But besides that, as concerns Russia, it will never be possible to tell in which direction she will turn. At the beginning of the last century, allied to Prussia and Austria, she fought against France, and became the inspirer of the Holy Alliance which was directed, in full accord with the character of Russia’s home-policy, against all the rights of peoples. In the middle of the last century, she fought against England, France, and Sardinia, after having secured the neutrality of Austria and Prussia. In 1870, her friendly neutrality gave Prussia the opportunity to crush France. There is something fateful in her traditional friendship with Germany. Behind the back of France, though allied to her, it was towards Germany that Nicholas II. felt himself attracted (see his correspondence with William II., published in Bourtzeff’s paper L’Avenir, 1917), as well as his ministers Sturmer and Protopopoff, unmasked in the speech of P. Miliukoff in the Imperial Douma, in February, 1917; M. Miliukoff himself (Pages Modernes, April number, 1919, page 6); and the Tzar’s General Skoropadsky; and Lenin and Trotsky who signed peace with Germany of the Kaiser and wanted an alliance with Germany of Scheidemann at any cost. At heart, M. Mandelstam also is not too remote from this fatal leaning. He threatens war if the Paris Conference shows itself disposed to recognise the independence of the States detached from Russia (Some Reflections on the Question of a Great Poland and the Shores of the Baltic, p. 10; Memorandum on the Delimitation of the Rights of States and Nations, p. 81). With what war and in alliance with whom does M. Mandelstam threaten us?
It is evident that the Russian Political Conference is not free from that fatal inclination. Its representative, M. Sazonoff, former Minister, is revealed by Prince Lichnovsky as ready to abandon France, “Russia’s cherished ally,” to Germany for plunder, on condition that the latter consents to give Russia a free hand in regard to Austria-Hungary.
It is also very interesting to notice that the crusade against the independent States of the Baltic, preached by M. Mandelstam in Paris, is put into execution in Latvia by the armies of General von der Goltz which have upset the legal Government of Latvia recognised by England and Japan. The hand of M. Mandelstam, seeking allies for the crusade against Latvia, has not remained in the air; von der Goltz has grasped it enthusiastically. Future Russia and bygone Germany have met in a common intrigue against independent Latvia. Finland, Esthonia, Lithuania, Ukraine and independent Poland are specks in the eyes of both; and who can guarantee that the points of contact will not increase with the lapse of time?
Russia as a Probable Destroyer of the World-Peace
Russia has been and will be an ally too unsteady to count as a factor of equilibrium in European politics. Moreover, she is a troublesome factor, and likely to become directly or indirectly the instigator of a European war. In 1904, Russia got herself involved in war with Japan, which exhausted all her forces. During a sequence of years, Germany had her hands completely free in the East, and it was certainly not Russia’s balancing forces, but considerations of a quite different nature, which then prevented Germany from falling upon France. On three occasions during the last century Russia’s leanings towards complete possession of the Black Sea have served as causes of war; and in that just ended, Russia’s interests in the Balkans were the motives for aggression on the part of Austria and Germany. With Russia’s reconstitution her leanings towards possession of the Black Sea and particularly the Straits will necessarily revive; this has already been announced by the “Chairman of the Slav Congress in Moscow and of the Russian Conference in London,” M. Briantchaninoff, with the idea that the mandate of guardianship over the Dardanelles and Constantinople should in all justice be entrusted to nobody but Russia.
M. Briantchaninoff’s opinion is not a mere accident; we have no reason to regard it as such. There is no doubt that, in a reconstituted Russia, by a natural reaction from the humiliations and outrages suffered by the country, the nationalist wave will rise very high. This nationalism will have as its aims those of militant Slavism. One of these aims has always been the orthodox Cross towering over “Haghia-Sophia.” And the Straits were promised to Russia. M. Sazonoff spoke of that in the Imperial Douma amidst a storm of applause. This long-pursued object has escaped from Russian hands thanks only to the microbes which made their way into M. Lenin’s sealed-up carriage. It was almost reached, and it can be reached. It is necessary to try to reach it. Lenin is already no more. M. Briantchaninoff will be heard with thundering voice; M. Miliukoff will not be able to refuse his help, having shown interest in the Dardanelles during his whole life. M. Sazonoff has in his hands the Allies’ promises, which only for a time fell into the hands of “Comrade” Tchitcherin. Thus the watchword: “To Constantinople!” And that means: “To Belgrade! To Athens! To Bucharest!” and also “To Paris! To London! To Washington!”
Russia’s Policy in the Baltic
From the direction of the Baltic Sea, reconstituted Russia threatens us with another political danger. This danger comes from the strange policy Russia has pursued in the Baltic countries, a policy whose repetition is revealed by many signs. Feeling instinctively her administrative incapacity, Russia thus distinctly shows the effects of the influence of German elements in the staff of her administrators. During all the time of her domination over these countries, she left full power in the hands of the Baltic barons who—except in some accidental and temporary cases—have been the administrators and the real masters of the land. They took great advantage of this situation, endeavouring to give the country a German character. Further, they organised systematic German colonisation, for the realisation of which Berlin put large sums at their disposal. This colonisation took on such vast proportions and was carried on so openly that it finally attracted the attention of the Russian Government itself, which, in order to paralyse its effects, set up Russian colonisation in its turn. The latter, however, led to no results, the Russian peasant not being prepared for the intensive agricultural methods adopted in the country. The feelings and leanings of the Baltic nobility have clearly shown themselves during the war. It is enough to remember that they offered to General Hindenburg a third part of their lands for the purpose of colonisation. Their leanings were in perfect accord with the aims of the Pan-Germans, of whom many were emigrants from the Baltic, and who, like Professor Schiemann and P. Rohrbach, have not been playing an unimportant part. It is extremely interesting to observe that these tendencies have not ceased with the defeat of Germany. It is known that the Germans have promised to Latvia energetic assistance against the Bolsheviki if a right to the land is granted to all the combatants.
It is certain that after the war there will be a surplus of population in Germany, and it is not for nothing that Count Brokdorff-Rantzau complains in one of his notes that it will be difficult to find room for this surplus of inhabitants, as it is probable that the principal States will close their doors to them. There is no doubt whatever that a large part of this excess of population will go over to the Baltic, where they will find land ready for them and will be received with open arms by the Baltic barons of Pan-German mind. The Russian Government, as past experience has proved, will be unable to oppose this fresh Drang nach Osten, and if the Lettish people do not possess enough freedom of action, that is to say, if there is no independent Latvia, one can be supremely sure that German influence will be very great. On the other hand, the resolution of the various Landestags, Landesrats, and Regentschaftsrats, which have asked for the closest rapprochement with Germany, militarily and economically, and have offered the ducal crown to the Hohenzollern dynasty, leaves no doubt about the direction in which the sympathies of the Baltic Germans will go. The Baltic is, in the hands of Russia, a borderland with predominant German interests, a land to which Germany stretches out her hand, a land always ready, at a moment favourable to Pan-Germanism, to detach itself from Russia and pass over to the side of her adversaries. Thus, to be logical in the matter of the Baltic States, one must decide, not between Russia and Latvia, but between the latter and Germany.
And thus the argument of political motives leads to a conclusion which is not at all to the advantage of Russia’s reconstitution. For the re-establishment of equilibrium in European politics, Russia is of no value. She is not, to that end, something which should be invented if she did not exist.[4]