Part 12

M. CLEMENCEAU: Je comprends tout cela dans mes trois mots, "Réparations des dommages." Je supplie le Conseil de se mettre dans l'esprit de la population française....

M. VESSITCH: Et serbe....

M. HYMANS: Et belge....

M. SONNINO: Et italienne aussi....

M. HOUSE: Puisqu'est une question importante pour tous, je propose l'addition de M. Clemenceau.

M. BONAR LAW: C'est deja dit dans notre lettre au Président Wilson, qui la comuniquera à l'Allemagne. Il est inutile de la dire deux fois.

M. ORLANDO: J'accepte en principe, quoiqu'il n'en ait pas été fait mention dans les conditions de l'armistice avec l'Autriche.

L'addition "Réparations des dommages" est alors adoptée. M. Klotz propose de mettre en tête de cette addition les mots: "Sous réserve de toutes revendications et restaurations ultérieures de la part des Alliés et des Etats-Unis." Il est ainsi décidé.

If I were at liberty to publish the official report of the doings of the Conference while the various peace treaties were being prepared, as MM. Poincaré and Tardieu have published secret acts, it would be seen that the proceedings were very much the same in every case. Meanwhile we may confine ourselves to an examination of the report as given by M. Tardieu.

The question of reparation of damages was not a condition of the armistice. It had not been accepted. Clemenceau brings the question up again solely in homage to French public opinion. The suggestion is to write in simply the three words: Reparation of damages. It is true that these three words determine a policy, and that there is no mention of it in the claims of the Entente, in the fourteen points of President Wilson, or in the armistice between Italy and Austria-Hungary. In his fourteen points Wilson confined himself, in the matter of damages, to the following claims: (1) Reconstruction of Belgium, (2) Reconstruction of French territory invaded, (3) Reparation for territory invaded in Serbia, Montenegro and Rumania. There is no other claim or statement in the fourteen points. On the other hand the pronouncement, "Réparation des dommages," included, as in fact was afterwards included, any claim for damage by land or sea.

The representatives of Belgium, Italy and Great Britain remark that it is a condition of peace, not of armistice. But Clemenceau makes it a question of regard and consideration for France. France would not understand there being no mention of it; there was no desire to define anything, only just to mention it, and in three simple words. "I ask you," says Clemenceau, "to put yourselves into the spirit of the people of France." At once the British representative notes the necessity of a clear statement regarding reparations for losses at sea through submarines and mines; and all, the Serbian, the Belgian and, last of all, the Italian, at once call attention to their own damages. Mr. House, not realizing the wide and serious nature of the claim, says that it is an important question for all, while America had already stated, in the words of the President of the Republic, that it renounced all indemnity of any nature whatsoever.

So was established, quite incidentally, the principle of indemnity for damages which gave the treaty a complete turn away from the spirit of the pronouncements by the Entente and the United States. Equally incidentally were established all the declarations in the treaty, the purpose of which is not easy to understand except in so far as it is seen in the economic results which may accrue.

Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles states that the allied and associated governments affirm, and Germany accepts, the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the allied and associated governments and their peoples have been subjected as a consequence of the War imposed on them by the aggression of Germany and her allies.

Article 177 of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye states in the same way that the allied and associated governments affirm, and Austria-Hungary accepts, the responsibility of Austria and her allies, etc.

This article is common to all the treaties, and it would have no more than historic and philosophic interest if it were not followed by another article in which the allied and associated governments recognize that the resources of Germany (and of Austria-Hungary, etc.) are not adequate, after taking into account permanent diminutions of such resources which will result from other provisions of the present treaty, to make complete reparation for all such loss and damage. The allied and associated governments, however, require, and Germany undertakes, that she will make compensation for all damage done to the civilian population of the allied and associated powers and to their property during the period of the belligerency of each as an allied or associated power against Germany by such aggression by land, by sea and from the air, and in general all damage as defined in the treaty, comprising many of the burdens of war (war pensions and compensations to soldiers and their families, cost of assistance to families of those mobilized during the War, etc.).

There is nothing more useless, indeed more stupid, than to take your enemy by the throat after you have beaten him and force him to declare that all the wrong was on his side. The declaration is of no use whatever, either to the conqueror, because no importance can be attributed to an admission extorted by force; or to the conquered, because he knows that there is no moral significance in being forced to state what one does not believe; or for third parties, because they are well aware of the circumstances under which the declaration was made. It is possible that President Wilson wanted to establish a moral reason--I do not like to say a moral alibi--for accepting, as he was constrained by necessity to accept, all those conditions which were the negation of what he had solemnly laid down, the moral pledge of his people, of the American democracy.

Germany and the conquered countries have accepted the conditions imposed on them with the reserve that they feel that they are not bound by them, even morally, in the future. The future will pour ridicule on this new form of treaty which endeavours to justify excessive and absurd demands, which will have the effect of destroying the enemy rather than of obtaining any sure benefit, by using a forced declaration which has no value at all.

I have always detested German imperialism, and also the phases of exaggerated nationalism which have grown up in every country after the War and have been eliminated one after the other through the simple fact of their being common to all countries, but only after having brought the greatest possible harm to all the peoples, and I cannot say that Germany and her allies were solely responsible for the War which devastated Europe and threw a dark shadow over the life of the whole world. That statement, which we all made during the War, was a weapon to be used at the time; now that the War is over, it cannot be looked on as a serious argument.

An honest and thorough examination of all the diplomatic documents, all the agreements and relations of pre-war days, compels me to declare solemnly that the responsibility for the War does not lie solely on the defeated countries; that Germany may have desired war and prepared for it under the influence of powerful industrial interests, metallurgic, for instance, responsible for the extreme views of newspapers and other publications, but still all the warring countries have their share of responsibility in differing degree. It cannot be said that there existed in Europe two groups with a moral conception differing to the point of complete contrast; on one side, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria, responsible for the War, which they imposed by their aggression; on the other, all the free and independent nations. By the side of England, France, Italy and the United States there was Russia, which must bear, if not the greatest, a very great responsibility for what happened. Nor is it true that armament expenses in the ten years preceding the War were greater in the Central Empires, or, to put it better, in the States forming the Triple Alliance, than in the countries which later formed the European Entente.

It is not true that only in the case of Germany were the war aims imperialist, and that the Entente countries came in without desire of conquest. Putting aside for the moment what one sees in the treaties which have followed the War, it is worth while considering what would have happened if Russia had won the War instead of being torn to pieces before victory came. Russia would have had all the Poland of the eighteenth century (with the apparent autonomy promised by the Tsar), nearly all Turkey in Europe, Constantinople, and a great part of Asia Minor. Russia, with already the greatest existing land empire and at least half the population not Russian, would have gained fresh territories with fresh non-Russian populations, putting the Mediterranean peoples, and above all Italy, in a very difficult situation indeed.

It cannot be said that in the ten years preceding the War Russia did not do as much as Germany to bring unrest into Europe. It was on account of Russia that the Serbian Government was a perpetual cause of disturbance, a perpetual threat to Austria-Hungary. The unending strife in the Balkans was caused by Russia in no less degree than by Austria-Hungary, and all the great European nations shared, with opposing views, in the policy of Eastern expansion.

The judgment of peoples and of events, given the uncertainty of policy as expressed in parliament and newspapers, is variable to the last degree. It will be enough to recall the varying judgment upon Serbia during the last ten years in the Press of Great Britain, France and Italy: the people of Serbia have been described as criminals and heroes, assassins and martyrs. No one would have anything to do with Serbia; later Serbia was raised to the skies.

The documents published by Kautsky in Germany and those revealed from time to time by the Moscow Government prove that the preparation for and conviction of war was not only on the part of the Central Empires, but also, and in no less degree, on the part of the other States. One point will always remain inexplicable: why Russia should have taken the superlatively serious step of general mobilization, which could not be and was not a simple measure of precaution. It is beyond doubt that the Russian mobilization preceded even that of Austria. After a close examination of events, after the bitter feeling of war had passed, in his speech of December 23, 1920, Lloyd George said justly that the War broke out without any Government having really desired it; all, in one way or another, slithered into it, stumbling and tripping.

There were three Monarchies in Europe, the Russian, German, and Austro-Hungarian Empires, and the fact that they were divided into two groups necessarily led to war. It was inevitable sooner or later. Russia was the greatest danger, the greatest threat to Europe; what happened had to happen under one form or another. The crazy giant was under the charge of one man without intelligence and a band of men, the men of the old regime, largely without scruples.

Each country of Europe has its share of responsibility, Italy not excluded. It is difficult to explain why Italy went to Tripoli in the way in which she did in 1911, bringing about the Italo-Turkish war, which brought about the two Balkan wars and the policy of adventure of Serbia, which was the incident though not the cause of the European War.

The Libyan adventure, considered now in the serene light of reason, cannot be looked on as anything but an aberration. Libya is an immense box of sand which never had any value, nor has it now. Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan cover more than one million one hundred thousand square kilometres and have less than nine hundred thousand inhabitants, of whom even now, after ten years, less than a third are under the effective control of Italy. With the war and expenses of occupation, Libya has cost Italy about seven milliard lire, and for a long time yet it will be on the debit side in the life of the nation. With the same number of milliards, most of which were spent before the European War, Italy could have put in order and utilized her immense patrimony of water-power and to-day would be free from anxiety about the coal problem by which it is actually enslaved. The true policy of the nation was to gain economic independence, not a barren waste. Ignorant people spoke of Libya in Italy as a promised land; in one official speech the King was even made to say that Libya could absorb part of Italian emigration. That was just a phenomenon of madness, for Libya has no value at all from the agricultural, commercial or military point of view. It may pay its way one day, but only if all expenses are cut down and the administrative system is completely changed. It may be that, if only from a feeling of duty towards the inhabitants, Italy cannot abandon Libya now that she has taken it, but the question will always be asked why she did take it, why she took it by violence when a series of concessions could have been obtained without difficulty from the Turkish Government.

The Libyan enterprise, undertaken on an impulse, against the opinion of Italy's allies, Austria and Germany, against the wish of England and France, is a very serious political responsibility for Italy.

The European War was the consequence of a long series of movements, aspirations, agitations. It cannot be denied, and it is recognized by clear-thinking men like Lloyd George, that France and England too have by their actions taken on themselves their part in the serious responsibility. To say that in the past they had never thought of war is to say a thing not true. And there is no doubt that all the diplomatic documents published before and during the War show in Russia, above all, a situation which inevitably would soon lead to war. In the Balkans, especially in Serbia, Russia was pursuing a cynical and shameless policy of corruption, nourishing and exciting every ferment of revolt against Austria-Hungary. Russian policy in Serbia was really criminal. Everyone in Germany was convinced that Russia was preparing for war. The Tsar's pacificist ideas were of no importance whatever. In absolute monarchies it is an illusion to think that the sovereign, though apparently an autocrat, acts in accordance with his own views. His views are almost invariably those of the people round him; he does not even receive news in its true form, but in the form given it by officials. Russia was an unwieldy giant who had shown signs of madness long before the actual revolution. It is impossible that a collective madness such as that which has had possession of Russia for three years could be produced on the spur of the moment; the regime of autocracy contained in itself the germs of Bolshevism and violence. Bolshevism cannot properly be judged by Western notions; it is not a revolutionary movement of the people; it is, as I have said before, the religious fanaticism of the Eastern Orthodox rising from the dead body of Tsarist despotism. Bolshevism, centralizing and bureaucratic, follows the same lines as the imperial policy of almost every Tsar.