SOME PROBLEMS
  OF THE
  PEACE CONFERENCE

  BY

  CHARLES HOMER HASKINS

  AND

  ROBERT HOWARD LORD


  [Illustration]


  CAMBRIDGE

  HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS

  LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD
  OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

  1920




  COPYRIGHT, 1920
  HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS


  PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.




TO

ARCHIBALD CARY COOLIDGE




PREFACE


The purpose of the lectures here published is to give a rapid survey
of the principal elements in that territorial settlement of Europe
which has been pronounced “the most reasonable part of the work of
the Conference”[1] of Paris. Each problem is placed in its historical
setting, while at the same time the effort is made to view it as
something demanding practical solution in the treaties of peace. The
perspective of proceedings as seen at Paris has been kept in mind
throughout, although the authors have not felt at liberty to enter
into the details of negotiations which may have become known to them
in their official capacity. Limits of time and space restrict the
treatment to Europe, and to those parts of Europe which came before the
Conference for settlement. Hence Russia is necessarily omitted.

The lectures are printed substantially as delivered at the Lowell
Institute last January, with only incidental revision. In the spelling
of place names the official local usage has been followed except where
there is a well established English form.

The first four chapters were prepared by Mr. Haskins, the last four by
Mr. Lord.

Where material has been gathered from such a variety of sources,
detailed acknowledgment is impossible. The bibliographical notes
at the end of the several chapters are meant merely to indicate
the more obvious references for readers who may wish to follow out
particular topics. The authors desire to express their indebtedness to
their colleagues on the ‘Inquiry’ and the territorial section of the
American Commission to Negotiate Peace, and their appreciation of many
courtesies from the experts of the Allied delegations. They are under
special obligations to the hospitality of the American Geographical
Society and its Director, Dr. Isaiah Bowman. Mr. George W. Robinson
has made valuable suggestions in correcting the proof sheets. While
grateful for assistance from many sources, each of the authors bears
sole responsibility for the opinions he has here expressed.

  C. H. H.
  R. H. L.

  _Cambridge, May 1920._


FOOTNOTES:

[1] Charles Seignobos, in _The New Europe_, March 25, 1920.




  CONTENTS


  I

  TASKS AND METHODS OF THE CONFERENCE           3-35

    The Tasks                                      3

    The Problem of Frontiers                      10

    Organization of the Conference                23

    Bibliographical Note                          33


  II

  BELGIUM AND DENMARK                          37-73

    Schleswig                                     37

      The Kiel Canal and Heligoland               46

    Belgium                                       48

      Position at the Conference                  49

      Malmedy, Eupen, and Moresnet                54

      Luxemburg                                   57

      Limburg and the Scheldt                     60

    Bibliographical Note                          72


  III

  ALSACE-LORRAINE                             75-116

    The Historical Background                     75

    The Franco-German Debate                      84

    The Armistice and the Treaty                 105

    Bibliographical Note                         115


  IV

  THE RHINE AND THE SAAR                     117-152

    The Rhine                                    117

    The Left Bank                                123

    The Saar Basin                               132

    Bibliographical Note                         151


  V

  POLAND                                     153-200

    The Resurrection of Poland                   153

    The Western Frontier and Danzig              172

    Galicia                                      188

    The Eastern Frontier                         195

    Bibliographical Note                         199


  VI

  AUSTRIA                                    201-229

    The Collapse                                 201

    Czecho-Slovakia                              213

      The Germans in Bohemia                     216

    The Austrian Republic                        222

      Klagenfurt                                 223

      The Italian Frontier                       224

    Bibliographical Note                         228


  VII

  HUNGARY AND THE ADRIATIC                   231-262

    The End of the Old Hungarian State           231

    Hungary’s Losses                             237

      The Slovaks                                237

      The Ruthenians                             238

      The Roumanians                             239

      The Yugo-Slavs                             241

    The Adriatic Question                        244

      Gorizia, Trieste, and Istria               249

      Dalmatia                                   251

      Fiume                                      256

    Bibliographical Note                         261


  VIII

  THE BALKANS                                263-290

    Bulgaria and her Neighbors                   263

      The Macedonian Question                    267

      The Dobrudja                               275

      Bulgaria’s New Losses                      276

    The Aspirations of Greece                    277

      Epirus and Albania                         278

      Thrace                                     281

      Constantinople                             285

    Bibliographical Note                         288


  INDEX                                      291-307


  MAPS

  I. BELGIUM AND HER NEIGHBORS                                74

  II. ALSACE-LORRAINE AND THE SAAR VALLEY                    152

  III. POLAND                                                200

  IV. TERRITORIES OF THE FORMER AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN MONARCHY    242

  V. THE ADRIATIC                                            262

  VI. THE BALKANS                                            290




SOME PROBLEMS

OF THE

PEACE CONFERENCE




I

TASKS AND METHODS OF THE CONFERENCE


Great peace conferences are proverbially slow bodies. The negotiators
of Münster and Osnabrück spent five years in elaborating the treaty
of Westphalia; the conferences of Paris and Vienna labored a year and
a half at undoing the work of Napoleon. Judged by these standards,
the Peace Conference of 1919 was an expeditious body. It began its
sessions January 18 and adjourned December 9. It submitted the treaty
with Germany, including the covenant of the League of Nations, May 7;
the treaty with Austria June 2 and July 20; the treaty with Bulgaria
September 19; the treaty with Hungary in November. In the early summer
it prepared various treaties with Roumania and the new states of
eastern Europe. The heaviest part of its work was done in less than six
months, before the departure of President Wilson on June 28.

Judged by its output in a given time, the Conference must also be
pronounced a businesslike and efficient body. Whereas the treaty of
Vienna covers some seventy pages of print, and the related conventions
perhaps a hundred and fifty pages more, the published works of the
Paris Conference fill several volumes. The treaties which it drew
up were long and detailed, each of the major treaties running to
a couple of hundred pages and comprising some hundreds of articles
and annexes--territorial, political, financial, economic, naval, and
military--besides the provisions respecting labor and the League of
Nations which are common to all.

The Conference of Paris was likewise a laborious body. The gaiety of
the Congress of Vienna has become proverbial. “The Congress does not
march,” said the Prince de Ligne, “it dances.” “Everybody dances save
Talleyrand, who has a club foot. He plays whist.” It is probable, as
recent historians of the Vienna assemblage have pointed out, that
“the unending series of balls, dinners, reviews, and fêtes did not
greatly hinder the work of those whose industry was important.”[2]
Nevertheless the presence of a crowd of kings and princes and great
ladies--the Prince de Ligne wore out his hat taking it off at every
turn--gave the Congress of Vienna an air of splendor and gaiety which
was conspicuously lacking at Paris. There were no kings at the Paris
Conference, indeed there were few kings left anywhere in Europe by
January 1919. There were no balls, no great festivities. If the
Conference did not always advance, at least it did not dance. The Marne
was too near for that, in space as well as in time. Armageddon was just
past. The Germans had barely missed marching up the Champs-Elysées
and under the Arc de Triomphe. The American delegates were within an
hour’s ride of Château-Thierry and Belleau Wood, where their countrymen
had, only a few months before, done “the things that can’t be done.”
Two hours would take them to the heart of the devastated region,
refugees from which still filled Paris. The regiments of _poilus_ that
marched by with steady stride had looked into the mouth of hell, and
their eyes showed it. The Paris which Castlereagh had found “a bad
place for business” in 1814 was a better place for business in 1919.
The world wanted peace, and it wanted it soon.

It was also a hungry world. Pliny tells of a fabled people of the East
so narrow-mouthed that they lived by the smell of roast meat. Even
that gladsome and satisfying odor had long since disappeared from the
nostrils of a great part of Europe, and the mouths had not shrunk. “If
they have no bread, let them eat cake,” a great lady had said at the
time of the French Revolution. The cake had gone with the bread. “The
wolf,” said Mr. Hoover, “is at the door of the world.” More than once
the Peace Conference had to turn from other matters to feed the peoples
whose frontiers it was drawing, to deal earnestly and under pressure
with problems of blockade and rationing, of transportation by land and
sea.

Back of hunger lay anarchy. Great states were on the verge of
dissolution, and it was doubtful who, if anyone, could sign the treaty
on their behalf. There were times when the Conference had also to
interrupt its labors to consider the chaos into which the world seemed
to be drifting. The day after the Bolshevist revolution in Hungary one
of the sanest of American journalists remarked, “In the race between
peace and anarchy, anarchy seems today to be ahead.”

No peace congress had ever confronted so colossal a task. The assembly
at Paris met to end a world war, then in its fifth year, which had
destroyed 9,000,000 lives and untold billions of property, and left the
world staggering under a crushing burden of debt and destruction. It
had in the first instance to liquidate the affairs of three bankrupt
empires, the German, the Austro-Hungarian, and the Turkish. The peoples
which they had held in unwilling subjection were to be set free, and
either attached to the neighboring peoples from which they had once
been torn, or established firmly as independent and self-governing
states. “As Lord Bryce had predicted, the most knotty disputes which
faced the Conference were ‘nearly all problems that involve the claims
of peoples dissatisfied with their present rulers and seeking either
independence or union with some kindred race.’” Several thousand
miles of new boundaries had to be drawn, marking new frontiers, and
if possible these frontiers must be just and lasting. Provision must
be made for restoring the lands laid waste by war and reëstablishing
the normal commercial and industrial life of the warring countries.
Those responsible for the war must pay, and they must be punished.
Finally, if possible, effective measures must be taken to prevent the
recurrence of a similar war, whether brought about by Germany’s lust of
conquest or by any other state. If war could not be prevented, it must
at least be rendered more difficult and more abhorrent to the common
moral sense of mankind.

Far beyond the more immediate and necessary tasks of the Conference
rose the dreams of those who looked for the dawning of a new age of
peace and justice, a new social and economic era. The downtrodden and
the oppressed looked toward Paris. Visions of peace were confused with
visions of the millennium. “We were told,” said a Scotch mill-worker,
later in the winter, “that the peace would bring in the New Jerusalem.
We want some of that New Jerusalem.” The day President Wilson sailed
for Brest, a worker at the Twenty-third Street Ferry, speaking for
the early crowd hurrying to their long hours in New York sweatshops,
pointed to Hoboken and said, “There goes the man who is going to change
all this for us.” Beautiful, extravagant, heart-breaking hopes were
centred on the Conference at Paris, most of all on the leader of the
American delegation and his programme. And such hopes were in large
measure inevitably doomed to disappointment. The congress could not
create a new heaven and a new earth; it could at best only make some
short advance on the road thither and show the way along which further
advance lay. Renan tells of a devout soul, who, seeing so much evil
about him, was periodically afflicted with doubts concerning the
goodness of an all-powerful God. “Perhaps,” his parish priest would
answer, “you have too high an idea of God and what he can do.” “It
was an old world,” writes Mommsen of the age which just preceded the
Christian era, “and even Caesar could not make it young again.”

A just peace, a durable peace, if possible a quick peace, could these
ends be secured? The task was one which called for compromise and
adjustment, it called also for organization. There is said to have
been a plan for quick preliminaries which should end the state of war,
followed by the leisurely and expert working out of details. If such
a course had been possible, it would probably have been the best.
Germany would have accepted terms in January at which she howled in
June, while the Allied peoples might thus have avoided the long agony
of doubt and postponement which delayed the resumption of normal
activities and the rehabilitation of the devastated regions. The world
that was malleable after the armistice soon grew cold and hard. It is,
however, a matter for serious question whether an agreement upon such
preliminaries was possible. The problems were too varied and intricate,
the conflict of interests too acute, the new ideas too new, to admit
of even provisional adjustment in a few weeks. The Conference seemed
long, too long, to the outside world which waited. If it did not dance,
like the Congress of Vienna, neither did it always seem to march,
like the Congress of Berlin, which had a cut-and-dried programme. At
times it was undoubtedly too slow; at times certain special problems,
like Fiume, consumed energy altogether out of proportion to their
importance; yet the Conference made steady and on the whole rapid
progress. It was a hard-working body, and its scanty time was well
spent.

It will be many years before the history of the Peace Conference can
be written. Its work was too vast and too varied; its records are too
scattered and too inaccessible, many of them still unwritten. We are
still too near for a true perspective. For some time we must be content
with fragmentary, partial, provisional, journalistic accounts, and
we do well to keep to the main lines of unmistakable fact. The most
obvious results of the work of the Conference, though not necessarily
the most permanent results, are its territorial decisions, the
readjustment of boundaries and sovereignties, the calling of new states
into being. These, so far as they go, are clear and definite. They
can be expressed on a map, their origin and occasion can be traced,
their nature explained. It is these, the territorial results of the
Conference, with their consequences and implications, which form the
subject of this volume. The treatment is further limited to Europe,
omitting the problems of Asia, Africa, and the isles of the Pacific.

There are those who maintain that the territorial results are unstable
and hence relatively unimportant, liable to speedy readjustment in a
fluid state of international relations, subordinated in ever increasing
degree to economic and social influences which transcend national
boundaries. All this the future must determine. For the present the
decisive fact for many millions of Europeans is that they are on one
side or another of a political frontier, members or not of the state
to which their natural allegiance gravitates; and this is a matter of
specific boundary. One may deplore the rivalries over small bits of
territory, which acquire a factitious significance in the course of the
dispute, but they cannot be ignored. The possession of land is still
a passion of peoples, and even of what our census calls ‘minor civil
divisions,’ and the history of individual ownership shows that such
passions do not grow less with the growth of other interests. So long
as states continue to exercise authority within definitely recognized
frontiers, the establishing of their territorial limits must remain a
fundamental problem of international relations. If an illustration of
the meaning of frontiers is desired nearer home, one has only to look
at the two sides of the Rio Grande.

       *       *       *       *       *

Reduced to their lowest terms, the elements which enter into a national
boundary are two, the land and the people; and an ideally perfect
frontier would be at the same time geographic and ethnographic. Such
coincidences are, however, relatively rare, and the problem varies from
age to age as different geographical considerations change in relative
importance and as the human elements of race, language, and nationality
develop, shift, and grow more complex.

Thus a glance at the map of Europe shows that certain frontiers
apparently have been drawn by nature, while others are clearly the
work of man. The Spanish peninsula, Italy, the British Isles, and the
Scandinavian lands are set apart from the mass of the Continent by
broad boundaries of sea or mountain which have come to form permanent
political frontiers. On the other hand no such obvious natural
obstacles separate France from Germany, Germany from Russia, Belgium
from Holland, Austria from its neighbors, Serbia from Bulgaria. So far
as the boundaries have been drawn by geographic forces, the forces are
less obvious; if they have been drawn by the course of history, this
requires explanation and elucidation. It so happened that the Paris
congress had to do, not with the outlying regions where the physical
and the political maps generally coincide, but with those lands of
central and eastern Europe where the adjustment is most complicated. We
shall understand its work more clearly if we pause to analyze briefly
this problem of frontiers.

Of the geographical elements which go to form frontiers, the most
obvious, after the sea, is constituted by mountains. The Pyrenees are a
perfect example of a natural frontier which is also an actual frontier,
and so in a lesser degree are the Alps and the Carpathians. Mountains
inevitably divide, turning peoples different ways, in spite of modern
means of communication, and they have always been valued as military
barriers. Rivers, on the contrary, although they have military value,
unite rather than divide, so that we need not be surprised if we find
no important instances of a river frontier in present-day Europe, save
along the Danube and where the Rhine separates Alsace and Baden. Most
frontiers are neither mountain ranges nor rivers, yet they are often
adjusted to lesser features of topography, with reference either to
defence or to means of communication. Communication notably, with
the growth of modern systems of transportation, bears an intimate
relation to boundary problems. Access to the sea, either directly or by
neutralized or internationalized rivers, has become a prime necessity
for most states, and occupied the Conference especially in the cases of
Poland and Czecho-Slovakia. Even railroad lines, especially where they
monopolize natural routes, have their place in frontier adjustments, as
in Carinthia or between East and West Prussia.

Another geographical element, essentially modern in its significance,
is found in natural resources. This has never been wholly absent from
boundary problems, at least in its early form of fertile or less
fertile land, but it has taken on a preponderant importance with the
growth of modern industrialism. Each state has been anxious to bring
within its limits supplies of mineral resources, and especially of
that foundation of modern industry, coal. Now it so happens that some
of the most important deposits of coal and mineral wealth lie on or
near disputed frontiers. The coal of Upper Silesia, Teschen, Limburg,
and the Saar, the iron of Briey and annexed Lorraine, the potash of
Upper Alsace, the mercury mines of Carniola, are all cases in point.
Prussia was affected by such considerations in drawing the frontiers of
1815 and 1871; other countries had learned the lesson by 1919.

The human elements in frontier-making are still more complex than the
geographical. Obviously we have to do not with individuals but with
groups, and with those larger groups which have acquired a full measure
of what the sociologists call ‘consciousness of kind,’ to the point of
constituting some kind of national unity or national organization. We
speak of the self-determination of peoples, but what is a people? Is it
created by race or language or political allegiance, or only by that
more subtle compound which we call nationality? How large must a people
be to have a right to stand alone? Can it stand alone without certain
economic and even military prerequisites? How far can we go in breaking
up states in order to give effect to self-determination?

Such general principles might have a very wide application. Formulated
with special reference to the Central Powers, self-determination was
seized upon by men who had a case to urge in any part of the world--in
Ireland, in Egypt, in the Philippines. A German map of last spring even
represented Hawaii, St. Thomas, Florida, and Texas as trying to escape
from their unwilling subjection to the United States[3]--a curious
evidence that German mentality had not changed since the notorious
Zimmermann note of 1917. More than once it was necessary to point
out that the function of the Paris Conference was not to do abstract
justice in every corner of the earth, but to make peace with Germany,
Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Many causes perhaps excellent in
themselves were not the business of the Conference.

Even within the self-imposed limits of the Conference, there were
difficulties. “Self-determination,” President Wilson had said, “is
not a mere phrase, it is an imperative principle of action.” But
President Wilson had also said that self-government cannot be given
but must be earned; that “liberty is the privilege of maturity, of
self-control,” that “some peoples may have it, therefore, and others
may not.”[4] However just and admirable self-determination might be,
it could be fully applied only to peoples who had some experience in
self-government and thus some means of political self-expression.
For this reason it was not applicable to the downtrodden natives of
the German colonies. And even among self-governing peoples there are
practical limitations. Self-determination may be only another name for
secession, and we fought the Civil War to prevent that; we have been
none too successful in securing the subsequent self-determination of
the negroes in the southern states. Sometimes a people may be too small
to stand alone, and sometimes, as in parts of the Balkans and Asia
Minor, the mixture of peoples may defy separation. In western Asia,
notably, national aspirations have outrun the social organization.

Wherever you apply it, self-determination runs against minorities.
Ireland has its Ulster, Bohemia its Germans, Poland its Germans
and Lithuanians. There are minorities along every frontier. Some
one remarked that there was need of a fifteenth point, the rights
of minorities. The Conference found this out, and upon the newly
established states of eastern Europe were imposed special treaties
safeguarding the rights of minority peoples--Jews, Germans, Russians,
etc.--whom past experience had shown to need such guarantees.

Of these human elements in frontier-making we may begin by eliminating
race, for in Europe race is a matter of no importance in drawing
national lines. This point is emphasized, here and later, because
there has been a great deal of loose talk about race, notably on the
part of German writers. So far as it is an exact term at all, race is
a physical fact, dependent upon certain elements of stature, color,
and shape of the skull which occur and are transmitted in certain
fixed combinations or racial types. There are three such types in
Europe, the Teutonic, the Alpine, and the Mediterranean, most prevalent
respectively in northern, central, and southern Europe. But in no
country do they appear in pure or unmixed form. Migration and conquest
have intermingled them to such an extent as to leave no sharp racial
frontiers and to make the people of every country a mixture of two or
three races. Thus the central or Alpine type is widely prevalent in
the south and west of Germany, and the Teutonic type in the north and
east of France. Furthermore these physical types are quite without
political significance--no one cares whether his neighbors are tall
or short, blonde or brunette, round-headed or long-headed. So far as
Europe is concerned, all talk of race has to be eliminated from serious
international discussion.

Language, on the other hand, is a matter of prime importance. Speech
is a fundamental element in creating consciousness of kind: the man in
the street knows whether he can understand the speech of his neighbor,
and has always had opprobrious epithets for those who speak an alien
tongue, from the ‘barbarians’ of the Greeks and the ‘Welsh’ of the
Teutonic Middle Ages to the ‘dagoes’ and ‘gringoes’ and ‘wops’ of
current parlance. Even differences of dialect engender similar terms,
as when the people of the Right Bank are called _Schwob_ in Alsace and
the Alsatians are stigmatized as _Wacke_ by those beyond the Rhine.

Still, language has its pitfalls as a guide to national lines of
cleavage. To begin with, while in the country districts it is
singularly persistent, it can also be learned and unlearned by a new
generation, especially when the resources of universal education
are wielded by the compulsive power of the modern state. The German
schoolmaster has labored to reduce the area of Danish in Schleswig
and of French in Alsace-Lorraine. The Russians have checked German
in the Baltic provinces. In the British Isles Celtic speech is far
less widespread than Celtic blood. Moreover, if the government cannot
always drive out minority languages, it can at least make its own
language statistics. It is easy for the census-taker to impose on the
weak or ignorant, to interpret all doubtful cases in one direction,
to adopt definitions which fall on one side. The statistics of
Polish-speaking districts in Prussia and of Italian-speaking elements
in Austria-Hungary are well known examples.

Again, language statistics, even when trustworthy, do not necessarily
yield a sharp dividing line. There may be more than two significant
elements in the population, or, as in parts of the Balkans and
Asia Minor, villages of different speech may be interspersed in a
checkerboard fashion.

Finally, language, even when accurately ascertained, is not a
certain test of political affiliation. There has been a strong
pro-French tradition among the German-speaking Alsatians. The small
German-speaking districts of Belgium are not pro-German.

After all, it is the opinion of the people concerned which we wish to
ascertain with respect to a given frontier, and language is important
chiefly as a guide to that. Unequivocal expressions of popular
opinion are, however, hard to reach, especially in times of stress
and in regions that are under dispute. At best a plebiscite may be
but a poor indication of real opinion, and the opinion it registers
well may be only transitory. Moreover, caution may be required in
giving effect to a vote or an otherwise well ascertained expression
of opinion. Thus it is open to debate whether the vote of a small
district should necessarily carry with it the disposal of a great key
deposit of mineral wealth which concerns a much wider constituency.
It is also possible that in the long run commercial intercourse and
economic interest may create ties more lasting than language or
national sentiment, and that a given boundary may do more ultimate harm
by violating the fundamental economic interests of a region than by
violating its momentary political sentiments.

Again, the political sentiment of the moment may run counter to strong
historic forces, as in Bohemia, where the considerable German element
has been settled for centuries, so that its incorporation with adjacent
German-speaking countries would tear apart the historic unity of the
Czech state. Indeed, it is a nice question how far it was the task of
the Peace Conference to right ancient territorial wrongs. “The wrong
done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine”
was a clear case for rectification, if only because, in President
Wilson’s phrase, it had “unsettled the peace of the world for nearly
fifty years.” Much the same could be said for the restoration of North
Schleswig, seized by Prussia in 1864, and even for Poland, though its
destruction dates back to the eighteenth century. On the other hand,
more recent acts of injustice, such as the Prussian annexations of
1814, the Conference left untouched, except on the Belgian frontier,
evidently considering them as internal German questions which time had
adjusted. Some notion of prescription had evidently to be admitted,
else in seeking to right ancient wrongs the Conference would have done
a greater wrong by introducing confusion into every part of the world.
The only noteworthy attempt to reach far back into history would be the
restoration of the Jews to Palestine, now inhabited by a preponderantly
Mohammedan and Christian population. Here, as in many parts of eastern
Europe, religion becomes an important element in national cleavage.

In general, the Paris Conference was disposed to give more weight to
the principle of nationality, in its broader historic sense, than
to economic or strategic considerations. This idea of nationality
runs through the programme of President Wilson, which the members
of the Conference had accepted in advance. It is, of course, easier
to set peoples free from their rulers than from economic necessity,
and the creation of new political frontiers undoubtedly complicates
questions of trade and commercial policy. Nevertheless, it is a curious
inconsistency that some who are most eager to find discrepancies
between the programme of the Conference and its achievements should
at the same time propose to destroy the economic and political
independence of the newly liberated peoples of central Europe and the
Balkans by imposing on them a compulsory customs union after the manner
of Germany’s Mitteleuropa.[5]

Finally, the nature of the frontiers to be drawn at Paris depended on
the kind of world for which they were to be made. If Europe was to
continue to be an armed camp, divided between two competing systems
of alliances, then the strongest possible military frontiers would
be required--along the Rhine and the Danube, in the Alps and in the
Balkans--, and the strategic element must preponderate in every
boundary. If, on the other hand, some better form of international
organization could be found through a League of Nations, however
rudimentary, strategic considerations could drop into the background
in favor of the economic convenience and the political desires of the
people concerned. If colonial rivalries were to be reduced in the
interest of world peace, the German colonies ought to be subjected to
some international control, and they could not be internationalized
without creating some international authority. An international
control of ports and rivers might affect the whole problem of access
to the sea, while areas of special tension or perplexity, like Danzig
or the Saar valley, might be placed under some form of international
administration such as commissions of the League of Nations. This
explains why the problem of the League could not be postponed until
after the conclusion of peace, but formed an integral part of the
negotiations and of the treaty itself. At every turn the problem of the
League of Nations obtruded itself, and the elaboration of the plan for
a League facilitated, instead of hindering, the work of the Conference.

       *       *       *       *       *

In addition to the fundamental principle of self-determination
expressed in President Wilson’s speeches, Germany and the Allies had
accepted his specific Fourteen Points as the basis of the negotiations.
This immensely simplified the task of the Conference in certain
directions, and gave a firm ground for discussion wherever these
applied; but much was required in the way of interpretation, extension,
supplementing, and application before the two pages of the Fourteen
Points could grow into the two hundred pages of the treaty with Germany
and the correspondingly long texts of the other treaties. The Fourteen
Points did not cover the whole field, and even where they were clearly
and directly applicable, much knowledge and much negotiation were
required to put them into effect.

The Congress of Vienna had its Statistical Commission, one of the most
successful parts of the Congress, which collected the statistical data
for parcelling out peoples among the various princes. It was limited,
however, to statistics of population, the counting of heads being the
only basis there admitted in the balancing of territorial adjustments.
The Paris Conference needed a far larger and more varied body of
knowledge, not only because it covered every part of the world, but
because its declared principles necessitated information of every sort
respecting the history, traditions, aspirations, ethnology, government,
resources, and economic conditions of the peoples with which it was to
deal.

Information the Conference had in huge quantities, literally by
the ton. It came in every day in scores of foreign newspapers, in
masses of pamphlets, in piles of diplomatic reports and despatches.
Every special interest was on hand, eager to present its case orally
to the Conference or its commissions, to enlighten personally the
commissioners or their subordinates, to hand in endless volumes of more
or less trustworthy ethnographical maps and statistics, of pictures and
description, of propagandist matter of every conceivable sort. A steady
head, a critical judgment, and a considerable background of fact were
required to keep one’s vision clear amidst this mass of confusing and
conflicting material.

The collecting and sifting of such information for the Conference had
begun years before. The French, systematic as always, had appointed
governmental commissions, economic, military, geographic, and had also
a special university committee with Professor Lavisse as chairman, the
Comité d’Etudes, which prepared two admirable volumes, with detailed
maps, on the European problems of the conference. The British had
printed two considerable series of Handbooks, one got out by the
Naval Intelligence Division under the guidance of Professor W. McNeil
Dixon of Glasgow, the other prepared in the Historical Section of
the Foreign Office under the editorship of Sir George Prothero. The
United States had put little into print, but more than a year before
the armistice, by direction of the President, Colonel Edward M. House
had organized a comprehensive investigation, known as the ‘Inquiry,’
with its headquarters at the building of the American Geographical
Society in New York City, whose secretary, Dr. Isaiah Bowman, served as
executive officer. It enlisted throughout the country the services of
a large number of geographers, historians, economists, statisticians,
ethnologists, and students of government and international law; and
carloads of maps, statistics, manuscript reports, and fundamental
books of reference accompanied the American Commission to Paris.
The specialists who went along or were later brought together were
organized into a group of economic advisers--Messrs. Baruch, Davis,
Lamont, McCormick, Taussig, Young, and their staffs--; two technical
advisers in international law--Messrs. David Hunter Miller and James
Brown Scott--with their assistants; and a section of territorial and
political intelligence.

       *       *       *       *       *

Peace conferences are always represented as sitting around green
tables, and this pleasant fiction is perpetuated with reference to
Paris in the widely circulated advertisement of a well known fountain
pen. Now the Paris Conference never sat around a table. It is true that
for certain formal sessions of the whole Conference there was arranged
a long table lining three sides of the principal room in the French
Foreign Office on the Quai d’Orsay, and that the delegates could be
packed in here twice as close as nature meant them to sit. But there
were very few formal meetings of this sort, and they could not by any
stretch of the imagination be thought of as round-table conferences,
if indeed as conferences at all. Certain leaders delivered prepared
speeches, and rarely did lesser lights venture to break the prearranged
course of the proceedings.

It was early apparent that the Conference could not profitably meet
and do business as a whole. Twenty-seven different states were
represented, besides the five British dominions. There were seventy
authorized delegates. Such a body would have become a debating society;
it would still be in session, its labors scarcely begun. Some guiding
or steering executive committee was obviously required, and it was
early found in the delegates of the five chief Powers: America,
England, France, Italy, and Japan.

The five Great Powers themselves had thirty-four delegates, and it was
plain that this also was too large a body for doing ordinary business.
So there was early organized a Committee or Council of Ten, each state
having two members, ordinarily the chief delegate and the foreign
secretary; and this became the active agency of the Conference. It had
a secretariat; and expert advisers, civil or military, attended as they
were needed. If a military matter came up, Marshal Foch would be on
hand, member of the Conference in his capacity of Commander-in-Chief,
with his curving shoulders, fine face, and clear eye. A naval question
brought in the British sea lords, Admiral Benson, and a keen-looking
lot of Japanese. When economic questions were to the fore, the American
delegation bulked large, with the square jaw of Mr. Herbert Hoover well
in evidence.

Even the Council of Ten was not seated about a table, although it
is so imagined in an ‘inside history’ of the Conference by one who
was never inside.[6] Nor did the American delegation meet around a
table, notwithstanding the preparation of an official picture which
represents the members in a room where they never met, seated at one
end of a table and backed by an imposing array of secretaries and
assistants. The Council of Ten sat along three sides of the pleasant
office of M. Pichon, the French Foreign Secretary, its walls covered
with bright tapestries after the style of Rubens, its windows looking
out over a beautiful French garden which tempted the roving eye while
a long speech was being translated. M. Clémenceau presided, a tiger
at rest, his eyes mostly on the ceiling, sometimes bored but always
alert and never napping. Others sometimes appeared to sleep or to
distract themselves as best they could; but no one lost touch with the
proceedings. Certainly the President of the United States, long trained
by golf, kept his eye steadily on the ball.

The Council of Ten met almost daily at three. Each special interest,
each minor nationality, had a chance to come forward and state its
case, usually at considerable length. Whatever was said in French was
translated into English, and vice versa. The sessions grew long and
tiresome, and progress was slow. More and more people were called
in. One of them remarked that he would not have missed his first
meeting for a thousand dollars, but would not give ten cents to see
a second! For its last two sessions the Council moved into the large
room reserved for the plenary sessions of the Conference. One of
these meetings was reported at length in the Paris papers, and it
was alleged that undue publicity, as well as undue prolixity, was
responsible for the sudden change on March 24. After that date the
Council of Ten ceased to meet. Cartoonists represented it as seeking a
bomb-proof shelter. At times thereafter the foreign ministers met as a
Council of Five. But the real power rested with a new body, the Council
of the four principal delegates of England, France, Italy, and the
United States--Messrs. Lloyd George, Clémenceau, Orlando, and Wilson.

The Council of Four left the spacious quarters of the Quai d’Orsay.
Sometimes it met in M. Clémenceau’s office at the Ministry of War,
sometimes at Mr. Lloyd George’s apartment, most frequently at
President Wilson’s residence, either in his study, or, when several
outsiders were present, in the large drawing-room. The meetings in
the study were not always “private and unattended,” nor were the
occasional conferences upstairs the confused gatherings which an
infrequent spectator has pictured.[7] Outsiders were called in as
needed, but ordinarily the Four met by themselves, with a confidential
interpreter, Captain Mantoux, very able and very trustworthy. There
was no stenographer, not even a secretary, though secretaries were
usually outside the door to execute orders. The meetings were quite
conversational, and the records necessarily fragmentary. But the
Council at least worked rapidly, sometimes perforce too rapidly.
Steadily the main lines of the treaty emerged.

By March the expert work of the Conference had been largely organized
into commissions, not systematically and at the outset, as the French
had proposed in January, but haltingly and irregularly, as necessity
compelled. Foresight and organizing ability were not the strong
points of the congress. One by one there were created commissions
on Poland, on Greece, on Morocco, on Roumania, etc., on reparation,
finance, waterways, and the principal economic problems of the
conference. Ordinarily a commission consisted of two members from
each of the five great powers, with a secretary from each and special
advisers as required. Their proceedings were regularly noted, and
formal minutes of each session were approved in print. Each country
expressed its opinion, but efforts were made to reach and report a
unanimous conclusion. On one occasion a Japanese delegate, perplexed
by a detailed problem of local topography, gave as his vote, “I agree
with the majority.” As the commission had just divided, two to two, he
scarcely clarified the situation.

Some of the best work of the Conference was done in these commissions,
and it is to be regretted that the system was not organized earlier
and used more widely. Some matters were never referred to commissions,
delicate questions like Fiume and Dalmatia and the Rhine frontier
being reserved for the exclusive consideration of the Four. Problems
of an intermediate sort were sent to special committees, extemporized
and set to work at double speed. Such were the Saar valley and
Alsace-Lorraine, referred to a committee of three, Messrs. Tardieu,
Headlam-Morley, and Haskins. Not being an organized commission, this
body had no secretariat. Economic and legal advisers might be present,
but often there were only the three. This committee met for a certain
period very steadily, sometimes twice a day. It reported unanimously
the chapters of the treaty on the Saar and Alsace-Lorraine, and
was present at the meetings of the Council of Four each time these
questions came up.

One naturally asks how far the recommendations of these commissions
and special committees were followed in framing the final draft of the
treaty. To this it is hard to give a general answer, for in the nature
of the case there was no uniform policy. The printed minutes of the
commissions will some day be public and can then be compared with the
several clauses of the treaty. In general, the territorial commissions
were thought of in the first instance as gatherers and sifters of
evidence, rather than as framers of treaty articles, questions of
policy being reserved for the ultimate consideration of the Council
of Ten. As time went on, the commissions tended to acquire more
responsibility and to throw their reports into the form of specific
articles or sections of a treaty. These naturally required coördination
with the work of other bodies, such as the commissions on finance,
reparation, or waterways, and a general correlation of the territorial
reports was attempted by a Central Territorial Commission of five.
Some final suggestions were also made by the Drafting Commission. The
reports of the commissions were, however, first made directly to the
Ten or the Four or the Five, as the case might be. Each report had
its place on the docket, and the members of the commission were then
present, each at the elbow of his principal, to furnish any necessary
explanations in his ear, but not to speak out. Later in the summer
members of the commissions were allowed to take part in the discussions
of the Council of Five.

Sometimes the report, presented in print, would be accepted without
debate. Sometimes a particular question would be considered at length,
perhaps with the result of recommitting the report. Unanimous reports
were likely to go through rapidly. A session of the Council of Four
might take an important report clause by clause, with explanations from
the committee and suggestions from members of the Council, but without
fundamental modifications. On the other hand important changes in one
chapter of the treaty were made at the last moment by the Four without
any consultation of the commission concerned.

In general, the American delegation was disposed to trust its experts,
both on matters of fact and on matters of judgment, and trusted them
in greater measure as the Conference wore on. It did not dictate
or even suggest their decisions, but left them free to form their
opinions on the basis of the evidence. They could have been used to
better advantage if they had been set to work earlier, and there were
unfortunate instances where they were consulted too late; but in
general this is to be explained by the haste and confusion inevitable
in the rapid movement of events rather than by any desire to ignore
the facts or the judgment based upon them. Certainly none of the
chief delegates was more eager for the facts of the case than was
the President of the United States, and none was able to assimilate
them more quickly or use them more effectively in the discussion of
territorial problems.

       *       *       *       *       *

The treaty of Versailles, like the other treaties drawn up at Paris,
is by no means a perfect instrument. Those who took part in framing it
would be the last to believe it verbally inspired. It is necessarily
a peace of compromise and adjustment, and that means that it does not
embody completely the desires of any one person or any one country. It
was also framed rapidly, not always with sufficient preliminary study,
and in some places it bears the marks of haste. But it represents an
honest effort to secure a just and durable settlement, and neither
the Conference in general nor the United States in particular need
be ashamed of it. It is easy to criticise in detail, easy to magnify
the defects and forget the substantial results achieved, just as it
was easy to criticise the Constitution of the United States when it
issued from the Convention of 1787, and to discover therein dangers
which history has shown to be imaginary. For one result of the Paris
treaties, however, their framers are not responsible, namely the delays
in ratification and enforcement. The treaties were drawn for the world
of 1919 by men of 1919, on the assumption that what was needed was an
early peace as well as a just settlement. The governing commissions and
mandates were to begin at once, the plebiscites were to be held as soon
as possible, the disarmament of Germany was to be prompt and real, the
difficult work of reparation was to be taken up immediately. None of
these expectations has been realized, and the responsibility lies less
with the Peace Conference than with the failure of America to ratify
the treaties and to take part in carrying out their provisions.

In one fundamental respect the treaties drawn up at Paris differ from
all such instruments in the past: they do not pretend to be final. The
treaty of Vienna lasted, in many respects, for a hundred years, and
parts of it are still in force, unchanged by the war or the Conference.
For all this the Congress of Vienna deserves its full measure of
credit, but it must be remembered that it provided no method of change
or adjustment. Only a new war could undo its provisions, and more
than one such war proved necessary. At Paris it was recognized from
the start that much of the treaty must be temporary and provisional.
No one could determine in advance how peoples would vote, or just
how much of an indemnity Germany could pay, or whether she would
endeavor to execute or to avoid the obligations she there assumed, or
what would happen in Austria or in Turkey. Some means of amendment,
adjustment, correction, and supplementing was required, and this was
found primarily in the League of Nations. In the League the treaties
possess the possibility of their own betterment, the starting-point
of a new development. Hence, unlike all previous treaties, those of
1919 are dynamic and not static: they are constructive and not merely
restorative; they look to the future more than to the past.


 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

 The published records of the Paris Conference are limited to the
 official reports of the plenary sessions and the official text of the
 treaties, in French and English, with authoritative maps, subject
 to correction after the frontiers have been fixed on the spot. The
 proceedings of the Council of Ten and the Council of Five were kept by
 a regular secretariat, those of the Council of Four less officially
 and systematically; these minutes were manifolded but not printed. The
 minutes of the various commissions, while printed, have not been made
 public.

 The German and Austrian treaties and related documents are printed
 as supplements to the _American Journal of International Law_ since
 July 1919. The German treaty is also printed as a Senate Document
 and as a publication of the American Association for International
 Conciliation. The entire series of treaties is best available in
 the British _Parliamentary Papers_, Treaty Series, 1919 and 1920. A
 bibliographical list of all these treaties by Denys P. Myers is to be
 published by the World Peace Foundation, _League of Nations Series_,
 iii, no. 1. _Documents and Statements relating to Peace Proposals and
 War Aims_, December 1916 to November 1918, have been edited by G.
 Lowes Dickinson (London and New York, 1919).

 There is as yet no memoir literature by members of the Conference.
 Some confidential papers are printed in the _Hearings before
 the Committee on Foreign Relations_ of the United States Senate
 (Washington, 1919), but these do not concern territorial problems.
 Some things touching France will be found in the report of the
 Barthou committee to the Chamber of Deputies, supplemented by the
 articles of A. Tardieu in _L’Illustration_ since February 1920. The
 official German criticisms of the Treaty of Versailles were published
 in various languages and have been freely reproduced by pro-German
 writers in other countries. A _Kommentar_ in six volumes has been
 prepared by one of the German delegates, Walter Schücking.

 So far the printed accounts of the Conference are the work of
 journalists, who from the nature of the proceedings cannot be fully
 informed. The most direct information was perhaps possessed by Ray
 Stannard Baker, chief of the American service of publicity, but his
 volume, _What Wilson did at Paris_ (New York, 1919), is _ex parte_
 and very brief. E. J. Dillon, _The Inside History of the Peace
 Conference_ (New York, 1920), is a diffuse composite of hearsay
 and newspaper clippings; it is anti-French but in general friendly
 to small nations. H. Wilson Harris, _The Peace in the Making_ (New
 York, 1920), is an intelligent account by a fair-minded British
 Liberal. Sisley Huddleston, _Peace-Making at Paris_ (London, 1919),
 is more impressionistic. J. M. Keynes, _The Economic Consequences
 of the Peace_ (London and New York, 1919), is the brilliant but
 untrustworthy work of a British financial expert who finally repented
 of the treaty. Influenced by German propaganda, it is in general
 anti-French, anti-Belgian, and anti-Polish, and disparages political
 self-determination in favor of economic frontiers. Of the various
 critiques which the book has called out, the most searching is that of
 David Hunter Miller, in the New York _Evening Post_, February 6 and
 10, 1920, and in separate pamphlets.

 A volume on the Conference, with an elaborate atlas, is announced by
 an American territorial expert, Isaiah Bowman; a fuller work is in
 preparation by British and American experts under the editorship of
 Harold W. V. Temperley, of Peterhouse, Cambridge.

 Of the material collected in France for the Conference, the only
 systematic publication is the _Travaux du Comité d’Etudes_, in two
 volumes with an atlas (Paris, 1919). Most of the British material was
 printed but not published, a useful exception being C. K. Webster,
 _The Congress of Vienna_ (Oxford, 1918). The Foreign Office series
 of _Handbooks_ has now been made public (London, 1920). The most
 important American publication of the sort is the _Atlas of Mineral
 Resources_ to be issued by the United States Geological Survey
 (Washington, 1920).

        *       *       *       *       *

 There is no entirely satisfactory discussion of the general problem of
 frontiers. T. L. Holdich, _Political Frontiers and Boundary Making_
 (London, 1916), is concerned chiefly with ‘natural’ frontiers outside
 of Europe. For the facts of race, see W. Z. Ripley, _The Races of
 Europe_ (New York, 1899). Leon Dominian, _Frontiers of Language
 and Nationality in Europe_ (New York, 1917), is convenient. A more
 authoritative work on the linguistic side is A. Meillet, _Les langues
 dans l’Europe nouvelle_ (Paris, 1918). Experience with plebiscites
 is brought together in Miss Sarah Wambaugh’s elaborate _Monograph on
 Plebiscites_ (New York, 1920). A. Toynbee, _Nationality and the War_
 (London, 1915), is an attempt to state the territorial problems in
 the early months of the war; L. Stoddard and G. Frank, _Stakes of the
 War_ (New York, 1918), seeks to sum them up at its close. The relation
 of certain of these problems to a league of nations is discussed in
 _The League of Nations_, edited by Stephen P. Duggan, with references
 (Boston, 1919); and by Lord Eustace Percy, _The Responsibilities of
 Peace_ (London and New York, 1920).


FOOTNOTES:

[2] Webster, _The Congress of Vienna_, p. 93.

[3] _Was von der Entente übrig bliebe wenn sie Ernst machte mit dem
“Selbstbestimmungsrecht”_ (Berlin, D. Reimer).

[4] _Atlantic Monthly_, xc, pp. 728, 731 (1902).

[5] Keynes, _Economic Consequences of the Peace_, p. 265.

[6] Dillon, _The Inside History of the Peace Conference_, p. 151.

[7] Keynes, _The Economic Consequences of the Peace_, pp. 30-32. M.
Mantoux asserts that Mr. Keynes never attended a regular session of the
Council of Four. _London Times_, February 14, 1920.




II

BELGIUM AND DENMARK


Our examination of the specific territorial problems of the Conference
may most conveniently begin with the simplest, the frontier between
Germany and Denmark. This had been established by force of arms when
Schleswig was taken from Denmark in 1864, while a promise made in
1866 to consult the population had never been fulfilled. Only at the
close of the World War did an opportunity come to fix the boundary in
accordance with the will of the inhabitants. The duty of the Conference
was to provide the means of giving effect to their desires.

The territory of the former duchy of Schleswig comprises the portion
of the peninsula of Jutland lying between the Danish frontier on the
north and the River Eider and the Kiel Canal on the south. Called by
the Danes South Jutland (Sönderjylland), it is similar in most respects
to Denmark, being chiefly agricultural, with a fishing population on
the Frisian islands to the west and a considerable shipping industry
in its principal town, Flensburg, a town of 63,000 at the head of the
Flensburg fiord. The region has an area of 3385 square miles, and
474,355 inhabitants, not far from twice the extent and population of
the state of Delaware. About one-third of the people speak Danish;
these are chiefly in the northern portion of the province. The rest,
save for an isolated group of Frisians on the west coast, speak German.

The earlier history of Schleswig would take us into the tangled history
of the Schleswig-Holstein question, which is for present purposes
unnecessary. Suffice it to say that, whatever the previous rights of
the king of Denmark may have been, the attempt to unite the duchy of
Schleswig fully to the kingdom of Denmark by the constitution of 1863
led in the following year to war with Austria and Prussia and to the
defeat of Denmark, whose king, by the treaty of Vienna, renounced
all rights over Schleswig, Holstein, and Lauenburg. In 1866, at the
conclusion of the war between Austria and Prussia, the treaty of Prague
transferred the rights of Austria to the king of Prussia, with the
reservation that the “inhabitants of North Schleswig shall be again
reunited with Denmark if they should express such a desire in a vote
freely given.” Nothing could be clearer, and nothing more ineffective,
for the article was contained in a treaty between two powers neither of
which had the slightest interest in the performance of the obligation.
As a matter of fact, the provision had been suggested by Napoleon
III, but the interested parties, Denmark and the inhabitants of the
district, were not put in a position to secure its execution. Bismarck,
who seems at first to have expected a referendum, maintained in 1867
that the people as Prussian subjects had no right to demand it, the
only right to such a demand resting with the emperor of Austria.
Prussia made no effort to put the article into effect, and in 1878 it
was abrogated by agreement with Austria.

So, since 1864, Schleswig has been under Prussian rule, and since
1867 an integral part of the kingdom of Prussia. Once probably
wholly Danish, it had been subject for centuries to penetration from
the south, and by this time possessed a large German element which
henceforth had the active support of the Prussian government. The
history of the attempt to Germanize Schleswig is, on a smaller scale,
much the same as the history of the Germanization of Prussian Poland.
Efforts at replacement of the population by Germans had little success,
but the spread of German culture and the suppression of Danish culture
were everywhere steadily pushed. German was made compulsory in the
schools, the courts, and the churches; Danish was put under the ban
in public meetings and theatres; and the Danish press and Danish
societies were subjected to various forms of persecution. Intercourse
with Denmark was in various ways restricted or made difficult. Constant
war was waged against the Danish flag, and even against dresses which
displayed the red and white colors of Denmark. It was even said that
the owner of a white dog was obliged to repaint his red kennel! The
regular agents of Prussian policy were omnipresent: the police, the
pastor, and the schoolmaster. The officers’ duty was chiefly negative,
the suppression of Danish tendencies; the schoolmaster’s was more
positive, to instil Germanism into the rising generation, partly
by teaching only in the German language save for a small amount of
religious instruction, partly by the well known propagandist methods of
German history and patriotic songs. Thus all were compelled to sing,
“Ich bin ein Preusse, will ein Preusse sein”; and if a little girl
should say, “Ich bin kein Preusse, will kein Preusse sein,” she was
whipped and sent home.

Inevitably the zone of German speech crept gradually northward. In some
villages of central Schleswig which spoke only Danish half a century
ago, it is said that the language has disappeared save among the very
old. Still the process of Germanization was slow, and as time went on
active resistance was organized in the three great societies of the
Language Union, the School Union, and the Voters’ Union. Leaders found
in Denmark the Danish education which was forbidden them at home, and
kept alive a strong tradition of Danish speech and Danish sympathies.
A local political party was maintained, and the Danish vote increased
after 1886, although under the German gerrymander of 1867 it was still
allowed to return only one member of the Reichstag, and that in the
extreme north. Treasonable acts were in general avoided, but the hope
of reunion with Denmark was never entirely lost.

The fortunes of the World War gave at first but little hope to
the pro-Danish Schleswigers. They served in the German army up to
their full capacity; probably, as is stated, their losses were
proportionately greater than those among purely German troops. If
they were not fighting their own kin and friends, like the soldiers
of Alsace-Lorraine, they were at least fighting in another’s cause.
Denmark, too, walked warily during the war, with the fate of other
small nations ever before her eyes and the profits of German friendship
dangled in front of her. It was no time for Schleswig to look for help
in this quarter. With the armistice, matters took on a new aspect.
Foreseeing that the Schleswig question would be raised at the peace
table, Germany proposed a separate arrangement with Denmark, and it
was some time before Denmark readjusted her policy to correspond to a
world in which the victorious Allies were able to impose terms on a
defeated Germany. Even then the readjustment was incomplete. Germany
might become powerful again, and Denmark must beware, so many thought,
of laying up vengeance for the future by acquiring territory which
Germany might demand back. In many quarters there seemed to be genuine
terror lest the Allies might impose territory and obligations upon an
unwilling Denmark. A natural hesitation over absorbing alien elements
was accompanied by a fear lest many new voters might upset the party
balance in a small country. In determining the future of Schleswig,
it appeared that the timidity of Denmark was to have its weight,
as well as the hopes of the population. The Radical party, then in
power, wished only limited accessions of population in the region of
North Schleswig; while the Conservatives favored a more decided policy
extending into southern Schleswig, though few went so far as to demand
outright the ancient frontier of the Eider or even the old rampart of
the Dannevirke.

No mention had been made of Schleswig in President Wilson’s Fourteen
Points, but a just determination of the question was promised by him in
a letter to certain Danish-Americans just after the armistice (November
21). Diplomatic conversations had indeed already begun, and February
21 the Danish government formally placed the matter before the Peace
Conference in an exposé made to the Council of Ten by its minister
in Paris, Chamberlain Bernhoft. It asked for a plebiscite as soon as
possible in the region of unquestioned Danish speech north of a line
stretching west from the head of the Flensburg fiord to the north of
the island of Sylt in the North Sea, a line which had been demanded,
November 17, 1918, by the North Schleswig Voters’ Union at Aabenraa.
By February sentiment was ready to ask for a plebiscite also in a zone
to the south, which included Flensburg and certain adjacent territory.
In order that all possibilities of pressure might be removed, the
evacuation of German troops and German higher officials was requested
in a considerable strip of territory farther south.

The commission to which the Conference referred the Schleswig problem
heard delegates from the different parts of the territory, as well
as reports of the various points of view in Denmark. The commission
saw no reason why the right of voting should be refused to any part
of the region to be evacuated, though it was plain that some judgment
would need to be used in drawing a frontier upon the basis of the
voting, so as to avoid enclaves and inconvenient meanderings. Definite
evidence was before it of a desire to vote on the part of many persons
in south Schleswig. Accordingly its report, incorporated in the draft
treaty submitted to the Germans in May, provided for a plebiscite by
three zones, so that the frontier between Germany and Denmark might be
fixed in conformity with the wishes of the population. In the first
or northernmost zone, where the voting was supposed to be largely a
matter of form, the plebiscite was to take place for the whole district
within three weeks of the German evacuation. In the second zone of
mixed speech in middle Schleswig, where opinion was likely to vary in
different districts and to be affected somewhat by the result in the
first zone, the voting was to occur not more than five weeks later and
to be taken commune by commune. The same method was to be applied two
weeks thereafter in the third zone, which comprised the remainder of
the evacuated territory extending to the Eider and the Schlei, a region
of predominantly German speech, where the Danish tradition had been
greatly weakened in course of time and where the people would likewise
want to know the result in the neighboring zone to the northward.
Within ten days of the coming into force of the treaty German troops
and higher officials were to evacuate the whole territory north of
the Eider and the Schlei, and the administration was to be carried
on by an International Commission of five, one appointed by Norway,
one by Sweden, and three by the Allied and Associated Powers. This
commission was to hold the plebiscites in accordance with provisions
which had been suggested by the Danish government; and upon the result
of the voting, with due regard to geographic and economic conditions,
recommend a permanent boundary to the Allied and Associated Powers. The
whole plan was carefully drawn to secure as full and free an expression
as possible of the desires of the population.

Opposition came from two sources. The German criticisms, as handed in
to the Conference in May, had little weight. They proposed to limit the
voting, and hence any possible loss of German territory, to a portion
of the first zone, on the ground that only there did more than half of
the population speak Danish. Apart from the fact that this affirmation
was based on the official language statistics of the Prussian census,
which was notoriously unfavorable to non-German elements, the proposal
started from two inadmissible assumptions: one that language is the
sole test of political sympathy; the other that no region where
Germans were in a majority should be allowed self-determination, for,
it was implicitly believed, no German could possibly want to leave the
Fatherland. Germany thus sought to prevent free expression of opinion
where it might turn to Germany’s disadvantage, at the very moment she
clamored for it in Upper Silesia, where it might possibly turn out in
her favor. How Germany hoped to control the plebiscite appeared from
another proposal, namely that, all German officials still remaining in
the country, the administration and the voting should be in charge of a
commission of Germans and Danes, with a Swedish chairman!

The Danish objection, as voiced by the majority Radicals, was against
the inclusion of the third zone in the voting. The reason most
generally given was that districts in this zone might vote for Denmark
from purely economic motives, especially the desire to escape German
war taxes and war indemnities, and thus form an irredentist minority in
a country with which they were not really in sympathy. Probably also
there was still the lurking fear of the powerful neighbor of the past
and the future, as well as some measure of friendliness for the new
regime in Germany.

To such arguments the Conference yielded, cutting out of the final
treaty the plebiscite in the third zone and its evacuation as well.
The change was made at the last moment, without readjustment of the
other provisions, so that this section of the treaty shows certain
signs of haste. The effect was to take away all opportunity for
self-determination in the third zone and to leave the German troops and
administration here in a position to exert pressure on the region to
the northward.[8]

The vote in the first zone, held February 10, 1920, resulted in a
decisive Danish majority of three to one, and led to occupation by
Denmark, as the treaty had provided. Feeling ran high in the second
zone, where the German government sought to influence the decision
by threats in the Reichstag; the struggle centred around Flensburg,
certain in either event to be a frontier town now that the third zone
had been eliminated. The plebiscite, held March 14, resulted decisively
for Germany, the vote in Flensburg being overwhelming and only a few
scattered villages on the islands voting for Denmark. The result failed
to satisfy either party entirely, a large Danish group still wanting
Flensburg, while in the first zone the Germans wished to recover
Tönder, where the voting had favored Germany. Indeed it remains to be
seen whether German hopes of recovery will be limited to Tönder.

One question of which Denmark and the Schleswigers showed great desire
to keep clear was the Kiel Canal. Even the widest limit of evacuation
proposed carefully left a belt of Schleswig territory between its
southern border and the canal, lest what was fundamentally a question
of popular rights might become complicated with a wholly distinct
international problem. Only in case of the internationalization of the
canal would its fate have reacted on the Schleswig problem by leaving
an isolated strip of German territory to the north which might then
have been separated from Germany and attached to the adjacent Danish
territory. Whatever might have been said for the internationalization
of this great waterway, the question was not seriously considered at
the Conference. The parallel to Suez and Panama was too close! The
treaty leaves the canal under German control, but provides that it
shall be open on terms of entire equality to the vessels of commerce
and of war of all nations at peace with Germany.[9]

The island of Heligoland, which England had seized from Denmark in
1807 and ceded to Germany in exchange for Zanzibar in 1890, is not
restored to either of its former owners. Instead it is stipulated
that all fortifications and harbor works there shall be destroyed by
German labor and at Germany’s expense, and that no similar works shall
be constructed in the future.[10] Immunity for the future might do
something to offset the great price which England had paid for Zanzibar
throughout the World War.

The case of Belgium at the Peace Conference was widely different from
that of Denmark. Denmark had remained neutral; her neutrality had
been respected by others, and had even been a source of commercial
profit; and at the end of the war, without the slightest effort on
her part, she saw all her desires gratified in Schleswig. Indeed, her
only fear was lest she should receive more territory than she wanted.
The neutrality of Belgium, specially guaranteed by an international
treaty, and thus far more binding on her neighbors than that of
Denmark, had been violated by Germany at the very outbreak of the
war. Belgium had suffered more than four years of German occupation,
including the systematic spoliation of her farms, her factories, and
her railroads, and the deliberate attempt to divide her people into two
separate Walloon and Flemish states; she had barely escaped permanent
incorporation with Germany. Yet all this time she had fought as best
she could beside the Allies; she had made heavy sacrifices; she had
stood for international right. Belgium expected much from the peace,
and Belgium was in large measure disappointed.

Belgium was disappointed on the economic side, for she was flooded with
depreciated German currency which the Allies did not take over, and her
hopes for full priority on the account of restoration and reparation
were not entirely fulfilled. Indeed, it soon became apparent that the
general bill for reparation would far exceed the ability of Germany to
pay, and that there were not resources enough in all Germany to meet
that restoration of invaded territory upon which President Wilson had
declared “the whole world was agreed.” Belgium had suffered less than
France by the destruction of war itself, for her territory, save in
the case of the Meuse fortresses and the battle zone in Flanders, had
not been fought over; but the German occupation which she had borne
in equal measure was relatively far more serious, for it affected the
whole country and not merely a part, and it produced stagnation of
industry and cessation of commerce on a scale that destroyed enterprise
and left idleness as well as poverty in its stead.

In territorial matters Belgium’s desires, save for a small correction
of the German frontier, concerned neutral powers, Holland and
Luxemburg, which were not members of the Peace Conference and not
subject to its jurisdiction. The most that the Conference could do
was to help in the adjustment of Belgium’s claims, and Belgium feels
strongly that the Conference did not help enough.

Finally, Belgium was dissatisfied with her whole position at the
Conference. During the war she had acted as one of the Allies and had
her representation in the Allied councils. At Paris she was only a
small power, limited to three delegates--at first even to two--and
excluded from the guiding and deciding group of the Five Great Powers.
Even the decisions which directly concerned her were taken by the
Council of Ten or the Council of Four. She was outside, while Italy
and Japan were inside. Individually her delegates sat on important
committees, but there were times when Belgium must have felt far
removed from the central tasks of the Conference, in the outer limbo
occupied by Liberia, Panama, and Siam. A Belgian told the story of an
officer who had lost both legs. “You will always be a hero,” said a
consoling friend. “No,” replied the officer, “I shall be a hero for
a year and a cripple for the rest of my life.” Belgium felt that the
days of her position as a hero were over. You will recall Mr. Dooley on
Lieutenant Hobson: “I’m a hero,” said the Lieutenant. “Are ye, faith?”
said Admiral Dewey, “Well, I can’t do anything f’r ye in that line. All
th’ hero jobs on this boat is compitintly filled be mesilf.”

Let us call to mind so much of Belgium’s history as is necessary to
approach her modern problems. Belgium as a separate and independent
state has existed only since 1830, but her national history goes back
into the Middle Ages. Easy of access from both the Rhine and the
north of France, the territory of modern Belgium has always been a
highroad of peoples, for migration, commerce, and war, and the natural
meeting-point of races and civilizations from north and south. It
formed a part of the great middle kingdom created between France and
Germany by the partition of the Frankish empire in the ninth century,
and with the break-up of the middle kingdom it became a natural object
of ambition from both sides. The various feudal principalities which
shared this territory in the Middle Ages divided their allegiance
between the king of France and the German emperor; and it was not till
the fifteenth century that the rise of a new middle kingdom under the
dukes of Burgundy brought the region of the Netherlands, northern as
well as southern, under a single hand and made them for practical
purposes independent of France and Germany. Enlarged toward the east by
the Emperor Charles V in the sixteenth century, the territories of the
Netherlands comprised seventeen provinces and included substantially
what is now Holland and Belgium.

By the marriage of Mary, heiress of Burgundy, to Maximilian of Austria
in 1477 the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands passed to the house
of Hapsburg, and thus to their grandson, the Emperor Charles V. Upon
the division of his possessions in 1556 they went with Spain to the
so-called Spanish branch of the family, represented by Philip II.
Religious and political reasons led to the great revolt against Philip
II in 1568, a movement in which the whole seventeen provinces joined.
The skilful policy of Philip’s general, Alexander Farnese, succeeded in
detaching the southern provinces, which had remained for the most part
Catholic, from the Protestant, or United, Netherlands of the north, and
from 1579 on the southern provinces led a separate existence under
Spanish rule, being generally known as the Spanish Netherlands. In this
period they lost considerable territory on the north to the Dutch and
on the south to the French.

Upon the division of the Spanish dominions by the treaty of Utrecht in
1713, the Spanish Netherlands were in the following year transferred
to Austria, and were known as the Austrian Netherlands until their
conquest by the armies of the French Revolution in 1794. They were then
incorporated with France (1795) and organized into nine departments, a
state of affairs which lasted until 1814.

By the Congress of Vienna in 1815 the northern and the southern
Netherlands were reunited, under the rule of a king of the house
of Nassau. After a separation of one hundred and thirty-five years
the union proved unsatisfactory to the southern population. Marked
differences of religion, economic interest, and language produced
friction from the start, which was aggravated by the exclusive policy
of the Dutch, who, though a minority, monopolized the higher offices
and enforced the use of the Dutch language. The revolutionary movement
of 1830 kindled a revolt in the southern provinces, and a separate
government was organized under a constitutional monarch, Leopold of
Saxe-Coburg. The separation was declared “final and irrevocable” by
a convention of representatives of the five Great Powers meeting in
London in 1831, and the treaty was accepted by Holland in 1839. The
boundaries of the new kingdom were, as we shall see, drawn in a manner
quite unsatisfactory to the Belgians.

The treaty of 1839 guaranteed the independence and the neutrality of
Belgium, while at the same time it placed restrictions on the new
state. By Article VII it was provided that

 Belgium ... shall form an independent and perpetually neutral state.
 It shall be bound to observe the same neutrality toward all other
 states.

It will thus be seen that, while the roots of Belgian nationality
lie deep in the past, the modern state was established in a somewhat
artificial form, its boundaries drawn and its international status
fixed by the Powers, not by Belgium itself. Its frontiers are in no
direction ‘natural’ frontiers. At the same time Belgium is dependent
in the closest way upon the outside world. It possesses the densest
population of any country in Europe--the same number of inhabitants
as the state of Pennsylvania, with one-fourth the area. In spite of a
highly intensive cultivation, the soil is unable to produce sufficient
food, so that sixty per cent of the consumption of cereals is imported.
For this large importation Belgium is unable to pay in minerals, its
only considerable underground resource being coal, of which there has
been no surplus for export since 1910. It must consequently pay for
its imports by exports of manufactured products, for which the raw
materials are likewise for the most part imported.

Belgium is thus a highly industrialized country, with a large
manufacturing population. Its principal industries are iron furnaces
and rolling mills, zinc works, machinery, arms, and tools; textiles,
especially cotton goods; glass, cement, and ceramic wares; leather; and
chemical products. Commerce is also of the highest importance in the
economic life of Belgium. She requires foreign imports of raw materials
and foreign markets for her manufactured articles. She has a very
large transit trade, en route to and from Germany and northern France.
In volume of trade Antwerp is one of the greatest of European ports,
abreast of Hamburg and London. The system of railways and canals is
elaborate, with the highest per capita mileage in Europe.

       *       *       *       *       *

Of the territorial adjustments desired by Belgium, the least
considerable concerned her Prussian frontier. Belgium (or at that
time the Belgian part of Holland) and Prussia became neighbors in
1815, in consequence of the Prussian annexations on the left bank of
the Rhine. The boundary then drawn was not based upon considerations
of language or history, still less upon any expressed desire of the
inhabitants, but was fixed primarily so as to give Prussia a certain
number of people as compensation for her failure to receive Saxony.
She thus acquired the eastern part of the lands of the abbey of
Stavelot-Malmedy; the territory of St. Vith, which had belonged to
Luxemburg; and a portion of Limburg in the region of Eupen. This land
was largely hill and forest, of no great economic value, and it was
used by Prussia chiefly for military purposes. Strategic railroads, of
little importance in time of peace, were constructed along the Belgian
and Luxemburg frontiers, and the great military camp of Elsenborn was
built in this very region to serve for the concentration of troops
against the invasion of Belgium. Liège, Belgium’s great industrial
center, was only eighteen miles from the German border, and the taking
of Liège in 1914 opened up the whole valley of the Meuse.

Belgium asked a minimum of protection for the future. It was plain that
such protection could not come from any considerable advance of the
frontier on the part of so small a state, but must be found chiefly
in the demilitarization of the Left Bank and in measures for general
peace. At least, however, Belgium might ask control over some of the
military railroads and over the camp of Elsenborn.

If purely strategic arguments had prevailed, they would have carried
the Belgian frontier forward to the Rhine or to the mountain range
of the Eiffel. Within the narrower limits chosen, the strategic
considerations were reënforced by others: the economic orientation of
this region toward Belgium rather than toward Germany; the historic
connection before 1815; and the opportunity for reparation, for this
sparsely peopled territory was rich in forests, which might serve to
replace the Belgian forests which had been systematically destroyed by
Germany during the war, leaving a frontier line which can be followed
for miles by the standing timber on the German side and its absence on
the Belgian. The linguistic line was less sharp. German was spoken in
certain districts on the Belgian side; while, in spite of a century of
Germanization, Walloon still prevailed in Malmedy and the neighboring
Prussian villages. Indeed, Malmedy was in many ways like a Belgian
town, and German troops in 1914 are said to have begun pillaging here
under the impression that they were already in Belgium.

The actual wishes of the population in the ceded districts had not
been expressed, so it was provided in the treaty that during the six
months after its coming into force the Belgian authorities should
open registers in which the inhabitants might record a desire to have
any part of the ceded territory remain under German sovereignty, the
results to be passed upon by the League of Nations. It would have been
more consistent with the rest of the treaty if the League had also
been entrusted with securing the original expression of opinion. The
territory transferred by the treaty comprised 376 square miles with a
population of 61,000, constituting the Kreise of Malmedy and Eupen,
whose administrative limits were preserved in order to interfere as
little as possible with local conditions.[11]

The treaty also settled an old controversy in this region respecting
the district of Moresnet, disputed between Belgium (until 1839 Holland)
and Prussia since 1815, when two inconsistent boundary lines of the
treaty of Vienna left in doubt the sovereignty over a triangular area
of about 900 acres which contained the valuable zinc mine of Vieille
Montagne. Neither side would yield, and a convention of 1816 which
provided for the neutralization of the area under a _condominium_ or
joint administration lasted until the war. With the exhaustion of the
mine the district has declined in importance, but the anomaly needed
clearing up, as the Germans had frequently declared. The treaty assigns
the disputed territory to Belgium, and adds a square mile or so in
Prussian Moresnet, comprising the domanial and communal woods.[12]

Far more important for Belgium was the question of her relations with
another eastern neighbor, the duchy of Luxemburg. An integral part
of the southern Netherlands until the French Revolution, Luxemburg
had in 1815 been made into a grand duchy and handed over to the king
of Holland. It revolted with Belgium in 1830 and sent members to the
Belgian Parliament, but on the final separation of Belgium and Holland
in 1839 it was divided, the western or Walloon portion going to
Belgium, and the eastern or German-speaking portion continuing as the
grand duchy. The dynastic union with Holland came to an end in 1890,
when a divergence in the laws of succession established a separate line
of grand dukes.

The neutrality of Luxemburg was specially and perpetually guaranteed
by the Powers, Prussia included, in 1867; but the state was not in
every respect independent. Cut off from its Belgian markets by the
separation of 1839, it entered three years later the German Zollverein,
of which it continued a member until the close of the World War. Its
railroads also passed under German control in 1871, with a proviso that
they should not be used for military purposes. They were nevertheless
extended and double-tracked in the direction of France and Belgium,
for military reasons which became clearly apparent in 1914. August 1
of that year the German occupation of Luxemburg began, and the country
remained a base of military operations throughout the war. Unlike
Belgium, Luxemburg made no resistance. Indeed, its government was
considered very friendly to Germany--_une dynastie boche_, the French
called it--and the final victory of the Allies was followed January 15
by the abdication of the grand duchess, Marie Adelheid, in favor of her
sister Charlotte.

It was plain that the Allies, Belgium and France most of all, could
not permit a return of Luxemburg to German control; and it was equally
plain that, whatever political independence the grand duchy retained,
it could not stand economically alone. With but 260,000 people and 1000
square miles of territory, it was not large enough for that; and its
principal industry, iron, needed the coal and the markets of adjacent
lands. Belgium felt that Luxemburg would naturally turn to her. The
people were Catholic; the language of government and of the educated
classes was French; there were strong ties of tradition and sentiment
between the two countries. Belgium counted, counted too confidently, on
the result. She forgot the strong feeling for local independence among
the Luxemburgers, who, as their national song runs, ‘want to remain
what they are’; she forgot the strength of dynastic tradition and
clerical influence. For any union with Belgium spelled the end of the
local dynasty and of national identity, and might, it was feared, mean
the swallowing up of a conservative Catholic people by a larger and
more Socialistic neighbor.

France also wanted Luxemburg. She wanted it for purposes of defence, so
as to prevent a repetition of 1914; she wanted its iron mines and blast
furnaces. And, unlike the Belgians, she knew how to wait. The treaty
of peace merely insisted upon the permanent detachment of Luxemburg
from the Zollverein, and the abandonment of all German control over
its railways.[13] It did not touch the dynasty; it compelled no new
attachments. Meanwhile France, in the full glamor of victory, with a
brilliant staff quartered in the duchy itself, dazzled the imagination
of the Luxemburgers. They were brought to think that, while any
arrangement with Belgium threatened their independence, this could
be amply safeguarded in a merely economic union with France. In the
winter French troops even suppressed a little revolution against the
dynasty. And when the plebiscite came, September 28, 1919, a decided
majority pronounced for the reigning duchess and for a customs union
with France. Women voted for the first time in this election, and while
no separate returns were made of their votes, it is not likely that
they diminished the proportion of votes for the duchess.

Of all the German ruling families which were in power in 1918, the
sole survivor today is that of the grand duchess of Luxemburg. And
the only surviving Austrian prince is her consort, Prince Felix of
Bourbon-Parma, naturalized as a Luxemburger November 5, 1919, by a
close vote in the Chamber and married the following day. And if some
time these two should disappear in another revolution, the republic
which would follow seems likely to seek support from France rather than
from Belgium.

       *       *       *       *       *

Belgium’s chief territorial difficulties lie on the side of Holland,
which controls the lower courses of her two great rivers, the Scheldt
and the Meuse, and hems in Belgium on her northeast corner in Limburg
and on her northwest corner in Flanders. The embarrassment is partly
strategic, limiting Belgium’s freedom in time of war, partly economic,
restricting the foreign commerce which is the lifeblood of the
Belgian people. From any point of view, the Dutch-Belgian frontier is
unnatural. It requires explanation as soon as you see it on the map.
No one would draw such a frontier if he were starting afresh. But it is
an historic frontier, and the ancient frontiers of a neutral power are
hard things for a peace congress to disturb.

The long tongue of land which constitutes the southern prolongation
of Dutch Limburg has diverse historical origins. Its chief town,
Maestricht, with parts of the adjacent country, has been Dutch
since the seventeenth century. Other parts belonged to the southern
Netherlands, and were acquired by the king of Holland as ‘compensation’
in 1839. Like Luxemburg, Limburg joined in the Belgian revolution of
1830 and had representatives in the Belgian parliament until 1839. But
in the final separation the peninsula was given to Holland, greatly to
Belgium’s dissatisfaction. An outlying region, it complained of neglect
by the Dutch government, and its economic relations were rather with
the adjacent lands of Belgium and Germany on either side. Recently,
with the development of its important coal mines, the Dutch have taken
much more interest in Limburg, and active efforts have been made to
counteract pro-Belgian tendencies.

The grievances of the Belgians respecting Limburg are twofold. From a
military point of view, it cannot be defended by Holland, whose troops
were withdrawn therefrom early in the late war. The Dutch claimed that
its neutrality was a protection for Belgium. The Belgians, with no
illusions as to German respect for neutral territory, replied that
they had no permanent assurance of this, and that Limburg would have
been crossed in 1914 if a breach had not finally been forced at Liège.
They made much of the fact that after the armistice German troops,
to the number of some 80,000, had been allowed to go home with their
booty by this route, thus escaping capture or internment in Holland.
The explanations of the Dutch were lame, but the offence could hardly
be said to merit severe punishment. The economic grievances of the
Belgians were more serious. Astride the Meuse at Maestricht, the Dutch
have delayed improvement and hindered canal navigation. In eight
miles of canal there are four sets of customs formalities, consuming
several days. Moreover, the best route for a Rhine-Scheldt canal, to
the construction of which Germany consented in the treaty,[14] lies
via Limburg, the levels across the region of the upper Meuse being
too difficult. If Belgium could not have Limburg, she at least wanted
military guarantees and economic facilities.

Important as is the Meuse to Belgium, her great highway is the Scheldt.
To all intents and purposes an arm of the sea, the Scheldt is navigable
for ocean-going vessels as far as Antwerp, 55 miles from its mouth.
Without it, Belgium becomes practically an inland country, for its
42 miles of North Sea coast have no harbors of value. Yet the lower
Scheldt is not Belgian nor even neutral; it belongs to Holland, through
whose territories it passes for 45 miles of its course. And it has
belonged to Holland since the sixteenth century, when the weakness of
Spain and the strength of the Dutch fixed the northern boundary of the
Spanish Netherlands. When the treaty of Westphalia (1648) confirmed the
northern provinces in the possession of the left bank of the Scheldt,
it also gave them the right to close completely the mouths of the river
and its tributaries. The purpose of this was to favor Amsterdam and
Rotterdam, and in consequence grass grew in the streets of Antwerp.
The revival of Belgium’s great port became possible only with the
French Revolution, which reopened the river, while the treaty of Vienna
declared navigation free on the Scheldt as well as the Meuse. The
existing state of affairs on the Scheldt was established by the treaty
of 1839, which created “a special regime which is neither that of the
sea nor that of ordinary rivers.”

The regime created by the treaty of 1839 has never been satisfactory to
the Belgians. One of its provisions reads:[15]

 So far as regards specially the navigation of the Scheldt and of
 its mouths, it is agreed that the pilotage and the buoying of the
 channel, as well as the conservation of the channels of the Scheldt
 below Antwerp, shall be subject to a joint superintendence, and that
 this joint superintendence shall be exercised by commissioners to be
 appointed for this purpose by the two parties. Moderate pilotage dues
 shall be fixed by mutual agreement.

The Dutch have interpreted this strictly as giving the joint commission
control only over the pilotage (two concurrent services) and over
keeping the channels open and properly marked and buoyed. The Belgians,
on the other hand, have contended that the commission should have
cognizance of matters upon which the extent and security of the
channels depend, such as diking, drainage, encroachments on the river
and its accessory waters, etc., their ground being that the Scheldt
constitutes a single hydrographic problem, no portion of which can
be properly treated without reference to the whole. They allege the
failure to make sufficient modern improvements on the western Scheldt
because of the indifference of the Dutch authorities, and they also
complain of the serious difficulties of drainage in Belgian Flanders
caused by raising the level of the Dutch lands between it and the
Scheldt. Being interested in the use of the river to a far greater
degree than the Dutch, the Belgians find it intolerable to be dependent
on Dutch consent to every act of maintenance or improvement. Belgium
pays the entire cost of improvements, but the consent of Holland is
necessary. Thus the Terneuzen canal, which connects Ghent with the
Scheldt, was built by Dutch engineers but at Belgium’s expense, and the
Dutch portion does not correspond to the portion south of the frontier.
Holland’s position throughout is essentially negative. The Scheldt
furthers no major interest of hers; she has no important towns along
its banks, no foreign trade which it carries; its improvement benefits
only a commercial rival.

In time of war Holland interprets her sovereignty as compelling her to
close the river to belligerents. In August 1914 English reënforcements
were thus forbidden to relieve Antwerp, although their purpose was to
maintain Belgian neutrality, while Belgian troops were denied exit by
the river and forced, to the number of several thousand, to suffer
internment in Holland. Such control of the river nullifies the centre
of Belgium’s defensive system at Antwerp; it might also permit the
turning of her Flemish defences in case of a war with Holland. The
Dutch maintain that the neutrality of the Scheldt during the Great War
was of real assistance to the Allies, who would otherwise have suffered
from German submarine bases along its banks; but the Belgians point out
that the closing of the river in war destroys at one blow the whole
foreign commerce of Antwerp, a result that might ensue even in a war in
which Holland was a party and Belgium neutral.

The simplest solution of the problem of the Scheldt would be the
elimination of Holland from its southern shore, which she has held
for more than three hundred years. This land, called Maritime or
Zealand Flanders (Flandre zélandaise, Ryksvlaanderen), has an area of
275 square miles and a population of 78,677, chiefly Catholic. Its
economic relations are mainly with Belgium, but it has manifested no
desire to change its political affiliations, and has recently been
assiduously cultivated by Holland. A less drastic measure would be the
admission of Belgium to co-sovereignty on the lower Scheldt, leaving
Holland in possession of its banks. Still another possibility would
be the complete internationalization of the river, under the League
of Nations. These solutions, especially the first two, have been
energetically opposed in Holland as infringements on her sovereignty.
The question of her boundaries was not, she declared, a matter for the
Peace Conference.

It was indeed suggested at Paris that Holland might be induced to
relinquish Zealand Flanders and Limburg in return for a compensation
in the Prussian territory on her eastern frontier, either in East
Friesland or in the region of Cleves and Wesel on the lower Rhine,
districts which once had much in common with the adjacent portions
of the Netherlands. There was, however, no indication of any desire
on the part of the inhabitants of these territories to change their
political allegiance, nor was Holland in the least disposed to face the
uncertainties arising out of any such exchange. The whole idea smacked
too strongly of the methods of the Congress of Vienna.

One matter affecting Holland did, however, concern the Conference,
namely Belgium’s compulsory and guaranteed neutrality, and it was
the Belgian contention that this involved also her frontiers. The
international status of Belgium rests upon the three treaties of April
19, 1839, one between the Five Great Powers and Belgium, one between
these powers and Holland, and one between Holland and Belgium. These
documents, in substance identical, fix the boundaries of Belgium at the
same time that they establish her as an independent and perpetually
neutralized state, “bound to observe the same neutrality toward all
other states.” This whole system of neutrality collapsed in 1914, and
Belgium wanted no more of it. By the time of the Peace Conference
Prussia, Austria, and Russia were certainly in no position to guarantee
Belgium’s neutrality, while France and England joined with Belgium in
considering a revision of the treaties necessary. Upon the advice of
its Commission on Belgian Affairs, the Conference took the position
that the treaties, as constituting a single entity, should be revised
in the entirety of their clauses, at the joint request of these three
powers, and that Holland as a signatory of one of the treaties should
take part in the revision, together with the Great Powers whose
interests were general. The declared object of the revision was “to
free Belgium from that limitation on her sovereignty which was imposed
on her by the treaties of 1839, and, in the interest both of Belgium
and of general peace, to remove the dangers and disadvantages arising
from the said treaties.” Belgium and Holland were accordingly invited
to appear before the Conference in order to set forth their views with
regard to such a revision.

This action was taken by the Council of Ten March 8; but the Conference
was busy with more pressing things, and it was not until May 19 and
20 that the representatives of the two countries were at last heard.
The Belgians maintained that Belgium had been given weak frontiers in
1839 on the ground that she was to be protected by the Powers; such
protection having failed disastrously in 1914, she should be given
frontiers which would enable her to hold her own with her neighbors,
in war and in peace. The unlimited sovereignty which had been promised
her in President Wilson’s seventh point ought to carry with it the
frontiers denied her in the days of her weakness. Holland had no
objection to the abandonment of Belgium’s neutrality, which had been
guaranteed to her as well as to Belgium, but she would not consider for
a moment any cession of her own territory. She declared, however, that
she was ready to discuss amicably with Belgium any adjustments of the
conditions of navigation, etc.

A commission was then appointed, representing Belgium and Holland as
well as the principal Allied and Associated Powers, but its field was
specifically restricted to “proposals involving neither transfer of
territorial sovereignty nor the creation of international servitudes.”
As any thoroughgoing settlement satisfactory to Belgium could not help
touching in some way the sovereignty of Holland, and as the regime of
the Scheldt already constituted an international servitude, the terms
of reference were generally regarded as a triumph for the Dutch. The
commission went to work in the summer in two sections, one military
and the other economic, but no final results had been reached when
the Peace Conference dissolved in December. The reference of such
outstanding matters to the governments concerned is another victory
for Holland, who desires no change in the existing situation. In
these matters Belgium has derived little advantage from the support
of her allies. Holland still holds the lower Scheldt and the lower
Meuse; Luxemburg seems permanently lost; except in the matter of her
neutrality, Belgium stands substantially where she stood in 1839.

If the territorial status of Belgium has not been essentially bettered
by the war, her economic status is certainly worse. No share in a
problematic indemnity will compensate her for her direct losses, not
to speak of her other expenses--the stripping of her resources, the
enforced idleness of her factories, the disappearance of her foreign
markets and her transit trade. Dependent in an extraordinary degree on
the outside world, Belgium was cut off from it for nearly five years,
and it is a question how fully she can recover her previous position. A
hero in 1914, is Belgium to remain a cripple for the future? The German
is gone, but he left ruin and disillusion behind him. Small wonder that
many a Belgian asks whether it was all worth while, as he contrasts his
lean and hungry country with the prosperity of neutral Holland. Small
wonder that the neutral world, as it looks to the future, is encouraged
to imitate the Holland that stood pat, the Luxemburg that succumbed,
rather than the Belgium that resisted. The neutral is more prosperous
than the ally.

In order to get a just perspective in the face of such considerations,
it is necessary to go back a few months. Germany’s plan was not merely
to use Belgium as a highroad to France, but to make Belgium permanently
subject to German interests, if not politically subject, at least
under complete military and economic control. The German literature of
the war, official and unofficial, is full of plans for the permanent
control of Belgium--political annexation, at least of that great
Flemish-speaking half of the country which the German administration
had separated from the rest of Belgium, and which, if not annexed
outright, was to remain apart as the great support of German policy
in the Belgium of the future; military control, of railroads and
telegraphs, perhaps of the Flemish coast and the fortresses of the
Meuse; economic control, through a customs union, railway tariffs,
port privileges, and the domination of Belgian industrial enterprises.
Now Belgium has at least escaped all this. She has maintained her
independence while she has saved her soul. When discouraged about the
present state of the world, it is well to remind ourselves that the war
accomplished, at least for the time being, one great thing it set out
to secure, the destruction of German militarism and the protection of
small states against the imperial ambitions of Germany. Belgium has
also improved her colonial position, not only by frustrating German
plans against the Belgian Congo, but by receiving a mandate over an
adjacent portion of German East Africa.

For the future Belgium’s security lies in a strong League of Nations
and in what such a League stands for. At first Belgian statesmen took
the League somewhat coldly, for the treaty of 1839 was an international
covenant, and they had ample experience of the futility of mere paper
guarantees. If the League covenant were merely another piece of paper,
they would be right. The hopeful side of the League lies rather in
its assurance of general coöperation, its growth as an administrative
and informing body, its development of an international habit of
mind and an international conscience. After all, it was the sense of
international right that brought the world to Belgium’s side in the
Great War, and it is in the broadening and deepening of that sense
that the chief hope lies in the future. For centuries the position of
Belgium surrounded by France, Germany, and England has made it the
battleground of Europe, and it is only by diminishing the likelihood of
battles that it can hope to escape this fate. The best guarantees of
the security of small states are a stronger sense of right and justice
throughout the world.


 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

 On the problem of Schleswig the best collection is the _Manual
 historique de la question du Slesvig_, ed. F. de Jessen (Copenhagen,
 1906); supplemented by _Le Slesvig du Nord, 1906-1914_ (Copenhagen,
 1915). For a German view, see E. Daenell, _Das Dänentum in
 Nordschleswig seit 1864_ (Kiel, 1913). After the armistice Daenell
 protested strongly against the surrender of any part of Schleswig to
 Denmark: _Has Denmark a claim to North Sleswick?_ (Münster, 1918).
 For a summary of conditions under Prussian rule, see L. M. Larson,
 in _American Historical Review_, xxiv, pp. 227-252 (1919); and M.
 Mackeprang, _Nordslesvig_ (Copenhagen, 1910; German translation,
 1912). For the Danish discussion in 1919, see Miss Karen Larsen,
 in _Political Science Quarterly_, December, 1919. G. Rosendal’s
 _Sönderjylland_ (Odense, [1919]) contains convenient maps and
 statistics. See also the British _Handbook_.

        *       *       *       *       *

 For the history of Belgium, the standard work of H. Pirenne has not
 advanced beyond 1648; there are brief sketches by L. van der Essen
 (Chicago, 1916) and L. Vander Linden (Paris, 1918). General economic
 conditions are described by W. Bürklin, _Handbuch des belgischen
 Wirtschaftslebens_ (Göttingen and Berlin, 1916); and by Gehrig and
 Wäntig, _Belgiens Volkswirtschaft_ (Leipzig, 1918). An admirable
 special study of Belgian commerce will be found in A. Demangeon,
 “Le port d’Anvers,” in _Annales de géographie_, 1918, pp. 307-339,
 elaborated in the second volume of the _Travaux du Comité d’Etudes_.
 For Belgium’s coal and mineral resources, see P. Krusch, _Die
 nutzbaren Lagerstätten Belgiens_ (Essen, 1916). The British Handbook
 on _Belgium_ (1920) is particularly convenient, as are the related
 pamphlets in the same series.

 German plans for permanent control of Belgium are illustrated in
 S. Grumbach, _Das annexionistische Deutschland_ (Lausanne, 1917;
 abbreviated translation, New York, 1917); and in Notestein and Stoll,
 _Conquest and Kultur_ (Washington, 1918). A specimen of this vast
 literature of annexation may be seen in the work of a Bonn professor:
 E. Zitelmann, _Das Schicksal Belgiens beim Friedensschluss_ (third
 edition, Munich, 1917), where the systematic subjection of Belgium
 is planned. The exploitation of the Flemish question by the Germans
 is described by F. Passelecq, _La question flamande et l’Allemagne_
 (Paris and Nancy, 1917).

 The problems of Belgium’s frontiers are not covered in any single
 book. The Belgian point of view will be found in P. Nothomb, _La
 barrière belge_ (Paris, 1916); one chapter also as _Histoire belge
 du grand duché de Luxembourg_ (Paris, 1918). See also E. Bourgeois,
 _La frontière orientale du royaume de Belgique_, in _Travaux du
 Comité d’Etudes_, ii. For Luxemburg in general, see Miss Ruth Putnam,
 _Luxemburg and her Neighbors_, with bibliography (second edition, New
 York, 1920). The question of the Scheldt is summarized by A. Rotsaert,
 _L’Escaut depuis le traité de Munster_ (Brussels and Paris, 1918);
 numerous documents in Guillaume, _L’Escaut depuis 1830_ (Brussels,
 1903). For a Dutch view, see Den Beer Poortugael, _La neutralité sur
 l’Escaut_ (The Hague, 1911). For this question at Paris, cf. Cammaerts
 and Geyl in _The New Europe_, July 31 and August 14, 1919. On Belgian
 neutrality and the treaties of 1839, see F. L. Warrin, Jr., _The
 Neutrality of Belgium_ (Washington, 1918).

 The history of Belgium’s frontiers can be traced in the following
 historical atlases: L. van der Essen, _Atlas de géographie historique
 de la Belgique_ (Brussels and Paris, 1919-), notably Map 10 (1786)
 by F. L. Ganshof; _Geschiedkundige Atlas van Nederland_ (The Hague,
 1912); _Geschichtlicher Atlas der Rheinprovinz_ (Bonn, 1898-),
 especially the maps of 1789.

[Illustration: BELGIUM AND HER NEIGHBORS]


FOOTNOTES:

[8] Articles 109-114, with official map.

[9] Articles 380-386.

[10] Article 115.

[11] Articles 34-39, with official map.

[12] Articles 32, 33.

[13] Articles 40, 41.

[14] Article 361.

[15] Article 9, § 2.




III

ALSACE-LORRAINE


The fate of Alsace-Lorraine was, in general, a problem of the war
rather than of the Peace Conference. Nothing had done more, in
President Wilson’s phrase, “to unsettle the peace of the world for
nearly fifty years”; nothing was more earnestly discussed throughout
the World War; nothing was settled more simply and quickly once the
war was over. The completeness of the Allied victory and the immediate
evacuation of Alsace-Lorraine required by the terms of the armistice
left no doubt of the return of the lost provinces to France. The
Peace Conference had only to determine certain necessary details.
“The territories which were ceded to Germany in accordance with the
Preliminaries of Peace signed at Versailles on February 26, 1871,
and the Treaty of Frankfort of May 10, 1871, are restored to French
sovereignty as from the date of the Armistice of November 11, 1918.” So
runs Article 51 of the treaty of Versailles, and the rest follows from
that.

Nevertheless, no account of the territorial problems of the Peace
Conference would be complete which did not treat the question of
Alsace-Lorraine and its background, and treat it with sufficient
fulness to give the proper perspective to this major issue of the war.
Moreover, Alsace-Lorraine is the necessary basis for any consideration
of the whole matter of the Franco-German frontier, with its specific
issues of the Rhine, the Left Bank, and the Saar valley. Let us begin
with a minimum of history and description, followed by a fuller
analysis of the recent aspects of the problem.

Alsace-Lorraine (German Elsass-Lothringen) was an imperial territory
(_Reichsland_) of the German empire formed in 1871 by the union of the
two districts then taken from France. It had an area of 5600 square
miles (Connecticut and Rhode Island 6000) and a population in 1910
of 1,874,000 (Connecticut and Rhode Island 1,657,000). On the east
the Rhine separates it from the grand duchy of Baden; on the south
it touches the Swiss frontier; on the north it was bounded by the
Palatinate, Prussia, and the grand duchy of Luxemburg. The French
frontier on the west was formed in the south by the summit of the
Vosges and farther north by an artificial line of demarcation drawn in
1871.

Geographically considered, Alsace consists of the eastern slopes of the
Vosges and the rich plain of the valley of the Rhine and its tributary
the Ill, Lorraine of a plateau cut in the west by the Moselle. Alsace
is a rich agricultural region, producing grain, potatoes, hay, tobacco,
and wine; it has also important manufactures in its towns, cottons
being a specialty of Mulhouse and other towns of Upper Alsace. Lorraine
is less productive in agriculture but richer in mineral resources and
the furnaces and iron mills which these support. Alsace has important
oil wells at Pechelbronn, and one of the richest potash deposits in
the world at Wittelsheim. Lorraine has important salt mines, and
valuable coal fields lie on its border in the valley of the Saar; and
on its western edge it shared with France the ‘minette’ iron field,
the greatest iron deposit in Europe, from the German portion of which
before the war came 74 per cent of all the iron mined in the German
empire.

The people of Alsace and eastern Lorraine are preponderantly
German-speaking; those of western Lorraine speak French. French is also
much spoken in the towns of Alsace. 76 per cent of the whole population
is Catholic, 22 per cent Protestant.

Alsace-Lorraine as a single political division was a creation of the
German government in 1871; the two districts have different origins
and a different history, indeed each of them is made up of parts with
histories still further separate and distinct. All have in common the
fact that they form part of a region which since the ninth century
has been debated ground between Germany and France. In the sixteenth,
seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries the territory which now forms
Alsace and Lorraine was acquired bit by bit by France; in 1871 it was
transferred in one lump to the new German empire.

In the later Middle Ages Lorraine formed a duchy, within which lay
a number of small and in some cases independent feudal states and
the city of Metz, a free city of the Holy Roman Empire whose people
spoke French. In 1552, on the petition of certain German Protestant
princes, Metz was placed under the protection of the king of France,
who took possession of the city and the surrounding territory subject
to it. In 1613 the bishopric of Metz and its lands were taken over
by the French king, the whole being combined with Toul and Verdun
into the province of the Three Bishoprics (Trois Evêchés), and the
cession was confirmed by the Emperor in the treaty of Westphalia of
1648. Further acquisitions made in the seventeenth century, notably
Sierck and Saarlouis, gave France a strategic line of communication
through Lorraine to Alsace. The duchy of Lorraine, which had likewise
been dependent on the Holy Roman Empire, was declared free by Emperor
Charles V and was gradually drawn into the French sphere of influence.
Relinquished by its Hapsburg duke in 1736, in 1738 by the treaty of
Vienna it was handed over to a Polish duke, Stanislas Leszcynski, on
condition that at his death it should pass to his son-in-law, Louis XV
of France, by whom it was accordingly acquired in 1766. Certain small
enclaves within Lorraine did not pass to France until the Revolution.

Alsace, except the city of Mulhouse, was annexed to France in the
course of the reign of Louis XIV. The Middle Ages had broken the
country up into a great variety of feudal states and free cities;
the Reformation divided it still further by religious dissensions. In
the Thirty Years’ War France intervened on the side of the Protestant
princes of Germany; at its close France received considerable
possessions in Alsace, in much the same way that Brandenburg (the
future Prussia) then secured valuable additions in the north. The
treaty of Westphalia (1648) assured to France certain lands and certain
governmental rights possessed by the Emperor in his imperial capacity
and as head of the house of Hapsburg, but the provisions were, possibly
with intention, left vague at certain points and became the occasion of
protracted legal and historical disputes. By a combination of undoubted
grants, more or less justified legal interpretations, and the direct
seizure of the city of Strasburg, Louis XIV rounded out his possession
of the whole of Alsace. The sole exception, Mulhouse, allied with the
Swiss Confederation, voluntarily offered itself to France in 1798.

Thus united to France, Alsace and Lorraine retained their boundaries
until the treaty of Vienna. The general principle of the territorial
adjustments of 1814 was to leave to France its frontiers of 1792;
after Napoleon’s return and defeat at Waterloo the treaty of 1815 was
supposed to reduce these to the limits of 1789. In Alsace and Lorraine
two deviations were made from this principle, both to the disadvantage
of France. At the northern end of Alsace France lost to Bavaria the
territory between the Lauter and the Queich, including the fortress
of Landau which she had possessed in 1789. On the northern border of
Lorraine the frontier was readjusted to the advantage of Prussia,
partly for strategic reasons, in connection particularly with the
fortress of Saarlouis, partly in order to take away from France the
valuable coal deposits of the Saar valley.

At the close of the Franco-Prussian war Germany required of France the
cession of Alsace and Lorraine, with a boundary on the west which was
defined by the treaty of Frankfort in 1871.

In the next forty years Alsace-Lorraine passed through various stages
of government, from military dictatorship through a certain amount of
territorial independence to the definite constitution imposed by the
Reichstag in 1911. Those who had hoped for autonomy were disappointed
in this instrument, which failed to elevate the Reichsland to the
position of a federated state of the empire, although an anomalous
provision was made for its representation in the Bundesrat. Legally
Alsace-Lorraine was still a subject territory of the empire.

Under the constitution of 1911 the emperor possessed supreme executive
authority, exercised chiefly through a governor (Statthalter) appointed
and recalled by the emperor and resident in Strasburg. Legislative
power was entrusted to a bicameral Diet (Landtag). The upper house
(First Chamber) consisted of forty-six members, half of them named
directly by the emperor, the others made up of certain ecclesiastical
dignitaries, the president of the Superior Court, and representatives
of cities and economic interests, so that the majority was under
the emperor’s control. The sixty members of the lower house (Second
Chamber) were elected by universal male suffrage. The emperor possessed
the right of veto over the legislative acts of the Landtag; he could
levy taxes if it refused to pass the budget; and he could prorogue it
and issue decrees with the force of law during its recess. Independent
in local matters of the Reichstag, the Reichsland was far from
independent of the emperor.

In imperial matters Alsace-Lorraine had three representatives in the
Bundesrat, appointed by the Statthalter and thus ultimately by the
emperor; but “their votes were counted only when it made no difference
how they were cast.”[16] Alsace-Lorraine had sent representatives to
the Reichstag since 1874; these numbered fifteen, elected by all male
citizens over the age of twenty-five.

For local government Alsace-Lorraine consisted of the three districts
(Bezirke) of Upper Alsace (capital Colmar), Lower Alsace (capital
Strasburg), and Lorraine (capital Metz). Each of these fell into
circles (Kreise), cantons, and communes (Gemeinden). The presidents
of the districts and the directors of the circles were named by the
emperor, as were also the directors of police. The organization of the
local bodies and the distribution of their functions were similar to
the system prevailing in Prussia.

The internal history of this half-century of German rule is a most
interesting chapter, which we must pass over in order to gain time for
an analysis of the question about which that history revolved. Taken
as a whole, the period must be regarded as an unsuccessful attempt on
the part of the rulers to assimilate by force an unwilling population.
The German government had great resources on its side--compulsory
education on the German model and in the German tongue, the repressive
measures of the greatest army and the strongest administrative system
in Europe, the influx of immigrants from beyond the Rhine, the
development of communication with the other parts of the empire, an
extraordinary material prosperity in which the Reichsland shared. Its
policy alternated between harsh repression and clumsy efforts to win
the people’s good will. There were periods when it seemed to be making
headway, by the mere lapse of time and the apparent hopelessness of
resistance, if by nothing else; the argument from prosperity had its
effects; the protesting leaders turned toward more immediate measures
of amelioration within the empire. Then an episode like the Zabern
affair of 1913 would occur to show that the country was still governed
by military force, and the pro-French feeling would blaze out again.

The relative strength of the French and German parties was a subject
of acrimonious and inconclusive debate. The fact remained that there
was a large French party, just how large nobody knew, which maintained
a vigorous tradition of French speech and sympathies, by the fireside,
among the clergy, in intercourse with France itself. Its existence was
shown in the midst of the war by a project brought before the Reichstag
for colonizing Alsace-Lorraine with ‘reliable’ subjects. The survival
of this French party through fifty years of persecution is one of the
finest public examples of the triumph of the inner over the outer life.
A peasant who was waving an old French flag at Strasburg at the great
reception to the French troops in November 1918 was asked how he had
obtained it. “My father,” he said, “in 1871 put this under a plank
of his barn, and every Sunday of his life he knelt over it in prayer
for the return of Alsace to France. When he died, he handed on the
charge to me to keep until that day should come.” The two elements in
the population are well illustrated at Metz, where a German-speaking
majority of soldiers, officials, and tradesmen came in, and a new
quarter sprang up about the railroad station in the latest and heaviest
style of neo-German architecture, but the old French town still
remained, with its narrow streets, its mediaeval gates (especially that
great eastern portal called the ‘German Gate’), its hôtel de ville, and
its Gothic cathedral. And the three ages of Metz may be typified by
this French cathedral of the thirteenth century, with the statue of
William II as a prophet filling a niche in one of its portals, and the
final inscription below this figure, attached by handcuffs after the
armistice, “Sic transit gloria mundi!”

       *       *       *       *       *

For more than half a century the problem of Alsace-Lorraine has been
debated back and forth with arguments which have had no effect on the
opposite sides of the controversy.

To Germans the Reichsland is a German country, save for the
French-speaking strip along the western border. It was occupied by
German tribes in the fifth century; its speech is German; it was a
portion of the mediaeval Empire until violently torn away in the
seventeenth century; in 1871 Germany was simply reclaiming her lost
provinces. Furthermore, as stated in 1871, Metz and the Vosges were a
necessary defence of the Fatherland against French aggression, which
had been experienced under the two Napoleons and might be expected
again. Finally, as stated now but not openly in 1871, the iron of
Lorraine was absolutely necessary to the economic life of modern
Germany. Germany held Alsace-Lorraine by right of nationality and
by right of conquest, the symbol of her national unity achieved in
the war by which it was recovered; it was a part of Germany, not an
international question, and she would not give it up or discuss giving
it up.

To the French Alsace and Lorraine had become and remained
fundamentally French, having been assimilated gradually and without
violence in the eighteenth century, French most of all by having
entered fully into the spirit of the French Revolution and taken
an active part therein. They begged to remain a part of France in
1871, as the unanimous protests of their representatives show, and
they continued French at heart against the strongest pressure in
the opposite direction. In spite of differences of language, such
as exist in other parts of France, Alsace and Lorraine were French
in social structure, in political ideals, and in the sympathies of
the population. Without these lost provinces France was a mutilated
country, not fully France. Furthermore, the possession of Metz and the
Vosges by a military power like Germany constituted a standing menace
to a peaceful country like the French Republic; it also menaced the
economic life of France and its defence by making possible, as in 1914,
immediate seizure of the richest part of its iron supply. France was
robbed of these provinces by force in 1871, and the wrong had to be
righted, not only in the interest of France but for the sake of the
inhabitants.

There was a growing disposition to recognize that the problem of
Alsace-Lorraine concerned not merely France and Germany and the
inhabitants of the territory itself, but the world at large. The
settlement of this question became of international moment partly as
it affected the military and economic balance of power between France
on the one hand and a Germany dangerous to international peace on the
other; partly as a vindication of international right, violated by
the forcible annexation of the two provinces in 1871 in defiance of
the express protests of the population; partly in order to eliminate,
in the interests of permanent international order, an issue which had
“unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years.” Whatever the
solution, international interests had to be guarded.

Of the arguments which have been brought forward in support of the
respective points of view, that of race is the least significant.
It is true that most German writers have urged that the people of
Alsace-Lorraine are of Germanic race, akin to the other peoples of the
German empire; but this view lacks support from the anthropologist.
Neither the tall, fair-haired Teuton nor the short, round-headed Alpine
type dominates Alsace-Lorraine. The population is clearly mixed, with
racial affinities reaching in both directions and resulting from the
survival of an original Gallo-Roman substratum in the uplands along
with a considerable infiltration of Teutonic invaders in the valleys.
Whatever the exact percentage of the two races in Alsace-Lorraine,
the fact has no demonstrable historical or political importance. Both
Germany and France are, racially considered, strongly mixed peoples,
all three races being well represented in France, and the non-Teutonic
type in Germany being marked in the southwest and also in the Slavic
regions of the east. To argue from race on either side proves either
too much or too little--too much, if all people of Teutonic type (as in
England, Scandinavia, and northern France) are claimed for the German
empire; too little, if either Germany or France were to be limited
to the regions where the Teutonic or the Alpine type respectively
predominates.

The question of language is more difficult. It is the German view that
Alsace and Lorraine (at least that larger part of Lorraine which speaks
German), as German-speaking countries, ought to belong to Germany.
The French point out that this theory breaks down in principle in the
French-speaking districts of Lorraine; they emphasize the importance
of the French-speaking minority in Alsace as a leading force and the
strong pro-French feeling in a large part of the German-speaking
population; and they deny that language is the proper test of political
allegiance.

By a curious paradox, language is one of the most changeable and one of
the most permanent facts in European history. It is changeable in that
it can be quickly learned or unlearned, especially from one generation
to another, as is convincingly illustrated by European immigrants to
the United States. It is permanent in that the line of demarcation in
the open country shows surprisingly little variation over a period
of several centuries. Hence it is highly important to distinguish
conditions in the towns and among the more conservative peasant
population.

As regards the open country, the linguistic frontier between French
and German shows very slight changes since the Middle Ages, when
it was fixed in each region by the relative preponderance of the
Latin-speaking Gauls or of the Teutonic invaders. Slight advances of
German in the Middle Ages and of French since the sixteenth century
are traceable at certain points, but are relatively unimportant. The
present line of division has never been absolutely determined, but
a local study was made by C. This in 1886 and 1887 on the basis of
personal examination, and his results have been generally accepted
by both French and German scholars. The line follows the political
frontier, here the crest of the Vosges, only for about sixty miles
in Upper Alsace. In the south it includes two districts to the east,
Eteimbes and Montreux, while it dips still farther to the east in the
upper valleys of the Weiss and the Breusch and the middle valley of
the Liepvrette, all of these districts speaking French. In Lorraine
the linguistic frontier lies well to the east of the political
boundary, running in a zigzag fashion from Mount Donon to the northwest
across the open country through or near Sarrebourg and southwest of
Thionville to the Luxemburg boundary. About 6 per cent of the area of
Alsace and about 46 per cent of the area of Lorraine thus contain a
French-speaking majority.

It must not, however, be supposed that the cleavage is adequately
described by any such line. In towns the influence of commerce,
education, government, et cetera, often forms a considerable class
whose speech differs from that of the surrounding country. In the long
period of French occupation a French-speaking class was in this way
created in Strasburg, Colmar, Mulhouse (notably), and many other towns
of Alsace. After 1871 the large immigration of soldiers and officials
to Metz made it appear as a German town in the official statistics (78
per cent German-speaking in 1910). The German majority in Metz has
disappeared automatically with the withdrawal of the German garrison
and civil government, but the French-speaking element in Alsace showed
extraordinary persistence and vitality in the face of every measure of
repression. In spite of the compulsory study of German in all schools
and the official support of their language by all the agencies of the
government, the official German returns show no significant diminution
in the percentage of the French-speaking population since exact
statistics have been kept:

                        _1900_  _1905_  _1910_
  Lower Alsace
      German            95.77   95.77   95.80
      French             3.72    3.61    3.80
  Upper Alsace
      German            93.31   93.42   93.00
      French             5.59    5.66    6.10
  Lorraine
      German            70.59   71.30   73.50
      French            25.87   23.78   22.30
  Alsace-Lorraine
      German            86.79   86.80   87.20
      French            11.60   11.03   10.90

No map of the distribution of language, however exact, would tell
the whole story. Community of language is undoubtedly an important
influence in producing that ‘consciousness of kind’ upon which
nationality rests, and in facilitating the common life of the modern
state. We prefer our neighbors to speak our language, however
indifferent we may be respecting the shape of their skulls. Community
of language is not, however, a necessary basis for a sound national
life, as appears in such countries as Belgium and Switzerland. The
distinction must also be noted between the local _patois_ and the
general national language taught in schools, for in many European
countries these are quite different. Thus in Italy a north-Italian
cannot understand a Sicilian speaking the local dialect, and there are
also regions where French and German are spoken. In Germany there are
marked differences between the official High German and the Low German
dialects, not to mention the languages of the subject populations.
In France languages quite distinct from French exist in Brittany,
Provence, the Basque region, and the Flemish territory around Dunkirk,
without weakening French nationality or destroying French unity.

In the case of Alsace-Lorraine, it is of fundamental importance
to recognize that sympathy for France or Germany did not follow
linguistic lines. While few of the French-speaking population were
attracted to Germany, there was a very considerable element among the
German-speaking population which favored France. Even German observers
found French sympathies far more widespread than the French language.
It is a well known fact that the anti-German movements of recent years
have been more pronounced in Alsace, especially Upper Alsace, than in
Lorraine with its larger French-speaking population.

Moreover, language, like race, is a two-edged sword for Germany. If
Alsace ought to be part of the empire because it speaks chiefly German,
so ought the German-speaking portions of Austria and Switzerland.
And if France ought to have given up hope of Alsace because of its
German-speaking population, Germany should make no complaint over the
parallel renunciation of Prussian Poland or Upper Silesia. Germany
cannot ask to apply the principle in the west and reject it in the east.

As a matter of history, the linguistic frontier between French and
German has rarely coincided with the political frontier. The national
lines, so far as national lines have been drawn, have been drawn by
other forces. Language is an important element in national life,
but it is not the only element, and in Alsace-Lorraine it has been
subordinated to other considerations. Alsace, in spite of its German
speech, was reasonably contented under French rule. It never became
fully reconciled to German rule, in spite of a large measure of
community of language. The causes for its aspirations and sympathies
lie deeper than dialect. Although surer and clearer than race, language
proved an illusory and insufficient basis for solving the problem of
Alsace-Lorraine.

When we come to the historical tradition and affinities of the
district, we find that German writers urge the long membership of
Alsace and Lorraine in the mediaeval Empire down to 1648, the place of
Alsace in the history of German literature, and its affinities with
the German culture of the valley of the Rhine. The French bring out
certain connections of Alsace and Lorraine with France before Louis
XIV, but they urge especially the transformation of these provinces
during the French Revolution into a people profoundly imbued with the
French conceptions of liberty and democracy, in contradistinction to
the political and social traditions and organization of Germany.

Arguments of this sort are by their nature less specific and tangible
than those based upon the concrete facts of language and race, and
judgments in relation to them are likely to be subjective. At certain
points, however, they admit of objective analysis, particularly as
regards political affiliations.

There is, in the first place, no question that both Alsace and Lorraine
formed part of the mediaeval Empire from the tenth century on. It is
also equally clear that the Empire of the Middle Ages was in no way
comparable to the national states of modern Europe, but was a loose
union of tribal duchies which were later dissolved into a mass of
petty feudal states and free cities. The Emperors never succeeded in
establishing a strong monarchy or real national unity, being, by virtue
of their imperial title, often more interested in asserting a shadowy
supremacy over Italy and the valley of the Rhone. In the broader
sense the Empire covered at one time or another a considerable part
of Europe, as, for example, central and northern Italy and eastern
France; in the narrower sense the German kingdom comprised under its
loose and ineffective sway the territory of modern Holland, eastern
Belgium, a good part of Switzerland, Austria, Bohemia, et cetera. As
time went on, the principalities and towns became more rather than
less independent, until the treaty of Westphalia (1648) recognized
the territorial sovereignty of such princes as had not already
established it. Membership in so large and unconsolidated a body would
not establish the German character of any particular member, else it
would be necessary to incorporate many parts of Europe which have long
enjoyed complete independence of Germany.

Moreover, it is important to note that the present German empire is
not a continuation of the mediaeval Empire or a successor thereto.
The old Empire came to an end in 1806, when Francis I laid aside the
imperial crown and assumed the title of emperor of Austria. The modern
German empire was created by Prussia in 1871 as a federation of German
states from which Austria was carefully excluded. If the mediaeval
Emperors had a legitimate successor, it was the Hapsburgs, not the
Hohenzollerns, who were in the days of the older Empire merely one of
many lines of feudal and electoral princes. The Hapsburgs made over to
France their claims to Alsace and Lorraine, to Alsace and Metz in 1648,
to the duchy of Lorraine in 1738.

On the other hand the cultural ties between Germany and Alsace, and
in some measure between Germany and Lorraine, were stronger than
the political. Alsace had its share in the literary and artistic
development of the Rhine valley, and this, while affected by the
French influences which spread eastward in the later Middle Ages,
was preponderantly German. In the matter of speech French historians
admit that “Alsace at the beginning of the seventeenth century was an
absolutely German country,” and its local dialect was the vehicle of
its vigorous local traditions. “At the moment when it passed under
French rule it belonged to Germany in language, habits, institutions,
and feeling.”[17]

The French government from 1648 to 1789 was tender to the traditions
of the conquered territory. Except for the prescription of French in
the courts, no restrictions were put on the use of the German language,
although French naturally made rapid progress in the towns. There
was little change in local institutions. In spite of its centralized
monarchy, France itself abounded in local customs, privileges, and
jurisdictions, and it was natural and prudent to allow even greater
toleration in a newly conquered territory. Subject to the Sovereign
Council and the intendant, local affairs went on very much in their old
way and in large measure in the German tongue. Much was accomplished
for the material wellbeing of the country, and the inhabitants came
to recognize certain advantages in French rule. The old regime was a
period of gradual assimilation without violence.

The institutions which the old regime tolerated in Alsace, the
Revolution swept away. German historians naturally emphasize the
excesses and violence of the Revolution, French historians its social
and political reforms; but there is general agreement that it took long
and rapid strides in the direction of making the country French. “It
made an end of all the German mediaeval institutions which remained,”
is the sad summary of Meyer’s _Handlexikon_.[18] The Revolution
destroyed privilege, abolished seigniorial rights and jurisdictions,
and established a democratic social order as fully in Alsace and
Lorraine as in the rest of France. There was of course opposition,
and the anti-religious policy of the Revolution was steadily resisted
by this strongly Catholic population, but in general Alsace and
Lorraine moved with the new movement. The Marseillaise was first
sung at Strasburg; Alsatians served in great numbers in the armies
which carried the principles of 1789 across Europe; and names like
Kléber and Ney illustrate the share of these provinces in the wars of
the Napoleonic era. The acceptance of the Revolution in Alsace and
Lorraine made them at last one with France. “It is the Revolution,
not Louis XIV, which made Alsace French,” wrote Fustel de Coulanges
in 1870. “Since that moment Alsace has followed all our destinies, it
has lived our life. It has shared all our thoughts and feelings, our
victories and defeats, our glory and our defects, all our joys and all
our sorrows.”[19] By 1813, confess the German historians of Alsace,
“all feeling for Germany had been lost,” and “no trace remained of
the ancient community of race between the Alsatians and their German
brothers.”[20]

This participation in the life and ideals of France continued until
1871. There was, it is true, a considerable feeling of particularism
in Alsace, and to a lesser extent in Lorraine, as well as some natural
sympathy between the Protestant minority in Alsace and the Protestants
beyond the Rhine; but there was no movement for separation from France
and no desire manifested therefor. Toward 1870 the desire for the
recovery of these ‘lost provinces’ became more pronounced in Germany,
and it was fanned into flame as the war of 1870 progressed; but
this nationalistic movement found little or no response among the
Alsatians whom it claimed as long-lost kinsmen. If they were still
German “socially and ethically,” “politically and nationally they
were thoroughly French.” They were Germans as members of the family,
Frenchmen as members of the nation.[21] The Germans freely admitted
in 1871 that the Alsatians did not yet desire reunion with Germany,
but this was laid to their French education, and time and experience
of the blessings of German rule were expected to work a rapid change
in their desires. The state of opinion in Alsace at the time of the
Franco-Prussian war is excellently shown by an outside observer,
Sir Robert Morier, then British secretary of legation at Darmstadt,
whence he had opportunity to follow closely the events of the war and
the course of German opinion. Strongly pro-German and anti-French
throughout, he made it his business to inquire from the best German
sources whether there was any party in Alsace which desired annexation
to Germany, and the answer was uniformly in the negative. Among others
he interrogated the Grand Duke of Baden, who had led an army in Alsace,
and “had given himself the greatest trouble to ascertain the feeling of
the population in regard to Germany and ... had come to the conclusion
that not only no annexationist party existed, but that the strongest
possible national French feeling pervaded the whole population.”[22]

The usual German justification of the seizure of Alsace and Lorraine
may be summed up in the words of the historian Ranke in 1870, “We are
fighting Louis XIV.” These provinces had been taken from Germany in
the seventeenth century; they must now be taken back by their rightful
owner. To many people this is still the essence of the problem of
Alsace-Lorraine. Now if the world had not moved in the interval between
Louis XIV and 1871, there would be little to say in answer to this
argument. In the seventeenth century lands and peoples were passed from
one sovereign to another like pieces on a chessboard, and what had been
lost in one game might well be retaken in the next. But as regards this
question the world had changed in three important respects:--

1. Germany had changed. The Germany which lost these provinces to Louis
XIV was, as we have seen, a jumble of small states, loosely united
under the ineffective headship of the Hapsburgs. The Germany which
reclaimed them was a Hohenzollern empire from which much of the old
empire, including the Hapsburgs, had been separated or excluded.

2. Alsace and Lorraine had changed. They had lost their German
institutions and political sympathies and had become in all political
respects French as the result of two centuries of membership in the
French state, and especially of their share in the French Revolution.

3. European public opinion had changed through the growth of
nationality, and was coming to regard peoples as entitled to determine
their own destiny, or at least to be consulted regarding it. To tear
away people from the country of which they formed a part in order to
unite them with a state to which they had belonged two centuries before
was becoming an anachronism.

It is quite true, then, that Germany in 1871 was fighting Louis XIV,
but in the spirit of Louis XIV rather than that of the later nineteenth
century. Its appeal to history was in reality a denial of the facts
of historic change, in that it asserted the predominance of the older
historic tradition against the newer and more vital historic tradition
created during the union of Alsace and Lorraine with France. Only a
clear pronouncement of the inhabitants themselves in favor of such a
transfer could justify it to the thinking of a later age. Yet a popular
vote was neither permitted nor desired by Germany in 1871 or at any
time between 1871 and 1918.

In all such discussions of the affinities of Alsace and Lorraine,
the outsider is struck with the failure of French and German to meet
each other’s arguments. The truth seems to be that the disputants
move in different realms of thought and feeling. To the Germans the
German character of Alsace is accepted as self-evident, so that any
connection with France appears unnatural and contrary to all national
life. To the French the community of political and social ideas gained
by long union with France seems the determining element, and subjection
to Germany seems something monstrous.

In spite of all that has been written about the supposed affinities and
desires of the population of Alsace-Lorraine, it must not be forgotten
that the national interests of Germany and France are vitally concerned
in its possession, not merely in the general sense of the desire to
keep or to recover something which has been fought over as a matter of
national honor, but in the very definite respects of military advantage
and economic power. And there have been times when these considerations
were put nakedly in the foreground as the dominant motives. Thus
Emperor William I wrote to Empress Eugénie October 26, 1870: “The
required cessions of territory have no other purpose than to set back
the point of departure of the French armies which will come to attack
us in the future.”[23] German blood, said Bismarck, “was shed not for
the sake of Alsace-Lorraine, but for the German empire, its unity, and
the protection of its frontiers.”[24] Stern treatment of its people
he defended on the ground that it was the glacis of a fortress, to be
used for the benefit of the Fatherland behind it, irrespective of the
desires of the conquered.[25]

The military purpose of the annexation was also evident from the
boundaries of the ceded territory. The frontier of the Vosges, of
obvious advantage to Germany from a strategic point of view, might
also be argued for on other grounds as the natural line of demarcation
between Alsace and France--the watershed between two river systems,
in part the boundary between French and German speech, etc. No such
‘natural’ or linguistic argument, however, could be urged for the
annexation of French Lorraine. Here the obvious and declared object
was the fortress of Metz, dominating the approaches to the upper Rhine
by way of the Saar and to the middle Rhine by way of the valley of the
Moselle. Bismarck, it is generally understood, wished to take only
Alsace and feared the danger of a French population in the west, but
Moltke and the military party insisted on Metz and had their way.

Still another consideration had weight in drawing the frontiers of
1871, namely the iron deposits of Lorraine. Apart from the potash
of Upper Alsace, it so happens that the great natural resources of
Alsace-Lorraine lay on its outer edges, in the coal of the Saar
valley and the iron of the Lorraine border. The problems of the Saar
will be discussed in the next chapter in relation to the frontier of
1814; those of the Lorraine frontier are particularly instructive in
connection with our present subject.

The iron which forms the greatest mineral resource of Alsace-Lorraine
is a part of the _minette_ district, about forty miles in length
and fourteen miles in breadth, lying on the borders of France and
Luxemburg. The Franco-German frontier of 1871 divided this area nearly
equally between the two countries, save for a small strip on the north
extending beyond the Luxemburg line. Most of this ore is strongly
phosphoric (_minette_), and could not be worked advantageously until
the invention in 1878 of the Thomas process for dephosphorization. The
ores are not relatively rich, the average iron content being 33 to 35
per cent; but they are easily mined and are sufficiently porous to be
easily crushed, while a limestone which fluxes easily occurs either
with the ore, as at Briey, or in the immediate neighborhood.

In 1913 German Lorraine produced 20,600,000 long tons, or three-fourths
of the iron mined in Germany. French Lorraine in the same year produced
19,400,000 tons, or 90 per cent of the product of France, of which a
considerable portion was exported to Germany. Of the world’s total
production of iron in 1913, 29 per cent came from the _minette_
district, i. e., 12 per cent from German Lorraine, 12 per cent from
French Lorraine and 5 per cent from Luxemburg. The rest of Europe
furnished 24 per cent. The reserves have been estimated as 3000 million
tons for French Lorraine and 1830 million tons for German Lorraine;
more recent estimates make the two more nearly equal, but with the
preponderance in favor of the French. The whole constitutes by far the
richest iron supply in Europe and one of the three or four greatest in
the world.

This enormous development of the _minette_ district was quite
unforeseen in 1871, yet we know that even then the Germans were not
blind to the importance of its iron. The iron deposits of the region
were carefully studied by German geologists for their government,
with the result that the German territorial demands were shaped with
the purpose of including the best of them and were further increased
between the preliminaries of Versailles and the final treaty of
Frankfort. Hence the meanderings of the frontier then drawn. It was
believed that the main vein had been secured, comprising the ores near
the surface which alone appeared workable with profit, and that nothing
valuable in the deposit had been omitted. Only later was it discovered
that the dip of the strata toward Briey and Longwy concealed an even
richer field on the French side which could be worked to a considerable
depth. Moreover the German geologists of 1871 were especially
interested in the phosphorus-free ore and could not foresee the value
which the Thomas process would give the _minette_. Lamentations over
their shortsightedness were heard before the war,[26] and in August
1914 German engineers hastened to occupy Briey and Longwy, whose ores
are valued not only for their content but for mixing with the less
calcareous German ores. It was frequently declared in Germany that
without this occupied territory the production of German munitions
would have to cease, although this is hardly justified by the facts now
available concerning the actual use which was made of _minette_ ore for
this purpose.

Moreover, it is well to remember that readjustments of the Lorraine
frontier at the expense of France were a constant objective of the
Germans throughout the war. At times these were sketched broadly as
part of a general advance of the German boundary along the whole front
from Belfort to the mouth of the Somme, but more frequently they are
described as “improvements” of the frontier in Lorraine, with the
_minette_ area of French Lorraine and the great border fortresses as
the definite objectives. The acquisition of Briey and Longwy figured in
all the principal programs of annexation, especially those of the great
economic interests, which went so far as to declare that a war which
did not secure them for Germany would be a failure. The object was
clearly economic, or rather, in view of the place of iron and steel in
modern warfare, military-economic.

More specifically military was the demand for the great fortresses of
this part of the French frontier: Belfort, commanding the ‘Burgundian’
gate leading from Upper Alsace to the valleys of the Doubs and Saône,
and still left in French hands after its heroic resistance of 1871;
Epinal, on the Moselle; Toul, commanding the passage from the Moselle
to the Meuse; and Verdun on the Meuse, whose importance was made clear
to the world in the great operations of 1916-17. The strength of
these positions is evident from the fact that the French hold on them
remained unshaken during more than four years of war. Their importance
is further indicated by the German demand, made at the outbreak of
hostilities, that Toul and Verdun be handed over as guarantees of
French neutrality. Such conditions of peace kept reappearing, sometimes
under the specious suggestion of a “slight rectification of frontier”
without indicating the decisive value of a few miles of territory in
this region.

The day of such Pan-German dreams is over. They are mentioned merely to
indicate the nature of the German war aims, and the fact that German
interest in Alsace-Lorraine was not dictated wholly by motives of the
language, race, or historic affinities of the population.

       *       *       *       *       *

During the war the German attitude on Alsace-Lorraine was to stand pat,
while at the same time taking stronger measures for destroying the
local opposition. The Germans refused, as before, to admit that there
was anything to discuss, much less anything to yield. Autonomy[27],
even, was not officially proposed until the last month of the war,
in a last effort to save Germany’s pride and iron mines. The German
peace terms sent to President Wilson in December 1916 are said to have
conceded to France only the small portion of Upper Alsace which had
been held by French troops throughout the war. The support of “the just
claims of France respecting Alsace-Lorraine”[28] which formed part
of the terms proposed by the Austrian emperor in 1917 was promptly
disavowed by Germany. Only rare Minority Socialists dared support the
idea of a plebiscite.

All this changed with the armistice and the requirement of evacuation
of the Reichsland by German troops and officials. The whole of Germany
became suddenly enamored of the virtues of a plebiscite. President
Wilson’s programme was invoked, on the alleged ground that the wrong
done to France in 1871 lay simply in not calling for a popular vote,
and the German government declared itself ready to right the wrong now
by means of such a vote. The alternatives proposed for the voting were
union with Germany, union with France, and an independent state free
to form a customs union with either country. If Germany could not keep
the Reichsland itself, she might perhaps thus keep its iron and its
trade! To such proposals the French turned a deaf ear. Those who had
opposed a plebiscite before the victory were not likely to support it
now, and doubt disappeared before the reception which Strasburg gave
the French troops and the President and Premier. “This is the best of
plebiscites,” said President Poincaré in the midst of his tumultuous
welcome by the Alsatians, and there were few to deny it. The Germans
were genuinely surprised at the warmth of the popular enthusiasm, and
began to ask themselves why after fifty years they had failed to get
the sympathy of the people.

During the war the idea of a plebiscite in Alsace-Lorraine had been
popular with certain sections of Allied and neutral opinion, both as
a form of self-determination and as a means of settling finally and
conclusively this ancient dispute. Such a decision would be democratic,
and it would be final. Against it had been urged the grave practical
difficulties which stood in the way of any free expression of the
real opinion of the real inhabitants, particularly in view of the
emigration of about half a million since 1871, the coming in of some
hundreds of thousands from Germany, and the wholesale condemnations
and deportations during the war. A popular vote under these conditions
would have opened a wide field to bribery, intimidation, and
influence of every sort, and would have engendered great bitterness
and recrimination. A serious objection of principle was also raised
on the part of the French, who felt they would thus be recognizing
Germany’s legal right in the Reichsland. The will of the people, they
said, had been expressed by the unanimous declarations of their elected
representatives in the French Parliament in 1871 and in the German
Reichstag in 1874, yet it had been openly flouted by Germany so long
as she had any chance of retaining the Reichsland by other means.
Germany could not be permitted to ignore a principle at one moment and
to invoke it at another when it might possibly be manipulated in her
favor, a system of “heads I win, tails you lose.” Such a proceeding
was plainly unfair to France, and it also set a bad example of
international morality by leaving Germany a chance to profit by her
violation of international right in 1871. Under the guise of popular
rights this would really sanction an international wrong. Some even
maintained that, the treaty of Frankfort having been torn up by Germany
in 1914, Alsace and Lorraine therewith reverted to France, _ipso facto_
disannexed. To accept a plebiscite as the basis of restoration was to
admit the lawfulness of the act of violence by which they had been
seized.

These arguments were hard to answer save on the ground of a strongly
expressed demand on the part of the people of Alsace-Lorraine, and,
whatever their opinion, no such general demand was forthcoming.
Certainly Germany’s record of oppression and failure as a ruler was
sufficient to forfeit whatever claims she might justly have had upon
the Reichsland, and she had formally accepted President Wilson’s demand
that “the wrong done to France in 1871 should be righted.” That wrong
consisted, not in failing to hold a plebiscite, but in contemptuously
disregarding the unmistakable expressions of popular opinion then and
thereafter expressed.

French Socialist opinion still wanted a plebiscite, but the purpose was
plainly to satisfy a theoretical scruple, which required a popular vote
for any change of sovereignty. For good or ill, Alsace-Lorraine came
back to France without a popular consultation; it was administered by
France in the interval between the armistice and the treaty of peace;
and the treaty recognized French sovereignty as beginning with the
armistice, November 11, 1918. The deed of Frankfort was thus undone. A
plebiscite seemed impracticable, unless as a mere matter of form, and
in that case it was unnecessary. There was something to be said for
summoning a popular assembly for other purposes which might easily have
expressed the opinion of the people, but this again would have been
chiefly a matter of form, to forestall future objections.

       *       *       *       *       *

So the fundamental provisions of the treaty which concern
Alsace-Lorraine consist merely of a preamble by which the high
contracting parties, Germany thus included, recognize “the moral
obligation to redress the wrong done by Germany in 1871 both to the
rights of France and to the wishes of the population of Alsace and
Lorraine,” and the article[29] restoring to France the territories
ceded by the treaty of Frankfort. The other articles[30] are,
essentially, consequences and applications of this act of restoration.
Some of them merely reproduce, in the opposite sense, clauses of the
treaty of 1871. In general, however, the Paris articles are fuller
and more complicated, partly because they had to be adapted, either
by reference or by way of exception, to the other provisions of the
instrument in which they are contained, partly because the restoration
of territory after half a century necessarily raises questions not
involved in the original cession.

Such a question was that of citizenship, which is regulated by an
elaborate annex, adjusted to the complex conditions of citizenship
and nationality which had arisen in the Reichsland. The general
principle adopted is, broadly speaking, that French nationality is
acquired _ipso facto_ by those who had lost it in 1871 and by their
descendants, except the offspring of a native mother and a German
father who had come to the Reichsland subsequently to the outbreak
of the Franco-Prussian war; that it may be claimed before the French
authorities by all others save Germans and the descendants of Germans
who have come in since 1870; and that such German immigrants and their
descendants can acquire French citizenship only by the process of
naturalization. The purpose of the whole was to admit on the basis of
domicile before 1870, and to exclude, for the present, the Germans,
with their descendants, who had come to the Reichsland in large numbers
since the German conquest.

The economic provisions had to consider not only the status of such
individual matters as debts and contracts, pensions and suits at law,
but also the new relations created in the region as a whole. Thus
France acquired the public property, including the railroads, without
any payment, and no share of the German public debt or war indemnity
was attached to the transferred territory--arrangements which offset
in some measure the principal and interest of the five milliards of
war indemnity imposed by Germany in 1871. German economic penetration
is restricted not only by the liquidation of existing enterprises
but by the right to prohibit new participation in public utilities,
mines, quarries, and metallurgical establishments. Important temporary
provisions guard against the effects of a sudden interruption of
relations between the Left and Right Banks in such matters as ports,
terminals, and water power, and in respect to customs tariffs, a period
of five years being set during which free exportation is permitted
into Germany and free importation of textile materials from Germany
into Alsace and Lorraine. This last is particularly important, for the
Reichsland enjoyed profitable markets in Germany, and its economic
prosperity was constantly urged as an argument for remaining under
German rule. Whether or not France can furnish equally good outlets for
local manufactures, she must at least provide a reasonable period for
readjustment of the lines of trade.

The largest economic question involved in the return of the lost
provinces to France is not mentioned in the treaty, namely the enormous
transfer of mineral resources. By securing the potash of Upper Alsace
France halves the German supply and thus breaks the German monopoly of
the world’s mineral potash; by joining the iron of Lorraine to the iron
of Briey, Longwy, and Nancy, France obtains, save for the small share
of Luxemburg, full control of the greatest iron field in Europe. The
_minette_ ore is no longer shared between France and Germany, it is
monopolized by France. If France had Germany’s coal, she might try to
establish an economic supremacy as great as that possessed by Germany
at the outbreak of the war. Late in 1918 one began to hear suggestions
for some sort of _condominium_ in Lorraine, or for a guarantee of
German participation in its mine and furnaces; but such proposals found
no favor with the French government. No such arrangements had been made
for the benefit of France in 1871, and she saw no reason for making
them now. And if other great powers had pointed out the danger of so
great a monopoly in the world, the French might have replied that they
had little coal, less oil, and no copper. After all, the nub of the
situation is that France needs coal and Germany needs iron, and sooner
or later it will be necessary to exchange one for the other. The sooner
this natural necessity is recognized in a _modus vivendi_, the better
for all concerned. If the compelling forces of trade are not allowed to
assert themselves with reasonable freedom, the matter may well cause
grave international difficulty.

Nor did the conference concern itself with other internal matters which
had been much discussed before the armistice. During the forty-seven
years of separation, France and the Reichsland had necessarily diverged
in many matters of institutions, legislation, and social conditions,
so that several difficult problems of readjustment were presented. The
law of the new German civil code of 1900, the German organization of
local government, the German systems of taxation and social legislation
were well established in Alsace-Lorraine, and could not immediately
be rooted up, if indeed their abolition was always desirable. Perhaps
the most striking point of divergence was to be found in the relations
of church and state. The Reichsland had preserved the system of the
Concordat of 1801 and analogous measures for the Protestant and
Jewish religious bodies, so that the government maintained religion
from public funds and exercised direct authority over the appointment
of the clergy. In France the Separation Laws of 1905 and 1907 had
carried through the complete separation of church and state, so
that the state relinquished the nomination of the higher clergy and
discontinued the payment of clerical salaries, at the same time taking
over ecclesiastical property. France had also suppressed the teaching
religious orders and put all education into lay hands in so-called
‘neutral schools.’ These measures were viewed with grave disapproval in
Alsace-Lorraine, a deeply religious country where the great majority
of the schools are under the control of religious bodies and much of
the lower education is still in the hands of nuns. Serious difficulty
would be encountered in extending the French system to Alsace-Lorraine,
and in this, as in other fields, some measure of local independence is
required, at least for the present.

In adjusting their relations with the restored provinces the French
will need an uncommon measure of tact, sympathetic understanding,
and breadth of view, and any mistakes will be viewed critically in
the country itself and magnified beyond the Rhine. Nevertheless, the
questions are not now international, and it is earnestly to be hoped
that they may not become international. They may best be left in the
hands of those directly concerned, the people of France, including
henceforth, for this as for all other purposes, the three departments
of the Haut-Rhin, the Bas-Rhin, and the Moselle, which were once known
as Alsace-Lorraine.


 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

 The best history of Alsace is R. Reuss, _Histoire d’Alsace_ (11th
 edition, Paris, 1916). There is no analogous work for Lorraine; see
 C. Pfister, _La Lorraine, le Barrois, et les Trois Evêchés_ (Paris,
 1912). A good recent book in German is lacking; see Lorenz and
 Scherer, _Geschichte des Elsass_ (Berlin, 1886). For the seventeenth
 century, see R. Reuss, _L’Alsace au xviiᵉ siècle_ (Paris, 1897-98).
 On the cession of 1871, see G. May, _Le traité de Francfort_
 (Paris, 1909); and for the fixing of the frontier, A. Laussedat,
 _La délimitation de la frontière franco-allemande_ (Paris, 1901),
 with facsimile of the original map showing the changes between the
 preliminaries of Versailles and the final treaty.

 There is a vast literature of the period since 1871 and the
 ‘question’ in all its aspects. Convenient accounts in English are B.
 Cerf, _Alsace-Lorraine since 1870_ (New York, 1919); C. D. Hazen,
 _Alsace-Lorraine under German Rule_ (New York, 1917); C. Phillipson,
 _Alsace-Lorraine_ (London, 1918); and E. A. Vizetelly, _The True
 Story of Alsace-Lorraine_ (London, 1918). Examples of the literature
 are: H. and A. Lichtenberger, _La question d’Alsace-Lorraine_ (Paris,
 1915), by two fair-minded Frenchmen of Alsatian origin; the various
 books of the Alsatian nationalist, Abbé E. Wetterlé; S. Grumbach,
 _Das Schicksal Elsass-Lothringens_ (Neuchâtel, 1915), by an Alsatian
 Socialist; D. Schäfer, _Das Reichsland_ (Berlin, 1915), Pan-German;
 H. Wendel, _Elsass-Lothringen und die Sozial-Demokratie_ (Berlin,
 1916), Social Democrat; H. Ruland, _Deutschtum und Franzosentum
 in Elsass-Lothringen_ (Colmar, 1908); E. Florent-Matter, _Les
 Alsaciens-Lorrains contre l’Allemagne_ (Paris, 1918). The brilliant
 statement of the French case in the letter of Fustel de Coulanges to
 Mommsen (now in his _Questions historiques_, Paris, 1893, pp. 505-512)
 has lost none of its point with time. A. Schulte, _Frankreich und das
 linke Rheinufer_ (Stuttgart, 1918), is an historical polemic against
 French claims.

 A good manual of the government under German rule is O. Fischbach,
 _Das öffentliche Recht des Reichslandes_ (Tübingen, 1914).

 The human geography of the whole region is admirably discussed in P.
 Vidal de la Blache, _La France de l’Est_ (Paris, 1917). There is a
 good general article by L. Gallois in the _Geographical Review_, vi,
 pp. 89-115 (1918). There are excellent discussions of resources, as
 well as of frontiers, by eminent geographers and historians in the
 first volume of the _Travaux du Comité d’Etudes: L’Alsace-Lorraine et
 la frontière du Nord-est_ (Paris, 1918).

 On the iron of Lorraine see _The Iron Resources of the World_
 (Stockholm, 1910); the _Atlas of Mineral Resources_ of the U. S.
 Geological Survey; E. Gréaux, _Le fer en Lorraine_ (Paris, 1908);
 F. Engerand, _L’Allemagne et le fer_ (Paris, 1916); H. Schumacher,
 _Die westdeutsche Eisenindustrie_ (Leipzig, 1910); P. Krusch, in
 Petermann’s _Mitteilungen_, lxiii, pp. 41-44 (1917).

        *       *       *       *       *

 The formation of Alsace and Lorraine is traced, from the point
 of view that they are naturally German, in Boeckh and Kiepert,
 _Historische Karte von Elsass und Lothringen_ (Berlin, 1870); and in
 Droysen, _Historischer Handatlas_ (1886), no. 41. For the changes of
 1789-1815, the _Atlas_ of the Comité d’Etudes is convenient, as also
 for mineral resources. There is a good map of the _minette_ field in
 Petermann’s _Mitteilungen_, 1917, plate 8. The linguistic maps of
 C. This will be found in _Beiträge zur Landes- und Volkskunde von
 Elsass-Lothringen_, parts 1 and 5 (1887, 1888); those of H. Witte,
 showing the modifications of the linguistic frontier, in _Forschungen
 zur deutschen Landes- und Volkskunde_, viii, x. A percentage map based
 on the German census of languages is given by Langhans, in _Deutsche
 Erde_, 1910, plate 1; cf. 1909, plate 3. See also Gallois’ maps in
 _Annales de géographie_, ix, nos. 4, 5; and Gröber, _Grundriss der
 romanischen Philologie_ (Strasburg, 1904-1906), i, end.


FOOTNOTES:

[16] Laband, _Deutsches Reichsstaatsrecht_ (Tübingen, 1912), p. 190.

[17] R. Reuss, _L’Alsace au xviiᵉ siècle_ (Paris, 1898), i, p. 720; ii,
p. 186.

[18] Edition of 1890, i, p. 383, removed from later editions.

[19] _Questions historiques_ (Paris, 1893), p. 509.

[20] Lorenz and Scherer, _Geschichte des Elsass_ (Berlin, 1872), p. 441.

[21] Quoted as the opinion of a liberal German advocate of Mainz, who
had “a perfect knowledge of Alsace,” in _Memoirs of Sir Robert Morier_
(London, 1911), ii, p. 184.

[22] _Memoirs of Sir Robert Morier_, ii, pp. 185 ff.

[23] Printed from the original in _Revue historique_, cxxvii, p. ii
(1918).

[24] _Die politischen Reden_, vi, p. 201; see also v, p. 56; vi, pp.
31, 32, 167; xiii, p. 347.

[25] _Die politischen Reden_, xiii, pp. 375, 26, 27; vii, p. 414.

[26] “Unfortunately the theory [that only a zone of two kilometres
was workable] was held by the German geologists who were consulted in
fixing the frontiers of the treaty of Frankfort, and hence led to the
present course of the Franco-German frontier.” H. Schumacher, _Die
westdeutsche Eisenindustrie_ (Leipzig, 1910), p. 147; and in Grumbach,
_Das annexionistische Deutschland_, p. 172.

[27] Annexation to Prussia was even urged, as by Laband, in _Deutsche
Revue_, June 1917, much as by Treitschke in 1870 (_Preussische
Jahrbücher_, xxvi, pp. 398 ff.).

[28] Facsimile in _L’Illustration_, January 3, 1920.

[29] Article 51.

[30] Articles 52-79 and annex.




IV

THE RHINE AND THE SAAR


If Alsace-Lorraine occupied the attention of the Peace Conference in
far less measure than it had occupied the attention of Europe during
the preceding half-century, quite the contrary is true of the related
questions of the Rhine, the Left Bank, and the Saar valley. By the
recovery of Alsace France found herself once more on the Rhine; she
demanded a corresponding voice in Rhenish affairs. By regaining her
boundaries of 1870, she was in a position to reopen the question of
her boundaries of 1814, of those northern appendages of Alsace and
Lorraine which she had lost to Prussia in 1815 and which contained the
coal so much needed for the restoration of France. By defeating Germany
decisively she was able to demand military guarantees on the Left Bank
against another German invasion, perhaps even special privileges as
well. French imperialism, French reparation, French self-defence were
all in some degree involved in these problems of the Rhine and the
intervening lands.

Let us look at these matters in their historical setting. To German
geographers and historians the Rhine is a German river, by nature and
by history, its valley forming a physiographic unity, itself the great
highway of Germany. It is true, they sadly admit, that the upper third
of the valley has been in course of time almost wholly withdrawn
from Germany to fall under Swiss domination, but this still remains,
in culture if not in politics, almost purely Germanic, like the lower
Rhine in Holland. The common German view was summed up a century ago in
the phrase of Arndt, so often repeated in 1870, “Der Rhein Deutschlands
Strom, nicht Deutschlands Grenze.”

Since the seventeenth century there have not been lacking in France
certain historians and geographers who have maintained that the Rhine
was the natural frontier of France, as it had been of Roman Gaul.
“Rhenus finis Germaniae,” said the contemporaries of Louis XIV, while a
century later Carnot and Danton spoke of the Rhine as the natural limit
of France. Scholars of this way of thinking have insisted upon the
fundamentally Celtic character of the Left Bank, if not of the Rhine
itself--is not _der Rhein, der deutsche Rhein_, originally a Celtic
word?--and have emphasized French elements in Rhenish culture and
French influence upon its political life. During the war men of this
school organized the Comité de la Rive Gauche du Rhin and published
a fair amount of propagandist literature which sought to reclaim the
Left Bank for France; but while the group included some scholars of
eminence, it cannot be considered representative of the great body of
French historians.

To one who approaches the matter without any nationalistic
prepossessions the fate of the Rhine valley seems to have been
determined, not by any geographic necessity, but by the vicissitudes of
history. France has no such clearly marked frontier on the northeast
as it possesses in other directions, for the Rhine, like other rivers,
unites more than it divides, while a mountain range like the Vosges,
strongly recommended by German writers in the region of Alsace, fails
as we proceed northward. As a matter of history, whatever value the
Rhine frontier possessed in Roman days disappeared with the Germanic
invasions, and ever since the partitions of the Frankish empire in
the ninth century the lands between the Rhine and the Meuse have been
debated between France and Germany. There is no racial frontier,
for the region is one of mixed Teutonic and Alpine types, whose
distribution was more affected by highland and valley than by any
considerations of east and west. There is a linguistic frontier, which
has scarcely changed in the open country since the early Middle Ages,
and French and German speech have naturally been the vehicles of
their respective civilizations; but the linguistic and the political
frontiers have rarely coincided, and “the linguistic frontier has never
determined the political.”[31] The decisive considerations have been
political pressure and military force, and in the more recent period
political affinities and economic relations.

At first Germany had the advantage, if we mean by Germany that loose
congeries of tribal duchies and later of feudal principalities which
made up the mediaeval Empire. Thus the partition of Meersen (870),
which you will seek in vain in the text of Freeman’s _Geography_ or in
Schrader’s _Atlas historique_, is often cited by German scholars as
fixing a permanent line of demarcation to Germany’s advantage, and was
even invoked by Brockdorff-Rantzau in May 1919 as the original basis
of the German title to the Saar valley. Yet this same line would give
to France Maestricht, Liège, and the mouths of the Rhine! After the
disintegration of the Empire in the later Middle Ages, French advance
began actively in the sixteenth century in the region of the Three
Bishoprics. In the seventeenth century Louis XIV intrenched himself on
the Saar at Saarlouis, and piece by piece gained possession of Alsace.
The Revolution carried the tricolor down the Rhine from Landau to the
Dutch border. Then came the treaty of Vienna, setting France back to
the limits of 1789 and even farther, and the treaty of Frankfort by
which France lost all contact with the Rhine. The victory of 1918 again
put France on the Rhine. A German medal of 1917 represents an exhausted
France driven to her death by England at Verdun, while on the obverse
under the insignia of peace the German Rhine flows calmly on--“und
ruhig fliesst der Rhein.” The French flag now floats not only over
Verdun but over Metz and Strasburg as well. The Rhine still flows on
but in its Alsatian portion it is no longer the German Rhine; it is
“Deutschlands Grenze, nicht Deutschlands Strom.”

       *       *       *       *       *

With France once more a Rhine power, the perspective requires certain
readjustments. First of all, there is the question of navigation.
Freedom of commerce on the Rhine was established in 1815 by the treaty
of Vienna, but it has been exercised for the benefit of the states
bordering on the river, who drew up in 1868 at Mannheim the convention
which has since regulated navigation on the river. France was one of
the signatories, but dropped out with the loss of her riparian status
in 1871, when a representative was assigned to the Reichsland. Of
the others,--Baden, Bavaria, Hesse, Holland, and Prussia--Holland
and Prussia were the most important, but the small states were in
a position to delay and hinder. The executive organ, the Central
Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine, sat semiannually at
Mannheim, but had little coercive power over members. Complaint was
made of discrimination against the vessels of other states and against
certain cities, notably Strasburg. Switzerland, obviously a Rhine
power, asked in vain for admission. In spite of the enormous growth
of trade on the Rhine, the whole system belonged to an earlier age,
and its reform was required in the general interest as well as in the
interest of France.

Besides the general provisions of the Paris treaty securing freedom
of transit and travel across German territory and prohibiting
discrimination against the nationals of the Allied and Associated
Powers in German ports and German rivers, a special chapter deals with
the Rhine and its tributaries.[32] Pending the making of a general
convention relating to international waterways, the convention of
Mannheim is modified by granting France representation equal to the
total number of delegates of the German riparian states (four), as well
as an additional member as President of the Commission, while to the
two representatives of the Netherlands are added an equal number from
Switzerland and from Belgium, whose interests in the Rhine are thus
recognized, and from two outside powers of large commercial interests,
Great Britain and Italy. At the same time the jurisdiction of the
Commission is extended to cover the upper Rhine between Basel and Lake
Constance, if Switzerland consents, the lower Moselle, and tributary
canals and artificial channels. The headquarters of the Commission
are transferred from Mannheim to Strasburg, which is evidently meant
to play a large part in the future development of the river. In order
that Strasburg may not suffer while its port and terminal facilities
are being developed to correspond to the new needs, the opposite port
of Kehl in Baden is combined for seven years into a single port with
Strasburg, the whole under the supervision of the Central Rhine
Commission.[33]

Another problem of the upper Rhine is that of its water power, a
matter which had proved difficult to adjust between Baden and the
Reichsland and was likely to make greater trouble between two sovereign
and antagonistic states. Alsace had complained that the Grand Duchy
opposed plans for the utilization of the Rhine, and France proposed
to take no chances of future disagreement. So Germany agrees that,
subject to the approval of the Central Commission, France may build
dams and take water from the Rhine on the whole course of the river
between the extreme points of the French frontier, acquiring for proper
compensation the necessary supports and rights of way on the Right
Bank, with the understanding that Germany has a right to the value
of half the power thus produced. Germany binds herself not to derive
canals from the Rhine opposite the French frontiers.[34] Henceforth the
Rhine is to be harnessed to serve the needs of Alsace.

       *       *       *       *       *

If participation in the affairs of the upper Rhine was incidental to
the recovery of Alsace, the lower course of the river was quite another
matter. Between the Rhine and the Franco-Belgian frontier lay a belt of
German territory, varying in breadth from fifty to one hundred miles,
with an area of about 10,000 square miles, and a population of five
and a half millions. Of these, nearly a million were in the Bavarian
Palatinate, 50,000 in the principality of Birkenfeld, about 400,000
in Hesse; the rest, the great majority, were in the Rheinprovinz of
Prussia. Practically all of them spoke German. They had been under
their existing governments for at least a century; they had been under
some sort of German government far longer.

Down to 1789 this region was parcelled out among a great number of
petty principalities, lay or ecclesiastical, from the considerable
dominions of the archbishoprics of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne, and the
bishoprics of Speier and Worms, to the minute lay states of a few
villages which can scarcely be distinguished on the map. A careful
historian has counted ninety-seven such independent states on the Left
Bank in 1789. Swept away by the Revolution, most of them were never
restored. The chief exception was the Palatinate, which had passed
about from one branch of the reigning family to another, and came back
to Bavaria in 1815 as a well rounded territory under the house of
Zweibrücken. The Congress of Vienna also handed over the valley of the
Nahe to Hesse-Darmstadt, and gave the duke of Oldenburg a compensation
of 25,000 souls to be furnished by Prussia, 20,000 of which were found
on the Left Bank and formed into the principality of Birkenfeld.

The great gainer by the new arrangements was Prussia. Before the
Revolution her only possessions on the Left Bank, namely Cleves,
Mörs, and Prussian Guelders, were on the lower Rhine. At Vienna, as a
compensation for the Saxony which was refused her, she was given the
greater part of the Left Bank, her territory now reaching from the
valley of the Saar to the Dutch border. For the first time Prussia and
France were neighbors. However German these lands may have been, they
had never been Prussian, and the bargain by which they were handed
over to Prussia took no account of past history or the desires of the
population. If the Paris Conference was to undo the historic wrongs
perpetrated at Vienna, it could well begin here.

A wrong a hundred years old, however, is not easily undone, and its
undoing may constitute an even greater wrong. Particularist at the
outset, the Rhineland had been assimilated by Prussia and by the
new German empire, partly through the agencies of government and
administration, still more perhaps through its participation in the
great economic development of modern Germany. It had become the seat
of world industries: iron and steel mills, sugar refineries, textile
manufactories, and chemical plants. It was served by an excellent
railroad system, and by the shipping of the Rhine and its tributaries.
Its rapidly growing cities lay on both banks of the river. It was
in the closest connection with Westphalia, Prussia’s other great
industrial province. Since 1815 the population of the Rheinprovinz had
quadrupled, until it was one of the most densely peopled regions of
Europe. Under Prussia it had prospered and waxed fat, and prosperity
had reconciled differences. Then, if the Rhineland was to be taken from
Prussia, to whom could it be given? No one wanted to return to the
feudal lords, lay or spiritual, of the old regime and the simple life.
Could the land go back to France?

For twenty years only had the Left Bank belonged to France, from 1794
to 1814. These years, however, were a period of rapid and far-reaching
change. In place of the ninety-seven petty principalities four French
departments had been organized and then incorporated into France,
in many instances upon the petitions of the inhabitants themselves.
Feudalism and ecclesiasticism had given way to democracy, the local
laws had been superseded by the Code Napoléon, which survived on the
Rhine till 1900. The younger generation learned French and looked
toward France. The Prussians in 1814 were by no means generally
welcomed. Small wonder that, when a new victory opened the way to the
Rhine, the memories of a French Rhineland should suggest that the work
of 1794 might be repeated and the new generation taught once more to
turn to France. Small wonder that there were French who forgot, not
only how quickly the French traditions had faded out after 1815, but
also how the great industrial development of the nineteenth century
had bound the Left Bank to the Right by bands of steel which only
military force could destroy. Such force some were willing to apply,
but others trusted still to the influence of the French language
and the popularity and adaptability of a French occupation. They
needed to ponder the prudent words of a French historian: “If it is
well for public men to know a bit of history, this should be only on
condition that they do not allow themselves to be dominated by their
recollections of the past.”[35] He is a wise man indeed who can always
distinguish between things as they are and things as he wishes them to
be.

In the French projects respecting the Left Bank there was of course
something more than sentiment, and there was also something more than
mere imperialism, whether economic or political. It was in this region
that France must needs seek something of that reparation for the
devastation of war which Germany seemed unable to furnish elsewhere.
And it was here that France would also seek means of defence and
guarantees against a new German invasion. For any particular plan
more than one of these reasons might be urged, and it was not always
possible to distinguish what was imperialistic by nature from what was
necessary to the restoration and protection of France. It was not the
least of the services performed for France by that shrewd old man,
Georges Clémenceau, that he refused to be swept on by the extremists
and limited his ultimate demands to the substantial results which the
treaty secured.

Comparatively few Frenchmen demanded the outright annexation of the
Left Bank, nor was the number large of those who wished to prepare for
it by an indefinitely prolonged military occupation. Nevertheless,
the annexationist group was much in evidence, and conducted an active
campaign. It was a Conservative and Nationalist body, whose opinion was
expressed by journals like the _Echo de Paris_ and the _Libre Parole_.
It had also strong support in high military quarters, which desired
a long military occupation of the country, particularly of the Rhine
itself and its bridges. It was urged that, however the historical
question might lie, the Rhine was the obvious military frontier of
France, the one advanced line which could not be turned and which
guaranteed France against invasion. It was even maintained that this
was the real frontier of all the Allies, the front line that must be
held at all cost against Germany. It need not even be held in force,
for Allied control of the nine great Rhine bridges would suffice to
prevent invasion. Germany must lose her springboard for jumping into
France!

As to the intervening territory, a favorite French solution was that
of an independent buffer state under French protection. And since such
a state, in spite of its great resources, would not be large enough
to maintain its economic independence, it was thought preferable that
it should lie within the French customs zone. The political status of
such a state was variously viewed as one of entire independence, as
a French or Allied protectorate, or as a federal state of the German
empire entirely detached from Prussia. At one time there were even
signs of a movement toward separation, for the Catholic Rhineland
was inclined to resist the programme of the Majority Socialists, and
there were French Catholics who would have welcomed its affiliation to
France. Separatist tendencies were not, however, encouraged by England
and the United States, and they never reached serious proportions. The
most notable example of such a movement was in the Palatinate, where
French troops were in possession. Moreover an economic protectorate
recalled too directly the history of the German Zollverein, and even
certain economic aims of Germany during the world war. The only
definite advance which France made in this direction was the severance
of Luxemburg from the German customs union by the treaty, and its
subsequent entry into the French customs union by popular vote of its
inhabitants the following September.

However little sympathy might be felt with the various projects for the
military or economic aggrandizement of France on the Left Bank, there
was one French argument that was unanswerable: the Left Bank and the
Rhine must not be made the basis of a new attack against France and
thus against the world’s peace. Here Prussian militarism had used its
opportunities to the full. The Rhine valley was covered with munition
factories, with forts and garrisons and parade grounds, with bridges
and strategic railroads, furnished with long detraining platforms in
the open country or great camps like Elsenborn on the Belgian frontier.
And the campaign of 1914 had shown to what use all this could be put in
sudden attack. “Not another German soldier on the Rhine,” was a common
form of the French demand. The demilitarization of the Left Bank was an
elementary demand of national, and international, security.

The clauses to this effect in the treaty are brief but full of meaning:

 Article 42.

 Germany is forbidden to maintain or construct any fortifications
 either on the left bank of the Rhine or on the right bank to the west
 of a line drawn 50 kilometres to the East of the Rhine.

 Article 43.

 In the area defined above the maintenance and the assembly of armed
 forces, either permanently or temporarily, and military manoeuvres
 of any kind, as well as the upkeep of all permanent works for
 mobilization, are in the same way forbidden.

 Article 44.

 In case Germany violates in any manner whatever the provisions of
 Articles 42 and 43, she shall be regarded as committing a hostile act
 against the Powers signatory of the present Treaty and as calculated
 to disturb the peace of the world.

In order to insure immediate and full effect to these articles,
the provisions respecting guarantees of the whole treaty involve
the occupation of this very region. German territory west of the
Rhine, together with the Rhine bridgeheads, is to be held for
fifteen years by Allied and Associated troops. In case of faithful
execution of the treaty, this region is to be evacuated by these
troops in three successive zones at intervals of five years; in case
of non-execution, the territory may be reoccupied and the period of
occupation extended.[36] A further agreement, of even date with the
treaty, provides for the administration of the occupied territory
under a civilian Inter-Allied Rhineland High Commission representing
France, Belgium, Great Britain, and the United States, subject to
whose authority the German local administration is maintained. Neither
the military occupation nor the civilian Commission covers the
demilitarized zone on the Right Bank, a gap between the two systems of
administration which was to prove particularly serious in the region of
the Ruhr, the principal source of the coal on which France and other
Allies had an option under other clauses of the treaty, a district
liable to serious industrial disturbances for the suppression of which
the German government would demand the right to use troops.

Finally, as a more positive and direct guarantee of the country
which had borne the brunt of Germany’s aggression, Great Britain
and the United States agreed to come to the aid of France in case
of an unprovoked attack by Germany.[37] Designed to offer adequate
assurance during the transitional period while the League of Nations
was getting under way, this supplementary treaty recognized not only
the peculiar dangers of France, exposed directly to the full force of
a German offensive, but also the general interest in her full security
and protection. To the French this was an essential part of the peace
settlement, and without it they would have insisted on more direct and
more material guarantees of their own.

       *       *       *       *       *

Another matter affecting the Left Bank came into prominence at the
conference, namely the valley of the Saar. From one point of view
this was a phase of the question of Alsace-Lorraine, for a portion of
the Saar basin had once been a part of Lorraine and the recovery of
the lost provinces revived the question of their historic boundaries.
It was also part of the problem of the Left Bank, for the territory
belonged to Prussia and Bavaria and was inhabited by a population of
predominantly German affinities, and any annexation here was subject
to the same objections as elsewhere on German soil. Lastly, the coal
mines of the valley raised a more special question, for they adjoined
immediately the new boundary of France, and thus offered an easy source
of reparation for the destruction and devastation of French territory.

At the outbreak of the French Revolution neither Alsace nor Lorraine
possessed a clearly defined frontier toward the north. In each case
the boundary had arisen historically, without any large measures of
readjustment or delimitation, in a region of minute subdivisions and
overlapping claims; and the result was a tortuous, broken line, with
enclaves on either side, which defied geographical and administrative
convenience. At certain points the limits of sovereignty were in
dispute, and the boundary cannot everywhere be defined with certainty.
In Alsace, beyond the present limit of the river Lauter, lay the
enclave of Landau, an old Alsatian city which had passed to France in
1648, while the intervening territory obeyed the bishop of Speier,
the duke of Zweibrücken, or the Elector Palatine. To the north of
Lorraine Louis XIV had established French influence on the Saar and
constructed his new town of Saarlouis, as an outpost to insure the
military control of the valley. The acquisition in the eighteenth
century of the duchy of Lorraine, already traversed and cut up by
pieces of French territory, carried the French frontier well to the
north and east of Saarlouis, while at the same time it left the German
county of Saarbrücken astride the Saar on either side of the town of
the same name. A glance at the map will show the impossible character
of the resulting frontier, which had not been greatly improved when
the armies of the Revolution poured over it and added the whole region
to France. That its incorporation was not a simple act of violence
appears from various petitions of 1797 asking for the privileges of
French citizenship, among them a long list of signers from the canton
of Saarbrücken.[38]

In 1814 the first treaty of Paris had as its primary task to
reëstablish the limits of France. As the basis of its work it took
the frontier of January 1, 1792, as anterior to the revolutionary
wars of conquest. In this region, this did not differ from the
frontier of 1789. It was, however, recognized that the old frontier
had become an impossibility in the region of Alsace-Lorraine, and
required straightening and adjustment to adapt it to modern conditions.
Accordingly enclaves were abandoned on either side. Toward the Rhine
the new arrangement took away certain French dependencies in the
neighborhood of Wissembourg and Landau, but left France those towns and
added a connecting strip of territory extending east to the Rhine. In
the region of the Saar France lost the outlying lands to the north and
gained the valley of the river above Saarlouis, including Saarbrücken
and the region round about. In area the adjustments roughly balanced,
but in resources France had received an advantage because of the coal
deposits thus retained. As a geographic frontier, the new line of 1814
was a great improvement, but it was never laid out on the spot or put
into actual effect.

In the frontier imposed upon her in 1815 France paid the penalty for
Napoleon’s Hundred Days of glory. Toward the Rhine Landau was taken,
and her territory was cut back to the Lauter. In Lorraine she lost
the whole middle and lower portion of the Saar valley, including not
only the new acquisitions about Saarbrücken but the town of Saarlouis,
which had been French since its foundation. In theory the frontier of
1815 was to reëstablish the France of 1789. In fact it left France
smaller than in 1789. And what was taken was given, not to the former
rulers, still less to the inhabitants, but to Prussia. Whatever may
be said against the claims of France in this region, Prussia had no
rights there of any sort. Her nearest Rhenish possessions in 1789
had been a hundred and fifty miles away. She was established on the
Rhine, not because the people wanted her, but because she wanted
territory--Saxony, if possible, if not, something else--and because the
Allies wanted somebody to watch France.

So the reasons of the boundary line of 1815 are not far to seek.
Landau and Saarlouis were fortresses of Vauban, defences of which it
was thought prudent to deprive France, and this strategic argument has
always been emphasized. We now know that the coal of the Saar was also
a reason. This was openly stated by German historians before the war,
and is supported by the correspondence of Heinrich Böcking, an agent of
the German family of Stumm, still one of the great manufacturing firms
of the region. Made commissioner of the mines in 1814, he followed the
Prussian commissioners to Paris in the following year, and urged large
annexations for Prussia at the expense of the Palatinate and France.
In 1802 the French had opened a mining school at Geislautern, near
Saarbrücken, and developed considerably the mines and industries of
the region. Their careful surveys of the coal field were insistently
demanded by the Prussians, and finally acquired in 1817. Some petitions
from the inhabitants were received by the Prussians from Saarbrücken,
but then there had been petitions in the opposite sense in 1797.

The loss of the frontier of 1814 to Prussia remained a sore point with
France until it was swallowed up in the greater loss of 1871. When
the recovery of Alsace-Lorraine in 1918 revived the question of their
former boundaries, it was natural to inquire what the intervening
century had brought forth. In the region of Landau there has been
little change. A town of 5000 in 1815, it had grown only to 18,000 in
1910. The surrounding region of farm and forest had likewise altered
little. The Saar valley, on the other hand, had shared the industrial
development of the most prosperous parts of the Rheinprovinz. Its
coal mines, and those of the neighboring villages of the Palatinate,
had come to produce eight per cent of the huge output of the German
empire. About this supply of fuel had grown up numerous industrial
establishments--pottery and glassware to some extent, but especially
blast furnaces and great iron and steel plants at Dillingen,
Völklingen, Burbach, and Neunkirchen, busy on tasks of war as well as
on those of peace. Great names in the German iron and steel industry
stand out as the proprietors--Böcking, Röchling, Mannesmann, Stumm.
Saarbrücken, a town of perhaps 5000 in 1815, had a population of
105,000 in 1910. To the north and to the west the lines of industrial
towns were almost unbroken. 355,000 people now lived between the Saar
frontiers of 1814 and 1815; and as many more in the adjoining regions
which depended on the valley’s coal and manufactures. The Prussian
railroad system threw its network over the basin. Prussian legislation
provided houses and schools and social insurance for the workmen. Save
perhaps for the beautiful state forests which ran to the edge of the
towns and the mines, the whole character of the country recalled the
great industrial region of the lower Rhine. Over the border of the
Palatinate matters moved a bit more slowly, after the Bavarian fashion.
The towns were not quite so spick-and-span, the model dwellings were
not so much in evidence, the local capital, Zweibrücken, preserved
the flavor of a _Residenzstadt_ of the old regime. But the flavor
was German not French. In the western part of the valley French
names could still be found, notably in Saarlouis, which kept much of
the appearance of an old French town, with its hôtel de ville, its
great public square, and along the river front the remains of its
fortifications built by Vauban. And there were those who had not wholly
forgotten that Saarlouis was the birthplace of Marshal Ney.

In France, at least, there were many who had not forgotten. The demand
for the frontier of 1814 was noticeably greater than that for other
parts of the Left Bank. It was partly historic, a desire to reclaim
what had once been French and had played its part in the great deeds
of French history. This was not confined to partisans of the old
regime: Aulard, historian and upholder of the Revolution, urged the
return of Saarlouis and Landau on the ground that they had sworn the
great revolutionary covenant of 1790 and had been torn from France by
violence in 1815, as were Alsace and Lorraine half a century later.[39]
Popular interest would have been greater if the frontier of 1814 had
been a real line separating peoples for a term of years, instead of
a provision on paper. And the historic frontier of 1792, the actual
boundary during the eighteenth century, had become impossible; no one
asked for that. The best historic argument for the frontier of 1814 was
that it had then been considered a just and practical equivalent for
the line of 1792; in that sense it represented the peace of justice,
while the line of 1815 was clearly the peace of violence.

Stronger than the historic argument was the economic: France, a
country poor in coal, had been forcibly despoiled of the Saar mines
in 1814; she needed them back; and her need was now much greater
since the wanton and systematic destruction of her mines in the Nord
and Pas-de-Calais by the Germans. The two arguments did not entirely
coincide, so far as the Saar was concerned. The historic argument was
strongest in respect to the district of Saarlouis, where there was
little coal. Saarbrücken, the centre of the coal field, had been French
only for a brief period, 1793-1815. Moreover, the frontier of 1814 did
not cover the whole of the mining area, perhaps a third of which lay to
the north toward Ottweiler and to the east in the Palatinate, and its
reëstablishment would have disrupted the economic life of the region.

Many Frenchmen were genuinely opposed to any annexations of territory
beyond the Alsace-Lorraine of 1871, as contrary to the principles on
which the war had been fought. They had not, they said, been fighting
for the Rhine or the Saar. This was the Socialist contention, and it
was shared by many Republicans who were not Socialists. All, however,
who looked facts in the face felt the need of the coal. “If we could
only get the coal without the people,” said a distinguished Socialist
early in the winter. “We must have the coal, and we must find some
arrangement to get it without annexing the population,” a great
historian said a little later.

The people were overwhelmingly German. A considerable directing element
of capitalists, engineers, and officials had come from other parts of
the empire, but the great majority were natives of the region. The
mining population of 56,000 included surprisingly few foreigners or
even Germans from a distance. Many had their cottages with a plot of
ground about, going to and fro daily on workmen’s trains or returning
home for the week-end. The ruling element was strongly Prussian, a
part of the great administrative machine directed from Berlin. The
regular local administration existed, but only as a part of the
Rheinprovinz and of a Regierungsbezirk administered from Trier. The
adjoining portions of the Palatinate were governed from Munich and
Speier. The economic unity of the region had no corresponding political
organization, as was admitted by German officials. The mass of the
people were particularly interested in their labor organizations and
in their rights under German labor legislation. If they had been
consulted, they would doubtless have voted to remain with Germany.
But it was at least debatable whether they had a right at the same
time to vote to Germany the mines which she had taken in 1815 without
consulting anybody. The control of key deposits of minerals by the
small population which happens to live over them is not a necessary
part of the principle of self-determination, particularly when this
population forms part of a state which has been destroying the mines of
others. The separation of mines from people may sometimes be governed
by international considerations.

The coal field of the Saar is the northern outcrop of a considerable
deposit which extends in a southwesterly direction across Lorraine
to the Moselle in the neighborhood of Pont-à-Mousson. Toward the
southwest, however, the strata dip so deep as to be unworkable. The
practicable part of the field is in the Saar valley, partly on the
edge of annexed Lorraine, chiefly in Rhenish Prussia, with a small
strip in the adjoining part of the Palatinate. The total output in 1913
was seventeen and a half million tons, of which two-thirds was mined
between the frontiers of 1814 and 1815. It was understood, however,
that production had been artificially restricted in the interest of the
Westphalian field, and the proportion of the actual coal reserve was
much greater. Any estimates of reserves are necessarily approximate,
but in 1913 it was calculated that the Saar field contained seventeen
billion tons, equal to 22% of the total German reserve, and more than
the whole known supply of France, a country relatively poor in coal. No
wonder the French found it hard to forget the loss of 1815! Moreover,
all the mines in operation lay within a dozen miles of the new French
frontier in Lorraine.

France not only needed this coal, she had a strong claim to it. The
chief French mines, those of Lens and Valenciennes on the Belgian
border, had been in German hands for more than four years and had
been deliberately flooded and rendered unworkable by the occupying
armies. The period of restoration was variously estimated; it has
since been fixed by German engineers at eight years at the least, and
the total property loss has been estimated at eighty per cent. For
this definite reparation in kind could be exacted in the Saar field.
But that was not all. Germany had agreed to compensate for all damage
done to the civilian population and their property, yet conservative
estimates of the bill for general reparation in northern France far
exceeded any available means of payment on Germany’s part, even when
the payment was spread over a long series of years and thus reduced in
actual restorative power. Proposals to take over German enterprises
like railroads or factories were impracticable, not only because of
the political difficulties of operating them on German territory but
because this would interfere with Germany’s ability to earn her annual
payments of indemnity. The Saar mines, on the contrary, lay on the
outer edge of Germany; they were already linked with the industries
of Lorraine, henceforth French; they were, with two exceptions
(Frankenholz and Hostenbach), the property of the Prussian and Bavarian
states. Always supposing that they were properly credited on the
reparation account, no better means of payment could be found for a
debt which Germany had agreed to pay.

Accordingly, it was agreed in principle, late in March 1919, that the
full ownership of the coal mines of the Saar basin should pass to
France, to be credited on her claims against Germany for reparation.
With full and unencumbered property in the mines the treaty gave
the fullest economic facilities for their exploitation, including
the acquisition of all subsidiaries and dependencies, freedom of
transportation and sale, exemption from other than local taxes, and
full mobility of labor. The mines were placed within the French customs
union, and payment in connection with their operation might be made in
French money. The elementary justice of this transfer of the mines to
France has become increasingly clear in the past few months. Out of the
crumbling uncertainties of reparation for war damage, France secures
one solid asset, and she secures it in a form absolutely essential for
the revival of her wrecked industries. Those who have urged that she
ought to have been satisfied with a coal contract instead, a claim
for delivery rather than mines to be worked, have been refuted by the
decreasing production of coal in Germany and the growing unwillingness
of the Germans to make the deliveries of coal to which they obligated
themselves in the treaty. A mine in hand is worth many contracts to
deliver.

The transfer of the Saar mines and their appurtenances to the
French state raised a difficult question of administration. If the
German government retained the full power to fix the conditions of
exploitation, transportation, and sale, and if German legislation was
to be carried out by Prussian officials, the conditions of operation
could easily be made impossible, and the ownership of the mines prove
nugatory. On the other hand, if the government were handed over, either
temporarily or permanently, to France, the inhabitants lost their
political rights and were subjected to an alien rule. It was the old
question, how to transfer the mines without subjecting the people.

The solution of this conflict of rights and interests was found in the
international organization of the League of Nations. Germany agreed
to hand over the government of the territory, but not the ultimate
sovereignty, to the League of Nations as trustee, and the League is
to administer it through an international Governing Commission. This
commission consists of five members, one a native inhabitant of the
Saar territory, one a Frenchman, the others representing other nations.
Sitting in the territory, it has all powers of government hitherto
belonging to the German empire, Prussia, and Bavaria, and full power
to administer the local public services. It must maintain the existing
system of courts and local officials, and must consult an elective
assembly with respect to new taxes or legislation. Subject to its
control, “the inhabitants will retain their local assemblies, their
religious liberties, their schools, and their language.” They keep also
their German nationality, their rights under German labor legislation,
their pension rights and accrued pensions. They lose only their right
to vote for representatives in the Reichstag and the Prussian and
Bavarian diets; their participation in self-government is much greater
than that of the inhabitants of the District of Columbia! They gain the
advantages of a governing body resident in the territory and familiar
with its special needs, in place of an administration from Berlin and
Munich. They also gain exemption from military service and other than
local taxes, and from contribution to the German war indemnities,
besides favorable adjustments of customs duties.

This system will have a fifteen years’ trial, at the end of which
the people are to be called on to vote, district by district, as to
their future political status. The alternatives will be reunion with
Germany, union with France, or continuance under the League of Nations
with such modifications of the regime as may be necessary to adapt it
to permanent use. Voting is open to all of the age of twenty who were
resident in the territory at the date of the signature of the treaty
of Versailles, and to these only, so that all temptation to colonize
voters is thus removed, whether on the French or on the German side.
The League of Nations shall take the necessary measures to put these
votes into effect, making such decisions as may be necessary to adjust
boundaries, etc. In any portion of the territory which votes to return
to Germany, the German government shall buy back the mines, so as to
remove any danger of friction over their operation. No such purchase
is required in territory which may become French or remain under the
League.[40]

The territory of the Saar basin thus created by the treaty of
Versailles and governed by the International Commission covers 700
square miles with a population of 650,000--more than the population
of Rhode Island, with two-thirds the area. Its boundaries were
carefully drawn so that, while following as far as possible the lines
of existing administrative divisions, they should include only the
region economically dependent on the coal of the basin. It takes in the
valley of the Saar from the point below Sarreguemines where its right
bank ceases to be French territory to Saarhölzbach, where the narrows
of the mountains close in and the workmen’s trains stop. To the north
it covers only the area for which coal concessions have been granted
and within which local industries live from the coal, the whole being
belted by a connecting series of railroad lines. On the east it enters
the Palatinate sufficiently to include the coal mines along the border
and the railroad junction of Homburg which links up the railroads of
the eastern part of the basin. The territory has an economic unity,
ignored by its previous administrative organization, but recognized
by those familiar with local conditions. Petitions to join the Saar
basin have since been made to the League of Nations by inhabitants of
Britten, Losheim, Wadern, and Weisskirchen, which adjoin the district
on the north in Prussia.

Whether the lot of the Saar territory will appear enviable to other
neighboring districts, it is still too soon to say. In spite of
the misrepresentation of this chapter of the treaty by German and
pro-German writers, an examination of its provisions shows that the
rights and interests of the inhabitants have been carefully safeguarded
under international guarantees. Indeed their position has so many
advantages as compared with their neighbors in France and Germany
that there were those at Paris who predicted that the plebiscite
of 1935 would declare for the maintenance of an independent status
under the League of Nations, free from outside responsibilities, both
military and fiscal. Undoubtedly the issues will be economic as well
as political, and much of the success of the new regime will depend
on the economic and social policy of the Governing Commission. During
the delays of ratification and organization the labor legislation
of the district necessarily stood still at the point reached at the
time of the Armistice, and a considerable task of readjustment and
reconstruction falls on the new Commission, in a region inhabited by
a concentrated mining and industrial population with a strong local
organization of its own. It should be noted that, besides the general
obligation to consult a local legislative assembly, it is provided
that “in fixing the conditions and hours of labor for men, women, and
children, the Governing Commission is to take into consideration the
wishes expressed by the local labor organizations, as well as the
principles adopted by the League of Nations,”[41] so that a progressive
policy is clearly laid down. Moreover, by virtue of its geographical
position, the labor of the Saar should be able to secure conditions at
least as favorable as in adjoining regions, while, with a plebiscite
in view, the French state administration of the mines will have every
reason to maintain good relations with the mining population. At the
same time neither France nor the Commission will have any reason
for holding back the production of coal or the general industrial
development of the district in favor of the mines and factories of
Westphalia. In any event the people of the Saar will be in a position
to decide for themselves, district by district, after actual experience
of the new regime; nor are they likely to welcome the proposal of an
ardent revisionist of the treaty of Versailles, who, while admitting
that the arrangements respecting the Saar should stand for ten years,
would take away from the inhabitants all opportunity of voting as
to their future.[42] If government by the League of Nations is as
“odious” as the German delegates declared at Versailles, then ten years
of it is as indefensible in principle as fifteen. But if perchance
the League’s Commission should prove less odious than its enemies
anticipate, the fact will be worth recording for the sake of the League
as well as of the people directly concerned.

The government of the Saar basin by a commission of the League
of Nations is a very interesting experiment in international
administration. Granted the prompt organization of a League such as
the treaty contemplates, this experiment in commission government has
a fair chance of success, and while the difficulty has been rendered
greater by delay, it is not insoluble. By its success or failure in
such matters the League will be in large measure judged in western
Europe. There is reason to believe that its effectiveness depends
likewise largely upon such permanent activities. Its Assembly will
meet rarely, its Council not frequently, only its secretariat and
its administrative organs will be constantly at work, and it is
their action that will bring the League home to the peoples under
its immediate control. Curiously enough, those who were most eager
for the programme of an ambitious League were the first to criticise
the creation of such commissions and their tasks. But if one of the
chief objects of such an organization is to promote world peace,
surely the Franco-German frontier is an important point for it to
watch. And if the League can ease the strain here by acting as a sort
of shock-absorber, protecting at the same time the property rights
of France and the personal rights of the inhabitants, it will serve
another interest no less important than peace, namely the cause of
justice. If the League is not ready for this test, it is certainly not
ready to become a super-state. The super-state can wait, but justice
and peace are matters of today.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Saar Commission, the Governing Commission for the occupied
territory, the new Central Rhine Commission, all are manifestations
of international interest in the Franco-German frontier, and efforts
to relieve the strain in this area of high national tension. The
demilitarization of the Left Bank and the river and the guarantee of
France against unprovoked aggression from the east are likewise plainly
in the interest of international peace. Even the most definitely
national measure of all, the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine, was called
for, according to President Wilson, not only to right the wrong done by
Prussia in 1871, but “in order that peace may once more be made secure
in the interest of all.” The League of Nations in the valley of the
Rhine is the symbol of a new order.


 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

 The history of the Left Bank is examined from various points of
 view by the Comité d’Etudes, i: _L’Alsace-Lorraine et la frontière
 du Nord-est_ (1918). E. Babelon, _Le Rhin dans l’histoire_ (Paris,
 1916-17), is the fullest account from the point of view of the Rhine
 as the historical frontier of France. See also L. Madelin, in the
 _Revue des deux Mondes_, December 1, 1918; the pamphlets of Babelon,
 Driault, de Grailly, Milhaud, Stiénon, etc., issued in the same
 years; and the _enquête_ published by the _Libre Parole_ in February
 1919. For a sane French criticism see Pfister, in _Revue historique_,
 cxxvi, pp. 334-338. A. Schulte, _Frankreich und das linke Rheinufer_
 (Stuttgart, 1918), is largely a critique of French writers.

 For the important period 1794-1814 the best German accounts are C. T.
 Perthes, _Politische Zustände und Personen in Deutschland zur Zeit der
 französichen Herrschaft_ (Bonn, 1862); and J. Hashagen, _Das Rheinland
 und die französische Herrschaft_ (Bonn, 1908). An excellent French
 monograph is Ph. Sagnac, _Le Rhin français pendant la Révolution et
 l’Empire_ (Paris, 1917). On Landau and Saarlouis, see Aulard, in
 _Revue de Paris_, March 15, 1919. J. Hansen (ed.), _Die Rheinprovinz
 1815-1915_ (Bonn, 1917), is a comprehensive treatment of the
 Prussian period, with brief bibliographies. For a sketch of economic
 conditions, see Yves Guyot, _La province rhénane et la Westphalie_
 (Paris, 1915). On the Palatinate, see H. Schreibmüller, _Bayern und
 die Pfalz, 1816-1916_ (Kaiserslautern, 1916).

 The French side of the negotiations respecting the ‘guarantees’ on the
 Left Bank is given by A. Tardieu, in _L’Illustration_, February 14,
 1920. Nothing has as yet been published by the British or American
 negotiators.

 The commerce of the Rhine is well studied by E. J. Clapp, _The
 Navigable Rhine_ (Boston, 1911). Cf. P. Vidal de la Blache, _La France
 de l’Est_ (Paris, 1917); and the studies of de Martonne and Gallois in
 the volume of the _Comité d’Etudes_. For a Swiss view of the problem,
 see V. S. Rualens-Marlier, _Le Rhin libre_ (Paris and Neuchâtel, 1916).

        *       *       *       *       *

 In the Saar valley the events of 1814-15 are narrated by A.
 Ruppersberg, _Geschichte der Stadt Saarbrücken_ (Saarbrücken,
 1913). Böcking’s correspondence will be found, with other important
 material, in A. Krohn, _Beiträge zur Geschichte der Saargegend_, in
 _Mitteilungen des historischen Vereins für die Saargegend_, viii
 (1901). Cf. F. Engerand, _L’Allemagne et le fer_ (Paris, 1916), ch.
 2. For a general sketch, see E. Babelon, _Sarrelouis et Sarrebruck_
 (Paris, 1918). Of the German literature touching this part of the
 treaty examples are F. Meinecke, _Geschichte der linksrheinischen
 Gebietsfragen_, with maps; and the articles in _Die Woche_, March 8,
 1919.

 On the Saar coal field, see _The Coal Resources of the World_
 (Toronto, 1913); the _Atlas of Mineral Resources_ published by the
 U. S. Geological Survey; the study of Gallois, in _Travaux du Comité
 d’Etudes_, i, and _Annales de géographie_, July 15, 1919; E. de
 Margerie, in _Enquête sur les richesses minérales du Nord-est de la
 France et des régions voisines_, with maps (Paris, 1918); Friedrich
 A. Schmidt, _Der Saarkohlenbergbau in Lothringen_ (Strasburg diss.,
 1914); and the local geological surveys and mining reports. On the
 growth of manufactures, see J. Kollmann, _Die Grossindustrie des
 Saargebiets_ (Stuttgart, 1911).

        *       *       *       *       *

 An admirable presentation of the historical geography of the Left Bank
 will be found in the _Geschichtlicher Atlas der Rheinprovinz_ (Bonn,
 1898-). For the frontiers of 1814 and 1815, see the _Atlas_ of the
 Comité d’Etudes.

[Illustration: ALSACE-LORRAINE AND THE SAAR VALLEY

Scale 1: 1,500,000

_Eastern limit of French speech according to C. This._

_Limits of Territory of the Saar._

  _Iron ore_     }  _Areas represent_
                 }  _extent of holdings,_
  _Coal_         }  _mines shown thus_
  (_with seams_) }

  _Potash_

  _Petroleum_

  _Canals_

_Based on Gallors’ map in the Geographical Review, VI_]


FOOTNOTES:

[31] Dietrich Schäfer, “Die deutsch-französische Sprachgrenze,” in
_Internationale Wochenschrift_, vii, p. 19 (1912).

[32] Articles 354-362.

[33] Article 65.

[34] Articles 358-360.

[35] E. Denis, in _Travaux du Comité d’études_, i, p. 414.

[36] Articles 428-432.

[37] These treaties, the American one not yet ratified, and the
agreements concerning occupation of the Rhine will be found in the
_Supplement to the American Journal of International Law_, xiii, pp.
404-416.

[38] Facsimiles in _Atlas_ of the Comité d’Etudes.

[39] “Landau et Sarrelouis villes françaises,” in _Revue de Paris_,
March 15, 1919.

[40] Articles 42-50 and annex, with official map.

[41] Annex to the Saar section of the treaty, § 23.

[42] Keynes, _The Economic Consequences of the Peace_, p. 263.




V

POLAND


Among all the results of the War and of the Peace Treaties, there is,
perhaps, none which would have caused our forefathers greater joy or
greater astonishment than the resurrection of Poland. It is heartening
to dwell for a moment on the moral significance of this great event,
and to recall what the name of Poland stood for down to the time when
Bismarck banished sentiment from politics and attempted to exorcise the
idea of an ‘immanent justice’ in history.

To every generation of the nineteenth century, down to 1870 at least,
Poland furnished the supreme example both of what people then called
‘the crimes of despotism,’ and of a liberty-loving nation struggling
with unsurpassed heroism against wellnigh insuperable odds. The
restoration of Poland signified something more than the mere revival
of a vanished state: it stood for the triumphant righting of the
greatest political wrong that Europe had witnessed, the vindication
of the principles of justice in international relations, a decisive
victory for the cause of universal liberty. Hence the Polish cause
called forth a unanimity of sympathy from all civilized nations
which no other similar movement, not even the Italian one, was able
to command. In England, France, and Italy, liberals, conservatives,
and clericals alike--men of such diverse opinions as Gladstone and
Disraeli, Montalembert and Victor Hugo, Mazzini and Pius IX--were very
much of one mind with respect to Poland. In France particularly every
success or reverse of the Polish cause was greeted as if it were a
triumph or a defeat for France herself. It is said that after the fall
of Warsaw in 1831 the gloom and consternation at Paris were greater
than after Waterloo. Even in Germany Bismarck felt bound to reproach
his compatriots of the 1848 period for being more concerned about the
liberty of Poland than about their own national problem. There too
people sang of Poland:

  “Dein Sieg is ein Völkersieg,
  Dein Krieg ist ein heiliger Krieg.”

And from America also one might cite many expressions of such
sentiments. Jefferson denounced the partition of Poland as a “baneful
precedent,” a “crime,” and an “atrocity.” Henry Wharton called it “the
most flagrant violation of natural justice and international law which
has occurred since Europe first emerged from barbarism.”

But unanimous as was the opinion of the public regarding the justice
of the Polish cause, among statesmen and politicians the idea was
scarcely less general that from a practical standpoint that cause was
hopeless. Lord Salisbury in a famous essay attempted to prove that
the restoration of an independent Poland was “a mere chimera.” Guizot
in his Memoirs demonstrated in his most magistral fashion that the
difficulties in the way of the Polish patriots were incomparably
greater than those that beset any other national movement: for here it
was a question of liberating a people, not from one foreign oppressor,
but from three, and those three the strongest military monarchies
in Europe, permanently united by their common interest in keeping
their victim enchained. No other power in Europe was strong enough
to liberate Poland, and it was doubtful whether all the other powers
together were strong enough to do so. At all events, the thing could
not be done without a general war, involving the entire continent
and upsetting the whole existing political system. And as time wore
on, as one insurrection after another failed and one hope of foreign
intervention after another proved delusive, the Poles themselves came
to pin their faith chiefly to some such catastrophic solution. Sixty
or seventy years before it came about, their poets began to prophesy a
day of conflict such as the world had never yet seen, and in that day
should Poland rise again and triumph. Mickiewicz, in that “Litany of
the Polish Pilgrim” which is the most poignant expression both of the
sufferings and of the undying hopes of his people, inserts the prayer:

  “For a universal war for the freedom of the nations,
  We beseech Thee, O Lord.”

“The great far-off divine event,” thus dimly forecast, has been
realized before our eyes. And however obdurate fate might hitherto
have been to the Poles, it must be admitted that during the World War
all things have worked together marvellously to serve the cause of
Poland. By an irony of fortune, the Partitioning Powers themselves
were the first to proclaim the principle of the restoration of
Poland, although in half-hearted and ambiguous fashion. The Russian
Revolution removed the great obstacle to an honest treatment of the
Polish question by the Entente. Through President Wilson’s efforts,
the principle of the restoration of a united and independent Poland
was definitively and unequivocally inscribed among the war aims of the
Allies; and the collapse of the Central Powers afforded the possibility
of carrying out this principle with a completeness which two years ago
few friends of Poland could have believed possible.

But granted that Poland was to be restored, what was Poland? What
territory should it include, and what were its proper boundaries? As
to such questions it may be doubted whether any Allied statesman or
the public in any of the Allied countries two years ago had any very
definite ideas. Italia Irredenta, Greater Greece, Greater Roumania,
Yugo-Slavia, even Czecho-Slovakia--those were concepts simple and
familiar in comparison with that of Poland reincarnate. For Poland had
been erased from the map so long that it had come to be regarded as a
name, a memory, a cause, rather than a country. Poland was a ghost
roaming around in the Sarmatian plain, somewhere between Germany and
Russia. But what were the limits of its habitat few persons knew, nor
what this disembodied spirit would look like if clothed again in flesh
and blood.

Moreover the problem was in itself very difficult. Geographically,
Poland is one of the hardest countries in the world to define. Clearly
marked natural frontiers are lacking; or else, when they can be
discerned, they do not coincide with the historic political boundaries
or with present ethnographic ones. The Carpathians, for instance, seem
to offer an admirable natural frontier on the south; nevertheless
the boundaries of the old Polish state overlapped this mountain
range for a considerable distance, and so does the Polish linguistic
frontier today. On the north the Baltic ought to form the natural
limit of Poland; but historically Poland had seldom held more than a
narrow frontage upon that sea, and today the area of Polish-speaking
population touches the Baltic only along a short stretch of coast just
west of Danzig. On the east and west no natural barriers whatever are
to be found in the vast unbroken plain which stretches across northern
Europe from the Low Countries to the Urals.

It is true that Polish geographers are accustomed to treat the whole
region between the Baltic, the Carpathians, the Dvina, and the Dnieper
as one country; to claim for it a high degree of physical unity with
respect to its structure, climate, productions, river systems, and
other features; and to argue that this entire area ought likewise to
form a political unit--Poland. ‘Geographic Poland’ thus defined is
practically identical with the historic Polish state as it was in its
later period (a coincidence which may be explained as an illustration,
either of the effects of geographic laws on history, or of the workings
of historic facts on the minds of geographers). It must be admitted
that Russian scientists have demonstrated with equal ease that nearly
all of the region in question is geographically a part of Russia; while
the patriotic scholars of Kiev and Lemberg have proved that nature
intended a great part of this same region to belong to neither Poland
nor Russia, but to a tertium quid called the Ukraine.

‘Ethnographic Poland,’ i. e., the region which has a majority of
Polish-speaking population, is an area easier to define. It includes
nearly the whole of the so-called ‘Congress Kingdom’ of Poland (that
small realm which was set up by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and
suppressed by Russia a few years later); most of the former Prussian
province of Posen; parts of the Prussian provinces of East and West
Prussia and Silesia; most of the duchy of Teschen in Austrian Silesia;
and the western part of Galicia. Ethnographic Poland thus defined has
an area of about 82,000 square miles: i. e., it is about as large as
Kansas or Minnesota, or three-fourths as large as Italy. It had a
population in 1910 of twenty millions. About sixty per cent of it
belonged to Russia; twenty-five per cent to Prussia; fifteen per cent
to Austria.

In addition, there are many Polish enclaves scattered about in eastern
Galicia and in the Russian provinces to the east of the Congress
Kingdom. For these adjacent provinces on the east, the Russian
nationality statistics are so grossly inaccurate and fraudulent that
we are left in great uncertainty as to the real ethnographic situation
and the exact relative strength of the numerous races[43] which inhabit
this debatable region (Poles, Lithuanians, White Russians, Jews,
Ukrainians, etc.). There is much reason to suppose, however, that if
ever an honest census is taken here, the eastern limits of the Polish
ethnographic area will be extended considerably beyond the boundaries
of the Congress Kingdom.

Historically, the name Poland has been applied to a state with very
widely fluctuating frontiers. The original Polish kingdom, as it grew
up in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries under its first
dynasty, the house of the Piasts, was a comparatively small state.
It embraced the area which forms ethnographic Poland today, and also
the rest of Silesia and Pomerania. Having the Oder for a part of its
western boundary and a broad strip of Baltic coast line, Poland in its
earliest period enjoyed better natural frontiers than it was ever later
to possess.

Unfortunately, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the realm
was rent asunder by partitions and civil wars among its princes, and
weakened by the invasions and devastations of the Mongols. Taking
advantage of this situation, the Germanic _Drang nach Osten_, which
the Poles had hitherto arrested at the cost of much hard fighting, set
in with redoubled vigor and unparalleled success. It was at this time
that Pomerania and Silesia were lost to Poland,--although in Upper
Silesia a large and compact Polish population has for six hundred
years successfully resisted that process of more or less violent
Germanization to which so many of the western Slavs succumbed. It
was at this time also that the Germans, led by the Teutonic Knights,
succeeded in planting a colony in Prussia, thus cutting off Poland from
the sea and inaugurating that struggle for the mouth of the Vistula
which has gone on intermittently ever since.

When Poland in the fourteenth century regained her unity and strength,
it was now too late to recover most of the territories thus lost: it
was rather a question whether the shattered kingdom could even defend
what was left to it against the Germanic onrush. Seeking resources
and allies for that struggle, Poland turned to the East. The conquest
of the principality of Halicz (Eastern Galicia) in 1340 marked the
beginning of Polish encroachments upon the Ukrainian nationality.
Still more important was the union effected in 1386 between Poland
and Lithuania. For the Lithuanian empire, built up with such amazing
rapidity during the fourteenth century, included nearly the whole area
inhabited by the Ukrainian and White Russian races; it spread from the
Baltic to the Black Sea and far beyond the Dnieper. Through the union
concluded in 1386 there arose a realm which was to be for several
centuries the strongest power in Eastern Europe, and which remained
down to the time of the Partitions the second or third largest state on
the Continent.

The most immediate result of this union was that Poland and Lithuania
combined could renew their traditional struggle against the Teutonic
Knights and fight it through to a successful conclusion. Not the least
of the circumstances that contributed to their victory was the fact
that, in the crisis of the conflict, the majority of the German nobles
and cities of Prussia deserted the Knights and joined King Casimir,
preferring the liberty which Poland could offer them to the tyrannous
rule of the Teutonic Order. This was the second of those voluntary
unions which form so striking and peculiar a feature of Polish history.
By the peace of Thorn (1466), which ended this Hundred Years’ War,
Danzig and West Prussia were incorporated in Poland, although with
guarantees for a large measure of self-government, while East Prussia
was left to the vanquished Knights to be held as a fief of Poland.
Thus the mouth of the Vistula and a frontage upon the Baltic had
been recovered and were to remain in Polish possession for the next
three hundred years. Unfortunately for the peace of Europe, however,
the Prussian question was not completely liquidated, as it might have
been both in 1466 and on several later occasions. With a generosity
or a lack of foresight which later historians have found it very hard
to excuse, the Polish government in 1525 permitted the Teutonic Grand
Master, Albert of Hohenzollern, to secularize East Prussia and turn it
into a duchy hereditary in his family, though still a fief of Poland;
and on the extinction of his line in 1618, Poland was induced to allow
the transfer of the duchy to the Brandenburg branch of the family--the
first great step towards the building up of that Hohenzollern monarchy
which was to be the worst foe of Poland.

Another most important result of the union of 1386 was the gradual
fusion of Lithuania with Poland. History affords few stranger
spectacles than this process by which the much larger and originally
stronger state voluntarily submitted to being assimilated and absorbed
by the smaller one. That result was due to the attractions which the
more advanced civilization of Poland possessed for the upper classes
in the Lithuanian realm; to the desire of the Lithuanian noblesse
to secure the liberties and privileges of the Polish nobles; and to
the remarkable tact, cleverness, and perseverance with which for
centuries the Poles pursued the aim of binding their somewhat wayward
neighbor irrevocably to their side. The union between the two states,
originally based solely on the person of the common ruler, was steadily
strengthened until by the agreement of 1569 it was turned into a
permanent organic union--a partnership which was to last through good
days and through evil until the Partitions.

In this combined state the nobility and to a large extent the
bourgeoisie of the non-Polish races came spontaneously to adopt the
Polish language, customs, religion, nationality--became in fact
quite Polonized. The institutions of Lithuania were assimilated in
all respects to those of Poland; Polish culture became predominant
from Kiev to Wilno, from Livonia to the Carpathians--in short, this
composite and originally so heterogeneous state became essentially a
Polish one. Thus, by statesmanship and tenacity, by the higher culture
they could offer and the liberties they extended, the Polish race had
peaceably conquered a great empire in the east, a realm twice the size
of the modest Poland of the Piasts; and a vast field was opened up for
colonization and the extension of Polish nationality.

The hundred years of Russian rule since the Partitions and violent
attempts at Russification have by no means destroyed, although they
have in part impaired, the results of four centuries of Polonization in
the eastern territories. Even today, in Lithuania proper and in large
areas of White Russia and the western Ukraine, the country gentry and
the non-Jewish population of the towns are predominantly Polish; Wilno,
the ancient capital of Lithuania, is still almost as much a Polish city
as Warsaw; Polish colonies are thickly scattered about in the rural
districts; and socially, intellectually, and economically, the Poles
remain the most important element in the population.

It would probably be true to say that the average Pole has today, at
the back of his head, the feeling that his country is not merely the
modest area of ethnographic Poland, but the whole wide expanse of
historic Poland--Poland as it was in 1772, just before the Partitions.
This conception is based partly upon the principle that the Partitions,
as acts of lawless usurpation, could have no legal validity, so that
_de jure_ Poland still exists within her frontiers of 1772; partly
upon the view that the lands between the Carpathians, the Baltic,
the Dnieper, and the Dvina possess so high a degree of geographical,
economic, and cultural unity that they deserve to be considered as
one country. But above all, it is a matter of historic traditions, of
time-hallowed associations and sentiments, of deeply rooted habits
of thought. It would be difficult for Poles today to forget that for
centuries their race has been as much at home in Wilno, Mohylew, Minsk,
or Kamieniec, as in Cracow or Warsaw; and that half of the greatest
figures in Polish history have come from these eastern lands beyond
the pale of ethnographic Poland. Kosciuszko, their national hero, and
Mickiewicz, their national poet, were both from Lithuania. The two
men at the head of the Polish state in the past year, Pilsudski and
Paderewski, come, the one from Lithuania, the other from the Ukraine.
For generations Poland has spent an infinite amount of effort in
organizing and civilizing these eastern territories and in defending
them against Swedes and Muscovites, Turks and Tartars. Their churches
are full of the tombs of Polish heroes, and their fields are soaked in
Polish blood.

Moreover, one cannot ignore the feeling with which the present
generation looks back upon the Polish state of the fourteenth to
the eighteenth centuries. For most outsiders the Partitions have
overshadowed all the preceding period of Polish history. Such observers
have fastened their eyes too exclusively upon the deplorable conditions
into which Poland had fallen just before her dismemberment, and have
concluded that her history is chiefly made up of a tissue of mistakes,
sins, and follies, interesting only as furnishing a terrible example
of how a state ought not to be governed and of how badly a people can
mismanage its national life. But the Poles, while conscious enough of
the mistakes in question, point out that their decadent period of a
hundred years or so just before the Partitions ought not to obscure
or outweigh the record of the three glorious centuries preceding the
decline; and in that earlier better period they find much reason for
cherishing feelings of pride, veneration, and piety towards that old
republic which has been so much condemned and so much misunderstood.
And there is much to justify such an attitude.

The old Polish state was an experiment of a highly original and
interesting character. It was a republic both in name and in fact,
although nominally it had a king as its first magistrate. It was
the largest and most ambitious experiment with a republican form of
government that the world had seen since the days of the Romans.
Moreover, it was the first experiment on a large scale with a federal
republic down to the appearance of the United States. In the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries this republic was the freest state in Europe,
the state in which the greatest degree of constitutional, civic, and
intellectual liberty prevailed. In an age of religious persecution and
chronic religious wars, Poland knew no such troubles; it offered almost
complete toleration and an asylum to those fleeing from persecution in
all western lands. Like the United States today, Poland was at that
time the melting-pot of Europe, the haven for the poor and oppressed
of all the neighboring countries--Germans, Jews, Czechs, Magyars,
Armenians, Tartars, Russians, and others. The complications of the
nationality problem in Poland today are due in no small measure to
the great numbers of aliens who here found a refuge from political
and religious persecution. Finally, the old republic represented an
effort to organize the vast open plain between the Baltic and the
Black Sea--a region containing so many weak and undeveloped races
and a region so much exposed to Germanic ambitions on the one side
and to Turco-Tartar onslaughts on the other side--into a compact and
powerful realm, which was directed indeed by the strongest and most
advanced race within its borders--the Poles--but which in its better
period allowed a genuine equality to the other races and extensive
self-government to some of them.

A great enthusiasm for freedom in almost every branch of life; the
principle of the sovereignty of the nation, calling the citizens to
participate in the responsibilities of government; the conception of
the state as not a thing existing for itself, but as an instrument
serving the wellbeing of society; aversion to absolute monarchy,
standing armies, and militarism; disinclination to undertake
aggressive wars, but a remarkable tendency to form voluntary unions
with neighboring peoples--such are some of the hallmarks of the old
Polish state, which make it stand out as a unique exception among the
rapacious and militaristic monarchies of that age. The Poles have
been only too frequently reproached for having created such a state
and for not having imitated the institutions and the spirit of their
neighbors; but today, after a war in which Prussia symbolized precisely
the principles which Poland is blamed for not having adopted, and the
Allies have stood for ideals closely akin to those of old Poland, it
would seem that the time has come for a revision of our judgments about
the old Polish republic.

For some such reasons the Poles today, while recognizing the many
blemishes that crept into the republic, particularly in its later
period, are still inclined to hold that this Polish-Lithuanian-White
Russian-Ukrainian-Prussian federation--which the old republic really
was--represented a political organization so entirely adapted to the
needs of that part of Europe, so much in the nature of things, that
its violent disruption at the hands of its neighbors must be a matter
of regret, and its restoration, in part, at least, on some twentieth
century basis a goal to be kept in view.

Since the Partitions the situation has, of course, been very
substantially modified. The partitioning governments have not labored
in vain to break down or destroy Polish influences in many parts of the
former republic; and in recent decades strong nationalist movements
have also grown up among two of the races once united to Poland, the
Lithuanians and the Ukrainians. Hence no one in Poland today believes
it possible or desirable simply to incorporate all the lands of the old
republic in the new Polish state. No one proposes to compel the other
races which have developed pronounced nationalist movements to unite
with Poland against their will.

But it is, I think, the general desire of the Poles to save as much
of their ancient heritage as can legitimately be done. Most of them
seem to feel that those eastern territories of the old republic in
which Polish culture is still predominant, and in which there is no
indigenous nationalist movement, ought to return to Poland. Many Poles
hope that the Lithuanians and possibly even the Ukrainians can be won
over to voluntarily accepting a federal union with Poland. Doubtless
this federal idea lies behind the demand recently presented to the
Bolsheviki by the Polish government: the demand that Soviet Russia
should renounce its claim to all territories west of the old Polish
frontiers of 1772. Ever since 1863, at least, it has been a favorite
thesis of Polish democrats and even Socialists that the only way to
effect a solution of the problem of the debatable eastern territories,
in accordance both with outraged legality and with the principle of
national self-determination, is to force Russia to renounce what she
usurped at the time of the Partitions, and then to leave the liberated
populations free either to renew their historic federal union with
Poland or to make any other political arrangements that they choose.

There is no need to pass judgment here upon the justice or expediency
of such ideas. But they cannot be ignored; and it certainly does not
advance us toward a solution of these questions, nor is it a sign
of insight or fair-mindedness, to brand these ideas as due simply
to ‘Polish imperialism’ or ‘chauvinism’ or ‘megalomania,’ as our
Liberal journals are fond of doing; or to castigate the Poles for
claiming a single mile of territory outside the area where--according
to the statistics prepared by governments hostile to them--there is
demonstrably a Polish-speaking majority. No nation with a thousand
years of history behind it could be expected to rise to such heights of
self-abnegation.

The wide dispersion of the Polish race, the divergence between what is
ethnically Polish today and what was historically, and still is in part
culturally, Polish; the lack of adequate data as to the ethnic makeup
and political gravitation of so many of the border populations; the
lack of clear-cut, natural frontiers--such are some of the difficulties
in the way of defining Poland’s proper boundaries.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Allied statesmen met at Paris already committed to the programme
of the restoration of a “united and independent Poland.” President
Wilson in the Fourteen Points had laid down the principle that “an
independent Polish state should be created which should include the
territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should
be assured a free and secure access to the sea and whose political and
economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by
international covenant.” The prime ministers of Great Britain, France,
and Italy, in their declaration of June 3, 1918, had also affirmed
that “the creation of a united and independent Polish state with free
access to the sea constitutes one of the conditions of a solid and just
peace and of the rule of right in Europe.”

It may be that, when it came to the test, some of the Allied statesmen,
out of a desire to create a Polish state capable of becoming a useful
ally against Germany, were inclined to go beyond the limits of these
definitions; and that other Allied statesmen were tempted to do
somewhat less than they had promised, for fear of pressing Germany too
hard and of incurring liabilities in the East that might be onerous in
the future. Nevertheless, these tendencies very largely neutralized
each other; and the outcome has been a settlement of the Polish
territorial problems which, in so far as it has been completed, may be
regarded as an honest application of the principles laid down in the
Fourteen Points.

The settlement is necessarily incomplete because the Conference could
make definitive arrangements only with regard to Prussian and Austrian
Poland. We were not at war with Russia; the Conference had neither the
right nor the wish to dispose of Russian territory without Russia’s
consent; and there was no recognized Russian government with which a
voluntary settlement could be negotiated. It was possible to assume
that Russia had renounced all claims to Warsaw and to the so-called
Congress Kingdom, because the government of Prince Lvov, in March
1917, had spontaneously accepted the principle of “an independent
Polish state including all regions with an indisputable Polish ethnic
majority.” But it has been impossible down to the present to assign
definitive limits to this state on the east, in those debatable regions
where the ethnographic situation and the wishes of the population are
so doubtful, and where Polish, Russian, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian
claims all come into collision.[44] Hence Poland so far has boundaries
fixed only on the west, northwest, and south.

Of all the parts of the Versailles Peace Treaty, there is perhaps none
which it required greater moral courage to make or which it may be more
difficult to uphold than the Polish-German settlement. That settlement
has, I think, been not a little misunderstood; and a certain section of
the press in this country and in England has frequently denounced it
as one of the great iniquities of the Peace Treaty, the spoliation of
Prussia, the sacrifice of millions of innocent Germans to the Moloch of
Polish imperialism. It is, of course, true that the Germans do not like
it, and that none of the other territorial sacrifices imposed upon them
have called forth such indignation and rage. But could anyone expect
that they would like it? Since the rise of Prussia was accomplished
mainly by the spoliation of Poland, could anyone hope to effect a
genuine restoration of Poland without taking a great deal of land away
from Prussia?

It is also true that the treaty incorporates a good many Germans into
the new Polish state. In the provinces ceded outright to Poland,
the ratio is about 1,000,000 Germans to 1,800,000 Poles. If all
the plebiscites provided for go against Germany, the total of the
territories which Poland will have acquired from Prussia will contain
about 2,100,000 Germans as against 3,400,000 Poles.[45]

Regrettable as this may be, the following observations may be made
upon it. In the first place, if the real facts were known, the ratio
would undoubtedly be found to be much more favorable to the Poles. For
the figures just cited are based upon the Prussian official language
statistics; and it has been demonstrated by the most painstaking and
detailed investigations--and it is admitted by honest people even
in Germany--that these statistics are grossly inaccurate, are in
fact deliberately falsified for the purpose of making it appear that
Prussia’s Germanizing policy in her ‘Eastern Marches’ has been more
successful than is actually the case. Some idea of the discrepancy
between fact and fiction may be gathered by comparing these linguistic
statistics with the Prussian school census, which is equally official
but less distorted for political purposes. One finds, for instance,
such glaring contradictions as that the circle of Lyck contains only
51% of Poles according to the linguistic census, but 79% according
to the school census; Sensburg has 49% of Poles according to the
linguistic census, but 78% according to the school census; Lötzen 35%
of Poles according to the linguistic census, but 70% according to the
school census. The Peace Conference, although knowing the character
of the Prussian language statistics, nevertheless adopted them as its
criterion in order to be scrupulously fair to the Germans; but the
facts just cited suggest that the real number of Germans transferred to
Poland is far less than Prussian-made statistics would indicate.

Furthermore, a large number of these Germans have, so to speak, no
right to be there. Everyone knows with what infinite patience, vast
expenditure of money and effort, and perfect indifference to justice
or morality, the Prussian government has worked to fill its eastern
provinces with Germans and to dispossess the Poles of a land which has
been theirs for a thousand years. The chef d’oeuvre of this policy
has been the work of the Imperial Colonization Commission, which in
the last thirty years has spent over 500,000,000 marks in buying up
property in the eastern provinces and settling German colonists upon
it. Over 100,000 Germans have been brought in in this way. Half a
dozen other official and semi-official organizations have been at work
for the same purpose. In addition, the host of government functionaries
and servants in these provinces, the administrative, judicial,
financial, railroad, telegraph, postal, forest, school officials and
employees, have been recruited almost exclusively from the Germans, and
very largely from Germans brought in from the west by the promise of
higher pay and other special privileges. It has been estimated that in
the various districts of the east, from one-fifth to one-third of the
German population is made up of those dependent for their livelihood
upon the state--people brought in from outside or maintained for the
sole purpose of impressing an artificial German character upon a Polish
land. There is little reason to grieve very much over the prospect
of seeing this more or less parasitical population faced with the
alternative of submitting to the rule of the majority among which they
live or else of returning to where they came from.

It is true, of course, that after making all such deductions, there
will still remain in the provinces that have been or may be transferred
to Poland, a much larger number of Germans than one would like to
find there. But this is unavoidable. For centuries these territories
have had a very mixed population. Old Poland opened her frontiers
freely to German settlers, refraining from any effort to denationalize
them, extending to them a tolerance, a liberality, a wide measure of
local self-government which presents the most striking contrast to
the treatment the Poles have received since the Germans have become
the masters. As result of these earlier centuries, as well as of the
work which the Prussian government has since carried on, the two races
are everywhere intermingled. There are many German enclaves, towns
and small districts of German majority embedded in the predominantly
Polish areas. But how these ubiquitous German minorities and these
isolated islands of German majority can be left to Germany without
leaving a much larger number of Poles out of Poland, it is not easy to
see. No large compact blocks of German population have been annexed
to Poland. No territories have been awarded to Poland simply on the
basis of historic rights. What the Peace Conference attempted to do
was to disentangle two inextricably interlocked races, as far as
that could be done; to define what might be considered--in spite of
numerous German enclaves--the area of Polish majorities; and then to
make the political boundary coincide with this ethnographic one, as
far as was practicable. Since this ethnographic frontier presents an
extraordinarily jagged and tortuous contour, some deviations from it
had to be made in order to obtain a relatively straight and simple
boundary; and naturally the effort was also made to avoid cutting
railway lines too frequently. In spite of much that has been said,
in the final delimitation of the frontier strategic interests were
practically left out of consideration.

But what was most characteristic of the desire to be completely fair to
the Germans is the fact that two large areas of incontestably Polish
majority were not transferred to Poland, as they might well have been
according to the Fourteen Points. Since there was a possibility of
doubt as to the wishes of their populations, their fate has been left
to popular vote.

The settlement is, on the whole, a pretty complicated one, too
complicated perhaps. It deals in varying ways with six territories,
each of which has its peculiarities and special problems, and each of
which, for the sake of clearness, must be discussed separately.

Five-sixths of the old province of Posen has been ceded outright to
Poland. Even the German delegates at Versailles did not very seriously
contest the justice of this award. Posen was the cradle of the Polish
race and of the Polish state; it belonged to Poland uninterruptedly
down to the Second Partition in 1793; it has always retained a strong
Polish majority; and that majority has furnished the most conclusive
proof of its Polish patriotism and its detestation of German rule.
Posen is entirely an agricultural province, the loss of which will
reduce Germany’s ability to feed herself from her own resources, but
will not otherwise cripple her seriously. The acquisition of the
province will be a great gain to Poland, however, since the Posnanian
Poles, in the struggle which they have carried on for thirty years
against the Prussian government, have learned to equal or surpass the
Germans in the qualities of industry, thrift, organizing ability, and
general economic efficiency--qualities which are not too well developed
among the other Poles.

In West Prussia the problem was much less simple. West Prussia holds a
position of such pivotal importance that it has been for six hundred
years a battleground between German and Slav. Polish down to the
beginning of the fourteenth century; seized by the Teutonic Knights
in 1308; voluntarily reunited to Poland in 1454; Polish down to 1772;
annexed by Frederick the Great at the time of the First Partition--such
is the outline of its history. For centuries the province has been
the meeting-place, the point of collision, between two streams of
colonization--the German current from west to east along the coast of
the Baltic, and the Polish current from south to north down the valley
of the Vistula. As a result, the ethnographic map of West Prussia is
almost as intricate a mosaic as that of Macedonia. Nevertheless, the
general result is clear. West Prussia tails into three zones. The
zone along the western border is predominantly German; and so is the
northeasterly part, on the right bank of the Vistula. But the central
zone and the southeast are predominantly Polish. There thus exists
to the west of the Vistula an unbroken corridor of Polish-speaking
territory extending through to the Baltic. In the collision referred to
between the two streams of colonization, the south to north movement
has been the stronger. The Germans have not succeeded in bridging the
gap between the old German lands of the west and the isolated German
colony in East Prussia. This is the first and principal reason for the
establishment of the much discussed Polish couloir to the Baltic.

Poland needs territorial access to the sea--of that there can be no
question. But the Peace Conference would probably not have granted
her this wish, had it not been justified in doing so on ethnographic
grounds. The Conference did not invent the couloir: that already
existed and is written plain on every honest linguistic map of this
region. The Conference merely recognized the fact, and drew the
necessary conclusion by awarding to Poland that middle zone of West
Prussia, which forms a compact, though rather narrow, corridor through
to the Baltic.

There has been much criticism of this decision, on the ground that
East Prussia, most of which will still remain to Germany, is thereby
separated from the rest of the Fatherland--an anomalous and unjust
arrangement, it is said, which the Germans can never be expected to
put up with. Certainly it would be an undesirable arrangement if
there were any just way of avoiding it. But it may be remarked, in
the first place, that this is the only solution of the problem that
corresponds to the ethnographic situation, to the unhappy way in which
Germans and Poles have come to be distributed here as the result of
centuries of conflict. This solution merely restores the territorial
situation that existed for three hundred years down to the time of
the First Partition. Moreover, the continuity of German territory
cannot be maintained without denying Poland access to the sea. Either
East Prussia will have to trade with Germany across Polish territory
or Poland will have to trade with the outside world across German
territory. It is a question of balancing the respective interests at
stake. And who will argue that the right of the million and a half
Germans in East Prussia[46] to have a land connection with Germany
(they will always have easy communication by sea) outweighs the right
of over twenty million Poles in the hinterland to a secure access to
the Baltic? Clearly the Polish interest involved is incomparably the
greater and ought to take precedence. Every effort has been made in the
Peace Treaty to assure untrammeled railway and trade communications
between Germany and East Prussia across the intervening Polish
territory. Further than that its seems unnecessary to go to secure the
interests of the rather small, detached German colony around Königsberg.

The question of the Polish corridor is closely bound up with the thorny
problem of Danzig.

Historically Danzig has in the main passed through the same
vicissitudes as West Prussia, of which it is the capital. It is an
old Polish city, transformed into a German-speaking one since the
fourteenth century. Nevertheless, German Danzig distinguished itself
in the past by its loyalty to Poland. It took the lead and fought
gallantly to effect the reunion of West Prussia with Poland in the
fifteenth century. During the ensuing period of Polish rule, it was
prosperous and contented. The whole sea-borne trade of Poland passed
through its hands; it ranked as wellnigh the first port of the Baltic;
and the wide measure of autonomy which Poland allowed it drew Danzig
to her by affection as well as by interest. It was not without staunch
resistance that the city surrendered to the Prussian usurpation in
1793, and as late as 1813 the City Council besought the Powers of
Europe to reunite Danzig to Poland and not to incorporate it with
Prussia.

Today the problem of Danzig revolves around two essential facts. The
city itself with a population of about 170,000, is overwhelmingly
German (over 90%), and so is the small district immediately surrounding
it.[47] On the other hand, economically and geographically, Danzig
belongs to Poland.

The city derives its importance almost wholly from the fact that it
is the natural port of the Vistula valley: it is to that river what
Marseilles is to the Rhone or Alexandria to the Nile.[48] Supremely
prosperous during the best days of its union with Poland, Danzig
has decayed and stagnated under Prussian rule. It has sunk to be a
third-rate port, far outdistanced by Hamburg, Bremen, Stettin, or even
Königsberg. It is doubtful whether it would have any future at all, if
it were left as a German city, almost surrounded by Polish territory
and cut off by political and economic barriers from the hinterland on
which its life depends.

For Poland this is almost the most crucial of all questions. Poland
is essentially the valley of the Vistula. That river has always been
the main artery of the country’s economic life, and scarcely any other
European nation has its settlements concentrated in one river valley
in like degree. The Vistula is a magnificent river system, a basin
of 60,000 square miles with 3100 miles of navigable streams, and a
possibility of opening good and easy connections with the Dnieper,
the Dniester, and the Niemen--i.e., with half of eastern Europe.
But the utilization and proper development of this unique system of
transcontinental waterways by Poland depends on her control of the
great port at the mouth of the Vistula. Moreover, Danzig is not only
the natural outlet to the sea for this whole country, but it is the
only outlet that is in any sense available. The narrow strip of coast
which Poland has received to the west of Danzig contains no real ports,
and it is doubtful whether any satisfactory port can be developed there.

It has, of course, been suggested that even if Danzig were left
Germany, Poland could enjoy free use of the port by special commercial
treaties guaranteed by the League of Nations. But on this very question
Poland has had such sad experiences of the way in which Germany keeps
treaties that she cannot rely on such arrangements. And whatever may
be one’s hopes as to the League of Nations, in the present state of
the League it is scarcely fair to ask a nation to stake its most vital
interests upon the efficiency of such a guarantee.

It is well known that the Danzig question led to something of a contest
at Paris. On the one hand, Poland had received the promise of a free
and secure access to the sea; on the other hand, it was difficult to
transfer to her outright the Danzig territory with a solid population
of about 300,000 Germans. Finally a compromise was agreed upon, a
solution intended to safeguard both the national rights of the Danzig
Germans and the economic interests of Poland.

According to the new arrangement, Danzig and its territory are to be
entirely separated from Germany and to be organized as a free city
under the protection of the League of Nations. In economic matters,
however, this small republic will be very closely connected with Poland
through a treaty to be drawn up by the Allied and Associated Powers.
This treaty will have for its object to include the Free City within
the Polish customs area, and to insure to Poland complete control over
the railways, posts, telegraph lines, waterways, and port facilities of
Danzig.

If this arrangement is honestly put into practice, it will restore
substantially the relation which existed so happily between Poland and
Danzig from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, for Danzig was
at that time virtually a free city under the protectorate of Poland.
This historical precedent has helped a good deal to reconcile the Poles
to the compromise, and there is reason to think that a considerable
section of the Danzigers are rather well satisfied with it.

Posen, part of West Prussia, and the Danzig territory are the only
regions which Germany has definitively lost to Poland. There are,
however, three other territories which Germany may lose, since in
all of them plebiscites are to be held to determine whether their
inhabitants wish to remain with Germany or to be united with Poland.

The first of these plebiscite areas is the Marienwerder district on
the right bank of the Vistula in the northeastern corner of West
Prussia. This small territory is of much importance to Poland, since
it borders upon the Vistula and, if left in German hands, might menace
the security of communications along that river. Moreover, the most
direct and convenient railway from Danzig to Warsaw runs across this
territory. Nevertheless, since the district contained in 1910 about
114,000 Germans as against only 24,000 Poles, the Conference decided
to refer its fate to a plebiscite. Apart from Danzig, this is the only
considerable district with a German-speaking majority which may be
taken away from Germany.

A plebiscite is also to be held in the southern zone of the province
of East Prussia, in the territory commonly known as Mazuria. This
secluded region of forests, lakes, and marshes has a decided majority
of Polish-speaking population. The ancestors of these Poles were called
into the country in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by the
Teutonic Knights to replace the original Prussian population, which
the Knights had largely exterminated. The Mazurian Poles have remained
politically separated from the rest of their nation for six hundred
years; since the sixteenth century they have become Protestants,
while almost all the other Poles are Catholics; and because of these
facts and also because of their economic, intellectual, and spiritual
dependence on their German landlords, teachers, and pastors, the
Mazurian Poles have long been completely estranged from the rest of the
Polish nation. They have on the whole shown no very marked signs of
Polish national consciousness, and there was room to doubt whether they
desired reunion with Poland. Hence, a plebiscite was clearly in order
here.

The third plebiscite area is in Upper Silesia. In this case, likewise,
there was an indisputable Polish-speaking majority: 65.6% of Poles for
the region as a whole, and in many districts 80 or even 90%. So strong
was the Polish claim that the original decision of the Peace Conference
was to award Upper Silesia to Poland outright. It is well known,
however, that, as a result of the vehement objections raised by the
German delegation at Versailles, this decision was ultimately modified.
The territory in question was extraordinarily rich in minerals and
important industrially. In the period just before the outbreak of the
War, its coal production was 44,000,000 tons a year--three times as
great as that of the Saar basin, 23% of Germany’s total output of coal.
It also furnished 34% of her production of lead ore; and 81% of her
zinc. The loss of so immensely valuable a territory would mean a severe
blow to the economical life, as well as to the pride, of the German
people. It was a sacrifice that could be fairly demanded only if the
majority of the population in Upper Silesia clearly and unmistakably
desired union with Poland. As to the wishes of that population, the
evidence available was strongly in favor of Polish claims, but it was
not absolutely conclusive. Hence the Conference finally resolved that
in so grave a matter the decision must be left in the hands of the
people themselves through a plebiscite.

To sum up, Germany has definitively lost about 17,500 square miles of
territory and about 2,900,000 subjects. If all the plebiscites go
against her, her total losses in the east will amount to an area of
about 27,500 square miles and a total population of nearly 5,800,000.
In other words, she risks losing in the east an area five times as
great as Alsace-Lorraine, and a population three times as great.

There is no denying that this is serious business. The Powers who
have decreed and sponsored these arrangements have thereby assumed
responsibilities and liabilities, the gravity of which ought not to be
overlooked or minimized. There is a common belief in Germany (though
a wrong one) that Prussia has never permanently lost any territory
she has once held, and that after every Jena comes a Leipzig or a
Waterloo. And what must be the feeling of true-blue Prussians over the
loss of these ‘Eastern Marches’ on the maintenance of which, Prince
von Bülow was wont to declare, “the fate of Prussia, of the empire,
nay of the whole German nation depends”? The resulting dangers to the
peace of Europe are obvious. But it should not be imagined that these
dangers would have been avoided, or even much reduced, if the Allies
had demanded less for Poland. Without a far greater change in German
mentality than we have had any evidence of as yet, any territorial
cessions at all in favor of the despised Poles were sure to be fiercely
resented. Even Professor Delbrück, one of the most moderate of Prussian
politicians, declared years ago, “All Germany would have to be hewn
in pieces before we would allow even Posen to be taken away from us.”
The Paris Conference was always faced by the dilemma that ‘the peace
of reconciliation,’ of which the Germans talked, would have been one
that left Germany intact, unpunished, and impenitent; while the peace
of justice, demanded by the principles which the Allies had proclaimed,
raised the vision of an embittered Germany thirsting and plotting for
revenge.

At all events, one may rejoice in the fact that, in spite of the risks
involved, the Peace Conference had the courage to carry through a
Polish-German settlement based on principle and not upon expediency or
selfish convenience, a settlement which, in Mr. Lloyd George’s phrase,
“leaves Germany no just grievance,” and which does right a great wrong
from which the conscience of Europe has suffered for one hundred and
fifty years.

       *       *       *       *       *

Turning to the territories that belonged to the late Hapsburg monarchy,
we may note that Poland has had an unhappy dispute with Czecho-Slovakia
over the duchy of Teschen and the small territories of Zips and Arva,
which lie south of the Carpathians. After two weeks of fighting
and nine months of negotiation, it has now been settled that the
populations of these districts are to decide by plebiscite to which of
the two new republics they wish to belong.

Much more serious and difficult has been the problem presented by
Galicia. The western part of this province was from the earliest times
an integral part of Poland and is overwhelmingly Polish today. There
is no real question here, and the possession of Western Galicia has
already been assured to Poland. But with the remaining two-thirds of
the province, the case is altogether different.

Eastern Galicia was originally settled by a population historically
known, and still commonly known as Ruthenians. They are a branch of
that Little Russian race for which the general name Ukrainian is now
coming into use. After belonging to various Ruthenian principalities in
the early middle ages, Eastern Galicia was conquered by Poland in 1340;
it remained a part of the Polish state down to 1772; and even under
the Austrian rule the Poles have continued to be the dominant nation.
Today the ethnographic situation in Eastern Galicia may be summarized
by saying that the Ruthenians make up 59% of the total population, the
Poles 27%, and the Jews 13%. Although usually in the minority, the
Poles are found in large numbers in almost every part of the territory.
Lemberg, the capital of the province, and most of the other large towns
are mainly Polish and Jewish in population; and there are several large
rural districts of Polish-speaking majority.

Socially and intellectually there is a striking contrast between
the two rival races. The Ruthenians are almost entirely a peasant
population, with only a small educated class of priests, lawyers,
doctors, etc. The Poles are fairly evenly and normally divided among
the various occupations and social classes. The difference may be shown
by the fact that about 91% of the Ruthenian population is dependent
upon agriculture for a living, and only 44% of the Poles; 39% of the
Poles live by commerce and industry, but only 7% of the Ruthenians;
17% of the Poles are engaged in the liberal professions, but only 1%
of the Ruthenians; 62% of the Ruthenians are illiterate, but only 23%
of the Poles. In other words, the Poles are socially, economically,
and intellectually the strongest element in the country, although in
numbers they are considerably inferior to their rivals.

During the five or six centuries in which the two races have lived side
by side, their relations have on the whole been relatively satisfactory
and amicable. To a large extent they are so still, whenever the
politicians do not intervene, as is shown, for instance, by the high
percentage of mixed marriages. In the nineteenth century, however, a
nationalist movement grew up among the Ruthenians, which assumed a
marked anti-Polish tendency and which has led to the rather bitter
racial feud that has raged in Eastern Galicia in the past thirty years.
It is likely that this contest would never have assumed so fierce a
character had it not been for the insidious activities of the Austrian
government, which lost no opportunity to stir up the two races against
each other, aiding now one and then the other in accordance with the
traditional Austrian maxim, ‘divide and rule’. In the last twenty years
the German government has also taken an active hand in the affair,
secretly exciting and aiding the Ruthenians against the Poles; for
the latter were always _the_ enemy for Berlin, and decades before
Brest-Litovsk German statesmen appreciated the possibilities of the
‘Ukrainian idea,’ which might be used with equal effect against both
Russia and Poland.

Nevertheless, the Ruthenian movement remained rather ineffective,
both because the Galician Ruthenians were the poorest, most ignorant,
and most backward of all the races of Austria, and because they were
divided among themselves as to their goal. Two distinct national
movements have really existed among them, in a population of three and
a half millions. Part of them, the majority, apparently, maintained
that they were a branch of the Ukrainian nation, and that their goal
must be the ultimate formation of an independent Ukrainian state. The
minority, on the other hand, asserted that there was no such thing as
a Ukrainian nation: that the Galician Ruthenians and the people of the
Russian Ukraine alike were simply a branch of the one great Russian
nation, which stretched unbroken from the Carpathians to the Pacific.
For these people, in theory at least, the goal was the union of Eastern
Galicia with Russia.

For a nation so backward in its development, so divided against
itself, and so accustomed to look to Berlin and Vienna for aid and
direction, the World War arrived at the wrong moment: the World War and
then the collapse of Austria and the crisis that was to decide the fate
of Eastern Galicia.

At the moment of Austria’s spontaneous dissolution, one Ruthenian
party hastened to set up a ‘Republic of the Western Ukraine,’ and,
with the aid of certain Ruthenian units in the old Austrian army,
attempted to seize possession of all Eastern Galicia. This led to a
prolonged and unhappy struggle with the Poles, who were not disposed
to submit to such a settlement of the question. For many months the
fighting centred around the city of Lemberg, which long defended itself
almost single-handed and with great heroism against superior Ukrainian
forces. When at last the Polish government was in position to send
large reënforcements, the issue was quickly decided: in June, 1919,
the Ukrainian resistance collapsed, and the Poles occupied the whole
country as far as the Zbrucz.

The fate of Eastern Galicia was thus more or less settled _vi et
armis_, without the Conference and at times to the lively displeasure
of the Conference. That the Allied and Associated Powers nevertheless
finally sanctioned the Polish occupation of Eastern Galicia and are now
apparently intending to place that country, provisionally at least,
under the sovereignty of Poland, is a fact which has called forth
no little criticism. It has been denounced as a craven surrender in
the face of a _fait accompli_, a betrayal of principle, the sacrifice
of three and a half million Ukrainians to the ravenous Polish
imperialists, and much more to the like effect.

The chief justification of the Conference, I think, is to be found in
the hard facts of the situation. The Ruthenians are indeed the majority
in Eastern Galicia; the majority ought to rule; but it was very
difficult to apply this principle in this particular case.

The Ruthenian majority was not at all agreed as to what it wanted. The
Ukrainophiles among them were for an independent Ukrainian state; but
the other party was altogether opposed to such an idea. This second
party, however, had no more practicable program to offer than that the
Allied governments should occupy and administer Eastern Galicia until
such time as Russia was on her feet again and in condition to take
over the country. If one might judge from the relative strength of the
two Ruthenian parties as they existed before the war, the party which
wanted an independent Ukrainian state might be a majority among the
Ruthenians, but was only a minority in the total population.

It was rather doubtful, moreover, whether the Ruthenians were capable
of taking over the government of the country. They had had no
independent state for nearly six hundred years, and their national
development had been so retarded and unsatisfactory that it was not
easy to believe that they were fitted for independent statehood today.
Where were the elements on which a solid state could be constructed?
Such elements were not to be found in the ignorant and inarticulate
masses of the peasants nor in the small class of intellectuals. These
intellectuals had already given the measure of their ability: for six
months they had tried to run a government, and the result--nearly
all the many Allied officers who were sent in to study the situation
were unanimous in the opinion that this Ukrainian government had
been, to put it mildly, a sorry failure; and that the majority of the
population--Poles, Jews, and Ruthenians alike--were relieved when this
government collapsed and the Polish troops came in.

Eastern Galicia had been fought over for four years by Austrians and
Russians, and then for a fifth year by Poles and Ukrainians. The
country had suffered more than any other part of Eastern Europe. The
Conference was anxious to assure to this war-racked and desolated
region a return to orderly government and stable conditions as quickly
as possible. This could not be effected by handing back the country
to the local Ukrainian politicians, who had tried and failed; nor
by handing it over to the so-called Republic of the Great Ukraine,
represented only by the will-o’-the wisp government of the peripatetic
Petlura. The Russian solution was practically out of the question for
the present. The plan of international occupation and administration
was indeed discussed, but none of the powers felt able or willing
to undertake such a burden in that remote and inaccessible corner
of Eastern Europe. Hence, the only practical solution seemed to be
to entrust the Poles with the occupation and administration of the
country, subject to certain guarantees to be stipulated in favor of
the Ruthenians. The country had belonged to Poland for four hundred
years; the Poles were politically and economically the most active,
experienced, and capable element of the population; they were actually
in possession of the country; and their occupation seemed to meet with
the rather general approval of the inhabitants.

The final settlement of this question has not yet been made, however.
There have been long negotiations between the Allies and the Polish
government as to the terms under which Poland may be entrusted with the
administration of Eastern Galicia, the autonomy which that province is
to enjoy, and the special guarantees for national rights to be insured
to the Ruthenians. No definitive agreement has yet been reached.

       *       *       *       *       *

The eastern frontier of Poland is also still undefined, for reasons
already indicated. At any rate, the Polish armies are now occupying
a very wide area in the east. A year ago the Bolshevik forces had
advanced almost to the borders of Congress Poland: today, after a
certain amount of fighting, the Poles have thrust them back almost to
the Dnieper. The Poles are now in possession of most of the old Russian
provinces of Grodno, Wilno, Minsk, and Volhynia: i. e., of a very large
part of those eastern territories which belonged to the old Polish
republic and which have been the object of an age-long dispute between
Poland and Russia.

What the ultimate fate of these regions will be, it would be difficult
to forecast. The various nationalist movements which have sprung up in
this area are of such recent date and such uncertain strength, that it
would require much boldness to prophesy the outcome. Will Lithuania,
for instance, consolidate itself as an independent state, or renew its
old federal union with Poland, or return to Russia? Will the Ukrainians
unite once more with Russia or establish themselves as a new state
of 40,000,000 people? What will become of the White Russians, of all
the peoples in this region the most enigmatic? The western section of
them, being Catholic, may perhaps gravitate towards Poland; the eastern
section, being Orthodox, may perhaps cleave to the side of Russia.
Or will they develop a national movement of their own? When and in
what fashion will a reorganized Russia be able to reassert her voice
effectively in these questions? Such are some of the uncertainties in
the case.

At all events, for the time being the Poles are again in possession of
a larger part of their ancient heritage, of the Poland that existed
before the Partitions. They are in possession of territories which,
taken together, must contain a population of over thirty millions. And
whatever fluctuations may still take place in her frontiers, Poland is
likely to remain the largest and in many respects the most important of
the new states produced by the war, the sixth most populous state in
Europe.

While it would doubtless be premature to hail in this state, restored
only yesterday and still in process of construction, a new Great Power,
it is not impossible that Poland may in time become one. For, assuming
that Upper Silesia comes to her by plebiscite, her economic resources
are magnificent. The richest coal reserves on the Continent; zinc,
lead, iron, petroleum in abundance; highly developed industries in the
Congress Kingdom, which was the Lancashire of the Russian empire, and
in Upper Silesia, which was the Black Country of eastern Germany--such
are some of the assets with which Poland resumes her national life.

The greatest problem lies in the people themselves. Of them a writer by
no means prejudiced in their favor has recently declared:

 “In all Europe there is no other people, with the possible exception
 of the French, which is naturally so gifted. No one can study Eastern
 Europe without feeling that they are infinitely the most attractive of
 the peoples with which he has to do. They are the only ones in whose
 composition there is included that subtle _differentia_ which marks
 off the ‘big nation’ from the ‘small.’”[49]

On the other hand, it must be admitted that in the past the Poles have
shown themselves deficient in organizing and administrative ability, in
economic enterprise, in cohesion, solidarity, and discipline. A century
and more of servitude to foreigners has not been the best of schooling
for orderly and efficient self-government, nor has it permitted the
nation to keep altogether abreast of the West in intellectual and
economic progress. And Poland, wedged in between a vindictive Germany
and a presumably none too friendly Russia, occupies what may fairly be
called the most exposed and dangerous position in Europe.

Nevertheless, the brilliant and original genius of the Polish people;
their ardent and unsurpassed spirit of patriotism; the lessons which
they may be presumed to have learned from their misfortunes; the
reassuring evidence supplied by their conduct during these last two
critical years--all this affords ground for hope, not only that Poland
has permanently recovered her independence, but that she is capable
of becoming again what she was for so many centuries in the past: a
bulwark of liberty, republicanism, and Western civilization in the
troubled East of Europe.


 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

 One of the most useful aids to the study of questions relating to
 Poland is Professor E. Romer’s admirable _Geographic and Statistical
 Atlas of Poland_, published in Polish, French, and German: Warsaw and
 Cracow, 1916. An English edition is soon to be issued.

 Almost all sides of Polish life today, political, economic,
 intellectual, and artistic, are described in compendious and scholarly
 fashion, and with an abundance of maps, statistics, and historical
 information, in the works published during the War by the Committee
 for Encyclopaedic Publications on Poland. This Committee has published
 _La petite Encyclopédie polonaise_, Paris-Lausanne, 1916 (translated
 into English under the title: Poland, her People, History, Industries,
 Finance, Science, Literature, Art, and Social Development); and the
 larger _Encyclopédie polonaise_, Fribourg-Lausanne, 1917-19, of
 which vols. i (geography and ethnography), ii, pt. 3 (territorial
 development of Polish nationality--in four volumes), iii (economic
 life), and iv (political and administrative regime) have hitherto
 appeared.

 A very convenient handbook of statistical data about Poland is the
 _Annuaire statistique polonais_ by E. Romer and I. Weinfeld, Cracow,
 1917.

 E. H. Lewinski-Corwin’s _Political History of Poland_, New York, 1917,
 is perhaps the best account of the subject available in English,
 although marred by a certain amount of patriotic exaggeration and
 party prejudice.

 Among works dealing with the several territories which have been in
 dispute, the following are notable:

 On Prussian Poland: Ludwig Bernhard, _Die Polenfrage_. Leipzig,
 1910. (A moderate German view.) Joseph Partsch, _Schlesien_, pts.
 1-2. Breslau, 1896-1911. “Liber” (C. Andrzejewski), _Das Deutschtum
 in Westpolen (Preussisch-Polen), seine Zahl, seine Gliederung, sein
 Stärkeverhältniss gegenüber den Polen_. Posen, 1919.

 On the Galician question: W. Lutoslawski and E. Romer, _The Ruthenian
 Question in Galicia_. Paris, 1919. H. Grappin, _Polonais et ruthènes.
 La question de Galicie_. Paris, 1919. Both these works are partisan
 statements from the Polish side. M. Lozynsky, _Les “Droits” de la
 Pologne sur la Galicie_. Lausanne, 1917. E. Levitsky, _La Guerre
 polono-ukrainienne en Galicie_. Berne, 1919. This and the preceding
 represent the Ukrainian point of view.

 On the question of Poland’s eastern frontier: L. Wasilewski, _Die
 Ostprovinzen des alten Polenreichs_. Cracow, 1916. By all means the
 most complete and illuminating survey of Poland’s past relations with
 Lithuania, White Russia, and the Ukraine, and of the recent growth
 of nationalist movements in those regions. K. Verbelis, _La Lituanie
 russe_. Geneva, 1918. (Lithuanian views and claims.) T. Savtchenko,
 _L’Ukraine et la question ukrainienne_. Paris, 1918. (Views of a
 Ukrainian nationalist.)

[Illustration: POLAND]


FOOTNOTES:

[43] Here and in the ensuing chapters the word ‘race’ is used in its
popular sense, as virtually equivalent to ‘people’ or ‘nation,’ rather
than in the strict sense in which the word is employed by ethnologists.
R. H. L.

[44] The Peace Conference appears to have adopted last autumn some
sort of a provisional boundary for Poland on the east. As far as
I understand the matter, however, this boundary represents only
a minimum line. Whatever lies to the west of it is indisputably
Polish, and henceforth in the opinion of the Conference should belong
unconditionally to Poland. It is not implied, however, that Poland may
not have valid claims to additional territories farther east--claims
which can only be settled by negotiations between Poland and Russia.

[45] If the territory of the Free City of Danzig be included in this
reckoning, the number of Germans that may be separated from the Empire
would rise to 2,400,000 in round numbers.

[46] This figure refers to that part of East Prussia which will
unquestionably remain to Germany. If the Mazurian and Marienwerder
plebiscite areas vote to remain with Germany, the number of Germans
cut off from the _Reich_ by the Polish couloir will be a little over
2,000,000.

[47] The total population of the city and its district in 1910 was
324,000, of which number only 16,000 were entered in the census as
having Polish as their ‘mother tongue.’

[48] I owe the comparison to Mr. L. B. Namier’s excellent article on
“Poland’s Outlet to the Sea,” in _The Nineteenth Century_, Vol. 81 (1),
Feb. 1917.

[49] Ralph Butler, _The New Eastern Europe_, p. 4.




VI

AUSTRIA


The Prince de Ligne, dying in the midst of the carnival of revelry that
marked the Congress of Vienna, declared that he was preparing a new
amusement for the jaded appetite of that assembly: the obsequies of a
Field Marshal, a Knight of the Golden Fleece. A no less unique, but far
graver, spectacle was provided for the Peace Conference of Paris: the
obsequies of a great empire, the oldest and proudest in Europe.

Even without deploring that event, one cannot be altogether untouched
by the spectacle of the collapse of the Hapsburg monarchy, with its
stirring historic past and its illustrious traditions, the state which
in one sense could trace its genealogy back to Charlemagne and Augustus
Caesar, the realm of Charles V, the Ferdinands, Maria Theresia, Joseph
II; the old indomitable

                  “Oesterreich,
  An Ehren und an Siegen reich,”

of Wallenstein and Prince Eugene.

Austria had a raison d’être, had she only known how to live up to it.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, she rendered a real service
to the peoples of Central Europe in uniting them into one realm capable
of checking and repelling the Turkish flood. And later on, when the
Turks had ceased to threaten, she might have acquired a new right to
existence by educating her various races to self-government, offering
them the advantages of membership in a large political and economic
union combined with local autonomy and due respect for the rights and
individuality of each race, anticipating in this realm, which, with its
medley of nationalities, was a kind of miniature Europe, the solutions
which the League of Nations will have to seek. After all, it was a
Czech patriot who declared that if the Austrian monarchy did not exist,
it would be necessary to invent it.

But Austria has seldom risen to her opportunities. According to
Napoleon’s well known saying, she was always just behindhand with an
army or an idea. There was always something strangely inefficient,
ill-adjusted, factitious, unhealthy, or fundamentally dishonest about
her. As has often been remarked, Austria was not a nation, it was
only a government--a dynasty, an aristocracy, a bureaucracy, and an
army. A dynasty, which had an extraordinary passion and talent for
acquiring land--“the most successful race of matrimonial and land
speculators known to history,” someone has called them[50]--but
which has shown very little constructive or executive ability in the
tasks of internal government, and whose policy has been defined as
simply one of “exalted opportunism in the pursuit of the unchanging
dynastic idea”;[51] a kind of permanent camarilla about the throne,
made up of sixty or seventy archdukes and archduchesses and a group
of great aristocratic houses, so influential and exclusive that
Mickiewicz described Austria as “an East India Company exploited by
two hundred families”; a bureaucracy, dull, pedantic, arbitrary, and
inefficient, whose ideal of government seldom rose above the typical
Austrian motto “fortwursteln”--muddle along someway--; an army whose
degree of internal cohesion is shown by the fact that its recruits
swore allegiance to the emperor in nine languages, and which had an
unequalled record for the number of its defeats; such were the chief
forces that held this “ramshackle empire” together.

The task of maintaining and consolidating so motley a realm was, after
the rise of the nationalist movements of the nineteenth century,
increasingly and desperately difficult; but perhaps it would not have
been an impossible undertaking, if the dynasty had only honestly
carried out the principle of the equality of all the Austrian races,
and if it had gone over, while still there was time, to a genuine
federal state organization. But the Hapsburgs did neither. Instead they
repudiated both ideas by adopting and for fifty years maintaining the
Dualist system of 1867, which meant the division of the monarchy into
two halves, each of which was to be ruled by a minority--the Germans in
the one case, the Magyars in the other--at the expense, and in defiance
of the wishes, of the Slavic and Latin majorities. That system has
been called “the ruin of modern Austria.”

Of the workings of the system in Hungary something will be said in
the next chapter. In the Austrian or Cisleithan part of the monarchy,
Dualism led to incessant struggles, immense embitterment, and finally
the virtual breakdown of constitutional government, and a return to a
but slightly disguised absolutism.

The one thing that saved the system from total shipwreck was the
antagonisms that existed, not only between the Germans and the majority
opposed to them, but also between the various races of which that
majority was composed. These antagonisms were sedulously fomented by
the government itself. It is one of the worst sins of the Hapsburgs
that, far from acting as peacemakers or even as impartial arbiters
between their discordant races, they deliberately and systematically
strove to aggravate national animosities and to fan the flames of
discord, hoping to be able to play off one race against another in the
authentic Turkish fashion, and seeming to imagine that Austria could
subsist through internal dissensions, just as Poland was once thought
to subsist through her anarchy. The Emperor Francis I congratulated
himself that his peoples were aliens to each other and detested one
another: each race could therefore be used as a jailer for some other
race. “From their antipathies springs order,” he declared, “and from
their mutual hatred the general peace.”[52] Francis Joseph might
adopt as an official slogan _Viribus unitis_, but his practice was
based much more upon the traditional maxim, _Divide et impera_. He
and his agents are very largely responsible for that violent series
of nationality conflicts which have raged in almost every province of
the monarchy--that _bellum omnium contra omnes_, which has disgraced
and poisoned the political life of Austria and paved the way for her
complete disruption.

Out of these discords grew the World War, as a result of Austria’s
effort to crush the most dangerous of the nationalist movements
threatening her from within by striking at its outside source. But
this War, which was to have saved her, turned out to be her ruin, not
only by involving her in military disasters, but even more, perhaps,
by accelerating her internal decomposition. Far from reinvigorating
the monarchy by drawing all its races together in a great outburst of
patriotism and a great common effort--as Teuton propagandists used
to tell us that it had done--the War had just the contrary effect.
The indignation of so many Hapsburg races at being forced to fight
for a cause of which they disapproved; the attempt of the authorities
to stifle this discontent by imprisoning, shooting, or hanging tens
of thousands of people; the many signs that the Austrian Germans,
intoxicated with enthusiasm for Prussia, were yearning to apply
Prussian methods to their old domestic enemies and to make _tabula
rasa_ of those inferior peoples who, as a German writer put it, were
“only a burden upon history,” and could “serve only as mortar for a
nobler race”; the consciousness that in case of a victory for the
Central Powers Austria would emerge bound hand and foot to the chariot
of Germany and the anti-German races were doomed; finally, and not
least, the psychological effects of war-weariness and economic misery,
which have more or less shattered empires better knit together than
this one--all these things combined to raise to a white heat the
discontent of the majority of the Hapsburg races and to make them
resolve that they would stand this Austrian nightmare no longer, if the
Allies would only hold out to them a helping hand.

The Allies had certainly had little serious intention of disrupting
Austria, at the beginning or throughout the greater part of the War.
The traditional belief that Austria was a “European necessity,” the
illusion that she could serve as a bulwark against the expansion of
Germany towards the southeast or of Russia towards the Adriatic, the
hope that she might be detached from Germany and persuaded to make a
separate peace, the fear that the disappearance of the monarchy would
lead only to the ‘Balkanization’ of Central Europe and to chaos worse
confounded--such ideas seem to have predominated at London, Paris, and
perhaps Washington, even down to the last year of the War. As late as
January 8, 1918, President Wilson, in formulating the Fourteen Points,
still disclaimed the thought of impairing the integrity of Austria, and
asked for her subject races nothing more than autonomy.

But in the spring and summer of 1918 a great change came over Allied
policy with respect to the Austrian question. It would be difficult
to say how far this change was due to a growing realization on the
part of the Allies of the essential justice of the claims of the
Austrian subject races; or to the failure of all hopes of inducing
Austria to make a separate peace; or to the very clever diplomacy
of the Czecho-Slovaks and the obligations under which the latter
had placed the Allies by their services in Siberia and Russia. I am
inclined to think, however, that the change was caused in very large
part by the gradually maturing conviction that, to use Mr. Henderson’s
phrase, ‘Germany, if she had not yet conquered her enemies, had
at least conquered her allies’;[53] that Austria’s independence,
gravely and progressively impaired ever since the formation of her
alliance with Berlin in 1879, had now become definitely a thing of
the past, so that if she continued to exist at all, it would be only
as a satellite and tool of Germany, a German bridge towards the Near
East, the gangway of Mitteleuropa. Certain declarations made from the
highest quarters in Austria in July, 1918, after a meeting of the
two Kaisers--declarations announcing the intention ‘to tighten the
bonds between the two empires in the sense of a durable fellowship
in time of peace,’ confirmed the fear of the formation of a Central
European _bloc_ with a population of 120,000,000 and an active army
of 12,000,000 men. If this scheme were realized, Germany would have
doubled her power and won the War, even though she restored all the
territory she had occupied. From all this the conclusion seemed plain
that the only way for the Allies to defeat the Pan-Germanist plan
and place a permanent check upon Prussian militarism was to disrupt
Austria-Hungary and to form a series of national states along the
eastern frontier of Germany. It was now the destruction of Austria that
was a European necessity. Hence, in the summer of 1918, the Allied
governments, one after the other, formally approved the claims of
the two chief malcontent Hapsburg races, the Czecho-Slovaks and the
Yugo-Slavs, to unity and independence, and the Czecho-Slovaks were even
recognized as an allied and belligerent nation. These declarations,
accompanied or soon followed as they were by the sudden change in the
military situation, the rapid and unbroken series of Allied victories
on every front, and the collapse of Bulgaria, sealed the fate of
Austria-Hungary.

The dynasty did, indeed, experience a deathbed repentance. In that
black month of October, when he was daily throwing himself on President
Wilson’s doorstep, pleading his zeal for peace and his love for the
Fourteen Points, Kaiser Karl was also promising mountains and marvels
to his own subjects--the complete transformation of the monarchy into
a federation of national states. Such a system adopted even a few
years earlier might have saved Austria; but, as some one has remarked,
at the point at which matters had arrived, ‘one might as well have
talked of federating the Kilkenny cats.’[54] As the Czecho-Slovak
National Council declared, the Austrian races were no longer to be
duped by promises from Vienna, as to the value of which they had had a
sufficiently long experience. “What we demand the government at Vienna
will never give us, and couldn’t, if it wanted to.”[55]

In the course of thirty days the monarchy spontaneously split into
fragments. Almost without opposition from the authorities, almost
without a hand being raised in defence of the secular throne of
the Hapsburgs, power passed to the National Councils improvised by
the Czecho-Slovaks, the Yugo-Slavs, the Poles, the Ukrainians, the
Roumanians, the Magyars, and even the German Austrians. November 12-13
the last of the Hapsburgs abdicated. It was a dissolution without a
parallel, with the elemental force of a tidal wave.

When the Peace Conference met at Paris, it did not have to concern
itself with the old question whether the maintenance of Austria was
a European necessity. The Austrian peoples themselves had settled
that question, with irrefragable logic and unmistakable finality.
The territories of the defunct empire had already been partitioned,
in rough, provisional fashion and not without a few miniature wars,
among eight states corresponding to the eight principal nationalities
of that Empire. Five of these states were reckoned at Paris as
Allies--Italy, Roumania, Yugo-Slavia, Czecho-Slovakia, and Poland; two
of them--Hungary and German Austria--ranked as enemies; while as to the
Galician Ukrainians, Paris could never quite make up its mind whether
to count them as friends, enemies, or neutrals. The main problem before
the Conference, therefore, was, while making peace with the two enemy
states mentioned, to effect a definitive division of the Hapsburg
inheritance that would be just, practical, and conducive to the peace
and security of Europe.

The difficulties of such a task are obvious enough, and will appear
more fully in the discussion of the individual problems that follows.
It is well known that Austria has been from the earliest times an open
inn to half the travelling nations of Europe and Asia; that her rich
plains are covered with ethnographic sediment deposited by a score of
successive invasions; that her mountains, which are generally not too
high and are pierced by plenty of easy passes, have served, not so
much as barriers separating races, but rather as rallying places for
weak or fugitive peoples seeking a refuge. Neither the Austrian Alps,
nor the Carpathians, nor the mountains of Bohemia form an ethnographic
frontier. Not one of the Austrian races is separated from its neighbors
by really clearly marked natural boundaries. The historic political
or administrative divisions are usually equally unsatisfactory as a
basis for marking off the several nationalities from each other. In
Hungary the county divisions are largely of very recent date, and
really represent gerrymanders, intended, not to separate races, but
to mingle them in such a way as to produce wherever possible a Magyar
majority. In Austria almost all the political divisions were very old,
and represented simply the débris of feudalism--the duchies, counties,
and margraviates that took shape in the Middle Ages, when political
formations had nothing to do with the principle of nationality. Of the
seventeen crownlands or provinces of Austria, fourteen contained two
or more races jumbled together. But however artificial and incongruous
these provincial divisions might seem when judged from the standpoint
of nationality, their very age or long continuance added another
element of difficulty: it opened the door to claims based on ‘historic
rights.’ Almost every one of the Hapsburg races had once had an
independent state of its own; and where was the race so forgetful of
its glorious past as not to claim the whole of every province which had
once belonged to it, no matter what the present ethnographic situation
might be? Indeed, since ‘ethnographic rights’ and ‘historic rights’
were so frequently in conflict, it was a common phenomenon that each
race should use the one argument or the other alternately, as suited
its purposes in each particular case, without much regard for that
consistency which Bismarck called “the virtue of small minds.” The
Czecho-Slovaks, for instance, claimed the whole of Bohemia, Moravia,
and Austrian Silesia by virtue of historic rights, regardless of
the strong German and Polish majorities in various parts of those
provinces. But when it came to the northwestern parts of Hungary,
where they had no historic claim, and the Magyars a very good one,
they shifted their argument completely to the basis of ethnographic
statistics. One need not, however, be very severe on our allies for
such inconsequences. There was “a deal of human nature” about most of
them; and they can scarcely be called more illogical than those critics
of the Peace settlement, whose hearts bleed for Ireland, Egypt, and
India, but who are inconsolable over the destruction of “venerable,
old Austria,” and who would much have preferred that the large Polish
majority in Upper Silesia, made up mainly of oppressed peasants and
workingmen, should have remained in the grip of the German minority of
feudal magnates and capitalists.

The decisions of the Paris Conference with regard to the liquidation
of Austria-Hungary are embodied in the Versailles treaty with
Germany of June 28, and the treaty with German Austria signed
at Saint-Germain-en-Laye on September 10. Untoward events have
delayed down to the present the conclusion of peace with Hungary.
The settlements hitherto made have not decided the fate of certain
extremely contentious territories, which have been placed at the
disposal of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers. Such is the
case with nearly all the Adriatic territories in dispute between Italy
and the Yugo-Slavs; and with various districts where plebiscites are to
be held: i. e., Teschen, Zips (Szepes), Arva, and Klagenfurt. At any
rate, with these exceptions, one can now discern pretty clearly the new
territorial settlement in the lands of the former Hapsburg monarchy.

The northwestern portions of the monarchy have organized
themselves, with the sanction of the Conference, as the republic
of Czecho-Slovakia. The Czechs and Slovaks are two brother races,
established, the one in Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, the other in the
northwestern parts of Hungary. According to the census of 1910, the
Czechs numbered about six and one half millions; the Slovaks about two
millions. Allowing for the peculiar methods of Austrian and Hungarian
census-takers, one will hardly go far wrong in raising the total for
the two peoples combined to about ten millions. This would make them
the third, and perhaps even the second, largest nationality within the
borders of the late empire.[56]

The degree of relationship between the Czechs and Slovaks is one not
easy to define. According to the one view, which is popular especially
among the Czechs, the two peoples represent an original ethnic and
linguistic unit--a single race, which through historic accidents came
to be separated for centuries and to be considerably differentiated
in speech, customs, and character, although always preserving such
close linguistic and moral ties that they deserve to be considered as
one nation. According to the other view, which is advanced especially
by certain Slovak scholars and politicians, the Czechs and Slovaks,
in spite of all similarities and affinities, are, and always have
been, two distinct and independent branches of the Slavic family, two
nations, which have been drawn together chiefly by common misfortunes
and common dangers and which may therefore, perhaps, find it expedient
to contract a political union. At any rate, the following facts are
clear. For many centuries the two peoples have had a common literary
language; their writers and scholars long maintained that they were
a single nation; and if in the last century an effort has been made
to develop a distinct Slovak literary language, it has made no great
progress. The two idioms today are so closely alike that the two
peoples understand each other without difficulty. Politically, the
Czechs and Slovaks have been separated throughout most of their
history. After a brief period of union in the ninth and tenth
centuries, they fell apart definitively in 1031. The Czechs continued
to have a state of their own, the kingdom of Bohemia, while the Slovaks
fell under the sway of the Magyars for the next nine hundred years.
Nevertheless, geographic propinquity and linguistic, religious, and
intellectual ties sufficed to keep up a strong sense of fellowship
and interdependence between the two peoples. These feelings have been
strengthened in recent years by the conviction that in their struggles
against their respective tyrants--the Germans in the one case, the
Magyars in the other--they were fighting a common battle and had
better stand shoulder to shoulder. And when the World War brought an
almost undreamed-of chance for complete liberation, Czechs and Slovaks
were wise enough to see that the two peoples, so weak numerically and
placed in so exposed and dangerous a position, had little chance of
maintaining their independence unless they united. It is true that
there has been a certain amount of friction, and that a section of the
Slovaks have been protesting against what they call the absorption of
their people by the Czech intruders. But this was inevitable. As far
as one can learn, the majority of the Slovaks have accepted the union,
whether as a marriage of reason or of affection; and the combination
is so necessary, if both peoples are to escape being swallowed up
again by the Magyars and Germans, that one can only hope that it
will last. In sanctioning the idea for which the rather new name of
Czecho-Slovakia was adopted, the Peace Conference assuredly believed
that it was satisfying the wishes of both peoples, and confirming the
only arrangement capable of insuring peace in this peculiarly important
danger zone.

The main territorial problem that presented itself with respect to
Czecho-Slovakia was whether the new state should, in its western,
Cisleithan half, receive boundaries drawn to fit the ethnographic
frontier, or whether it should obtain its historic boundaries--the
boundaries of the old Czech kingdom, which included the whole of the
provinces of Bohemia, Moravia, and Austrian Silesia.

The problem was a grave one. The Germans formed 37% of the population
of Bohemia; 28% in Moravia; 44% in Silesia. The three provinces
contained a total of three and one half million Germans according
to the last census. What was worse, these Germans are very largely
gathered in compact masses, in a zone which wellnigh encircles the
Czech-speaking territory, and which, on its outer side, was everywhere
contiguous with Germany or German Austria. It would have been difficult
to form this rather narrow ring of territory into an independent
republic of German Bohemia, as some of its leading politicians
demanded. Such a state would have been a politico-geographical
monstrosity. But the peripheral territories might have been lopped off
and handed over, in part to Germany, in part to German Austria, as the
principle of nationality might seem to require. Moreover, it could not
be forgotten that the Czechs and Germans of Bohemia were separated by
centuries of struggles and animosities. Nowhere else in Austria had
there been so bitter a conflict of nationalities in recent decades. In
the mixed districts every village, one might almost say every house
and every yard of ground, had been fought over. It had come to the
point where Czechs and Germans could scarcely be brought to work in
the same factory; where a small town might have to have two railroad
stations--one for each race; where the propagandists of the rival
nationalities competed in proselytizing even the inmates of the insane
asylums. For the past ten years the Provincial Diet of Bohemia had been
practically closed because of the violence of the race feud. Under such
circumstances, could one think of including three and one half million
Germans in the new Czech state?

Not without hesitation, the Peace Conference decided to preserve the
historic frontiers of the old kingdom of Bohemia. That decision has
occasioned much criticism; and indeed, among the decisions of the
Conference, there is scarcely any other instance where so large a
number of people have been placed under the sovereignty of another
race. Nevertheless, I think that there is much justification for this
settlement.

First and foremost, it should be observed that a strictly ethnographic
frontier would have given an almost impossible and fatal configuration
to Czecho-Slovakia. Even as it is now constructed, this state presents
a somewhat fantastic appearance on the map. It looks like a tadpole.
It is a narrow couloir about 600 miles in length, but in its eastern
districts hardly 60 miles wide; and in Moravia, the province which
forms the link between Bohemia and Slovakia, it is only 100 miles
across. Now, if the frontier had been drawn on the ethnographic basis,
these defects would have been aggravated in very dangerous fashion.
Prague, the capital, would have been brought within about 30 miles of
the German frontier. The Moravian link would have been little more than
50 miles wide. The state would have been constricted in the middle
until it had much the shape of an hour glass. Czecho-Slovakia occupies
a very perilous position. It is a wedge thrust into the side of
Germany. For a thousand years the Czechs have been engaged chiefly in
beating off the German onslaughts, and it is to be feared that in the
future they will not be free from the same danger. Surrounded as they
are on three sides by Germany and German Austria, they would, indeed,
be in the gravest peril if, in case of a conflict, their enemies needed
only to join hands across a gap 50 miles wide in order to cut the
Czecho-Slovak state in two. If this state was to be created at all,
it had to be created in a shape that would give it some guarantees of
viability.

In the second place, if there are any cases where ‘historic rights’
deserve to be respected, this is probably one. The Czechs were the
first of the two races to settle the country. It was they who founded
and maintained the kingdom of Bohemia, which had so glorious a history
in the Middle Ages and down to the time when it succumbed to Hapsburg
despotism in the seventeenth century. Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia
were the three constituent parts of this realm; together they made up
‘the lands of the Crown of St. Wenceslaus’; and down to the beginning
of the nineteenth century even the Hapsburgs admitted that they owed
their sovereign rights over these lands solely to their position as
kings of Bohemia. If in the nineteenth century the effort was made to
sweep away all vestiges of that kingdom and to merge it in the Austrian
empire, the Czechs steadily refused to recognize these changes. They
insisted that the kingdom of Bohemia still existed as a distinct
entity, legally bound to the other Hapsburg lands only by the person
of the common ruler; and they have fought for this principle and for
that of the integrity and indissolubility of their realm with such
tenacity that these ideas have become veritable dogmas in their minds.
In sanctioning a Czech state including the whole of Bohemia and Moravia
and most of Austrian Silesia, the Conference is not setting up a new
and artificial creation: it is merely renewing and confirming in its
old territorial limits a state which existed for centuries and which
_de jure_, perhaps, has never ceased to exist.

The German populations in this state are in the main descended from
settlers who were brought in by the kings of Bohemia in the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries to clear and colonize the forests and waste
lands, which then formed a girdle around the borders of the kingdom.
These people voluntarily established themselves in a Czech land,
and their descendants have always been subjects of the Czech state,
save possibly during the last century or so when it is a contentious
question whether a Czech state existed. At any rate, these Germans have
never, since their immigration, belonged to Germany. And it may perhaps
be doubted whether the presence of this German fringe is a sufficient
reason for dismembering so ancient a state or a country so clearly
marked out by nature to be a unit.

For Bohemia (the territory chiefly in question) has an extraordinary
physical unity--greater than is possessed by any other country in
Central Europe. This appears in its unusual river system, with its
radial convergence of all the water courses towards the centre of the
country; and not less in the mountain walls which guard the four sides
of this natural citadel, especially the sides turned towards Germany.
Were the political boundary to be removed from these mountains and
carried down into the plain where the ethnographic frontier lies,
this would mean exchanging a boundary that is excellent alike from the
geographic, the economic, and the strategic standpoint for one that is
quite the reverse.

Finally, it may be said that German-speaking Bohemia would suffer if
cut off from the rest of the country. It is one of the most highly
industrialized territories of Central Europe, the chief manufacturing
centre of the old Austrian empire; and as such it has always been
dependent upon the Czech agricultural region for its food supply and,
in large part, its laborers. Moreover, it needs the markets which
Czecho-Slovakia can furnish it at home or can open up to it in the
southeast. The natural economic ties are so strong that not a few
German Bohemians have, since the Armistice, publicly declared that
their future can lie only in union with the Czecho-Slovak state, and
that union with Germany would mean ruin for them. And from the Czech
point of view, it is clear that the new state would have entered on its
career with an almost fatal handicap, had it been deprived of its chief
industrial districts and its main supplies of coal and other minerals.

Such were the reasons that led the Conference to depart rather widely
in this case from its usual principles of boundary-making. The
settlement seems to have been accepted by the parties most concerned
without serious trouble and with far less friction than might have been
expected. While some mistakes may have been made at the start, the
Czechs have in general facilitated the transition by treating their
old enemies in that generous, tactful, and sensible spirit which they
have shown in most other matters, and which enables one to form very
favorable auguries as to the future of their young republic.

Leaving the boundary questions of Slovakia to be considered in
connection with Hungarian problems, we now pass on to German Austria.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was the German-speaking provinces of the Eastern Alps, with their
centre at Vienna, which formed the cradle or nucleus of the Austrian
monarchy. It was there that the house of Hapsburg began its rise in
1276. And it is to this small mountain territory that the once proud
name of Austria is again restricted. The new republic inherits only
about one-fourth of the area of the old Austrian or Cisleithan half of
the late empire. It is supposed to have a population of about six and a
half millions, whereas Austria had twenty-eight and a half millions in
1910. In shape it is almost as elongated, as thin about the waist, as
Czecho-Slovakia. It looks like an inverted pistol with the point aimed
at Switzerland.

The making of the new Austrian frontiers involved several
vexatious problems. On the north, indeed, it was resolved without
much controversy to accept as the frontier between Austria and
Czecho-Slovakia the historic boundary between Bohemia and Moravia
on the one side, and the provinces of Upper and Lower Austria on the
other. Only two slight deviations were made, both at the expense of
Austria, in order to avoid cutting important railway connections.

It was the southern boundary that occasioned difficulties. As
between the Austro-Germans and the Slovenes, who were to be united
to the Yugoslav state, the effort was made to keep strictly to the
ethnographic frontier. But this was not easy in so mountainous a
region, where racial frontiers may take no account of geography, but
political boundary makers cannot afford to do so.

The worst problem was the basin of Klagenfurt. Here the narrow, encased
valley of the Drave widens out into a long, fertile corridor, which is
again closed at the lower end and which obviously ought to be treated
as a political unit. Unfortunately the southern side of the valley is
Slovene in population and the northern side German, and in between
lies the city of Klagenfurt--with its 29,000 people a great metropolis
for that region--which is hotly disputed. The Austrian census shows
this city to have a German majority; but the Yugo-Slavs claim that it
was Slovene fifty years ago and would be now, were it not for certain
tricks played upon them by the Austrian government. Klagenfurt last
year enjoyed much the same painful notoriety as Fiume, Danzig, or
the Saar. I know not how many unhappy Allied Commissioners were sent
down there to investigate, report, delimit provisional boundaries,
or to restrain the German or Yugo-Slav rifles, which kept going off
of themselves. Finally, the Conference decided to refer the matter to
a plebiscite. By an arrangement which may, perhaps, be said to favor
the Yugo-Slavs, the Klagenfurt basin is divided into two zones. In the
first and larger zone, the more contested one, and indeed the only
one in which there may be a Slovene majority, the vote is to be taken
within three months after the Peace Treaty with Austria goes into
force. If the outcome in this zone favors Austria, she will keep both
zones without further formalities. If the vote favors Yugo-Slavia, the
plebiscite will then be held in three weeks in the second zone, which
is pretty purely German, but which is geographically so situated that
it could not easily be separated from the first zone.

If this arrangement has provoked much dissatisfaction in Austria, that
has been even more the case over the drawing of the new Austro-Italian
frontier in the Tyrol.

The facts here are sufficiently simple and well known. Italy was
concerned, in the first place, to liberate the 400,000 Italians in
the Trentino, to which she had every right; and secondly, to secure a
strong natural frontier on her most exposed side, on the side looking
towards Germany. The frontier which she asked for, and which the
Conference accorded her, was the crest of the highest east-to-west
ranges in the Tyrol--the line of the Oetzthaler and Zillerthaler
Alps and the Hohe Tauern--a line which cuts the great historic
north-to-south corridor through the Tyrol, not in its wider southern
section, but at its highest and narrowest point, the Brenner Pass.
The new frontier is about the best one that could be drawn from the
geographic standpoint, since it follows the natural line of division,
the watershed between the rivers that flow south to the Adriatic, and
those that flow north and east to the Danube. It also affords the
strongest strategic barrier that Italy could find. It has, however, the
drawback of including in Italy a compact German-speaking population of
about 250,000; old German towns like Botzen, Meran, Brixen, and various
localities famous in German song and story, the homes of Andreas Hofer,
the Tyrolese hero of 1809, and of Walther von der Vogelweide. Whether
among the several parallel ranges farther south than the Brenner a
frontier might not have been found which would have afforded Italy
tolerable guarantees of security without involving the necessity of her
absorbing so many Germans, is a question on which a great deal might be
said. Among the experts at Paris opinions were divided on that subject,
but in the Supreme Council, already somewhat embarrassed, perhaps, by
the Adriatic question, the Italian view prevailed.

If the national principle has been somewhat violated to Austria’s
detriment in the south, it has been applied in her favor in the east.
The adjacent border zone of Hungary had a solid German-speaking
population; and, at a time when Hungary was being broken up along
ethnographic lines, it seemed only fair to unite these Germans to
Austria. Alone among the states of the defeated Alliance, Austria has
thus emerged from the War with at least one territorial acquisition.

At any rate, under the new conditions one can no longer speak of ‘happy
Austria’ or of the ‘gay Viennese.’ Almost ruined by the War and its
aftermath, weighed down by the financial charges imposed by the Peace
Treaty, prostrated by the separation of the heart of the old monarchy
from most of the provinces which had nourished and sustained it,
suffering terribly at present and utterly despondent about her future,
Austria has become the Niobe of nations. Today she is forced to compete
with Armenia as a supplicant for the charity of the world.

It has been commonly said in Vienna this past year that German Austria
cannot exist alone, if only for economic reasons, and that there remain
to it only two possibilities: either union with Germany, or some kind
of a customs union with the new states that have grown out of the
Hapsburg empire.

Union with Germany was very much in the air a year ago; indeed, one of
the first acts of the Austrian National Assembly on November 11, 1918,
was a vote in favor of such a union. But the Peace Conference vetoed
the project. This was done by the rather indirect method of inserting
in the Peace Treaty with Germany an article by which the latter had to
bind herself to “respect strictly the independence of Austria” within
the frontiers to be fixed by the Allied and Associated Powers, and to
agree that “this independence shall be inalienable except with the
consent of the Council of the League of Nations.”

This act of the Conference has been defended on the ground that, at the
close of a war in which Germany has shown herself such a menace to the
world, it is scarcely expedient or even safe to gratify her with the
acquisition of over six million new subjects. It is only after she has
successfully passed a period of probation and has shown that she has
fundamentally changed her methods and her point of view, that the rest
of the world can accord her such an aggrandizement, if the Austrians
at that time still desire the union. I confess, however, that I cannot
help feeling that in this case the more generous attitude would have
been the wiser one. As long as the Allies insist on keeping Austria in
a cell by herself, they are likely to have a chronic invalid on their
hands. The effort to hold asunder even provisionally two branches of
a people like the Germans may easily involve embarrassments greater
than any advantages that are to be derived from it. And what is most
important is the essential justice of the thing. It is the great merit
of the Peace Conference that it endeavored, on the whole honestly
and in such sweeping fashion as was never seen before, to apply the
principle of nationality to the resettlement of Europe. One cannot but
regret that this work should be tarnished by denying even temporarily
to the German and German-Austrian peoples the right to work out their
national unity.


 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

 Joseph Chavannes’ _Physikalisch-statistischer Hand-Atlas von
 Oesterreich-Ungarn_, Vienna, 1887, is still the best cartographic
 introduction to Austrian problems.

 Among the best general works dealing with the late Hapsburg monarchy,
 one would name: A. Chéradame, _L’Europe et la question d’Autriche au
 seuil du XXᵉ siècle_. 4th ed. Paris, 1906. B. Auerbach, _Les Races et
 les nationalités en Autriche-Hongrie_. 2d ed. Paris, 1917. H. Wickham
 Steed, _The Habsburg Monarchy_. 2d ed. London, 1914. V. Gayda, _Modern
 Austria: her racial and social problems_. New York, 1915. R. W.
 Seton-Watson, _German, Slav, and Magyar_. London, 1916.

 The British Foreign Office _Handbooks_ are a particularly convenient
 source of information about the former Hapsburg monarchy and its
 several constituent territories.

 The history of the Czecho-Slovaks has been set forth for Western
 readers principally in the masterly works of Professor Ernest Denis:
 _La Fin de l’indépendance bohème_. 2 vols. Paris, 1890. _La Bohème
 depuis la Montagne-Blanche._ 2 vols. Paris, 1903. _Les Slovaques._
 Paris, 1917.

 Valuable descriptions of the progress and situation of the
 Czecho-Slovaks before the War are to be found in: W. S. Monroe,
 _Bohemia and the Čechs_. Boston, 1910. T. Čapek (ed.), _Bohemia under
 Hapsburg Misrule_. New York, 1915. Z. V. Tobolka (ed.), _Das böhmische
 Volk_. Prague, 1916. H. Rauchberg, _Der nationale Besitzstand in
 Böhmen_. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1905. (The most detailed and comprehensive
 study of the nationality situation in Bohemia.)

 Czecho-Slovak claims and aspirations are well formulated by Dr.
 Edouard Beneš in _Bohemia’s Case for Independence_, London, 1917.

 A detailed discussion of the new frontiers of German Austria (with a
 map) is contained in the article by Dr. E. de Martonne, “Le traité
 de St.-Germain et le démembrement de l’Autriche,” in _Annales
 de géographie_, Jan. 15, 1920. See also the article on “The New
 Boundaries of Austria” in _The Geographical Journal_, Nov., 1919, and
 N. Krebs, “Deutsch-Oesterreich,” in _Geographische Zeitschrift_, vol.
 xxv, 2-4 Hft.

 The nationality situation in the regions most in dispute along
 Austria’s new frontiers is best described, perhaps, in: A. Brunialti,
 _Le nuove Provincie italiane, i: Il Trentino_. Turin, 1919. Montanus,
 _Die nationale Entwicklung Tirols in den letzten Jahrzehnten_. Vienna,
 1918. M. Pirker, “Die Zukunft Kärntens,” in the _Oesterreichische
 Rundschau_, Dec. 1, 1918. J. Bunzel, “Das deutsche Westungarn,” in the
 same number of the review just cited.


FOOTNOTES:

[50] J. Ellis Barker, “The Ultimate Fate of Austria-Hungary,” in _The
Nineteenth Century_, vol. 76 (2), p. 1006.

[51] H. Wickham Steed, _The Habsburg Monarchy_, p. 8.

[52] Cited in Chéradame, _L’Europe et la question d’Autriche_, p. 3.

[53] Cited in _The New Europe_, ii, pp. 30, 227.

[54] Francis Gribble in _The Nineteenth Century_, vol. 82 (2), pp.
883-884.

[55] Declaration of the Czecho-Slovak National Council, Sept. 19, 1918,
cited from the _Journal des Débats_, weekly edition, Oct. 25, 1918.

[56] The Hungarian census of 1910 claimed that the Magyars in the
lands of the Crown of St. Stephen numbered 10,050,575.




VII

HUNGARY AND THE ADRIATIC


Among all the states of Europe there are few which, from the
historical, the geographic, or the economic point of view, might
appear to have a better claim to existence than the thousand-year-old
kingdom of Hungary. Nature would seem to have marked out for political
unity this Pannonian basin, with its marvellously fertile plain of
the Alföld in the centre, surrounded on almost every side by mountain
walls and mineral-bearing highlands, with its roads and rivers all
converging towards the great Danube waterway, and its various parts
supplementing each other economically in so admirable a fashion. And
here, for once, history and geography did not seem to be working at
cross-purposes. Ever since the appearance of those gifted and valiant
Asiatics, the Magyars, in the Danubian plain in the ninth century,
the Pannonian basin has been united into a state which has shown a
remarkable vitality and durability, and whose frontiers, in spite of
some temporary fluctuations, have on the whole remained singularly
unchanged. If ancient status of possession, economic cohesion, and
what may be called the geographic fitness of things, were all the
factors that need be taken into account, the Hungarian state, in spite
of all its misdeeds, ought to have come through the World War intact.
Unfortunately for it, however, there is another factor which counts
for even more nowadays: the rights and aspirations of peoples.

Hungary has always been a polyglot state. The ruling race, the Magyars,
a nation of mixed Finno-Ugrian and Turko-Tartar stock, are a people of
the plains like their nomad ancestors. They are said to have a positive
aversion for living more than 600 feet above sea level. Hence, except
for a few scattered colonies, they have always remained quartered in
the plain of the Alföld, leaving the peripheral highlands and the once
swampy regions of the south to other races, whom they probably found
in the country at the time of their arrival and whose numbers have
certainly been increased by subsequent immigration. The Magyars are an
island of Asiatics surrounded by a sea of Latins and Slavs.

This ruling race is probably only a minority of the total population.
The earliest census of nationalities that we have and the only one that
was taken by relatively impartial officials, the census of 1851, makes
out the Magyars to be only 37% of the total population. It is true that
since the Magyars have taken the census into their own hands, their
percentage has risen steadily with each successive decade, until by
1900 they could claim a slight majority, and in 1910 they could boast
of 54%. In this latter year they were reckoned at just ten millions,
out of a population of eighteen millions for Hungary proper. Their
astonishing gains at the expense of the other races were officially
explained as due to “the peaceful propagation of Hungarian culture.”
Of that “peaceful propagation” I shall speak in a moment; but it
should be said here that scarcely any unprejudiced observer accepts
Hungarian racial statistics at their face value, and that a more
probable estimate would reduce the number of the Magyars to about eight
millions. This would make them a minority even in Hungary proper, and
much more so in the whole kingdom--i. e., with Croatia included--which
had a population of twenty-one millions in 1910.

Among the subject races, the Roumanians probably numbered three to
three and a half millions; the Slovaks two to three millions; the
Ruthenians half a million; the Serbs and Croats three millions; the
Germans two millions.

Like every other racially composite state, Hungary was placed
before the gravest of problems by the nineteenth century revival of
the submerged or long dormant nationalities. During the early and
middle part of that century, this problem could seldom be seriously
faced by the Magyars, for they were engaged in their own battle for
constitutional rights against the despotic and centralizing policy of
Vienna. In this struggle they displayed a vigor and a tenacity which
won for them both the sympathy and admiration of the world and a
reputation as liberals and democrats which they have since singularly
belied. As soon as their victory over the imperial government was
sealed by the Compromise of 1867, as soon as they found themselves
masters in Transleithania, the Magyars set to work to deny to the other
races of the kingdom all those liberties for which they themselves
had been fighting. The programme, henceforth pursued with the most
relentless rigor and the most unscrupulous methods, was to ‘assure the
unity of the Hungarian State’ by Magyarizing the subject races.

One must not be taken in by such mere stage decorations as the
Hungarian law of nationalities of 1868--in appearance the most generous
measure that could be devised, but never put into practice; nor by the
glib phrases of Magyar propagandists about the unparallelled freedom
that existed in Hungary, and the zeal with which the government
fostered the languages and culture of the non-Magyar races. Anything
more insolently defiant of the truth could scarcely be imagined. What
has really gone on in Hungary in the past fifty years--what “the
peaceful propagation of Magyar culture” meant--is something not easy
to condense into a few words. In the briefest summary, however, it
includes:

The exclusion of the non-Magyar languages from all state schools, the
courts of law, administrative intercourse, and every other kind of
official use;

Scandalous violation of the rights of freedom of person, speech,
meeting, and association;

Systematic and merciless persecution of every manifestation of
non-Magyar national sentiment;

An exaggerated irritability or arrogance of power, which has led
Magyar authorities to impose sentences totalling twenty-nine years
of imprisonment on a few petitioners who ventured to complain to the
Emperor-King; to expel schoolboys or seminarians merely for speaking
Roumanian or Slovak in the streets; or to imprison a nursemaid for
“conspiring against the state” by allowing a three-year-old child to
wear a bow with the Roumanian colors;

The virtual exclusion of non-Magyars from public office;

A parliamentary franchise narrow and complicated beyond description,
and so administered as regularly to assure to the Magyar minority all
but about 10 of the 413 seats in Parliament, so that the other races
were virtually disfranchised;

An unrivalled system of gerrymandering;

Parliamentary elections stained with every form of outrage, fraud, and
illegality, with coercion so freely employed that the government itself
boasted that at the last elections it had used _only_ 194 battalions of
infantry and 114 squadrons of cavalry, and it has often been said that
Hungarian elections resembled nothing so much as a civil war.

Such are some of the features of what may fairly be called the most
odious system of racial oppression known to modern Europe.

It is, of course, true that this system was the work of the ruling
oligarchy--a class which showed itself averse to democratic progress in
any form, and which also chastised the Magyar proletariat with whips,
even if it reserved its scorpions for the non-Magyars. But that made
little practical difference. The cardinal fact was that after standing
this sort of thing for fifty years, the subject peoples had come to
execrate the very name of Magyar. If a chance for liberation presented
itself, then, as some one has said, not even an angel from heaven could
have dissuaded them from seizing it.

Hence, during the general débâcle of the Quadruple Alliance in
October-November, 1918, Hungary disintegrated almost as spontaneously
and easily as Austria. It was in vain that the new republican
government of Count Károlyi fought frantically to save the territorial
integrity of the state by offering the non-Magyar peoples the widest
and most sweeping concessions, going even so far as to propose the
transformation of Hungary into a federation of national cantons on the
Swiss model. Nothing could make the seceders believe that the Magyar
could change his spots, or tempt them back into the cage.

Equally fruitless were the diplomatic or propagandist efforts to
persuade the Allied Powers that Hungary had suddenly become a new
creation, which could not be held responsible for the acknowledged sins
of its former rulers, and ought to be let off intact and scot-free. It
is scarcely necessary to enter here into the tangled and not quite
edifying relations between the Allies and the various governments
that have succeeded each other at Budapest: the genuinely democratic
and reforming government of Count Károlyi (October 1918--March 1919);
the Bolshevist interlude under Bela Kun (March--August); and the more
recent cabinets made up of more or less unsmirched remnants of the
old regime. These many changes of government have long delayed the
conclusion of peace with Hungary.[57] At all events, the treaty is now
apparently about to be signed; and it seems safe to assume that this
treaty will embody the territorial arrangements which were decided upon
at Paris in the spring of 1919 and which I shall now try briefly to
describe.

The northwestern highlands of Hungary, which are inhabited mainly
by Slovaks, are to be incorporated into Czecho-Slovakia. This state
touches the Danube at one point through the acquisition of Presburg,
the one-time capital of Hungary. Regrettable as it may be that so
historic a city should be lost to its old owners, it must be said that
Presburg was always rather German than Magyar in population; and that
it will furnish the land-locked republic of Czechoslovakia with a
much-needed port on the Danube and a means of commercial access to the
Balkans and the Black Sea.

The half-million Ruthenians who inhabit the mountains of northeastern
Hungary form a secluded and backward population which has hitherto
been supremely indifferent to the affairs of the outside world.
Alone among the races of Hungary, they had no national movement and
probably very little consciousness of nationality. Before the War
they had not a single school in which their language was taught, no
political newspaper of any kind, and scarcely any educated class.
What went on in these primitive and illiterate heads when the
gospel of self-determination penetrated to them, it is difficult
to guess. There are tales that within a very few weeks three
so-called National Assemblies were held, each claiming to represent
the ‘Carpatho-Ruthenian nation,’ and that these rival gatherings
‘self-determined’ their people, the one for union with Czecho-Slovakia,
the second for union with Hungary, and the third for union with their
kinsmen over the mountains in Galicia. At any rate, the Czechophile
tendency appears to have been the strongest. Going on the best evidence
it could get as to the preferences of this enigmatic population, the
Peace Conference has decided to attach them to Czecho-Slovakia, though
under the form of an autonomous province with generous rights of
self-government.

An ideal which has haunted the minds of Roumanian patriots for a
century, but which long seemed only an iridescent dream, has been
realized by the annexation to Roumania of Transylvania and the adjacent
zone of territory on the west. This aspiring kingdom has now very
nearly attained the frontiers of Trajan’s province of Dacia; and
everyone knows with what ardor the modern Roumanians claim that they
are descended from the Roman colonists sent out to Dacia in Trajan’s
time.

Contrary to what appears to be widely believed in this country,
Roumania’s acquisitions, with the possible exception of some small
contentious border districts, are based strictly upon the principle of
nationality. They serve to liberate over three millions of Roumanians,
who, among all the subject peoples of Hungary, were the race most hated
and oppressed by the Magyars, because of their numbers and the tenacity
of their patriotism. It is true that in eastern Transylvania several
large compact bodies of Magyars and Germans (900,000 of the former,
200,000 of the latter) are now transferred to Roumanian rule. But this
is unavoidable in the case of such isolated enclaves. The Germans
apparently do not object seriously; and as for the Magyars, it would be
impossible to leave them to Hungary without cutting off a far larger
number of Roumanians from their mother country. But of all the dramatic
changes of fortune in Eastern Europe, there is none more striking than
this one, which has put down the mighty Magyars from their seats, and
exalted the humble Roumanian, for eight hundred years a slave and an
outcast in his own country.

Roumania and Serbia have had an unpleasant controversy over the former
Hungarian territory called the Banat of Temesvár. Although this dispute
had very nearly brought those two Allied nations to blows, when it was
laid before the Peace Conference one distinguished prime minister burst
out in an audible whisper, “Where on earth is the Banat?” The Banat
lies just southwest of Transylvania. It is the quadrangle enclosed by
the Danube, the Theiss, the Máros, and the Transylvanian mountains.

It would take over-long to set forth the arguments, historical,
economic, geographic, ethnographic, and miscellaneous, with which the
two rivals regaled the Peace Conference. The Conference gave what was,
I think, a proof of its wisdom by repeating the judgment of Solomon
and dividing the disputed object between the litigants. Roumania
will receive the larger portion, most of which is overwhelmingly
Roumanian in population. Serbia acquires the very motley western
section, in which Serbs, Roumanians, Germans, and Magyars are terribly
intermingled, but in which the Serbs are at least a plurality: she
acquires a much-needed zone to protect Belgrade on the north and east,
and a number of towns which have played so great a rôle in Serbian
intellectual movements that they are considered the cradle of the Serb
national revival.

Farther to the westward lies the historic kingdom of Croatia, which
has for eight hundred years been bound to Hungary by ties which no
one could ever quite satisfactorily define, but which have often been
compared to the connection between England and Ireland. In the last
half century at least, Magyar-Croat relations have been even less
serene and amicable than Anglo-Irish ones. It goes almost without
saying that Croatia has now, of her own choice, united with Serbia and
the Slovene lands of Austria to form the new state popularly called
Yugo-Slavia.

That state has also received Bosnia and the Herzegovina, two provinces
which have been the Alsace-Lorraine of southeastern Europe ever since
their ill-fated occupation by Austria-Hungary in 1878. Thus the unity
of the Southern Slav race is very nearly completed.

Here again one is in the presence of another seemingly impossible dream
realized. Only ten years ago the Yugo-Slavs were living under six
different governments; and their deputies sat in fourteen different
parliaments, national or provincial. To attain their unity they have
had to disrupt two such empires as Austria-Hungary and Turkey.

Their present union into one state appears to be in every sense natural
and desirable. For Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes are blood-brothers,
three closely related branches of one family. Serbian and Croatian are
virtually the same language, although written, the one in Cyrillic, the
other in Latin, characters. If Slovene forms a rather different idiom
or even language, it is quite intelligible to the other two peoples.
The Southern Slavs, moreover, need to stand together. They occupy an
extremely important and a dangerous position; they are the guardians of
the gate that leads from Central Europe to Constantinople and Bagdad.
For three small peoples, placed in such a position, the motto that “in
union there is strength” cannot be too much emphasized.

It is, of course, true that the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes have
been politically separated throughout their history, as a result
of geography and such accidents as the Turkish, Magyar, and German
conquests. It is also true that they have developed considerable
differences in customs, grade of culture, and above all in religion.
The Serbs are Orthodox; the Croats and Slovenes Catholics; and there
are in Bosnia about 600,000 people who, though Serbs in race, are
Mohammedans. In this new ménage, made up indeed of brothers, but of
brothers who have all their lives been separated, it is only to be
expected that there will be a certain amount of domestic friction.
Nevertheless, I think the reunion of the family, which the Peace
Conference sanctioned and indeed worked for, is to be considered one of
the greatest gains effected by the World War.

To sum up, Hungary has lost more than half of her area and population.
She is reduced to the lowland region around Budapest, which has
always been the real home of the Magyar; she now has a population of
only eight to nine millions. It is to be regretted that she has lost
almost all her forests, her mineral wealth, her mountain sources of
water-power, her access to the sea.

[Illustration: TERRITORIES OF FORMER AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE]

Grievous as her fate may be, it can scarcely be called unmerited. Louis
Kossuth, the idol of the modern Magyars, answering a deputation sent
by the subject peoples in 1848 to plead for their national rights,
retorted, “No, let the sword decide between us.” And that remained the
attitude of this race, whose greatest patriot declared that ‘pride
would be their ruin.’ One cannot forget that this was a Magyar, as well
as a German, war; and that, as some one has said, ‘it was provoked by
a ring of Magyar politicians who had mortgaged their very souls to the
German cause in order to purchase a free hand for the oppression of the
non-Magyars.’[58]

But one would prefer to regard the settlement of the Hungarian problem
made at Paris not as a matter of retributive justice, but rather as
a sweeping application of the principle of nationality in the region
where that principle had been most trampled upon; as the only kind
of settlement in any way acceptable to those peoples who were in the
majority in the old Hungarian state; and therefore as the only plan
that could restore peace to this sorely distracted part of Europe.

I now pass to the questions concerning the territories on the Adriatic
coast, part of which formerly belonged to Austria and part to Hungary.
All of these territories are in dispute between Italy and Yugo-Slavia;
and their problems taken together make up the so-called Adriatic
question, which among all the problems that the Peace Conference
has had to face has shown itself the most delicate, difficult, and
interminable.

The Adriatic question relates mainly to the following five territories:

(1) The province or ‘crownland’ of Gorizia and Gradisca; (2) Trieste;
(3) Istria; (4) Dalmatia--these four all formerly parts of Austria;
and (5) Fiume, which belonged to Hungary. In addition some small bits
of the provinces of Carinthia and Carniola have been involved in the
dispute.

All these territories have a certain geographic unity. They form a
long, narrow fringe of coastland and islands, rigidly separated from
the Yugo-Slav hinterland by the successive chains of the Julian Alps,
the Karst, the Velebite Mountains, and the Dinaric Alps. These ranges,
which are the continuation of the Italian Alps, seem to detach the
eastern coast of the Adriatic from the world beyond the mountains and
to orient it towards the opposite western shore, of which it appears
to be, in many respects, only an extension. Indeed, in its climate,
its physical aspect, its vegetation; in the customs and mode of life
of its inhabitants; its seafaring and commercial activities, and its
age-long reliance upon communications by water rather than by land,
this littoral region resembles Italy much more than the Balkans.

History has conformed to this aspect of geography. Not only did Rome
long hold the whole eastern coast and plant there Latin colonies and
a Latin tongue which, in some spots at least, seem never to have
disappeared; but Venice succeeded to the inheritance of Rome, and from
the tenth century to the end of the eighteenth imposed her sway over
a large part of the eastern littoral and the islands. The Slavs had,
indeed, penetrated to the coast or near it, in the seventh century; and
ever since it may be assumed that the bulk of the population in almost
every province on this coast has been of Slavic stock. Nevertheless,
the Italians remained the dominant race in every respect save numbers;
theirs was the language of business, of politics, of society, of
literature, the language which almost everyone understood and tried
to speak, if he pretended to be anybody; Italian was the civilization
which has left such splendid monuments in the _duomi_ and _palazzi_,
the _loggie_ and the _campanili_, which adorn the coast cities from
Trieste to Ragusa. It is no great exaggeration when Italians today
talk of eighteen centuries of _Italianità_ in the lands east of the
Adriatic. Nor is it strange that in Dalmatia, with her vines and
olives, laurels and cypresses, and here and there a palm; with her warm
Mediterranean sun and ever-present vistas of blue waters; with her
cities studded with Roman and Venetian remains, and the lion of San
Marco guarding every older edifice; the present-day Italian should feel
himself very much in his own country.

But the nineteenth century revivals of dormant nationalities have
brought cruel trials to the defenders of historic civilizations.
Since the middle of that century, the Adriatic lands have seen a
bitter conflict between the resurgent Croats and Slovenes, who are
in most cases the majority, and the Italians. This conflict has been
complicated and envenomed by the insidious and sometimes violent
interventions of the Austrian and Hungarian authorities, both anxious
to maintain their hold upon the coast by playing off the two chief
nationalities of that region against one another. At Fiume the Magyars
systematically favored the Italians in order to prevent the control of
Hungary’s one port by the Croatians. In the other coastal territories
the Austrians generally supported and spurred on the Slavs, who were
regarded as less dangerous than the obnoxious nation which had brought
Austria to grief in 1859 and 1866. Hence at the present day both of the
rival races can say that the natural course of development has been
perverted: neither quite likes to accept the ethnographic status quo
produced through fifty years of machinations or violence by Vienna and
Budapest.

Down to the World War the contest remained pretty much a local
one, attracting no great amount of attention from the Italians of
the kingdom, or the outside Yugo-Slavs, or the world at large. The
other Yugo-Slavs had more pressing problems nearer home. In Italy the
Carbonari did, indeed, dream of an ‘Ausonian Republic,’ extending from
Malta to the Trentino, and from Trieste to Cattaro; and such seems also
to have been the ideal of Daniel Manin and other heroes of 1848. All
Italians agreed that Gorizia, Trieste, and Istria belonged by nature
to Italy as much as did the Trentino or Venetia. But Dante, in a much
quoted passage, had described the eastern side of Istria as the natural
limit of Italy: he had spoken of the

  “Quarnaro che Italia chiude.”

Mazzini, the greatest Italian political thinker of the nineteenth
century, had also taken this to be the eastern boundary of Italy, and
had spoken in the loftiest terms of the union and fraternity that ought
to reign between his countrymen and the Yugo-Slavs. There seems to be
no evidence that Cavour thought seriously of claiming anything east of
the Adriatic--certainly not Dalmatia.

The Italian public thus had no very clear idea as to how much
rightfully belonged to their country on the east; and as time wore on
after the close of the Risorgimento period, that public more or less
forgot about the Italian colonies beyond the Adriatic, or else gave
them up as indefensible positions which there could be little hope of
saving. Thus the Great War caught both Italians and Yugo-Slavs rather
unprepared, and without very definite ideas or clear-cut programmes
with respect to the Adriatic question.

It is well known that the Italian government then, rather hastily
perhaps, formulated its programme and its demands in the treaty of
London, of April 26, 1915--the treaty signed by England, France, and
Russia in order to secure Italy’s entry into the War. This treaty
promised Italy, in case of victory, a new frontier including the
southern Tyrol, all of Gorizia, Trieste, all Istria, northern Dalmatia
as far as a line which cuts the coast just west of Traù, and several
of the larger Dalmatian islands farther south, including Lissa and
Curzola. It did not include Fiume, presumably because the assumption
then was that Austria-Hungary would continue to exist after the War as
a great power, which must have at least one port on the Adriatic.

This treaty, were it ever to be carried out, would incorporate in Italy
about 800,000 Yugo-Slavs, nearly half of whom live in Dalmatia. It
inevitably created great resentment at Belgrade and Agram, and helped
to produce that regrettable state of relations between Italians and
Yugo-Slavs which has had such unfortunate results in the past year.
At any rate, during the negotiations of the past year the Italians
themselves have elected not to adhere to the strict terms of the treaty
of London, but have shown, I think it must be admitted, a genuine
willingness to seek a compromise more acceptable to their opponents.

At this point, it becomes necessary to consider the questions at issue,
region by region.

Gorizia, Trieste, and Istria are three small territories which, in
Roman times, formed a part of Italy and of the province of Venetia, and
which the modern Italians still call Venetia Julia. Most scholars will
agree, I think, that geographically these territories belong to Italy,
and that the Julian Alps and the Karst Mountains, which come down to
the sea on the Quarnero, mark the natural frontier of Italy on the
northeast.

Historically, Venice held the larger part of Istria and a small part of
Gorizia for many centuries down to the fall of the republic in 1797.
Trieste was an independent commune until in 1382 it came under Hapsburg
rule. The larger part of Gorizia and eastern Istria, after passing for
centuries from one German princeling to another, have been under the
Hapsburgs since the close of the Middle Ages.

Ethnographically, Venetia Julia seems to show a slight Yugo-Slav
majority (52%). In Gorizia there were in 1910 155,000 Slovenes
against 90,000 Italians; in Trieste 119,000 Italians against 59,000
Yugo-Slavs; in Istria 203,000 Yugo-Slavs against 147,000 Italians. But
the Italians, not without some show of reason, contest these figures
as being much too favorable to their opponents, owing to the bias and
the unscrupulous methods of the Austrian census-takers. Furthermore,
it would be difficult for even an honest census to give an accurate
picture of the racial complexities of a province like Istria, which
has been said to contain more fragments of diverse nationalities than
any other province of similar size in Austria, and fragments that
generally do not get properly classified in the census because there
is no rubric for them. What is one to do with such ethnographic curios
as the Chiches, the Morlaks, the Rumenes of Istria--people who do not
know what they are themselves, nor can any philologist tell them?
One of the best observers of the region has discovered no less than
thirteen “ethnographic nuances,” and such a confusion and intermixture
of tongues that even educated people had difficulty in deciding what
language they spoke. He found here Croaticized Slovenes, and Slovenized
Croats; Croaticized Rumenes, Italianized Croats, and Croaticized
Italians; finally a population of whom all that could be said was that
their costume was Italian, their manners Slav, and their language a
mixture of everything. Under such circumstances one cannot place great
reliance on the census.

Perhaps it is more significant that just before the War, out of
seventeen deputies elected from these three provinces to the Reichsrat,
ten were Italians, and only seven Yugo-Slavs. In the provincial diets
the Italians outnumbered the Slavs two to one. Seventy per cent of the
communes are said to have had Italian administrations. Italian was
indubitably the chief language of business, of administration, of the
cities, and of the educated classes pretty generally, the one language
that everybody knew and without which it was impossible to get along.

Under these circumstances, it has, in the first place, been settled
that Trieste belongs to Italy. Of the Italian character and sentiment
of that city throughout its history, there can be no doubt. If the
Yugo-Slavs for a time laid claim to it, that was because the rural
districts around it are Slovene and because Trieste is the natural
port for the Slovene provinces in the interior. Nevertheless, it would
appear that the Yugo-Slavs would have been wiser never to raise a claim
so obviously doomed to defeat.

It appears probable that the whole of Gorizia and Istria will also
go to Italy. This is, of course, a more questionable decision; but,
in view of the geographic facts in the case, the solidly Italian
population in the coastal districts, the preponderant position of
the Italian language and civilization everywhere, and the apparent
preponderance of Italian political sentiment as measured by the
elections, this would seem to be a not unfair solution.

Much more serious are the problems presented by the remaining two
territories: Dalmatia and Fiume.

As to Dalmatia the Yugo-Slav claim can be stated very simply. That
province had in 1910 a population of 635,000, of whom 611,000 (96%)
were Yugo-Slavs and only 18,000 (3%) Italians. Even if one admits
some inaccuracy in these figures, the most extreme Italian claims do
not rise above 60,000 (10% of the total population). All the deputies
sent from Dalmatia to the Reichsrat for many years back have been
Yugo-Slavs, and the latter control every commune in the province, save
only the capital Zara. The Yugo-Slav predominance is so overwhelming
that, at first glance, it is not easy to understand how the Italians
can have any serious claim at all.

The Italians rest their case, in the first place, upon history. They
point to the wellnigh eighteen hundred years of Latin rule in Dalmatia:
the Roman period, the age of the independent Latin-Dalmatian communes,
the long sway of Venice, inaugurated by the famous expedition of
998, in honor of which the Doge ever afterwards bore the title _Dux
Dalmatiae_, and to commemorate which there was instituted the famous
annual ceremony of the ‘wedding of the sea’ by Venice.

The Italians do not deny that the great majority of the Dalmatian
population has for centuries been of Slavic speech. But they assert
that in almost every other respect this population is Italian: in
its customs, costumes, games, in its artistic, literary, and musical
tastes--even in its cuisine. The whole civilization of the province is
Italian. Even as regards language, there is no real barrier: the Slavs
are, most of them, bilingual, and even their own dialect is studded
with Italianisms.

Thirdly, while admitting that the harmony which long reigned between
the two races has, since 1866, given way to bitter enmity, the Italians
declare that this was mainly the work of the Austrian government. Now
that that influence is removed, and if the church, the school, and
the gendarme are no longer used to stir up anti-Italian feeling, many
Italians seem to believe that the Dalmatian Slavs could be won back
to the old friendly relations and to peaceful acceptance of Italian
rule. In any case, can Italy abandon those communities which remained
faithful to her even during the period of Austrian persecution--that
is, the capital, Zara, and some of the islands?

To understand Italian feelings on this subject, one must recall the
long, agonizing, and--in the main--losing fight of the last forty years
to save the Italian character of the Dalmatian cities. The struggle
turned about control of the municipal councils, for it was they that
decided what was to be the official language of the schools and the
public services and which nationality was to set the tone and get all
the favors in the community. The Austrians seem to have employed every
form of corruption, fraud, and violence to sweep the Italians out of
the municipalities. It is said that at the elections in Spalato in
1883 all the officials were ordered to vote Croat; the clergy also; a
cruiser was sent to overawe the city; the election officials and the
soldiery completed the intimidation of the voters; and it was thus that
Spalato was lost to the Italians. One after another the other cities
succumbed. Cattaro and Ragusa holding out bravely until 1900; and then
only one Italian stronghold was left. That is why people in Rome speak
of it as ‘Zara Italianissima’--any city that could defend itself so
long must have a superlative character about its patriotism; and this
is why the Italians have been so anxious to save at least that last
bulwark of Latin Dalmatia.

Fourthly, the Italian argument dwells upon the geographic character of
the province--shut off from Yugo-Slavia by rough and savage mountains,
united to Italy by the sea over which practically all its external
communications are carried on. Ratzel declared that Dalmatia lived like
an island, and Freeman compared it to a branch cast forth from Italy
across the Adriatic.

Finally, the Italians invoke strategic reasons for demanding at least
a part of Dalmatia. The Adriatic Sea forms a narrow couloir, about 400
miles in length but in places scarcely 100 miles across. The western
coast of that sea, the Italian side, is almost destitute of harbors
that could serve as defensive naval bases; while on the eastern side
the Dalmatian coast, with its many fine ports, its protecting chains
of islands, its labyrinth of back channels and concealed inner basins,
offers the most marvellous basis for naval operations. Obviously, the
Italian fleet, with its bases at Venice and Pola at one end of the
Adriatic and Brindisi at the other, would be at a grave disadvantage as
against a naval power planted midway in the couloir in the impregnable
strongholds of Dalmatia. And if it is said that Yugo-Slavia is never
likely to have such a fleet as would be a serious menace, the Italians
reply that even a small fleet of cruisers, lurking in the recesses of
the Dalmatian coast, could be a scourge to Italian commerce and to the
unprotected coast of Italy only three hours distant; and for submarine
bases Dalmatia offers unrivalled advantages, as the World War has
shown. Hence, it is argued, Dalmatia is necessary to Italy’s security.
Without it, her long and vulnerable flank will remain undefended and
indefensible.

I have tried to set forth the Italian side of the Dalmatian question
at some length, because it is far less simple and obvious than the
Yugo-Slav standpoint. Nevertheless, I am inclined to think that the
latter case is the stronger. In view of the overwhelming Yugo-Slav
majority and the attitude which, from whatever cause, the Dalmatian
Slavs have come to adopt towards the Italians, the assignment of any
considerable part of the province to Italy would, I believe, be a grave
violation of the principles of the Allies, and a source of endless
embarrassments for Italy.

After a year of discussions the Italian government has come to the
point where, if it can obtain a satisfactory settlement as to Fiume,
it seems willing to drop its claims to Dalmatia, except for a couple of
points. For strategical purposes it still demands the island of Lissa,
which Mazzini called “the Malta of the Adriatic”--a claim that seems
not unreasonable; and it is also apparently asking that Zara should be
constituted a free city--which might be of questionable advantage for
Zara.

The main contest, then, is over Fiume.

Fiume is a rather small place in proportion to the commotion it has
excited in the world--a city of about 50,000 people. Who founded it
or when, we do not exactly know. It appears in the later Middle Ages
as a small self-governing commune of the Italian type, which in 1465
passed under the suzerainty of the Hapsburgs, and was by them treated
as a part of their hereditary Austrian lands until in 1776-79 Maria
Theresia, wishing to endow the Magyars with a port of their own,
transferred the city to the kingdom of Hungary. Amid all these changes,
the ‘Magnificent Community’ of Fiume kept up its self-government and a
very strong spirit of local independence. Indeed, down to a few years
ago, at least, the only patriotism that the Fiumani knew was an intense
love for their own little city. This spirit helped to preserve them
from ever falling under the rule of Venice or any other Italian state;
and, equally, it led them to fight strenuously at various times against
the incorporation of their city in the kingdom of Croatia, which the
Diet of Agram was always trying to put through. On the other hand, they
long accepted with enthusiasm the union with Hungary, which did not
seem to threaten their independence and which brought great economic
advantages to their city as the single port of the Magyar kingdom.

As far back as we can trace it, the population of Fiume seems always
to have been a mixed one--in part Croatian, in part Italian. It could
hardly be otherwise with a city whose hinterland was solidly Croatian,
but whose commercial relations were mainly with Italy. Hence it
appears that the lower classes of the population were always chiefly
Croats, constantly replenished from the country districts, while the
upper classes were partly of the one race, partly of the other. But
Italian was the language of society, of business, and of government,
and to it the citizens were much attached. During the struggles of the
period between 1848 and 1867, when annexation to Croatia was always
staring them in the face, the municipal authorities again and again
petitioned the Emperor not to permit the violation of “the sacred
rights of the Italian language,” “the tongue that has been spoken here
ever since Fiume existed.” “It would be superfluous,” they declare,
“to demonstrate what is universally known, that in Fiume the Italian
idiom has for centuries been the language of the school, of the forum,
of commerce, of every public and private meeting; in short, it is the
language of the community, and one of the chief sources to which it
owes its grade of culture and of commercial and industrial progress.”

Two races living together in harmony, untouched by any national
feeling, swayed only by love of their city-state, devotion to its
time-honored customs, including the use of the Italian language,
and zeal for the connection with Hungary, on which their economic
prosperity depended--these conditions began to break down after
1867. The great development of the port carried out by the Hungarian
government brought in a flood of new citizens--mainly Italians,
since the Magyars favored that element. It was at this time that the
Italians seem to have gained the numerical preponderance in the city.
Then, in the last few decades, the importation of Magyars set in, at
such a rate that the Italian ruling class in alarm concluded that the
government at Budapest was bent on Magyarizing the city and that their
connection with Hungary was not so comfortable after all. Hence there
arose a new Italo-Magyar conflict to complicate the struggle that had
already broken out between the Italians and the Yugo-Slavs. Now at last
the Italian-speaking population began to turn their eyes across the
Adriatic for liberators, and the Croat-speaking citizens began to sigh
for the Yugo-Slav fatherland.

In the Fiume problem, as it presents itself today, the respective
rôles of the Italians and the Yugo-Slavs are just the opposite of what
they are in Dalmatia. In the case of Fiume, the Italian argument rests
solely on the rights of nationality and the alleged wishes of the
population.

The Italians point out, in the first place, that at the last Hungarian
census (in 1910) the city contained about 24,000 Italians (not counting
6000 subjects of the kingdom of Italy), as against 16,000 Yugo-Slavs.
To this the Yugo-Slavs retort that the Italian majority has been built
up in the last few decades through the deliberate policy of the Magyar
government; and that if the suburb of Sušak, which is practically
part of the city, and the adjacent rural district were reckoned into
the account, the Fiume territory would contain as many Yugo-Slavs as
Italians.

Secondly, the Italians lay great weight upon the declarations of the
National Council of Fiume and upon a plebiscite held in the city soon
after the Armistice, as voicing the desire of the Fiumani to be united
to Italy. The Yugo-Slavs deny that either of these things can be taken
as a free and genuine expression of the wishes of the inhabitants.

At any rate, the Yugo-Slavs rest their argument mainly on other
grounds. They maintain that Fiume is as naturally soldered on to
their new state as Marseilles is to France; that this is the only
satisfactory port on the Adriatic that that state can obtain; that its
control by Italy would mean an intolerable subjection of Yugo-Slavia
to her neighbor; and that it is inconceivable that their one good port
should be taken away from them simply because within the walls of the
city itself, not counting in the suburbs on which it vitally depends,
Magyar machinations have built up an artificial plurality of barely
8000 Italians.

The Italians, of course, assert that farther south the Adriatic coast
is full of good harbors, which could amply provide for the rather
scanty trade of Yugo-Slavia. But it must be admitted that the mountain
wall, which lines the coast from Fiume southward to the Drin, opposes
very great obstacles to the opening up of a satisfactory outlet through
the Dalmatian ports. At present there is, south of Fiume, only a single
railway through to the coast--the wretched, winding rack-and-pinion
road which comes down from Bosnia to Metković and Ragusa. It would be
extremely difficult and expensive to develop and operate this line as a
first-class railroad, and to link it up with the various parts of the
Yugo-Slav state. Undoubtedly Fiume is the natural gate of Yugo-Slavia
to the West; it is the only port that is well equipped today and that
could easily adapt itself to the existing lines of communication. Even
granted that another outlet could be developed farther south, it would
require many years’ time and the expenditure of millions of dollars to
bring this about.

It was, I think, because of the undeniable weight of such
considerations, and in order that the new, poor, struggling state of
the Yugo-Slavs should not be terribly handicapped at the outset by
being denied that secure access to the sea for which Serbia had fought
so long, that the American delegation at Paris took the stand it did on
the Fiume question.

After going through many phases and fluctuations, this question
appears to be at least appreciably nearer to a solution. The margin
of difference between the two sides has now been reduced to a few
points. If Italy gives way altogether on Dalmatia, it would seem only
fair that the Yugo-Slavs should make some concessions as to Fiume,
providing their economic interests can be reasonably insured. And it
cannot be too strongly desired that if a compromise can be effected,
the Yugo-Slavs recognizing their great debt to Italy, and the Italians
recognizing the right to unity and independence of Yugo-Slavia, the two
nations should go back to that attitude of mutual respect, coöperation,
and fraternity which was the ideal of the noblest and most far-sighted
Italian statesman of the nineteenth century, the great Mazzini.


 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

 Probably the best history of Hungary available in any Western language
 is that by E. Sayous: _Histoire générale des Hongrois_, Budapest, 1900.

 Conditions in Hungary before the War are described from the Magyar
 point of view in: Percy Alden (ed.), _Hungary of Today. By members of
 the Hungarian Government_. (Apponyi, Kossuth, Wekerle, etc.) London,
 1909. C. M. Knatchbull-Hugessen, _The Political Evolution of the
 Hungarian Nation_. 2 vols. London, 1908.

 The author who has done more than any other one man, perhaps, to
 expose the tyranny of the old Magyar regime to the Western public, is
 R. W. Seton-Watson, who at first wrote under the pseudonym of ‘Scotus
 Viator.’ His chief books on this subject are: _Racial Problems in
 Hungary_, London, 1908; _Corruption and Reform in Hungary: a study of
 electoral practice_, _ibid._, 1911; _The Southern Slav Question and
 the Habsburg Monarchy_, _ibid._, 1911.

 The Roumanian problem in Hungary naturally forms a chief topic in
 another recent work by Mr. Seton-Watson: _Roumania and the Great
 War_, London, 1915. Other noteworthy expositions of Roumania’s claims
 to what was eastern Hungary are to be found in: M. R. Sirianu, _La
 Question de Transylvanie et l’unité politique roumaine_. Paris, 1916.
 D. Draghicesco, _Les problèmes nationaux de l’Autriche-Hongrie. Les
 Roumains_. Paris, 1918. N. P. Comnène, _Roumania through the Ages. An
 historical, political, and ethnographical atlas_. Paris, 1919.

 A rather copious literature has grown up lately around the Yugo-Slav
 movement. Among the most useful works on that subject are: A. H.
 E. Taylor, _The Future of the Southern Slavs_. New York, 1917. V.
 R. Savić, _South-Eastern Europe_. New York, 1918. E. Denis, _La
 grande Serbie_. Paris, 1915. R. J. Kerner, _The Jugo-Slav Movement_.
 Cambridge, Mass., 1918.

        *       *       *       *       *

 For Italian views on the group of questions relating to the Adriatic
 provinces, one would turn especially to: V. Gayda, _L’Italia
 d’oltre confini_. Turin, 1914. A. Tamaro, _Italiani e Slavi
 nell’Adriatico_. Rome, 1915. ***, _L’Adriatico. Studio geografico,
 storico, e politico_. Milan, 1915. Adriacus. _From Trieste to Valona.
 The Adriatic Problem and Italy’s Aspirations_. Milan, 1919. G.
 Dainelli, _La Dalmazia, sua italianità, suo valore per la libertà
 d’Italia nell’Adriatico_. Genoa, 1915. Dainelli has also published
 a useful atlas of Dalmatia, entitled _La Dalmazia. Cenni geografici
 e statistici_. Novara, 1918. A. Hodnig, _Fiume italiana e la sua
 funzione antigermanica_. Rome, 1917. G. Depoli, _Fiume e la Liburnia_.
 Bari, 1919.

 On the Fiume question it is also useful to consult V. Tomsich,
 _Notizie storiche sulla città di Fiume_, Fiume, 1886 (the fullest
 history of the city. Written in a vein of intense local patriotism,
 in the spirit of the old Fiumano independence party); Sišić, _Abrégé
 de l’histoire politique de Rieka-Fiume_, Paris, 1919 (review of the
 history from the Croatian point of view); and the brochure _Fiume_,
 arguing for Yugo-Slav claims, published at Paris in 1916 by Count
 Voinovitch and others.

[Illustration: EXPLANATION

Frontier promised to Italy by the Treaty of London (1915) shown thus
......

“Wilson Line” _____________

Proposed Republic of Fiume //////////

Part of Yugo-Slav Frontier ......]


FOOTNOTES:

[57] While these pages were going through the press, the peace treaty
with Hungary was signed on June 4 at the palace of the Grand Trianon at
Versailles.

[58] H. Wickham Steed, _Edinburgh Review_, vol. 222, p. 234.




VIII

THE BALKANS


It was in the Balkans that the World War started; control of the
Balkans was one of the primary objects for which the Central Powers
fought; through the intervention of our Balkan opponents, Turkey
and Bulgaria, the War was prolonged far beyond what would probably
otherwise have been the case; and it was in the Balkans that the
victory of the Entente was earliest and, perhaps, most decisively won.

Nevertheless, the War has produced, or is likely to produce, fewer
and much less sweeping changes of territory in the Balkans than in
the case of Austria-Hungary or Germany. It will probably alter the
map of the Peninsula less than did almost any other of the Balkan
cataclysms of the last hundred years. That is partly because one of our
late enemies, the Sick Man on the Bosporus, had already handed over
so much of his estate to his impatient heirs that in Europe at least
very little remains to be liquidated; while our other enemy at Sofia
possessed very little land that was not Bulgarian in population, and it
was not the policy of the Allies to take away territory simply by way
of retribution. But the main reason why no very large alterations of
frontiers are now in process, is that the most contentious territorial
questions of the Peninsula were settled by the two Balkan wars of
1912-13 and the ensuing Peace of Bucharest. Whether they were rightly
settled at that time is a topic to which I may revert a little
later. At any rate, they were settled in a sense favorable to our
allies, Greece, Serbia, and Roumania. And the most salient feature
of the Balkan settlement made by the Conference at Paris is that it
essentially confirms the settlement made by the Peace of Bucharest.

Bulgaria escapes with far slighter losses than any other member of the
defeated alliance. Nevertheless, she is quite as indignant as any of
the rest of them over the peace treaty imposed upon her (the treaty
signed at Neuilly, November 27, 1919). But she is indignant, not so
much over what she has lost, as over what she has failed to gain. There
is, of course, not a little irony in the fact that at the close of
a war which she entered so perfidiously, conducted so brutally, and
ended so disastrously, Bulgaria should still be clamoring that to the
vanquished belong the spoils, and should be demanding that the Entente
hand over to her, at the expense of its Greek and Serbian allies, the
lands which she hoped to gain by fighting throughout the War on the
side of the Germans. But there is another way of looking at the matter.
Bulgaria and her many friends abroad regard the Peace of Bucharest as
a monstrous iniquity--the dismemberment of the Bulgarian nation at the
hands of its rapacious neighbors. Therefore, it is argued, at a time
when the victorious Allies are remaking the map of Europe on the basis
of the principle of nationality and of impartial even-handed justice,
it is only right that ‘the crime of 1913’ should be undone, and that
Bulgaria should be allowed to attain her national unity, as Greece,
Serbia, and Roumania are doing in such rich measure. And unless that is
done, it is said, there can be no stable peace in the Balkans.

Since the discussion of the new settlement thus turns largely on the
merits of the Peace of Bucharest, it is necessary to revert briefly to
the main facts connected with that treaty.

In the First Balkan War (1912-13), the four small allies--Bulgaria,
Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro--had brought the Turkish giant to earth
with an ease and rapidity that astonished the world, and themselves,
perhaps, most of all. By the peace treaty signed at London May 30,
1913, all of the Turkish possessions in Europe were ceded to the
victors, except for the district along the Straits, bounded by the
famous Enos-Midia line, which was to be left to the Sultan, and
Albania, which was to be made independent--the one case in history of a
people that owes its liberty to Austria-Hungary. As everyone remembers,
there then arose a dispute among the victors as to the distribution of
the spoils. While negotiations were still going on and the other states
were willing to accept the proffered arbitration of Russia, Bulgaria,
carried away by a truly Prussian arrogance and recklessness, attempted
to seize what she wanted by suddenly and treacherously attacking her
late allies. This precipitated the Second Balkan War, in which the
despised Greeks and Serbs were completely victorious, while Roumania
and Turkey also intervened to complete Bulgaria’s discomfiture. The
upshot was the Peace of Bucharest, of August 10, 1913.

By that famous treaty, Macedonia, the chief object of the dispute,
was divided up between Serbia and Greece, the former taking the
northern and central parts, the latter the southern and southeastern.
Bulgaria received only a small fragment of Macedonia--the Strumica
salient--together with some territory in Western Thrace, which gave her
a narrow frontage on the Aegean and the two mediocre harbors of Porto
Lago and Dedeagach. Eastern Thrace, including Adrianople, was restored
to Turkey. Finally, Bulgaria had to cede to Roumania the territory
called the Southern Dobrudja.

The net result was, in the first place, a great shift in the Balkan
balance of power in favor of Greece and Serbia, both of which had
formerly been far smaller and weaker than Bulgaria, but both of which,
after nearly doubling their territories, had now virtually caught up
with their neighbor; and, secondly, that Bulgaria came forth from the
crisis mortally exasperated over the loss of her old territory in the
Dobrudja and of the new territories she had hoped to gain in Thrace
and Macedonia. It is, above all, the Macedonian question that has
rankled in her mind ever since. For many decades Macedonia has been
the Promised Land to the Bulgars: it has undoubtedly meant for them at
least as much as Alsace and Lorraine to the French. Once they had had
it in their grasp, in 1878 when Russia won it for them by the treaty
of San Stefano--and then the Congress of Berlin restored it to Turkey.
Again in 1912 they believed that they had secured it--and it was taken
away from them by their allies. A third time they had it, during the
present War,--and the Peace Conference has restored it to Greece and
Serbia, in accordance with the Peace of Bucharest.

What are the rights and wrongs in the case? Has the Peace Conference
simply perpetuated a great injustice, repeated the mistake of the
Congress of Berlin, deprived the Bulgarians of a province which is
theirs by right of nationality and without which they can never rest?

The Macedonian question has been before the world a sufficiently long
time to have thoroughly wearied most people of it, perhaps, but not
long enough to produce a clear understanding or any real unanimity
of opinion about it. It presents, on the one hand, such a medley
of jarring races, long-standing animosities, and ever-recurring
atrocities, and, on the other hand, such a jumble of ethnographic
riddles, philological controversies, psychological uncertainties,
unreliable statistics, assertions and counter-assertions flatly
contradictory on every point, that one almost despairs of an idea as
to how it ought to be settled, or of the hope of ever seeing it settled
at all.

Macedonia contained in 1910--nobody knows what it contains now, after
the last three wars--over two million people, including about 1,300,000
Slavs, 300,000 Greeks, and scattered minorities of Turks, Albanians,
Vlachs, Jews, and Gypsies. The Greeks predominate in the south and
southeast, and can make out a very good claim on ethnographic grounds
to most of that part of Macedonia which they acquired in 1913. The
dispute turns much more upon central and northern Macedonia, where the
Slavs predominate, and upon the question whether these Slavs ought to
be considered as mainly Bulgarians or Serbs.

For the elucidation of this question, it is necessary to go very far
afield. When the Southern Slavs first settled in the Balkans, they
formed a great, undifferentiated mass, stretching from the Alps and the
Adriatic to the Aegean and the Black Sea--a mass of ethnographic raw
material out of which almost any number of ‘nations’ and ‘languages’
might have been developed in accordance with the accidents of history.
As it turned out, two centres of political crystallization arose--a
northeastern centre, in the region between the Balkan Mountains and
the Danube, where a Turanian people called Bulgars organized the Slavs
into a state to which they--the original Bulgars--contributed little
except the name and the ruling class; and a northwestern centre of
crystallization in Serbia and Montenegro. The modern Serb and the
modern Bulgarian nations are closely akin in language and in blood,
although the Bulgars have a certain Turanian strain in them, while the
Serbs boast of being ‘pure Slavs.’ Sprung from substantially the same
stock, the two nations have throughout their history vied with each
other in trying to draw to themselves as large as possible a part of
their kinsmen; and it is not surprising if the Macedonian Slavs, lying
midway between the two centres of gravitation, have been attracted,
now to the one and now to the other, without ever apparently taking on
completely the imprint of either.

In the Middle Ages, when frontiers in the Balkans were, if possible,
even more fluid than they have been in recent times, Macedonia was
most frequently under the rule of the Greeks. It was, however, held
by Bulgaria from about 860 to 1018 and again for some years in the
thirteenth century; and from about 1260 down to the Turkish conquest
in 1389 it belonged to the Serbian empire. From these rather brief
periods of tenure both nations draw their claims to ‘historic rights’
over Macedonia today, and a fund of proud historic memories which lend
warmth and passion to those claims. King Ferdinand of Bulgaria promoted
himself to be ‘Tsar’ in imitation of the Bulgarian tsars of the Middle
Ages who ruled over Macedonia. The Prince Regent of Serbia today
addresses the Macedonians as “sons of Stephen Dushan,” in allusion to
the great Serbian emperor of the fourteenth century whose capital was
Üsküb in Macedonia. It seems undeniable that the period of Serbian rule
made a much deeper impression on the country than did the Bulgarian.
Not only is Macedonia strewn with churches, monasteries, and works
of art recalling the great days of Serbia, while similar Bulgarian
monuments are almost totally lacking; but the wonderfully rich ballad
literature, through which alone the Macedonian Slavs express whatever
historic memories they have, dwells exclusively upon the heroes of the
Serbian past, with never the mention of a Bulgarian.

At any rate, the ensuing five hundred years of stagnation and isolation
under Turkish rule afforded the Macedonians ample time to forget which
of their kinsmen they preferred to be associated with, and to lose
whatever national consciousness they had possessed. When the Serb and
Bulgarian national revivals began in the early nineteenth century,
Macedonia was more or less no-man’s-land; and either movement might
sweep the field, provided it got started early enough. Fortune seemed
for a while to be with the Bulgarians. For many years all of Russia’s
powerful influence was cast in their favor, since Russia regarded the
Serbs as Austria’s protégés. The Turks also thought it very clever to
favor the Bulgarians, who seldom or never revolted, against the Serbs
who never did anything else but rebel. Hence the Bulgarians got the
start, and for some decades they could conduct religious, educational,
and nationalist work in Macedonia, while Serb influences were in the
main barred out. What particularly helped the process of Bulgarization
was the formation in 1870 of the independent Bulgarian (or Exarchist)
church, a body which could offer the Macedonian Slavs the things which
they seem to have craved above all others at that time: emancipation
from the Greek clergy, and the church service in a tongue which they
could understand. Hence a general stampede to the Exarchist church,
restrained only by the calculation that it was materially more
expensive to get christened, married, or buried by that businesslike
body than by the old Patriarchist or Greek church. Once inside the
Exarchist fold, you were regarded by the authorities as a Bulgarian and
taught by your religious superiors that you must feel yourself one.

After the formation of the new Bulgarian state in 1878, the Bulgarian
nationalist propaganda in Macedonia went forward with redoubled vigor.
It was carried on from Sofia and from the seat of the Exarchate at
Constantinople with all the means and by all the devices that the
government and the church could bring to bear. Meanwhile the Turks,
somewhat disillusioned as to the harmlessness of their Bulgarian
protégés and always experts at the art of playing the Christians off
against each other, determined to open the door to rival influences.
Hence in the late ’80s and the ’90s the Serbs could at last rush in
and strive to make up for lost time by organizing a rival propaganda,
with all the paraphernalia of Serbian bishops, churches, schools, etc.
As the Greeks were also busily engaged in the same kind of work, the
Macedonian question then entered that acute phase which so delighted
the Turks and wore out the nerves of Europe--that desperate and
sanguinary mêlée, in which the three rival races strove to spread their
‘national culture,’ not only by furiously proselytizing the unfortunate
Macedonians, but by exterminating each other. It must be admitted that
in both forms of activity the Bulgarians came out ahead. Not only did
their _komitadjis_ dominate the blood-stained field, but they had
a network of schools and churches quite surpassing either of their
rivals. Refugees from Macedonia also seem to have fled to Bulgaria
in larger numbers than to Serbia or Greece; and indeed they formed a
very active and influential element at Sofia, which did not permit the
Bulgarian government to forget the Macedonian question for a moment.

On the eve of the Balkan Wars, the situation might be summarized
by saying that a section of the Macedonian Slavs had more or less
warmly adopted the Bulgarian cause, and another, probably smaller,
section, the Serbian cause, and--it seems to me--the great mass of
this population was still lying inert and undecided, untouched by any
schools, chiefly concerned about peace and its daily bread, prepared to
go with either party that should prove the stronger. So much for the
sentiments of the population.

Both sides have also appealed to other arguments to prove that all
Slavic Macedonia ought to belong to them. Endless controversy has raged
over the question whether its people speak Bulgarian or Serbian. It has
been triumphantly demonstrated, on the one hand, that the Macedonians
are Bulgars because they use a definite article and do not inflect
their nouns; but it has also been conclusively shown that they are
Serbs by all the laws of morphology and phonetics. In fact, the best
philological judgment seems to be that these people speak a series of
dialects intermediate between Bulgarian and Serbian, gradually shading
off from one into the other; and that they can without much difficulty
understand either language.

Equally inconclusive are the arguments based on popular customs.
Although it has been attempted, one will never solve the Macedonian
question by proving that marriage, burial, and saint’s day customs in
this region are strikingly Serbian, or that the female costumes and the
embroidery worn by the ladies are unmistakably Bulgarian. In customs as
in language, this is simply a transitional area with affinities with
both its neighbors.

It is therefore a rather tragic thing that for a generation or two
the public in Bulgaria has been trained to think that Macedonia is a
fundamentally Bulgarian country pining for liberation. The feeling on
that subject has been all the more intense because this was almost the
only region that could be considered as unredeemed Bulgaria. Bulgarian
patriotism could concentrate and specialize on Macedonia. Serbian
feeling about the country was formerly not quite so strong, perhaps,
since Serbia had so many other unredeemed kinsmen to ponder over--in
Bosnia first and foremost. At any rate, since the events of the last
seven years, after they have fought three wars for the possession of
Macedonia, the Serbs now entertain feelings about that country that are
not a bit less ardent and intransigent than those of the Bulgarians.

Those three wars--or the last two at least--can hardly be left out of
the account. If before 1913 the Macedonian problem might be considered
an open question, with the balance of rights inclining somewhat
in favor of the Bulgarians, it would seem that today Serbia has
acquired, by blood and suffering, titles that can scarcely be denied.
After Bulgaria’s two perfidious attacks--the first one in 1913 so
indefensible that prominent Bulgarians have since called it “an act of
insane folly,” “a fratricidal crime,” and the second one in 1915 hardly
less dastardly, for it was a blow in the back when Serbia was fighting
for her life against the Austro-German onslaught--; after Bulgaria
has conducted her wars with a savagery worthy of her allies and joined
in what seems little less than a deliberate effort to exterminate the
Serbian nation; after Bulgaria, in her moments of apparent triumph, has
loudly announced the intention to appropriate not only Macedonia but
half of the older Serbia as well; and after Serbia’s so desperate and
gallant struggle and final brilliant victory--it may be all very well
for the beaten Bulgar to present himself, with Wilsonian phrases to
replace his old Prussian ones, and say, “Let’s have peace and make up,
and you give me all we’ve been fighting for”; but it would be more than
human nature could expect, or than strict justice, I think, can demand,
that Serbia or her Allies should grant his request.

It is another question, of course, whether this outcome will make
for permanent peace in the Balkans. Much will depend on the degree
of generosity and tact that the Serbs may show in dealing with those
Macedonians who have come to feel themselves Bulgars, and with the
probably larger mass who as yet have no definite national consciousness
of any kind. There is reasonable ground for hope, I think, that, if
peace continues for a generation or so, the majority of the Macedonians
can be won over by quite legitimate means to Serbian nationality.

Rather different, perhaps, is the case of another territory lost by
Bulgaria at the treaty of Bucharest, and which she has again failed to
recover--the Southern Dobrudja. Apart from the one city of Silistria
(with 14,000 people), this small territory would seem to be of little
value to anybody. It contains, however, over 100,000 Bulgarians as
against only 6000 Roumanians; moreover, it is of strategic importance.
Roumania’s motive for demanding it in 1913 was to protect the railway
leading to her chief port, Constanza, a line which was at one point
only about twenty miles from the old Bulgarian frontier. But through
the cession then made, the danger was merely shifted to the other
side. It is now Bulgaria’s chief Black Sea port, Varna, and the
railway serving it that are menaced, for the Roumanian frontier comes
within about ten miles of them. Hence the American delegation at Paris
endeavored to have the frontier of 1913 corrected so that neither side
would be in danger. But Roumania displayed a certain obstinacy, and
the Conference, not wishing to complicate much more serious questions
then pending between it and Roumania, shelved the Dobrudja matter,
intimating, however, that it might be taken up later in connection with
the problem of Bessarabia.

Not only has Bulgaria failed to regain her losses of 1913, but the new
Peace Treaty deprives her of some bits of territory that have hitherto
belonged to her. Serbia has secured some small rectifications of the
frontier established in 1913, all of them for strategic reasons. One of
them, in the valley of the River Strumica, was very genuinely needed,
for at that point the old frontier came within about six miles of the
Belgrade-Salonica railway, and what this means is shown by the fact
that in the first year of the Great War, before Bulgaria officially
entered the contest, this all-important railroad was almost cut by
a raid of Bulgarian _komitadjis_. The other chief rectification,
in the Pirot-Tsaribrod basin, seems more questionable, and has the
disadvantage of bringing the frontier even nearer to Sofia than has
been the case since 1878.

A more considerable loss to Bulgaria, though not necessarily a
definitive one, is that of the territory in Western Thrace which she
acquired in 1913. To this question I shall come back in a moment in
connection with the whole problem of Thrace. As a preliminary to that,
however, it seems necessary to say a word as to the general situation
and claims of Greece.

       *       *       *       *       *

While the Balkan settlement now being effected at Paris is in the main
a confirmation of that of 1913, some new departures have been made
or are in prospect; and these relate almost wholly to the problem of
Greek irredentism. For if Roumanian or Serbian national unity could be
attained chiefly by the acquisition of former Austrian and Hungarian
territories, the question of Greek national unity involves primarily
further changes of territory in the Balkans.

It has been estimated by Mr. Venizelos that the Hellenic nation today
comprises over eight million people, of whom only 55% live in the
kingdom of Greece. Of the rest about one million are widely dispersed
all over the world; nearly two millions reside in Asia Minor and
Cyprus--lands outside the scope of this survey; there are 100,000 in
the Dodecanesus, those Aegean islands which Italy certainly should,
and probably will, transfer to Greece. There remain, as unredeemed
Greek populations in the Balkans, about 731,000 people in Thrace and
at Constantinople, and about 151,000 in Northern Epirus and Southern
Albania. All told, Greece hopes to liberate about two millions of her
kinsmen as a result of the War, and to bring it about that at least
75% of the race, that portion which is gathered in the lands about the
Aegean, should live united in the Hellenic kingdom.

On the northwest Greece lays claims to that territory which she calls
Northern Epirus and which her opponents call Southern Albania: a
territory which she fought for in 1912-13, but which the Powers at
that time, under Austro-Italian influence, awarded to Albania. This
district contains two important towns, Koritza and Argyrocastro, and a
total population of about 120,000 Orthodox Christians and 80-100,000
Mohammedans. It seems to be fairly well agreed that the Mohammedans are
and feel themselves to be Albanians, and that most of the Christians
also speak Albanian in their homes as their mother tongue. The Greeks
claim however, that these Christian Epirotes read and write only Greek
and are really bilingual; that by their religion, culture, historic
traditions, and their ardent Hellenic patriotism today, they are
essentially Greeks, and belong to Greece by the same right as Alsace
and Lorraine to France. All of this the Albanian spokesmen, of course,
strenuously deny. They maintain that this is a thoroughly and devotedly
Albanian population, whose separation from the rest of the Shkypetars
would be among the most glaring of the many mutilations that this
much-tried nation has had to endure.

Nothing is more difficult than to ascertain the sentiments of a
population among whom such a thing as a genuinely free election has
never been known, propaganda and terrorism are the most common things
in the world, and the rifle has hitherto been the principal means
of settling questions. Albanian nationalism is so new and Albanian
education so much a novelty of yesterday that perhaps the Albanians
have never had a fair chance. At any rate, the balance of evidence
so far seems to favor the Greeks. Almost all the schools in the
contested area are Greek; the predominance of the pro-Greek element
in the intellectual and economic life of the country can scarcely be
disputed; the manifestations of Greek sentiment, especially at Koritza,
have been impressive; and most impressive of all, perhaps, was the
uprising of the Northern Epirotes in 1913, when Europe tried to place
them under Albanian rule and then found itself unable to make them
submit to it. At all events, the Paris Conference did not arrive at an
agreement about this question. While the British and French advocated
transferring all of Northern Epirus to Greece, the Italians stood out
for leaving it to Albania, and the Americans advocated a compromise
solution, which would have ceded the southern, Argyrocastro district
to Greece, while leaving to Albania the northern district of Koritza,
which some people have called the intellectual centre of Albanian
nationalism.

Albania is menaced with some other losses. There has been talk of
forming her northern territories into a separate autonomous province
under the protection of Yugo-Slavia. Something might be said for this
project from the economic standpoint, since, through the control of
the Drin valley and the ports at its mouth, Serbia would obtain the
only relatively easy outlet to the sea south of Fiume. The Drin valley
has usually been taken as the western starting-point in plans for an
Adriatic-Transbalkan railway. But from every other standpoint, the
project in question seems objectionable in the extreme. Whatever may
be the case in Epirus, no one can claim that the North Albanians are
devotees of Serbian culture or have any feelings towards the Serbs
save ancient and bitter hostility. One could hardly think of a more
successful device for creating a permanent storm centre in the Balkans.

A more certain territorial loss to Albania is that of the port of
Avlona, which Italy occupied in 1914, and which she assuredly will be
allowed to keep. After all, her possession of it is no more unnatural
than England’s position at Gibraltar or our own at Panama. Furthermore,
it is probable that Italy will receive some kind of mandate from the
Allies or from the League of Nations to supervise Albania. It is pretty
generally admitted, even by the Albanians themselves, that this nascent
and terribly backward state needs a protector; and since our government
has been unable to assume that rôle, as the Albanians would have
preferred to see us do, both we and they can scarcely object to Italy’s
undertaking it.

To return to the subject of Greek claims--the main object of Mr.
Venizelos’ diplomacy at Paris was the question of Thrace. This was
a double-barrelled problem, for it referred both to the territory
which fell to Bulgaria in 1913, which we call Western Thrace, and to
Eastern Thrace, which means all that is left of Turkey in Europe except
Constantinople.

Here again we are in a region of statistical chaos and ethnographic
nightmares. The racial problems of Thrace are as bad as those of
Macedonia--worse in fact, since they are so new and unfamiliar.
We know in a general way that throughout both the Thraces Turks,
Greeks, and to a less extent Bulgarians are scattered about with a
promiscuity that almost defies analysis or conclusions. The racial
statistics available--the Turkish census of 1910, the Greek Patriarch’s
statistical estimates of 1912, and the Bulgarian census in Western
Thrace for 1914--make it a point never to agree on a single item.
Religious factors add to the confusion. In Western Thrace there is a
large population called the Pomaks: people who are probably Bulgarian
in race and speech, but who are Moslems in religion and in their
_Weltanschauung_. Ought they to be counted as sterling Bulgarian
patriots, as people at Sofia maintain; or rather as Turks, as
Constantinople and Athens consider them? Finally, after all the wars,
migrations, and massacres of the last eight years, one may well doubt
whether any of the three censuses mentioned could claim to represent
the existing situation, even assuming that they were honestly made in
the first place.

At all events, one point in this chaos is tolerably clear. In Eastern
Thrace the Greeks have the best claim on the basis of nationality,
if one takes as the criterion the situation before the Balkan Wars.
Speaking very roughly, they may then have numbered about 400,000, as
against some 250,000 Turks and only about 50,000 Bulgarians. Not only
did the Greeks hold virtually the entire coast, even on the side of
the Black Sea; but in the interior they formed the matrix of this
strange agglomeration, in which the Turkish and Bulgarian enclaves were
embedded.

In Western Thrace the question is more difficult. The answer to it
depends on whose statistics one thinks least unreliable, and largely
on whether one counts the Pomaks as Bulgars or Turks. The Pomaks are
rather less known to us than the tribes of Central Africa; but if
one may judge of their sentiments today by what little is known of
their behavior in the past, one would hesitate to put them down as
Bulgarians. At any rate, one is faced here by Mr. Venizelos’ estimates:
a total population of about 400,000, made up of 285,000 Turks, 70,000
Greeks, and 59,000 Bulgarians; and, on the other side, the Bulgarian
census purporting to show 210,000 Turks, 185,000 Bulgarians (including
70,000 Pomaks) and only 32,000 Greeks. In fact the latest Bulgarian
estimates do not admit the existence of any Greeks at all here: which
leaves one free to make any one of several unpleasant conjectures as
to what the Bulgars have done with them. A slight Greek majority over
the Bulgarians is claimed by the one side, then; and a large Bulgarian
preponderance is claimed by the other.

The question also has an economic and a political aspect. If Bulgaria
is deprived of Western Thrace, she will be shut off from the Aegean
Sea, which certainly forms her shortest and most natural outlet to the
Western world. It is true, as the Greeks point out, that Bulgaria has
several ports on the Black Sea, and as the Straits are surely going to
be placed under international control and freely opened to all nations,
Bulgaria will not be cut off from external communications. Moreover,
Greece is willing to offer her special commercial rights, to be defined
by the Powers, in certain Greek ports on the Aegean. But this quite
naturally does not satisfy the Bulgars. They maintain that if they were
to be deprived of their one direct and secure access to the open sea,
this would be a disaster and an affront from which their people would
never recover.

This raises, of course, the political question. From the standpoint
of nationality, it would seem only just to award Eastern Thrace to
Greece, and perhaps at least the southern half of Western Thrace as
well. The Greeks ardently desire this, both for the sake of liberating
their kinsmen, and also, doubtless, in order to build a bridge towards
Constantinople, the glittering prize of the future, which is always
dangling before Greek eyes. But beyond this narrow isthmus of Hellenism
along the north Aegean coast, there would always be the lowering
Bulgarian giant, thirsting to recover what he considers to be the key
to his house. Whatever be the rights and wrongs in the case, a very
severe strain is being put upon Bulgaria’s self-control by the present
settlement of the Macedonian question. If, in addition, Bulgaria were
to be permanently stripped of the territory she already possesses on
the Aegean, the resulting dangers to the peace of the Balkans would be
obvious.

For some such reasons, and since the ethnographic situation in Western
Thrace was so uncertain, the American representatives at Paris, as is
well known, stood out against the attribution of this territory to
Greece. Finally, a compromise was arranged by which, in the treaty of
Neuilly, Bulgaria was made simply to cede the disputed territory to
the Principal Allied and Associated Powers. What they will do with
it remains, apparently, still unsettled. It may pass to Greece; it
may ultimately be restored to Bulgaria; conceivably it may be joined
to Eastern Thrace to form an internationally controlled autonomous
state. In any case, this is likely to remain one of the danger-zones of
Eastern Europe.

The fate of Eastern Thrace is still awaiting the conclusion
of peace with Turkey and the settlement of the far greater
problem--Constantinople. That most tantalizing of questions has gone
through some astonishing phases since 1913. Seven years ago the Bulgar
was thundering at the lines of Chatalja, and Tsar Ferdinand was said
to be ordering the diadem with which he was to be crowned in St.
Sophia. Five years ago the Russian solution was at last accepted by
England and France, though those states for a century had seemed to
believe that the establishment of the Muscovites on the Bosporus would
mean the end of everything. Then after the collapse of Russia and of
Turkey people talked only of sending the Turk “bag and baggage” back to
Asia and of establishing a small international state on the straits,
with the United States as mandatory. This project seems now to be
beyond the range of possibilities. The next best plan would seem to
be to install the Greeks, who from the standpoint of history and of
population statistics have at least as good a right to be there as the
Turks, and from the standpoint of their general utility in the world
an infinitely better right. But the news dispatches of the last month
foreshadow that the drama will end with an anti-climax. Since England
and France are each unwilling to allow the other to control this
coveted position, since both are rather sceptical of Greece’s present
fitness for so responsible a rôle, and England moreover is disquieted
by certain possible repercussions in India and elsewhere, it now seems
to be agreed that the Sultan is to remain in Constantinople. Once more,
the Turk is to make good his claim to having nine lives, and from the
old cause--the rivalries of the Christians. There will doubtless be
elaborate arrangements about neutralizing and internationalizing the
straits, and the Sultan will issue whole batches of paper reforms; but
I fear that many people will be inclined to echo the words of the late
President Roosevelt, that (after the close of the War), “it would be a
betrayal of civilization to leave the Turks in Europe.”

       *       *       *       *       *

I do not wish, however, to end upon a note of pessimism. Whatever
mistakes may have been made in connection with the territorial problems
of Eastern Europe--and some mistakes were inevitable, in view of the
tremendous multiplicity and complexity of the problems raised--the
general outcome represents an immense gain for the cause of liberty and
nationality. The dream which haunted Mazzini and so many other liberals
of fifty years ago--the transformation of the four great despotisms
of Eastern Europe--Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Turkey--into a world
of free, self-determining national states--has now been in large part
realized. The unification of Italy, delayed for half a century, is
now virtually finished; and from the Baltic to the Aegean there has
been built up a tier of national states, which may perhaps set a check
upon any recrudescence of Pan-Germanism, and which some people have
called ‘the new bulwark of liberty in the East.’ Of course, fears are
expressed as to ‘the Balkanization of Eastern Europe.’ But if that
charge implies a disintegration of the older units into a large number
of small and permanently feeble states, the complaint is scarcely well
founded. After all, in the area considered in these lectures, only
two really new states have been created. In the main, the effort has
been to round out older ones so as to make their political frontiers
coincide with their ethnographic ones, to unite rather than to
divide. As a result we have Poland, with about thirty million people;
Czecho-Slovakia with twelve to thirteen millions; Roumania with fifteen
millions; Yugo-Slavia with twelve to thirteen millions; Greece, which
may attain six to seven millions;--results which scarcely fit in with
the charge of Balkanization.

Whatever mistakes there may have been, whatever selfish interests have
occasionally come unpleasantly to light, I think it may be justly
affirmed that on no similar occasion in the past has so earnest and
systematic an effort been made to settle territorial questions on the
basis, not of the interests or the convenience of the Great Powers, but
of the rights and aspirations of the peoples directly concerned; that
the Peace Conference at Paris has liberated and unified more nations
than any previous European congress, or all the congresses of the last
century taken together; and that the principle of nationality has never
before won so sweeping and signal a victory.


 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

 In view of the fact that most of the numerous ethnographic maps of
 the Balkan Peninsula are works of propaganda or else are copied from
 earlier works so that they often have no independent value, it is
 a not inessential precaution to consult the article by Haardt von
 Hartenturm, “Die Kartographie der Balkanhalbinsel im 19. Jht.,”
 in the _Mitteilungen des k. k. Militär-geographischen Instituts_,
 xxi, Vienna, 1901. The later maps are enumerated by Jovan Cvijić
 in his article, “Die ethnographische Abgrenzung der Völker auf der
 Balkanhalbinsel,” in _Petermanns Mitteilungen_, 1913 (i).

 This latter article is accompanied by the author’s own ethnographic
 map of the Peninsula, which represents the conclusions of the most
 eminent and one of the most moderate of Serbian scholars. Professor
 Cvijić has published another map of the same character in the
 _Geographical Review_, May, 1918.

 A large Bulgarian work obviously designed for propagandist purposes
 is the atlas of forty maps, accompanied by explanatory text, entitled
 _The Bulgarians in their Historical, Ethnographical, and Political
 Frontiers_, published at Berlin in 1917, in German, French, English,
 and Russian, by a group of scholars headed by D. Rizoff. (Cf. the
 critical observations on this work by Professor Beliċ, _Les Cartes
 ethnographiques au service de la propagande bulgare_. Paris, 1918.)

 A similar historic and ethnographic atlas for Roumania has been
 referred to in the bibliography for Chapter VII.

 The geography of the Peninsula is described by Jovan Cvijić, _La
 Péninsule balkanique, géographie humaine_, Paris, 1918; and Marion
 Newbigin, _Geographical Aspects of Balkan Problems in their Relation
 to the Great European War_, 2d impression, London, 1915.

 From the mass of excellent historical works dealing with the Balkans,
 one would commend especially: N. Forbes, A. J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany,
 and D. G. Hogarth: _The Balkans, a History of Bulgaria, Serbia,
 Greece, Rumania, Turkey_, Oxford, 1915; J. A. R. Marriott, _The
 Eastern Question, an Historical Study in European Diplomacy_, Oxford,
 1917; R. W. Seton-Watson, The Rise of Nationality in the Balkans,
 London, 1917; and (Baron) L. H. C. Courtney (editor), _Nationalism and
 War in the Near East, by a Diplomatist_. Oxford, 1916.

 The aspirations, claims, and policy of Bulgaria have received their
 most moderate and candid presentation from “Historicus,” _Bulgaria and
 her Neighbors_, New York, 1917; and G. C. Logio, _Bulgaria: Problems
 and Politics_, New York, 1919.

 There is a fairly detailed map showing the new frontiers of Bulgaria
 as fixed by the treaty of Neuilly in the _Geographical Journal_,
 February, 1920.

 On the situation and claims of Greece, see Charles Vellay,
 _L’Irrédentisme hellénique_, Paris, 1913; and “Polybius,” _Greece
 before the Conference_, London, 1919.

 The literature of the Macedonian question is enormous. Among
 pre-War works on the subject by impartial outsiders, one would name
 especially: Victor Bérard, _La Turquie et l’hellénisme contemporain_,
 Paris, 1896, and _La Macédoine_, Paris, 1897; H. N. Brailsford,
 _Macedonia, its Races and their Future_, London, 1906; and G.
 Amadori-Virgilj, _La Questione rumeliota_, vol. i, Bitonto, 1908 (also
 very useful on Albania and Epirus). The Bulgarian claims to Macedonia
 are set forth notably by “A. Ofeikov” (pseudonym for Šopov), _La
 Macédoine au point de vue ethnographique, historique et philologique_,
 Philippopolis, 1887; S. Radeff, _La Macédoine et la renaissance
 bulgare au XIXᵉ siècle_, Sofia, 1918; and V. Sís, _Mazedonien, eine
 Studie über Geographie, Geschichte, Volkskunde ..._, Zurich, 1918. The
 Serbian point of view is presented by T. R. Georgevitch, _Macedonia_,
 London, 1918; Jovan Cvijić, _Questions balkaniques_, Paris, 1916; and
 A. Belić, _La Macédoine, études ethnographiques et politiques_, Paris,
 1919. For the Greek side of the case, see M. Paillares, _L’Imbroglio
 macédonien_, Paris, 1907; and S. P. Phocas-Cosmetatos, _La Macédoine,
 son passé et son présent_, Paris, 1919.

 Regarding the Dobrudja question, the Roumanian claims are set forth
 by N. P. Comnène, _La Dobrogea: essai historique, économique,
 ethnographique, et politique_, Paris, 1918; and the Bulgarian
 standpoint is upheld by A. Ishirkov, _Les Bulgares en Dobrudja; aperçu
 historique et ethnographique_, Berne, 1919.

 On the question of Northern Epirus (or Southern Albania) one may
 consult, for the Greek side, N. J. Cassavetes, _The Question of
 Northern Epirus at the Peace Conference_, Boston, 1919; and R. Puaux,
 _The Sorrows of Epirus_, London, 1918. The Albanian point of view in
 this and other questions is set forth by C. A. Chekrezi, _Albania Past
 and Present_, New York, 1919; C. A. Dako, _Albania, the Master Key
 to the Near East_, Boston, 1919; and in the _Memorandum submitted by
 the Albanian Delegation to the Peace Conference_ (published by the
 Association for International Conciliation, American Branch, New York,
 1919: no. 138 of their series).

 Very little has yet been published on the question of Thrace. The most
 useful compendium of maps, statistics, and historical and ethnographic
 data about it is _The Question of Thrace: Greeks, Bulgars, and Turks_,
 by J. Saxon Mills and M. G. Chrussachi, London, 1919 (primarily based
 on Bulgarian data, used to refute Bulgarian claims).

 On the problem of the Straits, the best treatment--both historical and
 analytical--is probably to be found in the recent volume by Coleman
 Philippson and Noel Buxton, _The Question of the Bosphorus and the
 Dardanelles_, London, 1917. A brief but excellent essay is A. C.
 Coolidge’s _Claimants to Constantinople_, Cambridge, Mass., 1917.

 The London _Times_ of May 12, 1920, contains a rather full account of
 the terms of the treaty of peace with Turkey, which have just been
 officially presented to the Ottoman government. These proposed terms
 have been given out too late to be considered in the text of the
 present volume.

[Illustration:

  VI

MAP OF THE BALKANS]




INDEX


  Aabenraa, 42.

  Adrianople, 266.

  Adriatic question, the, 225, 244-262.

  Adriatic Sea, the, 206, 225, 268.

  Adriatic territories, 213, 244-262, 280f.

  Adriatic-Transbalkan railway, proposed, 280.

  Aegean Sea, the, 266, 268, 278, 283, 284, 287.

  Africa, 9.

  Agram, 248, 257.

  Albania, 265, 278-281, 290.

  Albanians, 268, 278-281.

  Albert of Hohenzollern, first duke of Prussia (1525-68), 162.

  Alexander Karageorgevich, prince regent of Serbia, 269f.

  Alexandria, 182.

  Alföld, plain of the, 231, 232.

  Alpine racial type, the, 16, 86, 87, 119.

  Alps, the, 20, 211, 222, 225, 244, 268.

  Alsace, 12, 16, 76, 77, 78f., 87, 91, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 101, 117,
  119, 120, 123, 133.
    _See_ Alsace-Lorraine.

  Alsace-Lorraine, 17, 29, 75-116, 132, 134, 136, 139, 150, 187, 267,
  279.

  American Geographical Society, the, 23.

  Amsterdam, 63.

  Anarchy, 5f., 204.

  Antwerp, 54, 62, 63, 65.

  Arc de Triomphe, the, 4.

  Argyrocastro, 278, 280.

  Armenia, 226.

  Armenians, 166.

  Arndt, E. M., 118.

  Arva, 188, 213.

  Asia, 9, 210, 285.

  Asia Minor, 15, 17, 278.

  Athens, 282.

  Augustus Caesar, 201.

  Aulard, F. A., 138.

  ‘Ausonian Republic,’ 247.

  Austria, 3, 11, 33, 38, 39, 67, 91, 93, 94, 159, 171, 201-229, 244,
  246, 250, 256, 270, 277, 287.

  Austria-Hungary, 6, 14, 17, 188-191, 203-210, 248, 265.

  Austrian Netherlands, the, 52.

  Austrian Silesia, 158, 212, 216, 219.

  Autonomy, 106, 207, 238, 280, 285.

  Avlona, 281.


  Baden, 12, 76, 121, 122, 123.

  Bagdad, 242.

  Baker, R. S., 34.

  Balkans, the, 15, 17, 20, 238, 245, 263-290.

  Balkan wars, the, of 1912-13, 263f., 265f., 267, 282, 285.

  Ballad literature, of the Macedonian Slavs, 270.

  Baltic provinces, the, 17.

  Baltic Sea, the, 157, 159, 161, 162, 164, 167, 178, 179, 180, 181,
  287.

  Banat of Temesvár, the, 240.

  Barker, J. E., quoted, 202.

  Baruch, B. M., 24.

  Basel, 122.

  Basque region, the, 90.

  Bas-Rhin, department of the, 114.

  Bavaria, 79, 121, 124, 132, 144.

  Belfort, 104, 105.

  Belgian Congo, the, 71.

  Belgium, 11, 48-73, 90, 93, 121, 122, 131.

  Belgrade, 240, 248, 277.

  Belleau Wood, 5.

  _Bellum omnium contra omnes_, 205.

  Benson, W. S., 25.

  Berlin, 140, 145, 191, 192, 207;
    congress of (1878), 9, 267.

  Bernhoft, H. A., 42.

  Bessarabia, 276.

  Birkenfeld, principality of, 124.

  Bismarck, Prince Otto, 38f., 101, 153, 154;
    quoted, 100, 212.

  Black Sea, the, 167, 238, 268, 276, 282, 283.

  Blockade, problems of, 5.

  Böcking, family, 137.

  Böcking, H., 136, 151.

  Bohemia, 18f., 93, 211, 212, 213-222, 223.

  Bolsheviki, the, 169, 195f.

  Bolshevism, 6, 237.

  Bosnia, 242, 260.

  Bosporus, the, 263, 285.

  Botzen, 225.

  Bowman, I., 23, 34.

  Brandenburg, 79, 162.

  Bremen, 182.

  Brenner Pass, the, 225.

  Brest, 7.

  Brest-Litovsk, treaty of (1918), 191.

  Breusch, the, 88.

  Bridges and bridgeheads, Rhine, 128, 129, 130.

  Briey, 13, 103, 104, 112.

  Brindisi, 255.

  British Isles, the, 11, 17.

  Brittany, 90.

  Britten, 147.

  Brixen, 225.

  Brockdorff-Rantzau, Count von, 120.

  Bryce, Viscount, 6.

  Bucharest, peace of (1913), 264, 266, 267, 275.

  Budapest, 237, 242, 246, 258.

  Bülow, Prince von, 187.

  Buffer state, proposed, on the Rhine, 128f.

  Bulgaria, 3, 11, 14, 208, 263-277, 281-285, 288ff.

  Bulgarian church, the, 271f.

  Bulgarians, 264-277, 280-285.

  Bundesrat, the German, 81.

  ‘Burgundian gate,’ the, 105.

  Burgundy, 51.

  Butler, R., quoted, 197.


  Caesar, Julius, 8.

  Carbonari, the, 247.

  Carinthia, 229, 244.

  Carniola, 13, 244.

  Carnot, L. N. M., 118.

  Carpathians, the, 157, 163, 164, 188, 191, 211.

  ‘Carpatho-Ruthenian nation,’ the, 238.

  Casimir IV, king of Poland (1447-92), 161.

  Castlereagh, Viscount, 5.

  Catholics, in Alsace-Lorraine, 77, 113;
    Croats and Slovenes, 242;
    French, 129;
    Poles, 185;
    in the Rhineland, 129;
    among the White Russians, 196;
    in Zealand Flanders, 65.

  Cattaro, 247, 254.

  Cavour, Count di, 247.

  Celtic speech and blood, 17;
    Celtic character of the Left Bank, 118.

  Census-takers, perversions of fact by, 17, 44, 159, 170, 173f., 213,
  232f., 249f., 282, 283.

  Central Africa, 283.

  Central Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine, the, 121ff., 150.

  Central Territorial Commission, the, 30.

  Ceramic wares, 54, 137.

  Cereals, 53.

  Champs-Elysées, the, 4.

  Charlemagne, 201.

  Charles, emperor of Austria, 106, 207, 209.

  Charles V, Holy Roman emperor, 51, 78, 201.

  Charlotte, grand duchess of Luxemburg, 58, 60.

  Chatalja, lines of, 285.

  Château-Thierry, 5.

  Chemical products, 54.

  Chéradame, A., 205, n. 1, 228.

  Chiches, the, 250.

  Cisleithania, 203-229.

  Civil War, the, 15.

  Clémenceau, G., 26, 27, 107, 128.

  Cleves, 66, 125.

  Coal, 13, 53, 58, 61, 77, 80, 101, 112, 113, 117, 131, 134-148, 152,
  186, 197, 221.

  Code, German civil, of 1900, 113.

  Code Napoléon, the, 126.

  Colmar, 89.

  Cologne, archbishopric of, 124.

  Colonial rivalries, 20.

  Comité d’Etudes, the, 23, 35, 115, 116, 151, 152.

  Comité de la Rive Gauche du Rhin, 118.

  Commissions, 28-31.

  Committees, special, 29, 30.

  Communication, related to boundary problems, 12.

  Concordat of 1801, the, 113.

  _Condominium_, in Moresnet, 57;
    on the Scheldt, 63ff.;
    suggested, in Lorraine, 112.

  ‘Congress Kingdom’ of Poland, the, 158, 159, 171, 195, 197.

  Connecticut, 76.

  Consciousness of kind, 13, 16, 90.

  Consistency, Bismarck on, 212.

  Constance, Lake of, 122.

  Constantinople, 242, 271, 278, 282, 284, 285f., 290.

  Constanza, 276.

  Constitution of the United States, the, 32.

  Convention of 1787, the, 32.

  Copper, 113.

  Cotton manufacture, 54, 76.

  Council of Five, the, 27, 30, 33.

  Council of Four, the, 27-30, 33, 50.

  Council of Ten, the, 25ff., 29, 30, 33, 42, 50, 68.

  Cracow, 164.

  Croatia, 233, 241f., 257.

  Croats, 233, 241f., 246, 250, 253, 257, 258.

  Crown of St. Stephen, lands of the, 214, n. 1.

  Crown of St. Wenceslaus, lands of the, 219.

  ‘Culture,’ propagation of, in Hungary, 233;
    in Macedonia, 272;
    in Schleswig, 39.

  Currency, depreciation of, 48.

  Curzola, 248.

  Cyprus, 278.

  Cyrillic characters, 241.

  Czecho-Slovakia, 12, 156, 188, 210, 213-222, 237f., 287.

  Czecho-Slovaks, 207, 208, 209, 212, 228.

  Czechs, 166, 202, 213-222.


  Dacia, 239.

  Dalmatia, 29, 244, 245f., 247, 248, 251-256, 260, 261, 262.

  Danish-Americans, letter of President Wilson to, 42.

  Danish language, the, 17, 37, 39f.

  Dannevirke, the, 42.

  Danton, G. J., 118.

  Danube, the, 12, 20, 225, 237, 240, 268.

  Danzig, 21, 157, 161, 173, n. 1, 180-185, 223.

  Darmstadt, 97.

  Davis, N. H., 24.

  Dedeagach, 266.

  Delaware, 37.

  Delbrück, H., quoted, 187f.

  Demilitarization of the Left Bank, 130.

  Denis, E., quoted, 127.

  Denmark, 37-47, 48, 72.

  Dillon, E. J., 25, n. 1, 34.

  Dinaric Alps, the, 244.

  Disraeli, B., 154.

  District of Columbia, the, 145.

  _Divide et impera_, 191, 205.

  Dixon, W. M., 23.

  Dnieper, the, 157, 161, 164, 182, 196.

  Dniester, the, 182.

  Dobrudja, the, 266, 276, 290.

  Dodecanesus, the, 278.

  Doge of Venice, the, 252.

  Donon, Mount, 88.

  Doubs, the, 105.

  Drafting Commission, the, 36.

  _Drang nach Osten_, the Germanic, 160.

  Drave, the, 223.

  Drin, the, 260, 280.

  Dualism, in Austria-Hungary, 203f., 234.

  Dunkirk, 90.

  _Dux Dalmatiae_, 252.

  Dvina, the, 157, 164.


  Eastern Galicia, 189-195.

  ‘Eastern Marches,’ the, of Prussia, 173, 187.

  Eastern Thrace, 266, 281, 282, 284, 285f.

  East Friesland, 66.

  East India Company, Austria likened to, 203.

  East Prussia, 12, 158, 161, 162, 179, 180, 185.

  _Echo de Paris_, the, 128.

  Economic problems, commissions on, 28.

  Egypt, 14, 212.

  Eider, the, 37, 42, 43, 44.

  Eiffel, mountain range of the, 55.

  Elector Palatine, the, 133.

  Elsenborn, camp of, 55, 130.

  Enclaves, 78, 134, 159, 176, 282.

  England, 25, 27, 47, 67, 71, 87, 120, 129, 153, 172, 241, 248, 281,
  285, 286.
    _See_ Great Britain.

  Enos-Midia line, the, 265.

  Epinal, 105.

  Epirotes, 279.

  Epirus, 278ff.

  Eteimbes, 88.

  ‘Ethnographic Poland,’ 158f., 164.

  ‘Ethnographic rights,’ 212.

  Eugene, Prince, 201.

  Eugénie, Empress, 100.

  Eupen, 55, 56.

  Exarchist church, _see_ Bulgarian church.


  Farnese, Alexander, 51.

  Federal republic, the Polish, 166.

  Felix of Bourbon-Parma, Prince, 60.

  Ferdinand I, II, III, Holy Roman emperors, 201.

  Ferdinand, king, later tsar of Bulgaria, 269, 285.

  Finance, commission on, 28.

  Finno-Ugrian stock, 232.

  Fiume, 9, 28, 223, 248, 251, 256-262, 280.

  Flanders, 60, 65f.

  Flemish language, in Belgium, 48;
    spoken about Dunkirk, 90.

  Flensburg, 37, 42, 46.

  Flensburg fiord, the, 37, 42.

  Florida, 14.

  Foch, Marshal, 25.

  Fortresses of the French frontier, demanded by Germany, 104f.

  _Fortwusteln_, 203.

  Fourteen Points, the, 21f., 42, 170, 171, 177, 207, 209.

  France, 11, 16, 25, 27, 50, 51, 52, 67, 71, 131, 153, 154, 170, 248,
  259, 280, 285, 286;
    problems of her eastern frontier, 75-152.

  Francis I, emperor of Austria, 93;
    quoted, 204f.

  Francis II, Holy Roman emperor, _see_ Francis I, emperor of Austria.

  Frankenholz, 142.

  Frankfort, treaty of (1871), 75, 80, 103, 108, 109, 110, 120.

  Frankish empire, the, 51, 119.

  Frederick the Great, king of Prussia, 178.

  Freeman, E. A., 120, 254.

  French Foreign Office, the, 24.

  French Revolution, the, 5, 52, 57, 63, 85, 92, 95f., 99, 120, 124,
  125, 133, 134, 138.

  Frisian islands, the, 37.

  Frisians, 38.

  Frontiers, geographical elements of, 11ff.;
    human elements in frontier-making, 13-20;
    as affected by hopes of the future, 20f.;
    bibliography, 35.

  Fustel de Coulanges, N. D., 115;
    quoted, 96.


  Galicia, 158, 159, 160, 188-195, 199, 210, 238.

  Gaul, Roman, 118.

  Gauls, 86, 88.

  Geislautern, 136.

  ‘Geographic Poland,’ 158.

  German Austria, 209f., 213, 217, 218, 222-229.

  German Bohemia, proposed republic of, 216.

  German colonies, the, 14, 21.

  German East Africa, 71.

  German Gate, the, at Metz, 83.

  Germanic invasions, the, 119.

  Germanization, 39, 173, 174f.

  German minorities, in Austria, 203-206;
    in the Baltic provinces, 17;
    in the Banat, 240;
    in Belgium, 18;
    in Bohemia, 15, 18, 215, 216-222;
    in Hungary, 233;
    in Moravia, 216;
    in North Schleswig, 46;
    in Poland, 15, 166, 172, 173-188;
    in Transylvania, 239;
    in Upper Silesia, 212, 216.

  Germany, 3, 6, 7, 8, 11, 14, 16, 21, 33, 48f., 50, 51, 61, 70f., 154,
  157, 160, 191, 197, 198, 206, 207, 218, 226-228, 243, 264;
    adjustment of Danish frontier, 37-47;
    of Belgian frontier, 49, 54-57;
    of French frontier, 75-152;
    of Polish frontier, 172-188.

  Ghent, 64.

  Gibraltar, 281.

  Gladstone, W. E., 154.

  Gorizia, 244, 247, 248, 249, 251.

  Governing Commission, the, in the Saar district, 144-150.

  Governing Commission, for the Rhenish territories, _see_
  Inter-Allied Rhineland High Commission.

  Gradisca, 244.

  Grand Trianon, treaty of the (1920), 3, 237, n. 1.

  Great Britain, 122, 131, 132, 170, 280.
    _See_ England.

  Greater Greece, 156.

  Greater Roumania, 156.

  Greece, 28, 156, 264, 265, 266, 267, 277-287, 289f.

  Greek church, the, 271.

  Greeks, the, 16, 266, 268, 269, 272, 278-287.

  Gribble, F., quoted, 209.

  Grodno, province of, 196.

  Guelders, Prussian, 125.

  Guizot, F. P. G., 154f.

  Gypsies, 268.


  Halicz, principality of, 160.

  Hamburg, 54, 182.

  Hapsburg, house of, 51, 78, 79, 94, 98, 201ff., 209, 219, 222, 249,
  256.

  Haskins, C. H., 29.

  Haut-Rhin, department of the, 114.

  Hawaii, 14.

  Headlam-Morley, J. W., 29.

  Heligoland, 47.

  Hellenic nation, the, 278f.

  Henderson, A., 207.

  Hesse, 121, 124.

  High German, the official language in Germany, 90.

  Historical Section of the British Foreign office, the, 23.

  ‘Historic rights,’ 211f.

  Hoboken, 7.

  Hofer, Andreas, 225.

  Hohenzollern, house of, 94, 98, 162.

  Hohe Tauern, the, 225.

  Holland, 11, 49, 51, 52, 54, 57, 60-70, 93, 118, 121, 122.

  Holstein, 38.

  Holy Roman Empire, the, 78, 84, 92ff., 120.

  Homburg, in the Palatinate, 146.

  Hoover, H., 5, 25.

  Hostenbach, 142.

  House, E. M., 23.

  Hugo, Victor, 154.

  Hundred Days, the, 135.

  Hundred Years’ War, the, between Poland and the Teutonic Knights, 161.

  Hungary, 3, 6, 210, 212, 213, 226, 231-243, 244, 246, 256, 257, 258,
  259, 277.


  Ill, the, 76.

  Immanent justice, idea of an, 153.

  Imperial Colonization Commission, the, 174.

  Indemnities, 6, 111.

  India, 212, 286.

  Industrialism, modern, 12.

  ‘Inquiry,’ the, 23.

  Intendant, the, 95.

  Inter-Allied Rhineland High Commission, the, 131, 150.

  International administration, 21, 285.

  International Commission, on the Schleswig plebiscites, 44.

  International servitudes, 68.

  Ireland, 14, 15, 212, 241.

  Iron, 13, 54, 58, 59, 77, 84, 85, 101-104, 106, 112, 113, 116, 137,
  197.

  Istria, 244, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251.

  _Italia Irredenta_, 156.

  _Italianità_, 245.

  Italy, 11, 25, 27, 50, 90, 93, 122, 153, 158, 170, 210, 213, 224f.,
  244-262, 278, 280, 281, 287.


  Japan, 25, 50.

  Japanese, at the Peace Conference, 25, 28.

  Jefferson, Thomas, quoted, 154.

  Jena, battle of, 187.

  Jews, 15, 19, 113, 159, 166, 189, 194, 268.

  Joseph II, Holy Roman emperor (1765-90), 201.

  Julian Alps, the, 244, 249.

  Jutland, 37.


  Kamieniec, 164.

  Kansas, 158.

  Karl, _see_ Charles.

  Károlyi, Count, 236, 237.

  Karst Mountains, the, 244, 249.

  Kehl, 122.

  Key deposits of minerals, disposal of, 18, 140f.

  Keynes, J. M., 27, n. 1, 34, 148f.

  Kiel Canal, the, 37, 46f.

  Kiev, 163.

  Klagenfurt, 213, 223f.

  Kléber, J. B., 96.

  Königsberg, 180, 182.

  _Komitadjis_, 272, 277.

  Koritza, 278, 279, 280.

  Kosciuszko, T., 165.

  Kossuth, Louis, 243.

  Kun, Béla, 237.


  Labor organizations, in the Saar district, 140.

  Lamont, T. W., 24.

  Lancashire, 197.

  Land, passion for, 10.

  Landau, 80, 120, 133, 134, 135, 136, 138.

  Landtag, the, in Alsace-Lorraine, 80f.

  Language, as an element in frontier-making, 16ff.;
    in Schleswig, 40;
    in Alsace-Lorraine, 87-92, 116, 119;
    in Macedonia, 273;
    in Northern Epirus, 278f.

  Language Union, the, in Schleswig, 40.

  Latin colonies and language, in Dalmatia, 245.

  Latin-Dalmatian communes, the, 252.

  Lauenburg, 38.

  Lauter, the, 80, 133, 135.

  Lavisse, E., 23.

  Lead, 186, 197.

  League of Nations, the, 3, 4, 20f., 33, 35, 56, 66, 71, 132, 144-150,
  183, 202, 227, 281.

  Left Bank, the, 54, 55, 76, 111, 117, 118-132, 150, 151.

  Leipzig, battle of, 187.

  Lemberg, 189, 192.

  Lens, 142.

  Leopold I (of Saxe-Coburg), king of the Belgians (1831-65), 52.

  Liberia, 50.

  Liberty, a privilege, 14.

  _Libre Parole_, the, 128.

  Liège, 55, 62, 120.

  Liepvrette, the, 88.

  Ligne, Prince de, 201;
    quoted, 4.

  Limburg, 13, 55, 60ff., 66.

  Limestone, 102.

  Lissa, 248, 256.

  “Litany of the Polish Pilgrim,” by Mickiewicz, 155.

  Lithuania, 161, 162ff., 165, 168, 172, 196, 200.

  Lithuanians, 15, 159, 168, 169.

  Little Russian race, the, 189.

  Livonia, 163.

  Lloyd George, D., 27, 188.

  Lötzen, 174.

  London, 54, 206;
    treaty of (1831), 52;
    (1913), 265;
    (1915), 248f.

  Longwy, 103, 104, 112.

  Lorraine, 13, 76ff., 79, 87, 88, 89, 91, 93, 94, 95, 96, 101-104, 117,
  132, 133, 135, 141, 142.
    _See_ Alsace-Lorraine.

  Lorraine, duchy of, 78, 133.

  Losheim, 147.

  Louis XIV, king of France, 78, 79, 92, 96, 98, 99, 118, 120, 133.

  Louis XV, king of France, 78.

  Low Countries, the, 157.

  Lower Alsace, 81, 89.

  Lower Austria, 223.

  Low German dialects, 90.

  Lunatics, proselytizing of, 217.

  Luxemburg, 49, 54, 55, 57-60, 61, 69, 72, 76, 102, 129.

  Lvov, Prince, 171.

  Lyck, circle of, 174.


  McCormick, V., 24.

  Macedonia, 178, 266-275, 284, 289f.

  Maestricht, 61, 62, 120.

  ‘Magnificent community’ of Fiume, the, 256.

  Magyarization, 234ff., 258.

  Magyars, 166, 203, 209, 211, 212, 214, n. 1, 215, 216, 231-243, 246,
  256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261f.

  Mainz, archbishopric of, 124.

  Majority Socialists, the, in Prussia, 129.

  Malmedy, 56.

  Malta, 247, 256.

  Mandates, 281, 285.

  Manin, D., 247.

  Mannesmann, family, 137.

  Mannheim, 121, 122.

  Mantoux, P., 27.

  Maria Theresia, empress-queen, 201, 256.

  Marie Adelheid, grand duchess of Luxemburg, 58.

  Marienwerder district, the, 180, n. 1, 184f.

  Marne, the, 4.

  Máros, the, 240.

  Marseillaise, the, 96.

  Marseilles, 182, 259.

  Mary, heiress of Burgundy, 51.

  Maximilian of Austria, 51.

  Mazuria, 180, n. 1, 185.

  Mazzini, G., 154, 247, 256, 261, 287.

  Mediterranean racial type, the, 16.

  Meersen, partition of (870), 120.

  Meran, 225.

  Mercury mines, 13.

  Metković, 260.

  Metz, 78, 81, 83f., 85, 89, 101, 120.

  Meuse, the, 55, 60, 62, 63, 69, 70, 105, 119.

  Meyer’s _Handlexicon_, quoted, 95.

  Mickiewicz, A., 155, 165, 203.

  Middle kingdom, the, of the Frankish empire, 50f.

  Miller, D. H., 24, 34.

  Mineral resources, 13, 53, 77, 112f., 186, 197, 221, 231.

  Minette iron field, 77, 102ff., 112.

  Minnesota, 158.

  Minorities, problems of, 15.

  Minority Socialists, in Germany, 106.

  Minsk, 164;
    province of, 196.

  Mitteleuropa, 20, 207.

  Model dwellings, 137.

  Mörs, county of, 125.

  Mohammedans, 19, 242, 278, 282.

  Mommsen, T., 8.

  Mongols, the, 160.

  Montalembert, Comte de, 154.

  Montenegro, 265, 269.

  Montreux, 88.

  Moravia, 212, 213, 216, 218, 219, 223.

  Moresnet, district of, 57.

  Morier, Sir Robert, quoted, 97f.

  Morlaks, the, 250.

  Morocco, 28.

  Moselle, the, 76, 101, 105, 122, 141.

  Moselle, department of the, 114.

  Moslems, _see_ Mohammedans.

  Mountains, as frontiers, 11f.

  Münster, 3.

  Mulhouse, 76, 78, 79, 89.

  Munich, 140, 145.

  Muscovites, 165, 285.


  Nahe, the, 124.

  Namier, L. B., 182, n. 1.

  Nancy, 112.

  Napoleon I, 3, 79, 84, 135, 202.

  Napoleon III, 38, 84.

  Nassau, house of, 52;
    Luxemburg branch, 57, 58, 60.

  National Councils, in the former Austrian territories, 209.

  Nationalities, Hungarian law of, 234.

  Nationality, principle of, 19f., 243, 265, 288.

  Natural resources, importance of, 12f.

  Naval Intelligence Division, the British, 23.

  Negroes, in America, 15.

  Netherlands, the, 51, 122.

  Neuilly, treaty of (1919), 3, 264, 285, 289.

  Neutrality, Belgian, 66-69.

  ‘Neutral schools,’ 114.

  New York, 7.

  Ney, M., 96, 138.

  Niemen, the, 182.

  Nord, department of the, 139.

  North Albanians, 280.

  Northern Epirus, 278ff., 290.

  North Schleswig, 19, 37-48, 72.

  North Schleswig Voters’ Union, the, 40, 42.

  North Sea, the, 42, 62.

  Norway, 44.


  Oder, the, 159.

  Oetzthaler Alps, the, 225.

  Oil wells, 77, 113.

  Oldenburg, duke of, 124.

  Orlando, V. E., 27.

  Orthodox, in Albania, 278;
    Serbs, 242;
    among the White Russians, 196.

  Osnabrück, 3.

  Ottweiler, 139.


  Pacific Ocean, the, 9, 191.

  Paderewski, I. J., 165.

  Palatinate, the Bavarian, 76, 124, 129, 136, 137, 139, 140, 141, 146.

  Palestine, 19.

  Panama, 50, 281.

  Panama Canal, the, 47.

  Pan-Germanism, 105, 208, 287.

  Pannonian basin, the, 231.

  Paris, treaty of (1814), 134f.;
    conference of (1815), 3;
    peace conference at (1919), 3-35, _et passim_.

  Partitions of Poland, the, 163, 164, 165, 168, 169, 177, 178, 180,
  181, 189, 197.

  Pas-de-Calais, department of, 139.

  _Patois_, local, 90.

  Patriarch, the Greek, 282.

  Patriarchist church, _see_ Greek church.

  Pechelbronn, 77.

  Pennsylvania, 53.

  Petlura, S., 194.

  Petroleum, 197.
    _See_ Oil.

  Philip II, king of Spain, 51.

  Philippines, the, 14.

  Piasts, house of the, 159, 163.

  Pichon, G., 26.

  Pilsudski, J., 165.

  Pirot-Tsaribrod basin, the, 277.

  Pius IX, pope (1846-78), 154.

  Plebiscites, 18, 35, 42-46, 60, 106-109, 173, 184-187, 188.

  Pliny the Elder, 5.

  Poincaré, R., 107.

  Pola, 255.

  Poland, 12, 19, 28, 39, 91, 153-200, 210, 287.

  Poles, 209, 212.

  Polonization, 163ff.

  Pomaks, 282, 283.

  Pomerania, 159, 160.

  Pont-à-Mousson, 141.

  Porto Lago, 266.

  Posen (Posnania), 158, 177f., 184, 188.

  Potash, 13, 77, 101, 112.

  Prague, 218; treaty of (1866), 38.

  Presburg, 237.

  Prescription, notion of, 19.

  Protestants, in Alsace, 77, 96, 113;
    in Mazuria, 185.

  Prothero, G. W., 23, 35.

  Provence, 90.

  Prussia, 17, 19, 38, 39, 40, 54f., 57, 58, 66, 67, 80, 82, 93, 117,
  121, 125, 126, 132, 135, 136, 144, 146, 150, 159, 160, 167, 171, 172,
  173-188, 205, 287.


  Quadruple Alliance, the, 236.

  Quai d’Orsay, the, 24, 27.

  Quarnero, gulf of, 247, 249.

  Queich, the, 80.


  Race, 15f., 86f., 119, 159, n. 1.

  Radical party, the, in Denmark, 42, 45.

  Ragusa, 245, 254, 260.

  Railroad lines, as related to frontier problems, 12, 55, 176, 180,
  184f., 223, 260, 276, 277.

  Ranke, L. von, quoted, 98.

  Rationing, problems of, 5.

  Ratzel, F., 254.

  Reformation, the, 79.

  Reichsrat, Austrian, 250, 252.

  Reichstag, the German, 40, 46, 80, 81, 83, 108, 145.

  Religious toleration, in Poland, 166.

  Renan, E., 7f.

  Reparation, commission on, 28, 142f.

  ‘Republic of the Great Ukraine,’
  the, 194.

  ‘Republic of the Western Ukraine,’ the, 192.

  Revolutionary covenant of 1790, in France, 138.

  Rheinprovinz, the, 124-132, 136, 140, 141.

  Rhenish Prussia, _see_ Rheinprovinz.

  _Rhenus finis Germaniae_, 118.

  Rhine, the, 12, 16, 20, 50, 55, 66, 76, 82, 92, 96, 101, 114, 117-132,
  150, 151.

  Rhine frontier, the, 29, 119, 128.

  Rhine-Scheldt canal, proposed, 62.

  Rhode Island, 76, 146.

  Rhone, the, 93, 182.

  Right Bank, the, 111, 123, 127, 131.

  Rio Grande, the, 10.

  Risorgimento, the, 247.

  Rivers, unite rather than divide, 12.

  Röchling, family, 137.

  Romans, the, 166, 239.

  Rome, rule of, in Dalmatia, 245, 246, 252.

  Roosevelt, T., quoted, 286.

  Rotterdam, 63.

  Roumania, 3, 28, 156, 210, 238ff., 262, 264, 265, 266, 276, 277, 287.

  Roumanians, 209, 233, 238ff., 276.

  Rubens, 26.

  Ruhr, region of the, 131.

  Rumenes, the, 250.

  Russia, 11, 67, 156, 157, 158, 159, 169, 171f., 191, 195-198, 206,
  207, 248, 265, 267, 270, 285, 287.

  Russians, 15, 17, 166, 194.

  Russification, 163.

  Ruthenians, 189-195, 233, 238.

  Ryksvlaanderen, 65.


  Saar, the, 120, 133.

  Saar basin (valley, district), the, 13, 21, 29, 76, 77, 80, 101, 117,
  120, 125, 132-152, 186, 223.

  Saarbrücken, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 139; county of, 133.

  Saar Commission, _see_ Governing Commission, the, in the Saar
  district.

  Saarhölzbach, 146.

  Saarlouis, 78, 80, 120, 133, 134, 135, 138, 139.

  Saint-Germain-en-Laye, treaty of (1919), 3, 213.

  St. Sophia, 285.

  St. Thomas, 14.

  St. Vith, territory of, 54.

  Salisbury, Lord, 154.

  Salonica, 277.

  Salt mines, 77.

  San Marco, lion of, 246.

  San Stefano, treaty of (1878), 267.

  Saône, the, 105.

  Sarrebourg, 88.

  Sarreguemines, 146.

  Saxony, 54, 125, 135.

  Scandinavia, 11, 87.

  Scheldt, the, 60, 62-66, 68, 69.

  Schlei, the, 43, 44.

  Schleswig, 17, 37-48, 72.

  Schleswig-Holstein question, the, 38.

  School Union, the, in Schleswig, 40.

  Schrader, F., 120.

  Schumacher, H., quoted, 103, n. 1.

  _Schwob_, 16.

  Scotch mill-worker, anecdote of a, 7.

  Scott, J. B., 24.

  Scotus Viator, _see_ Seton-Watson.

  Sea, access to the, importance of, 12.

  Seigniorial rights, 95.

  Self-determination, 13ff., 34, 46, 140f., 238.

  Sensburg, 174.

  Separation Laws, the, in France, 113f.

  Separatist tendencies, in Rhenish Prussia, 129.

  Serbia, 11, 240ff., 261, 264, 265, 266, 267, 269-275, 277, 280.

  Serbs, 233, 240ff., 266, 268-275, 280.

  Seton-Watson, R. W., 262.

  Shkypetars, 279.

  Siam, 50.

  Siberia, 207.

  Sick Man on the Bosporus, the, 263.

  Sierck, 78.

  Silesia, 158, 159, 160, 213, 219.
    _See_ Austrian Silesia, Upper Silesia.

  Silistria, 276.

  Slovakia, 222.

  Slovaks, 213-222, 233, 237.

  Slovenes, 223f., 241 f., 246, 249, 250, 251.

  Social insurance, 137, 145.

  Sönderjylland, 37, 72.

  Sofia, 263, 271, 272, 277, 282.

  Somme, the, 104.

  Southern Albania, 278ff., 290.

  Southern Dobrudja, the, 266, 276.

  Southern Slavs, the, 268-278.
    _See_ Yugo-Slavs.

  Sovereign Council, the, 95.

  Spain, 51, 63.

  Spalato, 253f.

  Spanish Netherlands, the, 52, 63.

  Spanish peninsula, the, 11.

  Speier, 140;
    bishopric of, 124, 133.

  Stanislas Leszcynski, king of Poland, duke of Lorraine, 78.

  State, Polish conception of the, 167.

  Statistical Commission, the, of the Congress of Vienna, 22.

  Statthalter, the, in Alsace-Lorraine, 80, 81.

  Stavelot-Malmedy, abbey of, 54.

  Steed, H. W., 228;
    quoted, 202, 243.

  Stephen Dushan, Serbian emperor, 270.

  Stettin, 182.

  Straits, the, 265, 283, 290.

  Strasburg, 79, 80, 81, 83, 89, 96, 107, 120.

  Strumica, valley of the, 266, 276f.

  Stumm, family, 136, 137.

  Submarine bases, 65, 255.

  Suez Canal, the, 47.

  Sugar refineries, 125.

  Sultan, the, 265, 286.

  Super-state, the, 150.

  Supreme Council, the, 225.

  Sušak, 259.

  Sweden, 44, 45.

  Swedes, 165.

  Switzerland, 76, 79, 91, 93, 118, 121, 122, 222, 236.

  Sylt, island of, 42.

  Szepes, _see_ Zips.


  Talleyrand, 4.

  Tardieu, A., 29, 34, 151.

  Tartars, 165, 166, 167.

  Taussig, F. W., 24.

  Teaching religious orders, 114.

  Temesvár, 240.

  Terneuzen canal, the, 64.

  Teschen, 13, 158, 188, 213.

  Teutonic Knights, the, 160, 161, 162, 178, 185.

  Teutonic racial type, the, 16, 86, 87, 119.

  Texas, 14.

  Theiss, the, 240.

  Thionville, 88.

  This, C., 88, 116.

  Thirty Years’ War, the, 79.

  Thomas process, the, 102, 103.

  Thorn, peace of (1466), 161.

  Thrace, 266, 277, 278, 281-285, 290.

  Three Bishoprics, province of the, 78, 120.

  Tobacco, 76.

  Tönder, 46.

  Toul, 78, 105.

  Trajan, Roman emperor (98-117), 239.

  Transleithania, 231-243.

  Transportation, problems of, 5.

  Transylvania, 239, 240.

  Traù, 248.

  Trentino, the, 224, 247.

  Tribal duchies, 92f., 120.

  Trier, 140;
    archbishopric of, 124.

  Trieste, 244, 245, 247, 248, 249, 251.

  Trois Evêchés, 78.

  Tsars, Bulgarian, 269.

  Turanians, 268, 269.

  Turkey, 6, 14, 33, 242, 263, 265, 266, 267, 269, 270, 281-287, 290.

  Turko-Tartar stock, 232.

  Turks, 165, 167, 201, 268, 270, 271, 272, 281, 282, 283, 285, 286.

  Tyrol, the, 224f., 248.


  Üsküb, 270.

  Ukraine, the, 163, 165, 168, 172, 191, 193, 194, 199f.

  ‘Ukrainian idea,’ the, 191.

  Ukrainians, 159, 160, 168, 169, 189, 191-194, 196, 209, 210.

  Ukrainophiles, 193.

  Ulster, 15.

  United Netherlands, the, 51.

  United States, the, at the Peace Conference, 4f., 7, 14, 19, 21, 23f.,
  25ff., 29, 30ff., 261, 280;
    indisposed to accept a mandate for Albania, 281;
      or for Constantinople, 285f.

  Upper Alsace, 13, 76, 81, 88, 89, 91, 101, 105, 109, 112.

  Upper Austria, 223.

  Upper Silesia, 13, 45, 91, 185f., 197, 212.

  Urals, the, 157.

  Utrecht, treaty of (1713), 52.


  Valenciennes, 142.

  Valona, _see_ Avlona.

  Varna, 276.

  Vauban, 135, 138.

  Velebite Mountains, the, 244.

  Venetia, 247, 249.

  Venetia Julia, 249.

  Venice, 245, 246, 252, 255, 256.

  Venizelos, E., 277 f., 281, 283.

  Verdun, 78, 105, 120.

  Versailles, preliminaries of (1871), 75, 103;
    treaty of (1919), 3, 31, 75, 145, 146, 148, 172, 177f., 186, 213,
    227.

  Vieille Montagne, 57.

  Vienna, 192, 209, 222, 226, 233, 246;
    congress of (1814-15), 3, 4, 8, 22, 32, 52, 66, 124, 158;
    treaty of (1738), 78;
    treaty of (1815), 32, 57, 63, 79f., 120, 121, 125;
    treaty of (1864), 38.

  _Viribus unitis_, 205.

  Vistula, the, 160, 161, 178, 182, 184.

  Vlachs, 268.

  Volhynia, province of, 196.

  Vosges, the, 76, 84, 85, 101, 119.


  _Wacke_, 16.

  Wadern, 147.

  Wallenstein, A. E. von, 201.

  Walloon language, 56;
    Walloon portion of Luxemburg, 57.

  Walther von der Vogelweide, 225.

  Warsaw, 154, 164, 171, 185.

  War-weariness, 4ff., 206.

  Washington, 206.

  Waterloo, battle of, 79, 154, 187.

  Waterways, commission on, 28.

  Webster, C. K., 35;
    cited, 4.

  Wedding of the sea, the, by Venice, 252.

  Weiss, the, 88.

  Weisskirchen, 147.

  ‘Welsh,’ 16.

  Wesel, 66.

  Western Galicia, 189.

  Western Thrace, 266, 277, 281-285.

  Westphalia, 125f., 141, 148.

  Westphalia, treaty of (1698), 3, 63, 78, 79, 93.

  West Prussia, 12, 158, 161, 178f., 181, 184.

  Wharton, Henry, quoted, 154.

  White Russia, 163, 168, 200.

  White Russians, 159, 196.

  William I, German emperor, quoted, 100.

  William II, German emperor, 84, 207.

  Wilno, 163, 164;
    province of, 196.

  Wilson, Woodrow, 3, 7, 14, 19, 21, 23, 26, 27, 31, 42, 49, 68, 75,
  106, 109, 150, 170, 207, 208, 261, 275.

  Wissembourg, 134.

  Wittelsheim, 77.

  Worms, bishopric of, 124.


  Young, A. A., 24.

  Yugo-Slavia, 156, 210, 241f., 244-262, 280, 287.

  Yugo-Slavs, 208, 209, 213, 223, 224, 244-262.


  Zabern affair, the, 82.

  Zanzibar, 47.

  Zara, 252, 253, 254, 256.

  Zbrucz, the, 192.

  Zealand Flanders, 65f.

  Zillerthaler Alps, the, 225.

  Zimmermann note, the, 14.

  Zinc, 186, 197.

  Zinc mine of Vieille Montagne, 57.

  Zinc works, 54.

  Zips, 188, 213.

  Zollverein, German, 58, 59, 129.

  Zweibrücken, 137;
    house of, 124, 133.




Transcriber’s Notes

Page 27: A missing footnote anchor was added.

Page 71: “ambitions of Gemany” changed to “ambitions of Germany”

Page 170: “Warsaw in in 1831” changed to “Warsaw in 1831”

Page 201: “sixteenth and seventeeth centuries” changed to “sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries”

Page 290: “historique, economique” changed to “historique, économique”

The spelling of proselytizing was fixed in the Index.