[19] French policy is endeavoring to find a means of preventing Germany from developing her aërial activities, even after the five-year period provided for in the Treaty of Versailles has expired. An aviation convention, between France and Czechoslovakia, signed at the beginning of April, 1923, stipulates that the two nations bar Germans from landing in, or flying across, their respective countries. Germany retaliated by refusing permission of French and Czechoslovak airmen to land in and fly across her territory. That she was in earnest in affirming her right to reciprocity was indicated on May 19, when a French aviator, having to come down on German territory, was promptly thrown in jail and his airplane confiscated. When the French protested the Germans replied that they were doing as they were being done by. The only way such theses can be maintained is by the virtual continuance of European nations at war with one another.
[20] According to the “Annual Register” for 1921 (London), p. 180, Poland obtained almost exactly half of the two million inhabitants, although she had less than 40 per cent of the votes, and her share of the industrial region was far out of proportion to her voting strength. Poland got 49½ out of 61 coal-mines; all the iron-mines; 22 out of 37 furnaces; 400,000 out of 570,000 tons of pig-iron per annum; 12 out of 16 zinc- and lead-mines; and the three important cities of Königshütte, Kattowitz, and Tarnowitz, which had voted by large majorities to Germany.
[21] So far as productive capacity is concerned German shipyards have more than returned to their pre-war position. The new Deutschland, just completed, was the largest vessel launched in the world in 1922. In 1922 Germany was an easy second to Great Britain in building, her shipyards turned out 187 vessels of 526,000 tons. Not excepting Great Britain, every country except Germany turned out a smaller tonnage in 1922 than in 1921. In 1928, if the record of 1922 is kept up, Germany will have completely recovered from the effects of the war on her shipping. Similar reports from credible sources have come to me concerning airplane building. Germany is again leading the world in production of light motors, and has invented a new Diesel engine. The activity of Germany in Russia is emphasized by the concessions agreement signed at Moscow on May 18, 1923, by which the German Eastern Relations Society received 2,000,000,000 acres of forest land and the exploitation of the Moscow-Rybinsk Railway. German firms lead the field in export and import privileges in Russia.
[22] These figures, and more, are given in the London “Saturday Review” (March 3, 1923) to show that German industrialists have been taxed so heavily since the war that they “have gone to the limit in payment of what private enterprise can bear without breaking down altogether.”
[23] Italy welcomed the evidences of internal weakness and suicidal political strife indicated by the return of Constantine. The vote against Venizelos in November and the plebiscite in favor of the King in December helped the Italian Government to find the excuse that had been sought ever since San Remo to refuse to ratify the Treaty of Sèvres and to recognize the agreements made between Venizelos and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For fear that the Greeks might recover their senses, Italy promptly recognized Constantine.
[24] In the interior of Asia Minor in the spring of 1922 I found many influential Turks who were bitterly opposed to the Nationalist movement, and the opposition was still more marked in Constantinople. The summary action of the Angora Assembly against the Sultan was used by intelligent anti-Kemalists to excite the peasants, with the result that a Central Revolutionary Committee was formed in January, 1923, to overthrow Kemalism. With the coming of summer bands formed in many parts of Asia Minor and the guerilla warfare became formidable.
[25] The treaties recommended by the Washington Conference were:
(1) A five-power treaty involving the scrapping of sixty-eight capital ships, the restriction of the tonnage of navies and of fortification in the Far East, and a ten-year naval holiday.
(2) A five-power treaty outlawing the use of submarines as an agency of attack on merchant ships and prohibiting the use of poison-gas.
(3) A nine-power treaty stabilizing the conditions in the Far East and reiterating the open-door principle in regard to China.