Peaceless Europe Part 9

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 pa.s.sion. 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 acc.u.mulate 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 princ.i.p.ally 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 p.r.o.nouncements 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.

a.s.surances 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-j.a.panese peace is an example. Undoubtedly the aggression of Russia had been unscrupulous and premeditated, but both parties partic.i.p.ated 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 a.s.sociated 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 embarra.s.sed 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 const.i.tutional. 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 a.s.sociated 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 doc.u.ments 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 subst.i.tute 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 pa.s.ses 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 p.r.o.nouncements 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 ma.s.ses 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 p.r.o.nouncement 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 p.r.o.nouncements 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 quant.i.ty, 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 const.i.tutional 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 pa.s.sed 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.