If the final settlement is to be just and lasting, the demands of the victors must be adjusted to the minimum, not the maximum, of their own vital interests. For Britain the central problem must inevitably be: What is to be the position of the German Navy if we are successful in this war? Is anything even remotely resembling disarmament to be attained unless that Navy is rendered innocuous? Is it conceivable that even if Britain accepted the status quo, a victorious Russia could ever tolerate a situation which secured to Germany the naval supremacy of the Baltic, and the possibility of bottling Russian sea-trade? Even the opening months of the war have shown what ought always to have been obvious, that sea-power differs from land-power in one vital respect: military supremacy can be shared between several powerful States, but naval supremacy is one and indivisible. In this war we shall either maintain and reassert our command of the sea, or we shall lose it: share it with Germany we shall not, because we cannot.
Again, what is to be the fate of German shipping and German colonies? Can we not curtail Germany's war navy, while respecting her mercantile marine? Is it either expedient or necessary to exact the uttermost farthing in the colonial sphere in the event of victory? It is obvious that just as Germany offered to respect French territory in Europe at the expense of the French colonial empire, so the Allies, if victorious, might divide the German colonies between them. By so doing, however, we shall provide, in the eyes of the German nation, a complete justification of William II.'s naval policy. One of the most widespread arguments among educated Germans (including those friendly to this country) has always been that German colonies and shipping are at the mercy of a stronger sea-power, and that therefore Germany only holds her sea-trade on sufferance. If, as a result of the war, we take from her all that we can, we shall ingrain this point of view in every German. We should thus tend to perpetuate the old situation, with its intolerable competition of armaments, unless indeed we could reduce Germany to complete bankruptcy—a thing which is almost inconceivable to those who know her resources and which would deprive us of one of our most valuable customers.
On the other hand, we must of course remember that any extra-European territorial changes depend not merely upon the attitude of Britain and her Allies, but upon the wishes of the Dominions. Even in the event of victory, it is still not London alone that will decide the fate of New Guinea, of Samoa, or of German South-West Africa. The last word will probably be spoken by Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, and it is improbable that any one of the three will consent to the restoration of territory which they have occupied. It is only in the case of German colonies which border upon British Crown colonies (e.g. Togoland, Cameroon, or East Africa) that the decision will rest entirely with the European governments. At this stage it would be absurd to suggest even the bare outlines of a settlement; but it is well to emphasize the fact that it involves not only the United Kingdom but the Dominions, and that on its solution depends the future development of the British Empire. In other words, the war can only result in the downfall of the Empire or in the achievement of Imperial Federation and a further democratisation of the central government.
§4. Nationality and the German Empire.—Finally, there is a still graver question. Is Germany, if defeated, to lose territory in Europe? and if so, would it be either possible or expedient to compensate her in other directions for such a loss? The application of the principle of Nationality to the German Empire would affect its territory in three directions—Alsace-Lorraine, Schleswig-Holstein, and Posen. Let us very briefly consider these three problems.
[Illustration: THE FRANCO-GERMAN FRONTIER Boundary of France 1815-1871 and Boundary of France 1871-1914]
(1) The population of the two provinces of Alsace and Lorraine is mainly German by race and language, but none the less it had become by 1870 almost entirely French in feeling, as the result of its long union with France. The Germans, in reannexing the provinces after the war, were actuated almost equally by reasons of sentiment and strategy. They welcomed the recovery of a section of their race which had been wrested from them by the brutal aggression of Louis XIV. and the dynastic policy of his successor; they also desired to secure their western frontier against the possible attacks of France, which, under the Third Empire, was still most emphatically an aggressive power. In drawing the new frontier they included for purely strategic reasons a small portion of western Lorraine, round the fortress of Metz, which was admittedly as French as Champagne or Picardy. From 1871 till 1911, Alsace-Lorraine was governed as a direct appanage of the Imperial Crown; in the latter year it received a constitution, but nothing even remotely resembling self-government. Contrary to the expectation of most Germans, the two provinces have not become German in sentiment; indeed the unconciliatory methods of Prussia have steadily increased their estrangement, despite their share in the commercial prosperity of the Empire. Those who know intimately the undercurrents of feeling in Alsace-Lorraine are unanimous in asserting that if before last July an impartial plebiscite, without fear of the consequences, could have been taken among the inhabitants, an overwhelming majority would have voted for reunion with France. But having once been the battleground of the two nations and living in permanent dread of a repetition of the tragedy, the leaders of political thought in Alsace and Lorraine favoured a less drastic solution. They knew that Germany would not relinquish her hold nor France renounce her aspirations without another armed struggle; but they believed that the grant of real autonomy within the Empire, such as would place them on an equal footing with Würtemberg or Baden, would render their position tolerable, and by removing the chief source of friction between France and Germany, create the groundwork for more cordial and lasting relations between Germany and the two Western Powers.[1] Now that the nightmare of war has once more fallen upon them, the situation has radically changed, and there can be no question that in the event of a French victory the provinces would elect to return to France. The fact that several of their leading politicians have fled to France and identified themselves with the French cause, is symptomatic, though doubtless not conclusive. That the government of the Republic, if victorious, will make the retrocession of Alsace-Lorraine its prime condition of peace, is as certain as anything can be certain in the seething pot to which triumphant militarism has reduced unhappy Europe. It may, then, seem merely pedantic to refer to an alternative solution; and yet there is unquestionably a great deal to be said in favour of forming the two provinces into an independent State, or better still, uniting them in federal union with Luxemburg and Belgium. Thus would be realised that "Middle Kingdom" which so many efforts have been made to create, from the days of Charlemagne onwards. Henceforward the fate of Alsace-Lorraine would be neither French nor German; they would become a neutral clearing-house for the two cultures which have both come to be so inextricably bound up with the life and traditions of the border race. At the same time the most fertile source of friction between France and Germany would be removed, and the two countries would no longer glare at each other across a frontier bristling with fortifications.
[Footnote 1: This ideal was being actively pursued by many thoughtful people on both sides of the frontier. Only last June I was discussing it at some length with a prominent Alsatian deputy and various other friends in Berlin.]
(2) The problem of Schleswig-Holstein presents far less difficulty, if treated on a basis of nationality. Much has been written about the enormity of Prussia's treatment of Denmark in 1848 and 1863; but the plain truth is that the great majority of the population of the two duchies was as enthusiastic in favour of union with their German kinsmen farther south, as the population of Alsace-Lorraine was reluctant to be torn from France. The whole of Holstein and much the greater part of Schleswig always was, and is, pure German by race. Unfortunately Prussia, in annexing territory which is as German as Kent is English, also acquired a portion of North Schleswig, which is as unquestionably Danish, alike by blood and by sentiment. Hence a complete revision of frontiers on a racial basis would certainly involve the cession to Denmark of the extreme eastern portions of Schleswig, as far as and including the port of Flensburg.
To-day, however, this question is complicated by strategic considerations, due to the creation of the Kiel Canal as an almost impregnable naval base. The suggestion has already been seriously put forward, that Denmark should be allowed, in the event of Germany's defeat, to extend her territory as far as the north bank of the Canal, which would thus become an international highway for peaceful commerce, possibly under a general guarantee of neutrality. Whether such a present might not prove a very grave embarrassment to Denmark, and whether the guarantee would be more effectual than the treaty which secured Belgian independence, are questions which depend mainly upon the mood of the peoples of Europe after they are tired of shedding each other's blood. But it is well to realise that the question of the Kiel Canal is one which may very possibly lead to a prolongation of the war, and which, as I have already hinted, Russia will not allow to rest, even if Britain should hesitate to complete the work.
(3) The third point at which, on a basis of racial redistribution, a defeated Germany must inevitably suffer territorial loss, is the Polish district on her eastern frontier. The present kingdom of Prussia includes 3,328,750 Poles among its subjects, mainly in the former duchy of Posen, but also in Silesia and along the southern edge of West and East Prussia (known as Mazurians and Kasubians). The pronouncedly anti-Polish policy pursued by the German Government for over twenty years past has aroused deep and insurmountable hatred against Prussia in the heart of the Poles, who even in the days when Berlin was relatively conciliatory towards them had never relinquished their passionate belief in the resurrection of their country. Above all, the attempt to denationalise the eastern marches by expropriation, colonisation of Germans, and other still cruder methods, has not only been in the main unsuccessful, but it has roused the Poles to formidable counter-efforts in the sphere of finance and agrarian co-operation. This coincided with remarkable changes in Russian Poland, which has rapidly become the chief industrial centre of the Russian Empire. Economic causes have toned down the bitterness which Russia's cruel repression of Polish aspirations had inspired, and to-day Prussia is unquestionably regarded by every Pole as a far more deadly enemy than even the Russian autocracy, the more so as the conviction has steadily gained ground that the Polish policy of Petrograd has been unduly subject to the directions of Berlin. While, then, the Poles look upon the promises from either of these two capitals with pardonable suspicion and reserve, it is certain that to-day such hopes as they may entertain from foreign aid centre more and more upon Russia.