The isolation of France from her old comrades in arms, through whose aid alone she was put in the position where she could coerce Germany, is accompanied by dissatisfaction in Belgium, and by a feeling of resentment and suspicion, as we have already indicated, on the part of other European countries. The prudent policy for a country with the birth-rate of France would seem to be reconciliation with Germany and conciliation with Russia. Whatever gain France may enjoy from a temporary success of the Ruhr occupation is bound to be offset by the feeling aroused in the minds and hearts of the generation growing up in Germany. Wise statesmenship ought to have taken this fact into account.
The saddest result of the Ruhr occupation is the flood of newspaper stories, cartoons, and editorials in every European country, directed against the abuse of military power in the relations of the army of occupation with the civilian population of the Ruhr. An invading army invariably gets itself involved in difficulties, and goes from one doubtful proceeding to another. That is in the nature of the thing. Public opinion hates abuses of military power and verdicts of court martials, no matter how great the provocation or how just the cause of prosecution. The moral indignation of the world was a powerful factor against Germany during the World War; and within the same decade as the Marne and Verdun it is tragic to see in the most reputable newspapers of Stockholm, Rotterdam, Copenhagen, Rome, and London, over the signature of bishops, university professors, journalists, and historians, stories like the following, which I have taken from the London “Observer” of May 6, 1923.
Thousands of innocent persons lie in the gaols, closely crowded together, six or ten in a single cell, often without separation of the sexes—gray civil servants put in with criminals, woman officials (e. g., five from the Wiesbaden post office) with prostitutes; often punished by withdrawal of food for days together and always under the control of Moroccan warders. Many have waited for months without examination, being left entirely ignorant of the reason of their arrest; others have been condemned to years of captivity or forced labor ... and all this invariably without preliminary trial, by administrative order, for no crime but that of “criticizing” the administration, or at most of obeying the orders of the German Government instead of those of French military authorities.... It is thus that, among many other examples, the Traffic Inspector Gottfried of Ludwigshafen was carried off to twenty years’ captivity in the French colonial mines.
Of course our minds go back to the days of the World War when the Germans did things of this kind, and we might argue that it is natural and just for their civilian population to have a taste of what their military authorities inflicted upon French and Belgian civilians. But during the war we flattered ourselves that we were better than the Germans and would not have stooped, had we been in their place, to make war upon the weak and unarmed. It is more than a question of ethics. It is a question of weakening the excellent case we had against the Germans by dragging ourselves down to their level. Right-minded men the world over intensely abhorred the German abuses of military power in Belgium and Northern France. It is permitted therefore for warm friends and admirers of France to question the wisdom of a policy that lays the French army open to charges of abuse of power, vandalism, brutality, and unjust verdicts of courts martial. No matter how great the provocation, the impression is always bad.
In the summer of 1923 the French may assert that the settlement of the Ruhr dispute is a matter between France and Belgium on the one side and Germany on the other. But clairvoyant Frenchmen do not indorse this attitude, which, if persisted in, spells ruin for France and Belgium in the future. No greater calamity could fall upon France and Germany alike than the adoption by the rest of the world of the easy rôle of Pilate. France is on top now; to-morrow Germany will have her day. Is it no concern of the rest of the world? The circumstances being as they are, is not the victory of France, in this question, as disastrous as her failure? Upon a fair and just solution of the Franco-German conflict over reparations, in which France shall be assured just reparation for damages done during the war but at the same time be not allowed to follow the Bismarckian policy, which the present generation of Frenchmen seems to approve, depends the question of a durable peace or a new and more horrible war than the last one.
CHAPTER XXIX
INTERALLIED DEBTS
“Your money lend and lose a friend” is an adage that the former comrades in arms have been ruefully recalling ever since the stirring days of the World War, when they were borrowing and spending with no thought of the day of reckoning. We kept no books in which were charged up to one another’s account the expenditure in human lives. We gave our own lives and our son’s lives, and expected nothing in return. The appalling loss of life and the human wreckage were cheerfully accepted; for that was traditionally the expected sacrifice of war. Each member of the coalition contributed without stint, for service on all the fronts, all the fighting men it could muster; and if there was ever any haggling about quotas, the public knew nothing about it.
But when it came to money and material wealth there were no free-will offerings, no pooling of resources. Although money and credits furnished the sinews of war and were used as weapons to crush the common enemy, books were kept down to the smallest outlay. The Allied powers did not forget to charge up every item against one another; and while the soldiers were fighting on the fields of battle, the accountants were buried in vouchers and ledgers, working night and day to record the biggest expenditures the world had ever seen. When the armistice came, there were outstanding bills. It was taken for granted that accounts would be settled. On the books friends were to all intents and purposes on the same footing as enemies. Whether it was the individual in account with his own Government, or one Government in account with another, it was assumed that amounts owing would be paid with interest.
All the warring nations had internal obligations to meet. In the period of reconstruction as well as during the actual war years, successive loans had been floated, partly by pyramiding, at increasing rates of interest. In every country the national debt had grown beyond belief. Most of it was owed at home, but millions of people had patriotically invested their own savings and reserve funds and the capital essential to their business enterprises. Governments had to meet the interest charges, and, because they needed to borrow still more money, their people had to be assured that all that had been advanced would be paid back. In many of the countries staggering under the load of unprecedented internal obligations, budget deficits confronted the Governments, and new loans had to be floated to keep abreast of current expenses. And yet there were added burdens, for reconstruction, for demobilization, and for liabilities of all kinds, most important of which were pensions and interest on war loans. As if these seemingly insurmountable obstacles to balancing budgets were not enough, the vanquished nations had reparations to pay, and the victors owed stupendous sums to one another. With the exception of the United States and the British Empire, gold reserves were depleted, further credit abroad was shut off, and paper money was progressively issued, in defiance of economic laws, until inflation drove down European exchanges to the lowest levels in the record of international finance.