BOOKS OF THE DAY
Britain and the Dictators (Sir Alfred Zimmern) 873
That's Austria, That Was (Douglas Reed) .. .. 874 The Crumbling of Empire (Prof. W. K. Hancock) . • 874
Early British Economics (Honor Croome) . . 876 Marriage : Past and Present (Christopher Hobhouse) . . 878 More Hopkins Letters (Prof. Bonamy Dobree) .. 88o Janus Weathercock (C. E. Vulliamy) The Master of the Temple A History of Militarism .. High Latitudes (Archibald Lyall) Scoop (Derek Verschoyle) Fiction (Forrest Reid) .. • • 880 • • 88, • • 884 • • 884 • • 886 88g
BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY SINCE THE WAR
By SIR ALFRED ZIMMERN
IN December, 1914, Professor Seton-Watson or, to call him by a name which is a household word in Central and Eastern Europe, Scotus Viator, was the principal contributor to a volume which gave the British public the first comprehensive survey of the issues involved in the War. Today he returns to the charge, single-handed, not to explain the issues in a conflict already raging but to do the best that a scholar can do to prevent its outbreak while there is yet time. This volume is, in form, the continuation and completion of Britain in Europe, 1787- 1914, published last year. In fact, however, the author has concentrated into its 450 pages far more than a narrative of British policy since 1914. His own personal experience and his knowledge of political personalities and currents from the West to the East of Europe are so extensive—not to speak of his command of languages—that the reader is constantly conscious of the breath of life issuing from the printed page. This is contemporary history in the best sense of the term.
The arrangement of the book is indicated by its title. The first hundred pages are devoted to British policy in general, bringing the record down to the failure of the Disarmament Conference in 1934. Then follow three considerable chapters devoted respectively to Russia, Italy and Germany (" the Dictators ") : here the author has packed into zoo pages know- ledge that might have filled three volumes, but without sacri- ficing, perspective or clearness of exposition. We pass then to a chapter, invaluable at the present moment, on " the problem of small States and national minorities," in which a • number of Central and East European issues are taken up in detail. This is succeeded by chapters on the Abyssinian Crisis and the Spanish War. A discussion of " British Policy Today—a problem of ethics, psychology and strategy," was to have concluded the book : but an " Austrian Epilogue " was added at the last moment.
At the outset the author puts his finger on what has made the story of the last twenty years at once so extraordinarily tangled and so unlike that of any previous period—the inter- dependence between the domestic and the foreign affairs of the European peoples. The post-War settlement, as he says, was 1815 and 1848 rolled into one. Over and over again in the last twenty years domestic preoccupations— that is to say, forces resulting from the process of social change precipitated by the War—have had repercussions, generally untimely and unfortunate, upon the course of international politics. The task of conducting a far-sighted and consistent foreign policy has been rendered correspondingly difficult. This problem of the technique of democracy in an interdependent world, which formed the theme of some of Lord Baldwin's frankest utterances, has had much to do with bringing us to the unhappy situation of today. And it is still unsolved—even within the four corners of the British Commonwealth. "
In a work of such scope and fullness it is difficult to select points for special mention. Some readers will turn with particular interest to find out what the joint editor of the Slavonic Review has to say about Russia's foreign relations and our own country's Russian policy. One of the points repeatedly stressed is the close relationship that existed between the German and the Russian staffs during the period between the Rapallo Treaty of 1922 and the advent (and beyond the advent) of the Hitler regime. " Much of the constructive work of the Red Army was the work of German experts, who were thus able to continue their technical experiments and even build up Britain and The Dictators. By R. W. Seton-Watson. (Cambridge University Press. 12s. 6d.) useful stocks, at a safe distance from all inter-Allied control." This has a bearing, as the author points out (p. 92) not only on German disarmament but on general disarmament, to which not France, " as is too often asserted by facile controversialists," but Russia was the principal obstacle. The problem of how a control-scheme could be applied to Russian armaments was indeed never seriously tackled.
Professor Seton-Watson leaves the reader in no doubt of his belief in the substantial truth of the charges against Marshal Tukhachevsky and his fellows who " had had a German military training and had for years past been in close contact with the Reichswehr." " 'Twixt cup and lip," he adds, " the prospect of a reorientation which would have meant a radical change in the balance of European forces was ruthlessly destroyed by Stalin."
In the light of these facts it is difficult to understand the persistently cold attitude of the present Government towards Russia, unless we attribute it to " ideological " considerations which offend against its own reiterated precepts. " Try to be a trois in a world governed by five Powers," said Bismarck in a maxim which the author applies to the Europe of today. " It is time," he comments " for us to say quite firmly and categorically that it is contrary alike to British and French interests that Russia should be ejected from Europe, because she is essential to the Balance of Power, because she desires peace for most obvious domestic reasons and because she has no territorial or other interests which in any way run counter to those of the. British Empire." In 1938 we may repeat the words of A. J. Balfour in his famous Memorandum of 1916: " The more Russia is made a European rather than an Asiatic Power, the better for everybody."
Not that Professor Seton-Watson has any sympathy with the Soviet system. Indeed, one of the most interesting passages in the book is that in which he points out that the Fascist and National-Socialist regimes are in fact " inverted Bolshevism," and that their leading ideas, such as the use made of the " party," were simply copied from that prince of destroyers, Lenin.
On the question of Treaty Revision the author is of course in his element. He shows in detail how fair, on the whole, was the territorial settlement made in 1919 : " there has surely seldom or never been constructed a peace of a more idealistic character," he quotes from Mr. Gathorne-Hardy. He argues convincingly that it is not the small States, new 'or old, which have been a source of trouble in post-war Europe : indeed, the wholesale transference of land to the peasantry has added greatly to social stability in Central and Eastern Europe and has rendered the agricultural population immune " against Bolshevik seduction from the East."
A careful analysis of the Fourteen Points concludes that it is the colonial settlement which, judged by this standard, is the least defensible. Professor Seton-Watson who, one feels, does not know his Africa as well as he knows his Europe, would be willing to go far in concessions to Germany in this field—but only, he at once adds, " on a basis of world-order and international, as opposed to bilateral, discussion," for " on the present basis of Power-Politics . . . such concessions would be merely in the nature of Danegeld, and indeed Danegeld such as would obviously whet instead of satisfying hostile appetites." Thus, neither here nor on the economic issue is there any prospect of relief to be discerned.
This is at once an enlightening and a steadying book. In that sense it is a contribution to the prevention of war. The day of constructive solutions is still far off.
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