Europe Since 1918

by Herbert Adams Gibbons

The change in government in France put an end to the hope of Entente solidarity and foreshadowed the military occupation of the Ruhr. Poincaré agreed, however, to another conference, proposed by the Italians, which was to meet at Genoa in the first week of March, “of an economic and financial nature, of all the European powers, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Russia included.” In the meantime, the Reparations Commission was to allow a temporary delay in indemnity payments, without considering Germany in default, contingent upon the turning over of 31,000,000 gold marks every ten days. The United States declined an invitation to participate in the Genoa Conference, on the ground that the matters it would consider were of purely European concern.

The new Poincaré Cabinet asked for a month’s delay in convening the Genoa Conference, and stipulated that revision of the Treaty of Versailles should not be discussed, and also that Soviet Russia must acknowledge the foreign indebtedness of Czarist Russia before the question of recognizing the Moscow Government was brought before the conference.

For the first time the vanquished and the Russians met together with the victors, when delegates from all the European countries assembled at Genoa on April 10, 1922. This fact seemed to augur well for the success of the conference. Up to this time the Entente Powers had failed to reëstablish peace in Europe because they had outlawed half of Europe. Whether Germany and Russia deserved to be put in Coventry is not to the point. None disputed the justice of insisting that Germany live up to the obligations she had assumed in order to escape the overrunning of her territory (as she had overrun for four years the territory of other nations) and the disagreeable consequences of defeat in a war in which she had been the challenger. None was inclined to receive Soviet Russia with open arms into the councils of the nations of whose political and social institutions she was the outspoken enemy. On the other hand, the purpose for which the conference had been called could not succeed without the coöperation of Germany and Russia. The statesmen of the Entente Powers could not hope to ameliorate economic and political conditions in Europe unless they possessed and were willing to use the means of coercing Germany and Russia or unless they intended to treat these other two great powers on the basis of give and take, as they treated each other.

Because neither alternative was considered, the Genoa Conference was a complete failure. The Entente Powers began wrong. They held preliminary meetings to decide upon their program, assuming that the rôle of the German and Russian delegations would be simply that of acquiescence. The two outcast powers retaliated in a startling way. They signed a treaty at Rapallo, whose terms were published, reëstablishing diplomatic relations with each other and settling war claims and financial obligation by reciprocal cancelation. The Treaty of Rapallo torpedoed the conference. The Entente Powers were not prepared to waive reciprocally their claims against one another, much less treat with vanquished Germany and faithless Russia on any such basis. After several weeks of futile debate, during which the Entente Powers maintained the attitude they had adopted in the beginning, the conference broke up.[26] Further negotiations concerning minor matters in which agreement might be reached were laid over for a conference to meet at Amsterdam in June. The principal questions upon which the rehabilitation of Europe depended seemed impossible of solution.

Despite its failure, the Genoa Conference was a useful meeting; for it cleared up a number of misapprehensions, and served as a warning and indication of the general tendencies of the policies of the participating nations. For instance, behind Russia’s intractability and truculence was evident her anxiety to make concessions to world-wide public opinion. Her leaders no longer gloried in her isolation, and they frankly admitted the failure of some of their theories and the very limited success of others. After four years they began to show themselves sensitive. This proved that they were beginning to recognize the dependence of Russia upon the rest of the world. When put to the test, the Germans were as unwilling as the Turks later showed themselves at Lausanne to break with the Occidental powers and throw in their fortunes unreservedly with Russia. The intention of Belgium to pool her interests with France was also revealed. But the most striking lesson of the Genoa Conference was the coming to the front of the theory that reparations could not be considered apart from interallied debts, and that France and Italy saw in future bargaining over a reduction of their reparations claims the possibility of being freed from their indebtedness to Great Britain and the United States.

It had long been sensed by the American State Department that French and Italian statesmen had this idea in mind. Fear of walking into a trap or being put in an awkward and ungracious position had much to do with the American decision to remain aloof from these conferences, a policy which had first been stated by our unofficial representatives at the Brussels Conference. The British Government determined to anticipate bargaining on any such basis. Two days before Poincaré came to London to confer with Lloyd George in August, Secretary Balfour issued a statement on interallied debts in which he skilfully tried to “pass the buck” to the United States. He declared that it would be impossible for Great Britain to entertain any proposition to reduce or cancel the sums owed her by her European allies so long as the United States insisted upon the repayment of the British war debt. Had not Great Britain been a borrower from the American Government in 1917 and 1918 because of the necessity imposed upon her of furnishing credits to an almost equal amount to European countries?

The Balfour note was issued on August 5. On August 7 Poincaré, accompanied by several of his colleagues, arrived in London to confer with the British Cabinet on coercive measures to be taken against Germany. The French premier was unmistakably disconcerted by the unexpected declaration of British policy on interallied indebtedness. He knew very well that American public opinion was against forgiving any of the debts and that the comment of the American press had been sarcastic and vehement. Uncle Sam did not intend to pay the German war indemnity! Lloyd George and Poincaré found themselves in more hopeless disagreement than after the Cannes Conference. It was only for a moment that the Russo-German treaty had thrown them into each other’s arms. Things were approaching a crisis in the Near East. Fascismo was preparing to oust the Government in Rome. The London Conference accomplished nothing.

In the autumn of 1922 the startling events in the Near East and the uncertainty as to what foreign policy for Italy would grow out of the coup d’état of Mussolini postponed for a few months the Anglo-French rupture over reparations. Poincaré’s mind was made up. But the negotiations with Turkey and the assembling of the Lausanne Conference were coupled with the downfall of Lloyd George and the consequent General Election. When the British electorate returned a Conservative majority, it was believed that the new Government, presided over by Mr. Bonar Law, would be more amenable to the French arguments. Lord Curzon, who remained as foreign secretary, was showing himself very friendly to France at Lausanne. Poincaré believed that the time had come to have the Reparations Commission declare Germany in default. But opposition developed as strong as under the Lloyd George Government. Bonar Law had failed to recall Lord d’Abernon from Berlin, and Sir John Bradbury was not superseded in the Reparations Commission. The British ambassador to Berlin and the British member of the Reparations Commission had been considered “creatures of Lloyd George,” and their retention came as a blow to French public opinion.

In view of British opposition to going into the Ruhr, M. Poincaré might have postponed this fateful action had it been in his power to do so. But this was the program for carrying out which he had been put in power just a year earlier. The break had been as imminent with the British then. Public opinion was growing impatient, and it is beyond doubt that the Chamber of Deputies, after the Christmas recess, would have refused a vote of confidence if the Poincaré Cabinet had held back any longer. In judging the responsibility for what followed, we must remember that it was with Poincaré what it frequently is with a leader in a crisis: go ahead or get out. The policy adopted in such a case does not represent the sober judgment of the statesman, but only the determination of the politician to remain in power.

In December Poincaré had conferred with Bonar Law and Mussolini in London. He knew what was ahead of him. He conferred with his Cabinet, who agreed that the Chamber of Deputies would give the Government a free hand only if the course of action France intended to take in the matter of reparations was definitely stated. Poincaré appeared before the Chamber on December 16 and declared that France was determined upon measures of coercion against Germany, as authorized by the Treaty of Versailles, with or without the coöperation of Great Britain. A vote of confidence was accorded by an overwhelming majority.