WHEN NEXT PEACE IS MADE

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 24972, 15 August 1944, Page 3

WHEN NEXT PEACE IS MADE

LESSONS I ;WE MUST KEEP IN MIND

ERRORS iiF VERSAILLES TREATY

By SUMNER WELLES

From his book, Time for Decision" —(World Copyright Reserved) 1

League of Nations such as that: devised by it's Anglo-Saxon drafterfe, rather than tho tvpo of League demanded bv Leon Bourgeois (which was based upon the utilisation of an international police force), was not likely to oiler the French nation t he concrete lorrn ol armed security winch they regarded as essential. II the Covenant ol tho League met with but scant enthusiasm |'J I-'ranee, it met. with none whatever in either Japan or Italy. The League ol Nations was hound to run squarely counter to the policy ol aggrandisement which .lapan has pursued secretly, and at times openly, since ISH.i. A League of Nations based upon the piinciples of self-determination, particularly as interpreted by President \\ ilsou with regard to the control of the Adriatic, was hound to run counter to tho Italian demand that Great Britain and France comply with tho secret treaties of London. The real cause for aipazement, as one considers today the scene of I'.HU, is not that the Covenant of the League was not better anil more elleetivo, hut rather that Wilson was able to get it adopted by tin; Paris Conference at all.

Most of us passion aliely believed when the last shot avlsvs fired on November 11, 1918, (hat we were headed toward a new 'and better world. We were eonfidftfi t that the errors of the past were 1 o be valiantly corrected ; that hum an wrongs would all be lighted; tltajt the selfdetermination of people;;,/" would end oppression; that human freedom and individual security woftWT become realities; that war, in this new dawn breaking over the earth, was now a nightmare of the i last. We had been thrilled to jthe depths of our emotional and jy t p'-.lectual bring by the vision that VVoodrow Wilson had held out to us of <u Avorld order founded on justice and on democracy. Our imaginaf Hons had responded to his ideal of' an, association of free peoples. Ksiilx-rant hope and confideit t optiniisin w :is general thronghoit t the Allied countries. Harold Nicols on, in nnlorgettable pages, has describe'<l Ili<f scene in the House oi bonis w'nein FjOp.l Curzoii intoned, "The work'Yn gr< <it age begins anew; the golden veaH ie- ! urn." Those words contained the very essence of what tens ol mi II ions oi men and women hoped and pr.a; ed. 11, was not only among the Allied peoples that, these hopes prevailed. • I'.v. n in the streets of Berlin ei topvds were marching and shouting, wieder Krieg'—never again war."W Wilson's Fourteen Points / ~

Tho wave of idealism which bm I swept tho world between the day whet President Wilson proclaimed his Fourteen Points and the conclusion of illifi Armistice lasted a slyrt time indeed.» And tho rapidity with which _ tiVof dreams and hopes of humanity vanished ' can bo readily explained. _ i The solutions for a just- and practical peace settlement contained in the Fourteen Points were valid. Popular opinion responded to that validity. The promise of a League of Nations, supported as it was by an overwhelming majority of the people of the New World and by a very considerable majority ol the peoples of the Old World, gave men and women hope of the only kind of security which could otrer any recompense for the sufferings and the sacrifices they bad undergone.

But as the months passed it gradually became apparent that those gathered at Paris who had the power to shape the future world were departing more and more from the clear-cut principles of the Fourteen Points, partly because of the greed of some of their Governments, partly on account of political expediency, and. finallv, because of clamour at home tor immediate demobilisation and a speedy wind-up of the job of peace-making. Tho arbiters of human destiny seemed less and less like prophets and more and more like harassed, tired, and lintable old men. The flood of emotional optimism quickly vanished in a wave ol cold and cynical pessimism.

People Disheartened One of the chief reasons lor the compromises which President Wilson telt himself obliged to accept at Pans was the fact that the United States had made no effort to reach any prior understanding with its Allies concerning political and territorial problems. In practice, the Treaty of Versailles proved to be neither a negotiated peace nor peace by imposition. At the time of tho Armistice Germany was not invaded by Allied forces. So tar as the masses of the German peoplecould see the collapse of Germany and her decision to sue for an armistice had been due to the breakdown ot organised resistance within Germany rather than to military defeat. UKAllies failed to impose terms of unconditional surrender upon Germany. When the final treaty was signed people were disheartened because it failed to measure up to the high idea! on which their hearts had been Rot. They had also persuaded themselves that their victory implied nn end to all their burdens. They did not wish to comprehend that, to carry out the terms of the treaty, force would l»e required for a period ol years —and the utilisation ol force meant jiuuition.il burdens —both in the shape ot taxation and through a continuation of at least partial mobilisation. People everywhere having undergone the sacri3ces, tho sufferings, the privations, and the nervous strain of lour years ot war, sought to relapse into what I resident I larding termed It was not only in the Lnited States that people wanted to lorget the wai and everything about the war. I Ins tendency was just as apparent in the countries of Europe. The high strain of emotional idealism ot the autumn of Ml# was soon lost in the purely material and exaggeratedly nationalistic reactions of every country ot the world.

Staggering Problems Tho errors of omission and of commission contained in the treaty ot Versailles are manifold, and have oft,.n been set, forth. The agencies ol the Allied Governments set, up to undertake preparatory peace planning were called upon to Imd solutions for such staggering problems a. s the creation of new States whose precise populations and frontiers had to be reconciled with the heterogeneous peonies involved, and with the requirements of those populations for economic and communications facilities. All too frequently they were compelled to decide in a'harassed two weeks questions which it might well have taken two years to determine wisely. And even it bv some miracle their judgment had been infallible, tho experts had to lace the dense ignorance of their own chiefs ol Government concerning the technical problems involved in these decisions. Such territorial decisions as those which had to do with the frontiers of the new States carved out of the old Aiistio-llungnrian Empire, the eastern boundaries of Italy, tho western frontier of the Soviet Union, and, above all, the eastern and western boundaries of the reconstituted Poland were cardinal errors calamitous in their effects upon tho future pence and stability of Europe. Threo Major Issues

Hut tim three major issues raised by tlio Treaty (if Versailles which deserve particular eonsideraturn at litis time arc the Covenant of the League of Nations, tim troalriiont accorded (Jertnany, and the failure of the Allies even io attempt to follow any const motive policy in dealing with the situation created by tlio Russian Revolution. In the vi inter of 15)1!) tho Covenant of the League had the overwhelming support of the people of the United States; and the support of all the peoples of the other Americas; partly due to the thought, of the latter that such a world organisation would prevent the United States from continuing to assert a, right to regional hegemony. If was supported also by a very large mass of public opinion in Croat Britain, and hy a great majority of the peoples in the smaller countries of Kurope. The Covenant met with but little response in France. The highly logical French -were already beginning to think that a

Conference of Paris » There had been no real deviation for i nearly £»0 years in (Jerman policy, which had been consistently directed toward ' world hegemony. Pan-Germanism was ' too frequently regarded by public ' opinion in the Western democracies as ; a cult preached by a few (Jerman extremists. It had been all too olton deprecated as merely an unfortunate manifestation of German militarism. As • a matter of fact. Pan-Germanism as a national expression ol the German , .people had permeated almost every 'iiraneh of the German body politic. By "liU f there remained but a bare vestige of the old German liberalism of IHtS. F.ven leaders of the German Socialist parties, in whose steadying effect liberal groups in France, Great Britain, and the United States placed so much laith, proved to he as .Pan-German as the (Jerman General Staff itself, so long as t it appeared probable that Germany [r would win a speedy and total victory. | in the Conference of Paris only the

« French negotiators gave much consideft ration to these facta. The rest were injm lined to believe that once the I'riman Imperial House had been removed vij »in the scene, once the German Genen il Stall' had been abolished hy liat, :m d once the German people had been nfl orded the opportunity of creating a fid nnan Republic, such misguided conrep lions as I'an-Germanisin would go Jjjy \ tlie board. Nothing, ol course, ci/iWcf ' have been more lamentably untrue. Tlio German people were sure thai. they had not been deieated by Allien military might. They were certain 1 that they had tailed to conquer their'i enemies solely because of the brealo-a awn of morale within their own bordeni . Nothing could have convinced them "it > the contrary except a smashing \llied. 1 victory within Germany, and an humeri# ite military occupation of their chief i-ii ica hv Allied forces. 1 Effective Military Control

The ih ' ace treaty contained no terms providW 'or effective military control of Germ.*. iy. no stipulations which ensured a it uitinuing imposition ot Alned control (« er German armaments. 1 lie Allies toii s stops to give any real encourage nent to such democratic elements inV Germany as might stil at that time. ; lß tft: proved of some political value; the! 'e were no provisions which would enrib lo the German people in the iminediati >ostwnr period to voice legitimate gri. ivi mces and expect thereafter to secure »yi npartial justice from some internatioii.tf' tribunal. I lie treaty did,

however. iiTi pose reparations requirements which resulted in economic insecurity for - every individual German. Thev paved i'A «e way for the later coalescence of all -d :l for national ' revenge. hey increased the already 1* tent popular will to cucuinvent ever v form ot Allied control. The remain Big "»:>Jor issue raised b.v the Versailles' Treaty was the attitude adopted by th e Allies toward Russia The collapse rtf Russian resistance in the spring of >l~ bad necessarily prolonged ihe war" by allowing Germany concentrate a A her m,l 'tj u '- v rr i

nn the \Veste ril Front. The Treaty ol Brest-Litovsk filled Allied public opinion with « r * } *temat.on and "id.gna- . lion. The revoi.V'J' l nftrc 11 a 1 fl /; ()l ! doctrines emaioa ting from < j Russia had aro«« sod a panic of hysteria | throughout; W , !l ' I New World. '1 panic ; vi . ,s fp 11 ,. I „nlv by the hoi 4<>r- created by the Bolshevik" assaults religion and by | the mass execujiwns which stigmalned , the earlier year s the soviet Russia was trea M as a leper and as an outcast arannj; i iSsTldns. Dealinf [ wiith Russia The Allied Governments grossly under- j estimated the < hold which the new Rnssir A , government hadl oil | the lovaltie.s of tlTd- masses of the Kussian people. What, U. most di hcti to comprehend is th P ot the Allu leaders to deal Kuropean aid Asiatic readjustm- 51 itfi. both political an, territorial, as if ,RWsia were just not there. In all the .plans rallied for reconstiu.tion of Poland and lor the

creation of the , ,e. w States of I'.as ern and of North-Fa stft'rn Furope, no t.u v wise provision w . made for the n> when the Power ni <>sfe directly come e , which happened llsr* to he potentia b the greatest mid* th - most powo nation in Europe „ w ? nld emerge f.on its international eclipse and den . that, its rights m be respected, leiritories which had "m™ for reninnes under Russian snvrn eignty and which were considered b\? all nations as - tegral parts of Greul* *r Russia woie < tsriosed of without >< gard for Ru- a, rights, and witho. it- +> l0 "C l, . t 0 Russia might event nail] do m order secure their return , t From this couditi on c*f amnesia (- eat Britain rallied far naors than its allies. Only a year after \ krsailes. to the \ast indignation of the Fr«Hi Government the British Govei enteied n direct, commercial i >'lar. ions with th Soviet Government. Bui 'j was man. years before Ihe m: fjor Alied lowers —the United States [lasf,\ of all-awolu to the fact that, w fr-thnr or not they liked Russian internal or estcin.i policy. Russia coul, \ r\ot he and would not be ignored. (To l>p roil tin hp A '