III. The Solution
But perhaps after all there is. Last among the Fourteen Points came the proposal to found "A general Association of Nations under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to small and great states alike." The Treaty of Versailles has after all two faces. It had to express two great waves of feeling and two international necessities. Mr. Wilson was not so utterly "bamboozled" as Mr. Keynes would have us believe. General Smuts and Lord Robert Cecil were not so utterly without influence on the settlement. The least depressing paragraphs in the Allied Reply to the German delegation are those in which they explain that the terrific severity of the greater part of the treaty applies only to a "transition period" of punishment, of reparation and of trial, at the end of which they see the realization of Mr. Wilson's promises. "The conditions of peace contain some provisions for the future which may outlast the transition period during which the economic balance"—between Germany and the invaded countries—"is to be restored; and a reciprocity is foreseen after that period which is very clearly that equality of trade conditions for which President Wilson has stipulated." The phrasing of the paragraph is awkward, but the main drift is clear. The Fourteen Points are accepted, but adjourned; when Germany has been punished and reparation made, they will come into force. "The Allied and Associated Powers look forward to the time when the League of Nations established by this treaty shall extend its membership to all peoples." "They see no reason why Germany should not become a member of the League in the early future," provided she satisfies certain tests. "It has never been their intention that Germany or any other Power should be indefinitely excluded from the League of Nations." They are convinced that the Covenant of the League "introduces an element of progress into the relations of peoples which will develop and strengthen to the advantage of justice and of peace."
This is as it should be; but the world does not stand still while Germany is making reparation and being taught gradually to love her chastisers. If the League "introduces an element of progress," the sooner it gets to work the better. It is only too clear that every month which passes with the League entirely dominated by England, France, and Italy encourages and deepens the suspicion with which the League is regarded by its critics. I say nothing of American criticisms, in which many factors coöperate. But the Swiss Federal Council, in the very able and persuasive message which it issued to the Assembly on February 17, 1920, in favour of joining the League, has to deal with this suspicion. "One has been tempted at times to consider the League as an alliance of the conquerors against the conquered. The fact that Germany, Austria, and the former Russian Empire remain provisionally excluded from the League may have given a semblance of truth to this manner of thinking." The suspicion is afterwards described as "this apparently accurate criticism." Switzerland as a whole has fortunately rejected the suspicion and by a small majority joined the League. But in most of Central Europe the League of Nations movement is strangled in its birth by the general feeling that the present League means merely the Entente Powers and their clients, and the elements for starting a counter-league are consolidating month by month. This counter-league would probably not be an open and confessed alliance. But Russia, Germany, and the United States are still outside, and there are many unpaid grudges amongst the Moslems of Asia. The test which is exacted by Article I from any new state desiring to become a member of the League is that "it shall give effective guarantees of its sincere intention to observe its international obligations." Interpreted with theological strictness, this would probably result in the rejection of all candidates, to say nothing of the expulsion of many of the original members. Perfect sincerity in observing unpleasant obligations is not a common characteristic of human societies. But in the ordinary sense of the words the test is already satisfied by Germany and Austria and most of the succession states. The Assembly of the League meets for the first time on November 15, 1920. It ought not to dissolve without admitting to its membership Germany and Austria, as well as several other candidates who have already applied. At the moment of writing (November, 1920), Lord Grey, Lord Selborne, and Mr. Barnes have issued a joint appeal for the immediate admission of Germany, which has long been the accepted policy of the League of Nations Union. There are many obstacles, but the result will doubtless be known before these words are in print. Fortunately, the admission of new members is decided by a two-thirds majority of the Assembly and does not require a unanimous vote. Once the League is established on a broad base, including the conquered nations on equal terms with the victorious, the prospect of that war of revenge which has hitherto seemed almost inevitable will dwindle and become remote.
The hope expressed above has not been realized. Austria, Bulgaria, and many less important states applied for admission to the League and were accepted, but French feeling was known to be very strong, and Germany did not even apply. Had she done so she would probably have had a majority in her favour, and it was considered until the beginning of March, 1921, that she was certain of admission at the next meeting of the Assembly in September. But in the meantime untoward events have taken place.
The French Government, like the English, obtained success at the elections by wild promises to make Germany pay all the costs of the war. As M. Poincaré has observed, "the French people will not understand how the victors in a great war can be on the verge of bankruptcy." Consequently they think their rulers are cheating them. Educated people, in France as in England, have long since ceased to expect much from German indemnities, but the Governments still depend on their appeal to mob-psychology; and it was believed that if M. Briand ventured to make any concessions in the direction of reason or moderation he would lose his majority in the Chamber. The proposals made at the Inter-Allied Conference at Brussels and drawn up by the French expert, M. Seydoux, had been silently dropped as unsatisfying; the subsequent British proposals made at Boulogne had been rejected for the same reason. It was necessary, however, to make some definite proposals to Germany without much further delay, since the treaty had laid down May 1, 1921, as the time for a settlement. Germany was by that time to have paid a thousand million pounds on account, and was to learn the extent, finite or infinite, of the total bill. Mr. Lloyd George, as might have been expected, showed much sympathy with M. Briand in his awkward position, and agreed to a demand for reparations on a scale which was obviously fantastic. It began, reasonably enough, with a system of annuities, though the first figure was probably too high and the last figures can scarcely have been meant seriously. Germany was to pay £150,000,000 a year for the first five years; then the annual sum was to increase at intervals for the extraordinary period of forty-two years, towards the end of which time Germany was expected to pay annually £300,000,000, or half as much again every year as the total indemnity exacted from France after the war of 1870. Even that was not enough for a population which had been sedulously fed on lies by a class of politician who at times seem to possess among them no single sane and honest man. And an additional payment was demanded of a yearly sum equivalent to a duty of twelve per cent ad valorem on all German exports.
Opinion in Germany was sharply divided. All they had to pay with was an enormous deficit on the Budget, with the prospect of presently losing the Silesian coal-mines and having prohibitive duties placed by the Allies upon their exports. One party insisted that the Government should make no promise which it could not expect to perform; another, that what Germany wanted was peace, and that they had better sign anything required of them. The first party, on the whole, carried the day. The German delegation in London made a counter-proposal based, very sensibly, on the idea of finding the present value of the forty-two-year annuities and raising that sum by means of a loan; but as they worked out the idea they favoured Germany on every detailed calculation to an extent which they must have known to be unacceptable. Apparently they expected a long and serious bargaining march. But, to most people's surprise, Mr. George leapt with alacrity at the prospect of a rupture. The proposal was rejected with every semblance of virtuous indignation. No time was allowed for the delegation to consult the German Government. A hurried second proposal, to pay the terms demanded for five years and then have the matter reconsidered, was tossed aside without consideration, and French and British troops proceeded to invade Germany, occupy more territory, and set up a new and artificial customs-barrier in the most unsuitable places, at which they proceeded themselves to collect the German customs.
The plan is very expensive, and utterly unprofitable. It involves a straining if not a breach of the treaty,[3] and it is likely, if any untoward event occurs, to provoke a war of the most humiliating and embittered kind—the war of a desperate and helpless population trying to rid themselves of foreign oppressors. But it has saved M. Briand's Government. If he had agreed to accept any German terms whatever, he would have been upset for not exacting more. But if he marches French and British troops into the heart of Germany no one can accuse him of lack of spirit. So for the present all is well; and as for the future, it is conceivable that the Germans will give way and make some impossible promise. That will increase M. Briand's prestige. It is more likely that they will simply sit still and let the Allied armies do their worst. Then there will be a chance of carrying out one of the darling aims of the French chauvinists, and annexing, or at least separating from Germany, all the German provinces which they occupy.