Peaceless Europe | Page 2

a formula permitting the peoples of Europe to rediscover their path in life, towards life, is not only a friend, but a friend who has opportunely brought back to France's mind and heart the deeds of her great ancestors at the time when fresh deeds of greatness and glory await accomplishment. The task which we must undertake with our inmost feeling, with all the ardour of our faith, is to find once more the road to peace, to utter the word of brotherly love toward oppressed peoples, and to reconstruct Europe, which is gradually sinking to the condition of Quattrocento Italy, without its effulgence of art and beauty: thirty States mutually diffident of each other, in a sea of programmes and Balkan ideas.
Towards the achievement of this work of civilization the great democracies must march shoulder to shoulder. At the present moment I hear nothing but hostile voices; but the time is not far distant when my friends of France will be marching with us along the same road. They already admit in private many things which they will presently be obliged to recognize openly. Many truths are the fruit of persuasion; others, again, are the result of former delusions.
I place my greatest trust in the action of American democracy.
By refusing to sanction the Treaty of Versailles and all the other peace treaties, the American Senate has given proof of the soundest political wisdom: the United States of America has negotiated its own separate treaties, and resumes its pre-war relations with victors and vanquished alike.
It follows that all that has been done hitherto in the way of treaties is rendered worthless, as the most important participant has withdrawn. This is a further motive for reflecting that it is impossible to continue living much longer in a Europe divided by two contending fields and by a medley of rancour and hatred which tends to widen the chasm.
It is of the greatest interest to America that Europe should once more be the wealthy, prosperous, civilized Europe which, before 1914, ruled over the destinies of the world. Only by so great an effort can the finest conquests of civilization come back to their own.
We should only remember our dead in so far as their memory may prevent future generations from being saddened by other war victims. The voices of those whom we have lost should reach us as voices praying for the return of that civilization which shall render massacres impossible, or shall at least diminish the violence and ferocity of war.
Just as the growing dissolution of Europe is a common danger, so is the renewal of the bonds of solidarity a common need.
Let us all work toward this end, even if at first we may be misunderstood and may find obstacles in our way. Truth is on the march and will assert herself: we shall strike the main road after much of dreary wandering in the dark lanes of prejudice and violence.
Many of the leading men of Europe and America, who in the intoxication of victory proclaimed ideas of violence and revenge, would now be very glad to reverse their attitude, of which they see the unhappy results. The truth is that what they privately recognize they will not yet openly admit. But no matter.
The confessions which many of them have made to me, both verbally and in writing, induce me to believe that my ideas are also their ideas, and that they only seek to express them in the form and on the occasions less antagonistic to the currents of opinion which they themselves set up in the days when the chief object to be achieved seemed to be the vivisection of the enemy.
Recent events, however, have entirely changed the situation.
As I said before, the American Senate has not sanctioned the Treaty of Versailles, nor is it likely to give it its approval. The United States of America concludes separate treaties on its own account.
Agreements of a military character had been arrived at in Paris: the United States of America and Great Britain guaranteed France against any future unjust attack by Germany. The American Senate did not sanction the agreement; in fact, it did not even discuss it. The House of Commons had approved it subordinate to the consent of the United States. Italy has kept aloof from all alliances. As a result of this situation, the four Entente Powers, "allied and associated" (as formerly was the official term), have ceased to be either "allied" or "associated" after the end of the War.
On the other hand, Europe, after emerging from the War, is darkened and overcast by intrigues, secret agreements and dissimulated plots: fresh menaces of war and fresh explosions of dissatisfaction.
Nothing can help the cause of peace more than giving a full knowledge of the real situation to the various