Then, on March 19th, the French Colonel Vix sent a note to Karolyi establishing a new demarcation line far inside the one established in November and at places even inside the lines held by Allied troops. Karolyi's position was already insecure. He had been welcomed when he assumed office as the restorer of nationalism and peace. The support accorded him had been largely due to his record as an opponent of Austria and a friend of the Entente. He had been under surveillance almost throughout the war because of his known pro-Ally sentiments, and only his prominence saved him from arrest. Now, when his supposed influence with the Allies was discovered to be non-existent, his only remaining support was shattered and he went. Hungary, infected with Bolshevism by Russian propagandists and returned prisoners of war, went over to the camp of Lenine.
Another factor contributed greatly to the growth of the radical Independent Socialist and Bolshevist movement in Germany. This was the obvious dilemma of the Allies in the case of Russia, their undeniable helplessness and lack of counsel in the face of applied Bolshevism. Thousands of Germans came to believe that Bolshevism was a haven of refuge. Nor was this sentiment by any means confined to the proletariat. A Berlin millionaire said to the writer in March:
"If it comes to a question of choosing between Bolshevism and Allied slavery, I shall become a Bolshevik without hesitation. I would rather see Germany in the possession of Bolshevist Germans than of any bourgeois government wearing chains imposed by our enemies. The Allies dare not intervene in Russia, and I don't believe they would be any less helpless before a Bolshevist Germany."
Scores of well-to-do Germans expressed themselves in the same strain to the author, and thousands from the lower classes, free from the restraint which the possession of worldly goods imposes, put into execution the threat of their wealthier countrymen.
With the conclusion of the peace of Versailles we leave Germany. The second phase of the revolution is not yet ended. Bolshevism, crushed in one place, raises its head in another. Industry is prostrate. Currency is so depreciated that importation is seriously hampered. The event is on the knees of the gods.
But while the historian can thus arbitrarily dismiss Germany and the conditions created by the great war, the world cannot. From a material economic viewpoint alone, the colossal destruction of wealth and means of transportation, and the slaughter of millions of the able-bodied men of all nations involved are factors which will make themselves felt for many years. These obstacles to development and progress will, however, eventually be overcome. They are the least of the problems facing the world today as the result of the war and—this must be said now and it will eventually be realized generally—as a result of the Peace of Versailles. The men responsible for this peace declare that it is the best that could be made. Until the proceedings of the peace conference shall have been made public, together with all material submitted to it, including eventual prewar bargains and treaty commitments, this declaration cannot be controverted. One must assume at least that the makers of the peace believed it to be the best possible.
The bona fides of the peace delegates, however, while it protects them from adverse criticism, is a personal matter and irrelevant in any consideration of the treaty and its probable results. Nor is the question whether any better treaty was possible, of any relevancy. What alone vitally concerns the world is not the sentiments of a few men, but what may be expected from their work. As to this, many thoughtful observers in all countries have already come to realize what will eventually be realized by millions.
The Treaty of Versailles has Balkanized Europe; it has to a large degree reëstablished the multiplicity of territorial sovereignties that handicapped progress and caused continuous strife more than a century ago; it has revived smouldering race-antagonisms which were in a fair way to be extinguished; it has created a dozen new irredentas, new breeding-places of war; it has liberated thousands from foreign domination but placed tens of thousands under the yoke of other foreign domination, and has tried to insure the permanency not only of their subjection, but of that of other subject races which have for centuries been struggling for independence. Preaching general disarmament, it has strengthened the armed might of one power by disarming its neighbors, and has given to it the military and political domination of Europe. To another power it has given control of the high seas. It has refused to let the laboring masses of the world—the men who fought and suffered—be represented at the conference by delegates of their own choosing.
Such a treaty could not bring real peace to the world even if the conditions were less critical and complex. As they are, it will hasten and aggravate what the world will soon discover to be the most serious, vital and revolutionary consequence of the war. What this will be has already been dimly foreshadowed by the almost unanimous condemnation of the treaty by the Socialists of France, Italy, England and nearly all neutral countries.
Virtually all Americans and even most Europeans have little conception of the extent to which the war and its two great revolutions have awakened the class-consciousness of the proletariat of all lands. Everywhere the laboring masses have been the chief sufferers. Everywhere composing an overwhelming majority of the people, they have nowhere been able to decide their own destinies or have an effective voice in government except through revolution. Everywhere they have been the pawns sacrificed on the bloody chessboard of war to protect kings and queens, bishops and castles. They are beginning to ask why this must be and why they were not permitted to have a voice in the conference at Versailles, and this question will become an embarrassing one for all who try to find the answer in the textbooks of governments as governments today exist.