Peaceless Europe Part 12

The situation of Russia, therefore, hurts especially Italy. Great Britain has Mediterranean interests; France is partly a Mediterranean nation; Italy alone is a Mediterranean nation.

Although Italy has a particular interest in reopening relations with Russia, the Italian Government has understood that the best and shortest way is not to recognize the government of Moscow. But Italy will never subordinate her recognition to plutocratic considerations.

Whatever government there may be in Italy, it will never a.s.sociate itself with actions directed to compelling Russia, in order to be recognized, to guarantee the payment of obligations a.s.sumed previous to the War and the revolution. Civilization has already suppressed corporal punishment for insolvent debtors, and slavery, from which individuals are released, should not be imposed on nations by democracies which say they are civilized.

The fall of the communistic organization in Russia is inevitable. Very probably from the immense revolutionary catastrophe which has. .h.i.t Russia there will spring up the diffusion of a regime of small landed proprietors. Whatever is contrary to human nature is not lasting, and communism can only acc.u.mulate misery, and on its ruins will arise new forms of life which we cannot yet define. But Bolshevik Russia can count still on two elements which we do not habitually take into account: the apathy and indolence of the people on the one hand, and the strength of the military organization on the other. No other people would have resigned itself to the intense misery and to the infinite sufferings which tens of millions of Russians endure without complaint. But still in the midst of so much misery no other people would have known how to maintain a powerful and disciplined army such as is the army of revolutionary Russia.

The Russian people have never had any sympathy for the military undertakings which the Entente has aided. During some of the meetings of Premiers at Paris and London I had occasion, in the sittings of the conferences, to speak with the representatives of the new States, especially those from the Caucasus. They were all agreed in considering that the action of the men of the old regime, and especially Denikin, was directed at the suppression of the independent States and to the return of the old forms, and they attributed to this the aversion of the Russian people to them.

Certainly it is difficult to speak of Russia where there exists no longer a free Press and the people have hardly any other preoccupation than that of not dying of hunger. Although it is a disastrous organization, the organization of the Soviet remains still the only one, which it is not possible to subst.i.tute immediately with another.

Although the Russian people can re-enter slowly into international life and take up again its thread, a long time is necessary, but also it is necessary to change tactics.

The peasants, who form the enormous ma.s.s of the Russian people, look with terror on the old regime. They have occupied the land and will maintain that occupation; they do not want the return of the great Russian princes who possessed lands covering provinces and were even ignorant of their possessions. One of the causes which has permitted Bolshevism to last is, as I have said, the att.i.tude of the Entente, which on many occasions has shown the greatest sympathy for the men of the old regime. The Tsar of Russia was an insignificant man, all the Grand Dukes were persons without dignity and without credit, and the Court and Government abounded with men without scruples--violent, thieves, and drunkards. If Bolshevik government had been ruin, no one can deny but that a great part of the blame belongs to the old regime, the return of which no honest man desires.

An error not less serious was to allow Poland to occupy large tracts of purely Russian territory.

There remain in Europe, therefore, so many states of unrest which do not only concern the conditions of the conquered countries, but also those of the conquering countries. We have already seen how Germany and the States which form part of her group cannot now any longer represent a danger of war for many years to come, and that none the less the victorious countries and the new States continue to arm themselves in a most formidable manner. We have seen what an element of disorder Poland has become and how the policy of the Entente towards Russia has const.i.tuted a permanent danger.

But all Europe is still uncertain and the ground is so movable that any new construction threatens ruin. Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey, cannot live under the conditions imposed on them by the treaties. But the new States for the most part are themselves in a sufficiently serious position.

With the exception of Finland all the other States which have arisen on the ruins of the Russian Empire are in serious difficulty. If Esthonia and Lithuania are in a fairly tolerable situation Lettonia is in real ruin, and hunger and tuberculosis rule almost everywhere, as in many districts of Poland and Russia. At Riga hunger and sickness have caused enormous losses amongst the population. Recently 15,000 children were in an extremely serious physical and mental condition.

In a single dispensary, of 663 children who were brought for treatment 151 were under-nourished, 229 were scrofulous, 66 anaemic, and 217 suffering from rickets. The data published in England and the United States and those of the Red Cross of Geneva are terrible.

Even with the greatest imagination it is difficult to think how Hungary and Austria can live and carry out, even in the smallest degree, the obligations imposed by the treaties. By a moral paradox, besides living they must indemnify the victors, according to the Treaties of St. Germain and the Trianon, for all the damages which the War has brought on themselves and which the victors have suffered.

Hungary has undergone the greatest occupation of her territories and her wealth. This poor great country, which saved both civilization and Christianity, has been treated with a bitterness which nothing can explain except the desire of greed of those surrounding her, and the fact that the weaker people, seeing the stronger overcome, wish and insist that she shall be reduced to impotence. Nothing, in fact, can justify the measures of violence and the depredations committed in Magyar territory. What was the Rumanian occupation of Hungary: a systematic rapine and the systematic destruction for a long time hidden, and the stern reproach which Lloyd George addressed in London to the Premier of Rumania was perfectly justified. After the War everyone wanted some sacrifice from Hungary, and no one dared to say a word of peace or goodwill for her. When I tried it was too late.

The victors hated Hungary for her proud defence. The adherents of Socialism do not love her because she had to resist, under more than difficult conditions, internal and external Bolshevism. The international financiers hate her because of the violences committed against the Jews. So Hungary suffers all the injustices without defence, all the miseries without help, and all the intrigues without resistance.

Before the War Hungary had an area almost equal to that of Italy, 282,870 square kilometres, with a population of 18,264,533 inhabitants. The Treaty of Trianon reduced her territory to 91,114 kilometres--that is, 32.3 per cent.--and the population to 7,481,954, or 41 per cent. It was not sufficient to cut off from Hungary the populations which were not ethnically Magyar. Without any reason 1,084,447 Magyars have been handed over to Czeko-Slovakia, 457,597 to Jugo-Slavia, 1,704,851 to Rumania. Also other nuclei of population have been detached without reason.

Amongst all the belligerents Hungary perhaps is the country which in comparison with the population has had the greatest number of dead; the monarchy of the Habsburgs knew that they could count on the bravery of the Magyars, and they sent them to ma.s.sacre in all the most b.l.o.o.d.y battles. So the little people gave over 500,000 dead and an enormous number of injured and sick.

The territories taken from Hungary represent two-thirds of her mineral wealth; the production of three million quintali (300,000 tons) of gold and silver is entirely lost; the great production of salt is also lost to her (about 250,000 tons). The production of iron ore is reduced by 19 per cent., of anthracite by 14 per cent., of lignite by 70 per cent.; of the 2,029 factories, hardly 1,241 have remained to Hungary; more than three-quarters of the magnificent railway wealth has been given away.

Hungary at the same time has lost her greater resources in agriculture and cattle breeding.

The capital, henceforth, too large for a too small state, carries on amidst the greatest difficulties, and there congregate the most pitiable of the Transylvanian refugees and those from other lost regions.

The demographic structure of Hungary, which up to a few years ago was excellent, is now threatening. The mortality among the children and the mortality from tuberculosis have become alarming. At Budapest, even after the War, the number of deaths surpa.s.ses the number of births. The statistics published by Dr. Ferenczi prove that the number of children afflicted with rickets and tuberculosis reaches in Budapest the terrific figure of 250,000 in a population of about two millions. It is said that practically all the new-born in recent years, partly through the privations of the mothers and partly from the lack of milk, are tuberculous.

The conditions of life are so serious that there is no comparison; some prices have only risen five to tenfold, but very many from thirty to fifty and even higher. Grain, which before the War cost 31 crowns, costs now 500 crowns; corn has pa.s.sed from 17 to 220 and 250 crowns.

A kilogram of rice, which used to cost 70 centimes, can be found now only at 80 crowns. Sugar, coffee and milk are at prices which are absolutely prohibitive.

Of the financial situation it is almost useless to speak. The doc.u.ments presented to the Conference of Brussels are sad evidence, and a sure index is the course of the crown, now so reduced as to have hardly any value in international relations. The effective income is more than a fourth part of the effective expenses, and the rest is covered especially by the circulation.

Such is the situation of Hungary, which has lost everything, and which suffers the most atrocious privations and the most cruel pangs of hunger. In this condition she should, according to the Treaty of Trianon, not only have sufficient for herself, but pay indemnities to the enemy.

The Hungarian deputies, at the sitting which approved the Treaty of Trianon, were clad in mourning, and many were weeping. At the close they all rose and sang the national hymn.

A people which is in the condition of mind of the Magyar people can accept the actual state of affairs as a temporary necessity, but have we any faith that it will not seek all occasions to retake what it has unjustly lost, and that in a certain number of years there will not be new and more terrible wars?

I cannot hide the profound emotion which I felt when Count Apponyi, on January 16, 1920, before the Supreme Council at Paris, gave the reasons of Hungary.

You, gentlemen [he said], whom victory has permitted to place yourselves in the position of judges, you have p.r.o.nounced the culpability of your late enemies and the point of view which directs you in your resolutions is that of making the consequences of the War fall on those who were responsible for it.

Let us examine now with great serenity the conditions imposed on Hungary, conditions which are inacceptable without the most serious consequences. Taking away from Hungary the larger part of her territory, the greater part of her population, the greater portion of her economic resources, can this particular severity be justified by the general principles which inspire the Entente? Hungary not having been heard (and was not heard except to take note of the declaration of the head of the delegation), cannot accept a verdict which destroys her without explaining the reasons.

The figures furnished by the Hungarian delegation left no doubt behind: they treated of the dismemberment of Hungary and the sacrifice of three millions and a half of Magyars and of the German population of Hungary to people certainly more ignorant and less advanced. At the end Apponyi and the Hungarian delegation did not ask for anything more than a plebiscite for the territories in dispute.

After he had explained in a marvellous manner the great function of historic Hungary, that of having saved on various occasions Europe from barbaric invasion, and of having known how to maintain its unity for ten centuries in spite of the many differences amongst nations, Count Apponyi showed how important it was for Europe to have a solid Hungary against the spread of Bolshevism and violence.

You can say [added Apponyi] that against all these reasons there is only one--victory, the right of victory. We know it, gentlemen; we are sufficient realists in politics to count on this factor. We know what we owe to victory and we are ready to pay the price of our defeat. But should this be the sole principle of construction: that force alone should be the basis of what you would build, that force alone should be the base of the new building, that material force alone should be the power to hold up those constructions which fall whilst you are trying to build them? The future of Europe would then be sad, and we cannot believe it. We do not find all that in the mentality of the victorious nations; we do not find it in the declarations in which you have defined the principles for which you have fought, and the objects of the War which you have proposed to yourselves.

And after having referred to the traditions of the past, Count Apponyi added:

We have faith in the sincerity of the principles which you have proclaimed: it would be doing you injustice to think otherwise. We have faith in the moral forces with which you have wished to identify your cause. And all that I wish to hope, gentlemen, is that the glory of your arms may be surpa.s.sed by the glory of the peace which you will give to the world.

The Hungarian delegation was simply heard; but the treaty, which had been previously prepared and was the natural consequence of the Treaty of Versailles, was in no way modified.

An examination of the Treaty of Trianon is superfluous. By a stroke of irony the financial and economic clauses inflict the most serious burdens on a country which had lost almost everything: which has lost the greatest number of men proportionately in the War, which since the War has had two revolutions, which for four months suffered the sackings of Bolshevism--led by Bela Kun and the worst elements of revolutionary political crime--and, finally, has suffered a Rumanian occupation, which was worse almost than the revolutions or Bolshevism.

It is impossible to say which of the peace treaties imposed on the conquered is lasting and which is the least supportable: after the Treaty of Versailles, all the treaties have had the same tendency and the same conformation.

The situation of German-Austria is now such that she can say with Andromache: "Let it please G.o.d that I have still something more to fear!" Austria has lost everything, and her great capital, which was the most joyous in Europe, shelters now a population whose resources are reduced to the minimum. The slump in her production, which is carried on amidst all the difficulties, the fall in her credit, the absolute lack of foreign exchanges, the difficulty of trading with the hostile populations which surround her, put Austria in an extremely difficult position and in progressive and continuous decadence. The population, especially in the cities, is compelled to the hardest privations; the increase of tuberculosis is continuous and threatening.

Bulgaria has had rather less loss, and although large tracts of Bulgarian territory have been given without any justifiable motive to Greece and Jugo-Slavia, and although all outlet on the Aegean has been taken from her by a.s.signing to Greece lands which she cannot maintain, on the whole Bulgaria, after the Treaty of Neuilly, has less sharp sufferings than the other conquered countries. Bulgaria had a territorial extension of 113,809 square kilometres; she has now lost about 9,000 square kilometres. She had a population of 4,800,000, and has lost about 400,000.

As for Turkey, if the treaties should continue to exist, she can be considered as disappearing from Europe and on the road to disappear from Asia. The Turkish population has been distributed haphazard, especially to Greece, or divided up under the form of mandates to countries of the Entente. According to the Treaty of Sevres of August 10, 1920, Turkey abandons all her territory in Europe, withdrawing her frontier to the Ciatalgia lines.

Turkey in Europe is limited, therefore, to the surroundings of Constantinople, with little more than 2,000 square kilometres, and a population which is rather hard to estimate, but which is that only of the city and the surroundings--perhaps a million and a half men. In Asia Minor Turkey loses the territory of the Sanjak of Smyrna, over which, however, she retains a purely nominal sovereignty; the territory still undefined of the Armenian Republic: Syria, Cilicia, Palestine and Mesopotamia, which become independent under mandatory powers; in Arabia the territory of the Hedjaz, whilst the remainder of the peninsula will enjoy almost complete independence. Besides, Constantinople and the Straits are subject to international control, and the three States now the most closely interested--Great Britain, France and Italy--a.s.sume the control of the finances and other aspects of the Ottoman administration.

Every programme has ignored Turkey except when the Entente has had opportunity to favour Greece. The Greece of Venezelos was the ward of the Entente almost more than Poland itself. Having partic.i.p.ated in the War to a very small extent and with almost insignificant losses, she has, after the War, almost trebled her territory and almost doubled her population. Turkey was put entirely, or almost so, outside Europe; Greece has taken almost everything. Rejected was the idea of fixing the frontier on the Enos Medea line, and the frontier fixed at Ciatalgia; Constantinople was under the fire of the Greek artillery, and Constantinople was nominally the only city which remained to Turkey. The Sanjak of Smyrna, in Asia Minor, was the true wealth of Turkey; it represented forty-five per cent. of the imports of the Turkish Empire. Although the population of the whole vilayet of Audin and the majority of the Sanjak of Smyrna was Mussulman, Greece had the possession. The whole of Thrace was a.s.signed to Greece; Adrianople, a city sacred to Islam, which contains the tombs of the Caliphs, has pa.s.sed to the Greeks.

The Entente, despite the resistance of some of the heads of governments, always yielded to the requests of Greece. There was a sentiment of antipathy for the Turks and there was a sympathy for the Greeks: there was the idea to put outside Europe all Mussulman dominion, and the remembrance of the old propaganda of Gladstone, and there were the threats of Wilson, who in one of his proposals desired exactly to put Turkey outside Europe. But above all there was the personal work of Venezelos. Every request, without being even examined thoroughly, was immediately justified by history, statistics, ethnography. In any discussion he took care to _solliciter doucement les textes_ as often the learned with few scruples do. I have met few men in my career who united to an exalted patriotism such a profound ability as Venezelos. Every time that, in a friendly way, I gave him counsels of moderation and showed him the necessity of limiting the requests of Greece, I never found a hard or intemperate spirit. He knew how to ask and obtain, to profit by all the circ.u.mstances, to utilize all the resources better even than the professional diplomats.

In asking he always had the air of offering, and, obtaining, he appeared to be conceding something. He had at the same time a supreme ability to obtain the maximum force with the minimum of means and a mobility of spirit almost surprising.

He saw no difficulty, convinced as he was, of erecting a Greek Empire on the remnants of Turkey. Every time that doubts were expressed to him, or he was shown data which should have moderated the positions, he denied the most evident things, he recognized no danger, and saw no difficulty. He affirmed always with absolute calm the certainty of success. It was his opinion that the Balkan peninsula should be, in the north, under the action of the Serb-Croat-Slovene State and of Rumania, and in the south of Greece. But Greece, having almost all the islands of the Aegean, a part of the territory of Turkey and all the ports in the Aegean, and having the Sanjak of Smyrna, should form a littoral Empire of the East and chase the Turks into the poorer districts of Anatolia.

In the facility with which the demands of Greece were accepted (and in spite of everything they were accepted even after the fall of Venezelos) there was not only a sympathy for Greece, but, above all, the certainty that a large Greek army at Smyrna would serve princ.i.p.ally towards the security of those countries which have and wished to consolidate great interests in Asia Minor, as long as the Turks of Anatolia were thinking specially about Smyrna and could not use her forces elsewhere. For the same motive, in the last few years, all the blame is attributed to the Turks. If they have erred much, the errors, even the minor ones, have been transformed into crimes. The atrocities of the Turks have been described, ill.u.s.trated, exaggerated; all the other atrocities, often no less serious, have been forgotten or ignored.

The idea of a h.e.l.lenic Empire which dominates all the coast of the Aegean in Europe and Asia encounters one fundamental difficulty. To dominate the coast it is necessary to have the certainty of a large hinterland. The Romans in order to dominate Dalmatia were obliged to go as far as the Danube. Alexander the Great, to have a Greek Empire, had, above all, to provide for land dominion. Commercial colonies or penetration in isolation are certainly possible, but vast political organizations are not possible. It is not sufficient to have territory; it is necessary to organize it and regulate the life.

Mankind does not nourish itself on what it eats, and even less on what it digests, but on what it a.s.similates.

Historians of the future will be profoundly surprised to learn that in the name of the principle of nationality the vilayet of Adrianople, which contains the city dearest to the heart of Islam after Mecca, was given to the Greeks. According to the very data supplied by Venezelos there were 500,000 Turks, 365,000 Greeks, and 107,000 Bulgarians; in truth the Turks are in much greater superiority.

The Grand Vizier of Turkey, in April, 1920, presented a note to the amba.s.sadors of the Entente to revindicate the rights on certain vilayets of the Turkish Empire. According to this note, in Western Thrace there were 522,574 inhabitants, of which 362,445 were Mussulmans. In the vilayet of Adrianople, out of 631,000 inhabitants, 360,417 were Mussulmans. The population of the vilayet of Smyrna is 1,819,616 inhabitants, of which 1,437,983 are Mussulmans. Perhaps these statistics are biased, but the statistics presented by the opposing party were even more fantastic.

After having had so many territorial concessions, Greece--who during the War had enriched herself by commerce--is obliged, even after the return of Constantine, who did not know how to resist the pressure, to undertake most risky undertakings in Asia Minor, and has no way of saving herself except by an agreement with Turkey. In the illusion of conquering the Turkish resistance, she is now obliged to maintain an army twice as big as that of the British Empire! The dreams of greatness increase: some little military success has given Greece the idea also that the Treaty of Sevres is only a foundation regulating the relations.h.i.+p with the Allies and with the enemy, and const.i.tuting for Greece a t.i.tle of rights, the full possession of which cannot be modified. The War determines new rights which cannot invalidate the concessions already given, which, on the contrary, are reinforced and become intangible, but renders necessary new concessions.