UNEASY EUROPE
HE state of Europe must inevitably cause concern; some aspects of it cannot but cause alarm; but there is no need as yet to take too tragic a view. The very suddenness of the cessation of the war has accentuated difficulties that would have been formidable enough in any case. Arrangements for the administration of Ger- many were weltadvanced, but it would obviously have simplified the operation if they could have been applied gradually, over a steadily extending area. As it is, the swiftness of the Allied advance and the completeness of the enemy collapse have thrown on the Western Allies' hands within five or six weeks the whole of Germany from the French frontier to the Elbe. Six million prisoners have to be guarded and fed, and careful selection made for release for necessary work; locomotives and rolling-stock have to be mobilised and makeshift communications organised for both military and civilian use; some form of local government has to be maintained in cities where all officials were ex hypothesi Nazis, and ought therefore to be dismissed out of hand but for the impossibility of keeping the machine running at all if too wholesale a sweep is made too soon; foreign workers have gradually to be repatriated, and the magnitude of the task may be gauged by a statement issued, appar- ently in optimistic vein, to the effect that it is hoped to complete the process by the end of 1946. These, of course, are merely im- mediate and preliminary problems. They have no relation to the fundamental tasks of disarming Germany, discovering secret arma- ments, stamping out werewolves and other underground forces, setting the country to work again without tolerating the existence of any industry that could be counted as " war-potential."
Never in history has so stupendous an administrative task faced victorious nations. They will neither shrink from nor fail in it. Men who have so brilliantly organised victory will not prove unequal to coping with the consequences of victory. Yet time presses. The physical process of surrender cannot, no doubt, be carried out without the collaboration of German commanders, who must be used to give orders to their men and required to furnish information to the Allies. But the sooner the Doenitzes and the. Busches and the Krosigks are swept away to desthiations indicated by their several deserts the better. These are days in which the whole demeanour of Germany for years to come may be deter- mined. It might be imagined that the evidences of her defeat were sufficiently shattering, and it is something no doubt that Goebbels, and in all probability Hitler, have met with the fate to which their deeds destined them. But it is essential that every German war leader shall be displaced the moment his services have ceased to be indispensable, and that till that day they shall be treated with stern and unrelaxed correctness ; the stinging rebuke General Eisenhower has addressed to Allied officers who have offered Germans like Goering something little short of cordiality is abundantly merited. It is encouraging to know that arrangements for bringing the principal criminals (for many of them stand condemned already on evidence long-standing and uncontested) are well advanced. Goering for one ought to have been summarily confined and isolated, pending whatever trial may be decided on. It is reassuring to know that that is to happen now. The interviews and photo- graphs that have filled the papers. this week are the inevitable outcome of journalistic competition—to which, speaking generally, the public owes much—but to give journalists access at all to the man who for years stood second to Hitler and shared Hitler's guilt to the full extent that his lower mental capacity permitted redounds heavily to the discredit of whatever military authority was responsible. Every leading German whose temporary services are not essential ought to, be withdrawn immediately and completely from public gaze. In no circumstances should the voices of any of them be heard in public till they are heard in court. As for Goering, it is surprising to learn that a formal trial is in contempla- tion at all, for it has been hitherto assumed that he, like Hitler if found alive, would be dealt with swiftly and summarily.
These are matters for military decision, and they will quickly right themselves—provided always that the unity of the three major Allies remains unbroken. But let rifts open and widen and un- predictable disasters may fall on Europe. Signs of that are evident already, and there are sinister precedents to serve as warning. Not many months after the armistice of 1918 Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson calculated that fifteen little wars were in progress in Europe or on its borders. Without firm handling of incipient incidents something like that might easily happen today. Everywhere signa- tories of the Atlantic Charter, who by their signatures abjured all aggrandisement,. territorial or other, are threatening to make terri- torial aggrandisement a fait accompli. A deplorable violation of the principle was conceded when Britain and the United States assented to Russian aggrandisement at the expense of Poland. It may be argued that they had no option, and only a visionary unham- pered by concern for facts would dismiss that apologia lightly. But to tolerate a wrong when it could not be prevented is no justifica- tion for not preventing one when it can. That applies to the Yugo- . slay pretensions to Trieste, the French occupation of former Italian territory in the Val d'Aosta and to a lesser extent (for there is no evidence of intention of permanent occupation) to the Russian seizure of the Danish island of Bornholm, while the declaration of the Greek Regent to the inhabitants of the Dodecanese (in the course of what is claimed to be merely an ecclesiastical visitation) that the islands, which were under Turkish sovereignty for centuries till 1912 and under Italian since, are now free and Greek was singularly inept if it was not meant to mean what the plain signifi- cation of the words suggests they mean. In all these cases only one possible principle can be applied—a principle for which Britain and the United States are standing solid—that all territorial claims must be held in abeyance till the Peace Conference, and no step taken anywhere which can even wear the appearance of an attempt to force the issue. As for Trieste, much the most serious of the cases in question, there is still room for hope that the friendly representa- tions made by Britain and America at Belgrade may be met in a like spirit and all attempt to earmark for Yugoslavia a city which was Austrian till 1918, Italian since, and ought to be internationalised now for the common benefit of South-Eastern Europe, will be officially and decisively repudiated.
But behind all this, and other similar problems which are certain to arise, is a larger and far more important question. . Can Russia, Britain, America and France, particularly the first three, co-operate without reservation, in Europe? It is idle to suggest that such a question is superfluous. It is both relevant and necessary. Russia is not comporting herself in her contacts with her Allies as it may reasonably be expected that she should. Indefensible as her arrest of the sixteen Poles who had in all good faith put themselves in her power appears, it is on a wider view less deplorable than the pro- longed concealment of her action from her closest Allies and her blank refusal to consider their requests for information. Less important, though equally perplexing and misguided, is the secre- tiveness which keeps Allied correspondents out of territory occu- pied by Russia, even though their declared object is to tell the world of the great achievements of the Russian armies. The determina- tion to force on Poland the Lublin Government, which neither Britain nor America has recognised, nor will recognise till it is broadened on the basis to which Russia specifically agreed at Yalta, lays another deliberate and disturbing strain on the semblance of Allied unity. There are occasional signs that Russia does not fully realise the impression her behaviour is making or .appreciate the consequences that evidence of a desire to put all Eastern Europe under her tutelage would inevitably have in this country and the United States. Closer personal contacts may change Russia'g out- look considerably. The necessary central collaboration in the administration of Germany, even if each Ally has its separate sphere, should have good effects. But nothing is more urgent than a meeting between Mr. Churchill, President Truman and Marshal Stalin. The Russian Prime Minister is a realist and does not resent plain words. They may not be necessary, but if they are they must be spoken. If the three Great Powers,cannot work together on a basis of full confidence with one another, nothing can be hoped for from San Fiancisco and nothing but disaster can fall on Europe.
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