The Americans bluntly refused to endorse demands which they considered extortionate. The indemnity was left unspecified. It should depend on Germany's capacity to pay. Let the Germans get to work at once and do their best. The more they produced, the more the Allies would take; and if, after two years or so, it became necessary to fix the sum, the less the Germans had produced in those two years the less they would eventually have to pay. It is said that some of the British Ministers, secretly anxious to be more reasonable than was consistent with popularity at the moment, wished to postpone the fixing of the indemnity until the rage of their own "Khaki Election" should have cooled down. But their calculation was a bad one. As the German delegation observed: "The German people would feel themselves condemned in slavery, because everything they accomplished would benefit neither themselves nor even their children, but merely strangers. But the system of slave labour has never been successful."
For the purpose of raising money the proposal was merely fatuous. It took away from the Germans every possible motive for producing wealth. But its object in some minds was not money: its object was the permanent ruin of Germany. It was feared in France that, though the Germans were now exhausted and beggared, their notorious industry and ingenuity might in time enable them to pay off their indemnity and rise again to affluence and strength. So it was arranged that, for some years at least, they should be deprived of every motive for industry.
Lastly, a new provision was made about private property. The rule hitherto observed in the land wars of civilized states was that enemy private property was respected, and if seized during the war was restored at the conclusion of peace. This rule was, of course, enforced in favour of any property belonging to nationals of the Entente countries situated in enemy lands; but reciprocity was not admitted. The private property of any German situate in any part of the world which was under the control of the Ententes was ipso facto confiscated. "The Allied and Associated Powers reserve the right to retain and liquidate all" such property. Every German, however innocent, who had settled in our territory before the war was thus exposed to be robbed of everything he possessed. Nay, it seems almost incredible, but in the original form of the treaty which was put before the enemy for signature the stipulation seems actually to have been laid down that any property which a German might hereafter make or acquire in Entente territory should be liable to confiscation at the will of the Entente Governments! This clause was too much even for the atmosphere of Versailles, and in response to the German protest the stipulation about the future was dropped.[2] For the rest of the confiscation, the Entente Reply brazens it out with the remark that the property is not really taken from the individual, as his own Government can always pay him back! And in case the private property of Germans in neutral countries should have an unfair advantage, the Reparation Commission obtained special powers for confiscating that too, up to the limit of £100,000,000.
We need not stop to consider whether there was any extraordinary exhibition of "Teutonic insolence" in the action of certain German officials who resigned their offices rather than sign this treaty; nor need we swell the chorus of English, French, Italian, and American newspapers in expressing the natural horror of those refined nations at the bad manners of Count Brockdorf-Rantzau in actually breaking a paper-knife in the stress of his emotion, when, under protest, he consented to sign. There was one man among the British representatives who had known what it was to be conquered after a desperate war. General Smuts was a man of imagination as well as a soldier and a statesman. He hesitated long before signing the treaty; and when, in the end, he decided that it was necessary to do so, he immediately published a statement of protest. "I have signed the peace treaty, not because I consider it a satisfactory document, but because it is imperatively necessary to close the war. . . . The six months since the armistice was signed have perhaps been as upsetting, unsettling, and ruinous to Europe as the previous four years of war. I look upon the peace treaty as the close of those two chapters of war and armistice, and only on that ground do I sign it." Liberal opinion in England muttered assent. Some important officials resigned. But the fear of upsetting peace altogether prevented any open protest in Parliament. We need not lose ourselves in speculations as to the strange devices to which public men can sink when their self-interest is clear and their responsibility can be denied or evaded; nor yet as to the infinite ramifications by which war spreads its poison through human society, a thing twice-cursed, cursing him that strikes and him that suffers. The old German Government had committed a vast crime against humanity; its people had backed it up, as all European peoples back up their own Governments, and could not expect to escape heavy punishment. The one question we need ask ourselves is this: Is it not as certain, as anything in human nature can be, that a treaty of such a character, imposed on a conquered nation by force, if not also by treachery, will, as a matter of course and without the faintest scruple, be broken as soon as there is a favourable opportunity for breaking it? Of course the Germans will break it if they can; and of course they will make another war, call it a war of revenge or a war for freedom as you please, as soon as there is any chance of winning it.
So said the Justizrat in the train. So, in effect, says Herr Simons; so almost ad nauseam repeat all the German Conservative and patriotic newspapers. It is difficult to see how any German who is not a convinced pacifist should do otherwise than prepare with all his energies for the next war, unless some other way is made possible of escape from a tormenting servitude.
II. The Position of France
If that is so, what is the position of France? France in 1914 was forced into a war which she tried hard to avoid. The French suffered horribly and fought heroically. They sacrificed everything to the war. And we, who know what our own people paid in broken nerve, in bitterness, and in economic dislocation, cannot be surprised that France has paid a heavie price. They escaped defeat by the help of England, Russia, Italy, and America; without these powerful allies they would certainly have been defeated. We need not try to estimate exactly what their fate would have been if they had lost the late war, because if they lose the next their treatment will be infinitely worse. It will be, as far as possible, tabula rasa. It will be the passing of the horse-hoofs of Attila. Meantime France's allies are, naturally enough, going home and attending to their own businesses; her population is much smaller than Germany's and increases even more slowly.
A French statesman of the type of M. Poincaré or M. Hanotaux makes himself no illusions. Germany is the enemy. Germany will fight again as soon as she is strong enough. Therefore she must never be allowed to become strong enough. M. Hanotaux, who was Foreign Minister during the years 1894-98, when French foreign policy was more ably managed than now, has recently published a book in criticism of the Treaty of Versailles. He does not deal in any Wilsonian phrases about justice or humanity; he considers the treaty solely with a view to the security of France, and he finds it sadly wanting. And a large mass of opinion, probably the prevailing opinion, in France supports him.
First of all, it must be remembered, France wanted, and thought she had received, a special guarantee against future German attacks in the form of a defensive Alliance between France, England, and America. The representatives at Paris had agreed to this treaty, which definitely pledged England and America to come again to the help of France in case of another unprovoked attack by Germany. The English Parliament amid some protests, ratified the treaty, but the United States Senate threw it out, and therewith the treaty ceased to be binding on England.
I think, after considerable hesitation, that the rejection of the treaty was a misfortune. Formally, no doubt, it was open to objection. It seemed like an unnecessary excrescence upon the Covenant of the League of Nations, which already gave guarantees against war. It contravened one of Mr. Wilson's principles, and a very sound one, laid down on September 27, 1918: "Thirdly, there can be no leagues or alliances or special covenants and understandings within the general and common family of the League of Nations." Yet the practical importance of reassuring France was so urgent that a little formal incorrectness might have been worth incurring; and even formal incorrectness could have been avoided by the simple expedient of making this guarantee to France take the form of a special rider to Article XVI of the Covenant.