Читать книгу In the Margin of History - L. B. Namier - Страница 8
Оглавление(”Manchester Guardian,” June 28, 1935)
There is a vague belief in people’s minds that Germany’s face and hand are against Russia. Hitler himself asserts it, indeed, he bawls it into the world; and the Bolsheviks, convinced on principle that the “capitalist world” is scheming their destruction, accept his word. Moreover, recent experience has proved once more that an aggressive policy against the East is for Germany easier of achievement and more profitable than action against the West. But Germany’s immediate neighbour and hereditary enemy in the East is Poland, and the most painful consequence of Germany’s defeat is the amputation of her Polish provinces; while Russia has long been Prussia’s ally, and should be even more so now that the previous community of interests, based on spoils, has been replaced by a community of suffering. Before 1933 the recovery of the lost territories in the East was the foremost objective of every nationally minded German. But Hitler has made friends with the Poles. This volte-face, or rather facial transformation, seems surprising, incomprehensible, almost incredible—it may be a mere manœuvre to gain time, an easy makeshift of a man who as readily concludes treaties as he repudiates obligations; or it may just be part of an improvising political incoherence. Anyhow, it does not follow the line of Prussia’s traditional policy.
But there are people who try to read sense and a deeper meaning into all actions of rulers. They reason: Germany cannot renounce the Corridor and Upper Silesia; she is rearming on a vast scale; she proclaims her hostility to Russia and her friendship for Poland; Pilsudski and his group aimed at one time at further extensive conquests at the expense of Russia—is perhaps Germany out to obtain a revision of her eastern frontier in agreement and co-operation with the Poles, compensating them in the Ukraine, White Russia, and Lithuania for cessions in the West?
Is such a policy practicable? In the Corridor, even in 1919, the Poles were in a majority; now they form 90 per cent of the population. The Corridor secures Poland’s access to the sea; its retrocession would give Germany an economic stranglehold on Poland. In Upper Silesia the districts ceded to Poland fall short of what the Poles can claim on grounds of language and nationality. All the territory which Germany can possibly demand from the Poles is ethnically Polish. But can any nation exchange land inhabited by its own people against ethnically foreign country? At no price and against no compensation will any Polish Government, of its own free will, agree to such a deal. Would England accept the medieval French Empire of Henry V in compensation for Cornwall or Kent, or France give up Alsace-Lorraine in exchange for Piedmont or Catalonia? Why, then, expect such a thing from the Poles? When Jules Ferry engaged in colonial expansion, not as a compensation for a voluntary cession but as a kind of consolation after the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, Deroulède exclaimed in the Chamber: “I mourn two children and you offer me twenty domestics!”
In the East, provinces inhabited by millions of White Russians and Ukrainians are included within the present frontiers of Poland—an “irredenta” which threatens her existence. Would it be sound policy for the Poles to add to their numbers? This would merely hasten the loss of the non-Polish territories which they now hold. Nor would the creation of satellite States in the Ukraine and White Russia against the Soviets, if at all feasible, work in favour of the Poles. The Moscow Bolsheviks may disinterest themselves in the fate of Ukrainian or White Russian territories under Polish rule; but nationalist States in the Ukraine or White Russia could never evince such indifference. They would become Germany’s clients and allies against a Poland sandwiched between them. Lastly, the Poles would never allow German armies to cross their country, even in order to fight Russia, for they could hardly trust these armies, once they had entered the late Prussian provinces, voluntarily to leave them again.
Hopes or fears of a joint German-Polish expedition against Russia are mere bubbles. If the Germans hint at such schemes, it may be in order to cover up Hitler’s betrayal of Prussia, or his manœuvre, or blunder; if the Russians take them seriously, it is because, having for almost twenty years cut themselves off from the intercourse of men, they see ghosts. What then is the purpose of Germany’s armaments? What is the future direction of her policy, and where is her much heralded “rehabilitation” to take place? Clearly armaments and drill for their own sake will not satisfy a nation indefinitely; nor will the cancelling of some by now meaningless paragraphs of the Treaty of Versailles justify the effort and sacrifice implied in rearmament. What Hitler says or what Hitler thinks matters little. He will say and he will think different things on different days, sincerely, with half-sincerity, or without any. What matters is the direction in which his own sentimental antecedents and the logic of the situation lead or force him.
There are three Germanies: Western Germany on the Rhine, the Germany of the great Northern plain dominated by Prussia, and Southern, Danubian Germany converging on Austria. Western Germany has almost throughout history been on the defensive, while Berlin and Vienna have been outposts and centres of German expansion. The Prussian lines of advance run along the Baltic and up the Oder and Vistula; the Austrian, towards the Adriatic and into the Balkans. They are historically distinct, divergent, almost contradictory, for they pre-suppose different policies and alliances. Hindenburg and Ludendorff were Prussians, born in the Eastern provinces, with the cause of the Ostmarken in the blood; neither could have renounced the Prussian claims against Poland, and the Junker leaders of the Reichswehr favoured co-operation with Russia, even with Bolshevik Russia, against the Poles. Hitler is an Austrian by birth; the Austrian Germans were nowhere in conflict with the Austrian Poles, and in fact co-operated with them. The main fear and hatred in pre-war Vienna was of Russia, the enemy of the Habsburg Monarchy and of the Poles, and the protector of the Czechs, Yugo-Slavs, and Rumanians. Hitler’s readiness to make friends with the Poles and to inveigh against Russia is perhaps an unconscious inheritance from his Austrian past; anyhow, it follows the line of Austria’s traditional policy. Moreover, a crusade against the Bolsheviks would seem a fitting sequel to his previous domestic brawls, slogans, and exploits; and by proclaiming it he hopes to gain the sympathy of the anti-Bolsheviks abroad, especially in this country, and to justify in their eyes the rearmament of Germany. But there is no substance behind such talk. He must know that joint action with the Poles against Russia is not practical politics.
What, then, is the present meaning of the German-Polish agreement (for the meaning of agreements may vary from time to time)? Hitler can never renounce Austria, any more than Poincaré could have renounced Lorraine or Pilsudski Vilna. This is where his past leads him; but while he engages in a campaign against Austria, the agreement with the Poles covers his northern front, both against Poland and against Russia. To the Poles, on the other hand, who had to fear that they would become the first object of attack by a rearmed Germany (backed perhaps by Russia), the agreement with Germany offers the assurance that her first attempt to break through will be on the Danube, and not on the Vistula.
Austria is German, and seemingly the most plausible claim which Germany can raise for a revision of the Peace Treaties is that she should be allowed that measure of national reunion which was postulated for all other nations at the end of the war. Before the advent of the Nazis, union with Germany was the common programme of all Austrian parties. Now a democratic alliance of Catholics and Socialists in Austria could alone form a bulwark against the Nazi advance or aggression, and was therefore desired by the wisest leaders in both camps. The situation has, however, been messed up by the puppets of Mussolini, who played his own game independently of, or even against, the Little Entente and France. He favoured Hungary and Bulgaria, which, as soon as Germany disclosed her armed strength, declared for her; and he has raised up a nondescript Fascism in Austria which has laid the country open to Nazi intrigues, propaganda, and coups.
Vienna is the focal point on the Danube, and perhaps the most important strategic position in the politics of Central and Eastern Europe. The moment the Nazis successfully set up their standard in Vienna the whole of Central and South-Eastern Europe, from the Bohemian Mountains and the Carpathians down to the Adriatic, Greece, and the Straits, would be aflame, and the political balance of Europe would be destroyed. Czecho-Slovakia, surrounded by Nazis and Magyars, with millions of Nazis within her own borders, would either have to pass into the German orbit or cease to exist; while Yugo-Slavia and Rumania would be attacked from two sides, by the Magyars and the Bulgars. Italy, so far from being able to play a preponderant part in the territories of the old Habsburg Monarchy and in the Balkans, would have to think of her own safety. If then the Western Powers remained passive spectators, German hegemony on the Continent would be re-established, beyond anything known in 1914, more ruthless and more menacing, more brutal and more barbaric.
To sum up: Hitler cannot fight Russia, and could gain nothing by doing so; territorial rearrangements with Poland are moonshine; while the German-Polish Treaty deflects his activities in the direction in which his own feelings lead him. The Austrian problem has been in the forefront ever since he assumed office. There it remains. Even for reasons of internal German politics, he cannot leave any solidly German territory outside the framework of the “totalitarian State.” Agreements can be concluded about Austria and quasi-solutions can be found, without in any way safeguarding the position. For in Austria Hitler can adopt various methods, plausible in appearance and difficult to counter or to dispute. But the enormous armaments, the universal drilling and spiritual militarization of the German people, the tension which has been worked up by him in Germany—all this cannot unload itself in the mere expunging of the “war-guilt lie” or in a theoretical declaration that Germany is fit to hold African colonies. Berchtesgaden is now the emotional centre of an incalculable German policy, and the storm which is brewing threatens Vienna. When it breaks it will not be a merely local disturbance.
