Chapter 10

General Ludendorff recently made certain declarations which have a capital importance, since they fit the facts exactly. He declared that a war of reconquest by Germany against the Allies and especially against France is for an indefinite time completely impossible from the technical and military point of view. France has an army largely supplied with all the means of battle, ready to march at any time, which could smash any German military organization hostile to France. The more so since by the destruction of the German war industries Germany has lost every possibility of arming herself afresh. It is absurd to believe that a German army ready for modern warfare can be organized and put on a war footing secretly. A German army which could fight with the least possible hope of success against an enemy army armed and equipped in the most modern manner would first of all have to be based on a huge German war industry, which naturally could not be improvised or built up in secret. Even if a third power wished to arm Germany, it would not be possible to arm her so quickly and mobilize her in sufficient time to prevent the enemy army from obtaining an immediate and decisive victory.

It would be necessary, as everyone realizes even in France, that Germany should wish to commit suicide. In consequence of the treaty there is the "maximum of obstacles which mind can conceive" to guard against any German peril; and against Germany there have been accumulated "_such guarantees that never before has history recorded the like_" (Tardieu), and Germany cannot do anything for many years. Mobilization requires years and years for preparation and the greatest publicity for its execution.

Wilson spoke of guarantees _given and received_ for the reduction of armaments. Instead, after the treaties had been concluded, if the conquered were completely disarmed, the conquering nations have continued to arm. Almost all the conquering nations have not only high expenses but more numerous armies. If the conditions of peace imposed by the treaties were considered supportable, remembering the fact that the late enemies were harmless, against whom are these continuous increase of armaments?

We have already seen the military conditions imposed on Germany--a small mercenary army, no obligatory conscription, no military instruction, no aviation, no artillery except a minimum and insignificant quantity required by the necessities of interior order. Austria, Bulgaria and Hungary can only have insignificant armies. Austria may maintain under arms 30,000 men, but her ruined finances only permit her, according to the latest reports, to keep 21,700; Bulgaria has 20,000 men plus 3,082 gendarmes; Hungary, according to the Treaty of Trianon, has 35,000. Turkey in Europe, which hardly exists any more as a territorial State, except for the city of Constantinople, where the sovereignty of the Sultan is more apparent than real, has not an actual army.

Taken all together the States which formed the powerful nucleus of war of Germany as they are now reduced territorially have under arms fewer than 180,000 men, not including, naturally, those new States risen on the ruins of the old Central Empires, and which arm themselves by the request and sometimes in the interest of some State of the Entente.

The old enemies, therefore, are not in a condition to make war, and are placed under all manner of controls. Sometimes the controls are even of a very singular nature. All have been occupied in giving the sea to the victors. Poland has obtained the absurd paradox of the State of Danzig because it has the sea. The constant aim of the Allies, even in opposition to Italy, has been to give free and safe outlets on the sea coast to the Serb-Croat-Slovene State.

At the Conference of London and San Remo I repeatedly referred to the expenses of these military missions of control and often their outrageous imposition on the conquered who are suffering from hunger. There are generals who are assigned as indemnity and expenses of all sorts, salaries which are much superior to that of the President of the United States of America. It is necessary to look at Vienna and Budapest, where the people are dying of hunger, to see the carnival of the Danube Commission. For the rest it is only necessary to look at the expense accounts of the Reparations Commissions to be convinced that this sad spectacle of greed and luxury humiliates the victors more than the conquered.

German-Austria has lost every access to the sea. She cannot live on her resources with her enormous capital in ruins. She cannot unite with Germany, though she is a purely German country, because the treaty requires the unanimous consent of the League of Nations, and France having refused, it is therefore impossible. She cannot unite with Czeko-Slovakia, with Hungary and other countries which have been formed from the Austrian Empire, because that is against the aspirations of the German populations, and it would be the formation anew of that Danube State which, with its numerous contrasts, was one of the essential causes of the War. Austria has lost every access to the sea, has consigned her fleet and her merchant marine, but in return has had the advantage of numerous inter-allied commissions of control to safeguard the military, naval and aeronautic clauses. But there are clauses which can no longer be justified, as, for instance, when Austria no longer has a sea coast. (Art. 140 of the Treaty of St. Germain, which forbids the construction or acquisition of: any sort of submersible vessel, even commercial.) It is impossible to understand why (Art. 143) the wireless high-power station of Vienna is not allowed to transmit other than commercial telegrams under the surveillance of the Allied and Associated Powers, who take the trouble to determine even the length of the wave to be used.

Before the War, in 1914, France desired to bring her army to the maximum of efficiency; opposite a great German army was to be found a great French army.

Germany had in 1913, according to the Budget presented to the Reichstag, a standing army of 647,000 soldiers of all arms, of which 105,000 were non-commissioned officers and 30,000 officers. It was the greatest army of Europe and of the world, taking into account its real efficiency.

Whilst Germany has no longer an army, France on July 1, 1921, had under arms 810,000 men, of which 38,473 were officers, therefore many more than Germany had before the War. Given its demographic character, it is the greatest military force which has been seen in modern times, and can only have two reasons--either military domination or ruin. The military budget proposed for the present year in the ordinary section is for 2,782 millions of francs, besides that portion paid by Germany for the army of occupation; the extraordinary section of the same budget is for 1,712 millions of francs, besides 635 millions for expenses repayable for the maintenance of troops of occupation in foreign countries.

Austria-Hungary had in 1913 a total of 34,000 officers and 390,249 men; the States which have arisen from her ruins have a good many more. Whilst German-Austria has, as a matter of fact, only 21,700 men and Hungary has only 35,000, Czeko-Slovakia has 150,000 men, of which 10,000 are officers; Jugo-Slavia has about 120,000, of which 8,000 to 10,000 are officers.

But the two allies of France--Belgium and Poland, Belgium no longer neutral, Poland always in disorder and in a state of continual provocation abroad and of increasing anarchy at home--have in their turn armies which previous to the War could have been maintained only by a first-class power. Belgium has doubled her peace effectives, which now amount to 113,500 men, an enormous army for a population which is about equal to that of the city of New York or London.

Poland, whose economic conditions are completely disastrous, and may be described as having neither money nor credit any more, but which maintains more employees than any other country on earth, has under arms not fewer than 430,000 men, and often many more, and possibly has to-day many more--about 600,000. Her treaty with France imposes on her military obligations the extension of which cannot be compatible with the policy of a country desiring peace. Poland has, besides, vast dreams of greatness abroad, and growing ruin in the interior. She enslaves herself in order to enslave others, and pretends in her disorder to control and dominate much more intelligent and cultured peoples.

Rumania has under arms 160,000 men besides 80,000 carabineers and 16,000 frontier guards. Greece has, particularly on account of her undertakings in Asia Minor, which only the lesser intelligence of her national exaltations can explain, more than 400,000 men under arms. She is suffocating under the weight of heavy armaments and can move only with difficulty.

The two pupils of the Entente, Greece and Poland, exactly like naughty children, have a policy of greed and capriciousness. Poland was not the outcome of her own strength, but of the strength of the Entente. Greece never found the way to contribute heavily to the War with a strong army, and after the War has the most numerous army which she has ever had in her history.

Great Britain and Italy are the only two countries which have largely demobilized; Great Britain in the much greater measure. It is calculated that Great Britain has under arms 201,000 men, of which 15,030 are officers. In this number, however, are not included 75,896 men in India and the personnel of the Air Force.

In Italy, on July 31, 1921, there were under arms 351,076 soldiers and 18,138 officers, in all 369,214, of which, however, 56,529 were carabineers carrying out duties almost exclusively of public order.

Under the pressure and as a result of the example of the States which have come through the War, those States which did not take part have also largely augmented their armies.

So, whilst the conquered have ceased every preoccupation, the neutrals of the War have developed their armaments, and the conquerors have developed theirs beyond measure.

No one can say what may be the position of Bolshevik Russia; probably she has not much less than a million of men under arms, also because in a communist regime the vagabonds and the violent find the easiest occupation in the army.

The conquerors, having disarmed the conquered, have imposed their economic conditions, their absurd moralities and territorial humiliations, as those imposed on Bulgaria, Turkey and Hungary, conditions which are sufficiently difficult to be maintained. And as the ferment of hate develops, the conquerors do not disarm. Above all, the little States do not disarm, who have wanted too much, have obtained too much, and now do not know how to maintain what they have. In many countries for certain social reasons war has become an industry; they live by the state of war. What would they do without a state of war?

In general, then, Europe has considerably more men under arms than in 1913. Not only has it not disarmed, as the Entente always declared would be the consequence of the victory of the principles of democracy, but the victors are always leaning toward further armament. The more difficult it becomes to maintain the conditions of the peace, because of their severity and their absurdity, the more necessary it is to maintain armies. The conquered have not armies; the conquerors are, or, perhaps, up to a short time ago, were sure that the big armies would serve to enforce the payment of the indemnities. Now, in fact, they would not serve for anything else.

At the Conference of London, after a long discussion in February, 1920, the economic manifesto was drawn up which warned Europe of the perils of the economic situation. Lloyd George and myself were easily agreed in denouncing it as the gravest danger, as the principal cause of high prices and of economic disorder, both as to the maintenance of large armies and in the continuation of the state of war.

A Europe divided distinctly into two parts cannot be pacific even after the conquered have yielded up their arms. The conquerors are bound to arm themselves because of their own inquietude, from the conviction that the only salvation is in force, which allows, if not a true peace, at least an armed peace; if not the development of production and exchange, at least the possibility of cutting off from the markets the very fountains of riches.

Violence begets new violence. If the conditions of the peace cannot be fulfilled, other heavier conditions can be imposed. In France irresponsible people are supporting already the necessity of occupying permanently the Ruhr, that is to say, the greatest German centre for the production of coal, and of not respecting the plebiscite of Upper Silesia.

What has been said about the armies is true also about the fleets. There is a race towards the increase of naval armaments. If first that was the preoccupation of the conquered, now it is the preoccupation of the conquerors in the exchange of doubts into which they have fallen after the War.

The state of mind which has been created between Great Britain, the United States of America and Japan deserves to be seriously examined. The race for naval armaments into which these three countries entered not many months ago, and the competition between the two great Anglo-Saxon people, cannot be other than very damaging for civilization.

The Great War which has been fought was at bottom the fight between the Germanic race and the Slav race; it was the doubts in regard to the last and not in regard to France which pushed Germany to war and precipitated events. The results of the Continental War, however, are the suppression of Germany, which lost, as well as of Russia, which had not resisted, and France alone has gathered the fruits of the situation, if they can be called that, from amongst the thorns which everywhere surround the victory.

But the War was decided, above all, by the intervention of the Anglo-Saxon people, Great Britain, her Dominions, and the United States of America. Nothing but the small political intelligence of the German statesmen could have united in the same group the peoples who have the greatest contrast of interests among themselves--Great Britain, Russia, the United States of America, Japan, France and Italy.

But now the situation of Europe and especially that of Asia is creating fresh competitions, the expenses for the navies, according to the figures of the various Budgets from 1914 to 1921, have risen in the United States of America from 702 millions of lire to 2,166, in Great Britain from 1,218 millions to 2,109, in Japan from 249 millions to 1,250, in France from 495 millions to 1,083, in Italy from 250 millions to 402. The sums proposed for new constructions in the year 1921-22 are 450 millions in the United States of America, 475 millions for Great Britain, 281 millions for Japan, 185 millions for France, and 61 millions for Italy.

The United States of America and Great Britain are countries of great resources: they can stand the effort. But can Japan, which has but limited resources, support these for any length of time? or has she some immediate intentions?

A comparative table of the navies in 1914 and 1921 shows that the fleets of the conquering countries are very much more powerful than they were before the War. Nevertheless, Russia and Austria-Hungary and the people arisen in their territories are not naval powers; Germany has lost all her fleet. The race for naval armaments regards especially the two Anglo-Saxon powers and Japan; the race for land armaments regards all the conquerors of Europe and especially the small States.

This situation cannot but be the cause of great preoccupation; but the greater preoccupation arises from the fact that the minor States, especially those which took no part in the War, become every day more exigent and display fresh aspirations.

The whole system of the Treaty of Versailles has been erected on the error of Poland. Poland was not created as the noble manifestation of the rights of nationality, ethnical Poland was not created, but a great State which, as she is, cannot live long, because there are not great foreign minorities, but a whole mass of populations which cannot co-exist, Poland, which has already the experience of a too numerous Israelitic population, has not the capacity to assimilate the Germans, the Russians and the Ukranians which the Treaty of Versailles has unjustly given to her against the very declarations of Wilson.

So that after, with the aid of the Entente, having had the strength to resist the Bolshevik troops, Poland is now in a state of permanent anarchy; consumes and does not produce; pays debts with a fantastic bigness and does not know how to regulate the incomings. No country in the world has ever more abused paper currency; her paper money is probably the most greatly depreciated of any country on earth. She has not succeeded in organizing her own production, and now tends to dissolve the production of her neighbours.

The whole Treaty of Versailles is based on a vigorous and vital Poland. A harmless Germany, unable to unite with an equally harmless German-Austria, should be under the military control of France and Belgium on the west, and of Poland on the east. Poland, separating Germany from Russia, besides imposing on Germany the territorial outrage of the Danzig corridor, cuts her off from any possibility of expansion and development in the east. Poland has been conceived as a great State. A Polish nation was not constituted; a Polish military State was constituted, whose principal duty is that of disorganizing Germany.

Poland, the result of a miracle of the War (no one could foretell the simultaneous fall of the Central Empires and of the Russian Empire), was formed not from a tenacious endeavour, but from an unforeseen circumstance, which was the just reward for the long martyrdom of a people. The borders of Poland will reach in time to the Baltic Sea in the north, the Carpathians and the Dniester in the south, in the east the country almost as far as Smolensk, in the west to the parts of Germany, Brandenburg and Pomerania. The new patriots dream of an immense Poland, the old Poland of tradition, and then to descend into the countries of the Ukraine and dominate new territories.

It is easy to see that, sooner or later, the Bolshevik degeneration over, Russia will be recomposed; Germany, in spite of all the attempts to break her up and crush her unity, within thirty or forty years will be the most formidable ethnical nucleus of Continental Europe. What will then happen to a Poland which pretends to divide two people who represent numerically and will represent in other fields also the greatest forces of Continental Europe of to-morrow?

Amongst many in France there is the old conception of Napoleon I, who considered the whole of European politics from an erroneous point of view, that of a lasting French hegemony in Europe, when the lasting hegemony of peoples is no longer possible. In the sad solitude of his exile at Saint Helena, Napoleon I said that not to have created a powerful Poland keystone of the roof of the European edifice, not to have destroyed Prussia, and to have been mistaken in regard to Russia, were the three great errors of his life. But all his work had as an end to put the life of Europe under the control of France, and was necessarily wrecked by reality, which does not permit the lasting mistake of a single nation which places herself above all the others in a free and progressive Europe.

If the policy of the Entente towards Germany and towards the conquered countries does not correspond either to collective declarations made during the War, or to the promises solemnly made by Wilson, the policy towards Russia has been a whole series of error. In fact, one cannot talk of a policy of the Entente, in so far that with the exception of a few errors committed in common, Great Britain, France and Italy have each followed their own policy.

In his sixth point, among the fourteen points, no longer pure, but violated and outraged worse than the women of a conquered race by a tribe of Kurds, Wilson said on January 8, 1918, that the treatment meted out to Russia by the sister nations, and therefore their loyalty in assisting her to settle herself, should be the stern proof of their goodwill. They should show that they did not confound their own interests, or rather their egoism, with what should be done for Russia. The proof was most unfortunate.

The attitude of the Entente towards Russia has had different phases.

In the first phase, the prevailing idea, especially on the part of one of the Allies, was to send military expeditions in conjunction especially with Rumania and Poland. This idea was immediately abandoned on account of its very absurdity.

In the second phase, the greatest hopes were placed in the blockade; of isolating Russia completely, cutting off from her (and for the rest she no longer had it) every facility of trade exchange. At the same time war on the part of Poland and Rumania was encouraged, to help the attempt which the men of the old regime were making in the interior. France alone reached the point of officially recognizing the Tsarist undertaking of General Wrangel.

Lloyd George, with the exception of some initial doubts, always had the clearest ideas in regard to Russia, and I never found myself in disagreement with him in valuing the men and the Russian situation. It is easy for a broad and serene mind to judge the position of the rest.

For my part I always tried to follow that policy which would best bring about the most useful result with the least damage. After the War the working masses in Europe had the greatest illusions about Russian communism and the Bolshevik organization. Every military expedition against Russia signified giving the people the conviction that it was desired not to fight an enemy but to suffocate in blood an attempt at a communist organization. I have always thought that the dictatorship of the proletariat, that is the dictatorship of ignorance and incapacity, would necessarily lead to disaster, and that hunger and death would follow violence. There are for the peoples great errors which must be carried out in the very effort to benefit civilization. Our propaganda would have served nothing without the reality of ruin. Only the death by hunger of millions of men in communist Russia will convince the working masses in Europe and America that the experiment of Russia is not to be followed; rather is it to be avoided at any cost. To exterminate the communist attempt by an unjust war, even if it were possible, would have meant ruin for Western civilization.

On repeated occasions I have counselled Rumania and Poland not to make any attempt against Russia and to limit themselves to defence. Every unjust aggression on the part of Bolshevik Russia would have found the Entente disposed to further sacrifice to save two free nations, but any provocation on their part could not create secure solidarity.

When I assumed the direction of the Government in June, 1919, an Italian military expedition was under orders for Georgia. The English troops, who were in small numbers, were withdrawing; Italy had, with the consent of the Allies, and partly by her own desire, prepared a big military expedition. A considerable number of divisions were ready, as also were the ships to commence the transport. Georgia is a country of extraordinary natural resources, and it was thought that she would be able to furnish Italy with a great number of raw materials which she lacked. What surprised me was that not only men of the Government, but intelligent financiers and men of very advanced ideas, were convinced supporters of this expedition.