Observations on the Peace
I
To one who has looked outward from Paris upon the ex-Central Powers and who has looked inward toward Paris from the ex-Central Powers, two facts stand out in prominence. The war closed by armistice and not by surrender. Middle Europe, from the Baltic to the Black and Adriatic seas, is a pandemonium of nationalism.
To appreciate the meaning of the fact that the war ended by armistice and not by surrender, one must have visited Germany. The entire psychology of the German people would have been different with surrender instead of armistice; the history of their next generation would have been written against a totally different background. Granting an armistice was a military mistake — it was a political error. For weeks prior to October first the operations of each day were defeats for the German arms. The plea for an armistice was made for the purpose of avoiding a débâcle. There is no doubt that, had that plea been denied, the Germans would have surrendered unconditionally within a few weeks after the date of the armistice. Once the armistice had been applied for, this fact was accepted by the German soldier as an acknowledgment of military inferiority by his High Command. With this inferiority realized, nothing could have stayed the rapid development of revolution within the German army, and unconditional surrender would have been the early result.
The military leaders of the forces of the Allied and Associated governments knew this, of course; and if Foch did not actually burst into tears when the armistice was granted, as is so commonly stated in Paris, he might well have done so. It was of course evident to the statesmen of the Allied and Associated governments that an armistice might prove to be a political error. That an armistice was nevertheless granted, and granted, we may be sure, despite the ultimate best judgment of the military and political leaders, is to be explained as the result of the reflex reaction of the French and British peoples. Over four years of most intense warfare, involving immeasurable destruction of property, loss of life, and suffering, had produced a profound degree of exhaustion. Knowing that the Allied and Associated governments could dictate the terms of the armistice, the peoples on the home fronts in France and Great Britain could see no reason why the armistice should not be made tantamount to surrender. If the application were rejected, there was the frightful prospect of another winter at war, since no one could guarantee that the Germans would surrender. The collapse of the Germans had been predicted so often, especially in Great Britain, that the common man was skeptical. If an armistice could be secured in the autumn on the basis of terms dictated by the Allied and Associated governments, why fight, through another winter ?
This was the psychological reaction in France and Great Britain, and it determined the granting of the German request for an armistice. Had the governments of Great Britain and France possessed a high degree of influence over the convictions of their masses, one may be sure that the armistice would not have been granted.
For the Germans peace after armistice meant a peace of negotiation and not a peace of surrender. It was immaterial whether the Germans were permitted to negotiate or not. The terms of peace might be identical with those imposed after surrender; but it remained, nevertheless, a peace of negotiation. Germany’s deathbed recognition of the ‘fourteen points’ of Mr. Wilson was in itself a negotiation. In the very nature of the subject-matter, a Hegel or a Clausewitz (and most Germans think like one or ihe other) could interpret and dispute them ad infinitum. A wise pope once said that he cared not who conducted the arguments, so long as he framed the definitions. In like manner, no mailer how the Peace Conference has laid down the conditions of peace for Germany, the result has been, from the beginning, and in its effects will always be, a peace by negotiation.
This fact colors every sentiment and movement in Germany. The Pangermanist does not regard his ambition as defeated: it is merely held in abeyance. The Royalist does not accept the peace as binding upon his party. The Majority Socialists blame their leaders for not having secured a better peace. The Militarists picture Germany as having extricated herself from a débâcle. The Intellectuals revel in the thought that Germany outmanœuvred her antagonists. Only the Independent Socialists and Bolsheviki regard the armistice as equivalent to surrender.
Of course there were enlightened individuals, like Eisner, Forster, Harden, and others, who recognized the truth of the situation; but they had little political influence. For the mass of the people it was a treaty of negotiation, which has turned out badly for them because their leaders were incompetent and because the Allied and Associated governments employed the moment of armistice as an occasion for force. The average German knew no argument but force. Force would have been expected and accepted after surrender; but negotiation and not force was expected after armistice. It is, therefore, for them a treaty of force and injustice. Even the fulfillment of the conditions of reparation, agreed to by Erzberger, are regarded by the Germans as forced when written into the peace treaty. The average German is being taught to feel himself outraged and humiliated; and this is the impressionistic background upon which the future history of Germany will be painted. Had the war been permitted to continue until the surrender of Germany, she would have accepted as natural and proper conditions far more severe than those contained in the present treaty of peace.
II
By a pandemonium of nationalism, I mean such excess of the impulse of national existence as to lead the numerous states of Central Europe to disregard economic and industrial conditions vital to their future. When the Hapsburg monarchy broke into fragments out of which arose, in conjunction with other acquired or preëxisting territory, Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Roumania, and Greater Serbia, the political leaders in these countries, following the example of Lloyd George and Clemenceau, promised their peoples far more than could be secured for them. It was apparently assumed that economic conditions would remain the same with the new boundaries as with the old. When it became clear that this was not to be the fact, each state attempted to protect itself at the expense of the others, the result being a complete disorganization of transportation, pitiful scarcity of coal, cruel starvation, industrial chaos, and ruinous depreciation of currency. Thinking men realize that the new boundaries cannot be eaten, burned, worn, or used as tools.
The definition of boundaries along ethnographic lines is by far the easiest part of the problem in Middle Europe. Considering the area as a unit, one third of the tangible national wealth was destroyed in war. The currencies have fallen to a plane incompatible with industrial existence. A correct definition of the equities of each state with respect to the others has not proved possible. With the transfer of Upper Silesia to Poland, Czecho-Slovakia and Poland control the industrial coal of Central Europe. The coal output is much below the normal. It lies within the power of these two states to ruin the industries of Austria, Hungary, and the S.H.S. These states possess but minimal deposits of coal of poor grade, and unless they are supplied from the north or can utilize the oil of Roumania, industrial ruin is inevitable. There is no prospect of overseas coal coming to their relief.
And Germany, when she shall have fulfilled the conditions of the treaty, will have no coal to export to Central Europe. Czecho-Slovakia and Poland naturally wish to develop their industries. Coal is ‘black money,’just as sugar is ‘white money.’ But if they allow their own industries to monopolize their coal, this will result in anarchy and Bolshevism among twenty or thirty million people to the southward. It will do Czecho-Slovakia and Poland no good to develop their industries if their neighbors flounder in anarchy. Thus, on the very threshold of their existence, these young and scarcely solvent states have to face a frightful choice between their own industries and their neighbors’ destruction. In such a situation the possession of a boundary means little.
Six months of armistice has injured Central Europe as much as the last year of war. Through the developments of the past six months, however, the conflicts between ethnology on the one hand and economics, industry, and t ransportation on the other hand, have become painfully clear. In this area are now constituted, or in process of constitution, ten nations with a combined population of less than a hundred million. These states have to resist exploitation from the west and disintegration from the east. By an ethnographic boundary we mean the edge of migration of a people. Once made, a boundary is almost irreversible. Sometimes these migrations follow an industrial impulse, as in the case of Upper Silesia. But, very frequently they proceed as a mere reaction of adaptation to surface conditions, as related to watershed, timber, and plain. The ethnographic boundaries of this type were determined to a large extent prior to the transformation of modern society by railways and the development of intensive industrialism by coal. When, at a critical moment, owing to tremendous loss of food, coal, and transport, it was clear that the status quo ante bellum could not be regained, to invoke nationalism as a refuge in the storm tended to intensify the struggle rather than to ameliorate it.
In this sense it is regrettably true that the principle of free determination of small peoples, enunciated by Mr. Wilson, has been used to excess in Central Europe. In order to visualize the situation by a comparison, let anyone, after reviewing the relations between Ireland and England, contemplate what would happen in England if Wales should suddenly decide to exercise the right of free determination of a small nation.
The conditions in Central Europe have a large bearing upon developments in Germany, because if she still retains the concept of Mittel-Europa, it would lie within her power first to undermine and then to exploit these feeble nations.
Now that peace between the Allied and Associated nations and Germany has been ratified, what verdict is to be placed upon it? The verdict of the present may be different from that of the future. The peace must provide security for France and Belgium. The German Armistice Commission and the German Commission to Negotiate Peace recognized the obligation on Germany’s part to make large financial reparation to France, Belgium, and the United Kingdom for acts committed confessedly in contravention of the rules of war. The treaty of peace must bring about the extermination of militarism in Germany. The treaty of peace must effect, the establishment of a league of nations.
Does the treaty accomplish — or promise to accomplish — these ends? Widespread fear is felt in France that, security against future German aggression is not made certain under the treaty. France is so insistent upon the reduction of German military capacity that her efforts have at times the appearance of aiming at the economic ruin of Germany. It is difficult for those who have not surveyed the devastated areas of France, who cannot, count her dead or appreciate her suffering, to realize how intense is the French prayer for security against future German aggression. This passes in Germany for French imperialism, and the utterances of certain French politicians have given color to this imputation. But the heart of France is not imperialistic. The desire of France is for security, justice, and reparation, not for revenge or destruction.
III
Is the treaty too severe? Is it workable, practicable, expedient? These are the questions discussed every day in every capital in Europe. It is conceded by victor and vanquished alike that it will not lie within the economic power of Germany to make full reparation. The Germans have suggested a figure of $25,000,000,000. It will be the function of commissions provided for in the treaty to enforce the payment of damages by way of reparation. In view of the responsibility of Germany for the causation of the war, in measurement of the death and devastation entailed, and in consideration of the methods of warfare, it cannot be said that the treaty is too severe. Whether it is workable, is a question of technique in economics. Whether it is expedient, is a question of developments in politics. Certainly, in view of the enormous difficulties, the excellencies of the treaty, as compared with what might have been, constitute a monument to the idealism and sagacity of President Wilson. Whether the treaty works out in practice will depend to a large extent upon the quality of brains assigned to the execution of the economic and financial clauses. If the operations of the treaty, on both sides, are to be under the supervision of typical politicians, national and international, the chances of success will not be bright.
The industrial future of Germany is involved in her ability to carry out the terms of the treaty relating to coal. The highest production of coal yet attained in Germany was about 285,000,000 tons per annum. Of this approximately 100,000,000 tons were brown coal, 185,000,000 tons represented black coal adapted to industrial uses. Before the war Germany produced 70,000,000 tons of brown coal and 180,000,000 of black; she exported some 18,000,000 tons of black coal and imported some 10,000,000. She used, therefore, about 170,000,000 tons of black coal per year.
The treaty turns over to France for a period of fifteen years the Saar basin, with an output of 17,000,000 tons, which, together with the 3,000,000 of Alsace-Lorraine, represents a subtraction of 20,000,000 tons of black coal. A portion of the Upper Silesian basin is to be turned over to a commission, the final disposition to be settled later by plebiscite. This district produced 40,000,000 tons of black coal per annum. Thus there would remain to Germany, at the old rate of production, 120,000,000 tons of black coal and 100,000,000 tons of brown. In addition to the withdrawal of the Saar basin and Upper Silesia, Germany has pledged herself to deliver, during the next ten years, 80,000,000 tons to Belgium, 70,000,000 to France and 77,000,000 to Italy, equal to 22,700,000 tons per annum. In addition she has pledged herself to make good the decreased output of the mines in Northern France, up to a maximum amount of 140,000,000 tons, in ten years.
The sum total of t hese commitments would therefore amount to 36,700,000 tons per annum on an average; or, to be exact, during the first five years 42,700,000 tons, and during the second five years 30,700,000 tons per annum. If Germany were compelled to deliver this entire sum in black coal, on the basis of pre-war production, she would have remaining for her industries during each of the next five years as little as 80,000,000 tons, as compared with 170,000,000 tons consumed in her industries in 1913. If the Allies were to accept half of the deliveries in black and half in brown coal, Germany would be left with not over 60 per cent of her pre-war black coal. Naturally, she will cease to be a commercial exporter of coal. Whether she will continue, as before the war, to import practically 10,000,000 tons from the United Kingdom remains to be seen. Poland would, in accordance with the treaty, export to Germany 20,000,000 tons from the Upper Silesian basin.
The figures of pre-war coal-production do not represent the maximum output of her mines, despite the fact that these do not lend themselves well to machine operations. The highest outputs of black and brown coal in a certain number of years were respectively 205,000,000 and 110,000,000 — a total of 315,000,000 tons. Subtracting 60,000,000 tons as representing the output of Upper Silesia, the Saar, and Alsace-Lorraine, and 35,000,000 tons more as representing the maximum commitments under the treaty, would leave 220,000,000 tons for consumption within Germany. This production can be expanded, particularly in brown coal; and the use of the latter variety in replacement of black coal may be easily enlarged.
The difference between 220,000,000 tons and the amount consumed before the war in the territory that now constitutes Germany is not a large figure. The gap that must be bridged by increased production is in no wise to be termed insuperable. There seems little doubt that, if the Germans work as they worked before the war, they can increase their coal-production to the point necessary to attain such industrial output as will be required to meet the contractual obligations for reparations. With the shorter work-day Germany would be compelled to increase largely the number of miners, of whom before the war many were non-Germans. It is a problem of the human factor. If the Germans will work under the new régime as they worked under the old, if they will work in peace as they worked in war, the treaty will prove to be workable in the economic and industrial senses. Success will be difficult, but it can be achieved. Life will be hard in Germany during the next decade; but life will be hard in France as well. Industrially, there is not much to choose between existing conditions in the uninvaded portions of France and in Germany.
Before the war Germany had a high peak of over-production. The physical element was coal. The human elements were organization and technical skill in the management, thrift and diligence in the workmen. This peak must be again attained if she is to pay large indemnities; if it is not attained, she cannot support her own population. This is the crux of the situation. In order to pay large indemnities, Germany must again become industrially strong. But will she then again become militaristic? Naturally, the French fear the future. Great Britain faced a similar dilemma. Replacement of ton for ton was once the British demand. But. when the British realized that Germany, were she to replace the sunken tonnage, would possess the largest and most efficient, shipbuilding plants in the world, replacement of ton for ton was abandoned. Of raw materials, Germany has only two to offer — coal and potash; and with these no large indemnity can be paid. The indemnities must be paid with commodities delivered to the Entente or sold to the outside world, the profits being devoted to reparation. The larger the task, and the harder Germany has to work in order to accomplish it, the stronger will she be when the task is completed. Any task that she can perform must have this result; any task she cannot perform would ruin her and yield no reparation.
IV
Whether the Germans will choose to carry out the terms of the treaty in spirit and letter will depend finally upon the internal evolution of Germany. Germany requires a moral regeneration. She has sought to attain it through revolution. If the present generation, and more particularly the oncoming generation, discards militarism, rejects the theory that might makes right, casts off Pangermanic imperialism and accepts the League of Nations in spirit, it lies within their power to carry out the terms of the treaty of peace. If she does none of these things, the terms of the treaty will not be carried out, and the nation will devote itself to internal reconstruction for the purpose of future war.
It is this factor of the internal evolution of Germany that makes many of the clauses of the peace treaty of secondary importance. One so often hears the statement that the loss of the Saar basin and the Upper Silesian fields, the return of Posen to Poland, the arrangement regarding Dantzig and the Vistula, and the loss of her colonies, will provoke another war. The writer is convinced that, if the internal evolution of Germany is accomplished in the positive direction, these things will not lead her toward war.
If, on the other hand, the internal evolution is not accomplished, then Germany would again prepare for war, even if the status quo ante bellum were restored. The future revolves about the moral regeneration, the internal evolution, and the development of pacifism in the people of Germany. This indicates at once the responsibility of the Social Democrat, the Centrist, the Intellectual, and the Junker; and there is no question that the Social Democrat is the most worthy of trust in this direction.
While the future of Europe is in the direct sense dependent upon Germany, the internal evolution of Germany may be profoundly modified by three circumstances.
The first is the League of Nations. If the League of Nations, which in the beginning must operate like a league against Germany, is so conducted as to bring Germany quickly within the fold, and so organized as to arouse and sustain in all the nations of Europe the spirit of idealism, this cannot fail to influence the development of public sentiment in Germany in the direction of international morality.
On the other hand, it is incumbent upon the nations which were opposed to Germany in the late war to encourage those elements in Germany whose influence is directed toward amity. The League of Nations is no place for chauvinists. In the League of Nations lies the hope of the successful execution of the treaty of peace.
The second external factor that may be expected to influence the internal evolution of Germany is International Socialism. The much-vaunted ‘Internationale’ became the much-despised ‘Internationale,’ owing to its utter failure at the beginning of the war to exert influence upon any government. The meeting of the International in Berne last winter was not a particularly edifying exhibition. But the appearance as one of the signers of peace for Germany of Hermann Müller, who visited France in July, 1914, to assure the French Socialists that the German Socialists would not vote war-credits, was indeed a tragic incident in the history of the International.
Nevertheless, International Socialism promises to be stronger than ever before. The Continental nations engaged in the recent war expended a third of their tangible national wealth in the enterprise. Labor is determined not to pay this bill; and this motive, common to Socialists in all countries, will furnish a new basis for Internationalism. This would not be important had the Central Powers retained their old form of government; but under present circumstances, International Socialism promises to exert upon Germany a strong influence in the direction of peace. Socialists everywhere in Europe must teach labor the necessity of forced production as the sole method of economic regeneration.
Europe has become a debtor continent. With the exception of the five small neutral nations contiguous to Germany, every nation in Europe is deeply in debt, and either is approaching or has attained bankruptcy according to pre-war definition. There has been enormous loss of man-power, and the working spirit of the men who remain is greatly reduced. There is demoralization in transportation, reduction in the output of coal, depreciation of currency, and palsy of industry.
Europe cannot be restored until a fair measure of productivity in agriculture and industry is regained. Europe requires of the world food, raw materials, and credit. For most of them she must look to the Western Hemisphere. When the hot blood of nationalism has been cooled in the chill atmosphere of the struggle for economic restitution, the erstwhile enemies will discover that their problems are very much alike; and this will draw them to one another in sheer self-defense, because they struggle under the same conditions of misfortune, and must aid one another. The debtor nations of Europe will almost unconsciously combine against the creditor nations of the world. In the struggle for the economic restitution of Europe, Germany and France will not be competitors, but must cooperate. Nationalism cannot save the impoverished nations from the results of the war; internationalism alone can do that. This fact must not fail to receive adequate appreciation in the United States. With international diplomacy, international economics, and international labor all working in the direction of peace, a positive influence upon the evolution of Germany is certain. But the will to do must proceed from the consciousness of the German people.
In each country in Europe there is a pro-American and an anti-American party. The pro-American parties believe that we entered and fought the war under the impulses of idealism;, the anti-American parties regard our conduct as based upon sordid materialism. In Central Europe we enjoy almost universal appreciation. The nationalists applaud President Wilson, and everybody has been helped by Mr. Hoover’s management of the A.R.A.
The Germans are very bitter against us. The neutral nations blame us for breaking up a profitable war-trade with Germany. Large masses in the Entente countries, influenced by clever politicians, feel that we have not aided them in reconstruction to the full extent of our material ability. The Italians regard us as intruders in the century-old problem of the Adriatic. The French exhibit a warmer appreciation of us than the British, partly as the result of temperament, and partly owing to the fact that there were fewer points of friction in our relations.
The Americans and British are cousins; during the war we acted as brothers; we must not now separate so far as to become second cousins. One must distinguish between saving the war and winning it. It is generally conceded that we saved it, since, had we remained neutral, the Entente nations would have gone bankrupt in men and resources. Current European military opinion seems to be that our work in the war was more in the way of submarine control, blockade, food, resources, and credits, than on the field of battle. The Germans, following Ludendorff, are loudest in the expression of this opinion; but it is widely entertained and openly stated in Entente circles. Bethmann-Hollweg, on the other hand, states that the victory was won for the Entente by President Wilson.
Time will clarify opinion at home and abroad. Europe has suffered so deeply that she is not objective. But this must not be made the occasion for us to crawl into a chauvinistic shell. It is the occasion for wider tolerance and higher idealism.