Читать книгу In the Margin of History - L. B. Namier - Страница 9
Оглавление(“Manchester Guardian,” October 22, 1938)
In 1914 there were five Great Powers on the European Continent, in 1919 only one. Russia had collapsed, Germany had been defeated, the Habsburg Monarchy had disappeared, and Italy had been proved once more no Great Power. In this void France attained a preponderance seemingly more complete than she had known since the days of Napoleon I. But in 1815 she still had a population larger than that of Austria, twice that of Great Britain, and almost three times that of Prussia; now she has the smallest population among the Great Powers. The victory of 1918 was won through the intervention of the Anglo-Saxon Powers; it produced Poland and the Succession States. France had the choice of seeking security in political retirement under the wings of the Anglo-Saxon Powers or of trying to remedy the disparity in numbers through alliances with the new States. In victory the temptation to be once more une puissance protectrice proved irresistible—she constructed a system based on satellite nations. France, Poland, and the Little Entente were sufficient to hold in check the three defeated enemies Germany, Hungary, and Bulgaria; it was the essence of the system and its weakness that it contained only one Great Power. A despoiled Russia and an ever-hungry Italy were left outside, antagonized; of uncertain value as military Powers, they count through territory and numbers: dangerous potential allies of Germany.
Poland was the pivot of the French system, the Little Entente its complement. Sentiment and interest seemed to bind Poland to France. Culturally and politically Poland had gravitated towards her, while all France had for over a century been pro-Polish—her Left because the Poles were victims of oppression and alleged champions of liberty, her Right because they were devout Roman Catholics. In 1919, through British action, Poland received less than her due in Danzig and Upper Silesia; yet it was enough to earn her the bitter resentment of Germany. If a reconciliation between France and Germany had been possible, the German-Polish conflict would have sufficed to prevent it. In 1919-20, with French connivance, Poland annexed extensive territories inhabited by White Russians and Ukrainians; it was henceforth a vital interest of Poland that Russia no less than Germany should remain an outcast among the nations. The result was the German-Russian Treaty concluded at Rapallo in 1922.
Italy always tries, and usually succeeds, by acquisitions to compensate for the absence of achievement. She received more than her due at the expense of Yugo-Slavs, Germans, and Greeks, and yet felt aggrieved. “She has such poor teeth and such a large appetite,” Bismarck had said about her. She started to play off Hungary and Bulgaria against the Little Entente, and to construct a system rival to that of France. On one point, however, she agreed with France and the Little Entente: there was to be no Anschluss of Austria to Germany, no German penetration of the Danube Basin, no German soldiers on the Brenner Pass. Otherwise Italy came to rank as a “revisionist” Power.
France by her system had tried to redress her inferiority in numbers as against Germany, with Russia and Italy estranged, this disparity threatened to become even worse. The French Army was still supreme; none the less France was afraid; for she did not want to fight again. There was no real militarism in France, no aggressiveness, no lust for power, only the wish to be secure. Her system was proving a liability; she therefore sought to make Britain share its burden. Our guarantee for all European frontiers was to be obtained at Geneva, through pacts and protocols. Since the war whoever wants to cajole Britain talks peace. But all that France obtained was the Locarno Treaty; no British guarantee for Poland. This was obtained from the Czechs, who within their own frontiers, drawn by nature and history, tried to conciliate the German minority (from 1926 to 1938 there were German Ministers in every Czecho-Slovak Cabinet), and who, if left to themselves, might perhaps have succeeded. The two standing conflicts on the Continent were between Germany and Poland and between Italy and Yugo-Slavia.
The rise of an aggressive German militarism showed up still more clearly the insufficiency of the French system and the French unwillingness to fight. France now accepted Britain’s leadership and joined in talks for a Four-Powers Pact. At that stage Germany and Italy would have had to be satisfied at the expense of Poland and Yugoslavia; France did not mean to sacrifice her smaller allies, yet made them sore and suspicious. Why should they not in turn enter into direct negotiations with their hitherto hostile neighbours? The juncture was favourable to the Poles: Hitler was not a Prussian but an Austrian, and his first aim was not the recovery of the lost Prussian provinces but the Anschluss. Moreover, both at home and abroad he was talking anti-Bolshevism. The Russians became scared, entered the League, and drew closer to France: one more reason for the Poles to work with Hitler. On his part this was a promise not to make them his first object of attack; on theirs, not to interfere with his operations elsewhere; neither seriously envisaged action against Russia.
The Nazi attempt in Vienna in July 1934 alarmed Italy; by the “Stresa Front” the Western Powers assured her of their support. But to the Yugo-Slavs the line Milan—Vienna—Budapest would have been as unwelcome as Munich-Vienna-Budapest to the Czechs. Most of all, Yugo-Slavia objected to a Habsburg restoration because of the attraction it would have had for the discontented Roman Catholic Croats; and such a restoration came to be canvassed as the means for preserving Austria’s separate existence. The Yugo-Slavs drew closer to Germany. France was losing two satellites, but seemed to be gaining the co-operation of two Great Powers; exchanging pre-eminence for security.
When Mussolini invaded Abyssinia, and England, in her disarmed condition, half-heartedly tried to fulfil the League Covenant, France struggled to reconcile complaisance towards Italy with Geneva righteousness. The Western Powers neither satisfied nor checked Italy, and lost themselves in half-measures. Sated and sophisticated, civilized, sensitive, and war-weary, the democracies have a conscience and no faith—the most dangerous condition for individuals and nations; and they encounter dictators, savage “revivalists” without a conscience or sensibility. Political proclivities clash with international alignments: Germany is the ever-menacing enemy of France; Italy has become hostile to England; Russia has been turning into an ally. Yet large sections of opinion both in Britain and in France are pro-Italian, or even pro-German, and intensely anti-Russian. This confusion and debility of purpose has produced the antics of the “non-intervention” policy in Spain, and has paralysed rearmament.
In 1936 Germany by remilitarizing the Rhineland started a barrier against French intervention in Central and Eastern Europe—additional justification for the Polish and Yugo-Slav Governments to pursue their new policy, unpopular though it was with their people. Stalin started his “purges,” which produced dismay among Russia’s friends and raised doubts about her future military value—additional justification for those averse to a Russian alliance. Mussolini added Spanish entanglements to his Abyssinian commitments and launched a vicious anti-British campaign in the Near East. Meantime the armaments and policy of the Western Powers continued to display as much of “gaps” as of substance. When Hitler invaded Austria there was no one to resist him. He is single-minded and ready to take risks, which makes him supreme over those who do not know their minds and cannot control their fears.
Could the French system have survived the Nazi occupation of Vienna? The Czechs still adhered to it. But they asked the Western Powers: “Do you want us? If not, tell us so, and we shall have to make our terms with Hitler.” They never received an honest answer. Had Poland and Yugo-Slavia stood by France, Germany could not have attacked Czecho-Slovakia; had the Western Powers stood by Czecho-Slovakia, Polish and Yugo-Slav public opinion would in the end have compelled the Governments to join them; had Czecho-Slovakia stood fast, she could have forced France into action. For everyone war was fraught with incalculable risks: therefore no one wanted it; but the bluff of the democracies has been called; that of the dictators has not. Now it is all over. The French system has collapsed with unspeakable ignominy. What next?
East-Central Europe will become a witches’ cauldron. Poland, Yugo-Slavia, and Rumania are as composite as Czecho-Slovakia had been; all their “Sudetens” are agog—there is scope for housebreakers. The security of the French system was collective: last month its quondam members dug their own graves. And if Russia is ever added to the German system—by agreement with the Bolsheviks or by their overthrow—a Power will arise greater than the world has known.
France has 40 million inhabitants, Germany 80 millions, Italy 40 millions; to which Spain, when handed over to Franco, will add 20 millions: a superiority of 100 millions for the “axis.” Can Britain alone ensure the integrity and independence of France, and therefore her own? It is idle to expect a victorious totalitarian and his jackals to be satisfied with reasonable concessions.
The key to the situation is in the relations of the British Empire and France to the United States and Russia.
