Peaceless Europe Part 2

After the victory of the Entente the microbes of hate have developed and flourished in special cultures, consisting of national egotism, imperialism, and a mania for conquest and expansion.

The peace treaties imposed on the vanquished are nothing but arms of oppression. What more could Germany herself have done had she won the War? Perhaps her terms would have been more lenient, certainly not harder, as she would have understood that conditions such as we have imposed on the losers are simply inapplicable.

Three years have elapsed since the end of the War, two since the conclusion of peace, nevertheless Europe has still more men under arms than in pre-war times. The sentiment of nationality, twisted and transformed into nationalism, aims at the subjugation and depression of other peoples. No civilized co-existence is possible where each nation proposes to harm instead of helping its neighbour.

The spread of hatred among peoples has everywhere rendered more difficult the internal relations between social cla.s.ses and the economic life of each country. Fearing a repet.i.tion of armed conflicts, and owing to that spirit of unrest and intolerance engendered everywhere by the War, workers are becoming every day more exacting. They, too, claim their share of the spoils; they, too, clamour for enemy indemnities. The same manifestations of hate, the same violence of language, spread from people to people and from cla.s.s to cla.s.s.

This tremendous War, which the peoples of Europe have fought and suffered, has not only bled the losers almost to death, but it has deeply perturbed the very life and existence of the victors. It has not produced a single manifestation of art or a single moral affirmation. For the last seven years the universities of Europe appear to be stricken with paralysis: not one outstanding personality has been revealed.

In almost every country the War has brought a sense of internal dissolution: everywhere this disquieting phenomenon is more or less noticeable. With the exception, perhaps, of Great Britain, whose privileged insular situation, enormous mercantile navy and flouris.h.i.+ng trade in coal have enabled her to resume her pre-war economic existence almost entirely, no country has emerged scatheless from the War. The rates of exchange soar daily to fantastic heights, and insuperable barriers to the commerce of European nations are being created. People work less than they did in pre-war times, but everywhere a tendency is noticeable to consume more. Austria, Germany, Italy, France are not different phenomena, but different manifestations and phases of the same phenomenon.

Before the War Europe, in spite of her great sub-divisions, represented a living economic whole. To-day there are not only victors and vanquished, but currents of hate, ferments of violence, a hungering after conquests, an unscrupulous cornering of raw materials carried out brutally and almost ostentatiously in the name of the rights of victory: a situation which renders production, let alone its development and increase, utterly impossible.

The treaty system as applied after the War has divided Europe into two distinct parts: the losers, held under the military and economic control of the victors, are expected to produce not only enough for their own needs, but to provide a super-production in order to indemnify the winners for all the losses and damages sustained on account of the War. The victors, bound together in what is supposed to be a permanent alliance for the protection of their common interests, are supposed to exercise a military action of oppression and control over the losers until the full payment of the indemnity. Another part of Europe is in a state of revolutionary ferment, and the Entente Powers have, by their att.i.tude, rather tended to aggravate than to improve the situation.

Europe can only recover her peace of mind by remembering that the War is over and done with. Unfortunately, the treaty system not only prevents us from remembering that the War is finished, but determines a state of permanent war.

Clemenceau bluntly declared to the French Chamber that treaties were a means of continuing the War. He was perfectly right, for war is being waged more bitterly than ever and peace is as remote as it ever was.

The problem with which modern statesmen are confronted is very simple: can Europe continue in her decline without involving the ruin of civilization? And is it possible to stop this process of decay without finding some form of civil symbiosis which will ensure for all men a more human mode of living? In the affirmative case what course should we take, and is it presumable that there should be an immediate change for the better in the situation, given the national and economic interests now openly and bitterly in conflict?

We have before us a problem, or rather a series of problems, which call for impartiality and calm if a satisfactory solution is to be arrived at. Perhaps if some fundamental truths were brought home to the people, or, to be more exact, to the peoples now at loggerheads with each other, a notion of the peril equally impending upon all concerned and the conviction that an indefinite prolongation of the present state of things is impossible, would prove decisive factors in restoring a spirit of peace and in reviving that spirit of solidarity which now appears spent or slumbering.

But in the first place it is necessary to review the situation, such as it is at the present moment:

Firstly, Europe, which was the creditor of all other continents, has now become their debtor.

Secondly, her working capacity has greatly decreased, chiefly owing to the negative change in her demographic structure. In pre-war times the ancient continent supplied new continents and new territories with a hardy race of pioneers, and held the record as regards population, both adult and infantile, the prevalence of women over men being especially noted by statisticians. All this has changed considerably for the worse!

Thirdly, on the losing nations, including Germany, which is generally understood to be the most cultured nation in the world, the victors have forced a peace which practically amounts to a continuation of the War. The vanquished have had to give up their colonies, their s.h.i.+pping, their credits abroad, and their transferable resources, besides agreeing to the military and economic control of the Allies; moreover, despite their desperate conditions, they are expected to pay an indemnity, the amount of which, although hitherto only vaguely mentioned, surpa.s.ses by its very absurdity all possibility of an even remote settlement.

Fourthly, considerable groups of ex-enemy peoples, chiefly Germans and Magyars, have been a.s.signed to populations of an inferior civilization.

Fifthly, as a result of this state of things, while Germany, Austria and Bulgaria have practically no army at all and have submitted without the slightest resistance to the most stringent forms of military control, the victorious States have increased their armies and fleets to proportions, which they did not possess before the War.

Sixthly, Europe, cut up into thirty States, daily sees her buying capacity decreasing and the rate of exchange rising menacingly against her.

Seventhly, the peace treaties are the most barefaced denial of all the principles which the Entente Powers declared and proclaimed during the War; not only so, but they are a fundamental negation of President Wilson's famous fourteen points which were supposed to const.i.tute a solemn pledge and covenant, not only with the enemy, but with the democracies of the whole world.

Eighthly, the moral unrest deriving from these conditions has divided among themselves the various Entente Powers: United States of America, Great Britain, Italy and France, not only in their aims and policy, but in their sentiments. The United States is anxious to get rid, as far as possible, of European complications and responsibilities; France follows methods with which Great Britain and Italy are not wholly in sympathy, and it cannot be said that the three Great Powers of Western Europe are in perfect harmony. There is still a great deal of talk about common ends and ideals, and the necessity of applying the treaties in perfect accord and harmony, but everybody is convinced that to enforce the treaties, without attenuating or modifying their terms, would mean the ruin of Europe and the collapse of the victors after that of the vanquished.

Ninthly, a keen contest of nationalisms, land-grabbing and cornering of raw materials renders friendly relations between the thirty States of Europe extremely difficult. The most characteristic examples of nationalist violence have arisen out of the War, as in the case of Poland and other newborn States, which pursue vain dreams of empire while on the verge of dissolution through sheer lack of vital strength and energy, and becoming every day more deeply engulfed in misery and ruin.

Finally, Continental Europe is on the eve of a series of fresh and more violent wars among peoples, threatening to submerge civilization unless some means be found to replace the present treaties, which are based on the principle that it is necessary to continue the War, by a system of friendly agreements whereby winners and losers are placed on a footing of liberty and equality, and which, while laying on the vanquished a weight they are able to bear, will liberate Europe from the present spectacle of a continent divided into two camps, where one is armed to the teeth and threatening, while the other, unarmed and inoffensive, is forced to labour in slavish conditions under the menace of a servitude even more severe.

II

THE PEACE TREATIES AND THE CONTINUATION OF THE WAR

The various peace treaties regulating the present territorial situation bear the names of the localities near Paris in which they were signed: Versailles, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Trianon and Sevres.

The first deals with Germany, the second with Austria, the third with Hungary, and the fourth with Turkey. The Treaty of Neuilly, comparatively far less important, concerns Bulgaria alone. But the one fundamental and decisive treaty is the Treaty of Versailles, inasmuch as it not only establishes as a recognized fact the part.i.tion of Europe, but lays down the rules according to which all future treaties are to be concluded.

History has not on record a more colossal diplomatic feat than this treaty, by which Europe has been neatly divided into two sections: victors and vanquished; the former being authorized to exercise on the latter complete control until the fulfilment of terms which, even at an optimistic point valuation, would require at least thirty years to materialize.

Although it is a matter of recent history, we may as well call to mind that the Entente Powers have always maintained that the War was wanted and was imposed by Germany; that she alone, with her Allies, repeatedly violated the rights of peoples; that the World War could well be regarded as the last war, inasmuch as the triumph of the Entente meant the triumph of democracy and a more human regime of life, a society of nations rich in effects conducive to a lasting peace. It was imperative to restore the principles of international justice. In France, in England, in Italy, and later, even more solemnly, in the United States, the same principles have been proclaimed by Heads of States, by Parliaments and Governments.

There are two doc.u.ments laying down and fixing the principles which the Entente Powers, on the eve of that event of decisive importance, the entry of the United States into the War, bound themselves to sustain and to carry on to triumph. The first is a statement by Briand to the United States Amba.s.sador, in the name of all the other Allies, dated December 30, 1916. Briand speaks in the name of all "_les gouvernements allies unis pour la defense et la liberte des peuples_."

Briand's second declaration, dated January 10, 1917, is even more fundamentally important. It is a collective note of reply to President Wilson, delivered in the name of all the Allies to the United States Amba.s.sador. The principles therein established are very clearly enunciated. According to that doc.u.ment the Entente has no idea of conquest and proposes mainly to achieve the following objects:

1st. Restoration of Belgium, Serbia and Montenegro, with the indemnities due to them.

2nd. Evacuation of invaded territories in France, Russia and Rumania and payment of just reparations.

3rd. Reorganization of Europe with a permanent regime based on the respect of nationalities and on the right of all countries, both great and small, to complete security and freedom of economic development, besides territorial conventions and international regulations capable of guaranteeing land and sea frontiers from unjustified attacks.

4th. Rest.i.tution of the provinces and territories taken in the past from the Allies by force and against the wish of the inhabitants.

5th. Liberation of Italians, Slavs, Rumanians and Czeko-Slovaks from foreign rule.

6th. Liberation of the peoples subjected to the tyranny of the Turks and expulsion from Europe of the Ottoman Empire, as being decidedly extraneous to western civilization.

7th. The intentions of his Majesty the Emperor of Russia in regard to Poland are clearly indicated in the proclamation addressed to his armies.

8th. The Allies have never harboured the design of exterminating German peoples nor of bringing about their political disappearance.

At that time the autocratic form of government still prevailed in Russia, and the Allies still considered themselves bound to Russia's aspirations; moreover there existed, in regard to Italy, the obligations established by the Pact of London. That is why in the statements of the Entente Powers of Europe the restoration of Montenegro is regarded as an obligation; mention is made of the necessity of driving the Turks out of Europe in order to enable Russia to seize Constantinople; and as to Poland, there are only vague allusions, namely, the reference made to the Tsar's intentions as outlined in his proclamation.

The Entente has won the War, but Russia has collapsed under the strain. Had victory been achieved without the fall of Russia, the latter would have installed herself as the predominating Power in the Mediterranean. On the other hand, to unite Dalmatia to Italy, while separating her from Italy, according to the pact of London, by a.s.signing the territory of Fiume to Croatia, would have meant setting all the forces of Slav irredentism against Italy.

These considerations are of no practical value inasmuch as events have taken another course. n.o.body can say what would have happened if the Carthagenians had conquered the Romans or if victory had remained with Mithridates. Hypotheses are of but slight interest when truth follows another direction. Nevertheless we cannot but repeat that it was a great fortune for Europe that victory was not decided by Russia, and that the decisive factor proved the United States.

It is beyond all possible doubt that without the intervention of the United States of America the War could not have been won by the Entente. Although the admission may prove humiliating to the European point of view, it is a fact which cannot be attenuated or disguised.

The United States threw into the balance the weight of its enormous economic and technical resources, besides its enormous resources in men. Although its dead only amount to fifty thousand, the United States built up such a formidable human reserve as to deprive Germany of all hopes of victory. The announcement of America's entry in the War immediately crushed all Germany's power of resistance. Germany felt that the struggle was no longer limited to Europe, and that every effort was vain.

The United States, besides giving to the War enormous quant.i.ties of arms and money, had practically inexhaustible reserves of men to place in the field against an enemy already exhausted and famine-stricken.

War and battles are two very different things. Battles const.i.tute an essentially military fact, while war is an essentially political fact.

That explains why great leaders in war have always been first and foremost great political leaders, namely, men accustomed to manage other men and able to utilize them for their purposes. Alexander, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, the three greatest military leaders produced by Aryan civilization, were essentially political men. War is not only a clash of arms, it is above all the most convenient exploitation of men, of economic resources and of political situations. A battle is a fact of a purely military nature. The Romans almost constantly placed at the head of their armies personages of consular rank, who regarded and conducted the war as a political enterprise. The rules of tactics and strategy are perfectly useless if those who conduct the war fail to utilize to the utmost all the means at their disposal.

It cannot be denied that in the War Germany and Austria-Hungary scored the greatest number of victories. For a long period they succeeded in invading large tracts of enemy territory and in recovering those parts of their own territory which had been invaded, besides always maintaining the offensive. They won great battles at the cost of enormous sacrifices in men and lives, and for a long time victory appeared to s.h.i.+ne on their arms. But they failed to understand that from the day in which the violation of Belgium's neutrality determined Great Britain's entry in the field the War, from a general point of view, could be regarded as lost. As I have said, Germany is especially lacking in political sense: after Bismarck, her statesmen have never risen to the height of the situation. Even von Bulow, who appeared to be one of the cleverest, never had a single manifestation of real intelligence.

The "ba.n.a.l" statements made about Belgium and the United States of America by the men who directed Germany's war policy were precisely the sort of thing most calculated to harm the people from whom they came. What is decidedly lacking in Germany, while it abounds in France, is a political cla.s.s. Now a political cla.s.s, consisting of men of ability and culture, cannot but be the result of a democratic education in all modern States, especially in those which have achieved a high standard of civilization and development. It seems almost incredible that Germany, despite all her culture, should have tolerated the political dictators.h.i.+p of the Kaiser and of his accomplices.