have developed their armaments, and the conquerors have
+developed theirs beyond measure.
+
+No one can say what may be the position of Bolshevik Russia; probably
+she has not much less than a million of men under arms, also because
+in a communist regime the vagabonds and the violent find the easiest
+occupation in the army.
+
+The conquerors, having disarmed the conquered, have imposed their
+economic conditions, their absurd moralities and territorial
+humiliations, as those imposed on Bulgaria, Turkey and Hungary,
+conditions which are sufficiently difficult to be maintained. And as
+the ferment of hate develops, the conquerors do not disarm. Above
+all, the little States do not disarm, who have wanted too much, have
+obtained too much, and now do not know how to maintain what they
+have. In many countries for certain social reasons war has become an
+industry; they live by the state of war. What would they do without a
+state of war?
+
+In general, then, Europe has considerably more men under arms than in
+1913. Not only has it not disarmed, as the Entente always declared
+would be the consequence of the victory of the principles of
+democracy, but the victors are always leaning toward further armament.
+The more difficult it becomes to maintain the conditions of the peace,
+because of their severity and their absurdity, the more necessary it
+is to maintain armies. The conquered have not armies; the conquerors
+are, or, perhaps, up to a short time ago, were sure that the big
+armies would serve to enforce the payment of the indemnities. Now, in
+fact, they would not serve for anything else.
+
+At the Conference of London, after a long discussion in February,
+1920, the economic manifesto was drawn up which warned Europe of the
+perils of the economic situation. Lloyd George and myself were easily
+agreed in denouncing it as the gravest danger, as the principal cause
+of high prices and of economic disorder, both as to the maintenance of
+large armies and in the continuation of the state of war.
+
+A Europe divided distinctly into two parts cannot be pacific even
+after the conquered have yielded up their arms. The conquerors are
+bound to arm themselves because of their own inquietude, from the
+conviction that the only salvation is in force, which allows, if not
+a true peace, at least an armed peace; if not the development of
+production and exchange, at least the possibility of cutting off from
+the markets the very fountains of riches.
+
+Violence begets new violence. If the conditions of the peace cannot
+be fulfilled, other heavier conditions can be imposed. In France
+irresponsible people are supporting already the necessity of occupying
+permanently the Ruhr, that is to say, the greatest German centre for
+the production of coal, and of not respecting the plebiscite of Upper
+Silesia.
+
+What has been said about the armies is true also about the fleets.
+There is a race towards the increase of naval armaments. If first that
+was the preoccupation of the conquered, now it is the preoccupation of
+the conquerors in the exchange of doubts into which they have fallen
+after the War.
+
+The state of mind which has been created between Great Britain, the
+United States of America and Japan deserves to be seriously examined.
+The race for naval armaments into which these three countries entered
+not many months ago, and the competition between the two great
+Anglo-Saxon people, cannot be other than very damaging for
+civilization.
+
+The Great War which has been fought was at bottom the fight between
+the Germanic race and the Slav race; it was the doubts in regard to
+the last and not in regard to France which pushed Germany to war and
+precipitated events. The results of the Continental War, however, are
+the suppression of Germany, which lost, as well as of Russia, which
+had not resisted, and France alone has gathered the fruits of the
+situation, if they can be called that, from amongst the thorns which
+everywhere surround the victory.
+
+But the War was decided, above all, by the intervention of the
+Anglo-Saxon people, Great Britain, her Dominions, and the United
+States of America. Nothing but the small political intelligence of the
+German statesmen could have united in the same group the peoples
+who have the greatest contrast of interests among themselves--Great
+Britain, Russia, the United States of America, Japan, France and
+Italy.
+
+But now the situation of Europe and especially that of Asia is
+creating fresh competitions, the expenses for the navies, according to
+the figures of the various Budgets from 1914 to 1921, have risen in
+the United States of America from 702 millions of lire to 2,166, in
+Great Britain from 1,218 millions to 2,109, in Japan from 249 millions
+to 1,250, in France from 495 millions to 1,083, in Italy from 250
+millions to 402. The sums proposed for new constructions in the year
+1921-22 are 450 millions in the United States of America, 475 millions
+for Great Britain, 281 millions for Japan, 185 millions for France,
+and 61 millions for Italy.
+
+The United States of America and Great Britain are countries of great
+resources: they can stand the effort. But can Japan, which has but
+limited resources, support these for any length of time? or has she
+some immediate intentions?
+
+A comparative table of the navies in 1914 and 1921 shows that the
+fleets of the conquering countries are very much more powerful than
+they were before the War. Nevertheless, Russia and Austria-Hungary and
+the people arisen in their territories are not naval powers; Germany
+has lost all her fleet. The race for naval armaments regards
+especially the two Anglo-Saxon powers and Japan; the race for land
+armaments regards all the conquerors of Europe and especially the
+small States.
+
+This situation cannot but be the cause of great preoccupation; but
+the greater preoccupation arises from the fact that the minor States,
+especially those which took no part in the War, become every day more
+exigent and display fresh aspirations.
+
+The whole system of the Treaty of Versailles has been erected on the
+error of Poland. Poland was not created as the noble manifestation
+of the rights of nationality, ethnical Poland was not created, but a
+great State which, as she is, cannot live long, because there are not
+great foreign minorities, but a whole mass of populations which cannot
+co-exist, Poland, which has already the experience of a too numerous
+Israelitic population, has not the capacity to assimilate the Germans,
+the Russians and the Ukranians which the Treaty of Versailles has
+unjustly given to her against the very declarations of Wilson.
+
+So that after, with the aid of the Entente, having had the strength
+to resist the Bolshevik troops, Poland is now in a state of permanent
+anarchy; consumes and does not produce; pays debts with a fantastic
+bigness and does not know how to regulate the incomings. No country
+in the world has ever more abused paper currency; her paper money is
+probably the most greatly depreciated of any country on earth. She
+has not succeeded in organizing her own production, and now tends to
+dissolve the production of her neighbours.
+
+The whole Treaty of Versailles is based on a vigorous and vital
+Poland. A harmless Germany, unable to unite with an equally harmless
+German-Austria, should be under the military control of France and
+Belgium on the west, and of Poland on the east. Poland, separating
+Germany from Russia, besides imposing on Germany the territorial
+outrage of the Danzig corridor, cuts her off from any possibility of
+expansion and development in the east. Poland has been conceived as a
+great State. A Polish nation was not constituted; a Polish military
+State was constituted, whose principal duty is that of disorganizing
+Germany.
+
+Poland, the result of a miracle of the War (no one could foretell the
+simultaneous fall of the Central Empires and of the Russian Empire),
+was formed not from a tenacious endeavour, but from an unforeseen
+circumstance, which was the just reward for the long martyrdom of a
+people. The borders of Poland will reach in time to the Baltic Sea in
+the north, the Carpathians and the Dniester in the south, in the east
+the country almost as far as Smolensk, in the west to the parts of
+Germany, Brandenburg and Pomerania. The new patriots dream of an
+immense Poland, the old Poland of tradition, and then to descend into
+the countries of the Ukraine and dominate new territories.
+
+It is easy to see that, sooner or later, the Bolshevik degeneration
+over, Russia will be recomposed; Germany, in spite of all the attempts
+to break her up and crush her unity, within thirty or forty years will
+be the most formidable ethnical nucleus of Continental Europe. What
+will then happen to a Poland which pretends to divide two people who
+represent numerically and will represent in other fields also the
+greatest forces of Continental Europe of to-morrow?
+
+Amongst many in France there is the old conception of Napoleon I, who
+considered the whole of European politics from an erroneous point of
+view, that of a lasting French hegemony in Europe, when the lasting
+hegemony of peoples is no longer possible. In the sad solitude of his
+exile at Saint Helena, Napoleon I said that not to have created a
+powerful Poland keystone of the roof of the European edifice, not to
+have destroyed Prussia, and to have been mistaken in regard to Russia,
+were the three great errors of his life. But all his work had as an
+end to put the life of Europe under the control of France, and was
+necessarily wrecked by reality, which does not permit the lasting
+mistake of a single nation which places herself above all the others
+in a free and progressive Europe.
+
+If the policy of the Entente towards Germany and towards the conquered
+countries does not correspond either to collective declarations made
+during the War, or to the promises solemnly made by Wilson, the policy
+towards Russia has been a whole series of error. In fact, one cannot
+talk of a policy of the Entente, in so far that with the exception of
+a few errors committed in common, Great Britain, France and Italy have
+each followed their own policy.
+
+In his sixth point, among the fourteen points, no longer pure, but
+violated and outraged worse than the women of a conquered race by a
+tribe of Kurds, Wilson said on January 8, 1918, that the treatment
+meted out to Russia by the sister nations, and therefore their loyalty
+in assisting her to settle herself, should be the stern proof of
+their goodwill. They should show that they did not confound their
+own interests, or rather their egoism, with what should be done for
+Russia. The proof was most unfortunate.
+
+The attitude of the Entente towards Russia has had different phases.
+
+In the first phase, the prevailing idea, especially on the part of
+one of the Allies, was to send military expeditions in conjunction
+especially with Rumania and Poland. This idea was immediately
+abandoned on account of its very absurdity.
+
+In the second phase, the greatest hopes were placed in the blockade;
+of isolating Russia completely, cutting off from her (and for the rest
+she no longer had it) every facility of trade exchange. At the same
+time war on the part of Poland and Rumania was encouraged, to help the
+attempt which the men of the old regime were making in the interior.
+France alone reached the point of officially recognizing the Tsarist
+undertaking of General Wrangel.
+
+Lloyd George, with the exception of some initial doubts, always had
+the clearest ideas in regard to Russia, and I never found myself in
+disagreement with him in valuing the men and the Russian situation. It
+is easy for a broad and serene mind to judge the position of the rest.
+
+For my part I always tried to follow that policy which would best
+bring about the most useful result with the least damage. After the
+War the working masses in Europe had the greatest illusions about
+Russian communism and the Bolshevik organization. Every military
+expedition against Russia signified giving the people the conviction
+that it was desired not to fight an enemy but to suffocate in blood an
+attempt at a communist organization. I have always thought that the
+dictatorship of the proletariat, that is the dictatorship of ignorance
+and incapacity, would necessarily lead to disaster, and that hunger
+and death would follow violence. There are for the peoples great
+errors which must be carried out in the very effort to benefit
+civilization. Our propaganda would have served nothing without the
+reality of ruin. Only the death by hunger of millions of men in
+communist Russia will convince the working masses in Europe and
+America that the experiment of Russia is not to be followed; rather is
+it to be avoided at any cost. To exterminate the communist attempt by
+an unjust war, even if it were possible, would have meant ruin for
+Western civilization.
+
+On repeated occasions I have counselled Rumania and Poland not to make
+any attempt against Russia and to limit themselves to defence. Every
+unjust aggression on the part of Bolshevik Russia would have found the
+Entente disposed to further sacrifice to save two free nations, but
+any provocation on their part could not create secure solidarity.
+
+When I assumed the direction of the Government in June, 1919, an
+Italian military expedition was under orders for Georgia. The English
+troops, who were in small numbers, were withdrawing; Italy had, with
+the consent of the Allies, and partly by her own desire, prepared
+a big military expedition. A considerable number of divisions were
+ready, as also were the ships to commence the transport. Georgia is a
+country of extraordinary natural resources, and it was thought
+that she would be able to furnish Italy with a great number of raw
+materials which she lacked. What surprised me was that not only men of
+the Government, but intelligent financiers and men of very advanced
+ideas, were convinced supporters of this expedition.
+
+However, confronted by much opposition, I immediately renounced this
+undertaking, and renounced it in a definite form, limiting myself to
+encouraging every commercial enterprise.
+
+Certainly the Allies could not suggest anything unfriendly to Italy;
+but the effect of the expedition was to put Italy directly at variance
+with the government of Moscow, to launch her upon an adventure of
+which it was impossible to tell the consequences.
+
+In fact, not long afterwards Georgia fell into the hands of the
+Bolsheviks, who sent there an army of 125,000 men, and since then
+she has not been able to liberate herself. If Italy had made that
+expedition she would have been engaged in a frightful military
+adventure, with most difficult and costly transport in a theatre of
+war of insuperable difficulty. To what end?
+
+Georgia before the War formed part of the Russian Empire, and no
+country of the Entente had considered that unjust. Further, as though
+the vast empire and the dominion of the Caucasus were not enough for
+Russia, the Entente with monstrous condescension had given to Russia
+Constantinople and the Straits and a huge zone in Asia Minor. How
+could you take away from Russia a territory which was legitimately
+hers? And _vice versa_, if Georgia and the other States of the
+Caucasus had sufficient strength to live autonomously, how can
+you dominate Aryan people who have risen to a notable state of
+development?
+
+To go to Georgia inevitably meant war with Russia for Italy, and one,
+moreover, fraught with extraordinary difficulties. In fact, later, the
+government of Moscow, as we have said, succeeded in invading as well
+as Georgia almost all the republics of the Caucasus. And at San Remo,
+discussing the possibility of an expedition on the part of Great
+Britain, France and Italy to defend at least the oil production, after
+the report of a military committee presided over by Marshal Foch, the
+conclusion was quickly and easily arrived at that it was better to
+leave the matter alone.
+
+Italy had already made an expedition into Albania, the reason for
+which beyond the military necessities for the period of the War has
+never been understood, except that of spending a huge sum without
+receiving the gratitude of the Albanians; an expedition in Georgia
+would have done harm, the consequence of which cannot be readily
+measured, it could, indeed, have meant ruin.
+
+Even those minds that are most blinded by prejudice and hate recognize
+the complete failure of the Russian communist system. The so-called
+dictatorship of the proletariat is reduced in practice to a military
+dictatorship of a communist group which represents only a fraction of
+the working classes and that not the best. The Bolshevik government
+is in the hands of a small minority in which fanaticism has taken the
+place of character. Everything which represented the work of the past
+has been destroyed and they have not known how to construct anything.
+The great industries have fallen and production is paralysed. Russia
+has lived for a long time on the residues of her capitalistic
+production rather than on new productions. The productivity of her
+agricultural and industrial work has been killed by communism, and the
+force of work has been reduced to a minimum. The Russian people are in
+straits which have no comparison, and entire territories are dying of
+hunger. The communist regime in a short time has precipitated such
+damage and such misery as no system of oppression could achieve in
+centuries. It is the proof, if any were necessary, that the form of
+communist production is not only harmful but not even lasting. The
+economists say that it is absurd, but, given the collective madness
+which has attacked some people, nothing is absurd beyond hoping in the
+rapid recovery of the most excited nations.
+
+If any country could be the scene of a communist experiment it was
+Russia. Imperial Russia represented the most vast continuative
+territory which a State ever occupied in all history's records of vast
+empires. Under the Tsars a territory which was almost three times the
+size of the United States of America was occupied by a people
+who, with the exception of a few cases of individual revolt, were
+accustomed to the most servile obedience. Under Nicholas II a few men
+exercised rule in a most despotic form over more than 180,000,000
+individuals spread over an immense territory. All obeyed blindly.
+Centralization was so great, and the obedience to the central power so
+absolute, that no hostile demonstration was tolerated for long. The
+communist regime therefore was able to count not only on the apathy
+of the Russian people but also upon the blindest obedience. To this
+fundamental condition of success, to a Government which must regulate
+production despotically, was joined another even greater condition
+of success. Russia is one of those countries which, like the United
+States of America, China and Brazil (the four greatest countries
+of the earth, not counting the English dominions with much thinner
+populations), possess within their own territories everything
+necessary for life. Imagine a country of self-contained economy, that
+lives entirely upon her own resources and trades with no one (and that
+is what happened in Russia as a result of the blockade), Russia has
+the possibility of realizing within herself the most prosperous
+conditions of existence. She has in her territories everything: grain,
+textile fibres, combustibles of every sort; Russia is one of the
+greatest reserves, if not the greatest reserve, in the world.
+Well, the communist organization was sufficient, the bureaucratic
+centralization, which communism must necessarily carry with it, to
+arrest every form of production. Russia, which before could give grain
+to all, is dying of hunger; Russia, which had sufficient quantities of
+coal for herself and could give petroleum to all Europe, can no longer
+move her railways; Russia, which had wool, flax, linen, and could have
+easily increased her cotton cultivation in the Caucasus, cannot even
+clothe the soldiers and functionaries of the Bolshevik State. Ceased
+is the stimulus of individual interest; few work; the peasants work
+only to produce what their families need; the workers in the city are
+chiefly engaged in meetings and political reunions. All wish to
+live upon the State, and production, organized autocratically and
+bureaucratically, every day dries up and withers a bit more.
+
+To those who read the collection of laws issued by the Bolshevik
+government many institutions appear not only reasonable, but also full
+of interest and justice. Also many laws of the absolute governments
+of past regimes appear intelligent and noble. But the law has not in
+itself any power of creation; it regulates relations, does not create
+them. It can even take away wealth from some and give it to others,
+but cannot create the wealth. When the individual interest begins to
+lack, work, which is sorrow and pain, lags and does not produce. To
+begin with, it weakens in the short days when energy is avoided, and
+then it stops through incapacity for energy. The old fundamental truth
+is that in all the Aryan tongues the words which indicate work have
+the same root as the words which denote pain. Among the great mass of
+man work is only done by necessity or under the stimulus of individual
+interest which excites the production of wealth. They work for wealth;
+and therefore in the Aryan tongues wealth means dominion and power.
+
+Two years ago I wanted, in spite of the opinion of others, to consent
+to the Italian Socialists visiting Russia. I was convinced that
+nothing would have served better to break in Italy the sympathy
+for Russia, or rather the illusions of the revolutionaries, as the
+spectacle of famine and disorder would. Never did the Press of my
+country, or the greater part of it, criticize with more violence a
+proposal which I considered to be both wise and prudent. I am glad to
+state that I was right, and that, maybe through the uncertainties
+and the lessons of those who had spread the illusions, the Italian
+Socialists returned from Russia were bound to recognize that the
+communist experiment was the complete ruin of the Russian people. No
+conservative propaganda could have been more efficacious than the
+vision of the truth.
+
+I am convinced that the hostile attitude, and almost persecution, on
+the part of the Entente rather helped the Bolshevik government, whose
+claims to discredit were already so numerous that it was not necessary
+to nullify it by an unjust and evident persecution.
+
+The Bolshevik government could not be recognized: it gave no
+guarantees of loyalty, and too often its representatives had violated
+the rights of hospitality and intrigued through fanatics and excited
+people to extend the revolution. Revolution and government are two
+terms which cannot co-exist. But not to recognize the government of
+the Soviet does not mean that the conditions of such recognition must
+include that the War debt shall be guaranteed, and, worse still, the
+pre-War debt, or that the gold resources and the metals of Russia
+shall be given as a guarantee of that debt. This morality, exclusively
+financial and plutocratic, cannot be the base of international
+relations in a period in which humanity, after the sorrows of the War,
+has the annoyance of a peace which no one foresaw and of which very
+few in the early days understood the dangers.
+
+Even when there was a tendency favourable to the recognition of the
+republic of the Soviet, I was always decidedly against it. It is
+impossible to recognize a State which bases all its relations on
+violence, and which in its relations with foreign States seeks, or
+has almost always sought, to carry out revolutionary propaganda. Even
+when, yielding to an impulse which it was not possible to avoid--in
+the new Italian Chamber, after the elections of 1919 not only the
+Socialists, but above all the Catholic popular party and the party of
+Rinnovamento, of which the ex-soldiers especially formed part, voted
+unanimously an order of the day for the recognition of the actual
+government of Russia--I did not think it right to give, and did not
+give, effect to that vote, impulsively generous, which would have
+invested Italy with the responsibility of recognizing, even if it were
+_de facto_, the government of the Soviet.
+
+I have always, however, rebelled and would never give my consent to
+any military undertakings against Russia, not even to a participation
+in the undertakings of men of the old regime. It was easy to foresee
+that the population would not have followed them and that the
+undertakings were doomed to failure. However, all the attempts at
+military revolts and counter-revolutions were encouraged with supplies
+of arms and material. But in 1920 all the military undertakings, in
+spite of the help given, failed one after another. In February the
+attempt of Admiral Koltchak failed miserably, and in March that of
+General Judenic. Failed has the attempt of Denikin. All the hopes of
+the restoration were centred in General Wrangel. The only Grand Duke
+with any claim to military authority also sent to tell me that this
+was a serious attempt with probability of success. General Wrangel, in
+fact, reunited the scattered forces of the old regime and occupied a
+large territory in power. France not only recognized in the government
+of Wrangel the legitimate representative of Russia, but nominated her
+official representatives with him. In November, 1920, even the army
+of Wrangel, which appeared to be of granite, was scattered. Poland,
+through alternating vicissitudes, claimed the power of resistance, but
+has shown that she has no offensive power against Russia. So all the
+attempts at restoration have broken, one after another.
+
+One of the greatest errors of the Entente has been to treat Russia
+on many occasions, not as a fallen friend, but as a conquered enemy.
+Nothing has been more deplorable than to have considered as Russia the
+men of the old regime, who have been treated for a long time as the
+representatives of an existing State when the State no longer existed.
+
+Let us suppose that the Bolshevik government transforms itself and
+gives guarantees to the civilized nations not to make revolutionary
+agitations in foreign countries, to maintain the pledges she assumes,
+and to respect the liberty of citizens; the United States of America,
+Great Britain and Italy would recognize her at once. But France has an
+entirely different point of view. She will not give any recognition
+unless the creditors of the old regime are guaranteed.
+
+In June, 1920, the government of Moscow sent some gold to Sweden to
+purchase indispensable goods. Millerand, President of the Council of
+Ministers and Minister of Foreign Affairs, declared to the Minister of
+Sweden at Paris that if his Government consented to receive Russian
+gold _ferait acte de receleur_. He then telegraphed to the Minister of
+Finance at Stockholm regretting that the Government and public opinion
+in Sweden were tending to consider the _revendications juridiques_ of
+the French creditors of the ancient Russian regime to be such that
+they did not stop the consignment of Swedish goods against Russian
+gold. He added at the end that the syndicates of creditors could
+utilize the news in telegram No. 355, in which the Swedish Government
+gave notice of the trade and put a sequestration on Russian gold sent
+to Sweden.
+
+This telegram, better than any speech, shows the diversity of
+conception.
+
+The Bolshevik government may be so immoral that we cannot recognize
+it until it gives serious guarantees. But if the government of Moscow
+sends a little of the gold that remains, or has remained, to buy
+goods, what right have we to sequestrate the gold in the interests of
+the creditors of the old regime?
+
+The new regime, born after the revolution, can also not recognize the
+debts of the old regime and annul them. It is not for that that we
+have no relations with it.
+
+We have pushed Germany by absurd demands to ruin her circulation. It
+is already at about 100 milliard of marks; if to-morrow it goes to 150
+or to 200, it will be necessary to annul it, nearly the same as is
+done for bills of exchange. And for this should we not treat with
+Germany?
+
+The new plutocratic conception, which marks the policy of a section
+of the Entente, is not lasting, and the people have a justifiable
+diffidence towards it.
+
+Bolshevism, as I have repeatedly stated, cannot be judged by our
+western eyes: it is not a popular and revolutionary movement; it is a
+religious fanaticism of the orthodox of the East hoisted on the throne
+of Tsarist despotism.
+
+Italy is the country which suffers most from the lack of continuous
+relations with Russia in so far that almost all Italian commerce, and
+in consequence the prices of freight and goods, have been for almost
+half a century regulated by the traffic with the Black Sea.
+
+Ships which leave England fully laden with goods for Italy generally
+continue to the Black Sea, where they fill up with grain, petroleum,
+etc., and then return to England, after having taken fresh cargoes in
+Italy and especially iron in Spain. It was possible in Italy for long
+periods of time to obtain most favourable freights and have coal at
+almost the same price as in England. The voyages of the ships were
+made, both coming and going, fully laden.
+
+The situation of Russia, therefore, hurts especially Italy. Great
+Britain has Mediterranean interests; France is partly a Mediterranean
+nation; Italy alone is a Mediterranean nation.
+
+Although Italy has a particular interest in reopening relations with
+Russia, the Italian Government has understood that the best and
+shortest way is not to recognize the government of Moscow. But Italy
+will never subordinate her recognition to plutocratic considerations.
+Whatever government there may be in Italy, it will never associate
+itself with actions directed to compelling Russia, in order to be
+recognized, to guarantee the payment of obligations assumed previous
+to the War and the revolution. Civilization has already suppressed
+corporal punishment for insolvent debtors, and slavery, from which
+individuals are released, should not be imposed on nations by
+democracies which say they are civilized.
+
+The fall of the communistic organization in Russia is inevitable. Very
+probably from the immense revolutionary catastrophe which has hit
+Russia there will spring up the diffusion of a regime of small landed
+proprietors. Whatever is contrary to human nature is not lasting, and
+communism can only accumulate misery, and on its ruins will arise new
+forms of life which we cannot yet define. But Bolshevik Russia can
+count still on two elements which we do not habitually take into
+account: the apathy and indolence of the people on the one hand, and
+the strength of the military organization on the other. No other
+people would have resigned itself to the intense misery and to the
+infinite sufferings which tens of millions of Russians endure without
+complaint. But still in the midst of so much misery no other people
+would have known how to maintain a powerful and disciplined army such
+as is the army of revolutionary Russia.
+
+The Russian people have never had any sympathy for the military
+undertakings which the Entente has aided. During some of the meetings
+of Premiers at Paris and London I had occasion, in the sittings of
+the conferences, to speak with the representatives of the new
+States, especially those from the Caucasus. They were all agreed
+in considering that the action of the men of the old regime, and
+especially Denikin, was directed at the suppression of the independent
+States and to the return of the old forms, and they attributed to this
+the aversion of the Russian people to them.
+
+Certainly it is difficult to speak of Russia where there exists no
+longer a free Press and the people have hardly any other preoccupation
+than that of not dying of hunger. Although it is a disastrous
+organization, the organization of the Soviet remains still the only
+one, which it is not possible to substitute immediately with another.
+Although the Russian people can re-enter slowly into international
+life and take up again its thread, a long time is necessary, but also
+it is necessary to change tactics.
+
+The peasants, who form the enormous mass of the Russian people, look
+with terror on the old regime. They have occupied the land and will
+maintain that occupation; they do not want the return of the great
+Russian princes who possessed lands covering provinces and were even
+ignorant of their possessions. One of the causes which has permitted
+Bolshevism to last is, as I have said, the attitude of the Entente,
+which on many occasions has shown the greatest sympathy for the men of
+the old regime. The Tsar of Russia was an insignificant man, all the
+Grand Dukes were persons without dignity and without credit, and the
+Court and Government abounded with men without scruples--violent,
+thieves, and drunkards. If Bolshevik government had been ruin, no one
+can deny but that a great part of the blame belongs to the old regime,
+the return of which no honest man desires.
+
+An error not less serious was to allow Poland to occupy large tracts
+of purely Russian territory.
+
+There remain in Europe, therefore, so many states of unrest which do
+not only concern the conditions of the conquered countries, but also
+those of the conquering countries. We have already seen how Germany
+and the States which form part of her group cannot now any longer
+represent a danger of war for many years to come, and that none the
+less the victorious countries and the new States continue to arm
+themselves in a most formidable manner. We have seen what an element
+of disorder Poland has become and how the policy of the Entente
+towards Russia has constituted a permanent danger.
+
+But all Europe is still uncertain and the ground is so movable that
+any new construction threatens ruin. Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria,
+Turkey, cannot live under the conditions imposed on them by the
+treaties. But the new States for the most part are themselves in a
+sufficiently serious position.
+
+With the exception of Finland all the other States which have arisen
+on the ruins of the Russian Empire are in serious difficulty. If
+Esthonia and Lithuania are in a fairly tolerable situation Lettonia is
+in real ruin, and hunger and tuberculosis rule almost everywhere, as
+in many districts of Poland and Russia. At Riga hunger and sickness
+have caused enormous losses amongst the population. Recently 15,000
+children were in an extremely serious physical and mental condition.
+In a single dispensary, of 663 children who were brought for treatment
+151 were under-nourished, 229 were scrofulous, 66 anaemic, and 217
+suffering from rickets. The data published in England and the United
+States and those of the Red Cross of Geneva are terrible.
+
+Even with the greatest imagination it is difficult to think how
+Hungary and Austria can live and carry out, even in the smallest
+degree, the obligations imposed by the treaties. By a moral paradox,
+besides living they must indemnify the victors, according to the
+Treaties of St. Germain and the Trianon, for all the damages which the
+War has brought on themselves and which the victors have suffered.
+
+Hungary has undergone the greatest occupation of her territories and
+her wealth. This poor great country, which saved both civilization and
+Christianity, has been treated with a bitterness which nothing can
+explain except the desire of greed of those surrounding her, and the
+fact that the weaker people, seeing the stronger overcome, wish and
+insist that she shall be reduced to impotence. Nothing, in fact, can
+justify the measures of violence and the depredations committed in
+Magyar territory. What was the Rumanian occupation of Hungary: a
+systematic rapine and the systematic destruction for a long time
+hidden, and the stern reproach which Lloyd George addressed in London
+to the Premier of Rumania was perfectly justified. After the War
+everyone wanted some sacrifice from Hungary, and no one dared to say a
+word of peace or goodwill for her. When I tried it was too late.
+The victors hated Hungary for her proud defence. The adherents of
+Socialism do not love her because she had to resist, under more
+than difficult conditions, internal and external Bolshevism. The
+international financiers hate her because of the violences committed
+against the Jews. So Hungary suffers all the injustices without
+defence, all the miseries without help, and all the intrigues without
+resistance.
+
+Before the War Hungary had an area almost equal to that of Italy,
+282,870 square kilometres, with a population of 18,264,533
+inhabitants. The Treaty of Trianon reduced her territory to 91,114
+kilometres--that is, 32.3 per cent.--and the population to 7,481,954,
+or 41 per cent. It was not sufficient to cut off from Hungary the
+populations which were not ethnically Magyar. Without any reason
+1,084,447 Magyars have been handed over to Czeko-Slovakia, 457,597 to
+Jugo-Slavia, 1,704,851 to Rumania. Also other nuclei of population
+have been detached without reason.
+
+Amongst all the belligerents Hungary perhaps is the country which in
+comparison with the population has had the greatest number of dead;
+the monarchy of the Habsburgs knew that they could count on the
+bravery of the Magyars, and they sent them to massacre in all the most
+bloody battles. So the little people gave over 500,000 dead and an
+enormous number of injured and sick.
+
+The territories taken from Hungary represent two-thirds of her mineral
+wealth; the production of three million quintali (300,000 tons) of
+gold and silver is entirely lost; the great production of salt is
+also lost to her (about 250,000 tons). The production of iron ore is
+reduced by 19 per cent., of anthracite by 14 per cent., of lignite by
+70 per cent.; of the 2,029 factories, hardly 1,241 have remained to
+Hungary; more than three-quarters of the magnificent railway wealth
+has been given away.
+
+Hungary at the same time has lost her greater resources in agriculture
+and cattle breeding.
+
+The capital, henceforth, too large for a too small state, carries
+on amidst the greatest difficulties, and there congregate the most
+pitiable of the Transylvanian refugees and those from other lost
+regions.
+
+The demographic structure of Hungary, which up to a few years ago was
+excellent, is now threatening. The mortality among the children and
+the mortality from tuberculosis have become alarming. At Budapest,
+even after the War, the number of deaths surpasses the number of
+births. The statistics published by Dr. Ferenczi prove that the
+number of children afflicted with rickets and tuberculosis reaches in
+Budapest the terrific figure of 250,000 in a population of about two
+millions. It is said that practically all the new-born in recent
+years, partly through the privations of the mothers and partly from
+the lack of milk, are tuberculous.
+
+The conditions of life are so serious that there is no comparison;
+some prices have only risen five to tenfold, but very many from thirty
+to fifty and even higher. Grain, which before the War cost 31 crowns,
+costs now 500 crowns; corn has passed from 17 to 220 and 250 crowns.
+A kilogram of rice, which used to cost 70 centimes, can be found now
+only at 80 crowns. Sugar, coffee and milk are at prices which are
+absolutely prohibitive.
+
+Of the financial situation it is almost useless to speak. The
+documents presented to the Conference of Brussels are sad evidence,
+and a sure index is the course of the crown, now so reduced as to have
+hardly any value in international relations. The effective income is
+more than a fourth part of the effective expenses, and the rest is
+covered especially by the circulation.
+
+Such is the situation of Hungary, which has lost everything, and which
+suffers the most atrocious privations and the most cruel pangs of
+hunger. In this condition she should, according to the Treaty of
+Trianon, not only have sufficient for herself, but pay indemnities to
+the enemy.
+
+The Hungarian deputies, at the sitting which approved the Treaty of
+Trianon, were clad in mourning, and many were weeping. At the close
+they all rose and sang the national hymn.
+
+A people which is in the condition of mind of the Magyar people can
+accept the actual state of affairs as a temporary necessity, but have
+we any faith that it will not seek all occasions to retake what it has
+unjustly lost, and that in a certain number of years there will not be
+new and more terrible wars?
+
+I cannot hide the profound emotion which I felt when Count Apponyi,
+on January 16, 1920, before the Supreme Council at Paris, gave the
+reasons of Hungary.
+
+You, gentlemen [he said], whom victory has permitted to place
+yourselves in the position of judges, you have pronounced the
+culpability of your late enemies and the point of view which directs
+you in your resolutions is that of making the consequences of the War
+fall on those who were responsible for it.
+
+Let us examine now with great serenity the conditions imposed on
+Hungary, conditions which are inacceptable without the most serious
+consequences. Taking away from Hungary the larger part of her
+territory, the greater part of her population, the greater portion of
+her economic resources, can this particular severity be justified by
+the general principles which inspire the Entente? Hungary not having
+been heard (and was not heard except to take note of the declaration
+of the head of the delegation), cannot accept a verdict which destroys
+her without explaining the reasons.
+
+The figures furnished by the Hungarian delegation left no doubt
+behind: they treated of the dismemberment of Hungary and the sacrifice
+of three millions and a half of Magyars and of the German population
+of Hungary to people certainly more ignorant and less advanced. At the
+end Apponyi and the Hungarian delegation did not ask for anything more
+than a plebiscite for the territories in dispute.
+
+After he had explained in a marvellous manner the great function of
+historic Hungary, that of having saved on various occasions Europe
+from barbaric invasion, and of having known how to maintain its unity
+for ten centuries in spite of the many differences amongst nations,
+Count Apponyi showed how important it was for Europe to have a solid
+Hungary against the spread of Bolshevism and violence.
+
+You can say [added Apponyi] that against all these reasons there is
+only one--victory, the right of victory. We know it, gentlemen; we are
+sufficient realists in politics to count on this factor. We know what
+we owe to victory and we are ready to pay the price of our defeat. But
+should this be the sole principle of construction: that force alone
+should be the basis of what you would build, that force alone should
+be the base of the new building, that material force alone should be
+the power to hold up those constructions which fall whilst you are
+trying to build them? The future of Europe would then be sad, and we
+cannot believe it. We do not find all that in the mentality of the
+victorious nations; we do not find it in the declarations in which you
+have defined the principles for which you have fought, and the objects
+of the War which you have proposed to yourselves.
+
+And after having referred to the traditions of the past, Count Apponyi
+added:
+
+We have faith in the sincerity of the principles which you have
+proclaimed: it would be doing you injustice to think otherwise. We
+have faith in the moral forces with which you have wished to identify
+your cause. And all that I wish to hope, gentlemen, is that the glory
+of your arms may be surpassed by the glory of the peace which you will
+give to the world.
+
+The Hungarian delegation was simply heard; but the treaty, which had
+been previously prepared and was the natural consequence of the Treaty
+of Versailles, was in no way modified.
+
+An examination of the Treaty of Trianon is superfluous. By a stroke
+of irony the financial and economic clauses inflict the most serious
+burdens on a country which had lost almost everything: which has lost
+the greatest number of men proportionately in the War, which since
+the War has had two revolutions, which for four months suffered the
+sackings of Bolshevism--led by Bela Kun and the worst elements of
+revolutionary political crime--and, finally, has suffered a Rumanian
+occupation, which was worse almost than the revolutions or Bolshevism.
+
+It is impossible to say which of the peace treaties imposed on the
+conquered is lasting and which is the least supportable: after the
+Treaty of Versailles, all the treaties have had the same tendency and
+the same conformation.
+
+The situation of German-Austria is now such that she can say with
+Andromache: "Let it please God that I have still something more to
+fear!" Austria has lost everything, and her great capital, which was
+the most joyous in Europe, shelters now a population whose resources
+are reduced to the minimum. The slump in her production, which is
+carried on amidst all the difficulties, the fall in her credit, the
+absolute lack of foreign exchanges, the difficulty of trading with the
+hostile populations which surround her, put Austria in an extremely
+difficult position and in progressive and continuous decadence. The
+population, especially in the cities, is compelled to the hardest
+privations; the increase of tuberculosis is continuous and
+threatening.
+
+Bulgaria has had rather less loss, and although large tracts of
+Bulgarian territory have been given without any justifiable motive to
+Greece and Jugo-Slavia, and although all outlet on the Aegean has been
+taken from her by assigning to Greece lands which she cannot maintain,
+on the whole Bulgaria, after the Treaty of Neuilly, has less sharp
+sufferings than the other conquered countries. Bulgaria had a
+territorial extension of 113,809 square kilometres; she has now lost
+about 9,000 square kilometres. She had a population of 4,800,000, and
+has lost about 400,000.
+
+As for Turkey, if the treaties should continue to exist, she can be
+considered as disappearing from Europe and on the road to disappear
+from Asia. The Turkish population has been distributed haphazard,
+especially to Greece, or divided up under the form of mandates to
+countries of the Entente. According to the Treaty of Sèvres of August
+10, 1920, Turkey abandons all her territory in Europe, withdrawing her
+frontier to the Ciatalgia lines.
+
+Turkey in Europe is limited, therefore, to the surroundings of
+Constantinople, with little more than 2,000 square kilometres, and a
+population which is rather hard to estimate, but which is that only of
+the city and the surroundings--perhaps a million and a half men. In
+Asia Minor Turkey loses the territory of the Sanjak of Smyrna,
+over which, however, she retains a purely nominal sovereignty; the
+territory still undefined of the Armenian Republic: Syria, Cilicia,
+Palestine and Mesopotamia, which become independent under mandatory
+powers; in Arabia the territory of the Hedjaz, whilst the remainder
+of the peninsula will enjoy almost complete independence. Besides,
+Constantinople and the Straits are subject to international control,
+and the three States now the most closely interested--Great Britain,
+France and Italy--assume the control of the finances and other aspects
+of the Ottoman administration.
+
+Every programme has ignored Turkey except when the Entente has had
+opportunity to favour Greece. The Greece of Venezelos was the ward of
+the Entente almost more than Poland itself. Having participated in the
+War to a very small extent and with almost insignificant losses, she
+has, after the War, almost trebled her territory and almost doubled
+her population. Turkey was put entirely, or almost so, outside Europe;
+Greece has taken almost everything. Rejected was the idea of fixing
+the frontier on the Enos Medea line, and the frontier fixed at
+Ciatalgia; Constantinople was under the fire of the Greek artillery,
+and Constantinople was nominally the only city which remained to
+Turkey. The Sanjak of Smyrna, in Asia Minor, was the true wealth of
+Turkey; it represented forty-five per cent. of the imports of the
+Turkish Empire. Although the population of the whole vilayet of Audin
+and the majority of the Sanjak of Smyrna was Mussulman, Greece had the
+possession. The whole of Thrace was assigned to Greece; Adrianople,
+a city sacred to Islam, which contains the tombs of the Caliphs, has
+passed to the Greeks.
+
+The Entente, despite the resistance of some of the heads of
+governments, always yielded to the requests of Greece. There was a
+sentiment of antipathy for the Turks and there was a sympathy for
+the Greeks: there was the idea to put outside Europe all Mussulman
+dominion, and the remembrance of the old propaganda of Gladstone, and
+there were the threats of Wilson, who in one of his proposals desired
+exactly to put Turkey outside Europe. But above all there was the
+personal work of Venezelos. Every request, without being even examined
+thoroughly, was immediately justified by history, statistics,
+ethnography. In any discussion he took care to _solliciter doucement
+les textes_ as often the learned with few scruples do. I have met few
+men in my career who united to an exalted patriotism such a profound
+ability as Venezelos. Every time that, in a friendly way, I gave him
+counsels of moderation and showed him the necessity of limiting the
+requests of Greece, I never found a hard or intemperate spirit. He
+knew how to ask and obtain, to profit by all the circumstances, to
+utilize all the resources better even than the professional diplomats.
+In asking he always had the air of offering, and, obtaining, he
+appeared to be conceding something. He had at the same time a supreme
+ability to obtain the maximum force with the minimum of means and a
+mobility of spirit almost surprising.
+
+He saw no difficulty, convinced as he was, of erecting a Greek Empire
+on the remnants of Turkey. Every time that doubts were expressed to
+him, or he was shown data which should have moderated the positions,
+he denied the most evident things, he recognized no danger, and saw
+no difficulty. He affirmed always with absolute calm the certainty of
+success. It was his opinion that the Balkan peninsula should be, in
+the north, under the action of the Serb-Croat-Slovene State and of
+Rumania, and in the south of Greece. But Greece, having almost all the
+islands of the Aegean, a part of the territory of Turkey and all the
+ports in the Aegean, and having the Sanjak of Smyrna, should form
+a littoral Empire of the East and chase the Turks into the poorer
+districts of Anatolia.
+
+In the facility with which the demands of Greece were accepted (and
+in spite of everything they were accepted even after the fall of
+Venezelos) there was not only a sympathy for Greece, but, above
+all, the certainty that a large Greek army at Smyrna would serve
+principally towards the security of those countries which have and
+wished to consolidate great interests in Asia Minor, as long as the
+Turks of Anatolia were thinking specially about Smyrna and could not
+use her forces elsewhere. For the same motive, in the last few years,
+all the blame is attributed to the Turks. If they have erred much, the
+errors, even the minor ones, have been transformed into crimes. The
+atrocities of the Turks have been described, illustrated, exaggerated;
+all the other atrocities, often no less serious, have been forgotten
+or ignored.
+
+The idea of a Hellenic Empire which dominates all the coast of the
+Aegean in Europe and Asia encounters one fundamental difficulty. To
+dominate the coast it is necessary to have the certainty of a large
+hinterland. The Romans in order to dominate Dalmatia were obliged to
+go as far as the Danube. Alexander the Great, to have a Greek Empire,
+had, above all, to provide for land dominion. Commercial colonies or
+penetration in isolation are certainly possible, but vast political
+organizations are not possible. It is not sufficient to have
+territory; it is necessary to organize it and regulate the life.
+Mankind does not nourish itself on what it eats, and even less on what
+it digests, but on what it assimilates.
+
+Historians of the future will be profoundly surprised to learn that in
+the name of the principle of nationality the vilayet of Adrianople,
+which contains the city dearest to the heart of Islam after Mecca, was
+given to the Greeks. According to the very data supplied by Venezelos
+there were 500,000 Turks, 365,000 Greeks, and 107,000 Bulgarians; in
+truth the Turks are in much greater superiority.
+
+The Grand Vizier of Turkey, in April, 1920, presented a note to the
+ambassadors of the Entente to revindicate the rights on certain
+vilayets of the Turkish Empire. According to this note, in Western
+Thrace there were 522,574 inhabitants, of which 362,445 were
+Mussulmans. In the vilayet of Adrianople, out of 631,000 inhabitants,
+360,417 were Mussulmans. The population of the vilayet of Smyrna is
+1,819,616 inhabitants, of which 1,437,983 are Mussulmans. Perhaps
+these statistics are biased, but the statistics presented by the
+opposing party were even more fantastic.
+
+After having had so many territorial concessions, Greece--who during
+the War had enriched herself by commerce--is obliged, even after the
+return of Constantine, who did not know how to resist the pressure,
+to undertake most risky undertakings in Asia Minor, and has no way of
+saving herself except by an agreement with Turkey. In the illusion of
+conquering the Turkish resistance, she is now obliged to maintain
+an army twice as big as that of the British Empire! The dreams of
+greatness increase: some little military success has given Greece the
+idea also that the Treaty of Sèvres is only a foundation regulating
+the relationship with the Allies and with the enemy, and constituting
+for Greece a title of rights, the full possession of which cannot be
+modified. The War determines new rights which cannot invalidate the
+concessions already given, which, on the contrary, are reinforced and
+become intangible, but renders necessary new concessions.
+
+What will happen? Whilst Greece dreams of Constantinople, and we have
+disposed of Constantinople and the Straits, Turkey seems resigned to
+Constantinople itself, to-day a very poor international city rather
+than a Turkish city. The Treaty of Sèvres says that it is true that
+the contracting States are in agreement in not offending any of the
+rights of the Ottoman government on Constantinople, which remains
+the capital of the Turkish Empire, always under the reserve of
+the dispositions of the treaty. That is equivalent to saying of a
+political regime that it is a controlled "liberty," just as in
+the time of the Tsars it was said that there existed a _Monarchie
+constitutionnelle sous un autocrate_. Constantinople under the Treaty
+of Sèvres is the free capital of the Turkish Empire under the reserve
+of the conditions which are contained in the treaty and limit exactly
+that liberty.
+
+The force of Turkey has always been in her immense power of
+resistance. Win by resisting, wear out with the aid of time, which the
+Turks have considered not as an economic value, but as their friend.
+To conquer the resistance of Turkey, both in the new territories of
+Europe and in Asia Minor, Greece will have to exhaust the greater
+part of her limited resources. The Turks have always brought to a
+standstill those who would dominate her, by a stubborn resistance
+which is fanaticism and national dignity. On the other hand, the
+Treaty of Sèvres, which has systematized in part Eastern Europe, was
+concluded in the absence of two personages not to be unconsidered,
+Russia and Germany, the two States which have the greatest interest
+there. Germany, the War won, as she could not give her explanations on
+the conclusions of peace, was not able to intervene in the solutions
+of the question of the Orient. Russia was absent. Worn out with the
+force of a war superior to her energies, she fell into convulsions,
+and is now struggling between the two misfortunes of communism and
+misery, of which it is hard to say whether one, or which of the two,
+is the consequence of the other.
+
+One of the most characteristic facts concerns Armenia. The Entente
+never spoke of Armenia. In his fourteen points Wilson neither
+considered nor mentioned it. It was an argument difficult for the
+Entente in so far that Russia was straining in reality (under the
+necessity of protecting the Christians) to take Turkish Armenia
+without leaving Russian Armenia.
+
+But suddenly some religious societies and some philanthropic people
+instituted a vast movement for the liberation of Armenia. Nothing
+could be more just than to create a small Armenian State which would
+have allowed the Armenians to group themselves around Lake Van and
+to affirm their national unity in one free State. But here also
+the hatred of the Turks, the agitation of the Greeks, the dimly
+illuminated philanthropy, determined a large movement to form a great
+State of Armenia which should have outlets on the sea and great
+territories.
+
+So that no longer did people talk of a small State, a refuge and safe
+asylum for the Armenians, but of a large State. President Wilson
+himself, during the Conference of San Remo, sent a message in the form
+of a recalling to mind, if not a reproof, to the European States of
+the Entente because they did not proceed to the constitution of a
+State of Armenia. It was suggested to bring it down to Trebizond, to
+include Erzeroum in the new Armenia, a vast State of Armenia in which
+the Armenians would have been in the minority. And all that in homage
+to historical tradition and for dislike of the Turks! A great Armenia
+creates also a series of difficulties amongst which is that of the
+relations between Armenia, Georgia and Azerbajan, supposing that in
+the future these States cut themselves off definitely from Russia. The
+great Armenia would include the vilayet of Erzeroum, which is now
+the centre of Turkish nationalism, and contains more Mussulmans than
+Armenians. As a matter of fact the vilayet of Erzeroum has 673,000
+Mussulmans, 1,800 Greeks and 135,000 Armenians.
+
+When it was a question of giving Greece territories in which the
+Greeks were in a minority it was said that the populations were so
+badly governed by the Turks that they had the right to pass under
+a better regime, whatever it might be. But for a large part of the
+territory of the so-called Great Armenia it is possible to commit the
+error of putting large majorities of Mussulman people under a hostile
+Armenian minority.
+
+The Armenians would have to fight at the same time against the Kurds
+and against Azerbajan; they are surrounded by enemies on all sides.
+
+But the whole of the discussion of giving the vilayet of Erzeroum to
+Armenia or leaving it to Turkey is entirely superfluous, for it is
+not a question of attributing territory but of determining actual
+situations. If it is desired to give to the Armenians the city of
+Erzeroum, it is first of all necessary that they shall be able to
+enter and be able to remain there. Now since the Armenians have not
+shown, with a few exceptions, a great power of resistance, and are
+rather a race of merchants than warriors, it would be necessary for
+others to undertake the charge of defending them. None of the European
+States desired a mandate for Armenia, and no one wished to assume
+the serious military burden of protecting the Armenians; the United
+States, after having in the message of Wilson backed a great Armenia,
+wished even less than the other States to interest themselves in it.
+
+Probably proposals of a more reasonable character and marked by less
+aversion for the Turks would have permitted the Turks not only to
+recognize, which is not difficult for them, but in fact to respect,
+the new State of Armenia, without the dreams of a sea coast and the
+madness of Erzeroum.
+
+If the condition of the conquered is sufficiently serious
+the situation of the peoples most favoured by the Entente in
+Europe--Poland and Greece, who have obtained the greatest and most
+unjust increases in territory, having given for a diversity of reasons
+extremely little during the War--is certainly not less so. Each of
+these countries are suffocating under the weight of the concessions,
+and seek in vain a way of salvation from the burdens which they are
+not able to support, and from the mania of conquest which are the
+fruits of exaltation and error.
+
+Having obtained much, having obtained far more than they thought or
+hoped, they believe that their advantage lies in new expansion. Poland
+violates treaties, offends the laws of international usage, and
+is protected in everything she undertakes. But every one of her
+undertakings can only throw her into greater discomfort and augment
+the total of ruin.
+
+All the violences in Upper Silesia to prevent the plebiscite going in
+favour of Germany were not only tolerated but prepared far ahead.
+
+When I was head of the Italian Government the representative of the
+German Government in Rome, von Herf, gave documentary evidence on what
+was being prepared, and on April 30, 1920, in an audience which I gave
+him as head of the Council he furnished me with proofs of what was
+the Polish organization, what were its objects and the source of its
+funds.
+
+As everyone knows, the plebiscite of March 20, 1921, in spite of the
+violence and notwithstanding the officially protected brigandage,
+resulted favourably to Germany. Out of 1,200,636 voters 717,122 were
+for Germany and 483,514 for Poland. The 664 richest, most prosperous
+and most populous communes gave a majority for the Germans, 597
+communes gave a majority for Poland. The territory of Upper Silesia,
+according to the treaty, according to the plebiscite, according to the
+most elementary international honesty, should be immediately handed
+over to Germany. But as they do not wish to give the coal of
+Upper Silesia to Germany, and the big interests of the new great
+metallurgical group press and trick, the Treaty of Versailles has here
+also become a _chiffon de papier_.
+
+Instead of accepting, as was the first duty, the result of the
+plebiscite, people have resorted to sophism of incomparable weakness:
+Article 88 of the Treaty of Versailles says only that the inhabitants
+of Upper Silesia shall be called to designate by means of a plebiscite
+if they desire to be united to Germany or to Poland.
+
+It was necessary to find a sophism!
+
+The Addendum of Section 8 establishes how the work of scrutiny shall
+be carried out and all the procedure of the elections. There are six
+articles of procedure. Paragraph 4 says that each one shall vote in
+the commune where he is domiciled or in that where he was born if he
+has not a domicile in the territory. The result of the vote shall be
+determined commune by commune, according to the majority of votes in
+each commune.
+
+This means then that the results of the voting, as is done in
+political questions in all countries, should, be controlled commune by
+commune: it is the form of the scrutiny which the appendix defines.
+Instead, in order to take the coal away from Germany, it was
+attempted, and is being still attempted, not to apply the treaty, but
+to violate the principle of the indivisibility of the territory and to
+give the mining districts to Poland.
+
+The violation of the neutrality of Belgium was not an offence to a
+treaty more serious than this attempt; the Treaty of 1839 cannot be
+considered a _chiffon de papier_ more than the Treaty of Versailles.
+Only the parties are inverted.
+
+It is not France, noble and democratic, which inspires these
+movements, but a plutocratic situation which has taken the same
+positions, but on worse grounds, as the German metallurgists before
+the War. It is the same current against which Lloyd George has several
+times bitterly protested and for which he has had very bitter words
+which it is not necessary to recall. It is the same movement which has
+created agitations in Italy by means of its organs, and which attempt
+one thing only: to ruin the German industry and, having the control of
+the coal, to monopolize in Europe the iron industries and those which
+are derived from it.
+
+First of all, in order to indemnify France for the _temporary_ damages
+done to the mines in the North, there was the cession _in perpetuo_ of
+the mines of the Saar; then there were the repeated attempts to occupy
+the territory of the Ruhr to control the coal; last of all there is
+the wish not to apply the plebiscite and to violate the Treaty of
+Versailles by not giving Upper Silesia to Germany, but giving it
+abusively to Poland.
+
+Germany produced before the War about 190,000,000 tons of coal; in
+1913 191,500,000. The consumption of these mines themselves was about
+a tenth, 19,000,000 tons, whilst for exportation were 83,500,000 tons,
+and for internal consumption were 139,000,000.
+
+Now Germany has lost, and justly, Alsace-Lorraine, 3,800,000 tons. She
+has lost, and it was not just, the Saar, 13,200,000 tons. She is bound
+by the obligations of the treaty to furnish France with 20,000,000
+tons, and to Belgium and Italy and France again another 25,000,000
+tons. If she loses the excellent coal of Upper Silesia, about
+43,800,000 tons per year, she will be completely paralysed.
+
+It is needless to lose time in demonstrating for what geographic,
+ethnographic and economist reason Upper Silesia should be united with
+Germany. It is a useless procedure, and also, after the plebiscites,
+an insult to the reasoning powers. If the violation of treaties is not
+a right of the victor, after the plebiscite, in which, notwithstanding
+all the violences, three-quarters of the population voted for Germany,
+then there is no reason for discussion.
+
+The words used by Lloyd George on May 18, 1921, in the House of
+Commons, are a courteous abbreviation of the truth. From the
+historical point of view, he said, Poland has no rights over Silesia.
+The only reason for which Poland could claim Upper Silesia is that it
+possesses a numerous Polish population, arrived there in comparatively
+recent times with the intention of finding work, and especially in the
+mines. That is true and is more serious than would be an agitation of
+the Italians in the State of San Paulo of Brazil, claiming that they
+had a majority of the population.
+
+"The Polish insurrection," said Lloyd George justly, "is a challenge
+to the Treaty of Versailles, which, at the same time, constitutes the
+charter of Polish Liberty." Poland is the last country in Europe which
+has the right to deplore the treaty, because Poland did not conquer
+the treaty. Poland did not gain her liberty, and more than any other
+country should respect every comma of the treaty. She owes her liberty
+to Italy, Great Britain and France.
+
+In the future [said the English Prime Minister] force will lose its
+efficiency in regard to the Treaty of Versailles, and the maintenance
+of the undertakings on the part of Germany on the basis of her
+signature placed to the treaty will count increasingly. We have the
+right to everything which she gives us: but we have the right also to
+leave everything which is left to her. It is our duty of impartiality
+to act with rigorous justice, without taking into account the
+advantages or the disadvantages which may accrue therefrom. Either the
+Allies must demand that the treaty shall be respected, or they should
+permit the Germans to make the Poles respect it. It is all very well
+to disarm Germany, but to desire that even the troops which she does
+possess should not participate in the re-establishment of order is a
+pure injustice.
+
+Russia [added Lloyd George] to-day is a fallen Power, tired, a prey
+to a despotism which leaves no hope, but is also a country of great
+natural resources, inhabited by a people of courage, who at the
+beginning of the War gave proof of its courage. Russia will not always
+find herself in the position in which she is to-day. Who can say what
+she will become? In a short time she may become a powerful country,
+which can say its word about the future of Europe and the world. To
+which part will she turn? With whom will she unite?
+
+
+There is nothing more just or more true than this.
+
+But Poland wants to take away Upper Silesia from Germany
+notwithstanding the plebiscite and against the treaty, and which has
+in this action the aid of the metallurgical interests and the great
+interests of a large portion of the Press of all Europe. Poland, which
+has large nuclei of German populations, after having been enslaved,
+claims the right to enslave populations, which are more cultured,
+richer and more advanced. And besides the Germans it claims the right
+to enslave even Russian peoples and further to occupy entire Russian
+territories, and wishes to extend into Ukraine. There is then the
+political paradox of Wilna. This city, which belongs according to the
+regular treaty to Lithuania, has been occupied in an arbitrary manner
+by the Poles, who also claim Kowno.
+
+In short, Poland, which obtained her unity by a miracle, is working in
+the most feverish manner to create her own ruin. She has no finance,
+she has no administration, she has no credit. She does not work, and
+yet consumes; she occupies new territories, and ruins the old ones. Of
+the 31,000,000 inhabitants, as we have seen, 7 millions are Ukranians,
+2.2 Russians, 2.1 Germans, and nearly half a million of other
+nationalities. But among the eighteen or nineteen million Poles there
+are at least four million Jews--Polish Jews, without doubt, but
+the greater portion do not love Poland, which has not known how to
+assimilate them. The Treaty of Versailles has created the absurd
+position that to go from one part to the other of Germany it is
+necessary to traverse the Danzig corridor. In other terms, Germany is
+cut in two parts, and to move in Prussia herself from Berlin to one of
+the oldest German cities, the home of Emanuel Kant, Konigsberg, it is
+necessary to traverse Polish territory.
+
+So Poland separates the two most numerous people of Europe: Russia and
+Germany. The Biblical legend lets us suppose that the waters of
+the Red Sea opened to let the Chosen People pass: but immediately
+afterwards the waters closed up again. Is it possible to suppose that
+such an arbitrary arrangement as this will last for long?
+
+If it has lasted as long as it has, it is because it was, at least
+from the part of one section of the Entente, not the road to peace,
+but because it was a method of crushing down Germany.
+
+If a people had conditions for developing rapidly it was
+Czeko-Slovakia. But also with the intention of hurting Germany and the
+German peoples, a Czeko-Slovak State was created which has also
+its own tremendous crisis of nationality. A Czeko-Slovakia with a
+population of eight to nine million people represented a compact
+ethnical unity. Instead, they have added five and a half million
+people of different nationalities, amongst whom about 4,000,000
+Germans, with cities which are the most German in the world, as
+Pilsen, Karlsbad, Reichenberg, etc. What is even more serious is that
+the 4,000,000 Germans are attached to Germany, and, having a superior
+culture and civilization, will never resign themselves to being placed
+under the Czeks.
+
+Czeko-Slovakia had mineral riches, industrial concerns and solid
+agriculture, and a culture spread among the people--all the conditions
+for rising rapidly. All these advantages risk being annulled by the
+grave and useless insult to the Germans and Magyars.
+
+Not only is the situation of Europe in every way uncertain, but there
+is a tendency in the groups of the victors on the Continent of Europe
+to increase the military budgets. The relationships of trade are being
+restored only slowly; commerce is spoken of as an aim. In Italy the
+dangers and perils of reopening trade with Germany have been seriously
+discussed; customs duties are raised every day; the industrial groups
+find easy propaganda for protection. Any limitation of competition is
+a duty, whether it be the enemy of yesterday or the enemy of to-day,
+and so the greatest evils of protection are camouflaged under
+patriotism.
+
+None of the countries which have come out of the War on the Continent
+have a financial position which helps toward a solid situation.
+All the financial documents of the various countries, which I have
+collected and studied with great care, contain enormous masses
+of expenses which are the consequences of the War; those of the
+conquering countries also contain enormous aggregations of expenses
+which are or can become the cause of new wars.
+
+The conquered countries have not actually any finance. Germany has an
+increase of expenses which the fall of the mark renders more serious.
+In 1920 she spent not less than ninety-two milliards, ruining her
+circulation. How much has she spent in 1921?
+
+Austria and Hungary have budgets which are simply hypotheses. The last
+Austrian budget, for 1921, assigned a sum of seventy-one milliards
+of crowns for expenses, and this for a poor country with 7,000,000
+inhabitants.
+
+A detailed examination of the financial situation of Czeko-Slovakia,
+of Rumania, and of the Serbo-Croat States gives results which are at
+the least alarming. Even Greece, which until yesterday had a solid
+structure, gallops now in a madness of expenditure which exceeds all
+her resources, and if she does not find a means to make peace with
+Turkey she will find her credit exhausted. The most ruinous of all
+is the situation of Poland, whose finance is certainly not better
+regulated than that of the Bolsheviks of Moscow, to judge from the
+course of the Polish mark and the Russian rouble if anyone gets the
+idea of buying them on an international market.
+
+The situation of the exchange since the War has not sensibly bettered
+even for the great countries, and it is extraordinarily worse for the
+other countries.
+
+In June, 1921, France had a circulation of about thirty-eight milliard
+of francs, Belgium six milliard of francs, Italy of about eighteen
+milliards; Great Britain, between State notes and Bank of England
+notes, had hardly £434,000,000 sterling. Actually, among the
+continental countries surviving the War, Italy is the country which
+has made the greatest efforts not to augment the circulation but to
+increase the duties; also because she had no illusions of rebuilding
+her finance and her national economy on an enemy indemnity.
+
+But the conquered countries have so abused their circulation that
+they almost live on the thought of it--as, in fact, not a few of the
+conquering countries and those come out from the War do. Germany has
+passed eighty-eight milliards, and is rapidly approaching one hundred
+milliards. Now, when one thinks that the United States, after so many
+loans and after all the expenses of the War, has only a circulation of
+4,557,000,000 dollars, one understands what difficulty Germany has to
+produce, to live, and to refurnish herself with raw materials.
+
+Only Great Britain of all the countries in Europe which have issued
+from the War has had a courageous financial policy. Public opinion,
+instead of pushing Parliament to financial dissipation, has insisted
+on economy. If the situation created by the War has transformed also
+the English circulation into unconvertible paper money, this is merely
+a passing fact. If the sterling loses on the dollar--that is, on
+gold--given the fact that the United States of America alone now have
+a money at par, almost a quarter of its value, this is also merely a
+transitory fact.
+
+Great Britain has the good sense to curtail expenses, and the sterling
+tends always to improve.
+
+France and Italy are in an intermediate position. Their money can be
+saved, but it will require energetic care and great economies,
+stern finance, a greater development of production, limitation of
+consumption, above all, of what is purchased from abroad. At the date
+of which I am writing, expressed on a percentual basis, the French
+franc is worth 47 centimes of the sterling and 36 of the dollar--that
+is to say, of gold. The Italian lira is worth 28 centimes of the
+sterling and 21 of the dollar.
+
+Here are still two countries in which tenacious energy can save and
+with many sacrifices they can arrive at good money. France has a good
+many more resources than Italy; she has a smaller need of importations
+and a greater facility for exportations. But her public debt has
+reached 265 milliards, the circulation has well passed thirty-eight
+milliards, and they still fear to calculate amongst the extraordinary
+income of the budget the fifteen milliards a year which should come
+from Germany.
+
+Italy, with great difficulty of production and less concord inside the
+country, has a more true vision, and does not reckon any income which
+is not derived from her own resources. Her circulation does not pass
+eighteen milliards, and her debt exceeds by a little one hundred
+milliards.
+
+With prudence and firmness France and Italy will be able to balance
+their accounts.
+
+But the financial situation and the exchanges of the conquered
+countries, even that of Germany, may be called desperate.
+
+If expressed in percentages, the German mark is worth 5.11 per cent.
+in comparison with the pound sterling and 3.98 per cent. of the
+dollar. What possibility is there of systematizing the exchange?
+
+Germany was compelled this year to carry her expenses to 130 milliards
+of marks. As her circulation has exceeded eighty-eight milliards, how
+can she straighten out her money?
+
+As for the Austrian and Hungarian crowns, the Jugo-Slav crowns, the
+Rumanian lei, and all the other depreciated moneys, their fate is not
+doubtful. As their value is always descending, and the gold equivalent
+becomes almost indeterminable, they will have a common fate. As for
+the Polish mark, it can be said that before long it will not be worth
+the paper on which it is printed.
+
+There is, then, the fantastic position of the public debts! They have
+reached now such figures that no imagination could have forecasted.
+France alone has a debt which of itself exceeds by a great deal
+all the debts of all the European States previous to the War: 265
+milliards of francs. And Germany, the conquered country, has in her
+turn a debt which exceeds 320 milliards of marks, and which is rapidly
+approaching 400 milliards. The debts of many countries are only
+recorded by feats of memory, because there is no practical interest in
+knowing whether Austria, Hungary, and especially Poland, has one debt
+or another, since the situation of the creditors is not a situation of
+reality.
+
+The whole debt of the United States of America is, after so much war,
+only 23,982,000,000 dollars; but the United States are creditors of
+the Entente for 9,500,000,000 dollars. Also England, against a debt of
+£9,240,000,000 sterling, has a credit of £1,778,000,000.
+
+These serious figures, whilst they increase the condition of
+discomfort rendered even more serious by the scarcity of commercial
+exchanges, indicate also what necessity may be superior to all in
+every country to preserve internal peace: produce more, consume less,
+put the finances in order, and reconquer the credits.
+
+Instead, the conquered countries are going downwards every day and the
+conquering countries are maintaining very big armies, exhausting their
+resources, whilst they are spreading the conviction that the indemnity
+from the enemy will compensate sufficiently, or at least partially,
+for the work of restoration.
+
+In fact, the causes of discontent and diffidence are augmenting.
+Nothing is more significant than the lack of conscience with which
+programmes of violence and of ruin are lightly accepted; nothing is
+more deplorable than the thoughtlessness with which the germs of new
+wars are cultivated. Germany has disarmed with a swiftness which has
+even astonished the military circles of the Entente; but the bitter
+results of the struggle are not only not finished against Germany,
+not even to-day does she form part of the League of Nations (which is
+rather a sign of a state of mind than an advantage), but the attitude
+towards her is even more hostile.
+
+Two years after the end of the war R. Poincaré wrote that the League
+of Nations would lose its best possibility of lasting if, _un jour_,
+it did not reunite all the nations of Europe. But he added that of
+all the conquered nations--Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey and
+Germany--the last-mentioned, by her conduct during the War and
+after the peace, justified least a near right of entry. It would be
+_incontestablement plus naturel_ (of how many things does nature
+occupy herself!) to let Austria enter first if she will disavow the
+policy of reattachment--that is, being purely German, renounce
+against the principle of nationality, in spite of the principle
+of auto-decision, when she cannot live alone, to unite herself to
+Germany; Bulgaria and Turkey as long as they had a loyal and courteous
+attitude towards Greece, Rumania and Serbia. The turn of Germany
+will come, but only after Turkey, when she will have given proof of
+executing the treaty, which no reasonable and honest person considers
+any more executable in its integrity.
+
+The most characteristic facts of this peace which continues the War
+can be recapitulated as follows:
+
+1. Europe on the whole has more men under arms than before the War.
+The conquered States are forced to disarm, but the conquering States
+have increased the armaments; the new States and the countries which
+have come through the War have increased their armaments.
+
+2. Production is very tardily being taken up again because there is
+everywhere, if in a different degree, a lesser desire for work on
+the part of the working classes joined with a need for higher
+remuneration.
+
+3. The difficulties of trade, instead of decreasing in many countries
+of Europe are increasing, and international commerce is very slowly
+recovering. Between the States of Europe there is not a real commerce
+which can compare with that under normal conditions. Considering
+actual values with values before the War, the products which now form
+the substance of trade between European countries do not represent
+even the half of that before the War.
+
+As the desire for consumption, if not the capacity for consumption,
+has greatly increased, and the production is greatly decreased, all
+the States have increased their functions. So the discredit of the
+paper money and the Treasury bills which permit these heavy expenses
+is in all the countries of Europe, even if in different degrees, very
+great.
+
+The conquering countries, from the moment that they had obtained in
+the treaties of peace the acknowledgment of the conquered that the War
+was caused by them, held it to be legitimate that they should lose all
+their disposable goods, their colonies, their ships, their credits and
+their commercial organization abroad, but that the conquered should
+also pay all the damages of the War. The War, therefore, should be
+paid for by the conquered, who recognized (even if against their will)
+that they were alone responsible. That forms henceforth a certain
+canon of foreign politics, the less a thing appears true the more it
+is repeated.
+
+Although the treaties oblige Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey to
+pay the damages of the War, it is, however, certain that they are not
+able to pay anything and not even the expenses of the victors on their
+territory. "_Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator_," said Juvenal
+("Who has nothing can give nothing"), and Austria, for her part,
+instead of giving is imploring food succour.
+
+So the problem remains limited to Germany. Can she pay the indemnity
+indicated in the treaty? Can she pay for the damages and indemnify the
+victors? After having given up her colonies, her ships, her railway
+material, all her disposable credits abroad, in what form can she pay?
+
+The fundamental controversy reduces itself henceforth only to this
+point, which we shall try if possible to make clear, since we desire
+that this matter shall be presented in the clearest and most evident
+form.
+
+From now on it is not the chancelleries which must impose the
+solutions of great problems; but it is the mass of the public in
+Europe and America.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE ANXIETIES OF THE VICTORS
+
+
+We have seen the process by which the idea of the indemnity for
+damages, which was not contained either in the peace declaration of
+the Entente, nor in the manifestations of the various parliaments, nor
+in the first armistice proposals, nor in the armistice between Italy
+and Austria, was introduced in the armistice with Germany, out of pure
+regard for France, without taking heed of the consequences. Three
+words, said Clemenceau, only three words need be added, words which
+compromise nothing and are an act of deference to France. The entire
+construction of the treaties, after all, is based on those three
+words.
+
+And how fantastic the demands for compensation have become!
+
+An old Italian proverb says, "In time of war there are more lies than
+earth." Ancient and modern pottery reproduce the motto, which is
+widespread, and whose truth was not understood until some years
+ago. So many foolish things were said about the almost mysterious
+manoeuvres of Germany, about her vast expansion, her great resources
+and accumulated capital, that the reality tended to become lost to
+sight.
+
+These absurd legends, formed during the War, were not forgotten, and
+there are even now many who believe in good faith that Germany can
+pay, if not twenty or twenty-five milliards a year, at least eight or
+nine without any difficulty.
+
+France's shrewdest politicians, however, well knew that the demand
+for an enormous and unlimited indemnity was only a means of putting
+Germany under control and depressing her to the point of exhaustion.
+But the others maintained this proposal more out of rancour and hatred
+than from any actual political concept. It may be said that the
+problem of the indemnity has never been seriously studied and that the
+calculations, the valuations, the procedures, have all formed a series
+of impulsive acts co-ordinated by a single error, the error of the
+French politicians who had the one aim of holding Germany down.
+
+The procedure was simple.
+
+In the first phase the indemnities came into being from three words
+inserted almost by chance into the armistice treaty on November 2,
+1918, _réparation des dommages_. It was merely a matter of a simple
+expression to content public feeling: _Je supplie le conseil de se
+mettre dans l'esprit de la population française_.... It was a moral
+concession, a moral satisfaction.
+
+But afterwards, as things went on, all was altered when it came to
+preparing the treaties.
+
+For a while the idea, not only of a reparation of damages, but of the
+payment of the cost of the War was entertained. It was maintained that
+the practice of making the vanquished reimburse the cost of the War
+was permitted by international law. Since Germany had provoked the War
+and lost it, she must not only furnish an indemnity for the losses,
+but also pay the cost.
+
+The cost was calculated roughly at seven hundred milliards of francs
+at par. Further, there was the damage to assess. In the aggregate, war
+costs, damage to property, damage to persons, came to at least one
+thousand milliards. But since it was impossible to demand immediate
+payment and was necessary to spread the sum over fifty years, taking
+into consideration sinking funds and interest the total came to three
+thousand milliards. The amount was published by the illustrated papers
+with the usual diagrams, drawings of golden globes, length of paper
+money if stretched out, height of metal if all piled up together, etc.
+etc.
+
+These figures were discussed for the first few months by a public
+accustomed to be surprised at nothing. They merely helped to
+demonstrate that an indemnity of 350 milliards was a real sacrifice
+for the Allies.
+
+Thus a whole series of principles came to be established which were a
+contradiction of reality.
+
+A great share in the responsibility in this matter lies with Great
+Britain, who not only followed France's error, but in certain ways
+made it worse by a number of intemperate requests. Italy had no
+influence on the proceedings owing to her indecisive policy. Only the
+United States, notwithstanding the banality of some of her experts
+(_lucus a non lucendo_), spoke an occasional word of reason.
+
+When Lloyd George understood the mistake committed in the matter of
+the indemnity it was too late.
+
+The English public found itself face to face with the elections almost
+the day after the conclusion of the War. In the existing state of
+exaltation and hatred the candidates found a convenient "plank" in
+promising the extermination of Germany, the trial of the Kaiser, as
+well as of thousands of German officers accused of cruelty, and last,
+but not least, the end of German competition.
+
+The Prime Minister of Australia, William Morris Hughes, a
+small-minded, insensitive, violent man, directed a furious campaign
+in favour of a huge indemnity. Lord Northcliffe lent the aid of his
+numerous papers to this campaign, which stirred up the electors.
+
+Lloyd George, with his admirable intelligence, perceived the situation
+clearly. He did not believe in the usefulness or even in the
+possibility of trying the Kaiser and the German officers. He did not
+believe in the possibility of an enormous indemnity or even a very
+large one.
+
+His first statements, like those of Bonar Law, a serious, honest,
+well-balanced man, an idealist with the appearance of a practical
+person, revealed nothing. On the eve of the dissolution of Parliament,
+Lloyd George, speaking at Wolverhampton, November 24, 1918, did not
+even hint at the question of the reparations or indemnity. He was
+impelled along that track by the movement coming from France, by the
+behaviour of the candidates, by Hughes's attitude, and by the Press
+generally, especially that of Northcliffe.
+
+A most vulgar spectacle was offered by many of the English candidates,
+among whom were several members of the War Cabinet, who used language
+worthy of raving dervishes before crowds hypnotized by promises of the
+most impossible things.
+
+To promise the electors that Germany should pay the cost of the War,
+to announce to those who had lost their senses that the Kaiser was to
+be hanged, to promise the arrest and punishment of the most guilty
+German officers, to prophesy the reduction to slavery of a Germany
+competing on sea and land, was certainly the easiest kind of
+electoral programme. The numerous war-mutilated accepted it with much
+enthusiasm, and the people listened, open-mouthed, to the endless
+series of promises.
+
+Hughes, who was at bottom in good faith, developed the thesis which he
+afterwards upheld at Paris with logical precision. It was Germany's
+duty to reimburse, without any limitation, the entire cost of the
+War: damage to property, damage to persons, and war-cost. He who has
+committed the wrong must make reparation for it to the extreme limits
+of his resources, and this principle, recognized by the jurists,
+requires that the total of the whole cost of the War fall upon the
+enemy nations. Later on, Hughes, who was a sincere man, recognized
+that it was not possible to go beyond asking for reparation of the
+damages.
+
+Lloyd George was dragged along by the necessity of not drawing away
+the mass of the electors from the candidates of his party. Thus he was
+obliged on December 11, in his final manifesto, to announce not only
+the Kaiser's trial and that of all those responsible for atrocities,
+but to promise the most extensive kind of indemnity from Germany and
+the compensation of all who had suffered by the War. Speaking the
+same evening at Bristol, he promised to uphold the principle of the
+indemnity, and asserted the absolute right to demand from Germany
+payment for the costs of the War.
+
+In England, where the illusion soon passed away, in France, where it
+has not yet been dissipated, the public has been allowed to believe
+that Germany can pay the greater part, if not the entire cost, of the
+War, or at least make compensation for the damage.
+
+For many years I have studied the figures in relation to private
+wealth and the wealth of nations, and I have written at length on
+the subject. I know how difficult it is to obtain by means of even
+approximate statistics results more or less near to the reality.
+Nothing pained me more than to hear the facility with which
+politicians of repute spoke of obtaining an indemnity of hundreds of
+milliards. When Germany expressed her desire to pay an indemnity in
+one agreed lump sum (_à forfait_) of one hundred milliards of gold
+marks (an indemnity she could never pay, so enormous is it), I saw
+statesmen, whom I imagined not deprived of intelligence, smile at
+the paltriness of the offer. An indemnity of fifty milliards of
+gold marks, such as that proposed by Keynes, appeared absurd in its
+smallness.
+
+When the Peace Conference reassembled in Paris the situation
+concerning the indemnity was as follows. The Entente had never during
+the War spoken of indemnity as a condition of peace. Wilson, in his
+proposals, had spoken only of reconstruction of invaded territories.
+The request for _réparation des dommages_ had been included in the
+terms of the armistice merely to afford a moral satisfaction to
+France. But the campaign waged in France and during the elections
+in England had exaggerated the demands so as to include not only
+reparation for damage but reimbursement of the cost of the War.
+
+Only the United States maintained that the indemnity should be limited
+to the reparation of the damages: a reparation which in later phases
+included not only reconstruction of destroyed territories and damage
+done to private property, but even pensions to the families of those
+dead in the War and the sums in grant paid during it.
+
+When Prussia beat France in 1870 she asked for an indemnity of five
+milliards. The Entente could have demanded from the vanquished an
+indemnity and then have reassumed relations with them provided it were
+an indemnity which they could pay in a brief period of time.
+
+Instead, it being impossible to demand an enormous sum of 300 or 400
+milliards, a difficult figure to fix definitely, recourse was had to
+another expedient.
+
+From the moment that the phrase _réparation des dommages_ was included
+in the armistice treaty as a claim that could be urged, it became
+impossible to ask for a fixed sum. What was to be asked for was
+neither more nor less than the amount of the damages. Hence a special
+commission was required, and the Reparations Commission appears on
+the scene to decide the sum to demand from Germany and to control
+its payment. Also even after Germany was disarmed a portion of her
+territory must remain in the Allies' hands as a guarantee for the
+execution of the treaty.
+
+The reason why France has always been opposed to a rapid conclusion of
+the indemnity question is that she may continue to have the right, in
+view of the question remaining still open, to occupy the left bank of
+the Rhine and to keep the bridgeheads indicated in the treaty.
+
+The thesis supported by Clemenceau at the Conference was a simple one:
+Germany must recognize the total amount of her debt; it is not enough
+to say that we recognize it.
+
+I demand in the name of the French Government, and after having
+consulted my colleagues, that the Peace Treaty fixes Germany's debt
+to us and indicates the nature of the damages for which reparation is
+due. We will fix a period of thirty years if you so wish it, and we
+will give to the Commission, after it has reduced the debt to figures,
+the mandate to make Germany pay within these thirty years all she owes
+us. If the whole debt cannot be paid in thirty years the Commission
+will have the right to extend the time for payment.
+
+This scheme was agreed. And the thesis of the compensation of damages,
+instead of that for the payment of the cost of the War, prevailed for
+a very simple reason. If they proposed to demand for all integral
+reparations, and therefore the reimbursement of the cost of the War,
+the figures would have been enormous. It became necessary to reduce
+all the credits proportionally, as in the case of a bankruptcy. Now,
+since in the matter of the indemnities France occupied the first place
+(to begin with, she asked sixty-five per cent. of all sums paid by
+Germany), she took the greater part of the indemnities, while on the
+sums paid for reimbursement of cost of war, she would only have got
+less than twenty per cent.
+
+Germany has therefore been put under control for all the time she will
+be paying the indemnities--that is, for an indefinite time.
+
+The valuation of the expenses for the reconstruction of the ruined
+territories had to be carried out according to the regulations of
+the treaty, and, the prices having increased, the French Government
+presented in July, 1920, a first approximate valuation: damages, 152
+milliards; pensions, 58 milliards; in all, 210 milliards. In November,
+1920, the damages had increased to 218 milliards.
+
+Even these figures represent something less absurd than the first
+demands and figures.
+
+On September 5, 1919, the French Minister of Finance, speaking in the
+French Chamber, calculated the total of the German indemnities arising
+from the treaty at 375 milliards, whose interest would accumulate
+until 1921, after which date Germany would begin to pay her debt
+in thirty-four annual rates of about 25 milliards each, and 13,750
+milliards a year would go to France.
+
+Again, in November, 1920, Ogier, Minister of the liberated regions,
+put before the Reparations Commission in the name of France a detailed
+memorial which made the value of the territories to be reconstructed
+only for the cases of private individuals come to 140 milliards, not
+including the pensions, damage to railways and mercantile marine,
+which totalled 218 milliards, of which 77 milliards were for pensions
+and 141 milliards for damages.
+
+Of late the sense of reality has begun to diffuse itself. The Minister
+Loucheur himself has laughed at the earlier figures, and has stated
+that the damages do not exceed eighty milliards.
+
+But the French public has been accustomed for some time to take the
+figures of Klotz seriously, and to discuss indemnities of 150, 200
+and 250 milliards. The public, however, is not yet aware of the real
+position, and will not be able to arrive at a just realization of it
+without passing through a serious moral crisis which will be the first
+secure element of the real peace.
+
+Setting aside all questions of indemnities from Austria-Hungary,
+Turkey and Bulgaria (they have nothing to give, can give nothing; on
+the contrary, they ask and merit assistance), it is clear that all the
+indemnities must be paid by Germany.
+
+The French totals of the material damage claims in the invaded
+districts have been absolutely fantastic and more exaggerated than in
+the case of Belgium, whose indemnity claims would lead one to suppose
+the total destruction of at least the third part of her territory,
+almost as if she had undergone the submersion of, say, ten thousand
+square metres of her small territory.
+
+This problem of the indemnities, limited to the reparation of damages,
+and in accordance with the costs contemplated in the Treaty of
+Versailles, has never been seriously tackled. One may even say it has
+not been seriously examined. And it is deplorable that there has been
+created among the public, or among a large part of it, the conviction
+that Germany will repair the damage of the War by her own effort. This
+idea, however, finds no acceptance in England among serious persons,
+and in Italy no one believes in it. But in France and Belgium the idea
+is widely diffused, and the wish to spread the belief is lively in
+several sections of opinion, not because intelligent people believe
+in the possibility of effective payment, but with the idea of putting
+Germany in the light of not maintaining the clauses of the peace, thus
+extending the right to prolong the military occupation and even to
+aggravate it. Germany, thereby, is kept out of the League of Nations
+and her dissolution facilitated.
+
+John Maynard Keynes, ever since the end of 1919, has shown in his
+admirable book the absurdity of asking for vast indemnities, Germany's
+impossibility of paying them, and the risk for all Europe of following
+a road leading to ruin, thus at the same time accentuating the work
+of disintegration started by the treaty. That book had awakened a
+wide-sounding echo, but it ought to have had a still wider one, and
+would have done but for the fact that, unfortunately, the Press in
+free countries is anything but free.
+
+The great industrial syndicates, especially in the steel-making
+industry, which control so large a part of the Press among the
+majority of the States of Europe, and even beyond Europe, find
+easy allies in the inadequate preparation of the major part of
+the journalists to discuss the most important problems, and the
+indisposition on the part of the public to examine those questions
+which present difficulties, and are so rendered less convenient for
+discussion.
+
+I knew Keynes during the War, when he was attached to the British
+Treasury and chief of the department charged to look after the foreign
+exchanges and the financial relations between Great Britain and her
+allies. A serious writer, a teacher of economics of considerable
+value, he brought to his difficult task a scrupulousness and an
+exactness that bordered on mistrust. Being at that time Chancellor of
+the Exchequer in Italy, in the bitterest and most decisive period of
+the War, I had frequent contact with Mr. Keynes, and I always admired
+his exactness and his precision. I could not always find it in myself
+to praise his friendly spirit. But he had an almost mystic force of
+severity, and those enormous squanderings of wealth, that facile
+assumption of liabilities that characterized this period of the War,
+must have doubtless produced in him a sense of infinite disgust. This
+state of mind often made him very exigent, and sometimes unjustifiably
+suspicious. His word had a decisive effect on the actions of the
+English Treasury.
+
+When the War was finished, he took part as first delegate of the
+English Treasury at the Peace Conference of Paris, and was substituted
+by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Supreme Economic Council.
+He quitted his office when he had come to the conclusion that it was
+hopeless to look for any fundamental change of the peace treaties.
+
+His book is not only a document of political uprightness but the first
+appeal to a sense of reality which, after an orgy of mistakes, menaces
+a succession of catastrophes. In my opinion it merits a serious
+reconsideration as the expression of a new conscience, as well as an
+expression of the truth, which is only disguised by the existing state
+of exasperation and violence.
+
+After two years we must recognize that all the forecasts of Keynes
+have been borne out by the facts: that the exchange question has grown
+worse in all the countries who have been in the War, that the absurd
+indemnities imposed on the enemies cannot be paid, that the depressed
+condition of the vanquished is harmful to the victors almost in equal
+measure with the vanquished themselves, that it menaces their very
+existence, that, in fine, the sense of dissolution is more widespread
+than ever.
+
+The moment has come to make an objective examination of the indemnity
+question, and to discuss it without any hesitation.
+
+Let us lay aside all sentiment and forget the undertakings of the
+peace treaties. Let us suppose that the Entente's declarations
+and Wilson's proposals never happened. Let us imagine that we are
+examining a simple commercial proposition stripped of all sentiment
+and moral ideas.
+
+After a great war it is useless to invoke moral sentiments: men, while
+they are blinded by hatred, recognize nothing save their passion. It
+is the nature of war not only to kill or ruin a great number of men,
+not only to cause considerable material damage, but also, necessarily,
+to bring about states of mind full of hate which cannot be ended at
+once and which are even refractory to the language of reason.
+
+For a long time I myself have looked upon the Germans with the
+profoundest hatred. When I think of all the persons of my race dead in
+the War, when I look back upon the fifteen months of anguish when my
+first-born son was a prisoner of war in Germany, I am quite able to
+understand the state of mind of those who made the peace and the
+mental condition in which it was made. What determined the atmosphere
+of the peace treaties was the fact that there was a conference
+presided over by Clemenceau, who remembered the Prussians in the
+streets of Paris after the war of 1870, who desired but one thing: the
+extermination of the Germans. What created this atmosphere, or helped
+to create it, was the action of Marshal Foch, who had lost in the War
+the two persons dearest to him in life, the persons who attached him
+to existence.
+
+But now we must examine the question not in the light of our
+sentiments or even of our hatreds. We must see quite calmly if the
+treaties are possible of application without causing the ruin of the
+vanquished. Then we must ask ourselves if the ruin of the vanquished
+does not bring in its train the ruin of the victors. Putting aside,
+then, all moral considerations, let us examine and value the economic
+facts.
+
+There is no question that the reparation problem exists solely in
+the case of Germany, who has still a powerful statal framework which
+allows her to maintain great efforts, capable not only of providing
+her with the means of subsistence, but also of paying a large
+indemnity to the victors. The other vanquished States are more in need
+of succour than anything else.
+
+What are the reparations?
+
+Let us follow the _précis_ of them which a representative of France
+made at the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. They are as follows:
+
+1. Germany is responsible for the total of the losses and damages
+sustained by her victors inasmuch as she caused them.
+
+2. Germany, in consideration of the permanent diminution of her
+resources, resulting from the Peace Treaty, is only obliged (but is
+obliged without restitutions or reserves) to reimburse the direct
+damages and the pensions as precised in Schedule I of Clause viii of
+the treaty.
+
+3. Germany must pay before May 1, 1921, not less than twenty milliards
+of gold marks or make equivalent payment in kind.
+
+4. On May 1 the Reparations Commission will fix the total amount of
+the German debt.
+
+5. This debt must be liquidated by annual payments whose totals are to
+be fixed by the Commission.
+
+6. The payments will continue for a period of thirty years, or longer
+if by that time the debt is not extinguished.
+
+7. Germany will issue one hundred milliards of gold marks of bearer
+bonds, and afterwards all such issues as the Reparations Commission
+shall demand, until the amount of the debt be reached in order to
+permit the stabilization of credit.
+
+8. The payments will be made in money and in kind. The payments in
+kind will be made in coal, live stock, chemical products, ships,
+machines, furniture, etc. The payments _in specie_ consist of metal
+money, of Germany's credits, public and private, abroad, and of a
+first charge on all the effects and resources of the Empire and the
+German States.
+
+9. The Reparations Commission, charged with seeing to the execution of
+this clause, shall have powers of control and decision. It will be
+a commission for Germany's debt with wider powers. Called upon to
+decide, according to equity, justice and good faith, without being
+bound by any codex or special legislation, it has obtained from
+Germany an irrevocable recognition of its authority. Its duty is to
+supervise until the extinction of the debt Germany's situation, her
+financial operations, her effects, her capacity for production, her
+provisioning, her production. This commission must decide what Germany
+can pay each year, and must see that her payments, added to the
+budget, fall upon her taxpayers at least to the extent of the allied
+country most heavily taxed. Its decisions shall be carried out
+immediately and receive immediate application, without any other
+formality. The commission can effect all the changes deemed necessary
+in the German laws and regulations, as well as all the sanctions,
+whether of a financial, economic or military nature arising from
+established violations of the clauses put under its control. And
+Germany is obliged not to consider these "sanctions" as hostile acts.
+
+In order to guarantee the payments an inter-allied army--in reality
+a Franco-Belgian army--occupies the left bank of the Rhine, and is
+stationed at the bridgeheads. Germany is completely helpless, and has
+lost all the features of a sovereign State inasmuch as she is subject
+to "controls" in a way that Turkey never was. In modern history we can
+find no parallel for this state of things. These are conditions
+which alter the very bases of civilization and the relations between
+peoples. Such procedure has been unknown in Europe for centuries.
+The public has become accustomed in certain countries to consider
+responsible for the War not the government that wished it or the
+German people, but the future generations. Thus the indemnities are
+to be paid--were such conditions possible--in thirty years and for at
+least twenty years afterwards by people still unborn at the time of
+the War. This cursing of the guilty people has no parallel in modern
+history. We must go back to the early ages of humanity to find
+anything of the kind.
+
+But even the most inhuman policies, such as Germany has never adopted
+in her victories, although she has been accused of every cruelty, can
+find at least some justification if they had a useful effect on the
+country which has wished and accepts responsibility for them. The
+conqueror has his rights. Julius Caesar killed millions of Germans
+and retarded perhaps for some centuries the invasion of Rome. But
+the practices established by the Treaty of Versailles are in effect
+equally harmful to victors and vanquished, though maybe in unequal
+measure, and in any case prepare the dissolution of Europe.
+
+I had my share in arranging at San Remo the Spa Conference, in the
+hope and with the desire of discussing frankly with the Germans what
+sum they could pay by way of indemnity without upsetting their economy
+and damaging severely that of the Allies. But the ministerial crisis
+which took place in June, 1920, prevented me from participating at
+the Spa Conference; and the profitable action which Great Britain had
+agreed to initiate in the common interest, ours as well as France's,
+could not be proceeded with. The old mistakes continued to be
+repeated, though many attenuations have come about and the truth
+begins to appear even for those most responsible for past errors.
+
+We shall have to examine with all fair-mindedness if Germany is in
+a position to pay in whole or in part the indemnity established or
+rather resulting from the treaty. France especially believes, or has
+said on several occasions she believes, that Germany can pay without
+difficulty 350 milliards.
+
+After many stupidities and many exaggerations which have helped
+considerably to confuse the public, in face of the new difficulties
+which have arisen, new arrangements for the payment of the indemnity
+have been established. On May 11, in face of the situation which had
+arisen, the Allies proposed and Germany accepted a fresh scheme for
+the payment of the reparations. Germany is constrained to pay every
+year in cash and in kind the equivalent of 500 million dollars, plus
+26 per cent. of the total of her exports.
+
+The rest of the accord refers to the procedure for the issue of
+bonds guaranteed on the indicated payments, to the constitution of a
+guarantee committee, and to the date of payment. Probably Germany will
+have been able to get through the year 1921 without insurmountable
+difficulties.
+
+At Spa, on April 27, 1921, the proportionate sums assessed for each of
+the conquering powers were established on a total indemnity notably
+reduced in comparison with the earlier absurd demands.
+
+But leaving alone the idea of an indemnity of 250, 150, or even 100
+milliards of gold marks, it will be well to see in a concrete form
+what Germany can be made to pay, and whether the useless and elaborate
+structure of the Reparations Commission which, with its powers of
+regulating the internal life of Germany for thirty years or more,
+ought not to be substituted by a simpler formula more in sympathy with
+civilized notions.
+
+Shortly before the War, according to successive statistics, the
+private wealth of France did not amount to more than 250 milliards.
+
+The wealth of France, according to successive valuations, was
+calculated at 208 milliards of francs in 1905 (de Foville), at 214
+milliards in 1908 (Turquan), at about 250 milliards according to other
+authors. The wealth of Belgium, according to official statistics
+published by the Belgian Ministry of Finance in 1913, amounted to
+rather less than 30 milliards of francs. The estimate is perhaps a
+trifle low. But this official figure must not be considered as being
+a long way from the truth. At certain moments Belgium's demands have
+surpassed even the total of her national wealth, while the damages
+have not been more than some milliards.
+
+The value of the land in France was calculated before the War at
+between 62 and 78 milliards; the value of the buildings, according
+to _l'Annuaire Statistique de la France_, at 59-1/2 milliards. The
+territory occupied by the Germans is not more than a tenth of the
+national territory. Even taking into consideration the loss of
+industrial buildings it is very difficult to arrive at the figure of
+15 milliards. At the same time it is true that the Minister Loucheur
+declared on February 17, 1919, in the French Chamber that the
+reconstruction of the devastated regions in France required 75
+milliards--that is, very much more than double the private wealth of
+all the inhabitants of all the occupied regions.
+
+In all the demands for compensation of the various States we have seen
+not so much a real and precise estimate of the damages as a kind of
+fixing of credit in the largest measure possible in order that in the
+successive reductions each State should still have proportionally an
+advantageous position.
+
+Making his calculation with a generosity which I assert to be
+excessive (and I assert this as a result of an accurate study of
+the question, which perhaps I may have occasion to publish), Keynes
+maintains that the damages for which Germany should be made to pay
+come to 53 milliards for all losses on land and sea and for the
+effects of aerial bombardments--53 milliards of francs all told,
+including the damages of France, Great Britain, Italy, Belgium,
+Serbia, etc.! I do not believe that the damages reach 40 milliards of
+gold marks, unless, of course, we calculate in them the pensions and
+allowances.
+
+But these figures have but small interest, since the demands have been
+almost entirely purely arbitrary.
+
+What we must see is if Germany can pay, and if, with a regime of
+restrictions and violence, she can hand over, not the many milliards
+which have been announced and which have been a deplorable speculation
+on the ignorance of the public, but a considerable sum, such as is
+that which many folk still delude themselves it is possible to have.
+
+Germany has already consigned all her transferable wealth; the gold in
+her banks, her colonies, her commercial fleet, a large and even the
+best part of her railway material, her submarine cables, her foreign
+credits, the property of her private citizens in the victorious
+countries, etc. Everything that could be handed over, even in
+opposition to the rights of nations as such are known in modern
+civilized States, Germany has given. She has also hypothecated all her
+national goods. What can she give now?
+
+Germany can pay in three ways only:
+
+1. Merchandise and food products on account of the indemnity: coal,
+machines, chemical products, etc.
+
+2. Credits abroad coming from the sale of merchandise. If Germany
+exports, that is sells eight milliard marks' worth of goods abroad,
+she pays two milliards to the Reparations Commission.
+
+3. Property of private citizens. Germany can enslave herself, ceding
+the property of her private citizens to foreign States or citizens to
+be disposed of as they wish.
+
+Excluding this last form, which would constitute slavery pure and
+simple, as useless, as impossible, and calculated to parallel the
+methods in use among barbarous peoples, there only remain the first
+two methods of payment which we will examine briefly.
+
+It must be remembered that Germany, even before the War, was in
+difficulties for insufficient avenues of development, given the
+restricted nature of her territory and the exuberance of her
+population. Her territory, smaller than that of France and much less
+fertile, must now nourish a population which stands to that of France
+as three to two.
+
+If we have had gigantic war losses, Germany, who fought on all the
+fronts, has had losses certainly not inferior to ours. She too has
+had, in larger or smaller proportion, her dead and her mutilated.
+She has known the most atrocious sufferings from hunger. Thus her
+productive power is much diminished, not only on account of the grave
+difficulties in which her people find themselves (and the development
+of tuberculosis is a terrible index), but also for the lowered
+productive capacity of her working classes.
+
+The statistics published by the Office of Public Health of the Empire
+(_Reichsgesundheitsamt_) and those given in England by Professor
+Starling and laid before the British Parliament, leave no doubt in the
+matter.
+
+Germany has had more than 1,800,000 dead and many more than 4,000,000
+of wounded. She has her mass of orphans, widows and invalids. Taken
+altogether the structure of her people has become much worse.
+
+What constituted the great productive force of the German people was
+not only its capacity to work, but the industrial organization which
+she had created with fifty years of effort at home and abroad with
+many sacrifices. Now Germany has not only lost 8 per cent. of her
+population, but _25_ per cent. of her territory, from which cereals
+and potatoes were produced, and 10 to 12 per cent. of her live stock,
+etc. We have already seen the enormous losses sustained by Germany in
+coal, iron and potash.
+
+The most intelligent and able working classes, created by the
+most patient efforts, have been reduced to the state of becoming
+revolutionary elements. By taking away from Germany at a stroke her
+mercantile marine, about 60,000 sailors have been thrown on the
+streets and their skill made useless.
+
+Germany, therefore, impoverished in her agricultural territory,
+deprived of a good part of her raw materials, with a population
+weakened in its productive qualities, has lost a good part of her
+productive capacity because all her organization abroad has been
+broken, and everything which served as a means of exchange of
+products, such as her mercantile fleet, has been destroyed. Moreover,
+Germany encounters everywhere obstacles and diffidence. Impeded from
+developing herself on the seas, held up to ridicule by the absurd
+corridor of Danzig, whereby there is a Polish State in German
+territory, she cannot help seeking life and raw materials in Russia.
+
+In these conditions she must not only nourish her vast population, not
+only produce sufficient to prevent her from falling into misery,
+but must also pay an indemnity which fertile fantasies have made a
+deceived Europe believe should amount even to 350 milliards of gold
+marks, and which even now is supposed by seemingly reasonable people
+to be able to surpass easily the sum of a hundred milliards.
+
+Could France or Italy, by any kind of sacrifice, have paid any
+indemnities after ending the War? Germany has not only to live and
+make reparation, but to maintain an inter-allied army of occupation
+and the heavy machinery of the Reparations Commission, and must
+prepare to pay an indemnity for thirty years. France and Italy have
+preserved their colonies (Italy's do not amount to much), their
+mercantile fleets (which have much increased), their foreign
+organization. Germany, without any of these things, is to find herself
+able to pay an indemnity which a brazen-faced and ignorant Press
+deceived the public into believing could amount to twenty or
+twenty-five milliards a year.
+
+Taking by chance Helferich's book, which valued the annual
+capitalization at ten milliards, the difference between an annual
+production of forty-three milliards and a consumption of thirty-three
+milliards, inexpert persons have said that Germany can pay without
+difficulty ten milliards, plus a premium on her exports, plus a
+sufficient quantity of goods and products.
+
+One becomes humiliated when one sees newspapers of serious reputation
+and politicians deemed not to be unimportant reasoning in language so
+false.
+
+The estimates of private wealth, about which the economists make
+experiments, and on which I myself have written much in the past, have
+a relative value. It may be argued that before the War the total of
+all private patrimony in Germany surpassed but by little three hundred
+milliards of marks; and this is a valuation made upon generous
+criteria.
+
+But when it is said that the annual capitalization of Germany was
+ten milliards, that is not to say that ten milliards of capital is
+deposited in the banks ready to be transferred at will. Capitalization
+means the creation of instruments of production. The national capital
+increases in proportion as these are increased. Therefore the best way
+of examining the annual capitalization of a country is to see how many
+new industries have arisen, to what extent the old ones have been
+improved, what improvements have been introduced into agriculture,
+what new investments have been made, etc.
+
+If the capitalization of Germany before the War was scarcely ten
+milliards of marks, it was too small for an Empire of some 67,000,000
+persons. I believe that in reality it was larger. But even if it came
+to fifteen milliards, it represented a very small figure.
+
+The population in the progressive countries augments every year. In
+Germany, before the War, in the period 1908-1913, the population
+increased on an average by 843,000 persons a year, the difference
+between the people born alive and the dead. In other words, the annual
+increase of the population per annum was at the rate of 13.0 per
+thousand.
+
+As in certain districts of Italy the peasants plant a row of trees on
+the birth of every son, so among nations it is necessary to increase
+the national wealth at least in proportion to the newly arrived.
+Supposing that the private wealth of the German citizens was from 300
+to 350 milliards of marks (an exaggeration, doubtless), it would mean
+that the wealth increased each year by a thirteenth part or rather
+more. The difference between the increase in population and the
+increase in wealth constituted the effective increase in wealth, but
+always in a form not capable of being immediately handled. To plant
+trees, build workshops, utilize water-power: all this stands for the
+output of so much force. One may undertake such works or not, but in
+any case the result cannot immediately be given to the enemy.
+
+This is so obvious as to be banal.
+
+To seek to propagate the idea that Germany can give that which
+constitutes her annual capitalization either wholly or in great part
+is an example of extreme ignorance of economic facts.
+
+It is positively painful to listen to certain types of argument.
+
+A French Minister has said that the success of the war loans for 151
+milliards in Germany, and the increase of bank deposits for a sum of
+28 milliards, coinciding with an increase of capital of 45 milliards
+in limited companies, demonstrate that Germany has saved at least 180
+milliards in four years. Leaving aside the exactness of these figures,
+it is really sad to observe reasoning of this type. How can the public
+have an idea of the reality?
+
+Let us apply the same reasoning to France. We must say that inasmuch
+as France before the War had a public debt of 32 milliards, and now
+has a debt of 265 milliards, without calculating what she owes to
+Great Britain and the United States, France, by reason of the War, has
+immensely enriched herself, since, leaving aside the debt contracted
+abroad and the previous debt, she has saved during the War 200
+milliards, quite apart from the increase in bank deposits and the
+increase in capital of limited companies. The War has therefore
+immensely enriched her. In reality we are face to face with one of the
+phenomena of the intoxication brought about by paper money, by means
+of which it has been possible at certain times for the public to
+believe that the War had increased wealth. Other features of this
+phenomenon we have in the wretched example of the capitalist classes,
+after which it was not unnatural that the people should give way to
+a great increase in consumption, should demand high wages and offer
+little work in return at the very time when it was most necessary
+to work more and consume less. There is small cause for wonder that
+certain erroneous ideas are diffused among the public when they have
+their being in those very sophisms according to which the indemnity to
+be paid by the beaten enemy will pay all the debts and losses of the
+conquering nations.
+
+We are told that Germany, being responsible for the War, must impose
+on herself a regime of restrictions and organize herself as an
+exporting nation for the payment of the reparation debts.
+
+Here again the question can be considered in two ways, according as
+it is proposed to allow Germany a free commerce or to impose on her a
+series of forced cessions of goods in payment of the reparations. Both
+hypotheses can be entertained, but both, as we shall see, lead to
+economic disorder in the conquering States, if these relations are to
+be regulated by violence.
+
+It is useless to dilate on the other aphorisms, or rather sophisms,
+which were seriously discussed at the Paris Conference, and which had
+even the honour of being sustained by the technical experts:
+
+1. That it is not important to know what Germany can pay, but it is
+sufficient to know what she ought to pay.
+
+2. That no one can foresee what immense resources Germany will develop
+within thirty or forty years, and what Germany will not be able to pay
+will be paid by the Allies.
+
+3. That Germany, under the stimulus of a military occupation, will
+increase her production in an unheard-of manner.
+
+4. The obligation arising from the treaty is an absolute one; the
+capacity to pay can only be taken into consideration to establish the
+number and amount of the annual payments; the total must in any case
+be paid within thirty years or more.
+
+5. _Elle ou nous_. Germany must pay; if she doesn't the Allies must
+pay. It is not necessary that Germany free herself by a certain date;
+it is only necessary that she pay all.
+
+6. Germany has not to discuss, only to pay. Let time illustrate what
+is at present unforeseeable, etc. etc.
+
+If we exclude the third means of payment Germany has two ways open to
+her. First of all she can give goods. What goods? When we speak of
+goods we really mean coal. Now, as we have seen, according to the
+treaty Germany must furnish for ten years to Belgium, Italy, and
+France especially quantities of coal, which in the first five years
+run from 39-1/2 to 42 millions of tons, and in the following five
+years come to a maximum of about 32 millions. And all this when
+she has lost the Saar coalfields and is faced with the threatening
+situation in Upper Silesia.
+
+Germany's exports reached their maximum in 1913, when the figures
+touched 10,097 millions of marks, excluding precious metals. Grouping
+exports and imports in categories, the millions of marks were
+distributed as follows:
+
+                          Imports. Exports.
+
+  Foodstuffs               2,759    1,035
+  Live animals               289        7.4
+  Raw materials            5,003    1,518
+  Semi-manufactured goods  5,003    1,139
+  Manufactured goods       1,478    6,395
+
+About one-fifth of the entire exports was in iron and machine products
+(1,337 [mil.] articles in iron, 680 machines); 722 millions from
+coal (as against imports of other qualities of 289), 658 millions
+of chemical products and drugs, 446 from cotton, 298 paint, 290
+techno-electrical productions, etc.
+
+What goods can Germany give in payment of the indemnity? We have seen
+how she has lost a very large part of her iron and a considerable
+quantity of her coal.
+
+All the economic force of Germany was based upon:
+
+(a) The proper use of her reserves of coal and iron, which allowed
+her to develop enormously those industries which are based on these
+two elements.
+
+(b) On her transport and tariff system, which enabled her to fight any
+competition.
+
+(c) On her potent overseas commercial organization.
+
+Now, by effect of the treaty, these three great forces have been
+entirely or in part destroyed.
+
+What goods can Germany give in payment of the indemnity, and what
+goods can she offer without ruining the internal production of the
+Entente countries? Let us suppose that Germany gives machines,
+colours, wagons, locomotives, etc. Then for this very fact the
+countries of the Entente, already suffering by unemployment, would
+soon see their factories obliged to shut down. Germany must therefore,
+above all, give raw materials; but since she is herself a country that
+imports raw materials, and has an enormous and dense population, she
+is herself obliged to import raw materials for the fundamental needs
+of her existence.
+
+If we examine Germany's commerce in the five years prior to the
+War--that is, in the five years of her greatest boom--we shall find
+that the imports always exceeded the exports. In the two years before
+the War, 1912 and 1913, the imports were respectively 10,691 and
+10,770 millions, and the exports 8,956 and 10,097 millions. In some
+years the difference even exceeded two milliards, and was compensated
+by credits abroad, with the payment of freights and with the
+remittances (always considerable) of the German emigrants. All this is
+lost.
+
+Exported goods can yield to the exporter a profit of, let us suppose,
+ten, twelve, or twenty per cent. For the Allies to take an income from
+the Custom returns means in practice reducing the exports. In fact,
+in Germany production must be carried on at such low prices as to
+compensate for the difference, or the exports must be reduced.
+
+In the first case (which is not likely, since Germany succeeds only
+with difficulty, owing to her exchange, in obtaining raw materials,
+and must encounter worse difficulties in this respect than other
+countries), Germany would be preparing the ruin of the other countries
+in organizing forms of production which are superior to those of
+all her rivals. Germany would therefore damage all her creditors,
+especially in the foreign markets.
+
+In the second case--the reduction of exports, one would have
+the exactly opposite effect to that imagined in the programme
+proposed--that is, the indemnities would become unpayable.
+
+In terms of francs or lire at par with the dollar, Germany's
+exportations in 1920 have amounted to 7,250 millions. In 1921 an
+increase may be foreseen.
+
+If Germany has to pay in cash and kind 2,500 millions of marks at
+par, plus 26 per cent. of the total of her exports, then supposing an
+export trade of eight milliards, she will have to give 1,840 millions,
+or in all 4,540 millions of marks. Thus we arrive by stages at less
+hyperbolical figures, coming down from the twenty-five milliards
+a year to something less than a fifth. But to come to grips with
+reality, Germany in all ways, it must be admitted, cannot give more
+than two milliards a year, if, indeed, it is desired that an indemnity
+be paid.
+
+Notwithstanding her great resources, France would not be in a
+condition to pay abroad two milliards a year without ruining her
+exchange, which would drop at once to the level of Germany's. Italy
+with difficulty could pay one milliard.
+
+France and Italy are honest countries, yet they cannot pay their war
+creditors, and have not been able, and are not able, to pay any share
+of their debt either to the United States of America or to Great
+Britain. As a matter of fact, up till now they have paid nothing, and
+the interest continues to accumulate with the capital.
+
+Why have neither France nor Italy yet started to pay some of their
+debt? Having won the War, France has had all she could have--fertile
+territories, new colonies, an abundance of raw material, and above all
+iron and potash. The simple explanation is that which I have given
+above.
+
+Can, then, Germany, who is in a terrible condition, whose circulation
+promises ruin, who has no longer credits nor organization abroad, who
+has a great shortage in raw materials; can Germany pay four or five
+milliards a year?
+
+We must also remember that Germany, in addition to the indemnity, must
+pay the cost of the Army of Occupation, which up to now has amounted
+to twenty-five milliards of paper marks a year, or more than 1,600
+millions of francs at par. That is, Germany has to bear for the
+support of the Allied troops a charge equal to the cost of maintaining
+the armies of France, Italy and Belgium before the War.
+
+No financier seriously believes that the issue of bonds authorized by
+the treaty for the credit of the Reparations Commission has now any
+probability of success. Germany's monetary circulation system is
+falling to the stage of _assignats_, and the time is not distant
+when, if intelligent provision is not made, Germany will not be in a
+position to pay any indemnity.
+
+Obliged to pay only one milliard of gold marks, Germany has not been
+able to find this modest sum (modest, that is, in comparison with all
+the dreams about the indemnity) without contracting new foreign debts
+and increasing her already enormous paper circulation. Each new
+indemnity payment, each new debt incurred, will only place Germany in
+the position of being unable to make payments abroad.
+
+Many capitalists, even in Italy, inspire their Press to state that
+Germany derives an advantage from the depreciation of her mark, or,
+in other words, is content with its low level. But the high exchanges
+(and in the case of Germany it amounts to ruin) render almost
+impossible the purchase of raw materials, of which Germany has need.
+With what means must she carry out her payments if she is obliged to
+cede a large part of her customs receipts, that is of her best form of
+monetary value, and if she has no longer either credits or freights
+abroad?
+
+If what is happening injured Germany only, it would be more possible
+to explain it, if not to justify it. But, on the contrary, Germany's
+fall, which is also the decadence of Europe, profoundly disturbs not
+only the European continent, but many other producing countries.
+Though the United States and Great Britain partially escape the
+effect, they too feel the influence of it, not only in their political
+serenity, but in the market of goods and values. Germany's position
+is bound up with that of Europe; her conquerors cannot escape dire
+consequences if the erstwhile enemy collapses.
+
+We must not forget that before the War, in the years 1912 and 1913,
+the larger part of Germany's commerce was with the United States,
+with Great Britain, with Russia and with Austria-Hungary. In 1913 her
+commerce with the United States represented alone little less than
+two milliards and a half of marks according to the statistics of the
+German Empire, and 520 millions of dollars according to the figures
+of America. If we except Canada, which we may consider a territorial
+continuation, the two best customers of the United States were Great
+Britain and Germany. They were, moreover, the two customers whose
+imports largely exceeded the exports. The downfall of Germany will
+bring about inevitably a formidable crisis in the Anglo-Saxon
+countries and consequent ruin in other countries.
+
+Up to now Germany has given all she could; any further payment will
+cause a downfall without changing the actual monetary position.
+Germany, after a certain point, will not pay, but will drag down in
+her fall the economic edifices of the victorious countries of the
+Continent.
+
+All attempts at force are useless, all impositions are sterile.
+
+All this is true and cannot be denied, but at the same time it must
+be recognized that in the first move for the indemnity there was a
+reasonable cause for anxiety on the part of the Allies.
+
+If Germany had had to pay no indemnity this absurd situation would
+have come about, that although exhausted, Germany would have issued
+from the War without debts abroad and could easily have got into her
+stride again, while France, Italy, and in much less degree Great
+Britain, would have come out of the War with heavy debts.
+
+This anxiety was not only just and well founded, but it is easy to see
+why it gave ground for a feeling of grave disquiet.
+
+France and Italy, the two big victor States of the Continent, were
+only able to carry on the War through the assistance of Great Britain
+and the United States. The War would not have lasted long without the
+aid of the Anglo-Saxons, which had a decisive effect.
+
+France has obtained all she asked for, and, indeed, more than all her
+previsions warranted. Italy has found herself in a difficult position.
+She too has realized her territorial aspirations, though not
+completely, and the assistance of her Allies has not always been
+cordial.
+
+I have had, as head of the Government, to oppose all the agitations,
+and especially the Adriatic adventures, which have caused an acute
+party division in Italy. From a sense of duty I have also assumed all
+responsibility. But the rigidness of Wilson in the Fiume and Adriatic
+questions and the behaviour of some of the European Allies have been
+perfectly unjustifiable. In certain messages to Wilson during my term
+of government I did not fail to bring this fact forward. Certainly,
+Jugo-Slavia's demands must be considered with a sense of justice, and
+it would have been an error and an injustice to attribute to Italy
+large tracts of territory in Dalmatia; but it would have been possible
+to find a more reasonable settlement for a country which has had such
+sufferings and known such losses during the War. In any case, when
+by the absurd system followed in the treaties so many millions of
+Germans, Magyars, Turks and Bulgarians have been handed over to States
+like Serbia, whose intemperate behaviour precipitated the War, or to
+States like Greece, which took only a small and obligatory part in it,
+when States like Poland have won their unity and independence without
+making war, when Germany has been dismembered in order to give Poland
+an access to the sea and the ridiculous situation of Danzig has been
+created, when the moral paradox of the Saar, which now becomes a
+German Alsace-Lorraine, has been set up, when so many millions of men
+have been parcelled out without any criteria, it was particularly
+invidious to contest so bitterly Italy's claims. I can freely affirm
+this inasmuch as, risking all popularity, I have always done my duty
+as a statesman, pointing out that solution which time has proved to be
+inevitable.
+
+No one can deny that Italy is passing through a period of crisis and
+political ill-health. Such states of public psychology are for peoples
+what neurasthenia is for individuals. On what does it depend? Often
+enough on reasons which cannot be isolated or defined. It is a state
+of mind which may come to an end at any minute, and is consequent upon
+the after-effects of the War. Rather than coming from the economic
+disorder, it derives from a malady of the temperament.
+
+I have never believed, in spite of the agitations which have been seen
+at certain periods, in the possibility of a revolutionary movement in
+Italy. Italy is the only country which has never had religious wars,
+the only country which in twenty centuries has never had a real
+revolution. Land of an ancient civilization, prone to sudden bursts of
+enthusiasm, susceptible to rapid moods of discouragement, Italy, with
+all the infinite resources of the Latin spirit, has always overcome
+the most difficult crises by her wonderful adaptive power. In
+human history she is, perhaps, the only country where three great
+civilizations have risen up one after another in her limited soil.
+If Italy can have the minimum of coal, cereals and raw materials
+necessary to her existence and her economic revival, the traditional
+good sense of the Italian people will easily overcome a crisis which
+is grave, but which affects in various measure all the victors, and is
+especially temperamental.
+
+It cannot be denied that if all Europe is sick, Italy has its own
+special state of mind. Those who wished the War and those who were
+against it are both dissatisfied: the former because, after the
+War, Italy has not had the compensations she expected, and has had
+sufferings far greater than could have been imagined; the latter
+because they attribute to the War and the conduct of the War the great
+trials which the nation has now to face. This sickness of the spirit
+is the greatest cause of disorder, since malcontent is always the
+worst kind of leaven.
+
+Four great countries decided the War: Great Britain, France, Italy,
+and the United States of America. Russia fell to pieces soon, and
+fell rather on account of her own internal conditions than from enemy
+pressure. The action of the United States arrived late, but was
+decisive. Each country, however, acted from a different state of mind.
+France had of necessity to make war. Her territory was invaded, and
+all hope of salvation lay in moral resistance alone. Great Britain
+had to wage the War out of sense of duty. She had guaranteed the
+neutrality of Belgium, and could not fail to keep her word of honour.
+Two countries alone chose freely the sorrowful way of the War: Italy
+and the United States. But their sacrifices, sufferings and losses
+have been very different. During the War the United States have been
+able to develop their immense resources, and, notwithstanding some
+crises, they have come out of it much richer than before. From being
+debtors to Europe they have become creditors. They had few losses
+in men, and a great development in wealth. Italy, who after many
+difficulties had developed in her famous but too narrow territory the
+germs of a greater fortune, has had, together with very heavy losses
+in men, heavy losses in her wealth.
+
+Italy saved the destinies of France for the first time by declaring
+her neutrality on August 2, 1914, and letting the certainty of it be
+known from July 30, as the diplomatic documents have shown.
+
+It was that sudden and unexpected declaration of neutrality which
+rendered it possible for France to concentrate all her forces in the
+north and to win the battle of the Marne. Italy for a second time
+saved the destinies of the Entente by entering into the War (too
+precipitately and unprepared), in May, 1915, thus preventing the
+Austrian army, which was formidable for its technical organization and
+for its valour, from obtaining the advantages it expected.
+
+Why did Italy go to war?
+
+The diplomatic documents, which are not all documents of political
+wisdom, demonstrate the anxiety of the Italian Government to
+realize its Adriatic programme and to gain secure frontiers against
+Austria-Hungary and its successors. But this was not the _cause_
+of the War; it was rather a means of explaining to the people the
+necessity for the War. Italy had been for nearly thirty-four years
+ally of Austria-Hungary, and the aspirations of Italy's Adriatic
+policy had never disturbed the relations between the two countries.
+The real cause of Italy's war was a sentimental movement, a form of
+extraordinary agitation of the spirits, brought about by the invasion
+of Belgium and the danger of France. The intellectual movement
+especially, the world of culture, partook largely in fomenting the
+state of exaltation which determined the War.
+
+During the progress of the War, which was long and bitter, Italy
+passed through some terrible hours. Her privations during the War, and
+immediately after, surpassed all expectations. Italy found herself
+face to face with an enemy who enjoyed a superior geographical
+situation, a numerical superiority, as well as a superiority in
+artillery. After the downfall of Russia she had to support a terrible
+campaign. Even in 1917, after the military disaster, when allied
+troops came to Italy, she sent abroad more men than there came allied
+troops to her aid. According to some statistics which I had compiled,
+and which I communicated to the Allies, Italy was shown, in relation
+to her demographic structure, to have more men in the front line than
+any other country. The economic sufferings were, and are, greater
+than those endured by others. France is only in part a Mediterranean
+country, while Italy is entirely so. During the War the action of the
+submarines rendered the victualling of Italy a very difficult matter.
+Many provinces, for months on end, had to content themselves with
+the most wretched kind of food. Taking population and wealth into
+proportion, if the United States had made the effort of Italy they
+would have had to arm sixteen millions of men, to have lost a million
+and a half to two million soldiers, and to have spent at least four
+hundred milliards. In order to work up popular enthusiasm (and it was
+perhaps necessary), the importance of the country's Adriatic claims
+was exaggerated. Thus many Italians believe even to-day in good faith
+that the War may be considered as lost if some of these aspirations
+have not been realized or will not be realized.
+
+But, after the War, Italy's situation suddenly changed. The War had
+aroused in the minds of all Europeans a certain sentiment of violence,
+a longing for expansion and conquest. The proclamations of the
+Entente, the declarations of Wilson's principles, or points, became so
+contorted that no trace of them could be found in the treaties, save
+for that ironic _covenant_ of the League of Nations, which is always
+repeated on the front page, as Dante said of the rule of St. Benedict,
+_at the expense of the paper_.
+
+For Italy a very curious situation came about. France had but one
+enemy: Germany. She united all her forces against this enemy in
+a coherent and single action which culminated in the Treaty of
+Versailles. France had but one idea: to make the Entente abandon the
+principles it had proclaimed, and try to suffocate Germany, dismember
+her, humiliate her by means of a military occupation, by controlling
+her transports, confiscating all her available wealth, by raising
+to the dignity of elevated and highly civilized States inferior
+populations without national dignity.
+
+Austria-Hungary was composed of eleven peoples. It was split up into
+a series of States. Austria and Hungary were reduced to small
+territories and shut up in narrow confines. All the other countries
+were given to Rumania, to Serbia, or more exactly to the S.H.S.
+State, to Poland, or else were formed into new States, such as
+Czeko-Slovakia. These countries were considered by the Entente as
+allies, and, to further good relations, the most important of the
+Entente nations protected their aspirations even against the wishes of
+Italy. The Italians had found themselves in their difficult theatre of
+war against Galatians, Bosnians, Croats, Transylvanians, etc. But
+by the simple fact of their having changed names, and having called
+themselves Poles, Jugo-Slavs, Rumanians, they became friends. In order
+to favour some of these new friends, it has happened that not only
+have Italy's sentiments been offended, but even justice itself.
+Montenegro was always mentioned in the declarations of the Entente.
+On January 10, 1917, Briand, speaking in the name of all the Allies,
+united at that time _pour la défense et la liberté des peuples_, put
+forward as a fundamental programme the restoration of Belgium, Serbia
+and Montenegro: Montenegro was in this on an equality with Belgium.
+Just a year afterwards, January 8, 1918, Wilson, when formulating his
+fourteen points, had included in the eleventh proposition the duty
+of evacuating the territories of Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro, and
+restoring them. The exact reason for which it was established that
+Montenegro should be absorbed (even without plebiscite) by the S.H.S.
+State, thus offending also Italy's sentiments, will remain one of the
+most melancholy pages of the New Holy Alliance that the Entente has
+become, along with that poor prestigeless organism, the League of
+Nations. But let us hope this latter will find a means of renovating
+itself.
+
+While France was ruining the German people's sources of life, the
+peoples who had fought most ferociously against Italy became, through
+the War, friendly nations, and every aspiration of Italy appeared
+directed to lessen the prestige of the new friends and allies.
+
+The territories annexed to Italy have a small economic value.
+
+For more than thirty years Italy had sold a large part of her richest
+agricultural produce to Germany and had imported a considerable share
+of her raw materials from Russia. Since the War she has found herself
+in a state of regular isolation. A large part of the Italian Press,
+which repeats at haphazard the commonest themes of the French Press
+instead of wishing for a more intense revival of commercial relations
+with Germany, frightens the ignorant public with stories of German
+penetration; and the very plutocracy in France and Italy--though not
+to the same extent in Italy--abandons itself to the identical error.
+So to-day we find spread throughout the peninsula a sense of
+lively discontent which is conducive to a wider acceptance of the
+exaggerations of the Socialists and the Fascists. But the phenomenon
+is a transitory one.
+
+Italy had no feeling of rancour against the German people. She
+entered the War against German Imperialism, and cannot now follow
+any imperialistic policy. Indeed, in the face of the imperialistic
+competitions which have followed the War, Italy finds herself in a
+state of profound psychological uneasiness.
+
+France worries herself about one people only, since as a matter of
+fact she has only one warlike race at her frontiers: Germany. Italy's
+frontiers touch France, the German peoples, the Slav races. It is,
+therefore, her interest to approve a democratic policy which allows no
+one of the group of combatants to take up a position of superiority.
+The true Italian nationalist policy consists in being against all
+excessive nationalisms, and nothing is more harmful to Italy's policy
+than the abandonment of those democratic principles in the name of
+which she arose and by which she lives. If the policy of justice is
+a moral duty for the other nations, for Italy it is a necessity of
+existence. The Italian people has a clear vision of these facts,
+notwithstanding a certain section of her Press and notwithstanding the
+exaggerations of certain excited parties arisen from the ashes of the
+War. And therefore her uneasiness is great. While other countries have
+an economic crisis, Italy experiences, in addition, a mental crisis,
+but one with which she will be able to cope.
+
+France, however, is in a much more difficult situation, and her policy
+is still a result of her anxieties. All the violences against Germany
+were, until the day before yesterday, an effect of hatred; to-day they
+derive from dread. Moral ideas have for nations a still greater value
+than wealth. France had until the other day the prestige of her
+democratic institutions. All of us who detested the Hohenzollern
+dynasty and the insolent fatuity of William II loved France, heir of
+the bourgeois revolution and champion of democracy. So, when the War
+came, all the democracies felt a lively pang: the crushing of France
+meant the crushing of democracy and liberty. All the old bonds are
+broken, all the organization which Germany had abroad is smashed up,
+and France has been saved, not by arms alone, but by the potent life
+of free peoples.
+
+Yet victory has taken away from France her greatest prestige, her
+fascination as a democratic country. Now all the democratic races of
+the world look at France with an eye of diffidence--some, indeed, with
+rancour; others with hate. France has comported herself much more
+crudely toward Germany than a victorious Germany would have comported
+herself toward France. In the case of Russia, she has followed purely
+plutocratic tendencies. She has on foot the largest army in the world
+in front of a helpless Germany. She sends coloured troops to occupy
+the most cultured and progressive cities of Germany, abusing the
+fruits of victory. She shows no respect for the principle of
+nationality or for the right of self-determination.
+
+Germany is in a helpless and broken condition to-day; she will not
+make war; she cannot. But if to-morrow she should make war, how many
+peoples would come to France's aid?
+
+The policy which has set the people of Italy against one another, the
+diffusion of nationalist violence, the crude persecutions of enemies,
+excluded even from the League of Nations, have created an atmosphere
+of distrust of France. Admirable in her political perceptiveness,
+France, by reason of an error of exaltation, has lost almost all the
+benefit of her victorious action.
+
+A situation hedged with difficulties has been brought about. The
+United States and Great Britain have no longer any treaty of alliance
+of guarantee with France. The Anglo-Saxons, conquerors of the War and
+the peace, have drawn themselves aside. Italy has no alliance and
+cannot have any. No Italian politician could pledge his country, and
+Parliament only desires that Italy follow a democratic, peaceful
+policy, maintaining herself in Europe as a force for equilibrium and
+life.
+
+France, apart from her military alliance with Belgium, has a whole
+system of alliances based largely on the newly formed States: shifting
+sands like Poland, Russia's and Germany's enemy, whose fate no one can
+prophesy when Germany is reconstructed and Russia risen again, unless
+she finds a way of remedying her present mistakes, which are much more
+numerous than her past misfortunes. Thus the more France increases her
+army, the more she corners raw materials and increases her measures
+against Germany, the more unquiet she becomes.
+
+She has seen that Germany, mistress on land, and to a large extent on
+the seas, after having carried everywhere her victorious flag, after
+having organized her commerce and, by means of her bankers, merchants
+and capitalists, made vast expansions and placed a regular network of
+relations and intrigue round the earth, fell when she attempted her
+act of imperialistic violence. France, when in difficulties, appealed
+to the sentiment of the nations and found arms everywhere to help her.
+What then is able organization worth to-day?
+
+The fluctuations of fortune in Europe show for all her peoples a
+succession of victories and defeats. There are no peoples always
+victorious. After having, under Napoleon I, humiliated Germany, France
+saw the end of her imperialistic dream, and later witnessed the ruin
+of Napoleon III. She has suffered two great defeats, and then, when
+she stood diminished in stature before a Germany at the top of her
+fortune, she, together with the Allies, has had a victory over an
+enemy who seemed invincible.
+
+But no one can foresee the future. To have conveyed great nuclei of
+German populations to the Slav States, and especially to Poland; to
+have divided the Magyars, without any consideration for their fine
+race, among the Rumanians, Czeko-Slovaks and the Jugo-Slavs; to have
+used every kind of violence with the Bulgars; to have offended Turkey
+on any and every pretext; to have done this is not to have guaranteed
+the victory and the peace.
+
+Russia sooner or later will recover. It is an illusion to suppose that
+Great Britain, France and Italy can form an agreement to regulate the
+new State or new States that will arise in Russia. There are too many
+tendencies and diverse interests. Germany, too, will reconstruct
+herself after a series of sorrows and privations, and no one can say
+how the Germans will behave. Unless a policy of peace and social
+renovation be shaped and followed, our sons will witness scenes much
+more terrible than those which have horrified our generation and upset
+our minds even more than our interests.
+
+Meanwhile, in spite of the frightful increase of scrofula, rickets
+and tuberculosis, from which the conquered peoples are principally
+suffering, the march of the nations will proceed according to the laws
+which have hitherto ruled them and on which our limited action can
+only for brief periods cause small modifications or alterations.
+
+Demographic forecasts, like all forecasts of social events, have but
+a comparative value. It is true that demographic movements are
+especially biological manifestations, but it is also true that
+economic and social factors exercise a profound influence in limiting
+their regularity and can disturb them very considerably. It is better
+therefore not to make long prophecies.
+
+What is certain is that the French population has increased almost
+imperceptibly while the population of Germany augmented very rapidly.
+The annual average of births in the five years before the War,
+1908-13, was 762,000 in France and 176,000 in Belgium. In Germany it
+was 1,916,000. The average of deaths was 729,000 in France, 117,000 in
+Belgium, and 1,073,000 in Germany. Thus, per thousand, the excess of
+births in France was 0.9, in Belgium 7.7, in Germany 13. The War
+has terribly aggravated the situation in France, whose demographic
+structure is far from being a healthy one. From statistics published
+giving the first results of the French census of 1921--without the new
+territory of Alsace-Lorraine--France, in the interval between the
+two census periods, has decreased by 2,102,864; from 39,602,258 to
+37,499,394 (1921). The deaths in the War do not represent a half of
+this decrease, when is deducted the losses among the coloured troops
+and those from French colonies who fought for France. The new
+territories annexed to France do not compensate for the War-mortality
+and the decrease in births.
+
+We may presume that if normal conditions of life return, the
+population of Germany and German-Austria will be more than one hundred
+millions, that the population of Belgium altogether little less than
+fifty millions, that Italy will have a population much greater than
+that of France, of at least forty-five million inhabitants, and that
+Great Britain will have about sixty million inhabitants. In the case
+of the Germans we have mentioned one hundred million persons, taking
+into consideration Germany and German-Austria. But the Germans of
+Poland, of Czeko-Slovakia and the Baltic States will amount to at
+least twenty millions of inhabitants. No one can make forecasts, even
+of an approximate nature, on Russia, whose fecundity is always the
+highest in Europe, and whose losses are rapidly replaced by a high
+birth-rate even after the greatest catastrophes. And then there are
+the Germans spread about the world, great aggregations of populations
+as in the United States of America and in a lesser degree in Brazil.
+Up to now these people have been silent, not only because they were
+surrounded by hostile populations, but because the accusation of being
+sons of the Huns weighed down upon them more than any danger of the
+War. But the Treaty of Versailles, and more still the manner in
+which it has been applied, is to dissipate, and soon will entirely
+dissipate, the atmosphere of antipathy that existed against the
+Germans. In Great Britain the situation has changed profoundly in
+three years. The United States have made their separate peace and want
+no responsibility. In Italy there scarcely exists any hatred for the
+Germans, and apart from certain capitalists who paint in lurid colours
+the danger of German penetration in their papers because they want
+higher tariff protection and to be able to speculate on government
+orders, there is no one who does not desire peace with all peoples.
+The great majority of the Italian people only desire to reconstruct
+the economic and social life of the nation.
+
+Certain tendencies in France's policy depend perhaps on her great
+anxiety for the future, an anxiety, in fact, not unjustified by the
+lessons of the past. Germany, notwithstanding her fallen state, her
+anguish and the torment she has to go through, is so strong and vital
+that everybody is certain of seeing her once again potent, indeed more
+potent and formidable than ever.
+
+Everyone in France is convinced that the Treaty of Versailles has lost
+all foundation since the United States of America abandoned it, and
+since Great Britain and Italy, persuaded of the impossibility of
+putting certain clauses into effect, have shown by their attitude that
+they are not disposed to entertain coercive measures which are as
+useless as they are damaging.
+
+In France the very authors of the Treaty of Versailles recognize that
+it is weakened by a series of successive attenuations. Tardieu has
+asserted that the Treaty of Versailles tends to be abandoned on all
+sides: "_Cette faillite a des causes allemandes, des causes alliés,
+des causes françaises_" (p. 489). The United States has asked itself,
+after the trouble that has followed the treaty, if wisdom did not lie
+in the old time isolation, in Washington's testament, in the Monroe
+doctrine: _Keep off_. But in America they have not understood, says
+Tardieu, that to assist Europe the same solidarity was necessary that
+existed during the War (p. 493).
+
+Great Britain, according to Tardieu, tends now also to stand aside.
+The English are inclined to say, "_N'en parlons plus_" (p. 493). No
+Frenchman will accept with calm the manner in which Lloyd George has
+conceived the execution of the peace treaty. The campaign for the
+revision of the treaties sprang up in lower spheres and from popular
+associations and workmen's groups, has surprised and saddened the
+French spirit (p. 495). In the new developments "_était-ce une autre
+Angleterre, était-ce un autre Lloyd George_?" (p. 496). Even in France
+herself Tardieu recognizes sadly the language has altered: "_les
+gouvernements français, qui se sont succédé au pouvoir depuis le_ 10
+_janvier_, 1920," that is, after the fall of Clemenceau, accused in
+turn by Poincaré of being weak and feeble in asserting his demands,
+"_ont compromis les droits que leur prédecesseur avait fait
+reconnaître à la France_" (p. 503).
+
+Taking into consideration Germany's financial downfall, which
+threatens to upset not only all the indemnity schemes but the entire
+economy of continental Europe, the state of mind which is prevalent is
+not much different from that which Tardieu indicates.
+
+It is already more than a year ago since I left the direction of the
+Italian Government, and the French Press no longer accused me of being
+in perfect agreement with Lloyd George, yet Poincaré wrote on August
+1, 1920:
+
+_L'autre jour M. Asquith déclarait au parlement britannique: "Quelque
+forme de langage qu'on emploie, la conférence de Spa a bien été, en
+fait, une conférence pour la révision des conditions du traité."
+"Chut!" a répondu M. Lloyd George: "c'est là une déclaration très
+grave par l'effet qu'elle peut produire en France. Je ne puis la
+laisser passer sans la contredire." Contradiction de pure forme, faite
+pour courtoisie vis-à-vis de nous, mais qui malheureusement ne change
+rien au fond des choses. Chaque fois que le Conseil Suprême s'est
+réuni, il a laissé sur la table des delibérations quelques morceaux
+épars du traité_.
+
+No kind of high-handedness, no combined effort, will ever be able to
+keep afloat absurdities like the dream of the vast indemnity, the
+Polish programme, the hope of annexing the Saar, etc. As things go
+there is almost more danger for the victors than for the vanquished.
+He who has lost all has nothing to lose. It is rather the victorious
+nations who risk all in this disorganized Europe of ours. The
+conquerors arm themselves in the ratio by which the vanquished disarm,
+and the worse the situation of our old enemies becomes, so much
+the worse become the exchanges and the credits of the victorious
+continental countries.
+
+Yet, in some of the exaggerated ideas of France and other countries of
+the Entente, there is not only the rancour and anxiety for the future,
+but a sentiment of well-founded diffidence. After the War the European
+States belonging to the Entente have been embarrassed not only on
+account of the enormous internal debts, but also for the huge debts
+contracted abroad.
+
+If Germany had not had to pay any indemnity and had not lost her
+colonies and mercantile marine we should have been confronted with the
+absurd paradox that the victorious nations would have issued from
+the War worn out, with their territories destroyed, and with a huge
+foreign debt; Germany would have had her territory quite intact, her
+industries ready to begin work again, herself anxious to start
+again her productive force, and in addition with no foreign debt,
+consequently ample credit abroad. In the mad struggle to break
+up Germany there has had part not only hatred, but also a quite
+reasonable anxiety which, after all, must be taken into consideration.
+
+Even to-day, three years after the War, Great Britain has not paid her
+debt to America, and France and Italy have not paid their debts to
+America and Great Britain. Great Britain could pay with a great
+effort; France and Italy cannot pay anyhow.
+
+According to the accounts of the American Treasury the Allies' War
+debt is 9,587 millions of dollars: 4,277 millions owing from Great
+Britain, 2,977 millions from France, 1,648 millions from Italy, 349
+millions from Belgium, 187 millions from Russia, 61 millions from
+Czeko-Slovakia, 26 millions from Serbia, 25 millions from Rumania, and
+15 millions from Greece. Up to last July Great Britain had paid back
+110 millions of dollars. Since the spring of 1919 the payment of
+the interest on the amounts due to the American Treasury has been
+suspended by some European States. Between October and November, 1919,
+the amount of the capitalizing and unpaid interests of the European
+States came to 236 million dollars. The figure has considerably
+increased since then.
+
+According to the _Statist_ (August 6, 1921) the Allies' debt to the
+United States on March 31, 1921, amounted to ten milliards and 959
+million dollars, including the interests, in which sum Great Britain
+was interested to the sum of 4,775 million dollars and France for
+3,351 million dollars. But the _Statist's_ figures, in variance to the
+official figures, include other debts than strictly war debts.
+
+The debts of the various allied countries' to Great Britain on March
+31, 1921, according to a schedule annexed to the financial
+statement for 1921-22, published by the British Treasury, came to
+£1,777,900,000, distributed as follows: France 557 millions, Italy
+476 millions, Russia 561 millions, Belgium 94 millions, Serbia 22
+millions, Portugal, Rumania, Greece and other Allies 66 millions. This
+sum represents War debts. But to it must be added the £9,900,000 given
+by Great Britain for the reconstruction of Belgium and the loans
+granted by her for relief to an amount of £16,000,000. So, altogether,
+Great Britain's credit to the Allies on March 31, 1921, was
+£1,803,600,000, and has since been increased by the interests. Great
+Britain had also at the same date a credit of £144,000,000 to her
+dominions.
+
+France has credit of little less than nine milliard francs, of which
+875 millions is from Italy, four milliards from Russia, 2,250 millions
+from Belgium, 500 millions from the Jugo-Slavs, and 1,250 millions
+from other Allies. Italy has only small credits of no account.
+
+Now this situation, by reason of which the victorious countries of
+Europe are heavy debtors (France has a foreign debt of nearly 30
+milliards, and Italy a debt of more than 20 milliards) in comparison
+with Germany, which came out of the War without any debt, has created
+a certain amount of bad feeling. Germany would have got on her feet
+again quicker than the victors if she had no indemnity to pay and had
+no foreign debts to settle.
+
+France's anxieties in this matter are perfectly legitimate and must be
+most seriously considered without, however, producing the enormities
+of the Treaty of Versailles.
+
+Assuming this, the situation may be stated in the following terms:
+
+1. All the illusions as to the capacity of Germany being able to pay
+have fallen to pieces, and the indemnities, after the absurd demands
+which tended to consider as inadequate the figure of 350 milliards
+and an annual payment of from ten to fifteen milliards have become
+an anxious unknown quantity, as troublesome to the victors as to the
+vanquished. The German circulation has lost all control under the
+force of internal needs, and Germany is threatened with failure.
+The other debtors--Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria--have need
+of succour, and can pay nothing. Austria has need of the most
+indispensable objects of existence, and everything is lacking.
+
+2. The indemnity which Germany can pay annually in her present
+condition cannot, calculating goods and cash payments altogether,
+represent more than two or three milliards at the most.
+
+3. The victorious countries, such as France, have won immense
+territories and great benefits, yet they have not been able to pay the
+War debts contracted abroad, and not even the interests. France and
+Italy, being countries of good faith, have demonstrated that, if they
+cannot pay, it is absurd to demand the payment of much higher sums
+from countries like Germany, which has lost almost all her best
+resources: mercantile fleet, colonies and foreign organization, etc.
+
+4. The danger exists that with the aggravation of the situation in the
+vanquished countries and the weakening of the economic structure of
+Europe, the vanquished countries will drag the victors down with
+them to ruin, while the Anglo-Saxon peoples, standing apart from
+Continental Europe, will detach themselves more and more from its
+policy.
+
+5. The situation which has come about is a reason for everyone to be
+anxious, and threatens both the downfall of the vanquished and the
+almost inevitable ruin of the victors, unless a way is found of
+reconstructing the moral unity of Europe and the solidarity of
+economic life.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+EUROPE'S POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTION AND PEACE POLICY
+
+
+No right-thinking person has nowadays any doubt as to the profound
+injustice of the Treaty of Versailles and of all the treaties which
+derive from it. But this fact is of small importance, inasmuch as it
+is not justice or injustice which regulates the relations between
+nations, but their interests and sentiments. In the past we have seen
+Christian peoples, transplanted in America, maintain the necessity of
+slavery, and we have seen, and continue to see every day, methods of
+reasoning which, when used by the defeated enemy were declared to be
+fallacious and wrong, become in turn, when varied only in form, the
+ideas and the customary life of the conquerors in the War--ideas which
+then assume the quality of liberal expressions of democracy.
+
+If appeals to the noblest human sentiments are not made in vain (and
+no effort of goodness or generosity is ever sterile), the conviction
+which is gradually forming itself, even in the least receptive minds,
+that the treaties of peace are inapplicable, as harmful to the
+conquerors as to the conquered, gains in force. For the treaties are
+at one and the same time a menace for the conquerors and a paralysis
+of all activity on the part of the conquered, since once the economic
+unity of Continental Europe is broken the resultant depression becomes
+inevitable.
+
+If many errors have been committed, many errors were inevitable. What
+we must try to do now is to limit the consequences of these mistakes
+in a changed spirit. To reconstruct where we see only ruins is the
+most evident necessity. We must also try to diffuse among the nations
+which have won the War together and suffered together the least amount
+of diffidence possible. As it is, the United States, Great Britain,
+France, Italy, Japan, all go their own way. France has obtained her
+maximum of concessions, including those of least use to her, but never
+before has the world seen her so alone in her attitude as after the
+treaties of Paris.
+
+What is most urgently required at the moment is to change the
+prevalent war-mentality which still infects us and overcomes all
+generous sentiments, all hopes of unity. The statement that war makes
+men better or worse is, perhaps, an exaggerated one. War, which
+creates a state of exaltation, hypertrophies all the qualities, all
+the tendencies, be they for good or for evil. Ascetic souls, spirits
+naturally noble, being disposed toward sacrifice, develop a state
+of exaltation and true fervour. How many examples of nobility, of
+abnegation, of voluntary martyrdom has not the War given us? But in
+persons disposed to evil actions, in rude and violent spirits (and
+these are always in the majority), the spirit of violence increases.
+This spirit, which among the intellectuals takes the form of arrogance
+and concupiscence, and in politics expresses itself in a policy of
+conquest, assumes in the crowd the most violent forms of class war,
+continuous assaults upon the power of the State, and an unbalanced
+desire to gain as much as possible with the least possible work.
+
+Before the War the number of men ready to take the law into their own
+hands was relatively small; now there are many such individuals.
+The various nations, even those most advanced, cannot boast a moral
+progress comparable with their intellectual development. The explosion
+of sentiments of violence has created in the period after the War in
+most countries an atmosphere which one may call unbreathable. Peoples
+accustomed to be dominated and to serve have come to believe that,
+having become dominators in their turn, they have the right to use
+every kind of violence against their overlords of yesterday. Are not
+the injustices of the Poles against the Germans, and those of the
+Rumanians against the Magyars, a proof of this state of mind? Even in
+the most civilized countries many rules of order and discipline have
+gone by the board.
+
+After all the great wars a condition of torpor, of unwillingness to
+work, together with a certain rudeness in social relations, has always
+been noticed.
+
+The war of 1870 was a little war in comparison with the cataclysm let
+loose by the European War. Yet then the conquered country had its
+attempt at Bolshevism, which in those days was called the Commune,
+and the fall of its political regime. In the conquering country we
+witnessed, together with the rapid development of industrial groups, a
+quick growth in Socialism and the constitution of great parties like
+the Catholic Centre. _Mutatis mutandis_, the same situation has shown
+itself after the European War.
+
+What is most urgently necessary, therefore, is to effect a return to
+peace sentiments, and in the manifestations of government to abandon
+those attitudes which in the peaces of Paris had their roots in hate.
+
+I have tried, as Premier of Italy, as writer, and as politician, to
+regulate my actions by this principle. In the first months of 1920 I
+gave instructions to Italy's ambassador in Vienna, the Marquis della
+Torretta, to arrange a meeting between himself and Chancellor Renner,
+head of the Government of Vienna. So the chief of the conquered
+country came, together with his Ministers, to greet the head of the
+conquering country, and there was no word that could record in any way
+the past hatred and the ancient rancour. All the conversation was of
+the necessity for reconstruction and for the development of fresh
+currents of life and commercial activity. The Government of Italy
+helped the Government of Austria in so far as was possible. And in so
+acting, I felt I was working better for the greatness of my country
+than I could possibly have done by any kind of stolid persecution.
+I felt that over and beyond our competition there existed the human
+sorrow of nations for whom we must avoid fresh shedding of blood and
+fresh wars. Had I not left the Government, it was my intention not
+only to continue in this path, but also to intensify my efforts in
+this direction.
+
+The banal idea that there exist in Europe two groups of nations, one
+of which stands for violence and barbarism--the Germans, the Magyars
+and the Bulgarians--while the other group of Anglo-Saxons and Latins
+represents civilization, must not continue to be repeated, because not
+only is it an outrage on truth but an outrage on honesty.
+
+Always to repeat that the Germans are not adapted for a democratic
+regime is neither just nor true. Nor is it true that Germany is an
+essentially warlike country, and therefore different from all other
+lands. In the last three centuries France and England have fought many
+more wars than Germany. One must read the books of the Napoleonic
+period to see with what disdain pacificist Germany is referred
+to--that country of peasants, waiters and philosophers. It is
+sufficient to read the works of German writers, including Treitschke
+himself, to perceive for what a long period of time the German lands,
+anxious for peace, have considered France as the country always eager
+for war and conquest.
+
+Not only am I of the opinion that Germany is a land suited for
+democratic institutions, but I believe that after the fall of the
+Empire democratic principles have a wider prevalence there than in
+any other country of Europe. The resistance offered to the peace of
+Versailles--that is, to disorganization--may be claimed as a merit for
+the democratic parties, which, if they are loyally assisted by the
+States of the Entente, can not only develop themselves but establish a
+great and noble democracy.
+
+Germany has accustomed us in history to the most remarkable surprises.
+A century and a half ago she was considered as a pacificist nation
+without national spirit. She has since then become a warlike country
+with the most pronounced national spirit. Early in the seventeenth
+century there were in Germany more than one hundred territories and
+independent States. There was no true national conscience, and not
+even the violence of the Napoleonic wars, a century after, sufficed
+to awaken it. What was required was a regular effort of thought, a
+sustained programme of action on the part of men like Wolff, Fichte
+and Hegel to mould a national conscience. Fifty years earlier no one
+would have believed in the possibility of a Germany united and
+compact in her national sentiment. Germany passed from the widest
+decentralization to the greatest concentration and the intensest
+national life. Germany will also be a democratic country if the
+violence of her ancient enemies does not drive her into a state of
+exaltation which will tend to render minds and spirits favourable to a
+return to the old regime.
+
+To arrive at peace we must first of all desire peace. We must no
+longer carry on conversations by means of military missions, but by
+means of ambassadors and diplomatic representatives.
+
+
+1.--THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS AND THE PARTICIPATION OF THE VANQUISHED
+
+A great step towards peace may be made by admitting at once all
+ex-enemy States into the League of Nations. Among the States of
+European civilization millions of persons are unrepresented in the
+League of Nations: the United States, who has not wished to adhere to
+it after the Treaty of Versailles sanctioned violence; Russia, who
+has not been able to join owing to her difficult position; Germany,
+Hungary, Austria and Bulgaria, who have not been permitted to join;
+the Turks, etc. The League of Nations was a magnificent conception in
+which I have had faith, and which I have regarded with sympathy. But a
+formidable mistake has deprived it of all prestige. Clauses 5 and 10
+of its originating constitution and the exclusion of the defeated
+have given it at once the character of a kind of Holy Alliance of the
+conquerors established to regulate the incredible relations which the
+treaties have created between conquerors and conquered. Wilson had
+already committed the mistake of founding the League of Nations
+without first defining the nations and leaving to chance the resources
+of the beaten peoples and their populations. The day, however, on
+which all the peoples are represented in the League, the United
+States, without approving the treaties of Versailles, St. Germain or
+Trianon, etc., will feel the need of abandoning their isolation, which
+is harmful for them and places them in a position of inferiority. And
+the day when all the peoples of the world are represented, and accept
+reciprocal pledges of international solidarity, a great step will have
+been taken.
+
+As things stand, the organism of the Reparations Commission,
+established by Schedule 2 of Part VIII of the Treaty of Versailles,
+is an absurd union of the conquerors (no longer allies, but reunited
+solely in a kind of bankruptcy procedure), who interpret the treaty in
+their own fashion, and can even modify the laws and regulations in
+the conquered countries. The existence of such an institution among
+civilized peoples ought to be an impossibility. Its powers must be
+transferred to the League of Nations in such a manner as to provide
+guarantees for the victors, but guarantees also for the conquered.
+The suppression of the Reparations Commission becomes, therefore, a
+fundamental necessity.
+
+
+2.--THE REVISION OF THE TREATIES
+
+When the public, and especially in the United States and Great
+Britain, become convinced that the spirit of peace can only prevail by
+means of an honest revision of the treaties the difficulties will be
+easily eliminated. But one cannot merely speak of a simple revision;
+it would be a cure worse than the evil. During the tempest one cannot
+abandon the storm-beaten ship and cross over to a safer vessel. It is
+necessary to return into harbour and make the transhipment where calm,
+or relative calm at any rate, reigns.
+
+Inasmuch as Europe is out of equilibrium, a settlement, even of a
+bad kind, cannot be arrived at off-hand. To cast down the present
+political scaffolding without having built anything would be an error.
+Perhaps here the method that will prove most efficacious is to entrust
+the League of Nations with the task of arriving at a revision.
+When the League of Nations is charged with this work the various
+governments will send their best politicians, and the discussion will
+be able to assume a realizable character.
+
+According to its constitution, the League of Nations may, in case of
+war or the menace of war (Clause 11), convoke its members, and take
+all the measures required to safeguard the peace of the nations. All
+the adhering States have recognized their obligation to submit all
+controversies to arbitration, and that in any case they have no right
+to resort to war before the expiration of a term of three months after
+the verdict of the arbiters or the report of the Council (Clause 12).
+Any member of the League of Nations resorting to war contrary to the
+undertakings of the treaty which constitutes the League is, _ipso
+facto_, considered as if he had committed an act of war against all
+the other members of the League (Clause 19).
+
+But more important still is the fact that the Assembly of the League
+of Nations may invite its members to proceed to a fresh examination
+of treaties that become inapplicable as well as of international
+situations whose prolongation might imperil the peace of the world
+(Clause 19).
+
+We may therefore revise the present treaties without violence and
+without destroying them.
+
+What requires to be modified there is no necessity to say, inasmuch as
+all the matter of this book supplies the evidence and the proof. What
+is certain is that in Europe and America, except for an intransigent
+movement running strong in France, everyone is convinced of the
+necessity of revision.
+
+It will be well that this revision should take place through the
+operations of the League of Nations after the representatives of all
+the States, conquerors, conquered and neutrals, have come to form part
+of it.
+
+But in the constitution of the League of Nations there are two clauses
+which form its fundamental weakness, sections desired by France, whose
+gravity escaped Wilson.
+
+Clause 5 declares that, save and excepting contrary dispositions, the
+decisions of the Assembly or of the Council are to be by the unanimous
+consent of the members represented at the meetings. It is difficult
+to imagine anything more absurd. If the modification of a territorial
+situation is being discussed, all the nations must agree as to the
+solution, including the interested nation. The League of Nations is
+convinced that the Danzig corridor is an absurdity, but if France is
+not of the same opinion no modification can be made. Without a change
+of this clause, every honest attempt at revision must necessarily
+break down.
+
+Clause 10, by which the members of the League of Nations pledge
+themselves to respect and preserve from external attacks the
+territorial integrity and the existing political independence of all
+the members of the League, must also be altered. This clause, which
+is profoundly immoral, consecrates and perpetuates the mistakes
+and faults of the treaties. No honest country can guarantee the
+territorial integrity of the States now existing after the monstrous
+parcelling out of entire groups of Germans and Magyars to other
+nations, arranged without scruples and without intelligence. No one
+can honestly guarantee the territorial integrity of Poland as it
+stands at present. If a new-risen Russia, a renewed Germany, and an
+unextinguished Austria desire in the future a revision of the treaties
+they will be making a most reasonable demand to which no civilized
+country may make objection. It is indeed Clauses 5 and 10 which have
+deprived the constitution of the League of Nations of all moral
+credit, which have transformed it into an instrument of oppression for
+the victors, which have caused the just and profound disapproval of
+the most enlightened men of the American Senate. A League of Nations
+with Clauses 5 and 10 and the prolonged exclusion of the vanquished
+cannot but accentuate the diffidence of all the democracies and the
+aversion of the masses.
+
+But the League of Nations can be altered and can become indeed a great
+force for renovation if the problem of its functioning be clearly
+confronted and promptly resolved.
+
+The League of Nations can become a great guarantee for peace on three
+conditions:
+
+(a) That it include really and in the shortest space of time possible
+all the peoples, conquerors, conquered and neutrals.
+
+(b) That clauses 5 and 10 be modified, and that after their
+modification a revision of the treaties be undertaken.
+
+(c) That the Reparations Commission be abolished and its powers be
+conferred upon the League of Nations itself.
+
+As it exists at present the League of Nations has neither prestige nor
+dignity; it is an expression of the violence of the conquering group
+of nations. But reconstituted and renovated it may become the greatest
+of peace factors in the relations between the peoples.
+
+3.--THE SAFETY OF FRANCE AND THE MILITARY GUARANTEES
+
+In the state of mind in which France exists at present there is a
+reasonable cause of worry for the future. Since the conclusion of
+the War the United States of America have withdrawn. They concern
+themselves with Europe no more, or only in a very limited form and
+with diffidence. The Monroe doctrine has come into its own again.
+Great Britain watches the decadence of the European continent, but,
+girt by the sea, has nothing to fear. She is a country of Europe, but
+she does not live the life of Europe; she stands apart from it. Italy,
+when she has overcome the difficulties of her economic situation, can
+be certain of her future. The very fact that she stands in direct
+opposition to no State, that she may have competition with various
+peoples but not long-nurtured hatreds, gives Italy a relative
+security. But France, who has been in less than forty-four years twice
+at war with Germany, has little security for her future. Germany
+and the Germanic races increase rapidly in number. France does not
+increase. France, notwithstanding the new territories, after her war
+losses, has probably no more inhabitants than in 1914. In her almost
+tormented anxiety to destroy Germany we see her dread for the
+future--more indeed than mere hatred. To occupy with numerous troops
+the left bank of the Rhine and the bridgeheads is an act of vengeance;
+but in the vengeance there is also anxiety. There are many in France
+who think that neither now nor after fifteen years must the territory
+of the vanquished be abandoned. And so France maintains in effective
+force too large an army and nourishes too great a rancour. And for
+this reason she helps the Poles in their unjustifiable attempt in
+Upper Silesia, will not allow the Germans of Austria to live, and
+seeks to provoke and facilitate all movements and political actions
+which can tend towards the dismemberment of Germany. The British and
+the Italian viewpoints are essentially different. France, which knows
+it can no longer count on the co-operation of Great Britain, of the
+United States, or of Italy, keeps on foot her numerous army, has
+allied herself with Belgium and Poland, and tries to suffocate Germany
+in a ring of iron. The attempt is a vain one and destined to fail
+within a few years, inasmuch as France's allies have no capacity for
+resistance. Yet, all the same, her attempt derives from a feeling that
+is not only justifiable but just.
+
+France had obtained at Paris, apart from the occupation of the left
+bank of the Rhine and all the military controls, two guaranteeing
+treaties from the United States and from Great Britain: in case of
+unprovoked aggression on the part of Germany, Great Britain and
+the United States pledged themselves to defend France. The British
+Parliament, as we have seen, approved the treaty provisionally on the
+similar approbation of the United States. But as the latter has not
+approved the Treaty of Versailles, and has not even discussed the
+guarantee treaty, France has now no guarantee treaty.
+
+If we are anxious to realize a peace politic two things are necessary:
+
+1. That France has security, and that for twenty years at least
+Great Britain and Italy pledge themselves to defend her in case of
+aggression.
+
+2. That the measures for the disarmament of the conquered States be
+maintained, maybe with some tempering of their conditions, and that
+their execution and control be entrusted with the amplest powers to
+the League of Nations.
+
+No one can think it unjust that the parties who provoked the War or
+those who have, if not the entire, at least the greatest share of
+responsibility, should be rendered for a certain time incapable.
+The fall of the military caste in Germany and the formation of a
+democratic society will derive much help from the abolition, for a not
+too brief period of time, of the permanent army, and this will render
+possible, at no distant date, an effective reduction of the armaments
+in the victorious countries.
+
+Great Britain has the moral duty to proffer a guarantee already
+spontaneously given. Italy also must give such a guarantee if she
+wishes truly to contribute towards the peace of Europe.
+
+As long as Germany has no fleet, and cannot put together an artillery
+and an aviation corps, she cannot present a menace.
+
+Great Britain and Italy can, however, only give their guarantees on
+the condition that they guarantee a proper state of things and not a
+continued condition of violence. The withdrawal of all the troops from
+the Rhine ought to coincide with a clear definition concerning the
+fate of the Germans of Austria and the Germans detached from Germany
+without motive. Such a retirement must coincide with the definition
+of the territory of the Saar, and the assigning, pure and simple, of
+Upper Silesia to Germany and the end of all the insupportable controls
+and the indemnity regulations.
+
+Being myself contrary to any pledge binding Italy for too long a
+period, I am of opinion that it is perfectly right that Great Britain
+and Italy should make this sacrifice for the peace of Europe.
+
+But no guarantee is possible, either for Great Britain or Italy, until
+the most essential problems be resolved in the justest manner by means
+of straightforward and explicit understandings.
+
+Italy's tendency towards British policy on the continent of Europe
+depends on the fact that Great Britain has never wished or tolerated
+that any continental State should have a hegemony over others. And,
+therefore, she has found herself at different epochs ranged against
+France, Germany and Russia.
+
+England is in the Mediterranean solely to secure her passage through
+it, not to dominate it. She continues to follow the grand policy by
+which she has transformed her colonies into dominions, and, in spite
+of errors, she has always shown the greatest respect for the liberty
+of other peoples.
+
+But Europe will not have peace until the three progressive countries
+of the Continent, Germany, France and Italy, find a way of agreement
+which can reunite all their energies in one common force.
+
+Russia has conceived the idea of having the hegemony of Europe;
+Germany has indeed had the illusion of such a hegemony. Now this
+illusion penetrates certain French elements. Can a people of forty
+million inhabitants, who are not increasing, who already find
+difficulties in dominating and controlling their immense colonies,
+aspire to hegemonic action, even taking count of their great political
+prestige? Can France lastingly dominate and menace a country like
+Germany, which at no distant date will have a population double that
+of France?
+
+The future of European civilization requires that Germany, France and
+Italy, after so much disaster, find a common road to travel.
+
+The first step to be taken is to give security of existence and of
+reconstruction to Germany; the second is to guarantee France from the
+perils of a not distant future; the third is to find at all costs a
+means of accord between Germany, France and Italy.
+
+But only vast popular movements and great currents of thought and
+of life can work effectively in those cases where the labours of
+politicians have revealed themselves as characterized by uncertainty
+and as being too traditional. Europe is still under the dominion of
+old souls which often enough dwell in young bodies and, therefore,
+unite old errors with violence. A great movement can only come from
+the intellectuals of the countries most menaced and from fresh popular
+energies.
+
+
+4.--REGULATING INTER-ALLIED DEBTS, GERMANY'S INDEMNITY AND THAT OF THE
+DEFEATED COUNTRIES
+
+These two problems are closely connected.
+
+The victorious countries demand an indemnity from the conquered
+countries which, except Germany, who has a great productive force even
+in her hour of difficulties, are in extreme depression and misery.
+
+Great Britain is in debt to the United States, and France, Italy and
+minor nations are in their turn heavy debtors to the Americans and to
+Great Britain.
+
+The experience of the last three years has shown that, even with the
+best will, none of the countries owing money to the Entente has been
+able to pay its debts or even the interest. With an effort Great
+Britain could pay; France and Italy will never be able to, and have,
+moreover, exchanges which constitute a real menace for the future of
+each.
+
+The fact that France and Italy, although they came out of the war
+victoriously, have not been able to pay their debts or even the
+interest on them is the proof that Germany, whose best resources have
+been taken away from her, can only pay an indemnity very different
+from the fantastic figures put forward at the time of the Conference
+of Paris, when even important political men spoke of monstrous and
+ridiculous indemnities.
+
+The problem of the inter-allied debts, as well as that of the
+indemnity, will be solved by a certain sacrifice on the part of all
+who participated in the War.
+
+The credits of the United States amount to almost 48 milliards of lire
+or francs at par, and the credits of Great Britain to 44 milliards.
+Great Britain owes about 21 milliards to the United States and is in
+turn creditor for some 44 milliards. She has a bad debt owing from
+Russia for more than 14 milliards, but 13 milliards are owing from
+France, about 12 milliards from Italy, and almost 2-1/2 milliards from
+Belgium. That is to say, that Great Britain could well pay her debt
+to the United States, ceding the greater part of her credits towards
+France and Italy.
+
+But the truth is that, while on the subject of the German indemnities,
+stolid illusions continue to be propagated (perhaps now with greater
+discretion), neither France nor Italy is in a position to pay its
+debts.
+
+The most honest solution, which, intelligently enough, J.M. Keynes has
+seen from the first, is that each of the inter-allied countries should
+renounce its state credits towards countries that were allies or
+associates during the War. The United States of America are creditors
+only; Great Britain has lent the double of what she has borrowed.
+France has received on loan the triple of what she has lent to others.
+
+The credits of France are for almost two-thirds undemandable credits
+of Great Britain; more than 14 milliards being with Russia, they are
+for considerably more than one-third bad debts.
+
+France and Italy would be benefited chiefly by this provision. Great
+Britain would scarcely either benefit or lose, or, rather, the benefit
+accruing to her would be less in so much as her chief credits are to
+Russia.
+
+The United States would doubtless have to bear the largest burden. But
+when one thinks of the small sacrifice which the United States has
+made in comparison with the efforts of France and Italy (and Italy was
+not obliged to enter the War), the new sacrifice demanded does not
+seem excessive.
+
+During the War the United States of America, who for three years
+furnished food, provisions and arms to the countries of the Entente,
+have absorbed the greater part of their available resources. Not only
+are the States of Europe debtors, but so are especially the private
+citizens who have contracted debts during or after the War. Great
+Britain during the War had to sell at least 25 milliards of her
+foreign values. The United States of America, on the contrary, have
+immensely increased their reserves.
+
+But this very increase is harmful to them, inasmuch as the capacity
+for exchange of the States of Europe has been much reduced. The United
+States now risk seeing still further reduced, if not destroyed,
+this purchasing capacity of their best clients; and this finally
+constitutes for the U.S.A. infinitely greater damage than the
+renouncing of all their credits.
+
+To reconstruct Germany, to intensify exchange of goods with the old
+countries of Austria-Hungary and Russia, to settle the situation of
+the exchange of goods with Italy and the Balkan countries is much more
+important for the United States and the prosperity of its people than
+to demand payment or not demand payment of those debts made for the
+common cause.
+
+I will speak of the absurd situation which has come about.
+Czeko-Slovakia and Poland unwillingly indeed fought against the
+Entente, which has raised them to free and autonomous States; and
+not only have they no debts to pay, being now in the position of
+conquerors, or at least allies of the conquerors, but they have, in
+fact, scarcely any foreign debts.
+
+The existence of enormous War debts is, then, everywhere a menace to
+financial stability. No one is anxious to repudiate his debts in order
+not to suffer in loss of dignity, but almost all know that they cannot
+pay. The end of the War, as Keynes has justly written, has brought
+about that all owe immense sums of money to one another. The holders
+of loan stock in every country are creditors for vast sums towards
+the State, and the State, in its turn, is creditor for enormous sums
+towards the taxpayers. The whole situation is highly artificial and
+irritating. We shall be unable to move unless we succeed in freeing
+ourselves from this chain of paper.
+
+The work of reconstruction can begin by annulling the inter-allied
+debts.
+
+If it is not thought desirable to proceed at once to annulment, there
+remains only the solution of including them in the indemnity which
+Germany must pay in the measure of 20 per cent., allocating a certain
+proportion to each country which has made loans to allied and
+associated governments on account of the War. In round figures the
+inter-allied loans come to 100 milliards. They can be reduced to 20,
+and then each creditor can renounce his respective credit towards
+allies or associates and participate proportionately in the new credit
+towards Germany. Such a credit, bearing no interest, could only be
+demanded after the payment of all the other indemnities, and would be
+considered in the complete total of the indemnities.
+
+All the illusions concerning the indemnities are now fated to
+disappear. They have already vanished for the other countries; they
+are about to vanish in the case of Germany.
+
+Nevertheless it is right that Germany should pay an indemnity. Yet, if
+the conquerors cannot meet their foreign debts, how can the vanquished
+clear the vast indemnity asked? Each passing day demonstrates more
+clearly the misunderstanding of the indemnity. The non-experts have
+not learned financial technics, but common sense tells them that the
+golden nimbus which has been trailed before their eyes is only a thick
+cloud of smoke that is slowly dissipating.
+
+I have already said that the real damages to repair do not exceed
+40 milliards of gold marks and that all the other figures are pure
+exaggerations.
+
+If it be agreed that Germany accept 20 per cent. of the inter-allied
+debt, the indemnity may be raised to 60 milliards of francs at par, to
+be paid in gold marks.
+
+But we must calculate for Germany's benefit all that she has already
+given in immediate marketable wealth. Apart from her colonies, Germany
+has given up all her mercantile marine fleet, her submarine cables,
+much railway material and war material, government property in ceded
+territory without any diminution of the amount of public debts, etc.
+Without taking account, then, of the colonies and her magnificent
+commercial organization abroad, Germany has parted with at least 20
+milliards. If we were to calculate what Germany has ceded with the
+same criteria with which the conquering countries have calculated
+their losses, we should arrive at figures much surpassing these. We
+may agree in taxing Germany with an indemnity equivalent in gold marks
+to 60 milliards of francs at par--an indemnity to be paid in the
+following manner:
+
+(a) Twenty milliards of francs to be considered as already paid in
+consideration of all that Germany has ceded in consequence of the
+treaties.
+
+(b) Twenty milliards from the indemnity which Germany must pay to her
+conquerors, especially in coal and other materials, according to the
+proportions already established.
+
+(c) Twenty milliards--after the payment of the debts in the second
+category to be taken over by Germany--as part of the reimbursement for
+countries which have made credits to the belligerents of the Entente:
+that is, the United States, Great Britain and France, in proportion to
+the sums lent.
+
+In what material can Germany pay 20 milliards in a few years?
+Especially in coal and in material for repairing the devastated
+territories of France. Germany must pledge herself for ten years to
+consign to France a quantity of coal at least equal in bulk to the
+difference between the annual production before the War in the mines
+of the north and in the Pas de Calais and the production of the mines
+in the same area during the next ten years. She must also furnish
+Italy--who, after the heavy losses sustained, has not the possibility
+of effecting exchanges--a quantity of coal that will represent
+three-quarters of the figures settled upon in the Treaty of
+Versailles. We can compel Germany to give to the Allies for ten years,
+in extinction of their credits, at least 500 millions a year in gold,
+with privileges on the customs receipts.
+
+This systematization, which can only be imposed by the free agreement
+of the United States and Great Britain, would have the effect of
+creating excellent relations. The United States, cancelling their, in
+great part, impossible debt, would derive the advantage of developing
+their trade and industry, and thus be able to guarantee credits for
+private individuals in Europe. It would also be of advantage to Great
+Britain, who would lose nothing. Great Britain has about an equal
+number of debits and credits, with this difference, that the debits
+are secured, while the credits are, in part, unsecured. France's
+credits are proportionately the worst and her debits largest, almost
+27 milliards. France, liberated from her debt, and in a position to
+calculate on a coal situation comparable with that of before the War
+and with her new territories, would be in a position to re-establish
+herself. The cancellation of 27 milliards of debt, a proportionate
+share in 20 milliards, together with all that she has had, represent
+on the whole a sum that perhaps exceeds 50 milliards. Italy would
+have the advantage of possessing for ten years the minimum of coal
+necessary to her existence, and would be liberated from her foreign
+debt, which amounts to much more than she can possibly hope for from
+the indemnity.
+
+Such an arrangement, or one like it, is the only way calculated to
+allow Europe to set out again on the path of civilization and to
+re-establish slowly that economic equilibrium which the War has
+destroyed with enormous damage for the conquerors and the certain ruin
+of the vanquished.
+
+But, before speaking of any indemnity, the Reparations Commission must
+be abolished and its functions handed over to the League of Nations,
+while all the useless controls and other hateful vexations must be put
+an end to.
+
+While the Allied troops' occupation of the Rhine costs Germany
+25 milliards of paper marks a year, it is foolish to speak of
+reconstruction or indemnity. Either all occupation must cease or the
+expenses ought not to exceed, according to the foregoing agreements, a
+maximum of 80 millions at par, or even less.
+
+We shall, however, never arrive at such an arrangement until the
+Continental countries become convinced of two things: first, that the
+United States will grant no credits under any formula; secondly, that
+Germany, under the present system, will be unable to pay anything and
+will collapse, dragging down to ruin her conquerors.
+
+Among many uncertainties these two convictions become ever clearer.
+
+If in all countries the spirit of insubordination among the working
+classes is increasing, the state of mind of the German operatives
+is quite remarkable. The workmen almost everywhere, in face of the
+enormous fortunes which the War has created and by reason of the
+spirit of violence working in them, have worked with bad spirit after
+the War because they have thought that a portion of their labour has
+gone to form the profits of the industrials. It is useless to say that
+we are dealing here with an absurd and dangerous conception, because
+the profit of the capitalist is a necessary element of production,
+and because production along communist lines, wherever it has been
+attempted, has brought ruin and misery. But it is useless to deny that
+such a situation exists, together with the state of mind which it
+implies. We can well imagine, then, the conditions in which Germany
+and the vanquished countries find themselves. The workmen, who in
+France, England and Italy exhibit in various degree and measure a
+state of intractability, in Germany have to face a situation still
+graver. When they work they know that a portion of their labour is
+destined to go to the victors, another part to the capitalist, and
+finally there will remain something for them. Add to this that in
+all the beaten countries hunger is widespread, with a consequent
+diminution of energy and work.
+
+No reasonable person can explain how humanity can continue to believe
+in the perpetuation of a similar state of things for another forty
+years.
+
+In speaking of the indemnity which Germany can pay, it is necessary
+to consider this special state of mind of the operatives and other
+categories of producers.
+
+But the mere announcement of the settling of the indemnity, of the
+immediate admission of the vanquished nations into the League of
+Nations, of the settling the question of the occupation of the Rhine,
+and of the firm intention to modify the constitution of the League
+of Nations, according it the powers now held by the Reparations
+Commission, will improve at once the market and signalize a definite
+and assured revival.
+
+The United States made a great financial effort to assist their
+associates, and in their own interests, as well as for those of
+Europe, they would have done badly to have continued with such
+assistance. When the means provided by America come to be employed to
+keep going the anarchy of central Europe, Rumania's disorder, Greece's
+adventures and Poland's violences, together with Denikin's and
+Wrangel's restoration attempts, it is better that all help should
+cease. In fact, Europe has begun to reason a little better than her
+governments since the financial difficulties have increased.
+
+The fall of the mark and Germany's profound economic depression have
+already destroyed a great part of the illusions on the subject of the
+indemnity, and the figures with which for three years the public has
+been humbugged no longer convince anyone.
+
+
+5.--FORMING NEW CONNEXIONS WITH RUSSIA
+
+Among the States of the Entente there is always a fundamental discord
+on the subject of Russia. Great Britain recognized at once that if it
+were impossible to acknowledge the Soviet Government it was a mistake
+to encourage attempts at restoration. After the first moments of
+uncertainty Great Britain has insisted on temperate measures, and
+notwithstanding that during the War she made the largest loans to the
+Russian Government (more than 14 milliards of francs at par, while
+France only lent about 4 milliards), she has never put forward the
+idea that, as a condition precedent to the recognition of the Soviet
+Government, a guarantee of the repayment of the debt was necessary.
+Only France has had this mistaken idea, which she has forced to the
+point of asking for the sequestration of all gold sent abroad by the
+Soviet Government for the purchase of goods.
+
+Wilson had already stated in his fourteen points what the attitude of
+the Entente towards Russia ought to be, but the attitudes actually
+assumed have been of quite a different order.
+
+The barrier which Poland wants to construct between Germany and Russia
+is an absurdity which must be swept away at once. Having taken away
+Germany's colonies and her capacities for expansion abroad, we must
+now direct her towards Russia where alone she can find the outlet
+necessary for her enormous population and the debt she has to carry.
+The blockade of Russia, the barbed wire placed round Russia, have
+damaged Europe severely. This blockade has resolved itself into a
+blockade against the Allies. Before the present state of economic
+ruin Russia was the great reservoir of raw materials; she was the
+unexplored treasure towards which one went with the confidence of
+finding everything. Now, owing to her effort, she has fallen; but
+how large a part of her fall is as much due to the Entente as to her
+action during the War and since. For some time now even the most
+hidebound intelligences have recognized the fact that it is useless
+to talk of entering into trade relations with Russia without the
+co-operation of Germany, the obvious ally in the vast task of
+renovation. Similarly, it is useless to talk of reattempting military
+manoeuvres. While Germany remains disassociated from the work
+of reconstruction and feels herself menaced by a Poland that is
+anarchical and disorderly and acts as an agent of the Entente, while
+Germany has no security for her future and must work with doubt and
+with rancour, all attempts to reconstruct Russia will be vain. The
+simple and fundamental truth is just this: One can only get to Moscow
+by passing through Berlin.
+
+If we do not wish conquerors and conquered to fall one after the
+other, and a common fate to reunite those who for too long have hated
+each other and continue to hate each other, a solemn word of peace
+must be pronounced.
+
+Austria, Germany, Italy, France are not diverse phenomena; they are
+different phases of the same phenomenon. All Europe will go to pieces
+if new conditions of life are not found, and the economic equilibrium
+profoundly shaken by the War re-established.
+
+I have sought in this book to point out in all sincerity the things
+that are in store for Europe; what perils menace her and in what
+way her regeneration lies. In my political career I have found many
+bitternesses; but the campaign waged against me has not disturbed me
+at all. I know that wisdom and life are indivisible, and I have no
+need to modify anything of what I have done, neither in my propaganda
+nor in my attempt at human regeneration, convinced as I am that I am
+serving both the cause of my country and the cause of civilization.
+Blame and praise do not disturb me, and the agitations promoted in the
+heart of my country will not modify in any way my conviction. On the
+contrary, they will only reinforce my will to follow in my own way.
+
+Truth, be it only slowly, makes its way. Though now the clouds are
+blackest, they will shortly disappear. The crisis which menaces and
+disturbs Europe so profoundly has inoculated with alarm the most
+excited spirits; Europe is still in the phase of doubt, but after the
+cries of hate and fury, doubt signifies a great advance. From doubt
+the truth may come forth.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+  ADRAIANOPLE, passes to the Greeks,
+  Adriatic programme, Italy's
+  Albania, an Italian expedition into
+  Alexander the Great as politician
+  Allenstein, a plebiscite for
+  Allies, the, war debts of
+  Alsace-Lorraine, annexation of
+    restitution of
+  America, and question of army of occupation
+    her attitude on reparations
+    result of her entry into the war
+    (_see also_ United States)
+  Apponyi, Count, on the Treaty of Trianon
+  Arabia, Turkey's losses in
+  Armaments, reduction of
+    the peace treaties and
+  Armenia, movement for liberation of
+  Armenian Republic, the
+  Armistice terms, summary of
+    three words change tenor of
+  Army of Occupation, the
+  Asia Minor, the Entente Powers and,
+    Turkey's losses in
+  Australasia, British possessions in
+  Australia as part of British dominions
+  Austria, financial position of,
+    loses access to the sea
+  Austria-Hungary, and the Versailles Treaty
+    civilizing influence of
+    pre-war army of
+    result of Treaty of St. Germain Germain-en-Laye
+    States of, before the war
+    victories of
+  Austrian army, the
+  Azerbajan
+
+  BALKANS, the, Russia's policy in
+  Battles, a military fact
+    difference between war and
+  Beethoven
+  Belgium, acquires German territory
+    army of
+    financial position of
+    population of
+    violation of, and the consequences
+  Bernhardi, General von
+  Bismarck, foresight of
+    political genius of
+  Bolshevik Government, the fiasco of
+    result of
+  Bolshevism, and what it is
+  Boxer rebellion, the Kaiser's address to his troops
+  Briand, M., on the objects of the Entente
+  Bridgeheads, German, occupation of,
+  British colonies, before the war,
+  Brussels, Conference of,
+  Budapest, conditions in,
+    mortality in,
+  Bulgaria, army of,
+    the Treaty of Neuilly and,
+  Bülow, von
+
+  CANADA as part of British dominions,
+  Cilicia,
+  Civilization, evolution of,
+  Clemenceau, M., and the military guarantees question,
+    and the Paris Conference,
+    and the reparations clause,
+    as destroyer,
+    communicates Poincaré's letter to Lloyd George,
+    fall of,
+    his hatred of the Germans,
+    on peace treaties,
+    replies to Lloyd George's note,
+  Coal fields, Germany's pre-war,
+  Colonial rights, and the Versailles Treaty,
+  Colonies, British,
+    German pre-war,
+    Germany loses her,
+  Commune, the French,
+  Communist system, Russian, failure of,
+  Constantine, King of Greece, return of,
+  Constantinople, retained by the Turks,
+    Russia's desire for,
+    subject to international control,
+    the Treaty of Sèvres and,
+  Croatia and Fiume,
+  Cyrenaica,
+  Czeko-Slovakia, State of,
+    added population of,
+    army of,
+    financial position of,
+    Magyars in
+
+  DALMATIA, the London Agreement and,
+  Dante, a celebrated dictum of,
+  Danube Commission, the,
+  Danzig, allotted to Poland,
+  Dardanelles, the, freedom of: Versailles Treaty and,
+  De Foville's estimate of wealth of France,
+  Denikin,
+  Denmark acquires North Schleswig,
+  Disarmament conditions fulfilled by Germany,
+  Disease, and the aftermath of war
+
+  ECONOMIC barriers, removal of, and the peace treaty,
+  England, and the Mediterranean,
+    war record of,
+  Entente, the, and Germany's responsibility for war,
+    and the Bolshevik Government,
+    author's opinion of peace terms of,
+    division among, as result of peace treaties,
+  Erzeroum, Mussulman population of,
+  Esthonia,
+  Eupen ceded to Belgium,
+  Europe, area of,
+    financial difficulties of,
+    increased armaments in
+
+  Europe, monarchies in, before the war
+    pre-war conditions of
+    reconstruction of, and peace policy
+    results of world-war in
+    States of
+  European civilization, future of
+  European States, war debts of
+    (_cf of_ War Debts)
+
+  FERENCZI, Dr., his statistics of sickness in Budapest
+  Fezzan
+  Fichte, and Germany
+  Financial and economic clauses of peace treaty
+  Finland
+  Fiume, Italy's position regarding
+    question of
+    the London Agreement and
+    Wilson and
+  Foch, Marshal, and the military commission
+    and the peace treaties
+    unconstitutional action of
+  France, acquires Saar mines
+    alliances with
+    and the indemnity
+    and the old regime in Russia
+    claims of, at Paris Conference,
+    expenses of her navy
+    financial position of
+    iron industry of
+    Italy and
+    population of
+    post-war army of
+    post-war condition of
+    presses for occupation of the Ruhr
+    pre-war status of
+    private wealth of, before the war
+    purport of her action in the Conference
+    recognizes government of Wrangel
+    safety of, and military guarantees
+    the political class in
+    treaties with U.S. and Great Britain
+    war record of
+  Franco-Prussian War, the
+    indemnity demanded by victors
+    unjust terms of Prussia
+  Frankfort, Treaty of, compared with Versailles Treaty
+  Frederick the Great, political genius of
+  Freedom of the seas, the peace treaties and
+  French-American Treaty, the
+  French-English Treaty, the
+  French territories, liberation
+  Frontiers, changed condition of
+
+  GEORGE, Lloyd, a memorandum for Peace Conference
+    a truism of
+    and question of military guarantees
+    and reparations question
+    and Russia
+    and the Paris Conference
+    and the proposed trial of the Kaiser
+    denounces economic manifesto
+    difficult position of, at Paris Conference
+    on Poland's claim to Upper Silesia
+    proposes Germany's admission to League of Nations
+  Georgia, in Bolshevik hands
+    Italy prepares a military expedition to
+  German army reduced by peace terms
+    delegates and the Paris Conference
+  German-Austria, army of
+    loses access to the sea
+    plight of
+  Germany, a country of surprises
+    a war of reconquest by, impossible
+    accepts armistice terms
+    Allies' demands for indemnities
+    and America's entry into the war
+    and her indemnity
+    and reconstruction of Russia
+    and the political sense
+    annual capitalization of
+    commerce of, before the war
+    cost of army of occupation to
+    effect of peace treaty on
+    effect of President Wilson's messages on
+    financial position of
+    her indemnity increased
+    her pre-war colonies
+    her responsibility for the war
+    how she can pay indemnity
+    imports and exports of
+    is she able to pay indemnity asked?
+    loses her colonies
+    losses of, in Great War
+    militarist party in
+    military conditions imposed on
+    population of, in and outside Europe
+    pre-war army of
+    pre-war coal supply of
+    pre-war conditions of
+    result of Versailles Treaty to
+    revolutionary crisis in
+    Sèvres Treaty and
+    suited for democratic principles
+    territories and States in, before the war
+    victories of
+    war record of
+  Goethe
+  Great Britain, and the indemnity
+    and the Treaty of Versailles
+    army of
+    enters the war
+    expenses of her navy
+    financial position of
+    general election in
+    insularity of
+    population of
+    pre-war conditions of
+    war record of
+    why she entered the war
+  Great War, the, author's opinion of peace terms
+    estimated number of dead in
+    how it was decided
+    post-war results of
+    question of responsibility for
+  Greece, acquires Bulgarian territory
+    army of
+    financial position of
+    her gains by Sèvres Treaty
+    her illusion of conquering Turkish resistance
+    her policy of greed
+    the Entente and
+
+  HEGEL, and Germany,
+  Helferich, and the capitalization of Germany,
+  Herf, von, and Polish organization,
+  Hindenburg, and the U.S. army,
+  House, Colonel, and the reduction of the German army,
+    and the reparations proposal,
+  Hughes, W.M., Premier of Australia, and the German indemnity,
+  Hungary, alarming mortality in,
+    army of,
+    conditions of life in,
+    delegates of, at Paris Conference,
+    harsh treatment of,
+    losses of, by peace treaty,
+    pre-war,
+    revolutions in, 166
+  Hunger and disease, a legacy of war,
+  Hymans, M., at Paris Conference,
+
+  INDEMNITIES, question of,
+    what Germany can pay,
+    (_see also_ Reparations)
+  Indemnity clause, how inserted,
+    _et seq_.,
+  India, British,
+  Inter-Allied debts, problem of,
+    _et seq_.
+    (_see also_ Allies, war debts of)
+  Iron, Germany's lack of,
+  Iron-ore, Germany's pre-war wealth in,
+  Italian frontier, rectification of,
+  Italian Socialists visit Russia,
+  Italians, their difficult theatre of war,
+  Italo-Turkish war, the,
+  Italy, a period of crisis in,
+    an expedition into Albania,
+    and Georgia,
+    and Montenegro,
+    and the Balkans,
+    and the League of Nations,
+    and the London Agreement,
+    and the Paris Conference,
+    army of,
+    breaks with the Alliance,
+    custom of tree-planting in,
+    declares her neutrality,
+    economic sufferings of,
+    enters the war,
+    expenses of her navy,
+    financial position of,
+    Great Britain and,
+    her costly Libyan adventure,
+    her freedom from revolutions,
+    in the Triple Alliance,
+    ministerial crisis in,
+    population of,
+    pre-war status of,
+    stands apart from Conference,
+    suffers from situation in Russia
+    territories annexed to,
+    the Adriatic problem,
+    the question of Fiume,
+    votes for recognition of the Soviet,
+    why she entered the war,
+
+  JAPAN, expenses of her navy,
+  Jews, Polish,
+  Judenic, General,
+  Jugo-Slavia, acquires Bulgarian territory,
+    army of,
+    financial position of,
+    Magyars in,
+  Julius Caesar as politician,
+  KANT, Emanuel
+  Kautsky, published documents of
+  Keynes, John Maynard, and inter-Allied debts
+    and the Paris Conference
+    author's admiration for
+    represents English Treasury at Paris Conference
+    the indemnity question and
+    true forecasts of
+  Klagenfurth, a plebiscite for
+  Klotz, and the indemnity
+  Koltchak, Admiral
+  Konigsberg, the home of Emanuel Kant
+  Kowno claimed by Poles
+
+  LABOUR and the war
+  Lansing, Robert, and the Paris Conference
+  Law, Bonar, and question of military guarantees
+    and reparations
+    and the indemnity
+  League of Nations, the, a suggested revision of treaties by
+    and Danzig
+    and the participation of the vanquished
+    as trustee of Saar mines
+    covenant of
+  foundation of, and its objects
+    Germany debarred from
+    its capabilities and mistakes
+    modification of two clauses of
+    its constitution needed
+    powers of
+    Wilson in a difficult situation
+  Lettonia
+  Libyan adventure, the
+  Lithuania, Wilna ceded to, but occupied by Poles
+  London Agreement, the
+    secrecy of
+  London, Conference of
+    discusses economic manifesto
+  Lorraine, Germany's pre-war iron production from
+    iron mines of: German ambitions for
+  Loucheur, M., and the indemnity
+  Ludendorff,  General, important declaration by
+  Luxemburg, iron industry of
+
+  MAGYARS, in Rumania
+    Treaty of Trianon and,
+  Malmédy given to Belgium
+  Marienwerder, a plebiscite for
+  Marne, battle of the
+  Mesopotamia lost by Turkey
+  Military clauses and guarantees of peace treaty
+  Millerand, M., and Sweden
+  Monroe doctrine, the
+  Montenegro, absorbed by the S.H.S. State
+    restoration of
+    the Entente and
+  Moresnet becomes Belgian territory
+  Moscow Government sends gold to Sweden: French action
+  Mussulman population of pre-war Turkey
+
+  NAPOLEON I
+    as politician
+    his three great errors
+  Napoleon III
+  Nationalism, and what it implies
+  Naval armaments, the race for
+  Neuilly, the Treaty of
+  New Zealand, Britain's share of
+  Nicholas II, his proclamation regarding Poland
+    weakness of
+  Nineteenth century, the, wars of
+  Nitti, Francesco S., and admission of ex-enemies into League of
+  Nations
+    and Germany's responsibility for the war
+    and Italian Socialists
+    and Russia
+    and the Italian military expedition to Georgia
+    and the proposed trial of the Kaiser
+    at Conferences of London and San Remo
+    denounces economic manifesto
+    his son a prisoner of war
+    ideals of
+    opposes Adriatic adventure
+    receives deputation of German business men
+    signs ratification of Treaty of Versailles
+    the indemnity question and
+  Northcliffe Press, the, and the indemnity
+
+  OGIER, M., territorial reconstruction scheme of
+  Oliganthropy,
+  Orlando, M., and the reparations question
+  Orlando Ministry, the, resignation of
+  Ottoman Empire, the, a limited sovereignty to Turkish parts of
+
+  PALESTINE, Treaty of Sèvres and
+  Paper currency, Germany's pre-and post-war
+  Paris, an unsuitable meeting place for Conference
+    Peace Conference in
+    Supreme Council at
+    welcomes President Wilson
+  Paris Conference, and the indemnity
+  Peace, necessary conditions for
+  Peace Conference, Lloyd George's memorandum for
+  Peace treaties, a negation of justice
+    and continuation of the war
+    and their application
+    effect on Germany of
+    origin and aims of
+    question of reparation and indemnity
+    revision of, a necessity
+    their opposition to Wilson's fourteen points
+    Peace treaty of June, 1919, summary of terms of
+  Peasants, Russian, and the old regime
+  Petrograd, text of London Agreement published in
+  Plebiscite, result of, in Upper Silesia
+  Plebiscites, system of
+  Poincaré, M., and Clemenceau
+    and Germany's right of entry into League of Nations
+    and the peace treaties
+    Lloyd George replies to
+    on military guarantees and occupation
+  Poland, aims at further expansion
+    anarchic condition of
+    and the plebiscite
+    and the Treaty of Versailles
+  Poland, army of
+    financial position of
+    gains by Treaty
+    her policy of greed
+    obtains State of Danzig
+    of to-day
+    the Tsar's proclamation regarding
+    treaty with France
+    working for ruin
+  Polish state, foundation of an independent
+  Politics, German, pre-war
+  Portugal, war debt of
+  Progress, war as condition towards
+  Public debts of warring nations
+    (_cf_. Allies, war debts of)
+
+  RECONSTRUCTION of Europe, the, and annullment of inter-Allied debts
+    and the revision of peace treaties
+    Germany's indemnity and that of defeated countries
+    necessity of forming new connexions with Russia
+    the League of Nations and
+    the safety of France and the military guarantees
+  Renner, Chancellor of Vienna, confers with Marquis della Torretta
+  Reparations clause, origin of
+  Reparations Commission, the, expense accounts of
+    formation of
+    suppression of, a necessity
+  Reparations, the problem of
+    (_cf_. Indemnities)
+  Rhine, the, as frontier
+    occupation of
+    an act of vengeance
+    cost of, to Germany
+  Riga, hunger and sickness in, the aftermath of war
+  Ruhr, the, question of occupation of
+  Rumania, army of
+    evacuation of
+    financial position of
+    her gains by Treaty
+    Magyars in
+  Rumanian occupation of Hungary
+  Russia, and the League of Nations
+    as cause of world-conflict
+    birth-rate of
+    blockade of
+    Entente aids military undertakings in
+    financial position of
+    Germany's fear of
+    her policy of expansion
+    Lloyd George on
+    military revolts in
+    peace army of
+    policy of Entente towards
+    power of the Tsar in
+    present-day plight of
+    pre-war empire of
+    probable number of men under arms in
+    Sèvres Treaty and
+    the Versailles Treaty and
+    under the Tsars
+  Russian peasants and the old regime
+  Russians, remarkable fecundity of
+  Russo-Japanese peace, the and how drafted
+  Russo-Japanese War, the
+
+  SAAR, the, a plebiscite for
+    annexation of: French proposals regarding
+    coalfields of, assigned to France
+      pre-war production of
+  Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Treaty of
+  San Remo, Conference of
+  Schleswig, a plebiscite for,
+  Secret diplomacy, peace treaties and
+  Serbia, evacuation of
+    her gains by Treaty
+    ignorant of London Agreement
+    responsibility for the war
+    Russian policy in
+    the Allied Press and
+    war debt of
+  Serbo-Croat States, financial position of
+    sea-coast outlets for
+  S.H.S. State absorbs Montenegro
+  Silesia (_see_ Upper Selesia)
+  Slav States, cosmopolitan population of
+  Smyrna, the Sanjak of
+  Sonnino, M., at Paris Conference
+  South Africa, British
+  Soviet, the, recognition of, refused
+  Spa Conference, the
+  Starling, Professor
+  States, European, pre- and post-war, _et seq_.
+  Submarine menace, the
+  Sweden, Russian gold sent to
+  Syria
+
+  TARDIEU, André, and the guarantees against Germany
+    and the Paris Conference
+    and the question of military guarantees
+    draws up reply to Lloyd George
+    his report on Paris Conference
+    on President Wilson
+    on the Treaty of Versailles
+  Territorial and political clauses of peace treaty
+  Thrace assigned to Greece
+  Torretta, Marquis della, confers with Chancellor Renner
+  Trade conditions, equality of, and the peace treaty
+  Treaties, peace (_see Neuilly, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Sèvres
+    Trianon, Versailles)
+  Treaties with France against German aggression
+  Treaty system, the, division of Europe by
+  Trianon, Treaty of
+  Triple Alliance, the
+    Italy and
+    "Triplice," the (_see_ Triple Alliance)
+  Tripoli, Italy
+  Tripolitania
+  Turkey, and the result of Treaty of Sèvres
+    army of
+    Grand Vizier of, and his note
+  Turks, their power of resistance
+  Turquan's estimate of wealth of France
+
+  United States, the, a deciding factor of the war
+    abandons Treaty of Versailles
+    and Armenian question
+    and the indemnity
+  United States, the, and the League of Nations,
+    and the naval question,
+    expenses of her navy,
+    financial position of,
+    losses in the Great War,
+    (see also America)
+  Upper Silesia, a plebiscite for,
+    iron industry of,
+    result of plebiscite in,
+
+  VENEZELOS, M., author's tribute to,
+    fall of,
+  Versailles, Treaty of,
+    abandoned by America,
+    and the future of Germany,
+    characteristic facts of,
+    conditions of Germany as result of,
+    injustice of,
+    Lloyd George on,
+    on what based,
+    ratification of,
+    summary of,
+    violation of,
+    why it has been weakened,
+  Vessitch, M., at Paris Conference,
+  Vienna, conditions in,
+    the wireless high-power station at,
+
+  WÄCHTER, Kinderlen-, and Russia,
+  War, a political fact,
+    as a necessary condition of life,
+    difference between battles and,
+    legitimacy of,
+    the aftermath of,
+    the nature of,
+  War debts, a menace to financial stability,
+  War debts of the Allies,
+    (_cf_. Inter-Allied debts)
+  Warfare, modern, what it means,
+  Wars of the last three centuries, the,
+  Wealth, influence of, on life and happiness,
+  William II, and his responsibility for the war,
+    as _miles gioriosus_,
+    author's aversion to,
+    frenzied oratory of,
+    proposed trial of,
+  Wilna ceded to Lithuania, but occupied by Poles,
+  Wilson, President, and Armenia
+    and Fiume,
+    and military guarantees,
+    and the League of Nations,
+    demonstrations against, in Italy,
+    his fourteen points,
+    compared with Treaty of Versailles,
+    his ignorance of European affairs, and the result,
+    how he was received in Paris,
+    memorable speech in American Senate,
+    peace ideals of, 34,
+    _post-bellum_ economic settlement proposals of (_see_ League of
+  Nations)
+  Wolff, and Germany,
+  Wrangel, General,
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Peaceless Europe, by Francesco Saverio Nitti
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10090 ***
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0e56e52
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #10090 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10090)
diff --git a/old/10090-8.txt b/old/10090-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1c10aeb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10090-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,8998 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Peaceless Europe, by Francesco Saverio Nitti
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Peaceless Europe
+
+Author: Francesco Saverio Nitti
+
+Release Date: November 15, 2003 [EBook #10090]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEACELESS EUROPE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Josephine Paolucci and PG Distributed
+Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+PEACELESS EUROPE
+
+By
+
+FRANCESCO S. NITTI
+
+
+1922
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+In this book are embodied the ideas which, as a parliamentarian, as
+head of the Italian Government, and as a writer, I have upheld with
+firm conviction during the last few years.
+
+I believe that Europe is threatened with decadence more owing to the
+Peace Treaties than as a result of the War. She is in a state of daily
+increasing decline, and the causes of dissatisfaction are growing
+apace.
+
+Europe is still waiting for that peace which has not yet been
+definitely concluded, and it is necessary that the public should be
+made aware that the courses now being followed by the policy of the
+great victorious States are perilous to the achievement of serious,
+lasting and useful results. I believe that it is to the interest of
+France herself if I speak the language of truth, as a sincere friend
+of France and a confirmed enemy of German Imperialism. Not only did
+that Imperialism plunge Germany into a sea of misery and suffering,
+covering her with the opprobrium of having provoked the terrible War,
+or at least of having been mainly responsible for it, but it has
+ruined for many years the productive effort of the most cultured and
+industrious country in Europe.
+
+Some time ago the ex-President of the French Republic, R. Poincaré,
+after the San Remo Conference, _à propos_ of certain differences of
+opinion which had arisen between Lloyd George and myself on the one
+hand and Millerand on the other, wrote as follows:
+
+    "Italy and England know what they owe to France, just as France
+    knows what she owes to them. They do not wish to part company with
+    us, nor do we with them. They recognize that they need us, as we
+    have need of them. Lloyd George and Nitti are statesmen too shrewd
+    and experienced not to understand that their greatest strength
+    will always lie in this fundamental axiom. On leaving San Remo
+    for Rome or London let them ask the opinion of the 'man in the
+    street.' His reply will be: '_Avant tout, restez unis avec la
+    France_.'"
+
+I believe that Lloyd George and I share the same cordial sentiments
+toward France. We have gone through so much suffering and anxiety
+together that it would be impossible to tear asunder links firmly
+welded by common danger and pain. France will always remember with a
+sympathetic glow that Italy was the first country which proclaimed her
+neutrality, on August 2, 1914; without that proclamation the destinies
+of the War might have taken a very different turn.
+
+But the work of reconstruction in Europe is in the interest of France
+herself. She has hated too deeply to render a sudden cessation of her
+hate-storm possible, and the treaties have been begotten in rancour
+and applied with violence. Even as the life of men, the life of
+peoples has days of joy and days of grief: sunshine follows the storm.
+The whole history of European peoples is one of alternate victories
+and defeats. It is the business of civilization to create such
+conditions as will render victory less brutal and defeat more
+bearable.
+
+The recent treaties which regulate, or are supposed to regulate,
+the relations among peoples are, as a matter of fact, nothing but a
+terrible regress, the denial of all those principles which had been
+regarded as an unalienable conquest of public right. President Wilson,
+by his League of Nations, has been the most responsible factor in
+setting up barriers between nations.
+
+Christopher Columbus sailed from Europe hoping to land in India,
+whereas he discovered America. President Wilson sailed from America
+thinking that he was going to bring peace to Europe, but only
+succeeded in bringing confusion and war.
+
+However, we should judge him with the greatest indulgence, for his
+intentions were undoubtedly sincere and honest.
+
+France has more to gain than any other country in Europe by reverting
+to those sound principles of democracy which formed her erstwhile
+glory. We do not forget what we owe her, nor the noble spirit which
+pervades some of her historic deeds. But _noblesse oblige_, and all
+the more binding is her duty to respect tradition.
+
+When France shall have witnessed the gradual unfolding of approaching
+events, she will be convinced that he who has spoken to her the
+language of truth and has sought out a formula permitting the peoples
+of Europe to rediscover their path in life, towards life, is not only
+a friend, but a friend who has opportunely brought back to France's
+mind and heart the deeds of her great ancestors at the time when fresh
+deeds of greatness and glory await accomplishment. The task which we
+must undertake with our inmost feeling, with all the ardour of our
+faith, is to find once more the road to peace, to utter the word of
+brotherly love toward oppressed peoples, and to reconstruct Europe,
+which is gradually sinking to the condition of Quattrocento Italy,
+without its effulgence of art and beauty: thirty States mutually
+diffident of each other, in a sea of programmes and Balkan ideas.
+
+Towards the achievement of this work of civilization the great
+democracies must march shoulder to shoulder. At the present moment I
+hear nothing but hostile voices; but the time is not far distant when
+my friends of France will be marching with us along the same road.
+They already admit in private many things which they will presently be
+obliged to recognize openly. Many truths are the fruit of persuasion;
+others, again, are the result of former delusions.
+
+I place my greatest trust in the action of American democracy.
+
+By refusing to sanction the Treaty of Versailles and all the other
+peace treaties, the American Senate has given proof of the soundest
+political wisdom: the United States of America has negotiated its own
+separate treaties, and resumes its pre-war relations with victors and
+vanquished alike.
+
+It follows that all that has been done hitherto in the way of
+treaties is rendered worthless, as the most important participant
+has withdrawn. This is a further motive for reflecting that it is
+impossible to continue living much longer in a Europe divided by two
+contending fields and by a medley of rancour and hatred which tends to
+widen the chasm.
+
+It is of the greatest interest to America that Europe should once more
+be the wealthy, prosperous, civilized Europe which, before 1914, ruled
+over the destinies of the world. Only by so great an effort can the
+finest conquests of civilization come back to their own.
+
+We should only remember our dead in so far as their memory may prevent
+future generations from being saddened by other war victims. The
+voices of those whom we have lost should reach us as voices praying
+for the return of that civilization which shall render massacres
+impossible, or shall at least diminish the violence and ferocity of
+war.
+
+Just as the growing dissolution of Europe is a common danger, so is
+the renewal of the bonds of solidarity a common need.
+
+Let us all work toward this end, even if at first we may be
+misunderstood and may find obstacles in our way. Truth is on the march
+and will assert herself: we shall strike the main road after much of
+dreary wandering in the dark lanes of prejudice and violence.
+
+Many of the leading men of Europe and America, who in the intoxication
+of victory proclaimed ideas of violence and revenge, would now be very
+glad to reverse their attitude, of which they see the unhappy results.
+The truth is that what they privately recognize they will not yet
+openly admit. But no matter.
+
+The confessions which many of them have made to me, both verbally and
+in writing, induce me to believe that my ideas are also their ideas,
+and that they only seek to express them in the form and on the
+occasions less antagonistic to the currents of opinion which they
+themselves set up in the days when the chief object to be achieved
+seemed to be the vivisection of the enemy.
+
+Recent events, however, have entirely changed the situation.
+
+As I said before, the American Senate has not sanctioned the Treaty
+of Versailles, nor is it likely to give it its approval. The United
+States of America concludes separate treaties on its own account.
+
+Agreements of a military character had been arrived at in Paris: the
+United States of America and Great Britain guaranteed France against
+any future unjust attack by Germany. The American Senate did not
+sanction the agreement; in fact, it did not even discuss it. The House
+of Commons had approved it subordinate to the consent of the United
+States. Italy has kept aloof from all alliances. As a result of this
+situation, the four Entente Powers, "allied and associated" (as
+formerly was the official term), have ceased to be either "allied" or
+"associated" after the end of the War.
+
+On the other hand, Europe, after emerging from the War, is darkened
+and overcast by intrigues, secret agreements and dissimulated plots:
+fresh menaces of war and fresh explosions of dissatisfaction.
+
+Nothing can help the cause of peace more than giving a full knowledge
+of the real situation to the various peoples. Errors thrive in
+darkness while truth walks abroad in the full light of day. It has
+been my intention to lay before the public those great controversies
+which cannot merely form the object of diplomatic notes or of
+posthumous books presented to Parliament in a more or less incomplete
+condition after events have become irreparable.
+
+The sense of a common danger, threatening all alike, will prove the
+most persuasive factor in swerving us from the perilous route which we
+are now following.
+
+As a result of the War the bonds of economic solidarity have been
+torn asunder: the losers in the War must not only make good their own
+losses, but, according to the treaties, are expected to pay for all
+the damage which the War has caused. Meanwhile all the countries of
+Europe have only one prevailing fear: German competition. In order
+to pay the indemnities imposed upon her (and she can only do it by
+exporting goods), Germany is obliged to produce at the lowest possible
+cost, which necessitates the maximum of technical progress. But
+exports at low cost must in the long run prove detrimental, if not
+destructive, to the commerce of neutral countries, and even to that of
+the victors. Thus in all tariffs which have already been published or
+which are in course of preparation there is one prevailing object in
+view: that of reducing German competition, which practically amounts
+to rendering it impossible for her to pay the War indemnity.
+
+If winners and losers were to abandon war-time ideas for a while,
+and, rather, were to persuade themselves that the oppression of the
+vanquished cannot be lasting, and that there is no other logical way
+out of the difficulty but that of small indemnities payable in a
+few years, debiting to the losers in tolerable proportion all debts
+contracted towards Great Britain and the United States, the European
+situation would immediately improve.
+
+Why is Europe still in such a state of economic disorder? Because the
+confusion of moral ideas persists. In many countries nerves are still
+as tense as a bowstring, and the language of hatred still prevails.
+For some countries, as for some social groups, war has not yet
+ceased to be. One hears now in the countries of the victors the same
+arguments used as were current coin in Germany before the War and
+during the first phases of the War; only now and then, more as a
+question of habit than because they are truly felt, we hear the words
+justice, peace, and democracy.
+
+Why is the present state of discomfort and dissatisfaction on the
+increase? Because almost everywhere in Continental Europe, in the
+countries which have emerged from the War, the rate of production is
+below the rate of consumption, and many social groups, instead of
+producing more, plan to possess themselves with violence of the wealth
+produced by others. At home, the social classes, unable to resist,
+are threatened; abroad, the vanquished, equally unable to resist, are
+menaced, but in the very menace it is easy to discern the anxiety
+of the winners. Confusion, discomfort and dissatisfaction thus grow
+apace.
+
+The problem of Europe is above all a moral problem. A great step
+toward its solution will have been accomplished when winners and
+losers persuade themselves that only by a common effort can they be
+saved, and that the best enemy indemnity consists in peace and joint
+labour. Now that the enemy has lost all he possessed and threatens
+to make us lose the fruits of victory, one thing is above all others
+necessary: the resumption, not only of the language, but of the ideas
+of peace;
+
+During one of the last international conferences at which I was
+present, and over which I presided, at San Remo, after a long exchange
+of views with the British and French Premiers, Lloyd George and
+Millerand, the American journalists asked me to give them my ideas
+on peace: "What is the most necessary thing for the maintenance of
+peace?" they inquired.
+
+"One thing only," I replied, "is necessary. Europe must smile once
+more." Smiles have vanished from every lip; nothing has remained but
+hatred, menaces and nervous excitement.
+
+When Europe shall smile again she will "rediscover" her political
+peace ideas and will drink once more at the spring of life. Class
+struggles at home, in their acutest form, are like the competition of
+nationalism abroad: explosions of cupidity, masked by the pretext of
+the country's greatness.
+
+The deeply rooted economic crisis, which threatens and prepares new
+wars, the deeply rooted social crisis, which threatens and prepares
+fresh conflicts abroad, are nothing but the expression of a _status
+animae_ or soul condition. Statesmen are the most directly responsible
+for the continuation of a language of violence; they should be the
+first to speak the language of peace.
+
+F.S. NITTI.
+
+ACQUAFREDDA IN BASILICATA.
+
+_September_ 30, 1921.
+
+
+P.S.--"Peaceless Europe" is an entirely new book, which I have written
+in my hermitage of Acquafredda, facing the blue Adriatic; it contains,
+however, some remarks and notices which have already appeared in
+articles written by me for the great American agency, the _United
+Press_, and which have been reproduced by the American papers.
+
+I have repeatedly stated that I have not published any document which
+was not meant for publication; I have availed myself of my knowledge
+of the most important international Acts and of all diplomatic
+documents merely as a guide, but it is on facts that I have solidly
+based my considerations.
+
+J. Keynes and Robert Lansing have already published some very
+important things, but no secret documents; recently, however, Tardieu
+and Poincaré, in the interest of the French nationalist thesis which
+they sustain, have published also documents of a very reserved nature.
+Tardieu's book is a documentary proof of the French Government's
+extremist attitude during the conference, amply showing that the
+present form of peace has been desired almost exclusively by France,
+and that the others have been unwilling parties to it. Besides his
+articles in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, Poincaré has recently
+published in the _Temps_ (September 12, 1921) a whole secret
+correspondence between Poincaré, President of the Republic,
+Clemenceau, President of the Council of Ministers, the American
+Delegation, and, above all, Lloyd George.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+1. EUROPE WITHOUT PEACE
+
+2. THE PEACE TREATIES AND THE CONTINUATION OF THE WAR
+
+3. THE PEACE TREATIES: THEIR ORIGIN AND AIMS
+
+4. THE CONQUERORS AND THE CONQUERED
+
+5. THE INDEMNITY FROM THE DEFEATED ENEMY AND THE ANXIETIES OF THE
+VICTORS
+
+6. EUROPE'S POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTION AND PEACE POLICY
+
+INDEX
+
+
+
+
+_The author includes in the book numerous secret official documents
+that emanated from the Peace Conference and which came into his hands
+in his position, at that time, as Italian Prime Minister. Among these
+is a long and hitherto unpublished secret letter sent by Lloyd George
+to Nitti, Wilson, Clemenceau, and the other members of the Peace
+Conference_.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+EUROPE WITHOUT PEACE
+
+
+Is there anyone who still remembers Europe in the first months of 1914
+or calls to mind the period which preceded the first year of the War?
+It all seems terribly remote, something like a prehistoric era, not
+only because the conditions of life have changed, but because our
+viewpoint on life has swerved to a different angle.
+
+Something like thirty million dead have dug a chasm between two ages.
+War killed many millions, disease accounted for many more, but the
+hardiest reaper has been famine. The dead have built up a great cold
+barrier between the Europe of yesterday and the Europe of to-day.
+
+We have lived through two historic epochs, not through two different
+periods. Europe was happy and prosperous, while now, after the
+terrible World War, she is threatened with a decline and a reversion
+to brutality which suggest the fall of the Roman Empire. We ourselves
+do not quite understand what is happening around us. More than
+two-thirds of Europe is in a state of ferment, and everywhere there
+prevails a vague sense of uneasiness, ill-calculated to encourage
+important collective works. We live, as the saying is, "from hand to
+mouth."
+
+Before 1914 Europe had enjoyed a prolonged period of peace, attaining
+a degree of wealth and civilization unrivalled in the past.
+
+In Central Europe Germany had sprung up. After the Napoleonic
+invasions, in the course of a century, Germany, which a hundred years
+ago seemed of all European countries the least disposed to militarism,
+had developed into a great military monarchy. From being the most
+particularist country Germany had in reality become the most unified
+state. But what constituted her strength was not so much her army and
+navy as the prestige of her intellectual development. She had achieved
+it laboriously, almost painfully, on a soil which was not fertile and
+within a limited territory, but, thanks to the tenacity of her effort,
+she succeeded in winning a prominent place in the world-race for
+supremacy. Her universities, her institutes for technical instruction,
+her schools, were a model to the whole world. In the course of a few
+years she had built up a merchant fleet which seriously threatened
+those of other countries. Having arrived too late to create a real
+colonial empire of her own, such as those of France and England, she
+nevertheless succeeded in exploiting her colonies most intelligently.
+
+In the field of industry she appeared to beat all competitors from a
+technical point of view; and even in those industries which were not
+hers by habit and tradition she developed so powerful an organization
+as to appear almost uncanny. Germany held first place not only in the
+production of iron, but in that of dyes and chemicals. Men went
+there from all parts of the world not only to trade but to acquire
+knowledge. An ominous threat weighed on the Empire, namely the
+constitution of the State itself, essentially militaristic and
+bureaucratic. Not even in Russia, perhaps, were the reins of power
+held in the hands of so few men as in Germany and Austria-Hungary.
+
+A few years before the World War started one of the leading European
+statesmen told me that there was everything to be feared for the
+future of Europe where some three hundred millions, the inhabitants
+of Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary, about two-thirds of the whole
+continent, were governed in an almost irresponsible manner by a man
+without will or intelligence, the Tsar of Russia; a madman without a
+spark of genius, the German Kaiser, and an obstinate old man hedged in
+by his ambition, the Emperor of Austria-Hungary. Not more than
+thirty persons, he added, act as a controlling force on these three
+irresponsible sovereigns, who might assume, on their own initiative,
+the most terrible responsibilities.
+
+The magnificent spiritual gifts of the Germans gave them an Emanuel
+Kant, the greatest thinker of modern times, Beethoven, their greatest
+exponent of music, and Goethe, their greatest poet. But the imperial
+Germany which came after the victory of 1870 had limited the spirit of
+independence even in the manifestations of literature and art. There
+still existed in Germany the most widely known men of science, the
+best universities, the most up-to-date schools; but the clumsy
+mechanism tended to crush rather than to encourage all personal
+initiative. Great manifestations of art or thought are not possible
+without the most ample spiritual liberty. Germany was the most highly
+organized country from a scientific point of view, but at the same
+time the country in which there was the least liberty for individual
+initiative. It went on like a huge machine: that explains why it
+almost stopped after being damaged by the war, and the whole life of
+the nation was paralysed while there were very few individual impulses
+of reaction. Imperial Germany has always been lacking in political
+ability, perhaps not only through a temperamental failing, but chiefly
+owing to her militaristic education.
+
+Before the War Germany beat her neighbours in all the branches of
+human labour: in science, industry, banking, commerce, etc. But in one
+thing she did not succeed, and succeeded still less after the War,
+namely, in politics. When the German people was blessed with a
+political genius, such as Frederick the Great or Bismarck, it achieved
+the height of greatness and glory. But when the same people, after
+obtaining the maximum of power, found on its path William II with his
+mediocre collaborators, it ruined, by war, a colossal work, not only
+to the great detriment of the country, but also to that of the victors
+themselves, of whom it cannot be said with any amount of certainty,
+so far as those of the Continent are concerned, whether they are the
+winners or the losers, so great is the ruin threatening them, and so
+vast the material and moral losses sustained.
+
+I have always felt the deepest aversion for William II. So few as ten
+years ago he was still treated with the greatest sympathy both in
+Europe and America. Even democracies regarded with ill-dissimulated
+admiration the work of the Kaiser, who brought everywhere his voice,
+his enthusiasm, his activity, to the service of Germany. As a matter
+of fact, his speeches were poor in phraseology, a mere conglomerate
+of violence, prejudice and ignorance. As no one believed in the
+possibility of a war, no one troubled about it. But after the War
+nothing has been more harmful to Germany than the memory of those ugly
+speeches, unrelieved by any noble idea, and full of a clumsy vulgarity
+draped in a would-be solemn and majestic garb. Some of his threatening
+utterances, such as the address to the troops sailing for China in
+order to quell the Boxer rebellion, the constant association in
+all his speeches of the great idea of God, with the ravings of a
+megalomaniac, the frenzied oratory in which he indulged at the
+beginning of the War, have harmed Germany more than anything else. It
+is possible to lose nobly; but to have lost a great war after having
+won so many battles would not have harmed the German people if it
+had not been represented abroad by the presumptuous vulgarity of the
+Kaiser and of all the members of his entourage, who were more or less
+guilty of the same attitude.
+
+Before the War Germany had everywhere attained first place in all
+forms of activity, excepting, perhaps, in certain spiritual and
+artistic manifestations. She admired herself too much and too openly,
+but succeeded in affirming her magnificent expansion in a greatness
+and prosperity without rival.
+
+By common accord Germany held first place. Probably this consciousness
+of power, together with the somewhat brutal forms of the struggle for
+industrial supremacy, as in the case of the iron industry, threw a
+mysterious and threatening shadow over the granitic edifice of the
+Empire.
+
+When I was Minister of Commerce in 1913 I received a deputation of
+German business men who wished to confer with me on the Italian
+customs regime. They spoke openly of the necessity of possessing
+themselves of the iron mines of French Lorraine; they looked upon war
+as an industrial fact. Germany had enough coal but not enough iron,
+and the Press of the iron industry trumpeted forth loud notes of war.
+After the conclusion of peace, when France, through a series of wholly
+unexpected events, saw Germany prostrate at her feet and without an
+army, the same phenomenon took place. The iron industry tends to
+affirm itself in France; she has the iron and now she wants coal.
+Should she succeed in getting it, German production would be doomed.
+To deprive Germany of Upper Silesia would mean killing production
+after having disorganized it at the very roots of its development.
+
+Seven years ago, or thereabouts, Germany was flourishing in an
+unprecedented manner and presented the most favourable conditions for
+developing. Her powerful demographic structure was almost unique.
+Placed in the centre of Europe after having withstood the push of so
+many peoples, she had attained an unrivalled economic position.
+
+Close to Germany the Austro-Hungarian Empire united together eleven
+different peoples, not without difficulty, and this union tended to
+the common elevation of all. The vast monarchy, the result of a slow
+aggregation of violence and of administrative wisdom, represented,
+perhaps, the most interesting historic attempt on the part of
+different peoples to achieve a common rule and discipline on the same
+territory. Having successfully weathered the most terrible financial
+crises, and having healed in half a century the wounds of two great
+wars which she had lost, Austria-Hungary lived in the effort of
+holding together Germans, Magyars, Slavs and Italians without their
+flying at each others' throats. Time will show how the effort of
+Austria-Hungary has not been lost for civilization.
+
+Russia represented the largest empire which has ever been in
+existence, and in spite of its defective political regime was daily
+progressing. Perhaps for the first time in history an immense empire
+of twenty-one millions and a half of square kilometres, eighty-four
+times the size of Italy, almost three times as large as the United
+States of America, was ruled by a single man. From the Baltic to
+the Yellow Sea, from Finland to the Caucasus, one law and one rule
+governed the most different peoples scattered over an immense
+territory. The methods by which, after Peter the Great, the old Duchy
+of Muscovy had been transformed into an empire, still lived in the
+administration; they survive to-day in the Bolshevist organization,
+which represents less a revolution than a hieratic and brutal form of
+violence placed at the service of a political organization.
+
+The war between Russia and Japan had revealed all the perils of
+a political organization exclusively based on central authority
+represented by a few irresponsible men under the apparent rule of a
+sovereign not gifted with the slightest trace of will power.
+
+Those who exalt nationalist sentiments and pin their faith on
+imperialistic systems fail to realize that while the greatest push
+towards the War came from countries living under a less liberal
+regime, those very countries gave proof of the least power of
+resistance. Modern war means the full exploitation of all the human
+and economic resources of each belligerent country. The greater a
+nation's wealth the greater is the possibility to hold out, and the
+perfection of arms and weapons is in direct ratio with the degree
+of technical progress attained. Moreover, the combatants and the
+possibility of using them are in relation with the number of persons
+who possess sufficient skill and instruction to direct the war.
+Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy, the United States of America,
+were able without any appreciable effort to improvise an enormous
+number of officers for the War, transforming professional men,
+engineers and technicians into officers. Russia, who did not have a
+real industrial bourgeoisie nor a sufficient development of the middle
+classes, was only able to furnish an enormous number of combatants,
+but an insufficient organization from a technical and military point
+of view, and a very limited number of officers. While on a peace
+footing her army was the most numerous in the world, over one million
+three hundred thousand men; when her officers began to fail Russia was
+unable to replace them so rapidly as the proportion of nine or ten
+times more than normal required by the War.
+
+Russia has always had a latent force of development; there is within
+her a _vis inertiae_ equivalent to a mysterious energy of expansion.
+Her birth-rate is higher than that of any other European country;
+she does not progress, she increases. Her weight acts as a menace
+to neighbouring countries, and as, by a mysterious historic law the
+primitive migrations of peoples and the ancient invasions mostly
+originated from the territories now occupied by Russia, the latter has
+succeeded in amalgamating widely different peoples and in creating
+unity where no affinity appeared possible.
+
+At any rate, although suffering from an excessively centralized
+government and a form of constitution which did not allow the
+development of popular energies nor a sufficient education of the
+people, Russia was perhaps, half a century before the War, the
+European country which, considering the difficulties in her path, had
+accomplished most progress.
+
+European Russia, with her yearly excess of from one million and a
+half to two million births over deaths, with the development of
+her industries and the formation of important commercial centres,
+progressed very rapidly and was about to become the pivot of European
+politics.
+
+When it will be possible to examine carefully the diplomatic documents
+of the War, and time will allow us to judge them calmly, it will be
+seen that Russia's attitude was the real and underlying cause of the
+world-conflict. She alone promoted and kept alive the agitations
+in Serbia and of the Slavs in Austria; she alone in Germany's eyes
+represented the peril of the future. Germany has never believed in a
+French danger. She knew very well that France, single handed, could
+never have withstood Germany, numerically so much her superior. Russia
+was the only danger that Germany saw, and the continual increase of
+the Russian army was her gravest preoccupation. Before the War, when
+Italy was Germany's ally, the leading German statesmen with whom I
+had occasion to discuss the situation did nothing but allude to the
+Russian peril. It was known (and subsequent facts have amply proved
+it) that the Tsar was absolutely devoid of will power, that he was led
+and carried away by conflicting currents, and that his advisers were
+for the most part favourable to the War. After the Japanese defeat the
+militarist party felt keenly the need for just such a great military
+revival and a brilliant _revanche_ in Europe.
+
+Possessing an enormous wealth of raw materials and an immense
+territory, Russia represented Europe's great resource, her support for
+the future.
+
+If the three great empires had attained enviable prosperity and
+development in 1914, when the War burst, the three great western
+democracies, Great Britain, France and Italy, had likewise progressed
+immensely.
+
+Great Britain, proud of her "splendid isolation," and ruler of the
+seas, traded in every country of the world. Having the vastest empire,
+she was also financially the greatest creditor country: creditor of
+America and Asia, of the new African states and of Australia. Perhaps
+all this wealth had somewhat diminished the spirit of enterprise
+before the War, and popular culture also suffered from this
+unprecedented prosperity. There was not the spasmodic effort
+noticeable in Germany, but a continuous and secure expansion, an
+undisputed supremacy. Although somewhat preoccupied at Germany's
+progress and regarding it as a peril for the future, Great Britain
+attached more importance to the problems of her Empire, namely to her
+internal constitution: like ancient Rome, she was a truly imperial
+country in the security of her supremacy, in her calm, in her
+forbearance.
+
+France continued patiently to accumulate wealth. She did not increase
+her population, but ably added to her territory and her savings.
+Threatened with the phenomenon known to political economists under the
+name of "oliganthropy," or lack of men, she had founded a colonial
+empire which may be regarded as the largest on earth. It is true that
+the British colonies, even before the War, covered an area of thirty
+million square kilometres, while France's colonial empire was slightly
+over twelve millions. But it must be remembered that the British
+colonies are not colonies in the real sense of the word, but consist
+chiefly in Dominions which enjoy an almost complete autonomy. Canada
+alone represents about one-third of the territories of the British
+Dominions; Australia and New Zealand more than one-fourth, and
+Australasia, the South African Union and Canada put together represent
+more than two-thirds of the Empire, while India accounts for about
+fifty per cent. of the missing third. After England, France was the
+most important creditor country. Her astonishing capacity for saving
+increased in proportion with her wealth. Without having Germany's
+force of development and Great Britain's power of expansion, France
+enjoyed a wonderful prosperity and her wealth was scattered all over
+the world.
+
+Italy had arisen under the greatest difficulties, but in less than
+fifty years of unity she progressed steadily. Having a territory
+too small and mountainous for a population already overflowing and
+constantly on the increase, Italy had been unable to exploit the
+limited resources of her subsoil and had been forced to build up her
+industries in conditions far less favourable than those of other
+countries. Italy is perhaps the only nation which has succeeded in
+forming her industries without having any coal of her own and very
+little iron. But the acquisition of wealth, extremely difficult at
+first, had gradually been rendered more easy by the improvement in
+technical instruction and methods, for the most part borrowed from
+Germany. On the eve of the War, after a period of thirty-three years,
+the Triple Alliance had rendered the greatest services to Italy, fully
+confirming Crispi's political intuition. France, with whom we had had
+serious differences of opinion, especially after the Tunis affair, did
+not dare to threaten Italy because the latter belonged to the Triple
+Alliance, and for the same reason all ideas of a conflict with
+Austria-Hungary had been set aside because of her forming part of the
+"Triplice."
+
+During the Triple Alliance Italy built up all her industries,
+she consolidated her national unity and prepared her economic
+transformation, which was fraught with considerable difficulties.
+Suddenly her sons spread all over the world, stimulated by the
+fecundity of their race and by the narrowness of their fields.
+
+The greater States were surrounded by minor nations which had achieved
+considerable wealth and great prosperity.
+
+Europe throughout her history had never been so rich, so far advanced
+on the road to progress, above all so united and living in her unity;
+as regards production and exchanges she was really a living unity. The
+vital lymph was not limited to this or that country, but flowed with
+an even current through the veins and arteries of the various nations
+through the great organizations of capital and labour, promoting a
+continuous and increasing solidarity among all the parties concerned.
+
+In fact, the idea of solidarity had greatly progressed: economic,
+moral and spiritual solidarity.
+
+Moreover, the idea of peace, although threatened by military
+oligarchies and by industrial corners, was firmly based on the
+sentiments of the great majority. The strain of barbaric blood which
+still ferments in many populations of Central Europe constituted--it
+is true--a standing menace; but no one dreamt that the threat was
+about to be followed, lightning like, by facts, and that we were on
+the eve of a catastrophe.
+
+Europe had forgotten what hunger meant. Never had Europe had at her
+disposal such abundant economic resources or a greater increase in
+wealth.
+
+Wealth is not our final object in life. But a minimum of means is an
+indispensable condition of life and happiness. Excessive wealth may
+lead both to moral elevation and to depression and ruin.
+
+Europe had not only increased her wealth but developed the solidarity
+of her interests. Europe is a small continent, about as large as
+Canada or the United States of America. But her economic ties and
+interests had been steadily on the increase.
+
+Now the development of her wealth meant for Europe the development of
+her moral ideas and of her social life and aspirations. We admire a
+country not so much for its wealth as for the works of civilization
+which that wealth enables it to accomplish.
+
+Although peace be the aspiration of all peoples, even as physical
+health is the aspiration of all living beings, there are wars which
+cannot be avoided, as there are diseases which help us to overcome
+an organic crisis to which we might otherwise succumb. War and peace
+cannot be regarded as absolutely bad or absolutely good and desirable;
+war is often waged in order to secure peace. In certain cases war is
+not only a necessary condition of life but may be an indispensable
+condition towards progress.
+
+We must consider and analyse the sentiments and psychological causes
+which bring about a war. A war waged to redeem its independence by a
+nation downtrodden by another nation is perfectly legitimate, even
+from the point of view of abstract morality. A war which has for
+its object the conquest of political or religious liberty cannot be
+condemned even by the most confirmed pacificist.
+
+Taken as a whole, the wars fought in the nineteenth century, wars of
+nationality, of independence, of unity, even colonial wars, were of a
+character far less odious than that of the great conflict which has
+devastated Europe and upset the economic conditions of the world. It
+has not only been the greatest war in history, but in its consequences
+it threatens to prove the worst war which has ravaged Europe in modern
+times.
+
+After nearly every nineteenth-century war there has been a marked
+revival of human activity. But this unprecedented clash of peoples
+has reduced the energy of all; it has darkened the minds of men, and
+spread the spirit of violence.
+
+Europe will be able to make up for her losses in lives and wealth.
+Time heals even the most painful wounds. But one thing she has lost
+which, if she does not succeed in recovering it, must necessarily lead
+to her decline and fall: the spirit of solidarity.
+
+After the victory of the Entente the microbes of hate have developed
+and flourished in special cultures, consisting of national egotism,
+imperialism, and a mania for conquest and expansion.
+
+The peace treaties imposed on the vanquished are nothing but arms of
+oppression. What more could Germany herself have done had she won the
+War? Perhaps her terms would have been more lenient, certainly not
+harder, as she would have understood that conditions such as we have
+imposed on the losers are simply inapplicable.
+
+Three years have elapsed since the end of the War, two since the
+conclusion of peace, nevertheless Europe has still more men under
+arms than in pre-war times. The sentiment of nationality, twisted and
+transformed into nationalism, aims at the subjugation and depression
+of other peoples. No civilized co-existence is possible where each
+nation proposes to harm instead of helping its neighbour.
+
+The spread of hatred among peoples has everywhere rendered more
+difficult the internal relations between social classes and the
+economic life of each country. Fearing a repetition of armed
+conflicts, and owing to that spirit of unrest and intolerance
+engendered everywhere by the War, workers are becoming every day more
+exacting. They, too, claim their share of the spoils; they, too,
+clamour for enemy indemnities. The same manifestations of hate, the
+same violence of language, spread from people to people and from class
+to class.
+
+This tremendous War, which the peoples of Europe have fought and
+suffered, has not only bled the losers almost to death, but it has
+deeply perturbed the very life and existence of the victors. It
+has not produced a single manifestation of art or a single moral
+affirmation. For the last seven years the universities of Europe
+appear to be stricken with paralysis: not one outstanding personality
+has been revealed.
+
+In almost every country the War has brought a sense of internal
+dissolution: everywhere this disquieting phenomenon is more or less
+noticeable. With the exception, perhaps, of Great Britain, whose
+privileged insular situation, enormous mercantile navy and flourishing
+trade in coal have enabled her to resume her pre-war economic
+existence almost entirely, no country has emerged scatheless from
+the War. The rates of exchange soar daily to fantastic heights, and
+insuperable barriers to the commerce of European nations are being
+created. People work less than they did in pre-war times, but
+everywhere a tendency is noticeable to consume more. Austria,
+Germany, Italy, France are not different phenomena, but different
+manifestations and phases of the same phenomenon.
+
+Before the War Europe, in spite of her great sub-divisions,
+represented a living economic whole. To-day there are not only
+victors and vanquished, but currents of hate, ferments of violence, a
+hungering after conquests, an unscrupulous cornering of raw materials
+carried out brutally and almost ostentatiously in the name of the
+rights of victory: a situation which renders production, let alone its
+development and increase, utterly impossible.
+
+The treaty system as applied after the War has divided Europe into
+two distinct parts: the losers, held under the military and economic
+control of the victors, are expected to produce not only enough
+for their own needs, but to provide a super-production in order to
+indemnify the winners for all the losses and damages sustained on
+account of the War. The victors, bound together in what is supposed to
+be a permanent alliance for the protection of their common interests,
+are supposed to exercise a military action of oppression and control
+over the losers until the full payment of the indemnity. Another part
+of Europe is in a state of revolutionary ferment, and the Entente
+Powers have, by their attitude, rather tended to aggravate than to
+improve the situation.
+
+Europe can only recover her peace of mind by remembering that the
+War is over and done with. Unfortunately, the treaty system not only
+prevents us from remembering that the War is finished, but determines
+a state of permanent war.
+
+Clemenceau bluntly declared to the French Chamber that treaties were a
+means of continuing the War. He was perfectly right, for war is being
+waged more bitterly than ever and peace is as remote as it ever was.
+
+The problem with which modern statesmen are confronted is very simple:
+can Europe continue in her decline without involving the ruin of
+civilization? And is it possible to stop this process of decay without
+finding some form of civil symbiosis which will ensure for all men a
+more human mode of living? In the affirmative case what course should
+we take, and is it presumable that there should be an immediate change
+for the better in the situation, given the national and economic
+interests now openly and bitterly in conflict?
+
+We have before us a problem, or rather a series of problems, which
+call for impartiality and calm if a satisfactory solution is to be
+arrived at. Perhaps if some fundamental truths were brought home to
+the people, or, to be more exact, to the peoples now at loggerheads
+with each other, a notion of the peril equally impending upon all
+concerned and the conviction that an indefinite prolongation of the
+present state of things is impossible, would prove decisive factors in
+restoring a spirit of peace and in reviving that spirit of solidarity
+which now appears spent or slumbering.
+
+But in the first place it is necessary to review the situation, such
+as it is at the present moment:
+
+Firstly, Europe, which was the creditor of all other continents, has
+now become their debtor.
+
+Secondly, her working capacity has greatly decreased, chiefly owing to
+the negative change in her demographic structure. In pre-war times the
+ancient continent supplied new continents and new territories with a
+hardy race of pioneers, and held the record as regards population,
+both adult and infantile, the prevalence of women over men being
+especially noted by statisticians. All this has changed considerably
+for the worse!
+
+Thirdly, on the losing nations, including Germany, which is generally
+understood to be the most cultured nation in the world, the victors
+have forced a peace which practically amounts to a continuation of
+the War. The vanquished have had to give up their colonies, their
+shipping, their credits abroad, and their transferable resources,
+besides agreeing to the military and economic control of the Allies;
+moreover, despite their desperate conditions, they are expected to
+pay an indemnity, the amount of which, although hitherto only vaguely
+mentioned, surpasses by its very absurdity all possibility of an even
+remote settlement.
+
+Fourthly, considerable groups of ex-enemy peoples, chiefly Germans
+and Magyars, have been assigned to populations of an inferior
+civilization.
+
+Fifthly, as a result of this state of things, while Germany, Austria
+and Bulgaria have practically no army at all and have submitted
+without the slightest resistance to the most stringent forms of
+military control, the victorious States have increased their armies
+and fleets to proportions, which they did not possess before the War.
+
+Sixthly, Europe, cut up into thirty States, daily sees her buying
+capacity decreasing and the rate of exchange rising menacingly against
+her.
+
+Seventhly, the peace treaties are the most barefaced denial of all the
+principles which the Entente Powers declared and proclaimed during the
+War; not only so, but they are a fundamental negation of President
+Wilson's famous fourteen points which were supposed to constitute a
+solemn pledge and covenant, not only with the enemy, but with the
+democracies of the whole world.
+
+Eighthly, the moral unrest deriving from these conditions has divided
+among themselves the various Entente Powers: United States of America,
+Great Britain, Italy and France, not only in their aims and policy,
+but in their sentiments. The United States is anxious to get rid,
+as far as possible, of European complications and responsibilities;
+France follows methods with which Great Britain and Italy are not
+wholly in sympathy, and it cannot be said that the three Great Powers
+of Western Europe are in perfect harmony. There is still a great deal
+of talk about common ends and ideals, and the necessity of applying
+the treaties in perfect accord and harmony, but everybody is convinced
+that to enforce the treaties, without attenuating or modifying their
+terms, would mean the ruin of Europe and the collapse of the victors
+after that of the vanquished.
+
+Ninthly, a keen contest of nationalisms, land-grabbing and cornering
+of raw materials renders friendly relations between the thirty States
+of Europe extremely difficult. The most characteristic examples of
+nationalist violence have arisen out of the War, as in the case of
+Poland and other newborn States, which pursue vain dreams of empire
+while on the verge of dissolution through sheer lack of vital strength
+and energy, and becoming every day more deeply engulfed in misery and
+ruin.
+
+Finally, Continental Europe is on the eve of a series of fresh and
+more violent wars among peoples, threatening to submerge civilization
+unless some means be found to replace the present treaties, which are
+based on the principle that it is necessary to continue the War, by a
+system of friendly agreements whereby winners and losers are placed
+on a footing of liberty and equality, and which, while laying on the
+vanquished a weight they are able to bear, will liberate Europe from
+the present spectacle of a continent divided into two camps, where one
+is armed to the teeth and threatening, while the other, unarmed and
+inoffensive, is forced to labour in slavish conditions under the
+menace of a servitude even more severe.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE PEACE TREATIES AND THE CONTINUATION OF THE WAR
+
+
+The various peace treaties regulating the present territorial
+situation bear the names of the localities near Paris in which they
+were signed: Versailles, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Trianon and Sèvres.
+The first deals with Germany, the second with Austria, the third
+with Hungary, and the fourth with Turkey. The Treaty of Neuilly,
+comparatively far less important, concerns Bulgaria alone. But the one
+fundamental and decisive treaty is the Treaty of Versailles, inasmuch
+as it not only establishes as a recognized fact the partition of
+Europe, but lays down the rules according to which all future treaties
+are to be concluded.
+
+History has not on record a more colossal diplomatic feat than this
+treaty, by which Europe has been neatly divided into two sections:
+victors and vanquished; the former being authorized to exercise on the
+latter complete control until the fulfilment of terms which, even at
+an optimistic point valuation, would require at least thirty years to
+materialize.
+
+Although it is a matter of recent history, we may as well call to mind
+that the Entente Powers have always maintained that the War was
+wanted and was imposed by Germany; that she alone, with her Allies,
+repeatedly violated the rights of peoples; that the World War could
+well be regarded as the last war, inasmuch as the triumph of the
+Entente meant the triumph of democracy and a more human regime of
+life, a society of nations rich in effects conducive to a lasting
+peace. It was imperative to restore the principles of international
+justice. In France, in England, in Italy, and later, even more
+solemnly, in the United States, the same principles have been
+proclaimed by Heads of States, by Parliaments and Governments.
+
+There are two documents laying down and fixing the principles which
+the Entente Powers, on the eve of that event of decisive importance,
+the entry of the United States into the War, bound themselves to
+sustain and to carry on to triumph. The first is a statement by Briand
+to the United States Ambassador, in the name of all the other Allies,
+dated December 30, 1916. Briand speaks in the name of all "_les
+gouvernements alliés unis pour la défense et la liberté des peuples_."
+
+Briand's second declaration, dated January 10, 1917, is even more
+fundamentally important. It is a collective note of reply to President
+Wilson, delivered in the name of all the Allies to the United States
+Ambassador. The principles therein established are very clearly
+enunciated. According to that document the Entente has no idea of
+conquest and proposes mainly to achieve the following objects:
+
+1st. Restoration of Belgium, Serbia and Montenegro, with the
+indemnities due to them.
+
+2nd. Evacuation of invaded territories in France, Russia and Rumania
+and payment of just reparations.
+
+3rd. Reorganization of Europe with a permanent regime based on the
+respect of nationalities and on the right of all countries, both great
+and small, to complete security and freedom of economic development,
+besides territorial conventions and international regulations capable
+of guaranteeing land and sea frontiers from unjustified attacks.
+
+4th. Restitution of the provinces and territories taken in the past
+from the Allies by force and against the wish of the inhabitants.
+
+5th. Liberation of Italians, Slavs, Rumanians and Czeko-Slovaks from
+foreign rule.
+
+6th. Liberation of the peoples subjected to the tyranny of the Turks
+and expulsion from Europe of the Ottoman Empire, as being decidedly
+extraneous to western civilization.
+
+7th. The intentions of his Majesty the Emperor of Russia in regard
+to Poland are clearly indicated in the proclamation addressed to his
+armies.
+
+8th. The Allies have never harboured the design of exterminating
+German peoples nor of bringing about their political disappearance.
+
+At that time the autocratic form of government still prevailed in
+Russia, and the Allies still considered themselves bound to Russia's
+aspirations; moreover there existed, in regard to Italy, the
+obligations established by the Pact of London. That is why in the
+statements of the Entente Powers of Europe the restoration of
+Montenegro is regarded as an obligation; mention is made of the
+necessity of driving the Turks out of Europe in order to enable Russia
+to seize Constantinople; and as to Poland, there are only vague
+allusions, namely, the reference made to the Tsar's intentions as
+outlined in his proclamation.
+
+The Entente has won the War, but Russia has collapsed under the
+strain. Had victory been achieved without the fall of Russia, the
+latter would have installed herself as the predominating Power in the
+Mediterranean. On the other hand, to unite Dalmatia to Italy, while
+separating her from Italy, according to the pact of London, by
+assigning the territory of Fiume to Croatia, would have meant setting
+all the forces of Slav irredentism against Italy.
+
+These considerations are of no practical value inasmuch as events have
+taken another course. Nobody can say what would have happened if the
+Carthagenians had conquered the Romans or if victory had remained with
+Mithridates. Hypotheses are of but slight interest when truth follows
+another direction. Nevertheless we cannot but repeat that it was a
+great fortune for Europe that victory was not decided by Russia, and
+that the decisive factor proved the United States.
+
+It is beyond all possible doubt that without the intervention of
+the United States of America the War could not have been won by the
+Entente. Although the admission may prove humiliating to the European
+point of view, it is a fact which cannot be attenuated or disguised.
+The United States threw into the balance the weight of its enormous
+economic and technical resources, besides its enormous resources in
+men. Although its dead only amount to fifty thousand, the United
+States built up such a formidable human reserve as to deprive Germany
+of all hopes of victory. The announcement of America's entry in the
+War immediately crushed all Germany's power of resistance. Germany
+felt that the struggle was no longer limited to Europe, and that every
+effort was vain.
+
+The United States, besides giving to the War enormous quantities of
+arms and money, had practically inexhaustible reserves of men to place
+in the field against an enemy already exhausted and famine-stricken.
+
+War and battles are two very different things. Battles constitute an
+essentially military fact, while war is an essentially political fact.
+That explains why great leaders in war have always been first and
+foremost great political leaders, namely, men accustomed to manage
+other men and able to utilize them for their purposes. Alexander,
+Julius Caesar, Napoleon, the three greatest military leaders produced
+by Aryan civilization, were essentially political men. War is not only
+a clash of arms, it is above all the most convenient exploitation of
+men, of economic resources and of political situations. A battle is a
+fact of a purely military nature. The Romans almost constantly placed
+at the head of their armies personages of consular rank, who regarded
+and conducted the war as a political enterprise. The rules of tactics
+and strategy are perfectly useless if those who conduct the war fail
+to utilize to the utmost all the means at their disposal.
+
+It cannot be denied that in the War Germany and Austria-Hungary scored
+the greatest number of victories. For a long period they succeeded in
+invading large tracts of enemy territory and in recovering those
+parts of their own territory which had been invaded, besides always
+maintaining the offensive. They won great battles at the cost of
+enormous sacrifices in men and lives, and for a long time victory
+appeared to shine on their arms. But they failed to understand that
+from the day in which the violation of Belgium's neutrality determined
+Great Britain's entry in the field the War, from a general point of
+view, could be regarded as lost. As I have said, Germany is especially
+lacking in political sense: after Bismarck, her statesmen have never
+risen to the height of the situation. Even von Bülow, who appeared
+to be one of the cleverest, never had a single manifestation of real
+intelligence.
+
+The "banal" statements made about Belgium and the United States of
+America by the men who directed Germany's war policy were precisely
+the sort of thing most calculated to harm the people from whom they
+came. What is decidedly lacking in Germany, while it abounds in
+France, is a political class. Now a political class, consisting of
+men of ability and culture, cannot but be the result of a democratic
+education in all modern States, especially in those which have
+achieved a high standard of civilization and development. It seems
+almost incredible that Germany, despite all her culture, should
+have tolerated the political dictatorship of the Kaiser and of his
+accomplices.
+
+At the Conferences of Paris and London, in 1919 and 1920, I did all
+that was in my power to prevent the trial of the Kaiser, and I am
+convinced that my firm attitude in the matter succeeded in avoiding
+it. Sound common sense saved us from floundering in one of the most
+formidable blunders of the Treaty of Versailles. To hold one man
+responsible for the whole War and to bring him to trial, his enemies
+acting as judge and jury, would have been such a monstrous travesty
+of justice as to provoke a moral revolt throughout the world. On the
+other hand it was also a moral monstrosity, which would have deprived
+the Treaty of Versailles of every shred of dignity. If the one
+responsible for the War is the Kaiser, why does the Entente demand of
+the German people such enormous indemnities, unprecedented in history?
+
+One of the men who has exercised the greatest influence on European
+events during the last ten years, one of the most intelligent of
+living statesmen, once told me that it was his opinion that the Kaiser
+did not want the War, but neither did he wish to prevent it.
+
+Germany, although under protest, has been forced to accept the
+statement of the Versailles Treaty to the effect that she is
+responsible for the War and that she provoked it. The same charge has
+been levelled at her in all the Entente States throughout the War.
+
+When our countries were engaged in the struggle, and we were at grips
+with a dangerous enemy, it was our duty to keep up the _morale_ of our
+people and to paint our adversaries in the darkest colours, laying on
+their shoulders all the blame and responsibility of the War. But after
+the great world conflict, now that Imperial Germany has fallen, it
+would be absurd to maintain that the responsibility of the War is
+solely and wholly attributable to Germany and that earlier than 1914
+in Europe there had not developed a state of things fatally destined
+to culminate in a war. If Germany has the greatest responsibility,
+that responsibility is shared more or less by all the countries of the
+Entente. But while the Entente countries, in spite of their mistakes,
+had the political sense always to invoke principles of right and
+justice, the statesmen of Germany gave utterance to nothing but brutal
+and vulgar statements, culminating in the deplorable mental and moral
+expressions contained in the speeches, messages and telegrams of
+William II. He was a perfect type of the _miles gloriosus_, not a
+harmless but an irritating and dangerous boaster, who succeeded in
+piling up more loathing and hatred against his country than the most
+active and intelligently managed enemy propaganda could possibly have
+done.
+
+If the issue of the War could be regarded as seriously jeopardized
+by England's intervention, it was practically lost for the Central
+Empires when the United States stepped in.
+
+America's decision definitely crippled Germany's resistance--and
+not only for military, but for moral reasons. In all his messages
+President Wilson had repeatedly declared that he wanted a peace
+based on justice and equity, of which he outlined the fundamental
+conditions; moreover, he stated that he had no quarrel with the
+Germans themselves, but with the men who were at their head, and that
+he did not wish to impose on the vanquished peace terms such as might
+savour of oppression.
+
+President Wilson's ideas on the subject have been embodied in a
+bulky volume.[1] Turning over the pages of this book now we have the
+impression that it is a collection of literary essays by a man who had
+his eye on posterity and assumed a pose most likely to attract the
+admiration of generations as yet unborn. But when these same words
+were uttered in the intervals of mighty battles, they fell on
+expectant and anxious ears: they were regarded as a ray of light in
+the fearsome darkness of uncertainty, and everybody listened to them,
+not only because the President was the authorized exponent of a
+great nation, of a powerful people, but because he represented an
+inexhaustible source of vitality in the midst of the ravages of
+violence and death. President Wilson's messages have done as much as
+famine and cruel losses in the field to break the stubborn resistance
+of the German people. If it was possible to obtain a just peace, why
+go to the bitter end when defeat was manifestly inevitable? Obstinacy
+is the backbone of war, and nothing undermines a nation's power of
+resistance so much as doubt and faint-heartedness on the part of the
+governing classes.
+
+[Footnote 1: "President Wilson's State Speeches and Addresses," New
+York, 1918.]
+
+President Wilson, who said on January 2, 1917, that a peace without
+victory was to be preferred ("It must be a peace without victory"),
+and that "Right is more precious than peace," had also repeatedly
+affirmed that "We have no quarrel with the German people."
+
+He only desired, as the exponent of a great democracy, a peace which
+should be the expression of right and justice, evolving from the War a
+League of Nations, the first milestone in a new era of civilization, a
+league destined to bind together ex-belligerents and neutrals in one.
+
+In Germany, where the inhabitants had to bear the most cruel
+privations, President Wilson's words, pronounced as a solemn pledge
+before the whole world, had a most powerful effect on all classes
+and greatly contributed towards the final breakdown of collective
+resistance. Democratic minds saw a promise for the future, while
+reactionaries welcomed any way out of their disastrous adventure.
+
+After America's entry in the War, President Wilson, on January 8,
+1918, formulated the fourteen points of his programme regarding the
+finalities of the War and the peace to be realized.
+
+It is here necessary to reproduce the original text of President
+Wilson's message containing the fourteen points which constitute a
+formal pledge undertaken by the democracy of America, not only towards
+enemy peoples but towards all peoples of the world.
+
+These important statements from President Wilson's message have,
+strangely enough, been reproduced either incompletely or in an utterly
+mistaken form even in official documents and in books published by
+statesmen who took a leading part in the Paris Conference.
+
+It is therefore advisable to reproduce the original text in full:
+
+    1st. Honest peace treaties, following loyal and honest
+    negotiations, after which secret international agreements will be
+    abolished and diplomacy will always proceed frankly and openly.
+
+    2nd. Full liberty of navigation on the high seas outside
+    territorial waters, both in peace and war, except when the seas be
+    closed wholly or in part by an international decision sanctioned
+    by international treaties.
+
+    3rd. Removal, as far as possible, of all economic barriers and
+    establishment of terms of equality in commerce among all nations
+    adhering to peace and associated to maintain it.
+
+    4th. Appropriate guarantees to be given and received for the
+    reduction of national armaments to a minimum compatible with
+    internal safety.
+
+    5th. A clear, open and absolutely impartial settlement of all
+    colonial rights, based on a rigorous observance of the principle
+    that, in the determination of all questions of sovereignty, the
+    interests of the populations shall bear equal weight with those of
+    the Government whose claims are to be determined.
+
+    6th. The evacuation of all Russian territories and a settlement
+    of all Russian questions such as to ensure the best and most
+    untrammelled co-operation of other nations of the world in
+    order to afford Russia a clear and precise opportunity for the
+    independent settlement of her autonomous political development and
+    of her national policy, promising her a cordial welcome in the
+    League of Nations under institutions of her own choice, and
+    besides a cordial welcome, help and assistance in all that she may
+    need and require. The treatment meted out to Russia by the sister
+    nations in the months to come must be a decisive proof of their
+    goodwill, of their understanding of her needs as apart from
+    their own interests, and of their intelligent and disinterested
+    sympathy.
+
+    7th. Belgium, as the whole world will agree, must be evacuated
+    and reconstructed without the slightest attempt at curtailing the
+    sovereign rights which she enjoys in common with other free
+    nations. Nothing will be more conducive to the re-establishment
+    of confidence and respect among nations for those laws which they
+    themselves have made for the regulation and observance of their
+    reciprocal relations. Without this salutary measure the whole
+    structure and validity of international law would be permanently
+    undermined.
+
+    8th. All French territories will be liberated, the invaded regions
+    reconstructed, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871,
+    in the question of Alsace-Lorraine, and which has jeopardized the
+    peace of the world for nearly half a century, must be made good,
+    so as to ensure a lasting peace in the general interest.
+
+    9th. The Italian frontier must be rectified on the basis of the
+    clearly recognized lines of nationality.
+
+    10th. The people of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations
+    we wish to see safeguarded and maintained, should come to an
+    agreement as to the best way of attaining their autonomous
+    development.
+
+    11th. Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro are to be evacuated and
+    occupied territories restored: a free and secure access to the
+    sea for Serbia; mutual relations between the Balkan States to be
+    determined on a friendly basis by a Council, following the lines
+    of friendship and nationality traced by tradition and history; the
+    political and economic integrity of the various Balkan States to
+    be guaranteed.
+
+    12th. A certain degree of sovereignty must be assigned to that
+    part of the Ottoman Empire which is Turkish; but the other
+    nationalities now under the Turkish regime should have the
+    assurance of an independent existence and of an absolute and
+    undisturbed opportunity to develop their autonomy; moreover
+    the Dardanelles should be permanently open to the shipping and
+    commerce of all nations under international guarantees.
+
+    13th. An independent Polish State should be founded, comprising
+    all territories inhabited by peoples of undoubtedly Polish
+    nationality, with a free and secure access to the sea and its
+    political and economic independence and territorial integrity
+    guaranteed by international agreements.
+
+    14th. A League of Nations must be formed with special pacts and
+    for the sole scope of ensuring the reciprocal guarantees of
+    political independence and of territorial integrity, in equal
+    measure both for large and small States.
+
+The Peace Treaty as outlined by Wilson would really have brought about
+a just peace; but we shall see how the actual result proved quite the
+reverse of what constituted a solemn pledge of the American people and
+of the Entente Powers.
+
+On February 11, 1918, President Wilson confirmed before Congress that
+all territorial readjustments were to be made in the interest and for
+the advantage of the populations concerned, not merely as a bargain
+between rival States, and that there were not to be indemnities,
+annexations or punitive exactions of any kind.
+
+On September 27, 1918, just on the eve of the armistice, when German
+resistance was already shaken almost to breaking point, President
+Wilson gave it the _coup de grâce_ by his message on the _post-bellum_
+economic settlement. No special or separate interest of any single
+nation or group of nations was to be taken as the basis of any
+settlement which did not concern the common interest of all; there
+were not to be any leagues or alliances, or special pacts or ententes
+within the great family of the society of nations; economic deals and
+corners of an egotistical nature were to be forbidden, as also all
+forms of boycotting, with the exception of those applied in punishment
+to the countries transgressing the rules of good fellowship; all
+international treaties and agreements of every kind were to be
+published in their entirety to the whole world.
+
+It was a magnificent programme of world policy. Not only would it have
+meant peace after war, but a peace calculated to heal the deep wounds
+of Europe and to renovate the economic status of nations.
+
+On the basis of these principles, which constituted a solemn pledge,
+Germany, worn out by famine and even more by increasing internal
+unrest, demanded peace.
+
+According to President Wilson's clear statements, made not only in
+the name of the United States but in that of the whole Entente, peace
+should therefore have been based on justice, the relations between
+winners and losers in a society of nations being exclusively inspired
+by mutual trust.
+
+There were no longer to be huge standing armies, neither on the
+part of the ex-Central Empires or on that of the victorious States;
+adequate guarantees were to be _given and received_ for the reduction
+of armies to the minimum necessary for internal defence; removal of
+all economic barriers; absolute freedom of the seas; reorganization
+of the colonies based on the development of the peoples directly
+concerned; abolition of secret diplomacy, etc.
+
+As to the duties of the vanquished, besides evacuating the occupied
+territories, they were to reconstruct Belgium, to restore to France
+the territories taken in 1871; to restore all the territories
+belonging to Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro, giving Serbia a free and
+secure access to the sea; to constitute a free Poland with territories
+_undoubtedly Polish_ to which _there might_ be granted a free and
+secure access to the sea. Poland, founded on secure ethnical bases,
+far from being a military State, was to be an element of peace, and
+her political and economic independence and territorial integrity were
+to have been guaranteed by an international agreement.
+
+After the rectification of the Italian frontier according to the
+principles of nationality, the peoples of Austria-Hungary were to
+agree on the free opportunity of their autonomous development. In
+other terms, each people could freely choose autonomy or throw in its
+lot with some other State. After giving a certain sovereignty to the
+Turkish populations of the Ottoman Empire the other nationalities were
+to be allowed to develop autonomously, and the free navigation of the
+Dardanelles was to be internationally guaranteed.
+
+These principles announced by President Wilson, and already proclaimed
+in part by the Entente Powers when they stoutly affirmed that they
+were fighting for right, for democracy and for peace, did not
+constitute a concession but a duty towards the enemy. In each of the
+losing countries, in Germany as in Austria-Hungary, the democratic
+groups contrary to the War, and those even more numerous which had
+accepted the War as in a momentary intoxication, when they exerted
+themselves for the triumph of peace, had counted on the statements, or
+rather on the solemn promises which American democracy had made not
+only in the name of the United States but in that of all the Entente
+Powers.
+
+Let us now try to sum up the terms imposed on Germany and the other
+losing countries by the treaty of June 28, 1919. The treaty, it is
+true, was concluded between the allied and associated countries and
+Germany, but it also concerns the very existence of other countries
+such as Austria-Hungary, Russia, etc.:
+
+
+I.--TERRITORIAL AND POLITICAL CLAUSES
+
+Until the payment of an indemnity the amount of which is as yet not
+definitely stated, Germany loses the fundamental characters of a
+sovereign state. Not only part of her territory remains under the
+occupation of the ex-enemy troops for a period of fifteen years but a
+whole series of controls is established, military, administrative, on
+transports, etc. The Commission for Reparations is empowered to effect
+all the changes it thinks fit in the laws and regulations of the
+German State, besides applying sanctions of a military and economic
+nature in the event of violations of the clauses placed under its
+control (Art. 240, 241).
+
+The allied and associated governments declare and Germany recognizes
+that Germany and her allies are solely responsible, being the direct
+cause thereof, for all the losses and damages suffered by the allied
+and associated governments and their subjects as a result of the War,
+which was thrust upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies
+(Art. 231). Consequently the resources of Germany (and by the
+other treaties those of her allies as well) are destined, even if
+insufficient, to ensure full reparation for all losses and damages
+(Art. 232).
+
+The allied and associated Powers place in a state of public accusation
+William II of Hohenzollern, ex-German Emperor, charging him with
+the gravest offences against international morality and the sacred
+authority of treaties. A special tribunal composed of representatives
+of the five great Entente Powers shall try him and will have the
+right of determining his punishment (Art. 227). The German Government
+likewise recognizes the right of the allied and associated Powers to
+try in their courts of justice the persons (and more especially the
+officers) accused of having committed acts contrary to the rules and
+customs of war.
+
+Restitution of Alsace and Lorraine to France without any obligation
+on the latter's part, not even the corresponding quota of public debt
+(Art. 51 _et seq_.).
+
+The treaties of April 19, 1839, are abolished, so that Belgium, being
+no longer neutral, may become allied to France (Art. 31); attribution
+to Belgium of the territories of Eupen, Malmédy and Moresnet.
+
+Abolition of all the treaties which established political and economic
+bonds between Germany and Luxemburg (Art. 40).
+
+Annulment of all the treaties concluded by Germany during the War.
+
+German-Austria, reduced to a little State of hardly more than
+6,000,000 inhabitants, about one-third of whom live in the capital
+(Art. 80), cannot become united to Germany without the consent of the
+Society of Nations, and is not allowed to participate in the affairs
+of another nation, namely of Germany, before being admitted to the
+League of Nations (Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Art. 88). As the
+consent of the League of Nations must be unanimous, a contrary vote on
+the part of France would be sufficient to prevent German-Austria from
+becoming united to Germany.
+
+Attribution of North Schleswig to Denmark (Art. 109).
+
+Creation of the Czeko-Slovak State (Art. 87), which comprises the
+autonomous territory of the Ruthenians south of the Carpathians,
+Germany abandoning in favour of the new State all her rights and
+claims on that part of Silesia mentioned in Art. 83.
+
+Creation of the State of Poland (Art. 87), to whom Posnania and part
+of Western Prussia are made over. Upper Silesia is to decide by a
+plebiscite (Art. 88) whether it desires to be united to Germany or to
+Poland. The latter, even without Upper Silesia, becomes a State of
+31,000,000 inhabitants, with about fifty per cent. of the population
+non-Polish, including very numerous groups of Germans.
+
+Creation of the Free State of Danzig within the limits of Art. 100,
+under the protection of the League of Nations. The city is a Free
+City, but enclosed within the Polish Customs House frontiers, and
+Poland has full control of the river and of the railway system.
+Poland, moreover, has charge of the foreign affairs of the Free City
+of Danzig and undertakes to protect its subjects abroad.
+
+Surrender to the victors, or, to be more precise, almost exclusively
+to Great Britain and France, of all the German colonies (Art. 119 and
+127). The formula (Art. 119) is that Germany renounces in favour of
+the leading allied and associated Powers all her territories beyond
+the seas. Great Britain has secured an important share, but so has
+France, receiving that part of Congo ceded in 1911, four-fifths of the
+Cameroons and of Togoland.
+
+Abandonment of all rights and claims in China, Siam, Liberia, Morocco,
+Egypt, Turkey, Bulgaria and Shantung (Art. 128 and 158).
+
+Creation of a League of Nations to the exclusion, practically, of
+Germany and of the other losing countries, with the result that the
+League is nothing but a juridical completion of the Commission of
+Reparations. In all of the various treaties, the pact of the League of
+Nations, the Covenant, left standing among the collapse of President
+Wilson's other ideas and proposals, is given precedence over all other
+clauses.
+
+
+II.--MILITARY CLAUSES AND GUARANTEES
+
+Germany is obliged, and with her, by the subsequent treaties, all the
+other losing countries, to surrender her arms and to reduce her troops
+to the minimum necessary for internal defence (Art. 159 and 213). The
+German army has no General Staff; its soldiers are mercenaries who
+enlist for a period of ten years; it cannot be composed of more than
+seven infantry and three cavalry divisions, not exceeding 100,000
+men including officers: no staff, no military aviation, no heavy
+artillery. The number of gendarmes and of local police can only be
+increased proportionately with the increase of the population. The
+maximum of artillery allowed is limited to the requirements of
+internal defence. Germany is strictly forbidden to import arms,
+ammunition and war material of any kind or description. Conscription
+is abolished, and officers must remain with the colours at least till
+they have attained the age of forty-five. No institute of science or
+culture is allowed to take an interest in military questions. All
+fortifications included in a line traced fifty kilometres to the east
+of the Rhine are to be destroyed, and on no account may German troops
+cross the said line.
+
+Destruction of Heligoland and of the fortresses of the Kiel Canal.
+
+Destruction under the supervision of the allied commissions of control
+of all tanks, flying apparatus, heavy and field artillery, namely
+35,000 guns, 160,000 machine guns, 2,700,000 rifles, besides the tools
+and machinery necessary for their manufacture. Destruction of all
+arsenals. Destruction of the German fleet, which must be limited to
+the proportions mentioned in Art. 181.
+
+Creation of inter-allied military commissions of control to supervise
+and enforce the carrying out of the military and naval clauses, at the
+expense of Germany and with the right to install themselves in the
+seat of the central government.
+
+Occupation as a guarantee, for a period of fifteen years after the
+application of the treaty, of the bridgeheads and of the territories
+now occupied west of the Rhine (Art. 428 and 432). If, however, the
+Commission of Reparations finds that Germany refuses wholly or in part
+to fulfil her treaty obligations, the zones specified in Article
+421 will be immediately occupied by the troops of the allied and
+associated Powers.
+
+
+III.--FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC CLAUSES
+
+The principle being recognized that Germany alone is responsible for
+the War which she willed and which she imposed on the rest of the
+world, Germany is bound to give complete and full reparation within
+the limits specified by Art. 232. The amount of the damages for which
+reparation is due will be fixed by the Commission of Reparations,
+consisting of the representatives of the winning countries.
+
+The coal fields of the Saar are to be handed over, in entire and
+absolute ownership, free of all liens and obligations, to France, in
+compensation for the destruction of the coal mines in the north of
+France. Before the War, in 1913, the output of the Saar basin amounted
+to 17,000,000 tons. The Saar is incorporated in the French douane
+system and after fifteen years will be submitted to a plebiscite.
+
+Germany may not charge heavier duties on imports from allied countries
+than on those from any other country. This treatment of the most
+favoured nation to be extended to all allied and associated States
+does not imply the obligation of reciprocity (Art. 264). A similar
+limitation is placed on exports, on which no special duty may be
+levied.
+
+Exports from Alsace and Lorraine into Germany to be exempt from duty,
+without right of reciprocity (Art. 268).
+
+Germany delivers to the Allies all the steamers of her mercantile
+fleet of over I,600 tons, half of those between 1,000 and I,600 tons,
+and one-fourth of her fishing vessels. Moreover, she binds herself to
+build at the request of the Allies every year, and for a period of
+five years, 200,000 tons of shipping, as directed by the Allies, and
+the value of the new constructions will be credited to her by the
+Commission of Reparations (Part viii, 3).
+
+Besides giving up all her colonies, Germany surrenders all her rights
+and claims on her possessions beyond the seas (Art. 119), and all
+the contracts and conventions in favour of German subjects for the
+construction and exploiting of public works, which will be considered
+as part payment of the reparations due. The private property of
+Germans in the colonies, as also the right of Germans to live and
+work there, come under the free jurisdiction of the victorious States
+occupying the colonies, and which reserve unto themselves the right to
+confiscate and liquidate all property and claims belonging to Germans
+(Art. 121 and 297).
+
+The private property of German citizens residing in Alsace-Lorraine is
+subject to the same treatment as that of residents in the ex-German
+colonies. The French Government may confiscate without granting any
+compensation the private property of Germans and of German concerns in
+Alsace-Lorraine, and the sums thus derived will be credited towards
+the partial settlement of eventual French claims (Art. 53 and 74).
+The property of the State and of local bodies is likewise surrendered
+without any compensation whatever. The allies and associates reserve
+the right to seize and liquidate all property, claims and interests
+belonging, at the date of the ratification of the treaty, to
+German citizens or to firms controlled by them, situated in their
+territories, colonies, possessions and protectorates, including the
+territories surrendered in accordance with the clauses of the treaty
+(Art. 217).
+
+Germany loses everything with the exception of her territory:
+colonies, possessions, rights, commercial investments, etc.
+
+After giving the Saar coal fields in perpetual ownership to France in
+reparation of the temporary damages suffered by the French coal mines,
+the treaty goes on to establish the best ways and means to deprive
+Germany, in the largest measure possible, of her coal and her iron.
+The Saar coal fields have been handed over to France absolutely, while
+the war damages of the French mines have been repaired or can be
+repaired in a few years. Upper Silesia being subject to the plebiscite
+with the occupation of the allied troops, Germany must have lost
+several of her most important coal fields had the plebiscite gone
+against her.
+
+Germany is forced to deliver in part reparation to France 7,000,000
+tons of coal a year for ten years, besides a quantity of coal equal
+to the yearly _ante-bellum_ output of the coal mines of the North of
+France and of the Pas-de-Calais, which were entirely destroyed during
+the War; the said quantity not to exceed 20,000,000 tons in the first
+five years and 8,000,000 tons during the five succeeding years (Part
+viii, 5). Moreover, Germany must give 8,000,000 tons to Belgium for a
+period of ten years, and to Italy a quantity of coal which, commencing
+at 4,500,000 tons for the year 1919-1920, reaches the figure of
+8,500,000 tons in the five years after 1923-1924. To Luxemburg Germany
+must provide coal in the same average quantity as in pre-war times.
+Altogether Germany is compelled to hand over to the winners as part
+reparation about 25,000,000 tons of coal a year.
+
+For three years Polish exports to Germany, and for five years exports
+from Luxemburg into Germany, will be free of all duty, without right
+of reciprocity (Art. 268).
+
+The Allies have the right to adopt, on the territories left of the
+Rhine and occupied by their troops, a special customs regime both as
+regards imports and exports (Art. 270).
+
+After having surrendered, as per Par. 7 of the armistice terms,
+5,000 locomotives and 150,000 trucks and carriages with all their
+accessories and fittings (Art. 250), Germany must hand over the
+railway systems of the territories she has lost, with all the rolling
+stock in a good state of preservation, and this measure applies even
+to Prussian Poland occupied by Germany during the War (Art. 371).
+
+The German transport system is placed under control, and the
+administration of the Elbe, the Rhine, the Oder, the Danube, owing to
+the fact that they pass through more than one state and give access
+to the sea, is entrusted to inter-allied commissions. In all these
+commissions Germany is represented by a small minority. France
+and Great Britain, who are not directly interested, have numerous
+representatives on all the important river commissions, while on the
+Rhine commission Germany has only four votes out of nineteen (Art. 382
+to 337). A privilege of first degree is established on all production
+and resources of the German States to ensure the payment of
+reparations and other charges specified by the treaty (Art. 248).
+
+The total cost of the allied and associated armies will be borne by
+Germany, including the upkeep of men and beasts, pay and lodging,
+heating, clothing, etc., and even veterinary services, motor lorries
+and automobiles. All these expenses must be reimbursed in gold marks
+(Art. 249).
+
+The privilege, as per Art. 248 of the treaty, is to be applied in the
+following order:
+
+(a) Reimbursement of expenses for the armies of occupation during
+the armistice and after the peace treaty.
+
+(b) Payment of the reparations as established by the treaty or
+treaties or supplementary conventions.
+
+(c) Other expenses deriving from the armistice terms, from the peace
+treaty and from other supplementary terms and conventions (Art. 251).
+Restitution, on the basis of an estimate presented sixty days after
+the application of the treaty by the Commission of Reparations, of the
+live stock stolen or destroyed by the Germans and necessary for the
+reconstruction of the invaded countries, with the right to exact from
+Germany, as part reparations, the delivery of machinery, heating
+apparatus, furniture, etc.
+
+Reimbursement to Belgium of all the sums loaned to her by the allied
+and associated Powers during the War.
+
+Compensation for the losses and damages sustained by the civilian
+population of the allied and associated Powers during the period in
+which they were at war with Germany (Art. 232 and Part viii, I).
+
+Payment, during the first two years, of twenty milliard marks in
+gold or by the delivery of goods, shipping, etc., on account of
+compensation (Art. 235).
+
+The reparations owed by Germany concern chiefly:
+
+1st. Damages and loss of life and property sustained by the civilian
+population.
+
+2nd. Damages sustained by civilian victims of cruelty, violence or
+ill-treatment.
+
+3rd. Damages caused on occupied or invaded territories.
+
+4th. Damages through cruelty to and ill-treatment of prisoners of war.
+
+5th. Pensions and compensations of all kinds paid by the allied and
+associated Powers to the military victims of the War and to their
+families.
+
+6th. Subsidies paid by the allied and associated Powers to the
+families and other dependents of men having served in the army, etc.,
+etc. (Part viii, I). These expenses, which have been calculated
+at varying figures, commencing from 350 billions, have undergone
+considerable fluctuations.
+
+I have given the general lines of the Treaty of Versailles.
+
+The other treaties, far less important, inasmuch as the situation
+of all the losing countries was already well defined, especially as
+regards territorial questions, by the Treaty of Versailles, are cast
+in the same mould and contain no essential variation.
+
+Now these treaties constitute an absolutely new fact, and no one can
+affirm that the Treaty of Versailles derives even remotely from the
+declarations of the Entente and from Wilson's solemn pledges uttered
+in the name of those who took part in the War.
+
+If the terms of the armistice were deeply in contrast with the pledges
+to which the Entente Powers had bound themselves before the whole
+world, the Treaty of Versailles and the other treaties deriving
+therefrom are a deliberate negation of all that had been promised,
+amounting to a debt of honour, and which had contributed much more
+powerfully towards the defeat of the enemy than the entry in the field
+of many fresh divisions.
+
+In the state of extreme exhaustion in which both conquerors and losers
+found themselves in 1918, in the terrible suffering of the Germanic
+group of belligerents, deprived for four years of sufficient
+nourishment and of the most elementary necessaries of life, in the
+moral collapse which had taken the place of boasting and temerity, the
+words of Wilson, who pledged himself to a just peace and established
+its terms, proclaiming them to the world, had completely broken down
+whatever force of resistance there still remained. They were the most
+powerful instruments of victory, and if not the essential cause,
+certainly not the least important among the causes which brought about
+the collapse of the Central Empires.
+
+Germany had been deeply hit by the armistice. Obliged to hand over
+immediately 5,000 locomotives and 150,000 railway trucks and carriages
+at the very time when she had to demobilize, during the first months
+she found her traffic almost completely paralysed.
+
+Every war brings virulent germs of revolution in the vanquished
+countries. The war of 1870 gave France the impulsive manifestations of
+_La Commune_ in exactly the same manner as war gave rise in Germany
+during the first months after the armistice to a violent revolutionary
+crisis, overcome not without difficulty and still representing a grave
+menace.
+
+Forced to surrender immediately a large quantity of live stock, to
+demobilize when the best part of her railway material had gone, still
+hampered by the blockade, Germany, against the interest of the Allies
+themselves, has been obliged to sacrifice her exchange because, in the
+absence of sufficient help, she has had to buy the most indispensable
+foodstuffs in neutral countries. Her paper currency, which at the
+end of 1918 amounted to twenty-two milliard marks, not excessive as
+compared with that of other countries, immediately increased with a
+growing crescendo till it reached, in a very short time, the figure of
+eighty-eight milliards, thus rendering from the very first the payment
+of indemnities in gold extremely difficult.
+
+The most skilled men have been thrust into an absolute impossibility
+of producing. To have deprived Germany of her merchant fleet, built up
+with so much care, means to have deprived the freight market of sixty
+thousand of the most skilled, intelligent and hard-working seamen.
+
+But what Germany has lost as a result of the treaty surpasses all
+imagination and can only be regarded as a sentence of ruin and decay
+voluntarily passed over a whole people.
+
+Germany, without taking into account the countries subject to
+plebiscite, has lost 7.5 per cent. of her population. Should the
+plebiscites prove unfavourable to her, or, as the tendency seems to
+be, should these plebiscites be disregarded, Germany would lose 13.5
+per cent. of her population. Purely German territories have been
+forcibly wrenched from her. What has been done in the case of the
+Saar has no precedents in modern history. It is a country of 650,000
+inhabitants of whom not even one hundred are French, a country which
+has been German for a thousand years, and which was temporarily
+occupied by France for purely military reasons. In spite of these
+facts, however, not only have the coal fields of the Saar been
+assigned in perpetuity to France as compensation for the damages
+caused to the French mines in the North, but the territory of the Saar
+forms part of the French customs regime and will be subjected after
+fifteen years to a plebiscite, when such a necessity is absolutely
+incomprehensible, as the population is purely German and has never
+in any form or manner expressed the intention of changing its
+nationality.
+
+The ebb and flow of peoples in Europe during the long war of
+nationalities has often changed the situation of frontier countries.
+Sometimes it may still be regarded as a necessity to include small
+groups of alien race and language in different states in order to
+ensure strategically safe frontiers. But, with the exception of the
+necessity for self-defence, there is nothing to justify what has been
+done to the detriment of Germany.
+
+Wilson had only said that France should receive compensation for
+the wrong suffered in 1871 and that Belgium should be evacuated and
+reconstructed. What had been destroyed was to have been built up
+again; but no one had ever thought during the War of handing over to
+Belgium a part, however small, of German territory or of surrendering
+predominantly and purely German territories to Poland.
+
+The German colonies covered an area of nearly 3,000,000 square
+kilometres; they had reached an admirable degree of development and
+were managed with the greatest skill and ability. They represented an
+enormous value; nevertheless they have been assigned to France, Great
+Britain and in minor proportion to Japan, without figuring at all in
+the reparations account.
+
+It is calculated that as a result of the treaty, owing to the loss
+of a considerable percentage of her agricultural area, Germany is
+twenty-five per cent. the poorer in regard to the production of
+cereals and potatoes and ten to twelve per cent. in regard to the
+breeding of live stock.
+
+The restitution of Alsace-Lorraine (the only formal claim advanced by
+the Entente in its war programme) has deprived Germany of the bulk of
+her iron-ore production. In 1913 Germany could count on 21,000,000
+tons of iron from Lorraine, 7,000,000 from Luxemburg, 138,000 from
+Upper Silesia and 7,344 from the rest of her territory. This means
+that Germany is reduced to only 20.41 per cent. of her pre-war wealth
+in iron ore.
+
+In 1913 the Saar district represented 8.95 per cent. of the total
+production of coal, and Upper Silesia 22.85 per cent.
+
+Having lost about eighty per cent. of her iron ore and large stocks
+of coal, while her production is severely handicapped, Germany,
+completely disorganized abroad after the suppression of all economic
+equilibrium, is condemned to look on helplessly while the very sources
+of her national wealth dry up and cease to flow. In order to form a
+correct estimate of the facts we must hold in mind that one-fifth of
+Germany's total exports before the War consisted of iron and of tools
+and machinery mostly manufactured with German iron.
+
+If we now consider the fourteen points of President Wilson, accepted
+by the Entente as a peace programme, comparing the actual results
+obtained by the Treaty of Versailles, we are faced with the following
+situation:
+
+1. "_After loyal peace negotiations and the conclusion and signing
+of peace treaties, secret diplomatic agreements must be regarded as
+abolished_," says Wilson. On the contrary, secret peace negotiations
+have been protracted for more than six months, and no hearing was even
+granted to the German delegates who wished to expose their views. By a
+system of treaties France has created a military alliance with Belgium
+and Poland, thus completely cornering Germany.
+
+2. _Absolute freedom of the sea beyond territorial waters_. Nothing,
+as a matter of fact, has been changed from the pre-war state of
+things; with the difference that the losers have had to surrender
+their mercantile fleets and are therefore no longer directly
+interested in the question.
+
+3. _Removal of all economic barriers and equality of trade
+conditions_. The treaty imposes on Germany terms without reciprocity,
+and almost all Entente countries have already adopted protectionist
+and prohibitive tariffs.
+
+4. _Adequate guarantees to be given and received for the reduction of
+armaments to a minimum compatible with home defence_. The treaties
+have compelled the vanquished countries to destroy or to surrender
+their navies, and have reduced the standing armies of Germany to
+100,000 men, including officers, of Bulgaria to 23,000, of Austria to
+30,000 (in reality only 21,000), of Hungary to 35,000. The conquering
+states, on the other hand, maintain enormous armies numerically
+superior to those which they had before the War. France, Belgium
+and Poland have between them about 1,400,000 men with the colours.
+Germany, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria altogether have only 179,000
+men under arms, while Rumania alone has 206,000 and Poland more than
+450,000 men.
+
+5. _Loyal and straightforward settlement of colonial rights and
+claims, based chiefly on the advantage of the peoples directly
+concerned_. All her colonies have been taken from Germany, who needed
+them more than any other country of continental Europe, having a
+density of population of 123 inhabitants per square kilometre (Italy
+has a density of 133 per square kilometre) while France has 74, Spain
+40, and European Russia before the War had only 24.
+
+6. _Evacuation of all Russian territories and cordial co-operation for
+the reconstruction and development of Russia_. For a long time the
+Entente has given its support to the military ventures of Koltchak,
+Judenic, Denikin and Wrangel, all men of the old regime.
+
+7. _Evacuation and reconstruction of Belgium_. This has been done, but
+to Belgium have been assigned territories which she never dreamt of
+claiming before the War.
+
+8. _Liberation of French territories, reconstruction of invaded
+regions and restitution of Alsace-Lorraine to France in respect of
+the territories taken from her in 1871_. France occupies a dominating
+position in the Saar which constitutes an absolute denial of the
+principle of nationality.
+
+9. _Rectification of the Italian frontier, according to clearly
+defined lines of nationality_. As these lines have never been clearly
+defined or recognized, the solution arrived at has been distasteful
+both to the Italians and to their neighbours.
+
+10. _The peoples of Austria-Hungary to be left free to unite together
+or to form autonomous states in the manner best suited to their
+development_. As a matter of fact the treaties have taken the greatest
+possible number of Germans from Austria and of Magyars from Hungary in
+order to hand them over to Poland, to Czeko-Slovakia, to Rumania and
+to Jugo-Slavia, namely to populations for the most part inferior to
+the Germans.
+
+11. _Evacuation of Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro_. This has been
+effected, but whereas the Entente Powers have always proclaimed their
+fundamental duty for the reconstruction of Montenegro, they all
+contributed to its disappearance, chiefly at the instigation of
+France.
+
+12. _A limited sovereignty to the Turkish parts of the Ottoman Empire,
+liberation of other nationalities and freedom of navigation in the
+Dardanelles placed under international guarantees_. What really
+happened was that the Entente Powers immediately tried to possess
+themselves of Asia Minor; but events rendered it necessary to adopt
+a regime of mandates because direct sovereignty would have been too
+perilous an experiment. A sense of deep perturbation and unrest
+pervades the whole of Islam.
+
+13. _An independent Polish state with populations undoubtedly Polish
+to be founded as a neutral State with a free and secure outlet to the
+sea and whose integrity is to be guaranteed by international accords_.
+In reality a Polish state has been formed with populations undoubtedly
+non-Polish, having a markedly military character and aiming at further
+expansion in Ukranian and German territory. It has a population of
+31,000,000 inhabitants while it should not exceed 18,000,000, and
+proposes to isolate Russia from Germany. Moreover the Free State of
+Danzig, practically dependent from Poland, constitutes a standing
+menace to Germany.
+
+14. _Foundation of the League of Nations for the sole purpose
+of re-establishing order among nations, and laying the basis of
+reciprocal guarantees of territorial integrity and political
+independence for all states, both great and small_. After more than
+two years have elapsed since the conclusion of peace and three since
+the armistice the League of Nations is still nothing but a holy
+alliance the object of which is to guarantee the privileges of the
+conquerors. After the vote of the Senate, deserving of all praise
+from every point of view, the United States does not form part of the
+League nor do the losing countries, including Germany.
+
+It is therefore obvious that the most solemn pledges on which peace
+was based have not been maintained; the noble declarations made by the
+Entente during the War have been forgotten; forgotten all the solemn
+collective pledges; forgotten and disregarded Wilson's proclamations
+which, without being real contracts or treaties, were something far
+more solemn and binding, a pledge taken before the whole world at its
+most tragic hour to give the enemy a guarantee of justice.
+
+Without expressing any opinion on the treaties it cannot be denied
+that the manner in which they have been applied has been even worse.
+For the first time in civilized Europe, not during the War, when
+everything was permissible in the supreme interests of defence, but
+now that the War is over, the Entente Powers, though maintaining
+armies more numerous than ever, for which the vanquished must pay,
+have occupied German territories, inhabited by the most cultured,
+progressive and technically advanced populations in the world, as an
+insult and a slight, with coloured troops, men from darkest and most
+barbarous Africa, to act as defenders of the rights of civilization
+and to maintain the law and order of democracy.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE PEACE TREATIES--THEIR ORIGIN AND AIMS
+
+
+How, after the solemn pledges undertaken during the War, a peace could
+have been concluded which practically negatives all the principles
+professed during the War and all the obligations entered into, is
+easily explained when the progress of events is noted from the autumn
+of 1918 to the end of the spring of 1919. I took no direct part in
+those events, as I had no share in the government of Italy from
+January to the end of June, 1919, the period during which the Treaties
+of Versailles and Saint-Germain-en-Laye were being prepared. The
+Orlando Ministry was resigning when the Treaty of Versailles was drawn
+up for signature, and the situation which confronted the Ministry
+of which I was head was clearly defined. Nevertheless I asked the
+Minister of Foreign Affairs and the delegates of the preceding Cabinet
+to put their signatures to it. Signing was a necessity, and it fell to
+me later on to put my signature to the ratification.
+
+The Treaty of Versailles and those which have followed with Austria,
+Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey have been validly signed, and they pledge
+the good faith of the countries which have signed them. But in the
+application of them there is need of great breadth of view; there is
+need of dispassionate study to see if they can be maintained, if the
+fulfilment of the impossible or unjust conditions demanded of the
+conquered countries will not do more harm to the conquerors, will not,
+in point of actual fact, pave the way to their ruin.
+
+If there is one thing, Lloyd George has said, which will never be
+forgotten or forgiven, it is arrogance and injustice in the hour
+of triumph. We have never tired of saying that Germany is the most
+barbarous among civilized countries, that under her civilization
+is hidden all the barbarism of mediaeval times, that she puts into
+practice the doctrine of might over right. At the present moment it is
+our duty to ask ourselves if something of the principles which we have
+for so long been attributing to Germany has not passed over to the
+other side, if in our own hearts there is not a bitterness of hatred
+clouding our judgment and robbing our programme of all action that can
+do real good.
+
+Prussia won the war against Austria-Hungary in 1866, and did not ask
+for or impose any really onerous terms. It was contented with having
+regained hegemony among the German people. Prussia conquered France
+in 1870. It was an unjust war, and Prussia laid down two unjust
+conditions: Alsace-Lorraine and the indemnity of five milliards. As
+soon as the indemnity was paid--and it was an indemnity that could be
+paid in one lump sum--Prussia evacuated the occupied territory. It did
+not claim of France its colonies or its fleet, it did not impose the
+reduction of its armaments or control of its transport after the
+peace. The Treaty of Frankfort is a humanitarian act compared with the
+Treaty of Versailles.
+
+If Germany had won the War--Germany to whom we have always attributed
+the worst possible intentions--what could it have done that the
+Entente has not done? It is possible that, as it is gifted with more
+practical common sense, it might have laid down less impossible
+conditions in order to gain a secure advantage without ruining the
+conquered countries.
+
+There are about ninety millions of Germans in Europe, and perhaps
+fifteen millions in different countries outside Europe. But in the
+heart of Europe they represent a great ethnic unity; they are the
+largest and most compact national group in that continent. With all
+the good and bad points of their race, too methodical and at the same
+time easily depressed by a severe setback, they are still the most
+cultivated people on earth. It is impossible to imagine that they can
+disappear, much less that they can reconcile themselves to live in a
+condition of slavery. On the other hand, the Entente has built on a
+foundation of shifting sand a Europe full of small States poisoned
+with imperialism and in ruinous conditions of economy and finance, and
+a too great Poland without a national basis and necessarily the enemy
+of Russia and of Germany.
+
+No people has always been victorious; the peoples who have fought most
+wars in modern Europe, English, French and Germans, have had
+alternate victories and defeats. A defeat often carries in its train
+reconsideration which is followed by renewed energy: the greatness of
+England is largely due to its steadfast determination to destroy the
+Napoleonic Empire. What elevates men is this steadfast and persevering
+effort, and a series of such collective efforts carries a nation to a
+high place.
+
+There is nothing lasting in the existing groupings. At the moment of
+common danger eternal union and unbreakable solidarity are proclaimed;
+but both are mere literary expressions.
+
+Great Britain, the country which has the least need to make war, has
+been at war for centuries with nearly all the European countries.
+There is one country only against which it has never made war, not
+even when a commercial challenge from the mercantile Republics of
+Italy seemed possible. That country is Italy. That shows that between
+the action of Italy there is not, nor can there be, contrast, and
+indeed that between the two nations there is complete agreement in
+European continental policy. It is the common desire of the two
+nations, though perhaps for different reasons, that no one State shall
+have hegemony on the continent. But between the years 1688 and 1815
+Great Britain and France were at war for seventy years: for seventy
+years, that is, out of a hundred and twenty-seven there was a state of
+deadly hostility between the two countries.
+
+General progress, evinced in various ways, above all in respect for
+and in the autonomy of other peoples, is a guarantee for all. No
+peoples are always victorious, none always conquered. In the time of
+Napoleon the First the French derided the lack of righting spirit
+in the German peoples, producers of any number of philosophers
+and writers. They would have laughed at anyone who suggested the
+possibility of any early German military triumph. After 1815 the
+countries of the Holy Alliance would never have believed in the
+possibility of the revolutionary spirit recovering; they were sure of
+lasting peace in Europe. In 1871 the Germans had no doubt at all that
+they had surely smothered France; now the Entente thinks that it has
+surely smothered Germany.
+
+But civilization has gained something: it has gained that collection
+of rules, moral conditions, sentiments, international regulations,
+which tend both to mitigate violence and to regulate in a form which
+is tolerable, if not always just, relations between conquerors and
+conquered, above all, a respect for the liberty and autonomy of the
+latter.
+
+Now, the treaties which have been made are, from the moral point of
+view, immeasurably worse than any consummated in former days, in that
+they carry Europe back to a phase of civilization which was thought
+to be over and done with centuries ago. They are a danger too. For
+as everyone who takes vengeance does so in a degree greater than the
+damage suffered, if one supposes for a moment that the conquered
+of to-day may be the conquerors of to-morrow, to what lengths of
+violence, degradation and barbarism may not Europe be dragged?
+
+Every effort, then, should now be made to follow the opposite road to
+that traversed up to now, the more so in that the treaties cannot be
+carried out; and if it is desired that the conquered countries shall
+pay compensation to the conquerors, at least in part, for the most
+serious damage, then the line to be followed must be based on
+realities instead of on violence.
+
+But before trying to see how and why the treaties cannot be carried
+out, it may be well to consider how the actual system of treaties
+has been reached, in complete opposition to all that was said by the
+Entente during the War and to President Wilson's fourteen points. At
+the same time ought to be examined the causes which led in six months
+from the declarations of the Entente and of President Wilson to the
+Treaty of Versailles.
+
+The most important cause for what has happened was the choice of Paris
+as the meeting-place of the Conference. After the War Paris was the
+least fitted of any place for the holding of a Peace Conference, and
+in the two French leaders, the President of the Republic, Poincaré,
+and the President of the Council of Ministers, Clemenceau, even if the
+latter was more adaptable in mind and more open to consideration of
+arguments on the other side, were two temperaments driving inevitably
+to extremes. Victory had come in a way that surpassed all expectation;
+a people that, living through every day the War had lasted, had passed
+through every sorrow, privation, agony, had now but one thought, to
+destroy the enemy. The atmosphere of Paris was fiery. The decision of
+the peace terms to be imposed on the enemy was to be taken in a city
+which a few months before, one might really say a few weeks before,
+had been under the fire of the long-range guns invented by the
+Germans, in hourly dread of enemy aeroplanes. Even now it is
+inexplicable that President Wilson did not realize the situation
+which must inevitably come about. It is possible that the delirium of
+enthusiasm with which he was received at Paris may have given him the
+idea that it was in him alone that the people trusted, may have made
+him take the welcome given to the representative of the deciding
+factor of the War as the welcome to the principles which he had
+proclaimed to the world. Months later, when he left France amid
+general indifference if not distrust, President Wilson must have
+realized that he had lost, not popularity, but prestige, the one sure
+element of success for the head of a Government, much more so for the
+head of a State. It was inevitable that a Peace Conference held
+in Paris, only a few months after the War, with the direction and
+preparation of the work almost entirely in French hands and with
+Clemenceau at the head of everything, should conclude as it did
+conclude; all the more so when Italy held apart right from the
+beginning, and England, though convinced of the mistakes being made,
+could not act freely and effectively.
+
+The first duty of the Peace Conference was to restore a state of
+equilibrium and re-establish conditions of life. Taking Europe as an
+economic unity, broken by the War, it was necessary first of all and
+in the interests of all to re-establish conditions of life which would
+make it possible for the crisis to be overcome with the least possible
+damage.
+
+I do not propose to tell the story of the Conference, and it is as
+well to say at once that I do not intend to make use of any document
+placed in my hands for official purposes. But the story of the Paris
+Conference can now be told with practical completeness after what
+has been published by J.M. Keynes in his noble book on the Economic
+Consequences of the War and by the American Secretary of State, Robert
+Lansing, and after the statements made in the British and French
+Parliaments by Lloyd George and Clemenceau. But from the political
+point of view the most interesting document is still André Tardieu's
+book _La Paix_, to which Clemenceau wrote a preface and which
+expresses, from the point of view of the French Delegation at the
+Conference, the programme which France laid before itself and what it
+obtained. This book explains how the principal decisions were taken,
+and indeed can be fairly considered to show in a more reliable way
+than any other publication extant how the work of the Conference
+proceeded. For not only was M. Tardieu one of the French Delegates to
+the Conference, one of those who signed the Versailles Treaty, but
+also he prepared the plan of work as well as the solutions of the most
+important questions in his capacity of trusted agent of the Prime
+Minister.
+
+The determination in the mind of President Wilson when he came to
+Paris was to carry through his programme of the League of Nations. He
+was fickle in his infallibility, but he had the firmest faith that he
+was working for the peace of the world and above all for the glory of
+the United States. Of European things he was supremely ignorant. We
+are bound to recognize his good faith, but we are not in the least
+bound on that account to admit his capacity to tackle the problems
+which with his academic simplicity he set himself to solve. When he
+arrived in Europe he had not even prepared in outline a scheme of what
+the League of Nations was to be; the principal problems found him
+unprepared, and the duty of the crowd of experts (sometimes not too
+expert) who followed him seemed rather to be to demonstrate the
+truth of his idea than to prepare material for seriously thought out
+decisions.
+
+He could have made no greater mistake than he did in coming to Europe
+to take part in the meetings of the Conference. His figure lost relief
+at once, in a way it seemed to lose dignity. The head of a State was
+taking part in meetings of heads of Governments, one of the latter
+presiding. It was a giant compelled to live in a cellar and thereby
+sacrificing his height. He was surrounded by formal respect and in
+some decisions he exercised almost despotic authority, but his work
+was none the less disordered; there was a semblance of giving in to
+him while he was giving away his entire programme without being aware
+of it.
+
+In his ignorance of European things he was brought, without
+recognizing it, to accept a series of decisions not superficially in
+opposition to his fourteen points but which did actually nullify them.
+
+Great Britain is part of Europe but is not on the Continent of Europe.
+While Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Russia, Hungary, Holland,
+Belgium, etc., live the same life, are one in thought, Great Britain
+lives in her superb insularity. If she had any moment of supreme
+anxiety during the War, it was in the spring and summer of 1917 during
+the terrible threat of the destruction of her shipping by submarines
+and the inability of construction to keep pace with it. But after
+the defeat of Germany Great Britain found herself with a fleet far
+superior to those of all the rest of Europe put together; once more
+she broke away from Continental Europe.
+
+Lloyd George, with swiftly acting brain and clear insight, undoubtedly
+the most remarkable man at the Paris Conference, found himself in a
+difficult situation between President Wilson's pronouncements, some
+of them, like that regarding the freedom of the seas, undefined and
+dangerous, and the claims of France tending, after the brutal attack
+it had had to meet, not towards a true peace and the reconstruction of
+Europe, but towards the vivisection of Germany. In one of the first
+moments, just before the General Elections, Lloyd George, too,
+promised measures of the greatest severity, the trial of the Kaiser,
+the punishment of all guilty of atrocities, compensation for all who
+had suffered from the War, the widest and most complete indemnity. But
+such pronouncements gave way before his clear realization of facts,
+and later on he tried in vain to put the Conference on the plane of
+such realization.
+
+Italy, as M. Tardieu says very plainly, carried no weight in the
+Conference. In the meetings of the Prime Ministers and President
+Wilson _le ton était celui de la conversation; nul apparat, nulle
+pose. M. Orlando parlait peu; l'activité de l'Italie à la conference
+a été, jusqu'à l'excès, absorbée par la question de Fiume, et sa part
+dans les débats a été de ce fait trop réduite. Restait un dialogue à
+trois: Wilson, Clemenceau, Lloyd George_. The Italian Government came
+into the War in May, 1915, on the basis of the London Agreement of the
+preceding April, and it had never thought of claiming Fiume either
+before the War when it was free to lay down conditions or during the
+progress of the War.
+
+The Italian people had always been kept in ignorance of the principles
+established in the London Agreement. One of the men chiefly
+responsible for the American policy openly complained to me that when
+the United States came into the War no notification was given them of
+the London Agreement in which were defined the future conditions
+of part of Europe. A far worse mistake was made in the failure to
+communicate the London Agreement to Serbia, which would certainly have
+accepted it without hesitation in the terrible position in which it
+then was.
+
+But the most serious thing of all was that Italian Ministers were
+unaware of its provisions till after its publication in London by the
+organ of the Jugo-Slavs, which had evidently received the text from
+Petrograd, where the Bolsheviks had published it. In Italy the London
+Agreement was a mystery to everyone; its text was known only to the
+Presidents of the Council and the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the
+War Cabinets. Thus only four or five people knew about it, secrecy was
+strictly kept, and, moreover, it cannot possibly be said that it was
+in accordance either with national ideals or the currents of public
+opinion, much less with any intelligent conception of Italy's needs
+and Italy's future.
+
+The framers of the London Agreement never thought of Fiume. Indeed
+they specifically expressed their willingness that it should go to
+Croatia, whether in the case of Austria-Hungary remaining united or of
+the detachment of Croatia from it. It is not true that it was through
+the opposition of Russia or of France that the Italian framers of the
+London Agreement gave up all claim to Fiume. There was no opposition
+because there was no claim. The representatives of Russia and France
+have told me officially that no renunciation took place through any
+action on the part of their Governments, because no claim was ever
+made to them. On the other hand, after the armistice, and when it
+became known through the newspapers that the London Agreement gave
+Fiume to Croatia, a very strong movement for Fiume arose, fanned by
+the Government itself, and an equally strong movement in Fiume also.
+
+If, in the London Agreement, instead of claiming large areas of
+Dalmatia which are entirely or almost entirely Slav, provision had
+been made for the constitution of a State of Fiume placed in a
+condition to guarantee not only the people of Italian nationality but
+the economic interests of all the peoples in it and surrounding it,
+there is no doubt that such a claim on the part of Italy would have
+gone through without opposition.
+
+During the Paris Conference the representatives of Italy showed hardly
+any interest at all in the problems concerning the peace of Europe,
+the situation of the conquered peoples, the distribution of raw
+materials, the regulation of the new states and their relations with
+the victor countries. They concentrated all their efforts on the
+question of Fiume, that is to say on the one point in which Italian
+action was fundamentally weak in that, when it was free to enter into
+the War and lay down conditions of peace, at the moment when the
+Entente was without America's invaluable assistance and was beginning
+to doubt the capacity of Russia to carry on, it had never even asked
+for Fiume in its War Treaty, that it had made the inexplicable mistake
+of neglecting to communicate that treaty to the United States when
+that country came into the War and to Serbia at the moment when
+Italy's effort was most valuable for its help. At the conference Italy
+had no directing policy. It had been a part of the system of
+the German Alliance, but it had left its Allies, Germany and
+Austria-Hungary, because it recognized that the War was unjust, and
+had remained neutral for ten months. Then, entering into the War
+freely and without obligation, there was one road for it to follow,
+that of proclaiming solemnly and defending the principles of democracy
+and justice. Indeed, that was a moral duty in that the break with the
+two countries with which Italy had been in alliance for thirty-three
+years became a matter not only of honesty but of duty solely through
+the injustice of the cause for which they had proclaimed an offensive
+war. It was not possible for Italy to go to war to realize the dream
+of uniting the Italian lands to the nation, for she had entered the
+system of Alliance of the Central Empires and had stayed there long
+years while having all the time Italian territories unjustly subjected
+to Austria-Hungary. The annexation of the Italian lands to the
+Kingdom of Italy had to be the consequence of the affirmation of the
+principles of nationality, not the reason for going to war. In any
+case, for Italy, which had laid on itself in the London Agreement
+the most absurd limitations, which had confined its war aims within
+exceedingly modest limits, which had no share in the distribution
+of the wealth of the conquered countries, which came out of the War
+without raw materials and without any share in Germany's colonial
+empire, it was a matter not only of high duty but of the greatest
+utility to proclaim and uphold all those principles which the Entente
+had so often and so publicly proclaimed as its war policy and its war
+aims. But in the Paris Conference Italy hardly counted. Without any
+definite idea of its own policy, it followed France and the United
+States, sometimes it followed Great Britain. There was no affirmation
+of principles at all. The country which, among all the European
+warring Powers, had suffered most severely in proportion to its
+resources and should have made the greatest effort to free itself
+from the burdens imposed on it, took no part in the most important
+decisions. It has to be added that these were arrived at between March
+24 and May 7, while the Italian representatives were absent from Paris
+or had returned there humbled without having been recalled.
+
+After interminable discussions which decided very little, especially
+with regard to the League of Nations which arose before the nations
+were constituted and could live, real vital questions were tackled, as
+is seen from the report of the Conference, on March 24, and it is a
+fact that between that date and May 7 the whole treaty was put in
+shape: territorial questions, financial questions, economic questions,
+colonial questions. Now, at that very moment, on account of the
+question of Fiume and Fiume alone, for some inscrutable reason the
+Italian delegates thought good to retire from the Conference, to which
+they returned later without being invited, and during that time all
+the demonstrations against President Wilson took place in Italy, not
+without some grave responsibility on the part of the government. Italy
+received least consideration in the peace treaties among all the
+conquering countries. It was practically put on one side.
+
+It has to be noted that both in the armistice and in the peace treaty
+the most serious decisions were arrived at almost incidentally;
+moreover they were always vitiated by slight concessions apparently
+of importance. On November 2, 1917, when the representatives of the
+different nations met at Paris to fix the terms of armistice, M.
+Tardieu relates, the question of reparation for damages was decided
+quite incidentally. It is worth while reproducing what he says in his
+book, taken from the official report:
+
+M. CLEMENCEAU: _Je voudrais venir maintenant sur la question des
+réparations et des tonnages. On ne comprenderait pas chez nous, en
+France, que nous n'inscrivions pas dans l'armistice une clause à
+cet effet. Ce que je vous demande c'est l'addition de trois mots:
+"Réparations des dommages" sans autre commentaire.
+
+Le dialogue suivant s'établit_:
+
+M. HYMANS: _Cela serait-il une condition d'armistice_?
+
+M. SONNINO: _C'est plutôt une condition de paix_.
+
+M. BONAR LAW: _Il est inutile d'insérer dans les conditions
+d'armistice une clause qui ne pourrait être exécutée dans un bref
+délai_.
+
+M. CLEMENCEAU: _Je ne veux que mentionner le principe. Vous ne devez
+pas oublier que la population française est une de celles qui ont
+le plus souffert. Elle ne comprendrait pas que nous ne fissions pas
+allusion à cette clause_.
+
+M. LLOYD GEORGE: _Si vous envisages le principe des réparations sur
+terre, il faut mentionner aussi celui des réparations pour les navires
+coulés_.
+
+M. CLEMENCEAU: _Je comprends tout cela dans mes trois mots,
+"Réparations des dommages." Je supplie le Conseil de se mettre dans
+l'esprit de la population française...._
+
+M. VESSITCH: _Et serbe_....
+
+M. HYMANS: _Et belge_....
+
+M. SONNINO: _Et italienne aussi_....
+
+M. HOUSE: _Puisqu'est une question importante pour tous, je propose
+l'addition de M. Clemenceau_.
+
+M. BONAR LAW: _C'est deja dit dans notre lettre au Président Wilson,
+qui la comuniquera à l'Allemagne. Il est inutile de la dire deux
+fois_.
+
+M. ORLANDO: _J'accepte en principe, quoiqu'il n'en ait pas été fait
+mention dans les conditions de l'armistice avec l'Autriche_.
+
+_L'addition "Réparations des dommages" est alors adoptée. M. Klotz
+propose de mettre en tête de cette addition les mots: "Sous réserve
+de toutes revendications et restaurations ultérieures de la part des
+Alliés et des Etats-Unis." Il est ainsi décidé_.
+
+If I were at liberty to publish the official report of the doings of
+the Conference while the various peace treaties were being prepared,
+as MM. Poincaré and Tardieu have published secret acts, it would be
+seen that the proceedings were very much the same in every case.
+Meanwhile we may confine ourselves to an examination of the report as
+given by M. Tardieu.
+
+The question of reparation of damages was not a condition of the
+armistice. It had not been accepted. Clemenceau brings the question up
+again solely in homage to French public opinion. The suggestion is to
+write in simply the three words: _Reparation of damages_. It is true
+that these three words determine a policy, and that there is no
+mention of it in the claims of the Entente, in the fourteen points
+of President Wilson, or in the armistice between Italy and
+Austria-Hungary. In his fourteen points Wilson confined himself, in
+the matter of damages, to the following claims: (1) Reconstruction
+of Belgium, (2) Reconstruction of French territory invaded, (3)
+Reparation for territory invaded in Serbia, Montenegro and Rumania.
+There is no other claim or statement in the fourteen points. On the
+other hand the pronouncement, "_Réparation des dommages_," included,
+as in fact was afterwards included, any claim for damage by land or
+sea.
+
+The representatives of Belgium, Italy and Great Britain remark that it
+is a condition of peace, not of armistice. But Clemenceau makes it
+a question of regard and consideration for France. France would not
+understand there being no mention of it; there was no desire to define
+anything, only just to mention it, and in three simple words. "I ask
+you," says Clemenceau, "to put yourselves into the spirit of the
+people of France." At once the British representative notes the
+necessity of a clear statement regarding reparations for losses at sea
+through submarines and mines; and all, the Serbian, the Belgian and,
+last of all, the Italian, at once call attention to their own damages.
+Mr. House, not realizing the wide and serious nature of the claim,
+says that it is an important question for all, while America had
+already stated, in the words of the President of the Republic, that it
+renounced all indemnity of any nature whatsoever.
+
+So was established, quite incidentally, the principle of indemnity for
+damages which gave the treaty a complete turn away from the spirit
+of the pronouncements by the Entente and the United States. Equally
+incidentally were established all the declarations in the treaty, the
+purpose of which is not easy to understand except in so far as it is
+seen in the economic results which may accrue.
+
+Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles states that the allied and
+associated governments affirm, and Germany accepts, the responsibility
+of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which
+the allied and associated governments and their peoples have been
+subjected as a consequence of the War imposed on them by the
+aggression of Germany and her allies.
+
+Article 177 of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye states in the
+same way that the allied and associated governments affirm, and
+Austria-Hungary accepts, the responsibility of Austria and her allies,
+etc.
+
+This article is common to all the treaties, and it would have no more
+than historic and philosophic interest if it were not followed by
+another article in which the allied and associated governments
+recognize that the resources of Germany (and of Austria-Hungary, etc.)
+are not adequate, after taking into account permanent diminutions of
+such resources which will result from other provisions of the present
+treaty, to make complete reparation for all such loss and damage.
+The allied and associated governments, however, require, and Germany
+undertakes, that she will make compensation for all damage done to the
+civilian population of the allied and associated powers and to their
+property during the period of the belligerency of each as an allied or
+associated power against Germany by such aggression by land, by sea
+and from the air, and in general all damage as defined in the treaty,
+comprising many of the burdens of war (war pensions and compensations
+to soldiers and their families, cost of assistance to families of
+those mobilized during the War, etc.).
+
+There is nothing more useless, indeed more stupid, than to take your
+enemy by the throat after you have beaten him and force him to declare
+that all the wrong was on his side. The declaration is of no use
+whatever, either to the conqueror, because no importance can be
+attributed to an admission extorted by force; or to the conquered,
+because he knows that there is no moral significance in being forced
+to state what one does not believe; or for third parties, because they
+are well aware of the circumstances under which the declaration was
+made. It is possible that President Wilson wanted to establish a moral
+reason--I do not like to say a moral alibi--for accepting, as he was
+constrained by necessity to accept, all those conditions which were
+the negation of what he had solemnly laid down, the moral pledge of
+his people, of the American democracy.
+
+Germany and the conquered countries have accepted the conditions
+imposed on them with the reserve that they feel that they are not
+bound by them, even morally, in the future. The future will pour
+ridicule on this new form of treaty which endeavours to justify
+excessive and absurd demands, which will have the effect of destroying
+the enemy rather than of obtaining any sure benefit, by using a forced
+declaration which has no value at all.
+
+I have always detested German imperialism, and also the phases of
+exaggerated nationalism which have grown up in every country after the
+War and have been eliminated one after the other through the simple
+fact of their being common to all countries, but only after having
+brought the greatest possible harm to all the peoples, and I cannot
+say that Germany and her allies were solely responsible for the War
+which devastated Europe and threw a dark shadow over the life of the
+whole world. That statement, which we all made during the War, was a
+weapon to be used at the time; now that the War is over, it cannot be
+looked on as a serious argument.
+
+An honest and thorough examination of all the diplomatic documents,
+all the agreements and relations of pre-war days, compels me to
+declare solemnly that the responsibility for the War does not lie
+solely on the defeated countries; that Germany may have desired
+war and prepared for it under the influence of powerful industrial
+interests, metallurgic, for instance, responsible for the extreme
+views of newspapers and other publications, but still all the warring
+countries have their share of responsibility in differing degree. It
+cannot be said that there existed in Europe two groups with a moral
+conception differing to the point of complete contrast; on one side,
+Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria, responsible for the
+War, which they imposed by their aggression; on the other, all the
+free and independent nations. By the side of England, France, Italy
+and the United States there was Russia, which must bear, if not the
+greatest, a very great responsibility for what happened. Nor is it
+true that armament expenses in the ten years preceding the War were
+greater in the Central Empires, or, to put it better, in the States
+forming the Triple Alliance, than in the countries which later formed
+the European Entente.
+
+It is not true that only in the case of Germany were the war aims
+imperialist, and that the Entente countries came in without desire of
+conquest. Putting aside for the moment what one sees in the treaties
+which have followed the War, it is worth while considering what would
+have happened if Russia had won the War instead of being torn to
+pieces before victory came. Russia would have had all the Poland of
+the eighteenth century (with the apparent autonomy promised by the
+Tsar), nearly all Turkey in Europe, Constantinople, and a great part
+of Asia Minor. Russia, with already the greatest existing land empire
+and at least half the population not Russian, would have gained
+fresh territories with fresh non-Russian populations, putting the
+Mediterranean peoples, and above all Italy, in a very difficult
+situation indeed.
+
+It cannot be said that in the ten years preceding the War Russia did
+not do as much as Germany to bring unrest into Europe. It was on
+account of Russia that the Serbian Government was a perpetual cause
+of disturbance, a perpetual threat to Austria-Hungary. The unending
+strife in the Balkans was caused by Russia in no less degree than
+by Austria-Hungary, and all the great European nations shared, with
+opposing views, in the policy of Eastern expansion.
+
+The judgment of peoples and of events, given the uncertainty of policy
+as expressed in parliament and newspapers, is variable to the last
+degree. It will be enough to recall the varying judgment upon Serbia
+during the last ten years in the Press of Great Britain, France and
+Italy: the people of Serbia have been described as criminals and
+heroes, assassins and martyrs. No one would have anything to do with
+Serbia; later Serbia was raised to the skies.
+
+The documents published by Kautsky in Germany and those revealed from
+time to time by the Moscow Government prove that the preparation for
+and conviction of war was not only on the part of the Central Empires,
+but also, and in no less degree, on the part of the other States. One
+point will always remain inexplicable: why Russia should have taken
+the superlatively serious step of general mobilization, which could
+not be and was not a simple measure of precaution. It is beyond doubt
+that the Russian mobilization preceded even that of Austria. After
+a close examination of events, after the bitter feeling of war had
+passed, in his speech of December 23, 1920, Lloyd George said justly
+that the War broke out without any Government having really desired
+it; all, in one way or another, slithered into it, stumbling and
+tripping.
+
+There were three Monarchies in Europe, the Russian, German, and
+Austro-Hungarian Empires, and the fact that they were divided into
+two groups necessarily led to war. It was inevitable sooner or later.
+Russia was the greatest danger, the greatest threat to Europe; what
+happened had to happen under one form or another. The crazy giant was
+under the charge of one man without intelligence and a band of men,
+the men of the old regime, largely without scruples.
+
+Each country of Europe has its share of responsibility, Italy not
+excluded. It is difficult to explain why Italy went to Tripoli in the
+way in which she did in 1911, bringing about the Italo-Turkish war,
+which brought about the two Balkan wars and the policy of adventure of
+Serbia, which was the incident though not the cause of the European
+War.
+
+The Libyan adventure, considered now in the serene light of reason,
+cannot be looked on as anything but an aberration. Libya is an immense
+box of sand which never had any value, nor has it now. Tripolitania,
+Cyrenaica and Fezzan cover more than one million one hundred
+thousand square kilometres and have less than nine hundred thousand
+inhabitants, of whom even now, after ten years, less than a third are
+under the effective control of Italy. With the war and expenses of
+occupation, Libya has cost Italy about seven milliard lire, and for a
+long time yet it will be on the debit side in the life of the nation.
+With the same number of milliards, most of which were spent before the
+European War, Italy could have put in order and utilized her immense
+patrimony of water-power and to-day would be free from anxiety about
+the coal problem by which it is actually enslaved. The true policy
+of the nation was to gain economic independence, not a barren waste.
+Ignorant people spoke of Libya in Italy as a promised land; in one
+official speech the King was even made to say that Libya could absorb
+part of Italian emigration. That was just a phenomenon of madness,
+for Libya has no value at all from the agricultural, commercial or
+military point of view. It may pay its way one day, but only if all
+expenses are cut down and the administrative system is completely
+changed. It may be that, if only from a feeling of duty towards the
+inhabitants, Italy cannot abandon Libya now that she has taken it, but
+the question will always be asked why she did take it, why she took
+it by violence when a series of concessions could have been obtained
+without difficulty from the Turkish Government.
+
+The Libyan enterprise, undertaken on an impulse, against the opinion
+of Italy's allies, Austria and Germany, against the wish of England
+and France, is a very serious political responsibility for Italy.
+
+The European War was the consequence of a long series of movements,
+aspirations, agitations. It cannot be denied, and it is recognized by
+clear-thinking men like Lloyd George, that France and England too
+have by their actions taken on themselves their part in the serious
+responsibility. To say that in the past they had never thought of
+war is to say a thing not true. And there is no doubt that all the
+diplomatic documents published before and during the War show in
+Russia, above all, a situation which inevitably would soon lead to
+war. In the Balkans, especially in Serbia, Russia was pursuing a
+cynical and shameless policy of corruption, nourishing and exciting
+every ferment of revolt against Austria-Hungary. Russian policy in
+Serbia was really criminal. Everyone in Germany was convinced that
+Russia was preparing for war. The Tsar's pacificist ideas were of no
+importance whatever. In absolute monarchies it is an illusion to think
+that the sovereign, though apparently an autocrat, acts in accordance
+with his own views. His views are almost invariably those of the
+people round him; he does not even receive news in its true form, but
+in the form given it by officials. Russia was an unwieldy giant who
+had shown signs of madness long before the actual revolution. It
+is impossible that a collective madness such as that which has had
+possession of Russia for three years could be produced on the spur of
+the moment; the regime of autocracy contained in itself the germs
+of Bolshevism and violence. Bolshevism cannot properly be judged by
+Western notions; it is not a revolutionary movement of the people; it
+is, as I have said before, the religious fanaticism of the Eastern
+Orthodox rising from the dead body of Tsarist despotism. Bolshevism,
+centralizing and bureaucratic, follows the same lines as the imperial
+policy of almost every Tsar.
+
+Undoubtedly the greatest responsibility for the War lies on Germany.
+If it has not to bear all the responsibility, as the treaties claim,
+it has to bear the largest share; and the responsibility lies, rather
+than on the shoulders of the Emperor and the quite ordinary men
+who surrounded him, on those of the military caste and some great
+industrial groups. The crazy writings of General von Bernhardi and
+other scandalous publications of the same sort expressed, more than
+just theoretical views, the real hopes and tendencies of the whole
+military caste. It is true enough that there existed in Germany a real
+democratic society under the control of the civil government, but
+there was the military caste too, with privileges in social life and a
+special position in the life of the State. This caste was educated in
+the conception of violence as the means of power and grandeur. When a
+country has allowed the military and social theories of General von
+Bernhardi and the senselessly criminal pronouncements of the Emperor
+William II to prevail for so many years, it has put the most
+formidable weapons possible into the hands of its enemies. The people
+who governed Germany for so long have no right to complain now of the
+conditions in which their country is placed. But the great German
+people, hardworking and persevering, has full right to look on such
+conditions as the negation of justice. The head of a European State, a
+man of the clearest view and calmest judgment, speaking to me of the
+Emperor William, of whose character and intellect he thought very
+little, expressed the view that the Emperor did not want war, but that
+he would not avoid it when he had the chance.
+
+The truth is that Germany troubled itself very little about France.
+Kinderlen Wächter, the most intelligent of the German Foreign
+Ministers, and perhaps the one most opposed to the War, when he
+outlined to me the situation as it was ten years ago, showed no
+anxiety at all except in regard to Russia. Russia might make war, and
+it was necessary to be ready or to see that it came about at a moment
+when victory was certain if conditions did not change. Germany had no
+reason at all for making war on France from the time that it had got
+well ahead of that country in industry, commerce and navigation. It
+is true that there were a certain number of unbalanced people in the
+metal industry who talked complacently of French iron and stirred up
+the yellow press, just as in France to-day there are many industrials
+with their eyes fixed on German coal which they want to seize as far
+as possible. But the intellectuals, the politicians, even military
+circles, had no anxiety at all except with regard to Russia.
+
+There were mistaken views in German policy, no doubt, but at the same
+time there was real anxiety about her national existence. With a huge
+population and limited resources, with few colonies, owing to her
+late arrival in the competition for them, Germany looked on the
+never-ceasing desire of Russia for Constantinople as the ruin of her
+policy of expansion in the East.
+
+And in actual fact there was but one way by which the three great
+Empires, which in population and extension of territory dominated
+the greater part of Europe, could avoid war, and that was to join in
+alliance among themselves or at least not to enter other alliances.
+The three great Empires divided themselves into two allied groups.
+From that moment, given the fact that in each of them the military
+caste held power, that the principal decisions lay in the hands of a
+few men not responsible to parliament; given the fact that Russia,
+faithful to her traditional policy, aimed to draw into her political
+orbit all the Slav peoples right down to the Adriatic and the Aegean
+and Austria, was leaning toward the creation of a third Slav monarchy
+in the dual kingdom, it was inevitable that sooner or later the
+violence, intrigue and corruption with which we are familiar should
+culminate in open conflict. Bismarck always saw that putting Russia
+and Germany up against each other meant war.
+
+Peoples, like individuals, are far from representing with anything
+approaching completeness such social conceptions as we call violence
+and right, honesty and bad faith, justice and injustice; each people
+has its different characteristics, but no one people represents good,
+or another bad, no one represents brutality, or another civilization.
+All these meaningless phrases were brought out during the War,
+according to which, as was said by one of the Prime Ministers of the
+Entente, the War was the decisive struggle between the forces of
+autocracy and liberty, between the dark powers of evil and violence
+and the radiant powers of good and right. To-day all this causes
+nothing but a smile. Such things are just speechifying, and banal at
+that. Perhaps they were a necessity of War-time which might well be
+made use of; when you are fighting for your very life you use every
+means you have; when you are in imminent danger you do not choose your
+weapons, you use everything to hand. All the War propaganda against
+the German Empires, recounting, sometimes exaggerating, all the crimes
+of the enemy, claiming that all the guilt was on the side of Germany,
+describing German atrocities as a habit, almost a characteristic of
+the German people, deriding German culture as a species of liquid
+in which were bred the microbes of moral madness--all this was
+legitimate, perhaps necessary, during the War. The reply to the
+asphyxiating gas of the enemy was not only the same gas, but a
+propaganda calculated to do more damage, and which, in fact, did do as
+much damage as tanks and blockade.
+
+But, when war is over, nothing should be put into a peace treaty
+except such things as will lead to a lasting peace, or the most
+lasting peace compatible with our degree of civilization.
+
+On January 22, 1917, President Wilson explained the reasons why he
+made the proposal to put an end to the War; he said in the American
+Senate that the greatest danger lay in a peace imposed by conquerors
+after victory. At that time it was said that there must be neither
+conquerors nor conquered. A peace imposed after victory would be the
+cause of so much humiliation and such intolerable sacrifices for the
+conquered side, it would be so severe, it would give rise to so much
+bitter feeling that it would not be a lasting peace, but one founded
+on shifting sand.
+
+In the spring of 1919, just before the most serious decisions were to
+be taken, Lloyd George put before the conference a memorandum entitled
+"_Some considerations for the Peace Conference before they finally
+draft their terms_."
+
+With his marvellously quick insight, after having listened to the
+speeches of which force was the leading motive (the tendency round him
+was not to establish a lasting peace but to vivisect Germany), Lloyd
+George saw that it was not a true peace that was being prepared.
+
+On March 25, 1919, Lloyd George presented the following memorandum to
+the conference:
+
+I
+
+When nations are exhausted by wars in which they have put forth all
+their strength and which leave them tired, bleeding and broken, it is
+not difficult to patch up a peace that may last until the generation
+which experienced the horrors of the war has passed away. Pictures
+of heroism and triumph only tempt those who know nothing of the
+sufferings and terrors of war. It is therefore comparatively easy to
+patch up a peace which will last for thirty years.
+
+What is difficult, however, is to draw up a peace which will not
+provoke a fresh struggle when those who have had practical experience
+of what war means have passed away. History has proved that a
+peace which has been hailed by a victorious nation as a triumph of
+diplomatic skill and statesmanship, even of moderation, in the long
+run has proved itself to be short-sighted and charged with danger to
+the victor. The peace of 1871 was believed by Germany to ensure not
+only her security but her permanent supremacy. The facts have shown
+exactly the contrary. France itself has demonstrated that those who
+say you can make Germany so feeble that she will never be able to hit
+back are utterly wrong. Year by year France became numerically weaker
+in comparison with her victorious neighbour, but in reality she became
+ever more powerful. She kept watch on Europe; she made alliance with
+those whom Germany had wronged or menaced; she never ceased to warn
+the world of its danger, and ultimately she was able to secure the
+overthrow of the far mightier power which had trampled so brutally
+upon her. You may strip Germany of her colonies, reduce her armaments
+to a mere police force and her navy to that of a fifth-rate power; all
+the same, in the end, if she feels that she has been unjustly treated
+in the peace of 1919, she will find means of exacting retribution from
+her conquerors. The impression, the deep impression, made upon the
+human heart by four years of unexampled slaughter will disappear with
+the hearts upon which it has been marked by the terrible sword of the
+Great War. The maintenance of peace will then depend upon there
+being no causes of exasperation constantly stirring up the spirit of
+patriotism, of justice or of fair play to achieve redress. Our terms
+may be severe, they may be stern and even ruthless, but at the same
+time they can be so just that the country on which they are imposed
+will feel in its heart that it has no right to complain. But
+injustice, arrogance, displayed in the hour of triumph, will never be
+forgotten nor forgiven.
+
+For these reasons I am, therefore, strongly averse to transferring
+more Germans from German rule to the rule of some other nation than
+can possibly be helped. I cannot conceive any greater cause of future
+war than that the German people, who have certainly proved themselves
+one of the most vigorous and powerful races in the world, should be
+surrounded by a number of small states, many of them consisting of
+people who have never previously set up a stable government for
+themselves, but each of them containing large masses of Germans
+clamouring for reunion with their native land. The proposal of the
+Polish Commission that we should place 2,100,000 Germans under the
+control of a people of a different religion and which has never proved
+its capacity for stable self-government throughout its history, must,
+in my judgment, lead sooner or later to a new war in the East of
+Europe. What I have said about the Germans is equally true about the
+Magyars. There will never be peace in South-Eastern Europe if every
+little state now coming into being is to have a large Magyar Irredenta
+within its borders.
+
+I would therefore take as a guiding principle of the peace that as
+far as is humanly possible the different races should be allocated
+to their motherlands, and that this human criterion should have
+precedence over considerations of strategy or economics or
+communications, which can usually be adjusted by other means.
+
+Secondly, I would say that the duration for the payments of reparation
+ought to disappear if possible with the generation which made the war.
+
+But there is a consideration in favour of a long-sighted peace which
+influences me even more than the desire to leave no causes justifying
+a fresh outbreak thirty years hence. There is one element in the
+present condition of nations which differentiates it from the
+situation as it was in 1815. In the Napoleonic Wars the countries were
+equally exhausted, but the revolutionary spirit had spent its force
+in the country of its birth, and Germany had satisfied the legitimate
+popular demands for the time being by a series of economic changes
+which were inspired by courage, foresight and high statesmanship. Even
+in Russia the Tsar had effected great reforms which were probably
+at that time even too advanced for the half-savage population. The
+situation is very different now. The revolution is still in its
+infancy. The extreme figures of the Terror are still in command in
+Russia. The whole of Europe is filled with the spirit of revolution.
+There is a deep sense not only of discontent, but of anger and revolt
+among the workmen against pre-war conditions. The whole existing
+order, in its political, social and economic aspects is questioned by
+the masses of the population from one end of Europe to the other. In
+some countries, like Germany and Russia, the unrest takes the form of
+open rebellion, in others, like France, Great Britain and Italy, it
+takes the shape of strikes and of general disinclination to settle
+down to work, symptoms which are just as much concerned with the
+desire for political and social change as with wage demands.
+
+Much of this unrest is healthy. We shall never make a lasting peace by
+attempting to restore the conditions of 1914. But there is a danger
+that we may throw the masses of the population throughout Europe into
+the arms of the extremists, whose only idea for regenerating mankind
+is to destroy utterly the whole existing fabric of society. These
+men have triumphed in Russia. They have done so at a terrible price.
+Hundreds and thousands of the population have perished. The railways,
+the roads, the towns, the whole structural organization of Russia has
+been almost destroyed, but somehow or other they seem to have managed
+to keep their hold upon the masses of the Russian people, and what is
+much more significant, they have succeeded in creating a large army
+which is apparently well directed and well disciplined, and is, as to
+a great part of it, prepared to die for its ideals. In another year
+Russia, inspired by a new enthusiasm, may have recovered from her
+passion for peace and have at her command the only army eager to
+fight, because it is the only army that believes that it has any cause
+to fight for.
+
+The greatest danger that I see in the present situation is that
+Germany may throw in her lot with Bolshevism and place her resources,
+her brains, her vast organizing power at the disposal of the
+revolutionary fanatics whose dream it is to conquer the world for
+Bolshevism by force of arms. This danger is no mere chimera. The
+present government in Germany is weak; its authority is challenged; it
+lingers merely because there is no alternative but the Spartacists,
+and Germany is not ready for Spartacism, as yet. But the argument
+which the Spartacists are using with great effect at this very time is
+that they alone can save Germany from the intolerable conditions which
+have been bequeathed her by the War. They offer to free the German
+people from indebtedness to the Allies and indebtedness to their own
+richer classes. They offer them complete control of their own affairs
+and the prospect of a new heaven and earth. It is true that the price
+will be heavy. There will be two or three years of anarchy, perhaps
+of bloodshed, but at the end the land will remain, the people will
+remain, the greater part of the houses and the factories will remain,
+and the railways and the roads will remain, and Germany, having thrown
+off her burdens, will be able to make a fresh start.
+
+If Germany goes over to the Spartacists it is inevitable that she
+should throw in her lot with the Russian Bolshevists. Once that
+happens all Eastern Europe will be swept into the orbit of the
+Bolshevik revolution, and within a year we may witness the spectacle
+of nearly three hundred million people organized into a vast red army
+under German instructors and German generals, equipped with German
+cannon and German machine guns and prepared for a renewal of the
+attack on Western Europe. This is a prospect which no one can face
+with equanimity. Yet the news which came from Hungary yesterday shows
+only too clearly that this danger is no fantasy. And what are the
+reasons alleged for this decision? They are mainly the belief that
+large numbers of Magyars are to be handed over to the control of
+others. If we are wise, we shall offer to Germany a peace, which,
+while just, will be preferable for all sensible men to the alternative
+of Bolshevism. I would therefore put it in the forefront of the peace
+that once she accepts our terms, especially reparation, we will open
+to her the raw materials and markets of the world on equal terms with
+ourselves, and will do everything possible to enable the German people
+to get upon their legs again. We cannot both cripple her and expect
+her to pay.
+
+Finally, we must offer terms which a responsible government in Germany
+can expect to be able to carry out. If we present terms to Germany
+which are unjust, or excessively onerous, no responsible government
+will sign them; certainly the present weak administration will not.
+If it did, I am told that it would be swept away within twenty-four
+hours. Yet if we can find nobody in Germany who will put his hand to
+a peace treaty, what will be the position? A large army of occupation
+for an indefinite period is out of the question. Germany would not
+mind it. A very large number of people in that country would welcome
+it, as it would be the only hope of preserving the existing order of
+things. The objection would not come from Germany, but from our own
+countries. Neither the British Empire nor America would agree to
+occupy Germany. France by itself could not bear the burden of
+occupation. We should therefore be driven back on the policy of
+blockading the country. That would inevitably mean Spartacism from the
+Urals to the Rhine, with its inevitable consequence of a huge red army
+attempting to cross the Rhine. As a matter of fact, I am doubtful
+whether public opinion would allow us deliberately to starve Germany.
+If the only difference between Germany and ourselves were between
+onerous terms and moderate terms, I very much doubt if public opinion
+would tolerate the deliberate condemnation of millions of women and
+children to death by starvation. If so, the Allies would have incurred
+the moral defeat of having attempted to impose terms on Germany which
+Germany had successfully resisted.
+
+From every point of view, therefore, it seems to me that we ought
+to endeavour to draw up a peace settlement as if we were impartial
+arbiters, forgetful of the passions of the war. This settlement ought
+to have three ends in view.
+
+First of all it must do justice to the Allies, by taking into account
+Germany's responsibility for the origin of the War, and for the way in
+which it was fought.
+
+Secondly, it must be a settlement which a responsible German
+government can sign in the belief that it can fulfil the obligations
+it incurs.
+
+Thirdly, it must be a settlement which will contain in itself no
+provocations for future wars, and which will constitute an alternative
+to Bolshevism, because it will commend itself to all reasonable
+opinion as a fair settlement of the European problem.
+
+
+II
+
+It is not, however, enough to draw up a just and far-sighted peace
+with Germany. If we are to offer Europe an alternative to Bolshevism
+we must make the League of Nations into something which will be both
+a safeguard to those nations who are prepared for fair dealing with
+their neighbours and a menace to those who would trespass on the
+rights of their neighbours, whether they are imperialist empires or
+imperialist Bolshevists. An essential element, therefore, in the
+peace settlement is the constitution of the League of Nations as the
+effective guardian of international right and international liberty
+throughout the world. If this is to happen the first thing to do is
+that the leading members of the League of Nations should arrive at an
+understanding between themselves in regard to armaments. To my mind
+it is idle to endeavour to impose a permanent limitation of armaments
+upon Germany unless we are prepared similarly to impose a limitation
+upon ourselves. I recognize that until Germany has settled down
+and given practical proof that she has abandoned her imperialist
+ambitions, and until Russia has also given proof that she does not
+intend to embark upon a military crusade against her neighbours, it
+is essential that the leading members of the League of Nations should
+maintain considerable forces both by land and sea in order to preserve
+liberty in the world. But if they are to present a united front to the
+forces both of reaction and revolution, they must arrive at such an
+agreement in regard to armaments among themselves as would make it
+impossible for suspicion to arise between the members of the League
+of Nations in regard to their intentions towards one another. If the
+League is to do its work for the world it will only be because the
+members of the League trust it themselves and because there are no
+rivalries and jealousies in the matter of armaments between them. The
+first condition of success for the League of Nations is, therefore, a
+firm understanding between the British Empire and the United States
+of America and France and Italy, that there will be no competitive
+building up of fleets or armies between them. Unless this is arrived
+at before the Covenant is signed the League of Nations will be a sham
+and a mockery. It will be regarded, and rightly regarded, as a proof
+that its principal promoters and patrons repose no confidence in its
+efficacy. But once the leading members of the League have made it
+clear that they have reached an understanding which will both secure
+to the League of Nations the strength which is necessary to enable
+it to protect its members and which at the same time will make
+misunderstanding and suspicion with regard to competitive armaments
+impossible between them its future and its authority will be assured.
+It will then be able to ensure as an essential condition of peace that
+not only Germany, but all the smaller States of Europe, undertake to
+limit their armaments and abolish conscription. If the small nations
+are permitted to organize and maintain conscript armies running each
+to hundreds of thousands, boundary wars will be inevitable, and all
+Europe will be drawn in. Unless we secure this universal limitation we
+shall achieve neither lasting peace nor the permanent observance of
+the limitation of German armaments which we now seek to impose.
+
+I should like to ask why Germany, if she accepts the terms we consider
+just and fair, should not be admitted to the League of Nations, at
+any rate as soon as she has established a stable and democratic
+government? Would it not be an inducement to her both to sign the
+terms and to resist Bolshevism? Might it not be safer that she should
+be inside the League than that she should be outside it?
+
+Finally, I believe that until the authority and effectiveness of the
+League of Nations has been demonstrated, the British Empire and the
+United States ought to give France a guarantee against the possibility
+of a new German aggression. France has special reason for asking for
+such a guarantee. She has twice been attacked and twice invaded by
+Germany in half a century. She has been so attacked because she has
+been the principal guardian of liberal and democratic civilization
+against Central European autocracy on the continent of Europe. It is
+right that the other great Western democracies should enter into an
+undertaking which will ensure that they stand by her side in time to
+protect her against invasion should Germany ever threaten her again,
+or until the League of Nations has proved its capacity to preserve the
+peace and liberty of the world.
+
+III
+
+If, however, the Peace Conference is really to secure peace and prove
+to the world a complete plan of settlement which all reasonable men
+will recognize as an alternative preferable to anarchy, it must deal
+with the Russian situation. Bolshevik imperialism does not merely
+menace the States on Russia's borders. It threatens the whole of Asia,
+and is as near to America as it is to France. It is idle to think that
+the Peace Conference can separate, however sound a peace it may have
+arranged with Germany, if it leaves Russia as it is to-day. I do not
+propose, however, to complicate the question of the peace with Germany
+by introducing a discussion of the Russian problem. I mention it
+simply in order to remind ourselves of the importance of dealing with
+it as soon as possible.
+
+The memorandum is followed by some proposals entitled "General Lines
+of the Peace Conditions," which would tend to make the peace less
+severe. It is hardly worth while reproducing them. As in many points
+the decisions taken were in the opposite sense it is better not to go
+beyond the general considerations.
+
+Mr. Lloyd George's memorandum is a secret document. But as the English
+and American Press have already printed long passages from it, it
+is practically possible to give it in its entirety without adding
+anything to what has already been printed.
+
+M. Tardieu has published M. Clemenceau's reply, drawn up by M. Tardieu
+himself and representing the French point of view:
+
+I
+
+The French Government is in complete agreement with the general
+purpose of Mr. Lloyd George's Note: to make a lasting peace, and for
+that reason a just peace.
+
+But, on the other hand, it does not think that this principle, which
+is its own, really leads to the conclusions arrived at in the Note in
+question.
+
+II
+
+The Note suggests that the territorial conditions laid down for
+Germany in Europe shall be moderate in order that she may not feel
+deeply embittered after peace.
+
+The method would be sound if the recent War had been nothing but a
+European war for Germany; but that is not the case.
+
+Previous to the War Germany was a great world Power whose _future
+was on the sea_. This was the power of which she was so inordinately
+proud. For the loss of this world power she will never be consoled.
+
+The Allies have taken from her--or are going to take from her--without
+being deterred by fear of her resentment, all her colonies, all her
+ships of war, a great part of her commercial fleet (as reparations),
+the foreign markets which she controlled.
+
+That is the worst blow that could be inflicted on her, and it is
+suggested that she can be pacified by some improvements in territorial
+conditions. That is a pure illusion. The remedy is not big enough for
+the thing it is to cure.
+
+If there is any desire, for general reasons, to give Germany some
+satisfaction, it must not be sought in Europe. Such help will be vain
+as long as Germany has lost her world policy.
+
+To pacify her (if there is any interest in so doing) she must have
+satisfaction given her in colonies, in ships, in commercial expansion.
+The Note of March 26 thinks of nothing but satisfaction in European
+territory.
+
+III
+
+Mr. Lloyd George fears that unduly severe territorial conditions
+imposed on Germany will play into the hands of Bolshevism. Is there
+not cause for fear, on the other hand, that the method he suggests
+will have that very result?
+
+The Conference has decided to call into being a certain number of new
+States. Is it possible without being unjust to them to impose on them
+inacceptable frontiers towards Germany? If these people--Poland and
+Bohemia above all--have resisted Bolshevism up to now it is through
+national sentiment. If this sentiment is violated Bolshevism will find
+an easy prey in them, and the only existing barrier between Russian
+and German Bolshevism will be broken.
+
+The result will be either a Confederation of Eastern and Central
+Europe under the direction of a Bolshevik Germany or the enslavery of
+those countries to a Germany become reactionary again, thanks to the
+general anarchy. In either case the Allies will have lost the War.
+
+The policy of the French Government, on the other hand, is to give
+the fullest aid to those young peoples with the support of everything
+liberal in Europe, and not to try to introduce at their expense
+abatements--which in any case would be useless--of the colonial, naval
+and commercial disaster which the peace imposes on Germany.
+
+If it is necessary, in giving these young peoples frontiers without
+which they cannot live, to transfer under their sovereignty some
+Germans, sons of the men who enslaved them, we may regret the
+necessity, and we should do it with moderation, but it cannot be
+avoided.
+
+Further, when all the German colonies are taken from her entirely and
+definitely, because she ill-treated the natives, what right is there
+to refuse normal frontiers to Poland and Bohemia because Germans
+installed themselves in those countries as precursors of the tyrant
+Pan-Germanism?
+
+IV
+
+The Note of March 26 insists on the necessity of a peace which will
+appear to Germany as a just peace, and the French Government agrees.
+
+It may be observed, however, that, given the German mentality, their
+conception of justice may not be the same as that of the Allies.
+
+And, also, surely the Allies as well as Germany, even before Germany,
+should feel this impression of justice. The Allies who fought together
+should conclude the War with a peace equal for all.
+
+Now, following the method suggested in the Note of March 26, what will
+be the result?
+
+A certain number of total and definite guarantees will be given to
+maritime nations whose countries were not invaded.
+
+Total and definite, the surrender of the German colonies.
+
+Total and definite, the surrender of the German war fleet.
+
+Total and definite, the surrender of a large part of the German
+commercial fleet.
+
+Total and lasting, if not definite, the exclusion of Germany from
+foreign markets.
+
+For the Continental countries, on the other hand--that is to say, for
+the countries which have suffered most from the War--would be reserved
+partial and transitory solutions:
+
+Partial solution, the modified frontiers suggested for Poland and
+Bohemia.
+
+Transitory solution, the defensive pledge offered France for the
+protection of her territory.
+
+Transitory solution, the regime proposed for the Saar coal.
+
+There is an evident inequality which might have a bad influence on
+the after-war relations among the Allies, more important than the
+after-war relations of Germany with them.
+
+It has been shown in Paragraph I that it would be an illusion to hope
+that territorial satisfaction offered to Germany would compensate
+her sufficiently for the world disaster she has suffered. And it may
+surely be added that it would be an injustice to lay the burden of
+such compensation on the shoulders of those countries among the Allies
+which have had to bear the heaviest burden of the War.
+
+After the burdens of the War, these countries cannot bear the burdens
+of the peace. It is essential that they should feel that the peace is
+just and equal for all.
+
+And unless that be assured it is not only in Central Europe that there
+will be fear of Bolshevism, for nowhere does it propagate so easily,
+as has been seen, as amid national disillusionment.
+
+V
+
+The French Government desires to limit itself for the moment to these
+observations of a general character. It pays full homage to the
+intentions which inspired Mr. Lloyd George's memorandum. But it
+considers that the inductions that can be drawn from the present Note
+are in consonance with justice and the general interests.
+
+And those are the considerations by which the French Government will
+be inspired in the coming exchange of ideas for the discussion of
+conditions suggested by the Prime Minister of Great Britain.
+
+These two documents are of more than usual interest.
+
+The British Prime Minister, with his remarkable insight, at once notes
+the seriousness of the situation. He sees the danger to the peace
+of the world in German depression. Germany oppressed does not mean
+Germany subjected. Every year France becomes numerically weaker,
+Germany stronger. The horrors of war will be forgotten and the
+maintenance of peace will depend on the creation of a situation which
+makes life possible, does not cause exasperation to come into public
+feeling or into the just claims of Germans desirous of independence.
+Injustice in the hour of triumph will never be pardoned, can never be
+atoned.
+
+So the idea of handing over to other States numbers of Germans is not
+only an injustice, but a cause of future wars, and what can be said
+of Germans is also true of Magyars. No cause of future wars must be
+allowed to remain. Putting millions of Germans under Polish rule--that
+is, under an inferior people which has never shown any capacity for
+stable self-government--must lead to a new war sooner or later. If
+Germany in exasperation became a country of revolution, what would
+happen to Europe? You can impose severe conditions, but that does not
+mean that you can enforce them; the conditions to be imposed must be
+such that a responsible German Government can in good faith assume the
+obligation of carrying them out.
+
+Neither Great Britain nor the United States of America can assume
+the obligation of occupying Germany if it does not carry out the
+excessively severe conditions which it is desired to impose. Can
+France occupy Germany alone?
+
+From that moment Lloyd George saw the necessity of admitting Germany
+into the League of Nations _at once_, and proposed a scheme of treaty
+containing conditions which, while very severe, were in part tolerable
+for the German people.
+
+Clemenceau's reply, issued a few days later, contains the French point
+of view, and has an ironical note when it touches on the weak points
+in Lloyd George's argument. The War, says the French note, was not a
+European war; Germany's eyes were fixed on world power, and she
+saw that her future was on the sea. There is no necessity to show
+consideration regarding territorial conditions in Europe. By taking
+away her commercial fleet, her colonies and her foreign markets more
+harm is done to Germany than by taking European territory. To pacify
+her (if there is any occasion for doing so) she must be offered
+commercial satisfaction. At this point the note, in considering
+questions of justice and of mere utility, becomes distinctly ironical.
+
+Having decided to bring to life new States, especially Poland and
+Czeko-Slovakia, why not give them safe frontiers even if some Germans
+or Magyars have to be sacrificed?
+
+One of Clemenceau's fixed ideas is that criterions of justice must not
+be applied to Germans. The note says explicitly that, given the German
+mentality, it is by no means sure that the conception of justice of
+Germany will be the same as that of the Allies.
+
+On another occasion, after the signing of the treaty, when Lloyd
+George pointed out the wisdom of not claiming from Germany the
+absurdity of handing over thousands of officers accused of cruelty
+for judgment by their late enemies, and recognized frankly the
+impossibility of carrying out such a stipulation in England,
+Clemenceau replied simply that the Germans are not like the English.
+
+The delicate point in Clemenceau's note is the contradiction in which
+he tries to involve the British Prime Minister between the clauses of
+the treaty concerning Germany outside Europe, in which no moderation
+had been shown, and those regarding Germany in Europe, in which he
+himself did not consider moderation either necessary or opportune.
+
+There was an evident divergence of views, clearing the way for a calm
+review of the conditions to be imposed, and here two countries could
+have exercised decisive action: the United States and Italy.
+
+But the United States was represented by Wilson, who was already in a
+difficult situation. By successive concessions, the gravity of which
+he had not realized, he found himself confronted by drafts of treaties
+which in the end were contradictions of all his proposals, the
+absolute antithesis of the pledges he had given. It is quite possible
+that he had not seen where he was going, but his frequent irritation
+was the sign of his distress. Still, in the ship-wreck of his whole
+programme, he had succeeded in saving one thing, the Statute of the
+League of Nations which was to be prefaced to all the treaties.
+He wanted to go back to America and meet the Senate with at least
+something to show as a record of the great undertaking, and he hoped
+and believed in good faith that the Covenant of the League of Nations
+would sooner or later have brought about agreement and modified the
+worst of the mistakes made. His conception of things was academic,
+and he had not realized that there was need to constitute the nations
+before laying down rules for the League; he trusted that bringing them
+together with mutual pledges would further most efficiently the cause
+of peace among the peoples. On the other hand, there was diffidence,
+shared by both, between Wilson and Lloyd George, and there was little
+likelihood of the British Prime Minister's move checking the course
+the Conference had taken.
+
+Italy might have done a great work if its representatives had had
+a clear policy. But, as M. Tardieu says, they had no share in the
+effective doings of the Conference, and their activity was almost
+entirely absorbed in the question of Fiume. The Conference was a
+three-sided conversation between Wilson, Clemenceau and Lloyd George,
+and the latter had hostility and diffidence on each side of him, with
+Italy--as earlier stated--for the most part absent. Also, it was
+just then that the divergence between Wilson and the Italian
+representatives reached its acute stage. The essential parts of the
+treaty were decided in April and the beginning of May, on April 22
+the question of the right bank of the Rhine, on the 23rd or 24th the
+agreement about reparations. Italy was absent, and when the Italian
+delegates returned to Paris without being asked on May 6, the text of
+the treaty was complete, in print. In actual fact, only one person did
+really effective work and directed the trend of the Conference, and
+that person was Clemenceau.
+
+The fact that the Conference met in Paris, that everything that was
+done by the various delegations was known, even foreseen so that
+it could be opposed, discredited, even destroyed by the Press
+beforehand--a thing which annoyed Lloyd George so much that at one
+time he thought seriously of leaving the Conference--all this gave
+an enormous advantage to the French delegation and especially to
+Clemenceau who directed the Conference's work.
+
+All his life Clemenceau has been a tremendous destroyer. For years and
+years he has done nothing but overthrow Governments with a sort of
+obstinate ferocity. He was an old man when he was called to lead the
+country, but he brought with him all his fighting spirit. No one
+detests the Church and detests Socialism more than he; both of these
+moral forces are equally repulsive to his individualistic spirit. I do
+not think there is any man among the politicians I have known who is
+more individualistic than Clemenceau, who remains to-day the man of
+the old democracy. In time of war no one was better fitted than he to
+lead a fighting Ministry, fighting at home, fighting abroad, with
+the same feeling, the same passion. When there was one thing only
+necessary in order to beat the enemy, never to falter in hatred, never
+to doubt the sureness of victory, no one came near him, no one could
+be more determined, no one more bitter. But when War was over, when it
+was peace that had to be ensured, no one could be less fitted for the
+work. He saw nothing beyond his hatred for Germany, the necessity
+for destroying the enemy, sweeping away every bit of his activity,
+bringing him into subjection. On account of his age he could not
+visualize the problems of the future; he could only see one thing
+necessary, and that was immediate, to destroy the enemy and either
+destroy or confiscate all his means of development. He was not
+nationalist or imperialist like his collaborators, but before all
+and above all one idea lived in him, hatred for Germany; she must be
+rendered barren, disembowelled, annihilated.
+
+He had said in the French Parliament that treaties of peace were
+nothing more than a way of going on with war, and in September, 1920,
+in his preface to M. Tardieu's book, he said that France must get
+reparation for Waterloo and Sedan. Even Waterloo: _Waterloo et Sedan,
+pour ne pas remonter plus haut, nous imposaient d'abord les douloureux
+soucis d'une politique de réparation_.
+
+Tardieu noted, as we have seen, that there were only three people
+in the Conference: Wilson, Clemenceau and Lloyd George. Orlando, he
+remarks, spoke little, and Italy had no importance. With subtle irony
+he notes that Wilson talked like a University don criticizing an essay
+with the didactic logic of the professor. The truth is that after
+having made the mistake of staying in the Conference he did not
+see that his whole edifice was tumbling down, and he let mistakes
+accumulate one after the other, with the result that treaties were
+framed which, as already pointed out, actually destroyed all the
+principles he had declared to the world.
+
+Things being as they were in Paris, Clemenceau's temperament, the
+pressure of French industry and of the newspapers, the real anxiety to
+make the future safe, and the desire on that account to exterminate
+the enemy, France naturally demanded, through its representatives,
+the severest sanctions. England, given the realistic nature of its
+representatives and the calm clear vision of Lloyd George, always
+favoured in general the more moderate solutions as those which were
+more likely to be carried out and would least disturb the equilibrium
+of Europe. So it came about that the decisions seemed to be a
+compromise, but were, on the other hand, actually so hard and so stern
+that they were impossible of execution.
+
+Without committing any indiscretion it is possible to see now from
+the publications of the French representatives at the Conference
+themselves what France's claims were.
+
+Let us try to sum them up.
+
+As regards disarmament and control there could have been and there
+ought to have been no difficulty about agreement. I am in favour
+of the reduction of all armaments, but I regard it as a perfectly
+legitimate claim that the country principally responsible for the War,
+and in general the conquered countries, should be obliged to disarm.
+
+No one would regard it as unfair that Germany and the conquered
+countries should be compelled to reduce their armaments to the measure
+necessary to guarantee internal order only.
+
+But a distinction must be drawn between military sanctions meant to
+guarantee peace and those which have the end of ruining the enemy.
+In actual truth, in his solemn pronouncements after the entry of the
+United States into the War, President Wilson had never spoken of a
+separate disarmament of the conquered countries, but of adequate
+guarantees _given and received_ that national armaments should
+be reduced to the smallest point compatible with internal order.
+Assurances given and received: that is to say an identical situation
+as between conquerors and conquered.
+
+No one can deny the right of the conqueror to compel the conquered
+enemy to give up his arms and reduce his military armaments, at any
+rate for some time. But on this point too there was useless excess.
+
+I should never have thought of publishing France's claims. Bitterness
+comes that way, responsibility is incurred, in future it may be an
+argument in your adversary's hands. But M. Tardieu has taken this
+office on himself and has told us all France did, recounting her
+claims from the acts of the Conference itself. Reference is easy to
+the story written by one of the representatives of France, possibly
+the most efficient through having been in America a long time
+and having fuller and more intimate knowledge of the American
+representatives, particularly Colonel House.
+
+Generally speaking, in every claim the French representatives started
+from an extreme position, and that was not only a state of mind, it
+was a tactical measure. Later on, if they gave up any part of their
+claim, they had the air of yielding, of accepting a compromise. When
+their claims were of such an extreme nature that the anxiety they
+caused, the opposition they raised, was evident, Clemenceau put on
+an air of moderation and gave way at once. Sometimes, too, he showed
+moderation himself, when it suited his purpose, but in reality he only
+gave way when he saw that it was impossible to get what he wanted.
+
+In points where English and American interests were not involved,
+given the difficult position in which Lloyd George was placed and
+Wilson's utter ignorance of all European questions, with Italy keeping
+almost entirely apart, the French point of view always came out on
+top, if slightly modified. But the original claim was always so
+extreme that the modification left standing the most radically severe
+measure against the conquered countries.
+
+Many decisions affecting France were not sufficiently criticized on
+account of the relations in which the English and Americans stood
+to France; objections would have looked like ill-will, pleading the
+enemy's cause.
+
+Previously, in nearly every case when peace was being made, the
+representatives of the conquered countries had been called to state
+their case, opportunity was given for discussion. The Russo-Japanese
+peace is an example. Undoubtedly the aggression of Russia had been
+unscrupulous and premeditated, but both parties participated in
+drawing up the peace treaty. At Paris, possibly for the first time
+in history, the destiny of the most cultured people in Europe was
+decided--or rather it was thought that it was being decided--without
+even listening to what they had to say and without hearing from their
+representatives if the conditions imposed could or could not possibly
+be carried out. Later on an exception, if only a purely formal one,
+was made in the case of Hungary, whose delegates were heard; but it
+will remain for ever a terrible precedent in modern history that,
+against all pledges, all precedents and all traditions, the
+representatives of Germany were never even heard; nothing was left to
+them but to sign a treaty at a moment when famine and exhaustion and
+threat of revolution made it impossible not to sign it.
+
+If Germany had not signed she would have suffered less loss. But at
+that time conditions at home with latent revolution threatening the
+whole Empire, made it imperative to accept any solution, and all the
+more as the Germans considered that they were not bound by their
+signature, the decisions having been imposed by violence without any
+hearing being given to the conquered party, and the most serious
+decisions being taken without any real examination of the facts. In
+the old law of the Church it was laid down that everyone must have a
+hearing, even the devil: _Etiam diabulus audiatur_ (Even the devil
+has the right to be heard). But the new democracy, which proposed to
+install the society of the nations, did not even obey the precepts
+which the dark Middle Ages held sacred on behalf of the accused.
+
+Conditions in Germany were terribly difficult, and an army of two
+hundred thousand men was considered by the military experts the
+minimum necessary. The military commission presided over by Marshal
+Foch left Germany an army of two hundred thousand men, recruited by
+conscription, a Staff in proportion, service of one year, fifteen
+divisions, 180 heavy guns, 600 field-guns. That is less than what
+little States without any resources have now, three years after the
+close of the War. But France at once imposed the reduction of the
+German army to 100,000 men, no conscription but a twelve years'
+service of paid soldiers, artillery reduced practically to nothing, no
+heavy guns at all, very few field-guns. No opportunity was given for
+discussion, nor was there any. Clemenceau put the problem in such a
+way that discussion was out of the question: _C'est la France qui,
+demain comme hier, sera face à l'Allemagne_. Lloyd George and Colonel
+House confined themselves to saying that on this point France formally
+expressed their views, Great Britain and the United States had no
+right to oppose. Lloyd George was convinced that the measures were
+too extreme and had tried on May 23, 1919, to modify them; but
+France insisted on imposing on Germany this situation of tremendous
+difficulty.
+
+I have referred to the military conditions imposed on Germany:
+destruction of all war material, fortresses and armament factories;
+prohibition of any trade in arms; destruction of the fleet; occupation
+of the west bank of the Rhine and the bridgeheads for fifteen years;
+allied control, with wide powers, over the execution of the military
+and naval clauses of the treaty, with consequent subjection of
+all public administrations and private companies to the will of a
+foreigner, or rather of an enemy kept at the expense of Germany itself
+and at no small expense, etc. In some of the inter-allied conferences
+I have had to take note of what these commissions of control really
+are, and their absurd extravagance, based on the argument that the
+enemy must pay for everything.
+
+The purport of France's action in the Conference was not to ensure
+safe military guarantees against Germany but to destroy her, at any
+rate to cut her up. And indeed, when she had got all she wanted and
+Germany was helpless, she continued the same policy, even intensifying
+it. Every bit of territory possible must be taken, German unity must
+be broken, and not only military but industrial Germany must be
+laid low under a series of controls and an impossible number of
+obligations.
+
+All know how, in Article 428 of the treaty, it is laid down, as a
+guarantee of the execution of the treaty terms on the part of Germany,
+or rather as a more extended military guarantee for France, that
+German territory on the west bank of the Rhine and the bridgeheads
+are to be occupied by allied and associated troops for fifteen years,
+methods and regulations for such occupation following in Articles 429
+and 432.
+
+This occupation not only gives deep offence to Germany (France has
+always looked back with implacable bitterness on the few months'
+military occupation by her Prussian conquerors in the war of 1870),
+but it paralyses all her activity and is generally judged to be
+completely useless.
+
+All the Allies were ready to give France every military guarantee
+against any unjust aggression by Germany, but France wanted in
+addition the occupation of the left bank of the Rhine. It was a very
+delicate matter, and the notes presented to the Conference by Great
+Britain on March 26 and April 2, by the United States on March 28 and
+April 12, show how embarrassed the two Governments were in considering
+a question which France regarded as essential for her future. It has
+to be added that the action of Marshal Foch in this matter was
+not entirely constitutional. He claimed that, independently of
+nationality, France and Belgium have the right to look on the Rhine as
+the indispensable frontier for the nations of the west of Europe, _et
+par là, de la civilisation_. Neither Lloyd George nor Wilson could
+swallow the argument of the Rhine a frontier between the civilization
+of France and Belgium, all civilization indeed, and Germany.
+
+In the treaty the occupation of the left bank of the Rhine and the
+bridgeheads by the allied and associated powers for fifteen years
+was introduced as a compromise. Such districts will be evacuated by
+degrees every five years if Germany shall have faithfully carried out
+the terms of the treaty. Now the conditions of the treaty are in large
+measure impossible of execution, and in consequence no execution of
+them can ever be described as faithful. Further, the occupying troops
+are paid by Germany. It follows that the conception of the occupation
+of the left bank of the Rhine was of a fact of unlimited duration.
+The harm that would result from the occupation was pointed out at the
+Conference by the American representatives and even more strongly by
+the English. What was the use of it, they asked, if the German army
+were reduced to 100,000 men? M. Tardieu himself tells the story of all
+the efforts made, especially by Lloyd George and Bonar Law, to prevent
+the blunder which later on was endorsed in the treaty as Article 428.
+Lloyd George went so far as to complain of political intrigues for
+creating disorder on the Rhine. But Clemenceau took care to put the
+question in such a form that no discussion was possible. In the matter
+of the occupation, he said to the English, you do not understand the
+French point of view. You live in an island with the sea as defence,
+we on the continent with a bad frontier. We do not look for an attack
+by Germany but for systematic refusal to carry out the terms of
+the treaty. Never was there a treaty with so many clauses, with,
+consequently, so many opportunities for evasion. Against that risk the
+material guarantee of occupation is necessary. There are two methods
+in direct contrast: _En Angleterre on croit que le moyen d'y réussir
+est de faire des concessions. En France nous croyons que c'est de
+brusquer_.
+
+On March 14 Lloyd George and Wilson had offered France the fullest
+military guarantee in place of the occupation of the left bank of the
+Rhine. France wanted, and in fact got, the occupation as well as the
+alliances. "_Notre but_?" says Tardieu. "_Sceller la garantie offerte,
+mais y ajouter l'occupation_." Outside the Versailles Treaty the
+United States and Great Britain had made several treaties of alliance
+with France for the event of unprovoked aggression by Germany. Later
+on the French-English Treaty was approved by the House of Commons, the
+French-American underwent the same fate as the Versailles Treaty. But
+the treaty with Great Britain fell through also on account of the
+provision that it should come into force simultaneously with the
+American Treaty.
+
+In a Paris newspaper Poincaré published in September, 1921, some
+strictly reserved documents on the questions of the military
+guarantees and the occupation of the left bank of the Rhine. He
+wished to get the credit of having stood firm when Clemenceau himself
+hesitated at the demand for an occupation of the left bank of the
+Rhine for even a longer period than fifteen years. He has published
+the letter he sent to Clemenceau to be shown to Wilson and Lloyd
+George and the latter's reply.
+
+He said that there must be no thought of giving up the occupation and
+renouncing a guarantee until every obligation in the treaty should
+have been carried out; he went so far as to claim that in occupation
+regarded as a guarantee of a credit representing an indemnity for
+damages, there is nothing contrary to the principles proclaimed by
+President Wilson and recognized by the Allies. Nor would it suffice
+even to have the faculty of reoccupation, because "this faculty" could
+never be a valid substitute for occupation. As regards the suggestion
+that a long occupation or one for an indeterminate period would cause
+bad feeling, M. Poincaré was convinced that this was an exaggeration.
+A short occupation causes more irritation on account of its arbitrary
+limit; everyone understands an occupation without other limit than the
+complete carrying out of the treaty. The longer the time that passes
+the better would become the relations between the German populations
+and the armies of occupation.
+
+Clemenceau communicated Poincaré's letter to Lloyd George. The British
+Prime Minister replied on May 6 in the clearest terms. In his eyes,
+forcing Germany to submit to the occupation of the Rhine and the Rhine
+Provinces for an unlimited period, was a provocation to renew the war
+in Europe.
+
+During the Conference France put forward some proposals the aim of
+which was nothing less than to split up Germany. A typical example
+is the memorandum presented by the French delegation claiming the
+annexation of the Saar territory. This is completely German; in the
+six hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants before the War there were
+not a hundred French. Not a word had ever been said about annexation
+of the Saar either in Government pronouncements or in any vote in the
+French Parliament, nor had it been discussed by any political party.
+No one had ever suggested such annexation, which certainly was a far
+more serious thing than the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany,
+as there was considerable German population in Alsace-Lorraine. There
+was no French population at all in the Saar, and the territory in
+question could not even be claimed for military reasons but only for
+its economic resources. Reasons of history could not count, for they
+were all in Germany's favour. Nevertheless the request was put forward
+as a matter of sentiment. Had not the Saar belonged in other days
+entirely or in part to France? Politics and economics are not
+everything, said Clemenceau; history also has great value. For the
+United States a hundred and twenty years are a long time; for France
+they count little. Material reparations are not enough, there must be
+moral reparations too, and the conception of France cannot be the same
+as that of her Allies. The desire for the Saar responded, according
+to Clemenceau, to a need of moral reparation. On this point, too,
+the extreme French claim was modified. The Saar mines were given to
+France, not provisionally as a matter of reparations, but permanently
+with full right of possession and full guarantees for their working.
+For fifteen years from the date of the treaty the government of the
+territory was put in the hands of the League of Nations as trustee;
+after fifteen years the population, entirely German, should be called
+to decide under what government they desired to live. In other words,
+in a purely German country, which no one in France had ever claimed,
+of which no one in France had ever spoken during the War, the most
+important property was handed to a conquering State, the country was
+put under the administration of the conquerors (which is what the
+League of Nations actually is at present), and after fifteen years of
+torment the population is to be put through a plebiscite. Meanwhile
+the French douane rules in the Saar.
+
+It was open to the treaty to adopt or not to adopt the system of
+plebiscites. When it was a case of handing over great masses of German
+populations, a plebiscite was imperative--at any rate, where any doubt
+existed, and the more so in concessions which formed no part of the
+War aims and were not found in any pronouncement of the Allies. On the
+other hand, in all cessions of German territory to Poland and Bohemia,
+no mention is made of a plebiscite because it was a question of
+military necessity or of lands which had been historically victims
+of Germany. But only for Schleswig, Upper Silesia, Marienwerder,
+Allenstein, Klagenfurth and the Saar were plebiscites laid down--and
+with the exception that the plebiscite itself, when, as in the case of
+Upper Silesia, it resulted in favour of Germany, was not regarded as
+conclusive.
+
+But where the most extreme views clashed was in the matter of
+reparations and the indemnity to be claimed from the enemy.
+
+We have already seen that the theory of reparation for damage found
+its way incidentally, even before the treaty was considered, into the
+armistice terms. No word had been said previously of claiming from the
+conquered enemy anything beyond restoration of devastated territories,
+but after the War another theory was produced. If Germany and her
+allies are solely responsible for the War, they must pay the whole
+cost of the War: damage to property, persons and war works. When
+damage has been done, he who has done the wrong must make reparation
+for it to the utmost limit of his resources.
+
+The American delegation struck a note of moderation: no claim
+should be made beyond what was established in the peace conditions,
+reparation for actions which were an evident violation of
+international law, restoration of invaded country, and reparation for
+damage caused to the civil population and to its property.
+
+During the War there were a number of exaggerated pronouncements on
+the immense resources of Germany and her capacity for payment.
+
+Besides all the burdens with which Germany was loaded, there was a
+discussion on the sum which the Allies should claim. The War had cost
+700 milliard francs, and the claims for damage to persons and property
+amounted to at least 350 milliards for all the Allies together.
+
+Whatever the sum might be, when it had been laid down in the treaty
+what damage was to be indemnified, the French negotiators claimed
+sixty-five per cent., leaving thirty-five per cent. for all the
+others.
+
+What was necessary was to lay down proportions, not the actual amount
+of the sum. It was impossible to say at once what amount the damages
+would reach: that was the business of the Reparations Commission.
+
+Instead of inserting in the treaty the enormous figures spoken of, the
+quality, not the quantity, of the damages to be indemnified was laid
+down. But the standard of reckoning led to fantastic figures.
+
+An impossible amount had to be paid, and the delegations were
+discussing then the very same things that are being discussed now. The
+American experts saw the gross mistake of the other delegations, and
+put down as the maximum payment 325 milliard marks up to 1951, the
+first payment to be 25 milliard marks in 1921. So was invented the
+Reparations Commission machine, a thing which has no precedent in any
+treaty, being a commission with sovereign powers to control the life
+of the whole of Germany.
+
+In actual truth no serious person has ever thought that Germany can
+pay more than a certain number of milliards a year, no one believes
+that a country can be subjected to a regime of control for thirty
+years.
+
+But the directing line of work of the treaties has been to break down
+Germany, to cut her up, to suffocate her.
+
+France had but one idea, and later on did not hesitate to admit it:
+to dismember Germany, to destroy her unity. By creating intolerable
+conditions of life, taking away territory on the frontier, putting
+large districts under military occupation, delaying or not making any
+diplomatic appointments and carrying on communications solely through
+military commissions, a state of things was brought about which must
+inevitably tend to weaken the constitutional unity of the German
+Empire. Taking away from Germany 84 thousand kilometres of territory,
+nearly eight million inhabitants and all the most important mineral
+resources, preventing the unity of the German people and the six
+million and five hundred thousand of German Austrians to which
+Austria was then reduced, putting the whole German country under an
+interminable series of controls--all this did more harm to German
+unity than would have been done by taking the responsibility of a
+forcible and immediate division to which the Germans could not have
+consented and which the Allies could not have claimed to impose.
+
+What has been said about Germany and the Versailles Treaty can be said
+about all the other conquered countries and all the other treaties,
+with merely varying proportions in each case.
+
+The verdict that has to be passed on them will very soon be shown by
+facts--if indeed facts have not shown already that, in great measure,
+what had been laid down cannot be carried out. One thing is certain,
+that the actual treaties threaten to ruin conquerors and conquered,
+that they have not brought peace to Europe, but conditions of war and
+violence. In Clemenceau's words, the treaties are a way of going on
+with war.
+
+But, even if it were possible to dispute that, as men's minds cannot
+yet frame an impartial judgment and the danger is not seen by all,
+there is one thing that cannot be denied or disputed, and that is that
+the treaties are the negation of the principles for which the United
+States and Italy, without any obligation on them, entered the War;
+they are a perversion of all the Entente had repeatedly proclaimed;
+they break into pieces President Wilson's fourteen points which were a
+solemn pledge for the American people, and to-morrow they will be the
+greatest moral weapon with which the conquered of to-day will face the
+conquerors of to-day.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE CONQUERORS AND THE CONQUERED
+
+
+How many are the States of Europe? Before the War the political
+geography of Europe was almost tradition. To-day every part of
+Europe is in a state of flux. The only absolute certainty is that in
+Continental Europe conquerors and conquered are in a condition of
+spiritual, as well as economic, unrest. It is difficult indeed to say
+how many political unities there are and how many are lasting, and
+what new wars are being prepared, if a way of salvation is not found
+by some common endeavour to install peace, which the peace of Paris
+has not done. How many thinking men can, without perplexity, remember
+how many States there are and what they are: arbitrary creations of
+the treaties, creations of the moment, territorial limitations imposed
+by the necessities of international agreements. The situation of
+Russia is so uncertain that no one knows whether new States will
+arise as a result of her continuous disintegration, or if she will be
+reconstructed in a solid, unified form, and other States amongst those
+which have arisen will fall.
+
+Without taking into account those traditional little States which are
+merely historical curiosities, as Monaco, San Marino, Andorra, Monte
+Santo, not counting Iceland as a State apart, not including the
+Saar, which as a result of one of the absurdities of the Treaty
+of Versailles is an actual State outside Germany, but considering
+Montenegro as an existing State, Europe probably comprises thirty
+States. Some of them are, however, in such a condition that they do
+not give promise of the slightest guarantee of life or security.
+
+Europe has rather Balkanized herself: not only the War came from the
+Balkans, but also many ideas, which have been largely exploited in
+parliamentary and newspaper circles. Listening to many speeches and
+being present at many events to-day leaves the sensation of being in
+Belgrade or at Sarajevo.
+
+Europe, including Russia and including also the Polar archipelagos,
+covers an area of a little more than ten million square kilometres.
+Canada is of almost the same size; the United States of America has
+about the same territory.
+
+The historical procedure before the War was towards the formation of
+large territorial unities; the _post-bellum_ procedure is entirely
+towards a process of dissolution, and the fractionizing, resulting a
+little from necessity and a little also from the desire to dismember
+the old Empires and to weaken Germany, has assumed proportions almost
+impossible to foresee.
+
+In the relations between the various States good and evil are not
+abstract ideas: political actions can only be judged by their results.
+If the treaties of peace which have been imposed on the conquered
+would be capable of application, we could, from an ethnical point of
+view, regret some or many of the decisions; but we should only have to
+wait for the results of time for a definite judgment.
+
+The evil is that the treaties which have been signed are not
+applicable or cannot be applied without the rapid dissolution of
+Europe.
+
+So the balance-sheet of the peace, after three years from the
+armistice--that is, three years from the War--shows on the whole a
+worsening of the situation. The spirit of violence has not died out,
+and perhaps in some countries not even diminished; on the other hand
+the causes of material disagreement have increased, the inequality
+has augmented, the division between the two groups has grown, and the
+causes of hatred have been consolidated. An analysis of the foreign
+exchanges indicated a process of undoing and not a tendency to
+reconstruction.
+
+We have referred in a general manner to the conditions of Germany as a
+result of the Treaty of Versailles; even worse is the situation of the
+other conquered countries in so far that either they have not been
+treated with due regard, or they have lost so much territory that they
+have no possibility of reconstructing their national existence. Such
+is the case with Austria, with Turkey and with Hungary. Bulgaria,
+which has a tenacious and compact population composed of small
+agriculturists, has less difficult conditions of reconstruction.
+
+Germany has fulfilled loyally all the conditions of the disarmament.
+After she had handed over her fleet she destroyed her fortifications,
+she destroyed all the material up to the extreme limit imposed by the
+treaties, she disbanded her enormous armies. If in any one of the
+works of destruction she had proceeded with a bad will, if she had
+tried to delay them, it would be perfectly understandable. A different
+step carries one to a dance or to a funeral. At the actual moment
+Germany has no fleet, no army, no artillery, and is in a condition in
+which she could not reply to any act of violence. This is why all the
+violence of the Poles against Germany has found hardly any opposition.
+
+All this is so evident that no one can raise doubts on the question.
+
+Everyone remembers, said Hindenburg, the difficult task that the
+United States had to put in the field an army of a million men.
+Nevertheless they had the protection of the ocean during the period
+when they were preparing their artillery and their aerial material.
+
+Germany for her aviation, for her heavy artillery, for her armaments,
+is not even separated by the ocean from her Allies, and, on the
+contrary, they are firmly established in German territory; it would
+require many months to prepare a new war, during which France and her
+Allies would not be resting quietly.
+
+General Ludendorff recently made certain declarations which have a
+capital importance, since they fit the facts exactly. He declared
+that a war of reconquest by Germany against the Allies and especially
+against France is for an indefinite time completely impossible from
+the technical and military point of view. France has an army largely
+supplied with all the means of battle, ready to march at any time,
+which could smash any German military organization hostile to France.
+The more so since by the destruction of the German war industries
+Germany has lost every possibility of arming herself afresh. It is
+absurd to believe that a German army ready for modern warfare can be
+organized and put on a war footing secretly. A German army which could
+fight with the least possible hope of success against an enemy army
+armed and equipped in the most modern manner would first of all have
+to be based on a huge German war industry, which naturally could not
+be improvised or built up in secret. Even if a third power wished
+to arm Germany, it would not be possible to arm her so quickly and
+mobilize her in sufficient time to prevent the enemy army from
+obtaining an immediate and decisive victory.
+
+It would be necessary, as everyone realizes even in France, that
+Germany should wish to commit suicide. In consequence of the treaty
+there is the "maximum of obstacles which mind can conceive" to
+guard against any German peril; and against Germany there have been
+accumulated "_such guarantees that never before has history recorded
+the like_" (Tardieu), and Germany cannot do anything for many years.
+Mobilization requires years and years for preparation and the greatest
+publicity for its execution.
+
+Wilson spoke of guarantees _given and received_ for the reduction of
+armaments. Instead, after the treaties had been concluded, if the
+conquered were completely disarmed, the conquering nations have
+continued to arm. Almost all the conquering nations have not only high
+expenses but more numerous armies. If the conditions of peace imposed
+by the treaties were considered supportable, remembering the fact that
+the late enemies were harmless, against whom are these continuous
+increase of armaments?
+
+We have already seen the military conditions imposed on Germany--a
+small mercenary army, no obligatory conscription, no military
+instruction, no aviation, no artillery except a minimum and
+insignificant quantity required by the necessities of interior order.
+Austria, Bulgaria and Hungary can only have insignificant armies.
+Austria may maintain under arms 30,000 men, but her ruined finances
+only permit her, according to the latest reports, to keep 21,700;
+Bulgaria has 20,000 men plus 3,082 gendarmes; Hungary, according to
+the Treaty of Trianon, has 35,000. Turkey in Europe, which hardly
+exists any more as a territorial State, except for the city of
+Constantinople, where the sovereignty of the Sultan is more apparent
+than real, has not an actual army.
+
+Taken all together the States which formed the powerful nucleus of war
+of Germany as they are now reduced territorially have under arms fewer
+than 180,000 men, not including, naturally, those new States risen on
+the ruins of the old Central Empires, and which arm themselves by the
+request and sometimes in the interest of some State of the Entente.
+
+The old enemies, therefore, are not in a condition to make war, and
+are placed under all manner of controls. Sometimes the controls are
+even of a very singular nature. All have been occupied in giving the
+sea to the victors. Poland has obtained the absurd paradox of the
+State of Danzig because it has the sea. The constant aim of the
+Allies, even in opposition to Italy, has been to give free and safe
+outlets on the sea coast to the Serb-Croat-Slovene State.
+
+At the Conference of London and San Remo I repeatedly referred to
+the expenses of these military missions of control and often their
+outrageous imposition on the conquered who are suffering from hunger.
+There are generals who are assigned as indemnity and expenses of all
+sorts, salaries which are much superior to that of the President of
+the United States of America. It is necessary to look at Vienna and
+Budapest, where the people are dying of hunger, to see the carnival of
+the Danube Commission. For the rest it is only necessary to look at
+the expense accounts of the Reparations Commissions to be convinced
+that this sad spectacle of greed and luxury humiliates the victors
+more than the conquered.
+
+German-Austria has lost every access to the sea. She cannot live on
+her resources with her enormous capital in ruins. She cannot unite
+with Germany, though she is a purely German country, because the
+treaty requires the unanimous consent of the League of Nations, and
+France having refused, it is therefore impossible. She cannot unite
+with Czeko-Slovakia, with Hungary and other countries which have
+been formed from the Austrian Empire, because that is against the
+aspirations of the German populations, and it would be the formation
+anew of that Danube State which, with its numerous contrasts, was one
+of the essential causes of the War. Austria has lost every access
+to the sea, has consigned her fleet and her merchant marine, but in
+return has had the advantage of numerous inter-allied commissions of
+control to safeguard the military, naval and aeronautic clauses. But
+there are clauses which can no longer be justified, as, for instance,
+when Austria no longer has a sea coast. (Art. 140 of the Treaty of St.
+Germain, which forbids the construction or acquisition of: any sort of
+submersible vessel, even commercial.) It is impossible to understand
+why (Art. 143) the wireless high-power station of Vienna is not
+allowed to transmit other than commercial telegrams under the
+surveillance of the Allied and Associated Powers, who take the trouble
+to determine even the length of the wave to be used.
+
+Before the War, in 1914, France desired to bring her army to the
+maximum of efficiency; opposite a great German army was to be found a
+great French army.
+
+Germany had in 1913, according to the Budget presented to the
+Reichstag, a standing army of 647,000 soldiers of all arms, of which
+105,000 were non-commissioned officers and 30,000 officers. It was the
+greatest army of Europe and of the world, taking into account its real
+efficiency.
+
+Whilst Germany has no longer an army, France on July 1, 1921, had
+under arms 810,000 men, of which 38,473 were officers, therefore many
+more than Germany had before the War. Given its demographic character,
+it is the greatest military force which has been seen in modern times,
+and can only have two reasons--either military domination or ruin. The
+military budget proposed for the present year in the ordinary section
+is for 2,782 millions of francs, besides that portion paid by Germany
+for the army of occupation; the extraordinary section of the same
+budget is for 1,712 millions of francs, besides 635 millions for
+expenses repayable for the maintenance of troops of occupation in
+foreign countries.
+
+Austria-Hungary had in 1913 a total of 34,000 officers and 390,249
+men; the States which have arisen from her ruins have a good many
+more. Whilst German-Austria has, as a matter of fact, only 21,700 men
+and Hungary has only 35,000, Czeko-Slovakia has 150,000 men, of which
+10,000 are officers; Jugo-Slavia has about 120,000, of which 8,000 to
+10,000 are officers.
+
+But the two allies of France--Belgium and Poland, Belgium no longer
+neutral, Poland always in disorder and in a state of continual
+provocation abroad and of increasing anarchy at home--have in their
+turn armies which previous to the War could have been maintained only
+by a first-class power. Belgium has doubled her peace effectives,
+which now amount to 113,500 men, an enormous army for a population
+which is about equal to that of the city of New York or London.
+
+Poland, whose economic conditions are completely disastrous, and may
+be described as having neither money nor credit any more, but which
+maintains more employees than any other country on earth, has under
+arms not fewer than 430,000 men, and often many more, and possibly has
+to-day many more--about 600,000. Her treaty with France imposes on her
+military obligations the extension of which cannot be compatible with
+the policy of a country desiring peace. Poland has, besides, vast
+dreams of greatness abroad, and growing ruin in the interior. She
+enslaves herself in order to enslave others, and pretends in her
+disorder to control and dominate much more intelligent and cultured
+peoples.
+
+Rumania has under arms 160,000 men besides 80,000 carabineers and
+16,000 frontier guards. Greece has, particularly on account of her
+undertakings in Asia Minor, which only the lesser intelligence of her
+national exaltations can explain, more than 400,000 men under arms.
+She is suffocating under the weight of heavy armaments and can move
+only with difficulty.
+
+The two pupils of the Entente, Greece and Poland, exactly like naughty
+children, have a policy of greed and capriciousness. Poland was not
+the outcome of her own strength, but of the strength of the Entente.
+Greece never found the way to contribute heavily to the War with a
+strong army, and after the War has the most numerous army which she
+has ever had in her history.
+
+Great Britain and Italy are the only two countries which have largely
+demobilized; Great Britain in the much greater measure. It is
+calculated that Great Britain has under arms 201,000 men, of which
+15,030 are officers. In this number, however, are not included 75,896
+men in India and the personnel of the Air Force.
+
+In Italy, on July 31, 1921, there were under arms 351,076 soldiers
+and 18,138 officers, in all 369,214, of which, however, 56,529 were
+carabineers carrying out duties almost exclusively of public order.
+
+Under the pressure and as a result of the example of the States which
+have come through the War, those States which did not take part have
+also largely augmented their armies.
+
+So, whilst the conquered have ceased every preoccupation, the neutrals
+of the War have developed their armaments, and the conquerors have
+developed theirs beyond measure.
+
+No one can say what may be the position of Bolshevik Russia; probably
+she has not much less than a million of men under arms, also because
+in a communist regime the vagabonds and the violent find the easiest
+occupation in the army.
+
+The conquerors, having disarmed the conquered, have imposed their
+economic conditions, their absurd moralities and territorial
+humiliations, as those imposed on Bulgaria, Turkey and Hungary,
+conditions which are sufficiently difficult to be maintained. And as
+the ferment of hate develops, the conquerors do not disarm. Above
+all, the little States do not disarm, who have wanted too much, have
+obtained too much, and now do not know how to maintain what they
+have. In many countries for certain social reasons war has become an
+industry; they live by the state of war. What would they do without a
+state of war?
+
+In general, then, Europe has considerably more men under arms than in
+1913. Not only has it not disarmed, as the Entente always declared
+would be the consequence of the victory of the principles of
+democracy, but the victors are always leaning toward further armament.
+The more difficult it becomes to maintain the conditions of the peace,
+because of their severity and their absurdity, the more necessary it
+is to maintain armies. The conquered have not armies; the conquerors
+are, or, perhaps, up to a short time ago, were sure that the big
+armies would serve to enforce the payment of the indemnities. Now, in
+fact, they would not serve for anything else.
+
+At the Conference of London, after a long discussion in February,
+1920, the economic manifesto was drawn up which warned Europe of the
+perils of the economic situation. Lloyd George and myself were easily
+agreed in denouncing it as the gravest danger, as the principal cause
+of high prices and of economic disorder, both as to the maintenance of
+large armies and in the continuation of the state of war.
+
+A Europe divided distinctly into two parts cannot be pacific even
+after the conquered have yielded up their arms. The conquerors are
+bound to arm themselves because of their own inquietude, from the
+conviction that the only salvation is in force, which allows, if not
+a true peace, at least an armed peace; if not the development of
+production and exchange, at least the possibility of cutting off from
+the markets the very fountains of riches.
+
+Violence begets new violence. If the conditions of the peace cannot
+be fulfilled, other heavier conditions can be imposed. In France
+irresponsible people are supporting already the necessity of occupying
+permanently the Ruhr, that is to say, the greatest German centre for
+the production of coal, and of not respecting the plebiscite of Upper
+Silesia.
+
+What has been said about the armies is true also about the fleets.
+There is a race towards the increase of naval armaments. If first that
+was the preoccupation of the conquered, now it is the preoccupation of
+the conquerors in the exchange of doubts into which they have fallen
+after the War.
+
+The state of mind which has been created between Great Britain, the
+United States of America and Japan deserves to be seriously examined.
+The race for naval armaments into which these three countries entered
+not many months ago, and the competition between the two great
+Anglo-Saxon people, cannot be other than very damaging for
+civilization.
+
+The Great War which has been fought was at bottom the fight between
+the Germanic race and the Slav race; it was the doubts in regard to
+the last and not in regard to France which pushed Germany to war and
+precipitated events. The results of the Continental War, however, are
+the suppression of Germany, which lost, as well as of Russia, which
+had not resisted, and France alone has gathered the fruits of the
+situation, if they can be called that, from amongst the thorns which
+everywhere surround the victory.
+
+But the War was decided, above all, by the intervention of the
+Anglo-Saxon people, Great Britain, her Dominions, and the United
+States of America. Nothing but the small political intelligence of the
+German statesmen could have united in the same group the peoples
+who have the greatest contrast of interests among themselves--Great
+Britain, Russia, the United States of America, Japan, France and
+Italy.
+
+But now the situation of Europe and especially that of Asia is
+creating fresh competitions, the expenses for the navies, according to
+the figures of the various Budgets from 1914 to 1921, have risen in
+the United States of America from 702 millions of lire to 2,166, in
+Great Britain from 1,218 millions to 2,109, in Japan from 249 millions
+to 1,250, in France from 495 millions to 1,083, in Italy from 250
+millions to 402. The sums proposed for new constructions in the year
+1921-22 are 450 millions in the United States of America, 475 millions
+for Great Britain, 281 millions for Japan, 185 millions for France,
+and 61 millions for Italy.
+
+The United States of America and Great Britain are countries of great
+resources: they can stand the effort. But can Japan, which has but
+limited resources, support these for any length of time? or has she
+some immediate intentions?
+
+A comparative table of the navies in 1914 and 1921 shows that the
+fleets of the conquering countries are very much more powerful than
+they were before the War. Nevertheless, Russia and Austria-Hungary and
+the people arisen in their territories are not naval powers; Germany
+has lost all her fleet. The race for naval armaments regards
+especially the two Anglo-Saxon powers and Japan; the race for land
+armaments regards all the conquerors of Europe and especially the
+small States.
+
+This situation cannot but be the cause of great preoccupation; but
+the greater preoccupation arises from the fact that the minor States,
+especially those which took no part in the War, become every day more
+exigent and display fresh aspirations.
+
+The whole system of the Treaty of Versailles has been erected on the
+error of Poland. Poland was not created as the noble manifestation
+of the rights of nationality, ethnical Poland was not created, but a
+great State which, as she is, cannot live long, because there are not
+great foreign minorities, but a whole mass of populations which cannot
+co-exist, Poland, which has already the experience of a too numerous
+Israelitic population, has not the capacity to assimilate the Germans,
+the Russians and the Ukranians which the Treaty of Versailles has
+unjustly given to her against the very declarations of Wilson.
+
+So that after, with the aid of the Entente, having had the strength
+to resist the Bolshevik troops, Poland is now in a state of permanent
+anarchy; consumes and does not produce; pays debts with a fantastic
+bigness and does not know how to regulate the incomings. No country
+in the world has ever more abused paper currency; her paper money is
+probably the most greatly depreciated of any country on earth. She
+has not succeeded in organizing her own production, and now tends to
+dissolve the production of her neighbours.
+
+The whole Treaty of Versailles is based on a vigorous and vital
+Poland. A harmless Germany, unable to unite with an equally harmless
+German-Austria, should be under the military control of France and
+Belgium on the west, and of Poland on the east. Poland, separating
+Germany from Russia, besides imposing on Germany the territorial
+outrage of the Danzig corridor, cuts her off from any possibility of
+expansion and development in the east. Poland has been conceived as a
+great State. A Polish nation was not constituted; a Polish military
+State was constituted, whose principal duty is that of disorganizing
+Germany.
+
+Poland, the result of a miracle of the War (no one could foretell the
+simultaneous fall of the Central Empires and of the Russian Empire),
+was formed not from a tenacious endeavour, but from an unforeseen
+circumstance, which was the just reward for the long martyrdom of a
+people. The borders of Poland will reach in time to the Baltic Sea in
+the north, the Carpathians and the Dniester in the south, in the east
+the country almost as far as Smolensk, in the west to the parts of
+Germany, Brandenburg and Pomerania. The new patriots dream of an
+immense Poland, the old Poland of tradition, and then to descend into
+the countries of the Ukraine and dominate new territories.
+
+It is easy to see that, sooner or later, the Bolshevik degeneration
+over, Russia will be recomposed; Germany, in spite of all the attempts
+to break her up and crush her unity, within thirty or forty years will
+be the most formidable ethnical nucleus of Continental Europe. What
+will then happen to a Poland which pretends to divide two people who
+represent numerically and will represent in other fields also the
+greatest forces of Continental Europe of to-morrow?
+
+Amongst many in France there is the old conception of Napoleon I, who
+considered the whole of European politics from an erroneous point of
+view, that of a lasting French hegemony in Europe, when the lasting
+hegemony of peoples is no longer possible. In the sad solitude of his
+exile at Saint Helena, Napoleon I said that not to have created a
+powerful Poland keystone of the roof of the European edifice, not to
+have destroyed Prussia, and to have been mistaken in regard to Russia,
+were the three great errors of his life. But all his work had as an
+end to put the life of Europe under the control of France, and was
+necessarily wrecked by reality, which does not permit the lasting
+mistake of a single nation which places herself above all the others
+in a free and progressive Europe.
+
+If the policy of the Entente towards Germany and towards the conquered
+countries does not correspond either to collective declarations made
+during the War, or to the promises solemnly made by Wilson, the policy
+towards Russia has been a whole series of error. In fact, one cannot
+talk of a policy of the Entente, in so far that with the exception of
+a few errors committed in common, Great Britain, France and Italy have
+each followed their own policy.
+
+In his sixth point, among the fourteen points, no longer pure, but
+violated and outraged worse than the women of a conquered race by a
+tribe of Kurds, Wilson said on January 8, 1918, that the treatment
+meted out to Russia by the sister nations, and therefore their loyalty
+in assisting her to settle herself, should be the stern proof of
+their goodwill. They should show that they did not confound their
+own interests, or rather their egoism, with what should be done for
+Russia. The proof was most unfortunate.
+
+The attitude of the Entente towards Russia has had different phases.
+
+In the first phase, the prevailing idea, especially on the part of
+one of the Allies, was to send military expeditions in conjunction
+especially with Rumania and Poland. This idea was immediately
+abandoned on account of its very absurdity.
+
+In the second phase, the greatest hopes were placed in the blockade;
+of isolating Russia completely, cutting off from her (and for the rest
+she no longer had it) every facility of trade exchange. At the same
+time war on the part of Poland and Rumania was encouraged, to help the
+attempt which the men of the old regime were making in the interior.
+France alone reached the point of officially recognizing the Tsarist
+undertaking of General Wrangel.
+
+Lloyd George, with the exception of some initial doubts, always had
+the clearest ideas in regard to Russia, and I never found myself in
+disagreement with him in valuing the men and the Russian situation. It
+is easy for a broad and serene mind to judge the position of the rest.
+
+For my part I always tried to follow that policy which would best
+bring about the most useful result with the least damage. After the
+War the working masses in Europe had the greatest illusions about
+Russian communism and the Bolshevik organization. Every military
+expedition against Russia signified giving the people the conviction
+that it was desired not to fight an enemy but to suffocate in blood an
+attempt at a communist organization. I have always thought that the
+dictatorship of the proletariat, that is the dictatorship of ignorance
+and incapacity, would necessarily lead to disaster, and that hunger
+and death would follow violence. There are for the peoples great
+errors which must be carried out in the very effort to benefit
+civilization. Our propaganda would have served nothing without the
+reality of ruin. Only the death by hunger of millions of men in
+communist Russia will convince the working masses in Europe and
+America that the experiment of Russia is not to be followed; rather is
+it to be avoided at any cost. To exterminate the communist attempt by
+an unjust war, even if it were possible, would have meant ruin for
+Western civilization.
+
+On repeated occasions I have counselled Rumania and Poland not to make
+any attempt against Russia and to limit themselves to defence. Every
+unjust aggression on the part of Bolshevik Russia would have found the
+Entente disposed to further sacrifice to save two free nations, but
+any provocation on their part could not create secure solidarity.
+
+When I assumed the direction of the Government in June, 1919, an
+Italian military expedition was under orders for Georgia. The English
+troops, who were in small numbers, were withdrawing; Italy had, with
+the consent of the Allies, and partly by her own desire, prepared
+a big military expedition. A considerable number of divisions were
+ready, as also were the ships to commence the transport. Georgia is a
+country of extraordinary natural resources, and it was thought
+that she would be able to furnish Italy with a great number of raw
+materials which she lacked. What surprised me was that not only men of
+the Government, but intelligent financiers and men of very advanced
+ideas, were convinced supporters of this expedition.
+
+However, confronted by much opposition, I immediately renounced this
+undertaking, and renounced it in a definite form, limiting myself to
+encouraging every commercial enterprise.
+
+Certainly the Allies could not suggest anything unfriendly to Italy;
+but the effect of the expedition was to put Italy directly at variance
+with the government of Moscow, to launch her upon an adventure of
+which it was impossible to tell the consequences.
+
+In fact, not long afterwards Georgia fell into the hands of the
+Bolsheviks, who sent there an army of 125,000 men, and since then
+she has not been able to liberate herself. If Italy had made that
+expedition she would have been engaged in a frightful military
+adventure, with most difficult and costly transport in a theatre of
+war of insuperable difficulty. To what end?
+
+Georgia before the War formed part of the Russian Empire, and no
+country of the Entente had considered that unjust. Further, as though
+the vast empire and the dominion of the Caucasus were not enough for
+Russia, the Entente with monstrous condescension had given to Russia
+Constantinople and the Straits and a huge zone in Asia Minor. How
+could you take away from Russia a territory which was legitimately
+hers? And _vice versa_, if Georgia and the other States of the
+Caucasus had sufficient strength to live autonomously, how can
+you dominate Aryan people who have risen to a notable state of
+development?
+
+To go to Georgia inevitably meant war with Russia for Italy, and one,
+moreover, fraught with extraordinary difficulties. In fact, later, the
+government of Moscow, as we have said, succeeded in invading as well
+as Georgia almost all the republics of the Caucasus. And at San Remo,
+discussing the possibility of an expedition on the part of Great
+Britain, France and Italy to defend at least the oil production, after
+the report of a military committee presided over by Marshal Foch, the
+conclusion was quickly and easily arrived at that it was better to
+leave the matter alone.
+
+Italy had already made an expedition into Albania, the reason for
+which beyond the military necessities for the period of the War has
+never been understood, except that of spending a huge sum without
+receiving the gratitude of the Albanians; an expedition in Georgia
+would have done harm, the consequence of which cannot be readily
+measured, it could, indeed, have meant ruin.
+
+Even those minds that are most blinded by prejudice and hate recognize
+the complete failure of the Russian communist system. The so-called
+dictatorship of the proletariat is reduced in practice to a military
+dictatorship of a communist group which represents only a fraction of
+the working classes and that not the best. The Bolshevik government
+is in the hands of a small minority in which fanaticism has taken the
+place of character. Everything which represented the work of the past
+has been destroyed and they have not known how to construct anything.
+The great industries have fallen and production is paralysed. Russia
+has lived for a long time on the residues of her capitalistic
+production rather than on new productions. The productivity of her
+agricultural and industrial work has been killed by communism, and the
+force of work has been reduced to a minimum. The Russian people are in
+straits which have no comparison, and entire territories are dying of
+hunger. The communist regime in a short time has precipitated such
+damage and such misery as no system of oppression could achieve in
+centuries. It is the proof, if any were necessary, that the form of
+communist production is not only harmful but not even lasting. The
+economists say that it is absurd, but, given the collective madness
+which has attacked some people, nothing is absurd beyond hoping in the
+rapid recovery of the most excited nations.
+
+If any country could be the scene of a communist experiment it was
+Russia. Imperial Russia represented the most vast continuative
+territory which a State ever occupied in all history's records of vast
+empires. Under the Tsars a territory which was almost three times the
+size of the United States of America was occupied by a people
+who, with the exception of a few cases of individual revolt, were
+accustomed to the most servile obedience. Under Nicholas II a few men
+exercised rule in a most despotic form over more than 180,000,000
+individuals spread over an immense territory. All obeyed blindly.
+Centralization was so great, and the obedience to the central power so
+absolute, that no hostile demonstration was tolerated for long. The
+communist regime therefore was able to count not only on the apathy
+of the Russian people but also upon the blindest obedience. To this
+fundamental condition of success, to a Government which must regulate
+production despotically, was joined another even greater condition
+of success. Russia is one of those countries which, like the United
+States of America, China and Brazil (the four greatest countries
+of the earth, not counting the English dominions with much thinner
+populations), possess within their own territories everything
+necessary for life. Imagine a country of self-contained economy, that
+lives entirely upon her own resources and trades with no one (and that
+is what happened in Russia as a result of the blockade), Russia has
+the possibility of realizing within herself the most prosperous
+conditions of existence. She has in her territories everything: grain,
+textile fibres, combustibles of every sort; Russia is one of the
+greatest reserves, if not the greatest reserve, in the world.
+Well, the communist organization was sufficient, the bureaucratic
+centralization, which communism must necessarily carry with it, to
+arrest every form of production. Russia, which before could give grain
+to all, is dying of hunger; Russia, which had sufficient quantities of
+coal for herself and could give petroleum to all Europe, can no longer
+move her railways; Russia, which had wool, flax, linen, and could have
+easily increased her cotton cultivation in the Caucasus, cannot even
+clothe the soldiers and functionaries of the Bolshevik State. Ceased
+is the stimulus of individual interest; few work; the peasants work
+only to produce what their families need; the workers in the city are
+chiefly engaged in meetings and political reunions. All wish to
+live upon the State, and production, organized autocratically and
+bureaucratically, every day dries up and withers a bit more.
+
+To those who read the collection of laws issued by the Bolshevik
+government many institutions appear not only reasonable, but also full
+of interest and justice. Also many laws of the absolute governments
+of past regimes appear intelligent and noble. But the law has not in
+itself any power of creation; it regulates relations, does not create
+them. It can even take away wealth from some and give it to others,
+but cannot create the wealth. When the individual interest begins to
+lack, work, which is sorrow and pain, lags and does not produce. To
+begin with, it weakens in the short days when energy is avoided, and
+then it stops through incapacity for energy. The old fundamental truth
+is that in all the Aryan tongues the words which indicate work have
+the same root as the words which denote pain. Among the great mass of
+man work is only done by necessity or under the stimulus of individual
+interest which excites the production of wealth. They work for wealth;
+and therefore in the Aryan tongues wealth means dominion and power.
+
+Two years ago I wanted, in spite of the opinion of others, to consent
+to the Italian Socialists visiting Russia. I was convinced that
+nothing would have served better to break in Italy the sympathy
+for Russia, or rather the illusions of the revolutionaries, as the
+spectacle of famine and disorder would. Never did the Press of my
+country, or the greater part of it, criticize with more violence a
+proposal which I considered to be both wise and prudent. I am glad to
+state that I was right, and that, maybe through the uncertainties
+and the lessons of those who had spread the illusions, the Italian
+Socialists returned from Russia were bound to recognize that the
+communist experiment was the complete ruin of the Russian people. No
+conservative propaganda could have been more efficacious than the
+vision of the truth.
+
+I am convinced that the hostile attitude, and almost persecution, on
+the part of the Entente rather helped the Bolshevik government, whose
+claims to discredit were already so numerous that it was not necessary
+to nullify it by an unjust and evident persecution.
+
+The Bolshevik government could not be recognized: it gave no
+guarantees of loyalty, and too often its representatives had violated
+the rights of hospitality and intrigued through fanatics and excited
+people to extend the revolution. Revolution and government are two
+terms which cannot co-exist. But not to recognize the government of
+the Soviet does not mean that the conditions of such recognition must
+include that the War debt shall be guaranteed, and, worse still, the
+pre-War debt, or that the gold resources and the metals of Russia
+shall be given as a guarantee of that debt. This morality, exclusively
+financial and plutocratic, cannot be the base of international
+relations in a period in which humanity, after the sorrows of the War,
+has the annoyance of a peace which no one foresaw and of which very
+few in the early days understood the dangers.
+
+Even when there was a tendency favourable to the recognition of the
+republic of the Soviet, I was always decidedly against it. It is
+impossible to recognize a State which bases all its relations on
+violence, and which in its relations with foreign States seeks, or
+has almost always sought, to carry out revolutionary propaganda. Even
+when, yielding to an impulse which it was not possible to avoid--in
+the new Italian Chamber, after the elections of 1919 not only the
+Socialists, but above all the Catholic popular party and the party of
+Rinnovamento, of which the ex-soldiers especially formed part, voted
+unanimously an order of the day for the recognition of the actual
+government of Russia--I did not think it right to give, and did not
+give, effect to that vote, impulsively generous, which would have
+invested Italy with the responsibility of recognizing, even if it were
+_de facto_, the government of the Soviet.
+
+I have always, however, rebelled and would never give my consent to
+any military undertakings against Russia, not even to a participation
+in the undertakings of men of the old regime. It was easy to foresee
+that the population would not have followed them and that the
+undertakings were doomed to failure. However, all the attempts at
+military revolts and counter-revolutions were encouraged with supplies
+of arms and material. But in 1920 all the military undertakings, in
+spite of the help given, failed one after another. In February the
+attempt of Admiral Koltchak failed miserably, and in March that of
+General Judenic. Failed has the attempt of Denikin. All the hopes of
+the restoration were centred in General Wrangel. The only Grand Duke
+with any claim to military authority also sent to tell me that this
+was a serious attempt with probability of success. General Wrangel, in
+fact, reunited the scattered forces of the old regime and occupied a
+large territory in power. France not only recognized in the government
+of Wrangel the legitimate representative of Russia, but nominated her
+official representatives with him. In November, 1920, even the army
+of Wrangel, which appeared to be of granite, was scattered. Poland,
+through alternating vicissitudes, claimed the power of resistance, but
+has shown that she has no offensive power against Russia. So all the
+attempts at restoration have broken, one after another.
+
+One of the greatest errors of the Entente has been to treat Russia
+on many occasions, not as a fallen friend, but as a conquered enemy.
+Nothing has been more deplorable than to have considered as Russia the
+men of the old regime, who have been treated for a long time as the
+representatives of an existing State when the State no longer existed.
+
+Let us suppose that the Bolshevik government transforms itself and
+gives guarantees to the civilized nations not to make revolutionary
+agitations in foreign countries, to maintain the pledges she assumes,
+and to respect the liberty of citizens; the United States of America,
+Great Britain and Italy would recognize her at once. But France has an
+entirely different point of view. She will not give any recognition
+unless the creditors of the old regime are guaranteed.
+
+In June, 1920, the government of Moscow sent some gold to Sweden to
+purchase indispensable goods. Millerand, President of the Council of
+Ministers and Minister of Foreign Affairs, declared to the Minister of
+Sweden at Paris that if his Government consented to receive Russian
+gold _ferait acte de receleur_. He then telegraphed to the Minister of
+Finance at Stockholm regretting that the Government and public opinion
+in Sweden were tending to consider the _revendications juridiques_ of
+the French creditors of the ancient Russian regime to be such that
+they did not stop the consignment of Swedish goods against Russian
+gold. He added at the end that the syndicates of creditors could
+utilize the news in telegram No. 355, in which the Swedish Government
+gave notice of the trade and put a sequestration on Russian gold sent
+to Sweden.
+
+This telegram, better than any speech, shows the diversity of
+conception.
+
+The Bolshevik government may be so immoral that we cannot recognize
+it until it gives serious guarantees. But if the government of Moscow
+sends a little of the gold that remains, or has remained, to buy
+goods, what right have we to sequestrate the gold in the interests of
+the creditors of the old regime?
+
+The new regime, born after the revolution, can also not recognize the
+debts of the old regime and annul them. It is not for that that we
+have no relations with it.
+
+We have pushed Germany by absurd demands to ruin her circulation. It
+is already at about 100 milliard of marks; if to-morrow it goes to 150
+or to 200, it will be necessary to annul it, nearly the same as is
+done for bills of exchange. And for this should we not treat with
+Germany?
+
+The new plutocratic conception, which marks the policy of a section
+of the Entente, is not lasting, and the people have a justifiable
+diffidence towards it.
+
+Bolshevism, as I have repeatedly stated, cannot be judged by our
+western eyes: it is not a popular and revolutionary movement; it is a
+religious fanaticism of the orthodox of the East hoisted on the throne
+of Tsarist despotism.
+
+Italy is the country which suffers most from the lack of continuous
+relations with Russia in so far that almost all Italian commerce, and
+in consequence the prices of freight and goods, have been for almost
+half a century regulated by the traffic with the Black Sea.
+
+Ships which leave England fully laden with goods for Italy generally
+continue to the Black Sea, where they fill up with grain, petroleum,
+etc., and then return to England, after having taken fresh cargoes in
+Italy and especially iron in Spain. It was possible in Italy for long
+periods of time to obtain most favourable freights and have coal at
+almost the same price as in England. The voyages of the ships were
+made, both coming and going, fully laden.
+
+The situation of Russia, therefore, hurts especially Italy. Great
+Britain has Mediterranean interests; France is partly a Mediterranean
+nation; Italy alone is a Mediterranean nation.
+
+Although Italy has a particular interest in reopening relations with
+Russia, the Italian Government has understood that the best and
+shortest way is not to recognize the government of Moscow. But Italy
+will never subordinate her recognition to plutocratic considerations.
+Whatever government there may be in Italy, it will never associate
+itself with actions directed to compelling Russia, in order to be
+recognized, to guarantee the payment of obligations assumed previous
+to the War and the revolution. Civilization has already suppressed
+corporal punishment for insolvent debtors, and slavery, from which
+individuals are released, should not be imposed on nations by
+democracies which say they are civilized.
+
+The fall of the communistic organization in Russia is inevitable. Very
+probably from the immense revolutionary catastrophe which has hit
+Russia there will spring up the diffusion of a regime of small landed
+proprietors. Whatever is contrary to human nature is not lasting, and
+communism can only accumulate misery, and on its ruins will arise new
+forms of life which we cannot yet define. But Bolshevik Russia can
+count still on two elements which we do not habitually take into
+account: the apathy and indolence of the people on the one hand, and
+the strength of the military organization on the other. No other
+people would have resigned itself to the intense misery and to the
+infinite sufferings which tens of millions of Russians endure without
+complaint. But still in the midst of so much misery no other people
+would have known how to maintain a powerful and disciplined army such
+as is the army of revolutionary Russia.
+
+The Russian people have never had any sympathy for the military
+undertakings which the Entente has aided. During some of the meetings
+of Premiers at Paris and London I had occasion, in the sittings of
+the conferences, to speak with the representatives of the new
+States, especially those from the Caucasus. They were all agreed
+in considering that the action of the men of the old regime, and
+especially Denikin, was directed at the suppression of the independent
+States and to the return of the old forms, and they attributed to this
+the aversion of the Russian people to them.
+
+Certainly it is difficult to speak of Russia where there exists no
+longer a free Press and the people have hardly any other preoccupation
+than that of not dying of hunger. Although it is a disastrous
+organization, the organization of the Soviet remains still the only
+one, which it is not possible to substitute immediately with another.
+Although the Russian people can re-enter slowly into international
+life and take up again its thread, a long time is necessary, but also
+it is necessary to change tactics.
+
+The peasants, who form the enormous mass of the Russian people, look
+with terror on the old regime. They have occupied the land and will
+maintain that occupation; they do not want the return of the great
+Russian princes who possessed lands covering provinces and were even
+ignorant of their possessions. One of the causes which has permitted
+Bolshevism to last is, as I have said, the attitude of the Entente,
+which on many occasions has shown the greatest sympathy for the men of
+the old regime. The Tsar of Russia was an insignificant man, all the
+Grand Dukes were persons without dignity and without credit, and the
+Court and Government abounded with men without scruples--violent,
+thieves, and drunkards. If Bolshevik government had been ruin, no one
+can deny but that a great part of the blame belongs to the old regime,
+the return of which no honest man desires.
+
+An error not less serious was to allow Poland to occupy large tracts
+of purely Russian territory.
+
+There remain in Europe, therefore, so many states of unrest which do
+not only concern the conditions of the conquered countries, but also
+those of the conquering countries. We have already seen how Germany
+and the States which form part of her group cannot now any longer
+represent a danger of war for many years to come, and that none the
+less the victorious countries and the new States continue to arm
+themselves in a most formidable manner. We have seen what an element
+of disorder Poland has become and how the policy of the Entente
+towards Russia has constituted a permanent danger.
+
+But all Europe is still uncertain and the ground is so movable that
+any new construction threatens ruin. Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria,
+Turkey, cannot live under the conditions imposed on them by the
+treaties. But the new States for the most part are themselves in a
+sufficiently serious position.
+
+With the exception of Finland all the other States which have arisen
+on the ruins of the Russian Empire are in serious difficulty. If
+Esthonia and Lithuania are in a fairly tolerable situation Lettonia is
+in real ruin, and hunger and tuberculosis rule almost everywhere, as
+in many districts of Poland and Russia. At Riga hunger and sickness
+have caused enormous losses amongst the population. Recently 15,000
+children were in an extremely serious physical and mental condition.
+In a single dispensary, of 663 children who were brought for treatment
+151 were under-nourished, 229 were scrofulous, 66 anaemic, and 217
+suffering from rickets. The data published in England and the United
+States and those of the Red Cross of Geneva are terrible.
+
+Even with the greatest imagination it is difficult to think how
+Hungary and Austria can live and carry out, even in the smallest
+degree, the obligations imposed by the treaties. By a moral paradox,
+besides living they must indemnify the victors, according to the
+Treaties of St. Germain and the Trianon, for all the damages which the
+War has brought on themselves and which the victors have suffered.
+
+Hungary has undergone the greatest occupation of her territories and
+her wealth. This poor great country, which saved both civilization and
+Christianity, has been treated with a bitterness which nothing can
+explain except the desire of greed of those surrounding her, and the
+fact that the weaker people, seeing the stronger overcome, wish and
+insist that she shall be reduced to impotence. Nothing, in fact, can
+justify the measures of violence and the depredations committed in
+Magyar territory. What was the Rumanian occupation of Hungary: a
+systematic rapine and the systematic destruction for a long time
+hidden, and the stern reproach which Lloyd George addressed in London
+to the Premier of Rumania was perfectly justified. After the War
+everyone wanted some sacrifice from Hungary, and no one dared to say a
+word of peace or goodwill for her. When I tried it was too late.
+The victors hated Hungary for her proud defence. The adherents of
+Socialism do not love her because she had to resist, under more
+than difficult conditions, internal and external Bolshevism. The
+international financiers hate her because of the violences committed
+against the Jews. So Hungary suffers all the injustices without
+defence, all the miseries without help, and all the intrigues without
+resistance.
+
+Before the War Hungary had an area almost equal to that of Italy,
+282,870 square kilometres, with a population of 18,264,533
+inhabitants. The Treaty of Trianon reduced her territory to 91,114
+kilometres--that is, 32.3 per cent.--and the population to 7,481,954,
+or 41 per cent. It was not sufficient to cut off from Hungary the
+populations which were not ethnically Magyar. Without any reason
+1,084,447 Magyars have been handed over to Czeko-Slovakia, 457,597 to
+Jugo-Slavia, 1,704,851 to Rumania. Also other nuclei of population
+have been detached without reason.
+
+Amongst all the belligerents Hungary perhaps is the country which in
+comparison with the population has had the greatest number of dead;
+the monarchy of the Habsburgs knew that they could count on the
+bravery of the Magyars, and they sent them to massacre in all the most
+bloody battles. So the little people gave over 500,000 dead and an
+enormous number of injured and sick.
+
+The territories taken from Hungary represent two-thirds of her mineral
+wealth; the production of three million quintali (300,000 tons) of
+gold and silver is entirely lost; the great production of salt is
+also lost to her (about 250,000 tons). The production of iron ore is
+reduced by 19 per cent., of anthracite by 14 per cent., of lignite by
+70 per cent.; of the 2,029 factories, hardly 1,241 have remained to
+Hungary; more than three-quarters of the magnificent railway wealth
+has been given away.
+
+Hungary at the same time has lost her greater resources in agriculture
+and cattle breeding.
+
+The capital, henceforth, too large for a too small state, carries
+on amidst the greatest difficulties, and there congregate the most
+pitiable of the Transylvanian refugees and those from other lost
+regions.
+
+The demographic structure of Hungary, which up to a few years ago was
+excellent, is now threatening. The mortality among the children and
+the mortality from tuberculosis have become alarming. At Budapest,
+even after the War, the number of deaths surpasses the number of
+births. The statistics published by Dr. Ferenczi prove that the
+number of children afflicted with rickets and tuberculosis reaches in
+Budapest the terrific figure of 250,000 in a population of about two
+millions. It is said that practically all the new-born in recent
+years, partly through the privations of the mothers and partly from
+the lack of milk, are tuberculous.
+
+The conditions of life are so serious that there is no comparison;
+some prices have only risen five to tenfold, but very many from thirty
+to fifty and even higher. Grain, which before the War cost 31 crowns,
+costs now 500 crowns; corn has passed from 17 to 220 and 250 crowns.
+A kilogram of rice, which used to cost 70 centimes, can be found now
+only at 80 crowns. Sugar, coffee and milk are at prices which are
+absolutely prohibitive.
+
+Of the financial situation it is almost useless to speak. The
+documents presented to the Conference of Brussels are sad evidence,
+and a sure index is the course of the crown, now so reduced as to have
+hardly any value in international relations. The effective income is
+more than a fourth part of the effective expenses, and the rest is
+covered especially by the circulation.
+
+Such is the situation of Hungary, which has lost everything, and which
+suffers the most atrocious privations and the most cruel pangs of
+hunger. In this condition she should, according to the Treaty of
+Trianon, not only have sufficient for herself, but pay indemnities to
+the enemy.
+
+The Hungarian deputies, at the sitting which approved the Treaty of
+Trianon, were clad in mourning, and many were weeping. At the close
+they all rose and sang the national hymn.
+
+A people which is in the condition of mind of the Magyar people can
+accept the actual state of affairs as a temporary necessity, but have
+we any faith that it will not seek all occasions to retake what it has
+unjustly lost, and that in a certain number of years there will not be
+new and more terrible wars?
+
+I cannot hide the profound emotion which I felt when Count Apponyi,
+on January 16, 1920, before the Supreme Council at Paris, gave the
+reasons of Hungary.
+
+You, gentlemen [he said], whom victory has permitted to place
+yourselves in the position of judges, you have pronounced the
+culpability of your late enemies and the point of view which directs
+you in your resolutions is that of making the consequences of the War
+fall on those who were responsible for it.
+
+Let us examine now with great serenity the conditions imposed on
+Hungary, conditions which are inacceptable without the most serious
+consequences. Taking away from Hungary the larger part of her
+territory, the greater part of her population, the greater portion of
+her economic resources, can this particular severity be justified by
+the general principles which inspire the Entente? Hungary not having
+been heard (and was not heard except to take note of the declaration
+of the head of the delegation), cannot accept a verdict which destroys
+her without explaining the reasons.
+
+The figures furnished by the Hungarian delegation left no doubt
+behind: they treated of the dismemberment of Hungary and the sacrifice
+of three millions and a half of Magyars and of the German population
+of Hungary to people certainly more ignorant and less advanced. At the
+end Apponyi and the Hungarian delegation did not ask for anything more
+than a plebiscite for the territories in dispute.
+
+After he had explained in a marvellous manner the great function of
+historic Hungary, that of having saved on various occasions Europe
+from barbaric invasion, and of having known how to maintain its unity
+for ten centuries in spite of the many differences amongst nations,
+Count Apponyi showed how important it was for Europe to have a solid
+Hungary against the spread of Bolshevism and violence.
+
+You can say [added Apponyi] that against all these reasons there is
+only one--victory, the right of victory. We know it, gentlemen; we are
+sufficient realists in politics to count on this factor. We know what
+we owe to victory and we are ready to pay the price of our defeat. But
+should this be the sole principle of construction: that force alone
+should be the basis of what you would build, that force alone should
+be the base of the new building, that material force alone should be
+the power to hold up those constructions which fall whilst you are
+trying to build them? The future of Europe would then be sad, and we
+cannot believe it. We do not find all that in the mentality of the
+victorious nations; we do not find it in the declarations in which you
+have defined the principles for which you have fought, and the objects
+of the War which you have proposed to yourselves.
+
+And after having referred to the traditions of the past, Count Apponyi
+added:
+
+We have faith in the sincerity of the principles which you have
+proclaimed: it would be doing you injustice to think otherwise. We
+have faith in the moral forces with which you have wished to identify
+your cause. And all that I wish to hope, gentlemen, is that the glory
+of your arms may be surpassed by the glory of the peace which you will
+give to the world.
+
+The Hungarian delegation was simply heard; but the treaty, which had
+been previously prepared and was the natural consequence of the Treaty
+of Versailles, was in no way modified.
+
+An examination of the Treaty of Trianon is superfluous. By a stroke
+of irony the financial and economic clauses inflict the most serious
+burdens on a country which had lost almost everything: which has lost
+the greatest number of men proportionately in the War, which since
+the War has had two revolutions, which for four months suffered the
+sackings of Bolshevism--led by Bela Kun and the worst elements of
+revolutionary political crime--and, finally, has suffered a Rumanian
+occupation, which was worse almost than the revolutions or Bolshevism.
+
+It is impossible to say which of the peace treaties imposed on the
+conquered is lasting and which is the least supportable: after the
+Treaty of Versailles, all the treaties have had the same tendency and
+the same conformation.
+
+The situation of German-Austria is now such that she can say with
+Andromache: "Let it please God that I have still something more to
+fear!" Austria has lost everything, and her great capital, which was
+the most joyous in Europe, shelters now a population whose resources
+are reduced to the minimum. The slump in her production, which is
+carried on amidst all the difficulties, the fall in her credit, the
+absolute lack of foreign exchanges, the difficulty of trading with the
+hostile populations which surround her, put Austria in an extremely
+difficult position and in progressive and continuous decadence. The
+population, especially in the cities, is compelled to the hardest
+privations; the increase of tuberculosis is continuous and
+threatening.
+
+Bulgaria has had rather less loss, and although large tracts of
+Bulgarian territory have been given without any justifiable motive to
+Greece and Jugo-Slavia, and although all outlet on the Aegean has been
+taken from her by assigning to Greece lands which she cannot maintain,
+on the whole Bulgaria, after the Treaty of Neuilly, has less sharp
+sufferings than the other conquered countries. Bulgaria had a
+territorial extension of 113,809 square kilometres; she has now lost
+about 9,000 square kilometres. She had a population of 4,800,000, and
+has lost about 400,000.
+
+As for Turkey, if the treaties should continue to exist, she can be
+considered as disappearing from Europe and on the road to disappear
+from Asia. The Turkish population has been distributed haphazard,
+especially to Greece, or divided up under the form of mandates to
+countries of the Entente. According to the Treaty of Sèvres of August
+10, 1920, Turkey abandons all her territory in Europe, withdrawing her
+frontier to the Ciatalgia lines.
+
+Turkey in Europe is limited, therefore, to the surroundings of
+Constantinople, with little more than 2,000 square kilometres, and a
+population which is rather hard to estimate, but which is that only of
+the city and the surroundings--perhaps a million and a half men. In
+Asia Minor Turkey loses the territory of the Sanjak of Smyrna,
+over which, however, she retains a purely nominal sovereignty; the
+territory still undefined of the Armenian Republic: Syria, Cilicia,
+Palestine and Mesopotamia, which become independent under mandatory
+powers; in Arabia the territory of the Hedjaz, whilst the remainder
+of the peninsula will enjoy almost complete independence. Besides,
+Constantinople and the Straits are subject to international control,
+and the three States now the most closely interested--Great Britain,
+France and Italy--assume the control of the finances and other aspects
+of the Ottoman administration.
+
+Every programme has ignored Turkey except when the Entente has had
+opportunity to favour Greece. The Greece of Venezelos was the ward of
+the Entente almost more than Poland itself. Having participated in the
+War to a very small extent and with almost insignificant losses, she
+has, after the War, almost trebled her territory and almost doubled
+her population. Turkey was put entirely, or almost so, outside Europe;
+Greece has taken almost everything. Rejected was the idea of fixing
+the frontier on the Enos Medea line, and the frontier fixed at
+Ciatalgia; Constantinople was under the fire of the Greek artillery,
+and Constantinople was nominally the only city which remained to
+Turkey. The Sanjak of Smyrna, in Asia Minor, was the true wealth of
+Turkey; it represented forty-five per cent. of the imports of the
+Turkish Empire. Although the population of the whole vilayet of Audin
+and the majority of the Sanjak of Smyrna was Mussulman, Greece had the
+possession. The whole of Thrace was assigned to Greece; Adrianople,
+a city sacred to Islam, which contains the tombs of the Caliphs, has
+passed to the Greeks.
+
+The Entente, despite the resistance of some of the heads of
+governments, always yielded to the requests of Greece. There was a
+sentiment of antipathy for the Turks and there was a sympathy for
+the Greeks: there was the idea to put outside Europe all Mussulman
+dominion, and the remembrance of the old propaganda of Gladstone, and
+there were the threats of Wilson, who in one of his proposals desired
+exactly to put Turkey outside Europe. But above all there was the
+personal work of Venezelos. Every request, without being even examined
+thoroughly, was immediately justified by history, statistics,
+ethnography. In any discussion he took care to _solliciter doucement
+les textes_ as often the learned with few scruples do. I have met few
+men in my career who united to an exalted patriotism such a profound
+ability as Venezelos. Every time that, in a friendly way, I gave him
+counsels of moderation and showed him the necessity of limiting the
+requests of Greece, I never found a hard or intemperate spirit. He
+knew how to ask and obtain, to profit by all the circumstances, to
+utilize all the resources better even than the professional diplomats.
+In asking he always had the air of offering, and, obtaining, he
+appeared to be conceding something. He had at the same time a supreme
+ability to obtain the maximum force with the minimum of means and a
+mobility of spirit almost surprising.
+
+He saw no difficulty, convinced as he was, of erecting a Greek Empire
+on the remnants of Turkey. Every time that doubts were expressed to
+him, or he was shown data which should have moderated the positions,
+he denied the most evident things, he recognized no danger, and saw
+no difficulty. He affirmed always with absolute calm the certainty of
+success. It was his opinion that the Balkan peninsula should be, in
+the north, under the action of the Serb-Croat-Slovene State and of
+Rumania, and in the south of Greece. But Greece, having almost all the
+islands of the Aegean, a part of the territory of Turkey and all the
+ports in the Aegean, and having the Sanjak of Smyrna, should form
+a littoral Empire of the East and chase the Turks into the poorer
+districts of Anatolia.
+
+In the facility with which the demands of Greece were accepted (and
+in spite of everything they were accepted even after the fall of
+Venezelos) there was not only a sympathy for Greece, but, above
+all, the certainty that a large Greek army at Smyrna would serve
+principally towards the security of those countries which have and
+wished to consolidate great interests in Asia Minor, as long as the
+Turks of Anatolia were thinking specially about Smyrna and could not
+use her forces elsewhere. For the same motive, in the last few years,
+all the blame is attributed to the Turks. If they have erred much, the
+errors, even the minor ones, have been transformed into crimes. The
+atrocities of the Turks have been described, illustrated, exaggerated;
+all the other atrocities, often no less serious, have been forgotten
+or ignored.
+
+The idea of a Hellenic Empire which dominates all the coast of the
+Aegean in Europe and Asia encounters one fundamental difficulty. To
+dominate the coast it is necessary to have the certainty of a large
+hinterland. The Romans in order to dominate Dalmatia were obliged to
+go as far as the Danube. Alexander the Great, to have a Greek Empire,
+had, above all, to provide for land dominion. Commercial colonies or
+penetration in isolation are certainly possible, but vast political
+organizations are not possible. It is not sufficient to have
+territory; it is necessary to organize it and regulate the life.
+Mankind does not nourish itself on what it eats, and even less on what
+it digests, but on what it assimilates.
+
+Historians of the future will be profoundly surprised to learn that in
+the name of the principle of nationality the vilayet of Adrianople,
+which contains the city dearest to the heart of Islam after Mecca, was
+given to the Greeks. According to the very data supplied by Venezelos
+there were 500,000 Turks, 365,000 Greeks, and 107,000 Bulgarians; in
+truth the Turks are in much greater superiority.
+
+The Grand Vizier of Turkey, in April, 1920, presented a note to the
+ambassadors of the Entente to revindicate the rights on certain
+vilayets of the Turkish Empire. According to this note, in Western
+Thrace there were 522,574 inhabitants, of which 362,445 were
+Mussulmans. In the vilayet of Adrianople, out of 631,000 inhabitants,
+360,417 were Mussulmans. The population of the vilayet of Smyrna is
+1,819,616 inhabitants, of which 1,437,983 are Mussulmans. Perhaps
+these statistics are biased, but the statistics presented by the
+opposing party were even more fantastic.
+
+After having had so many territorial concessions, Greece--who during
+the War had enriched herself by commerce--is obliged, even after the
+return of Constantine, who did not know how to resist the pressure,
+to undertake most risky undertakings in Asia Minor, and has no way of
+saving herself except by an agreement with Turkey. In the illusion of
+conquering the Turkish resistance, she is now obliged to maintain
+an army twice as big as that of the British Empire! The dreams of
+greatness increase: some little military success has given Greece the
+idea also that the Treaty of Sèvres is only a foundation regulating
+the relationship with the Allies and with the enemy, and constituting
+for Greece a title of rights, the full possession of which cannot be
+modified. The War determines new rights which cannot invalidate the
+concessions already given, which, on the contrary, are reinforced and
+become intangible, but renders necessary new concessions.
+
+What will happen? Whilst Greece dreams of Constantinople, and we have
+disposed of Constantinople and the Straits, Turkey seems resigned to
+Constantinople itself, to-day a very poor international city rather
+than a Turkish city. The Treaty of Sèvres says that it is true that
+the contracting States are in agreement in not offending any of the
+rights of the Ottoman government on Constantinople, which remains
+the capital of the Turkish Empire, always under the reserve of
+the dispositions of the treaty. That is equivalent to saying of a
+political regime that it is a controlled "liberty," just as in
+the time of the Tsars it was said that there existed a _Monarchie
+constitutionnelle sous un autocrate_. Constantinople under the Treaty
+of Sèvres is the free capital of the Turkish Empire under the reserve
+of the conditions which are contained in the treaty and limit exactly
+that liberty.
+
+The force of Turkey has always been in her immense power of
+resistance. Win by resisting, wear out with the aid of time, which the
+Turks have considered not as an economic value, but as their friend.
+To conquer the resistance of Turkey, both in the new territories of
+Europe and in Asia Minor, Greece will have to exhaust the greater
+part of her limited resources. The Turks have always brought to a
+standstill those who would dominate her, by a stubborn resistance
+which is fanaticism and national dignity. On the other hand, the
+Treaty of Sèvres, which has systematized in part Eastern Europe, was
+concluded in the absence of two personages not to be unconsidered,
+Russia and Germany, the two States which have the greatest interest
+there. Germany, the War won, as she could not give her explanations on
+the conclusions of peace, was not able to intervene in the solutions
+of the question of the Orient. Russia was absent. Worn out with the
+force of a war superior to her energies, she fell into convulsions,
+and is now struggling between the two misfortunes of communism and
+misery, of which it is hard to say whether one, or which of the two,
+is the consequence of the other.
+
+One of the most characteristic facts concerns Armenia. The Entente
+never spoke of Armenia. In his fourteen points Wilson neither
+considered nor mentioned it. It was an argument difficult for the
+Entente in so far that Russia was straining in reality (under the
+necessity of protecting the Christians) to take Turkish Armenia
+without leaving Russian Armenia.
+
+But suddenly some religious societies and some philanthropic people
+instituted a vast movement for the liberation of Armenia. Nothing
+could be more just than to create a small Armenian State which would
+have allowed the Armenians to group themselves around Lake Van and
+to affirm their national unity in one free State. But here also
+the hatred of the Turks, the agitation of the Greeks, the dimly
+illuminated philanthropy, determined a large movement to form a great
+State of Armenia which should have outlets on the sea and great
+territories.
+
+So that no longer did people talk of a small State, a refuge and safe
+asylum for the Armenians, but of a large State. President Wilson
+himself, during the Conference of San Remo, sent a message in the form
+of a recalling to mind, if not a reproof, to the European States of
+the Entente because they did not proceed to the constitution of a
+State of Armenia. It was suggested to bring it down to Trebizond, to
+include Erzeroum in the new Armenia, a vast State of Armenia in which
+the Armenians would have been in the minority. And all that in homage
+to historical tradition and for dislike of the Turks! A great Armenia
+creates also a series of difficulties amongst which is that of the
+relations between Armenia, Georgia and Azerbajan, supposing that in
+the future these States cut themselves off definitely from Russia. The
+great Armenia would include the vilayet of Erzeroum, which is now
+the centre of Turkish nationalism, and contains more Mussulmans than
+Armenians. As a matter of fact the vilayet of Erzeroum has 673,000
+Mussulmans, 1,800 Greeks and 135,000 Armenians.
+
+When it was a question of giving Greece territories in which the
+Greeks were in a minority it was said that the populations were so
+badly governed by the Turks that they had the right to pass under
+a better regime, whatever it might be. But for a large part of the
+territory of the so-called Great Armenia it is possible to commit the
+error of putting large majorities of Mussulman people under a hostile
+Armenian minority.
+
+The Armenians would have to fight at the same time against the Kurds
+and against Azerbajan; they are surrounded by enemies on all sides.
+
+But the whole of the discussion of giving the vilayet of Erzeroum to
+Armenia or leaving it to Turkey is entirely superfluous, for it is
+not a question of attributing territory but of determining actual
+situations. If it is desired to give to the Armenians the city of
+Erzeroum, it is first of all necessary that they shall be able to
+enter and be able to remain there. Now since the Armenians have not
+shown, with a few exceptions, a great power of resistance, and are
+rather a race of merchants than warriors, it would be necessary for
+others to undertake the charge of defending them. None of the European
+States desired a mandate for Armenia, and no one wished to assume
+the serious military burden of protecting the Armenians; the United
+States, after having in the message of Wilson backed a great Armenia,
+wished even less than the other States to interest themselves in it.
+
+Probably proposals of a more reasonable character and marked by less
+aversion for the Turks would have permitted the Turks not only to
+recognize, which is not difficult for them, but in fact to respect,
+the new State of Armenia, without the dreams of a sea coast and the
+madness of Erzeroum.
+
+If the condition of the conquered is sufficiently serious
+the situation of the peoples most favoured by the Entente in
+Europe--Poland and Greece, who have obtained the greatest and most
+unjust increases in territory, having given for a diversity of reasons
+extremely little during the War--is certainly not less so. Each of
+these countries are suffocating under the weight of the concessions,
+and seek in vain a way of salvation from the burdens which they are
+not able to support, and from the mania of conquest which are the
+fruits of exaltation and error.
+
+Having obtained much, having obtained far more than they thought or
+hoped, they believe that their advantage lies in new expansion. Poland
+violates treaties, offends the laws of international usage, and
+is protected in everything she undertakes. But every one of her
+undertakings can only throw her into greater discomfort and augment
+the total of ruin.
+
+All the violences in Upper Silesia to prevent the plebiscite going in
+favour of Germany were not only tolerated but prepared far ahead.
+
+When I was head of the Italian Government the representative of the
+German Government in Rome, von Herf, gave documentary evidence on what
+was being prepared, and on April 30, 1920, in an audience which I gave
+him as head of the Council he furnished me with proofs of what was
+the Polish organization, what were its objects and the source of its
+funds.
+
+As everyone knows, the plebiscite of March 20, 1921, in spite of the
+violence and notwithstanding the officially protected brigandage,
+resulted favourably to Germany. Out of 1,200,636 voters 717,122 were
+for Germany and 483,514 for Poland. The 664 richest, most prosperous
+and most populous communes gave a majority for the Germans, 597
+communes gave a majority for Poland. The territory of Upper Silesia,
+according to the treaty, according to the plebiscite, according to the
+most elementary international honesty, should be immediately handed
+over to Germany. But as they do not wish to give the coal of
+Upper Silesia to Germany, and the big interests of the new great
+metallurgical group press and trick, the Treaty of Versailles has here
+also become a _chiffon de papier_.
+
+Instead of accepting, as was the first duty, the result of the
+plebiscite, people have resorted to sophism of incomparable weakness:
+Article 88 of the Treaty of Versailles says only that the inhabitants
+of Upper Silesia shall be called to designate by means of a plebiscite
+if they desire to be united to Germany or to Poland.
+
+It was necessary to find a sophism!
+
+The Addendum of Section 8 establishes how the work of scrutiny shall
+be carried out and all the procedure of the elections. There are six
+articles of procedure. Paragraph 4 says that each one shall vote in
+the commune where he is domiciled or in that where he was born if he
+has not a domicile in the territory. The result of the vote shall be
+determined commune by commune, according to the majority of votes in
+each commune.
+
+This means then that the results of the voting, as is done in
+political questions in all countries, should, be controlled commune by
+commune: it is the form of the scrutiny which the appendix defines.
+Instead, in order to take the coal away from Germany, it was
+attempted, and is being still attempted, not to apply the treaty, but
+to violate the principle of the indivisibility of the territory and to
+give the mining districts to Poland.
+
+The violation of the neutrality of Belgium was not an offence to a
+treaty more serious than this attempt; the Treaty of 1839 cannot be
+considered a _chiffon de papier_ more than the Treaty of Versailles.
+Only the parties are inverted.
+
+It is not France, noble and democratic, which inspires these
+movements, but a plutocratic situation which has taken the same
+positions, but on worse grounds, as the German metallurgists before
+the War. It is the same current against which Lloyd George has several
+times bitterly protested and for which he has had very bitter words
+which it is not necessary to recall. It is the same movement which has
+created agitations in Italy by means of its organs, and which attempt
+one thing only: to ruin the German industry and, having the control of
+the coal, to monopolize in Europe the iron industries and those which
+are derived from it.
+
+First of all, in order to indemnify France for the _temporary_ damages
+done to the mines in the North, there was the cession _in perpetuo_ of
+the mines of the Saar; then there were the repeated attempts to occupy
+the territory of the Ruhr to control the coal; last of all there is
+the wish not to apply the plebiscite and to violate the Treaty of
+Versailles by not giving Upper Silesia to Germany, but giving it
+abusively to Poland.
+
+Germany produced before the War about 190,000,000 tons of coal; in
+1913 191,500,000. The consumption of these mines themselves was about
+a tenth, 19,000,000 tons, whilst for exportation were 83,500,000 tons,
+and for internal consumption were 139,000,000.
+
+Now Germany has lost, and justly, Alsace-Lorraine, 3,800,000 tons. She
+has lost, and it was not just, the Saar, 13,200,000 tons. She is bound
+by the obligations of the treaty to furnish France with 20,000,000
+tons, and to Belgium and Italy and France again another 25,000,000
+tons. If she loses the excellent coal of Upper Silesia, about
+43,800,000 tons per year, she will be completely paralysed.
+
+It is needless to lose time in demonstrating for what geographic,
+ethnographic and economist reason Upper Silesia should be united with
+Germany. It is a useless procedure, and also, after the plebiscites,
+an insult to the reasoning powers. If the violation of treaties is not
+a right of the victor, after the plebiscite, in which, notwithstanding
+all the violences, three-quarters of the population voted for Germany,
+then there is no reason for discussion.
+
+The words used by Lloyd George on May 18, 1921, in the House of
+Commons, are a courteous abbreviation of the truth. From the
+historical point of view, he said, Poland has no rights over Silesia.
+The only reason for which Poland could claim Upper Silesia is that it
+possesses a numerous Polish population, arrived there in comparatively
+recent times with the intention of finding work, and especially in the
+mines. That is true and is more serious than would be an agitation of
+the Italians in the State of San Paulo of Brazil, claiming that they
+had a majority of the population.
+
+"The Polish insurrection," said Lloyd George justly, "is a challenge
+to the Treaty of Versailles, which, at the same time, constitutes the
+charter of Polish Liberty." Poland is the last country in Europe which
+has the right to deplore the treaty, because Poland did not conquer
+the treaty. Poland did not gain her liberty, and more than any other
+country should respect every comma of the treaty. She owes her liberty
+to Italy, Great Britain and France.
+
+In the future [said the English Prime Minister] force will lose its
+efficiency in regard to the Treaty of Versailles, and the maintenance
+of the undertakings on the part of Germany on the basis of her
+signature placed to the treaty will count increasingly. We have the
+right to everything which she gives us: but we have the right also to
+leave everything which is left to her. It is our duty of impartiality
+to act with rigorous justice, without taking into account the
+advantages or the disadvantages which may accrue therefrom. Either the
+Allies must demand that the treaty shall be respected, or they should
+permit the Germans to make the Poles respect it. It is all very well
+to disarm Germany, but to desire that even the troops which she does
+possess should not participate in the re-establishment of order is a
+pure injustice.
+
+Russia [added Lloyd George] to-day is a fallen Power, tired, a prey
+to a despotism which leaves no hope, but is also a country of great
+natural resources, inhabited by a people of courage, who at the
+beginning of the War gave proof of its courage. Russia will not always
+find herself in the position in which she is to-day. Who can say what
+she will become? In a short time she may become a powerful country,
+which can say its word about the future of Europe and the world. To
+which part will she turn? With whom will she unite?
+
+
+There is nothing more just or more true than this.
+
+But Poland wants to take away Upper Silesia from Germany
+notwithstanding the plebiscite and against the treaty, and which has
+in this action the aid of the metallurgical interests and the great
+interests of a large portion of the Press of all Europe. Poland, which
+has large nuclei of German populations, after having been enslaved,
+claims the right to enslave populations, which are more cultured,
+richer and more advanced. And besides the Germans it claims the right
+to enslave even Russian peoples and further to occupy entire Russian
+territories, and wishes to extend into Ukraine. There is then the
+political paradox of Wilna. This city, which belongs according to the
+regular treaty to Lithuania, has been occupied in an arbitrary manner
+by the Poles, who also claim Kowno.
+
+In short, Poland, which obtained her unity by a miracle, is working in
+the most feverish manner to create her own ruin. She has no finance,
+she has no administration, she has no credit. She does not work, and
+yet consumes; she occupies new territories, and ruins the old ones. Of
+the 31,000,000 inhabitants, as we have seen, 7 millions are Ukranians,
+2.2 Russians, 2.1 Germans, and nearly half a million of other
+nationalities. But among the eighteen or nineteen million Poles there
+are at least four million Jews--Polish Jews, without doubt, but
+the greater portion do not love Poland, which has not known how to
+assimilate them. The Treaty of Versailles has created the absurd
+position that to go from one part to the other of Germany it is
+necessary to traverse the Danzig corridor. In other terms, Germany is
+cut in two parts, and to move in Prussia herself from Berlin to one of
+the oldest German cities, the home of Emanuel Kant, Konigsberg, it is
+necessary to traverse Polish territory.
+
+So Poland separates the two most numerous people of Europe: Russia and
+Germany. The Biblical legend lets us suppose that the waters of
+the Red Sea opened to let the Chosen People pass: but immediately
+afterwards the waters closed up again. Is it possible to suppose that
+such an arbitrary arrangement as this will last for long?
+
+If it has lasted as long as it has, it is because it was, at least
+from the part of one section of the Entente, not the road to peace,
+but because it was a method of crushing down Germany.
+
+If a people had conditions for developing rapidly it was
+Czeko-Slovakia. But also with the intention of hurting Germany and the
+German peoples, a Czeko-Slovak State was created which has also
+its own tremendous crisis of nationality. A Czeko-Slovakia with a
+population of eight to nine million people represented a compact
+ethnical unity. Instead, they have added five and a half million
+people of different nationalities, amongst whom about 4,000,000
+Germans, with cities which are the most German in the world, as
+Pilsen, Karlsbad, Reichenberg, etc. What is even more serious is that
+the 4,000,000 Germans are attached to Germany, and, having a superior
+culture and civilization, will never resign themselves to being placed
+under the Czeks.
+
+Czeko-Slovakia had mineral riches, industrial concerns and solid
+agriculture, and a culture spread among the people--all the conditions
+for rising rapidly. All these advantages risk being annulled by the
+grave and useless insult to the Germans and Magyars.
+
+Not only is the situation of Europe in every way uncertain, but there
+is a tendency in the groups of the victors on the Continent of Europe
+to increase the military budgets. The relationships of trade are being
+restored only slowly; commerce is spoken of as an aim. In Italy the
+dangers and perils of reopening trade with Germany have been seriously
+discussed; customs duties are raised every day; the industrial groups
+find easy propaganda for protection. Any limitation of competition is
+a duty, whether it be the enemy of yesterday or the enemy of to-day,
+and so the greatest evils of protection are camouflaged under
+patriotism.
+
+None of the countries which have come out of the War on the Continent
+have a financial position which helps toward a solid situation.
+All the financial documents of the various countries, which I have
+collected and studied with great care, contain enormous masses
+of expenses which are the consequences of the War; those of the
+conquering countries also contain enormous aggregations of expenses
+which are or can become the cause of new wars.
+
+The conquered countries have not actually any finance. Germany has an
+increase of expenses which the fall of the mark renders more serious.
+In 1920 she spent not less than ninety-two milliards, ruining her
+circulation. How much has she spent in 1921?
+
+Austria and Hungary have budgets which are simply hypotheses. The last
+Austrian budget, for 1921, assigned a sum of seventy-one milliards
+of crowns for expenses, and this for a poor country with 7,000,000
+inhabitants.
+
+A detailed examination of the financial situation of Czeko-Slovakia,
+of Rumania, and of the Serbo-Croat States gives results which are at
+the least alarming. Even Greece, which until yesterday had a solid
+structure, gallops now in a madness of expenditure which exceeds all
+her resources, and if she does not find a means to make peace with
+Turkey she will find her credit exhausted. The most ruinous of all
+is the situation of Poland, whose finance is certainly not better
+regulated than that of the Bolsheviks of Moscow, to judge from the
+course of the Polish mark and the Russian rouble if anyone gets the
+idea of buying them on an international market.
+
+The situation of the exchange since the War has not sensibly bettered
+even for the great countries, and it is extraordinarily worse for the
+other countries.
+
+In June, 1921, France had a circulation of about thirty-eight milliard
+of francs, Belgium six milliard of francs, Italy of about eighteen
+milliards; Great Britain, between State notes and Bank of England
+notes, had hardly £434,000,000 sterling. Actually, among the
+continental countries surviving the War, Italy is the country which
+has made the greatest efforts not to augment the circulation but to
+increase the duties; also because she had no illusions of rebuilding
+her finance and her national economy on an enemy indemnity.
+
+But the conquered countries have so abused their circulation that
+they almost live on the thought of it--as, in fact, not a few of the
+conquering countries and those come out from the War do. Germany has
+passed eighty-eight milliards, and is rapidly approaching one hundred
+milliards. Now, when one thinks that the United States, after so many
+loans and after all the expenses of the War, has only a circulation of
+4,557,000,000 dollars, one understands what difficulty Germany has to
+produce, to live, and to refurnish herself with raw materials.
+
+Only Great Britain of all the countries in Europe which have issued
+from the War has had a courageous financial policy. Public opinion,
+instead of pushing Parliament to financial dissipation, has insisted
+on economy. If the situation created by the War has transformed also
+the English circulation into unconvertible paper money, this is merely
+a passing fact. If the sterling loses on the dollar--that is, on
+gold--given the fact that the United States of America alone now have
+a money at par, almost a quarter of its value, this is also merely a
+transitory fact.
+
+Great Britain has the good sense to curtail expenses, and the sterling
+tends always to improve.
+
+France and Italy are in an intermediate position. Their money can be
+saved, but it will require energetic care and great economies,
+stern finance, a greater development of production, limitation of
+consumption, above all, of what is purchased from abroad. At the date
+of which I am writing, expressed on a percentual basis, the French
+franc is worth 47 centimes of the sterling and 36 of the dollar--that
+is to say, of gold. The Italian lira is worth 28 centimes of the
+sterling and 21 of the dollar.
+
+Here are still two countries in which tenacious energy can save and
+with many sacrifices they can arrive at good money. France has a good
+many more resources than Italy; she has a smaller need of importations
+and a greater facility for exportations. But her public debt has
+reached 265 milliards, the circulation has well passed thirty-eight
+milliards, and they still fear to calculate amongst the extraordinary
+income of the budget the fifteen milliards a year which should come
+from Germany.
+
+Italy, with great difficulty of production and less concord inside the
+country, has a more true vision, and does not reckon any income which
+is not derived from her own resources. Her circulation does not pass
+eighteen milliards, and her debt exceeds by a little one hundred
+milliards.
+
+With prudence and firmness France and Italy will be able to balance
+their accounts.
+
+But the financial situation and the exchanges of the conquered
+countries, even that of Germany, may be called desperate.
+
+If expressed in percentages, the German mark is worth 5.11 per cent.
+in comparison with the pound sterling and 3.98 per cent. of the
+dollar. What possibility is there of systematizing the exchange?
+
+Germany was compelled this year to carry her expenses to 130 milliards
+of marks. As her circulation has exceeded eighty-eight milliards, how
+can she straighten out her money?
+
+As for the Austrian and Hungarian crowns, the Jugo-Slav crowns, the
+Rumanian lei, and all the other depreciated moneys, their fate is not
+doubtful. As their value is always descending, and the gold equivalent
+becomes almost indeterminable, they will have a common fate. As for
+the Polish mark, it can be said that before long it will not be worth
+the paper on which it is printed.
+
+There is, then, the fantastic position of the public debts! They have
+reached now such figures that no imagination could have forecasted.
+France alone has a debt which of itself exceeds by a great deal
+all the debts of all the European States previous to the War: 265
+milliards of francs. And Germany, the conquered country, has in her
+turn a debt which exceeds 320 milliards of marks, and which is rapidly
+approaching 400 milliards. The debts of many countries are only
+recorded by feats of memory, because there is no practical interest in
+knowing whether Austria, Hungary, and especially Poland, has one debt
+or another, since the situation of the creditors is not a situation of
+reality.
+
+The whole debt of the United States of America is, after so much war,
+only 23,982,000,000 dollars; but the United States are creditors of
+the Entente for 9,500,000,000 dollars. Also England, against a debt of
+£9,240,000,000 sterling, has a credit of £1,778,000,000.
+
+These serious figures, whilst they increase the condition of
+discomfort rendered even more serious by the scarcity of commercial
+exchanges, indicate also what necessity may be superior to all in
+every country to preserve internal peace: produce more, consume less,
+put the finances in order, and reconquer the credits.
+
+Instead, the conquered countries are going downwards every day and the
+conquering countries are maintaining very big armies, exhausting their
+resources, whilst they are spreading the conviction that the indemnity
+from the enemy will compensate sufficiently, or at least partially,
+for the work of restoration.
+
+In fact, the causes of discontent and diffidence are augmenting.
+Nothing is more significant than the lack of conscience with which
+programmes of violence and of ruin are lightly accepted; nothing is
+more deplorable than the thoughtlessness with which the germs of new
+wars are cultivated. Germany has disarmed with a swiftness which has
+even astonished the military circles of the Entente; but the bitter
+results of the struggle are not only not finished against Germany,
+not even to-day does she form part of the League of Nations (which is
+rather a sign of a state of mind than an advantage), but the attitude
+towards her is even more hostile.
+
+Two years after the end of the war R. Poincaré wrote that the League
+of Nations would lose its best possibility of lasting if, _un jour_,
+it did not reunite all the nations of Europe. But he added that of
+all the conquered nations--Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey and
+Germany--the last-mentioned, by her conduct during the War and
+after the peace, justified least a near right of entry. It would be
+_incontestablement plus naturel_ (of how many things does nature
+occupy herself!) to let Austria enter first if she will disavow the
+policy of reattachment--that is, being purely German, renounce
+against the principle of nationality, in spite of the principle
+of auto-decision, when she cannot live alone, to unite herself to
+Germany; Bulgaria and Turkey as long as they had a loyal and courteous
+attitude towards Greece, Rumania and Serbia. The turn of Germany
+will come, but only after Turkey, when she will have given proof of
+executing the treaty, which no reasonable and honest person considers
+any more executable in its integrity.
+
+The most characteristic facts of this peace which continues the War
+can be recapitulated as follows:
+
+1. Europe on the whole has more men under arms than before the War.
+The conquered States are forced to disarm, but the conquering States
+have increased the armaments; the new States and the countries which
+have come through the War have increased their armaments.
+
+2. Production is very tardily being taken up again because there is
+everywhere, if in a different degree, a lesser desire for work on
+the part of the working classes joined with a need for higher
+remuneration.
+
+3. The difficulties of trade, instead of decreasing in many countries
+of Europe are increasing, and international commerce is very slowly
+recovering. Between the States of Europe there is not a real commerce
+which can compare with that under normal conditions. Considering
+actual values with values before the War, the products which now form
+the substance of trade between European countries do not represent
+even the half of that before the War.
+
+As the desire for consumption, if not the capacity for consumption,
+has greatly increased, and the production is greatly decreased, all
+the States have increased their functions. So the discredit of the
+paper money and the Treasury bills which permit these heavy expenses
+is in all the countries of Europe, even if in different degrees, very
+great.
+
+The conquering countries, from the moment that they had obtained in
+the treaties of peace the acknowledgment of the conquered that the War
+was caused by them, held it to be legitimate that they should lose all
+their disposable goods, their colonies, their ships, their credits and
+their commercial organization abroad, but that the conquered should
+also pay all the damages of the War. The War, therefore, should be
+paid for by the conquered, who recognized (even if against their will)
+that they were alone responsible. That forms henceforth a certain
+canon of foreign politics, the less a thing appears true the more it
+is repeated.
+
+Although the treaties oblige Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey to
+pay the damages of the War, it is, however, certain that they are not
+able to pay anything and not even the expenses of the victors on their
+territory. "_Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator_," said Juvenal
+("Who has nothing can give nothing"), and Austria, for her part,
+instead of giving is imploring food succour.
+
+So the problem remains limited to Germany. Can she pay the indemnity
+indicated in the treaty? Can she pay for the damages and indemnify the
+victors? After having given up her colonies, her ships, her railway
+material, all her disposable credits abroad, in what form can she pay?
+
+The fundamental controversy reduces itself henceforth only to this
+point, which we shall try if possible to make clear, since we desire
+that this matter shall be presented in the clearest and most evident
+form.
+
+From now on it is not the chancelleries which must impose the
+solutions of great problems; but it is the mass of the public in
+Europe and America.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE ANXIETIES OF THE VICTORS
+
+
+We have seen the process by which the idea of the indemnity for
+damages, which was not contained either in the peace declaration of
+the Entente, nor in the manifestations of the various parliaments, nor
+in the first armistice proposals, nor in the armistice between Italy
+and Austria, was introduced in the armistice with Germany, out of pure
+regard for France, without taking heed of the consequences. Three
+words, said Clemenceau, only three words need be added, words which
+compromise nothing and are an act of deference to France. The entire
+construction of the treaties, after all, is based on those three
+words.
+
+And how fantastic the demands for compensation have become!
+
+An old Italian proverb says, "In time of war there are more lies than
+earth." Ancient and modern pottery reproduce the motto, which is
+widespread, and whose truth was not understood until some years
+ago. So many foolish things were said about the almost mysterious
+manoeuvres of Germany, about her vast expansion, her great resources
+and accumulated capital, that the reality tended to become lost to
+sight.
+
+These absurd legends, formed during the War, were not forgotten, and
+there are even now many who believe in good faith that Germany can
+pay, if not twenty or twenty-five milliards a year, at least eight or
+nine without any difficulty.
+
+France's shrewdest politicians, however, well knew that the demand
+for an enormous and unlimited indemnity was only a means of putting
+Germany under control and depressing her to the point of exhaustion.
+But the others maintained this proposal more out of rancour and hatred
+than from any actual political concept. It may be said that the
+problem of the indemnity has never been seriously studied and that the
+calculations, the valuations, the procedures, have all formed a series
+of impulsive acts co-ordinated by a single error, the error of the
+French politicians who had the one aim of holding Germany down.
+
+The procedure was simple.
+
+In the first phase the indemnities came into being from three words
+inserted almost by chance into the armistice treaty on November 2,
+1918, _réparation des dommages_. It was merely a matter of a simple
+expression to content public feeling: _Je supplie le conseil de se
+mettre dans l'esprit de la population française_.... It was a moral
+concession, a moral satisfaction.
+
+But afterwards, as things went on, all was altered when it came to
+preparing the treaties.
+
+For a while the idea, not only of a reparation of damages, but of the
+payment of the cost of the War was entertained. It was maintained that
+the practice of making the vanquished reimburse the cost of the War
+was permitted by international law. Since Germany had provoked the War
+and lost it, she must not only furnish an indemnity for the losses,
+but also pay the cost.
+
+The cost was calculated roughly at seven hundred milliards of francs
+at par. Further, there was the damage to assess. In the aggregate, war
+costs, damage to property, damage to persons, came to at least one
+thousand milliards. But since it was impossible to demand immediate
+payment and was necessary to spread the sum over fifty years, taking
+into consideration sinking funds and interest the total came to three
+thousand milliards. The amount was published by the illustrated papers
+with the usual diagrams, drawings of golden globes, length of paper
+money if stretched out, height of metal if all piled up together, etc.
+etc.
+
+These figures were discussed for the first few months by a public
+accustomed to be surprised at nothing. They merely helped to
+demonstrate that an indemnity of 350 milliards was a real sacrifice
+for the Allies.
+
+Thus a whole series of principles came to be established which were a
+contradiction of reality.
+
+A great share in the responsibility in this matter lies with Great
+Britain, who not only followed France's error, but in certain ways
+made it worse by a number of intemperate requests. Italy had no
+influence on the proceedings owing to her indecisive policy. Only the
+United States, notwithstanding the banality of some of her experts
+(_lucus a non lucendo_), spoke an occasional word of reason.
+
+When Lloyd George understood the mistake committed in the matter of
+the indemnity it was too late.
+
+The English public found itself face to face with the elections almost
+the day after the conclusion of the War. In the existing state of
+exaltation and hatred the candidates found a convenient "plank" in
+promising the extermination of Germany, the trial of the Kaiser, as
+well as of thousands of German officers accused of cruelty, and last,
+but not least, the end of German competition.
+
+The Prime Minister of Australia, William Morris Hughes, a
+small-minded, insensitive, violent man, directed a furious campaign
+in favour of a huge indemnity. Lord Northcliffe lent the aid of his
+numerous papers to this campaign, which stirred up the electors.
+
+Lloyd George, with his admirable intelligence, perceived the situation
+clearly. He did not believe in the usefulness or even in the
+possibility of trying the Kaiser and the German officers. He did not
+believe in the possibility of an enormous indemnity or even a very
+large one.
+
+His first statements, like those of Bonar Law, a serious, honest,
+well-balanced man, an idealist with the appearance of a practical
+person, revealed nothing. On the eve of the dissolution of Parliament,
+Lloyd George, speaking at Wolverhampton, November 24, 1918, did not
+even hint at the question of the reparations or indemnity. He was
+impelled along that track by the movement coming from France, by the
+behaviour of the candidates, by Hughes's attitude, and by the Press
+generally, especially that of Northcliffe.
+
+A most vulgar spectacle was offered by many of the English candidates,
+among whom were several members of the War Cabinet, who used language
+worthy of raving dervishes before crowds hypnotized by promises of the
+most impossible things.
+
+To promise the electors that Germany should pay the cost of the War,
+to announce to those who had lost their senses that the Kaiser was to
+be hanged, to promise the arrest and punishment of the most guilty
+German officers, to prophesy the reduction to slavery of a Germany
+competing on sea and land, was certainly the easiest kind of
+electoral programme. The numerous war-mutilated accepted it with much
+enthusiasm, and the people listened, open-mouthed, to the endless
+series of promises.
+
+Hughes, who was at bottom in good faith, developed the thesis which he
+afterwards upheld at Paris with logical precision. It was Germany's
+duty to reimburse, without any limitation, the entire cost of the
+War: damage to property, damage to persons, and war-cost. He who has
+committed the wrong must make reparation for it to the extreme limits
+of his resources, and this principle, recognized by the jurists,
+requires that the total of the whole cost of the War fall upon the
+enemy nations. Later on, Hughes, who was a sincere man, recognized
+that it was not possible to go beyond asking for reparation of the
+damages.
+
+Lloyd George was dragged along by the necessity of not drawing away
+the mass of the electors from the candidates of his party. Thus he was
+obliged on December 11, in his final manifesto, to announce not only
+the Kaiser's trial and that of all those responsible for atrocities,
+but to promise the most extensive kind of indemnity from Germany and
+the compensation of all who had suffered by the War. Speaking the
+same evening at Bristol, he promised to uphold the principle of the
+indemnity, and asserted the absolute right to demand from Germany
+payment for the costs of the War.
+
+In England, where the illusion soon passed away, in France, where it
+has not yet been dissipated, the public has been allowed to believe
+that Germany can pay the greater part, if not the entire cost, of the
+War, or at least make compensation for the damage.
+
+For many years I have studied the figures in relation to private
+wealth and the wealth of nations, and I have written at length on
+the subject. I know how difficult it is to obtain by means of even
+approximate statistics results more or less near to the reality.
+Nothing pained me more than to hear the facility with which
+politicians of repute spoke of obtaining an indemnity of hundreds of
+milliards. When Germany expressed her desire to pay an indemnity in
+one agreed lump sum (_à forfait_) of one hundred milliards of gold
+marks (an indemnity she could never pay, so enormous is it), I saw
+statesmen, whom I imagined not deprived of intelligence, smile at
+the paltriness of the offer. An indemnity of fifty milliards of
+gold marks, such as that proposed by Keynes, appeared absurd in its
+smallness.
+
+When the Peace Conference reassembled in Paris the situation
+concerning the indemnity was as follows. The Entente had never during
+the War spoken of indemnity as a condition of peace. Wilson, in his
+proposals, had spoken only of reconstruction of invaded territories.
+The request for _réparation des dommages_ had been included in the
+terms of the armistice merely to afford a moral satisfaction to
+France. But the campaign waged in France and during the elections
+in England had exaggerated the demands so as to include not only
+reparation for damage but reimbursement of the cost of the War.
+
+Only the United States maintained that the indemnity should be limited
+to the reparation of the damages: a reparation which in later phases
+included not only reconstruction of destroyed territories and damage
+done to private property, but even pensions to the families of those
+dead in the War and the sums in grant paid during it.
+
+When Prussia beat France in 1870 she asked for an indemnity of five
+milliards. The Entente could have demanded from the vanquished an
+indemnity and then have reassumed relations with them provided it were
+an indemnity which they could pay in a brief period of time.
+
+Instead, it being impossible to demand an enormous sum of 300 or 400
+milliards, a difficult figure to fix definitely, recourse was had to
+another expedient.
+
+From the moment that the phrase _réparation des dommages_ was included
+in the armistice treaty as a claim that could be urged, it became
+impossible to ask for a fixed sum. What was to be asked for was
+neither more nor less than the amount of the damages. Hence a special
+commission was required, and the Reparations Commission appears on
+the scene to decide the sum to demand from Germany and to control
+its payment. Also even after Germany was disarmed a portion of her
+territory must remain in the Allies' hands as a guarantee for the
+execution of the treaty.
+
+The reason why France has always been opposed to a rapid conclusion of
+the indemnity question is that she may continue to have the right, in
+view of the question remaining still open, to occupy the left bank of
+the Rhine and to keep the bridgeheads indicated in the treaty.
+
+The thesis supported by Clemenceau at the Conference was a simple one:
+Germany must recognize the total amount of her debt; it is not enough
+to say that we recognize it.
+
+I demand in the name of the French Government, and after having
+consulted my colleagues, that the Peace Treaty fixes Germany's debt
+to us and indicates the nature of the damages for which reparation is
+due. We will fix a period of thirty years if you so wish it, and we
+will give to the Commission, after it has reduced the debt to figures,
+the mandate to make Germany pay within these thirty years all she owes
+us. If the whole debt cannot be paid in thirty years the Commission
+will have the right to extend the time for payment.
+
+This scheme was agreed. And the thesis of the compensation of damages,
+instead of that for the payment of the cost of the War, prevailed for
+a very simple reason. If they proposed to demand for all integral
+reparations, and therefore the reimbursement of the cost of the War,
+the figures would have been enormous. It became necessary to reduce
+all the credits proportionally, as in the case of a bankruptcy. Now,
+since in the matter of the indemnities France occupied the first place
+(to begin with, she asked sixty-five per cent. of all sums paid by
+Germany), she took the greater part of the indemnities, while on the
+sums paid for reimbursement of cost of war, she would only have got
+less than twenty per cent.
+
+Germany has therefore been put under control for all the time she will
+be paying the indemnities--that is, for an indefinite time.
+
+The valuation of the expenses for the reconstruction of the ruined
+territories had to be carried out according to the regulations of
+the treaty, and, the prices having increased, the French Government
+presented in July, 1920, a first approximate valuation: damages, 152
+milliards; pensions, 58 milliards; in all, 210 milliards. In November,
+1920, the damages had increased to 218 milliards.
+
+Even these figures represent something less absurd than the first
+demands and figures.
+
+On September 5, 1919, the French Minister of Finance, speaking in the
+French Chamber, calculated the total of the German indemnities arising
+from the treaty at 375 milliards, whose interest would accumulate
+until 1921, after which date Germany would begin to pay her debt
+in thirty-four annual rates of about 25 milliards each, and 13,750
+milliards a year would go to France.
+
+Again, in November, 1920, Ogier, Minister of the liberated regions,
+put before the Reparations Commission in the name of France a detailed
+memorial which made the value of the territories to be reconstructed
+only for the cases of private individuals come to 140 milliards, not
+including the pensions, damage to railways and mercantile marine,
+which totalled 218 milliards, of which 77 milliards were for pensions
+and 141 milliards for damages.
+
+Of late the sense of reality has begun to diffuse itself. The Minister
+Loucheur himself has laughed at the earlier figures, and has stated
+that the damages do not exceed eighty milliards.
+
+But the French public has been accustomed for some time to take the
+figures of Klotz seriously, and to discuss indemnities of 150, 200
+and 250 milliards. The public, however, is not yet aware of the real
+position, and will not be able to arrive at a just realization of it
+without passing through a serious moral crisis which will be the first
+secure element of the real peace.
+
+Setting aside all questions of indemnities from Austria-Hungary,
+Turkey and Bulgaria (they have nothing to give, can give nothing; on
+the contrary, they ask and merit assistance), it is clear that all the
+indemnities must be paid by Germany.
+
+The French totals of the material damage claims in the invaded
+districts have been absolutely fantastic and more exaggerated than in
+the case of Belgium, whose indemnity claims would lead one to suppose
+the total destruction of at least the third part of her territory,
+almost as if she had undergone the submersion of, say, ten thousand
+square metres of her small territory.
+
+This problem of the indemnities, limited to the reparation of damages,
+and in accordance with the costs contemplated in the Treaty of
+Versailles, has never been seriously tackled. One may even say it has
+not been seriously examined. And it is deplorable that there has been
+created among the public, or among a large part of it, the conviction
+that Germany will repair the damage of the War by her own effort. This
+idea, however, finds no acceptance in England among serious persons,
+and in Italy no one believes in it. But in France and Belgium the idea
+is widely diffused, and the wish to spread the belief is lively in
+several sections of opinion, not because intelligent people believe
+in the possibility of effective payment, but with the idea of putting
+Germany in the light of not maintaining the clauses of the peace, thus
+extending the right to prolong the military occupation and even to
+aggravate it. Germany, thereby, is kept out of the League of Nations
+and her dissolution facilitated.
+
+John Maynard Keynes, ever since the end of 1919, has shown in his
+admirable book the absurdity of asking for vast indemnities, Germany's
+impossibility of paying them, and the risk for all Europe of following
+a road leading to ruin, thus at the same time accentuating the work
+of disintegration started by the treaty. That book had awakened a
+wide-sounding echo, but it ought to have had a still wider one, and
+would have done but for the fact that, unfortunately, the Press in
+free countries is anything but free.
+
+The great industrial syndicates, especially in the steel-making
+industry, which control so large a part of the Press among the
+majority of the States of Europe, and even beyond Europe, find
+easy allies in the inadequate preparation of the major part of
+the journalists to discuss the most important problems, and the
+indisposition on the part of the public to examine those questions
+which present difficulties, and are so rendered less convenient for
+discussion.
+
+I knew Keynes during the War, when he was attached to the British
+Treasury and chief of the department charged to look after the foreign
+exchanges and the financial relations between Great Britain and her
+allies. A serious writer, a teacher of economics of considerable
+value, he brought to his difficult task a scrupulousness and an
+exactness that bordered on mistrust. Being at that time Chancellor of
+the Exchequer in Italy, in the bitterest and most decisive period of
+the War, I had frequent contact with Mr. Keynes, and I always admired
+his exactness and his precision. I could not always find it in myself
+to praise his friendly spirit. But he had an almost mystic force of
+severity, and those enormous squanderings of wealth, that facile
+assumption of liabilities that characterized this period of the War,
+must have doubtless produced in him a sense of infinite disgust. This
+state of mind often made him very exigent, and sometimes unjustifiably
+suspicious. His word had a decisive effect on the actions of the
+English Treasury.
+
+When the War was finished, he took part as first delegate of the
+English Treasury at the Peace Conference of Paris, and was substituted
+by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Supreme Economic Council.
+He quitted his office when he had come to the conclusion that it was
+hopeless to look for any fundamental change of the peace treaties.
+
+His book is not only a document of political uprightness but the first
+appeal to a sense of reality which, after an orgy of mistakes, menaces
+a succession of catastrophes. In my opinion it merits a serious
+reconsideration as the expression of a new conscience, as well as an
+expression of the truth, which is only disguised by the existing state
+of exasperation and violence.
+
+After two years we must recognize that all the forecasts of Keynes
+have been borne out by the facts: that the exchange question has grown
+worse in all the countries who have been in the War, that the absurd
+indemnities imposed on the enemies cannot be paid, that the depressed
+condition of the vanquished is harmful to the victors almost in equal
+measure with the vanquished themselves, that it menaces their very
+existence, that, in fine, the sense of dissolution is more widespread
+than ever.
+
+The moment has come to make an objective examination of the indemnity
+question, and to discuss it without any hesitation.
+
+Let us lay aside all sentiment and forget the undertakings of the
+peace treaties. Let us suppose that the Entente's declarations
+and Wilson's proposals never happened. Let us imagine that we are
+examining a simple commercial proposition stripped of all sentiment
+and moral ideas.
+
+After a great war it is useless to invoke moral sentiments: men, while
+they are blinded by hatred, recognize nothing save their passion. It
+is the nature of war not only to kill or ruin a great number of men,
+not only to cause considerable material damage, but also, necessarily,
+to bring about states of mind full of hate which cannot be ended at
+once and which are even refractory to the language of reason.
+
+For a long time I myself have looked upon the Germans with the
+profoundest hatred. When I think of all the persons of my race dead in
+the War, when I look back upon the fifteen months of anguish when my
+first-born son was a prisoner of war in Germany, I am quite able to
+understand the state of mind of those who made the peace and the
+mental condition in which it was made. What determined the atmosphere
+of the peace treaties was the fact that there was a conference
+presided over by Clemenceau, who remembered the Prussians in the
+streets of Paris after the war of 1870, who desired but one thing: the
+extermination of the Germans. What created this atmosphere, or helped
+to create it, was the action of Marshal Foch, who had lost in the War
+the two persons dearest to him in life, the persons who attached him
+to existence.
+
+But now we must examine the question not in the light of our
+sentiments or even of our hatreds. We must see quite calmly if the
+treaties are possible of application without causing the ruin of the
+vanquished. Then we must ask ourselves if the ruin of the vanquished
+does not bring in its train the ruin of the victors. Putting aside,
+then, all moral considerations, let us examine and value the economic
+facts.
+
+There is no question that the reparation problem exists solely in
+the case of Germany, who has still a powerful statal framework which
+allows her to maintain great efforts, capable not only of providing
+her with the means of subsistence, but also of paying a large
+indemnity to the victors. The other vanquished States are more in need
+of succour than anything else.
+
+What are the reparations?
+
+Let us follow the _précis_ of them which a representative of France
+made at the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. They are as follows:
+
+1. Germany is responsible for the total of the losses and damages
+sustained by her victors inasmuch as she caused them.
+
+2. Germany, in consideration of the permanent diminution of her
+resources, resulting from the Peace Treaty, is only obliged (but is
+obliged without restitutions or reserves) to reimburse the direct
+damages and the pensions as precised in Schedule I of Clause viii of
+the treaty.
+
+3. Germany must pay before May 1, 1921, not less than twenty milliards
+of gold marks or make equivalent payment in kind.
+
+4. On May 1 the Reparations Commission will fix the total amount of
+the German debt.
+
+5. This debt must be liquidated by annual payments whose totals are to
+be fixed by the Commission.
+
+6. The payments will continue for a period of thirty years, or longer
+if by that time the debt is not extinguished.
+
+7. Germany will issue one hundred milliards of gold marks of bearer
+bonds, and afterwards all such issues as the Reparations Commission
+shall demand, until the amount of the debt be reached in order to
+permit the stabilization of credit.
+
+8. The payments will be made in money and in kind. The payments in
+kind will be made in coal, live stock, chemical products, ships,
+machines, furniture, etc. The payments _in specie_ consist of metal
+money, of Germany's credits, public and private, abroad, and of a
+first charge on all the effects and resources of the Empire and the
+German States.
+
+9. The Reparations Commission, charged with seeing to the execution of
+this clause, shall have powers of control and decision. It will be
+a commission for Germany's debt with wider powers. Called upon to
+decide, according to equity, justice and good faith, without being
+bound by any codex or special legislation, it has obtained from
+Germany an irrevocable recognition of its authority. Its duty is to
+supervise until the extinction of the debt Germany's situation, her
+financial operations, her effects, her capacity for production, her
+provisioning, her production. This commission must decide what Germany
+can pay each year, and must see that her payments, added to the
+budget, fall upon her taxpayers at least to the extent of the allied
+country most heavily taxed. Its decisions shall be carried out
+immediately and receive immediate application, without any other
+formality. The commission can effect all the changes deemed necessary
+in the German laws and regulations, as well as all the sanctions,
+whether of a financial, economic or military nature arising from
+established violations of the clauses put under its control. And
+Germany is obliged not to consider these "sanctions" as hostile acts.
+
+In order to guarantee the payments an inter-allied army--in reality
+a Franco-Belgian army--occupies the left bank of the Rhine, and is
+stationed at the bridgeheads. Germany is completely helpless, and has
+lost all the features of a sovereign State inasmuch as she is subject
+to "controls" in a way that Turkey never was. In modern history we can
+find no parallel for this state of things. These are conditions
+which alter the very bases of civilization and the relations between
+peoples. Such procedure has been unknown in Europe for centuries.
+The public has become accustomed in certain countries to consider
+responsible for the War not the government that wished it or the
+German people, but the future generations. Thus the indemnities are
+to be paid--were such conditions possible--in thirty years and for at
+least twenty years afterwards by people still unborn at the time of
+the War. This cursing of the guilty people has no parallel in modern
+history. We must go back to the early ages of humanity to find
+anything of the kind.
+
+But even the most inhuman policies, such as Germany has never adopted
+in her victories, although she has been accused of every cruelty, can
+find at least some justification if they had a useful effect on the
+country which has wished and accepts responsibility for them. The
+conqueror has his rights. Julius Caesar killed millions of Germans
+and retarded perhaps for some centuries the invasion of Rome. But
+the practices established by the Treaty of Versailles are in effect
+equally harmful to victors and vanquished, though maybe in unequal
+measure, and in any case prepare the dissolution of Europe.
+
+I had my share in arranging at San Remo the Spa Conference, in the
+hope and with the desire of discussing frankly with the Germans what
+sum they could pay by way of indemnity without upsetting their economy
+and damaging severely that of the Allies. But the ministerial crisis
+which took place in June, 1920, prevented me from participating at
+the Spa Conference; and the profitable action which Great Britain had
+agreed to initiate in the common interest, ours as well as France's,
+could not be proceeded with. The old mistakes continued to be
+repeated, though many attenuations have come about and the truth
+begins to appear even for those most responsible for past errors.
+
+We shall have to examine with all fair-mindedness if Germany is in
+a position to pay in whole or in part the indemnity established or
+rather resulting from the treaty. France especially believes, or has
+said on several occasions she believes, that Germany can pay without
+difficulty 350 milliards.
+
+After many stupidities and many exaggerations which have helped
+considerably to confuse the public, in face of the new difficulties
+which have arisen, new arrangements for the payment of the indemnity
+have been established. On May 11, in face of the situation which had
+arisen, the Allies proposed and Germany accepted a fresh scheme for
+the payment of the reparations. Germany is constrained to pay every
+year in cash and in kind the equivalent of 500 million dollars, plus
+26 per cent. of the total of her exports.
+
+The rest of the accord refers to the procedure for the issue of
+bonds guaranteed on the indicated payments, to the constitution of a
+guarantee committee, and to the date of payment. Probably Germany will
+have been able to get through the year 1921 without insurmountable
+difficulties.
+
+At Spa, on April 27, 1921, the proportionate sums assessed for each of
+the conquering powers were established on a total indemnity notably
+reduced in comparison with the earlier absurd demands.
+
+But leaving alone the idea of an indemnity of 250, 150, or even 100
+milliards of gold marks, it will be well to see in a concrete form
+what Germany can be made to pay, and whether the useless and elaborate
+structure of the Reparations Commission which, with its powers of
+regulating the internal life of Germany for thirty years or more,
+ought not to be substituted by a simpler formula more in sympathy with
+civilized notions.
+
+Shortly before the War, according to successive statistics, the
+private wealth of France did not amount to more than 250 milliards.
+
+The wealth of France, according to successive valuations, was
+calculated at 208 milliards of francs in 1905 (de Foville), at 214
+milliards in 1908 (Turquan), at about 250 milliards according to other
+authors. The wealth of Belgium, according to official statistics
+published by the Belgian Ministry of Finance in 1913, amounted to
+rather less than 30 milliards of francs. The estimate is perhaps a
+trifle low. But this official figure must not be considered as being
+a long way from the truth. At certain moments Belgium's demands have
+surpassed even the total of her national wealth, while the damages
+have not been more than some milliards.
+
+The value of the land in France was calculated before the War at
+between 62 and 78 milliards; the value of the buildings, according
+to _l'Annuaire Statistique de la France_, at 59-1/2 milliards. The
+territory occupied by the Germans is not more than a tenth of the
+national territory. Even taking into consideration the loss of
+industrial buildings it is very difficult to arrive at the figure of
+15 milliards. At the same time it is true that the Minister Loucheur
+declared on February 17, 1919, in the French Chamber that the
+reconstruction of the devastated regions in France required 75
+milliards--that is, very much more than double the private wealth of
+all the inhabitants of all the occupied regions.
+
+In all the demands for compensation of the various States we have seen
+not so much a real and precise estimate of the damages as a kind of
+fixing of credit in the largest measure possible in order that in the
+successive reductions each State should still have proportionally an
+advantageous position.
+
+Making his calculation with a generosity which I assert to be
+excessive (and I assert this as a result of an accurate study of
+the question, which perhaps I may have occasion to publish), Keynes
+maintains that the damages for which Germany should be made to pay
+come to 53 milliards for all losses on land and sea and for the
+effects of aerial bombardments--53 milliards of francs all told,
+including the damages of France, Great Britain, Italy, Belgium,
+Serbia, etc.! I do not believe that the damages reach 40 milliards of
+gold marks, unless, of course, we calculate in them the pensions and
+allowances.
+
+But these figures have but small interest, since the demands have been
+almost entirely purely arbitrary.
+
+What we must see is if Germany can pay, and if, with a regime of
+restrictions and violence, she can hand over, not the many milliards
+which have been announced and which have been a deplorable speculation
+on the ignorance of the public, but a considerable sum, such as is
+that which many folk still delude themselves it is possible to have.
+
+Germany has already consigned all her transferable wealth; the gold in
+her banks, her colonies, her commercial fleet, a large and even the
+best part of her railway material, her submarine cables, her foreign
+credits, the property of her private citizens in the victorious
+countries, etc. Everything that could be handed over, even in
+opposition to the rights of nations as such are known in modern
+civilized States, Germany has given. She has also hypothecated all her
+national goods. What can she give now?
+
+Germany can pay in three ways only:
+
+1. Merchandise and food products on account of the indemnity: coal,
+machines, chemical products, etc.
+
+2. Credits abroad coming from the sale of merchandise. If Germany
+exports, that is sells eight milliard marks' worth of goods abroad,
+she pays two milliards to the Reparations Commission.
+
+3. Property of private citizens. Germany can enslave herself, ceding
+the property of her private citizens to foreign States or citizens to
+be disposed of as they wish.
+
+Excluding this last form, which would constitute slavery pure and
+simple, as useless, as impossible, and calculated to parallel the
+methods in use among barbarous peoples, there only remain the first
+two methods of payment which we will examine briefly.
+
+It must be remembered that Germany, even before the War, was in
+difficulties for insufficient avenues of development, given the
+restricted nature of her territory and the exuberance of her
+population. Her territory, smaller than that of France and much less
+fertile, must now nourish a population which stands to that of France
+as three to two.
+
+If we have had gigantic war losses, Germany, who fought on all the
+fronts, has had losses certainly not inferior to ours. She too has
+had, in larger or smaller proportion, her dead and her mutilated.
+She has known the most atrocious sufferings from hunger. Thus her
+productive power is much diminished, not only on account of the grave
+difficulties in which her people find themselves (and the development
+of tuberculosis is a terrible index), but also for the lowered
+productive capacity of her working classes.
+
+The statistics published by the Office of Public Health of the Empire
+(_Reichsgesundheitsamt_) and those given in England by Professor
+Starling and laid before the British Parliament, leave no doubt in the
+matter.
+
+Germany has had more than 1,800,000 dead and many more than 4,000,000
+of wounded. She has her mass of orphans, widows and invalids. Taken
+altogether the structure of her people has become much worse.
+
+What constituted the great productive force of the German people was
+not only its capacity to work, but the industrial organization which
+she had created with fifty years of effort at home and abroad with
+many sacrifices. Now Germany has not only lost 8 per cent. of her
+population, but _25_ per cent. of her territory, from which cereals
+and potatoes were produced, and 10 to 12 per cent. of her live stock,
+etc. We have already seen the enormous losses sustained by Germany in
+coal, iron and potash.
+
+The most intelligent and able working classes, created by the
+most patient efforts, have been reduced to the state of becoming
+revolutionary elements. By taking away from Germany at a stroke her
+mercantile marine, about 60,000 sailors have been thrown on the
+streets and their skill made useless.
+
+Germany, therefore, impoverished in her agricultural territory,
+deprived of a good part of her raw materials, with a population
+weakened in its productive qualities, has lost a good part of her
+productive capacity because all her organization abroad has been
+broken, and everything which served as a means of exchange of
+products, such as her mercantile fleet, has been destroyed. Moreover,
+Germany encounters everywhere obstacles and diffidence. Impeded from
+developing herself on the seas, held up to ridicule by the absurd
+corridor of Danzig, whereby there is a Polish State in German
+territory, she cannot help seeking life and raw materials in Russia.
+
+In these conditions she must not only nourish her vast population, not
+only produce sufficient to prevent her from falling into misery,
+but must also pay an indemnity which fertile fantasies have made a
+deceived Europe believe should amount even to 350 milliards of gold
+marks, and which even now is supposed by seemingly reasonable people
+to be able to surpass easily the sum of a hundred milliards.
+
+Could France or Italy, by any kind of sacrifice, have paid any
+indemnities after ending the War? Germany has not only to live and
+make reparation, but to maintain an inter-allied army of occupation
+and the heavy machinery of the Reparations Commission, and must
+prepare to pay an indemnity for thirty years. France and Italy have
+preserved their colonies (Italy's do not amount to much), their
+mercantile fleets (which have much increased), their foreign
+organization. Germany, without any of these things, is to find herself
+able to pay an indemnity which a brazen-faced and ignorant Press
+deceived the public into believing could amount to twenty or
+twenty-five milliards a year.
+
+Taking by chance Helferich's book, which valued the annual
+capitalization at ten milliards, the difference between an annual
+production of forty-three milliards and a consumption of thirty-three
+milliards, inexpert persons have said that Germany can pay without
+difficulty ten milliards, plus a premium on her exports, plus a
+sufficient quantity of goods and products.
+
+One becomes humiliated when one sees newspapers of serious reputation
+and politicians deemed not to be unimportant reasoning in language so
+false.
+
+The estimates of private wealth, about which the economists make
+experiments, and on which I myself have written much in the past, have
+a relative value. It may be argued that before the War the total of
+all private patrimony in Germany surpassed but by little three hundred
+milliards of marks; and this is a valuation made upon generous
+criteria.
+
+But when it is said that the annual capitalization of Germany was
+ten milliards, that is not to say that ten milliards of capital is
+deposited in the banks ready to be transferred at will. Capitalization
+means the creation of instruments of production. The national capital
+increases in proportion as these are increased. Therefore the best way
+of examining the annual capitalization of a country is to see how many
+new industries have arisen, to what extent the old ones have been
+improved, what improvements have been introduced into agriculture,
+what new investments have been made, etc.
+
+If the capitalization of Germany before the War was scarcely ten
+milliards of marks, it was too small for an Empire of some 67,000,000
+persons. I believe that in reality it was larger. But even if it came
+to fifteen milliards, it represented a very small figure.
+
+The population in the progressive countries augments every year. In
+Germany, before the War, in the period 1908-1913, the population
+increased on an average by 843,000 persons a year, the difference
+between the people born alive and the dead. In other words, the annual
+increase of the population per annum was at the rate of 13.0 per
+thousand.
+
+As in certain districts of Italy the peasants plant a row of trees on
+the birth of every son, so among nations it is necessary to increase
+the national wealth at least in proportion to the newly arrived.
+Supposing that the private wealth of the German citizens was from 300
+to 350 milliards of marks (an exaggeration, doubtless), it would mean
+that the wealth increased each year by a thirteenth part or rather
+more. The difference between the increase in population and the
+increase in wealth constituted the effective increase in wealth, but
+always in a form not capable of being immediately handled. To plant
+trees, build workshops, utilize water-power: all this stands for the
+output of so much force. One may undertake such works or not, but in
+any case the result cannot immediately be given to the enemy.
+
+This is so obvious as to be banal.
+
+To seek to propagate the idea that Germany can give that which
+constitutes her annual capitalization either wholly or in great part
+is an example of extreme ignorance of economic facts.
+
+It is positively painful to listen to certain types of argument.
+
+A French Minister has said that the success of the war loans for 151
+milliards in Germany, and the increase of bank deposits for a sum of
+28 milliards, coinciding with an increase of capital of 45 milliards
+in limited companies, demonstrate that Germany has saved at least 180
+milliards in four years. Leaving aside the exactness of these figures,
+it is really sad to observe reasoning of this type. How can the public
+have an idea of the reality?
+
+Let us apply the same reasoning to France. We must say that inasmuch
+as France before the War had a public debt of 32 milliards, and now
+has a debt of 265 milliards, without calculating what she owes to
+Great Britain and the United States, France, by reason of the War, has
+immensely enriched herself, since, leaving aside the debt contracted
+abroad and the previous debt, she has saved during the War 200
+milliards, quite apart from the increase in bank deposits and the
+increase in capital of limited companies. The War has therefore
+immensely enriched her. In reality we are face to face with one of the
+phenomena of the intoxication brought about by paper money, by means
+of which it has been possible at certain times for the public to
+believe that the War had increased wealth. Other features of this
+phenomenon we have in the wretched example of the capitalist classes,
+after which it was not unnatural that the people should give way to
+a great increase in consumption, should demand high wages and offer
+little work in return at the very time when it was most necessary
+to work more and consume less. There is small cause for wonder that
+certain erroneous ideas are diffused among the public when they have
+their being in those very sophisms according to which the indemnity to
+be paid by the beaten enemy will pay all the debts and losses of the
+conquering nations.
+
+We are told that Germany, being responsible for the War, must impose
+on herself a regime of restrictions and organize herself as an
+exporting nation for the payment of the reparation debts.
+
+Here again the question can be considered in two ways, according as
+it is proposed to allow Germany a free commerce or to impose on her a
+series of forced cessions of goods in payment of the reparations. Both
+hypotheses can be entertained, but both, as we shall see, lead to
+economic disorder in the conquering States, if these relations are to
+be regulated by violence.
+
+It is useless to dilate on the other aphorisms, or rather sophisms,
+which were seriously discussed at the Paris Conference, and which had
+even the honour of being sustained by the technical experts:
+
+1. That it is not important to know what Germany can pay, but it is
+sufficient to know what she ought to pay.
+
+2. That no one can foresee what immense resources Germany will develop
+within thirty or forty years, and what Germany will not be able to pay
+will be paid by the Allies.
+
+3. That Germany, under the stimulus of a military occupation, will
+increase her production in an unheard-of manner.
+
+4. The obligation arising from the treaty is an absolute one; the
+capacity to pay can only be taken into consideration to establish the
+number and amount of the annual payments; the total must in any case
+be paid within thirty years or more.
+
+5. _Elle ou nous_. Germany must pay; if she doesn't the Allies must
+pay. It is not necessary that Germany free herself by a certain date;
+it is only necessary that she pay all.
+
+6. Germany has not to discuss, only to pay. Let time illustrate what
+is at present unforeseeable, etc. etc.
+
+If we exclude the third means of payment Germany has two ways open to
+her. First of all she can give goods. What goods? When we speak of
+goods we really mean coal. Now, as we have seen, according to the
+treaty Germany must furnish for ten years to Belgium, Italy, and
+France especially quantities of coal, which in the first five years
+run from 39-1/2 to 42 millions of tons, and in the following five
+years come to a maximum of about 32 millions. And all this when
+she has lost the Saar coalfields and is faced with the threatening
+situation in Upper Silesia.
+
+Germany's exports reached their maximum in 1913, when the figures
+touched 10,097 millions of marks, excluding precious metals. Grouping
+exports and imports in categories, the millions of marks were
+distributed as follows:
+
+                          Imports. Exports.
+
+  Foodstuffs               2,759    1,035
+  Live animals               289        7.4
+  Raw materials            5,003    1,518
+  Semi-manufactured goods  5,003    1,139
+  Manufactured goods       1,478    6,395
+
+About one-fifth of the entire exports was in iron and machine products
+(1,337 [mil.] articles in iron, 680 machines); 722 millions from
+coal (as against imports of other qualities of 289), 658 millions
+of chemical products and drugs, 446 from cotton, 298 paint, 290
+techno-electrical productions, etc.
+
+What goods can Germany give in payment of the indemnity? We have seen
+how she has lost a very large part of her iron and a considerable
+quantity of her coal.
+
+All the economic force of Germany was based upon:
+
+(a) The proper use of her reserves of coal and iron, which allowed
+her to develop enormously those industries which are based on these
+two elements.
+
+(b) On her transport and tariff system, which enabled her to fight any
+competition.
+
+(c) On her potent overseas commercial organization.
+
+Now, by effect of the treaty, these three great forces have been
+entirely or in part destroyed.
+
+What goods can Germany give in payment of the indemnity, and what
+goods can she offer without ruining the internal production of the
+Entente countries? Let us suppose that Germany gives machines,
+colours, wagons, locomotives, etc. Then for this very fact the
+countries of the Entente, already suffering by unemployment, would
+soon see their factories obliged to shut down. Germany must therefore,
+above all, give raw materials; but since she is herself a country that
+imports raw materials, and has an enormous and dense population, she
+is herself obliged to import raw materials for the fundamental needs
+of her existence.
+
+If we examine Germany's commerce in the five years prior to the
+War--that is, in the five years of her greatest boom--we shall find
+that the imports always exceeded the exports. In the two years before
+the War, 1912 and 1913, the imports were respectively 10,691 and
+10,770 millions, and the exports 8,956 and 10,097 millions. In some
+years the difference even exceeded two milliards, and was compensated
+by credits abroad, with the payment of freights and with the
+remittances (always considerable) of the German emigrants. All this is
+lost.
+
+Exported goods can yield to the exporter a profit of, let us suppose,
+ten, twelve, or twenty per cent. For the Allies to take an income from
+the Custom returns means in practice reducing the exports. In fact,
+in Germany production must be carried on at such low prices as to
+compensate for the difference, or the exports must be reduced.
+
+In the first case (which is not likely, since Germany succeeds only
+with difficulty, owing to her exchange, in obtaining raw materials,
+and must encounter worse difficulties in this respect than other
+countries), Germany would be preparing the ruin of the other countries
+in organizing forms of production which are superior to those of
+all her rivals. Germany would therefore damage all her creditors,
+especially in the foreign markets.
+
+In the second case--the reduction of exports, one would have
+the exactly opposite effect to that imagined in the programme
+proposed--that is, the indemnities would become unpayable.
+
+In terms of francs or lire at par with the dollar, Germany's
+exportations in 1920 have amounted to 7,250 millions. In 1921 an
+increase may be foreseen.
+
+If Germany has to pay in cash and kind 2,500 millions of marks at
+par, plus 26 per cent. of the total of her exports, then supposing an
+export trade of eight milliards, she will have to give 1,840 millions,
+or in all 4,540 millions of marks. Thus we arrive by stages at less
+hyperbolical figures, coming down from the twenty-five milliards
+a year to something less than a fifth. But to come to grips with
+reality, Germany in all ways, it must be admitted, cannot give more
+than two milliards a year, if, indeed, it is desired that an indemnity
+be paid.
+
+Notwithstanding her great resources, France would not be in a
+condition to pay abroad two milliards a year without ruining her
+exchange, which would drop at once to the level of Germany's. Italy
+with difficulty could pay one milliard.
+
+France and Italy are honest countries, yet they cannot pay their war
+creditors, and have not been able, and are not able, to pay any share
+of their debt either to the United States of America or to Great
+Britain. As a matter of fact, up till now they have paid nothing, and
+the interest continues to accumulate with the capital.
+
+Why have neither France nor Italy yet started to pay some of their
+debt? Having won the War, France has had all she could have--fertile
+territories, new colonies, an abundance of raw material, and above all
+iron and potash. The simple explanation is that which I have given
+above.
+
+Can, then, Germany, who is in a terrible condition, whose circulation
+promises ruin, who has no longer credits nor organization abroad, who
+has a great shortage in raw materials; can Germany pay four or five
+milliards a year?
+
+We must also remember that Germany, in addition to the indemnity, must
+pay the cost of the Army of Occupation, which up to now has amounted
+to twenty-five milliards of paper marks a year, or more than 1,600
+millions of francs at par. That is, Germany has to bear for the
+support of the Allied troops a charge equal to the cost of maintaining
+the armies of France, Italy and Belgium before the War.
+
+No financier seriously believes that the issue of bonds authorized by
+the treaty for the credit of the Reparations Commission has now any
+probability of success. Germany's monetary circulation system is
+falling to the stage of _assignats_, and the time is not distant
+when, if intelligent provision is not made, Germany will not be in a
+position to pay any indemnity.
+
+Obliged to pay only one milliard of gold marks, Germany has not been
+able to find this modest sum (modest, that is, in comparison with all
+the dreams about the indemnity) without contracting new foreign debts
+and increasing her already enormous paper circulation. Each new
+indemnity payment, each new debt incurred, will only place Germany in
+the position of being unable to make payments abroad.
+
+Many capitalists, even in Italy, inspire their Press to state that
+Germany derives an advantage from the depreciation of her mark, or,
+in other words, is content with its low level. But the high exchanges
+(and in the case of Germany it amounts to ruin) render almost
+impossible the purchase of raw materials, of which Germany has need.
+With what means must she carry out her payments if she is obliged to
+cede a large part of her customs receipts, that is of her best form of
+monetary value, and if she has no longer either credits or freights
+abroad?
+
+If what is happening injured Germany only, it would be more possible
+to explain it, if not to justify it. But, on the contrary, Germany's
+fall, which is also the decadence of Europe, profoundly disturbs not
+only the European continent, but many other producing countries.
+Though the United States and Great Britain partially escape the
+effect, they too feel the influence of it, not only in their political
+serenity, but in the market of goods and values. Germany's position
+is bound up with that of Europe; her conquerors cannot escape dire
+consequences if the erstwhile enemy collapses.
+
+We must not forget that before the War, in the years 1912 and 1913,
+the larger part of Germany's commerce was with the United States,
+with Great Britain, with Russia and with Austria-Hungary. In 1913 her
+commerce with the United States represented alone little less than
+two milliards and a half of marks according to the statistics of the
+German Empire, and 520 millions of dollars according to the figures
+of America. If we except Canada, which we may consider a territorial
+continuation, the two best customers of the United States were Great
+Britain and Germany. They were, moreover, the two customers whose
+imports largely exceeded the exports. The downfall of Germany will
+bring about inevitably a formidable crisis in the Anglo-Saxon
+countries and consequent ruin in other countries.
+
+Up to now Germany has given all she could; any further payment will
+cause a downfall without changing the actual monetary position.
+Germany, after a certain point, will not pay, but will drag down in
+her fall the economic edifices of the victorious countries of the
+Continent.
+
+All attempts at force are useless, all impositions are sterile.
+
+All this is true and cannot be denied, but at the same time it must
+be recognized that in the first move for the indemnity there was a
+reasonable cause for anxiety on the part of the Allies.
+
+If Germany had had to pay no indemnity this absurd situation would
+have come about, that although exhausted, Germany would have issued
+from the War without debts abroad and could easily have got into her
+stride again, while France, Italy, and in much less degree Great
+Britain, would have come out of the War with heavy debts.
+
+This anxiety was not only just and well founded, but it is easy to see
+why it gave ground for a feeling of grave disquiet.
+
+France and Italy, the two big victor States of the Continent, were
+only able to carry on the War through the assistance of Great Britain
+and the United States. The War would not have lasted long without the
+aid of the Anglo-Saxons, which had a decisive effect.
+
+France has obtained all she asked for, and, indeed, more than all her
+previsions warranted. Italy has found herself in a difficult position.
+She too has realized her territorial aspirations, though not
+completely, and the assistance of her Allies has not always been
+cordial.
+
+I have had, as head of the Government, to oppose all the agitations,
+and especially the Adriatic adventures, which have caused an acute
+party division in Italy. From a sense of duty I have also assumed all
+responsibility. But the rigidness of Wilson in the Fiume and Adriatic
+questions and the behaviour of some of the European Allies have been
+perfectly unjustifiable. In certain messages to Wilson during my term
+of government I did not fail to bring this fact forward. Certainly,
+Jugo-Slavia's demands must be considered with a sense of justice, and
+it would have been an error and an injustice to attribute to Italy
+large tracts of territory in Dalmatia; but it would have been possible
+to find a more reasonable settlement for a country which has had such
+sufferings and known such losses during the War. In any case, when
+by the absurd system followed in the treaties so many millions of
+Germans, Magyars, Turks and Bulgarians have been handed over to States
+like Serbia, whose intemperate behaviour precipitated the War, or to
+States like Greece, which took only a small and obligatory part in it,
+when States like Poland have won their unity and independence without
+making war, when Germany has been dismembered in order to give Poland
+an access to the sea and the ridiculous situation of Danzig has been
+created, when the moral paradox of the Saar, which now becomes a
+German Alsace-Lorraine, has been set up, when so many millions of men
+have been parcelled out without any criteria, it was particularly
+invidious to contest so bitterly Italy's claims. I can freely affirm
+this inasmuch as, risking all popularity, I have always done my duty
+as a statesman, pointing out that solution which time has proved to be
+inevitable.
+
+No one can deny that Italy is passing through a period of crisis and
+political ill-health. Such states of public psychology are for peoples
+what neurasthenia is for individuals. On what does it depend? Often
+enough on reasons which cannot be isolated or defined. It is a state
+of mind which may come to an end at any minute, and is consequent upon
+the after-effects of the War. Rather than coming from the economic
+disorder, it derives from a malady of the temperament.
+
+I have never believed, in spite of the agitations which have been seen
+at certain periods, in the possibility of a revolutionary movement in
+Italy. Italy is the only country which has never had religious wars,
+the only country which in twenty centuries has never had a real
+revolution. Land of an ancient civilization, prone to sudden bursts of
+enthusiasm, susceptible to rapid moods of discouragement, Italy, with
+all the infinite resources of the Latin spirit, has always overcome
+the most difficult crises by her wonderful adaptive power. In
+human history she is, perhaps, the only country where three great
+civilizations have risen up one after another in her limited soil.
+If Italy can have the minimum of coal, cereals and raw materials
+necessary to her existence and her economic revival, the traditional
+good sense of the Italian people will easily overcome a crisis which
+is grave, but which affects in various measure all the victors, and is
+especially temperamental.
+
+It cannot be denied that if all Europe is sick, Italy has its own
+special state of mind. Those who wished the War and those who were
+against it are both dissatisfied: the former because, after the
+War, Italy has not had the compensations she expected, and has had
+sufferings far greater than could have been imagined; the latter
+because they attribute to the War and the conduct of the War the great
+trials which the nation has now to face. This sickness of the spirit
+is the greatest cause of disorder, since malcontent is always the
+worst kind of leaven.
+
+Four great countries decided the War: Great Britain, France, Italy,
+and the United States of America. Russia fell to pieces soon, and
+fell rather on account of her own internal conditions than from enemy
+pressure. The action of the United States arrived late, but was
+decisive. Each country, however, acted from a different state of mind.
+France had of necessity to make war. Her territory was invaded, and
+all hope of salvation lay in moral resistance alone. Great Britain
+had to wage the War out of sense of duty. She had guaranteed the
+neutrality of Belgium, and could not fail to keep her word of honour.
+Two countries alone chose freely the sorrowful way of the War: Italy
+and the United States. But their sacrifices, sufferings and losses
+have been very different. During the War the United States have been
+able to develop their immense resources, and, notwithstanding some
+crises, they have come out of it much richer than before. From being
+debtors to Europe they have become creditors. They had few losses
+in men, and a great development in wealth. Italy, who after many
+difficulties had developed in her famous but too narrow territory the
+germs of a greater fortune, has had, together with very heavy losses
+in men, heavy losses in her wealth.
+
+Italy saved the destinies of France for the first time by declaring
+her neutrality on August 2, 1914, and letting the certainty of it be
+known from July 30, as the diplomatic documents have shown.
+
+It was that sudden and unexpected declaration of neutrality which
+rendered it possible for France to concentrate all her forces in the
+north and to win the battle of the Marne. Italy for a second time
+saved the destinies of the Entente by entering into the War (too
+precipitately and unprepared), in May, 1915, thus preventing the
+Austrian army, which was formidable for its technical organization and
+for its valour, from obtaining the advantages it expected.
+
+Why did Italy go to war?
+
+The diplomatic documents, which are not all documents of political
+wisdom, demonstrate the anxiety of the Italian Government to
+realize its Adriatic programme and to gain secure frontiers against
+Austria-Hungary and its successors. But this was not the _cause_
+of the War; it was rather a means of explaining to the people the
+necessity for the War. Italy had been for nearly thirty-four years
+ally of Austria-Hungary, and the aspirations of Italy's Adriatic
+policy had never disturbed the relations between the two countries.
+The real cause of Italy's war was a sentimental movement, a form of
+extraordinary agitation of the spirits, brought about by the invasion
+of Belgium and the danger of France. The intellectual movement
+especially, the world of culture, partook largely in fomenting the
+state of exaltation which determined the War.
+
+During the progress of the War, which was long and bitter, Italy
+passed through some terrible hours. Her privations during the War, and
+immediately after, surpassed all expectations. Italy found herself
+face to face with an enemy who enjoyed a superior geographical
+situation, a numerical superiority, as well as a superiority in
+artillery. After the downfall of Russia she had to support a terrible
+campaign. Even in 1917, after the military disaster, when allied
+troops came to Italy, she sent abroad more men than there came allied
+troops to her aid. According to some statistics which I had compiled,
+and which I communicated to the Allies, Italy was shown, in relation
+to her demographic structure, to have more men in the front line than
+any other country. The economic sufferings were, and are, greater
+than those endured by others. France is only in part a Mediterranean
+country, while Italy is entirely so. During the War the action of the
+submarines rendered the victualling of Italy a very difficult matter.
+Many provinces, for months on end, had to content themselves with
+the most wretched kind of food. Taking population and wealth into
+proportion, if the United States had made the effort of Italy they
+would have had to arm sixteen millions of men, to have lost a million
+and a half to two million soldiers, and to have spent at least four
+hundred milliards. In order to work up popular enthusiasm (and it was
+perhaps necessary), the importance of the country's Adriatic claims
+was exaggerated. Thus many Italians believe even to-day in good faith
+that the War may be considered as lost if some of these aspirations
+have not been realized or will not be realized.
+
+But, after the War, Italy's situation suddenly changed. The War had
+aroused in the minds of all Europeans a certain sentiment of violence,
+a longing for expansion and conquest. The proclamations of the
+Entente, the declarations of Wilson's principles, or points, became so
+contorted that no trace of them could be found in the treaties, save
+for that ironic _covenant_ of the League of Nations, which is always
+repeated on the front page, as Dante said of the rule of St. Benedict,
+_at the expense of the paper_.
+
+For Italy a very curious situation came about. France had but one
+enemy: Germany. She united all her forces against this enemy in
+a coherent and single action which culminated in the Treaty of
+Versailles. France had but one idea: to make the Entente abandon the
+principles it had proclaimed, and try to suffocate Germany, dismember
+her, humiliate her by means of a military occupation, by controlling
+her transports, confiscating all her available wealth, by raising
+to the dignity of elevated and highly civilized States inferior
+populations without national dignity.
+
+Austria-Hungary was composed of eleven peoples. It was split up into
+a series of States. Austria and Hungary were reduced to small
+territories and shut up in narrow confines. All the other countries
+were given to Rumania, to Serbia, or more exactly to the S.H.S.
+State, to Poland, or else were formed into new States, such as
+Czeko-Slovakia. These countries were considered by the Entente as
+allies, and, to further good relations, the most important of the
+Entente nations protected their aspirations even against the wishes of
+Italy. The Italians had found themselves in their difficult theatre of
+war against Galatians, Bosnians, Croats, Transylvanians, etc. But
+by the simple fact of their having changed names, and having called
+themselves Poles, Jugo-Slavs, Rumanians, they became friends. In order
+to favour some of these new friends, it has happened that not only
+have Italy's sentiments been offended, but even justice itself.
+Montenegro was always mentioned in the declarations of the Entente.
+On January 10, 1917, Briand, speaking in the name of all the Allies,
+united at that time _pour la défense et la liberté des peuples_, put
+forward as a fundamental programme the restoration of Belgium, Serbia
+and Montenegro: Montenegro was in this on an equality with Belgium.
+Just a year afterwards, January 8, 1918, Wilson, when formulating his
+fourteen points, had included in the eleventh proposition the duty
+of evacuating the territories of Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro, and
+restoring them. The exact reason for which it was established that
+Montenegro should be absorbed (even without plebiscite) by the S.H.S.
+State, thus offending also Italy's sentiments, will remain one of the
+most melancholy pages of the New Holy Alliance that the Entente has
+become, along with that poor prestigeless organism, the League of
+Nations. But let us hope this latter will find a means of renovating
+itself.
+
+While France was ruining the German people's sources of life, the
+peoples who had fought most ferociously against Italy became, through
+the War, friendly nations, and every aspiration of Italy appeared
+directed to lessen the prestige of the new friends and allies.
+
+The territories annexed to Italy have a small economic value.
+
+For more than thirty years Italy had sold a large part of her richest
+agricultural produce to Germany and had imported a considerable share
+of her raw materials from Russia. Since the War she has found herself
+in a state of regular isolation. A large part of the Italian Press,
+which repeats at haphazard the commonest themes of the French Press
+instead of wishing for a more intense revival of commercial relations
+with Germany, frightens the ignorant public with stories of German
+penetration; and the very plutocracy in France and Italy--though not
+to the same extent in Italy--abandons itself to the identical error.
+So to-day we find spread throughout the peninsula a sense of
+lively discontent which is conducive to a wider acceptance of the
+exaggerations of the Socialists and the Fascists. But the phenomenon
+is a transitory one.
+
+Italy had no feeling of rancour against the German people. She
+entered the War against German Imperialism, and cannot now follow
+any imperialistic policy. Indeed, in the face of the imperialistic
+competitions which have followed the War, Italy finds herself in a
+state of profound psychological uneasiness.
+
+France worries herself about one people only, since as a matter of
+fact she has only one warlike race at her frontiers: Germany. Italy's
+frontiers touch France, the German peoples, the Slav races. It is,
+therefore, her interest to approve a democratic policy which allows no
+one of the group of combatants to take up a position of superiority.
+The true Italian nationalist policy consists in being against all
+excessive nationalisms, and nothing is more harmful to Italy's policy
+than the abandonment of those democratic principles in the name of
+which she arose and by which she lives. If the policy of justice is
+a moral duty for the other nations, for Italy it is a necessity of
+existence. The Italian people has a clear vision of these facts,
+notwithstanding a certain section of her Press and notwithstanding the
+exaggerations of certain excited parties arisen from the ashes of the
+War. And therefore her uneasiness is great. While other countries have
+an economic crisis, Italy experiences, in addition, a mental crisis,
+but one with which she will be able to cope.
+
+France, however, is in a much more difficult situation, and her policy
+is still a result of her anxieties. All the violences against Germany
+were, until the day before yesterday, an effect of hatred; to-day they
+derive from dread. Moral ideas have for nations a still greater value
+than wealth. France had until the other day the prestige of her
+democratic institutions. All of us who detested the Hohenzollern
+dynasty and the insolent fatuity of William II loved France, heir of
+the bourgeois revolution and champion of democracy. So, when the War
+came, all the democracies felt a lively pang: the crushing of France
+meant the crushing of democracy and liberty. All the old bonds are
+broken, all the organization which Germany had abroad is smashed up,
+and France has been saved, not by arms alone, but by the potent life
+of free peoples.
+
+Yet victory has taken away from France her greatest prestige, her
+fascination as a democratic country. Now all the democratic races of
+the world look at France with an eye of diffidence--some, indeed, with
+rancour; others with hate. France has comported herself much more
+crudely toward Germany than a victorious Germany would have comported
+herself toward France. In the case of Russia, she has followed purely
+plutocratic tendencies. She has on foot the largest army in the world
+in front of a helpless Germany. She sends coloured troops to occupy
+the most cultured and progressive cities of Germany, abusing the
+fruits of victory. She shows no respect for the principle of
+nationality or for the right of self-determination.
+
+Germany is in a helpless and broken condition to-day; she will not
+make war; she cannot. But if to-morrow she should make war, how many
+peoples would come to France's aid?
+
+The policy which has set the people of Italy against one another, the
+diffusion of nationalist violence, the crude persecutions of enemies,
+excluded even from the League of Nations, have created an atmosphere
+of distrust of France. Admirable in her political perceptiveness,
+France, by reason of an error of exaltation, has lost almost all the
+benefit of her victorious action.
+
+A situation hedged with difficulties has been brought about. The
+United States and Great Britain have no longer any treaty of alliance
+of guarantee with France. The Anglo-Saxons, conquerors of the War and
+the peace, have drawn themselves aside. Italy has no alliance and
+cannot have any. No Italian politician could pledge his country, and
+Parliament only desires that Italy follow a democratic, peaceful
+policy, maintaining herself in Europe as a force for equilibrium and
+life.
+
+France, apart from her military alliance with Belgium, has a whole
+system of alliances based largely on the newly formed States: shifting
+sands like Poland, Russia's and Germany's enemy, whose fate no one can
+prophesy when Germany is reconstructed and Russia risen again, unless
+she finds a way of remedying her present mistakes, which are much more
+numerous than her past misfortunes. Thus the more France increases her
+army, the more she corners raw materials and increases her measures
+against Germany, the more unquiet she becomes.
+
+She has seen that Germany, mistress on land, and to a large extent on
+the seas, after having carried everywhere her victorious flag, after
+having organized her commerce and, by means of her bankers, merchants
+and capitalists, made vast expansions and placed a regular network of
+relations and intrigue round the earth, fell when she attempted her
+act of imperialistic violence. France, when in difficulties, appealed
+to the sentiment of the nations and found arms everywhere to help her.
+What then is able organization worth to-day?
+
+The fluctuations of fortune in Europe show for all her peoples a
+succession of victories and defeats. There are no peoples always
+victorious. After having, under Napoleon I, humiliated Germany, France
+saw the end of her imperialistic dream, and later witnessed the ruin
+of Napoleon III. She has suffered two great defeats, and then, when
+she stood diminished in stature before a Germany at the top of her
+fortune, she, together with the Allies, has had a victory over an
+enemy who seemed invincible.
+
+But no one can foresee the future. To have conveyed great nuclei of
+German populations to the Slav States, and especially to Poland; to
+have divided the Magyars, without any consideration for their fine
+race, among the Rumanians, Czeko-Slovaks and the Jugo-Slavs; to have
+used every kind of violence with the Bulgars; to have offended Turkey
+on any and every pretext; to have done this is not to have guaranteed
+the victory and the peace.
+
+Russia sooner or later will recover. It is an illusion to suppose that
+Great Britain, France and Italy can form an agreement to regulate the
+new State or new States that will arise in Russia. There are too many
+tendencies and diverse interests. Germany, too, will reconstruct
+herself after a series of sorrows and privations, and no one can say
+how the Germans will behave. Unless a policy of peace and social
+renovation be shaped and followed, our sons will witness scenes much
+more terrible than those which have horrified our generation and upset
+our minds even more than our interests.
+
+Meanwhile, in spite of the frightful increase of scrofula, rickets
+and tuberculosis, from which the conquered peoples are principally
+suffering, the march of the nations will proceed according to the laws
+which have hitherto ruled them and on which our limited action can
+only for brief periods cause small modifications or alterations.
+
+Demographic forecasts, like all forecasts of social events, have but
+a comparative value. It is true that demographic movements are
+especially biological manifestations, but it is also true that
+economic and social factors exercise a profound influence in limiting
+their regularity and can disturb them very considerably. It is better
+therefore not to make long prophecies.
+
+What is certain is that the French population has increased almost
+imperceptibly while the population of Germany augmented very rapidly.
+The annual average of births in the five years before the War,
+1908-13, was 762,000 in France and 176,000 in Belgium. In Germany it
+was 1,916,000. The average of deaths was 729,000 in France, 117,000 in
+Belgium, and 1,073,000 in Germany. Thus, per thousand, the excess of
+births in France was 0.9, in Belgium 7.7, in Germany 13. The War
+has terribly aggravated the situation in France, whose demographic
+structure is far from being a healthy one. From statistics published
+giving the first results of the French census of 1921--without the new
+territory of Alsace-Lorraine--France, in the interval between the
+two census periods, has decreased by 2,102,864; from 39,602,258 to
+37,499,394 (1921). The deaths in the War do not represent a half of
+this decrease, when is deducted the losses among the coloured troops
+and those from French colonies who fought for France. The new
+territories annexed to France do not compensate for the War-mortality
+and the decrease in births.
+
+We may presume that if normal conditions of life return, the
+population of Germany and German-Austria will be more than one hundred
+millions, that the population of Belgium altogether little less than
+fifty millions, that Italy will have a population much greater than
+that of France, of at least forty-five million inhabitants, and that
+Great Britain will have about sixty million inhabitants. In the case
+of the Germans we have mentioned one hundred million persons, taking
+into consideration Germany and German-Austria. But the Germans of
+Poland, of Czeko-Slovakia and the Baltic States will amount to at
+least twenty millions of inhabitants. No one can make forecasts, even
+of an approximate nature, on Russia, whose fecundity is always the
+highest in Europe, and whose losses are rapidly replaced by a high
+birth-rate even after the greatest catastrophes. And then there are
+the Germans spread about the world, great aggregations of populations
+as in the United States of America and in a lesser degree in Brazil.
+Up to now these people have been silent, not only because they were
+surrounded by hostile populations, but because the accusation of being
+sons of the Huns weighed down upon them more than any danger of the
+War. But the Treaty of Versailles, and more still the manner in
+which it has been applied, is to dissipate, and soon will entirely
+dissipate, the atmosphere of antipathy that existed against the
+Germans. In Great Britain the situation has changed profoundly in
+three years. The United States have made their separate peace and want
+no responsibility. In Italy there scarcely exists any hatred for the
+Germans, and apart from certain capitalists who paint in lurid colours
+the danger of German penetration in their papers because they want
+higher tariff protection and to be able to speculate on government
+orders, there is no one who does not desire peace with all peoples.
+The great majority of the Italian people only desire to reconstruct
+the economic and social life of the nation.
+
+Certain tendencies in France's policy depend perhaps on her great
+anxiety for the future, an anxiety, in fact, not unjustified by the
+lessons of the past. Germany, notwithstanding her fallen state, her
+anguish and the torment she has to go through, is so strong and vital
+that everybody is certain of seeing her once again potent, indeed more
+potent and formidable than ever.
+
+Everyone in France is convinced that the Treaty of Versailles has lost
+all foundation since the United States of America abandoned it, and
+since Great Britain and Italy, persuaded of the impossibility of
+putting certain clauses into effect, have shown by their attitude that
+they are not disposed to entertain coercive measures which are as
+useless as they are damaging.
+
+In France the very authors of the Treaty of Versailles recognize that
+it is weakened by a series of successive attenuations. Tardieu has
+asserted that the Treaty of Versailles tends to be abandoned on all
+sides: "_Cette faillite a des causes allemandes, des causes alliés,
+des causes françaises_" (p. 489). The United States has asked itself,
+after the trouble that has followed the treaty, if wisdom did not lie
+in the old time isolation, in Washington's testament, in the Monroe
+doctrine: _Keep off_. But in America they have not understood, says
+Tardieu, that to assist Europe the same solidarity was necessary that
+existed during the War (p. 493).
+
+Great Britain, according to Tardieu, tends now also to stand aside.
+The English are inclined to say, "_N'en parlons plus_" (p. 493). No
+Frenchman will accept with calm the manner in which Lloyd George has
+conceived the execution of the peace treaty. The campaign for the
+revision of the treaties sprang up in lower spheres and from popular
+associations and workmen's groups, has surprised and saddened the
+French spirit (p. 495). In the new developments "_était-ce une autre
+Angleterre, était-ce un autre Lloyd George_?" (p. 496). Even in France
+herself Tardieu recognizes sadly the language has altered: "_les
+gouvernements français, qui se sont succédé au pouvoir depuis le_ 10
+_janvier_, 1920," that is, after the fall of Clemenceau, accused in
+turn by Poincaré of being weak and feeble in asserting his demands,
+"_ont compromis les droits que leur prédecesseur avait fait
+reconnaître à la France_" (p. 503).
+
+Taking into consideration Germany's financial downfall, which
+threatens to upset not only all the indemnity schemes but the entire
+economy of continental Europe, the state of mind which is prevalent is
+not much different from that which Tardieu indicates.
+
+It is already more than a year ago since I left the direction of the
+Italian Government, and the French Press no longer accused me of being
+in perfect agreement with Lloyd George, yet Poincaré wrote on August
+1, 1920:
+
+_L'autre jour M. Asquith déclarait au parlement britannique: "Quelque
+forme de langage qu'on emploie, la conférence de Spa a bien été, en
+fait, une conférence pour la révision des conditions du traité."
+"Chut!" a répondu M. Lloyd George: "c'est là une déclaration très
+grave par l'effet qu'elle peut produire en France. Je ne puis la
+laisser passer sans la contredire." Contradiction de pure forme, faite
+pour courtoisie vis-à-vis de nous, mais qui malheureusement ne change
+rien au fond des choses. Chaque fois que le Conseil Suprême s'est
+réuni, il a laissé sur la table des delibérations quelques morceaux
+épars du traité_.
+
+No kind of high-handedness, no combined effort, will ever be able to
+keep afloat absurdities like the dream of the vast indemnity, the
+Polish programme, the hope of annexing the Saar, etc. As things go
+there is almost more danger for the victors than for the vanquished.
+He who has lost all has nothing to lose. It is rather the victorious
+nations who risk all in this disorganized Europe of ours. The
+conquerors arm themselves in the ratio by which the vanquished disarm,
+and the worse the situation of our old enemies becomes, so much
+the worse become the exchanges and the credits of the victorious
+continental countries.
+
+Yet, in some of the exaggerated ideas of France and other countries of
+the Entente, there is not only the rancour and anxiety for the future,
+but a sentiment of well-founded diffidence. After the War the European
+States belonging to the Entente have been embarrassed not only on
+account of the enormous internal debts, but also for the huge debts
+contracted abroad.
+
+If Germany had not had to pay any indemnity and had not lost her
+colonies and mercantile marine we should have been confronted with the
+absurd paradox that the victorious nations would have issued from
+the War worn out, with their territories destroyed, and with a huge
+foreign debt; Germany would have had her territory quite intact, her
+industries ready to begin work again, herself anxious to start
+again her productive force, and in addition with no foreign debt,
+consequently ample credit abroad. In the mad struggle to break
+up Germany there has had part not only hatred, but also a quite
+reasonable anxiety which, after all, must be taken into consideration.
+
+Even to-day, three years after the War, Great Britain has not paid her
+debt to America, and France and Italy have not paid their debts to
+America and Great Britain. Great Britain could pay with a great
+effort; France and Italy cannot pay anyhow.
+
+According to the accounts of the American Treasury the Allies' War
+debt is 9,587 millions of dollars: 4,277 millions owing from Great
+Britain, 2,977 millions from France, 1,648 millions from Italy, 349
+millions from Belgium, 187 millions from Russia, 61 millions from
+Czeko-Slovakia, 26 millions from Serbia, 25 millions from Rumania, and
+15 millions from Greece. Up to last July Great Britain had paid back
+110 millions of dollars. Since the spring of 1919 the payment of
+the interest on the amounts due to the American Treasury has been
+suspended by some European States. Between October and November, 1919,
+the amount of the capitalizing and unpaid interests of the European
+States came to 236 million dollars. The figure has considerably
+increased since then.
+
+According to the _Statist_ (August 6, 1921) the Allies' debt to the
+United States on March 31, 1921, amounted to ten milliards and 959
+million dollars, including the interests, in which sum Great Britain
+was interested to the sum of 4,775 million dollars and France for
+3,351 million dollars. But the _Statist's_ figures, in variance to the
+official figures, include other debts than strictly war debts.
+
+The debts of the various allied countries' to Great Britain on March
+31, 1921, according to a schedule annexed to the financial
+statement for 1921-22, published by the British Treasury, came to
+£1,777,900,000, distributed as follows: France 557 millions, Italy
+476 millions, Russia 561 millions, Belgium 94 millions, Serbia 22
+millions, Portugal, Rumania, Greece and other Allies 66 millions. This
+sum represents War debts. But to it must be added the £9,900,000 given
+by Great Britain for the reconstruction of Belgium and the loans
+granted by her for relief to an amount of £16,000,000. So, altogether,
+Great Britain's credit to the Allies on March 31, 1921, was
+£1,803,600,000, and has since been increased by the interests. Great
+Britain had also at the same date a credit of £144,000,000 to her
+dominions.
+
+France has credit of little less than nine milliard francs, of which
+875 millions is from Italy, four milliards from Russia, 2,250 millions
+from Belgium, 500 millions from the Jugo-Slavs, and 1,250 millions
+from other Allies. Italy has only small credits of no account.
+
+Now this situation, by reason of which the victorious countries of
+Europe are heavy debtors (France has a foreign debt of nearly 30
+milliards, and Italy a debt of more than 20 milliards) in comparison
+with Germany, which came out of the War without any debt, has created
+a certain amount of bad feeling. Germany would have got on her feet
+again quicker than the victors if she had no indemnity to pay and had
+no foreign debts to settle.
+
+France's anxieties in this matter are perfectly legitimate and must be
+most seriously considered without, however, producing the enormities
+of the Treaty of Versailles.
+
+Assuming this, the situation may be stated in the following terms:
+
+1. All the illusions as to the capacity of Germany being able to pay
+have fallen to pieces, and the indemnities, after the absurd demands
+which tended to consider as inadequate the figure of 350 milliards
+and an annual payment of from ten to fifteen milliards have become
+an anxious unknown quantity, as troublesome to the victors as to the
+vanquished. The German circulation has lost all control under the
+force of internal needs, and Germany is threatened with failure.
+The other debtors--Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria--have need
+of succour, and can pay nothing. Austria has need of the most
+indispensable objects of existence, and everything is lacking.
+
+2. The indemnity which Germany can pay annually in her present
+condition cannot, calculating goods and cash payments altogether,
+represent more than two or three milliards at the most.
+
+3. The victorious countries, such as France, have won immense
+territories and great benefits, yet they have not been able to pay the
+War debts contracted abroad, and not even the interests. France and
+Italy, being countries of good faith, have demonstrated that, if they
+cannot pay, it is absurd to demand the payment of much higher sums
+from countries like Germany, which has lost almost all her best
+resources: mercantile fleet, colonies and foreign organization, etc.
+
+4. The danger exists that with the aggravation of the situation in the
+vanquished countries and the weakening of the economic structure of
+Europe, the vanquished countries will drag the victors down with
+them to ruin, while the Anglo-Saxon peoples, standing apart from
+Continental Europe, will detach themselves more and more from its
+policy.
+
+5. The situation which has come about is a reason for everyone to be
+anxious, and threatens both the downfall of the vanquished and the
+almost inevitable ruin of the victors, unless a way is found of
+reconstructing the moral unity of Europe and the solidarity of
+economic life.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+EUROPE'S POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTION AND PEACE POLICY
+
+
+No right-thinking person has nowadays any doubt as to the profound
+injustice of the Treaty of Versailles and of all the treaties which
+derive from it. But this fact is of small importance, inasmuch as it
+is not justice or injustice which regulates the relations between
+nations, but their interests and sentiments. In the past we have seen
+Christian peoples, transplanted in America, maintain the necessity of
+slavery, and we have seen, and continue to see every day, methods of
+reasoning which, when used by the defeated enemy were declared to be
+fallacious and wrong, become in turn, when varied only in form, the
+ideas and the customary life of the conquerors in the War--ideas which
+then assume the quality of liberal expressions of democracy.
+
+If appeals to the noblest human sentiments are not made in vain (and
+no effort of goodness or generosity is ever sterile), the conviction
+which is gradually forming itself, even in the least receptive minds,
+that the treaties of peace are inapplicable, as harmful to the
+conquerors as to the conquered, gains in force. For the treaties are
+at one and the same time a menace for the conquerors and a paralysis
+of all activity on the part of the conquered, since once the economic
+unity of Continental Europe is broken the resultant depression becomes
+inevitable.
+
+If many errors have been committed, many errors were inevitable. What
+we must try to do now is to limit the consequences of these mistakes
+in a changed spirit. To reconstruct where we see only ruins is the
+most evident necessity. We must also try to diffuse among the nations
+which have won the War together and suffered together the least amount
+of diffidence possible. As it is, the United States, Great Britain,
+France, Italy, Japan, all go their own way. France has obtained her
+maximum of concessions, including those of least use to her, but never
+before has the world seen her so alone in her attitude as after the
+treaties of Paris.
+
+What is most urgently required at the moment is to change the
+prevalent war-mentality which still infects us and overcomes all
+generous sentiments, all hopes of unity. The statement that war makes
+men better or worse is, perhaps, an exaggerated one. War, which
+creates a state of exaltation, hypertrophies all the qualities, all
+the tendencies, be they for good or for evil. Ascetic souls, spirits
+naturally noble, being disposed toward sacrifice, develop a state
+of exaltation and true fervour. How many examples of nobility, of
+abnegation, of voluntary martyrdom has not the War given us? But in
+persons disposed to evil actions, in rude and violent spirits (and
+these are always in the majority), the spirit of violence increases.
+This spirit, which among the intellectuals takes the form of arrogance
+and concupiscence, and in politics expresses itself in a policy of
+conquest, assumes in the crowd the most violent forms of class war,
+continuous assaults upon the power of the State, and an unbalanced
+desire to gain as much as possible with the least possible work.
+
+Before the War the number of men ready to take the law into their own
+hands was relatively small; now there are many such individuals.
+The various nations, even those most advanced, cannot boast a moral
+progress comparable with their intellectual development. The explosion
+of sentiments of violence has created in the period after the War in
+most countries an atmosphere which one may call unbreathable. Peoples
+accustomed to be dominated and to serve have come to believe that,
+having become dominators in their turn, they have the right to use
+every kind of violence against their overlords of yesterday. Are not
+the injustices of the Poles against the Germans, and those of the
+Rumanians against the Magyars, a proof of this state of mind? Even in
+the most civilized countries many rules of order and discipline have
+gone by the board.
+
+After all the great wars a condition of torpor, of unwillingness to
+work, together with a certain rudeness in social relations, has always
+been noticed.
+
+The war of 1870 was a little war in comparison with the cataclysm let
+loose by the European War. Yet then the conquered country had its
+attempt at Bolshevism, which in those days was called the Commune,
+and the fall of its political regime. In the conquering country we
+witnessed, together with the rapid development of industrial groups, a
+quick growth in Socialism and the constitution of great parties like
+the Catholic Centre. _Mutatis mutandis_, the same situation has shown
+itself after the European War.
+
+What is most urgently necessary, therefore, is to effect a return to
+peace sentiments, and in the manifestations of government to abandon
+those attitudes which in the peaces of Paris had their roots in hate.
+
+I have tried, as Premier of Italy, as writer, and as politician, to
+regulate my actions by this principle. In the first months of 1920 I
+gave instructions to Italy's ambassador in Vienna, the Marquis della
+Torretta, to arrange a meeting between himself and Chancellor Renner,
+head of the Government of Vienna. So the chief of the conquered
+country came, together with his Ministers, to greet the head of the
+conquering country, and there was no word that could record in any way
+the past hatred and the ancient rancour. All the conversation was of
+the necessity for reconstruction and for the development of fresh
+currents of life and commercial activity. The Government of Italy
+helped the Government of Austria in so far as was possible. And in so
+acting, I felt I was working better for the greatness of my country
+than I could possibly have done by any kind of stolid persecution.
+I felt that over and beyond our competition there existed the human
+sorrow of nations for whom we must avoid fresh shedding of blood and
+fresh wars. Had I not left the Government, it was my intention not
+only to continue in this path, but also to intensify my efforts in
+this direction.
+
+The banal idea that there exist in Europe two groups of nations, one
+of which stands for violence and barbarism--the Germans, the Magyars
+and the Bulgarians--while the other group of Anglo-Saxons and Latins
+represents civilization, must not continue to be repeated, because not
+only is it an outrage on truth but an outrage on honesty.
+
+Always to repeat that the Germans are not adapted for a democratic
+regime is neither just nor true. Nor is it true that Germany is an
+essentially warlike country, and therefore different from all other
+lands. In the last three centuries France and England have fought many
+more wars than Germany. One must read the books of the Napoleonic
+period to see with what disdain pacificist Germany is referred
+to--that country of peasants, waiters and philosophers. It is
+sufficient to read the works of German writers, including Treitschke
+himself, to perceive for what a long period of time the German lands,
+anxious for peace, have considered France as the country always eager
+for war and conquest.
+
+Not only am I of the opinion that Germany is a land suited for
+democratic institutions, but I believe that after the fall of the
+Empire democratic principles have a wider prevalence there than in
+any other country of Europe. The resistance offered to the peace of
+Versailles--that is, to disorganization--may be claimed as a merit for
+the democratic parties, which, if they are loyally assisted by the
+States of the Entente, can not only develop themselves but establish a
+great and noble democracy.
+
+Germany has accustomed us in history to the most remarkable surprises.
+A century and a half ago she was considered as a pacificist nation
+without national spirit. She has since then become a warlike country
+with the most pronounced national spirit. Early in the seventeenth
+century there were in Germany more than one hundred territories and
+independent States. There was no true national conscience, and not
+even the violence of the Napoleonic wars, a century after, sufficed
+to awaken it. What was required was a regular effort of thought, a
+sustained programme of action on the part of men like Wolff, Fichte
+and Hegel to mould a national conscience. Fifty years earlier no one
+would have believed in the possibility of a Germany united and
+compact in her national sentiment. Germany passed from the widest
+decentralization to the greatest concentration and the intensest
+national life. Germany will also be a democratic country if the
+violence of her ancient enemies does not drive her into a state of
+exaltation which will tend to render minds and spirits favourable to a
+return to the old regime.
+
+To arrive at peace we must first of all desire peace. We must no
+longer carry on conversations by means of military missions, but by
+means of ambassadors and diplomatic representatives.
+
+
+1.--THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS AND THE PARTICIPATION OF THE VANQUISHED
+
+A great step towards peace may be made by admitting at once all
+ex-enemy States into the League of Nations. Among the States of
+European civilization millions of persons are unrepresented in the
+League of Nations: the United States, who has not wished to adhere to
+it after the Treaty of Versailles sanctioned violence; Russia, who
+has not been able to join owing to her difficult position; Germany,
+Hungary, Austria and Bulgaria, who have not been permitted to join;
+the Turks, etc. The League of Nations was a magnificent conception in
+which I have had faith, and which I have regarded with sympathy. But a
+formidable mistake has deprived it of all prestige. Clauses 5 and 10
+of its originating constitution and the exclusion of the defeated
+have given it at once the character of a kind of Holy Alliance of the
+conquerors established to regulate the incredible relations which the
+treaties have created between conquerors and conquered. Wilson had
+already committed the mistake of founding the League of Nations
+without first defining the nations and leaving to chance the resources
+of the beaten peoples and their populations. The day, however, on
+which all the peoples are represented in the League, the United
+States, without approving the treaties of Versailles, St. Germain or
+Trianon, etc., will feel the need of abandoning their isolation, which
+is harmful for them and places them in a position of inferiority. And
+the day when all the peoples of the world are represented, and accept
+reciprocal pledges of international solidarity, a great step will have
+been taken.
+
+As things stand, the organism of the Reparations Commission,
+established by Schedule 2 of Part VIII of the Treaty of Versailles,
+is an absurd union of the conquerors (no longer allies, but reunited
+solely in a kind of bankruptcy procedure), who interpret the treaty in
+their own fashion, and can even modify the laws and regulations in
+the conquered countries. The existence of such an institution among
+civilized peoples ought to be an impossibility. Its powers must be
+transferred to the League of Nations in such a manner as to provide
+guarantees for the victors, but guarantees also for the conquered.
+The suppression of the Reparations Commission becomes, therefore, a
+fundamental necessity.
+
+
+2.--THE REVISION OF THE TREATIES
+
+When the public, and especially in the United States and Great
+Britain, become convinced that the spirit of peace can only prevail by
+means of an honest revision of the treaties the difficulties will be
+easily eliminated. But one cannot merely speak of a simple revision;
+it would be a cure worse than the evil. During the tempest one cannot
+abandon the storm-beaten ship and cross over to a safer vessel. It is
+necessary to return into harbour and make the transhipment where calm,
+or relative calm at any rate, reigns.
+
+Inasmuch as Europe is out of equilibrium, a settlement, even of a
+bad kind, cannot be arrived at off-hand. To cast down the present
+political scaffolding without having built anything would be an error.
+Perhaps here the method that will prove most efficacious is to entrust
+the League of Nations with the task of arriving at a revision.
+When the League of Nations is charged with this work the various
+governments will send their best politicians, and the discussion will
+be able to assume a realizable character.
+
+According to its constitution, the League of Nations may, in case of
+war or the menace of war (Clause 11), convoke its members, and take
+all the measures required to safeguard the peace of the nations. All
+the adhering States have recognized their obligation to submit all
+controversies to arbitration, and that in any case they have no right
+to resort to war before the expiration of a term of three months after
+the verdict of the arbiters or the report of the Council (Clause 12).
+Any member of the League of Nations resorting to war contrary to the
+undertakings of the treaty which constitutes the League is, _ipso
+facto_, considered as if he had committed an act of war against all
+the other members of the League (Clause 19).
+
+But more important still is the fact that the Assembly of the League
+of Nations may invite its members to proceed to a fresh examination
+of treaties that become inapplicable as well as of international
+situations whose prolongation might imperil the peace of the world
+(Clause 19).
+
+We may therefore revise the present treaties without violence and
+without destroying them.
+
+What requires to be modified there is no necessity to say, inasmuch as
+all the matter of this book supplies the evidence and the proof. What
+is certain is that in Europe and America, except for an intransigent
+movement running strong in France, everyone is convinced of the
+necessity of revision.
+
+It will be well that this revision should take place through the
+operations of the League of Nations after the representatives of all
+the States, conquerors, conquered and neutrals, have come to form part
+of it.
+
+But in the constitution of the League of Nations there are two clauses
+which form its fundamental weakness, sections desired by France, whose
+gravity escaped Wilson.
+
+Clause 5 declares that, save and excepting contrary dispositions, the
+decisions of the Assembly or of the Council are to be by the unanimous
+consent of the members represented at the meetings. It is difficult
+to imagine anything more absurd. If the modification of a territorial
+situation is being discussed, all the nations must agree as to the
+solution, including the interested nation. The League of Nations is
+convinced that the Danzig corridor is an absurdity, but if France is
+not of the same opinion no modification can be made. Without a change
+of this clause, every honest attempt at revision must necessarily
+break down.
+
+Clause 10, by which the members of the League of Nations pledge
+themselves to respect and preserve from external attacks the
+territorial integrity and the existing political independence of all
+the members of the League, must also be altered. This clause, which
+is profoundly immoral, consecrates and perpetuates the mistakes
+and faults of the treaties. No honest country can guarantee the
+territorial integrity of the States now existing after the monstrous
+parcelling out of entire groups of Germans and Magyars to other
+nations, arranged without scruples and without intelligence. No one
+can honestly guarantee the territorial integrity of Poland as it
+stands at present. If a new-risen Russia, a renewed Germany, and an
+unextinguished Austria desire in the future a revision of the treaties
+they will be making a most reasonable demand to which no civilized
+country may make objection. It is indeed Clauses 5 and 10 which have
+deprived the constitution of the League of Nations of all moral
+credit, which have transformed it into an instrument of oppression for
+the victors, which have caused the just and profound disapproval of
+the most enlightened men of the American Senate. A League of Nations
+with Clauses 5 and 10 and the prolonged exclusion of the vanquished
+cannot but accentuate the diffidence of all the democracies and the
+aversion of the masses.
+
+But the League of Nations can be altered and can become indeed a great
+force for renovation if the problem of its functioning be clearly
+confronted and promptly resolved.
+
+The League of Nations can become a great guarantee for peace on three
+conditions:
+
+(a) That it include really and in the shortest space of time possible
+all the peoples, conquerors, conquered and neutrals.
+
+(b) That clauses 5 and 10 be modified, and that after their
+modification a revision of the treaties be undertaken.
+
+(c) That the Reparations Commission be abolished and its powers be
+conferred upon the League of Nations itself.
+
+As it exists at present the League of Nations has neither prestige nor
+dignity; it is an expression of the violence of the conquering group
+of nations. But reconstituted and renovated it may become the greatest
+of peace factors in the relations between the peoples.
+
+3.--THE SAFETY OF FRANCE AND THE MILITARY GUARANTEES
+
+In the state of mind in which France exists at present there is a
+reasonable cause of worry for the future. Since the conclusion of
+the War the United States of America have withdrawn. They concern
+themselves with Europe no more, or only in a very limited form and
+with diffidence. The Monroe doctrine has come into its own again.
+Great Britain watches the decadence of the European continent, but,
+girt by the sea, has nothing to fear. She is a country of Europe, but
+she does not live the life of Europe; she stands apart from it. Italy,
+when she has overcome the difficulties of her economic situation, can
+be certain of her future. The very fact that she stands in direct
+opposition to no State, that she may have competition with various
+peoples but not long-nurtured hatreds, gives Italy a relative
+security. But France, who has been in less than forty-four years twice
+at war with Germany, has little security for her future. Germany
+and the Germanic races increase rapidly in number. France does not
+increase. France, notwithstanding the new territories, after her war
+losses, has probably no more inhabitants than in 1914. In her almost
+tormented anxiety to destroy Germany we see her dread for the
+future--more indeed than mere hatred. To occupy with numerous troops
+the left bank of the Rhine and the bridgeheads is an act of vengeance;
+but in the vengeance there is also anxiety. There are many in France
+who think that neither now nor after fifteen years must the territory
+of the vanquished be abandoned. And so France maintains in effective
+force too large an army and nourishes too great a rancour. And for
+this reason she helps the Poles in their unjustifiable attempt in
+Upper Silesia, will not allow the Germans of Austria to live, and
+seeks to provoke and facilitate all movements and political actions
+which can tend towards the dismemberment of Germany. The British and
+the Italian viewpoints are essentially different. France, which knows
+it can no longer count on the co-operation of Great Britain, of the
+United States, or of Italy, keeps on foot her numerous army, has
+allied herself with Belgium and Poland, and tries to suffocate Germany
+in a ring of iron. The attempt is a vain one and destined to fail
+within a few years, inasmuch as France's allies have no capacity for
+resistance. Yet, all the same, her attempt derives from a feeling that
+is not only justifiable but just.
+
+France had obtained at Paris, apart from the occupation of the left
+bank of the Rhine and all the military controls, two guaranteeing
+treaties from the United States and from Great Britain: in case of
+unprovoked aggression on the part of Germany, Great Britain and
+the United States pledged themselves to defend France. The British
+Parliament, as we have seen, approved the treaty provisionally on the
+similar approbation of the United States. But as the latter has not
+approved the Treaty of Versailles, and has not even discussed the
+guarantee treaty, France has now no guarantee treaty.
+
+If we are anxious to realize a peace politic two things are necessary:
+
+1. That France has security, and that for twenty years at least
+Great Britain and Italy pledge themselves to defend her in case of
+aggression.
+
+2. That the measures for the disarmament of the conquered States be
+maintained, maybe with some tempering of their conditions, and that
+their execution and control be entrusted with the amplest powers to
+the League of Nations.
+
+No one can think it unjust that the parties who provoked the War or
+those who have, if not the entire, at least the greatest share of
+responsibility, should be rendered for a certain time incapable.
+The fall of the military caste in Germany and the formation of a
+democratic society will derive much help from the abolition, for a not
+too brief period of time, of the permanent army, and this will render
+possible, at no distant date, an effective reduction of the armaments
+in the victorious countries.
+
+Great Britain has the moral duty to proffer a guarantee already
+spontaneously given. Italy also must give such a guarantee if she
+wishes truly to contribute towards the peace of Europe.
+
+As long as Germany has no fleet, and cannot put together an artillery
+and an aviation corps, she cannot present a menace.
+
+Great Britain and Italy can, however, only give their guarantees on
+the condition that they guarantee a proper state of things and not a
+continued condition of violence. The withdrawal of all the troops from
+the Rhine ought to coincide with a clear definition concerning the
+fate of the Germans of Austria and the Germans detached from Germany
+without motive. Such a retirement must coincide with the definition
+of the territory of the Saar, and the assigning, pure and simple, of
+Upper Silesia to Germany and the end of all the insupportable controls
+and the indemnity regulations.
+
+Being myself contrary to any pledge binding Italy for too long a
+period, I am of opinion that it is perfectly right that Great Britain
+and Italy should make this sacrifice for the peace of Europe.
+
+But no guarantee is possible, either for Great Britain or Italy, until
+the most essential problems be resolved in the justest manner by means
+of straightforward and explicit understandings.
+
+Italy's tendency towards British policy on the continent of Europe
+depends on the fact that Great Britain has never wished or tolerated
+that any continental State should have a hegemony over others. And,
+therefore, she has found herself at different epochs ranged against
+France, Germany and Russia.
+
+England is in the Mediterranean solely to secure her passage through
+it, not to dominate it. She continues to follow the grand policy by
+which she has transformed her colonies into dominions, and, in spite
+of errors, she has always shown the greatest respect for the liberty
+of other peoples.
+
+But Europe will not have peace until the three progressive countries
+of the Continent, Germany, France and Italy, find a way of agreement
+which can reunite all their energies in one common force.
+
+Russia has conceived the idea of having the hegemony of Europe;
+Germany has indeed had the illusion of such a hegemony. Now this
+illusion penetrates certain French elements. Can a people of forty
+million inhabitants, who are not increasing, who already find
+difficulties in dominating and controlling their immense colonies,
+aspire to hegemonic action, even taking count of their great political
+prestige? Can France lastingly dominate and menace a country like
+Germany, which at no distant date will have a population double that
+of France?
+
+The future of European civilization requires that Germany, France and
+Italy, after so much disaster, find a common road to travel.
+
+The first step to be taken is to give security of existence and of
+reconstruction to Germany; the second is to guarantee France from the
+perils of a not distant future; the third is to find at all costs a
+means of accord between Germany, France and Italy.
+
+But only vast popular movements and great currents of thought and
+of life can work effectively in those cases where the labours of
+politicians have revealed themselves as characterized by uncertainty
+and as being too traditional. Europe is still under the dominion of
+old souls which often enough dwell in young bodies and, therefore,
+unite old errors with violence. A great movement can only come from
+the intellectuals of the countries most menaced and from fresh popular
+energies.
+
+
+4.--REGULATING INTER-ALLIED DEBTS, GERMANY'S INDEMNITY AND THAT OF THE
+DEFEATED COUNTRIES
+
+These two problems are closely connected.
+
+The victorious countries demand an indemnity from the conquered
+countries which, except Germany, who has a great productive force even
+in her hour of difficulties, are in extreme depression and misery.
+
+Great Britain is in debt to the United States, and France, Italy and
+minor nations are in their turn heavy debtors to the Americans and to
+Great Britain.
+
+The experience of the last three years has shown that, even with the
+best will, none of the countries owing money to the Entente has been
+able to pay its debts or even the interest. With an effort Great
+Britain could pay; France and Italy will never be able to, and have,
+moreover, exchanges which constitute a real menace for the future of
+each.
+
+The fact that France and Italy, although they came out of the war
+victoriously, have not been able to pay their debts or even the
+interest on them is the proof that Germany, whose best resources have
+been taken away from her, can only pay an indemnity very different
+from the fantastic figures put forward at the time of the Conference
+of Paris, when even important political men spoke of monstrous and
+ridiculous indemnities.
+
+The problem of the inter-allied debts, as well as that of the
+indemnity, will be solved by a certain sacrifice on the part of all
+who participated in the War.
+
+The credits of the United States amount to almost 48 milliards of lire
+or francs at par, and the credits of Great Britain to 44 milliards.
+Great Britain owes about 21 milliards to the United States and is in
+turn creditor for some 44 milliards. She has a bad debt owing from
+Russia for more than 14 milliards, but 13 milliards are owing from
+France, about 12 milliards from Italy, and almost 2-1/2 milliards from
+Belgium. That is to say, that Great Britain could well pay her debt
+to the United States, ceding the greater part of her credits towards
+France and Italy.
+
+But the truth is that, while on the subject of the German indemnities,
+stolid illusions continue to be propagated (perhaps now with greater
+discretion), neither France nor Italy is in a position to pay its
+debts.
+
+The most honest solution, which, intelligently enough, J.M. Keynes has
+seen from the first, is that each of the inter-allied countries should
+renounce its state credits towards countries that were allies or
+associates during the War. The United States of America are creditors
+only; Great Britain has lent the double of what she has borrowed.
+France has received on loan the triple of what she has lent to others.
+
+The credits of France are for almost two-thirds undemandable credits
+of Great Britain; more than 14 milliards being with Russia, they are
+for considerably more than one-third bad debts.
+
+France and Italy would be benefited chiefly by this provision. Great
+Britain would scarcely either benefit or lose, or, rather, the benefit
+accruing to her would be less in so much as her chief credits are to
+Russia.
+
+The United States would doubtless have to bear the largest burden. But
+when one thinks of the small sacrifice which the United States has
+made in comparison with the efforts of France and Italy (and Italy was
+not obliged to enter the War), the new sacrifice demanded does not
+seem excessive.
+
+During the War the United States of America, who for three years
+furnished food, provisions and arms to the countries of the Entente,
+have absorbed the greater part of their available resources. Not only
+are the States of Europe debtors, but so are especially the private
+citizens who have contracted debts during or after the War. Great
+Britain during the War had to sell at least 25 milliards of her
+foreign values. The United States of America, on the contrary, have
+immensely increased their reserves.
+
+But this very increase is harmful to them, inasmuch as the capacity
+for exchange of the States of Europe has been much reduced. The United
+States now risk seeing still further reduced, if not destroyed,
+this purchasing capacity of their best clients; and this finally
+constitutes for the U.S.A. infinitely greater damage than the
+renouncing of all their credits.
+
+To reconstruct Germany, to intensify exchange of goods with the old
+countries of Austria-Hungary and Russia, to settle the situation of
+the exchange of goods with Italy and the Balkan countries is much more
+important for the United States and the prosperity of its people than
+to demand payment or not demand payment of those debts made for the
+common cause.
+
+I will speak of the absurd situation which has come about.
+Czeko-Slovakia and Poland unwillingly indeed fought against the
+Entente, which has raised them to free and autonomous States; and
+not only have they no debts to pay, being now in the position of
+conquerors, or at least allies of the conquerors, but they have, in
+fact, scarcely any foreign debts.
+
+The existence of enormous War debts is, then, everywhere a menace to
+financial stability. No one is anxious to repudiate his debts in order
+not to suffer in loss of dignity, but almost all know that they cannot
+pay. The end of the War, as Keynes has justly written, has brought
+about that all owe immense sums of money to one another. The holders
+of loan stock in every country are creditors for vast sums towards
+the State, and the State, in its turn, is creditor for enormous sums
+towards the taxpayers. The whole situation is highly artificial and
+irritating. We shall be unable to move unless we succeed in freeing
+ourselves from this chain of paper.
+
+The work of reconstruction can begin by annulling the inter-allied
+debts.
+
+If it is not thought desirable to proceed at once to annulment, there
+remains only the solution of including them in the indemnity which
+Germany must pay in the measure of 20 per cent., allocating a certain
+proportion to each country which has made loans to allied and
+associated governments on account of the War. In round figures the
+inter-allied loans come to 100 milliards. They can be reduced to 20,
+and then each creditor can renounce his respective credit towards
+allies or associates and participate proportionately in the new credit
+towards Germany. Such a credit, bearing no interest, could only be
+demanded after the payment of all the other indemnities, and would be
+considered in the complete total of the indemnities.
+
+All the illusions concerning the indemnities are now fated to
+disappear. They have already vanished for the other countries; they
+are about to vanish in the case of Germany.
+
+Nevertheless it is right that Germany should pay an indemnity. Yet, if
+the conquerors cannot meet their foreign debts, how can the vanquished
+clear the vast indemnity asked? Each passing day demonstrates more
+clearly the misunderstanding of the indemnity. The non-experts have
+not learned financial technics, but common sense tells them that the
+golden nimbus which has been trailed before their eyes is only a thick
+cloud of smoke that is slowly dissipating.
+
+I have already said that the real damages to repair do not exceed
+40 milliards of gold marks and that all the other figures are pure
+exaggerations.
+
+If it be agreed that Germany accept 20 per cent. of the inter-allied
+debt, the indemnity may be raised to 60 milliards of francs at par, to
+be paid in gold marks.
+
+But we must calculate for Germany's benefit all that she has already
+given in immediate marketable wealth. Apart from her colonies, Germany
+has given up all her mercantile marine fleet, her submarine cables,
+much railway material and war material, government property in ceded
+territory without any diminution of the amount of public debts, etc.
+Without taking account, then, of the colonies and her magnificent
+commercial organization abroad, Germany has parted with at least 20
+milliards. If we were to calculate what Germany has ceded with the
+same criteria with which the conquering countries have calculated
+their losses, we should arrive at figures much surpassing these. We
+may agree in taxing Germany with an indemnity equivalent in gold marks
+to 60 milliards of francs at par--an indemnity to be paid in the
+following manner:
+
+(a) Twenty milliards of francs to be considered as already paid in
+consideration of all that Germany has ceded in consequence of the
+treaties.
+
+(b) Twenty milliards from the indemnity which Germany must pay to her
+conquerors, especially in coal and other materials, according to the
+proportions already established.
+
+(c) Twenty milliards--after the payment of the debts in the second
+category to be taken over by Germany--as part of the reimbursement for
+countries which have made credits to the belligerents of the Entente:
+that is, the United States, Great Britain and France, in proportion to
+the sums lent.
+
+In what material can Germany pay 20 milliards in a few years?
+Especially in coal and in material for repairing the devastated
+territories of France. Germany must pledge herself for ten years to
+consign to France a quantity of coal at least equal in bulk to the
+difference between the annual production before the War in the mines
+of the north and in the Pas de Calais and the production of the mines
+in the same area during the next ten years. She must also furnish
+Italy--who, after the heavy losses sustained, has not the possibility
+of effecting exchanges--a quantity of coal that will represent
+three-quarters of the figures settled upon in the Treaty of
+Versailles. We can compel Germany to give to the Allies for ten years,
+in extinction of their credits, at least 500 millions a year in gold,
+with privileges on the customs receipts.
+
+This systematization, which can only be imposed by the free agreement
+of the United States and Great Britain, would have the effect of
+creating excellent relations. The United States, cancelling their, in
+great part, impossible debt, would derive the advantage of developing
+their trade and industry, and thus be able to guarantee credits for
+private individuals in Europe. It would also be of advantage to Great
+Britain, who would lose nothing. Great Britain has about an equal
+number of debits and credits, with this difference, that the debits
+are secured, while the credits are, in part, unsecured. France's
+credits are proportionately the worst and her debits largest, almost
+27 milliards. France, liberated from her debt, and in a position to
+calculate on a coal situation comparable with that of before the War
+and with her new territories, would be in a position to re-establish
+herself. The cancellation of 27 milliards of debt, a proportionate
+share in 20 milliards, together with all that she has had, represent
+on the whole a sum that perhaps exceeds 50 milliards. Italy would
+have the advantage of possessing for ten years the minimum of coal
+necessary to her existence, and would be liberated from her foreign
+debt, which amounts to much more than she can possibly hope for from
+the indemnity.
+
+Such an arrangement, or one like it, is the only way calculated to
+allow Europe to set out again on the path of civilization and to
+re-establish slowly that economic equilibrium which the War has
+destroyed with enormous damage for the conquerors and the certain ruin
+of the vanquished.
+
+But, before speaking of any indemnity, the Reparations Commission must
+be abolished and its functions handed over to the League of Nations,
+while all the useless controls and other hateful vexations must be put
+an end to.
+
+While the Allied troops' occupation of the Rhine costs Germany
+25 milliards of paper marks a year, it is foolish to speak of
+reconstruction or indemnity. Either all occupation must cease or the
+expenses ought not to exceed, according to the foregoing agreements, a
+maximum of 80 millions at par, or even less.
+
+We shall, however, never arrive at such an arrangement until the
+Continental countries become convinced of two things: first, that the
+United States will grant no credits under any formula; secondly, that
+Germany, under the present system, will be unable to pay anything and
+will collapse, dragging down to ruin her conquerors.
+
+Among many uncertainties these two convictions become ever clearer.
+
+If in all countries the spirit of insubordination among the working
+classes is increasing, the state of mind of the German operatives
+is quite remarkable. The workmen almost everywhere, in face of the
+enormous fortunes which the War has created and by reason of the
+spirit of violence working in them, have worked with bad spirit after
+the War because they have thought that a portion of their labour has
+gone to form the profits of the industrials. It is useless to say that
+we are dealing here with an absurd and dangerous conception, because
+the profit of the capitalist is a necessary element of production,
+and because production along communist lines, wherever it has been
+attempted, has brought ruin and misery. But it is useless to deny that
+such a situation exists, together with the state of mind which it
+implies. We can well imagine, then, the conditions in which Germany
+and the vanquished countries find themselves. The workmen, who in
+France, England and Italy exhibit in various degree and measure a
+state of intractability, in Germany have to face a situation still
+graver. When they work they know that a portion of their labour is
+destined to go to the victors, another part to the capitalist, and
+finally there will remain something for them. Add to this that in
+all the beaten countries hunger is widespread, with a consequent
+diminution of energy and work.
+
+No reasonable person can explain how humanity can continue to believe
+in the perpetuation of a similar state of things for another forty
+years.
+
+In speaking of the indemnity which Germany can pay, it is necessary
+to consider this special state of mind of the operatives and other
+categories of producers.
+
+But the mere announcement of the settling of the indemnity, of the
+immediate admission of the vanquished nations into the League of
+Nations, of the settling the question of the occupation of the Rhine,
+and of the firm intention to modify the constitution of the League
+of Nations, according it the powers now held by the Reparations
+Commission, will improve at once the market and signalize a definite
+and assured revival.
+
+The United States made a great financial effort to assist their
+associates, and in their own interests, as well as for those of
+Europe, they would have done badly to have continued with such
+assistance. When the means provided by America come to be employed to
+keep going the anarchy of central Europe, Rumania's disorder, Greece's
+adventures and Poland's violences, together with Denikin's and
+Wrangel's restoration attempts, it is better that all help should
+cease. In fact, Europe has begun to reason a little better than her
+governments since the financial difficulties have increased.
+
+The fall of the mark and Germany's profound economic depression have
+already destroyed a great part of the illusions on the subject of the
+indemnity, and the figures with which for three years the public has
+been humbugged no longer convince anyone.
+
+
+5.--FORMING NEW CONNEXIONS WITH RUSSIA
+
+Among the States of the Entente there is always a fundamental discord
+on the subject of Russia. Great Britain recognized at once that if it
+were impossible to acknowledge the Soviet Government it was a mistake
+to encourage attempts at restoration. After the first moments of
+uncertainty Great Britain has insisted on temperate measures, and
+notwithstanding that during the War she made the largest loans to the
+Russian Government (more than 14 milliards of francs at par, while
+France only lent about 4 milliards), she has never put forward the
+idea that, as a condition precedent to the recognition of the Soviet
+Government, a guarantee of the repayment of the debt was necessary.
+Only France has had this mistaken idea, which she has forced to the
+point of asking for the sequestration of all gold sent abroad by the
+Soviet Government for the purchase of goods.
+
+Wilson had already stated in his fourteen points what the attitude of
+the Entente towards Russia ought to be, but the attitudes actually
+assumed have been of quite a different order.
+
+The barrier which Poland wants to construct between Germany and Russia
+is an absurdity which must be swept away at once. Having taken away
+Germany's colonies and her capacities for expansion abroad, we must
+now direct her towards Russia where alone she can find the outlet
+necessary for her enormous population and the debt she has to carry.
+The blockade of Russia, the barbed wire placed round Russia, have
+damaged Europe severely. This blockade has resolved itself into a
+blockade against the Allies. Before the present state of economic
+ruin Russia was the great reservoir of raw materials; she was the
+unexplored treasure towards which one went with the confidence of
+finding everything. Now, owing to her effort, she has fallen; but
+how large a part of her fall is as much due to the Entente as to her
+action during the War and since. For some time now even the most
+hidebound intelligences have recognized the fact that it is useless
+to talk of entering into trade relations with Russia without the
+co-operation of Germany, the obvious ally in the vast task of
+renovation. Similarly, it is useless to talk of reattempting military
+manoeuvres. While Germany remains disassociated from the work
+of reconstruction and feels herself menaced by a Poland that is
+anarchical and disorderly and acts as an agent of the Entente, while
+Germany has no security for her future and must work with doubt and
+with rancour, all attempts to reconstruct Russia will be vain. The
+simple and fundamental truth is just this: One can only get to Moscow
+by passing through Berlin.
+
+If we do not wish conquerors and conquered to fall one after the
+other, and a common fate to reunite those who for too long have hated
+each other and continue to hate each other, a solemn word of peace
+must be pronounced.
+
+Austria, Germany, Italy, France are not diverse phenomena; they are
+different phases of the same phenomenon. All Europe will go to pieces
+if new conditions of life are not found, and the economic equilibrium
+profoundly shaken by the War re-established.
+
+I have sought in this book to point out in all sincerity the things
+that are in store for Europe; what perils menace her and in what
+way her regeneration lies. In my political career I have found many
+bitternesses; but the campaign waged against me has not disturbed me
+at all. I know that wisdom and life are indivisible, and I have no
+need to modify anything of what I have done, neither in my propaganda
+nor in my attempt at human regeneration, convinced as I am that I am
+serving both the cause of my country and the cause of civilization.
+Blame and praise do not disturb me, and the agitations promoted in the
+heart of my country will not modify in any way my conviction. On the
+contrary, they will only reinforce my will to follow in my own way.
+
+Truth, be it only slowly, makes its way. Though now the clouds are
+blackest, they will shortly disappear. The crisis which menaces and
+disturbs Europe so profoundly has inoculated with alarm the most
+excited spirits; Europe is still in the phase of doubt, but after the
+cries of hate and fury, doubt signifies a great advance. From doubt
+the truth may come forth.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+  ADRAIANOPLE, passes to the Greeks,
+  Adriatic programme, Italy's
+  Albania, an Italian expedition into
+  Alexander the Great as politician
+  Allenstein, a plebiscite for
+  Allies, the, war debts of
+  Alsace-Lorraine, annexation of
+    restitution of
+  America, and question of army of occupation
+    her attitude on reparations
+    result of her entry into the war
+    (_see also_ United States)
+  Apponyi, Count, on the Treaty of Trianon
+  Arabia, Turkey's losses in
+  Armaments, reduction of
+    the peace treaties and
+  Armenia, movement for liberation of
+  Armenian Republic, the
+  Armistice terms, summary of
+    three words change tenor of
+  Army of Occupation, the
+  Asia Minor, the Entente Powers and,
+    Turkey's losses in
+  Australasia, British possessions in
+  Australia as part of British dominions
+  Austria, financial position of,
+    loses access to the sea
+  Austria-Hungary, and the Versailles Treaty
+    civilizing influence of
+    pre-war army of
+    result of Treaty of St. Germain Germain-en-Laye
+    States of, before the war
+    victories of
+  Austrian army, the
+  Azerbajan
+
+  BALKANS, the, Russia's policy in
+  Battles, a military fact
+    difference between war and
+  Beethoven
+  Belgium, acquires German territory
+    army of
+    financial position of
+    population of
+    violation of, and the consequences
+  Bernhardi, General von
+  Bismarck, foresight of
+    political genius of
+  Bolshevik Government, the fiasco of
+    result of
+  Bolshevism, and what it is
+  Boxer rebellion, the Kaiser's address to his troops
+  Briand, M., on the objects of the Entente
+  Bridgeheads, German, occupation of,
+  British colonies, before the war,
+  Brussels, Conference of,
+  Budapest, conditions in,
+    mortality in,
+  Bulgaria, army of,
+    the Treaty of Neuilly and,
+  Bülow, von
+
+  CANADA as part of British dominions,
+  Cilicia,
+  Civilization, evolution of,
+  Clemenceau, M., and the military guarantees question,
+    and the Paris Conference,
+    and the reparations clause,
+    as destroyer,
+    communicates Poincaré's letter to Lloyd George,
+    fall of,
+    his hatred of the Germans,
+    on peace treaties,
+    replies to Lloyd George's note,
+  Coal fields, Germany's pre-war,
+  Colonial rights, and the Versailles Treaty,
+  Colonies, British,
+    German pre-war,
+    Germany loses her,
+  Commune, the French,
+  Communist system, Russian, failure of,
+  Constantine, King of Greece, return of,
+  Constantinople, retained by the Turks,
+    Russia's desire for,
+    subject to international control,
+    the Treaty of Sèvres and,
+  Croatia and Fiume,
+  Cyrenaica,
+  Czeko-Slovakia, State of,
+    added population of,
+    army of,
+    financial position of,
+    Magyars in
+
+  DALMATIA, the London Agreement and,
+  Dante, a celebrated dictum of,
+  Danube Commission, the,
+  Danzig, allotted to Poland,
+  Dardanelles, the, freedom of: Versailles Treaty and,
+  De Foville's estimate of wealth of France,
+  Denikin,
+  Denmark acquires North Schleswig,
+  Disarmament conditions fulfilled by Germany,
+  Disease, and the aftermath of war
+
+  ECONOMIC barriers, removal of, and the peace treaty,
+  England, and the Mediterranean,
+    war record of,
+  Entente, the, and Germany's responsibility for war,
+    and the Bolshevik Government,
+    author's opinion of peace terms of,
+    division among, as result of peace treaties,
+  Erzeroum, Mussulman population of,
+  Esthonia,
+  Eupen ceded to Belgium,
+  Europe, area of,
+    financial difficulties of,
+    increased armaments in
+
+  Europe, monarchies in, before the war
+    pre-war conditions of
+    reconstruction of, and peace policy
+    results of world-war in
+    States of
+  European civilization, future of
+  European States, war debts of
+    (_cf of_ War Debts)
+
+  FERENCZI, Dr., his statistics of sickness in Budapest
+  Fezzan
+  Fichte, and Germany
+  Financial and economic clauses of peace treaty
+  Finland
+  Fiume, Italy's position regarding
+    question of
+    the London Agreement and
+    Wilson and
+  Foch, Marshal, and the military commission
+    and the peace treaties
+    unconstitutional action of
+  France, acquires Saar mines
+    alliances with
+    and the indemnity
+    and the old regime in Russia
+    claims of, at Paris Conference,
+    expenses of her navy
+    financial position of
+    iron industry of
+    Italy and
+    population of
+    post-war army of
+    post-war condition of
+    presses for occupation of the Ruhr
+    pre-war status of
+    private wealth of, before the war
+    purport of her action in the Conference
+    recognizes government of Wrangel
+    safety of, and military guarantees
+    the political class in
+    treaties with U.S. and Great Britain
+    war record of
+  Franco-Prussian War, the
+    indemnity demanded by victors
+    unjust terms of Prussia
+  Frankfort, Treaty of, compared with Versailles Treaty
+  Frederick the Great, political genius of
+  Freedom of the seas, the peace treaties and
+  French-American Treaty, the
+  French-English Treaty, the
+  French territories, liberation
+  Frontiers, changed condition of
+
+  GEORGE, Lloyd, a memorandum for Peace Conference
+    a truism of
+    and question of military guarantees
+    and reparations question
+    and Russia
+    and the Paris Conference
+    and the proposed trial of the Kaiser
+    denounces economic manifesto
+    difficult position of, at Paris Conference
+    on Poland's claim to Upper Silesia
+    proposes Germany's admission to League of Nations
+  Georgia, in Bolshevik hands
+    Italy prepares a military expedition to
+  German army reduced by peace terms
+    delegates and the Paris Conference
+  German-Austria, army of
+    loses access to the sea
+    plight of
+  Germany, a country of surprises
+    a war of reconquest by, impossible
+    accepts armistice terms
+    Allies' demands for indemnities
+    and America's entry into the war
+    and her indemnity
+    and reconstruction of Russia
+    and the political sense
+    annual capitalization of
+    commerce of, before the war
+    cost of army of occupation to
+    effect of peace treaty on
+    effect of President Wilson's messages on
+    financial position of
+    her indemnity increased
+    her pre-war colonies
+    her responsibility for the war
+    how she can pay indemnity
+    imports and exports of
+    is she able to pay indemnity asked?
+    loses her colonies
+    losses of, in Great War
+    militarist party in
+    military conditions imposed on
+    population of, in and outside Europe
+    pre-war army of
+    pre-war coal supply of
+    pre-war conditions of
+    result of Versailles Treaty to
+    revolutionary crisis in
+    Sèvres Treaty and
+    suited for democratic principles
+    territories and States in, before the war
+    victories of
+    war record of
+  Goethe
+  Great Britain, and the indemnity
+    and the Treaty of Versailles
+    army of
+    enters the war
+    expenses of her navy
+    financial position of
+    general election in
+    insularity of
+    population of
+    pre-war conditions of
+    war record of
+    why she entered the war
+  Great War, the, author's opinion of peace terms
+    estimated number of dead in
+    how it was decided
+    post-war results of
+    question of responsibility for
+  Greece, acquires Bulgarian territory
+    army of
+    financial position of
+    her gains by Sèvres Treaty
+    her illusion of conquering Turkish resistance
+    her policy of greed
+    the Entente and
+
+  HEGEL, and Germany,
+  Helferich, and the capitalization of Germany,
+  Herf, von, and Polish organization,
+  Hindenburg, and the U.S. army,
+  House, Colonel, and the reduction of the German army,
+    and the reparations proposal,
+  Hughes, W.M., Premier of Australia, and the German indemnity,
+  Hungary, alarming mortality in,
+    army of,
+    conditions of life in,
+    delegates of, at Paris Conference,
+    harsh treatment of,
+    losses of, by peace treaty,
+    pre-war,
+    revolutions in, 166
+  Hunger and disease, a legacy of war,
+  Hymans, M., at Paris Conference,
+
+  INDEMNITIES, question of,
+    what Germany can pay,
+    (_see also_ Reparations)
+  Indemnity clause, how inserted,
+    _et seq_.,
+  India, British,
+  Inter-Allied debts, problem of,
+    _et seq_.
+    (_see also_ Allies, war debts of)
+  Iron, Germany's lack of,
+  Iron-ore, Germany's pre-war wealth in,
+  Italian frontier, rectification of,
+  Italian Socialists visit Russia,
+  Italians, their difficult theatre of war,
+  Italo-Turkish war, the,
+  Italy, a period of crisis in,
+    an expedition into Albania,
+    and Georgia,
+    and Montenegro,
+    and the Balkans,
+    and the League of Nations,
+    and the London Agreement,
+    and the Paris Conference,
+    army of,
+    breaks with the Alliance,
+    custom of tree-planting in,
+    declares her neutrality,
+    economic sufferings of,
+    enters the war,
+    expenses of her navy,
+    financial position of,
+    Great Britain and,
+    her costly Libyan adventure,
+    her freedom from revolutions,
+    in the Triple Alliance,
+    ministerial crisis in,
+    population of,
+    pre-war status of,
+    stands apart from Conference,
+    suffers from situation in Russia
+    territories annexed to,
+    the Adriatic problem,
+    the question of Fiume,
+    votes for recognition of the Soviet,
+    why she entered the war,
+
+  JAPAN, expenses of her navy,
+  Jews, Polish,
+  Judenic, General,
+  Jugo-Slavia, acquires Bulgarian territory,
+    army of,
+    financial position of,
+    Magyars in,
+  Julius Caesar as politician,
+  KANT, Emanuel
+  Kautsky, published documents of
+  Keynes, John Maynard, and inter-Allied debts
+    and the Paris Conference
+    author's admiration for
+    represents English Treasury at Paris Conference
+    the indemnity question and
+    true forecasts of
+  Klagenfurth, a plebiscite for
+  Klotz, and the indemnity
+  Koltchak, Admiral
+  Konigsberg, the home of Emanuel Kant
+  Kowno claimed by Poles
+
+  LABOUR and the war
+  Lansing, Robert, and the Paris Conference
+  Law, Bonar, and question of military guarantees
+    and reparations
+    and the indemnity
+  League of Nations, the, a suggested revision of treaties by
+    and Danzig
+    and the participation of the vanquished
+    as trustee of Saar mines
+    covenant of
+  foundation of, and its objects
+    Germany debarred from
+    its capabilities and mistakes
+    modification of two clauses of
+    its constitution needed
+    powers of
+    Wilson in a difficult situation
+  Lettonia
+  Libyan adventure, the
+  Lithuania, Wilna ceded to, but occupied by Poles
+  London Agreement, the
+    secrecy of
+  London, Conference of
+    discusses economic manifesto
+  Lorraine, Germany's pre-war iron production from
+    iron mines of: German ambitions for
+  Loucheur, M., and the indemnity
+  Ludendorff,  General, important declaration by
+  Luxemburg, iron industry of
+
+  MAGYARS, in Rumania
+    Treaty of Trianon and,
+  Malmédy given to Belgium
+  Marienwerder, a plebiscite for
+  Marne, battle of the
+  Mesopotamia lost by Turkey
+  Military clauses and guarantees of peace treaty
+  Millerand, M., and Sweden
+  Monroe doctrine, the
+  Montenegro, absorbed by the S.H.S. State
+    restoration of
+    the Entente and
+  Moresnet becomes Belgian territory
+  Moscow Government sends gold to Sweden: French action
+  Mussulman population of pre-war Turkey
+
+  NAPOLEON I
+    as politician
+    his three great errors
+  Napoleon III
+  Nationalism, and what it implies
+  Naval armaments, the race for
+  Neuilly, the Treaty of
+  New Zealand, Britain's share of
+  Nicholas II, his proclamation regarding Poland
+    weakness of
+  Nineteenth century, the, wars of
+  Nitti, Francesco S., and admission of ex-enemies into League of
+  Nations
+    and Germany's responsibility for the war
+    and Italian Socialists
+    and Russia
+    and the Italian military expedition to Georgia
+    and the proposed trial of the Kaiser
+    at Conferences of London and San Remo
+    denounces economic manifesto
+    his son a prisoner of war
+    ideals of
+    opposes Adriatic adventure
+    receives deputation of German business men
+    signs ratification of Treaty of Versailles
+    the indemnity question and
+  Northcliffe Press, the, and the indemnity
+
+  OGIER, M., territorial reconstruction scheme of
+  Oliganthropy,
+  Orlando, M., and the reparations question
+  Orlando Ministry, the, resignation of
+  Ottoman Empire, the, a limited sovereignty to Turkish parts of
+
+  PALESTINE, Treaty of Sèvres and
+  Paper currency, Germany's pre-and post-war
+  Paris, an unsuitable meeting place for Conference
+    Peace Conference in
+    Supreme Council at
+    welcomes President Wilson
+  Paris Conference, and the indemnity
+  Peace, necessary conditions for
+  Peace Conference, Lloyd George's memorandum for
+  Peace treaties, a negation of justice
+    and continuation of the war
+    and their application
+    effect on Germany of
+    origin and aims of
+    question of reparation and indemnity
+    revision of, a necessity
+    their opposition to Wilson's fourteen points
+    Peace treaty of June, 1919, summary of terms of
+  Peasants, Russian, and the old regime
+  Petrograd, text of London Agreement published in
+  Plebiscite, result of, in Upper Silesia
+  Plebiscites, system of
+  Poincaré, M., and Clemenceau
+    and Germany's right of entry into League of Nations
+    and the peace treaties
+    Lloyd George replies to
+    on military guarantees and occupation
+  Poland, aims at further expansion
+    anarchic condition of
+    and the plebiscite
+    and the Treaty of Versailles
+  Poland, army of
+    financial position of
+    gains by Treaty
+    her policy of greed
+    obtains State of Danzig
+    of to-day
+    the Tsar's proclamation regarding
+    treaty with France
+    working for ruin
+  Polish state, foundation of an independent
+  Politics, German, pre-war
+  Portugal, war debt of
+  Progress, war as condition towards
+  Public debts of warring nations
+    (_cf_. Allies, war debts of)
+
+  RECONSTRUCTION of Europe, the, and annullment of inter-Allied debts
+    and the revision of peace treaties
+    Germany's indemnity and that of defeated countries
+    necessity of forming new connexions with Russia
+    the League of Nations and
+    the safety of France and the military guarantees
+  Renner, Chancellor of Vienna, confers with Marquis della Torretta
+  Reparations clause, origin of
+  Reparations Commission, the, expense accounts of
+    formation of
+    suppression of, a necessity
+  Reparations, the problem of
+    (_cf_. Indemnities)
+  Rhine, the, as frontier
+    occupation of
+    an act of vengeance
+    cost of, to Germany
+  Riga, hunger and sickness in, the aftermath of war
+  Ruhr, the, question of occupation of
+  Rumania, army of
+    evacuation of
+    financial position of
+    her gains by Treaty
+    Magyars in
+  Rumanian occupation of Hungary
+  Russia, and the League of Nations
+    as cause of world-conflict
+    birth-rate of
+    blockade of
+    Entente aids military undertakings in
+    financial position of
+    Germany's fear of
+    her policy of expansion
+    Lloyd George on
+    military revolts in
+    peace army of
+    policy of Entente towards
+    power of the Tsar in
+    present-day plight of
+    pre-war empire of
+    probable number of men under arms in
+    Sèvres Treaty and
+    the Versailles Treaty and
+    under the Tsars
+  Russian peasants and the old regime
+  Russians, remarkable fecundity of
+  Russo-Japanese peace, the and how drafted
+  Russo-Japanese War, the
+
+  SAAR, the, a plebiscite for
+    annexation of: French proposals regarding
+    coalfields of, assigned to France
+      pre-war production of
+  Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Treaty of
+  San Remo, Conference of
+  Schleswig, a plebiscite for,
+  Secret diplomacy, peace treaties and
+  Serbia, evacuation of
+    her gains by Treaty
+    ignorant of London Agreement
+    responsibility for the war
+    Russian policy in
+    the Allied Press and
+    war debt of
+  Serbo-Croat States, financial position of
+    sea-coast outlets for
+  S.H.S. State absorbs Montenegro
+  Silesia (_see_ Upper Selesia)
+  Slav States, cosmopolitan population of
+  Smyrna, the Sanjak of
+  Sonnino, M., at Paris Conference
+  South Africa, British
+  Soviet, the, recognition of, refused
+  Spa Conference, the
+  Starling, Professor
+  States, European, pre- and post-war, _et seq_.
+  Submarine menace, the
+  Sweden, Russian gold sent to
+  Syria
+
+  TARDIEU, André, and the guarantees against Germany
+    and the Paris Conference
+    and the question of military guarantees
+    draws up reply to Lloyd George
+    his report on Paris Conference
+    on President Wilson
+    on the Treaty of Versailles
+  Territorial and political clauses of peace treaty
+  Thrace assigned to Greece
+  Torretta, Marquis della, confers with Chancellor Renner
+  Trade conditions, equality of, and the peace treaty
+  Treaties, peace (_see Neuilly, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Sèvres
+    Trianon, Versailles)
+  Treaties with France against German aggression
+  Treaty system, the, division of Europe by
+  Trianon, Treaty of
+  Triple Alliance, the
+    Italy and
+    "Triplice," the (_see_ Triple Alliance)
+  Tripoli, Italy
+  Tripolitania
+  Turkey, and the result of Treaty of Sèvres
+    army of
+    Grand Vizier of, and his note
+  Turks, their power of resistance
+  Turquan's estimate of wealth of France
+
+  United States, the, a deciding factor of the war
+    abandons Treaty of Versailles
+    and Armenian question
+    and the indemnity
+  United States, the, and the League of Nations,
+    and the naval question,
+    expenses of her navy,
+    financial position of,
+    losses in the Great War,
+    (see also America)
+  Upper Silesia, a plebiscite for,
+    iron industry of,
+    result of plebiscite in,
+
+  VENEZELOS, M., author's tribute to,
+    fall of,
+  Versailles, Treaty of,
+    abandoned by America,
+    and the future of Germany,
+    characteristic facts of,
+    conditions of Germany as result of,
+    injustice of,
+    Lloyd George on,
+    on what based,
+    ratification of,
+    summary of,
+    violation of,
+    why it has been weakened,
+  Vessitch, M., at Paris Conference,
+  Vienna, conditions in,
+    the wireless high-power station at,
+
+  WÄCHTER, Kinderlen-, and Russia,
+  War, a political fact,
+    as a necessary condition of life,
+    difference between battles and,
+    legitimacy of,
+    the aftermath of,
+    the nature of,
+  War debts, a menace to financial stability,
+  War debts of the Allies,
+    (_cf_. Inter-Allied debts)
+  Warfare, modern, what it means,
+  Wars of the last three centuries, the,
+  Wealth, influence of, on life and happiness,
+  William II, and his responsibility for the war,
+    as _miles gioriosus_,
+    author's aversion to,
+    frenzied oratory of,
+    proposed trial of,
+  Wilna ceded to Lithuania, but occupied by Poles,
+  Wilson, President, and Armenia
+    and Fiume,
+    and military guarantees,
+    and the League of Nations,
+    demonstrations against, in Italy,
+    his fourteen points,
+    compared with Treaty of Versailles,
+    his ignorance of European affairs, and the result,
+    how he was received in Paris,
+    memorable speech in American Senate,
+    peace ideals of, 34,
+    _post-bellum_ economic settlement proposals of (_see_ League of
+  Nations)
+  Wolff, and Germany,
+  Wrangel, General,
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Peaceless Europe, by Francesco Saverio Nitti
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEACELESS EUROPE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 10090-8.txt or 10090-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/0/9/10090/
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Josephine Paolucci and PG Distributed
+Proofreaders
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS," WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's
+eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII,
+compressed (zipped), HTML and others.
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over
+the old filename and etext number.  The replaced older file is renamed.
+VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving
+new filenames and etext numbers.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000,
+are filed in directories based on their release date.  If you want to
+download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular
+search system you may utilize the following addresses and just
+download by the etext year.
+
+     http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext06
+
+    (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99,
+     98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90)
+
+EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are
+filed in a different way.  The year of a release date is no longer part
+of the directory path.  The path is based on the etext number (which is
+identical to the filename).  The path to the file is made up of single
+digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename.  For
+example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234
+
+or filename 24689 would be found at:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689
+
+An alternative method of locating eBooks:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL
+
+
diff --git a/old/10090-8.zip b/old/10090-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9b4eec9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10090-8.zip
diff --git a/old/10090.txt b/old/10090.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..78a819b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10090.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,8998 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Peaceless Europe, by Francesco Saverio Nitti
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Peaceless Europe
+
+Author: Francesco Saverio Nitti
+
+Release Date: November 15, 2003 [EBook #10090]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEACELESS EUROPE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Josephine Paolucci and PG Distributed
+Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+PEACELESS EUROPE
+
+By
+
+FRANCESCO S. NITTI
+
+
+1922
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+In this book are embodied the ideas which, as a parliamentarian, as
+head of the Italian Government, and as a writer, I have upheld with
+firm conviction during the last few years.
+
+I believe that Europe is threatened with decadence more owing to the
+Peace Treaties than as a result of the War. She is in a state of daily
+increasing decline, and the causes of dissatisfaction are growing
+apace.
+
+Europe is still waiting for that peace which has not yet been
+definitely concluded, and it is necessary that the public should be
+made aware that the courses now being followed by the policy of the
+great victorious States are perilous to the achievement of serious,
+lasting and useful results. I believe that it is to the interest of
+France herself if I speak the language of truth, as a sincere friend
+of France and a confirmed enemy of German Imperialism. Not only did
+that Imperialism plunge Germany into a sea of misery and suffering,
+covering her with the opprobrium of having provoked the terrible War,
+or at least of having been mainly responsible for it, but it has
+ruined for many years the productive effort of the most cultured and
+industrious country in Europe.
+
+Some time ago the ex-President of the French Republic, R. Poincare,
+after the San Remo Conference, _a propos_ of certain differences of
+opinion which had arisen between Lloyd George and myself on the one
+hand and Millerand on the other, wrote as follows:
+
+    "Italy and England know what they owe to France, just as France
+    knows what she owes to them. They do not wish to part company with
+    us, nor do we with them. They recognize that they need us, as we
+    have need of them. Lloyd George and Nitti are statesmen too shrewd
+    and experienced not to understand that their greatest strength
+    will always lie in this fundamental axiom. On leaving San Remo
+    for Rome or London let them ask the opinion of the 'man in the
+    street.' His reply will be: '_Avant tout, restez unis avec la
+    France_.'"
+
+I believe that Lloyd George and I share the same cordial sentiments
+toward France. We have gone through so much suffering and anxiety
+together that it would be impossible to tear asunder links firmly
+welded by common danger and pain. France will always remember with a
+sympathetic glow that Italy was the first country which proclaimed her
+neutrality, on August 2, 1914; without that proclamation the destinies
+of the War might have taken a very different turn.
+
+But the work of reconstruction in Europe is in the interest of France
+herself. She has hated too deeply to render a sudden cessation of her
+hate-storm possible, and the treaties have been begotten in rancour
+and applied with violence. Even as the life of men, the life of
+peoples has days of joy and days of grief: sunshine follows the storm.
+The whole history of European peoples is one of alternate victories
+and defeats. It is the business of civilization to create such
+conditions as will render victory less brutal and defeat more
+bearable.
+
+The recent treaties which regulate, or are supposed to regulate,
+the relations among peoples are, as a matter of fact, nothing but a
+terrible regress, the denial of all those principles which had been
+regarded as an unalienable conquest of public right. President Wilson,
+by his League of Nations, has been the most responsible factor in
+setting up barriers between nations.
+
+Christopher Columbus sailed from Europe hoping to land in India,
+whereas he discovered America. President Wilson sailed from America
+thinking that he was going to bring peace to Europe, but only
+succeeded in bringing confusion and war.
+
+However, we should judge him with the greatest indulgence, for his
+intentions were undoubtedly sincere and honest.
+
+France has more to gain than any other country in Europe by reverting
+to those sound principles of democracy which formed her erstwhile
+glory. We do not forget what we owe her, nor the noble spirit which
+pervades some of her historic deeds. But _noblesse oblige_, and all
+the more binding is her duty to respect tradition.
+
+When France shall have witnessed the gradual unfolding of approaching
+events, she will be convinced that he who has spoken to her the
+language of truth and has sought out a formula permitting the peoples
+of Europe to rediscover their path in life, towards life, is not only
+a friend, but a friend who has opportunely brought back to France's
+mind and heart the deeds of her great ancestors at the time when fresh
+deeds of greatness and glory await accomplishment. The task which we
+must undertake with our inmost feeling, with all the ardour of our
+faith, is to find once more the road to peace, to utter the word of
+brotherly love toward oppressed peoples, and to reconstruct Europe,
+which is gradually sinking to the condition of Quattrocento Italy,
+without its effulgence of art and beauty: thirty States mutually
+diffident of each other, in a sea of programmes and Balkan ideas.
+
+Towards the achievement of this work of civilization the great
+democracies must march shoulder to shoulder. At the present moment I
+hear nothing but hostile voices; but the time is not far distant when
+my friends of France will be marching with us along the same road.
+They already admit in private many things which they will presently be
+obliged to recognize openly. Many truths are the fruit of persuasion;
+others, again, are the result of former delusions.
+
+I place my greatest trust in the action of American democracy.
+
+By refusing to sanction the Treaty of Versailles and all the other
+peace treaties, the American Senate has given proof of the soundest
+political wisdom: the United States of America has negotiated its own
+separate treaties, and resumes its pre-war relations with victors and
+vanquished alike.
+
+It follows that all that has been done hitherto in the way of
+treaties is rendered worthless, as the most important participant
+has withdrawn. This is a further motive for reflecting that it is
+impossible to continue living much longer in a Europe divided by two
+contending fields and by a medley of rancour and hatred which tends to
+widen the chasm.
+
+It is of the greatest interest to America that Europe should once more
+be the wealthy, prosperous, civilized Europe which, before 1914, ruled
+over the destinies of the world. Only by so great an effort can the
+finest conquests of civilization come back to their own.
+
+We should only remember our dead in so far as their memory may prevent
+future generations from being saddened by other war victims. The
+voices of those whom we have lost should reach us as voices praying
+for the return of that civilization which shall render massacres
+impossible, or shall at least diminish the violence and ferocity of
+war.
+
+Just as the growing dissolution of Europe is a common danger, so is
+the renewal of the bonds of solidarity a common need.
+
+Let us all work toward this end, even if at first we may be
+misunderstood and may find obstacles in our way. Truth is on the march
+and will assert herself: we shall strike the main road after much of
+dreary wandering in the dark lanes of prejudice and violence.
+
+Many of the leading men of Europe and America, who in the intoxication
+of victory proclaimed ideas of violence and revenge, would now be very
+glad to reverse their attitude, of which they see the unhappy results.
+The truth is that what they privately recognize they will not yet
+openly admit. But no matter.
+
+The confessions which many of them have made to me, both verbally and
+in writing, induce me to believe that my ideas are also their ideas,
+and that they only seek to express them in the form and on the
+occasions less antagonistic to the currents of opinion which they
+themselves set up in the days when the chief object to be achieved
+seemed to be the vivisection of the enemy.
+
+Recent events, however, have entirely changed the situation.
+
+As I said before, the American Senate has not sanctioned the Treaty
+of Versailles, nor is it likely to give it its approval. The United
+States of America concludes separate treaties on its own account.
+
+Agreements of a military character had been arrived at in Paris: the
+United States of America and Great Britain guaranteed France against
+any future unjust attack by Germany. The American Senate did not
+sanction the agreement; in fact, it did not even discuss it. The House
+of Commons had approved it subordinate to the consent of the United
+States. Italy has kept aloof from all alliances. As a result of this
+situation, the four Entente Powers, "allied and associated" (as
+formerly was the official term), have ceased to be either "allied" or
+"associated" after the end of the War.
+
+On the other hand, Europe, after emerging from the War, is darkened
+and overcast by intrigues, secret agreements and dissimulated plots:
+fresh menaces of war and fresh explosions of dissatisfaction.
+
+Nothing can help the cause of peace more than giving a full knowledge
+of the real situation to the various peoples. Errors thrive in
+darkness while truth walks abroad in the full light of day. It has
+been my intention to lay before the public those great controversies
+which cannot merely form the object of diplomatic notes or of
+posthumous books presented to Parliament in a more or less incomplete
+condition after events have become irreparable.
+
+The sense of a common danger, threatening all alike, will prove the
+most persuasive factor in swerving us from the perilous route which we
+are now following.
+
+As a result of the War the bonds of economic solidarity have been
+torn asunder: the losers in the War must not only make good their own
+losses, but, according to the treaties, are expected to pay for all
+the damage which the War has caused. Meanwhile all the countries of
+Europe have only one prevailing fear: German competition. In order
+to pay the indemnities imposed upon her (and she can only do it by
+exporting goods), Germany is obliged to produce at the lowest possible
+cost, which necessitates the maximum of technical progress. But
+exports at low cost must in the long run prove detrimental, if not
+destructive, to the commerce of neutral countries, and even to that of
+the victors. Thus in all tariffs which have already been published or
+which are in course of preparation there is one prevailing object in
+view: that of reducing German competition, which practically amounts
+to rendering it impossible for her to pay the War indemnity.
+
+If winners and losers were to abandon war-time ideas for a while,
+and, rather, were to persuade themselves that the oppression of the
+vanquished cannot be lasting, and that there is no other logical way
+out of the difficulty but that of small indemnities payable in a
+few years, debiting to the losers in tolerable proportion all debts
+contracted towards Great Britain and the United States, the European
+situation would immediately improve.
+
+Why is Europe still in such a state of economic disorder? Because the
+confusion of moral ideas persists. In many countries nerves are still
+as tense as a bowstring, and the language of hatred still prevails.
+For some countries, as for some social groups, war has not yet
+ceased to be. One hears now in the countries of the victors the same
+arguments used as were current coin in Germany before the War and
+during the first phases of the War; only now and then, more as a
+question of habit than because they are truly felt, we hear the words
+justice, peace, and democracy.
+
+Why is the present state of discomfort and dissatisfaction on the
+increase? Because almost everywhere in Continental Europe, in the
+countries which have emerged from the War, the rate of production is
+below the rate of consumption, and many social groups, instead of
+producing more, plan to possess themselves with violence of the wealth
+produced by others. At home, the social classes, unable to resist,
+are threatened; abroad, the vanquished, equally unable to resist, are
+menaced, but in the very menace it is easy to discern the anxiety
+of the winners. Confusion, discomfort and dissatisfaction thus grow
+apace.
+
+The problem of Europe is above all a moral problem. A great step
+toward its solution will have been accomplished when winners and
+losers persuade themselves that only by a common effort can they be
+saved, and that the best enemy indemnity consists in peace and joint
+labour. Now that the enemy has lost all he possessed and threatens
+to make us lose the fruits of victory, one thing is above all others
+necessary: the resumption, not only of the language, but of the ideas
+of peace;
+
+During one of the last international conferences at which I was
+present, and over which I presided, at San Remo, after a long exchange
+of views with the British and French Premiers, Lloyd George and
+Millerand, the American journalists asked me to give them my ideas
+on peace: "What is the most necessary thing for the maintenance of
+peace?" they inquired.
+
+"One thing only," I replied, "is necessary. Europe must smile once
+more." Smiles have vanished from every lip; nothing has remained but
+hatred, menaces and nervous excitement.
+
+When Europe shall smile again she will "rediscover" her political
+peace ideas and will drink once more at the spring of life. Class
+struggles at home, in their acutest form, are like the competition of
+nationalism abroad: explosions of cupidity, masked by the pretext of
+the country's greatness.
+
+The deeply rooted economic crisis, which threatens and prepares new
+wars, the deeply rooted social crisis, which threatens and prepares
+fresh conflicts abroad, are nothing but the expression of a _status
+animae_ or soul condition. Statesmen are the most directly responsible
+for the continuation of a language of violence; they should be the
+first to speak the language of peace.
+
+F.S. NITTI.
+
+ACQUAFREDDA IN BASILICATA.
+
+_September_ 30, 1921.
+
+
+P.S.--"Peaceless Europe" is an entirely new book, which I have written
+in my hermitage of Acquafredda, facing the blue Adriatic; it contains,
+however, some remarks and notices which have already appeared in
+articles written by me for the great American agency, the _United
+Press_, and which have been reproduced by the American papers.
+
+I have repeatedly stated that I have not published any document which
+was not meant for publication; I have availed myself of my knowledge
+of the most important international Acts and of all diplomatic
+documents merely as a guide, but it is on facts that I have solidly
+based my considerations.
+
+J. Keynes and Robert Lansing have already published some very
+important things, but no secret documents; recently, however, Tardieu
+and Poincare, in the interest of the French nationalist thesis which
+they sustain, have published also documents of a very reserved nature.
+Tardieu's book is a documentary proof of the French Government's
+extremist attitude during the conference, amply showing that the
+present form of peace has been desired almost exclusively by France,
+and that the others have been unwilling parties to it. Besides his
+articles in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, Poincare has recently
+published in the _Temps_ (September 12, 1921) a whole secret
+correspondence between Poincare, President of the Republic,
+Clemenceau, President of the Council of Ministers, the American
+Delegation, and, above all, Lloyd George.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+1. EUROPE WITHOUT PEACE
+
+2. THE PEACE TREATIES AND THE CONTINUATION OF THE WAR
+
+3. THE PEACE TREATIES: THEIR ORIGIN AND AIMS
+
+4. THE CONQUERORS AND THE CONQUERED
+
+5. THE INDEMNITY FROM THE DEFEATED ENEMY AND THE ANXIETIES OF THE
+VICTORS
+
+6. EUROPE'S POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTION AND PEACE POLICY
+
+INDEX
+
+
+
+
+_The author includes in the book numerous secret official documents
+that emanated from the Peace Conference and which came into his hands
+in his position, at that time, as Italian Prime Minister. Among these
+is a long and hitherto unpublished secret letter sent by Lloyd George
+to Nitti, Wilson, Clemenceau, and the other members of the Peace
+Conference_.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+EUROPE WITHOUT PEACE
+
+
+Is there anyone who still remembers Europe in the first months of 1914
+or calls to mind the period which preceded the first year of the War?
+It all seems terribly remote, something like a prehistoric era, not
+only because the conditions of life have changed, but because our
+viewpoint on life has swerved to a different angle.
+
+Something like thirty million dead have dug a chasm between two ages.
+War killed many millions, disease accounted for many more, but the
+hardiest reaper has been famine. The dead have built up a great cold
+barrier between the Europe of yesterday and the Europe of to-day.
+
+We have lived through two historic epochs, not through two different
+periods. Europe was happy and prosperous, while now, after the
+terrible World War, she is threatened with a decline and a reversion
+to brutality which suggest the fall of the Roman Empire. We ourselves
+do not quite understand what is happening around us. More than
+two-thirds of Europe is in a state of ferment, and everywhere there
+prevails a vague sense of uneasiness, ill-calculated to encourage
+important collective works. We live, as the saying is, "from hand to
+mouth."
+
+Before 1914 Europe had enjoyed a prolonged period of peace, attaining
+a degree of wealth and civilization unrivalled in the past.
+
+In Central Europe Germany had sprung up. After the Napoleonic
+invasions, in the course of a century, Germany, which a hundred years
+ago seemed of all European countries the least disposed to militarism,
+had developed into a great military monarchy. From being the most
+particularist country Germany had in reality become the most unified
+state. But what constituted her strength was not so much her army and
+navy as the prestige of her intellectual development. She had achieved
+it laboriously, almost painfully, on a soil which was not fertile and
+within a limited territory, but, thanks to the tenacity of her effort,
+she succeeded in winning a prominent place in the world-race for
+supremacy. Her universities, her institutes for technical instruction,
+her schools, were a model to the whole world. In the course of a few
+years she had built up a merchant fleet which seriously threatened
+those of other countries. Having arrived too late to create a real
+colonial empire of her own, such as those of France and England, she
+nevertheless succeeded in exploiting her colonies most intelligently.
+
+In the field of industry she appeared to beat all competitors from a
+technical point of view; and even in those industries which were not
+hers by habit and tradition she developed so powerful an organization
+as to appear almost uncanny. Germany held first place not only in the
+production of iron, but in that of dyes and chemicals. Men went
+there from all parts of the world not only to trade but to acquire
+knowledge. An ominous threat weighed on the Empire, namely the
+constitution of the State itself, essentially militaristic and
+bureaucratic. Not even in Russia, perhaps, were the reins of power
+held in the hands of so few men as in Germany and Austria-Hungary.
+
+A few years before the World War started one of the leading European
+statesmen told me that there was everything to be feared for the
+future of Europe where some three hundred millions, the inhabitants
+of Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary, about two-thirds of the whole
+continent, were governed in an almost irresponsible manner by a man
+without will or intelligence, the Tsar of Russia; a madman without a
+spark of genius, the German Kaiser, and an obstinate old man hedged in
+by his ambition, the Emperor of Austria-Hungary. Not more than
+thirty persons, he added, act as a controlling force on these three
+irresponsible sovereigns, who might assume, on their own initiative,
+the most terrible responsibilities.
+
+The magnificent spiritual gifts of the Germans gave them an Emanuel
+Kant, the greatest thinker of modern times, Beethoven, their greatest
+exponent of music, and Goethe, their greatest poet. But the imperial
+Germany which came after the victory of 1870 had limited the spirit of
+independence even in the manifestations of literature and art. There
+still existed in Germany the most widely known men of science, the
+best universities, the most up-to-date schools; but the clumsy
+mechanism tended to crush rather than to encourage all personal
+initiative. Great manifestations of art or thought are not possible
+without the most ample spiritual liberty. Germany was the most highly
+organized country from a scientific point of view, but at the same
+time the country in which there was the least liberty for individual
+initiative. It went on like a huge machine: that explains why it
+almost stopped after being damaged by the war, and the whole life of
+the nation was paralysed while there were very few individual impulses
+of reaction. Imperial Germany has always been lacking in political
+ability, perhaps not only through a temperamental failing, but chiefly
+owing to her militaristic education.
+
+Before the War Germany beat her neighbours in all the branches of
+human labour: in science, industry, banking, commerce, etc. But in one
+thing she did not succeed, and succeeded still less after the War,
+namely, in politics. When the German people was blessed with a
+political genius, such as Frederick the Great or Bismarck, it achieved
+the height of greatness and glory. But when the same people, after
+obtaining the maximum of power, found on its path William II with his
+mediocre collaborators, it ruined, by war, a colossal work, not only
+to the great detriment of the country, but also to that of the victors
+themselves, of whom it cannot be said with any amount of certainty,
+so far as those of the Continent are concerned, whether they are the
+winners or the losers, so great is the ruin threatening them, and so
+vast the material and moral losses sustained.
+
+I have always felt the deepest aversion for William II. So few as ten
+years ago he was still treated with the greatest sympathy both in
+Europe and America. Even democracies regarded with ill-dissimulated
+admiration the work of the Kaiser, who brought everywhere his voice,
+his enthusiasm, his activity, to the service of Germany. As a matter
+of fact, his speeches were poor in phraseology, a mere conglomerate
+of violence, prejudice and ignorance. As no one believed in the
+possibility of a war, no one troubled about it. But after the War
+nothing has been more harmful to Germany than the memory of those ugly
+speeches, unrelieved by any noble idea, and full of a clumsy vulgarity
+draped in a would-be solemn and majestic garb. Some of his threatening
+utterances, such as the address to the troops sailing for China in
+order to quell the Boxer rebellion, the constant association in
+all his speeches of the great idea of God, with the ravings of a
+megalomaniac, the frenzied oratory in which he indulged at the
+beginning of the War, have harmed Germany more than anything else. It
+is possible to lose nobly; but to have lost a great war after having
+won so many battles would not have harmed the German people if it
+had not been represented abroad by the presumptuous vulgarity of the
+Kaiser and of all the members of his entourage, who were more or less
+guilty of the same attitude.
+
+Before the War Germany had everywhere attained first place in all
+forms of activity, excepting, perhaps, in certain spiritual and
+artistic manifestations. She admired herself too much and too openly,
+but succeeded in affirming her magnificent expansion in a greatness
+and prosperity without rival.
+
+By common accord Germany held first place. Probably this consciousness
+of power, together with the somewhat brutal forms of the struggle for
+industrial supremacy, as in the case of the iron industry, threw a
+mysterious and threatening shadow over the granitic edifice of the
+Empire.
+
+When I was Minister of Commerce in 1913 I received a deputation of
+German business men who wished to confer with me on the Italian
+customs regime. They spoke openly of the necessity of possessing
+themselves of the iron mines of French Lorraine; they looked upon war
+as an industrial fact. Germany had enough coal but not enough iron,
+and the Press of the iron industry trumpeted forth loud notes of war.
+After the conclusion of peace, when France, through a series of wholly
+unexpected events, saw Germany prostrate at her feet and without an
+army, the same phenomenon took place. The iron industry tends to
+affirm itself in France; she has the iron and now she wants coal.
+Should she succeed in getting it, German production would be doomed.
+To deprive Germany of Upper Silesia would mean killing production
+after having disorganized it at the very roots of its development.
+
+Seven years ago, or thereabouts, Germany was flourishing in an
+unprecedented manner and presented the most favourable conditions for
+developing. Her powerful demographic structure was almost unique.
+Placed in the centre of Europe after having withstood the push of so
+many peoples, she had attained an unrivalled economic position.
+
+Close to Germany the Austro-Hungarian Empire united together eleven
+different peoples, not without difficulty, and this union tended to
+the common elevation of all. The vast monarchy, the result of a slow
+aggregation of violence and of administrative wisdom, represented,
+perhaps, the most interesting historic attempt on the part of
+different peoples to achieve a common rule and discipline on the same
+territory. Having successfully weathered the most terrible financial
+crises, and having healed in half a century the wounds of two great
+wars which she had lost, Austria-Hungary lived in the effort of
+holding together Germans, Magyars, Slavs and Italians without their
+flying at each others' throats. Time will show how the effort of
+Austria-Hungary has not been lost for civilization.
+
+Russia represented the largest empire which has ever been in
+existence, and in spite of its defective political regime was daily
+progressing. Perhaps for the first time in history an immense empire
+of twenty-one millions and a half of square kilometres, eighty-four
+times the size of Italy, almost three times as large as the United
+States of America, was ruled by a single man. From the Baltic to
+the Yellow Sea, from Finland to the Caucasus, one law and one rule
+governed the most different peoples scattered over an immense
+territory. The methods by which, after Peter the Great, the old Duchy
+of Muscovy had been transformed into an empire, still lived in the
+administration; they survive to-day in the Bolshevist organization,
+which represents less a revolution than a hieratic and brutal form of
+violence placed at the service of a political organization.
+
+The war between Russia and Japan had revealed all the perils of
+a political organization exclusively based on central authority
+represented by a few irresponsible men under the apparent rule of a
+sovereign not gifted with the slightest trace of will power.
+
+Those who exalt nationalist sentiments and pin their faith on
+imperialistic systems fail to realize that while the greatest push
+towards the War came from countries living under a less liberal
+regime, those very countries gave proof of the least power of
+resistance. Modern war means the full exploitation of all the human
+and economic resources of each belligerent country. The greater a
+nation's wealth the greater is the possibility to hold out, and the
+perfection of arms and weapons is in direct ratio with the degree
+of technical progress attained. Moreover, the combatants and the
+possibility of using them are in relation with the number of persons
+who possess sufficient skill and instruction to direct the war.
+Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy, the United States of America,
+were able without any appreciable effort to improvise an enormous
+number of officers for the War, transforming professional men,
+engineers and technicians into officers. Russia, who did not have a
+real industrial bourgeoisie nor a sufficient development of the middle
+classes, was only able to furnish an enormous number of combatants,
+but an insufficient organization from a technical and military point
+of view, and a very limited number of officers. While on a peace
+footing her army was the most numerous in the world, over one million
+three hundred thousand men; when her officers began to fail Russia was
+unable to replace them so rapidly as the proportion of nine or ten
+times more than normal required by the War.
+
+Russia has always had a latent force of development; there is within
+her a _vis inertiae_ equivalent to a mysterious energy of expansion.
+Her birth-rate is higher than that of any other European country;
+she does not progress, she increases. Her weight acts as a menace
+to neighbouring countries, and as, by a mysterious historic law the
+primitive migrations of peoples and the ancient invasions mostly
+originated from the territories now occupied by Russia, the latter has
+succeeded in amalgamating widely different peoples and in creating
+unity where no affinity appeared possible.
+
+At any rate, although suffering from an excessively centralized
+government and a form of constitution which did not allow the
+development of popular energies nor a sufficient education of the
+people, Russia was perhaps, half a century before the War, the
+European country which, considering the difficulties in her path, had
+accomplished most progress.
+
+European Russia, with her yearly excess of from one million and a
+half to two million births over deaths, with the development of
+her industries and the formation of important commercial centres,
+progressed very rapidly and was about to become the pivot of European
+politics.
+
+When it will be possible to examine carefully the diplomatic documents
+of the War, and time will allow us to judge them calmly, it will be
+seen that Russia's attitude was the real and underlying cause of the
+world-conflict. She alone promoted and kept alive the agitations
+in Serbia and of the Slavs in Austria; she alone in Germany's eyes
+represented the peril of the future. Germany has never believed in a
+French danger. She knew very well that France, single handed, could
+never have withstood Germany, numerically so much her superior. Russia
+was the only danger that Germany saw, and the continual increase of
+the Russian army was her gravest preoccupation. Before the War, when
+Italy was Germany's ally, the leading German statesmen with whom I
+had occasion to discuss the situation did nothing but allude to the
+Russian peril. It was known (and subsequent facts have amply proved
+it) that the Tsar was absolutely devoid of will power, that he was led
+and carried away by conflicting currents, and that his advisers were
+for the most part favourable to the War. After the Japanese defeat the
+militarist party felt keenly the need for just such a great military
+revival and a brilliant _revanche_ in Europe.
+
+Possessing an enormous wealth of raw materials and an immense
+territory, Russia represented Europe's great resource, her support for
+the future.
+
+If the three great empires had attained enviable prosperity and
+development in 1914, when the War burst, the three great western
+democracies, Great Britain, France and Italy, had likewise progressed
+immensely.
+
+Great Britain, proud of her "splendid isolation," and ruler of the
+seas, traded in every country of the world. Having the vastest empire,
+she was also financially the greatest creditor country: creditor of
+America and Asia, of the new African states and of Australia. Perhaps
+all this wealth had somewhat diminished the spirit of enterprise
+before the War, and popular culture also suffered from this
+unprecedented prosperity. There was not the spasmodic effort
+noticeable in Germany, but a continuous and secure expansion, an
+undisputed supremacy. Although somewhat preoccupied at Germany's
+progress and regarding it as a peril for the future, Great Britain
+attached more importance to the problems of her Empire, namely to her
+internal constitution: like ancient Rome, she was a truly imperial
+country in the security of her supremacy, in her calm, in her
+forbearance.
+
+France continued patiently to accumulate wealth. She did not increase
+her population, but ably added to her territory and her savings.
+Threatened with the phenomenon known to political economists under the
+name of "oliganthropy," or lack of men, she had founded a colonial
+empire which may be regarded as the largest on earth. It is true that
+the British colonies, even before the War, covered an area of thirty
+million square kilometres, while France's colonial empire was slightly
+over twelve millions. But it must be remembered that the British
+colonies are not colonies in the real sense of the word, but consist
+chiefly in Dominions which enjoy an almost complete autonomy. Canada
+alone represents about one-third of the territories of the British
+Dominions; Australia and New Zealand more than one-fourth, and
+Australasia, the South African Union and Canada put together represent
+more than two-thirds of the Empire, while India accounts for about
+fifty per cent. of the missing third. After England, France was the
+most important creditor country. Her astonishing capacity for saving
+increased in proportion with her wealth. Without having Germany's
+force of development and Great Britain's power of expansion, France
+enjoyed a wonderful prosperity and her wealth was scattered all over
+the world.
+
+Italy had arisen under the greatest difficulties, but in less than
+fifty years of unity she progressed steadily. Having a territory
+too small and mountainous for a population already overflowing and
+constantly on the increase, Italy had been unable to exploit the
+limited resources of her subsoil and had been forced to build up her
+industries in conditions far less favourable than those of other
+countries. Italy is perhaps the only nation which has succeeded in
+forming her industries without having any coal of her own and very
+little iron. But the acquisition of wealth, extremely difficult at
+first, had gradually been rendered more easy by the improvement in
+technical instruction and methods, for the most part borrowed from
+Germany. On the eve of the War, after a period of thirty-three years,
+the Triple Alliance had rendered the greatest services to Italy, fully
+confirming Crispi's political intuition. France, with whom we had had
+serious differences of opinion, especially after the Tunis affair, did
+not dare to threaten Italy because the latter belonged to the Triple
+Alliance, and for the same reason all ideas of a conflict with
+Austria-Hungary had been set aside because of her forming part of the
+"Triplice."
+
+During the Triple Alliance Italy built up all her industries,
+she consolidated her national unity and prepared her economic
+transformation, which was fraught with considerable difficulties.
+Suddenly her sons spread all over the world, stimulated by the
+fecundity of their race and by the narrowness of their fields.
+
+The greater States were surrounded by minor nations which had achieved
+considerable wealth and great prosperity.
+
+Europe throughout her history had never been so rich, so far advanced
+on the road to progress, above all so united and living in her unity;
+as regards production and exchanges she was really a living unity. The
+vital lymph was not limited to this or that country, but flowed with
+an even current through the veins and arteries of the various nations
+through the great organizations of capital and labour, promoting a
+continuous and increasing solidarity among all the parties concerned.
+
+In fact, the idea of solidarity had greatly progressed: economic,
+moral and spiritual solidarity.
+
+Moreover, the idea of peace, although threatened by military
+oligarchies and by industrial corners, was firmly based on the
+sentiments of the great majority. The strain of barbaric blood which
+still ferments in many populations of Central Europe constituted--it
+is true--a standing menace; but no one dreamt that the threat was
+about to be followed, lightning like, by facts, and that we were on
+the eve of a catastrophe.
+
+Europe had forgotten what hunger meant. Never had Europe had at her
+disposal such abundant economic resources or a greater increase in
+wealth.
+
+Wealth is not our final object in life. But a minimum of means is an
+indispensable condition of life and happiness. Excessive wealth may
+lead both to moral elevation and to depression and ruin.
+
+Europe had not only increased her wealth but developed the solidarity
+of her interests. Europe is a small continent, about as large as
+Canada or the United States of America. But her economic ties and
+interests had been steadily on the increase.
+
+Now the development of her wealth meant for Europe the development of
+her moral ideas and of her social life and aspirations. We admire a
+country not so much for its wealth as for the works of civilization
+which that wealth enables it to accomplish.
+
+Although peace be the aspiration of all peoples, even as physical
+health is the aspiration of all living beings, there are wars which
+cannot be avoided, as there are diseases which help us to overcome
+an organic crisis to which we might otherwise succumb. War and peace
+cannot be regarded as absolutely bad or absolutely good and desirable;
+war is often waged in order to secure peace. In certain cases war is
+not only a necessary condition of life but may be an indispensable
+condition towards progress.
+
+We must consider and analyse the sentiments and psychological causes
+which bring about a war. A war waged to redeem its independence by a
+nation downtrodden by another nation is perfectly legitimate, even
+from the point of view of abstract morality. A war which has for
+its object the conquest of political or religious liberty cannot be
+condemned even by the most confirmed pacificist.
+
+Taken as a whole, the wars fought in the nineteenth century, wars of
+nationality, of independence, of unity, even colonial wars, were of a
+character far less odious than that of the great conflict which has
+devastated Europe and upset the economic conditions of the world. It
+has not only been the greatest war in history, but in its consequences
+it threatens to prove the worst war which has ravaged Europe in modern
+times.
+
+After nearly every nineteenth-century war there has been a marked
+revival of human activity. But this unprecedented clash of peoples
+has reduced the energy of all; it has darkened the minds of men, and
+spread the spirit of violence.
+
+Europe will be able to make up for her losses in lives and wealth.
+Time heals even the most painful wounds. But one thing she has lost
+which, if she does not succeed in recovering it, must necessarily lead
+to her decline and fall: the spirit of solidarity.
+
+After the victory of the Entente the microbes of hate have developed
+and flourished in special cultures, consisting of national egotism,
+imperialism, and a mania for conquest and expansion.
+
+The peace treaties imposed on the vanquished are nothing but arms of
+oppression. What more could Germany herself have done had she won the
+War? Perhaps her terms would have been more lenient, certainly not
+harder, as she would have understood that conditions such as we have
+imposed on the losers are simply inapplicable.
+
+Three years have elapsed since the end of the War, two since the
+conclusion of peace, nevertheless Europe has still more men under
+arms than in pre-war times. The sentiment of nationality, twisted and
+transformed into nationalism, aims at the subjugation and depression
+of other peoples. No civilized co-existence is possible where each
+nation proposes to harm instead of helping its neighbour.
+
+The spread of hatred among peoples has everywhere rendered more
+difficult the internal relations between social classes and the
+economic life of each country. Fearing a repetition of armed
+conflicts, and owing to that spirit of unrest and intolerance
+engendered everywhere by the War, workers are becoming every day more
+exacting. They, too, claim their share of the spoils; they, too,
+clamour for enemy indemnities. The same manifestations of hate, the
+same violence of language, spread from people to people and from class
+to class.
+
+This tremendous War, which the peoples of Europe have fought and
+suffered, has not only bled the losers almost to death, but it has
+deeply perturbed the very life and existence of the victors. It
+has not produced a single manifestation of art or a single moral
+affirmation. For the last seven years the universities of Europe
+appear to be stricken with paralysis: not one outstanding personality
+has been revealed.
+
+In almost every country the War has brought a sense of internal
+dissolution: everywhere this disquieting phenomenon is more or less
+noticeable. With the exception, perhaps, of Great Britain, whose
+privileged insular situation, enormous mercantile navy and flourishing
+trade in coal have enabled her to resume her pre-war economic
+existence almost entirely, no country has emerged scatheless from
+the War. The rates of exchange soar daily to fantastic heights, and
+insuperable barriers to the commerce of European nations are being
+created. People work less than they did in pre-war times, but
+everywhere a tendency is noticeable to consume more. Austria,
+Germany, Italy, France are not different phenomena, but different
+manifestations and phases of the same phenomenon.
+
+Before the War Europe, in spite of her great sub-divisions,
+represented a living economic whole. To-day there are not only
+victors and vanquished, but currents of hate, ferments of violence, a
+hungering after conquests, an unscrupulous cornering of raw materials
+carried out brutally and almost ostentatiously in the name of the
+rights of victory: a situation which renders production, let alone its
+development and increase, utterly impossible.
+
+The treaty system as applied after the War has divided Europe into
+two distinct parts: the losers, held under the military and economic
+control of the victors, are expected to produce not only enough
+for their own needs, but to provide a super-production in order to
+indemnify the winners for all the losses and damages sustained on
+account of the War. The victors, bound together in what is supposed to
+be a permanent alliance for the protection of their common interests,
+are supposed to exercise a military action of oppression and control
+over the losers until the full payment of the indemnity. Another part
+of Europe is in a state of revolutionary ferment, and the Entente
+Powers have, by their attitude, rather tended to aggravate than to
+improve the situation.
+
+Europe can only recover her peace of mind by remembering that the
+War is over and done with. Unfortunately, the treaty system not only
+prevents us from remembering that the War is finished, but determines
+a state of permanent war.
+
+Clemenceau bluntly declared to the French Chamber that treaties were a
+means of continuing the War. He was perfectly right, for war is being
+waged more bitterly than ever and peace is as remote as it ever was.
+
+The problem with which modern statesmen are confronted is very simple:
+can Europe continue in her decline without involving the ruin of
+civilization? And is it possible to stop this process of decay without
+finding some form of civil symbiosis which will ensure for all men a
+more human mode of living? In the affirmative case what course should
+we take, and is it presumable that there should be an immediate change
+for the better in the situation, given the national and economic
+interests now openly and bitterly in conflict?
+
+We have before us a problem, or rather a series of problems, which
+call for impartiality and calm if a satisfactory solution is to be
+arrived at. Perhaps if some fundamental truths were brought home to
+the people, or, to be more exact, to the peoples now at loggerheads
+with each other, a notion of the peril equally impending upon all
+concerned and the conviction that an indefinite prolongation of the
+present state of things is impossible, would prove decisive factors in
+restoring a spirit of peace and in reviving that spirit of solidarity
+which now appears spent or slumbering.
+
+But in the first place it is necessary to review the situation, such
+as it is at the present moment:
+
+Firstly, Europe, which was the creditor of all other continents, has
+now become their debtor.
+
+Secondly, her working capacity has greatly decreased, chiefly owing to
+the negative change in her demographic structure. In pre-war times the
+ancient continent supplied new continents and new territories with a
+hardy race of pioneers, and held the record as regards population,
+both adult and infantile, the prevalence of women over men being
+especially noted by statisticians. All this has changed considerably
+for the worse!
+
+Thirdly, on the losing nations, including Germany, which is generally
+understood to be the most cultured nation in the world, the victors
+have forced a peace which practically amounts to a continuation of
+the War. The vanquished have had to give up their colonies, their
+shipping, their credits abroad, and their transferable resources,
+besides agreeing to the military and economic control of the Allies;
+moreover, despite their desperate conditions, they are expected to
+pay an indemnity, the amount of which, although hitherto only vaguely
+mentioned, surpasses by its very absurdity all possibility of an even
+remote settlement.
+
+Fourthly, considerable groups of ex-enemy peoples, chiefly Germans
+and Magyars, have been assigned to populations of an inferior
+civilization.
+
+Fifthly, as a result of this state of things, while Germany, Austria
+and Bulgaria have practically no army at all and have submitted
+without the slightest resistance to the most stringent forms of
+military control, the victorious States have increased their armies
+and fleets to proportions, which they did not possess before the War.
+
+Sixthly, Europe, cut up into thirty States, daily sees her buying
+capacity decreasing and the rate of exchange rising menacingly against
+her.
+
+Seventhly, the peace treaties are the most barefaced denial of all the
+principles which the Entente Powers declared and proclaimed during the
+War; not only so, but they are a fundamental negation of President
+Wilson's famous fourteen points which were supposed to constitute a
+solemn pledge and covenant, not only with the enemy, but with the
+democracies of the whole world.
+
+Eighthly, the moral unrest deriving from these conditions has divided
+among themselves the various Entente Powers: United States of America,
+Great Britain, Italy and France, not only in their aims and policy,
+but in their sentiments. The United States is anxious to get rid,
+as far as possible, of European complications and responsibilities;
+France follows methods with which Great Britain and Italy are not
+wholly in sympathy, and it cannot be said that the three Great Powers
+of Western Europe are in perfect harmony. There is still a great deal
+of talk about common ends and ideals, and the necessity of applying
+the treaties in perfect accord and harmony, but everybody is convinced
+that to enforce the treaties, without attenuating or modifying their
+terms, would mean the ruin of Europe and the collapse of the victors
+after that of the vanquished.
+
+Ninthly, a keen contest of nationalisms, land-grabbing and cornering
+of raw materials renders friendly relations between the thirty States
+of Europe extremely difficult. The most characteristic examples of
+nationalist violence have arisen out of the War, as in the case of
+Poland and other newborn States, which pursue vain dreams of empire
+while on the verge of dissolution through sheer lack of vital strength
+and energy, and becoming every day more deeply engulfed in misery and
+ruin.
+
+Finally, Continental Europe is on the eve of a series of fresh and
+more violent wars among peoples, threatening to submerge civilization
+unless some means be found to replace the present treaties, which are
+based on the principle that it is necessary to continue the War, by a
+system of friendly agreements whereby winners and losers are placed
+on a footing of liberty and equality, and which, while laying on the
+vanquished a weight they are able to bear, will liberate Europe from
+the present spectacle of a continent divided into two camps, where one
+is armed to the teeth and threatening, while the other, unarmed and
+inoffensive, is forced to labour in slavish conditions under the
+menace of a servitude even more severe.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE PEACE TREATIES AND THE CONTINUATION OF THE WAR
+
+
+The various peace treaties regulating the present territorial
+situation bear the names of the localities near Paris in which they
+were signed: Versailles, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Trianon and Sevres.
+The first deals with Germany, the second with Austria, the third
+with Hungary, and the fourth with Turkey. The Treaty of Neuilly,
+comparatively far less important, concerns Bulgaria alone. But the one
+fundamental and decisive treaty is the Treaty of Versailles, inasmuch
+as it not only establishes as a recognized fact the partition of
+Europe, but lays down the rules according to which all future treaties
+are to be concluded.
+
+History has not on record a more colossal diplomatic feat than this
+treaty, by which Europe has been neatly divided into two sections:
+victors and vanquished; the former being authorized to exercise on the
+latter complete control until the fulfilment of terms which, even at
+an optimistic point valuation, would require at least thirty years to
+materialize.
+
+Although it is a matter of recent history, we may as well call to mind
+that the Entente Powers have always maintained that the War was
+wanted and was imposed by Germany; that she alone, with her Allies,
+repeatedly violated the rights of peoples; that the World War could
+well be regarded as the last war, inasmuch as the triumph of the
+Entente meant the triumph of democracy and a more human regime of
+life, a society of nations rich in effects conducive to a lasting
+peace. It was imperative to restore the principles of international
+justice. In France, in England, in Italy, and later, even more
+solemnly, in the United States, the same principles have been
+proclaimed by Heads of States, by Parliaments and Governments.
+
+There are two documents laying down and fixing the principles which
+the Entente Powers, on the eve of that event of decisive importance,
+the entry of the United States into the War, bound themselves to
+sustain and to carry on to triumph. The first is a statement by Briand
+to the United States Ambassador, in the name of all the other Allies,
+dated December 30, 1916. Briand speaks in the name of all "_les
+gouvernements allies unis pour la defense et la liberte des peuples_."
+
+Briand's second declaration, dated January 10, 1917, is even more
+fundamentally important. It is a collective note of reply to President
+Wilson, delivered in the name of all the Allies to the United States
+Ambassador. The principles therein established are very clearly
+enunciated. According to that document the Entente has no idea of
+conquest and proposes mainly to achieve the following objects:
+
+1st. Restoration of Belgium, Serbia and Montenegro, with the
+indemnities due to them.
+
+2nd. Evacuation of invaded territories in France, Russia and Rumania
+and payment of just reparations.
+
+3rd. Reorganization of Europe with a permanent regime based on the
+respect of nationalities and on the right of all countries, both great
+and small, to complete security and freedom of economic development,
+besides territorial conventions and international regulations capable
+of guaranteeing land and sea frontiers from unjustified attacks.
+
+4th. Restitution of the provinces and territories taken in the past
+from the Allies by force and against the wish of the inhabitants.
+
+5th. Liberation of Italians, Slavs, Rumanians and Czeko-Slovaks from
+foreign rule.
+
+6th. Liberation of the peoples subjected to the tyranny of the Turks
+and expulsion from Europe of the Ottoman Empire, as being decidedly
+extraneous to western civilization.
+
+7th. The intentions of his Majesty the Emperor of Russia in regard
+to Poland are clearly indicated in the proclamation addressed to his
+armies.
+
+8th. The Allies have never harboured the design of exterminating
+German peoples nor of bringing about their political disappearance.
+
+At that time the autocratic form of government still prevailed in
+Russia, and the Allies still considered themselves bound to Russia's
+aspirations; moreover there existed, in regard to Italy, the
+obligations established by the Pact of London. That is why in the
+statements of the Entente Powers of Europe the restoration of
+Montenegro is regarded as an obligation; mention is made of the
+necessity of driving the Turks out of Europe in order to enable Russia
+to seize Constantinople; and as to Poland, there are only vague
+allusions, namely, the reference made to the Tsar's intentions as
+outlined in his proclamation.
+
+The Entente has won the War, but Russia has collapsed under the
+strain. Had victory been achieved without the fall of Russia, the
+latter would have installed herself as the predominating Power in the
+Mediterranean. On the other hand, to unite Dalmatia to Italy, while
+separating her from Italy, according to the pact of London, by
+assigning the territory of Fiume to Croatia, would have meant setting
+all the forces of Slav irredentism against Italy.
+
+These considerations are of no practical value inasmuch as events have
+taken another course. Nobody can say what would have happened if the
+Carthagenians had conquered the Romans or if victory had remained with
+Mithridates. Hypotheses are of but slight interest when truth follows
+another direction. Nevertheless we cannot but repeat that it was a
+great fortune for Europe that victory was not decided by Russia, and
+that the decisive factor proved the United States.
+
+It is beyond all possible doubt that without the intervention of
+the United States of America the War could not have been won by the
+Entente. Although the admission may prove humiliating to the European
+point of view, it is a fact which cannot be attenuated or disguised.
+The United States threw into the balance the weight of its enormous
+economic and technical resources, besides its enormous resources in
+men. Although its dead only amount to fifty thousand, the United
+States built up such a formidable human reserve as to deprive Germany
+of all hopes of victory. The announcement of America's entry in the
+War immediately crushed all Germany's power of resistance. Germany
+felt that the struggle was no longer limited to Europe, and that every
+effort was vain.
+
+The United States, besides giving to the War enormous quantities of
+arms and money, had practically inexhaustible reserves of men to place
+in the field against an enemy already exhausted and famine-stricken.
+
+War and battles are two very different things. Battles constitute an
+essentially military fact, while war is an essentially political fact.
+That explains why great leaders in war have always been first and
+foremost great political leaders, namely, men accustomed to manage
+other men and able to utilize them for their purposes. Alexander,
+Julius Caesar, Napoleon, the three greatest military leaders produced
+by Aryan civilization, were essentially political men. War is not only
+a clash of arms, it is above all the most convenient exploitation of
+men, of economic resources and of political situations. A battle is a
+fact of a purely military nature. The Romans almost constantly placed
+at the head of their armies personages of consular rank, who regarded
+and conducted the war as a political enterprise. The rules of tactics
+and strategy are perfectly useless if those who conduct the war fail
+to utilize to the utmost all the means at their disposal.
+
+It cannot be denied that in the War Germany and Austria-Hungary scored
+the greatest number of victories. For a long period they succeeded in
+invading large tracts of enemy territory and in recovering those
+parts of their own territory which had been invaded, besides always
+maintaining the offensive. They won great battles at the cost of
+enormous sacrifices in men and lives, and for a long time victory
+appeared to shine on their arms. But they failed to understand that
+from the day in which the violation of Belgium's neutrality determined
+Great Britain's entry in the field the War, from a general point of
+view, could be regarded as lost. As I have said, Germany is especially
+lacking in political sense: after Bismarck, her statesmen have never
+risen to the height of the situation. Even von Buelow, who appeared
+to be one of the cleverest, never had a single manifestation of real
+intelligence.
+
+The "banal" statements made about Belgium and the United States of
+America by the men who directed Germany's war policy were precisely
+the sort of thing most calculated to harm the people from whom they
+came. What is decidedly lacking in Germany, while it abounds in
+France, is a political class. Now a political class, consisting of
+men of ability and culture, cannot but be the result of a democratic
+education in all modern States, especially in those which have
+achieved a high standard of civilization and development. It seems
+almost incredible that Germany, despite all her culture, should
+have tolerated the political dictatorship of the Kaiser and of his
+accomplices.
+
+At the Conferences of Paris and London, in 1919 and 1920, I did all
+that was in my power to prevent the trial of the Kaiser, and I am
+convinced that my firm attitude in the matter succeeded in avoiding
+it. Sound common sense saved us from floundering in one of the most
+formidable blunders of the Treaty of Versailles. To hold one man
+responsible for the whole War and to bring him to trial, his enemies
+acting as judge and jury, would have been such a monstrous travesty
+of justice as to provoke a moral revolt throughout the world. On the
+other hand it was also a moral monstrosity, which would have deprived
+the Treaty of Versailles of every shred of dignity. If the one
+responsible for the War is the Kaiser, why does the Entente demand of
+the German people such enormous indemnities, unprecedented in history?
+
+One of the men who has exercised the greatest influence on European
+events during the last ten years, one of the most intelligent of
+living statesmen, once told me that it was his opinion that the Kaiser
+did not want the War, but neither did he wish to prevent it.
+
+Germany, although under protest, has been forced to accept the
+statement of the Versailles Treaty to the effect that she is
+responsible for the War and that she provoked it. The same charge has
+been levelled at her in all the Entente States throughout the War.
+
+When our countries were engaged in the struggle, and we were at grips
+with a dangerous enemy, it was our duty to keep up the _morale_ of our
+people and to paint our adversaries in the darkest colours, laying on
+their shoulders all the blame and responsibility of the War. But after
+the great world conflict, now that Imperial Germany has fallen, it
+would be absurd to maintain that the responsibility of the War is
+solely and wholly attributable to Germany and that earlier than 1914
+in Europe there had not developed a state of things fatally destined
+to culminate in a war. If Germany has the greatest responsibility,
+that responsibility is shared more or less by all the countries of the
+Entente. But while the Entente countries, in spite of their mistakes,
+had the political sense always to invoke principles of right and
+justice, the statesmen of Germany gave utterance to nothing but brutal
+and vulgar statements, culminating in the deplorable mental and moral
+expressions contained in the speeches, messages and telegrams of
+William II. He was a perfect type of the _miles gloriosus_, not a
+harmless but an irritating and dangerous boaster, who succeeded in
+piling up more loathing and hatred against his country than the most
+active and intelligently managed enemy propaganda could possibly have
+done.
+
+If the issue of the War could be regarded as seriously jeopardized
+by England's intervention, it was practically lost for the Central
+Empires when the United States stepped in.
+
+America's decision definitely crippled Germany's resistance--and
+not only for military, but for moral reasons. In all his messages
+President Wilson had repeatedly declared that he wanted a peace
+based on justice and equity, of which he outlined the fundamental
+conditions; moreover, he stated that he had no quarrel with the
+Germans themselves, but with the men who were at their head, and that
+he did not wish to impose on the vanquished peace terms such as might
+savour of oppression.
+
+President Wilson's ideas on the subject have been embodied in a
+bulky volume.[1] Turning over the pages of this book now we have the
+impression that it is a collection of literary essays by a man who had
+his eye on posterity and assumed a pose most likely to attract the
+admiration of generations as yet unborn. But when these same words
+were uttered in the intervals of mighty battles, they fell on
+expectant and anxious ears: they were regarded as a ray of light in
+the fearsome darkness of uncertainty, and everybody listened to them,
+not only because the President was the authorized exponent of a
+great nation, of a powerful people, but because he represented an
+inexhaustible source of vitality in the midst of the ravages of
+violence and death. President Wilson's messages have done as much as
+famine and cruel losses in the field to break the stubborn resistance
+of the German people. If it was possible to obtain a just peace, why
+go to the bitter end when defeat was manifestly inevitable? Obstinacy
+is the backbone of war, and nothing undermines a nation's power of
+resistance so much as doubt and faint-heartedness on the part of the
+governing classes.
+
+[Footnote 1: "President Wilson's State Speeches and Addresses," New
+York, 1918.]
+
+President Wilson, who said on January 2, 1917, that a peace without
+victory was to be preferred ("It must be a peace without victory"),
+and that "Right is more precious than peace," had also repeatedly
+affirmed that "We have no quarrel with the German people."
+
+He only desired, as the exponent of a great democracy, a peace which
+should be the expression of right and justice, evolving from the War a
+League of Nations, the first milestone in a new era of civilization, a
+league destined to bind together ex-belligerents and neutrals in one.
+
+In Germany, where the inhabitants had to bear the most cruel
+privations, President Wilson's words, pronounced as a solemn pledge
+before the whole world, had a most powerful effect on all classes
+and greatly contributed towards the final breakdown of collective
+resistance. Democratic minds saw a promise for the future, while
+reactionaries welcomed any way out of their disastrous adventure.
+
+After America's entry in the War, President Wilson, on January 8,
+1918, formulated the fourteen points of his programme regarding the
+finalities of the War and the peace to be realized.
+
+It is here necessary to reproduce the original text of President
+Wilson's message containing the fourteen points which constitute a
+formal pledge undertaken by the democracy of America, not only towards
+enemy peoples but towards all peoples of the world.
+
+These important statements from President Wilson's message have,
+strangely enough, been reproduced either incompletely or in an utterly
+mistaken form even in official documents and in books published by
+statesmen who took a leading part in the Paris Conference.
+
+It is therefore advisable to reproduce the original text in full:
+
+    1st. Honest peace treaties, following loyal and honest
+    negotiations, after which secret international agreements will be
+    abolished and diplomacy will always proceed frankly and openly.
+
+    2nd. Full liberty of navigation on the high seas outside
+    territorial waters, both in peace and war, except when the seas be
+    closed wholly or in part by an international decision sanctioned
+    by international treaties.
+
+    3rd. Removal, as far as possible, of all economic barriers and
+    establishment of terms of equality in commerce among all nations
+    adhering to peace and associated to maintain it.
+
+    4th. Appropriate guarantees to be given and received for the
+    reduction of national armaments to a minimum compatible with
+    internal safety.
+
+    5th. A clear, open and absolutely impartial settlement of all
+    colonial rights, based on a rigorous observance of the principle
+    that, in the determination of all questions of sovereignty, the
+    interests of the populations shall bear equal weight with those of
+    the Government whose claims are to be determined.
+
+    6th. The evacuation of all Russian territories and a settlement
+    of all Russian questions such as to ensure the best and most
+    untrammelled co-operation of other nations of the world in
+    order to afford Russia a clear and precise opportunity for the
+    independent settlement of her autonomous political development and
+    of her national policy, promising her a cordial welcome in the
+    League of Nations under institutions of her own choice, and
+    besides a cordial welcome, help and assistance in all that she may
+    need and require. The treatment meted out to Russia by the sister
+    nations in the months to come must be a decisive proof of their
+    goodwill, of their understanding of her needs as apart from
+    their own interests, and of their intelligent and disinterested
+    sympathy.
+
+    7th. Belgium, as the whole world will agree, must be evacuated
+    and reconstructed without the slightest attempt at curtailing the
+    sovereign rights which she enjoys in common with other free
+    nations. Nothing will be more conducive to the re-establishment
+    of confidence and respect among nations for those laws which they
+    themselves have made for the regulation and observance of their
+    reciprocal relations. Without this salutary measure the whole
+    structure and validity of international law would be permanently
+    undermined.
+
+    8th. All French territories will be liberated, the invaded regions
+    reconstructed, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871,
+    in the question of Alsace-Lorraine, and which has jeopardized the
+    peace of the world for nearly half a century, must be made good,
+    so as to ensure a lasting peace in the general interest.
+
+    9th. The Italian frontier must be rectified on the basis of the
+    clearly recognized lines of nationality.
+
+    10th. The people of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations
+    we wish to see safeguarded and maintained, should come to an
+    agreement as to the best way of attaining their autonomous
+    development.
+
+    11th. Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro are to be evacuated and
+    occupied territories restored: a free and secure access to the
+    sea for Serbia; mutual relations between the Balkan States to be
+    determined on a friendly basis by a Council, following the lines
+    of friendship and nationality traced by tradition and history; the
+    political and economic integrity of the various Balkan States to
+    be guaranteed.
+
+    12th. A certain degree of sovereignty must be assigned to that
+    part of the Ottoman Empire which is Turkish; but the other
+    nationalities now under the Turkish regime should have the
+    assurance of an independent existence and of an absolute and
+    undisturbed opportunity to develop their autonomy; moreover
+    the Dardanelles should be permanently open to the shipping and
+    commerce of all nations under international guarantees.
+
+    13th. An independent Polish State should be founded, comprising
+    all territories inhabited by peoples of undoubtedly Polish
+    nationality, with a free and secure access to the sea and its
+    political and economic independence and territorial integrity
+    guaranteed by international agreements.
+
+    14th. A League of Nations must be formed with special pacts and
+    for the sole scope of ensuring the reciprocal guarantees of
+    political independence and of territorial integrity, in equal
+    measure both for large and small States.
+
+The Peace Treaty as outlined by Wilson would really have brought about
+a just peace; but we shall see how the actual result proved quite the
+reverse of what constituted a solemn pledge of the American people and
+of the Entente Powers.
+
+On February 11, 1918, President Wilson confirmed before Congress that
+all territorial readjustments were to be made in the interest and for
+the advantage of the populations concerned, not merely as a bargain
+between rival States, and that there were not to be indemnities,
+annexations or punitive exactions of any kind.
+
+On September 27, 1918, just on the eve of the armistice, when German
+resistance was already shaken almost to breaking point, President
+Wilson gave it the _coup de grace_ by his message on the _post-bellum_
+economic settlement. No special or separate interest of any single
+nation or group of nations was to be taken as the basis of any
+settlement which did not concern the common interest of all; there
+were not to be any leagues or alliances, or special pacts or ententes
+within the great family of the society of nations; economic deals and
+corners of an egotistical nature were to be forbidden, as also all
+forms of boycotting, with the exception of those applied in punishment
+to the countries transgressing the rules of good fellowship; all
+international treaties and agreements of every kind were to be
+published in their entirety to the whole world.
+
+It was a magnificent programme of world policy. Not only would it have
+meant peace after war, but a peace calculated to heal the deep wounds
+of Europe and to renovate the economic status of nations.
+
+On the basis of these principles, which constituted a solemn pledge,
+Germany, worn out by famine and even more by increasing internal
+unrest, demanded peace.
+
+According to President Wilson's clear statements, made not only in
+the name of the United States but in that of the whole Entente, peace
+should therefore have been based on justice, the relations between
+winners and losers in a society of nations being exclusively inspired
+by mutual trust.
+
+There were no longer to be huge standing armies, neither on the
+part of the ex-Central Empires or on that of the victorious States;
+adequate guarantees were to be _given and received_ for the reduction
+of armies to the minimum necessary for internal defence; removal of
+all economic barriers; absolute freedom of the seas; reorganization
+of the colonies based on the development of the peoples directly
+concerned; abolition of secret diplomacy, etc.
+
+As to the duties of the vanquished, besides evacuating the occupied
+territories, they were to reconstruct Belgium, to restore to France
+the territories taken in 1871; to restore all the territories
+belonging to Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro, giving Serbia a free and
+secure access to the sea; to constitute a free Poland with territories
+_undoubtedly Polish_ to which _there might_ be granted a free and
+secure access to the sea. Poland, founded on secure ethnical bases,
+far from being a military State, was to be an element of peace, and
+her political and economic independence and territorial integrity were
+to have been guaranteed by an international agreement.
+
+After the rectification of the Italian frontier according to the
+principles of nationality, the peoples of Austria-Hungary were to
+agree on the free opportunity of their autonomous development. In
+other terms, each people could freely choose autonomy or throw in its
+lot with some other State. After giving a certain sovereignty to the
+Turkish populations of the Ottoman Empire the other nationalities were
+to be allowed to develop autonomously, and the free navigation of the
+Dardanelles was to be internationally guaranteed.
+
+These principles announced by President Wilson, and already proclaimed
+in part by the Entente Powers when they stoutly affirmed that they
+were fighting for right, for democracy and for peace, did not
+constitute a concession but a duty towards the enemy. In each of the
+losing countries, in Germany as in Austria-Hungary, the democratic
+groups contrary to the War, and those even more numerous which had
+accepted the War as in a momentary intoxication, when they exerted
+themselves for the triumph of peace, had counted on the statements, or
+rather on the solemn promises which American democracy had made not
+only in the name of the United States but in that of all the Entente
+Powers.
+
+Let us now try to sum up the terms imposed on Germany and the other
+losing countries by the treaty of June 28, 1919. The treaty, it is
+true, was concluded between the allied and associated countries and
+Germany, but it also concerns the very existence of other countries
+such as Austria-Hungary, Russia, etc.:
+
+
+I.--TERRITORIAL AND POLITICAL CLAUSES
+
+Until the payment of an indemnity the amount of which is as yet not
+definitely stated, Germany loses the fundamental characters of a
+sovereign state. Not only part of her territory remains under the
+occupation of the ex-enemy troops for a period of fifteen years but a
+whole series of controls is established, military, administrative, on
+transports, etc. The Commission for Reparations is empowered to effect
+all the changes it thinks fit in the laws and regulations of the
+German State, besides applying sanctions of a military and economic
+nature in the event of violations of the clauses placed under its
+control (Art. 240, 241).
+
+The allied and associated governments declare and Germany recognizes
+that Germany and her allies are solely responsible, being the direct
+cause thereof, for all the losses and damages suffered by the allied
+and associated governments and their subjects as a result of the War,
+which was thrust upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies
+(Art. 231). Consequently the resources of Germany (and by the
+other treaties those of her allies as well) are destined, even if
+insufficient, to ensure full reparation for all losses and damages
+(Art. 232).
+
+The allied and associated Powers place in a state of public accusation
+William II of Hohenzollern, ex-German Emperor, charging him with
+the gravest offences against international morality and the sacred
+authority of treaties. A special tribunal composed of representatives
+of the five great Entente Powers shall try him and will have the
+right of determining his punishment (Art. 227). The German Government
+likewise recognizes the right of the allied and associated Powers to
+try in their courts of justice the persons (and more especially the
+officers) accused of having committed acts contrary to the rules and
+customs of war.
+
+Restitution of Alsace and Lorraine to France without any obligation
+on the latter's part, not even the corresponding quota of public debt
+(Art. 51 _et seq_.).
+
+The treaties of April 19, 1839, are abolished, so that Belgium, being
+no longer neutral, may become allied to France (Art. 31); attribution
+to Belgium of the territories of Eupen, Malmedy and Moresnet.
+
+Abolition of all the treaties which established political and economic
+bonds between Germany and Luxemburg (Art. 40).
+
+Annulment of all the treaties concluded by Germany during the War.
+
+German-Austria, reduced to a little State of hardly more than
+6,000,000 inhabitants, about one-third of whom live in the capital
+(Art. 80), cannot become united to Germany without the consent of the
+Society of Nations, and is not allowed to participate in the affairs
+of another nation, namely of Germany, before being admitted to the
+League of Nations (Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Art. 88). As the
+consent of the League of Nations must be unanimous, a contrary vote on
+the part of France would be sufficient to prevent German-Austria from
+becoming united to Germany.
+
+Attribution of North Schleswig to Denmark (Art. 109).
+
+Creation of the Czeko-Slovak State (Art. 87), which comprises the
+autonomous territory of the Ruthenians south of the Carpathians,
+Germany abandoning in favour of the new State all her rights and
+claims on that part of Silesia mentioned in Art. 83.
+
+Creation of the State of Poland (Art. 87), to whom Posnania and part
+of Western Prussia are made over. Upper Silesia is to decide by a
+plebiscite (Art. 88) whether it desires to be united to Germany or to
+Poland. The latter, even without Upper Silesia, becomes a State of
+31,000,000 inhabitants, with about fifty per cent. of the population
+non-Polish, including very numerous groups of Germans.
+
+Creation of the Free State of Danzig within the limits of Art. 100,
+under the protection of the League of Nations. The city is a Free
+City, but enclosed within the Polish Customs House frontiers, and
+Poland has full control of the river and of the railway system.
+Poland, moreover, has charge of the foreign affairs of the Free City
+of Danzig and undertakes to protect its subjects abroad.
+
+Surrender to the victors, or, to be more precise, almost exclusively
+to Great Britain and France, of all the German colonies (Art. 119 and
+127). The formula (Art. 119) is that Germany renounces in favour of
+the leading allied and associated Powers all her territories beyond
+the seas. Great Britain has secured an important share, but so has
+France, receiving that part of Congo ceded in 1911, four-fifths of the
+Cameroons and of Togoland.
+
+Abandonment of all rights and claims in China, Siam, Liberia, Morocco,
+Egypt, Turkey, Bulgaria and Shantung (Art. 128 and 158).
+
+Creation of a League of Nations to the exclusion, practically, of
+Germany and of the other losing countries, with the result that the
+League is nothing but a juridical completion of the Commission of
+Reparations. In all of the various treaties, the pact of the League of
+Nations, the Covenant, left standing among the collapse of President
+Wilson's other ideas and proposals, is given precedence over all other
+clauses.
+
+
+II.--MILITARY CLAUSES AND GUARANTEES
+
+Germany is obliged, and with her, by the subsequent treaties, all the
+other losing countries, to surrender her arms and to reduce her troops
+to the minimum necessary for internal defence (Art. 159 and 213). The
+German army has no General Staff; its soldiers are mercenaries who
+enlist for a period of ten years; it cannot be composed of more than
+seven infantry and three cavalry divisions, not exceeding 100,000
+men including officers: no staff, no military aviation, no heavy
+artillery. The number of gendarmes and of local police can only be
+increased proportionately with the increase of the population. The
+maximum of artillery allowed is limited to the requirements of
+internal defence. Germany is strictly forbidden to import arms,
+ammunition and war material of any kind or description. Conscription
+is abolished, and officers must remain with the colours at least till
+they have attained the age of forty-five. No institute of science or
+culture is allowed to take an interest in military questions. All
+fortifications included in a line traced fifty kilometres to the east
+of the Rhine are to be destroyed, and on no account may German troops
+cross the said line.
+
+Destruction of Heligoland and of the fortresses of the Kiel Canal.
+
+Destruction under the supervision of the allied commissions of control
+of all tanks, flying apparatus, heavy and field artillery, namely
+35,000 guns, 160,000 machine guns, 2,700,000 rifles, besides the tools
+and machinery necessary for their manufacture. Destruction of all
+arsenals. Destruction of the German fleet, which must be limited to
+the proportions mentioned in Art. 181.
+
+Creation of inter-allied military commissions of control to supervise
+and enforce the carrying out of the military and naval clauses, at the
+expense of Germany and with the right to install themselves in the
+seat of the central government.
+
+Occupation as a guarantee, for a period of fifteen years after the
+application of the treaty, of the bridgeheads and of the territories
+now occupied west of the Rhine (Art. 428 and 432). If, however, the
+Commission of Reparations finds that Germany refuses wholly or in part
+to fulfil her treaty obligations, the zones specified in Article
+421 will be immediately occupied by the troops of the allied and
+associated Powers.
+
+
+III.--FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC CLAUSES
+
+The principle being recognized that Germany alone is responsible for
+the War which she willed and which she imposed on the rest of the
+world, Germany is bound to give complete and full reparation within
+the limits specified by Art. 232. The amount of the damages for which
+reparation is due will be fixed by the Commission of Reparations,
+consisting of the representatives of the winning countries.
+
+The coal fields of the Saar are to be handed over, in entire and
+absolute ownership, free of all liens and obligations, to France, in
+compensation for the destruction of the coal mines in the north of
+France. Before the War, in 1913, the output of the Saar basin amounted
+to 17,000,000 tons. The Saar is incorporated in the French douane
+system and after fifteen years will be submitted to a plebiscite.
+
+Germany may not charge heavier duties on imports from allied countries
+than on those from any other country. This treatment of the most
+favoured nation to be extended to all allied and associated States
+does not imply the obligation of reciprocity (Art. 264). A similar
+limitation is placed on exports, on which no special duty may be
+levied.
+
+Exports from Alsace and Lorraine into Germany to be exempt from duty,
+without right of reciprocity (Art. 268).
+
+Germany delivers to the Allies all the steamers of her mercantile
+fleet of over I,600 tons, half of those between 1,000 and I,600 tons,
+and one-fourth of her fishing vessels. Moreover, she binds herself to
+build at the request of the Allies every year, and for a period of
+five years, 200,000 tons of shipping, as directed by the Allies, and
+the value of the new constructions will be credited to her by the
+Commission of Reparations (Part viii, 3).
+
+Besides giving up all her colonies, Germany surrenders all her rights
+and claims on her possessions beyond the seas (Art. 119), and all
+the contracts and conventions in favour of German subjects for the
+construction and exploiting of public works, which will be considered
+as part payment of the reparations due. The private property of
+Germans in the colonies, as also the right of Germans to live and
+work there, come under the free jurisdiction of the victorious States
+occupying the colonies, and which reserve unto themselves the right to
+confiscate and liquidate all property and claims belonging to Germans
+(Art. 121 and 297).
+
+The private property of German citizens residing in Alsace-Lorraine is
+subject to the same treatment as that of residents in the ex-German
+colonies. The French Government may confiscate without granting any
+compensation the private property of Germans and of German concerns in
+Alsace-Lorraine, and the sums thus derived will be credited towards
+the partial settlement of eventual French claims (Art. 53 and 74).
+The property of the State and of local bodies is likewise surrendered
+without any compensation whatever. The allies and associates reserve
+the right to seize and liquidate all property, claims and interests
+belonging, at the date of the ratification of the treaty, to
+German citizens or to firms controlled by them, situated in their
+territories, colonies, possessions and protectorates, including the
+territories surrendered in accordance with the clauses of the treaty
+(Art. 217).
+
+Germany loses everything with the exception of her territory:
+colonies, possessions, rights, commercial investments, etc.
+
+After giving the Saar coal fields in perpetual ownership to France in
+reparation of the temporary damages suffered by the French coal mines,
+the treaty goes on to establish the best ways and means to deprive
+Germany, in the largest measure possible, of her coal and her iron.
+The Saar coal fields have been handed over to France absolutely, while
+the war damages of the French mines have been repaired or can be
+repaired in a few years. Upper Silesia being subject to the plebiscite
+with the occupation of the allied troops, Germany must have lost
+several of her most important coal fields had the plebiscite gone
+against her.
+
+Germany is forced to deliver in part reparation to France 7,000,000
+tons of coal a year for ten years, besides a quantity of coal equal
+to the yearly _ante-bellum_ output of the coal mines of the North of
+France and of the Pas-de-Calais, which were entirely destroyed during
+the War; the said quantity not to exceed 20,000,000 tons in the first
+five years and 8,000,000 tons during the five succeeding years (Part
+viii, 5). Moreover, Germany must give 8,000,000 tons to Belgium for a
+period of ten years, and to Italy a quantity of coal which, commencing
+at 4,500,000 tons for the year 1919-1920, reaches the figure of
+8,500,000 tons in the five years after 1923-1924. To Luxemburg Germany
+must provide coal in the same average quantity as in pre-war times.
+Altogether Germany is compelled to hand over to the winners as part
+reparation about 25,000,000 tons of coal a year.
+
+For three years Polish exports to Germany, and for five years exports
+from Luxemburg into Germany, will be free of all duty, without right
+of reciprocity (Art. 268).
+
+The Allies have the right to adopt, on the territories left of the
+Rhine and occupied by their troops, a special customs regime both as
+regards imports and exports (Art. 270).
+
+After having surrendered, as per Par. 7 of the armistice terms,
+5,000 locomotives and 150,000 trucks and carriages with all their
+accessories and fittings (Art. 250), Germany must hand over the
+railway systems of the territories she has lost, with all the rolling
+stock in a good state of preservation, and this measure applies even
+to Prussian Poland occupied by Germany during the War (Art. 371).
+
+The German transport system is placed under control, and the
+administration of the Elbe, the Rhine, the Oder, the Danube, owing to
+the fact that they pass through more than one state and give access
+to the sea, is entrusted to inter-allied commissions. In all these
+commissions Germany is represented by a small minority. France
+and Great Britain, who are not directly interested, have numerous
+representatives on all the important river commissions, while on the
+Rhine commission Germany has only four votes out of nineteen (Art. 382
+to 337). A privilege of first degree is established on all production
+and resources of the German States to ensure the payment of
+reparations and other charges specified by the treaty (Art. 248).
+
+The total cost of the allied and associated armies will be borne by
+Germany, including the upkeep of men and beasts, pay and lodging,
+heating, clothing, etc., and even veterinary services, motor lorries
+and automobiles. All these expenses must be reimbursed in gold marks
+(Art. 249).
+
+The privilege, as per Art. 248 of the treaty, is to be applied in the
+following order:
+
+(a) Reimbursement of expenses for the armies of occupation during
+the armistice and after the peace treaty.
+
+(b) Payment of the reparations as established by the treaty or
+treaties or supplementary conventions.
+
+(c) Other expenses deriving from the armistice terms, from the peace
+treaty and from other supplementary terms and conventions (Art. 251).
+Restitution, on the basis of an estimate presented sixty days after
+the application of the treaty by the Commission of Reparations, of the
+live stock stolen or destroyed by the Germans and necessary for the
+reconstruction of the invaded countries, with the right to exact from
+Germany, as part reparations, the delivery of machinery, heating
+apparatus, furniture, etc.
+
+Reimbursement to Belgium of all the sums loaned to her by the allied
+and associated Powers during the War.
+
+Compensation for the losses and damages sustained by the civilian
+population of the allied and associated Powers during the period in
+which they were at war with Germany (Art. 232 and Part viii, I).
+
+Payment, during the first two years, of twenty milliard marks in
+gold or by the delivery of goods, shipping, etc., on account of
+compensation (Art. 235).
+
+The reparations owed by Germany concern chiefly:
+
+1st. Damages and loss of life and property sustained by the civilian
+population.
+
+2nd. Damages sustained by civilian victims of cruelty, violence or
+ill-treatment.
+
+3rd. Damages caused on occupied or invaded territories.
+
+4th. Damages through cruelty to and ill-treatment of prisoners of war.
+
+5th. Pensions and compensations of all kinds paid by the allied and
+associated Powers to the military victims of the War and to their
+families.
+
+6th. Subsidies paid by the allied and associated Powers to the
+families and other dependents of men having served in the army, etc.,
+etc. (Part viii, I). These expenses, which have been calculated
+at varying figures, commencing from 350 billions, have undergone
+considerable fluctuations.
+
+I have given the general lines of the Treaty of Versailles.
+
+The other treaties, far less important, inasmuch as the situation
+of all the losing countries was already well defined, especially as
+regards territorial questions, by the Treaty of Versailles, are cast
+in the same mould and contain no essential variation.
+
+Now these treaties constitute an absolutely new fact, and no one can
+affirm that the Treaty of Versailles derives even remotely from the
+declarations of the Entente and from Wilson's solemn pledges uttered
+in the name of those who took part in the War.
+
+If the terms of the armistice were deeply in contrast with the pledges
+to which the Entente Powers had bound themselves before the whole
+world, the Treaty of Versailles and the other treaties deriving
+therefrom are a deliberate negation of all that had been promised,
+amounting to a debt of honour, and which had contributed much more
+powerfully towards the defeat of the enemy than the entry in the field
+of many fresh divisions.
+
+In the state of extreme exhaustion in which both conquerors and losers
+found themselves in 1918, in the terrible suffering of the Germanic
+group of belligerents, deprived for four years of sufficient
+nourishment and of the most elementary necessaries of life, in the
+moral collapse which had taken the place of boasting and temerity, the
+words of Wilson, who pledged himself to a just peace and established
+its terms, proclaiming them to the world, had completely broken down
+whatever force of resistance there still remained. They were the most
+powerful instruments of victory, and if not the essential cause,
+certainly not the least important among the causes which brought about
+the collapse of the Central Empires.
+
+Germany had been deeply hit by the armistice. Obliged to hand over
+immediately 5,000 locomotives and 150,000 railway trucks and carriages
+at the very time when she had to demobilize, during the first months
+she found her traffic almost completely paralysed.
+
+Every war brings virulent germs of revolution in the vanquished
+countries. The war of 1870 gave France the impulsive manifestations of
+_La Commune_ in exactly the same manner as war gave rise in Germany
+during the first months after the armistice to a violent revolutionary
+crisis, overcome not without difficulty and still representing a grave
+menace.
+
+Forced to surrender immediately a large quantity of live stock, to
+demobilize when the best part of her railway material had gone, still
+hampered by the blockade, Germany, against the interest of the Allies
+themselves, has been obliged to sacrifice her exchange because, in the
+absence of sufficient help, she has had to buy the most indispensable
+foodstuffs in neutral countries. Her paper currency, which at the
+end of 1918 amounted to twenty-two milliard marks, not excessive as
+compared with that of other countries, immediately increased with a
+growing crescendo till it reached, in a very short time, the figure of
+eighty-eight milliards, thus rendering from the very first the payment
+of indemnities in gold extremely difficult.
+
+The most skilled men have been thrust into an absolute impossibility
+of producing. To have deprived Germany of her merchant fleet, built up
+with so much care, means to have deprived the freight market of sixty
+thousand of the most skilled, intelligent and hard-working seamen.
+
+But what Germany has lost as a result of the treaty surpasses all
+imagination and can only be regarded as a sentence of ruin and decay
+voluntarily passed over a whole people.
+
+Germany, without taking into account the countries subject to
+plebiscite, has lost 7.5 per cent. of her population. Should the
+plebiscites prove unfavourable to her, or, as the tendency seems to
+be, should these plebiscites be disregarded, Germany would lose 13.5
+per cent. of her population. Purely German territories have been
+forcibly wrenched from her. What has been done in the case of the
+Saar has no precedents in modern history. It is a country of 650,000
+inhabitants of whom not even one hundred are French, a country which
+has been German for a thousand years, and which was temporarily
+occupied by France for purely military reasons. In spite of these
+facts, however, not only have the coal fields of the Saar been
+assigned in perpetuity to France as compensation for the damages
+caused to the French mines in the North, but the territory of the Saar
+forms part of the French customs regime and will be subjected after
+fifteen years to a plebiscite, when such a necessity is absolutely
+incomprehensible, as the population is purely German and has never
+in any form or manner expressed the intention of changing its
+nationality.
+
+The ebb and flow of peoples in Europe during the long war of
+nationalities has often changed the situation of frontier countries.
+Sometimes it may still be regarded as a necessity to include small
+groups of alien race and language in different states in order to
+ensure strategically safe frontiers. But, with the exception of the
+necessity for self-defence, there is nothing to justify what has been
+done to the detriment of Germany.
+
+Wilson had only said that France should receive compensation for
+the wrong suffered in 1871 and that Belgium should be evacuated and
+reconstructed. What had been destroyed was to have been built up
+again; but no one had ever thought during the War of handing over to
+Belgium a part, however small, of German territory or of surrendering
+predominantly and purely German territories to Poland.
+
+The German colonies covered an area of nearly 3,000,000 square
+kilometres; they had reached an admirable degree of development and
+were managed with the greatest skill and ability. They represented an
+enormous value; nevertheless they have been assigned to France, Great
+Britain and in minor proportion to Japan, without figuring at all in
+the reparations account.
+
+It is calculated that as a result of the treaty, owing to the loss
+of a considerable percentage of her agricultural area, Germany is
+twenty-five per cent. the poorer in regard to the production of
+cereals and potatoes and ten to twelve per cent. in regard to the
+breeding of live stock.
+
+The restitution of Alsace-Lorraine (the only formal claim advanced by
+the Entente in its war programme) has deprived Germany of the bulk of
+her iron-ore production. In 1913 Germany could count on 21,000,000
+tons of iron from Lorraine, 7,000,000 from Luxemburg, 138,000 from
+Upper Silesia and 7,344 from the rest of her territory. This means
+that Germany is reduced to only 20.41 per cent. of her pre-war wealth
+in iron ore.
+
+In 1913 the Saar district represented 8.95 per cent. of the total
+production of coal, and Upper Silesia 22.85 per cent.
+
+Having lost about eighty per cent. of her iron ore and large stocks
+of coal, while her production is severely handicapped, Germany,
+completely disorganized abroad after the suppression of all economic
+equilibrium, is condemned to look on helplessly while the very sources
+of her national wealth dry up and cease to flow. In order to form a
+correct estimate of the facts we must hold in mind that one-fifth of
+Germany's total exports before the War consisted of iron and of tools
+and machinery mostly manufactured with German iron.
+
+If we now consider the fourteen points of President Wilson, accepted
+by the Entente as a peace programme, comparing the actual results
+obtained by the Treaty of Versailles, we are faced with the following
+situation:
+
+1. "_After loyal peace negotiations and the conclusion and signing
+of peace treaties, secret diplomatic agreements must be regarded as
+abolished_," says Wilson. On the contrary, secret peace negotiations
+have been protracted for more than six months, and no hearing was even
+granted to the German delegates who wished to expose their views. By a
+system of treaties France has created a military alliance with Belgium
+and Poland, thus completely cornering Germany.
+
+2. _Absolute freedom of the sea beyond territorial waters_. Nothing,
+as a matter of fact, has been changed from the pre-war state of
+things; with the difference that the losers have had to surrender
+their mercantile fleets and are therefore no longer directly
+interested in the question.
+
+3. _Removal of all economic barriers and equality of trade
+conditions_. The treaty imposes on Germany terms without reciprocity,
+and almost all Entente countries have already adopted protectionist
+and prohibitive tariffs.
+
+4. _Adequate guarantees to be given and received for the reduction of
+armaments to a minimum compatible with home defence_. The treaties
+have compelled the vanquished countries to destroy or to surrender
+their navies, and have reduced the standing armies of Germany to
+100,000 men, including officers, of Bulgaria to 23,000, of Austria to
+30,000 (in reality only 21,000), of Hungary to 35,000. The conquering
+states, on the other hand, maintain enormous armies numerically
+superior to those which they had before the War. France, Belgium
+and Poland have between them about 1,400,000 men with the colours.
+Germany, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria altogether have only 179,000
+men under arms, while Rumania alone has 206,000 and Poland more than
+450,000 men.
+
+5. _Loyal and straightforward settlement of colonial rights and
+claims, based chiefly on the advantage of the peoples directly
+concerned_. All her colonies have been taken from Germany, who needed
+them more than any other country of continental Europe, having a
+density of population of 123 inhabitants per square kilometre (Italy
+has a density of 133 per square kilometre) while France has 74, Spain
+40, and European Russia before the War had only 24.
+
+6. _Evacuation of all Russian territories and cordial co-operation for
+the reconstruction and development of Russia_. For a long time the
+Entente has given its support to the military ventures of Koltchak,
+Judenic, Denikin and Wrangel, all men of the old regime.
+
+7. _Evacuation and reconstruction of Belgium_. This has been done, but
+to Belgium have been assigned territories which she never dreamt of
+claiming before the War.
+
+8. _Liberation of French territories, reconstruction of invaded
+regions and restitution of Alsace-Lorraine to France in respect of
+the territories taken from her in 1871_. France occupies a dominating
+position in the Saar which constitutes an absolute denial of the
+principle of nationality.
+
+9. _Rectification of the Italian frontier, according to clearly
+defined lines of nationality_. As these lines have never been clearly
+defined or recognized, the solution arrived at has been distasteful
+both to the Italians and to their neighbours.
+
+10. _The peoples of Austria-Hungary to be left free to unite together
+or to form autonomous states in the manner best suited to their
+development_. As a matter of fact the treaties have taken the greatest
+possible number of Germans from Austria and of Magyars from Hungary in
+order to hand them over to Poland, to Czeko-Slovakia, to Rumania and
+to Jugo-Slavia, namely to populations for the most part inferior to
+the Germans.
+
+11. _Evacuation of Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro_. This has been
+effected, but whereas the Entente Powers have always proclaimed their
+fundamental duty for the reconstruction of Montenegro, they all
+contributed to its disappearance, chiefly at the instigation of
+France.
+
+12. _A limited sovereignty to the Turkish parts of the Ottoman Empire,
+liberation of other nationalities and freedom of navigation in the
+Dardanelles placed under international guarantees_. What really
+happened was that the Entente Powers immediately tried to possess
+themselves of Asia Minor; but events rendered it necessary to adopt
+a regime of mandates because direct sovereignty would have been too
+perilous an experiment. A sense of deep perturbation and unrest
+pervades the whole of Islam.
+
+13. _An independent Polish state with populations undoubtedly Polish
+to be founded as a neutral State with a free and secure outlet to the
+sea and whose integrity is to be guaranteed by international accords_.
+In reality a Polish state has been formed with populations undoubtedly
+non-Polish, having a markedly military character and aiming at further
+expansion in Ukranian and German territory. It has a population of
+31,000,000 inhabitants while it should not exceed 18,000,000, and
+proposes to isolate Russia from Germany. Moreover the Free State of
+Danzig, practically dependent from Poland, constitutes a standing
+menace to Germany.
+
+14. _Foundation of the League of Nations for the sole purpose
+of re-establishing order among nations, and laying the basis of
+reciprocal guarantees of territorial integrity and political
+independence for all states, both great and small_. After more than
+two years have elapsed since the conclusion of peace and three since
+the armistice the League of Nations is still nothing but a holy
+alliance the object of which is to guarantee the privileges of the
+conquerors. After the vote of the Senate, deserving of all praise
+from every point of view, the United States does not form part of the
+League nor do the losing countries, including Germany.
+
+It is therefore obvious that the most solemn pledges on which peace
+was based have not been maintained; the noble declarations made by the
+Entente during the War have been forgotten; forgotten all the solemn
+collective pledges; forgotten and disregarded Wilson's proclamations
+which, without being real contracts or treaties, were something far
+more solemn and binding, a pledge taken before the whole world at its
+most tragic hour to give the enemy a guarantee of justice.
+
+Without expressing any opinion on the treaties it cannot be denied
+that the manner in which they have been applied has been even worse.
+For the first time in civilized Europe, not during the War, when
+everything was permissible in the supreme interests of defence, but
+now that the War is over, the Entente Powers, though maintaining
+armies more numerous than ever, for which the vanquished must pay,
+have occupied German territories, inhabited by the most cultured,
+progressive and technically advanced populations in the world, as an
+insult and a slight, with coloured troops, men from darkest and most
+barbarous Africa, to act as defenders of the rights of civilization
+and to maintain the law and order of democracy.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE PEACE TREATIES--THEIR ORIGIN AND AIMS
+
+
+How, after the solemn pledges undertaken during the War, a peace could
+have been concluded which practically negatives all the principles
+professed during the War and all the obligations entered into, is
+easily explained when the progress of events is noted from the autumn
+of 1918 to the end of the spring of 1919. I took no direct part in
+those events, as I had no share in the government of Italy from
+January to the end of June, 1919, the period during which the Treaties
+of Versailles and Saint-Germain-en-Laye were being prepared. The
+Orlando Ministry was resigning when the Treaty of Versailles was drawn
+up for signature, and the situation which confronted the Ministry
+of which I was head was clearly defined. Nevertheless I asked the
+Minister of Foreign Affairs and the delegates of the preceding Cabinet
+to put their signatures to it. Signing was a necessity, and it fell to
+me later on to put my signature to the ratification.
+
+The Treaty of Versailles and those which have followed with Austria,
+Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey have been validly signed, and they pledge
+the good faith of the countries which have signed them. But in the
+application of them there is need of great breadth of view; there is
+need of dispassionate study to see if they can be maintained, if the
+fulfilment of the impossible or unjust conditions demanded of the
+conquered countries will not do more harm to the conquerors, will not,
+in point of actual fact, pave the way to their ruin.
+
+If there is one thing, Lloyd George has said, which will never be
+forgotten or forgiven, it is arrogance and injustice in the hour
+of triumph. We have never tired of saying that Germany is the most
+barbarous among civilized countries, that under her civilization
+is hidden all the barbarism of mediaeval times, that she puts into
+practice the doctrine of might over right. At the present moment it is
+our duty to ask ourselves if something of the principles which we have
+for so long been attributing to Germany has not passed over to the
+other side, if in our own hearts there is not a bitterness of hatred
+clouding our judgment and robbing our programme of all action that can
+do real good.
+
+Prussia won the war against Austria-Hungary in 1866, and did not ask
+for or impose any really onerous terms. It was contented with having
+regained hegemony among the German people. Prussia conquered France
+in 1870. It was an unjust war, and Prussia laid down two unjust
+conditions: Alsace-Lorraine and the indemnity of five milliards. As
+soon as the indemnity was paid--and it was an indemnity that could be
+paid in one lump sum--Prussia evacuated the occupied territory. It did
+not claim of France its colonies or its fleet, it did not impose the
+reduction of its armaments or control of its transport after the
+peace. The Treaty of Frankfort is a humanitarian act compared with the
+Treaty of Versailles.
+
+If Germany had won the War--Germany to whom we have always attributed
+the worst possible intentions--what could it have done that the
+Entente has not done? It is possible that, as it is gifted with more
+practical common sense, it might have laid down less impossible
+conditions in order to gain a secure advantage without ruining the
+conquered countries.
+
+There are about ninety millions of Germans in Europe, and perhaps
+fifteen millions in different countries outside Europe. But in the
+heart of Europe they represent a great ethnic unity; they are the
+largest and most compact national group in that continent. With all
+the good and bad points of their race, too methodical and at the same
+time easily depressed by a severe setback, they are still the most
+cultivated people on earth. It is impossible to imagine that they can
+disappear, much less that they can reconcile themselves to live in a
+condition of slavery. On the other hand, the Entente has built on a
+foundation of shifting sand a Europe full of small States poisoned
+with imperialism and in ruinous conditions of economy and finance, and
+a too great Poland without a national basis and necessarily the enemy
+of Russia and of Germany.
+
+No people has always been victorious; the peoples who have fought most
+wars in modern Europe, English, French and Germans, have had
+alternate victories and defeats. A defeat often carries in its train
+reconsideration which is followed by renewed energy: the greatness of
+England is largely due to its steadfast determination to destroy the
+Napoleonic Empire. What elevates men is this steadfast and persevering
+effort, and a series of such collective efforts carries a nation to a
+high place.
+
+There is nothing lasting in the existing groupings. At the moment of
+common danger eternal union and unbreakable solidarity are proclaimed;
+but both are mere literary expressions.
+
+Great Britain, the country which has the least need to make war, has
+been at war for centuries with nearly all the European countries.
+There is one country only against which it has never made war, not
+even when a commercial challenge from the mercantile Republics of
+Italy seemed possible. That country is Italy. That shows that between
+the action of Italy there is not, nor can there be, contrast, and
+indeed that between the two nations there is complete agreement in
+European continental policy. It is the common desire of the two
+nations, though perhaps for different reasons, that no one State shall
+have hegemony on the continent. But between the years 1688 and 1815
+Great Britain and France were at war for seventy years: for seventy
+years, that is, out of a hundred and twenty-seven there was a state of
+deadly hostility between the two countries.
+
+General progress, evinced in various ways, above all in respect for
+and in the autonomy of other peoples, is a guarantee for all. No
+peoples are always victorious, none always conquered. In the time of
+Napoleon the First the French derided the lack of righting spirit
+in the German peoples, producers of any number of philosophers
+and writers. They would have laughed at anyone who suggested the
+possibility of any early German military triumph. After 1815 the
+countries of the Holy Alliance would never have believed in the
+possibility of the revolutionary spirit recovering; they were sure of
+lasting peace in Europe. In 1871 the Germans had no doubt at all that
+they had surely smothered France; now the Entente thinks that it has
+surely smothered Germany.
+
+But civilization has gained something: it has gained that collection
+of rules, moral conditions, sentiments, international regulations,
+which tend both to mitigate violence and to regulate in a form which
+is tolerable, if not always just, relations between conquerors and
+conquered, above all, a respect for the liberty and autonomy of the
+latter.
+
+Now, the treaties which have been made are, from the moral point of
+view, immeasurably worse than any consummated in former days, in that
+they carry Europe back to a phase of civilization which was thought
+to be over and done with centuries ago. They are a danger too. For
+as everyone who takes vengeance does so in a degree greater than the
+damage suffered, if one supposes for a moment that the conquered
+of to-day may be the conquerors of to-morrow, to what lengths of
+violence, degradation and barbarism may not Europe be dragged?
+
+Every effort, then, should now be made to follow the opposite road to
+that traversed up to now, the more so in that the treaties cannot be
+carried out; and if it is desired that the conquered countries shall
+pay compensation to the conquerors, at least in part, for the most
+serious damage, then the line to be followed must be based on
+realities instead of on violence.
+
+But before trying to see how and why the treaties cannot be carried
+out, it may be well to consider how the actual system of treaties
+has been reached, in complete opposition to all that was said by the
+Entente during the War and to President Wilson's fourteen points. At
+the same time ought to be examined the causes which led in six months
+from the declarations of the Entente and of President Wilson to the
+Treaty of Versailles.
+
+The most important cause for what has happened was the choice of Paris
+as the meeting-place of the Conference. After the War Paris was the
+least fitted of any place for the holding of a Peace Conference, and
+in the two French leaders, the President of the Republic, Poincare,
+and the President of the Council of Ministers, Clemenceau, even if the
+latter was more adaptable in mind and more open to consideration of
+arguments on the other side, were two temperaments driving inevitably
+to extremes. Victory had come in a way that surpassed all expectation;
+a people that, living through every day the War had lasted, had passed
+through every sorrow, privation, agony, had now but one thought, to
+destroy the enemy. The atmosphere of Paris was fiery. The decision of
+the peace terms to be imposed on the enemy was to be taken in a city
+which a few months before, one might really say a few weeks before,
+had been under the fire of the long-range guns invented by the
+Germans, in hourly dread of enemy aeroplanes. Even now it is
+inexplicable that President Wilson did not realize the situation
+which must inevitably come about. It is possible that the delirium of
+enthusiasm with which he was received at Paris may have given him the
+idea that it was in him alone that the people trusted, may have made
+him take the welcome given to the representative of the deciding
+factor of the War as the welcome to the principles which he had
+proclaimed to the world. Months later, when he left France amid
+general indifference if not distrust, President Wilson must have
+realized that he had lost, not popularity, but prestige, the one sure
+element of success for the head of a Government, much more so for the
+head of a State. It was inevitable that a Peace Conference held
+in Paris, only a few months after the War, with the direction and
+preparation of the work almost entirely in French hands and with
+Clemenceau at the head of everything, should conclude as it did
+conclude; all the more so when Italy held apart right from the
+beginning, and England, though convinced of the mistakes being made,
+could not act freely and effectively.
+
+The first duty of the Peace Conference was to restore a state of
+equilibrium and re-establish conditions of life. Taking Europe as an
+economic unity, broken by the War, it was necessary first of all and
+in the interests of all to re-establish conditions of life which would
+make it possible for the crisis to be overcome with the least possible
+damage.
+
+I do not propose to tell the story of the Conference, and it is as
+well to say at once that I do not intend to make use of any document
+placed in my hands for official purposes. But the story of the Paris
+Conference can now be told with practical completeness after what
+has been published by J.M. Keynes in his noble book on the Economic
+Consequences of the War and by the American Secretary of State, Robert
+Lansing, and after the statements made in the British and French
+Parliaments by Lloyd George and Clemenceau. But from the political
+point of view the most interesting document is still Andre Tardieu's
+book _La Paix_, to which Clemenceau wrote a preface and which
+expresses, from the point of view of the French Delegation at the
+Conference, the programme which France laid before itself and what it
+obtained. This book explains how the principal decisions were taken,
+and indeed can be fairly considered to show in a more reliable way
+than any other publication extant how the work of the Conference
+proceeded. For not only was M. Tardieu one of the French Delegates to
+the Conference, one of those who signed the Versailles Treaty, but
+also he prepared the plan of work as well as the solutions of the most
+important questions in his capacity of trusted agent of the Prime
+Minister.
+
+The determination in the mind of President Wilson when he came to
+Paris was to carry through his programme of the League of Nations. He
+was fickle in his infallibility, but he had the firmest faith that he
+was working for the peace of the world and above all for the glory of
+the United States. Of European things he was supremely ignorant. We
+are bound to recognize his good faith, but we are not in the least
+bound on that account to admit his capacity to tackle the problems
+which with his academic simplicity he set himself to solve. When he
+arrived in Europe he had not even prepared in outline a scheme of what
+the League of Nations was to be; the principal problems found him
+unprepared, and the duty of the crowd of experts (sometimes not too
+expert) who followed him seemed rather to be to demonstrate the
+truth of his idea than to prepare material for seriously thought out
+decisions.
+
+He could have made no greater mistake than he did in coming to Europe
+to take part in the meetings of the Conference. His figure lost relief
+at once, in a way it seemed to lose dignity. The head of a State was
+taking part in meetings of heads of Governments, one of the latter
+presiding. It was a giant compelled to live in a cellar and thereby
+sacrificing his height. He was surrounded by formal respect and in
+some decisions he exercised almost despotic authority, but his work
+was none the less disordered; there was a semblance of giving in to
+him while he was giving away his entire programme without being aware
+of it.
+
+In his ignorance of European things he was brought, without
+recognizing it, to accept a series of decisions not superficially in
+opposition to his fourteen points but which did actually nullify them.
+
+Great Britain is part of Europe but is not on the Continent of Europe.
+While Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Russia, Hungary, Holland,
+Belgium, etc., live the same life, are one in thought, Great Britain
+lives in her superb insularity. If she had any moment of supreme
+anxiety during the War, it was in the spring and summer of 1917 during
+the terrible threat of the destruction of her shipping by submarines
+and the inability of construction to keep pace with it. But after
+the defeat of Germany Great Britain found herself with a fleet far
+superior to those of all the rest of Europe put together; once more
+she broke away from Continental Europe.
+
+Lloyd George, with swiftly acting brain and clear insight, undoubtedly
+the most remarkable man at the Paris Conference, found himself in a
+difficult situation between President Wilson's pronouncements, some
+of them, like that regarding the freedom of the seas, undefined and
+dangerous, and the claims of France tending, after the brutal attack
+it had had to meet, not towards a true peace and the reconstruction of
+Europe, but towards the vivisection of Germany. In one of the first
+moments, just before the General Elections, Lloyd George, too,
+promised measures of the greatest severity, the trial of the Kaiser,
+the punishment of all guilty of atrocities, compensation for all who
+had suffered from the War, the widest and most complete indemnity. But
+such pronouncements gave way before his clear realization of facts,
+and later on he tried in vain to put the Conference on the plane of
+such realization.
+
+Italy, as M. Tardieu says very plainly, carried no weight in the
+Conference. In the meetings of the Prime Ministers and President
+Wilson _le ton etait celui de la conversation; nul apparat, nulle
+pose. M. Orlando parlait peu; l'activite de l'Italie a la conference
+a ete, jusqu'a l'exces, absorbee par la question de Fiume, et sa part
+dans les debats a ete de ce fait trop reduite. Restait un dialogue a
+trois: Wilson, Clemenceau, Lloyd George_. The Italian Government came
+into the War in May, 1915, on the basis of the London Agreement of the
+preceding April, and it had never thought of claiming Fiume either
+before the War when it was free to lay down conditions or during the
+progress of the War.
+
+The Italian people had always been kept in ignorance of the principles
+established in the London Agreement. One of the men chiefly
+responsible for the American policy openly complained to me that when
+the United States came into the War no notification was given them of
+the London Agreement in which were defined the future conditions
+of part of Europe. A far worse mistake was made in the failure to
+communicate the London Agreement to Serbia, which would certainly have
+accepted it without hesitation in the terrible position in which it
+then was.
+
+But the most serious thing of all was that Italian Ministers were
+unaware of its provisions till after its publication in London by the
+organ of the Jugo-Slavs, which had evidently received the text from
+Petrograd, where the Bolsheviks had published it. In Italy the London
+Agreement was a mystery to everyone; its text was known only to the
+Presidents of the Council and the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the
+War Cabinets. Thus only four or five people knew about it, secrecy was
+strictly kept, and, moreover, it cannot possibly be said that it was
+in accordance either with national ideals or the currents of public
+opinion, much less with any intelligent conception of Italy's needs
+and Italy's future.
+
+The framers of the London Agreement never thought of Fiume. Indeed
+they specifically expressed their willingness that it should go to
+Croatia, whether in the case of Austria-Hungary remaining united or of
+the detachment of Croatia from it. It is not true that it was through
+the opposition of Russia or of France that the Italian framers of the
+London Agreement gave up all claim to Fiume. There was no opposition
+because there was no claim. The representatives of Russia and France
+have told me officially that no renunciation took place through any
+action on the part of their Governments, because no claim was ever
+made to them. On the other hand, after the armistice, and when it
+became known through the newspapers that the London Agreement gave
+Fiume to Croatia, a very strong movement for Fiume arose, fanned by
+the Government itself, and an equally strong movement in Fiume also.
+
+If, in the London Agreement, instead of claiming large areas of
+Dalmatia which are entirely or almost entirely Slav, provision had
+been made for the constitution of a State of Fiume placed in a
+condition to guarantee not only the people of Italian nationality but
+the economic interests of all the peoples in it and surrounding it,
+there is no doubt that such a claim on the part of Italy would have
+gone through without opposition.
+
+During the Paris Conference the representatives of Italy showed hardly
+any interest at all in the problems concerning the peace of Europe,
+the situation of the conquered peoples, the distribution of raw
+materials, the regulation of the new states and their relations with
+the victor countries. They concentrated all their efforts on the
+question of Fiume, that is to say on the one point in which Italian
+action was fundamentally weak in that, when it was free to enter into
+the War and lay down conditions of peace, at the moment when the
+Entente was without America's invaluable assistance and was beginning
+to doubt the capacity of Russia to carry on, it had never even asked
+for Fiume in its War Treaty, that it had made the inexplicable mistake
+of neglecting to communicate that treaty to the United States when
+that country came into the War and to Serbia at the moment when
+Italy's effort was most valuable for its help. At the conference Italy
+had no directing policy. It had been a part of the system of
+the German Alliance, but it had left its Allies, Germany and
+Austria-Hungary, because it recognized that the War was unjust, and
+had remained neutral for ten months. Then, entering into the War
+freely and without obligation, there was one road for it to follow,
+that of proclaiming solemnly and defending the principles of democracy
+and justice. Indeed, that was a moral duty in that the break with the
+two countries with which Italy had been in alliance for thirty-three
+years became a matter not only of honesty but of duty solely through
+the injustice of the cause for which they had proclaimed an offensive
+war. It was not possible for Italy to go to war to realize the dream
+of uniting the Italian lands to the nation, for she had entered the
+system of Alliance of the Central Empires and had stayed there long
+years while having all the time Italian territories unjustly subjected
+to Austria-Hungary. The annexation of the Italian lands to the
+Kingdom of Italy had to be the consequence of the affirmation of the
+principles of nationality, not the reason for going to war. In any
+case, for Italy, which had laid on itself in the London Agreement
+the most absurd limitations, which had confined its war aims within
+exceedingly modest limits, which had no share in the distribution
+of the wealth of the conquered countries, which came out of the War
+without raw materials and without any share in Germany's colonial
+empire, it was a matter not only of high duty but of the greatest
+utility to proclaim and uphold all those principles which the Entente
+had so often and so publicly proclaimed as its war policy and its war
+aims. But in the Paris Conference Italy hardly counted. Without any
+definite idea of its own policy, it followed France and the United
+States, sometimes it followed Great Britain. There was no affirmation
+of principles at all. The country which, among all the European
+warring Powers, had suffered most severely in proportion to its
+resources and should have made the greatest effort to free itself
+from the burdens imposed on it, took no part in the most important
+decisions. It has to be added that these were arrived at between March
+24 and May 7, while the Italian representatives were absent from Paris
+or had returned there humbled without having been recalled.
+
+After interminable discussions which decided very little, especially
+with regard to the League of Nations which arose before the nations
+were constituted and could live, real vital questions were tackled, as
+is seen from the report of the Conference, on March 24, and it is a
+fact that between that date and May 7 the whole treaty was put in
+shape: territorial questions, financial questions, economic questions,
+colonial questions. Now, at that very moment, on account of the
+question of Fiume and Fiume alone, for some inscrutable reason the
+Italian delegates thought good to retire from the Conference, to which
+they returned later without being invited, and during that time all
+the demonstrations against President Wilson took place in Italy, not
+without some grave responsibility on the part of the government. Italy
+received least consideration in the peace treaties among all the
+conquering countries. It was practically put on one side.
+
+It has to be noted that both in the armistice and in the peace treaty
+the most serious decisions were arrived at almost incidentally;
+moreover they were always vitiated by slight concessions apparently
+of importance. On November 2, 1917, when the representatives of the
+different nations met at Paris to fix the terms of armistice, M.
+Tardieu relates, the question of reparation for damages was decided
+quite incidentally. It is worth while reproducing what he says in his
+book, taken from the official report:
+
+M. CLEMENCEAU: _Je voudrais venir maintenant sur la question des
+reparations et des tonnages. On ne comprenderait pas chez nous, en
+France, que nous n'inscrivions pas dans l'armistice une clause a
+cet effet. Ce que je vous demande c'est l'addition de trois mots:
+"Reparations des dommages" sans autre commentaire.
+
+Le dialogue suivant s'etablit_:
+
+M. HYMANS: _Cela serait-il une condition d'armistice_?
+
+M. SONNINO: _C'est plutot une condition de paix_.
+
+M. BONAR LAW: _Il est inutile d'inserer dans les conditions
+d'armistice une clause qui ne pourrait etre executee dans un bref
+delai_.
+
+M. CLEMENCEAU: _Je ne veux que mentionner le principe. Vous ne devez
+pas oublier que la population francaise est une de celles qui ont
+le plus souffert. Elle ne comprendrait pas que nous ne fissions pas
+allusion a cette clause_.
+
+M. LLOYD GEORGE: _Si vous envisages le principe des reparations sur
+terre, il faut mentionner aussi celui des reparations pour les navires
+coules_.
+
+M. CLEMENCEAU: _Je comprends tout cela dans mes trois mots,
+"Reparations des dommages." Je supplie le Conseil de se mettre dans
+l'esprit de la population francaise...._
+
+M. VESSITCH: _Et serbe_....
+
+M. HYMANS: _Et belge_....
+
+M. SONNINO: _Et italienne aussi_....
+
+M. HOUSE: _Puisqu'est une question importante pour tous, je propose
+l'addition de M. Clemenceau_.
+
+M. BONAR LAW: _C'est deja dit dans notre lettre au President Wilson,
+qui la comuniquera a l'Allemagne. Il est inutile de la dire deux
+fois_.
+
+M. ORLANDO: _J'accepte en principe, quoiqu'il n'en ait pas ete fait
+mention dans les conditions de l'armistice avec l'Autriche_.
+
+_L'addition "Reparations des dommages" est alors adoptee. M. Klotz
+propose de mettre en tete de cette addition les mots: "Sous reserve
+de toutes revendications et restaurations ulterieures de la part des
+Allies et des Etats-Unis." Il est ainsi decide_.
+
+If I were at liberty to publish the official report of the doings of
+the Conference while the various peace treaties were being prepared,
+as MM. Poincare and Tardieu have published secret acts, it would be
+seen that the proceedings were very much the same in every case.
+Meanwhile we may confine ourselves to an examination of the report as
+given by M. Tardieu.
+
+The question of reparation of damages was not a condition of the
+armistice. It had not been accepted. Clemenceau brings the question up
+again solely in homage to French public opinion. The suggestion is to
+write in simply the three words: _Reparation of damages_. It is true
+that these three words determine a policy, and that there is no
+mention of it in the claims of the Entente, in the fourteen points
+of President Wilson, or in the armistice between Italy and
+Austria-Hungary. In his fourteen points Wilson confined himself, in
+the matter of damages, to the following claims: (1) Reconstruction
+of Belgium, (2) Reconstruction of French territory invaded, (3)
+Reparation for territory invaded in Serbia, Montenegro and Rumania.
+There is no other claim or statement in the fourteen points. On the
+other hand the pronouncement, "_Reparation des dommages_," included,
+as in fact was afterwards included, any claim for damage by land or
+sea.
+
+The representatives of Belgium, Italy and Great Britain remark that it
+is a condition of peace, not of armistice. But Clemenceau makes it
+a question of regard and consideration for France. France would not
+understand there being no mention of it; there was no desire to define
+anything, only just to mention it, and in three simple words. "I ask
+you," says Clemenceau, "to put yourselves into the spirit of the
+people of France." At once the British representative notes the
+necessity of a clear statement regarding reparations for losses at sea
+through submarines and mines; and all, the Serbian, the Belgian and,
+last of all, the Italian, at once call attention to their own damages.
+Mr. House, not realizing the wide and serious nature of the claim,
+says that it is an important question for all, while America had
+already stated, in the words of the President of the Republic, that it
+renounced all indemnity of any nature whatsoever.
+
+So was established, quite incidentally, the principle of indemnity for
+damages which gave the treaty a complete turn away from the spirit
+of the pronouncements by the Entente and the United States. Equally
+incidentally were established all the declarations in the treaty, the
+purpose of which is not easy to understand except in so far as it is
+seen in the economic results which may accrue.
+
+Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles states that the allied and
+associated governments affirm, and Germany accepts, the responsibility
+of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which
+the allied and associated governments and their peoples have been
+subjected as a consequence of the War imposed on them by the
+aggression of Germany and her allies.
+
+Article 177 of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye states in the
+same way that the allied and associated governments affirm, and
+Austria-Hungary accepts, the responsibility of Austria and her allies,
+etc.
+
+This article is common to all the treaties, and it would have no more
+than historic and philosophic interest if it were not followed by
+another article in which the allied and associated governments
+recognize that the resources of Germany (and of Austria-Hungary, etc.)
+are not adequate, after taking into account permanent diminutions of
+such resources which will result from other provisions of the present
+treaty, to make complete reparation for all such loss and damage.
+The allied and associated governments, however, require, and Germany
+undertakes, that she will make compensation for all damage done to the
+civilian population of the allied and associated powers and to their
+property during the period of the belligerency of each as an allied or
+associated power against Germany by such aggression by land, by sea
+and from the air, and in general all damage as defined in the treaty,
+comprising many of the burdens of war (war pensions and compensations
+to soldiers and their families, cost of assistance to families of
+those mobilized during the War, etc.).
+
+There is nothing more useless, indeed more stupid, than to take your
+enemy by the throat after you have beaten him and force him to declare
+that all the wrong was on his side. The declaration is of no use
+whatever, either to the conqueror, because no importance can be
+attributed to an admission extorted by force; or to the conquered,
+because he knows that there is no moral significance in being forced
+to state what one does not believe; or for third parties, because they
+are well aware of the circumstances under which the declaration was
+made. It is possible that President Wilson wanted to establish a moral
+reason--I do not like to say a moral alibi--for accepting, as he was
+constrained by necessity to accept, all those conditions which were
+the negation of what he had solemnly laid down, the moral pledge of
+his people, of the American democracy.
+
+Germany and the conquered countries have accepted the conditions
+imposed on them with the reserve that they feel that they are not
+bound by them, even morally, in the future. The future will pour
+ridicule on this new form of treaty which endeavours to justify
+excessive and absurd demands, which will have the effect of destroying
+the enemy rather than of obtaining any sure benefit, by using a forced
+declaration which has no value at all.
+
+I have always detested German imperialism, and also the phases of
+exaggerated nationalism which have grown up in every country after the
+War and have been eliminated one after the other through the simple
+fact of their being common to all countries, but only after having
+brought the greatest possible harm to all the peoples, and I cannot
+say that Germany and her allies were solely responsible for the War
+which devastated Europe and threw a dark shadow over the life of the
+whole world. That statement, which we all made during the War, was a
+weapon to be used at the time; now that the War is over, it cannot be
+looked on as a serious argument.
+
+An honest and thorough examination of all the diplomatic documents,
+all the agreements and relations of pre-war days, compels me to
+declare solemnly that the responsibility for the War does not lie
+solely on the defeated countries; that Germany may have desired
+war and prepared for it under the influence of powerful industrial
+interests, metallurgic, for instance, responsible for the extreme
+views of newspapers and other publications, but still all the warring
+countries have their share of responsibility in differing degree. It
+cannot be said that there existed in Europe two groups with a moral
+conception differing to the point of complete contrast; on one side,
+Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria, responsible for the
+War, which they imposed by their aggression; on the other, all the
+free and independent nations. By the side of England, France, Italy
+and the United States there was Russia, which must bear, if not the
+greatest, a very great responsibility for what happened. Nor is it
+true that armament expenses in the ten years preceding the War were
+greater in the Central Empires, or, to put it better, in the States
+forming the Triple Alliance, than in the countries which later formed
+the European Entente.
+
+It is not true that only in the case of Germany were the war aims
+imperialist, and that the Entente countries came in without desire of
+conquest. Putting aside for the moment what one sees in the treaties
+which have followed the War, it is worth while considering what would
+have happened if Russia had won the War instead of being torn to
+pieces before victory came. Russia would have had all the Poland of
+the eighteenth century (with the apparent autonomy promised by the
+Tsar), nearly all Turkey in Europe, Constantinople, and a great part
+of Asia Minor. Russia, with already the greatest existing land empire
+and at least half the population not Russian, would have gained
+fresh territories with fresh non-Russian populations, putting the
+Mediterranean peoples, and above all Italy, in a very difficult
+situation indeed.
+
+It cannot be said that in the ten years preceding the War Russia did
+not do as much as Germany to bring unrest into Europe. It was on
+account of Russia that the Serbian Government was a perpetual cause
+of disturbance, a perpetual threat to Austria-Hungary. The unending
+strife in the Balkans was caused by Russia in no less degree than
+by Austria-Hungary, and all the great European nations shared, with
+opposing views, in the policy of Eastern expansion.
+
+The judgment of peoples and of events, given the uncertainty of policy
+as expressed in parliament and newspapers, is variable to the last
+degree. It will be enough to recall the varying judgment upon Serbia
+during the last ten years in the Press of Great Britain, France and
+Italy: the people of Serbia have been described as criminals and
+heroes, assassins and martyrs. No one would have anything to do with
+Serbia; later Serbia was raised to the skies.
+
+The documents published by Kautsky in Germany and those revealed from
+time to time by the Moscow Government prove that the preparation for
+and conviction of war was not only on the part of the Central Empires,
+but also, and in no less degree, on the part of the other States. One
+point will always remain inexplicable: why Russia should have taken
+the superlatively serious step of general mobilization, which could
+not be and was not a simple measure of precaution. It is beyond doubt
+that the Russian mobilization preceded even that of Austria. After
+a close examination of events, after the bitter feeling of war had
+passed, in his speech of December 23, 1920, Lloyd George said justly
+that the War broke out without any Government having really desired
+it; all, in one way or another, slithered into it, stumbling and
+tripping.
+
+There were three Monarchies in Europe, the Russian, German, and
+Austro-Hungarian Empires, and the fact that they were divided into
+two groups necessarily led to war. It was inevitable sooner or later.
+Russia was the greatest danger, the greatest threat to Europe; what
+happened had to happen under one form or another. The crazy giant was
+under the charge of one man without intelligence and a band of men,
+the men of the old regime, largely without scruples.
+
+Each country of Europe has its share of responsibility, Italy not
+excluded. It is difficult to explain why Italy went to Tripoli in the
+way in which she did in 1911, bringing about the Italo-Turkish war,
+which brought about the two Balkan wars and the policy of adventure of
+Serbia, which was the incident though not the cause of the European
+War.
+
+The Libyan adventure, considered now in the serene light of reason,
+cannot be looked on as anything but an aberration. Libya is an immense
+box of sand which never had any value, nor has it now. Tripolitania,
+Cyrenaica and Fezzan cover more than one million one hundred
+thousand square kilometres and have less than nine hundred thousand
+inhabitants, of whom even now, after ten years, less than a third are
+under the effective control of Italy. With the war and expenses of
+occupation, Libya has cost Italy about seven milliard lire, and for a
+long time yet it will be on the debit side in the life of the nation.
+With the same number of milliards, most of which were spent before the
+European War, Italy could have put in order and utilized her immense
+patrimony of water-power and to-day would be free from anxiety about
+the coal problem by which it is actually enslaved. The true policy
+of the nation was to gain economic independence, not a barren waste.
+Ignorant people spoke of Libya in Italy as a promised land; in one
+official speech the King was even made to say that Libya could absorb
+part of Italian emigration. That was just a phenomenon of madness,
+for Libya has no value at all from the agricultural, commercial or
+military point of view. It may pay its way one day, but only if all
+expenses are cut down and the administrative system is completely
+changed. It may be that, if only from a feeling of duty towards the
+inhabitants, Italy cannot abandon Libya now that she has taken it, but
+the question will always be asked why she did take it, why she took
+it by violence when a series of concessions could have been obtained
+without difficulty from the Turkish Government.
+
+The Libyan enterprise, undertaken on an impulse, against the opinion
+of Italy's allies, Austria and Germany, against the wish of England
+and France, is a very serious political responsibility for Italy.
+
+The European War was the consequence of a long series of movements,
+aspirations, agitations. It cannot be denied, and it is recognized by
+clear-thinking men like Lloyd George, that France and England too
+have by their actions taken on themselves their part in the serious
+responsibility. To say that in the past they had never thought of
+war is to say a thing not true. And there is no doubt that all the
+diplomatic documents published before and during the War show in
+Russia, above all, a situation which inevitably would soon lead to
+war. In the Balkans, especially in Serbia, Russia was pursuing a
+cynical and shameless policy of corruption, nourishing and exciting
+every ferment of revolt against Austria-Hungary. Russian policy in
+Serbia was really criminal. Everyone in Germany was convinced that
+Russia was preparing for war. The Tsar's pacificist ideas were of no
+importance whatever. In absolute monarchies it is an illusion to think
+that the sovereign, though apparently an autocrat, acts in accordance
+with his own views. His views are almost invariably those of the
+people round him; he does not even receive news in its true form, but
+in the form given it by officials. Russia was an unwieldy giant who
+had shown signs of madness long before the actual revolution. It
+is impossible that a collective madness such as that which has had
+possession of Russia for three years could be produced on the spur of
+the moment; the regime of autocracy contained in itself the germs
+of Bolshevism and violence. Bolshevism cannot properly be judged by
+Western notions; it is not a revolutionary movement of the people; it
+is, as I have said before, the religious fanaticism of the Eastern
+Orthodox rising from the dead body of Tsarist despotism. Bolshevism,
+centralizing and bureaucratic, follows the same lines as the imperial
+policy of almost every Tsar.
+
+Undoubtedly the greatest responsibility for the War lies on Germany.
+If it has not to bear all the responsibility, as the treaties claim,
+it has to bear the largest share; and the responsibility lies, rather
+than on the shoulders of the Emperor and the quite ordinary men
+who surrounded him, on those of the military caste and some great
+industrial groups. The crazy writings of General von Bernhardi and
+other scandalous publications of the same sort expressed, more than
+just theoretical views, the real hopes and tendencies of the whole
+military caste. It is true enough that there existed in Germany a real
+democratic society under the control of the civil government, but
+there was the military caste too, with privileges in social life and a
+special position in the life of the State. This caste was educated in
+the conception of violence as the means of power and grandeur. When a
+country has allowed the military and social theories of General von
+Bernhardi and the senselessly criminal pronouncements of the Emperor
+William II to prevail for so many years, it has put the most
+formidable weapons possible into the hands of its enemies. The people
+who governed Germany for so long have no right to complain now of the
+conditions in which their country is placed. But the great German
+people, hardworking and persevering, has full right to look on such
+conditions as the negation of justice. The head of a European State, a
+man of the clearest view and calmest judgment, speaking to me of the
+Emperor William, of whose character and intellect he thought very
+little, expressed the view that the Emperor did not want war, but that
+he would not avoid it when he had the chance.
+
+The truth is that Germany troubled itself very little about France.
+Kinderlen Waechter, the most intelligent of the German Foreign
+Ministers, and perhaps the one most opposed to the War, when he
+outlined to me the situation as it was ten years ago, showed no
+anxiety at all except in regard to Russia. Russia might make war, and
+it was necessary to be ready or to see that it came about at a moment
+when victory was certain if conditions did not change. Germany had no
+reason at all for making war on France from the time that it had got
+well ahead of that country in industry, commerce and navigation. It
+is true that there were a certain number of unbalanced people in the
+metal industry who talked complacently of French iron and stirred up
+the yellow press, just as in France to-day there are many industrials
+with their eyes fixed on German coal which they want to seize as far
+as possible. But the intellectuals, the politicians, even military
+circles, had no anxiety at all except with regard to Russia.
+
+There were mistaken views in German policy, no doubt, but at the same
+time there was real anxiety about her national existence. With a huge
+population and limited resources, with few colonies, owing to her
+late arrival in the competition for them, Germany looked on the
+never-ceasing desire of Russia for Constantinople as the ruin of her
+policy of expansion in the East.
+
+And in actual fact there was but one way by which the three great
+Empires, which in population and extension of territory dominated
+the greater part of Europe, could avoid war, and that was to join in
+alliance among themselves or at least not to enter other alliances.
+The three great Empires divided themselves into two allied groups.
+From that moment, given the fact that in each of them the military
+caste held power, that the principal decisions lay in the hands of a
+few men not responsible to parliament; given the fact that Russia,
+faithful to her traditional policy, aimed to draw into her political
+orbit all the Slav peoples right down to the Adriatic and the Aegean
+and Austria, was leaning toward the creation of a third Slav monarchy
+in the dual kingdom, it was inevitable that sooner or later the
+violence, intrigue and corruption with which we are familiar should
+culminate in open conflict. Bismarck always saw that putting Russia
+and Germany up against each other meant war.
+
+Peoples, like individuals, are far from representing with anything
+approaching completeness such social conceptions as we call violence
+and right, honesty and bad faith, justice and injustice; each people
+has its different characteristics, but no one people represents good,
+or another bad, no one represents brutality, or another civilization.
+All these meaningless phrases were brought out during the War,
+according to which, as was said by one of the Prime Ministers of the
+Entente, the War was the decisive struggle between the forces of
+autocracy and liberty, between the dark powers of evil and violence
+and the radiant powers of good and right. To-day all this causes
+nothing but a smile. Such things are just speechifying, and banal at
+that. Perhaps they were a necessity of War-time which might well be
+made use of; when you are fighting for your very life you use every
+means you have; when you are in imminent danger you do not choose your
+weapons, you use everything to hand. All the War propaganda against
+the German Empires, recounting, sometimes exaggerating, all the crimes
+of the enemy, claiming that all the guilt was on the side of Germany,
+describing German atrocities as a habit, almost a characteristic of
+the German people, deriding German culture as a species of liquid
+in which were bred the microbes of moral madness--all this was
+legitimate, perhaps necessary, during the War. The reply to the
+asphyxiating gas of the enemy was not only the same gas, but a
+propaganda calculated to do more damage, and which, in fact, did do as
+much damage as tanks and blockade.
+
+But, when war is over, nothing should be put into a peace treaty
+except such things as will lead to a lasting peace, or the most
+lasting peace compatible with our degree of civilization.
+
+On January 22, 1917, President Wilson explained the reasons why he
+made the proposal to put an end to the War; he said in the American
+Senate that the greatest danger lay in a peace imposed by conquerors
+after victory. At that time it was said that there must be neither
+conquerors nor conquered. A peace imposed after victory would be the
+cause of so much humiliation and such intolerable sacrifices for the
+conquered side, it would be so severe, it would give rise to so much
+bitter feeling that it would not be a lasting peace, but one founded
+on shifting sand.
+
+In the spring of 1919, just before the most serious decisions were to
+be taken, Lloyd George put before the conference a memorandum entitled
+"_Some considerations for the Peace Conference before they finally
+draft their terms_."
+
+With his marvellously quick insight, after having listened to the
+speeches of which force was the leading motive (the tendency round him
+was not to establish a lasting peace but to vivisect Germany), Lloyd
+George saw that it was not a true peace that was being prepared.
+
+On March 25, 1919, Lloyd George presented the following memorandum to
+the conference:
+
+I
+
+When nations are exhausted by wars in which they have put forth all
+their strength and which leave them tired, bleeding and broken, it is
+not difficult to patch up a peace that may last until the generation
+which experienced the horrors of the war has passed away. Pictures
+of heroism and triumph only tempt those who know nothing of the
+sufferings and terrors of war. It is therefore comparatively easy to
+patch up a peace which will last for thirty years.
+
+What is difficult, however, is to draw up a peace which will not
+provoke a fresh struggle when those who have had practical experience
+of what war means have passed away. History has proved that a
+peace which has been hailed by a victorious nation as a triumph of
+diplomatic skill and statesmanship, even of moderation, in the long
+run has proved itself to be short-sighted and charged with danger to
+the victor. The peace of 1871 was believed by Germany to ensure not
+only her security but her permanent supremacy. The facts have shown
+exactly the contrary. France itself has demonstrated that those who
+say you can make Germany so feeble that she will never be able to hit
+back are utterly wrong. Year by year France became numerically weaker
+in comparison with her victorious neighbour, but in reality she became
+ever more powerful. She kept watch on Europe; she made alliance with
+those whom Germany had wronged or menaced; she never ceased to warn
+the world of its danger, and ultimately she was able to secure the
+overthrow of the far mightier power which had trampled so brutally
+upon her. You may strip Germany of her colonies, reduce her armaments
+to a mere police force and her navy to that of a fifth-rate power; all
+the same, in the end, if she feels that she has been unjustly treated
+in the peace of 1919, she will find means of exacting retribution from
+her conquerors. The impression, the deep impression, made upon the
+human heart by four years of unexampled slaughter will disappear with
+the hearts upon which it has been marked by the terrible sword of the
+Great War. The maintenance of peace will then depend upon there
+being no causes of exasperation constantly stirring up the spirit of
+patriotism, of justice or of fair play to achieve redress. Our terms
+may be severe, they may be stern and even ruthless, but at the same
+time they can be so just that the country on which they are imposed
+will feel in its heart that it has no right to complain. But
+injustice, arrogance, displayed in the hour of triumph, will never be
+forgotten nor forgiven.
+
+For these reasons I am, therefore, strongly averse to transferring
+more Germans from German rule to the rule of some other nation than
+can possibly be helped. I cannot conceive any greater cause of future
+war than that the German people, who have certainly proved themselves
+one of the most vigorous and powerful races in the world, should be
+surrounded by a number of small states, many of them consisting of
+people who have never previously set up a stable government for
+themselves, but each of them containing large masses of Germans
+clamouring for reunion with their native land. The proposal of the
+Polish Commission that we should place 2,100,000 Germans under the
+control of a people of a different religion and which has never proved
+its capacity for stable self-government throughout its history, must,
+in my judgment, lead sooner or later to a new war in the East of
+Europe. What I have said about the Germans is equally true about the
+Magyars. There will never be peace in South-Eastern Europe if every
+little state now coming into being is to have a large Magyar Irredenta
+within its borders.
+
+I would therefore take as a guiding principle of the peace that as
+far as is humanly possible the different races should be allocated
+to their motherlands, and that this human criterion should have
+precedence over considerations of strategy or economics or
+communications, which can usually be adjusted by other means.
+
+Secondly, I would say that the duration for the payments of reparation
+ought to disappear if possible with the generation which made the war.
+
+But there is a consideration in favour of a long-sighted peace which
+influences me even more than the desire to leave no causes justifying
+a fresh outbreak thirty years hence. There is one element in the
+present condition of nations which differentiates it from the
+situation as it was in 1815. In the Napoleonic Wars the countries were
+equally exhausted, but the revolutionary spirit had spent its force
+in the country of its birth, and Germany had satisfied the legitimate
+popular demands for the time being by a series of economic changes
+which were inspired by courage, foresight and high statesmanship. Even
+in Russia the Tsar had effected great reforms which were probably
+at that time even too advanced for the half-savage population. The
+situation is very different now. The revolution is still in its
+infancy. The extreme figures of the Terror are still in command in
+Russia. The whole of Europe is filled with the spirit of revolution.
+There is a deep sense not only of discontent, but of anger and revolt
+among the workmen against pre-war conditions. The whole existing
+order, in its political, social and economic aspects is questioned by
+the masses of the population from one end of Europe to the other. In
+some countries, like Germany and Russia, the unrest takes the form of
+open rebellion, in others, like France, Great Britain and Italy, it
+takes the shape of strikes and of general disinclination to settle
+down to work, symptoms which are just as much concerned with the
+desire for political and social change as with wage demands.
+
+Much of this unrest is healthy. We shall never make a lasting peace by
+attempting to restore the conditions of 1914. But there is a danger
+that we may throw the masses of the population throughout Europe into
+the arms of the extremists, whose only idea for regenerating mankind
+is to destroy utterly the whole existing fabric of society. These
+men have triumphed in Russia. They have done so at a terrible price.
+Hundreds and thousands of the population have perished. The railways,
+the roads, the towns, the whole structural organization of Russia has
+been almost destroyed, but somehow or other they seem to have managed
+to keep their hold upon the masses of the Russian people, and what is
+much more significant, they have succeeded in creating a large army
+which is apparently well directed and well disciplined, and is, as to
+a great part of it, prepared to die for its ideals. In another year
+Russia, inspired by a new enthusiasm, may have recovered from her
+passion for peace and have at her command the only army eager to
+fight, because it is the only army that believes that it has any cause
+to fight for.
+
+The greatest danger that I see in the present situation is that
+Germany may throw in her lot with Bolshevism and place her resources,
+her brains, her vast organizing power at the disposal of the
+revolutionary fanatics whose dream it is to conquer the world for
+Bolshevism by force of arms. This danger is no mere chimera. The
+present government in Germany is weak; its authority is challenged; it
+lingers merely because there is no alternative but the Spartacists,
+and Germany is not ready for Spartacism, as yet. But the argument
+which the Spartacists are using with great effect at this very time is
+that they alone can save Germany from the intolerable conditions which
+have been bequeathed her by the War. They offer to free the German
+people from indebtedness to the Allies and indebtedness to their own
+richer classes. They offer them complete control of their own affairs
+and the prospect of a new heaven and earth. It is true that the price
+will be heavy. There will be two or three years of anarchy, perhaps
+of bloodshed, but at the end the land will remain, the people will
+remain, the greater part of the houses and the factories will remain,
+and the railways and the roads will remain, and Germany, having thrown
+off her burdens, will be able to make a fresh start.
+
+If Germany goes over to the Spartacists it is inevitable that she
+should throw in her lot with the Russian Bolshevists. Once that
+happens all Eastern Europe will be swept into the orbit of the
+Bolshevik revolution, and within a year we may witness the spectacle
+of nearly three hundred million people organized into a vast red army
+under German instructors and German generals, equipped with German
+cannon and German machine guns and prepared for a renewal of the
+attack on Western Europe. This is a prospect which no one can face
+with equanimity. Yet the news which came from Hungary yesterday shows
+only too clearly that this danger is no fantasy. And what are the
+reasons alleged for this decision? They are mainly the belief that
+large numbers of Magyars are to be handed over to the control of
+others. If we are wise, we shall offer to Germany a peace, which,
+while just, will be preferable for all sensible men to the alternative
+of Bolshevism. I would therefore put it in the forefront of the peace
+that once she accepts our terms, especially reparation, we will open
+to her the raw materials and markets of the world on equal terms with
+ourselves, and will do everything possible to enable the German people
+to get upon their legs again. We cannot both cripple her and expect
+her to pay.
+
+Finally, we must offer terms which a responsible government in Germany
+can expect to be able to carry out. If we present terms to Germany
+which are unjust, or excessively onerous, no responsible government
+will sign them; certainly the present weak administration will not.
+If it did, I am told that it would be swept away within twenty-four
+hours. Yet if we can find nobody in Germany who will put his hand to
+a peace treaty, what will be the position? A large army of occupation
+for an indefinite period is out of the question. Germany would not
+mind it. A very large number of people in that country would welcome
+it, as it would be the only hope of preserving the existing order of
+things. The objection would not come from Germany, but from our own
+countries. Neither the British Empire nor America would agree to
+occupy Germany. France by itself could not bear the burden of
+occupation. We should therefore be driven back on the policy of
+blockading the country. That would inevitably mean Spartacism from the
+Urals to the Rhine, with its inevitable consequence of a huge red army
+attempting to cross the Rhine. As a matter of fact, I am doubtful
+whether public opinion would allow us deliberately to starve Germany.
+If the only difference between Germany and ourselves were between
+onerous terms and moderate terms, I very much doubt if public opinion
+would tolerate the deliberate condemnation of millions of women and
+children to death by starvation. If so, the Allies would have incurred
+the moral defeat of having attempted to impose terms on Germany which
+Germany had successfully resisted.
+
+From every point of view, therefore, it seems to me that we ought
+to endeavour to draw up a peace settlement as if we were impartial
+arbiters, forgetful of the passions of the war. This settlement ought
+to have three ends in view.
+
+First of all it must do justice to the Allies, by taking into account
+Germany's responsibility for the origin of the War, and for the way in
+which it was fought.
+
+Secondly, it must be a settlement which a responsible German
+government can sign in the belief that it can fulfil the obligations
+it incurs.
+
+Thirdly, it must be a settlement which will contain in itself no
+provocations for future wars, and which will constitute an alternative
+to Bolshevism, because it will commend itself to all reasonable
+opinion as a fair settlement of the European problem.
+
+
+II
+
+It is not, however, enough to draw up a just and far-sighted peace
+with Germany. If we are to offer Europe an alternative to Bolshevism
+we must make the League of Nations into something which will be both
+a safeguard to those nations who are prepared for fair dealing with
+their neighbours and a menace to those who would trespass on the
+rights of their neighbours, whether they are imperialist empires or
+imperialist Bolshevists. An essential element, therefore, in the
+peace settlement is the constitution of the League of Nations as the
+effective guardian of international right and international liberty
+throughout the world. If this is to happen the first thing to do is
+that the leading members of the League of Nations should arrive at an
+understanding between themselves in regard to armaments. To my mind
+it is idle to endeavour to impose a permanent limitation of armaments
+upon Germany unless we are prepared similarly to impose a limitation
+upon ourselves. I recognize that until Germany has settled down
+and given practical proof that she has abandoned her imperialist
+ambitions, and until Russia has also given proof that she does not
+intend to embark upon a military crusade against her neighbours, it
+is essential that the leading members of the League of Nations should
+maintain considerable forces both by land and sea in order to preserve
+liberty in the world. But if they are to present a united front to the
+forces both of reaction and revolution, they must arrive at such an
+agreement in regard to armaments among themselves as would make it
+impossible for suspicion to arise between the members of the League
+of Nations in regard to their intentions towards one another. If the
+League is to do its work for the world it will only be because the
+members of the League trust it themselves and because there are no
+rivalries and jealousies in the matter of armaments between them. The
+first condition of success for the League of Nations is, therefore, a
+firm understanding between the British Empire and the United States
+of America and France and Italy, that there will be no competitive
+building up of fleets or armies between them. Unless this is arrived
+at before the Covenant is signed the League of Nations will be a sham
+and a mockery. It will be regarded, and rightly regarded, as a proof
+that its principal promoters and patrons repose no confidence in its
+efficacy. But once the leading members of the League have made it
+clear that they have reached an understanding which will both secure
+to the League of Nations the strength which is necessary to enable
+it to protect its members and which at the same time will make
+misunderstanding and suspicion with regard to competitive armaments
+impossible between them its future and its authority will be assured.
+It will then be able to ensure as an essential condition of peace that
+not only Germany, but all the smaller States of Europe, undertake to
+limit their armaments and abolish conscription. If the small nations
+are permitted to organize and maintain conscript armies running each
+to hundreds of thousands, boundary wars will be inevitable, and all
+Europe will be drawn in. Unless we secure this universal limitation we
+shall achieve neither lasting peace nor the permanent observance of
+the limitation of German armaments which we now seek to impose.
+
+I should like to ask why Germany, if she accepts the terms we consider
+just and fair, should not be admitted to the League of Nations, at
+any rate as soon as she has established a stable and democratic
+government? Would it not be an inducement to her both to sign the
+terms and to resist Bolshevism? Might it not be safer that she should
+be inside the League than that she should be outside it?
+
+Finally, I believe that until the authority and effectiveness of the
+League of Nations has been demonstrated, the British Empire and the
+United States ought to give France a guarantee against the possibility
+of a new German aggression. France has special reason for asking for
+such a guarantee. She has twice been attacked and twice invaded by
+Germany in half a century. She has been so attacked because she has
+been the principal guardian of liberal and democratic civilization
+against Central European autocracy on the continent of Europe. It is
+right that the other great Western democracies should enter into an
+undertaking which will ensure that they stand by her side in time to
+protect her against invasion should Germany ever threaten her again,
+or until the League of Nations has proved its capacity to preserve the
+peace and liberty of the world.
+
+III
+
+If, however, the Peace Conference is really to secure peace and prove
+to the world a complete plan of settlement which all reasonable men
+will recognize as an alternative preferable to anarchy, it must deal
+with the Russian situation. Bolshevik imperialism does not merely
+menace the States on Russia's borders. It threatens the whole of Asia,
+and is as near to America as it is to France. It is idle to think that
+the Peace Conference can separate, however sound a peace it may have
+arranged with Germany, if it leaves Russia as it is to-day. I do not
+propose, however, to complicate the question of the peace with Germany
+by introducing a discussion of the Russian problem. I mention it
+simply in order to remind ourselves of the importance of dealing with
+it as soon as possible.
+
+The memorandum is followed by some proposals entitled "General Lines
+of the Peace Conditions," which would tend to make the peace less
+severe. It is hardly worth while reproducing them. As in many points
+the decisions taken were in the opposite sense it is better not to go
+beyond the general considerations.
+
+Mr. Lloyd George's memorandum is a secret document. But as the English
+and American Press have already printed long passages from it, it
+is practically possible to give it in its entirety without adding
+anything to what has already been printed.
+
+M. Tardieu has published M. Clemenceau's reply, drawn up by M. Tardieu
+himself and representing the French point of view:
+
+I
+
+The French Government is in complete agreement with the general
+purpose of Mr. Lloyd George's Note: to make a lasting peace, and for
+that reason a just peace.
+
+But, on the other hand, it does not think that this principle, which
+is its own, really leads to the conclusions arrived at in the Note in
+question.
+
+II
+
+The Note suggests that the territorial conditions laid down for
+Germany in Europe shall be moderate in order that she may not feel
+deeply embittered after peace.
+
+The method would be sound if the recent War had been nothing but a
+European war for Germany; but that is not the case.
+
+Previous to the War Germany was a great world Power whose _future
+was on the sea_. This was the power of which she was so inordinately
+proud. For the loss of this world power she will never be consoled.
+
+The Allies have taken from her--or are going to take from her--without
+being deterred by fear of her resentment, all her colonies, all her
+ships of war, a great part of her commercial fleet (as reparations),
+the foreign markets which she controlled.
+
+That is the worst blow that could be inflicted on her, and it is
+suggested that she can be pacified by some improvements in territorial
+conditions. That is a pure illusion. The remedy is not big enough for
+the thing it is to cure.
+
+If there is any desire, for general reasons, to give Germany some
+satisfaction, it must not be sought in Europe. Such help will be vain
+as long as Germany has lost her world policy.
+
+To pacify her (if there is any interest in so doing) she must have
+satisfaction given her in colonies, in ships, in commercial expansion.
+The Note of March 26 thinks of nothing but satisfaction in European
+territory.
+
+III
+
+Mr. Lloyd George fears that unduly severe territorial conditions
+imposed on Germany will play into the hands of Bolshevism. Is there
+not cause for fear, on the other hand, that the method he suggests
+will have that very result?
+
+The Conference has decided to call into being a certain number of new
+States. Is it possible without being unjust to them to impose on them
+inacceptable frontiers towards Germany? If these people--Poland and
+Bohemia above all--have resisted Bolshevism up to now it is through
+national sentiment. If this sentiment is violated Bolshevism will find
+an easy prey in them, and the only existing barrier between Russian
+and German Bolshevism will be broken.
+
+The result will be either a Confederation of Eastern and Central
+Europe under the direction of a Bolshevik Germany or the enslavery of
+those countries to a Germany become reactionary again, thanks to the
+general anarchy. In either case the Allies will have lost the War.
+
+The policy of the French Government, on the other hand, is to give
+the fullest aid to those young peoples with the support of everything
+liberal in Europe, and not to try to introduce at their expense
+abatements--which in any case would be useless--of the colonial, naval
+and commercial disaster which the peace imposes on Germany.
+
+If it is necessary, in giving these young peoples frontiers without
+which they cannot live, to transfer under their sovereignty some
+Germans, sons of the men who enslaved them, we may regret the
+necessity, and we should do it with moderation, but it cannot be
+avoided.
+
+Further, when all the German colonies are taken from her entirely and
+definitely, because she ill-treated the natives, what right is there
+to refuse normal frontiers to Poland and Bohemia because Germans
+installed themselves in those countries as precursors of the tyrant
+Pan-Germanism?
+
+IV
+
+The Note of March 26 insists on the necessity of a peace which will
+appear to Germany as a just peace, and the French Government agrees.
+
+It may be observed, however, that, given the German mentality, their
+conception of justice may not be the same as that of the Allies.
+
+And, also, surely the Allies as well as Germany, even before Germany,
+should feel this impression of justice. The Allies who fought together
+should conclude the War with a peace equal for all.
+
+Now, following the method suggested in the Note of March 26, what will
+be the result?
+
+A certain number of total and definite guarantees will be given to
+maritime nations whose countries were not invaded.
+
+Total and definite, the surrender of the German colonies.
+
+Total and definite, the surrender of the German war fleet.
+
+Total and definite, the surrender of a large part of the German
+commercial fleet.
+
+Total and lasting, if not definite, the exclusion of Germany from
+foreign markets.
+
+For the Continental countries, on the other hand--that is to say, for
+the countries which have suffered most from the War--would be reserved
+partial and transitory solutions:
+
+Partial solution, the modified frontiers suggested for Poland and
+Bohemia.
+
+Transitory solution, the defensive pledge offered France for the
+protection of her territory.
+
+Transitory solution, the regime proposed for the Saar coal.
+
+There is an evident inequality which might have a bad influence on
+the after-war relations among the Allies, more important than the
+after-war relations of Germany with them.
+
+It has been shown in Paragraph I that it would be an illusion to hope
+that territorial satisfaction offered to Germany would compensate
+her sufficiently for the world disaster she has suffered. And it may
+surely be added that it would be an injustice to lay the burden of
+such compensation on the shoulders of those countries among the Allies
+which have had to bear the heaviest burden of the War.
+
+After the burdens of the War, these countries cannot bear the burdens
+of the peace. It is essential that they should feel that the peace is
+just and equal for all.
+
+And unless that be assured it is not only in Central Europe that there
+will be fear of Bolshevism, for nowhere does it propagate so easily,
+as has been seen, as amid national disillusionment.
+
+V
+
+The French Government desires to limit itself for the moment to these
+observations of a general character. It pays full homage to the
+intentions which inspired Mr. Lloyd George's memorandum. But it
+considers that the inductions that can be drawn from the present Note
+are in consonance with justice and the general interests.
+
+And those are the considerations by which the French Government will
+be inspired in the coming exchange of ideas for the discussion of
+conditions suggested by the Prime Minister of Great Britain.
+
+These two documents are of more than usual interest.
+
+The British Prime Minister, with his remarkable insight, at once notes
+the seriousness of the situation. He sees the danger to the peace
+of the world in German depression. Germany oppressed does not mean
+Germany subjected. Every year France becomes numerically weaker,
+Germany stronger. The horrors of war will be forgotten and the
+maintenance of peace will depend on the creation of a situation which
+makes life possible, does not cause exasperation to come into public
+feeling or into the just claims of Germans desirous of independence.
+Injustice in the hour of triumph will never be pardoned, can never be
+atoned.
+
+So the idea of handing over to other States numbers of Germans is not
+only an injustice, but a cause of future wars, and what can be said
+of Germans is also true of Magyars. No cause of future wars must be
+allowed to remain. Putting millions of Germans under Polish rule--that
+is, under an inferior people which has never shown any capacity for
+stable self-government--must lead to a new war sooner or later. If
+Germany in exasperation became a country of revolution, what would
+happen to Europe? You can impose severe conditions, but that does not
+mean that you can enforce them; the conditions to be imposed must be
+such that a responsible German Government can in good faith assume the
+obligation of carrying them out.
+
+Neither Great Britain nor the United States of America can assume
+the obligation of occupying Germany if it does not carry out the
+excessively severe conditions which it is desired to impose. Can
+France occupy Germany alone?
+
+From that moment Lloyd George saw the necessity of admitting Germany
+into the League of Nations _at once_, and proposed a scheme of treaty
+containing conditions which, while very severe, were in part tolerable
+for the German people.
+
+Clemenceau's reply, issued a few days later, contains the French point
+of view, and has an ironical note when it touches on the weak points
+in Lloyd George's argument. The War, says the French note, was not a
+European war; Germany's eyes were fixed on world power, and she
+saw that her future was on the sea. There is no necessity to show
+consideration regarding territorial conditions in Europe. By taking
+away her commercial fleet, her colonies and her foreign markets more
+harm is done to Germany than by taking European territory. To pacify
+her (if there is any occasion for doing so) she must be offered
+commercial satisfaction. At this point the note, in considering
+questions of justice and of mere utility, becomes distinctly ironical.
+
+Having decided to bring to life new States, especially Poland and
+Czeko-Slovakia, why not give them safe frontiers even if some Germans
+or Magyars have to be sacrificed?
+
+One of Clemenceau's fixed ideas is that criterions of justice must not
+be applied to Germans. The note says explicitly that, given the German
+mentality, it is by no means sure that the conception of justice of
+Germany will be the same as that of the Allies.
+
+On another occasion, after the signing of the treaty, when Lloyd
+George pointed out the wisdom of not claiming from Germany the
+absurdity of handing over thousands of officers accused of cruelty
+for judgment by their late enemies, and recognized frankly the
+impossibility of carrying out such a stipulation in England,
+Clemenceau replied simply that the Germans are not like the English.
+
+The delicate point in Clemenceau's note is the contradiction in which
+he tries to involve the British Prime Minister between the clauses of
+the treaty concerning Germany outside Europe, in which no moderation
+had been shown, and those regarding Germany in Europe, in which he
+himself did not consider moderation either necessary or opportune.
+
+There was an evident divergence of views, clearing the way for a calm
+review of the conditions to be imposed, and here two countries could
+have exercised decisive action: the United States and Italy.
+
+But the United States was represented by Wilson, who was already in a
+difficult situation. By successive concessions, the gravity of which
+he had not realized, he found himself confronted by drafts of treaties
+which in the end were contradictions of all his proposals, the
+absolute antithesis of the pledges he had given. It is quite possible
+that he had not seen where he was going, but his frequent irritation
+was the sign of his distress. Still, in the ship-wreck of his whole
+programme, he had succeeded in saving one thing, the Statute of the
+League of Nations which was to be prefaced to all the treaties.
+He wanted to go back to America and meet the Senate with at least
+something to show as a record of the great undertaking, and he hoped
+and believed in good faith that the Covenant of the League of Nations
+would sooner or later have brought about agreement and modified the
+worst of the mistakes made. His conception of things was academic,
+and he had not realized that there was need to constitute the nations
+before laying down rules for the League; he trusted that bringing them
+together with mutual pledges would further most efficiently the cause
+of peace among the peoples. On the other hand, there was diffidence,
+shared by both, between Wilson and Lloyd George, and there was little
+likelihood of the British Prime Minister's move checking the course
+the Conference had taken.
+
+Italy might have done a great work if its representatives had had
+a clear policy. But, as M. Tardieu says, they had no share in the
+effective doings of the Conference, and their activity was almost
+entirely absorbed in the question of Fiume. The Conference was a
+three-sided conversation between Wilson, Clemenceau and Lloyd George,
+and the latter had hostility and diffidence on each side of him, with
+Italy--as earlier stated--for the most part absent. Also, it was
+just then that the divergence between Wilson and the Italian
+representatives reached its acute stage. The essential parts of the
+treaty were decided in April and the beginning of May, on April 22
+the question of the right bank of the Rhine, on the 23rd or 24th the
+agreement about reparations. Italy was absent, and when the Italian
+delegates returned to Paris without being asked on May 6, the text of
+the treaty was complete, in print. In actual fact, only one person did
+really effective work and directed the trend of the Conference, and
+that person was Clemenceau.
+
+The fact that the Conference met in Paris, that everything that was
+done by the various delegations was known, even foreseen so that
+it could be opposed, discredited, even destroyed by the Press
+beforehand--a thing which annoyed Lloyd George so much that at one
+time he thought seriously of leaving the Conference--all this gave
+an enormous advantage to the French delegation and especially to
+Clemenceau who directed the Conference's work.
+
+All his life Clemenceau has been a tremendous destroyer. For years and
+years he has done nothing but overthrow Governments with a sort of
+obstinate ferocity. He was an old man when he was called to lead the
+country, but he brought with him all his fighting spirit. No one
+detests the Church and detests Socialism more than he; both of these
+moral forces are equally repulsive to his individualistic spirit. I do
+not think there is any man among the politicians I have known who is
+more individualistic than Clemenceau, who remains to-day the man of
+the old democracy. In time of war no one was better fitted than he to
+lead a fighting Ministry, fighting at home, fighting abroad, with
+the same feeling, the same passion. When there was one thing only
+necessary in order to beat the enemy, never to falter in hatred, never
+to doubt the sureness of victory, no one came near him, no one could
+be more determined, no one more bitter. But when War was over, when it
+was peace that had to be ensured, no one could be less fitted for the
+work. He saw nothing beyond his hatred for Germany, the necessity
+for destroying the enemy, sweeping away every bit of his activity,
+bringing him into subjection. On account of his age he could not
+visualize the problems of the future; he could only see one thing
+necessary, and that was immediate, to destroy the enemy and either
+destroy or confiscate all his means of development. He was not
+nationalist or imperialist like his collaborators, but before all
+and above all one idea lived in him, hatred for Germany; she must be
+rendered barren, disembowelled, annihilated.
+
+He had said in the French Parliament that treaties of peace were
+nothing more than a way of going on with war, and in September, 1920,
+in his preface to M. Tardieu's book, he said that France must get
+reparation for Waterloo and Sedan. Even Waterloo: _Waterloo et Sedan,
+pour ne pas remonter plus haut, nous imposaient d'abord les douloureux
+soucis d'une politique de reparation_.
+
+Tardieu noted, as we have seen, that there were only three people
+in the Conference: Wilson, Clemenceau and Lloyd George. Orlando, he
+remarks, spoke little, and Italy had no importance. With subtle irony
+he notes that Wilson talked like a University don criticizing an essay
+with the didactic logic of the professor. The truth is that after
+having made the mistake of staying in the Conference he did not
+see that his whole edifice was tumbling down, and he let mistakes
+accumulate one after the other, with the result that treaties were
+framed which, as already pointed out, actually destroyed all the
+principles he had declared to the world.
+
+Things being as they were in Paris, Clemenceau's temperament, the
+pressure of French industry and of the newspapers, the real anxiety to
+make the future safe, and the desire on that account to exterminate
+the enemy, France naturally demanded, through its representatives,
+the severest sanctions. England, given the realistic nature of its
+representatives and the calm clear vision of Lloyd George, always
+favoured in general the more moderate solutions as those which were
+more likely to be carried out and would least disturb the equilibrium
+of Europe. So it came about that the decisions seemed to be a
+compromise, but were, on the other hand, actually so hard and so stern
+that they were impossible of execution.
+
+Without committing any indiscretion it is possible to see now from
+the publications of the French representatives at the Conference
+themselves what France's claims were.
+
+Let us try to sum them up.
+
+As regards disarmament and control there could have been and there
+ought to have been no difficulty about agreement. I am in favour
+of the reduction of all armaments, but I regard it as a perfectly
+legitimate claim that the country principally responsible for the War,
+and in general the conquered countries, should be obliged to disarm.
+
+No one would regard it as unfair that Germany and the conquered
+countries should be compelled to reduce their armaments to the measure
+necessary to guarantee internal order only.
+
+But a distinction must be drawn between military sanctions meant to
+guarantee peace and those which have the end of ruining the enemy.
+In actual truth, in his solemn pronouncements after the entry of the
+United States into the War, President Wilson had never spoken of a
+separate disarmament of the conquered countries, but of adequate
+guarantees _given and received_ that national armaments should
+be reduced to the smallest point compatible with internal order.
+Assurances given and received: that is to say an identical situation
+as between conquerors and conquered.
+
+No one can deny the right of the conqueror to compel the conquered
+enemy to give up his arms and reduce his military armaments, at any
+rate for some time. But on this point too there was useless excess.
+
+I should never have thought of publishing France's claims. Bitterness
+comes that way, responsibility is incurred, in future it may be an
+argument in your adversary's hands. But M. Tardieu has taken this
+office on himself and has told us all France did, recounting her
+claims from the acts of the Conference itself. Reference is easy to
+the story written by one of the representatives of France, possibly
+the most efficient through having been in America a long time
+and having fuller and more intimate knowledge of the American
+representatives, particularly Colonel House.
+
+Generally speaking, in every claim the French representatives started
+from an extreme position, and that was not only a state of mind, it
+was a tactical measure. Later on, if they gave up any part of their
+claim, they had the air of yielding, of accepting a compromise. When
+their claims were of such an extreme nature that the anxiety they
+caused, the opposition they raised, was evident, Clemenceau put on
+an air of moderation and gave way at once. Sometimes, too, he showed
+moderation himself, when it suited his purpose, but in reality he only
+gave way when he saw that it was impossible to get what he wanted.
+
+In points where English and American interests were not involved,
+given the difficult position in which Lloyd George was placed and
+Wilson's utter ignorance of all European questions, with Italy keeping
+almost entirely apart, the French point of view always came out on
+top, if slightly modified. But the original claim was always so
+extreme that the modification left standing the most radically severe
+measure against the conquered countries.
+
+Many decisions affecting France were not sufficiently criticized on
+account of the relations in which the English and Americans stood
+to France; objections would have looked like ill-will, pleading the
+enemy's cause.
+
+Previously, in nearly every case when peace was being made, the
+representatives of the conquered countries had been called to state
+their case, opportunity was given for discussion. The Russo-Japanese
+peace is an example. Undoubtedly the aggression of Russia had been
+unscrupulous and premeditated, but both parties participated in
+drawing up the peace treaty. At Paris, possibly for the first time
+in history, the destiny of the most cultured people in Europe was
+decided--or rather it was thought that it was being decided--without
+even listening to what they had to say and without hearing from their
+representatives if the conditions imposed could or could not possibly
+be carried out. Later on an exception, if only a purely formal one,
+was made in the case of Hungary, whose delegates were heard; but it
+will remain for ever a terrible precedent in modern history that,
+against all pledges, all precedents and all traditions, the
+representatives of Germany were never even heard; nothing was left to
+them but to sign a treaty at a moment when famine and exhaustion and
+threat of revolution made it impossible not to sign it.
+
+If Germany had not signed she would have suffered less loss. But at
+that time conditions at home with latent revolution threatening the
+whole Empire, made it imperative to accept any solution, and all the
+more as the Germans considered that they were not bound by their
+signature, the decisions having been imposed by violence without any
+hearing being given to the conquered party, and the most serious
+decisions being taken without any real examination of the facts. In
+the old law of the Church it was laid down that everyone must have a
+hearing, even the devil: _Etiam diabulus audiatur_ (Even the devil
+has the right to be heard). But the new democracy, which proposed to
+install the society of the nations, did not even obey the precepts
+which the dark Middle Ages held sacred on behalf of the accused.
+
+Conditions in Germany were terribly difficult, and an army of two
+hundred thousand men was considered by the military experts the
+minimum necessary. The military commission presided over by Marshal
+Foch left Germany an army of two hundred thousand men, recruited by
+conscription, a Staff in proportion, service of one year, fifteen
+divisions, 180 heavy guns, 600 field-guns. That is less than what
+little States without any resources have now, three years after the
+close of the War. But France at once imposed the reduction of the
+German army to 100,000 men, no conscription but a twelve years'
+service of paid soldiers, artillery reduced practically to nothing, no
+heavy guns at all, very few field-guns. No opportunity was given for
+discussion, nor was there any. Clemenceau put the problem in such a
+way that discussion was out of the question: _C'est la France qui,
+demain comme hier, sera face a l'Allemagne_. Lloyd George and Colonel
+House confined themselves to saying that on this point France formally
+expressed their views, Great Britain and the United States had no
+right to oppose. Lloyd George was convinced that the measures were
+too extreme and had tried on May 23, 1919, to modify them; but
+France insisted on imposing on Germany this situation of tremendous
+difficulty.
+
+I have referred to the military conditions imposed on Germany:
+destruction of all war material, fortresses and armament factories;
+prohibition of any trade in arms; destruction of the fleet; occupation
+of the west bank of the Rhine and the bridgeheads for fifteen years;
+allied control, with wide powers, over the execution of the military
+and naval clauses of the treaty, with consequent subjection of
+all public administrations and private companies to the will of a
+foreigner, or rather of an enemy kept at the expense of Germany itself
+and at no small expense, etc. In some of the inter-allied conferences
+I have had to take note of what these commissions of control really
+are, and their absurd extravagance, based on the argument that the
+enemy must pay for everything.
+
+The purport of France's action in the Conference was not to ensure
+safe military guarantees against Germany but to destroy her, at any
+rate to cut her up. And indeed, when she had got all she wanted and
+Germany was helpless, she continued the same policy, even intensifying
+it. Every bit of territory possible must be taken, German unity must
+be broken, and not only military but industrial Germany must be
+laid low under a series of controls and an impossible number of
+obligations.
+
+All know how, in Article 428 of the treaty, it is laid down, as a
+guarantee of the execution of the treaty terms on the part of Germany,
+or rather as a more extended military guarantee for France, that
+German territory on the west bank of the Rhine and the bridgeheads
+are to be occupied by allied and associated troops for fifteen years,
+methods and regulations for such occupation following in Articles 429
+and 432.
+
+This occupation not only gives deep offence to Germany (France has
+always looked back with implacable bitterness on the few months'
+military occupation by her Prussian conquerors in the war of 1870),
+but it paralyses all her activity and is generally judged to be
+completely useless.
+
+All the Allies were ready to give France every military guarantee
+against any unjust aggression by Germany, but France wanted in
+addition the occupation of the left bank of the Rhine. It was a very
+delicate matter, and the notes presented to the Conference by Great
+Britain on March 26 and April 2, by the United States on March 28 and
+April 12, show how embarrassed the two Governments were in considering
+a question which France regarded as essential for her future. It has
+to be added that the action of Marshal Foch in this matter was
+not entirely constitutional. He claimed that, independently of
+nationality, France and Belgium have the right to look on the Rhine as
+the indispensable frontier for the nations of the west of Europe, _et
+par la, de la civilisation_. Neither Lloyd George nor Wilson could
+swallow the argument of the Rhine a frontier between the civilization
+of France and Belgium, all civilization indeed, and Germany.
+
+In the treaty the occupation of the left bank of the Rhine and the
+bridgeheads by the allied and associated powers for fifteen years
+was introduced as a compromise. Such districts will be evacuated by
+degrees every five years if Germany shall have faithfully carried out
+the terms of the treaty. Now the conditions of the treaty are in large
+measure impossible of execution, and in consequence no execution of
+them can ever be described as faithful. Further, the occupying troops
+are paid by Germany. It follows that the conception of the occupation
+of the left bank of the Rhine was of a fact of unlimited duration.
+The harm that would result from the occupation was pointed out at the
+Conference by the American representatives and even more strongly by
+the English. What was the use of it, they asked, if the German army
+were reduced to 100,000 men? M. Tardieu himself tells the story of all
+the efforts made, especially by Lloyd George and Bonar Law, to prevent
+the blunder which later on was endorsed in the treaty as Article 428.
+Lloyd George went so far as to complain of political intrigues for
+creating disorder on the Rhine. But Clemenceau took care to put the
+question in such a form that no discussion was possible. In the matter
+of the occupation, he said to the English, you do not understand the
+French point of view. You live in an island with the sea as defence,
+we on the continent with a bad frontier. We do not look for an attack
+by Germany but for systematic refusal to carry out the terms of
+the treaty. Never was there a treaty with so many clauses, with,
+consequently, so many opportunities for evasion. Against that risk the
+material guarantee of occupation is necessary. There are two methods
+in direct contrast: _En Angleterre on croit que le moyen d'y reussir
+est de faire des concessions. En France nous croyons que c'est de
+brusquer_.
+
+On March 14 Lloyd George and Wilson had offered France the fullest
+military guarantee in place of the occupation of the left bank of the
+Rhine. France wanted, and in fact got, the occupation as well as the
+alliances. "_Notre but_?" says Tardieu. "_Sceller la garantie offerte,
+mais y ajouter l'occupation_." Outside the Versailles Treaty the
+United States and Great Britain had made several treaties of alliance
+with France for the event of unprovoked aggression by Germany. Later
+on the French-English Treaty was approved by the House of Commons, the
+French-American underwent the same fate as the Versailles Treaty. But
+the treaty with Great Britain fell through also on account of the
+provision that it should come into force simultaneously with the
+American Treaty.
+
+In a Paris newspaper Poincare published in September, 1921, some
+strictly reserved documents on the questions of the military
+guarantees and the occupation of the left bank of the Rhine. He
+wished to get the credit of having stood firm when Clemenceau himself
+hesitated at the demand for an occupation of the left bank of the
+Rhine for even a longer period than fifteen years. He has published
+the letter he sent to Clemenceau to be shown to Wilson and Lloyd
+George and the latter's reply.
+
+He said that there must be no thought of giving up the occupation and
+renouncing a guarantee until every obligation in the treaty should
+have been carried out; he went so far as to claim that in occupation
+regarded as a guarantee of a credit representing an indemnity for
+damages, there is nothing contrary to the principles proclaimed by
+President Wilson and recognized by the Allies. Nor would it suffice
+even to have the faculty of reoccupation, because "this faculty" could
+never be a valid substitute for occupation. As regards the suggestion
+that a long occupation or one for an indeterminate period would cause
+bad feeling, M. Poincare was convinced that this was an exaggeration.
+A short occupation causes more irritation on account of its arbitrary
+limit; everyone understands an occupation without other limit than the
+complete carrying out of the treaty. The longer the time that passes
+the better would become the relations between the German populations
+and the armies of occupation.
+
+Clemenceau communicated Poincare's letter to Lloyd George. The British
+Prime Minister replied on May 6 in the clearest terms. In his eyes,
+forcing Germany to submit to the occupation of the Rhine and the Rhine
+Provinces for an unlimited period, was a provocation to renew the war
+in Europe.
+
+During the Conference France put forward some proposals the aim of
+which was nothing less than to split up Germany. A typical example
+is the memorandum presented by the French delegation claiming the
+annexation of the Saar territory. This is completely German; in the
+six hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants before the War there were
+not a hundred French. Not a word had ever been said about annexation
+of the Saar either in Government pronouncements or in any vote in the
+French Parliament, nor had it been discussed by any political party.
+No one had ever suggested such annexation, which certainly was a far
+more serious thing than the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany,
+as there was considerable German population in Alsace-Lorraine. There
+was no French population at all in the Saar, and the territory in
+question could not even be claimed for military reasons but only for
+its economic resources. Reasons of history could not count, for they
+were all in Germany's favour. Nevertheless the request was put forward
+as a matter of sentiment. Had not the Saar belonged in other days
+entirely or in part to France? Politics and economics are not
+everything, said Clemenceau; history also has great value. For the
+United States a hundred and twenty years are a long time; for France
+they count little. Material reparations are not enough, there must be
+moral reparations too, and the conception of France cannot be the same
+as that of her Allies. The desire for the Saar responded, according
+to Clemenceau, to a need of moral reparation. On this point, too,
+the extreme French claim was modified. The Saar mines were given to
+France, not provisionally as a matter of reparations, but permanently
+with full right of possession and full guarantees for their working.
+For fifteen years from the date of the treaty the government of the
+territory was put in the hands of the League of Nations as trustee;
+after fifteen years the population, entirely German, should be called
+to decide under what government they desired to live. In other words,
+in a purely German country, which no one in France had ever claimed,
+of which no one in France had ever spoken during the War, the most
+important property was handed to a conquering State, the country was
+put under the administration of the conquerors (which is what the
+League of Nations actually is at present), and after fifteen years of
+torment the population is to be put through a plebiscite. Meanwhile
+the French douane rules in the Saar.
+
+It was open to the treaty to adopt or not to adopt the system of
+plebiscites. When it was a case of handing over great masses of German
+populations, a plebiscite was imperative--at any rate, where any doubt
+existed, and the more so in concessions which formed no part of the
+War aims and were not found in any pronouncement of the Allies. On the
+other hand, in all cessions of German territory to Poland and Bohemia,
+no mention is made of a plebiscite because it was a question of
+military necessity or of lands which had been historically victims
+of Germany. But only for Schleswig, Upper Silesia, Marienwerder,
+Allenstein, Klagenfurth and the Saar were plebiscites laid down--and
+with the exception that the plebiscite itself, when, as in the case of
+Upper Silesia, it resulted in favour of Germany, was not regarded as
+conclusive.
+
+But where the most extreme views clashed was in the matter of
+reparations and the indemnity to be claimed from the enemy.
+
+We have already seen that the theory of reparation for damage found
+its way incidentally, even before the treaty was considered, into the
+armistice terms. No word had been said previously of claiming from the
+conquered enemy anything beyond restoration of devastated territories,
+but after the War another theory was produced. If Germany and her
+allies are solely responsible for the War, they must pay the whole
+cost of the War: damage to property, persons and war works. When
+damage has been done, he who has done the wrong must make reparation
+for it to the utmost limit of his resources.
+
+The American delegation struck a note of moderation: no claim
+should be made beyond what was established in the peace conditions,
+reparation for actions which were an evident violation of
+international law, restoration of invaded country, and reparation for
+damage caused to the civil population and to its property.
+
+During the War there were a number of exaggerated pronouncements on
+the immense resources of Germany and her capacity for payment.
+
+Besides all the burdens with which Germany was loaded, there was a
+discussion on the sum which the Allies should claim. The War had cost
+700 milliard francs, and the claims for damage to persons and property
+amounted to at least 350 milliards for all the Allies together.
+
+Whatever the sum might be, when it had been laid down in the treaty
+what damage was to be indemnified, the French negotiators claimed
+sixty-five per cent., leaving thirty-five per cent. for all the
+others.
+
+What was necessary was to lay down proportions, not the actual amount
+of the sum. It was impossible to say at once what amount the damages
+would reach: that was the business of the Reparations Commission.
+
+Instead of inserting in the treaty the enormous figures spoken of, the
+quality, not the quantity, of the damages to be indemnified was laid
+down. But the standard of reckoning led to fantastic figures.
+
+An impossible amount had to be paid, and the delegations were
+discussing then the very same things that are being discussed now. The
+American experts saw the gross mistake of the other delegations, and
+put down as the maximum payment 325 milliard marks up to 1951, the
+first payment to be 25 milliard marks in 1921. So was invented the
+Reparations Commission machine, a thing which has no precedent in any
+treaty, being a commission with sovereign powers to control the life
+of the whole of Germany.
+
+In actual truth no serious person has ever thought that Germany can
+pay more than a certain number of milliards a year, no one believes
+that a country can be subjected to a regime of control for thirty
+years.
+
+But the directing line of work of the treaties has been to break down
+Germany, to cut her up, to suffocate her.
+
+France had but one idea, and later on did not hesitate to admit it:
+to dismember Germany, to destroy her unity. By creating intolerable
+conditions of life, taking away territory on the frontier, putting
+large districts under military occupation, delaying or not making any
+diplomatic appointments and carrying on communications solely through
+military commissions, a state of things was brought about which must
+inevitably tend to weaken the constitutional unity of the German
+Empire. Taking away from Germany 84 thousand kilometres of territory,
+nearly eight million inhabitants and all the most important mineral
+resources, preventing the unity of the German people and the six
+million and five hundred thousand of German Austrians to which
+Austria was then reduced, putting the whole German country under an
+interminable series of controls--all this did more harm to German
+unity than would have been done by taking the responsibility of a
+forcible and immediate division to which the Germans could not have
+consented and which the Allies could not have claimed to impose.
+
+What has been said about Germany and the Versailles Treaty can be said
+about all the other conquered countries and all the other treaties,
+with merely varying proportions in each case.
+
+The verdict that has to be passed on them will very soon be shown by
+facts--if indeed facts have not shown already that, in great measure,
+what had been laid down cannot be carried out. One thing is certain,
+that the actual treaties threaten to ruin conquerors and conquered,
+that they have not brought peace to Europe, but conditions of war and
+violence. In Clemenceau's words, the treaties are a way of going on
+with war.
+
+But, even if it were possible to dispute that, as men's minds cannot
+yet frame an impartial judgment and the danger is not seen by all,
+there is one thing that cannot be denied or disputed, and that is that
+the treaties are the negation of the principles for which the United
+States and Italy, without any obligation on them, entered the War;
+they are a perversion of all the Entente had repeatedly proclaimed;
+they break into pieces President Wilson's fourteen points which were a
+solemn pledge for the American people, and to-morrow they will be the
+greatest moral weapon with which the conquered of to-day will face the
+conquerors of to-day.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE CONQUERORS AND THE CONQUERED
+
+
+How many are the States of Europe? Before the War the political
+geography of Europe was almost tradition. To-day every part of
+Europe is in a state of flux. The only absolute certainty is that in
+Continental Europe conquerors and conquered are in a condition of
+spiritual, as well as economic, unrest. It is difficult indeed to say
+how many political unities there are and how many are lasting, and
+what new wars are being prepared, if a way of salvation is not found
+by some common endeavour to install peace, which the peace of Paris
+has not done. How many thinking men can, without perplexity, remember
+how many States there are and what they are: arbitrary creations of
+the treaties, creations of the moment, territorial limitations imposed
+by the necessities of international agreements. The situation of
+Russia is so uncertain that no one knows whether new States will
+arise as a result of her continuous disintegration, or if she will be
+reconstructed in a solid, unified form, and other States amongst those
+which have arisen will fall.
+
+Without taking into account those traditional little States which are
+merely historical curiosities, as Monaco, San Marino, Andorra, Monte
+Santo, not counting Iceland as a State apart, not including the
+Saar, which as a result of one of the absurdities of the Treaty
+of Versailles is an actual State outside Germany, but considering
+Montenegro as an existing State, Europe probably comprises thirty
+States. Some of them are, however, in such a condition that they do
+not give promise of the slightest guarantee of life or security.
+
+Europe has rather Balkanized herself: not only the War came from the
+Balkans, but also many ideas, which have been largely exploited in
+parliamentary and newspaper circles. Listening to many speeches and
+being present at many events to-day leaves the sensation of being in
+Belgrade or at Sarajevo.
+
+Europe, including Russia and including also the Polar archipelagos,
+covers an area of a little more than ten million square kilometres.
+Canada is of almost the same size; the United States of America has
+about the same territory.
+
+The historical procedure before the War was towards the formation of
+large territorial unities; the _post-bellum_ procedure is entirely
+towards a process of dissolution, and the fractionizing, resulting a
+little from necessity and a little also from the desire to dismember
+the old Empires and to weaken Germany, has assumed proportions almost
+impossible to foresee.
+
+In the relations between the various States good and evil are not
+abstract ideas: political actions can only be judged by their results.
+If the treaties of peace which have been imposed on the conquered
+would be capable of application, we could, from an ethnical point of
+view, regret some or many of the decisions; but we should only have to
+wait for the results of time for a definite judgment.
+
+The evil is that the treaties which have been signed are not
+applicable or cannot be applied without the rapid dissolution of
+Europe.
+
+So the balance-sheet of the peace, after three years from the
+armistice--that is, three years from the War--shows on the whole a
+worsening of the situation. The spirit of violence has not died out,
+and perhaps in some countries not even diminished; on the other hand
+the causes of material disagreement have increased, the inequality
+has augmented, the division between the two groups has grown, and the
+causes of hatred have been consolidated. An analysis of the foreign
+exchanges indicated a process of undoing and not a tendency to
+reconstruction.
+
+We have referred in a general manner to the conditions of Germany as a
+result of the Treaty of Versailles; even worse is the situation of the
+other conquered countries in so far that either they have not been
+treated with due regard, or they have lost so much territory that they
+have no possibility of reconstructing their national existence. Such
+is the case with Austria, with Turkey and with Hungary. Bulgaria,
+which has a tenacious and compact population composed of small
+agriculturists, has less difficult conditions of reconstruction.
+
+Germany has fulfilled loyally all the conditions of the disarmament.
+After she had handed over her fleet she destroyed her fortifications,
+she destroyed all the material up to the extreme limit imposed by the
+treaties, she disbanded her enormous armies. If in any one of the
+works of destruction she had proceeded with a bad will, if she had
+tried to delay them, it would be perfectly understandable. A different
+step carries one to a dance or to a funeral. At the actual moment
+Germany has no fleet, no army, no artillery, and is in a condition in
+which she could not reply to any act of violence. This is why all the
+violence of the Poles against Germany has found hardly any opposition.
+
+All this is so evident that no one can raise doubts on the question.
+
+Everyone remembers, said Hindenburg, the difficult task that the
+United States had to put in the field an army of a million men.
+Nevertheless they had the protection of the ocean during the period
+when they were preparing their artillery and their aerial material.
+
+Germany for her aviation, for her heavy artillery, for her armaments,
+is not even separated by the ocean from her Allies, and, on the
+contrary, they are firmly established in German territory; it would
+require many months to prepare a new war, during which France and her
+Allies would not be resting quietly.
+
+General Ludendorff recently made certain declarations which have a
+capital importance, since they fit the facts exactly. He declared
+that a war of reconquest by Germany against the Allies and especially
+against France is for an indefinite time completely impossible from
+the technical and military point of view. France has an army largely
+supplied with all the means of battle, ready to march at any time,
+which could smash any German military organization hostile to France.
+The more so since by the destruction of the German war industries
+Germany has lost every possibility of arming herself afresh. It is
+absurd to believe that a German army ready for modern warfare can be
+organized and put on a war footing secretly. A German army which could
+fight with the least possible hope of success against an enemy army
+armed and equipped in the most modern manner would first of all have
+to be based on a huge German war industry, which naturally could not
+be improvised or built up in secret. Even if a third power wished
+to arm Germany, it would not be possible to arm her so quickly and
+mobilize her in sufficient time to prevent the enemy army from
+obtaining an immediate and decisive victory.
+
+It would be necessary, as everyone realizes even in France, that
+Germany should wish to commit suicide. In consequence of the treaty
+there is the "maximum of obstacles which mind can conceive" to
+guard against any German peril; and against Germany there have been
+accumulated "_such guarantees that never before has history recorded
+the like_" (Tardieu), and Germany cannot do anything for many years.
+Mobilization requires years and years for preparation and the greatest
+publicity for its execution.
+
+Wilson spoke of guarantees _given and received_ for the reduction of
+armaments. Instead, after the treaties had been concluded, if the
+conquered were completely disarmed, the conquering nations have
+continued to arm. Almost all the conquering nations have not only high
+expenses but more numerous armies. If the conditions of peace imposed
+by the treaties were considered supportable, remembering the fact that
+the late enemies were harmless, against whom are these continuous
+increase of armaments?
+
+We have already seen the military conditions imposed on Germany--a
+small mercenary army, no obligatory conscription, no military
+instruction, no aviation, no artillery except a minimum and
+insignificant quantity required by the necessities of interior order.
+Austria, Bulgaria and Hungary can only have insignificant armies.
+Austria may maintain under arms 30,000 men, but her ruined finances
+only permit her, according to the latest reports, to keep 21,700;
+Bulgaria has 20,000 men plus 3,082 gendarmes; Hungary, according to
+the Treaty of Trianon, has 35,000. Turkey in Europe, which hardly
+exists any more as a territorial State, except for the city of
+Constantinople, where the sovereignty of the Sultan is more apparent
+than real, has not an actual army.
+
+Taken all together the States which formed the powerful nucleus of war
+of Germany as they are now reduced territorially have under arms fewer
+than 180,000 men, not including, naturally, those new States risen on
+the ruins of the old Central Empires, and which arm themselves by the
+request and sometimes in the interest of some State of the Entente.
+
+The old enemies, therefore, are not in a condition to make war, and
+are placed under all manner of controls. Sometimes the controls are
+even of a very singular nature. All have been occupied in giving the
+sea to the victors. Poland has obtained the absurd paradox of the
+State of Danzig because it has the sea. The constant aim of the
+Allies, even in opposition to Italy, has been to give free and safe
+outlets on the sea coast to the Serb-Croat-Slovene State.
+
+At the Conference of London and San Remo I repeatedly referred to
+the expenses of these military missions of control and often their
+outrageous imposition on the conquered who are suffering from hunger.
+There are generals who are assigned as indemnity and expenses of all
+sorts, salaries which are much superior to that of the President of
+the United States of America. It is necessary to look at Vienna and
+Budapest, where the people are dying of hunger, to see the carnival of
+the Danube Commission. For the rest it is only necessary to look at
+the expense accounts of the Reparations Commissions to be convinced
+that this sad spectacle of greed and luxury humiliates the victors
+more than the conquered.
+
+German-Austria has lost every access to the sea. She cannot live on
+her resources with her enormous capital in ruins. She cannot unite
+with Germany, though she is a purely German country, because the
+treaty requires the unanimous consent of the League of Nations, and
+France having refused, it is therefore impossible. She cannot unite
+with Czeko-Slovakia, with Hungary and other countries which have
+been formed from the Austrian Empire, because that is against the
+aspirations of the German populations, and it would be the formation
+anew of that Danube State which, with its numerous contrasts, was one
+of the essential causes of the War. Austria has lost every access
+to the sea, has consigned her fleet and her merchant marine, but in
+return has had the advantage of numerous inter-allied commissions of
+control to safeguard the military, naval and aeronautic clauses. But
+there are clauses which can no longer be justified, as, for instance,
+when Austria no longer has a sea coast. (Art. 140 of the Treaty of St.
+Germain, which forbids the construction or acquisition of: any sort of
+submersible vessel, even commercial.) It is impossible to understand
+why (Art. 143) the wireless high-power station of Vienna is not
+allowed to transmit other than commercial telegrams under the
+surveillance of the Allied and Associated Powers, who take the trouble
+to determine even the length of the wave to be used.
+
+Before the War, in 1914, France desired to bring her army to the
+maximum of efficiency; opposite a great German army was to be found a
+great French army.
+
+Germany had in 1913, according to the Budget presented to the
+Reichstag, a standing army of 647,000 soldiers of all arms, of which
+105,000 were non-commissioned officers and 30,000 officers. It was the
+greatest army of Europe and of the world, taking into account its real
+efficiency.
+
+Whilst Germany has no longer an army, France on July 1, 1921, had
+under arms 810,000 men, of which 38,473 were officers, therefore many
+more than Germany had before the War. Given its demographic character,
+it is the greatest military force which has been seen in modern times,
+and can only have two reasons--either military domination or ruin. The
+military budget proposed for the present year in the ordinary section
+is for 2,782 millions of francs, besides that portion paid by Germany
+for the army of occupation; the extraordinary section of the same
+budget is for 1,712 millions of francs, besides 635 millions for
+expenses repayable for the maintenance of troops of occupation in
+foreign countries.
+
+Austria-Hungary had in 1913 a total of 34,000 officers and 390,249
+men; the States which have arisen from her ruins have a good many
+more. Whilst German-Austria has, as a matter of fact, only 21,700 men
+and Hungary has only 35,000, Czeko-Slovakia has 150,000 men, of which
+10,000 are officers; Jugo-Slavia has about 120,000, of which 8,000 to
+10,000 are officers.
+
+But the two allies of France--Belgium and Poland, Belgium no longer
+neutral, Poland always in disorder and in a state of continual
+provocation abroad and of increasing anarchy at home--have in their
+turn armies which previous to the War could have been maintained only
+by a first-class power. Belgium has doubled her peace effectives,
+which now amount to 113,500 men, an enormous army for a population
+which is about equal to that of the city of New York or London.
+
+Poland, whose economic conditions are completely disastrous, and may
+be described as having neither money nor credit any more, but which
+maintains more employees than any other country on earth, has under
+arms not fewer than 430,000 men, and often many more, and possibly has
+to-day many more--about 600,000. Her treaty with France imposes on her
+military obligations the extension of which cannot be compatible with
+the policy of a country desiring peace. Poland has, besides, vast
+dreams of greatness abroad, and growing ruin in the interior. She
+enslaves herself in order to enslave others, and pretends in her
+disorder to control and dominate much more intelligent and cultured
+peoples.
+
+Rumania has under arms 160,000 men besides 80,000 carabineers and
+16,000 frontier guards. Greece has, particularly on account of her
+undertakings in Asia Minor, which only the lesser intelligence of her
+national exaltations can explain, more than 400,000 men under arms.
+She is suffocating under the weight of heavy armaments and can move
+only with difficulty.
+
+The two pupils of the Entente, Greece and Poland, exactly like naughty
+children, have a policy of greed and capriciousness. Poland was not
+the outcome of her own strength, but of the strength of the Entente.
+Greece never found the way to contribute heavily to the War with a
+strong army, and after the War has the most numerous army which she
+has ever had in her history.
+
+Great Britain and Italy are the only two countries which have largely
+demobilized; Great Britain in the much greater measure. It is
+calculated that Great Britain has under arms 201,000 men, of which
+15,030 are officers. In this number, however, are not included 75,896
+men in India and the personnel of the Air Force.
+
+In Italy, on July 31, 1921, there were under arms 351,076 soldiers
+and 18,138 officers, in all 369,214, of which, however, 56,529 were
+carabineers carrying out duties almost exclusively of public order.
+
+Under the pressure and as a result of the example of the States which
+have come through the War, those States which did not take part have
+also largely augmented their armies.
+
+So, whilst the conquered have ceased every preoccupation, the neutrals
+of the War have developed their armaments, and the conquerors have
+developed theirs beyond measure.
+
+No one can say what may be the position of Bolshevik Russia; probably
+she has not much less than a million of men under arms, also because
+in a communist regime the vagabonds and the violent find the easiest
+occupation in the army.
+
+The conquerors, having disarmed the conquered, have imposed their
+economic conditions, their absurd moralities and territorial
+humiliations, as those imposed on Bulgaria, Turkey and Hungary,
+conditions which are sufficiently difficult to be maintained. And as
+the ferment of hate develops, the conquerors do not disarm. Above
+all, the little States do not disarm, who have wanted too much, have
+obtained too much, and now do not know how to maintain what they
+have. In many countries for certain social reasons war has become an
+industry; they live by the state of war. What would they do without a
+state of war?
+
+In general, then, Europe has considerably more men under arms than in
+1913. Not only has it not disarmed, as the Entente always declared
+would be the consequence of the victory of the principles of
+democracy, but the victors are always leaning toward further armament.
+The more difficult it becomes to maintain the conditions of the peace,
+because of their severity and their absurdity, the more necessary it
+is to maintain armies. The conquered have not armies; the conquerors
+are, or, perhaps, up to a short time ago, were sure that the big
+armies would serve to enforce the payment of the indemnities. Now, in
+fact, they would not serve for anything else.
+
+At the Conference of London, after a long discussion in February,
+1920, the economic manifesto was drawn up which warned Europe of the
+perils of the economic situation. Lloyd George and myself were easily
+agreed in denouncing it as the gravest danger, as the principal cause
+of high prices and of economic disorder, both as to the maintenance of
+large armies and in the continuation of the state of war.
+
+A Europe divided distinctly into two parts cannot be pacific even
+after the conquered have yielded up their arms. The conquerors are
+bound to arm themselves because of their own inquietude, from the
+conviction that the only salvation is in force, which allows, if not
+a true peace, at least an armed peace; if not the development of
+production and exchange, at least the possibility of cutting off from
+the markets the very fountains of riches.
+
+Violence begets new violence. If the conditions of the peace cannot
+be fulfilled, other heavier conditions can be imposed. In France
+irresponsible people are supporting already the necessity of occupying
+permanently the Ruhr, that is to say, the greatest German centre for
+the production of coal, and of not respecting the plebiscite of Upper
+Silesia.
+
+What has been said about the armies is true also about the fleets.
+There is a race towards the increase of naval armaments. If first that
+was the preoccupation of the conquered, now it is the preoccupation of
+the conquerors in the exchange of doubts into which they have fallen
+after the War.
+
+The state of mind which has been created between Great Britain, the
+United States of America and Japan deserves to be seriously examined.
+The race for naval armaments into which these three countries entered
+not many months ago, and the competition between the two great
+Anglo-Saxon people, cannot be other than very damaging for
+civilization.
+
+The Great War which has been fought was at bottom the fight between
+the Germanic race and the Slav race; it was the doubts in regard to
+the last and not in regard to France which pushed Germany to war and
+precipitated events. The results of the Continental War, however, are
+the suppression of Germany, which lost, as well as of Russia, which
+had not resisted, and France alone has gathered the fruits of the
+situation, if they can be called that, from amongst the thorns which
+everywhere surround the victory.
+
+But the War was decided, above all, by the intervention of the
+Anglo-Saxon people, Great Britain, her Dominions, and the United
+States of America. Nothing but the small political intelligence of the
+German statesmen could have united in the same group the peoples
+who have the greatest contrast of interests among themselves--Great
+Britain, Russia, the United States of America, Japan, France and
+Italy.
+
+But now the situation of Europe and especially that of Asia is
+creating fresh competitions, the expenses for the navies, according to
+the figures of the various Budgets from 1914 to 1921, have risen in
+the United States of America from 702 millions of lire to 2,166, in
+Great Britain from 1,218 millions to 2,109, in Japan from 249 millions
+to 1,250, in France from 495 millions to 1,083, in Italy from 250
+millions to 402. The sums proposed for new constructions in the year
+1921-22 are 450 millions in the United States of America, 475 millions
+for Great Britain, 281 millions for Japan, 185 millions for France,
+and 61 millions for Italy.
+
+The United States of America and Great Britain are countries of great
+resources: they can stand the effort. But can Japan, which has but
+limited resources, support these for any length of time? or has she
+some immediate intentions?
+
+A comparative table of the navies in 1914 and 1921 shows that the
+fleets of the conquering countries are very much more powerful than
+they were before the War. Nevertheless, Russia and Austria-Hungary and
+the people arisen in their territories are not naval powers; Germany
+has lost all her fleet. The race for naval armaments regards
+especially the two Anglo-Saxon powers and Japan; the race for land
+armaments regards all the conquerors of Europe and especially the
+small States.
+
+This situation cannot but be the cause of great preoccupation; but
+the greater preoccupation arises from the fact that the minor States,
+especially those which took no part in the War, become every day more
+exigent and display fresh aspirations.
+
+The whole system of the Treaty of Versailles has been erected on the
+error of Poland. Poland was not created as the noble manifestation
+of the rights of nationality, ethnical Poland was not created, but a
+great State which, as she is, cannot live long, because there are not
+great foreign minorities, but a whole mass of populations which cannot
+co-exist, Poland, which has already the experience of a too numerous
+Israelitic population, has not the capacity to assimilate the Germans,
+the Russians and the Ukranians which the Treaty of Versailles has
+unjustly given to her against the very declarations of Wilson.
+
+So that after, with the aid of the Entente, having had the strength
+to resist the Bolshevik troops, Poland is now in a state of permanent
+anarchy; consumes and does not produce; pays debts with a fantastic
+bigness and does not know how to regulate the incomings. No country
+in the world has ever more abused paper currency; her paper money is
+probably the most greatly depreciated of any country on earth. She
+has not succeeded in organizing her own production, and now tends to
+dissolve the production of her neighbours.
+
+The whole Treaty of Versailles is based on a vigorous and vital
+Poland. A harmless Germany, unable to unite with an equally harmless
+German-Austria, should be under the military control of France and
+Belgium on the west, and of Poland on the east. Poland, separating
+Germany from Russia, besides imposing on Germany the territorial
+outrage of the Danzig corridor, cuts her off from any possibility of
+expansion and development in the east. Poland has been conceived as a
+great State. A Polish nation was not constituted; a Polish military
+State was constituted, whose principal duty is that of disorganizing
+Germany.
+
+Poland, the result of a miracle of the War (no one could foretell the
+simultaneous fall of the Central Empires and of the Russian Empire),
+was formed not from a tenacious endeavour, but from an unforeseen
+circumstance, which was the just reward for the long martyrdom of a
+people. The borders of Poland will reach in time to the Baltic Sea in
+the north, the Carpathians and the Dniester in the south, in the east
+the country almost as far as Smolensk, in the west to the parts of
+Germany, Brandenburg and Pomerania. The new patriots dream of an
+immense Poland, the old Poland of tradition, and then to descend into
+the countries of the Ukraine and dominate new territories.
+
+It is easy to see that, sooner or later, the Bolshevik degeneration
+over, Russia will be recomposed; Germany, in spite of all the attempts
+to break her up and crush her unity, within thirty or forty years will
+be the most formidable ethnical nucleus of Continental Europe. What
+will then happen to a Poland which pretends to divide two people who
+represent numerically and will represent in other fields also the
+greatest forces of Continental Europe of to-morrow?
+
+Amongst many in France there is the old conception of Napoleon I, who
+considered the whole of European politics from an erroneous point of
+view, that of a lasting French hegemony in Europe, when the lasting
+hegemony of peoples is no longer possible. In the sad solitude of his
+exile at Saint Helena, Napoleon I said that not to have created a
+powerful Poland keystone of the roof of the European edifice, not to
+have destroyed Prussia, and to have been mistaken in regard to Russia,
+were the three great errors of his life. But all his work had as an
+end to put the life of Europe under the control of France, and was
+necessarily wrecked by reality, which does not permit the lasting
+mistake of a single nation which places herself above all the others
+in a free and progressive Europe.
+
+If the policy of the Entente towards Germany and towards the conquered
+countries does not correspond either to collective declarations made
+during the War, or to the promises solemnly made by Wilson, the policy
+towards Russia has been a whole series of error. In fact, one cannot
+talk of a policy of the Entente, in so far that with the exception of
+a few errors committed in common, Great Britain, France and Italy have
+each followed their own policy.
+
+In his sixth point, among the fourteen points, no longer pure, but
+violated and outraged worse than the women of a conquered race by a
+tribe of Kurds, Wilson said on January 8, 1918, that the treatment
+meted out to Russia by the sister nations, and therefore their loyalty
+in assisting her to settle herself, should be the stern proof of
+their goodwill. They should show that they did not confound their
+own interests, or rather their egoism, with what should be done for
+Russia. The proof was most unfortunate.
+
+The attitude of the Entente towards Russia has had different phases.
+
+In the first phase, the prevailing idea, especially on the part of
+one of the Allies, was to send military expeditions in conjunction
+especially with Rumania and Poland. This idea was immediately
+abandoned on account of its very absurdity.
+
+In the second phase, the greatest hopes were placed in the blockade;
+of isolating Russia completely, cutting off from her (and for the rest
+she no longer had it) every facility of trade exchange. At the same
+time war on the part of Poland and Rumania was encouraged, to help the
+attempt which the men of the old regime were making in the interior.
+France alone reached the point of officially recognizing the Tsarist
+undertaking of General Wrangel.
+
+Lloyd George, with the exception of some initial doubts, always had
+the clearest ideas in regard to Russia, and I never found myself in
+disagreement with him in valuing the men and the Russian situation. It
+is easy for a broad and serene mind to judge the position of the rest.
+
+For my part I always tried to follow that policy which would best
+bring about the most useful result with the least damage. After the
+War the working masses in Europe had the greatest illusions about
+Russian communism and the Bolshevik organization. Every military
+expedition against Russia signified giving the people the conviction
+that it was desired not to fight an enemy but to suffocate in blood an
+attempt at a communist organization. I have always thought that the
+dictatorship of the proletariat, that is the dictatorship of ignorance
+and incapacity, would necessarily lead to disaster, and that hunger
+and death would follow violence. There are for the peoples great
+errors which must be carried out in the very effort to benefit
+civilization. Our propaganda would have served nothing without the
+reality of ruin. Only the death by hunger of millions of men in
+communist Russia will convince the working masses in Europe and
+America that the experiment of Russia is not to be followed; rather is
+it to be avoided at any cost. To exterminate the communist attempt by
+an unjust war, even if it were possible, would have meant ruin for
+Western civilization.
+
+On repeated occasions I have counselled Rumania and Poland not to make
+any attempt against Russia and to limit themselves to defence. Every
+unjust aggression on the part of Bolshevik Russia would have found the
+Entente disposed to further sacrifice to save two free nations, but
+any provocation on their part could not create secure solidarity.
+
+When I assumed the direction of the Government in June, 1919, an
+Italian military expedition was under orders for Georgia. The English
+troops, who were in small numbers, were withdrawing; Italy had, with
+the consent of the Allies, and partly by her own desire, prepared
+a big military expedition. A considerable number of divisions were
+ready, as also were the ships to commence the transport. Georgia is a
+country of extraordinary natural resources, and it was thought
+that she would be able to furnish Italy with a great number of raw
+materials which she lacked. What surprised me was that not only men of
+the Government, but intelligent financiers and men of very advanced
+ideas, were convinced supporters of this expedition.
+
+However, confronted by much opposition, I immediately renounced this
+undertaking, and renounced it in a definite form, limiting myself to
+encouraging every commercial enterprise.
+
+Certainly the Allies could not suggest anything unfriendly to Italy;
+but the effect of the expedition was to put Italy directly at variance
+with the government of Moscow, to launch her upon an adventure of
+which it was impossible to tell the consequences.
+
+In fact, not long afterwards Georgia fell into the hands of the
+Bolsheviks, who sent there an army of 125,000 men, and since then
+she has not been able to liberate herself. If Italy had made that
+expedition she would have been engaged in a frightful military
+adventure, with most difficult and costly transport in a theatre of
+war of insuperable difficulty. To what end?
+
+Georgia before the War formed part of the Russian Empire, and no
+country of the Entente had considered that unjust. Further, as though
+the vast empire and the dominion of the Caucasus were not enough for
+Russia, the Entente with monstrous condescension had given to Russia
+Constantinople and the Straits and a huge zone in Asia Minor. How
+could you take away from Russia a territory which was legitimately
+hers? And _vice versa_, if Georgia and the other States of the
+Caucasus had sufficient strength to live autonomously, how can
+you dominate Aryan people who have risen to a notable state of
+development?
+
+To go to Georgia inevitably meant war with Russia for Italy, and one,
+moreover, fraught with extraordinary difficulties. In fact, later, the
+government of Moscow, as we have said, succeeded in invading as well
+as Georgia almost all the republics of the Caucasus. And at San Remo,
+discussing the possibility of an expedition on the part of Great
+Britain, France and Italy to defend at least the oil production, after
+the report of a military committee presided over by Marshal Foch, the
+conclusion was quickly and easily arrived at that it was better to
+leave the matter alone.
+
+Italy had already made an expedition into Albania, the reason for
+which beyond the military necessities for the period of the War has
+never been understood, except that of spending a huge sum without
+receiving the gratitude of the Albanians; an expedition in Georgia
+would have done harm, the consequence of which cannot be readily
+measured, it could, indeed, have meant ruin.
+
+Even those minds that are most blinded by prejudice and hate recognize
+the complete failure of the Russian communist system. The so-called
+dictatorship of the proletariat is reduced in practice to a military
+dictatorship of a communist group which represents only a fraction of
+the working classes and that not the best. The Bolshevik government
+is in the hands of a small minority in which fanaticism has taken the
+place of character. Everything which represented the work of the past
+has been destroyed and they have not known how to construct anything.
+The great industries have fallen and production is paralysed. Russia
+has lived for a long time on the residues of her capitalistic
+production rather than on new productions. The productivity of her
+agricultural and industrial work has been killed by communism, and the
+force of work has been reduced to a minimum. The Russian people are in
+straits which have no comparison, and entire territories are dying of
+hunger. The communist regime in a short time has precipitated such
+damage and such misery as no system of oppression could achieve in
+centuries. It is the proof, if any were necessary, that the form of
+communist production is not only harmful but not even lasting. The
+economists say that it is absurd, but, given the collective madness
+which has attacked some people, nothing is absurd beyond hoping in the
+rapid recovery of the most excited nations.
+
+If any country could be the scene of a communist experiment it was
+Russia. Imperial Russia represented the most vast continuative
+territory which a State ever occupied in all history's records of vast
+empires. Under the Tsars a territory which was almost three times the
+size of the United States of America was occupied by a people
+who, with the exception of a few cases of individual revolt, were
+accustomed to the most servile obedience. Under Nicholas II a few men
+exercised rule in a most despotic form over more than 180,000,000
+individuals spread over an immense territory. All obeyed blindly.
+Centralization was so great, and the obedience to the central power so
+absolute, that no hostile demonstration was tolerated for long. The
+communist regime therefore was able to count not only on the apathy
+of the Russian people but also upon the blindest obedience. To this
+fundamental condition of success, to a Government which must regulate
+production despotically, was joined another even greater condition
+of success. Russia is one of those countries which, like the United
+States of America, China and Brazil (the four greatest countries
+of the earth, not counting the English dominions with much thinner
+populations), possess within their own territories everything
+necessary for life. Imagine a country of self-contained economy, that
+lives entirely upon her own resources and trades with no one (and that
+is what happened in Russia as a result of the blockade), Russia has
+the possibility of realizing within herself the most prosperous
+conditions of existence. She has in her territories everything: grain,
+textile fibres, combustibles of every sort; Russia is one of the
+greatest reserves, if not the greatest reserve, in the world.
+Well, the communist organization was sufficient, the bureaucratic
+centralization, which communism must necessarily carry with it, to
+arrest every form of production. Russia, which before could give grain
+to all, is dying of hunger; Russia, which had sufficient quantities of
+coal for herself and could give petroleum to all Europe, can no longer
+move her railways; Russia, which had wool, flax, linen, and could have
+easily increased her cotton cultivation in the Caucasus, cannot even
+clothe the soldiers and functionaries of the Bolshevik State. Ceased
+is the stimulus of individual interest; few work; the peasants work
+only to produce what their families need; the workers in the city are
+chiefly engaged in meetings and political reunions. All wish to
+live upon the State, and production, organized autocratically and
+bureaucratically, every day dries up and withers a bit more.
+
+To those who read the collection of laws issued by the Bolshevik
+government many institutions appear not only reasonable, but also full
+of interest and justice. Also many laws of the absolute governments
+of past regimes appear intelligent and noble. But the law has not in
+itself any power of creation; it regulates relations, does not create
+them. It can even take away wealth from some and give it to others,
+but cannot create the wealth. When the individual interest begins to
+lack, work, which is sorrow and pain, lags and does not produce. To
+begin with, it weakens in the short days when energy is avoided, and
+then it stops through incapacity for energy. The old fundamental truth
+is that in all the Aryan tongues the words which indicate work have
+the same root as the words which denote pain. Among the great mass of
+man work is only done by necessity or under the stimulus of individual
+interest which excites the production of wealth. They work for wealth;
+and therefore in the Aryan tongues wealth means dominion and power.
+
+Two years ago I wanted, in spite of the opinion of others, to consent
+to the Italian Socialists visiting Russia. I was convinced that
+nothing would have served better to break in Italy the sympathy
+for Russia, or rather the illusions of the revolutionaries, as the
+spectacle of famine and disorder would. Never did the Press of my
+country, or the greater part of it, criticize with more violence a
+proposal which I considered to be both wise and prudent. I am glad to
+state that I was right, and that, maybe through the uncertainties
+and the lessons of those who had spread the illusions, the Italian
+Socialists returned from Russia were bound to recognize that the
+communist experiment was the complete ruin of the Russian people. No
+conservative propaganda could have been more efficacious than the
+vision of the truth.
+
+I am convinced that the hostile attitude, and almost persecution, on
+the part of the Entente rather helped the Bolshevik government, whose
+claims to discredit were already so numerous that it was not necessary
+to nullify it by an unjust and evident persecution.
+
+The Bolshevik government could not be recognized: it gave no
+guarantees of loyalty, and too often its representatives had violated
+the rights of hospitality and intrigued through fanatics and excited
+people to extend the revolution. Revolution and government are two
+terms which cannot co-exist. But not to recognize the government of
+the Soviet does not mean that the conditions of such recognition must
+include that the War debt shall be guaranteed, and, worse still, the
+pre-War debt, or that the gold resources and the metals of Russia
+shall be given as a guarantee of that debt. This morality, exclusively
+financial and plutocratic, cannot be the base of international
+relations in a period in which humanity, after the sorrows of the War,
+has the annoyance of a peace which no one foresaw and of which very
+few in the early days understood the dangers.
+
+Even when there was a tendency favourable to the recognition of the
+republic of the Soviet, I was always decidedly against it. It is
+impossible to recognize a State which bases all its relations on
+violence, and which in its relations with foreign States seeks, or
+has almost always sought, to carry out revolutionary propaganda. Even
+when, yielding to an impulse which it was not possible to avoid--in
+the new Italian Chamber, after the elections of 1919 not only the
+Socialists, but above all the Catholic popular party and the party of
+Rinnovamento, of which the ex-soldiers especially formed part, voted
+unanimously an order of the day for the recognition of the actual
+government of Russia--I did not think it right to give, and did not
+give, effect to that vote, impulsively generous, which would have
+invested Italy with the responsibility of recognizing, even if it were
+_de facto_, the government of the Soviet.
+
+I have always, however, rebelled and would never give my consent to
+any military undertakings against Russia, not even to a participation
+in the undertakings of men of the old regime. It was easy to foresee
+that the population would not have followed them and that the
+undertakings were doomed to failure. However, all the attempts at
+military revolts and counter-revolutions were encouraged with supplies
+of arms and material. But in 1920 all the military undertakings, in
+spite of the help given, failed one after another. In February the
+attempt of Admiral Koltchak failed miserably, and in March that of
+General Judenic. Failed has the attempt of Denikin. All the hopes of
+the restoration were centred in General Wrangel. The only Grand Duke
+with any claim to military authority also sent to tell me that this
+was a serious attempt with probability of success. General Wrangel, in
+fact, reunited the scattered forces of the old regime and occupied a
+large territory in power. France not only recognized in the government
+of Wrangel the legitimate representative of Russia, but nominated her
+official representatives with him. In November, 1920, even the army
+of Wrangel, which appeared to be of granite, was scattered. Poland,
+through alternating vicissitudes, claimed the power of resistance, but
+has shown that she has no offensive power against Russia. So all the
+attempts at restoration have broken, one after another.
+
+One of the greatest errors of the Entente has been to treat Russia
+on many occasions, not as a fallen friend, but as a conquered enemy.
+Nothing has been more deplorable than to have considered as Russia the
+men of the old regime, who have been treated for a long time as the
+representatives of an existing State when the State no longer existed.
+
+Let us suppose that the Bolshevik government transforms itself and
+gives guarantees to the civilized nations not to make revolutionary
+agitations in foreign countries, to maintain the pledges she assumes,
+and to respect the liberty of citizens; the United States of America,
+Great Britain and Italy would recognize her at once. But France has an
+entirely different point of view. She will not give any recognition
+unless the creditors of the old regime are guaranteed.
+
+In June, 1920, the government of Moscow sent some gold to Sweden to
+purchase indispensable goods. Millerand, President of the Council of
+Ministers and Minister of Foreign Affairs, declared to the Minister of
+Sweden at Paris that if his Government consented to receive Russian
+gold _ferait acte de receleur_. He then telegraphed to the Minister of
+Finance at Stockholm regretting that the Government and public opinion
+in Sweden were tending to consider the _revendications juridiques_ of
+the French creditors of the ancient Russian regime to be such that
+they did not stop the consignment of Swedish goods against Russian
+gold. He added at the end that the syndicates of creditors could
+utilize the news in telegram No. 355, in which the Swedish Government
+gave notice of the trade and put a sequestration on Russian gold sent
+to Sweden.
+
+This telegram, better than any speech, shows the diversity of
+conception.
+
+The Bolshevik government may be so immoral that we cannot recognize
+it until it gives serious guarantees. But if the government of Moscow
+sends a little of the gold that remains, or has remained, to buy
+goods, what right have we to sequestrate the gold in the interests of
+the creditors of the old regime?
+
+The new regime, born after the revolution, can also not recognize the
+debts of the old regime and annul them. It is not for that that we
+have no relations with it.
+
+We have pushed Germany by absurd demands to ruin her circulation. It
+is already at about 100 milliard of marks; if to-morrow it goes to 150
+or to 200, it will be necessary to annul it, nearly the same as is
+done for bills of exchange. And for this should we not treat with
+Germany?
+
+The new plutocratic conception, which marks the policy of a section
+of the Entente, is not lasting, and the people have a justifiable
+diffidence towards it.
+
+Bolshevism, as I have repeatedly stated, cannot be judged by our
+western eyes: it is not a popular and revolutionary movement; it is a
+religious fanaticism of the orthodox of the East hoisted on the throne
+of Tsarist despotism.
+
+Italy is the country which suffers most from the lack of continuous
+relations with Russia in so far that almost all Italian commerce, and
+in consequence the prices of freight and goods, have been for almost
+half a century regulated by the traffic with the Black Sea.
+
+Ships which leave England fully laden with goods for Italy generally
+continue to the Black Sea, where they fill up with grain, petroleum,
+etc., and then return to England, after having taken fresh cargoes in
+Italy and especially iron in Spain. It was possible in Italy for long
+periods of time to obtain most favourable freights and have coal at
+almost the same price as in England. The voyages of the ships were
+made, both coming and going, fully laden.
+
+The situation of Russia, therefore, hurts especially Italy. Great
+Britain has Mediterranean interests; France is partly a Mediterranean
+nation; Italy alone is a Mediterranean nation.
+
+Although Italy has a particular interest in reopening relations with
+Russia, the Italian Government has understood that the best and
+shortest way is not to recognize the government of Moscow. But Italy
+will never subordinate her recognition to plutocratic considerations.
+Whatever government there may be in Italy, it will never associate
+itself with actions directed to compelling Russia, in order to be
+recognized, to guarantee the payment of obligations assumed previous
+to the War and the revolution. Civilization has already suppressed
+corporal punishment for insolvent debtors, and slavery, from which
+individuals are released, should not be imposed on nations by
+democracies which say they are civilized.
+
+The fall of the communistic organization in Russia is inevitable. Very
+probably from the immense revolutionary catastrophe which has hit
+Russia there will spring up the diffusion of a regime of small landed
+proprietors. Whatever is contrary to human nature is not lasting, and
+communism can only accumulate misery, and on its ruins will arise new
+forms of life which we cannot yet define. But Bolshevik Russia can
+count still on two elements which we do not habitually take into
+account: the apathy and indolence of the people on the one hand, and
+the strength of the military organization on the other. No other
+people would have resigned itself to the intense misery and to the
+infinite sufferings which tens of millions of Russians endure without
+complaint. But still in the midst of so much misery no other people
+would have known how to maintain a powerful and disciplined army such
+as is the army of revolutionary Russia.
+
+The Russian people have never had any sympathy for the military
+undertakings which the Entente has aided. During some of the meetings
+of Premiers at Paris and London I had occasion, in the sittings of
+the conferences, to speak with the representatives of the new
+States, especially those from the Caucasus. They were all agreed
+in considering that the action of the men of the old regime, and
+especially Denikin, was directed at the suppression of the independent
+States and to the return of the old forms, and they attributed to this
+the aversion of the Russian people to them.
+
+Certainly it is difficult to speak of Russia where there exists no
+longer a free Press and the people have hardly any other preoccupation
+than that of not dying of hunger. Although it is a disastrous
+organization, the organization of the Soviet remains still the only
+one, which it is not possible to substitute immediately with another.
+Although the Russian people can re-enter slowly into international
+life and take up again its thread, a long time is necessary, but also
+it is necessary to change tactics.
+
+The peasants, who form the enormous mass of the Russian people, look
+with terror on the old regime. They have occupied the land and will
+maintain that occupation; they do not want the return of the great
+Russian princes who possessed lands covering provinces and were even
+ignorant of their possessions. One of the causes which has permitted
+Bolshevism to last is, as I have said, the attitude of the Entente,
+which on many occasions has shown the greatest sympathy for the men of
+the old regime. The Tsar of Russia was an insignificant man, all the
+Grand Dukes were persons without dignity and without credit, and the
+Court and Government abounded with men without scruples--violent,
+thieves, and drunkards. If Bolshevik government had been ruin, no one
+can deny but that a great part of the blame belongs to the old regime,
+the return of which no honest man desires.
+
+An error not less serious was to allow Poland to occupy large tracts
+of purely Russian territory.
+
+There remain in Europe, therefore, so many states of unrest which do
+not only concern the conditions of the conquered countries, but also
+those of the conquering countries. We have already seen how Germany
+and the States which form part of her group cannot now any longer
+represent a danger of war for many years to come, and that none the
+less the victorious countries and the new States continue to arm
+themselves in a most formidable manner. We have seen what an element
+of disorder Poland has become and how the policy of the Entente
+towards Russia has constituted a permanent danger.
+
+But all Europe is still uncertain and the ground is so movable that
+any new construction threatens ruin. Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria,
+Turkey, cannot live under the conditions imposed on them by the
+treaties. But the new States for the most part are themselves in a
+sufficiently serious position.
+
+With the exception of Finland all the other States which have arisen
+on the ruins of the Russian Empire are in serious difficulty. If
+Esthonia and Lithuania are in a fairly tolerable situation Lettonia is
+in real ruin, and hunger and tuberculosis rule almost everywhere, as
+in many districts of Poland and Russia. At Riga hunger and sickness
+have caused enormous losses amongst the population. Recently 15,000
+children were in an extremely serious physical and mental condition.
+In a single dispensary, of 663 children who were brought for treatment
+151 were under-nourished, 229 were scrofulous, 66 anaemic, and 217
+suffering from rickets. The data published in England and the United
+States and those of the Red Cross of Geneva are terrible.
+
+Even with the greatest imagination it is difficult to think how
+Hungary and Austria can live and carry out, even in the smallest
+degree, the obligations imposed by the treaties. By a moral paradox,
+besides living they must indemnify the victors, according to the
+Treaties of St. Germain and the Trianon, for all the damages which the
+War has brought on themselves and which the victors have suffered.
+
+Hungary has undergone the greatest occupation of her territories and
+her wealth. This poor great country, which saved both civilization and
+Christianity, has been treated with a bitterness which nothing can
+explain except the desire of greed of those surrounding her, and the
+fact that the weaker people, seeing the stronger overcome, wish and
+insist that she shall be reduced to impotence. Nothing, in fact, can
+justify the measures of violence and the depredations committed in
+Magyar territory. What was the Rumanian occupation of Hungary: a
+systematic rapine and the systematic destruction for a long time
+hidden, and the stern reproach which Lloyd George addressed in London
+to the Premier of Rumania was perfectly justified. After the War
+everyone wanted some sacrifice from Hungary, and no one dared to say a
+word of peace or goodwill for her. When I tried it was too late.
+The victors hated Hungary for her proud defence. The adherents of
+Socialism do not love her because she had to resist, under more
+than difficult conditions, internal and external Bolshevism. The
+international financiers hate her because of the violences committed
+against the Jews. So Hungary suffers all the injustices without
+defence, all the miseries without help, and all the intrigues without
+resistance.
+
+Before the War Hungary had an area almost equal to that of Italy,
+282,870 square kilometres, with a population of 18,264,533
+inhabitants. The Treaty of Trianon reduced her territory to 91,114
+kilometres--that is, 32.3 per cent.--and the population to 7,481,954,
+or 41 per cent. It was not sufficient to cut off from Hungary the
+populations which were not ethnically Magyar. Without any reason
+1,084,447 Magyars have been handed over to Czeko-Slovakia, 457,597 to
+Jugo-Slavia, 1,704,851 to Rumania. Also other nuclei of population
+have been detached without reason.
+
+Amongst all the belligerents Hungary perhaps is the country which in
+comparison with the population has had the greatest number of dead;
+the monarchy of the Habsburgs knew that they could count on the
+bravery of the Magyars, and they sent them to massacre in all the most
+bloody battles. So the little people gave over 500,000 dead and an
+enormous number of injured and sick.
+
+The territories taken from Hungary represent two-thirds of her mineral
+wealth; the production of three million quintali (300,000 tons) of
+gold and silver is entirely lost; the great production of salt is
+also lost to her (about 250,000 tons). The production of iron ore is
+reduced by 19 per cent., of anthracite by 14 per cent., of lignite by
+70 per cent.; of the 2,029 factories, hardly 1,241 have remained to
+Hungary; more than three-quarters of the magnificent railway wealth
+has been given away.
+
+Hungary at the same time has lost her greater resources in agriculture
+and cattle breeding.
+
+The capital, henceforth, too large for a too small state, carries
+on amidst the greatest difficulties, and there congregate the most
+pitiable of the Transylvanian refugees and those from other lost
+regions.
+
+The demographic structure of Hungary, which up to a few years ago was
+excellent, is now threatening. The mortality among the children and
+the mortality from tuberculosis have become alarming. At Budapest,
+even after the War, the number of deaths surpasses the number of
+births. The statistics published by Dr. Ferenczi prove that the
+number of children afflicted with rickets and tuberculosis reaches in
+Budapest the terrific figure of 250,000 in a population of about two
+millions. It is said that practically all the new-born in recent
+years, partly through the privations of the mothers and partly from
+the lack of milk, are tuberculous.
+
+The conditions of life are so serious that there is no comparison;
+some prices have only risen five to tenfold, but very many from thirty
+to fifty and even higher. Grain, which before the War cost 31 crowns,
+costs now 500 crowns; corn has passed from 17 to 220 and 250 crowns.
+A kilogram of rice, which used to cost 70 centimes, can be found now
+only at 80 crowns. Sugar, coffee and milk are at prices which are
+absolutely prohibitive.
+
+Of the financial situation it is almost useless to speak. The
+documents presented to the Conference of Brussels are sad evidence,
+and a sure index is the course of the crown, now so reduced as to have
+hardly any value in international relations. The effective income is
+more than a fourth part of the effective expenses, and the rest is
+covered especially by the circulation.
+
+Such is the situation of Hungary, which has lost everything, and which
+suffers the most atrocious privations and the most cruel pangs of
+hunger. In this condition she should, according to the Treaty of
+Trianon, not only have sufficient for herself, but pay indemnities to
+the enemy.
+
+The Hungarian deputies, at the sitting which approved the Treaty of
+Trianon, were clad in mourning, and many were weeping. At the close
+they all rose and sang the national hymn.
+
+A people which is in the condition of mind of the Magyar people can
+accept the actual state of affairs as a temporary necessity, but have
+we any faith that it will not seek all occasions to retake what it has
+unjustly lost, and that in a certain number of years there will not be
+new and more terrible wars?
+
+I cannot hide the profound emotion which I felt when Count Apponyi,
+on January 16, 1920, before the Supreme Council at Paris, gave the
+reasons of Hungary.
+
+You, gentlemen [he said], whom victory has permitted to place
+yourselves in the position of judges, you have pronounced the
+culpability of your late enemies and the point of view which directs
+you in your resolutions is that of making the consequences of the War
+fall on those who were responsible for it.
+
+Let us examine now with great serenity the conditions imposed on
+Hungary, conditions which are inacceptable without the most serious
+consequences. Taking away from Hungary the larger part of her
+territory, the greater part of her population, the greater portion of
+her economic resources, can this particular severity be justified by
+the general principles which inspire the Entente? Hungary not having
+been heard (and was not heard except to take note of the declaration
+of the head of the delegation), cannot accept a verdict which destroys
+her without explaining the reasons.
+
+The figures furnished by the Hungarian delegation left no doubt
+behind: they treated of the dismemberment of Hungary and the sacrifice
+of three millions and a half of Magyars and of the German population
+of Hungary to people certainly more ignorant and less advanced. At the
+end Apponyi and the Hungarian delegation did not ask for anything more
+than a plebiscite for the territories in dispute.
+
+After he had explained in a marvellous manner the great function of
+historic Hungary, that of having saved on various occasions Europe
+from barbaric invasion, and of having known how to maintain its unity
+for ten centuries in spite of the many differences amongst nations,
+Count Apponyi showed how important it was for Europe to have a solid
+Hungary against the spread of Bolshevism and violence.
+
+You can say [added Apponyi] that against all these reasons there is
+only one--victory, the right of victory. We know it, gentlemen; we are
+sufficient realists in politics to count on this factor. We know what
+we owe to victory and we are ready to pay the price of our defeat. But
+should this be the sole principle of construction: that force alone
+should be the basis of what you would build, that force alone should
+be the base of the new building, that material force alone should be
+the power to hold up those constructions which fall whilst you are
+trying to build them? The future of Europe would then be sad, and we
+cannot believe it. We do not find all that in the mentality of the
+victorious nations; we do not find it in the declarations in which you
+have defined the principles for which you have fought, and the objects
+of the War which you have proposed to yourselves.
+
+And after having referred to the traditions of the past, Count Apponyi
+added:
+
+We have faith in the sincerity of the principles which you have
+proclaimed: it would be doing you injustice to think otherwise. We
+have faith in the moral forces with which you have wished to identify
+your cause. And all that I wish to hope, gentlemen, is that the glory
+of your arms may be surpassed by the glory of the peace which you will
+give to the world.
+
+The Hungarian delegation was simply heard; but the treaty, which had
+been previously prepared and was the natural consequence of the Treaty
+of Versailles, was in no way modified.
+
+An examination of the Treaty of Trianon is superfluous. By a stroke
+of irony the financial and economic clauses inflict the most serious
+burdens on a country which had lost almost everything: which has lost
+the greatest number of men proportionately in the War, which since
+the War has had two revolutions, which for four months suffered the
+sackings of Bolshevism--led by Bela Kun and the worst elements of
+revolutionary political crime--and, finally, has suffered a Rumanian
+occupation, which was worse almost than the revolutions or Bolshevism.
+
+It is impossible to say which of the peace treaties imposed on the
+conquered is lasting and which is the least supportable: after the
+Treaty of Versailles, all the treaties have had the same tendency and
+the same conformation.
+
+The situation of German-Austria is now such that she can say with
+Andromache: "Let it please God that I have still something more to
+fear!" Austria has lost everything, and her great capital, which was
+the most joyous in Europe, shelters now a population whose resources
+are reduced to the minimum. The slump in her production, which is
+carried on amidst all the difficulties, the fall in her credit, the
+absolute lack of foreign exchanges, the difficulty of trading with the
+hostile populations which surround her, put Austria in an extremely
+difficult position and in progressive and continuous decadence. The
+population, especially in the cities, is compelled to the hardest
+privations; the increase of tuberculosis is continuous and
+threatening.
+
+Bulgaria has had rather less loss, and although large tracts of
+Bulgarian territory have been given without any justifiable motive to
+Greece and Jugo-Slavia, and although all outlet on the Aegean has been
+taken from her by assigning to Greece lands which she cannot maintain,
+on the whole Bulgaria, after the Treaty of Neuilly, has less sharp
+sufferings than the other conquered countries. Bulgaria had a
+territorial extension of 113,809 square kilometres; she has now lost
+about 9,000 square kilometres. She had a population of 4,800,000, and
+has lost about 400,000.
+
+As for Turkey, if the treaties should continue to exist, she can be
+considered as disappearing from Europe and on the road to disappear
+from Asia. The Turkish population has been distributed haphazard,
+especially to Greece, or divided up under the form of mandates to
+countries of the Entente. According to the Treaty of Sevres of August
+10, 1920, Turkey abandons all her territory in Europe, withdrawing her
+frontier to the Ciatalgia lines.
+
+Turkey in Europe is limited, therefore, to the surroundings of
+Constantinople, with little more than 2,000 square kilometres, and a
+population which is rather hard to estimate, but which is that only of
+the city and the surroundings--perhaps a million and a half men. In
+Asia Minor Turkey loses the territory of the Sanjak of Smyrna,
+over which, however, she retains a purely nominal sovereignty; the
+territory still undefined of the Armenian Republic: Syria, Cilicia,
+Palestine and Mesopotamia, which become independent under mandatory
+powers; in Arabia the territory of the Hedjaz, whilst the remainder
+of the peninsula will enjoy almost complete independence. Besides,
+Constantinople and the Straits are subject to international control,
+and the three States now the most closely interested--Great Britain,
+France and Italy--assume the control of the finances and other aspects
+of the Ottoman administration.
+
+Every programme has ignored Turkey except when the Entente has had
+opportunity to favour Greece. The Greece of Venezelos was the ward of
+the Entente almost more than Poland itself. Having participated in the
+War to a very small extent and with almost insignificant losses, she
+has, after the War, almost trebled her territory and almost doubled
+her population. Turkey was put entirely, or almost so, outside Europe;
+Greece has taken almost everything. Rejected was the idea of fixing
+the frontier on the Enos Medea line, and the frontier fixed at
+Ciatalgia; Constantinople was under the fire of the Greek artillery,
+and Constantinople was nominally the only city which remained to
+Turkey. The Sanjak of Smyrna, in Asia Minor, was the true wealth of
+Turkey; it represented forty-five per cent. of the imports of the
+Turkish Empire. Although the population of the whole vilayet of Audin
+and the majority of the Sanjak of Smyrna was Mussulman, Greece had the
+possession. The whole of Thrace was assigned to Greece; Adrianople,
+a city sacred to Islam, which contains the tombs of the Caliphs, has
+passed to the Greeks.
+
+The Entente, despite the resistance of some of the heads of
+governments, always yielded to the requests of Greece. There was a
+sentiment of antipathy for the Turks and there was a sympathy for
+the Greeks: there was the idea to put outside Europe all Mussulman
+dominion, and the remembrance of the old propaganda of Gladstone, and
+there were the threats of Wilson, who in one of his proposals desired
+exactly to put Turkey outside Europe. But above all there was the
+personal work of Venezelos. Every request, without being even examined
+thoroughly, was immediately justified by history, statistics,
+ethnography. In any discussion he took care to _solliciter doucement
+les textes_ as often the learned with few scruples do. I have met few
+men in my career who united to an exalted patriotism such a profound
+ability as Venezelos. Every time that, in a friendly way, I gave him
+counsels of moderation and showed him the necessity of limiting the
+requests of Greece, I never found a hard or intemperate spirit. He
+knew how to ask and obtain, to profit by all the circumstances, to
+utilize all the resources better even than the professional diplomats.
+In asking he always had the air of offering, and, obtaining, he
+appeared to be conceding something. He had at the same time a supreme
+ability to obtain the maximum force with the minimum of means and a
+mobility of spirit almost surprising.
+
+He saw no difficulty, convinced as he was, of erecting a Greek Empire
+on the remnants of Turkey. Every time that doubts were expressed to
+him, or he was shown data which should have moderated the positions,
+he denied the most evident things, he recognized no danger, and saw
+no difficulty. He affirmed always with absolute calm the certainty of
+success. It was his opinion that the Balkan peninsula should be, in
+the north, under the action of the Serb-Croat-Slovene State and of
+Rumania, and in the south of Greece. But Greece, having almost all the
+islands of the Aegean, a part of the territory of Turkey and all the
+ports in the Aegean, and having the Sanjak of Smyrna, should form
+a littoral Empire of the East and chase the Turks into the poorer
+districts of Anatolia.
+
+In the facility with which the demands of Greece were accepted (and
+in spite of everything they were accepted even after the fall of
+Venezelos) there was not only a sympathy for Greece, but, above
+all, the certainty that a large Greek army at Smyrna would serve
+principally towards the security of those countries which have and
+wished to consolidate great interests in Asia Minor, as long as the
+Turks of Anatolia were thinking specially about Smyrna and could not
+use her forces elsewhere. For the same motive, in the last few years,
+all the blame is attributed to the Turks. If they have erred much, the
+errors, even the minor ones, have been transformed into crimes. The
+atrocities of the Turks have been described, illustrated, exaggerated;
+all the other atrocities, often no less serious, have been forgotten
+or ignored.
+
+The idea of a Hellenic Empire which dominates all the coast of the
+Aegean in Europe and Asia encounters one fundamental difficulty. To
+dominate the coast it is necessary to have the certainty of a large
+hinterland. The Romans in order to dominate Dalmatia were obliged to
+go as far as the Danube. Alexander the Great, to have a Greek Empire,
+had, above all, to provide for land dominion. Commercial colonies or
+penetration in isolation are certainly possible, but vast political
+organizations are not possible. It is not sufficient to have
+territory; it is necessary to organize it and regulate the life.
+Mankind does not nourish itself on what it eats, and even less on what
+it digests, but on what it assimilates.
+
+Historians of the future will be profoundly surprised to learn that in
+the name of the principle of nationality the vilayet of Adrianople,
+which contains the city dearest to the heart of Islam after Mecca, was
+given to the Greeks. According to the very data supplied by Venezelos
+there were 500,000 Turks, 365,000 Greeks, and 107,000 Bulgarians; in
+truth the Turks are in much greater superiority.
+
+The Grand Vizier of Turkey, in April, 1920, presented a note to the
+ambassadors of the Entente to revindicate the rights on certain
+vilayets of the Turkish Empire. According to this note, in Western
+Thrace there were 522,574 inhabitants, of which 362,445 were
+Mussulmans. In the vilayet of Adrianople, out of 631,000 inhabitants,
+360,417 were Mussulmans. The population of the vilayet of Smyrna is
+1,819,616 inhabitants, of which 1,437,983 are Mussulmans. Perhaps
+these statistics are biased, but the statistics presented by the
+opposing party were even more fantastic.
+
+After having had so many territorial concessions, Greece--who during
+the War had enriched herself by commerce--is obliged, even after the
+return of Constantine, who did not know how to resist the pressure,
+to undertake most risky undertakings in Asia Minor, and has no way of
+saving herself except by an agreement with Turkey. In the illusion of
+conquering the Turkish resistance, she is now obliged to maintain
+an army twice as big as that of the British Empire! The dreams of
+greatness increase: some little military success has given Greece the
+idea also that the Treaty of Sevres is only a foundation regulating
+the relationship with the Allies and with the enemy, and constituting
+for Greece a title of rights, the full possession of which cannot be
+modified. The War determines new rights which cannot invalidate the
+concessions already given, which, on the contrary, are reinforced and
+become intangible, but renders necessary new concessions.
+
+What will happen? Whilst Greece dreams of Constantinople, and we have
+disposed of Constantinople and the Straits, Turkey seems resigned to
+Constantinople itself, to-day a very poor international city rather
+than a Turkish city. The Treaty of Sevres says that it is true that
+the contracting States are in agreement in not offending any of the
+rights of the Ottoman government on Constantinople, which remains
+the capital of the Turkish Empire, always under the reserve of
+the dispositions of the treaty. That is equivalent to saying of a
+political regime that it is a controlled "liberty," just as in
+the time of the Tsars it was said that there existed a _Monarchie
+constitutionnelle sous un autocrate_. Constantinople under the Treaty
+of Sevres is the free capital of the Turkish Empire under the reserve
+of the conditions which are contained in the treaty and limit exactly
+that liberty.
+
+The force of Turkey has always been in her immense power of
+resistance. Win by resisting, wear out with the aid of time, which the
+Turks have considered not as an economic value, but as their friend.
+To conquer the resistance of Turkey, both in the new territories of
+Europe and in Asia Minor, Greece will have to exhaust the greater
+part of her limited resources. The Turks have always brought to a
+standstill those who would dominate her, by a stubborn resistance
+which is fanaticism and national dignity. On the other hand, the
+Treaty of Sevres, which has systematized in part Eastern Europe, was
+concluded in the absence of two personages not to be unconsidered,
+Russia and Germany, the two States which have the greatest interest
+there. Germany, the War won, as she could not give her explanations on
+the conclusions of peace, was not able to intervene in the solutions
+of the question of the Orient. Russia was absent. Worn out with the
+force of a war superior to her energies, she fell into convulsions,
+and is now struggling between the two misfortunes of communism and
+misery, of which it is hard to say whether one, or which of the two,
+is the consequence of the other.
+
+One of the most characteristic facts concerns Armenia. The Entente
+never spoke of Armenia. In his fourteen points Wilson neither
+considered nor mentioned it. It was an argument difficult for the
+Entente in so far that Russia was straining in reality (under the
+necessity of protecting the Christians) to take Turkish Armenia
+without leaving Russian Armenia.
+
+But suddenly some religious societies and some philanthropic people
+instituted a vast movement for the liberation of Armenia. Nothing
+could be more just than to create a small Armenian State which would
+have allowed the Armenians to group themselves around Lake Van and
+to affirm their national unity in one free State. But here also
+the hatred of the Turks, the agitation of the Greeks, the dimly
+illuminated philanthropy, determined a large movement to form a great
+State of Armenia which should have outlets on the sea and great
+territories.
+
+So that no longer did people talk of a small State, a refuge and safe
+asylum for the Armenians, but of a large State. President Wilson
+himself, during the Conference of San Remo, sent a message in the form
+of a recalling to mind, if not a reproof, to the European States of
+the Entente because they did not proceed to the constitution of a
+State of Armenia. It was suggested to bring it down to Trebizond, to
+include Erzeroum in the new Armenia, a vast State of Armenia in which
+the Armenians would have been in the minority. And all that in homage
+to historical tradition and for dislike of the Turks! A great Armenia
+creates also a series of difficulties amongst which is that of the
+relations between Armenia, Georgia and Azerbajan, supposing that in
+the future these States cut themselves off definitely from Russia. The
+great Armenia would include the vilayet of Erzeroum, which is now
+the centre of Turkish nationalism, and contains more Mussulmans than
+Armenians. As a matter of fact the vilayet of Erzeroum has 673,000
+Mussulmans, 1,800 Greeks and 135,000 Armenians.
+
+When it was a question of giving Greece territories in which the
+Greeks were in a minority it was said that the populations were so
+badly governed by the Turks that they had the right to pass under
+a better regime, whatever it might be. But for a large part of the
+territory of the so-called Great Armenia it is possible to commit the
+error of putting large majorities of Mussulman people under a hostile
+Armenian minority.
+
+The Armenians would have to fight at the same time against the Kurds
+and against Azerbajan; they are surrounded by enemies on all sides.
+
+But the whole of the discussion of giving the vilayet of Erzeroum to
+Armenia or leaving it to Turkey is entirely superfluous, for it is
+not a question of attributing territory but of determining actual
+situations. If it is desired to give to the Armenians the city of
+Erzeroum, it is first of all necessary that they shall be able to
+enter and be able to remain there. Now since the Armenians have not
+shown, with a few exceptions, a great power of resistance, and are
+rather a race of merchants than warriors, it would be necessary for
+others to undertake the charge of defending them. None of the European
+States desired a mandate for Armenia, and no one wished to assume
+the serious military burden of protecting the Armenians; the United
+States, after having in the message of Wilson backed a great Armenia,
+wished even less than the other States to interest themselves in it.
+
+Probably proposals of a more reasonable character and marked by less
+aversion for the Turks would have permitted the Turks not only to
+recognize, which is not difficult for them, but in fact to respect,
+the new State of Armenia, without the dreams of a sea coast and the
+madness of Erzeroum.
+
+If the condition of the conquered is sufficiently serious
+the situation of the peoples most favoured by the Entente in
+Europe--Poland and Greece, who have obtained the greatest and most
+unjust increases in territory, having given for a diversity of reasons
+extremely little during the War--is certainly not less so. Each of
+these countries are suffocating under the weight of the concessions,
+and seek in vain a way of salvation from the burdens which they are
+not able to support, and from the mania of conquest which are the
+fruits of exaltation and error.
+
+Having obtained much, having obtained far more than they thought or
+hoped, they believe that their advantage lies in new expansion. Poland
+violates treaties, offends the laws of international usage, and
+is protected in everything she undertakes. But every one of her
+undertakings can only throw her into greater discomfort and augment
+the total of ruin.
+
+All the violences in Upper Silesia to prevent the plebiscite going in
+favour of Germany were not only tolerated but prepared far ahead.
+
+When I was head of the Italian Government the representative of the
+German Government in Rome, von Herf, gave documentary evidence on what
+was being prepared, and on April 30, 1920, in an audience which I gave
+him as head of the Council he furnished me with proofs of what was
+the Polish organization, what were its objects and the source of its
+funds.
+
+As everyone knows, the plebiscite of March 20, 1921, in spite of the
+violence and notwithstanding the officially protected brigandage,
+resulted favourably to Germany. Out of 1,200,636 voters 717,122 were
+for Germany and 483,514 for Poland. The 664 richest, most prosperous
+and most populous communes gave a majority for the Germans, 597
+communes gave a majority for Poland. The territory of Upper Silesia,
+according to the treaty, according to the plebiscite, according to the
+most elementary international honesty, should be immediately handed
+over to Germany. But as they do not wish to give the coal of
+Upper Silesia to Germany, and the big interests of the new great
+metallurgical group press and trick, the Treaty of Versailles has here
+also become a _chiffon de papier_.
+
+Instead of accepting, as was the first duty, the result of the
+plebiscite, people have resorted to sophism of incomparable weakness:
+Article 88 of the Treaty of Versailles says only that the inhabitants
+of Upper Silesia shall be called to designate by means of a plebiscite
+if they desire to be united to Germany or to Poland.
+
+It was necessary to find a sophism!
+
+The Addendum of Section 8 establishes how the work of scrutiny shall
+be carried out and all the procedure of the elections. There are six
+articles of procedure. Paragraph 4 says that each one shall vote in
+the commune where he is domiciled or in that where he was born if he
+has not a domicile in the territory. The result of the vote shall be
+determined commune by commune, according to the majority of votes in
+each commune.
+
+This means then that the results of the voting, as is done in
+political questions in all countries, should, be controlled commune by
+commune: it is the form of the scrutiny which the appendix defines.
+Instead, in order to take the coal away from Germany, it was
+attempted, and is being still attempted, not to apply the treaty, but
+to violate the principle of the indivisibility of the territory and to
+give the mining districts to Poland.
+
+The violation of the neutrality of Belgium was not an offence to a
+treaty more serious than this attempt; the Treaty of 1839 cannot be
+considered a _chiffon de papier_ more than the Treaty of Versailles.
+Only the parties are inverted.
+
+It is not France, noble and democratic, which inspires these
+movements, but a plutocratic situation which has taken the same
+positions, but on worse grounds, as the German metallurgists before
+the War. It is the same current against which Lloyd George has several
+times bitterly protested and for which he has had very bitter words
+which it is not necessary to recall. It is the same movement which has
+created agitations in Italy by means of its organs, and which attempt
+one thing only: to ruin the German industry and, having the control of
+the coal, to monopolize in Europe the iron industries and those which
+are derived from it.
+
+First of all, in order to indemnify France for the _temporary_ damages
+done to the mines in the North, there was the cession _in perpetuo_ of
+the mines of the Saar; then there were the repeated attempts to occupy
+the territory of the Ruhr to control the coal; last of all there is
+the wish not to apply the plebiscite and to violate the Treaty of
+Versailles by not giving Upper Silesia to Germany, but giving it
+abusively to Poland.
+
+Germany produced before the War about 190,000,000 tons of coal; in
+1913 191,500,000. The consumption of these mines themselves was about
+a tenth, 19,000,000 tons, whilst for exportation were 83,500,000 tons,
+and for internal consumption were 139,000,000.
+
+Now Germany has lost, and justly, Alsace-Lorraine, 3,800,000 tons. She
+has lost, and it was not just, the Saar, 13,200,000 tons. She is bound
+by the obligations of the treaty to furnish France with 20,000,000
+tons, and to Belgium and Italy and France again another 25,000,000
+tons. If she loses the excellent coal of Upper Silesia, about
+43,800,000 tons per year, she will be completely paralysed.
+
+It is needless to lose time in demonstrating for what geographic,
+ethnographic and economist reason Upper Silesia should be united with
+Germany. It is a useless procedure, and also, after the plebiscites,
+an insult to the reasoning powers. If the violation of treaties is not
+a right of the victor, after the plebiscite, in which, notwithstanding
+all the violences, three-quarters of the population voted for Germany,
+then there is no reason for discussion.
+
+The words used by Lloyd George on May 18, 1921, in the House of
+Commons, are a courteous abbreviation of the truth. From the
+historical point of view, he said, Poland has no rights over Silesia.
+The only reason for which Poland could claim Upper Silesia is that it
+possesses a numerous Polish population, arrived there in comparatively
+recent times with the intention of finding work, and especially in the
+mines. That is true and is more serious than would be an agitation of
+the Italians in the State of San Paulo of Brazil, claiming that they
+had a majority of the population.
+
+"The Polish insurrection," said Lloyd George justly, "is a challenge
+to the Treaty of Versailles, which, at the same time, constitutes the
+charter of Polish Liberty." Poland is the last country in Europe which
+has the right to deplore the treaty, because Poland did not conquer
+the treaty. Poland did not gain her liberty, and more than any other
+country should respect every comma of the treaty. She owes her liberty
+to Italy, Great Britain and France.
+
+In the future [said the English Prime Minister] force will lose its
+efficiency in regard to the Treaty of Versailles, and the maintenance
+of the undertakings on the part of Germany on the basis of her
+signature placed to the treaty will count increasingly. We have the
+right to everything which she gives us: but we have the right also to
+leave everything which is left to her. It is our duty of impartiality
+to act with rigorous justice, without taking into account the
+advantages or the disadvantages which may accrue therefrom. Either the
+Allies must demand that the treaty shall be respected, or they should
+permit the Germans to make the Poles respect it. It is all very well
+to disarm Germany, but to desire that even the troops which she does
+possess should not participate in the re-establishment of order is a
+pure injustice.
+
+Russia [added Lloyd George] to-day is a fallen Power, tired, a prey
+to a despotism which leaves no hope, but is also a country of great
+natural resources, inhabited by a people of courage, who at the
+beginning of the War gave proof of its courage. Russia will not always
+find herself in the position in which she is to-day. Who can say what
+she will become? In a short time she may become a powerful country,
+which can say its word about the future of Europe and the world. To
+which part will she turn? With whom will she unite?
+
+
+There is nothing more just or more true than this.
+
+But Poland wants to take away Upper Silesia from Germany
+notwithstanding the plebiscite and against the treaty, and which has
+in this action the aid of the metallurgical interests and the great
+interests of a large portion of the Press of all Europe. Poland, which
+has large nuclei of German populations, after having been enslaved,
+claims the right to enslave populations, which are more cultured,
+richer and more advanced. And besides the Germans it claims the right
+to enslave even Russian peoples and further to occupy entire Russian
+territories, and wishes to extend into Ukraine. There is then the
+political paradox of Wilna. This city, which belongs according to the
+regular treaty to Lithuania, has been occupied in an arbitrary manner
+by the Poles, who also claim Kowno.
+
+In short, Poland, which obtained her unity by a miracle, is working in
+the most feverish manner to create her own ruin. She has no finance,
+she has no administration, she has no credit. She does not work, and
+yet consumes; she occupies new territories, and ruins the old ones. Of
+the 31,000,000 inhabitants, as we have seen, 7 millions are Ukranians,
+2.2 Russians, 2.1 Germans, and nearly half a million of other
+nationalities. But among the eighteen or nineteen million Poles there
+are at least four million Jews--Polish Jews, without doubt, but
+the greater portion do not love Poland, which has not known how to
+assimilate them. The Treaty of Versailles has created the absurd
+position that to go from one part to the other of Germany it is
+necessary to traverse the Danzig corridor. In other terms, Germany is
+cut in two parts, and to move in Prussia herself from Berlin to one of
+the oldest German cities, the home of Emanuel Kant, Konigsberg, it is
+necessary to traverse Polish territory.
+
+So Poland separates the two most numerous people of Europe: Russia and
+Germany. The Biblical legend lets us suppose that the waters of
+the Red Sea opened to let the Chosen People pass: but immediately
+afterwards the waters closed up again. Is it possible to suppose that
+such an arbitrary arrangement as this will last for long?
+
+If it has lasted as long as it has, it is because it was, at least
+from the part of one section of the Entente, not the road to peace,
+but because it was a method of crushing down Germany.
+
+If a people had conditions for developing rapidly it was
+Czeko-Slovakia. But also with the intention of hurting Germany and the
+German peoples, a Czeko-Slovak State was created which has also
+its own tremendous crisis of nationality. A Czeko-Slovakia with a
+population of eight to nine million people represented a compact
+ethnical unity. Instead, they have added five and a half million
+people of different nationalities, amongst whom about 4,000,000
+Germans, with cities which are the most German in the world, as
+Pilsen, Karlsbad, Reichenberg, etc. What is even more serious is that
+the 4,000,000 Germans are attached to Germany, and, having a superior
+culture and civilization, will never resign themselves to being placed
+under the Czeks.
+
+Czeko-Slovakia had mineral riches, industrial concerns and solid
+agriculture, and a culture spread among the people--all the conditions
+for rising rapidly. All these advantages risk being annulled by the
+grave and useless insult to the Germans and Magyars.
+
+Not only is the situation of Europe in every way uncertain, but there
+is a tendency in the groups of the victors on the Continent of Europe
+to increase the military budgets. The relationships of trade are being
+restored only slowly; commerce is spoken of as an aim. In Italy the
+dangers and perils of reopening trade with Germany have been seriously
+discussed; customs duties are raised every day; the industrial groups
+find easy propaganda for protection. Any limitation of competition is
+a duty, whether it be the enemy of yesterday or the enemy of to-day,
+and so the greatest evils of protection are camouflaged under
+patriotism.
+
+None of the countries which have come out of the War on the Continent
+have a financial position which helps toward a solid situation.
+All the financial documents of the various countries, which I have
+collected and studied with great care, contain enormous masses
+of expenses which are the consequences of the War; those of the
+conquering countries also contain enormous aggregations of expenses
+which are or can become the cause of new wars.
+
+The conquered countries have not actually any finance. Germany has an
+increase of expenses which the fall of the mark renders more serious.
+In 1920 she spent not less than ninety-two milliards, ruining her
+circulation. How much has she spent in 1921?
+
+Austria and Hungary have budgets which are simply hypotheses. The last
+Austrian budget, for 1921, assigned a sum of seventy-one milliards
+of crowns for expenses, and this for a poor country with 7,000,000
+inhabitants.
+
+A detailed examination of the financial situation of Czeko-Slovakia,
+of Rumania, and of the Serbo-Croat States gives results which are at
+the least alarming. Even Greece, which until yesterday had a solid
+structure, gallops now in a madness of expenditure which exceeds all
+her resources, and if she does not find a means to make peace with
+Turkey she will find her credit exhausted. The most ruinous of all
+is the situation of Poland, whose finance is certainly not better
+regulated than that of the Bolsheviks of Moscow, to judge from the
+course of the Polish mark and the Russian rouble if anyone gets the
+idea of buying them on an international market.
+
+The situation of the exchange since the War has not sensibly bettered
+even for the great countries, and it is extraordinarily worse for the
+other countries.
+
+In June, 1921, France had a circulation of about thirty-eight milliard
+of francs, Belgium six milliard of francs, Italy of about eighteen
+milliards; Great Britain, between State notes and Bank of England
+notes, had hardly L434,000,000 sterling. Actually, among the
+continental countries surviving the War, Italy is the country which
+has made the greatest efforts not to augment the circulation but to
+increase the duties; also because she had no illusions of rebuilding
+her finance and her national economy on an enemy indemnity.
+
+But the conquered countries have so abused their circulation that
+they almost live on the thought of it--as, in fact, not a few of the
+conquering countries and those come out from the War do. Germany has
+passed eighty-eight milliards, and is rapidly approaching one hundred
+milliards. Now, when one thinks that the United States, after so many
+loans and after all the expenses of the War, has only a circulation of
+4,557,000,000 dollars, one understands what difficulty Germany has to
+produce, to live, and to refurnish herself with raw materials.
+
+Only Great Britain of all the countries in Europe which have issued
+from the War has had a courageous financial policy. Public opinion,
+instead of pushing Parliament to financial dissipation, has insisted
+on economy. If the situation created by the War has transformed also
+the English circulation into unconvertible paper money, this is merely
+a passing fact. If the sterling loses on the dollar--that is, on
+gold--given the fact that the United States of America alone now have
+a money at par, almost a quarter of its value, this is also merely a
+transitory fact.
+
+Great Britain has the good sense to curtail expenses, and the sterling
+tends always to improve.
+
+France and Italy are in an intermediate position. Their money can be
+saved, but it will require energetic care and great economies,
+stern finance, a greater development of production, limitation of
+consumption, above all, of what is purchased from abroad. At the date
+of which I am writing, expressed on a percentual basis, the French
+franc is worth 47 centimes of the sterling and 36 of the dollar--that
+is to say, of gold. The Italian lira is worth 28 centimes of the
+sterling and 21 of the dollar.
+
+Here are still two countries in which tenacious energy can save and
+with many sacrifices they can arrive at good money. France has a good
+many more resources than Italy; she has a smaller need of importations
+and a greater facility for exportations. But her public debt has
+reached 265 milliards, the circulation has well passed thirty-eight
+milliards, and they still fear to calculate amongst the extraordinary
+income of the budget the fifteen milliards a year which should come
+from Germany.
+
+Italy, with great difficulty of production and less concord inside the
+country, has a more true vision, and does not reckon any income which
+is not derived from her own resources. Her circulation does not pass
+eighteen milliards, and her debt exceeds by a little one hundred
+milliards.
+
+With prudence and firmness France and Italy will be able to balance
+their accounts.
+
+But the financial situation and the exchanges of the conquered
+countries, even that of Germany, may be called desperate.
+
+If expressed in percentages, the German mark is worth 5.11 per cent.
+in comparison with the pound sterling and 3.98 per cent. of the
+dollar. What possibility is there of systematizing the exchange?
+
+Germany was compelled this year to carry her expenses to 130 milliards
+of marks. As her circulation has exceeded eighty-eight milliards, how
+can she straighten out her money?
+
+As for the Austrian and Hungarian crowns, the Jugo-Slav crowns, the
+Rumanian lei, and all the other depreciated moneys, their fate is not
+doubtful. As their value is always descending, and the gold equivalent
+becomes almost indeterminable, they will have a common fate. As for
+the Polish mark, it can be said that before long it will not be worth
+the paper on which it is printed.
+
+There is, then, the fantastic position of the public debts! They have
+reached now such figures that no imagination could have forecasted.
+France alone has a debt which of itself exceeds by a great deal
+all the debts of all the European States previous to the War: 265
+milliards of francs. And Germany, the conquered country, has in her
+turn a debt which exceeds 320 milliards of marks, and which is rapidly
+approaching 400 milliards. The debts of many countries are only
+recorded by feats of memory, because there is no practical interest in
+knowing whether Austria, Hungary, and especially Poland, has one debt
+or another, since the situation of the creditors is not a situation of
+reality.
+
+The whole debt of the United States of America is, after so much war,
+only 23,982,000,000 dollars; but the United States are creditors of
+the Entente for 9,500,000,000 dollars. Also England, against a debt of
+L9,240,000,000 sterling, has a credit of L1,778,000,000.
+
+These serious figures, whilst they increase the condition of
+discomfort rendered even more serious by the scarcity of commercial
+exchanges, indicate also what necessity may be superior to all in
+every country to preserve internal peace: produce more, consume less,
+put the finances in order, and reconquer the credits.
+
+Instead, the conquered countries are going downwards every day and the
+conquering countries are maintaining very big armies, exhausting their
+resources, whilst they are spreading the conviction that the indemnity
+from the enemy will compensate sufficiently, or at least partially,
+for the work of restoration.
+
+In fact, the causes of discontent and diffidence are augmenting.
+Nothing is more significant than the lack of conscience with which
+programmes of violence and of ruin are lightly accepted; nothing is
+more deplorable than the thoughtlessness with which the germs of new
+wars are cultivated. Germany has disarmed with a swiftness which has
+even astonished the military circles of the Entente; but the bitter
+results of the struggle are not only not finished against Germany,
+not even to-day does she form part of the League of Nations (which is
+rather a sign of a state of mind than an advantage), but the attitude
+towards her is even more hostile.
+
+Two years after the end of the war R. Poincare wrote that the League
+of Nations would lose its best possibility of lasting if, _un jour_,
+it did not reunite all the nations of Europe. But he added that of
+all the conquered nations--Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey and
+Germany--the last-mentioned, by her conduct during the War and
+after the peace, justified least a near right of entry. It would be
+_incontestablement plus naturel_ (of how many things does nature
+occupy herself!) to let Austria enter first if she will disavow the
+policy of reattachment--that is, being purely German, renounce
+against the principle of nationality, in spite of the principle
+of auto-decision, when she cannot live alone, to unite herself to
+Germany; Bulgaria and Turkey as long as they had a loyal and courteous
+attitude towards Greece, Rumania and Serbia. The turn of Germany
+will come, but only after Turkey, when she will have given proof of
+executing the treaty, which no reasonable and honest person considers
+any more executable in its integrity.
+
+The most characteristic facts of this peace which continues the War
+can be recapitulated as follows:
+
+1. Europe on the whole has more men under arms than before the War.
+The conquered States are forced to disarm, but the conquering States
+have increased the armaments; the new States and the countries which
+have come through the War have increased their armaments.
+
+2. Production is very tardily being taken up again because there is
+everywhere, if in a different degree, a lesser desire for work on
+the part of the working classes joined with a need for higher
+remuneration.
+
+3. The difficulties of trade, instead of decreasing in many countries
+of Europe are increasing, and international commerce is very slowly
+recovering. Between the States of Europe there is not a real commerce
+which can compare with that under normal conditions. Considering
+actual values with values before the War, the products which now form
+the substance of trade between European countries do not represent
+even the half of that before the War.
+
+As the desire for consumption, if not the capacity for consumption,
+has greatly increased, and the production is greatly decreased, all
+the States have increased their functions. So the discredit of the
+paper money and the Treasury bills which permit these heavy expenses
+is in all the countries of Europe, even if in different degrees, very
+great.
+
+The conquering countries, from the moment that they had obtained in
+the treaties of peace the acknowledgment of the conquered that the War
+was caused by them, held it to be legitimate that they should lose all
+their disposable goods, their colonies, their ships, their credits and
+their commercial organization abroad, but that the conquered should
+also pay all the damages of the War. The War, therefore, should be
+paid for by the conquered, who recognized (even if against their will)
+that they were alone responsible. That forms henceforth a certain
+canon of foreign politics, the less a thing appears true the more it
+is repeated.
+
+Although the treaties oblige Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey to
+pay the damages of the War, it is, however, certain that they are not
+able to pay anything and not even the expenses of the victors on their
+territory. "_Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator_," said Juvenal
+("Who has nothing can give nothing"), and Austria, for her part,
+instead of giving is imploring food succour.
+
+So the problem remains limited to Germany. Can she pay the indemnity
+indicated in the treaty? Can she pay for the damages and indemnify the
+victors? After having given up her colonies, her ships, her railway
+material, all her disposable credits abroad, in what form can she pay?
+
+The fundamental controversy reduces itself henceforth only to this
+point, which we shall try if possible to make clear, since we desire
+that this matter shall be presented in the clearest and most evident
+form.
+
+From now on it is not the chancelleries which must impose the
+solutions of great problems; but it is the mass of the public in
+Europe and America.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE ANXIETIES OF THE VICTORS
+
+
+We have seen the process by which the idea of the indemnity for
+damages, which was not contained either in the peace declaration of
+the Entente, nor in the manifestations of the various parliaments, nor
+in the first armistice proposals, nor in the armistice between Italy
+and Austria, was introduced in the armistice with Germany, out of pure
+regard for France, without taking heed of the consequences. Three
+words, said Clemenceau, only three words need be added, words which
+compromise nothing and are an act of deference to France. The entire
+construction of the treaties, after all, is based on those three
+words.
+
+And how fantastic the demands for compensation have become!
+
+An old Italian proverb says, "In time of war there are more lies than
+earth." Ancient and modern pottery reproduce the motto, which is
+widespread, and whose truth was not understood until some years
+ago. So many foolish things were said about the almost mysterious
+manoeuvres of Germany, about her vast expansion, her great resources
+and accumulated capital, that the reality tended to become lost to
+sight.
+
+These absurd legends, formed during the War, were not forgotten, and
+there are even now many who believe in good faith that Germany can
+pay, if not twenty or twenty-five milliards a year, at least eight or
+nine without any difficulty.
+
+France's shrewdest politicians, however, well knew that the demand
+for an enormous and unlimited indemnity was only a means of putting
+Germany under control and depressing her to the point of exhaustion.
+But the others maintained this proposal more out of rancour and hatred
+than from any actual political concept. It may be said that the
+problem of the indemnity has never been seriously studied and that the
+calculations, the valuations, the procedures, have all formed a series
+of impulsive acts co-ordinated by a single error, the error of the
+French politicians who had the one aim of holding Germany down.
+
+The procedure was simple.
+
+In the first phase the indemnities came into being from three words
+inserted almost by chance into the armistice treaty on November 2,
+1918, _reparation des dommages_. It was merely a matter of a simple
+expression to content public feeling: _Je supplie le conseil de se
+mettre dans l'esprit de la population francaise_.... It was a moral
+concession, a moral satisfaction.
+
+But afterwards, as things went on, all was altered when it came to
+preparing the treaties.
+
+For a while the idea, not only of a reparation of damages, but of the
+payment of the cost of the War was entertained. It was maintained that
+the practice of making the vanquished reimburse the cost of the War
+was permitted by international law. Since Germany had provoked the War
+and lost it, she must not only furnish an indemnity for the losses,
+but also pay the cost.
+
+The cost was calculated roughly at seven hundred milliards of francs
+at par. Further, there was the damage to assess. In the aggregate, war
+costs, damage to property, damage to persons, came to at least one
+thousand milliards. But since it was impossible to demand immediate
+payment and was necessary to spread the sum over fifty years, taking
+into consideration sinking funds and interest the total came to three
+thousand milliards. The amount was published by the illustrated papers
+with the usual diagrams, drawings of golden globes, length of paper
+money if stretched out, height of metal if all piled up together, etc.
+etc.
+
+These figures were discussed for the first few months by a public
+accustomed to be surprised at nothing. They merely helped to
+demonstrate that an indemnity of 350 milliards was a real sacrifice
+for the Allies.
+
+Thus a whole series of principles came to be established which were a
+contradiction of reality.
+
+A great share in the responsibility in this matter lies with Great
+Britain, who not only followed France's error, but in certain ways
+made it worse by a number of intemperate requests. Italy had no
+influence on the proceedings owing to her indecisive policy. Only the
+United States, notwithstanding the banality of some of her experts
+(_lucus a non lucendo_), spoke an occasional word of reason.
+
+When Lloyd George understood the mistake committed in the matter of
+the indemnity it was too late.
+
+The English public found itself face to face with the elections almost
+the day after the conclusion of the War. In the existing state of
+exaltation and hatred the candidates found a convenient "plank" in
+promising the extermination of Germany, the trial of the Kaiser, as
+well as of thousands of German officers accused of cruelty, and last,
+but not least, the end of German competition.
+
+The Prime Minister of Australia, William Morris Hughes, a
+small-minded, insensitive, violent man, directed a furious campaign
+in favour of a huge indemnity. Lord Northcliffe lent the aid of his
+numerous papers to this campaign, which stirred up the electors.
+
+Lloyd George, with his admirable intelligence, perceived the situation
+clearly. He did not believe in the usefulness or even in the
+possibility of trying the Kaiser and the German officers. He did not
+believe in the possibility of an enormous indemnity or even a very
+large one.
+
+His first statements, like those of Bonar Law, a serious, honest,
+well-balanced man, an idealist with the appearance of a practical
+person, revealed nothing. On the eve of the dissolution of Parliament,
+Lloyd George, speaking at Wolverhampton, November 24, 1918, did not
+even hint at the question of the reparations or indemnity. He was
+impelled along that track by the movement coming from France, by the
+behaviour of the candidates, by Hughes's attitude, and by the Press
+generally, especially that of Northcliffe.
+
+A most vulgar spectacle was offered by many of the English candidates,
+among whom were several members of the War Cabinet, who used language
+worthy of raving dervishes before crowds hypnotized by promises of the
+most impossible things.
+
+To promise the electors that Germany should pay the cost of the War,
+to announce to those who had lost their senses that the Kaiser was to
+be hanged, to promise the arrest and punishment of the most guilty
+German officers, to prophesy the reduction to slavery of a Germany
+competing on sea and land, was certainly the easiest kind of
+electoral programme. The numerous war-mutilated accepted it with much
+enthusiasm, and the people listened, open-mouthed, to the endless
+series of promises.
+
+Hughes, who was at bottom in good faith, developed the thesis which he
+afterwards upheld at Paris with logical precision. It was Germany's
+duty to reimburse, without any limitation, the entire cost of the
+War: damage to property, damage to persons, and war-cost. He who has
+committed the wrong must make reparation for it to the extreme limits
+of his resources, and this principle, recognized by the jurists,
+requires that the total of the whole cost of the War fall upon the
+enemy nations. Later on, Hughes, who was a sincere man, recognized
+that it was not possible to go beyond asking for reparation of the
+damages.
+
+Lloyd George was dragged along by the necessity of not drawing away
+the mass of the electors from the candidates of his party. Thus he was
+obliged on December 11, in his final manifesto, to announce not only
+the Kaiser's trial and that of all those responsible for atrocities,
+but to promise the most extensive kind of indemnity from Germany and
+the compensation of all who had suffered by the War. Speaking the
+same evening at Bristol, he promised to uphold the principle of the
+indemnity, and asserted the absolute right to demand from Germany
+payment for the costs of the War.
+
+In England, where the illusion soon passed away, in France, where it
+has not yet been dissipated, the public has been allowed to believe
+that Germany can pay the greater part, if not the entire cost, of the
+War, or at least make compensation for the damage.
+
+For many years I have studied the figures in relation to private
+wealth and the wealth of nations, and I have written at length on
+the subject. I know how difficult it is to obtain by means of even
+approximate statistics results more or less near to the reality.
+Nothing pained me more than to hear the facility with which
+politicians of repute spoke of obtaining an indemnity of hundreds of
+milliards. When Germany expressed her desire to pay an indemnity in
+one agreed lump sum (_a forfait_) of one hundred milliards of gold
+marks (an indemnity she could never pay, so enormous is it), I saw
+statesmen, whom I imagined not deprived of intelligence, smile at
+the paltriness of the offer. An indemnity of fifty milliards of
+gold marks, such as that proposed by Keynes, appeared absurd in its
+smallness.
+
+When the Peace Conference reassembled in Paris the situation
+concerning the indemnity was as follows. The Entente had never during
+the War spoken of indemnity as a condition of peace. Wilson, in his
+proposals, had spoken only of reconstruction of invaded territories.
+The request for _reparation des dommages_ had been included in the
+terms of the armistice merely to afford a moral satisfaction to
+France. But the campaign waged in France and during the elections
+in England had exaggerated the demands so as to include not only
+reparation for damage but reimbursement of the cost of the War.
+
+Only the United States maintained that the indemnity should be limited
+to the reparation of the damages: a reparation which in later phases
+included not only reconstruction of destroyed territories and damage
+done to private property, but even pensions to the families of those
+dead in the War and the sums in grant paid during it.
+
+When Prussia beat France in 1870 she asked for an indemnity of five
+milliards. The Entente could have demanded from the vanquished an
+indemnity and then have reassumed relations with them provided it were
+an indemnity which they could pay in a brief period of time.
+
+Instead, it being impossible to demand an enormous sum of 300 or 400
+milliards, a difficult figure to fix definitely, recourse was had to
+another expedient.
+
+From the moment that the phrase _reparation des dommages_ was included
+in the armistice treaty as a claim that could be urged, it became
+impossible to ask for a fixed sum. What was to be asked for was
+neither more nor less than the amount of the damages. Hence a special
+commission was required, and the Reparations Commission appears on
+the scene to decide the sum to demand from Germany and to control
+its payment. Also even after Germany was disarmed a portion of her
+territory must remain in the Allies' hands as a guarantee for the
+execution of the treaty.
+
+The reason why France has always been opposed to a rapid conclusion of
+the indemnity question is that she may continue to have the right, in
+view of the question remaining still open, to occupy the left bank of
+the Rhine and to keep the bridgeheads indicated in the treaty.
+
+The thesis supported by Clemenceau at the Conference was a simple one:
+Germany must recognize the total amount of her debt; it is not enough
+to say that we recognize it.
+
+I demand in the name of the French Government, and after having
+consulted my colleagues, that the Peace Treaty fixes Germany's debt
+to us and indicates the nature of the damages for which reparation is
+due. We will fix a period of thirty years if you so wish it, and we
+will give to the Commission, after it has reduced the debt to figures,
+the mandate to make Germany pay within these thirty years all she owes
+us. If the whole debt cannot be paid in thirty years the Commission
+will have the right to extend the time for payment.
+
+This scheme was agreed. And the thesis of the compensation of damages,
+instead of that for the payment of the cost of the War, prevailed for
+a very simple reason. If they proposed to demand for all integral
+reparations, and therefore the reimbursement of the cost of the War,
+the figures would have been enormous. It became necessary to reduce
+all the credits proportionally, as in the case of a bankruptcy. Now,
+since in the matter of the indemnities France occupied the first place
+(to begin with, she asked sixty-five per cent. of all sums paid by
+Germany), she took the greater part of the indemnities, while on the
+sums paid for reimbursement of cost of war, she would only have got
+less than twenty per cent.
+
+Germany has therefore been put under control for all the time she will
+be paying the indemnities--that is, for an indefinite time.
+
+The valuation of the expenses for the reconstruction of the ruined
+territories had to be carried out according to the regulations of
+the treaty, and, the prices having increased, the French Government
+presented in July, 1920, a first approximate valuation: damages, 152
+milliards; pensions, 58 milliards; in all, 210 milliards. In November,
+1920, the damages had increased to 218 milliards.
+
+Even these figures represent something less absurd than the first
+demands and figures.
+
+On September 5, 1919, the French Minister of Finance, speaking in the
+French Chamber, calculated the total of the German indemnities arising
+from the treaty at 375 milliards, whose interest would accumulate
+until 1921, after which date Germany would begin to pay her debt
+in thirty-four annual rates of about 25 milliards each, and 13,750
+milliards a year would go to France.
+
+Again, in November, 1920, Ogier, Minister of the liberated regions,
+put before the Reparations Commission in the name of France a detailed
+memorial which made the value of the territories to be reconstructed
+only for the cases of private individuals come to 140 milliards, not
+including the pensions, damage to railways and mercantile marine,
+which totalled 218 milliards, of which 77 milliards were for pensions
+and 141 milliards for damages.
+
+Of late the sense of reality has begun to diffuse itself. The Minister
+Loucheur himself has laughed at the earlier figures, and has stated
+that the damages do not exceed eighty milliards.
+
+But the French public has been accustomed for some time to take the
+figures of Klotz seriously, and to discuss indemnities of 150, 200
+and 250 milliards. The public, however, is not yet aware of the real
+position, and will not be able to arrive at a just realization of it
+without passing through a serious moral crisis which will be the first
+secure element of the real peace.
+
+Setting aside all questions of indemnities from Austria-Hungary,
+Turkey and Bulgaria (they have nothing to give, can give nothing; on
+the contrary, they ask and merit assistance), it is clear that all the
+indemnities must be paid by Germany.
+
+The French totals of the material damage claims in the invaded
+districts have been absolutely fantastic and more exaggerated than in
+the case of Belgium, whose indemnity claims would lead one to suppose
+the total destruction of at least the third part of her territory,
+almost as if she had undergone the submersion of, say, ten thousand
+square metres of her small territory.
+
+This problem of the indemnities, limited to the reparation of damages,
+and in accordance with the costs contemplated in the Treaty of
+Versailles, has never been seriously tackled. One may even say it has
+not been seriously examined. And it is deplorable that there has been
+created among the public, or among a large part of it, the conviction
+that Germany will repair the damage of the War by her own effort. This
+idea, however, finds no acceptance in England among serious persons,
+and in Italy no one believes in it. But in France and Belgium the idea
+is widely diffused, and the wish to spread the belief is lively in
+several sections of opinion, not because intelligent people believe
+in the possibility of effective payment, but with the idea of putting
+Germany in the light of not maintaining the clauses of the peace, thus
+extending the right to prolong the military occupation and even to
+aggravate it. Germany, thereby, is kept out of the League of Nations
+and her dissolution facilitated.
+
+John Maynard Keynes, ever since the end of 1919, has shown in his
+admirable book the absurdity of asking for vast indemnities, Germany's
+impossibility of paying them, and the risk for all Europe of following
+a road leading to ruin, thus at the same time accentuating the work
+of disintegration started by the treaty. That book had awakened a
+wide-sounding echo, but it ought to have had a still wider one, and
+would have done but for the fact that, unfortunately, the Press in
+free countries is anything but free.
+
+The great industrial syndicates, especially in the steel-making
+industry, which control so large a part of the Press among the
+majority of the States of Europe, and even beyond Europe, find
+easy allies in the inadequate preparation of the major part of
+the journalists to discuss the most important problems, and the
+indisposition on the part of the public to examine those questions
+which present difficulties, and are so rendered less convenient for
+discussion.
+
+I knew Keynes during the War, when he was attached to the British
+Treasury and chief of the department charged to look after the foreign
+exchanges and the financial relations between Great Britain and her
+allies. A serious writer, a teacher of economics of considerable
+value, he brought to his difficult task a scrupulousness and an
+exactness that bordered on mistrust. Being at that time Chancellor of
+the Exchequer in Italy, in the bitterest and most decisive period of
+the War, I had frequent contact with Mr. Keynes, and I always admired
+his exactness and his precision. I could not always find it in myself
+to praise his friendly spirit. But he had an almost mystic force of
+severity, and those enormous squanderings of wealth, that facile
+assumption of liabilities that characterized this period of the War,
+must have doubtless produced in him a sense of infinite disgust. This
+state of mind often made him very exigent, and sometimes unjustifiably
+suspicious. His word had a decisive effect on the actions of the
+English Treasury.
+
+When the War was finished, he took part as first delegate of the
+English Treasury at the Peace Conference of Paris, and was substituted
+by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Supreme Economic Council.
+He quitted his office when he had come to the conclusion that it was
+hopeless to look for any fundamental change of the peace treaties.
+
+His book is not only a document of political uprightness but the first
+appeal to a sense of reality which, after an orgy of mistakes, menaces
+a succession of catastrophes. In my opinion it merits a serious
+reconsideration as the expression of a new conscience, as well as an
+expression of the truth, which is only disguised by the existing state
+of exasperation and violence.
+
+After two years we must recognize that all the forecasts of Keynes
+have been borne out by the facts: that the exchange question has grown
+worse in all the countries who have been in the War, that the absurd
+indemnities imposed on the enemies cannot be paid, that the depressed
+condition of the vanquished is harmful to the victors almost in equal
+measure with the vanquished themselves, that it menaces their very
+existence, that, in fine, the sense of dissolution is more widespread
+than ever.
+
+The moment has come to make an objective examination of the indemnity
+question, and to discuss it without any hesitation.
+
+Let us lay aside all sentiment and forget the undertakings of the
+peace treaties. Let us suppose that the Entente's declarations
+and Wilson's proposals never happened. Let us imagine that we are
+examining a simple commercial proposition stripped of all sentiment
+and moral ideas.
+
+After a great war it is useless to invoke moral sentiments: men, while
+they are blinded by hatred, recognize nothing save their passion. It
+is the nature of war not only to kill or ruin a great number of men,
+not only to cause considerable material damage, but also, necessarily,
+to bring about states of mind full of hate which cannot be ended at
+once and which are even refractory to the language of reason.
+
+For a long time I myself have looked upon the Germans with the
+profoundest hatred. When I think of all the persons of my race dead in
+the War, when I look back upon the fifteen months of anguish when my
+first-born son was a prisoner of war in Germany, I am quite able to
+understand the state of mind of those who made the peace and the
+mental condition in which it was made. What determined the atmosphere
+of the peace treaties was the fact that there was a conference
+presided over by Clemenceau, who remembered the Prussians in the
+streets of Paris after the war of 1870, who desired but one thing: the
+extermination of the Germans. What created this atmosphere, or helped
+to create it, was the action of Marshal Foch, who had lost in the War
+the two persons dearest to him in life, the persons who attached him
+to existence.
+
+But now we must examine the question not in the light of our
+sentiments or even of our hatreds. We must see quite calmly if the
+treaties are possible of application without causing the ruin of the
+vanquished. Then we must ask ourselves if the ruin of the vanquished
+does not bring in its train the ruin of the victors. Putting aside,
+then, all moral considerations, let us examine and value the economic
+facts.
+
+There is no question that the reparation problem exists solely in
+the case of Germany, who has still a powerful statal framework which
+allows her to maintain great efforts, capable not only of providing
+her with the means of subsistence, but also of paying a large
+indemnity to the victors. The other vanquished States are more in need
+of succour than anything else.
+
+What are the reparations?
+
+Let us follow the _precis_ of them which a representative of France
+made at the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. They are as follows:
+
+1. Germany is responsible for the total of the losses and damages
+sustained by her victors inasmuch as she caused them.
+
+2. Germany, in consideration of the permanent diminution of her
+resources, resulting from the Peace Treaty, is only obliged (but is
+obliged without restitutions or reserves) to reimburse the direct
+damages and the pensions as precised in Schedule I of Clause viii of
+the treaty.
+
+3. Germany must pay before May 1, 1921, not less than twenty milliards
+of gold marks or make equivalent payment in kind.
+
+4. On May 1 the Reparations Commission will fix the total amount of
+the German debt.
+
+5. This debt must be liquidated by annual payments whose totals are to
+be fixed by the Commission.
+
+6. The payments will continue for a period of thirty years, or longer
+if by that time the debt is not extinguished.
+
+7. Germany will issue one hundred milliards of gold marks of bearer
+bonds, and afterwards all such issues as the Reparations Commission
+shall demand, until the amount of the debt be reached in order to
+permit the stabilization of credit.
+
+8. The payments will be made in money and in kind. The payments in
+kind will be made in coal, live stock, chemical products, ships,
+machines, furniture, etc. The payments _in specie_ consist of metal
+money, of Germany's credits, public and private, abroad, and of a
+first charge on all the effects and resources of the Empire and the
+German States.
+
+9. The Reparations Commission, charged with seeing to the execution of
+this clause, shall have powers of control and decision. It will be
+a commission for Germany's debt with wider powers. Called upon to
+decide, according to equity, justice and good faith, without being
+bound by any codex or special legislation, it has obtained from
+Germany an irrevocable recognition of its authority. Its duty is to
+supervise until the extinction of the debt Germany's situation, her
+financial operations, her effects, her capacity for production, her
+provisioning, her production. This commission must decide what Germany
+can pay each year, and must see that her payments, added to the
+budget, fall upon her taxpayers at least to the extent of the allied
+country most heavily taxed. Its decisions shall be carried out
+immediately and receive immediate application, without any other
+formality. The commission can effect all the changes deemed necessary
+in the German laws and regulations, as well as all the sanctions,
+whether of a financial, economic or military nature arising from
+established violations of the clauses put under its control. And
+Germany is obliged not to consider these "sanctions" as hostile acts.
+
+In order to guarantee the payments an inter-allied army--in reality
+a Franco-Belgian army--occupies the left bank of the Rhine, and is
+stationed at the bridgeheads. Germany is completely helpless, and has
+lost all the features of a sovereign State inasmuch as she is subject
+to "controls" in a way that Turkey never was. In modern history we can
+find no parallel for this state of things. These are conditions
+which alter the very bases of civilization and the relations between
+peoples. Such procedure has been unknown in Europe for centuries.
+The public has become accustomed in certain countries to consider
+responsible for the War not the government that wished it or the
+German people, but the future generations. Thus the indemnities are
+to be paid--were such conditions possible--in thirty years and for at
+least twenty years afterwards by people still unborn at the time of
+the War. This cursing of the guilty people has no parallel in modern
+history. We must go back to the early ages of humanity to find
+anything of the kind.
+
+But even the most inhuman policies, such as Germany has never adopted
+in her victories, although she has been accused of every cruelty, can
+find at least some justification if they had a useful effect on the
+country which has wished and accepts responsibility for them. The
+conqueror has his rights. Julius Caesar killed millions of Germans
+and retarded perhaps for some centuries the invasion of Rome. But
+the practices established by the Treaty of Versailles are in effect
+equally harmful to victors and vanquished, though maybe in unequal
+measure, and in any case prepare the dissolution of Europe.
+
+I had my share in arranging at San Remo the Spa Conference, in the
+hope and with the desire of discussing frankly with the Germans what
+sum they could pay by way of indemnity without upsetting their economy
+and damaging severely that of the Allies. But the ministerial crisis
+which took place in June, 1920, prevented me from participating at
+the Spa Conference; and the profitable action which Great Britain had
+agreed to initiate in the common interest, ours as well as France's,
+could not be proceeded with. The old mistakes continued to be
+repeated, though many attenuations have come about and the truth
+begins to appear even for those most responsible for past errors.
+
+We shall have to examine with all fair-mindedness if Germany is in
+a position to pay in whole or in part the indemnity established or
+rather resulting from the treaty. France especially believes, or has
+said on several occasions she believes, that Germany can pay without
+difficulty 350 milliards.
+
+After many stupidities and many exaggerations which have helped
+considerably to confuse the public, in face of the new difficulties
+which have arisen, new arrangements for the payment of the indemnity
+have been established. On May 11, in face of the situation which had
+arisen, the Allies proposed and Germany accepted a fresh scheme for
+the payment of the reparations. Germany is constrained to pay every
+year in cash and in kind the equivalent of 500 million dollars, plus
+26 per cent. of the total of her exports.
+
+The rest of the accord refers to the procedure for the issue of
+bonds guaranteed on the indicated payments, to the constitution of a
+guarantee committee, and to the date of payment. Probably Germany will
+have been able to get through the year 1921 without insurmountable
+difficulties.
+
+At Spa, on April 27, 1921, the proportionate sums assessed for each of
+the conquering powers were established on a total indemnity notably
+reduced in comparison with the earlier absurd demands.
+
+But leaving alone the idea of an indemnity of 250, 150, or even 100
+milliards of gold marks, it will be well to see in a concrete form
+what Germany can be made to pay, and whether the useless and elaborate
+structure of the Reparations Commission which, with its powers of
+regulating the internal life of Germany for thirty years or more,
+ought not to be substituted by a simpler formula more in sympathy with
+civilized notions.
+
+Shortly before the War, according to successive statistics, the
+private wealth of France did not amount to more than 250 milliards.
+
+The wealth of France, according to successive valuations, was
+calculated at 208 milliards of francs in 1905 (de Foville), at 214
+milliards in 1908 (Turquan), at about 250 milliards according to other
+authors. The wealth of Belgium, according to official statistics
+published by the Belgian Ministry of Finance in 1913, amounted to
+rather less than 30 milliards of francs. The estimate is perhaps a
+trifle low. But this official figure must not be considered as being
+a long way from the truth. At certain moments Belgium's demands have
+surpassed even the total of her national wealth, while the damages
+have not been more than some milliards.
+
+The value of the land in France was calculated before the War at
+between 62 and 78 milliards; the value of the buildings, according
+to _l'Annuaire Statistique de la France_, at 59-1/2 milliards. The
+territory occupied by the Germans is not more than a tenth of the
+national territory. Even taking into consideration the loss of
+industrial buildings it is very difficult to arrive at the figure of
+15 milliards. At the same time it is true that the Minister Loucheur
+declared on February 17, 1919, in the French Chamber that the
+reconstruction of the devastated regions in France required 75
+milliards--that is, very much more than double the private wealth of
+all the inhabitants of all the occupied regions.
+
+In all the demands for compensation of the various States we have seen
+not so much a real and precise estimate of the damages as a kind of
+fixing of credit in the largest measure possible in order that in the
+successive reductions each State should still have proportionally an
+advantageous position.
+
+Making his calculation with a generosity which I assert to be
+excessive (and I assert this as a result of an accurate study of
+the question, which perhaps I may have occasion to publish), Keynes
+maintains that the damages for which Germany should be made to pay
+come to 53 milliards for all losses on land and sea and for the
+effects of aerial bombardments--53 milliards of francs all told,
+including the damages of France, Great Britain, Italy, Belgium,
+Serbia, etc.! I do not believe that the damages reach 40 milliards of
+gold marks, unless, of course, we calculate in them the pensions and
+allowances.
+
+But these figures have but small interest, since the demands have been
+almost entirely purely arbitrary.
+
+What we must see is if Germany can pay, and if, with a regime of
+restrictions and violence, she can hand over, not the many milliards
+which have been announced and which have been a deplorable speculation
+on the ignorance of the public, but a considerable sum, such as is
+that which many folk still delude themselves it is possible to have.
+
+Germany has already consigned all her transferable wealth; the gold in
+her banks, her colonies, her commercial fleet, a large and even the
+best part of her railway material, her submarine cables, her foreign
+credits, the property of her private citizens in the victorious
+countries, etc. Everything that could be handed over, even in
+opposition to the rights of nations as such are known in modern
+civilized States, Germany has given. She has also hypothecated all her
+national goods. What can she give now?
+
+Germany can pay in three ways only:
+
+1. Merchandise and food products on account of the indemnity: coal,
+machines, chemical products, etc.
+
+2. Credits abroad coming from the sale of merchandise. If Germany
+exports, that is sells eight milliard marks' worth of goods abroad,
+she pays two milliards to the Reparations Commission.
+
+3. Property of private citizens. Germany can enslave herself, ceding
+the property of her private citizens to foreign States or citizens to
+be disposed of as they wish.
+
+Excluding this last form, which would constitute slavery pure and
+simple, as useless, as impossible, and calculated to parallel the
+methods in use among barbarous peoples, there only remain the first
+two methods of payment which we will examine briefly.
+
+It must be remembered that Germany, even before the War, was in
+difficulties for insufficient avenues of development, given the
+restricted nature of her territory and the exuberance of her
+population. Her territory, smaller than that of France and much less
+fertile, must now nourish a population which stands to that of France
+as three to two.
+
+If we have had gigantic war losses, Germany, who fought on all the
+fronts, has had losses certainly not inferior to ours. She too has
+had, in larger or smaller proportion, her dead and her mutilated.
+She has known the most atrocious sufferings from hunger. Thus her
+productive power is much diminished, not only on account of the grave
+difficulties in which her people find themselves (and the development
+of tuberculosis is a terrible index), but also for the lowered
+productive capacity of her working classes.
+
+The statistics published by the Office of Public Health of the Empire
+(_Reichsgesundheitsamt_) and those given in England by Professor
+Starling and laid before the British Parliament, leave no doubt in the
+matter.
+
+Germany has had more than 1,800,000 dead and many more than 4,000,000
+of wounded. She has her mass of orphans, widows and invalids. Taken
+altogether the structure of her people has become much worse.
+
+What constituted the great productive force of the German people was
+not only its capacity to work, but the industrial organization which
+she had created with fifty years of effort at home and abroad with
+many sacrifices. Now Germany has not only lost 8 per cent. of her
+population, but _25_ per cent. of her territory, from which cereals
+and potatoes were produced, and 10 to 12 per cent. of her live stock,
+etc. We have already seen the enormous losses sustained by Germany in
+coal, iron and potash.
+
+The most intelligent and able working classes, created by the
+most patient efforts, have been reduced to the state of becoming
+revolutionary elements. By taking away from Germany at a stroke her
+mercantile marine, about 60,000 sailors have been thrown on the
+streets and their skill made useless.
+
+Germany, therefore, impoverished in her agricultural territory,
+deprived of a good part of her raw materials, with a population
+weakened in its productive qualities, has lost a good part of her
+productive capacity because all her organization abroad has been
+broken, and everything which served as a means of exchange of
+products, such as her mercantile fleet, has been destroyed. Moreover,
+Germany encounters everywhere obstacles and diffidence. Impeded from
+developing herself on the seas, held up to ridicule by the absurd
+corridor of Danzig, whereby there is a Polish State in German
+territory, she cannot help seeking life and raw materials in Russia.
+
+In these conditions she must not only nourish her vast population, not
+only produce sufficient to prevent her from falling into misery,
+but must also pay an indemnity which fertile fantasies have made a
+deceived Europe believe should amount even to 350 milliards of gold
+marks, and which even now is supposed by seemingly reasonable people
+to be able to surpass easily the sum of a hundred milliards.
+
+Could France or Italy, by any kind of sacrifice, have paid any
+indemnities after ending the War? Germany has not only to live and
+make reparation, but to maintain an inter-allied army of occupation
+and the heavy machinery of the Reparations Commission, and must
+prepare to pay an indemnity for thirty years. France and Italy have
+preserved their colonies (Italy's do not amount to much), their
+mercantile fleets (which have much increased), their foreign
+organization. Germany, without any of these things, is to find herself
+able to pay an indemnity which a brazen-faced and ignorant Press
+deceived the public into believing could amount to twenty or
+twenty-five milliards a year.
+
+Taking by chance Helferich's book, which valued the annual
+capitalization at ten milliards, the difference between an annual
+production of forty-three milliards and a consumption of thirty-three
+milliards, inexpert persons have said that Germany can pay without
+difficulty ten milliards, plus a premium on her exports, plus a
+sufficient quantity of goods and products.
+
+One becomes humiliated when one sees newspapers of serious reputation
+and politicians deemed not to be unimportant reasoning in language so
+false.
+
+The estimates of private wealth, about which the economists make
+experiments, and on which I myself have written much in the past, have
+a relative value. It may be argued that before the War the total of
+all private patrimony in Germany surpassed but by little three hundred
+milliards of marks; and this is a valuation made upon generous
+criteria.
+
+But when it is said that the annual capitalization of Germany was
+ten milliards, that is not to say that ten milliards of capital is
+deposited in the banks ready to be transferred at will. Capitalization
+means the creation of instruments of production. The national capital
+increases in proportion as these are increased. Therefore the best way
+of examining the annual capitalization of a country is to see how many
+new industries have arisen, to what extent the old ones have been
+improved, what improvements have been introduced into agriculture,
+what new investments have been made, etc.
+
+If the capitalization of Germany before the War was scarcely ten
+milliards of marks, it was too small for an Empire of some 67,000,000
+persons. I believe that in reality it was larger. But even if it came
+to fifteen milliards, it represented a very small figure.
+
+The population in the progressive countries augments every year. In
+Germany, before the War, in the period 1908-1913, the population
+increased on an average by 843,000 persons a year, the difference
+between the people born alive and the dead. In other words, the annual
+increase of the population per annum was at the rate of 13.0 per
+thousand.
+
+As in certain districts of Italy the peasants plant a row of trees on
+the birth of every son, so among nations it is necessary to increase
+the national wealth at least in proportion to the newly arrived.
+Supposing that the private wealth of the German citizens was from 300
+to 350 milliards of marks (an exaggeration, doubtless), it would mean
+that the wealth increased each year by a thirteenth part or rather
+more. The difference between the increase in population and the
+increase in wealth constituted the effective increase in wealth, but
+always in a form not capable of being immediately handled. To plant
+trees, build workshops, utilize water-power: all this stands for the
+output of so much force. One may undertake such works or not, but in
+any case the result cannot immediately be given to the enemy.
+
+This is so obvious as to be banal.
+
+To seek to propagate the idea that Germany can give that which
+constitutes her annual capitalization either wholly or in great part
+is an example of extreme ignorance of economic facts.
+
+It is positively painful to listen to certain types of argument.
+
+A French Minister has said that the success of the war loans for 151
+milliards in Germany, and the increase of bank deposits for a sum of
+28 milliards, coinciding with an increase of capital of 45 milliards
+in limited companies, demonstrate that Germany has saved at least 180
+milliards in four years. Leaving aside the exactness of these figures,
+it is really sad to observe reasoning of this type. How can the public
+have an idea of the reality?
+
+Let us apply the same reasoning to France. We must say that inasmuch
+as France before the War had a public debt of 32 milliards, and now
+has a debt of 265 milliards, without calculating what she owes to
+Great Britain and the United States, France, by reason of the War, has
+immensely enriched herself, since, leaving aside the debt contracted
+abroad and the previous debt, she has saved during the War 200
+milliards, quite apart from the increase in bank deposits and the
+increase in capital of limited companies. The War has therefore
+immensely enriched her. In reality we are face to face with one of the
+phenomena of the intoxication brought about by paper money, by means
+of which it has been possible at certain times for the public to
+believe that the War had increased wealth. Other features of this
+phenomenon we have in the wretched example of the capitalist classes,
+after which it was not unnatural that the people should give way to
+a great increase in consumption, should demand high wages and offer
+little work in return at the very time when it was most necessary
+to work more and consume less. There is small cause for wonder that
+certain erroneous ideas are diffused among the public when they have
+their being in those very sophisms according to which the indemnity to
+be paid by the beaten enemy will pay all the debts and losses of the
+conquering nations.
+
+We are told that Germany, being responsible for the War, must impose
+on herself a regime of restrictions and organize herself as an
+exporting nation for the payment of the reparation debts.
+
+Here again the question can be considered in two ways, according as
+it is proposed to allow Germany a free commerce or to impose on her a
+series of forced cessions of goods in payment of the reparations. Both
+hypotheses can be entertained, but both, as we shall see, lead to
+economic disorder in the conquering States, if these relations are to
+be regulated by violence.
+
+It is useless to dilate on the other aphorisms, or rather sophisms,
+which were seriously discussed at the Paris Conference, and which had
+even the honour of being sustained by the technical experts:
+
+1. That it is not important to know what Germany can pay, but it is
+sufficient to know what she ought to pay.
+
+2. That no one can foresee what immense resources Germany will develop
+within thirty or forty years, and what Germany will not be able to pay
+will be paid by the Allies.
+
+3. That Germany, under the stimulus of a military occupation, will
+increase her production in an unheard-of manner.
+
+4. The obligation arising from the treaty is an absolute one; the
+capacity to pay can only be taken into consideration to establish the
+number and amount of the annual payments; the total must in any case
+be paid within thirty years or more.
+
+5. _Elle ou nous_. Germany must pay; if she doesn't the Allies must
+pay. It is not necessary that Germany free herself by a certain date;
+it is only necessary that she pay all.
+
+6. Germany has not to discuss, only to pay. Let time illustrate what
+is at present unforeseeable, etc. etc.
+
+If we exclude the third means of payment Germany has two ways open to
+her. First of all she can give goods. What goods? When we speak of
+goods we really mean coal. Now, as we have seen, according to the
+treaty Germany must furnish for ten years to Belgium, Italy, and
+France especially quantities of coal, which in the first five years
+run from 39-1/2 to 42 millions of tons, and in the following five
+years come to a maximum of about 32 millions. And all this when
+she has lost the Saar coalfields and is faced with the threatening
+situation in Upper Silesia.
+
+Germany's exports reached their maximum in 1913, when the figures
+touched 10,097 millions of marks, excluding precious metals. Grouping
+exports and imports in categories, the millions of marks were
+distributed as follows:
+
+                          Imports. Exports.
+
+  Foodstuffs               2,759    1,035
+  Live animals               289        7.4
+  Raw materials            5,003    1,518
+  Semi-manufactured goods  5,003    1,139
+  Manufactured goods       1,478    6,395
+
+About one-fifth of the entire exports was in iron and machine products
+(1,337 [mil.] articles in iron, 680 machines); 722 millions from
+coal (as against imports of other qualities of 289), 658 millions
+of chemical products and drugs, 446 from cotton, 298 paint, 290
+techno-electrical productions, etc.
+
+What goods can Germany give in payment of the indemnity? We have seen
+how she has lost a very large part of her iron and a considerable
+quantity of her coal.
+
+All the economic force of Germany was based upon:
+
+(a) The proper use of her reserves of coal and iron, which allowed
+her to develop enormously those industries which are based on these
+two elements.
+
+(b) On her transport and tariff system, which enabled her to fight any
+competition.
+
+(c) On her potent overseas commercial organization.
+
+Now, by effect of the treaty, these three great forces have been
+entirely or in part destroyed.
+
+What goods can Germany give in payment of the indemnity, and what
+goods can she offer without ruining the internal production of the
+Entente countries? Let us suppose that Germany gives machines,
+colours, wagons, locomotives, etc. Then for this very fact the
+countries of the Entente, already suffering by unemployment, would
+soon see their factories obliged to shut down. Germany must therefore,
+above all, give raw materials; but since she is herself a country that
+imports raw materials, and has an enormous and dense population, she
+is herself obliged to import raw materials for the fundamental needs
+of her existence.
+
+If we examine Germany's commerce in the five years prior to the
+War--that is, in the five years of her greatest boom--we shall find
+that the imports always exceeded the exports. In the two years before
+the War, 1912 and 1913, the imports were respectively 10,691 and
+10,770 millions, and the exports 8,956 and 10,097 millions. In some
+years the difference even exceeded two milliards, and was compensated
+by credits abroad, with the payment of freights and with the
+remittances (always considerable) of the German emigrants. All this is
+lost.
+
+Exported goods can yield to the exporter a profit of, let us suppose,
+ten, twelve, or twenty per cent. For the Allies to take an income from
+the Custom returns means in practice reducing the exports. In fact,
+in Germany production must be carried on at such low prices as to
+compensate for the difference, or the exports must be reduced.
+
+In the first case (which is not likely, since Germany succeeds only
+with difficulty, owing to her exchange, in obtaining raw materials,
+and must encounter worse difficulties in this respect than other
+countries), Germany would be preparing the ruin of the other countries
+in organizing forms of production which are superior to those of
+all her rivals. Germany would therefore damage all her creditors,
+especially in the foreign markets.
+
+In the second case--the reduction of exports, one would have
+the exactly opposite effect to that imagined in the programme
+proposed--that is, the indemnities would become unpayable.
+
+In terms of francs or lire at par with the dollar, Germany's
+exportations in 1920 have amounted to 7,250 millions. In 1921 an
+increase may be foreseen.
+
+If Germany has to pay in cash and kind 2,500 millions of marks at
+par, plus 26 per cent. of the total of her exports, then supposing an
+export trade of eight milliards, she will have to give 1,840 millions,
+or in all 4,540 millions of marks. Thus we arrive by stages at less
+hyperbolical figures, coming down from the twenty-five milliards
+a year to something less than a fifth. But to come to grips with
+reality, Germany in all ways, it must be admitted, cannot give more
+than two milliards a year, if, indeed, it is desired that an indemnity
+be paid.
+
+Notwithstanding her great resources, France would not be in a
+condition to pay abroad two milliards a year without ruining her
+exchange, which would drop at once to the level of Germany's. Italy
+with difficulty could pay one milliard.
+
+France and Italy are honest countries, yet they cannot pay their war
+creditors, and have not been able, and are not able, to pay any share
+of their debt either to the United States of America or to Great
+Britain. As a matter of fact, up till now they have paid nothing, and
+the interest continues to accumulate with the capital.
+
+Why have neither France nor Italy yet started to pay some of their
+debt? Having won the War, France has had all she could have--fertile
+territories, new colonies, an abundance of raw material, and above all
+iron and potash. The simple explanation is that which I have given
+above.
+
+Can, then, Germany, who is in a terrible condition, whose circulation
+promises ruin, who has no longer credits nor organization abroad, who
+has a great shortage in raw materials; can Germany pay four or five
+milliards a year?
+
+We must also remember that Germany, in addition to the indemnity, must
+pay the cost of the Army of Occupation, which up to now has amounted
+to twenty-five milliards of paper marks a year, or more than 1,600
+millions of francs at par. That is, Germany has to bear for the
+support of the Allied troops a charge equal to the cost of maintaining
+the armies of France, Italy and Belgium before the War.
+
+No financier seriously believes that the issue of bonds authorized by
+the treaty for the credit of the Reparations Commission has now any
+probability of success. Germany's monetary circulation system is
+falling to the stage of _assignats_, and the time is not distant
+when, if intelligent provision is not made, Germany will not be in a
+position to pay any indemnity.
+
+Obliged to pay only one milliard of gold marks, Germany has not been
+able to find this modest sum (modest, that is, in comparison with all
+the dreams about the indemnity) without contracting new foreign debts
+and increasing her already enormous paper circulation. Each new
+indemnity payment, each new debt incurred, will only place Germany in
+the position of being unable to make payments abroad.
+
+Many capitalists, even in Italy, inspire their Press to state that
+Germany derives an advantage from the depreciation of her mark, or,
+in other words, is content with its low level. But the high exchanges
+(and in the case of Germany it amounts to ruin) render almost
+impossible the purchase of raw materials, of which Germany has need.
+With what means must she carry out her payments if she is obliged to
+cede a large part of her customs receipts, that is of her best form of
+monetary value, and if she has no longer either credits or freights
+abroad?
+
+If what is happening injured Germany only, it would be more possible
+to explain it, if not to justify it. But, on the contrary, Germany's
+fall, which is also the decadence of Europe, profoundly disturbs not
+only the European continent, but many other producing countries.
+Though the United States and Great Britain partially escape the
+effect, they too feel the influence of it, not only in their political
+serenity, but in the market of goods and values. Germany's position
+is bound up with that of Europe; her conquerors cannot escape dire
+consequences if the erstwhile enemy collapses.
+
+We must not forget that before the War, in the years 1912 and 1913,
+the larger part of Germany's commerce was with the United States,
+with Great Britain, with Russia and with Austria-Hungary. In 1913 her
+commerce with the United States represented alone little less than
+two milliards and a half of marks according to the statistics of the
+German Empire, and 520 millions of dollars according to the figures
+of America. If we except Canada, which we may consider a territorial
+continuation, the two best customers of the United States were Great
+Britain and Germany. They were, moreover, the two customers whose
+imports largely exceeded the exports. The downfall of Germany will
+bring about inevitably a formidable crisis in the Anglo-Saxon
+countries and consequent ruin in other countries.
+
+Up to now Germany has given all she could; any further payment will
+cause a downfall without changing the actual monetary position.
+Germany, after a certain point, will not pay, but will drag down in
+her fall the economic edifices of the victorious countries of the
+Continent.
+
+All attempts at force are useless, all impositions are sterile.
+
+All this is true and cannot be denied, but at the same time it must
+be recognized that in the first move for the indemnity there was a
+reasonable cause for anxiety on the part of the Allies.
+
+If Germany had had to pay no indemnity this absurd situation would
+have come about, that although exhausted, Germany would have issued
+from the War without debts abroad and could easily have got into her
+stride again, while France, Italy, and in much less degree Great
+Britain, would have come out of the War with heavy debts.
+
+This anxiety was not only just and well founded, but it is easy to see
+why it gave ground for a feeling of grave disquiet.
+
+France and Italy, the two big victor States of the Continent, were
+only able to carry on the War through the assistance of Great Britain
+and the United States. The War would not have lasted long without the
+aid of the Anglo-Saxons, which had a decisive effect.
+
+France has obtained all she asked for, and, indeed, more than all her
+previsions warranted. Italy has found herself in a difficult position.
+She too has realized her territorial aspirations, though not
+completely, and the assistance of her Allies has not always been
+cordial.
+
+I have had, as head of the Government, to oppose all the agitations,
+and especially the Adriatic adventures, which have caused an acute
+party division in Italy. From a sense of duty I have also assumed all
+responsibility. But the rigidness of Wilson in the Fiume and Adriatic
+questions and the behaviour of some of the European Allies have been
+perfectly unjustifiable. In certain messages to Wilson during my term
+of government I did not fail to bring this fact forward. Certainly,
+Jugo-Slavia's demands must be considered with a sense of justice, and
+it would have been an error and an injustice to attribute to Italy
+large tracts of territory in Dalmatia; but it would have been possible
+to find a more reasonable settlement for a country which has had such
+sufferings and known such losses during the War. In any case, when
+by the absurd system followed in the treaties so many millions of
+Germans, Magyars, Turks and Bulgarians have been handed over to States
+like Serbia, whose intemperate behaviour precipitated the War, or to
+States like Greece, which took only a small and obligatory part in it,
+when States like Poland have won their unity and independence without
+making war, when Germany has been dismembered in order to give Poland
+an access to the sea and the ridiculous situation of Danzig has been
+created, when the moral paradox of the Saar, which now becomes a
+German Alsace-Lorraine, has been set up, when so many millions of men
+have been parcelled out without any criteria, it was particularly
+invidious to contest so bitterly Italy's claims. I can freely affirm
+this inasmuch as, risking all popularity, I have always done my duty
+as a statesman, pointing out that solution which time has proved to be
+inevitable.
+
+No one can deny that Italy is passing through a period of crisis and
+political ill-health. Such states of public psychology are for peoples
+what neurasthenia is for individuals. On what does it depend? Often
+enough on reasons which cannot be isolated or defined. It is a state
+of mind which may come to an end at any minute, and is consequent upon
+the after-effects of the War. Rather than coming from the economic
+disorder, it derives from a malady of the temperament.
+
+I have never believed, in spite of the agitations which have been seen
+at certain periods, in the possibility of a revolutionary movement in
+Italy. Italy is the only country which has never had religious wars,
+the only country which in twenty centuries has never had a real
+revolution. Land of an ancient civilization, prone to sudden bursts of
+enthusiasm, susceptible to rapid moods of discouragement, Italy, with
+all the infinite resources of the Latin spirit, has always overcome
+the most difficult crises by her wonderful adaptive power. In
+human history she is, perhaps, the only country where three great
+civilizations have risen up one after another in her limited soil.
+If Italy can have the minimum of coal, cereals and raw materials
+necessary to her existence and her economic revival, the traditional
+good sense of the Italian people will easily overcome a crisis which
+is grave, but which affects in various measure all the victors, and is
+especially temperamental.
+
+It cannot be denied that if all Europe is sick, Italy has its own
+special state of mind. Those who wished the War and those who were
+against it are both dissatisfied: the former because, after the
+War, Italy has not had the compensations she expected, and has had
+sufferings far greater than could have been imagined; the latter
+because they attribute to the War and the conduct of the War the great
+trials which the nation has now to face. This sickness of the spirit
+is the greatest cause of disorder, since malcontent is always the
+worst kind of leaven.
+
+Four great countries decided the War: Great Britain, France, Italy,
+and the United States of America. Russia fell to pieces soon, and
+fell rather on account of her own internal conditions than from enemy
+pressure. The action of the United States arrived late, but was
+decisive. Each country, however, acted from a different state of mind.
+France had of necessity to make war. Her territory was invaded, and
+all hope of salvation lay in moral resistance alone. Great Britain
+had to wage the War out of sense of duty. She had guaranteed the
+neutrality of Belgium, and could not fail to keep her word of honour.
+Two countries alone chose freely the sorrowful way of the War: Italy
+and the United States. But their sacrifices, sufferings and losses
+have been very different. During the War the United States have been
+able to develop their immense resources, and, notwithstanding some
+crises, they have come out of it much richer than before. From being
+debtors to Europe they have become creditors. They had few losses
+in men, and a great development in wealth. Italy, who after many
+difficulties had developed in her famous but too narrow territory the
+germs of a greater fortune, has had, together with very heavy losses
+in men, heavy losses in her wealth.
+
+Italy saved the destinies of France for the first time by declaring
+her neutrality on August 2, 1914, and letting the certainty of it be
+known from July 30, as the diplomatic documents have shown.
+
+It was that sudden and unexpected declaration of neutrality which
+rendered it possible for France to concentrate all her forces in the
+north and to win the battle of the Marne. Italy for a second time
+saved the destinies of the Entente by entering into the War (too
+precipitately and unprepared), in May, 1915, thus preventing the
+Austrian army, which was formidable for its technical organization and
+for its valour, from obtaining the advantages it expected.
+
+Why did Italy go to war?
+
+The diplomatic documents, which are not all documents of political
+wisdom, demonstrate the anxiety of the Italian Government to
+realize its Adriatic programme and to gain secure frontiers against
+Austria-Hungary and its successors. But this was not the _cause_
+of the War; it was rather a means of explaining to the people the
+necessity for the War. Italy had been for nearly thirty-four years
+ally of Austria-Hungary, and the aspirations of Italy's Adriatic
+policy had never disturbed the relations between the two countries.
+The real cause of Italy's war was a sentimental movement, a form of
+extraordinary agitation of the spirits, brought about by the invasion
+of Belgium and the danger of France. The intellectual movement
+especially, the world of culture, partook largely in fomenting the
+state of exaltation which determined the War.
+
+During the progress of the War, which was long and bitter, Italy
+passed through some terrible hours. Her privations during the War, and
+immediately after, surpassed all expectations. Italy found herself
+face to face with an enemy who enjoyed a superior geographical
+situation, a numerical superiority, as well as a superiority in
+artillery. After the downfall of Russia she had to support a terrible
+campaign. Even in 1917, after the military disaster, when allied
+troops came to Italy, she sent abroad more men than there came allied
+troops to her aid. According to some statistics which I had compiled,
+and which I communicated to the Allies, Italy was shown, in relation
+to her demographic structure, to have more men in the front line than
+any other country. The economic sufferings were, and are, greater
+than those endured by others. France is only in part a Mediterranean
+country, while Italy is entirely so. During the War the action of the
+submarines rendered the victualling of Italy a very difficult matter.
+Many provinces, for months on end, had to content themselves with
+the most wretched kind of food. Taking population and wealth into
+proportion, if the United States had made the effort of Italy they
+would have had to arm sixteen millions of men, to have lost a million
+and a half to two million soldiers, and to have spent at least four
+hundred milliards. In order to work up popular enthusiasm (and it was
+perhaps necessary), the importance of the country's Adriatic claims
+was exaggerated. Thus many Italians believe even to-day in good faith
+that the War may be considered as lost if some of these aspirations
+have not been realized or will not be realized.
+
+But, after the War, Italy's situation suddenly changed. The War had
+aroused in the minds of all Europeans a certain sentiment of violence,
+a longing for expansion and conquest. The proclamations of the
+Entente, the declarations of Wilson's principles, or points, became so
+contorted that no trace of them could be found in the treaties, save
+for that ironic _covenant_ of the League of Nations, which is always
+repeated on the front page, as Dante said of the rule of St. Benedict,
+_at the expense of the paper_.
+
+For Italy a very curious situation came about. France had but one
+enemy: Germany. She united all her forces against this enemy in
+a coherent and single action which culminated in the Treaty of
+Versailles. France had but one idea: to make the Entente abandon the
+principles it had proclaimed, and try to suffocate Germany, dismember
+her, humiliate her by means of a military occupation, by controlling
+her transports, confiscating all her available wealth, by raising
+to the dignity of elevated and highly civilized States inferior
+populations without national dignity.
+
+Austria-Hungary was composed of eleven peoples. It was split up into
+a series of States. Austria and Hungary were reduced to small
+territories and shut up in narrow confines. All the other countries
+were given to Rumania, to Serbia, or more exactly to the S.H.S.
+State, to Poland, or else were formed into new States, such as
+Czeko-Slovakia. These countries were considered by the Entente as
+allies, and, to further good relations, the most important of the
+Entente nations protected their aspirations even against the wishes of
+Italy. The Italians had found themselves in their difficult theatre of
+war against Galatians, Bosnians, Croats, Transylvanians, etc. But
+by the simple fact of their having changed names, and having called
+themselves Poles, Jugo-Slavs, Rumanians, they became friends. In order
+to favour some of these new friends, it has happened that not only
+have Italy's sentiments been offended, but even justice itself.
+Montenegro was always mentioned in the declarations of the Entente.
+On January 10, 1917, Briand, speaking in the name of all the Allies,
+united at that time _pour la defense et la liberte des peuples_, put
+forward as a fundamental programme the restoration of Belgium, Serbia
+and Montenegro: Montenegro was in this on an equality with Belgium.
+Just a year afterwards, January 8, 1918, Wilson, when formulating his
+fourteen points, had included in the eleventh proposition the duty
+of evacuating the territories of Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro, and
+restoring them. The exact reason for which it was established that
+Montenegro should be absorbed (even without plebiscite) by the S.H.S.
+State, thus offending also Italy's sentiments, will remain one of the
+most melancholy pages of the New Holy Alliance that the Entente has
+become, along with that poor prestigeless organism, the League of
+Nations. But let us hope this latter will find a means of renovating
+itself.
+
+While France was ruining the German people's sources of life, the
+peoples who had fought most ferociously against Italy became, through
+the War, friendly nations, and every aspiration of Italy appeared
+directed to lessen the prestige of the new friends and allies.
+
+The territories annexed to Italy have a small economic value.
+
+For more than thirty years Italy had sold a large part of her richest
+agricultural produce to Germany and had imported a considerable share
+of her raw materials from Russia. Since the War she has found herself
+in a state of regular isolation. A large part of the Italian Press,
+which repeats at haphazard the commonest themes of the French Press
+instead of wishing for a more intense revival of commercial relations
+with Germany, frightens the ignorant public with stories of German
+penetration; and the very plutocracy in France and Italy--though not
+to the same extent in Italy--abandons itself to the identical error.
+So to-day we find spread throughout the peninsula a sense of
+lively discontent which is conducive to a wider acceptance of the
+exaggerations of the Socialists and the Fascists. But the phenomenon
+is a transitory one.
+
+Italy had no feeling of rancour against the German people. She
+entered the War against German Imperialism, and cannot now follow
+any imperialistic policy. Indeed, in the face of the imperialistic
+competitions which have followed the War, Italy finds herself in a
+state of profound psychological uneasiness.
+
+France worries herself about one people only, since as a matter of
+fact she has only one warlike race at her frontiers: Germany. Italy's
+frontiers touch France, the German peoples, the Slav races. It is,
+therefore, her interest to approve a democratic policy which allows no
+one of the group of combatants to take up a position of superiority.
+The true Italian nationalist policy consists in being against all
+excessive nationalisms, and nothing is more harmful to Italy's policy
+than the abandonment of those democratic principles in the name of
+which she arose and by which she lives. If the policy of justice is
+a moral duty for the other nations, for Italy it is a necessity of
+existence. The Italian people has a clear vision of these facts,
+notwithstanding a certain section of her Press and notwithstanding the
+exaggerations of certain excited parties arisen from the ashes of the
+War. And therefore her uneasiness is great. While other countries have
+an economic crisis, Italy experiences, in addition, a mental crisis,
+but one with which she will be able to cope.
+
+France, however, is in a much more difficult situation, and her policy
+is still a result of her anxieties. All the violences against Germany
+were, until the day before yesterday, an effect of hatred; to-day they
+derive from dread. Moral ideas have for nations a still greater value
+than wealth. France had until the other day the prestige of her
+democratic institutions. All of us who detested the Hohenzollern
+dynasty and the insolent fatuity of William II loved France, heir of
+the bourgeois revolution and champion of democracy. So, when the War
+came, all the democracies felt a lively pang: the crushing of France
+meant the crushing of democracy and liberty. All the old bonds are
+broken, all the organization which Germany had abroad is smashed up,
+and France has been saved, not by arms alone, but by the potent life
+of free peoples.
+
+Yet victory has taken away from France her greatest prestige, her
+fascination as a democratic country. Now all the democratic races of
+the world look at France with an eye of diffidence--some, indeed, with
+rancour; others with hate. France has comported herself much more
+crudely toward Germany than a victorious Germany would have comported
+herself toward France. In the case of Russia, she has followed purely
+plutocratic tendencies. She has on foot the largest army in the world
+in front of a helpless Germany. She sends coloured troops to occupy
+the most cultured and progressive cities of Germany, abusing the
+fruits of victory. She shows no respect for the principle of
+nationality or for the right of self-determination.
+
+Germany is in a helpless and broken condition to-day; she will not
+make war; she cannot. But if to-morrow she should make war, how many
+peoples would come to France's aid?
+
+The policy which has set the people of Italy against one another, the
+diffusion of nationalist violence, the crude persecutions of enemies,
+excluded even from the League of Nations, have created an atmosphere
+of distrust of France. Admirable in her political perceptiveness,
+France, by reason of an error of exaltation, has lost almost all the
+benefit of her victorious action.
+
+A situation hedged with difficulties has been brought about. The
+United States and Great Britain have no longer any treaty of alliance
+of guarantee with France. The Anglo-Saxons, conquerors of the War and
+the peace, have drawn themselves aside. Italy has no alliance and
+cannot have any. No Italian politician could pledge his country, and
+Parliament only desires that Italy follow a democratic, peaceful
+policy, maintaining herself in Europe as a force for equilibrium and
+life.
+
+France, apart from her military alliance with Belgium, has a whole
+system of alliances based largely on the newly formed States: shifting
+sands like Poland, Russia's and Germany's enemy, whose fate no one can
+prophesy when Germany is reconstructed and Russia risen again, unless
+she finds a way of remedying her present mistakes, which are much more
+numerous than her past misfortunes. Thus the more France increases her
+army, the more she corners raw materials and increases her measures
+against Germany, the more unquiet she becomes.
+
+She has seen that Germany, mistress on land, and to a large extent on
+the seas, after having carried everywhere her victorious flag, after
+having organized her commerce and, by means of her bankers, merchants
+and capitalists, made vast expansions and placed a regular network of
+relations and intrigue round the earth, fell when she attempted her
+act of imperialistic violence. France, when in difficulties, appealed
+to the sentiment of the nations and found arms everywhere to help her.
+What then is able organization worth to-day?
+
+The fluctuations of fortune in Europe show for all her peoples a
+succession of victories and defeats. There are no peoples always
+victorious. After having, under Napoleon I, humiliated Germany, France
+saw the end of her imperialistic dream, and later witnessed the ruin
+of Napoleon III. She has suffered two great defeats, and then, when
+she stood diminished in stature before a Germany at the top of her
+fortune, she, together with the Allies, has had a victory over an
+enemy who seemed invincible.
+
+But no one can foresee the future. To have conveyed great nuclei of
+German populations to the Slav States, and especially to Poland; to
+have divided the Magyars, without any consideration for their fine
+race, among the Rumanians, Czeko-Slovaks and the Jugo-Slavs; to have
+used every kind of violence with the Bulgars; to have offended Turkey
+on any and every pretext; to have done this is not to have guaranteed
+the victory and the peace.
+
+Russia sooner or later will recover. It is an illusion to suppose that
+Great Britain, France and Italy can form an agreement to regulate the
+new State or new States that will arise in Russia. There are too many
+tendencies and diverse interests. Germany, too, will reconstruct
+herself after a series of sorrows and privations, and no one can say
+how the Germans will behave. Unless a policy of peace and social
+renovation be shaped and followed, our sons will witness scenes much
+more terrible than those which have horrified our generation and upset
+our minds even more than our interests.
+
+Meanwhile, in spite of the frightful increase of scrofula, rickets
+and tuberculosis, from which the conquered peoples are principally
+suffering, the march of the nations will proceed according to the laws
+which have hitherto ruled them and on which our limited action can
+only for brief periods cause small modifications or alterations.
+
+Demographic forecasts, like all forecasts of social events, have but
+a comparative value. It is true that demographic movements are
+especially biological manifestations, but it is also true that
+economic and social factors exercise a profound influence in limiting
+their regularity and can disturb them very considerably. It is better
+therefore not to make long prophecies.
+
+What is certain is that the French population has increased almost
+imperceptibly while the population of Germany augmented very rapidly.
+The annual average of births in the five years before the War,
+1908-13, was 762,000 in France and 176,000 in Belgium. In Germany it
+was 1,916,000. The average of deaths was 729,000 in France, 117,000 in
+Belgium, and 1,073,000 in Germany. Thus, per thousand, the excess of
+births in France was 0.9, in Belgium 7.7, in Germany 13. The War
+has terribly aggravated the situation in France, whose demographic
+structure is far from being a healthy one. From statistics published
+giving the first results of the French census of 1921--without the new
+territory of Alsace-Lorraine--France, in the interval between the
+two census periods, has decreased by 2,102,864; from 39,602,258 to
+37,499,394 (1921). The deaths in the War do not represent a half of
+this decrease, when is deducted the losses among the coloured troops
+and those from French colonies who fought for France. The new
+territories annexed to France do not compensate for the War-mortality
+and the decrease in births.
+
+We may presume that if normal conditions of life return, the
+population of Germany and German-Austria will be more than one hundred
+millions, that the population of Belgium altogether little less than
+fifty millions, that Italy will have a population much greater than
+that of France, of at least forty-five million inhabitants, and that
+Great Britain will have about sixty million inhabitants. In the case
+of the Germans we have mentioned one hundred million persons, taking
+into consideration Germany and German-Austria. But the Germans of
+Poland, of Czeko-Slovakia and the Baltic States will amount to at
+least twenty millions of inhabitants. No one can make forecasts, even
+of an approximate nature, on Russia, whose fecundity is always the
+highest in Europe, and whose losses are rapidly replaced by a high
+birth-rate even after the greatest catastrophes. And then there are
+the Germans spread about the world, great aggregations of populations
+as in the United States of America and in a lesser degree in Brazil.
+Up to now these people have been silent, not only because they were
+surrounded by hostile populations, but because the accusation of being
+sons of the Huns weighed down upon them more than any danger of the
+War. But the Treaty of Versailles, and more still the manner in
+which it has been applied, is to dissipate, and soon will entirely
+dissipate, the atmosphere of antipathy that existed against the
+Germans. In Great Britain the situation has changed profoundly in
+three years. The United States have made their separate peace and want
+no responsibility. In Italy there scarcely exists any hatred for the
+Germans, and apart from certain capitalists who paint in lurid colours
+the danger of German penetration in their papers because they want
+higher tariff protection and to be able to speculate on government
+orders, there is no one who does not desire peace with all peoples.
+The great majority of the Italian people only desire to reconstruct
+the economic and social life of the nation.
+
+Certain tendencies in France's policy depend perhaps on her great
+anxiety for the future, an anxiety, in fact, not unjustified by the
+lessons of the past. Germany, notwithstanding her fallen state, her
+anguish and the torment she has to go through, is so strong and vital
+that everybody is certain of seeing her once again potent, indeed more
+potent and formidable than ever.
+
+Everyone in France is convinced that the Treaty of Versailles has lost
+all foundation since the United States of America abandoned it, and
+since Great Britain and Italy, persuaded of the impossibility of
+putting certain clauses into effect, have shown by their attitude that
+they are not disposed to entertain coercive measures which are as
+useless as they are damaging.
+
+In France the very authors of the Treaty of Versailles recognize that
+it is weakened by a series of successive attenuations. Tardieu has
+asserted that the Treaty of Versailles tends to be abandoned on all
+sides: "_Cette faillite a des causes allemandes, des causes allies,
+des causes francaises_" (p. 489). The United States has asked itself,
+after the trouble that has followed the treaty, if wisdom did not lie
+in the old time isolation, in Washington's testament, in the Monroe
+doctrine: _Keep off_. But in America they have not understood, says
+Tardieu, that to assist Europe the same solidarity was necessary that
+existed during the War (p. 493).
+
+Great Britain, according to Tardieu, tends now also to stand aside.
+The English are inclined to say, "_N'en parlons plus_" (p. 493). No
+Frenchman will accept with calm the manner in which Lloyd George has
+conceived the execution of the peace treaty. The campaign for the
+revision of the treaties sprang up in lower spheres and from popular
+associations and workmen's groups, has surprised and saddened the
+French spirit (p. 495). In the new developments "_etait-ce une autre
+Angleterre, etait-ce un autre Lloyd George_?" (p. 496). Even in France
+herself Tardieu recognizes sadly the language has altered: "_les
+gouvernements francais, qui se sont succede au pouvoir depuis le_ 10
+_janvier_, 1920," that is, after the fall of Clemenceau, accused in
+turn by Poincare of being weak and feeble in asserting his demands,
+"_ont compromis les droits que leur predecesseur avait fait
+reconnaitre a la France_" (p. 503).
+
+Taking into consideration Germany's financial downfall, which
+threatens to upset not only all the indemnity schemes but the entire
+economy of continental Europe, the state of mind which is prevalent is
+not much different from that which Tardieu indicates.
+
+It is already more than a year ago since I left the direction of the
+Italian Government, and the French Press no longer accused me of being
+in perfect agreement with Lloyd George, yet Poincare wrote on August
+1, 1920:
+
+_L'autre jour M. Asquith declarait au parlement britannique: "Quelque
+forme de langage qu'on emploie, la conference de Spa a bien ete, en
+fait, une conference pour la revision des conditions du traite."
+"Chut!" a repondu M. Lloyd George: "c'est la une declaration tres
+grave par l'effet qu'elle peut produire en France. Je ne puis la
+laisser passer sans la contredire." Contradiction de pure forme, faite
+pour courtoisie vis-a-vis de nous, mais qui malheureusement ne change
+rien au fond des choses. Chaque fois que le Conseil Supreme s'est
+reuni, il a laisse sur la table des deliberations quelques morceaux
+epars du traite_.
+
+No kind of high-handedness, no combined effort, will ever be able to
+keep afloat absurdities like the dream of the vast indemnity, the
+Polish programme, the hope of annexing the Saar, etc. As things go
+there is almost more danger for the victors than for the vanquished.
+He who has lost all has nothing to lose. It is rather the victorious
+nations who risk all in this disorganized Europe of ours. The
+conquerors arm themselves in the ratio by which the vanquished disarm,
+and the worse the situation of our old enemies becomes, so much
+the worse become the exchanges and the credits of the victorious
+continental countries.
+
+Yet, in some of the exaggerated ideas of France and other countries of
+the Entente, there is not only the rancour and anxiety for the future,
+but a sentiment of well-founded diffidence. After the War the European
+States belonging to the Entente have been embarrassed not only on
+account of the enormous internal debts, but also for the huge debts
+contracted abroad.
+
+If Germany had not had to pay any indemnity and had not lost her
+colonies and mercantile marine we should have been confronted with the
+absurd paradox that the victorious nations would have issued from
+the War worn out, with their territories destroyed, and with a huge
+foreign debt; Germany would have had her territory quite intact, her
+industries ready to begin work again, herself anxious to start
+again her productive force, and in addition with no foreign debt,
+consequently ample credit abroad. In the mad struggle to break
+up Germany there has had part not only hatred, but also a quite
+reasonable anxiety which, after all, must be taken into consideration.
+
+Even to-day, three years after the War, Great Britain has not paid her
+debt to America, and France and Italy have not paid their debts to
+America and Great Britain. Great Britain could pay with a great
+effort; France and Italy cannot pay anyhow.
+
+According to the accounts of the American Treasury the Allies' War
+debt is 9,587 millions of dollars: 4,277 millions owing from Great
+Britain, 2,977 millions from France, 1,648 millions from Italy, 349
+millions from Belgium, 187 millions from Russia, 61 millions from
+Czeko-Slovakia, 26 millions from Serbia, 25 millions from Rumania, and
+15 millions from Greece. Up to last July Great Britain had paid back
+110 millions of dollars. Since the spring of 1919 the payment of
+the interest on the amounts due to the American Treasury has been
+suspended by some European States. Between October and November, 1919,
+the amount of the capitalizing and unpaid interests of the European
+States came to 236 million dollars. The figure has considerably
+increased since then.
+
+According to the _Statist_ (August 6, 1921) the Allies' debt to the
+United States on March 31, 1921, amounted to ten milliards and 959
+million dollars, including the interests, in which sum Great Britain
+was interested to the sum of 4,775 million dollars and France for
+3,351 million dollars. But the _Statist's_ figures, in variance to the
+official figures, include other debts than strictly war debts.
+
+The debts of the various allied countries' to Great Britain on March
+31, 1921, according to a schedule annexed to the financial
+statement for 1921-22, published by the British Treasury, came to
+L1,777,900,000, distributed as follows: France 557 millions, Italy
+476 millions, Russia 561 millions, Belgium 94 millions, Serbia 22
+millions, Portugal, Rumania, Greece and other Allies 66 millions. This
+sum represents War debts. But to it must be added the L9,900,000 given
+by Great Britain for the reconstruction of Belgium and the loans
+granted by her for relief to an amount of L16,000,000. So, altogether,
+Great Britain's credit to the Allies on March 31, 1921, was
+L1,803,600,000, and has since been increased by the interests. Great
+Britain had also at the same date a credit of L144,000,000 to her
+dominions.
+
+France has credit of little less than nine milliard francs, of which
+875 millions is from Italy, four milliards from Russia, 2,250 millions
+from Belgium, 500 millions from the Jugo-Slavs, and 1,250 millions
+from other Allies. Italy has only small credits of no account.
+
+Now this situation, by reason of which the victorious countries of
+Europe are heavy debtors (France has a foreign debt of nearly 30
+milliards, and Italy a debt of more than 20 milliards) in comparison
+with Germany, which came out of the War without any debt, has created
+a certain amount of bad feeling. Germany would have got on her feet
+again quicker than the victors if she had no indemnity to pay and had
+no foreign debts to settle.
+
+France's anxieties in this matter are perfectly legitimate and must be
+most seriously considered without, however, producing the enormities
+of the Treaty of Versailles.
+
+Assuming this, the situation may be stated in the following terms:
+
+1. All the illusions as to the capacity of Germany being able to pay
+have fallen to pieces, and the indemnities, after the absurd demands
+which tended to consider as inadequate the figure of 350 milliards
+and an annual payment of from ten to fifteen milliards have become
+an anxious unknown quantity, as troublesome to the victors as to the
+vanquished. The German circulation has lost all control under the
+force of internal needs, and Germany is threatened with failure.
+The other debtors--Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria--have need
+of succour, and can pay nothing. Austria has need of the most
+indispensable objects of existence, and everything is lacking.
+
+2. The indemnity which Germany can pay annually in her present
+condition cannot, calculating goods and cash payments altogether,
+represent more than two or three milliards at the most.
+
+3. The victorious countries, such as France, have won immense
+territories and great benefits, yet they have not been able to pay the
+War debts contracted abroad, and not even the interests. France and
+Italy, being countries of good faith, have demonstrated that, if they
+cannot pay, it is absurd to demand the payment of much higher sums
+from countries like Germany, which has lost almost all her best
+resources: mercantile fleet, colonies and foreign organization, etc.
+
+4. The danger exists that with the aggravation of the situation in the
+vanquished countries and the weakening of the economic structure of
+Europe, the vanquished countries will drag the victors down with
+them to ruin, while the Anglo-Saxon peoples, standing apart from
+Continental Europe, will detach themselves more and more from its
+policy.
+
+5. The situation which has come about is a reason for everyone to be
+anxious, and threatens both the downfall of the vanquished and the
+almost inevitable ruin of the victors, unless a way is found of
+reconstructing the moral unity of Europe and the solidarity of
+economic life.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+EUROPE'S POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTION AND PEACE POLICY
+
+
+No right-thinking person has nowadays any doubt as to the profound
+injustice of the Treaty of Versailles and of all the treaties which
+derive from it. But this fact is of small importance, inasmuch as it
+is not justice or injustice which regulates the relations between
+nations, but their interests and sentiments. In the past we have seen
+Christian peoples, transplanted in America, maintain the necessity of
+slavery, and we have seen, and continue to see every day, methods of
+reasoning which, when used by the defeated enemy were declared to be
+fallacious and wrong, become in turn, when varied only in form, the
+ideas and the customary life of the conquerors in the War--ideas which
+then assume the quality of liberal expressions of democracy.
+
+If appeals to the noblest human sentiments are not made in vain (and
+no effort of goodness or generosity is ever sterile), the conviction
+which is gradually forming itself, even in the least receptive minds,
+that the treaties of peace are inapplicable, as harmful to the
+conquerors as to the conquered, gains in force. For the treaties are
+at one and the same time a menace for the conquerors and a paralysis
+of all activity on the part of the conquered, since once the economic
+unity of Continental Europe is broken the resultant depression becomes
+inevitable.
+
+If many errors have been committed, many errors were inevitable. What
+we must try to do now is to limit the consequences of these mistakes
+in a changed spirit. To reconstruct where we see only ruins is the
+most evident necessity. We must also try to diffuse among the nations
+which have won the War together and suffered together the least amount
+of diffidence possible. As it is, the United States, Great Britain,
+France, Italy, Japan, all go their own way. France has obtained her
+maximum of concessions, including those of least use to her, but never
+before has the world seen her so alone in her attitude as after the
+treaties of Paris.
+
+What is most urgently required at the moment is to change the
+prevalent war-mentality which still infects us and overcomes all
+generous sentiments, all hopes of unity. The statement that war makes
+men better or worse is, perhaps, an exaggerated one. War, which
+creates a state of exaltation, hypertrophies all the qualities, all
+the tendencies, be they for good or for evil. Ascetic souls, spirits
+naturally noble, being disposed toward sacrifice, develop a state
+of exaltation and true fervour. How many examples of nobility, of
+abnegation, of voluntary martyrdom has not the War given us? But in
+persons disposed to evil actions, in rude and violent spirits (and
+these are always in the majority), the spirit of violence increases.
+This spirit, which among the intellectuals takes the form of arrogance
+and concupiscence, and in politics expresses itself in a policy of
+conquest, assumes in the crowd the most violent forms of class war,
+continuous assaults upon the power of the State, and an unbalanced
+desire to gain as much as possible with the least possible work.
+
+Before the War the number of men ready to take the law into their own
+hands was relatively small; now there are many such individuals.
+The various nations, even those most advanced, cannot boast a moral
+progress comparable with their intellectual development. The explosion
+of sentiments of violence has created in the period after the War in
+most countries an atmosphere which one may call unbreathable. Peoples
+accustomed to be dominated and to serve have come to believe that,
+having become dominators in their turn, they have the right to use
+every kind of violence against their overlords of yesterday. Are not
+the injustices of the Poles against the Germans, and those of the
+Rumanians against the Magyars, a proof of this state of mind? Even in
+the most civilized countries many rules of order and discipline have
+gone by the board.
+
+After all the great wars a condition of torpor, of unwillingness to
+work, together with a certain rudeness in social relations, has always
+been noticed.
+
+The war of 1870 was a little war in comparison with the cataclysm let
+loose by the European War. Yet then the conquered country had its
+attempt at Bolshevism, which in those days was called the Commune,
+and the fall of its political regime. In the conquering country we
+witnessed, together with the rapid development of industrial groups, a
+quick growth in Socialism and the constitution of great parties like
+the Catholic Centre. _Mutatis mutandis_, the same situation has shown
+itself after the European War.
+
+What is most urgently necessary, therefore, is to effect a return to
+peace sentiments, and in the manifestations of government to abandon
+those attitudes which in the peaces of Paris had their roots in hate.
+
+I have tried, as Premier of Italy, as writer, and as politician, to
+regulate my actions by this principle. In the first months of 1920 I
+gave instructions to Italy's ambassador in Vienna, the Marquis della
+Torretta, to arrange a meeting between himself and Chancellor Renner,
+head of the Government of Vienna. So the chief of the conquered
+country came, together with his Ministers, to greet the head of the
+conquering country, and there was no word that could record in any way
+the past hatred and the ancient rancour. All the conversation was of
+the necessity for reconstruction and for the development of fresh
+currents of life and commercial activity. The Government of Italy
+helped the Government of Austria in so far as was possible. And in so
+acting, I felt I was working better for the greatness of my country
+than I could possibly have done by any kind of stolid persecution.
+I felt that over and beyond our competition there existed the human
+sorrow of nations for whom we must avoid fresh shedding of blood and
+fresh wars. Had I not left the Government, it was my intention not
+only to continue in this path, but also to intensify my efforts in
+this direction.
+
+The banal idea that there exist in Europe two groups of nations, one
+of which stands for violence and barbarism--the Germans, the Magyars
+and the Bulgarians--while the other group of Anglo-Saxons and Latins
+represents civilization, must not continue to be repeated, because not
+only is it an outrage on truth but an outrage on honesty.
+
+Always to repeat that the Germans are not adapted for a democratic
+regime is neither just nor true. Nor is it true that Germany is an
+essentially warlike country, and therefore different from all other
+lands. In the last three centuries France and England have fought many
+more wars than Germany. One must read the books of the Napoleonic
+period to see with what disdain pacificist Germany is referred
+to--that country of peasants, waiters and philosophers. It is
+sufficient to read the works of German writers, including Treitschke
+himself, to perceive for what a long period of time the German lands,
+anxious for peace, have considered France as the country always eager
+for war and conquest.
+
+Not only am I of the opinion that Germany is a land suited for
+democratic institutions, but I believe that after the fall of the
+Empire democratic principles have a wider prevalence there than in
+any other country of Europe. The resistance offered to the peace of
+Versailles--that is, to disorganization--may be claimed as a merit for
+the democratic parties, which, if they are loyally assisted by the
+States of the Entente, can not only develop themselves but establish a
+great and noble democracy.
+
+Germany has accustomed us in history to the most remarkable surprises.
+A century and a half ago she was considered as a pacificist nation
+without national spirit. She has since then become a warlike country
+with the most pronounced national spirit. Early in the seventeenth
+century there were in Germany more than one hundred territories and
+independent States. There was no true national conscience, and not
+even the violence of the Napoleonic wars, a century after, sufficed
+to awaken it. What was required was a regular effort of thought, a
+sustained programme of action on the part of men like Wolff, Fichte
+and Hegel to mould a national conscience. Fifty years earlier no one
+would have believed in the possibility of a Germany united and
+compact in her national sentiment. Germany passed from the widest
+decentralization to the greatest concentration and the intensest
+national life. Germany will also be a democratic country if the
+violence of her ancient enemies does not drive her into a state of
+exaltation which will tend to render minds and spirits favourable to a
+return to the old regime.
+
+To arrive at peace we must first of all desire peace. We must no
+longer carry on conversations by means of military missions, but by
+means of ambassadors and diplomatic representatives.
+
+
+1.--THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS AND THE PARTICIPATION OF THE VANQUISHED
+
+A great step towards peace may be made by admitting at once all
+ex-enemy States into the League of Nations. Among the States of
+European civilization millions of persons are unrepresented in the
+League of Nations: the United States, who has not wished to adhere to
+it after the Treaty of Versailles sanctioned violence; Russia, who
+has not been able to join owing to her difficult position; Germany,
+Hungary, Austria and Bulgaria, who have not been permitted to join;
+the Turks, etc. The League of Nations was a magnificent conception in
+which I have had faith, and which I have regarded with sympathy. But a
+formidable mistake has deprived it of all prestige. Clauses 5 and 10
+of its originating constitution and the exclusion of the defeated
+have given it at once the character of a kind of Holy Alliance of the
+conquerors established to regulate the incredible relations which the
+treaties have created between conquerors and conquered. Wilson had
+already committed the mistake of founding the League of Nations
+without first defining the nations and leaving to chance the resources
+of the beaten peoples and their populations. The day, however, on
+which all the peoples are represented in the League, the United
+States, without approving the treaties of Versailles, St. Germain or
+Trianon, etc., will feel the need of abandoning their isolation, which
+is harmful for them and places them in a position of inferiority. And
+the day when all the peoples of the world are represented, and accept
+reciprocal pledges of international solidarity, a great step will have
+been taken.
+
+As things stand, the organism of the Reparations Commission,
+established by Schedule 2 of Part VIII of the Treaty of Versailles,
+is an absurd union of the conquerors (no longer allies, but reunited
+solely in a kind of bankruptcy procedure), who interpret the treaty in
+their own fashion, and can even modify the laws and regulations in
+the conquered countries. The existence of such an institution among
+civilized peoples ought to be an impossibility. Its powers must be
+transferred to the League of Nations in such a manner as to provide
+guarantees for the victors, but guarantees also for the conquered.
+The suppression of the Reparations Commission becomes, therefore, a
+fundamental necessity.
+
+
+2.--THE REVISION OF THE TREATIES
+
+When the public, and especially in the United States and Great
+Britain, become convinced that the spirit of peace can only prevail by
+means of an honest revision of the treaties the difficulties will be
+easily eliminated. But one cannot merely speak of a simple revision;
+it would be a cure worse than the evil. During the tempest one cannot
+abandon the storm-beaten ship and cross over to a safer vessel. It is
+necessary to return into harbour and make the transhipment where calm,
+or relative calm at any rate, reigns.
+
+Inasmuch as Europe is out of equilibrium, a settlement, even of a
+bad kind, cannot be arrived at off-hand. To cast down the present
+political scaffolding without having built anything would be an error.
+Perhaps here the method that will prove most efficacious is to entrust
+the League of Nations with the task of arriving at a revision.
+When the League of Nations is charged with this work the various
+governments will send their best politicians, and the discussion will
+be able to assume a realizable character.
+
+According to its constitution, the League of Nations may, in case of
+war or the menace of war (Clause 11), convoke its members, and take
+all the measures required to safeguard the peace of the nations. All
+the adhering States have recognized their obligation to submit all
+controversies to arbitration, and that in any case they have no right
+to resort to war before the expiration of a term of three months after
+the verdict of the arbiters or the report of the Council (Clause 12).
+Any member of the League of Nations resorting to war contrary to the
+undertakings of the treaty which constitutes the League is, _ipso
+facto_, considered as if he had committed an act of war against all
+the other members of the League (Clause 19).
+
+But more important still is the fact that the Assembly of the League
+of Nations may invite its members to proceed to a fresh examination
+of treaties that become inapplicable as well as of international
+situations whose prolongation might imperil the peace of the world
+(Clause 19).
+
+We may therefore revise the present treaties without violence and
+without destroying them.
+
+What requires to be modified there is no necessity to say, inasmuch as
+all the matter of this book supplies the evidence and the proof. What
+is certain is that in Europe and America, except for an intransigent
+movement running strong in France, everyone is convinced of the
+necessity of revision.
+
+It will be well that this revision should take place through the
+operations of the League of Nations after the representatives of all
+the States, conquerors, conquered and neutrals, have come to form part
+of it.
+
+But in the constitution of the League of Nations there are two clauses
+which form its fundamental weakness, sections desired by France, whose
+gravity escaped Wilson.
+
+Clause 5 declares that, save and excepting contrary dispositions, the
+decisions of the Assembly or of the Council are to be by the unanimous
+consent of the members represented at the meetings. It is difficult
+to imagine anything more absurd. If the modification of a territorial
+situation is being discussed, all the nations must agree as to the
+solution, including the interested nation. The League of Nations is
+convinced that the Danzig corridor is an absurdity, but if France is
+not of the same opinion no modification can be made. Without a change
+of this clause, every honest attempt at revision must necessarily
+break down.
+
+Clause 10, by which the members of the League of Nations pledge
+themselves to respect and preserve from external attacks the
+territorial integrity and the existing political independence of all
+the members of the League, must also be altered. This clause, which
+is profoundly immoral, consecrates and perpetuates the mistakes
+and faults of the treaties. No honest country can guarantee the
+territorial integrity of the States now existing after the monstrous
+parcelling out of entire groups of Germans and Magyars to other
+nations, arranged without scruples and without intelligence. No one
+can honestly guarantee the territorial integrity of Poland as it
+stands at present. If a new-risen Russia, a renewed Germany, and an
+unextinguished Austria desire in the future a revision of the treaties
+they will be making a most reasonable demand to which no civilized
+country may make objection. It is indeed Clauses 5 and 10 which have
+deprived the constitution of the League of Nations of all moral
+credit, which have transformed it into an instrument of oppression for
+the victors, which have caused the just and profound disapproval of
+the most enlightened men of the American Senate. A League of Nations
+with Clauses 5 and 10 and the prolonged exclusion of the vanquished
+cannot but accentuate the diffidence of all the democracies and the
+aversion of the masses.
+
+But the League of Nations can be altered and can become indeed a great
+force for renovation if the problem of its functioning be clearly
+confronted and promptly resolved.
+
+The League of Nations can become a great guarantee for peace on three
+conditions:
+
+(a) That it include really and in the shortest space of time possible
+all the peoples, conquerors, conquered and neutrals.
+
+(b) That clauses 5 and 10 be modified, and that after their
+modification a revision of the treaties be undertaken.
+
+(c) That the Reparations Commission be abolished and its powers be
+conferred upon the League of Nations itself.
+
+As it exists at present the League of Nations has neither prestige nor
+dignity; it is an expression of the violence of the conquering group
+of nations. But reconstituted and renovated it may become the greatest
+of peace factors in the relations between the peoples.
+
+3.--THE SAFETY OF FRANCE AND THE MILITARY GUARANTEES
+
+In the state of mind in which France exists at present there is a
+reasonable cause of worry for the future. Since the conclusion of
+the War the United States of America have withdrawn. They concern
+themselves with Europe no more, or only in a very limited form and
+with diffidence. The Monroe doctrine has come into its own again.
+Great Britain watches the decadence of the European continent, but,
+girt by the sea, has nothing to fear. She is a country of Europe, but
+she does not live the life of Europe; she stands apart from it. Italy,
+when she has overcome the difficulties of her economic situation, can
+be certain of her future. The very fact that she stands in direct
+opposition to no State, that she may have competition with various
+peoples but not long-nurtured hatreds, gives Italy a relative
+security. But France, who has been in less than forty-four years twice
+at war with Germany, has little security for her future. Germany
+and the Germanic races increase rapidly in number. France does not
+increase. France, notwithstanding the new territories, after her war
+losses, has probably no more inhabitants than in 1914. In her almost
+tormented anxiety to destroy Germany we see her dread for the
+future--more indeed than mere hatred. To occupy with numerous troops
+the left bank of the Rhine and the bridgeheads is an act of vengeance;
+but in the vengeance there is also anxiety. There are many in France
+who think that neither now nor after fifteen years must the territory
+of the vanquished be abandoned. And so France maintains in effective
+force too large an army and nourishes too great a rancour. And for
+this reason she helps the Poles in their unjustifiable attempt in
+Upper Silesia, will not allow the Germans of Austria to live, and
+seeks to provoke and facilitate all movements and political actions
+which can tend towards the dismemberment of Germany. The British and
+the Italian viewpoints are essentially different. France, which knows
+it can no longer count on the co-operation of Great Britain, of the
+United States, or of Italy, keeps on foot her numerous army, has
+allied herself with Belgium and Poland, and tries to suffocate Germany
+in a ring of iron. The attempt is a vain one and destined to fail
+within a few years, inasmuch as France's allies have no capacity for
+resistance. Yet, all the same, her attempt derives from a feeling that
+is not only justifiable but just.
+
+France had obtained at Paris, apart from the occupation of the left
+bank of the Rhine and all the military controls, two guaranteeing
+treaties from the United States and from Great Britain: in case of
+unprovoked aggression on the part of Germany, Great Britain and
+the United States pledged themselves to defend France. The British
+Parliament, as we have seen, approved the treaty provisionally on the
+similar approbation of the United States. But as the latter has not
+approved the Treaty of Versailles, and has not even discussed the
+guarantee treaty, France has now no guarantee treaty.
+
+If we are anxious to realize a peace politic two things are necessary:
+
+1. That France has security, and that for twenty years at least
+Great Britain and Italy pledge themselves to defend her in case of
+aggression.
+
+2. That the measures for the disarmament of the conquered States be
+maintained, maybe with some tempering of their conditions, and that
+their execution and control be entrusted with the amplest powers to
+the League of Nations.
+
+No one can think it unjust that the parties who provoked the War or
+those who have, if not the entire, at least the greatest share of
+responsibility, should be rendered for a certain time incapable.
+The fall of the military caste in Germany and the formation of a
+democratic society will derive much help from the abolition, for a not
+too brief period of time, of the permanent army, and this will render
+possible, at no distant date, an effective reduction of the armaments
+in the victorious countries.
+
+Great Britain has the moral duty to proffer a guarantee already
+spontaneously given. Italy also must give such a guarantee if she
+wishes truly to contribute towards the peace of Europe.
+
+As long as Germany has no fleet, and cannot put together an artillery
+and an aviation corps, she cannot present a menace.
+
+Great Britain and Italy can, however, only give their guarantees on
+the condition that they guarantee a proper state of things and not a
+continued condition of violence. The withdrawal of all the troops from
+the Rhine ought to coincide with a clear definition concerning the
+fate of the Germans of Austria and the Germans detached from Germany
+without motive. Such a retirement must coincide with the definition
+of the territory of the Saar, and the assigning, pure and simple, of
+Upper Silesia to Germany and the end of all the insupportable controls
+and the indemnity regulations.
+
+Being myself contrary to any pledge binding Italy for too long a
+period, I am of opinion that it is perfectly right that Great Britain
+and Italy should make this sacrifice for the peace of Europe.
+
+But no guarantee is possible, either for Great Britain or Italy, until
+the most essential problems be resolved in the justest manner by means
+of straightforward and explicit understandings.
+
+Italy's tendency towards British policy on the continent of Europe
+depends on the fact that Great Britain has never wished or tolerated
+that any continental State should have a hegemony over others. And,
+therefore, she has found herself at different epochs ranged against
+France, Germany and Russia.
+
+England is in the Mediterranean solely to secure her passage through
+it, not to dominate it. She continues to follow the grand policy by
+which she has transformed her colonies into dominions, and, in spite
+of errors, she has always shown the greatest respect for the liberty
+of other peoples.
+
+But Europe will not have peace until the three progressive countries
+of the Continent, Germany, France and Italy, find a way of agreement
+which can reunite all their energies in one common force.
+
+Russia has conceived the idea of having the hegemony of Europe;
+Germany has indeed had the illusion of such a hegemony. Now this
+illusion penetrates certain French elements. Can a people of forty
+million inhabitants, who are not increasing, who already find
+difficulties in dominating and controlling their immense colonies,
+aspire to hegemonic action, even taking count of their great political
+prestige? Can France lastingly dominate and menace a country like
+Germany, which at no distant date will have a population double that
+of France?
+
+The future of European civilization requires that Germany, France and
+Italy, after so much disaster, find a common road to travel.
+
+The first step to be taken is to give security of existence and of
+reconstruction to Germany; the second is to guarantee France from the
+perils of a not distant future; the third is to find at all costs a
+means of accord between Germany, France and Italy.
+
+But only vast popular movements and great currents of thought and
+of life can work effectively in those cases where the labours of
+politicians have revealed themselves as characterized by uncertainty
+and as being too traditional. Europe is still under the dominion of
+old souls which often enough dwell in young bodies and, therefore,
+unite old errors with violence. A great movement can only come from
+the intellectuals of the countries most menaced and from fresh popular
+energies.
+
+
+4.--REGULATING INTER-ALLIED DEBTS, GERMANY'S INDEMNITY AND THAT OF THE
+DEFEATED COUNTRIES
+
+These two problems are closely connected.
+
+The victorious countries demand an indemnity from the conquered
+countries which, except Germany, who has a great productive force even
+in her hour of difficulties, are in extreme depression and misery.
+
+Great Britain is in debt to the United States, and France, Italy and
+minor nations are in their turn heavy debtors to the Americans and to
+Great Britain.
+
+The experience of the last three years has shown that, even with the
+best will, none of the countries owing money to the Entente has been
+able to pay its debts or even the interest. With an effort Great
+Britain could pay; France and Italy will never be able to, and have,
+moreover, exchanges which constitute a real menace for the future of
+each.
+
+The fact that France and Italy, although they came out of the war
+victoriously, have not been able to pay their debts or even the
+interest on them is the proof that Germany, whose best resources have
+been taken away from her, can only pay an indemnity very different
+from the fantastic figures put forward at the time of the Conference
+of Paris, when even important political men spoke of monstrous and
+ridiculous indemnities.
+
+The problem of the inter-allied debts, as well as that of the
+indemnity, will be solved by a certain sacrifice on the part of all
+who participated in the War.
+
+The credits of the United States amount to almost 48 milliards of lire
+or francs at par, and the credits of Great Britain to 44 milliards.
+Great Britain owes about 21 milliards to the United States and is in
+turn creditor for some 44 milliards. She has a bad debt owing from
+Russia for more than 14 milliards, but 13 milliards are owing from
+France, about 12 milliards from Italy, and almost 2-1/2 milliards from
+Belgium. That is to say, that Great Britain could well pay her debt
+to the United States, ceding the greater part of her credits towards
+France and Italy.
+
+But the truth is that, while on the subject of the German indemnities,
+stolid illusions continue to be propagated (perhaps now with greater
+discretion), neither France nor Italy is in a position to pay its
+debts.
+
+The most honest solution, which, intelligently enough, J.M. Keynes has
+seen from the first, is that each of the inter-allied countries should
+renounce its state credits towards countries that were allies or
+associates during the War. The United States of America are creditors
+only; Great Britain has lent the double of what she has borrowed.
+France has received on loan the triple of what she has lent to others.
+
+The credits of France are for almost two-thirds undemandable credits
+of Great Britain; more than 14 milliards being with Russia, they are
+for considerably more than one-third bad debts.
+
+France and Italy would be benefited chiefly by this provision. Great
+Britain would scarcely either benefit or lose, or, rather, the benefit
+accruing to her would be less in so much as her chief credits are to
+Russia.
+
+The United States would doubtless have to bear the largest burden. But
+when one thinks of the small sacrifice which the United States has
+made in comparison with the efforts of France and Italy (and Italy was
+not obliged to enter the War), the new sacrifice demanded does not
+seem excessive.
+
+During the War the United States of America, who for three years
+furnished food, provisions and arms to the countries of the Entente,
+have absorbed the greater part of their available resources. Not only
+are the States of Europe debtors, but so are especially the private
+citizens who have contracted debts during or after the War. Great
+Britain during the War had to sell at least 25 milliards of her
+foreign values. The United States of America, on the contrary, have
+immensely increased their reserves.
+
+But this very increase is harmful to them, inasmuch as the capacity
+for exchange of the States of Europe has been much reduced. The United
+States now risk seeing still further reduced, if not destroyed,
+this purchasing capacity of their best clients; and this finally
+constitutes for the U.S.A. infinitely greater damage than the
+renouncing of all their credits.
+
+To reconstruct Germany, to intensify exchange of goods with the old
+countries of Austria-Hungary and Russia, to settle the situation of
+the exchange of goods with Italy and the Balkan countries is much more
+important for the United States and the prosperity of its people than
+to demand payment or not demand payment of those debts made for the
+common cause.
+
+I will speak of the absurd situation which has come about.
+Czeko-Slovakia and Poland unwillingly indeed fought against the
+Entente, which has raised them to free and autonomous States; and
+not only have they no debts to pay, being now in the position of
+conquerors, or at least allies of the conquerors, but they have, in
+fact, scarcely any foreign debts.
+
+The existence of enormous War debts is, then, everywhere a menace to
+financial stability. No one is anxious to repudiate his debts in order
+not to suffer in loss of dignity, but almost all know that they cannot
+pay. The end of the War, as Keynes has justly written, has brought
+about that all owe immense sums of money to one another. The holders
+of loan stock in every country are creditors for vast sums towards
+the State, and the State, in its turn, is creditor for enormous sums
+towards the taxpayers. The whole situation is highly artificial and
+irritating. We shall be unable to move unless we succeed in freeing
+ourselves from this chain of paper.
+
+The work of reconstruction can begin by annulling the inter-allied
+debts.
+
+If it is not thought desirable to proceed at once to annulment, there
+remains only the solution of including them in the indemnity which
+Germany must pay in the measure of 20 per cent., allocating a certain
+proportion to each country which has made loans to allied and
+associated governments on account of the War. In round figures the
+inter-allied loans come to 100 milliards. They can be reduced to 20,
+and then each creditor can renounce his respective credit towards
+allies or associates and participate proportionately in the new credit
+towards Germany. Such a credit, bearing no interest, could only be
+demanded after the payment of all the other indemnities, and would be
+considered in the complete total of the indemnities.
+
+All the illusions concerning the indemnities are now fated to
+disappear. They have already vanished for the other countries; they
+are about to vanish in the case of Germany.
+
+Nevertheless it is right that Germany should pay an indemnity. Yet, if
+the conquerors cannot meet their foreign debts, how can the vanquished
+clear the vast indemnity asked? Each passing day demonstrates more
+clearly the misunderstanding of the indemnity. The non-experts have
+not learned financial technics, but common sense tells them that the
+golden nimbus which has been trailed before their eyes is only a thick
+cloud of smoke that is slowly dissipating.
+
+I have already said that the real damages to repair do not exceed
+40 milliards of gold marks and that all the other figures are pure
+exaggerations.
+
+If it be agreed that Germany accept 20 per cent. of the inter-allied
+debt, the indemnity may be raised to 60 milliards of francs at par, to
+be paid in gold marks.
+
+But we must calculate for Germany's benefit all that she has already
+given in immediate marketable wealth. Apart from her colonies, Germany
+has given up all her mercantile marine fleet, her submarine cables,
+much railway material and war material, government property in ceded
+territory without any diminution of the amount of public debts, etc.
+Without taking account, then, of the colonies and her magnificent
+commercial organization abroad, Germany has parted with at least 20
+milliards. If we were to calculate what Germany has ceded with the
+same criteria with which the conquering countries have calculated
+their losses, we should arrive at figures much surpassing these. We
+may agree in taxing Germany with an indemnity equivalent in gold marks
+to 60 milliards of francs at par--an indemnity to be paid in the
+following manner:
+
+(a) Twenty milliards of francs to be considered as already paid in
+consideration of all that Germany has ceded in consequence of the
+treaties.
+
+(b) Twenty milliards from the indemnity which Germany must pay to her
+conquerors, especially in coal and other materials, according to the
+proportions already established.
+
+(c) Twenty milliards--after the payment of the debts in the second
+category to be taken over by Germany--as part of the reimbursement for
+countries which have made credits to the belligerents of the Entente:
+that is, the United States, Great Britain and France, in proportion to
+the sums lent.
+
+In what material can Germany pay 20 milliards in a few years?
+Especially in coal and in material for repairing the devastated
+territories of France. Germany must pledge herself for ten years to
+consign to France a quantity of coal at least equal in bulk to the
+difference between the annual production before the War in the mines
+of the north and in the Pas de Calais and the production of the mines
+in the same area during the next ten years. She must also furnish
+Italy--who, after the heavy losses sustained, has not the possibility
+of effecting exchanges--a quantity of coal that will represent
+three-quarters of the figures settled upon in the Treaty of
+Versailles. We can compel Germany to give to the Allies for ten years,
+in extinction of their credits, at least 500 millions a year in gold,
+with privileges on the customs receipts.
+
+This systematization, which can only be imposed by the free agreement
+of the United States and Great Britain, would have the effect of
+creating excellent relations. The United States, cancelling their, in
+great part, impossible debt, would derive the advantage of developing
+their trade and industry, and thus be able to guarantee credits for
+private individuals in Europe. It would also be of advantage to Great
+Britain, who would lose nothing. Great Britain has about an equal
+number of debits and credits, with this difference, that the debits
+are secured, while the credits are, in part, unsecured. France's
+credits are proportionately the worst and her debits largest, almost
+27 milliards. France, liberated from her debt, and in a position to
+calculate on a coal situation comparable with that of before the War
+and with her new territories, would be in a position to re-establish
+herself. The cancellation of 27 milliards of debt, a proportionate
+share in 20 milliards, together with all that she has had, represent
+on the whole a sum that perhaps exceeds 50 milliards. Italy would
+have the advantage of possessing for ten years the minimum of coal
+necessary to her existence, and would be liberated from her foreign
+debt, which amounts to much more than she can possibly hope for from
+the indemnity.
+
+Such an arrangement, or one like it, is the only way calculated to
+allow Europe to set out again on the path of civilization and to
+re-establish slowly that economic equilibrium which the War has
+destroyed with enormous damage for the conquerors and the certain ruin
+of the vanquished.
+
+But, before speaking of any indemnity, the Reparations Commission must
+be abolished and its functions handed over to the League of Nations,
+while all the useless controls and other hateful vexations must be put
+an end to.
+
+While the Allied troops' occupation of the Rhine costs Germany
+25 milliards of paper marks a year, it is foolish to speak of
+reconstruction or indemnity. Either all occupation must cease or the
+expenses ought not to exceed, according to the foregoing agreements, a
+maximum of 80 millions at par, or even less.
+
+We shall, however, never arrive at such an arrangement until the
+Continental countries become convinced of two things: first, that the
+United States will grant no credits under any formula; secondly, that
+Germany, under the present system, will be unable to pay anything and
+will collapse, dragging down to ruin her conquerors.
+
+Among many uncertainties these two convictions become ever clearer.
+
+If in all countries the spirit of insubordination among the working
+classes is increasing, the state of mind of the German operatives
+is quite remarkable. The workmen almost everywhere, in face of the
+enormous fortunes which the War has created and by reason of the
+spirit of violence working in them, have worked with bad spirit after
+the War because they have thought that a portion of their labour has
+gone to form the profits of the industrials. It is useless to say that
+we are dealing here with an absurd and dangerous conception, because
+the profit of the capitalist is a necessary element of production,
+and because production along communist lines, wherever it has been
+attempted, has brought ruin and misery. But it is useless to deny that
+such a situation exists, together with the state of mind which it
+implies. We can well imagine, then, the conditions in which Germany
+and the vanquished countries find themselves. The workmen, who in
+France, England and Italy exhibit in various degree and measure a
+state of intractability, in Germany have to face a situation still
+graver. When they work they know that a portion of their labour is
+destined to go to the victors, another part to the capitalist, and
+finally there will remain something for them. Add to this that in
+all the beaten countries hunger is widespread, with a consequent
+diminution of energy and work.
+
+No reasonable person can explain how humanity can continue to believe
+in the perpetuation of a similar state of things for another forty
+years.
+
+In speaking of the indemnity which Germany can pay, it is necessary
+to consider this special state of mind of the operatives and other
+categories of producers.
+
+But the mere announcement of the settling of the indemnity, of the
+immediate admission of the vanquished nations into the League of
+Nations, of the settling the question of the occupation of the Rhine,
+and of the firm intention to modify the constitution of the League
+of Nations, according it the powers now held by the Reparations
+Commission, will improve at once the market and signalize a definite
+and assured revival.
+
+The United States made a great financial effort to assist their
+associates, and in their own interests, as well as for those of
+Europe, they would have done badly to have continued with such
+assistance. When the means provided by America come to be employed to
+keep going the anarchy of central Europe, Rumania's disorder, Greece's
+adventures and Poland's violences, together with Denikin's and
+Wrangel's restoration attempts, it is better that all help should
+cease. In fact, Europe has begun to reason a little better than her
+governments since the financial difficulties have increased.
+
+The fall of the mark and Germany's profound economic depression have
+already destroyed a great part of the illusions on the subject of the
+indemnity, and the figures with which for three years the public has
+been humbugged no longer convince anyone.
+
+
+5.--FORMING NEW CONNEXIONS WITH RUSSIA
+
+Among the States of the Entente there is always a fundamental discord
+on the subject of Russia. Great Britain recognized at once that if it
+were impossible to acknowledge the Soviet Government it was a mistake
+to encourage attempts at restoration. After the first moments of
+uncertainty Great Britain has insisted on temperate measures, and
+notwithstanding that during the War she made the largest loans to the
+Russian Government (more than 14 milliards of francs at par, while
+France only lent about 4 milliards), she has never put forward the
+idea that, as a condition precedent to the recognition of the Soviet
+Government, a guarantee of the repayment of the debt was necessary.
+Only France has had this mistaken idea, which she has forced to the
+point of asking for the sequestration of all gold sent abroad by the
+Soviet Government for the purchase of goods.
+
+Wilson had already stated in his fourteen points what the attitude of
+the Entente towards Russia ought to be, but the attitudes actually
+assumed have been of quite a different order.
+
+The barrier which Poland wants to construct between Germany and Russia
+is an absurdity which must be swept away at once. Having taken away
+Germany's colonies and her capacities for expansion abroad, we must
+now direct her towards Russia where alone she can find the outlet
+necessary for her enormous population and the debt she has to carry.
+The blockade of Russia, the barbed wire placed round Russia, have
+damaged Europe severely. This blockade has resolved itself into a
+blockade against the Allies. Before the present state of economic
+ruin Russia was the great reservoir of raw materials; she was the
+unexplored treasure towards which one went with the confidence of
+finding everything. Now, owing to her effort, she has fallen; but
+how large a part of her fall is as much due to the Entente as to her
+action during the War and since. For some time now even the most
+hidebound intelligences have recognized the fact that it is useless
+to talk of entering into trade relations with Russia without the
+co-operation of Germany, the obvious ally in the vast task of
+renovation. Similarly, it is useless to talk of reattempting military
+manoeuvres. While Germany remains disassociated from the work
+of reconstruction and feels herself menaced by a Poland that is
+anarchical and disorderly and acts as an agent of the Entente, while
+Germany has no security for her future and must work with doubt and
+with rancour, all attempts to reconstruct Russia will be vain. The
+simple and fundamental truth is just this: One can only get to Moscow
+by passing through Berlin.
+
+If we do not wish conquerors and conquered to fall one after the
+other, and a common fate to reunite those who for too long have hated
+each other and continue to hate each other, a solemn word of peace
+must be pronounced.
+
+Austria, Germany, Italy, France are not diverse phenomena; they are
+different phases of the same phenomenon. All Europe will go to pieces
+if new conditions of life are not found, and the economic equilibrium
+profoundly shaken by the War re-established.
+
+I have sought in this book to point out in all sincerity the things
+that are in store for Europe; what perils menace her and in what
+way her regeneration lies. In my political career I have found many
+bitternesses; but the campaign waged against me has not disturbed me
+at all. I know that wisdom and life are indivisible, and I have no
+need to modify anything of what I have done, neither in my propaganda
+nor in my attempt at human regeneration, convinced as I am that I am
+serving both the cause of my country and the cause of civilization.
+Blame and praise do not disturb me, and the agitations promoted in the
+heart of my country will not modify in any way my conviction. On the
+contrary, they will only reinforce my will to follow in my own way.
+
+Truth, be it only slowly, makes its way. Though now the clouds are
+blackest, they will shortly disappear. The crisis which menaces and
+disturbs Europe so profoundly has inoculated with alarm the most
+excited spirits; Europe is still in the phase of doubt, but after the
+cries of hate and fury, doubt signifies a great advance. From doubt
+the truth may come forth.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+  ADRAIANOPLE, passes to the Greeks,
+  Adriatic programme, Italy's
+  Albania, an Italian expedition into
+  Alexander the Great as politician
+  Allenstein, a plebiscite for
+  Allies, the, war debts of
+  Alsace-Lorraine, annexation of
+    restitution of
+  America, and question of army of occupation
+    her attitude on reparations
+    result of her entry into the war
+    (_see also_ United States)
+  Apponyi, Count, on the Treaty of Trianon
+  Arabia, Turkey's losses in
+  Armaments, reduction of
+    the peace treaties and
+  Armenia, movement for liberation of
+  Armenian Republic, the
+  Armistice terms, summary of
+    three words change tenor of
+  Army of Occupation, the
+  Asia Minor, the Entente Powers and,
+    Turkey's losses in
+  Australasia, British possessions in
+  Australia as part of British dominions
+  Austria, financial position of,
+    loses access to the sea
+  Austria-Hungary, and the Versailles Treaty
+    civilizing influence of
+    pre-war army of
+    result of Treaty of St. Germain Germain-en-Laye
+    States of, before the war
+    victories of
+  Austrian army, the
+  Azerbajan
+
+  BALKANS, the, Russia's policy in
+  Battles, a military fact
+    difference between war and
+  Beethoven
+  Belgium, acquires German territory
+    army of
+    financial position of
+    population of
+    violation of, and the consequences
+  Bernhardi, General von
+  Bismarck, foresight of
+    political genius of
+  Bolshevik Government, the fiasco of
+    result of
+  Bolshevism, and what it is
+  Boxer rebellion, the Kaiser's address to his troops
+  Briand, M., on the objects of the Entente
+  Bridgeheads, German, occupation of,
+  British colonies, before the war,
+  Brussels, Conference of,
+  Budapest, conditions in,
+    mortality in,
+  Bulgaria, army of,
+    the Treaty of Neuilly and,
+  Buelow, von
+
+  CANADA as part of British dominions,
+  Cilicia,
+  Civilization, evolution of,
+  Clemenceau, M., and the military guarantees question,
+    and the Paris Conference,
+    and the reparations clause,
+    as destroyer,
+    communicates Poincare's letter to Lloyd George,
+    fall of,
+    his hatred of the Germans,
+    on peace treaties,
+    replies to Lloyd George's note,
+  Coal fields, Germany's pre-war,
+  Colonial rights, and the Versailles Treaty,
+  Colonies, British,
+    German pre-war,
+    Germany loses her,
+  Commune, the French,
+  Communist system, Russian, failure of,
+  Constantine, King of Greece, return of,
+  Constantinople, retained by the Turks,
+    Russia's desire for,
+    subject to international control,
+    the Treaty of Sevres and,
+  Croatia and Fiume,
+  Cyrenaica,
+  Czeko-Slovakia, State of,
+    added population of,
+    army of,
+    financial position of,
+    Magyars in
+
+  DALMATIA, the London Agreement and,
+  Dante, a celebrated dictum of,
+  Danube Commission, the,
+  Danzig, allotted to Poland,
+  Dardanelles, the, freedom of: Versailles Treaty and,
+  De Foville's estimate of wealth of France,
+  Denikin,
+  Denmark acquires North Schleswig,
+  Disarmament conditions fulfilled by Germany,
+  Disease, and the aftermath of war
+
+  ECONOMIC barriers, removal of, and the peace treaty,
+  England, and the Mediterranean,
+    war record of,
+  Entente, the, and Germany's responsibility for war,
+    and the Bolshevik Government,
+    author's opinion of peace terms of,
+    division among, as result of peace treaties,
+  Erzeroum, Mussulman population of,
+  Esthonia,
+  Eupen ceded to Belgium,
+  Europe, area of,
+    financial difficulties of,
+    increased armaments in
+
+  Europe, monarchies in, before the war
+    pre-war conditions of
+    reconstruction of, and peace policy
+    results of world-war in
+    States of
+  European civilization, future of
+  European States, war debts of
+    (_cf of_ War Debts)
+
+  FERENCZI, Dr., his statistics of sickness in Budapest
+  Fezzan
+  Fichte, and Germany
+  Financial and economic clauses of peace treaty
+  Finland
+  Fiume, Italy's position regarding
+    question of
+    the London Agreement and
+    Wilson and
+  Foch, Marshal, and the military commission
+    and the peace treaties
+    unconstitutional action of
+  France, acquires Saar mines
+    alliances with
+    and the indemnity
+    and the old regime in Russia
+    claims of, at Paris Conference,
+    expenses of her navy
+    financial position of
+    iron industry of
+    Italy and
+    population of
+    post-war army of
+    post-war condition of
+    presses for occupation of the Ruhr
+    pre-war status of
+    private wealth of, before the war
+    purport of her action in the Conference
+    recognizes government of Wrangel
+    safety of, and military guarantees
+    the political class in
+    treaties with U.S. and Great Britain
+    war record of
+  Franco-Prussian War, the
+    indemnity demanded by victors
+    unjust terms of Prussia
+  Frankfort, Treaty of, compared with Versailles Treaty
+  Frederick the Great, political genius of
+  Freedom of the seas, the peace treaties and
+  French-American Treaty, the
+  French-English Treaty, the
+  French territories, liberation
+  Frontiers, changed condition of
+
+  GEORGE, Lloyd, a memorandum for Peace Conference
+    a truism of
+    and question of military guarantees
+    and reparations question
+    and Russia
+    and the Paris Conference
+    and the proposed trial of the Kaiser
+    denounces economic manifesto
+    difficult position of, at Paris Conference
+    on Poland's claim to Upper Silesia
+    proposes Germany's admission to League of Nations
+  Georgia, in Bolshevik hands
+    Italy prepares a military expedition to
+  German army reduced by peace terms
+    delegates and the Paris Conference
+  German-Austria, army of
+    loses access to the sea
+    plight of
+  Germany, a country of surprises
+    a war of reconquest by, impossible
+    accepts armistice terms
+    Allies' demands for indemnities
+    and America's entry into the war
+    and her indemnity
+    and reconstruction of Russia
+    and the political sense
+    annual capitalization of
+    commerce of, before the war
+    cost of army of occupation to
+    effect of peace treaty on
+    effect of President Wilson's messages on
+    financial position of
+    her indemnity increased
+    her pre-war colonies
+    her responsibility for the war
+    how she can pay indemnity
+    imports and exports of
+    is she able to pay indemnity asked?
+    loses her colonies
+    losses of, in Great War
+    militarist party in
+    military conditions imposed on
+    population of, in and outside Europe
+    pre-war army of
+    pre-war coal supply of
+    pre-war conditions of
+    result of Versailles Treaty to
+    revolutionary crisis in
+    Sevres Treaty and
+    suited for democratic principles
+    territories and States in, before the war
+    victories of
+    war record of
+  Goethe
+  Great Britain, and the indemnity
+    and the Treaty of Versailles
+    army of
+    enters the war
+    expenses of her navy
+    financial position of
+    general election in
+    insularity of
+    population of
+    pre-war conditions of
+    war record of
+    why she entered the war
+  Great War, the, author's opinion of peace terms
+    estimated number of dead in
+    how it was decided
+    post-war results of
+    question of responsibility for
+  Greece, acquires Bulgarian territory
+    army of
+    financial position of
+    her gains by Sevres Treaty
+    her illusion of conquering Turkish resistance
+    her policy of greed
+    the Entente and
+
+  HEGEL, and Germany,
+  Helferich, and the capitalization of Germany,
+  Herf, von, and Polish organization,
+  Hindenburg, and the U.S. army,
+  House, Colonel, and the reduction of the German army,
+    and the reparations proposal,
+  Hughes, W.M., Premier of Australia, and the German indemnity,
+  Hungary, alarming mortality in,
+    army of,
+    conditions of life in,
+    delegates of, at Paris Conference,
+    harsh treatment of,
+    losses of, by peace treaty,
+    pre-war,
+    revolutions in, 166
+  Hunger and disease, a legacy of war,
+  Hymans, M., at Paris Conference,
+
+  INDEMNITIES, question of,
+    what Germany can pay,
+    (_see also_ Reparations)
+  Indemnity clause, how inserted,
+    _et seq_.,
+  India, British,
+  Inter-Allied debts, problem of,
+    _et seq_.
+    (_see also_ Allies, war debts of)
+  Iron, Germany's lack of,
+  Iron-ore, Germany's pre-war wealth in,
+  Italian frontier, rectification of,
+  Italian Socialists visit Russia,
+  Italians, their difficult theatre of war,
+  Italo-Turkish war, the,
+  Italy, a period of crisis in,
+    an expedition into Albania,
+    and Georgia,
+    and Montenegro,
+    and the Balkans,
+    and the League of Nations,
+    and the London Agreement,
+    and the Paris Conference,
+    army of,
+    breaks with the Alliance,
+    custom of tree-planting in,
+    declares her neutrality,
+    economic sufferings of,
+    enters the war,
+    expenses of her navy,
+    financial position of,
+    Great Britain and,
+    her costly Libyan adventure,
+    her freedom from revolutions,
+    in the Triple Alliance,
+    ministerial crisis in,
+    population of,
+    pre-war status of,
+    stands apart from Conference,
+    suffers from situation in Russia
+    territories annexed to,
+    the Adriatic problem,
+    the question of Fiume,
+    votes for recognition of the Soviet,
+    why she entered the war,
+
+  JAPAN, expenses of her navy,
+  Jews, Polish,
+  Judenic, General,
+  Jugo-Slavia, acquires Bulgarian territory,
+    army of,
+    financial position of,
+    Magyars in,
+  Julius Caesar as politician,
+  KANT, Emanuel
+  Kautsky, published documents of
+  Keynes, John Maynard, and inter-Allied debts
+    and the Paris Conference
+    author's admiration for
+    represents English Treasury at Paris Conference
+    the indemnity question and
+    true forecasts of
+  Klagenfurth, a plebiscite for
+  Klotz, and the indemnity
+  Koltchak, Admiral
+  Konigsberg, the home of Emanuel Kant
+  Kowno claimed by Poles
+
+  LABOUR and the war
+  Lansing, Robert, and the Paris Conference
+  Law, Bonar, and question of military guarantees
+    and reparations
+    and the indemnity
+  League of Nations, the, a suggested revision of treaties by
+    and Danzig
+    and the participation of the vanquished
+    as trustee of Saar mines
+    covenant of
+  foundation of, and its objects
+    Germany debarred from
+    its capabilities and mistakes
+    modification of two clauses of
+    its constitution needed
+    powers of
+    Wilson in a difficult situation
+  Lettonia
+  Libyan adventure, the
+  Lithuania, Wilna ceded to, but occupied by Poles
+  London Agreement, the
+    secrecy of
+  London, Conference of
+    discusses economic manifesto
+  Lorraine, Germany's pre-war iron production from
+    iron mines of: German ambitions for
+  Loucheur, M., and the indemnity
+  Ludendorff,  General, important declaration by
+  Luxemburg, iron industry of
+
+  MAGYARS, in Rumania
+    Treaty of Trianon and,
+  Malmedy given to Belgium
+  Marienwerder, a plebiscite for
+  Marne, battle of the
+  Mesopotamia lost by Turkey
+  Military clauses and guarantees of peace treaty
+  Millerand, M., and Sweden
+  Monroe doctrine, the
+  Montenegro, absorbed by the S.H.S. State
+    restoration of
+    the Entente and
+  Moresnet becomes Belgian territory
+  Moscow Government sends gold to Sweden: French action
+  Mussulman population of pre-war Turkey
+
+  NAPOLEON I
+    as politician
+    his three great errors
+  Napoleon III
+  Nationalism, and what it implies
+  Naval armaments, the race for
+  Neuilly, the Treaty of
+  New Zealand, Britain's share of
+  Nicholas II, his proclamation regarding Poland
+    weakness of
+  Nineteenth century, the, wars of
+  Nitti, Francesco S., and admission of ex-enemies into League of
+  Nations
+    and Germany's responsibility for the war
+    and Italian Socialists
+    and Russia
+    and the Italian military expedition to Georgia
+    and the proposed trial of the Kaiser
+    at Conferences of London and San Remo
+    denounces economic manifesto
+    his son a prisoner of war
+    ideals of
+    opposes Adriatic adventure
+    receives deputation of German business men
+    signs ratification of Treaty of Versailles
+    the indemnity question and
+  Northcliffe Press, the, and the indemnity
+
+  OGIER, M., territorial reconstruction scheme of
+  Oliganthropy,
+  Orlando, M., and the reparations question
+  Orlando Ministry, the, resignation of
+  Ottoman Empire, the, a limited sovereignty to Turkish parts of
+
+  PALESTINE, Treaty of Sevres and
+  Paper currency, Germany's pre-and post-war
+  Paris, an unsuitable meeting place for Conference
+    Peace Conference in
+    Supreme Council at
+    welcomes President Wilson
+  Paris Conference, and the indemnity
+  Peace, necessary conditions for
+  Peace Conference, Lloyd George's memorandum for
+  Peace treaties, a negation of justice
+    and continuation of the war
+    and their application
+    effect on Germany of
+    origin and aims of
+    question of reparation and indemnity
+    revision of, a necessity
+    their opposition to Wilson's fourteen points
+    Peace treaty of June, 1919, summary of terms of
+  Peasants, Russian, and the old regime
+  Petrograd, text of London Agreement published in
+  Plebiscite, result of, in Upper Silesia
+  Plebiscites, system of
+  Poincare, M., and Clemenceau
+    and Germany's right of entry into League of Nations
+    and the peace treaties
+    Lloyd George replies to
+    on military guarantees and occupation
+  Poland, aims at further expansion
+    anarchic condition of
+    and the plebiscite
+    and the Treaty of Versailles
+  Poland, army of
+    financial position of
+    gains by Treaty
+    her policy of greed
+    obtains State of Danzig
+    of to-day
+    the Tsar's proclamation regarding
+    treaty with France
+    working for ruin
+  Polish state, foundation of an independent
+  Politics, German, pre-war
+  Portugal, war debt of
+  Progress, war as condition towards
+  Public debts of warring nations
+    (_cf_. Allies, war debts of)
+
+  RECONSTRUCTION of Europe, the, and annullment of inter-Allied debts
+    and the revision of peace treaties
+    Germany's indemnity and that of defeated countries
+    necessity of forming new connexions with Russia
+    the League of Nations and
+    the safety of France and the military guarantees
+  Renner, Chancellor of Vienna, confers with Marquis della Torretta
+  Reparations clause, origin of
+  Reparations Commission, the, expense accounts of
+    formation of
+    suppression of, a necessity
+  Reparations, the problem of
+    (_cf_. Indemnities)
+  Rhine, the, as frontier
+    occupation of
+    an act of vengeance
+    cost of, to Germany
+  Riga, hunger and sickness in, the aftermath of war
+  Ruhr, the, question of occupation of
+  Rumania, army of
+    evacuation of
+    financial position of
+    her gains by Treaty
+    Magyars in
+  Rumanian occupation of Hungary
+  Russia, and the League of Nations
+    as cause of world-conflict
+    birth-rate of
+    blockade of
+    Entente aids military undertakings in
+    financial position of
+    Germany's fear of
+    her policy of expansion
+    Lloyd George on
+    military revolts in
+    peace army of
+    policy of Entente towards
+    power of the Tsar in
+    present-day plight of
+    pre-war empire of
+    probable number of men under arms in
+    Sevres Treaty and
+    the Versailles Treaty and
+    under the Tsars
+  Russian peasants and the old regime
+  Russians, remarkable fecundity of
+  Russo-Japanese peace, the and how drafted
+  Russo-Japanese War, the
+
+  SAAR, the, a plebiscite for
+    annexation of: French proposals regarding
+    coalfields of, assigned to France
+      pre-war production of
+  Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Treaty of
+  San Remo, Conference of
+  Schleswig, a plebiscite for,
+  Secret diplomacy, peace treaties and
+  Serbia, evacuation of
+    her gains by Treaty
+    ignorant of London Agreement
+    responsibility for the war
+    Russian policy in
+    the Allied Press and
+    war debt of
+  Serbo-Croat States, financial position of
+    sea-coast outlets for
+  S.H.S. State absorbs Montenegro
+  Silesia (_see_ Upper Selesia)
+  Slav States, cosmopolitan population of
+  Smyrna, the Sanjak of
+  Sonnino, M., at Paris Conference
+  South Africa, British
+  Soviet, the, recognition of, refused
+  Spa Conference, the
+  Starling, Professor
+  States, European, pre- and post-war, _et seq_.
+  Submarine menace, the
+  Sweden, Russian gold sent to
+  Syria
+
+  TARDIEU, Andre, and the guarantees against Germany
+    and the Paris Conference
+    and the question of military guarantees
+    draws up reply to Lloyd George
+    his report on Paris Conference
+    on President Wilson
+    on the Treaty of Versailles
+  Territorial and political clauses of peace treaty
+  Thrace assigned to Greece
+  Torretta, Marquis della, confers with Chancellor Renner
+  Trade conditions, equality of, and the peace treaty
+  Treaties, peace (_see Neuilly, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Sevres
+    Trianon, Versailles)
+  Treaties with France against German aggression
+  Treaty system, the, division of Europe by
+  Trianon, Treaty of
+  Triple Alliance, the
+    Italy and
+    "Triplice," the (_see_ Triple Alliance)
+  Tripoli, Italy
+  Tripolitania
+  Turkey, and the result of Treaty of Sevres
+    army of
+    Grand Vizier of, and his note
+  Turks, their power of resistance
+  Turquan's estimate of wealth of France
+
+  United States, the, a deciding factor of the war
+    abandons Treaty of Versailles
+    and Armenian question
+    and the indemnity
+  United States, the, and the League of Nations,
+    and the naval question,
+    expenses of her navy,
+    financial position of,
+    losses in the Great War,
+    (see also America)
+  Upper Silesia, a plebiscite for,
+    iron industry of,
+    result of plebiscite in,
+
+  VENEZELOS, M., author's tribute to,
+    fall of,
+  Versailles, Treaty of,
+    abandoned by America,
+    and the future of Germany,
+    characteristic facts of,
+    conditions of Germany as result of,
+    injustice of,
+    Lloyd George on,
+    on what based,
+    ratification of,
+    summary of,
+    violation of,
+    why it has been weakened,
+  Vessitch, M., at Paris Conference,
+  Vienna, conditions in,
+    the wireless high-power station at,
+
+  WAeCHTER, Kinderlen-, and Russia,
+  War, a political fact,
+    as a necessary condition of life,
+    difference between battles and,
+    legitimacy of,
+    the aftermath of,
+    the nature of,
+  War debts, a menace to financial stability,
+  War debts of the Allies,
+    (_cf_. Inter-Allied debts)
+  Warfare, modern, what it means,
+  Wars of the last three centuries, the,
+  Wealth, influence of, on life and happiness,
+  William II, and his responsibility for the war,
+    as _miles gioriosus_,
+    author's aversion to,
+    frenzied oratory of,
+    proposed trial of,
+  Wilna ceded to Lithuania, but occupied by Poles,
+  Wilson, President, and Armenia
+    and Fiume,
+    and military guarantees,
+    and the League of Nations,
+    demonstrations against, in Italy,
+    his fourteen points,
+    compared with Treaty of Versailles,
+    his ignorance of European affairs, and the result,
+    how he was received in Paris,
+    memorable speech in American Senate,
+    peace ideals of, 34,
+    _post-bellum_ economic settlement proposals of (_see_ League of
+  Nations)
+  Wolff, and Germany,
+  Wrangel, General,
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Peaceless Europe, by Francesco Saverio Nitti
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEACELESS EUROPE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 10090.txt or 10090.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/0/9/10090/
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Josephine Paolucci and PG Distributed
+Proofreaders
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS," WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's
+eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII,
+compressed (zipped), HTML and others.
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over
+the old filename and etext number.  The replaced older file is renamed.
+VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving
+new filenames and etext numbers.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000,
+are filed in directories based on their release date.  If you want to
+download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular
+search system you may utilize the following addresses and just
+download by the etext year.
+
+     http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext06
+
+    (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99,
+     98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90)
+
+EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are
+filed in a different way.  The year of a release date is no longer part
+of the directory path.  The path is based on the etext number (which is
+identical to the filename).  The path to the file is made up of single
+digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename.  For
+example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234
+
+or filename 24689 would be found at:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689
+
+An alternative method of locating eBooks:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL
+
+
diff --git a/old/10090.zip b/old/10090.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..64ba60d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10090.zip