The New Germany

by George Young

The other meeting, in a remote workmen's quarter, was addressed by the Independent Breitscheidt, whose every point was punctuated by guttural growls from half-starved workmen and women. The recital of Germany's renunciations and restrictions under the Treaty was listened to in silence; but the conclusion that the old régime, if victorious, would have done this and worse was received with an emphatic "sehr richtig" (quite true). The interruptions from two middle-class youths near me, to the effect that an Englishman or Frenchman saying what Breitscheidt had said in London or Paris would have to run for his life—true enough too—were badly received. "Fat cheeks," screamed a haggard woman, pointing out that the young men were chubby. "Frei-Corps puppies," shouted a workman, giving the explanation of their being well fed. And it would have gone hard with them if the Independent leaders had not intervened to get them clear. The speaker's conclusions that the peace must be signed at once, that it must be signed by those responsible for it, and that thereafter there would be an "Independent" Government, was received with a diminuendo of assent. The poorer and less political German workman wanted peace, but had no will to power.

There was indeed no fight left in Germany; though I doubt if anyone in England realises how near the conditions imposed by Paris went to provoking a desperate appeal to arms. When it became evident that no mitigation of importance was to be got, every member of the Government of any character, whether reactionary or radical, resigned; leaving only men like Landsberg and Erzberger. While the revolutionary opposition persisted in their refusal to take the responsibility of signing. When it became obvious that this "Rump" was prepared to sign, and that the Weimar Assembly would support it in doing so, a military conspiracy was organised to prevent signature by a coup d'état. Weimar, the week before signature, filled with generals, and small bodies of Frei-Corps threatened the complaisant Cabinet. But obviously the coercion of Weimar into refusing signature was not enough, and would only have resulted in a second revolution rather than a reaction. The main operation was to have been a march south to Berlin and Weimar, of the Army of the East in West Prussia. But, at the last moment, these Frei-Corps refused to move. The better elements of them had volunteered to defend the frontiers against Poles and Russians, not to overthrow the National Assembly at the orders of reactionary generals. The worse elements were ready to fight their own countrymen, the revolutionaries, given a superiority of ten to one; but had no stomach for a last ditch defence against the Entente with the odds reversed. So Landsberg and Erzberger, the Jew and the Jesuit, by extraordinary and characteristic exertions, secured signature by a Cabinet of nonentities under the burly and worthy Trades Union boss, Bauer.

I do not propose to criticise the different provisions of the Treaty of Versailles or show in detail where they are unjust and why they are unsound. But it may be of use to report the effect that certain of these provisions have had in Germany and will have in Europe; and to represent how the force on which this treaty depends for its execution—the static force of an enormous Entente preponderance in the Balance of Power, comes into collision with the forces at work in Europe—the dynamic forces of the industrial revolution that are at present more active in Germany than anywhere else.

First, then, as to its injustice and the effect this is having in Germany. There are three main foci of public opinion in Germany as in every country: Right, Centre and Left: Conservative, Liberal and Radical: Upper Middle and Lower: Privilege, Property and Proletariat; or, however else you may chose to denote the eternal political triangle. The Treaty deals each of these two blows; one blow slashes off its right hand and the other slaps it in the face. And it is the insult and not the injury that will most affect the future of Europe.

Let us take the Conservative idealists first—the Prussian landowner, the Berlin official, the Bavarian cleric, the officer, and the student. The surrender of West Prussia and Danzig to Poland, and the severance of East Prussia for its future inclusion in a Baltic Federation, mean the loss of its right arm to this ruling class. An idea of how it appears to them can be given, perhaps, by supposing that we had lost the war, that Germany had set up Ireland and Scotland as separate States, had annexed Wales to Ireland on racial grounds, had included therein Shropshire and Cheshire with their ancient county families, and had made a corridor across Wessex to Weymouth, cutting off Somerset and Devon, while Cornwall went to a new State of Brittany. I do not mean, of course, that this would be exactly similar, but that the blow to the sensibilities of our patriots would be as severe. Should we not have a halo cast about the Victorian, the Elizabethan, the Alfredian and the Arthurian legends that would make the lost provinces a Holy Land to be redeemed at any sacrifice? Fortunately Germans are not like English in this and the territorial settlement may last our time, though it will lead to unintended results. The gloomy comment to me of a Polish conservative on the Danzig settlement was that in two generations Poland would be Jew-German. The even more gloomy view of a Russian radical was that, unless Bolshevism made good, the whole middle belt of Baltic States, with Poland, Lithuania, and the Ukraine, would fall under German bourgeois influence. While, most pessimistic of all, a cosmopolitan Jew considered that the result of breaking up Austria and barring off Germany must be to Balkanise Central and Eastern Europe first, and to Bolshevise it afterwards. All one can say, is, that where such revolutionary forces are loosened as are now at large in Central Europe, German nationalism offered us a stronger line to hold than that of Lithuanian or Ukrainian or even Polish independence.

And we might have held both lines, but for that slap in the face. The time I spent in Germany after the publication of the peace was made painful, not by the Danzig or Saar questions, but by the menace of penal proceedings against individual Germans. If our object was to find something that would impress our hatred and contempt on the Germans we succeeded. Only the most moderate of those with nationalist opinions could speak of it at all: the majority, thereafter, closed their doors to me as an English-man. If anything could have rehabilitated the Kaiser, we should have done it by putting him at the head of men, like submarine Commanders, who, in German eyes, had done desperate deeds to break a barbarous blockade. Our prosecution in fact outraged both the sense and sensibilities of all German gentlemen as much as the crimes themselves had outraged ours. This may seem fanciful, but it is a fact. If action is taken under these criminal clauses we shall light such a candle to the memories of our dead as will some day set Europe on fire again. Whether we could ever have proceeded by international action to trace the responsibility for military murders, such as those of Miss Cavell and Captain Fryatt, without arousing a national sense of wrong in Germany, no longer matters; we cannot do so now.

Next, as to the effect of the Treaty on the Liberals, the moderates, the men of property. If the ideals of the Conservatives and their interests in land made them nationalist, the ideals of the Liberals and their interests in industry tended to make them imperialist. And the Treaty cuts off Germany from all imperial ideals and cripples it in industry.

The growth of German industry in late years, comparable only to industrial growth in North America, was due, as with us, to the combination of coal with iron and of first-rate management with foreign markets. The Treaty has deprived Germany, in the east, of the Silesian coalfields with their dependent industries, and, in the west, of the Lorraine and Saar ores; which, together, may be compared to the loss of South Wales and Northumberland. It has also deprived Germany, not only of its colonies, but also of its commercial establishments abroad, so closing foreign markets to it except by way of foreign intermediaries, bankers, brokers and shippers. There is nothing left of German foreign commerce and little left of German industry but a mutilated torso; for it has not only lost its right hand in Lorraine but also its left in Silesia. Yet, what German men of business feel it hardest to forgive is not the injury done by the Treaty but the insult. That camouflaged receivership, the Reparation Commission, prejudges Germany as a fraudulent bankrupt. If we had in the Treaty fixed our claims as creditors and negotiated with Germany as to how they could be paid, the German middle class would have taken a pride in showing itself equal to the enormous emergency even as the French did in the far less searching trial of 1870. But this foreign Commission has been given such powers as have never yet been proposed for foreign financial control, even of the most wholly bankrupt and barbarous Sovereign State. Those powers will, of course, never be exercised, and they would defeat the object of the financial provisions of the Treaty if they were; but the unnecessary insult they involve has cost us the co-operation of the German middle classes in rebuilding the economic system of Europe.

And, now for the last mistake. The one desire of the lower classes of Germany, whether industrial or agricultural, is for peace and plenty. In condemning them to a continuance of war conditions for nine months after their surrender and revolution we turned them from internationalists, ready to welcome us as representatives of democracy and as crusaders for an international ideal, into either nationalists who looked on us as enemies seeking the destruction of all Germans, or into internationalists who looked on us as enemies of the revolution seeking their destruction as we were seeking that of the Russians. The result has been that we have lost the co-operation of the German working class in extending our system of parliamentary Government to Central and Eastern Europe. And it requires no profound political knowledge of continental conditions to recognise that, without such co-operation, British political ideas and institutions and with them British political influence will not penetrate Europe.

To this result two actions on our part especially contributed. The first, our opposition to the union of German-Austria with Germany; the second, our refusal to admit Germany to the League of Nations. These were the two meaningless, almost motiveless insults that in my opinion have done us more lasting harm in Europe than such mistakes in practical policy as the maintenance of the blockade. The repudiation, presumably at French dictation, of both the principle of nationality and that of self-determination was bad enough. It was worse to try to buttress an artificial barrier between two sections of the German race by assigning German populations to neighbouring States—Germans of Bohemia to Tchecho-Slovakia—Germans of Karinthia to Yugo-Slavia—Germans of the Tyrol to Italy. This diplomatic device failed even in a far more thorough form in Poland over a century ago. Just as the policy of artificial separation failed in the case of Eastern Roumelia.