mandatory principle gave at once a reality to the League of Nations, which before was lacking, and the effect of this was immediate. It was at once seen that the Congress of Paris was in earnest in its intention to apply new principles to the drafting of the terms of peace, and that the mere fact of possession would cease to have the weight it used to carry with the old diplomacy. A warning issued by the Great Powers, that the process of claimjumping and land-grabbing, which had been going on in Eastern Europe since the armistice was first signed, must cease, was promptly respected. The Czecho-Slovaks and the Poles began to compose their differences, while Italy, Rumania, and the Jugo-Slavs agreed to await the decision of the Conference as to their future frontiers, and the atmosphere was immediately cleared.

All these questions, grave as they are, become secondary in comparison with the problems of the future of Russia and of Germany. These are the tests by which the decision to make the League of Nations the foundation of the peace will stand or fall. The atmosphere of Paris is not altogether conducive to calm judgment and cool decision. France is to-day quite naturally dominated by the sense of escape from an appalling disaster, and is just beginning to realize that she is free, after living for close on fifty years under the perpetual menace of invasion. The stream of criticism which has poured from the Paris press almost without intermission since the Conference opened is the expression of this emotion. The daily demand is for security, for immediate settlement with Germany, for the restoration of order in Russia. If we are to carry France with us, we must appreciate her point of view. For years after 1871 she lived under the sense of her isolation and

weakness in face of the Central Powers. Then the Russian Alliance came to her as the means of salvation and of restoration to her old position in Europe. In gratitude she poured her millions into Russia, and when the great trial came Russia proved a broken reed. Half the bourgeoisie of Paris have some part of their savings invested in Russian funds. To-day the chief thought in the mind of the average Frenchman is that France, with her forty millions of population, will have seventy-five millions of Germans as neighbors, and that there will be no effective counterpoise in Eastern Europe. The howl which greeted the issue of the invitation to the Prinkipo Conference was a cri du cœur rather than an expression of reasoned opinion. It was taken as an official recognition of Bolshevism, and the idea of parleying with the wreckers of their hopes was abhorrent. The Council of Ten have themselves to thank for most of the criticism which the Prinkipo Conference has aroused, because they vouchsafed no explanation of their objects and intentions. Now that explanations have been given, the proposal is being examined more judicially. Even in France the practical difficulties in the way of armed intervention are accepted. Personally, I am convinced that, if it were practicable, it would be a gross blunder. All the most reliable evidence is to the effect that the military power of Bolshevism is on the decline. The peasants are growing daily more and more weary of disorder and mob rule. The Bolshevik government is less and less able to feed them, and its influence is proportionately diminishing. The one measure that would rally its adherents would be to give it the occasion for raising the cry that the Allies were interfering with the sovereignty of the Russian people and its right of self-determination. The possible courses are to con

fer, to do nothing, or to endeavor to isolate Bolshevism. It is by no means certain that the Prinkipo Conference will be held, because the Powers have insisted that before it assembles all hostilities in Russia shall cease, and that the various Russian governments shall send delegations. Neither of these conditions has yet been fulfilled. Should the Conference not be held, or fail to produce any practical result, there remains the alternative of assisting the anti-Bolshevik governments in Russia to establish order in their own districts on condition that they adopt a defensive attitude toward Bolshevik Russia. This is the policy of forming a 'sanitary cordon' round Bolshevism. Whether it is practicable or not depends upon the agreement of the anti-Bolshevik governments to act in unity, in accordance with a policy defined by the Great Powers; and it is by no means certain that without some such measure as the Prinkipo Conference such agreement can be obtained. There the Russian problem at present rests. There is no need to emphasize its difficulties, and of all the questions which the Conference has attempted to tackle this is the one with which least progress has been made.

The other outstanding difficulty is to convince France that she will find in the League of Nations the security for which she asks, and that she will get it in no other way. Every Frenchman alive to-day has been brought up to look for security in military force and in a strategic frontier. His one desire at the moment is to avoid all danger of his beloved country again becoming the cockpit of Europe. The advantages to be gained by removing the causes of war by means of international agreements upon questions where the interests of nations clash or overlap appear to him to be vague and remote. He has not naturally the sea sense, and

does not readily appreciate the immense power which an economic blockade, backed by overwhelming force at sea, will confer upon the League of Nations. He doubts the efficacy of the moral deterrent which a general agreement among the members of the league to exercise force in support of its decisions would afford. He wants the league to have at its disposal an adequate military force ready to strike at a moment's notice-in other words, an international army under supra-national control. This strikes at the root principle on which the constitution of the league has been drafted. That constitution has been deliberately planned so as to interfere as little as may be with the sovereign rights of the States which will constitute the league. It is a constitution which does not pretend to be final or complete, but is capable of improvement and development as experience in its working is gained. President Wilson made this quite clear in his speech on February 14, introducing the constitution to the Congress. 'Armed force is in the background of the programme, but it is in the background, and if the moral force of the world will not suffice, the physical force of the world shall. But this is the last resort, because this is intended as a constitution of peace, not as a league of war. The simplicity of the document seems to me to be one of its chief virtues, because, speaking for myself, I was unable to foresee the variety of circumstances with which the league would have to deal. I was unable, therefore, to plan all the machinery which might be necessary to meet differing and unexpected contingencies. Therefore, I should say of this document that it is not a strait-jacket but a vehicle of life.'

The draft constitution of the league has been placed before the delegates for their consideration and criticism. So

..

far, criticism in France has fastened upon those articles which deal with armaments and with the exercise of force in support of the decisions of the league. It may be possible to strengthen those clauses and to give the league power and authority to carry out inspection of naval and military establishments, so that it may receive timely warning of the preparations of any power to endanger the peace of the world. I believe, however, that public opinion in France is moving much more rapidly toward acceptance of the principles laid down in the draft constitution than is indicated by the tone of the Paris press. Frenchmen are coming round more and more to the view put before them by President Wilson when he spoke in the Chamber of Deputies on February 3, that under any other solution France will inevitably be crushed by the burden of armaments, and that the sacrifices which may be demanded under the league are as nothing to those which would be required without it.' The truth is that no solution on the old lines can make France safe. A strategic frontier on the Rhine or beyond it will not alter the fact that on one side of the frontier there are seventy-five million Germans and on the other forty million Frenchmen. How useless in these circumstances any arbitrary arrangement of a frontier line must be has been well illustrated by a controversy which has been agitating France for the last fortnight. Accusations have been made that the famous ironfields of Briey, which fell into the hands of the Germans in the early days of the war, were not bombarded, and that no attempt was made to recover them, because of the pressure which the owners of the mines exercised on the French government. This is a matter of French domestic politics which does not concern us, but during one of the several debates on the matter

in the French Chamber, M. Viviani, the French Prime Minister at the outbreak of war, stated that the French government had at the end of July, 1914, ordered all French troops to be withdrawn ten kilometres from the frontier in order to avoid any incident which Germany might translate into an act of aggression, and to make clear to the world the sincerity of France's desire to keep peace. M. Viviani might have added, that express orders were also issued that no French troops were to enter Belgian or Swiss territory, and that, no flying was to take place over these territories. These orders do honor to the French government, but they unquestionably conferred an enormous advantage upon Germany, in that they gave her time to conceal her preparations for attack, and enabled her to effect a great military surprise. No military frontier can confer defensive advantages if it is treated in that way. Yet one may anticipate, and, indeed, hope, that any democratic power sincerely anxious to avoid war will, when confronted by the danger of aggression, behave as France behaved in 1914. It is not in that direction that security lies.

The Conference has in the past paid too little attention to the feelings of France on this matter of security, and one of the consequences of this neglect was the outburst of exaggeration of Germany's powers of resistance to the will of the Allies which preceded the recent renewal of the armistice. The question of this renewal ought long ago to have been considered in connection with the whole work of the Conference. This is now being done, and by the time this article is in the hands. of my readers it may be expected that Germany will have been required to proceed with her demobilization down to a scale which, while allowing her sufficient force for the maintenance of internal order, will convince France

that any resistance by armed force to the terms which the Conference at Paris decides to impose is absolutely impossible. Germany will, in fact, be required to lead the way in disarmament as she led it in armament. I anticipate that when these results have been obtained France will approach the

The Contemporary Review

League of Nations in a calmer and more friendly spirit, and will recognize it, not as an enunciation of vague principles and high ideals, but as the only practical solution which has yet been advanced of the world-problem of today, and as a real 'covenant of fraternity and friendship.'

THE appointment of a foreign secretary argues optimism, as it assumes the survival of a united Empire at a time when everything seems to have collapsed. However, as a resurrection of internal policy is likely to spring from the new National Assembly, the consciousness of the importance of foreign policy is sure to benefit. The unmistakable language of the revolution has forced all parties to a frequently suspicious change of view in internal policy, but, apart from Radical reformers, whetting their zeal upon the representatives and external manifestations of our foreign policy, there is little sign in the German people and their leaders of an attempt to sift out which of these past aims must be rejected and what new ones set in their place.

The industrious interpretations of the ideas which, even during the war, worked for its end on a basis, not of victory, but of justice, cannot be regarded as a sufficient fulfillment of this duty. Certainly the League of Nations has become the means and end of foreign policy, and the honorable application of its principles are so advantageous

for the States among which Germany in the future must count herself, that it would be a stupid mistake not to remind our enemy perpetually that he himself proclaimed this war as the final war, and that a happier and a juster world was to spring from the ruins. But much has happened since great masses of the German people, disgusted at the bloodshed and fearing a peace based on pure violence, lent an ear to the humanitarian ideas from over the ocean. Our right to the League of Nations remains, but the question arises whether our claim for its fulfillment will be admitted to the Court of Justice (as such the Peace Conference threatens to establish itself), and whether we shall have a spokesman there. Our experiences in the armistice negotiations are not encouraging. It is clear that every one of our weaknesses will involve a sacrifice, and these can be diminished only by the number of strong points we are able to show.

Germany entered the war to defend two great ideas of foreign policy. Her continental position, secured against the West, was to be secured against

Russia and developed into a magnificent territorial basis of a peaceful world-policy, by preserving AustriaHungary and drawing in the Balkans and the Near East. This policy, however, was based economically on the overseas trade of the industrialized Empire, so that it was necessary to wrest at least the freedom of shipping and equal trade-rights from the practical monopoly of England. Germany has not succeeded in both these aims, and their close connection has involved the Eastern victory in the Western defeat. Since our statecraft was unable to prevent the collision of these great tasks with the interests of the other Great Powers and their connection with France's historic reckoning, it was perfectly right to pursue these two objects by force, since the one could not be attained without the other. Later criticism will probably conclude that the war was bound to be won or lost as a whole. If certain men claim to have known in July and August, 1914, the impossibility of the task, they increase their own guilt, but not that of the people or of those who inspired them. Czernin in his speech of December 11 confesses that victory was impossible after the entry of Italy, Rumania, and, later, America. Now that all blame is thrown on German policy for its lack of insight, it should be remembered that Austria and Hungary were not prepared to make the timely sacrifices that would have kept Italy and Rumania out of the war. Even those, however, who saw the necessity, can be excused for thinking that such sacrifices could be compelled only by defeat. Only in the West, where the conditions were not alone military, but economic and ideal as well, did the strength of the Central Powers fail and bring the great objects of the war to bankruptcy.

We have to examine whether these aims have now disappeared from Ger

man policy, whether they can be replaced by others, or whether aimlessness is the necessary consequence of defeat. The Germany of Bismarck and of Wilhelm followed no mere ideal abstraction. The geographical position of Germany and Austria-Hungary, their linguistic community, compels a common attitude to the national problems of the European east and southeast. The idea of Mitteleuropa did not arise from the war, neither has it vanished with it. The visions have faded, but the problem remains the same so long as Germany exists as a unified Empire. The connection of the Empire with German Austria must be carried through even against the wishes and intrigues from abroad. Admitted that Panslavism, which in the past sought to burst asunder this union, is triumphant in the newly arisen West Slav States, the Imperial idea of Great Russia is for the moment broken. This situation presents new problems. The opposition to Russia is not removed, but alleviated. The relation to the States of the Czechs and the Southern Slavs should emphasize our common economic interests, and the whole Eastern policy should follow the methods of compromise now that the Dardanelles question has been eliminated, on which Imperial Germany clashed with Panslavism. It must be remembered that common interests might unite Germany even with the Soviet Republic should the Western Powers continue to bar to us the road to peace and a resumption of our political and economic future. The Entente should not be given the impression that Germany performs unpaid services against Bolshevism purely on behalf of the principle of order. Between two enemies one chooses the lesser, and the one which is the enemy of the other enemy. Plain language on this point would tend to make the Entente aware that