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.