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EUROPE SINCE 1918
EUROPE SINCE 1918
BOOKS BY HERBERT ADAMS GIBBONS THE FOUNDATION OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE THE NEW MAP OF EUROPE THE NEW MAP OF AFRICA THE NEW MAP OF ASIA THE BLACKEST PAGE IN MODERN HISTORY THE RECONSTRUCTION OF POLAND AND THE NEAR EAST AN INTRODUCTION TO WORLD POLITICS EUROPE SINCE 1918 VENIZELOS (in the Modern Statesmen Series) A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WORLD WAR THE LITTLE CHILDREN OF THE LUXEMBOURG SONGS FROM THE TRENCHES PARIS REBORN RIVIERA TOWNS FRANCE AND OURSELVES PORTS OF FRANCE THE LITTLE CHILDREN OF
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FOREWORD
FOREWORD
The world of 1914, as we see it now, reminds us of Humpty Dumpty. Having climbed upon its wall with difficulty, to keep from being involved in every petty quarrel between nations and coalitions, the world had somehow managed to sit there for a hundred years. The status quo was revised here and there occasionally by violence. But the violence did not set back the hands of the clock, defy economic laws, or, with the exception of Alsace-Lorraine, make for international political instability. The de
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EUROPE SINCE 1918
EUROPE SINCE 1918
The great World War, which has just closed, was born of the feeling on the part of the Germans that they had not been given their share of the world’s loot. So far as it is possible to see, the struggle has taught us nothing, and we are to go on sowing dragons’ teeth. Melville E. Stone. General Manager of The Associated Press, in “Collier’s Weekly,” March 26, 1921. The war was not a deliberate crime. It was something that flowed out of the conditions of European life. The Treaty of Versailles wa
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CHAPTER I THE ARMISTICE OF NOVEMBER 11, 1918
CHAPTER I THE ARMISTICE OF NOVEMBER 11, 1918
October, 1918 , brought a sweeping and unexpected change in the fortunes of Germany. In London and Paris it was not believed that the crash would come so soon. British and French political and journalistic circles were discussing the all-absorbing subject of Foch’s forward movement on the western front. During the war, already lasting over four years, there had been so little of military victories to record and comment upon that none seemed to be thinking of the inevitable day of Germany’s colla
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CHAPTER II THE PRELIMINARIES OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE
CHAPTER II THE PRELIMINARIES OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE
When the wild joy of the armistice celebration had spent itself, public opinion in the victorious countries reacted against the terms of the armistice, against the very fact that an armistice had been signed. It was recognized that there had been no clean-cut, unquestioned military victory, such as generally decides the fortunes of a war. The enemy’s front was unbroken: he was still on the soil of France and had not been driven out of Belgium. The armistice conditions provided for a gradual with
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CHAPTER III THE PEACE CONFERENCE AT PARIS
CHAPTER III THE PEACE CONFERENCE AT PARIS
Books about the famous conference of 1919 have multiplied so rapidly that a man must have much space to shelve them all, and he can hope to do little else if he has decided to read them thoroughly, with what the critics have to say about them. For most of the cooks in the Paris broth, after spoiling it, were unable to control the impulse to tell the world why it was not their particular fault. Coming back to America after the conference, I began to collect material about it, documents, books, re
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CHAPTER IV THE MAIN FEATURES OF THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES
CHAPTER IV THE MAIN FEATURES OF THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES
The principal Allied and Associated Powers, who took upon themselves the entire responsibility for imposing and securing the execution of the Treaty of Versailles, sent an exhaustive reply to the German counter-proposals on June 16, in which, as we have seen, some concessions were made in details, modifying the draft treaty. But these were slight. In this reply they said: They [the victors] believe that it is not only a just settlement of the great war, but that it provides the basis upon which
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CHAPTER V THE FAILURE OF THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES TO WIN POPULAR APPROVAL
CHAPTER V THE FAILURE OF THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES TO WIN POPULAR APPROVAL
From the moment of its signature, the Treaty of Versailles had “a bad press” throughout the world. Ratification by the parliaments of most of the contracting nations seemed assured, but in no country did those who favored ratification support their case by any other argument than that of expediency. It was an inadequate treaty, disappointing along practical as well as idealistic lines, its supporters admitted; but what else was there to do than to make it, imperfect as it was, the foundation of
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CHAPTER VI NEW LIGHT ON THE TRAGEDY OF PARIS
CHAPTER VI NEW LIGHT ON THE TRAGEDY OF PARIS
The events of the past four years in Europe and Asia, coupled with the final decision of the American people not to enter the League of Nations, give us the right to call the six months of blasted hopes in 1919 the tragedy of Paris. For an astonishingly long time the Peace Conference and the treaties framed by it had their defenders, especially in the United States, where a group of what the French would call intellectuels declared that critics of the treaties and the League Covenant were unreas
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CHAPTER VII THE TREATIES OF ST.-GERMAIN AND TRIANON
CHAPTER VII THE TREATIES OF ST.-GERMAIN AND TRIANON
Seeking a mitigation of the peace terms, the Germans at Versailles reminded their victors of the repeated assurance given the German people that the Allied and Associated Powers were making war against the Imperial German Government. The distinction had been clearly drawn by President Wilson on several occasions. The pre-armistice correspondence reiterated the difference between a government of the people and a government of the Kaiser. Had not the Germans, by a revolution, rid themselves of the
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CHAPTER VIII THE BALKAN SETTLEMENT AND ITS EFFECT UPON BULGARIA AND ALBANIA
CHAPTER VIII THE BALKAN SETTLEMENT AND ITS EFFECT UPON BULGARIA AND ALBANIA
If the Paris Conference had in mind a durable peace, no problem ought to have received more careful and judicial attention than that of the Balkan settlement. Since the first revolts against Turkish rule in Serbia and the War of Greek Independence, a hundred years of unsettled political condition in southeastern Europe had passed. It had become a truism that the conflicts among the powers began in the Balkans. Serbia’s difficulties with Austria-Hungary had precipitated the World War. But the cau
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CHAPTER IX THE PROPOSED DEVOLUTION OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
CHAPTER IX THE PROPOSED DEVOLUTION OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
If a new Rip Van Winkle had gone to sleep at any time in the nineteenth century and awoke to-day, one column in the morning newspaper would afford him no sensation and surprise. Were his eye to fall first upon a despatch from Constantinople, he would read it without discovering his long sleep. Metternich and Castlereagh and Talleyrand, Palmerston and Napoleon III, Bismarck and Disraeli and Waddington would find history repeating itself with a vengeance on the Bosphorus. Throughout the World War
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CHAPTER X THE INTERNAL EVOLUTION AND FOREIGN POLICY OF RUSSIA UNDER THE SOVIETS
CHAPTER X THE INTERNAL EVOLUTION AND FOREIGN POLICY OF RUSSIA UNDER THE SOVIETS
In the good old days, when the alliance with Russia was regarded as the salvation of France, Romanoffs frequently radiated from Deauville to other Norman watering-places. The honor of a visit from a Russian royal personage was commemorated in the favorite French fashion by municipalities where Socialists did not predominate. So at Houlgate, my summer home, the street leading to the Grand Hôtel used to be the Rue Marie Feodorovna. In the summer of 1917 we found that the name had been changed to R
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CHAPTER XI THE NEW BALTIC REPUBLICS
CHAPTER XI THE NEW BALTIC REPUBLICS
Without laying stress upon the influence of the Entente promises to free and defend small nations, none can understand the situation that has arisen since the armistices in the territories of the former Hapsburg, Romanoff, and Ottoman Empires. These were the alternatives before the Paris peacemakers: treating all subject nationalities alike, in a spirit of impartial justice, with the idea of establishing a tolerable new world order; or blowing hot or cold upon the aspirations and claims of subje
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CHAPTER XII THE RESURRECTION OF POLAND
CHAPTER XII THE RESURRECTION OF POLAND
When the European war raised the question of subject nationalities, Entente propagandists ignored the oppression and the aspiration to independence of other peoples save those under the yoke of enemy countries. The censorship, rigorously enforced in France, forbade discussion of the hopes of the Poles or even allusion to them. The Poles had no friends in Entente official circles, and Americans regarded the resurrection of Poland as a dream. The right of the Poles to recreate their political unit
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CHAPTER XIII THE CREATION OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA
CHAPTER XIII THE CREATION OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA
Of the new states created by the Paris treaties, Czechoslovakia has had the most uneventful existence and is by all odds the most flourishing. In fact, it is the only one of the Succession States to the Hapsburg Empire whose political and economic life is functioning normally. When one arrives in Prague, one is immediately struck with the naturalness of the new régime. It is as if it had always been. And when one goes to the Burg and visits the offices of the new Government, which has now been f
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CHAPTER XIV THE EVOLUTION OF SERBIA INTO JUGOSLAVIA
CHAPTER XIV THE EVOLUTION OF SERBIA INTO JUGOSLAVIA
The little Balkan Kingdom of Serbia was a principality under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire for half a century after its resurrection during the Napoleonic Wars. The Serbs engaged in a war with Turkey in 1876, which led to the intervention of Russia, and to the recognition by the powers of the independence of Serbia in the Treaty of Berlin. The limits of the new kingdom were so drawn as to exclude the northern part of Macedonia, which was left to Turkey, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the adm
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CHAPTER XV GREATER RUMANIA
CHAPTER XV GREATER RUMANIA
We have three groups of minor nations in Central and Eastern Europe: those whose emancipation or extension of frontiers is at the expense of the Central Empires; those whose emancipation or extension of frontiers is at the expense of Russia; and the Balkan States, completing their emancipation from Turkey and establishing new frontiers at the expense of each other. Czechoslovakia belongs to the first category; Poland and Lithuania to the first and second categories; Finland and the Baltic States
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CHAPTER XVI THE TABLES TURNED ON HUNGARY
CHAPTER XVI THE TABLES TURNED ON HUNGARY
The Treaty of Trianon, signed on June 4, 1920, destroyed a kingdom that had existed for a thousand years by allotting two thirds of the territory and population of the historic realm to Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Jugoslavia, and Austria. Before the collapse of the Central Empires Hungary had a population of about twenty-two millions, nearly half of whom were Hungarian. After the treaty the population was reduced to seven and a half millions, in the proportion: Hungarian, 88.4 per cent; German, 7;
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CHAPTER XVII AUSTRIA WITHOUT HER PROVINCES
CHAPTER XVII AUSTRIA WITHOUT HER PROVINCES
In the middle of October, 1918, Marshal von Hindenburg telegraphed to Vienna that it would be impossible to hold the western front any longer unless Austrian reinforcements were immediately forthcoming. From a purely military point of view the appeal was reasonable. Although the June offensive had failed, the Austrians were still superior to the Italians; and there was no reason to believe that the Austro-Hungarian armies could not continue to hold their lines, even though they detached a consid
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CHAPTER XVIII FROM GIOLITTI TO MUSSOLINI IN ITALY
CHAPTER XVIII FROM GIOLITTI TO MUSSOLINI IN ITALY
At the end of the World War the British and French press begged Italy to renounce a part, at least, of the spoils promised her by the secret treaties of 1915. It was feared that a hopeless conflict would develop at the Paris Conference between Italian imperialism and the American—or rather Wilsonian—doctrine of self-determination. The reasons for this plea are easy to understand. Great Britain expected, as usual, to gather in her advantages from the victory outside Europe; and France had one obj
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CHAPTER XIX BELGIUM AFTER THE WORLD WAR
CHAPTER XIX BELGIUM AFTER THE WORLD WAR
After the German invasion, in 1914, the Belgians moved their Government from Brussels to Antwerp and then to Ostend. When the last strip of southwestern Flanders became a battle-front, they were compelled to take refuge at Havre. With the exception of Serbia, no country suffered as much during the World War as Belgium. Up to the day of the armistice the little kingdom was completely under the heel of an enemy military occupation. It was natural that the withdrawal of the Germans should have been
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CHAPTER XX GERMANY FROM 1918 TO 1923
CHAPTER XX GERMANY FROM 1918 TO 1923
The loss of a war frequently means the loss of a throne. When Napoleon Bonaparte found that his enemies were too strong for him he abdicated and ingloriously fled, leaving his underlings and his exhausted country to face the consequences of his military adventures. A hundred years later Wilhelm Hohenzollern followed the same course and sought safety in Holland. In both instances the government did not survive the defection of its chief. In 1870 France became a republic because Napoleon III faile
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CHAPTER XXI THE EXPANSION AND DEBACLE OF GREECE
CHAPTER XXI THE EXPANSION AND DEBACLE OF GREECE
None can understand the tragedy that was enacted in Asia Minor in 1922, none is fitted to pass judgment upon it, none has the right to venture an opinion on the rôle the Greeks will still play in the settlement of the Near Eastern question, without having made a serious and sympathetic attempt to follow the Hellenic national movement through the century of struggle that culminated in the collapse of the Greek armies in Asia Minor and the burning of Smyrna in September, 1922. The legend has grown
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CHAPTER XXII THE TURKISH NATIONALIST MOVEMENT
CHAPTER XXII THE TURKISH NATIONALIST MOVEMENT
No armies were so decisively defeated in the closing months of the World War as those of Turkey. The British retrieved their reverses in Mesopotamia, while General Allenby, in the Palestinian campaign, succeeded in striking a death-blow to Turkish military domination over the Arabic-speaking portions of the Ottoman Empire. When it was realized at Constantinople that Germany had come to the end of her resources, Talaat and Enver, who had been in the saddle throughout the war, resigned and got awa
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CHAPTER XXIII THE ENTENTE POWERS AND THE QUESTION OF THE STRAITS
CHAPTER XXIII THE ENTENTE POWERS AND THE QUESTION OF THE STRAITS
Shortly before the debacle of the Greek army in Asia Minor I was discussing the question of war weariness with English friends at luncheon in a London club. Aware that good fortune had thrown me with men who knew—if any did—the state of the public mind in Great Britain, I was trying to find out whether the British would be ready to back by force of arms the French reparations demands upon Germany. My informants were unanimous in the belief that no Government could lead the English people into a
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CHAPTER XXIV THE EASTERN QUESTION BEFORE THE LAUSANNE CONFERENCE
CHAPTER XXIV THE EASTERN QUESTION BEFORE THE LAUSANNE CONFERENCE
The conference agreed upon at the time of the signing of the Mudania armistice opened at Lausanne on November 20, 1922. The Turks had been defeated in the World War. Their capital was still occupied by Entente soldiers and sailors. Within a decade the Ottoman Empire had suffered the most crushing humiliations on the field of battle in all its long history, followed by the loss of more than half its territory. Italy had taken Tripoli; the Balkan States had divided up the European provinces; Italy
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CHAPTER XXV THE DISARMAMENT QUESTION BEFORE THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE
CHAPTER XXV THE DISARMAMENT QUESTION BEFORE THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE
Observers of European politics invariably write that the verdict of General Elections is the result of a number of causes, and that it is difficult to assert how a so-called paramount issue would have been decided had not other considerations entered in to confuse and influence the judgment of the electors. If this be true in European countries enjoying representative institutions, how much more true is it of the United States, where elections are held at stated intervals, and where great issues
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CHAPTER XXVI THE CONTINUATION CONFERENCES FROM 1920 TO 1923
CHAPTER XXVI THE CONTINUATION CONFERENCES FROM 1920 TO 1923
The peace discussions at Paris continued, as we have seen, throughout the year 1919. The Paris Conference had begun with an imposing array of statesmen from all over the world. Heads of governments and ministers of foreign affairs were the principal delegates of their respective countries. After the signing of the Treaty of Versailles the big fry went home. It was manifest that they could not stay away from their duties indefinitely, even if there were some of the most important matters affectin
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CHAPTER XXVII THE UNSHEATHED SWORD OF FRANCE
CHAPTER XXVII THE UNSHEATHED SWORD OF FRANCE
The American attitude toward post-bellum problems is summed up in the four words cut into the tomb of General Grant. We prefer Grant’s “Let us have peace” to Foch’s “The war is not ended.” The British are even more eager than we to settle European affairs in such a way as to leave no open sores, no burden of long-term military responsibilities on the Continent. Four hundred million people have to live side by side, and, whatever the virtues and sins, certain European nations cannot indefinitely
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CHAPTER XXVIII FRANCE AND BELGIUM IN THE RUHR
CHAPTER XXVIII FRANCE AND BELGIUM IN THE RUHR
In tracing the question of reparations from Germany through three years of continuation conferences, we have seen how France and Great Britain were unable to formulate and adopt any policy that would afford a practicable solution. When the time came to fix the total sum, as provided for in the treaty, Great Britain yielded to the insistence of France and allowed a sum to be named which economists with one accord declared to be absurd. Under threat of occupation of the Ruhr Valley, the German Gov
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CHAPTER XXIX INTERALLIED DEBTS
CHAPTER XXIX INTERALLIED DEBTS
“Your money lend and lose a friend” is an adage that the former comrades in arms have been ruefully recalling ever since the stirring days of the World War, when they were borrowing and spending with no thought of the day of reckoning. We kept no books in which were charged up to one another’s account the expenditure in human lives. We gave our own lives and our son’s lives, and expected nothing in return. The appalling loss of life and the human wreckage were cheerfully accepted; for that was t
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CHAPTER XXX THE NEXT MOVES IN THE INTERNATIONAL GAME
CHAPTER XXX THE NEXT MOVES IN THE INTERNATIONAL GAME
Out of the Peace Conference and the welter of policies that followed it students of international affairs have learned one thing, if nothing else: to distrust the efficacy of formulas to improve relations among nations. Despite the sacrifices and the heroic deeds of countless millions of civilized human beings, despite the educational propaganda of the war years, despite the high ideals for the triumph of which we believed that we were fighting, there was a scramble for spoils immediately the wa
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