Monday, Mar. 16, 1925
Security
The proposed Protocol to the Covenant of the League of Nations-a document devised last summer to maintain the status quo in Europe, to enable European Powers to disarm and to set up a system of obligatory arbitration of international disputes under threat of combined punitive measures (TIME, Sept. 8 et seq.)--was last week unanimously declared dead (because the British Commonwealth of Nations does not intend to sign it) and the whole question of security loomed large in the politics of Europe.
The present position, as reflected in the past week's news, by countries:
Germany. Germany sees herself surrounded by enemies and, as she may not (according to the Versailles Treaty) have an army of more than 100,000 men--a force totally inadequate to protect her frontiers--she has taken a page out of France's book and demanded security on her own account. She has proposed, therefore, to enter into an engagement with France to guarantee the Franco-German frontier and to submit to arbitration any dispute over this eastern boundary. This means nothing less than that Germany has renounced her claim to Alsace and Lorraine, but is not disposed to recognize the eastern boundary which cuts Prussia in two at its northern extremity and divides Germany from Poland, Czecho-Slovakia and Austria.
Britain. Came Foreign Secretary Austen Chamberlain to Paris en route to Geneva to attend a meeting of the Council of the League of Nations. He had come, he said, to obtain information and not to enter into agreements. From what was known of his conversations with Premier Edouard Herriot, he admitted that British interest was bound up with the preservation of the Franco-German boundary, by which he meant that Britain could not tolerate an unfriendly Power in possession of the Channel ports and the obvious place to prevent an unfriendly Power from seizing those ports is along the Franco-German frontier.
Mr. Chamberlain advocated acceptance by France of Germany's offer of security. He made it clear that Britain never would undertake to do more than guarantee the Franco-German frontier against unprovoked aggression. He was moreover alleged to have said that, by taking Germany into a five-power Treaty (Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, Germany) the danger of encouraging the latter to form a Russo-German bloc against an Anglo-French bloc would be ended--a clear policy of isolating Russia.
France. The German offer was received in Paris with expected skepticism. "Of what use," said Frenchmen, "will another scrap of paper be?" At the same time, Le Marechal Foch presented his report to the Council of Ambassadors (see Page 9). The Marshal tacitly admitted that, if Germany wished to arm, the Inter-Allied Military Commission could not stop her; hence it appeared to him that a defensive alliance with England--long a topic in London and Paris--seemed the logical way to provide for lasting security. This was an admission that the control machinery, set up after the Versailles Treaty was signed, was breaking down and that France's other allies (CzechoSlovakia, Rumania, Yugo- slavia, Belgium, Poland) were not strong enough to stay a German onslaught on the Franco-German frontier.
To the British proposals, France had a ready answer. So far as the eastern frontier was concerned, she welcomed British support, but France had other obligations. She was bound by treaties of alliance to Poland and Czecho-Slovakia, whose western frontiers Germany evidently did not recognize. Premier Herriot took this to mean that Germany would seek revision of the territorial clauses of the Versailles Treaty* and that France would be bound to attack such an attitude.
Although the security talk is only beginning, its seriousness can be gauged by the fact that Rumania and Czecho-Slovakia were all week in hectic telegraphic communication with the Quai d'Orsay, and the Polish Foreign Minister made a special trip to Paris to influence the French Government against taking any step to terminate the existing treaty of alliance. Meantime, France has apparently to choose between having Britain for an ally or maintaining her treaty relations with the Central European Powers.
* The Treaty of Versailles is divided roughly into three sections: Financial, Military, Territorial. The amount of reparations was originally set at about $33,000,000,000, but the amount which is now thought possible to collect from Germany stands at approximately $10,000,000,000. Moreover, Germany has by a policy of inflation cancelled her entire internal debt of $50,000,000,000 (1918 value--the pre-War value would have been $200,000,000,000).
The military clauses of the Treaty, according to Marshal Foch, have now been largely defeated and the impossibility of preventing Germany from arming is now clear.
According to German pretentions with regard to the German-Polish, German-Czecho-Slovakian, German-Austrian frontier, it appears to the French that Germany is making an attempt to defeat the territorial clauses of the Treaty, in which case, if she is successful, Germany will have done what many feared, namely, have won the peace.