VI
EUROPE'S POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTION AND PEACE POLICY
No right-thinking person has nowadays any doubt as to the profound injustice of the Treaty of Versailles and of all the treaties which derive from it. But this fact is of small importance, inasmuch as it is not justice or injustice which regulates the relations between nations, but their interests and sentiments. In the past we have seen Christian peoples, transplanted in America, maintain the necessity of slavery, and we have seen, and continue to see every day, methods of reasoning which, when used by the defeated enemy were declared to be fallacious and wrong, become in turn, when varied only in form, the ideas and the customary life of the conquerors in the War—ideas which then assume the quality of liberal expressions of democracy.
If appeals to the noblest human sentiments are not made in vain (and no effort of goodness or generosity is ever sterile), the conviction which is gradually forming itself, even in the least receptive minds, that the treaties of peace are inapplicable, as harmful to the conquerors as to the conquered, gains in force. For the treaties are at one and the same time a menace for the conquerors and a paralysis of all activity on the part of the conquered, since once the economic unity of Continental Europe is broken the resultant depression becomes inevitable.
If many errors have been committed, many errors were inevitable. What we must try to do now is to limit the consequences of these mistakes in a changed spirit. To reconstruct where we see only ruins is the most evident necessity. We must also try to diffuse among the nations which have won the War together and suffered together the least amount of diffidence possible. As it is, the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, all go their own way. France has obtained her maximum of concessions, including those of least use to her, but never before has the world seen her so alone in her attitude as after the treaties of Paris.
What is most urgently required at the moment is to change the prevalent war-mentality which still infects us and overcomes all generous sentiments, all hopes of unity. The statement that war makes men better or worse is, perhaps, an exaggerated one. War, which creates a state of exaltation, hypertrophies all the qualities, all the tendencies, be they for good or for evil. Ascetic souls, spirits naturally noble, being disposed toward sacrifice, develop a state of exaltation and true fervour. How many examples of nobility, of abnegation, of voluntary martyrdom has not the War given us? But in persons disposed to evil actions, in rude and violent spirits (and these are always in the majority), the spirit of violence increases. This spirit, which among the intellectuals takes the form of arrogance and concupiscence, and in politics expresses itself in a policy of conquest, assumes in the crowd the most violent forms of class war, continuous assaults upon the power of the State, and an unbalanced desire to gain as much as possible with the least possible work.
Before the War the number of men ready to take the law into their own hands was relatively small; now there are many such individuals. The various nations, even those most advanced, cannot boast a moral progress comparable with their intellectual development. The explosion of sentiments of violence has created in the period after the War in most countries an atmosphere which one may call unbreathable. Peoples accustomed to be dominated and to serve have come to believe that, having become dominators in their turn, they have the right to use every kind of violence against their overlords of yesterday. Are not the injustices of the Poles against the Germans, and those of the Rumanians against the Magyars, a proof of this state of mind? Even in the most civilized countries many rules of order and discipline have gone by the board.
After all the great wars a condition of torpor, of unwillingness to work, together with a certain rudeness in social relations, has always been noticed.
The war of 1870 was a little war in comparison with the cataclysm let loose by the European War. Yet then the conquered country had its attempt at Bolshevism, which in those days was called the Commune, and the fall of its political regime. In the conquering country we witnessed, together with the rapid development of industrial groups, a quick growth in Socialism and the constitution of great parties like the Catholic Centre. Mutatis mutandis, the same situation has shown itself after the European War.
What is most urgently necessary, therefore, is to effect a return to peace sentiments, and in the manifestations of government to abandon those attitudes which in the peaces of Paris had their roots in hate.
I have tried, as Premier of Italy, as writer, and as politician, to regulate my actions by this principle. In the first months of 1920 I gave instructions to Italy's ambassador in Vienna, the Marquis della Torretta, to arrange a meeting between himself and Chancellor Renner, head of the Government of Vienna. So the chief of the conquered country came, together with his Ministers, to greet the head of the conquering country, and there was no word that could record in any way the past hatred and the ancient rancour. All the conversation was of the necessity for reconstruction and for the development of fresh currents of life and commercial activity. The Government of Italy helped the Government of Austria in so far as was possible. And in so acting, I felt I was working better for the greatness of my country than I could possibly have done by any kind of stolid persecution. I felt that over and beyond our competition there existed the human sorrow of nations for whom we must avoid fresh shedding of blood and fresh wars. Had I not left the Government, it was my intention not only to continue in this path, but also to intensify my efforts in this direction.
The banal idea that there exist in Europe two groups of nations, one of which stands for violence and barbarism—the Germans, the Magyars and the Bulgarians—while the other group of Anglo-Saxons and Latins represents civilization, must not continue to be repeated, because not only is it an outrage on truth but an outrage on honesty.
Always to repeat that the Germans are not adapted for a democratic regime is neither just nor true. Nor is it true that Germany is an essentially warlike country, and therefore different from all other lands. In the last three centuries France and England have fought many more wars than Germany. One must read the books of the Napoleonic period to see with what disdain pacificist Germany is referred to—that country of peasants, waiters and philosophers. It is sufficient to read the works of German writers, including Treitschke himself, to perceive for what a long period of time the German lands, anxious for peace, have considered France as the country always eager for war and conquest.
Not only am I of the opinion that Germany is a land suited for democratic institutions, but I believe that after the fall of the Empire democratic principles have a wider prevalence there than in any other country of Europe. The resistance offered to the peace of Versailles—that is, to disorganization—may be claimed as a merit for the democratic parties, which, if they are loyally assisted by the States of the Entente, can not only develop themselves but establish a great and noble democracy.
Germany has accustomed us in history to the most remarkable surprises. A century and a half ago she was considered as a pacificist nation without national spirit. She has since then become a warlike country with the most pronounced national spirit. Early in the seventeenth century there were in Germany more than one hundred territories and independent States. There was no true national conscience, and not even the violence of the Napoleonic wars, a century after, sufficed to awaken it. What was required was a regular effort of thought, a sustained programme of action on the part of men like Wolff, Fichte and Hegel to mould a national conscience. Fifty years earlier no one would have believed in the possibility of a Germany united and compact in her national sentiment. Germany passed from the widest decentralization to the greatest concentration and the intensest national life. Germany will also be a democratic country if the violence of her ancient enemies does not drive her into a state of exaltation which will tend to render minds and spirits favourable to a return to the old regime.
To arrive at peace we must first of all desire peace. We must no longer carry on conversations by means of military missions, but by means of ambassadors and diplomatic representatives.