30 SEPTEMBER 1938, Page 17

[To the Editor of TIM SPECTATOR]

Sta,—A generation has grown up for whom history seems to begin in 1918 with the Treaty of Versailles, an act of unprovoked aggression by France and Britain on a defenceless Germany. The Treaty—like most peace treaties—was no doubt bad, but its faults were due not only to the iniquity of the French and British but to the invasion of Belgium, the sinking of the Lusitania,' the air-raids on London, the bombardment of Paris, and so on. It is wrong and foolish to make so much of these things. I think so, but my view cannot be shared by those who are making so much of the sufferings of the Sudeten..

Self=determination was not a personal fad of President Wilson's. The existence of subject-nationalities within the Central Empires was a major cause of the War and a major cause of the. Allied victory. " The rights of small nations "

was perhaps a Quixotic cry, and on the lips of most Englishmen seemed insincere. But it was less unpleasing than the present Great Power snobbery which makes Herr Hitler and Mr. Chamberlain appear like the managers of two big firms squeezing a small man out of business.

The Germans seem to be drawing comparisons between Czechoslovakia and Ireland. The comparison is double- edged. If Mr. de Valera were to ask for Tyrone and Fermanagh on the ground that the population of the border districts is Nationalist and Roman Catholic, would Mr. Chamberlain put pressure on the Government of Northern Ireland to accede ? Yet the parallel is so complete that some twenty - customs houses on that frontier were blown up on the day King George V was crowned !

Herr Hitler's determination to insist on a triumphal military march into the Sudetenland makes it clear enough that thz trouble has been due not to grievances about local government and official appointments, but to the fact that the Germans will neither accept nor forget their defeat in the War. Com- pensation for that, on the psychological plane, is what he is seeking. The only general agreement that would do any good, would be a general agreement that Germany won. Why not ? The battle of Jutland—which the Germans call Skagerrak—is, I believe, celebrated as a victory by both sides. What fools we all are and have been ! Germans and

English alike !—Yours faithfully, WAR GENERATION.