Where Are We Going?

by David Lloyd George

I am not complaining of M. Barthou. He did his best under most humiliating conditions to remain loyal to the conference which his government had joined in summoning. But his task was an impossible one. He was hampered, embarrassed and tangled at every turn. Whenever he took any step forward he was lassoed by a despatch from Paris. I have good authority for stating that he received over eight hundred of these communications in the course of the conference!

What could the poor man do under such bewildering conditions? The other European countries were perplexed and distracted. They were anxious that Genoa should end in a stable peace. There was no doubt about the sincerity, the passionate sincerity, of the desire for peace throughout Europe, but European nations could not help seeing that one of the great powers was working for a failure. They had a natural anxiety not to appear to take sides.

It is a marvel that in spite of this unfortunate attitude adopted by the French Government a pact was signed which has, at any rate, preserved the peace in Eastern Europe for several months.

Before the conference we heard of armies being strengthened along frontiers and of movements of troops with a menacing intent from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Genoa at least dispelled that cloud. But a permanent peace has not yet been established and the pact with Russia will soon expire. I am, however, hopeful that the spirit of Genoa will stand between contending armies and prevent the clash of swords.

All this, however, is leading me away from an examination of M. Clemenceau's suggestion that Britain did not keep faith in the matter of guaranteeing France against German aggression.

The offer was definitely renewed at Cannes, and M. Poincaré has not accepted it.

I have my own opinion as to why he has not done so. It is not merely that he does not wish to set the seal of his approval upon a predecessor's achievement. I am afraid the reason is of a more sinister kind. If France accepts Britain's guarantee of defence of her frontier every excuse for annexing the left bank of the Rhine disappears.

If this is the explanation, if French ministers have made up their minds that under no conditions will they, even at the end of the period of occupation, withdraw from the Rhine, then a new chapter opens in the history of Europe and the world, with a climax of horror such as mankind has never yet witnessed.

The German provinces on the left bank of the Rhine are intensely German—in race, language, tradition and sympathies. There are seventy millions of Germans in Europe. A generation hence there may be a hundred millions. They will never rest content so long as millions of their fellow-countrymen are under a foreign yoke on the other side of the Rhine, and it will only be a question of time and opportunity for the inevitable war of liberation to begin.

We know what the last war was like. No one can foretell the terrors of the next. The march of science is inexorable, and wherever it goes it is at the bidding of men, whether to build or to destroy. Is it too much to ask that America should, in time, take an effective interest in the development along the Rhine? To that extent I am in complete accord with M. Clemenceau. Neither Britain nor America can afford to ignore the manœuvres going on along its banks. It is a far cry from the Rhine to the Mississippi, but not so far as it used to be.