Watching on the Rhine

by Violet R. Markham

If I draw attention to these old unhappy far-off things it is not from any desire to rake gratuitously among painful memories of the past. But the German attitude towards France can never be understood unless due weight is given to these black and bitter pages in their earlier relations. France must face candidly the historical truth that Prussian militarism came into being as a reply to the aggressions first of Louis XIV., then of Napoleon. The sins of older generations of French rulers have been visited on innocent heads, but the sins were there. The memory of French tyranny in former years was the driving force which welded the German states together. To the average German 1870 appeared the vindication of his national honour, the signal proof that the humiliations of the Napoleonic period were wiped out. Once again the old coil of evil is seen unfolding itself in a monotonous succession of wrongs done and revenge exacted, the revenge creating new wrongs which in turn lead to further strife.

Are we prepared to weave yet further sequences of this disastrous character? Or shall the spirit of man rise up and say the coil must be broken?

It is this problem that has to be faced with both tact and candour so far as the French are concerned. We sympathise to the full with their sufferings and their wrongs. All that is best, however, in the British democracy will neither sympathise with nor support policies which if pursued to their logical ends can only work fresh havoc for Europe. It is strange that the French, after their bitter experience of 1870, seem unable to apply lessons wholly learnt by themselves as to the strength of national feeling. It is impossible to stifle the spirit of a people whatever it may be. Germany failed completely in her effort to crush France. It is no less hopeless for France to think that she can crush Germany. Yet at bottom the destruction of Germany is the aim of the Chauvinists, who have considerable influence at the moment in the direction of French policy. For people of this type the European situation is the same to-day as it was in 1912. It is as though the years 1914-1918 had not happened. The German nightmare oppresses them as much as it has ever done. They still envisage Germany as a great military power whose existence is one long menace to the security of France. They want to see Germany crippled beyond the hope of restoration, though with an entire lack of logic they also want Germany to pay them large sums of money. Many French soldiers and politicians feel it is a great mistake to miss the present golden opportunity for making, as they think, a complete end of a formidable enemy. Among them are men who would welcome any pretext which might justify the further crushing of Germany. Theory reacts of course on practice. The actual policy pursued in the Occupied Area is often irritating and exasperating in the highest degree. Feeling between the Germans and the French has to my knowledge grown more sore and more bitter during the last year. But pinpricks will not produce the indemnity, and an atmosphere of general exasperation does not promote the best interests of France. Judged by rough-and-ready standards of expediency, it ought to be clear that less than forty millions of people cannot coerce indefinitely more than sixty millions of tough, hard-working men and women. This blunt truth governs the present situation. Such a policy if pursued is bound to fail. But before it breaks down in the turmoil of another war it may extinguish the last hope of saving European civilisation. Europe presents to-day common needs and common problems. It will recover as a whole or collapse as a whole. No illusion can be more fatal than the theory that the safety and prosperity of one member of the European family can be secured by the dismemberment and destruction of another. Statesmanship, while securing for France necessary material guarantees of safety, should have sought to win her round to a wiser appreciation of the principles on which her future security must rest. Similarly as regards Germany; while exacting adequate reparation and reducing her militarists to impotence, statesmanship should no less seek to encourage the growth of a new temper among her people which will, by making them decent and responsible members of the European family, render any repetition of past horrors impossible.

Lamentable indeed was the failure of the Peace Conference to make any contribution to these fundamental principles. The Peace Treaty registers accurately the violences and hatreds of the war. To the creation of a better state of affairs in the future it makes no contribution of any kind. Whatever the attitude of France, the moral failure of England and America as regards the exercise of any restraining influence is far more culpable. The collapse of President Wilson, a man of high ideals but without the power of dealing with facts needful to give them practical effect, is one of the most tragic chapters in history. Mr. Lloyd George, gifted as he is with vision and imagination, could have thrown the light of his indisputable qualities had he so willed over the chaos of Europe. Unhappily he became involved in a sordid chapter of domestic politics, the consequences of which hung round his neck like a millstone. The present chaos of Europe is in no small degree a consequence of the General Election of December 1918 and the temper and policies it inculcated. The British nation was rushed on that occasion with fatal results to the cause of permanent peace. The Peace Conference met at Paris in an atmosphere charged with passion, and passion weighted the scales at every critical issue. Meanwhile the democracies of the world, impotent to control peace negotiations the spirit and policy of which became increasingly unacceptable to all thinking people, looked on helplessly while the unwieldy vessel of the Conference, buffeted first by one influence and then by another, drifted on a stormy sea of opportunism towards the rocks of strife. As for the result, it was well denounced as the Peace of Dragon’s Teeth by Mr. J. L. Garvin, who throughout the tests of war and peace devoted his eloquence and great powers of idealism to the cause first of victory and then of European appeasement.

The Treaty as it stands has sown the world with fresh discord, and ultimately can lead to nothing but repudiation and revenge. Still further, the Treaty as it stands is unworkable. Already it shows signs of breaking down under the weight of its own contradictions. By demanding too much it bids fair to create a situation in which nothing will be obtainable. It is not business to tell a bankrupt he must pay thirty shillings in the pound, and at the same time sit on his head so as to make it impossible for him to earn thirty pence. If a bankrupt is to discharge his debts, he must be put into a position to earn. If he is to be loaded with chains, that spectacle may have its own satisfaction, but it will not produce money on the credit side. A hungry bankrupt Germany cannot work to pay off the indemnity on which France has just claim. If Europe crumbles further; if Bolshevism finds a new recruiting ground in the anger and despair of a whole people—where is France likely to stand in this matter of payment?

We must in common fairness recognise how serious are the difficulties even of a well-intentioned German Government in carrying out the demands it has to meet. The people as a whole are inexperienced politically. The nation has had no training in self-government. It has been run in the past by a highly efficient bureaucracy saturated in autocratic and Bismarckian traditions. To-day the old machinery of government is in ruins. We cannot expect that Germany with a wave of the wand can suddenly produce public men and civil servants of the type with which we are familiar. The cry that the government is in the hands of men “steeped in militarism” is far from untrue. The real problem, however, is to find men of any sort of training or experience in government work outside the close ring of Prussianism. Inevitably the public has to rely, anyway for the present, on officials trained in the old theory that a lie was a virtue so long as it served the State.

From this grave disadvantage there is no immediate escape, and the circumstance calls for special vigilance and care in our relations with the German official classes. We can, however, help or hinder the growth of another spirit. In so far as we support a democratically constituted German Government and give it some encouragement and consideration, we shall tend to produce men of a new type. But if these early steps in democratic government are at each stage to be associated with rebuffs and humiliations, we play straight, as I have pointed out in an earlier chapter, into the hands of the military party. The old gang, though they dare not raise their heads at the moment, are a compact body among themselves, and desire nothing so ardently as the failure of constitutional government in Germany. We cannot expect German mentality to be changed in a night. The new forces must be given time and space in which to develop.

Further, they must be given encouragement. The situation in Germany to-day is in many respects dark and difficult. The reactionary forces are entrenched strongly in more than one direction. We must not ignore the evil influence of some tens of thousands of embittered and irreconcilable soldiers and of certain officials of the old régime, whose careers have been broken and who have nothing to hope from any constitution acceptable to the democratic mind of Europe. Again, the old fire-eating doctrines are still to the fore at many centres of education and have an unfortunate influence on the student life—a serious fact borne out by much evidence. Thirdly, there is the danger of the irrecoverable rifle in the back garden—an impossible administrative problem, as we have found to our cost in Ireland. Undesirable factors of this character will have proportionate weight in Germany just so far as the spirit of unrest and despair spreads through the people. They can only be reduced to insignificance through the establishment of an ordered and settled government which is in a position to maintain a decent level of life for the nation, and a life consistent with a fair measure of national self-respect.

The revision of the Peace Treaty on lines which will bring it into harmony with enduring principles of justice and right is the crying need of the hour. A practical point in connection with the present situation should not be overlooked. The Germans know as well as we do that modifications of the Treaty are inevitable. So long, however, as the present unhappy instrument holds the field, the doubtful clauses offer a most undesirable scope for duplicity and intrigue. The men of the old tradition to whom I have just referred are experts in fishing in troubled waters. They have sufficient skill to play off Allied scruples and hesitations one against another. What we should aim at is a Treaty just and reasonable in its demands, stripped of provisions which involve exasperating administrative problems. Above all, the Treaty should be revised to command the moral assent of the Allied democracies, an assent wholly lacking in the case of the Treaty of Versailles. Then the provisions should be enforced rigidly, and the German Government made plainly to understand that there is to be neither humbug nor shirking about their fulfilment. There cannot be two opinions about Germany making the fullest material restitution in her power for injuries done. Opinions may and do differ fundamentally as to the manner and spirit in which these claims should be put forward.

If politicians and statesmen turn a deaf ear to the cry of a world in distress and to a growing demand that the policies pursued should be reasonable and constructive, the voice of the people themselves swelling in volume bids fair to overwhelm all triflers with peace. For despite the bluster of the fire-eaters and a Press which encourages their empty violence, the world is sick of blood and strife. Germany has suffered such a defeat as history has never known. Sixty millions of people, however, virile, disciplined, hard-working, cannot be obliterated from the map. Greatly though certain zealots may desire the complete annihilation of the German tribes, vapourings of this kind are remote from the realm of practical politics. The statesmanship which at the moment haunts the Chancellories of Europe would not appear to be of very high quality. But statesmanship of an order infinitely higher might well recoil appalled from such problems as would result from any general collapse of the German Government and people.