Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 44, Number 227, 7 July 1919 — Page 8

PAGE EIGHT

THE RICHMOND PALLADIUM AND SUN-TELEGRAM, MONDAY, JULY 7, 1919. '

FRENCH, U.S., ENGLISH FRIENDSHIP NECESSARY TO DEFEAT GERMAN ENDS

BY FRANK H. SIMONDS (Copyright, 1919, by The McClure Newspaper Syndicate) The circumstances immediately surrounding the German decision to Bign the treaty of Versailles, the scuttling of the ships in Scapa Flow, the burning of the French battle flags, above all the comment of the German press and public men, demonstrate clearly in what spirit Germany accepts peace. We are, then, not in the presence of a defeated enemy which bows to the decision of arms, as France bowed to Europe's decrees when Napoleon had lost Waterloo and gone to St. Helena. What we have to deal with for many years to come is a sullen, resentful unrepentent Germany, a Germany awaiting only the chance to reverse the decisions of the recent conflict. It is essential then, at the outset of a new period in world history to lay aside certain illusions fostered during the war and cherished for a time, after Germany had yielded last November. We have not before us a promise of a new age, we have not liquidated the old quarrels, out of which the

present war grew, we have not settled questions like the Balkans; all the old problems remain, while to them we have added innumerable freBh difficulties extending from the Adriatic to Russia and from Dantzlg to Mesopotamia. But now as before the German problem remains the most acute. What are sixty millions of people, hostile, hating their conquerors, confident still of their own superiority in virtue and in race going to do in 'the face of the conditions Imposed upon them by the treaty of Versailles? We know, they have told us so frankly, bluntly that lhey do not accept the conditions, save as the force behind these conditions compels temporary assent. For them, as one of their most influential Journals has already announced, the new treaty is a new "scrap of paper." But in what direction must we look for German effort to nullify this treaty? On the military side it is plain that much time will pass before Germany can organize a new war. Her defeat.

the terni3 of the treaty, the state of her frontiers, with the Rhinelands occupied by Allied armies, make a postponement of new military operations for ten and perhaps for fifteen years likely, unless her enemies 6hall themselves, because of internal disorders, arrive at the same state of unpreparedness. We may say at the outset that a revolution in France might easily be followed by a resurgence of German military strength and a fresh German irruption across the Rhine, but short of this, a new German war is highly improbable for at least a decade. "Next War to Begin." On the other hand Germany will unquestionably begin to prepare for the next war on the very morrow of the signing of the treaty of peace. But her preparations will not be military at the outset. By contrast she will plainly undertake to do three things; to avoid compliance with territorial and finarft-ial conditions of peace alike by external propaganda and passive resistance on her frontiers, to separate her foes by intensive activities in the familiar propaganda lines, by the exploitation of real and possible differ

ences of opinion between the nations which have defeated her, and, finally to build up a new alliance, which shall in due course of time be strong enough to renew the challenge of 1914. To begin at the beginning. Germany will not at once attempt resistance in the west to the terms of peace. Alsace-Lorraine is solidly in French possession as is the Sarre region, French armies are encamped along the Rhine.

furnished with all the material for a campaign. The same is true with respect of the relatively Insignificant territories on the Belgian frontier, which have been allotted to Belgium, and for exactly the same reason. Germany cannot undertake now to reconquer territory. It is quite different in the east. Posen, Germany has already evacuated, and the Poles occupy the province, to reconquer this would be to engage in a new campaign which would bring reprisals along the Rhine at once, but West Prussia, the famous "corridor."

and the city of Dantzig, neutralized under the terms of the Versailles

agreement, are still in .German hands. So is Upper Silesia, where a plebiscite has been ordered in the treaty as amended, so are the East Prussian districts in which the original treaty provided for a popular vote to determine whether the regions should go to Poland or remain Prussian. Therefore, we may expect, and must expect, that the Germans will offer their first resistance to the fulfillment of the provisions of the treaty so far as territorial considerations are Involved, in the east, along the "no man's land" which had been created between the new Poland and the old Prussia. Moreover it 13 essential to recognize that never, save in the presence of force, will Germany except the cession to Poland of any of her territory; it is conceivable, even probable that Germany might in time accept French possession In AlsaceLorraine as permenant, but the Polish situation is quite different. In the German mind, the Poles are an infer

ior people, German frontiers in the

east inviolable, and Polish inability to maintain her independence or her integrity unaided by western powers, unmistakable.

From the outset, then, we may expect German resistance in the east. If the frontiers laid down by the Versailles document are to be established, they can only be established by Allied armies. And will France, Great Eritain, the United States agree to send troops to enable the Poles to

occupy West Prussia and Upped Silesia? At least Germany believes that there is a question and she means to test it. But if the Allies do not enforce this decision, then there is an end of real Polish independence. Hopes Arise In Poland. But in the matter of Poland, Germany has other obvious purposes. She champions the claims of the Lithuanians, the White Russians and the Ruthenians against the Poles, she hopes and justly expects that the clashes between the Poles and their eastern neighbors, with the Czechoslovaks into the bargain, will give her precious allies, and that the protests of these several opponents of the Poles will creat a prejudice against the Poles in Allied capitals.

Behind all else, too, Germany hopes for the day when Russia, achieving new unity, will again join with Germany In an Anti-Polish policy, promising new partitions and a restoration of the old situation on her eastern marches. As to financial consideration, no one can mistake German purpose. She has already found an audience among the elements In allied nations, which in their eagerness for a peace of conciliation, are ready to make any sacrifice to German demands. Her claim that the financial burdens imposed upon her are unjust, will be urged with ney eloquence In the succeeding months and years, in America and In England, Germany hopes to obtain support for the reduction of these financial obligations. This hope is the more strongly held because the United States is not at all interested directly In German payments, Great Britain only slightly; it is France, together with Belgium, which must have German reparations to remain solvent. But will the Allies of France support her claims, even to the extent of new military operations, without benefit, and bound to Impose new expenses upon themroives? Germany means to try it out. But without these financial reparations France is well nigh ruined and if the United States and Great Britain do not support France, then there is

?.n immediate Dreacn in me amance, which only while it is an alliance can maintain the document of Versailles in full force. If France does not obtain reparation, if she is not indemnified for the wanton destruction of her industrial districts, nothing seems more certain than that the suffering which will follow in France will lead to national bankruptcy and not Improbably revolution. But this would mean the removal of the single force which can compel German compliance. It would leave France defenseless before a new German attack and it would enable Germany, in the end, not merely to reoccupy her old territories, but to win the war itself, to deal with France, as Bernhardi advised, s that France would never be able to cross her pathway again. All this is possible for Germany, if only she can create in the United States and in Great Britain a sentiment against the French, and such a sentiment has been, at least started, already. She hopes, quite justly, to be able to mobilize the so-called liberals, who have already protested against the peace terms, to create a sentiment in favor of a modification of the financial terms in these countries an dthen to profit directly by the saving in money and indirectly by the ruin of France. Determined to Split Allies

But it is not merely to separate

I France from her two Anglo-Saxon as

I sociates that Germany plans, she is

ouite as determined to separate the

United States not merely from France but from Britain. Already it is not difficult to perceive in this country a considerable and growing anti-British

campaign. Much of this is accidental

more of it due to the eternal Irish wrangle, but all of it so much grist to the German mill, if the United States

can be persuaded to separata herself

now from the closest and most con cerned interest in her recent asso

elates In the rebuilding of France, in the restoration of British credit, if a

real break between Britain and America can be fostered, half the German battle will be won, half of what was lost in the war recovered. The truth, and Europe perceives it clearly and in America there Is, as yet

little perception of it. is that for Franc and in only a little less degree for Britain, American cooperation is a matter of life and death for the next ten or twenty years. With our aid both countries can presently regain health and prosperity and repay us ten fold for any aid we may give. But if we retire from Europe now, if wo let accident and design combine to create hostilities, the result for France will be tragic, and for Britain serious, while for Germany the gain will be almost Immeasurable. Lastly Germany will seek at once to build a new alliance and for such an alliance the materials are, unhappily close at hand. Of her old allies, the Austrlans, the Hungarians and the Bulgarians, are all equally dissatisfied with the decisions of ersallles which have compelled them to give up subject races and territory held only by force. Already the AuBtrians have Indicated a desire to join the German state, there Ib no other real future for the Hungarians, and the Bulgars now, at the end of a third war for Balkan hegemony, find themselves even smaller and less powerful than before, the smallest of Balkan states. It is plain

that all three of these people would readily turn back to Berlin, if only Berlin or Weimar could hold out any promise of aid. Even more serious at the moment is the Italian situation. Italy came to

the Paris conference with a program which included the possession of the

Southern Slav lands at the head of

the Adriatic, Greek territories in Epl-

ius and the Aegean Island, the Turk

ish regions about Smyrna, Albania,

much of Asia Minor and a claim for new expansions in Africa. For most of these claims she has found oppo

sition among the great powers; she

has, in addition, found a lack of sym

pathy which has hurt her deeply.

One must recognize that pride is a

vital circumstance in the Italian calculation. Italy has never yet been treated quite as an equal by the great

powers, she feels that her neutrality saved France in 1914, that her entrance into the war in 1915 6aved Russia and that her agonies of 1917 and her successes in" 1918 entitle her to

rhe same consideration as France.

And in Paris, Italy has not found tne welcome she expected. The result is not to be mistaken when I was in

Paris Italians talked quite openly of

a return to the old German alliance and French and British statesmen

Epoke. of this as one of the certainties, provided only Germany were able to get together herself and thus offer a solid basis for common profit. New Enemy Alliance An alliance between Italy, Austria and Hungary on the one hand with Bulgaria as a fourth participant and Germany on the other, would mean the suppression of the Jugo-Slav claims, which effect all four. Italy would gain Fiume, Austria recover territories allotted to the Slavs at Versailles, Hungary get back much, if not all of Slavonia and Croatia, while

Eulgaria would get Macedonia. Moreover Rumania, with a quarrel on foot ever the Banat, is already reported to have made her bargain with Italy at the expense of her old allies. France and America particularly, the British to a certain degree, have sympathized with the Southern Slavs and with the Greeks in their jusc claims for territories inhabited by people of their races, but claimed by

the Italians. There has been at all times in Paris a marked and growing coldness between the Italians and their associates. Now Italy has had a domestic political crisis and it is plain that in any event she will emerge from the peace conference far less re

warded than she hoped, and unmistakably angry and disappointed. Moreover, the Jugo-Slav question provided a bond of sympathy with each of the races, which were until a few months ago united In a German Mitteleuropa. At the very least, then, Germany has ground for hoping for a new arrangement with Italy. And what of Russia? The allies have recognized Polish claims to Independence, mainly at Russian expense; they have encouraged the Lithuanians, the Esthonians and even the Ukrainians to hope for separation, and they have recognized the independence of Finland. But if a strong Russian government emerges from the chaos of the Lenlne-Trotzky re

gime, will not this government promptly seek to restore the old Russian frontiers, will It not seek, In agreement with the Germans, a new partition of Poland? Above all, if the new government in Russia has any percentage of the old Romanoff Russia in Its composition, will it not be imbued with an undying hatred of the western powers, which openly and secretly negotiated with the Bolshevists and from the Russian

point of view betrayed an ally to domestic revolution and then recognized the independence of component parts of Russia? I can say for my own part that eminent Russians with whom 1 talked in Paris expressed far more bitterness toward Great Britain and France than toward Germany. Japanese Are Hostile. Nor can any American mistake the latent hostility of the Japanese to the Western PowerB, which was hardly hidden at Paris. The Japanese felt

quite justly that Britain, with her Colonies, although still an ally of

Japan, was rapidly marching toward an alignment with the United States

which would mean a common policy in the Pacific, designed in the end to rehabilitate China and curb Japanese ambitions, America's policies in the

Far East, the association of America

Australia and Canada in a common opposition to Japanese colonization, in a common insistence upon the stigma of the "yellow race" as evidenced in the discussion of the emigration

problem in the League of Nations debates, all combined to arouse a J a pa

nese resentment which no one in Par

is misunderstood.

Such then are the materials out of

which Germany will seek to construct a new world alliance to counterbalance the association between

the United States, Great Britain and

France. Concomitant with this straining to erect a new combination of

powers will be the effort to under

mine the solidarity of the existing alliance between the three nations which combined to defeat Germany in the last war. Nor can anyone mistake the fact that Germany has at least a fair chance of success, growing out of the peculiar circumstances that I have narrated. If Germany desires her Polish provinces back, Rus

sia will some day ask for hers and

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seek to regain Finland, the Ukraine, Lithunia, Esthonia, Austria and Hungary continue to bemoan their surrenders to the Jugo-Slavs, Bulgaria still clamors for Macedonia and Italy will never patiently consent to see a strong Slav power grow up along the east coast of the Adriatic. League la Hated. Now in this situation what of the League of Nations? The answer is clear. The League of Nations from the German standpoint Is that association of Great Britain, France and the United States, which, dominating

the Paris Conference, has dictated,

and will now undertake to impose the Treaty of Versailles upon Germany.

It is the guarantor of the treaty

which no German accepts; it is the or

ganization which has undertaken to bestow Posen and East Prussia upon Poland and deprive Germany of Dantzig and the Sarre Basin.

For Austria it is the alliance which

has reduced the Hapsburg state from

a nation of fifty millions to a third rate country of barely seven millions, for Hungary it is the alliance of west

ern nations which gave Transylvania,

the Banat and Croatia and its adjoining Slav lands to the Rumanians and

the Jugo-Slavs and guarantees this cession; for the Bulgarians it is the

force which preserves Serb rule in Macedonia, which a year ago was safely in Bulgar hands. For Italy it is the combination of the Western nations which has challenged Italian claims to Fiume, given its support to Slav aspirations which conflict with Italian from Trieste to San Juan de Medua, to Greek possession of Smyrna, and Hellenic aspirations in the Aegean Islands, now held by Italian garrisons. Neither the Germans, the Austrians nor the Hungarians, to say nothing of the Bulgarians, accept the settlements of the Paris Conference which deprive

them of territories long held by them as more than decisions to be endured

while the powers making them retain the force to impose them. Italy regards the League of Nations as an association of unsympathetic powers, which have rejected Italy's claims and illy repaid Italy's services and sacrifices in the war. Therefore by none of these peoples is the League of Nations accepted in fact, the acceptance today is an acceptance imposed by necessities existing at the moment, but likely to pass within a certain time. But if the German policy will obviously be to capitalize the dissatisfaction in the nations which have

suffered justly but terribly by the de

feat, to exploit the disappointment of Italy, to stimulate the rivalries, the Jealousies, the misunderstanding between the three nations which have won the war, made the peace, constitute the single solid guarantee for world peace in the future, is it less plain how imperative is the need that the United States, Great Britain and France shall continue to march together until the menace of a new Ger-

man attack is passed and pass will If the new nations we have called ; into- existence can have time to organize and add their strength to ours as a guarantee of world order? What of America? 1 "But what concern has America In all this?" Again and again, since I returned from Paris I have heard the f same question asked. Well, four ' years ago, three years ago the same question was asked with respect to -the world war. yet in the end we were dragged into the struggle under condi- : tions which very nearly involved us in a losing war. We shall not be less concerned if Germany, by enlisting " American championship defaults upon her obligations to France and plunges France into bankruptcy and revolution, if by her propaganda and her manoeuvres she separates us from Britain and attacks Britain. The treaty of Versailles does not

accomplish German defeat in this war, it merely provides a basis for the accomplishment of the fact. Germany will have lost the war only when she

shall have paid the price of her devastations. Of France falls, Germany will yet win the war, if she sertes us from the French and the British. Bhe will prepare the way lor a new and successful war. She will accept this peace as a settlement only when she understands that it Is permanently guaranteed by the nations which combined to defeat her and in combination can always defeat her. German policy for the next months and years is obvious. It may succeed and if it does it will make all the sacrifice of the last war in vain, for the German spirit, the German ideals, the German purpose remain the same. It will fail, the victory will be maintained, If the friendship, association, understanding between Great Britain. France and the United States endure and increase with the years. This association was the rock of which the

German attack broke, it is the corner stone of world peace and world fre dom for the future, it Is the fact, thtv only fact in the dream of a League of Nations, for which it may become the foundation, but without which there can be neither a League of Nations nor more than a temporary peace in the world.

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