The Geneva Protocol

by David Hunter Miller

I am willing to admit that this uncertainty on the question of justice may not exist in every case. I have always believed that some of the cessions of territory forced on Bulgaria were utterly indefensible from any point of view whatsoever. I refer, not to Macedonia, that impossible jumble of contradictions, but more particularly to Western Thrace.

My own view is that, on the whole and taken by and large, the existing frontiers in Europe are more near to justice than ever before in modern history.

But I am going to assume for the rest of this discussion that some of these frontiers are wrong and should be changed. What is our answer to that situation?

Let me point out in the first place that the mere fact that a frontier was imposed by force resulting in a peace treaty is not necessarily anything against it. Take the case of Alsace-Lorraine, for example; or take a still more striking case, the case of Germany and Denmark. Admittedly, in and out of Germany, the result as to Slesvig was just and should continue.

Furthermore, it is necessary to point out that the imposed origin of a situation may not continue as the cause of that situation. It may become accepted and voluntary, a full agreement. An instance here is the reparations question. The status quo as to reparations (a very uncertain one) imposed by the Treaty of Versailles upon Germany, has now, under that very Treaty, become an agreed status quo by reason of the voluntary adoption by Germany of the Dawes Report; for in reality as well as in strictness of law that plan could not have been adopted, much less be carried out, without the voluntary assent of Germany to its provisions.

However, taking the frontier status quo of the Peace Treaties at its worst, that is to say at its alleged worst, admitting, in other words, that parts of it are unjust and are the result only of force, what are we to say as to the future?

The possibility of change which, under the supposition that I have made, would in itself be admittedly desirable, is along two lines, the line of agreement or the line of war. The so-called fixation or consecration of this status quo under the League of Nations in no way precludes a change by agreement, the utmost that it can do is to preclude a change by war.

Accordingly, we are confronted at the outset with the question as to whether the continuance of this status quo is, or is not, a worse evil than war. Even those who assume or who believe that war is the preferable of the two must, in order to reach that belief, hold that change by agreement is impossible. Such an assumption is contrary to the facts of history, but for the sake of this discussion it may be admitted.

In other words, I am willing to assume that a particular part of the frontier status quo is wrong, is unjust, and was brought about by force, and should be changed, and that it cannot be changed by agreement, and come directly to the question if, in these circumstances, it should or should not be changed by war. My answer to this question is: No. And I do not think it is necessary to put this answer merely on the ground of the evil of the war itself, the death, the destruction and so on. It is sufficient to support a negative answer to point out that the effect of the war could not be limited. War never is limited, it goes to lengths that have nothing to do with the supposed injustice for which it is commenced.

Let me give an instance as a concrete supposition. Take the Bulgarian-Greek frontier and suppose, as I do, that it ought to be changed, and suppose further, as the advocates of war assert, that it should be changed by war between Bulgaria and Greece; one of two things would happen in all human probability. Either Greece would be the victor and then not only would the boundary be as unjust to Bulgaria as it is now, but much more so. Or else Bulgaria would be the victor, in which case the injustice would simply be reversed; the frontier would not move to any theoretical point of justice, but would move to the point dictated by the new Peace treaty.