There was another reason, deep in many minds of humble folk and great
statesmen. They looked back to the War with loathing and horror.
They desired to support some better way of argument in international
disputes, so that there need be no “next war,” worse than the last,
between the same combination of Powers. They believed in the spirit
of the League of Nations as the only way by which that next war might
be avoided. They were hostile to any Power which seemed to thwart the
progress of that spirit. They believed that the policy of Poincaré was
contrary to the establishment of good will among nations. They believed
that it was hurtful to future peace and leading inevitably to a war of
revenge. For that reason millions of people in Great Britain looked
upon Poincaré and for all he stood as the greatest menace in the world.
Lloyd George was one of them. After the signing of the Peace Treaty and
a jingo election in which his followers appealed to the lowest passions
of the people, that extraordinary man, with his nimble mind, his rapid
vision, his instinctive Liberalism, his sincere belief in righteousness
(overlaid by the cunning and craft of political necessities), led him
into a crusade on behalf of a world settlement by conciliation and
compromise.
In conference after conference, with splendid courage, with untiring
zeal, with broad and liberal views, with an honest desire to bring
Europe back to health by fair play all round and business methods, he
endeavoured to settle the differences between France and England over
this question of Germany, to scale down the German payments so that
they were possible and not impossible, to give France security, to
bring Russia back into the family of nations, to make some reasonable
arrangement for inter-allied debts, and to adopt a scheme of general
demobilisation in Europe which would relieve its peoples from crushing
burdens and prepare the way of peace. However one may criticise the
character and quality of Lloyd George, history will, I think, give
him enormous credit for that great endeavour to secure the peace
of the world. At every conference he was thwarted by France, whose
difficulties and dangers could not be reconciled by any of these plans,
who regarded them all as treachery to her people.
Briand concluded an agreement by which he released Germany of certain
obligations in return for a limited guarantee of French security by
British alliance in the case of a new aggressive war from Germany.
And with that document in his pocket Briand lost his job in France.
Poincaré succeeded him as the representative of French nationalism, the
military point of view, the unrelenting will of the majority of French
people to exact their full pound of flesh from Germany at all costs.
From that time onwards until the downfall of Lloyd George himself the
situation between France and England was controlled by the diplomatic
intercourse between Lloyd George and Poincaré which developed into a
personal duel of hostile views. In every case Poincaré had the best of
the argument on lines of pure logic and abstract justice. It was right
that Germany should pay for all the damage she had done. Was France
to pay?... In every conference Poincaré stone-walled Lloyd George’s
attempt at compromise, by which logic should give way a little to
general interest and the military safety of France to a world pact of
peace.
Then Lloyd George fell. By a frightful paradox his fall was partly due
to a call for war. The man who was passionate for the peace of the
world, who had given his health and risked his political career in
the cause of the pacification of Europe, raised a fiery torch to the
people—which fell like a damp squib in a cold sea. It was after the
tragedy of Greece.
For some reasons not yet fully known to history, Lloyd George had
fallen under the spell of Venizelos and his friends. Greece had been
given a new Empire in Asia Minor and Thrace at the expense of the Turk,
who had been utterly crushed by British armies. He turned a deaf ear to
all critics who prophesied that the character of the Greeks would not
be equal to these new responsibilities.