produced results which would have pacified the tumult of suspicious
nations and inaugurated the promise of fraternity. But, alas, Satan is
not done with Europe. A ministerial crisis in France brought our hopes
tumbling to the ground. The conference was broken up on the threshold
of fulfilment.
Suspicion once more seized the tiller, and Europe, just as she seemed
to be entering the harbour of goodwill, was swung back violently into
the broken seas of international distrust. The offer made by Britain
to stand alone on the pact of guarantee to France was rejected with
disdain. We were told quite brutally that it was no use without a
military convention. This we declined to enter into. Europe has
suffered too much from military conventions to warrant the repetition
of such a disastrous experiment.
The pact with Britain lies for the moment in the waste-paper basket.
But we never flung it there. M. Clemenceau ought to have made his
complaint in Paris against men of his own race and not in New York
against Englishmen. With the pact went the effort to make peace in
Europe.
The history of Genoa is too recent to require any recapitulation of its
features. The new French ministry did not play the part of an inviting
government responsible for pressing to a successful end the objects of
Cannes, but rather that of the captious critic who had to be persuaded
along every inch of the road and who threatened at every obstacle to
turn back and leave the rest of Europe to struggle along with its
burden, amid the mocking laughter of France.
I am not complaining of M. Barthou. He did his best under most
humiliating conditions to remain loyal to the conference which his
government had joined in summoning. But his task was an impossible one.
He was hampered, embarrassed and tangled at every turn. Whenever he
took any step forward he was lassoed by a despatch from Paris. I have
good authority for stating that he received over eight hundred of these
communications in the course of the conference!
What could the poor man do under such bewildering conditions? The other
European countries were perplexed and distracted. They were anxious
that Genoa should end in a stable peace. There was no doubt about the
sincerity, the passionate sincerity, of the desire for peace throughout
Europe, but European nations could not help seeing that one of the
great powers was working for a failure. They had a natural anxiety not
to appear to take sides.
It is a marvel that in spite of this unfortunate attitude adopted
by the French Government a pact was signed which has, at any rate,
preserved the peace in Eastern Europe for several months.
Before the conference we heard of armies being strengthened along
frontiers and of movements of troops with a menacing intent from the
Baltic to the Black Sea. Genoa at least dispelled that cloud. But a
permanent peace has not yet been established and the pact with Russia
will soon expire. I am, however, hopeful that the spirit of Genoa will
stand between contending armies and prevent the clash of swords.
All this, however, is leading me away from an examination of M.
Clemenceau's suggestion that Britain did not keep faith in the matter
of guaranteeing France against German aggression.
The offer was definitely renewed at Cannes, and M. Poincaré has not
accepted it.
I have my own opinion as to why he has not done so. It is not
merely that he does not wish to set the seal of his approval upon a
predecessor's achievement. I am afraid the reason is of a more sinister
kind. If France accepts Britain's guarantee of defence of her frontier
every excuse for annexing the left bank of the Rhine disappears.
If this is the explanation, if French ministers have made up their
minds that under no conditions will they, even at the end of the period
of occupation, withdraw from the Rhine, then a new chapter opens in
the history of Europe and the world, with a climax of horror such as
mankind has never yet witnessed.
The German provinces on the left bank of the Rhine are intensely
German--in race, language, tradition and sympathies. There are seventy
millions of Germans in Europe. A generation hence there may be a
hundred millions. They will never rest content so long as millions of
their fellow-countrymen are under a foreign yoke on the other side of
the Rhine, and it will only be a question of time and opportunity for
the inevitable war of liberation to begin.
We know what the last war was like. No one can foretell the terrors of
the next. The march of science is inexorable, and wherever it goes it
is at the bidding of men, whether to build or to destroy. Is it too
much to ask that America should, in time, take an effective interest in
the development along the Rhine? To that extent I am in complete accord
with M. Clemenceau. Neither Britain nor America can afford to ignore
the manoeuvres going on along its banks. It is a far cry from the
Rhine to the Mississippi, but not so far as it used to be.
There are now graves not far from the Rhine wherein lies the dust
of men who, less than six years ago, came from the banks of the
Mississippi, with their faces towards the Rhine.
_London, December 2nd, 1922._
VIII
WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER?
_2. The Rhine_ (Continued)
The breakdown of the London conference, and especially the reason for
that breakdown, proves the warning I uttered in my last chapter was
necessary and timely.
M. Poincaré demanded the occupation of the only rich coalfield left to
Germany as a guarantee for the carrying out of impossible terms.
It is because I am profoundly convinced that the policy represented by
this project will lead to trouble of the gravest kind for Europe and
the world that I felt moved to sound a note of warning. I knew it would
provoke much angry misrepresentation. I am accustomed to that. I deemed
it to be my duty to face it.
The statement I made in my last chapter about the existence of a
strong party in France which regarded the Rhine as the natural barrier
of that country has provoked a storm of denial, repudiation and
indignation. It is denounced as a wicked invention. Some are amazed at
the impudence of the calumny. Where is the party? France knows nothing
of it. Is it not a monster which has emanated from the brain of the
enemy of France?
Repudiations have their value, especially if they come from men of
authority, and I shall bear invective with the fortitude to which all
men who wish to be happy though politicians should be hardened provided
I elicit denials which may render future international mischief
difficult.
But a further perusal of the evidence on which I based my statement has
served to deepen my apprehensions. What was the statement? Let me quote
the actual words I used:--
"There was a strong party in France which urged M. Clemenceau to
demand that the Rhine should be treated as the natural frontier
of their country, and that advantage should be taken of the
overwhelming defeat of Germany to extend the boundaries of France
to that fateful river.
"The most moderate and insidious form this demand took was a
proposal that the German provinces on the left bank of the Rhine
should remain in French occupation until the treaty had been
fulfilled. That meant for ever. Reparations alone--skilfully
handled by the Quai d'Orsay--would preclude the possibility of
ever witnessing fulfilment.
"The pact was designed to strengthen the hands of M. Clemenceau
against the aggressive party which was then, and still is, anxious
to commit France to the colossal error of annexing territory which
has always been purely German."
What was the basis on which I made this assertion? It was thoroughly
well known to all those who were engaged in the operations of the Peace
conference. The Rhine was the background of all manoeuvre for weeks
and months. Whether the subject matter was the League of Nations, the
German fleet, or the status of Fiume, we knew that the real struggle
would come over the Rhine.
On one hand, How much would France demand? on the other, How much would
the Allies concede? There was a subconscious conflict about the Rhine
throughout the whole discussion, however irrelevant the topic under
actual consideration happened to be.
But unrecorded memories are of little use as testimony unless
corroborated by more tangible proofs. Do such proofs exist? I will
recall a few.
There was a party which considered the Rhine to be the only natural
frontier of France. It was a strong party, with a strong man as its
spokesman--in many ways the strongest in France--Marshal Foch. His
splendid services in the war gave him a position such as no soldier in
France or in any other country could command. The soldier who, by his
genius, leads a nation to victory, possesses a measure of influence on
the public opinion of the people he has saved from destruction such as
no other individual can aspire to--as long as his services are fresh in
the memory of his fellow-countrymen. That, I admit, is not very long.
Gratitude is like manna--it must be gathered and enjoyed quickly, for
its freshness soon disappears. But in the early months of 1919 Marshal
Foch was still sitting at the banquet table of popular favour enjoying
the full flavour of grateful recognition. His word on all questions
affecting the security and destiny of France was heard with a deference
which no other man in France could succeed in securing. He has also
a quality which is not usually an attribute of generalship: he is a
lucid, forceful and picturesque speaker. He was, therefore, listened
to for what he was, for what he said, and for the way he said it.
What did he say? He said a good deal on the subject of the Rhine
frontier and I cannot quote it all. I will take a few germane sentences
out of his numerous utterances on the subject. On the 19th day of
April, 1919, there appeared in the London _Times_ an interview with
Marshal Foch. From that interview I take these salient passages:--
"'And now, having reached the Rhine, _we must stay there_,'
went on the Marshal very emphatically. 'Impress that upon your
fellow-countrymen. It is our only safety, their only safety. We
must have a barrier. We must double-lock the door. Democracies
like ours, which are never aggressive, must have strong _natural
military frontiers_. Remember that those seventy millions
of Germans will always be a menace to us. Do not trust the
appearances of the moment. Their natural characteristics have not
changed in four years. _Fifty years hence_ they will be what they
are to-day.'
* * * * * * *
"From the table at the other end of the room Marshal Foch brought
a great map, six or eight feet square, on which the natural
features of this part of western Europe were marked. The Rhine
was a thick line of blue. To the west of the river the Marshal
had drawn in pencil a concave arc representing the new frontier
that France will receive under the Peace treaty. It was clearly an
arbitrary political boundary conforming to no natural feature of
the land.
"'Look at that,' said Marshal Foch. 'There is no natural obstacle
along that frontier. Is it there that we can hold the Germans if
they attack us again? No. Here! here! here!' and he tapped the
blue Rhine with his pencil.
"'Here we must be ready to face our enemies. This is a barrier
which will take some crossing. If the Germans try to force a
passage over the Rhine--ho! ho! But here'--touching the black
pencilled line running north-west from Lorraine past the Saar
valley to the Belgian frontier--'here there is nothing.'
* * * * * * *
"'No; if you are wise you insist on having your locks and your
wall, and we must have our armies on the Rhine. Some people object
that it will take many troops to hold the Rhine. Not so many as
it would take to hold a political frontier. For the Rhine can be
crossed only at certain places, whereas the new political frontier
of France can be broken anywhere and would have to be held in
force along its entire length.'"
He expounded his doctrine in greater detail in an official memorandum
which, as commander-in-chief of the Allied armies, he submitted to M.
Clemenceau:--
"To stop the enterprises towards the west of this nation,
everlastingly warlike, and covetous of the good things belonging
to other people, only recently formed and pushed on to conquest
by force regardless of all rights and by ways the most contrary
to all law, seeking always the mastery of the world, _Nature has
only made one barrier--the Rhine. This barrier must be forced on
Germany. Henceforward the Rhine will be the western frontier of
the Germanic peoples...._"
He repeated this demand in a subsequent memorandum. Many of us recall
his dramatic irruption into the placid arena of the Peace conference
in May, 1919, still brandishing the same theme.
It may be said that Marshal Foch is not and does not pretend to be a
statesman. He is only a great soldier. Nevertheless, his political
influence was so great that even in 1920 he overthrew the most powerful
statesman in France within a month of his triumphant return at the
polls with a huge supporting majority in the French Parliament. It
was Marshal Foch who, by his antagonism, was responsible for M.
Clemenceau's defeat at the presidential election of 1920. But for
Marshal Foch's intervention M. Clemenceau would have been to-day
president of the French republic.
Why was he beaten, at the height of his fame, by a candidate of
infinitely less prestige and power? The wrath of Marshal Foch and his
formidable following was excited against M. Clemenceau because the
latter had, under pressure from the Allies, gone back on the agreed
French policy about the Rhine. M. Tardieu, as is well known, was one of
the two most prominent ministers in M. Clemenceau's administration, and
closely associated with his chief in the framing of the Peace treaty.
He has written a book, and in that book he gives at length a document
which he handed to the Allies on March 12th, 1919, containing the
following proposal:--
"In the general interest of peace and to assure the effective
working of the constituent clause of the League of Nations, the
western frontier of Germany is fixed at the Rhine. Consequently
Germany renounces all sovereignty over, as well as any customs
union with, the territories of the former German empire on the
left bank of the Rhine."
There is a sardonic humour about the words "in the general interest of
peace and to assure the effective working of the constituent clause of
the League of Nations."
But it demonstrates that at that date M. Clemenceau and his minister
had become converts to the doctrine of the Rhine as the natural
boundary of Germany. American and British pressure subsequently induced
him to abandon this position and, as I said in a previous chapter, the
pact was part of the argument addressed to him. But the party of the
Rhine never forgave. Hence his failure to reach the presidential chair.
It was an honourable failure and will ever do him credit.
The reasons assigned for that defeat by the _Annual Register_,
1919-20--certainly not a partisan authority--prove that even an
unexcitable chronicler laboured then under the delusion--if it be
a delusion--which possessed me when I wrote the offending article.
Explaining the remarkable defeat the _Annual Register_ says:--
" ... Clemenceau's supporters contended that the terms of the
Treaty of Versailles were satisfactory from the French point
of view; his opponents declared that he had given way too much
to the American and British standpoints and that the peace was
unsatisfactory, particularly in respect of the guarantees for the
reparations due to France _and in the matter of the French eastern
frontier. It will be remembered that a large body of French
opinion had desired that France should secure the line of the
Rhine as her eastern frontier._"
I can if necessary quote endless leading articles in French journals
and writings and speeches of French politicians. Men of such divergent
temperaments and accomplishments as M. Franklin Bouillon and M. Tardieu
gave countenance to this claim that Germany should be amputated at the
Rhine. One carried the theme along on the torrent of his clattering
lava and the other on the dome of an iceberg. Later on at the reception
of Marshal Foch when he was elected a member of the French Academy,
M. Poincaré, turning at one moment in his discourse to the Marshal,
said in reference to the veteran General's well-known attitude on the
Peace treaty, "Ah, Monsieur le Maréchal, if only your advice had been
listened to." Has he also gone back on an opinion so histrionically
expressed? Let us hope for the best.
I know it will be said that although the boundaries of Germany were to
end at the Rhine, the province on the left bank was not to be annexed,
but to be reconstituted into an "independent" republic. What manner of
independence and what kind of republic? All German officers were to be
expelled; it was to be detached by special provision from the economic
life of Germany upon which it is almost entirely dependent for its
existence. It was not to be allowed to associate with the fatherland.
The Rhine which divided the new territory from Germany was to be
occupied in the main by French troops: the territories of the
independent republic were to be occupied by foreign soldiers. Its young
men were to be conscripted and trained with a view to absorbing them
into French and Belgian armies to fight against their own countrymen on
the other side of the Rhine. The whole conditions of life in the "free
and independent republic" were to be dictated by an "accord" between
France, Luxemburg and Belgium, and, in the words of Marshal Foch,
"Britain would be ultimately brought in."
But I am told that these proposals did not mean annexation. Then what
else did they mean? You do not swallow the oyster. You only first give
it an independent existence by detaching it from its hard surroundings.
You then surround it on all sides and absorb it into your own system
to equip you with added strength to prey on other oysters! What
independence! And what a republic! It would have been and was intended
to be a sham republic. Had the plan been adopted it would have been a
blunder and a crime, for which not France alone but the world would
later on have paid the penalty.
In the face of these quotations and of these undoubted facts, can any
one say that I calumniated France when I said there was a powerful
party in that country which claimed that the Rhine should be treated
as the natural barrier of Germany, and that the Peace treaty should be
based upon that assumption?
Let it be observed that I never stated that this claim had the
support of the French democracy. The fact that the treaty, which did
not realise that objective, secured ratification by an overwhelming
majority in the French parliament and subsequently by an emphatic
verdict in the country, demonstrates clearly that the French people as
a whole shrank with their invincible good sense from following even
a lead they admired on to this path of future disaster. But the mere
fact that there are potent influences in France that still press this
demand, and take advantage of every disappointment to urge it forward,
calls for unremitting vigilance amongst all peoples who have the
welfare of humanity at heart.
In conclusion I should like to add that to denounce me as an enemy of
France because I disagree with the international policy of its present
rulers is a petulant absurdity.
During the whole of my public career I have been a consistent advocate
of co-operation between the French and British democracies. I took
that line when it was fashionable in this country to fawn on German
imperialism.
During the war I twice risked my premiership in the effort to place the
British army under the supreme command of a French general. To preserve
French friendship I have repeatedly given way to French demands, and
thus have often antagonised opinion in this country. But I cannot go to
the extent of approving a policy which is endangering the peace of the
world, even to please one section of a people for whose country I have
always entertained the most genuine affection.
_London, December 9th, 1922._
IX
WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER?
_3. The Paris Conference_
The third conference with M. Poincaré over reparations has ended, like
its two predecessors, in a complete breakdown.
The first was held in August, the second in December, and the third
fiasco has just been witnessed.
I congratulate Mr. Bonar Law on having the courage to face a double
failure rather than agree to a course of policy which would in the end
prove disappointing, and probably disastrous.
Agreement amongst allies is in itself a desirable objective for
statesmen to aim at, but an accord to commit their respective countries
to foolishness is worse than disagreement.
France and Britain must not quarrel, even if they cannot agree; but if
French ministers persist in the Poincaré policy, the companionship of
France and Britain over this question will be that of parallel lines
which never meet, even if they never conflict.
What is the object of this headstrong policy? Reparations?
There is no financier of repute, in any quarter of the globe, who
will agree that these methods will bring the Allies any contributions
towards their impoverished resources.
At the August conference all the experts were in accord on this
subject, but whilst these methods will produce no cash, they will
produce an unmistakable crash.
My recollections of the August discussions enable me to follow with
some understanding the rather confused reports which have so far
reached me here.[2]
It is common ground amongst all the Allies that Germany cannot under
present conditions pay her instalments.
It is common ground that she must be pressed to put her finances in
order, and by balancing her budget restore the efficiency of her
currency, so as to meet her obligations.
But M. Poincaré insisted that, as a condition of granting the
moratorium, pledges inside German territory should be seized by the
Allies.
These pledges consisted of customs already established, and of new
customs to be set up on the Rhine and around the Ruhr, so that no goods
should be permitted to pass from these German provinces into the rest
of Germany without the payment of heavy customs dues.
The other proposed pledges were the seizure of German forests, of
German mines, and of 60 per cent. of the shares in certain German
factories.
Mr. Bonar Law, judging by his official _communiqué_ after the breakdown
of the conference, seems to have raised the same objections to these
pledges as I put forward at the August conference.
They would bring in nothing comparable to the cost of collection;
They would provoke much disturbance and irritation and might lead
to consequences of a very grave character.
In fact, these pledges are nothing but paper and provocation.
The customs barrier on the Rhine was tried once before, and was a
complete failure.
It was tried then as a sanction and not as a means of raising money.
For the former purpose it may have achieved some measure of success,
but from the point of view of collecting money it was a ludicrous
fiasco.
There are at the present moment hundreds of millions of paper marks
collected at these new tollhouses still locked up in the safe of the
Reparations Commission. They are admittedly worthless.
As long as these tolls lasted, they were vexatious; they interfered
with business; they dealt lightly with French luxuries working their
way into Germany, but laid a heavy hand on all useful commodities
necessary to the industry and life of the people.
They were ultimately withdrawn by consent. M. Poincaré now seeks to
revive them.
The seizure of German forests and mines will inevitably lead to even
more serious consequences. The allied control established in the far
interior of Germany would require protection.
Protection means military occupation in some shape or other.
Military occupation of these remote areas means incidents, and
incidents quickly ripen into more serious complications.
Hence the reluctance of the British government of which I was the head
to concur in this dangerous policy. Hence the refusal of Mr. Bonar
Law's government to accept the responsibility for sanctioning such a
policy. Even logically it is indefensible.