The only other writer who has had access to unpublished and inaccessible material is M. André Tardieu, Clemenceau’s right-hand man and one of the signers of the treaty. M. Tardieu reveals that France’s policy had been from the beginning to make the Rhine the western frontier of Germany, and have all the Rhine bridges permanently occupied by interallied military forces. The chief advocate of the extreme French forward policy was Marshal Foch, who urged that the military occupation of the left bank of the Rhine was essential to the safety of France and Belgium, but he was not supported in this stand by the King of the Belgians. The compromise was arranged in April, Wilson being won over on the twentieth and Lloyd George on the twenty-second. The evacuation after fifteen years was to be dependent upon two conditions, the complete fulfilment of the treaty by Germany, and also the agreement among the Allies that “the guarantees against unprovoked aggression by Germany are considered sufficient by the Allied and Associated Governments.” These two jokers nullify the fifteen-year provision, and make the occupation dependent upon the will of France.
The Lansing, Baker and Tardieu books confirm the impression one had at the time, that Mr. Wilson gradually abandoned position after position, that disastrous expedients and compromises were adopted in a spirit of panic, and that the American president refused to stand with the British premier at the last minute in an effort to rid the final draft of the treaty of some of its injustices and absurdities.
The economic clauses of the treaty are ably discussed by Mr. Keynes, British expert; Mr. Baruch, American expert; and former Premier Nitti of Italy, one of the greatest European economists. These three men write from first hand, and are agreed that the economic terms imposed upon Germany were not only impossible of fulfilment but also ruinous to the European economic structure. Premier Lloyd George and Sir George Foster, who signed the treaty for Canada, have openly indorsed this position, declaring that the reparations terms were impossible from the beginning and imposed upon Germany a burden that no nation could possibly carry.
New light on the tragedy of Paris has also come from debates in the American Senate, the British House of Commons and House of Lords, and the South African Parliament. The testimony is concordant. The more light we get the more we realize that the Treaty of Versailles was not a treaty of peace, and that even those who made it were convinced that it would not and could not bring peace to the world.
CHAPTER VII
THE TREATIES OF ST.-GERMAIN AND TRIANON
Seeking a mitigation of the peace terms, the Germans at Versailles reminded their victors of the repeated assurance given the German people that the Allied and Associated Powers were making war against the Imperial German Government. The distinction had been clearly drawn by President Wilson on several occasions. The pre-armistice correspondence reiterated the difference between a government of the people and a government of the Kaiser. Had not the Germans, by a revolution, rid themselves of their discredited rulers, down to the most insignificant princeling? M. Clemenceau answered, in the name of the victors, that the German people had willed the war and had sustained it; therefore, they could not escape the responsibility for it. And, if the terms of peace were severe, it was not only because justice must be satisfied, but also because reasonable precautions must be taken against an outlaw people, still over sixty million strong.
There was much force in M. Clemenceau’s contention, applied to powerful Germany, with her industrial machinery intact, and enjoying a peculiarly advantageous strategic position in central Europe. But this same explanation cannot be given to excuse similar terms imposed upon six million Austrians and seven million Hungarians. As peoples, their responsibility certainly was much less. As new nations, shorn of much of their territory, heavy indemnities were absurd; and refusing the right to ethnographic frontiers on the plea of guarantees for the future was without justification. The Treaty of Versailles, had it only been practicable, was a punishment fitting a crime. The Treaties of St.-Germain and Trianon are indefensible from every point of view.
“We have Balkanized all that part of Europe,” said Mr. Lloyd George ruefully. He was right. But ineptitude is none the less blameworthy because it is admitted!
“If the Hapsburg Empire did not exist, it would have to be invented,” a Russian diplomat once said. He was a political realist. His statement was a wise one from the political point of view. The developments of the last half-century have proved that it is wiser still from the economic point of view. But there was no broad statesmanship at the Paris Conference, looking to the future, and no sound economic generalship, setting limits to the greed and fantasies of those who divided the spoils. Fools rushed in where angels would have feared to tread. The economic evolution of the nineteenth century was disregarded. The Hapsburg Empire was partitioned in such a way as to do more violence to the will of its inhabitants than had been done under the old scheme of the Dual Monarchy, with none of the economic compensations of the destroyed political organism. New irredentisms were created, much more dangerous than the old ones. In 1914, Alsace-Lorraine was unique among European problems: it was the only instance of a people forcibly detached against their will from a country in which they had enjoyed the privilege of taking a full and conscious part in the national life. The Treaties of St.-Germain and Trianon did violence on a far greater scale than the Treaty of Frankfort had done to the national sentiments of peoples. Half a dozen new Alsaces were brought to life and half a dozen new danger-zones established in Europe. When the terms of the Treaty of Versailles were made known, students of international affairs had their misgivings. When the terms of the Treaties of St.-Germain and Trianon were published, we realized that “the war to end war” was resulting in the creation of causes for new wars.