THE PATTERN OF EUROPE
rp HE negotiators at Potsdam. have presented the world with a J. much fuller account of their decisions than at one time seemed likely, and from it the picture of the post-war Europe emerges clearly. There are no doubt gaps in the report Very little is said about the future of Austria, and nothing about the revision of the Straits Convention, though it, can hardly be supposed that a ques- tion in which Russia is so intimately concerned never figured in the discussions at all. But enough was definitely decided to mark the Berlin meeting as the most fruitful the representatives of the Three Great Powers have so far held, and to indicate broadly what the political and economic condition of most of Europe will be for a generation. That is a long space to plan for, but with the history of the last war-settlement before their eyes the Allies are not likely to contemplate an occupation of much less duration, grave though the decision to keep Germany in subjection for thirty years is.
That fact makes the Berlin decisions momentous, for unless they are of such a character that the Allied peoples are as resolute to maintain them twenty years or more hence as they are to endorse them today the resurrection of a Germany bent on a war of revenge, and equipped for it with weapons which science has as yet not begun to imagine, is much nearer to a certainty than a mere possi- bility. There will be human waste in diverting the young men of Britain and America and France and Russia from productive work to garrison duty in Germany ; there will be economic waste in keeping Germany down to an economic level which will limit disastrously her demand for Allied production. Nothing could justify that but recognition of what the alternative would mean. But that does justify it decisively and incontrovertibly.
In the forefront of the Potsdam programme figured the Allies' machinery for the execution of their purposes. The principal agency is to be a Council of Five Foreign Ministers, which is to exist rather perplexingly side by side with the Council of Three Foreign Ministers which was established 4t the Crimea six months ago and intended to meet every three months—a decision which, so far as a special meeting of Foreign Ministers is concerned, has never been executed. The larger Committee is likely to over- shadow the former, particularly since it is to have a regular meeting- place—London—and a permanent secretariat, and to assemble for its first meeting by September 1st. One of its chief tasks will be to prepare treaties of peace with Germany's satellites—Italy first, and then the South-Eastern States, Bulgaria, Rumania and Hun- gary, and also Finland. Austria, it is to be observed, does not come into this category, the only brief mention of that country indicating that Russia had proposed the extension of the authority of Dr. Renner's Provisional Government to the whole of the country, but that the other two Allies preferred to suspend judge- ment till their forces had entered Vienna and the establishment of Allied control was complete. There has till very lately been no access for British and American correspondents to Vienna, and an accurate idea of conditions in Austria, and the extent of the Renner Government's authority, is only now beginning to take shape. So far what is in question is merely machinery, but the im- portance of the machinery may be gauged by the fact that the Council of Foreign Secretaries will, so far as can be seen, be respon- sible for supervising continuously the regime it has been decided to impose on Germany. The definition of that regime, territorial, political and economic, formed the kernel of the Berlin discussions, and the decisions promise, as has been said, to shape the life of Europe for a generation. Germany's frontiers are only in part delimited. Theoretically, indeed, they are not finally settled at all, for the arrangement by which Russia is to take over part of East Prussia, including Koenigsberg, and Poland advances westward to the Oder and Neisse, are subject to reconsiderations and revision at a subsequent peace settlement. But no provision is made for the framing of that settlement—it awaits the distant day of the formation of an effective democratic central Government in Ger- many, a necessary pre-condition of a permanent agreement—and there can be little doubt that long before then the fait accompli will be accepted as permanent. Nothing has been decided about Germany's western frontiers, regarding which France will certainly have claims to register, and Holland may ask for some extension of territory to compensate for the damage done to a large part of her agricultural land by salt-water inundations. It will be necessary for economic purposes, but is still premature, to compute the popu- lation (swelled by influxes from Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hun- gary) which Germany will have to support in her contracted territory.
But territorial losses are the least of the disabilities imposed. Politically Germany is to be in subjection for an undefined period ; economically she is to be reduced to the level of a second-class State. These terms, in words used by the British Prime Minister after the Treaty of Versailles was signed, are terrible but just. If they were not terrible they would be less than just. And" terrible" is in fact too strong a word where the impact of the terms on the individual German is concerned. He will not be enslaved ; he will not starve. Mr. Morgenthau's plan for converting Germany into a purely agricultural country has not been adopted, but the Potsdam Conference went some way in that direction. A level of produc- tion, not exceeding the pre-war level, has been fixed, and not only may Germany not go beyond that, but the means of going beyond it —all surplus machinery and equipment—are to be taken from her, and credited to the Allies as reparations. Her living- standard—the average prevailing in European countries other than the United Kingdom and Soviet Russia—is fixed equally. The production of food, goods and services needed to achieve that standard will be permitted, but nothing beyond that will. Demili- tarisation through the destruction of all existing military eqtiipment of every kind and the prohibition of any sort of military or quasi- military organisation will, of course, be complete ; and equally complete will be the destruction of every industry adaptable to war-purposes ; the production of aircraft is naturally forbidden, and so is the construction of sea-going ships of any kind ; German overseas commerce will have to be carried on under foreign flags. The navy, every ship of it, and every ship of the merchant fleet have been or will be handed over and disposed of on lines laid down at Potsdam. Germany is to be converted, so far as human foresight can secure that, into a nation incapable of waging war. What the range of human foresight is, in view of the unimaginable capacities of science for the achievement of destruc- tion, no living man can say. The supervision of German labora- tories must be ceaselessly and relentlessly rigorous. But no full guarantee against the secret development of deadly engines is possible.
So gradually from the Potsdam decisions emerges the outline of a new Europe, and a new Germany in the centre of it. All eastern Europe, with the possible exception of Greece (about which no word has issued from the Conference) must inevitably be domi- nated by Russia. Her influence will extend as far west as Berlin and further, and what character it will assume remains to be dis- closed. The test area May be Poland. A new Government has been constituted there, not completely of the character favoured by Russia ; full and unfettered elections on the basis of universal suffrage and secret ballot (such as have never been held in Poland yet) have again been promised, with the pledge that Allied jour- nalists shall have full freedom to report on the way in which such undertakings are honoured. In the west there will be no similarly predominating influence. Britain, the United States and France will all share authority, and Belgium and Holland will stand on their own feet as they always have. Between east and west Ger- many will be adjusting herself to an existence which economically involves rigid control at every point, and politically central con- trol, with a considerable and increasing degree of local freedom. The German people, it is specifically affirmed, are to be given the opportunity to prepare for the eventual reconstruction of their life on a democratic and peaceful basis. Democratic self-government is to begin, as it should begin, locally,—in the municipalities and ultimately in the provinces, but not in any future at present visible at the centre. There the occupying Powers will retain control, administering, so far as possible through German personnel, such essentially centralised services as finance, transport and communi- cations generally. In this way the aim to administer Germany as a unity will be achieved, and at the same time the genuineness of democracy will be tested as it manifests itself in regional adminis- trations at different levels. No party remotely resembling Nazism can be countenanced, but apart from that political activity is not banned. Subject always to the requirements of military security, freedom of speech, of the Press and of religious institutions, will be permitted and the formation of genuine trade unions encouraged. Proclamations to this effect have already been issued by Field- Marshal Montgomery in respect of the British zone. How Ger- many will react to these provisions is not likely to be seen clearly for some time. At present the general mood is submission to the point of sycophancy. No very aggressive spirit is to be expected from a people living as near the hunger-line as Germany will be doing till next year's harvest is reaped. Whether an actually non- aggressive, a fundamentally peaceable, spirit can be engendered, partly through those processes of re-education in which the Allies none too confidently put their trust, is a question that will remain long unanswered. Peace may be preserved precariously on some other basis, but on none but this can it rest secure.
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