The Economic Consequences of the Peace | Page 9

the company had returned to their places, it was to discover that he had

disappeared.
He felt about France what Pericles felt of Athens--unique value in her,
nothing else mattering; but his theory of politics was Bismarck's. He
had one illusion--France; and one disillusion--mankind, including
Frenchmen, and his colleagues not least. His principles for the peace
can be expressed simply. In the first place, he was a foremost believer
in the view of German psychology that the German understands and
can understand nothing but intimidation, that he is without generosity
or remorse in negotiation, that there is no advantage be will not take of
you, and no extent to which he will not demean himself for profit, that
he is without honor, pride, or mercy. Therefore you must never
negotiate with a German or conciliate him; you must dictate to him. On
no other terms will he respect you, or will you prevent him from
cheating you. But it is doubtful how far he thought these characteristics
peculiar to Germany, or whether his candid view of some other nations
was fundamentally different. His philosophy had, therefore, no place
for "sentimentality" in international relations. Nations are real things, of
whom you love one and feel for the rest indifference--or hatred. The
glory of the nation you love is a desirable end,--but generally to be
obtained at your neighbor's expense. The politics of power are
inevitable, and there is nothing very new to learn about this war or the
end it was fought for; England had destroyed, as in each preceding
century, a trade rival; a mighty chapter had been closed in the secular
struggle between the glories of Germany and of France. Prudence
required some measure of lip service to the "ideals" of foolish
Americans and hypocritical Englishmen; but it would be stupid to
believe that there is much room in the world, as it really is, for such
affairs as the League of Nations, or any sense in the principle of
self-determination except as an ingenious formula for rearranging the
balance of power in one's own interests.
These, however, are generalities. In tracing the practical details of the
Peace which he thought necessary for the power and the security of
France, we must go back to the historical causes which had operated
during his lifetime. Before the Franco-German war the populations of
France and Germany were approximately equal; but the coal and iron
and shipping of Germany were in their infancy, and the wealth of
France was greatly superior. Even after the loss of Alsace-Lorraine

there was no great discrepancy between the real resources of the two
countries. But in the intervening period the relative position had
changed completely. By 1914 the population of Germany was nearly
seventy per cent in excess of that of France; she had become one of the
first manufacturing and trading nations of the world; her technical skill
and her means for the production of future wealth were unequaled.
France on the other hand had a stationary or declining population, and,
relatively to others, had fallen seriously behind in wealth and in the
power to produce it.
In spite, therefore, of France's victorious issue from the present struggle
(with the aid, this time, of England and America), her future position
remained precarious in the eyes of one who took the view that
European civil war is to be regarded as a normal, or at least a recurrent,
state of affairs for the future, and that the sort of conflicts between
organized great powers which have occupied the past hundred years
will also engage the next. According to this vision of the future,
European history is to be a perpetual prize-fight, of which France has
won this round, but of which this round is certainly not the last. From
the belief that essentially the old order does not change, being based on
human nature which is always the same, and from a consequent
skepticism of all that class of doctrine which the League of Nations
stands for, the policy of France and of Clemenceau followed logically.
For a Peace of magnanimity or of fair and equal treatment, based on
such "ideology" as the Fourteen Points of the President, could only
have the effect of shortening the interval of Germany's recovery and
hastening the day when she will once again hurl at France her greater
numbers and her superior resources and technical skill. Hence the
necessity of "guarantees"; and each guarantee that was taken, by
increasing irritation and thus the probability of a subsequent Revanche
by Germany, made necessary yet further provisions to crush. Thus, as
soon as this view of the world is adopted and the other discarded, a
demand for a Carthaginian Peace is inevitable, to the full extent of the
momentary power to impose it. For