Читать книгу Peaceless Europe - Francesco Saverio Nitti - Страница 7

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 Sèvres. 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 partition 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 documents 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 Ambassador, in the name of all the other Allies, dated December 30, 1916. Briand speaks in the name of all "les gouvernements alliés unis pour la défense et la liberté 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 Ambassador. The principles therein established are very clearly enunciated. According to that document 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. Restitution 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 assigning 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. Nobody 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 quantities 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 constitute 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 shine 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 Bülow, who appeared to be one of the cleverest, never had a single manifestation of real intelligence.

The "banal" 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 class. Now a political class, 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 dictatorship of the Kaiser and of his accomplices.

At the Conferences of Paris and London, in 1919 and 1920, I did all that was in my power to prevent the trial of the Kaiser, and I am convinced that my firm attitude in the matter succeeded in avoiding it. Sound common sense saved us from floundering in one of the most formidable blunders of the Treaty of Versailles. To hold one man responsible for the whole War and to bring him to trial, his enemies acting as judge and jury, would have been such a monstrous travesty of justice as to provoke a moral revolt throughout the world. On the other hand it was also a moral monstrosity, which would have deprived the Treaty of Versailles of every shred of dignity. If the one responsible for the War is the Kaiser, why does the Entente demand of the German people such enormous indemnities, unprecedented in history?

One of the men who has exercised the greatest influence on European events during the last ten years, one of the most intelligent of living statesmen, once told me that it was his opinion that the Kaiser did not want the War, but neither did he wish to prevent it.

Germany, although under protest, has been forced to accept the statement of the Versailles Treaty to the effect that she is responsible for the War and that she provoked it. The same charge has been levelled at her in all the Entente States throughout the War.

When our countries were engaged in the struggle, and we were at grips with a dangerous enemy, it was our duty to keep up the morale of our people and to paint our adversaries in the darkest colours, laying on their shoulders all the blame and responsibility of the War. But after the great world conflict, now that Imperial Germany has fallen, it would be absurd to maintain that the responsibility of the War is solely and wholly attributable to Germany and that earlier than 1914 in Europe there had not developed a state of things fatally destined to culminate in a war. If Germany has the greatest responsibility, that responsibility is shared more or less by all the countries of the Entente. But while the Entente countries, in spite of their mistakes, had the political sense always to invoke principles of right and justice, the statesmen of Germany gave utterance to nothing but brutal and vulgar statements, culminating in the deplorable mental and moral expressions contained in the speeches, messages and telegrams of William II. He was a perfect type of the miles gloriosus, not a harmless but an irritating and dangerous boaster, who succeeded in piling up more loathing and hatred against his country than the most active and intelligently managed enemy propaganda could possibly have done.

If the issue of the War could be regarded as seriously jeopardized by England's intervention, it was practically lost for the Central Empires when the United States stepped in.

America's decision definitely crippled Germany's resistance—and not only for military, but for moral reasons. In all his messages President Wilson had repeatedly declared that he wanted a peace based on justice and equity, of which he outlined the fundamental conditions; moreover, he stated that he had no quarrel with the Germans themselves, but with the men who were at their head, and that he did not wish to impose on the vanquished peace terms such as might savour of oppression.

President Wilson's ideas on the subject have been embodied in a bulky volume.[1] Turning over the pages of this book now we have the impression that it is a collection of literary essays by a man who had his eye on posterity and assumed a pose most likely to attract the admiration of generations as yet unborn. But when these same words were uttered in the intervals of mighty battles, they fell on expectant and anxious ears: they were regarded as a ray of light in the fearsome darkness of uncertainty, and everybody listened to them, not only because the President was the authorized exponent of a great nation, of a powerful people, but because he represented an inexhaustible source of vitality in the midst of the ravages of violence and death. President Wilson's messages have done as much as famine and cruel losses in the field to break the stubborn resistance of the German people. If it was possible to obtain a just peace, why go to the bitter end when defeat was manifestly inevitable? Obstinacy is the backbone of war, and nothing undermines a nation's power of resistance so much as doubt and faint-heartedness on the part of the governing classes.

[Footnote 1: "President Wilson's State Speeches and Addresses," New

York, 1918.]

President Wilson, who said on January 2, 1917, that a peace without victory was to be preferred ("It must be a peace without victory"), and that "Right is more precious than peace," had also repeatedly affirmed that "We have no quarrel with the German people."

He only desired, as the exponent of a great democracy, a peace which should be the expression of right and justice, evolving from the War a League of Nations, the first milestone in a new era of civilization, a league destined to bind together ex-belligerents and neutrals in one.

In Germany, where the inhabitants had to bear the most cruel privations, President Wilson's words, pronounced as a solemn pledge before the whole world, had a most powerful effect on all classes and greatly contributed towards the final breakdown of collective resistance. Democratic minds saw a promise for the future, while reactionaries welcomed any way out of their disastrous adventure.

After America's entry in the War, President Wilson, on January 8, 1918, formulated the fourteen points of his programme regarding the finalities of the War and the peace to be realized.

It is here necessary to reproduce the original text of President Wilson's message containing the fourteen points which constitute a formal pledge undertaken by the democracy of America, not only towards enemy peoples but towards all peoples of the world.

These important statements from President Wilson's message have, strangely enough, been reproduced either incompletely or in an utterly mistaken form even in official documents and in books published by statesmen who took a leading part in the Paris Conference.

It is therefore advisable to reproduce the original text in full:

1st. Honest peace treaties, following loyal and honest negotiations, after which secret international agreements will be abolished and diplomacy will always proceed frankly and openly.

2nd. Full liberty of navigation on the high seas outside territorial waters, both in peace and war, except when the seas be closed wholly or in part by an international decision sanctioned by international treaties.

3rd. Removal, as far as possible, of all economic barriers and establishment of terms of equality in commerce among all nations adhering to peace and associated to maintain it.

4th. Appropriate guarantees to be given and received for the reduction of national armaments to a minimum compatible with internal safety.

5th. A clear, open and absolutely impartial settlement of all colonial rights, based on a rigorous observance of the principle that, in the determination of all questions of sovereignty, the interests of the populations shall bear equal weight with those of the Government whose claims are to be determined.

6th. The evacuation of all Russian territories and a settlement of all Russian questions such as to ensure the best and most untrammelled co-operation of other nations of the world in order to afford Russia a clear and precise opportunity for the independent settlement of her autonomous political development and of her national policy, promising her a cordial welcome in the League of Nations under institutions of her own choice, and besides a cordial welcome, help and assistance in all that she may need and require. The treatment meted out to Russia by the sister nations in the months to come must be a decisive proof of their goodwill, of their understanding of her needs as apart from their own interests, and of their intelligent and disinterested sympathy.

7th. Belgium, as the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and reconstructed without the slightest attempt at curtailing the sovereign rights which she enjoys in common with other free nations. Nothing will be more conducive to the re-establishment of confidence and respect among nations for those laws which they themselves have made for the regulation and observance of their reciprocal relations. Without this salutary measure the whole structure and validity of international law would be permanently undermined.

8th. All French territories will be liberated, the invaded regions reconstructed, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871, in the question of Alsace-Lorraine, and which has jeopardized the peace of the world for nearly half a century, must be made good, so as to ensure a lasting peace in the general interest.

9th. The Italian frontier must be rectified on the basis of the clearly recognized lines of nationality.

10th. The people of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and maintained, should come to an agreement as to the best way of attaining their autonomous development.

11th. Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro are to be evacuated and occupied territories restored: a free and secure access to the sea for Serbia; mutual relations between the Balkan States to be determined on a friendly basis by a Council, following the lines of friendship and nationality traced by tradition and history; the political and economic integrity of the various Balkan States to be guaranteed.

12th. A certain degree of sovereignty must be assigned to that part of the Ottoman Empire which is Turkish; but the other nationalities now under the Turkish regime should have the assurance of an independent existence and of an absolute and undisturbed opportunity to develop their autonomy; moreover the Dardanelles should be permanently open to the shipping and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.

13th. An independent Polish State should be founded, comprising all territories inhabited by peoples of undoubtedly Polish nationality, with a free and secure access to the sea and its political and economic independence and territorial integrity guaranteed by international agreements.

14th. A League of Nations must be formed with special pacts and for the sole scope of ensuring the reciprocal guarantees of political independence and of territorial integrity, in equal measure both for large and small States.

The Peace Treaty as outlined by Wilson would really have brought about a just peace; but we shall see how the actual result proved quite the reverse of what constituted a solemn pledge of the American people and of the Entente Powers.

On February 11, 1918, President Wilson confirmed before Congress that all territorial readjustments were to be made in the interest and for the advantage of the populations concerned, not merely as a bargain between rival States, and that there were not to be indemnities, annexations or punitive exactions of any kind.

On September 27, 1918, just on the eve of the armistice, when German resistance was already shaken almost to breaking point, President Wilson gave it the coup de grâce by his message on the post-bellum economic settlement. No special or separate interest of any single nation or group of nations was to be taken as the basis of any settlement which did not concern the common interest of all; there were not to be any leagues or alliances, or special pacts or ententes within the great family of the society of nations; economic deals and corners of an egotistical nature were to be forbidden, as also all forms of boycotting, with the exception of those applied in punishment to the countries transgressing the rules of good fellowship; all international treaties and agreements of every kind were to be published in their entirety to the whole world.