If the theory upon which the treaty of Versailles is based, the theory
of a single guilty nation, were true, there would be no trouble about
saying what the war was fought for. The Allied belligerents would have a
simple, straight story to tell; they could describe their aims and
intentions clearly in a few words that any one could understand, and
their story would be reasonably consistent and not vary greatly from
year to year. It would be practically the same story in 1918 as in 1915
or at any time between. In America, indeed, the story did not greatly
vary up to the spring of 1917, for the reason that this country was
pretty much in the dark about European international relations. Once our
indignation and sympathies were aroused, it was for the propagandists
mostly a matter of keeping them as hot as possible. Few had the
information necessary to discount the plain, easy, understandable story
of a robber nation leaping upon an unprepared and defenceless Europe for
no cause whatever except the lofty ambition, as Mr. Joseph Choate said,
"to establish a world-empire upon the ruins of the British Empire."
Those who had this information could not make themselves heard; and thus
it was that the propagandists had no need to vary the one story that was
most useful to their purpose of keeping us in a state of unreasoning
indignation, and accordingly they did not vary it.
In Europe and in England, however, the case was different. International
relations were better understood by those who were closer to them than
we were; more questions were raised and more demands made. Hence the
Allied politicians and propagandists were kept busy upon the defensive.
When from time to time the voice of popular discontent or of some
influential body of opinion insisted on a statement of the causes of the
war or of the war-aims of the Allies, they were confronted with the
politician's traditional difficulty. They had to say something plausible
and satisfactory, which yet must be something that effectively hid the
truth of the situation. As the war hung on, their difficulty became
desperate and they threw consistency to the winds, telling any sort of
story that would enable them for the moment to "get by." The publication
of the secret treaties which had been seined out of the quagmire of the
old Russian Foreign Office by the revolutionists made no end of trouble
for them. It is amusing now to remember how promptly these treaties were
branded by the British Foreign Office as forgeries; especially when it
turned out that the actual terms of the armistice--not the nominal
terms, which were those of Mr. Wilson's Fourteen Points, but the actual
terms--were the terms of the secret treaties! The publication of the
secret treaties in this country did not contribute much towards a
disillusionment of the public; the press as a rule ignored or lied about
them, they were not widely read, and few who did read them had enough
understanding of European affairs to interpret them. But abroad they put
a good deal of fat into the fire; and this was a specimen of the kind of
thing that the Allied politicians had to contend with in their efforts
to keep their peoples in line.
The consequence was that the official and semi-official statements of
the causes of the war and of the war-aims of the Allies are a most
curious hotchpotch. In fact, if any one takes stock in the theory of the
one guilty nation and is therefore convinced that the treaty of
Versailles is just and proper and likely to enforce an enduring peace,
one could suggest nothing better than that he should go through the
literature of the war, pick out these statements, put them in parallel
columns, and see how they look. If the war originated in the unwarranted
conspiracy of a robber nation, if the aims of the Allies were to defeat
that conspiracy and render it impotent and to chastise and tie the hands
of the robber nation--and that is the theory of the treaty of
Versailles--can anyone in his right mind suppose that the Allied
politicians and propagandists would ever give out, or need to give out,
these ludicrously contradictory and inconsistent explanations and
statements? When one has a simple, straight story to tell, and a most
effective story, why complicate it and undermine it and throw all sorts
of doubts upon it, by venturing upon all sorts of public utterances that
will not square with it in any conceivable way? Politicians, of all men,
never lie for the fun of it; their available margin of truth is always
so narrow that they keep within it when they can. Mr. Lloyd George, for
example, is one of the cleverest of politicians. We have already
considered his two statements; first, that of 4 August, 1917:
What are we fighting for? To defeat the most dangerous conspiracy
ever plotted against the liberty of nations; carefully, skilfully,
insidiously, clandestinely planned in every detail with ruthless,
cynical determination.
--and then that of 3 March, 1921:
For the Allies, German responsibility for the war is fundamental.
It is the basis upon which the structure of the treaty of
Versailles has been erected, and if that acknowledgment is
repudiated or abandoned, the treaty is destroyed.... German
responsibility for the war must be treated by the Allies as a
_chose jugée_.
A little over two months before Mr. George made this latter utterance,
on 23 December, 1920, he said this:
The more one reads memoirs and books written in the various
countries of what happened before the first of August, 1914, the
more one realizes that no one at the head of affairs quite meant
war at that stage. It was something into which they glided, or
rather staggered and stumbled, perhaps through folly; and a
discussion, I have no doubt, would have averted it.
Well, it would strike an unprejudiced person that if this were true,
there is a great deal of doubt put upon Mr. Lloyd George's former
statements by Mr. Lloyd George himself. Persons who plot carefully,
skilfully, insidiously and clandestinely, do not glide; they do not
stagger or stumble, especially through folly. They keep going, as we in
America were assured that the German Government did keep going, right up
to The Day of their own choosing. Moreover, they are not likely to be
headed off by discussion; highwaymen are notoriously curt in their
speech and if one attempts discussion with them they become irritable
and peremptory. This is the invariable habit of highwaymen. Besides, if
discussion would have averted war in 1914, why was it not forthcoming?
Certainly not through any fault of the Austrian Government, which made
every concession, as the British Ambassador's report shows,
notwithstanding its grievance against Serbia was a just one. Certainly
not through any fault of the German Government, which never refused
discussion and held its hand with all the restraint possible under the
circumstances just described. Well, then, how is it so clear that German
responsibility for the war should be treated as a _chose jugée_?