october 1932

Versailles: Retrospect

Hamilton Fish Armstrong

Volume 11 • Number 1

The contents of Foreign Affairs are copyrighted.©1932 Council on Foreign Relations, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution of this material is permitted only with the express written consent of Foreign Affairs. Visit www.foreignaffairs.com/permissions for more information. VERSAILLES: RETROSPECT

By Hamilton Fish Armstrong

or "We may perceive plenty of wrong turns taken at the cross roads, time misused wasted, gold taken for dross and dross for gold, manful effort misdirected, facts misread, men no a misjudged. And yet those who have felt life stage-play, but hard campaign with some lost battles, may still resist all spirit of general insurgence in the evening of their day. The world's black catastrophe in your new age is hardly a proved and shining vic over ? tory the principles and policies of the age before it." Morley: "Recollections."

was torn IN THE hundred years before 1914 Europe by the wars one which gave people after another varying degrees of was one liberty and union. In its origins the Great War of that series. It seemed like the last, for it threw practically the whole Continent into the melting pot, snapped old bonds of servitude from the Baltic to the ^.gean, ended in the complete victory of the side which as a had proclaimed self-determination guiding principle, was a men and followed by conference in which high-minded an armed with impartial and thorough documentation exercised influence unparalleled in the history of peace making. All the elements seemed to be at hand for a final decision based on ab stract justice. Unfortunately they were not so clear-cut and above was a contention that the only thing needed decision by ordinarily or even an honest men, honest decision by supermen. Old inva wars sions, and colonizations had pushed peoples this way and that, squeezed them across mountain ranges and rivers into lands races occupied by other and tribes, here mingling their blood, new there dividing fields and villages between them, opening up streams of commerce and culture and old cease damming ones, Thus lessly modifying, rearranging, mixing. along every proposed were frontier ethnic, historical and economic rights in conflict. The first mistake made by critics of the peace treaties, then, is to a say that their territorial provisions represented compromise between clear and clear In most cases right wrong. the choice which the had before them was not between and delegates ? right but wrong, between right and right the right of the victor and the of the were not right vanquished. On the whole, when rights in to on conflict, the Conference tried base its decisions high prin were ciples; when rights in conflict it usually favored the victors. These notes, it should promptly be explained, will not try to even a view of the whole but will give birdseye ? peace settlement, merely survey one part the part in which there has been little

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or no the frontiers. In other the treaties have revision, particulars already been revised, drastically and often, notably in the sec war con tions regarding reparation, the trial of criminals, military trol and the occupation of German territory.1 It was Stresemann who won most of these victories for Germany. Had he lived to pur sue his program of piecemeal revision he doubtless would have turned next to a discussion of arms as of the ? equality part general question of disarmament and would very likely have been suc cessful. He even have found a of once for all might " way dealing ? a with Article 231? the "war guilt clause continuing psycho barrier to true Franco-German It was logical any rapprochement. Stresemann's that he saw the value to of genius Germany accept as so ing the Versailles Treaty the fundamental law of Europe, to that, strengthened by having accepted it, he might proceed de was error mand revision of palpably unjust provisions. It his that never a he educated the German people to realization of the bene fits actually secured for Germany by cooperation with France. was no And after his death there sufficiently weighty body of to German opinion force the continuation of his policy. That it had lapsed, the Anschluss fiasco of March 1931 gave definite proof. Stresemann would never have sanctioned that dangerous and ob saw was viously futile gesture. He clearly something which hidden from his Count Bethlen. Bethlen said of the Hungarian colleague, " " Treaty of the Trianon, and endlessly repeated, Nem, nem, sohal to ?"No, no, never!" He rejected it in toto. The degree which the Treaty of Versailles has been modified, while the Treaty of the Trianon remains unaltered, is a measure of how far each states man was right. at were not The delegates Paris handicapped merely by the on disarray the ethnic chessboard, but also in another way fre met quently forgotten. The Peace Conference formally for the on new first time January 18, 1919. The states of Europe had come into existence long before that, and their governments and were armies already exercising effective control within frontiers on. much the same as those officially delimited later This is not true of one most controversial part of the final settlement: the Peace Conference awarded the Corridor to Poland deliberately. as start But with this notable exception the Conference took its ing point the lines of demarcation determined locally when 1 not Interpretations of the Treaty have also been revised. Thus Mr. Lloyd George only did not hang the Kaiser, but came around to being sorry he could not hang M. Poincar?. VERSAILLES: RETROSPECT 175 hostilities ceased. The Conference did make a number of frontier rectifications, and in several debatable regions, for example insisted on Schleswig, Upper Silesia and the Klagenfurt basin, into plebiscites. But orders for sweeping alterations of the pattern autumn which Europe had fallen in the of 1918 would have had to be backed force. That was out of the even on up? by ? question, the assumption far from accepted that sweeping alterations were or were desirable would be just. Victors and vanquished alike exhausted and alike knew that communism, already entrenched in several centers, would be the only beneficiary of any such folly as renewed hostilities. In almost no cases were alterations feas on a ible scale which would have markedly changed the present or discontent and geography of Europe mitigated the fundamental desire for revision which have prevailed among the defeated peoples. of the To understand the powerful moral and material position events new states we only need try to disentangle the military war which closed the from the developments which had brought a the various national movements to head and gained them the were support of the Allied world. So closely they connected that we are at a to as cause effect. loss what put down and what On September 15,1918, the Allies (with the Serbian army bear which ing the brunt) launched the offensive in Macedonia two the crumpled up the Bulgarian front and in weeks forced to Bulgarian army capitulate (September 29). Almost simultane ously (September 18) Allenby started rolling up the Turkish front in Palestine. The collapse of Bulgaria and Turkey ushered war on western in the final phase of the the front, where the in German lines had been rocking since Haig's attack early August. On October 3 Hindenburg informed the new Chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, that the military situation was desperate, and the next day the Chancellor sent his first note to President an was not Wilson asking for armistice. But Germany yet ready to recognize defeat, and military operations and negotiations continued simultaneously. The Allies broke in turn the "Sieg fried" and "Hindenburg" lines. On October 27 Austria-Hungary accepted President Wilson's conditions of Jugoslav and Czecho same slovak independence and asked for pourparlers; that date the line on the Piave was broken and on November 3 Austria an Hungary signed armistice with Italy. The Emperor Carl's last-minute offers of with the of races over compromise congeries so went which his family had ruled long almost unnoticed in their 176 FOREIGN AFFAIRS rush to their own national standards. On November 7 the German Armistice Commission left for the Allied lines, on November 9 the Kaiser abdicated, and on November 11 hostilities ceased on the western front. The next day the Emperor Carl abdicated. was over. more two were to The fighting But than months In elapse before the Peace Conference could begin its labors. the states to con interval the new-born and aggrandized hastened were solidate their positions. Those positions already very strong, due to the deliberate leaders in and ? policy adopted by England France once President Wilson had relieved them of ? partially the weight of the Treaty of London of encouraging the subject to assert and for their peoples of the Central Empires fight of the national rights. For illustration take the transformation Czech and Slovak people into the Czechoslovak Republic. The national revival of the Czechs, like that of the Poles and but took on the Jugoslavs, began early in the nineteenth century, new momentum after '48 in view of the refusal of the Austrians and Magyars to solve the nationality problem of Austria-Hun a From the start of gary in spirit of federalism and equal rights. the war the Czechs and Slovaks showed their feelings by passive secret resistance, by wholesale desertions, and by organizations making ready for the day of open action. On November 14, 1915, first Masaryk and his revolutionary colleagues published their manifesto and two months later a National Council was formed num abroad with Masaryk as President. By December 1917 such bers of Czechoslovaks had come over into the Allied camp that President Poincar? authorized the establishment of an inde of the pendent Czechoslovak Army in France. The victories summer of attracted Czechoslovak Legions in Siberia in the 1918 to attention, and the right of the Czechoslovaks independence to on The British Government de began be recognized all sides. on the United clared itself sympathetic May 22, 1918. On May 29 of the States Government approved the anti-Austrian resolutions in Rome. On Congress of Oppressed Nationalities held June 29 as Czecho France recognized the National Council head of the on slovak movement and army, while September 3 the British as Czecho Government recognized it the embryo of the future slovak Government. The American and Japanese Governments followed suit. On October 14 Benes announced the decision of the National Council to establish an interim government in Paris, and was next few this government recognized within the days by VERSAILLES: RETROSPECT 177 on France and by Italy. On October 18 (the day which Wilson offer on the that rejected the Austro-Hungarian peace grounds since his Fourteen Points speech the American Government had a state of war between the Czechoslovaks and Austria recognized the Hungary) Masaryk, then inWashington, signed Czechoslovak declaration of independence. On the night of October 27 Austria the next the National Committee Hungary capitulated, and day over of at Prague took administration the Czech territories. In other words, since the Czechoslovak state had already been as and of the Governments it recognized the prot?g? ally Allied needed little or no further recognition from the Paris Peace Con ference, and the subsequent treaties of peace merely confirmed to that recognition. It existed. There remained delimit its precise These were as said to some variation. frontiers. subject, above, But the Czechoslovaks had proved their mettle, they had made the Allied cause theirs, and they possessed spokesmen of the very first rank, both in political ability and moral force; they asked for were a viable state, and the rights of their nine millions given over of the German masses found precedence the rights large within the historic borders of Bohemia. was same au It much the story with the Poles. As early as the tumn of 1917 France, Great Britain, Italy and the United States had recognized the Polish National Committee, formed mainly as through the efforts of Paderewski, the official representative of a was the Polish people. And Polish army already in existence in on France when, October 6,1918, the Polish Regency Council, set a up in Warsaw year earlier by the Central Powers, declared a openly for free Poland. as the war Equally inevitable, progressed, became the eventual attitude of the Allies toward the Jugoslavs, Rumanians, Greeks and others that already had existing states about which to rally. war Early in the England, France and Russia had disregarded the secret principle of nationality in their agreement with Italy. But to at Paris President Wilson refused countenance the Treaty of London in any way, much less be bound by it. His attitude even toward the subject nationalities had been plain before the so United States entered the conflict; and much did Allied policy under the of war events and the constant reitera change pressure even tion of the Wilsonian program that by the spring of 1918 to Italy had found herself giving roundabout approval the dec larations of the Conference of Oppressed Nationalities. i78 FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Serbia's unexpected repulse of the first Austro-Hungarian in the "punitive expedition," her fortitude long disasters that followed Allied miscalculation of Bulgar intentions, the rebirth of the Serbian armies inMacedonia under Prince Alexander and Voivode Mishitch, and their decisive part in the final Allied ? were offensive there these happenings, distant though they and in the Serbia rank with imperfectly reported Allied press, gave as a of national endurance. The Belgium pattern Jugoslav cause, no of which Serbia was the core, had meteoric representative no in the Allied camp like Paderewski, philosopher like Masaryk But the were to expound its moral and legal claims. Serbs them selves partners in Allied counsels and operations, and when vic on to tory finally perched their tattered banners their right play the r?le of Piedmont in the union of the Southern Slavs was that result was not beyond gainsaying. Indeed only indicated by the whole course of events in the nineteenth century, but had the of the and been specifically declared objective Serbs of their as as kinsmen the Croats and Slovenes far back July 29, 1917, was when the Pact of Corfu signed by Premier Pashitch of Serbia and Dr. Trumbitch, President of the Jugoslav Committee. The in on November Jugoslav National Council, meeting Zagreb 23, 1918, gave effect to the Pact and accepted the Serbian Prince as the same time the Prince also Regent ruler. About Regent vote received notification of the of the Podgorica Assembly (November 26, 1918) overthrowing King Nicholas and uniting new the Serbs of Montenegro in the Jugoslav kingdom. Events in Rumania in 1918 led to similar conclusions. It will be war on recalled that Rumania first declared Austria-Hungary in the middle of the summer of 1916. Before the end of the year Austrian and German forces had taken Bucharest, but the strug was not continued, and it until after the Russian collapse that fleLumania was forced to make peace. The Treaty of Bucharest shut across Rumania off from the sea, brought the Hungarian frontiers and the whole economic resources of the the Carpathians, put at of the On November Ru country the service enemy. 9, 1918, war was mania re?ntered the and numbered among the victors.2 not recent As she had participated in hostilities the armistice line was not to in Transylvania very favorable her, and in February 1919 the Peace Conference agreed that the Rumanian line of 2 state vote Bessarabia had meanwhile been incorporated in the Rumanian by (April 8, 1918) established the fall of Tsar. of the Supreme Council of the "Moldavian Republic," after the VERSAILLES: RETROSPECT 179

west on occupation should be moved further (to include Arad), were the score that Hungarian forces terrorizing the Rumanian parts of Hungary remaining under Hungarian jurisdiction. Later the Rumanians, attacked by the Red Army of Bela Kun, Allied pushed forward still further; eventually, despite threats were and cajolings, occupied Budapest (August 4, 1919); and to only induced witndraw three months later. no As for the German-Austrians and the Magyars, they lost Dual time in breaking the bonds of the Monarchy, and subse to to quently sent separate delegations Paris sign the treaties of St. Germain and the Trianon. The question of their union or dis union was not before the Peace Conference. That had been settled over in Vienna and Budapest; and the dispute the Burgenland two destroyed any possibility that these peoples, long joined under one crown but dissimilar in temperament, could come in near future. together again the An eminent American historian had the ill-luck to choose the to the national of one of the spring of 1914 describe aspirations as "the in of the dema peoples mentioned above stock trade gogue, the theme of the rhymer, the subject of baby talk and a were to cradle song."3 Within few months those aspirations a were to appear in very different light. They produce soldiers of not the utmost determination; and those who could fight openly were they to turn into fanatics, martyrs, assassins and heroes, glad or war to die in exile, prison in the mountains. When the day for the realization of old hopes finally arrived, the nations just re an or leased from ancient yoke from the heel of occupying armies new used their freedom, everything considered, with restraint. The Peace Conference stepped in to modify their demands at not new many points. But they could have prevented the nations even to. not from coming into being had they wished They did wish to, and it is yet to be proved that they were wrong. Something should also be said about the allegation that the Peace Conference was traitor to the cause of freedom. The diffi

3 William Milligan Sloane in "The Balkans: A Laboratory of History." Similarly Balfour once as an as a spoke of Irish patriotism exotic, and Irish nationality political afterthought (J. H. Morgan: "The New Irish Constitution," p. xi). A classic example of bad timing in indicting on a nation is the statement made by Price Collier the eve of the war: "The world wonders at the are decadence of school-beridden France, where the boys effeminatized, the youths secularized, and the men sterilized morally and patriotically; France with its police without power, its army with at a out patriotism, and its people without influence; disorderly home and cringing abroad; nation owing its autonomy even, to the fact that it is serviceable as a buffer-state." ("The West in the East," p. 86.) 18o FOREIGN AFFAIRS

a cause culty about great universal is that its complexion tends to alter as one nearer. Thus the who set to approaches delegates work at on the that was a Paris assumption self-determination not principle universally commended, only found the application soon of the principle extremely difficult but also discovered that the compromises which geographic, racial and economic realities forced upon them destroyed not merely faith in their ability and impartiality but faith also in the aim which everyone had ap plauded them for choosing. Nationalism had grown sturdily all through the nineteenth century, broadening the base of its appeal with the spread of popular education and the widening of horizons due to the de means velopment of industry and of of communication and trans port. It grew side by side with democracy. But the principle of one two self-determination, which had been of the chief planks of liberalism in the early and middle part of the nineteenth century, had become much less fashionable among the intelligentsia after in they had watched it practice in Italy and Germany. Noting return to a on the mercantilist^ protectionist policy the part of countries recently organized into larger national units, they de cided that liberation in the political field endangered liberation in the economic and social field. It therefore became their tend to concentrate on ency, beginning in the seventies and eighties, came domestic reforms. Thus it about that when Wilson began a voicing his plea for "free nations" it sounded bit old-fashioned in their ears; nor is it a secret that Wilson himself, in order to undermine the Central Powers and shorten the war, stressed more the principle than his faith in it really authorized. To the intellectual reasons which made pre-war liberals care less than their predecessors about the principle of self-determina events of reasons tion, the 1914-1918 added psychological growing out of that was the fact the principle gaining universal lip-service to and actually beginning receive general application. For liberals are are perfectionists, and they also by nature in favor of the under dog. After generations of being exploited, the subject nationalities which had awakened the admiration of Gladstone were now on and Morley turning the tables, where they could, their old oppressors. Forthwith their traditional advocates shifted over to the other side. Sometimes the Peace Treaties gave them a e. substantial provocation for shift, g. the disregard of the prin of ciple self-determination in the prohibition of the Anschluss VERSAILLES: RETROSPECT i8i and in the decisions regarding the Tyrol, the Grosse Schutt, etc.4 was In other cases their reaction automatic; they failed to recog two nize that there could be rights, and thus (for example) could see no excuse a for transferring belt of Transylvanian Magyars to a Rumania rather than leave belt of Rumanians under Budapest, or a for including in Czechoslovakia couple of million Germans living compactly just inside the Bohemian mountain ring in a order that the Czechs and Slovaks might have viable state.5 In sum, the liberals whom many Peace Conference workers had relied to new upon acclaim the map deserted their traditional prot?g?s not because they had foreseen what Waldeck-Rousseau knew when he wrote, "Avant de devenir sage, il faut avoir ?t? longtemps saw out to libre." They only that those prot?g?s had turned be far from perfect; and this, with the fact that the umpires could not award perfect decisions, made them back away in disgust. As a matter of fact the have found much to intelligentsia might ? admire in "the New World." Three autocratic great? dynasties Hapsburgs, Hohenzollerns, Romanoffs had been swept away, and the Sultanate with them. Only here and there did feudalism save of its A standard had any vestige prerogatives.? hopeful simultaneously been raised the Covenant of the League of to Nations. States rallied it with varying degrees of enthusiasm; but almost all felt it incumbent upon them to subscribe to its a mark in to provisions, making it highwater the long effort sub for man stitute negotiation decisions by force. Adoption of the was "date principle little short of revolutionary, and might well as have been taken by liberals the world's recognition of the jus on tice of their persistent and telling attacks imperialism. The mandate was not and has not worked system applied perfectly, a perfectly; but it offers way for mandated peoples eventually to loose from without to get European suzerainty resorting war, means and it provides graceful for the European Powers to were let them go without losing face. There other important by not to to products of the war, be credited the peace treaties, 4 Prohibition of the Anschluss was a concession to French and Italian fears that if Austria in new states not to desperation joined Germany the of Central Europe would have time develop firm roots before German pressure became too strong for them. Few believe that the pro or hibition will should stand indefinitely. Probably it would already have lapsed had Germany on and France reached accord other points. On the other hand, recent developments in Germany have considerably weakened Austrian enthusiasm for union. 8 race The extreme desire of the German not to lose control of Bohemia, like the willingness ot to create the Allies the Czechoslovak state, probably grew in part from the feeling expressed by master master Bismarck: "The of Bohemia is the of Europe." l82 FOREIGN AFFAIRS

at rate not ? a perhaps, but any prejudiced by them great sweep forward of agrarian reform, for instance, which realized in large own part the desire of European peasants to the soil they till. more were Above all towered the fact that people free than ever to own before decide their destinies. It has already been pointed out that in detail the "frontiers of freedom" were open to criti cases cism and that in several important the principle of self determination had been thrown overboard. The consequences of were to these lapses supposed be mitigated by the operation of the more con minorities treaties (of which later). Particular points of tention aside, the broad fact remains unchallenged that today more on vastly people the continent of Europe live under their own war. national r?gimes than did before the for the area that was In Consider, example, Austria-Hungary. over more 1914 Vienna and Budapest ruled than twenty-eight races e. millions of subject (/. Czechs, Slovaks, Jugoslavs, Ru manians, Poles, Ruthenians and Italians). Today in that same area the ethnic minorities under alien rule are estimated at some For our we thing under fourteen millions.6 present purpose might subtract from that total the minorities which are still under the same alien rule or which have one ruler ? merely changed foreign for another the non-Germans and now in Austria non-Magyars and Hungary, for example, and the Germans inHungary and the are no worse Magyars in Austria, all of whom in general off than were they in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy; the Jugoslavs to who passed from Austria-Hungary Italy; the Ruthenians who went to Czechoslovakia, Poland and Rumania; and so on. If we we a deduct all these (a total of nearly six million) obtain figure we of about eight million for what might call "new minorities." were as In other words, there twice many persons under alien as are rule in the old Austro-Hungarian Empire there today in the same area; and of the present number nearly half find them selves at least as well off as they were before. Elsewhere on the continent many other minorities have been out some new ones wiped and have been created. The French to speaking inhabitants of Alsace-Lorraine have returned France, and with them have gone the German-speaking inhabitants of that province. The Danish minority in Germany has shrunk to to insignificance following the transfer of Northern Schleswig 8 The figures are hard to determine accurately, but the total given is not far wrong. Jews are or not counted, their numbers being more less constant. VERSAILLES: RETROSPECT 183

Denmark. The great mass of some nineteen million Poles are now a united in the Polish state, together with large block of other a Slavs and about million Germans. That classic example of racial confusion, Macedonia, has been divided up anew, with the Jugo slavs this time getting the lion's share; the Turk is definitely gone. Bessarabia the Peace Conference held to be predominantly Rumanian, both ethnically and historically, and its partly spon taneous and partly engineered transfer from Russia incorporated a state. In ex large group of Slavs in the Rumanian Greece, the change of populations has left only small minorities under Athens, turn and in the number of Greeks under foreign rule has become states are comparatively insignificant. In the Baltic there small German, Russian and Polish minorities, but these do not compare in numbers to the liberated Latvian, Esthonian, Lithuanian and more seven Finnish nations, comprising than million persons. never a so All in all, be it repeated, there has been time when were under their own national many Europeans governments. That some sections of them do not like those governments is not the fault of the Peace Conference, which did not, for example, or invent Italian fascism Croat separatism. are Nor minorities today without redress for wrongs, material or sentimental, as minorities were before the war. There are two as to theories how minorities should be treated. One is that they should be given protection and encouragement in preserving their to separate culture. This theory led the Peace Conference impose a on or series of minorities treaties the states recently established were enlarged; and Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey to forced accept similar obligations regarding minorities left within their frontiers. Those who hold the second theory consider themselves more realistic. In their view, the Peace Conference did was to races the best that humanly possible disentangle the of see Europe; that attempt having been made, they nothing to be gained by perpetuating the separatist tendencies of ethnic units whose cases defied solution in 1919. They claim that to force the exchange of irreconcilable populations (e. g. between Greece and not to Turkey) is different in principle from allowing nations throw remaining minority elements into the melting pot; both processes, one or two they argue, work hardship during generations, for the sake of future homogeneity and peace. In other words, they take to the advice of Machiavelli the Prince, that injuries which have to be inflicted should be inflicted quickly, once for all. The Con 184 FOREIGN AFFAIRS ference this of rejected point view, adopting instead the principle to that minorities will continue exist indefinitely and are entitled to treatment and full to use own equal freedom their language and own was practice their religion. To the League given the task of that the minorities were out. seeing agreements carried have been Complaints heard that the League has dodged its over responsibility of watching the minorities, and that its ma nor chinery is inadequate; has it escaped comment that the Great Powers did not themselves accord minorities the guarantees which they exacted from the smaller nations. But on the whole, given the necessity of avoiding the creation of states within of won states, the experiment international regulation has praise not from those who did expect mankind to be regenerated at one stroke; recently, too, it has been recognized that disturbances of the sort to some customarily attributed mistreatment of minori are ties often simply the result of general civil discontent, deplor able certainly but not to be blamed on the authors of the peace treaties. At avenues of and are now any rate, appeal pressure open to most cases of the European minorities in where they feel that are a un their rights being seriously infringed. As result it seems there could likely that long pass unrebuked such glaring dis criminations in educational, property or franchise matters as existed before the war in some of the very countries which now most are feel outraged by what they claim derogations to their one national sovereignty. No would pretend that the lot of Europe's subject populations is perfect today (though in several countries there are of real one signs reconciliation); nevertheless is justified in emphasizing the fact that although the war is still are on fresh in men's minds minorities being treated better the were whole than pre-war minorities, and have means of redress at home and abroad which were unknown in 1914. one ? ? At important point the Polish Corridor criticism of not on the Versailles Treaty is based any glaring violation of the on principle of self-determination, but the allegation that ethnic were and historical considerations emphasized in violation of "common sense." The Poles were not in of ter possession the now as ritory known the Corridor when the Peace Conference to to began its labors; the decision award it Poland, concurred in some most at was by of the competent experts Paris, made only after long study. The ethnic and historical arguments in favor are of the decision quite respectable. The Germans, however, VERSAILLES: RETROSPECT 185 was ask why the same argument which used to round out the was territory of Czechoslovakia not invoked to preserve the German state from division and mutilation. In reply the Poles over commerce argue that half of Poland's foreign passes through sea the corridor, and that Poland separated from the would be the economic hostage of Germany. Further, in support of the view that she would also be Germany's political hostage they cite the famous statement of Frederick the Great that, "Whoever holds course more master the of the Vistula and Danzig is fully the of over an that country (Poland) than the king who reigns it"; to opinion, by the way, which Winston Churchill's story of the on campaign the Eastern Front lends considerable support. Now it is hard to prove conclusively either that German com merce are and administration seriously injured by the existence or commerce of the Corridor, that if Polish were merely to have use as a the of Danzig free port, with internationalized transit facilities, Poland would be the economic slave of Germany. The seems one question therefore to boil down to of security (suppos Frederick the Great and Winston Churchill to be and ing ? right) sentiment the natural sentiment of Poles for lands which they to believe be inhabited predominantly by their countrymen and access to giving the sea, the violent feeling of Germans against seems to an what them arbitrary break in the territorial continu sense ity of the Reich. How give both the necessary of security, now and how assuage the sentimental injury under which Germany smarts a on without inflicting comparable injury Poland? Above a new all, how do these things without risk of war? course Poland's present possession of "the of the Vistula" and seem to a her domination of Danzig put her in preferred position as But when she into the future she must regards security. gazes a nut a sometimes feel like caught in the jaws of mighty German and Russian nutcracker, and she then must wish that she might come to terms with one or the other. To come to permanently terms with Soviet Russia now seems out of the question. But how to come to is she terms with Germany while the present German over a rage the Corridor remains? Certainly way out cannot be found by "open diplomacy" ?by appeals to Poland to buy off or Germany for the good of Europe by threats of what will happen to so. to her if she doesn't do It is fair enough remind Poland that con her credit will not be very good (even when normal financial return to so as war over ditions the world) long the possibility of i86 FOREIGN AFFAIRS

the Corridor clouds the horizon. But reminders of this sort will have effect only if at the same moment Poland is shown some to way increase her real security and simultaneously satisfy the sentimental requirements of her people. It would be scandalous to offer Poland another state's property to to or to in order persuade her give the Corridor, part of it, were to Germany. But many would applaud if she able negotiate a an arrangement with third party which would set her free to appreciate the advantages of German friendship and trade and remove constant the present threat that Germany will take the moment to first likely attack her. The suggestion has been made a accom that federal union between Poland and Lithuania might plish the desired result. It would have sound historic precedent two were more (the peoples joined for than four centuries, until to 1795),7 it would be of great economic advantage Lithuania, it is of a sentimental and it capable being given strong? appeal, would afford Poland access to the sea a surer one in case of war with Germany, incidentally, than that through the Corridor, one not so sure case though in of hostilities with Russia. The a combined state, add advocates of the plan, would be factor of the first rank in European policy, and would be in far better or to position than is either Poland Lithuania today fill the difficult r?le of buffer between the Teutonic and Russian worlds. Other observers, however, think it hardly worth while to urge as a the federation of Poland and Lithuania part of negotiation to bring about the cession of the Corridor to Germany in view of the Polish belief, fed daily by the ferocious talk of the Junker landlords of Ostelbien, that the Corridor would be merely a first morsel to whet German appetites, and that the quarrel would a new ? forthwith be transferred to terrain to Upper Silesia and as next toward the ultimate Poznania, probably, steps repar race titioning of the whole Polish among its old masters. Whether or not that conviction is correct, it exists. Any realistic program must take account of it, and of the fact that Poland is today in must full and legal possession of the Corridor. In other words, it as to recognize that part of any compromise Poland would have was a not a be satisfied that she making final settlement, merely first payment; and further, that the Polish population of any area to to returned Germany would have be provided with inter national guarantees of protection. Only so would there be a 7 For details see "Lithuania and Poland," by Robert H. Lord, Foreign Affairs, Vol. I, No. 4. VERSAILLES: RETROSPECT 187

with possibility of Poland's entering into direct negotiations Germany. And no settlement except by direct negotiation should or be considered urged by anyone who desires European peace. There remains to note one further in favor of ? general argument not the peace settlement of 1919-20 it is the settlement threat were ened by the Central Powers in the days when they tasting In German victory and planning world hegemony. the west, the was to and the Franco intention retain Alsace-Lorraine "rectify" to secure economic and German frontier strategic advantages. a German Belgium would be quasi-independent, possibly ruled by for an auton princeling. How far the plan of Bethmann-Hollweg omous Polish state within the German Reich would have carried is doubtful; the history of German effort in the Eastern Marches we seen a to is such that should probably have reversion the what Germanization policy of Bismarck and B?low. Regarding were should be done in the Balkans there two opinions. Tisza on alone stood out against the annexation of Slavic districts, not the theory that this would aggravate settle the Hapsburg were all nationalities problem. Against him lined up almost his who wished to Serbia the Kara colleagues, punish by eliminating ? georgevitch dynasty and swallowing up their territories a to though perhaps leaving fraction attached Montenegro under one so of King Nicholas's Austrophile sons, that there might be some balance to future Bulgarian pretensions. The fate of Ru mania was to be a land-locked state, shackled to Austria-Hun most gary. Bulgaria, having annexed of Serbia, Greek Macedonia including Saloniki, and the Black Sea coast of Rumania, would an new be important element in the Mittel-Europa dividing the continent north and south and opening the way to the conquest of Asia. Such?claims for sanctions and colonies aside ? reparations, was to be the Pax Germ?nica. Of course Germany and her partners had no unredeemed brethren to think about. What Germany wanted was to be left free to continue denationalizing her Poles and other Slavic citizens, the Danes of Schleswig, and the French inhabitants of Alsace-Lorraine. Even if we refrain too a tone we are not from taking moralizing precluded from not gratitude that the German Monarchy's peace schemes did materialize. And those who feel most violently about injustices under the present arrangement may perhaps temper their anger sort to by thinking about the of language they would have had use to won. express their feelings adequately if the other side had i88 FOREIGN AFFAIRS

sum i. settlements are To up. The Paris territorial imper a fect: in few important particulars and in many compara ones the tively unimportant they show signs of capitulation to or 2. of ethnic strategic, economic historical considerations. On the other hand, many of the alleged "atrocities" of the more treaties are evidence of nothing than the notorious fact races that the hodge-podge of inmany regions makes any frontier to to unfair somebody. 3. The Allies, joining idealism expediency, in to and for encouraged subject peoples enemy lands plan fight new freedom. What part the Allies had in creating the states Peace Conference was mainly during the war; by the time the assembled, the new states were settled firmly in their saddles. 4. In the of is a marked as general post-war map Europe advance, racial over the Those who regards homogeneity, pre-war map. 5. race or today find themselves outside their frontiers of language a new and a possess legal basis for appealing for equal treatment, new to 6. forum for publishing their wrongs the world. The settle ment ismore in line with liberal ideals than would have been the settlement dictated by victorious Hohenzollerns and Hapsburgs. is It is argued sometimes that the only hope of European peace a in territorial to force through sweeping change the settlement, contentment of the defeated nations restoring the and amiability to masses of the who broke by giving back them great peoples away and secured national freedom and union in 1918. If this were done, it is said, Europe would have peace. History has given us a to was the continued violent lesson the contrary. It subjuga in of the tion and exploitation of these peoples, defiance swelling tide of democratic and national sentiment, which as much as any War. Are we to stake our other single factor produced the Great a new war to a hopes of avoiding possible by returning situation which we know does produce war? The hope of peace in Europe lies in less simplified formulas. no to no to There is magician's wand wave, panacea apply rapidly eco and with the cheerful consent of everybody concerned. The not national resentments and nomic depression has softened fears; more im on the contrary, it has heightened them, and made it ever illu portant than to avoid wild talk and the conjuring up of more sense sions. Much time, and the display of good than the or in America have statesmen of Europe their volunteer advisers at A yet mustered, will be needed before Europe is peace. general acceptance of the present territorial settlement is consistent with VERSAILLES: RETROSPECT 189 a to will adjust and improve it by direct negotiation, little by a little, and in the spirit of Geneva. Such policy of fulfilment and a ma adjustment, with constant strengthening of the League chinery for protecting minorities, is part of what is needed. Along as with the maintenance of frontiers except they may be changed non by direct agreement should go the continued revision of the territorial provisions of the treaties and the gradual elimination a of inequalities between states. Which is way of saying that Eu rope must work in the patient spirit of Stresemann and Briand,not manner in the arbitrary and sweeping advocated by Bethlen, by Hitler and (until recently) by Borah. One of the lessons of the last can even decade is that persistent statesmen gradually deal with the most difficult disputes provided their constituents do not get are the impression that they being coerced into relinquishing parts to of the national patrimony. Another lesson should be that talk to arouse wholesale frontier revision is popular feelings every to to where fever pitch, kindle hopes among the vanquished that are as some impossible of fulfilment except the result of desperate to gamble, and among the victors defer the growth of the spirit of trust and conciliation. Today London and Paris hold the keys to the outer door of the stronghold where European peace hangs between life and death. The keys work only in combination; but progress has been made recently toward agreement on that combination. Inside is even more to another door, resistant and forbidding. The keys this are inner door held by Paris and Berlin. We must not let ourselves to use adopt the despairing view that the way these keys jointly never to will be found; bewildering obstacles Franco-German collaboration have before this yielded to the realization that self on own interest often lies in accepting limitations one's rights are where they in conflict with the rights of others. To cut short the search for the combination and to try to blast a way in would be the folly of despair, for after the explosion nothing worth think so a ing about would remain. Instead of encouraging suicidal course we our or re must hold breath, giving counsel quietly must or fraining entirely; and instead of telling Europe what she must not do we should prepare to make in our turn whatever men on sacrifices duty and self-interest impose, the while the to to whom destiny has placed the direct responsibility try agree use their golden keys.