Europe-Whither Bound? Part 12

And now the same two provinces, heavily Germanized, are re-grafted back to the original flesh of France. It would be absurd to say that the circulation of the blood and the spirit have been re-established at once. There is a great deal of mortification in Alsace and Lorraine.

It will be a long while before French life permeates the whole and surges through every vein. Meanwhile the new process of Frenchification proceeds.

We seldom hear that the Germans dare claim to hold Alsace and Lorraine on any grounds, and yet, in fact, quietly and persistently, they do dare. It is frequently urged in conversation that if a plebiscite had been taken in the two provinces, the majority would have been found desirous of remaining under German rule. This, no doubt, is partly vanity, and springs from belief in the supposed preferability of German civilization to French civilization--even French people who knew what it was to live under a French as well as a German regime might prefer the latter as more efficient and comfortable and up-to-date. But the belief that a plebiscite would have gone in German favour is based even more on the German population and on the strong business interests which link the industrial part with the industrial whole. Alsace and Lorraine through commercial development had become an exceedingly important const.i.tuent of modern Germany before the war. Germany, moreover, claims to have converted them from poor departments of France to wealthy industrial communities.

Naturally no one on the Allied side of the peace-table ever dreamed of considering such arguments. And they are so lacking in practical cogency that they find no place in the current consideration of modern Europe. They are useless arguments for a Germany who lost the war, and they are a.s.sumed to be quite dead. Germany has enough trouble to save Westphalia and Silesia and the Ruhr valley, let alone think about the irrecoverables of the war. She might as well argue that the fleet she sank at Scapa Flow should be restored to her as think of Alsace now.

Nevertheless, the arguments remain for another day to become the arguments of pretension and justification. France naturally is taking care that there shall never be another day of reckoning. But let France make a mistake in her diplomacy and "get in wrong," as they say in America, and it will all be fought over again. It was only fifty years after the Franco-German war that this new war came. Who knows what re-grouping of power there may be, or how Germany will stand in 1970!

In our reckonings and prognostications we should keep in mind that the German is the centre body of the Teutonic race. He is down, but he is not finally beaten. His mind is resentful, and indeed full of the revenge instinct. He has not learned the lesson of humility and obedience in the great war. Who has? He believes he is meant to be master in the vast European plain which he has fitly named "Central Europe--_Mittel Europa_," and identified with himself.

EXTRA LEAVES

(v) _On "Clay Sparrows" and the Failure of Freedom_

France and Germany are hazardously in agreement in regard to English and American liberal idealism. They think it moonshine and the League of Nations a failure, and that Freedom has been tried and found wanting.

We are at school with Christ and have made our clay sparrows. Wilson's birds fly--ours won't. France is an obstinate clay sparrow who sits perched on the wall. And what shall we say of the other clay sparrows?

Do they look like flying? The peoples won't take the freedom and the light that is offered them. We sing to them and tempt them, but they do not respond.

Germany, however, does not believe in "free countries," and she is edified by the failure of freedom.

"Your G.o.ds fail you," said a Bavarian to us at dinner. "You'll have to try our G.o.ds after all."

"But it is not so. The little nations are all using their Freedom,"

some one rejoined.

"Abusing it," said the German.

"That is only their high spirits, the natural first excesses of people who have got free."

"Russia?" queried the Teuton. "Poland? Roumania?" and he smiled indulgently. "Human nature shows up badly when you give it a chance,"

said he. "You cannot trust individuals yet, and you cannot trust nations. For example: you are all lined up waiting to receive tickets for the theatre or a train. Some have a sense for order and keep their turn, but others edge past them and get to the ticket window first.

And then the orderly individuals are forced to do the same or lose their temper. Now, to meet human nature we have invented a grill, and if you go to our State theatre in Munich you will see this iron control which allows a large crowd to a.s.semble but makes it impossible to go out of your turn."

"An emblem of German civilization," I thought, "but it has its use."

"We are all going back to preventatives," said another. "After all it is the foundation of Mosaic law--the prevention of evil. America has adopted the idea. Prohibition is not freedom. It is taking the bottle away and not giving you a chance. It is the same with other human sins. The best way to reduce the numbers of murders is to reduce the number of weapons and exact a heavy gun licence. The best way to stop robbery is to use more steel locks. Make it difficult to commit crime and then crime won't be committed. But beware of Freedom."

The conversation was side-tracked on to the subject of the "dryness of America." But it provided an insight into the German point of view.

Coming into line with the rest of Europe Germany accepted the idea of Freedom in November, 1918. She watched how it worked and then very quickly turned her back on it. In truth, Freedom is not congenial to Germans. Had Germany won she hoped to impose her type of civilization everywhere, and she saw little harm in the fact of imposition.

Inferior nations ought to be raised to Germany's cultural level by force, and they ought to be prevented from running amuck internationally, also by force. The German mind viewed complacently the bondage of the small nations in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It did not think that Czechs or Poles lost anything by being governed from Vienna. Its only reservation was that it might be still better for them if they were governed from Berlin. Berlin still believes that Alsatians and Danes and Poles and Russians and Czechs are better in health under German discipline. Europe organized militarily was the German conception of the future--that some one should order and some one should obey everywhere.

Great Britain caught the idea through Carlyle, though it was more congenial to the Germanic type of Southern Scot than to English or Irish. We talked of "captains of industry," and the "aristocracy of talent," and "benevolent autocracy," though we could not realize them.

But to modern Germany this idea was society's cement. It was preached from the Lutheran pulpit, it was taught by sergeants in the Army, it was unfolded and beflagged by politicians on election day. There were rebels against it but no national movement opposed it. It was even rooted in the home where husband ruled wife, and father ruled children with complete authority, and a man could point to his _frau_ or his _kind_ with his index finger, and say "To-morrow you will do that. Now you shall do this!"

The opposite note of liberty was at Moscow where the children not infrequently, even under Tsardom, went on strike against their teachers, where servants tell masters what they ought to do, where a Rasputin is asked advice on imperial policy, the land of the Slavs where obedience is at its lowest ebb, and all the parks and gardens and country-sides languish naturally in disorder. "Love to Russia is really love to the old mother-pig," said Suvorin. "But no matter, you get used to it." The German, however, never gets used to it. That is why in the old days the farms of the German colonist in Russia used to be neat patches of an entirely orderly pattern, looking like islands in the wild waste of Slav disorder. It might almost be said that Germany made war to make the Russian _muzhik_ wash his face, and the Russians made war so that people could go about with dirty faces if they wanted to.

The question has not received a final answer. Greece is fighting for an empire over Turks. Ireland is fighting the British Empire to obtain the right to do what she wants in the world. The business penumbra of the United States has begun to cover Mexico. Five or six const.i.tuents of old Russian have cut free. But France has become imperial and would impose a superior will on several nations.

Our curious clay sparrows stand on the wall. Wilson's sparrows, it is reputed, fly; ours won't. As we made them, so they stand looking at us, waiting apparently. If some one does not sprinkle holy water on them soon they will either go to bits or have to be kneaded into the common lump once more.

LETTERS OF TRAVEL

XIV. FROM ROME

All roads lead to Rome. It would doubtless be tedious at this point to describe the obstacles on the road, and, when Rome has been achieved, the all-night hunt for a room in a hotel, an adventure which now commonly befalls the traveller to Rome. But it is a wonderful impression which you receive of this mighty city in the silent watchful hours, when all are sleeping, and the living are nearer to the famous dead. The scenery seems laid for some great historical drama--but it is in truth only laid for you and the poor fellow shouldering your bag, and for a restless knocking at closed doors, trying to awaken slumberous porters who, like the man at Macbeth's castle, swear they will "devil-porter it no longer." You settle down at last for a few hours sleep on a couple of chairs in a waiting-room, but are prevented by a loquacious gentleman who calls himself a "_cha.s.seur des hotels_,"

and says that when a man has sought all night and found nothing, he is generally ready for a proposition. The _cha.s.seur_ conducts you to a room in a house in a back street, a chill, red-tiled room, let by a buxom Roman, whose little girl of twelve is in the capacity of general servant and makes the bed and empties the slops and serves the coffee without one self-conscious smile. Rome indeed, and room enough! When you are lodged it does not matter much how you are lodged.

Rome, the capital of capitals, still continues to be a place of destiny in Europe. It is not in the glare of light in which Berlin and Paris find themselves, but the fates of Berlin and Paris are secretly dependent on it. For Rome sways the balance of power after the war.

If Rome backs Germany, France at once feels isolated; if Rome backs France, Germany must come to terms. The French are victors and have the winning forces in their hands, but the Italians are psychologists and know how to win without material force. Hence has arisen the curious after-the-Paris-conference situation. Italy has been despised by France; Italy, therefore, has renounced that war-after-the-war, dear to the French heart; Italy has communed with Dr. Benes and planted another thorn in the side of the Hapsburgs; she has secretly opposed French policy in Hungary. With Germany she has made a commercial entente--not a political or military one, but a pacific _laissez-faire_ for the purposes of trade. France envisages the complete ruin of German industry and commerce, and believes that Foch is the man to do it. At this the Italians smile quietly and counsel the timorous Germans not to despair. Rome chooses to hold to the thesis that a prosperous Italy depends on a prosperous Germany, and no outsider is qualified to dispute such a point of view. Somehow Italy manages to suggest a similar thought to England. A prosperous England depends on a prosperous Germany. The British trade depression is thought to be due to the destructive policy of the French. The question of the taking of the Ruhr basin becomes a test case: _Very bad for English business_, say the English manufacturers in chorus. We are back to the Treaty of Versailles: Votes count. England and Italy are in the scale against France, and France must yield. The cup of hemlock is taken from Germany's shut mouth and a cup of merely disagreeable medicine is placed there instead. Italy and England sing to her a new song quietly and secretly, and she decides to take it so as to escape the hemlock.

So Italy has stopped France on the Ruhr. It is an easier task to stop her in Upper Silesia where she is pushing the Poles into a similar a.s.sault on German industries. Lloyd George makes his violent anti-French speeches, and the British battalions follow after his hot words to enforce what he has said. The Italian was despised but he can afford to smile. O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet!

Italy's main danger has been internal. Her Socialistic ferment was so great at one time that it did not appear likely that the old Italy could long continue without revolution. "W Lenin" [1] is scrawled in black on many walls, and also, "Down with the betrayers of the Army,"

and "Vote the full Socialist Programme." The idea of revolution is popular among the ma.s.ses, and the efforts of the anti-Communist volunteers have several times suggested a general outbreak of civil war. Of all the Allies Italy has had the stormiest after-the-war period, and the outlook has seemed blackest for her. Given time, she could, however, right herself--and the time has been given. If the working cla.s.s had been impoverished and threatened with unemployment it is doubtful whether Italy could have weathered all the trouble. But the proletariat was rich. The provincial banking accounts had become full. The peasants now are especially well-off, and if the proletariat wanted to fall upon the rich they would have to fall upon themselves.

"The princ.i.p.al phenomenon of our life," said Signor S---- at one of the Ministries, "is a complete economic inversion. The number of our poor does not increase, for the wealth of the country has been exceedingly well shuffled and dealt out afresh to all."

"Do not be deceived by appearances of unrest," said B---- of the "Messagero." "It is caused chiefly by the ex-soldiers who will not settle down. You have the phenomenon as well as we. It is common after war. Only our men are more turbulent than any other in Europe.

You have seen them, large, full-blooded, and excitable heroes, not so sluggish and obedient as the French, more nervous and clamorous than the English. But we are working. The women and children are more industrious than formerly, and make up for the men's defection. Italy will right herself."

Undoubtedly, external policy has helped Italy greatly. Whilst France and England have played a fitfully obstructionist and generally uninspired policy towards the restoration of European trade, Italy has been steadily working in a positive direction. She has received substantial help from Germany, help in return for help. The wasteful process of using Switzerland as a fence for German goods has largely been abandoned in favour of a direct commercial exchange. Italian shipping, augmented by its Austrian spoils, has obtained considerable help and advice. Quite surprising how many Germans have posts in the Italian shipping companies! Germany has lost her own ships, but she has a large business executive in the background, the administrative organization of what was once a great mercantile marine. She has still a preponderant power in allocating business. The Italian benefit and the success of Italy's new policy have been reflected in the phenomenal appreciation of the lira which during the spring of 1921 actually gained 33 1/2 per cent in value, mounting from 110 to the pound sterling in January to 73 in May. Such a rise in the value of the currency naturally helps Italian industry, facilitating the import of raw materials and coal and oil. In the summer of 1921 Italy became glutted with coal.

Such progress is not good news in Moscow. The chief external hope of Moscow must for long have been in Italy. And conversely the chief hope of the Socialists in Italy must have been in the progress of Moscow's international ideal. Not that the proletarian leaders of comfortable Italy realized what they were advocating. They are not such idealists in Italy as to be ready to commit national suicide for the good of humanity as a whole, or even for the good of humanity as a cla.s.s, as a working cla.s.s. But, be that as it may, the moral authority waned when the Rus...o...b..itish trading treaty was signed. Kra.s.sin killed the Third Internationale. You do not trade with a capitalistic State in order to destroy it. Moscow began to set up a new bourgeois cla.s.s, started shops again, and banks and private trading, and generally speaking, having buried the devil, dug him up again.

With that, Moscow ceased to inspire the grand international solidarity of proletariats. There was a set-back in wages over the whole world.

At the same time the strike-weapon tended to fail. May Day, 1921, was one of the quietest of May Days. In Paris it was a joyous holiday; in Berlin, though the jewellers ordered new steel screens for their goods, not a window was broken; in London the gloomy coal strike pursued its lonely road towards defeat, unsupported by even its own allies of transport and railroad, far less by an ideal from Moscow. And bourgeois Western Europe--and Italy not least--breathed afresh.

Rome is a s.p.a.cious city. One feels that the great houses were built originally, not on streets, but on chosen spots, and the streets came to them. The house came to the man, and the street to the house, and that makes a n.o.bler city than street-controlled lines and blocks. In Rome there is no bondage of the street. And the many fountains with water-spouting nymphs and Neptunes kill the drabness of business, and freshen modern civilization so that it ceases to know itself as such.

When one compares Rome with Paris or Berlin or London or New York, the newer capitals suffer. The mighty ruins have such authority over all that is new. It is one of the greatest standing-grounds and points of vantage in the world. It has been interpreted as the mountain of temptation from which Satan showed the kingdom of _this_ world. It is the birthplace of Caesardom and the modern idea of world-imperialism.

It was once the seat of world-empire, and remains even now the rock of the Church. For many all roads still lead to the Cathedral of St.

Peter's as to the most representative temple in Christendom.

Spiritually, Rome abhors all sects and other centres of religious persuasion. Spiritually, she claims to be the coincident centre of two worlds, this and the world to come.

How fine is the interior of St. Peter's, built to defy time, with its ma.s.sive marbles and gigantic figures as fresh and new as if, indeed, a few hundred years were but as yesterday in G.o.d's sight. The exterior of the cathedral is transitory-looking, like an aspect of "this world."

But inside is part of the eternal silence such as one might experience in a profound subterranean chamber. There is no aspiration, no adoration--but there is a sense of eternal law. The Church is imposed on earth. About the dome is written, "Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my Church," in letters of gold--Rome's ultimate authority. All is square and solid and heavy. There are no seats, but the extensive floor is of varying granites and marbles, on which those who believe kneel, and look so small, smaller than life-size in the presence of the thrice-magnified statues of the Popes. So much for one Mother-Church of the world. It is well cared for in 1921. The other Mother-Church of Sancta Sophia in Constantinople still languishes under the Pagan.

Rome swarms with all peoples. Its base is Italian, but it attracts the people of all nations--Englishmen, Americans, Frenchmen, Russians, are very common. The Anglo-Saxon party, guide-book in hand, is still staring at the ruins of ancient Rome. The war has intervened, but it looks as if the tourist, engrossed in his "Baedeker" had been doing the same every day all these years. The post card vendors and would-be guides still fret round the old monuments like crows. They alone disturb the equanimity of the old men and middle-aged ladies who love Rome most. For the lovers of Rome look at those wonderful columns of Marcus Aurelius and Trajan with whole histories in spiral processionals climbing upwards to the pinnacle of fame--and their thoughts are not on these times.

Mightiest of the ruins of Rome is certainly that of the Colosseum, symbol of the decay of a great people debauched by their l.u.s.ts and their rulers. The Colosseum is sometimes included in the list of the wonders of the world, and it is certainly one of the most remarkable ruins of antiquity. If all modern Rome were swept away by pestilence and earthquake, the Colosseum would no doubt still stand, and be as provocative of thought as the Pyramids themselves. It has already survived many earthquake shocks and nineteen noisy centuries. It stands to-day in grey serenity--a mighty stone structure of great height and ma.s.sivity, with tier upon tier of galleries where could be accommodated surely all the Rome of its day. There is no other place like it--with its two hundred and forty arched entrances, and its cages and prisons. It is vast and cruel and vain even now. All the circles glare down into the empty arena.

Imagine a festival at the Albert Hall when that little fragile building is packed from the expensive fringe of the stalls and the boxes to the mysterious height of the gallery, then magnify many times, and change wood into hewn rock, and take off the roof, and give Roman air and sunlight, and change the character and dress of the people, and make them l.u.s.t for blood and for strange sights, and give voices to their bellies and violent animation and excitability to their limbs and their features, and you have the Roman amphitheatre, built to be a butchering-place for Christians and captives of war, an arena for gladiators and a place of circuses.

It is the symbol of the decay of Rome. Bede is said to have prophesied: "Whilst the Colosseum stands Rome will stand; when the Colosseum falls the world itself will fall," but that was merely testimony to its mighty structure. Five or six palaces have been built of the marbles and other materials which have been taken away, and still the Colosseum stands in all its architectural impressiveness.