EUROPEAN TENDENCIES.
The Fabric of Europe. By Harold Stannard. (Collins. 10s. net.)
AN historical analysis of European tendencies which culminated in the Great War must be worth study if it is written by a reasonably well-informed historian with an adequate sense of proportion and the ability to keep his threads disentangled. Mr. Stannard fulfils these conditions, and his book therefore deserves to be read. One wonders whether an historian or two upon the Supreme Council at Paris could have seen the wood through the trees or whether it is only after the event that the lost links in the chain of cause and effect became apparent. Sometimes, though rarely, we doubt the inevit- ability of results that Mr. Stannard proves very plausibly, especially when he seems too self-conscious about the great length and breadth of his views of history. But he certainly justifies his claim to interpret the course of events that built up Europe, to criticize the treaties dictated by the Allies, snd even to make some prophecies upon their results. We wish, by the way, that he had taken the trouble to make an index.
The two great questions that are here traced through history until they met in the clash of the War are the Western, whose roots Mr. Stannard rightly finds so far back as in the days of Varus and Arminius and growing vigorously in the days of the Duchy of Burgundy ; and the Eastern, which he traces no less rightly back to the Siege of Troy. British action he attributes to the instinct for supremacy at sea first aroused in Saxon days by fear of simultaneous attacks on our eastern and southern coasts. So we come to the present "epoch of nationalism" into which the War has hastened the laggard United States. In the future France, as the chief exponent of nationalism, will be the leader of the Latin races in conflict with the Slav, or at any rate the Northern Slav, unless before that time is ripe the League of Nations has impressed nation- alism with some "reasonable modification." Out of nation- alism comes democracy, but militant democracy, with a tendency in favour of monarchy. The author has an inter- esting passage on after-war treaties in the past, in which he argues that most of them have been based on the principle of reaction : the defeated power must be put back into the position in which it was when it started upon the course that led to war, and from that position it must make a fresh start upon a better cOurse. The treaty-makers of Paris, however, were influenced strongly by theories of nationalism, a habit of mind confirmed by Dr. Wilson's advocacy of self- determination which he had not digested : therefore; while the Treaty aimed at putting Germany back territorially, subject to plebiscites, to her Position after 1848, it did not aim at breaking up the German Empire Whose nationalism had led her upon the course which made it possible for her to desire a world war. If Mr. Stannard had written this passage a few months later, he would have had reason to make further comments on the way in 'which the ostensible aims of the Treaty are being changed. He is least clear when he deals with the Eastern question. , This is excusable; because no one Could tell quite what settlement would be patched up when he was writing. He foresees there the ground out of which will rise the next world crisis, and pleads that America should interest herself there for the world's sake and her own, as well as for Europe's. It will need more than Mr. Stannard'i pleadings to set that huge democracy in motion. He has Some faith in the League of Nations; not as a W-cirld State; nor as a world judge, but as a world jury: He is right in thus finding the hope of civilization in public opinion. It the jury hears all the evidence and publicly finds a sound Verdict, a: great deal is gained even if no judge pronounces sentence and no force carries' one into execution. To raise the standard of public opinion, to appeal to the human conscience to demand the higher standard is the duty of writers and statesmen. By pointing this out as more needed than even historical analysis, Mr. Stannard adds to the value of his Wok.
Previous page
