The Problem of Foreign Policy / A Consideration of Present Dangers and the Best Methods for Meeting Them

by Gilbert Murray

5. A free, open-minded and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight[Pg 8] with the equitable claims of the Government whose title is to be determined.[1]

The Fourteen Points were not only acclaimed by Liberal opinion in England: they were vigorously circulated by our Government propaganda in Germany and Austria, as were all other statements considered likely to induce the enemy peoples to weaken or surrender. On October 5, 1918, the German Republican Government proposed peace on the basis of the Fourteen Points. "They requested President Wilson to take into his hands the task of establishing peace on the basis of the Fourteen Points contained in his message to Congress of January 8, 1918, and on the basis of his subsequent proclamations, especially his speech of September 27, 1918." Later on they asked the President to inquire if the Allied Governments also agreed to them. In response to his inquiries the Allied Governments sent in to him an identical memorandum:

The Allied Governments have given careful consideration to the correspondence which has passed between the President of the United States and the German Government. Subject to the qualifications which follow, they declare their willingness to make peace with the Government of Germany on the terms of peace laid down in the President's address to Congress of January 8, 1918, and the principles of settlement enunciated in his subsequent addresses. They must point out, however, that what is usually described as the Freedom of the Seas is open to various interpretations, some of which they could not accept. They must therefore reserve to themselves complete freedom on this subject when they enter the Peace Conference.

One further "qualification" was made by the Allied Powers: by the "restoration" of the invaded territories they understood "that compensation would be made by Germany for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allies and their property by the aggression of Germany by land, by sea and from the air."

Thus the Fourteen Points were converted into a solemn international agreement. The Allies agreed that the treaty of peace should consist of the application in detail of that fundamental document. On that understanding the Germans laid down their arms and surrendered their means of defence.

It is always difficult in the affairs of a democratic country to determine the exact point where mere inconsistency and laxity of thought, or even mere lack of coördination between the various organs of government, merge into something like deliberate perfidy. It may so easily happen that one set of individuals give the promise and quite another set act in breach of it. But an Englishman who wishes seriously to understand the present international situation must begin by realizing clearly that the treaty imposed on the Germans at Versailles, after they had surrendered their arms, appears to them and to a large number of neutral observers as a monstrous breach of faith. It contravened in spirit and in detail much of what they understood by the Fourteen Points. I confess that, after reading carefully the German Protest and the Allied Reply, it seems to me that the German reading of President Wilson's terms was in some points the natural one; and, apart from the treaty itself, that the action taken against the Germans when they were disarmed was not consistent with the language and the pledges addressed to them while they were still in the field. As a matter of fact, certain of those responsible, or partly responsible, for the negotiations on the Entente side, when they saw the way things were going, recalled bitterly the great historic perfidy by which Rome trapped Carthage to her doom.

A charge of this kind is, of course, very serious; and the results of the action taken at Versailles have been more than serious. I will ask my readers patiently to consider in broad outlines the causes, psychological and other, which seem to have been at work; for of course it is quite possible and even probable that, of the main actors concerned, not one had any intention of trying to trap the Germans by perjury. Some of them doubtless were unscrupulous men, such as wars habitually throw to the surface; but they were not men of the Machiavellian type.

Two broad facts stand out clearly to one who studies the documents. First, the Governments which accepted President Wilson's Fourteen Points as the basis of peace with Germany were from the start quite out of sympathy with his spirit. Why, then, did they accept them? Because they had really no choice. To refuse would not have been only to reject a long delayed and desperately needed peace. It would have been to confess to the world that, contrary to so many previous professions, their aims were frankly what is now termed "imperialistic." Above all, it would have been to alienate Mr. Wilson, without whom victory was impossible. They were bound to accept.

But Mr. Wilson's language was often rather lacking in definiteness. Who knows exactly what "justice" is, or what may be regarded as consideration for "the true interests" of the German people? They accepted the terms; but they were free to use all permissible ingenuity in interpreting a document which they had not drawn up, and which had been forced upon them in a time of need.

Furthermore, one who labours through the four hundred and forty articles of the treaty, with their innumerable subdivisions, will find not merely that the treaty represents broadly the victory of the right side over the wrong, and is a charter of emancipation to large parts of Europe. He will find also that four hundred or more of the detailed articles are reasonable enough and many of them excellent. The injustice arises in two ways. First, that on every doubtful point, and there are many, the decision is apt to be given against the enemy; and next, that behind the respectable structure of the treaty there existed in fact a flood of white-hot war-passion—revenge, hate, terror, suspicion, and raging covetousness—which poisoned the atmosphere and here and there made a breach in the protecting wall.