Europe: August, 1928
AS another August passes, Europe has rightly remem- bered the dread decisions of August, 1914, and what they entailed. We recorded last week the scenes at Ypres and on the neighbouring battlefields. They were solemn : what there may have been of a happy picnic spirit was natural and always subordinate to the commemorative spirit of pilgrimage, to the thoughts of sorrow, suffering and loss, to the thankfulness for victory over forces that threatened the liberties of Europe. These were to the fore and nobly expressed by the Arch- bishop of York when he said that the sacrifices had been worth while, a thousand times worth while. They have been, though in moments of irritation we forget it. And this year we have reason, more than ever, to recog- nize thankfully the fruits that they have borne.
We remember how six years after the Armistice Mr. Chamberlain, as he then was, spoke, with all the weight of a Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, of Europe moving slowly "but certainly to a new catastrophe." Would he so speak to-day ? He is leaving these shores to recuperate his health, temporarily broken by his labours for his country and for Europe, and he can go with a mind far more hopeful than when he spoke in 1925. His own honest work has not been the least factor in the gradual change. If his mind rests on Locarno behind us and the signing of Mr. Kellogg's Peace Pact before us, surely the ocean breezes will be free to work beneficently upon his physical ills. And the slow, almost unseen, but steady growth of the influence and power of the • League of Nations must give courage to us all.
Europe has indeed a happier outlook this August over the wider view of the world. But there are smaller clouds, and it is for us all to see that none of them grows until it obscures the fair view. We cannot look towards Yugo-Slavia without anxiety. The young King, whose Crown unites the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, is almost the only object of loyalties common to Serbs and • Croats, who seem to pull asunder from every other contact, political, cultural or economic. M. Raditch himself, except at rare moments, has done nothing to promote the union of his race (whom he, alive or dead, can influence more than any other) with their fellow- subjects whom he so often regarded as aliens. His death and all the circumstances around it are just the test that an excitable people finds most hard to pass. If harmony now prevails, we shall have great encouragement to believe that there is an underlying stability which we cannot yet discern. The good intentions of Father Koroshetz, the Slovene Prime Minister, are undoubted, but his influence over the other two races is not proved. A great responsibility lies upon Italy, who can fan the fires readily, and almost as readily quench them. So far, Signor Mussolini, who has done at a critical time much good for his country, has shown no more altruism abroad than care for liberty at home. Europe will now quickly sec whether Serbs and Croats can lie at peace in one bed. If it seems hopeless, then every effort must be made to prove how a new national organization can be devised by co-operation and not by force. Two races need not be compelled to lie down together ; they can be helped to separate amicably. Outside influences, too, can teach lawless men that small acts of violence will not be allowed, as they have been in the past, to start widespread fires ; both political wild men like Macedonian Komitaji, and more light-hearted local free-booters of whose existence we are reminded by our old friend Hadji Stavros raising his head anew in Epirus. If we turn our eyes further north there is the trouble between Poland and Lithuania, where M. Valdamaras abates nothing of his stubbornness. Marshal Pilsudski, in his wisdom, chose Vilna as the place for his commemoration of August, 1914. We can only say that Vilna was wrongly seized, but that as time goes on it seems more and more sure that the wrong could only be righted by another wrong. Russia is still a menace to her neighbours. We want contact with her people, but they are cut off by her Government, with whom we have found co-operation impossible, try as we may. We want to see her taking her place in the League of Nations and signing the Peace Pact, but, as we have written elsewhere, we must do without her if her inclusion means the intro- duction of suspicion that is fatal, of loss of confidence that is vital. Between Hungary and the Little Entente time does not yet ease the friction. France has a deep responsibility there, and those who, thinking to help Hungary, have rushed in where angels might fear to tread have but damaged her cause and increased the fears and irritation among her neighbours.
In Germany and Austria there have been very signifi- cant hints that the Anschluss is going soon to be seriously considered. We cannot now go into the advantages it offers to both countries, or the dangers that it may entail. But if both countries want it, others have little moral right to prevent it by any show of force. They have a legal right to object under the Treaties which Germany and Austria are bound to observe. Those two nations have no right even to prepare the way for it without fair and frank dealing with the other signatories. The occupation of the Rhineland is another anxious matter. Our readers know that we should like to see it ended' now by agreement. What we fear now is lest foolish elements in Germany should push their Government into any blundering treatment of this matter before the Peace Pact is completed. Can they not see the difficulties that they would raise, both for the Pact and for evacuation, by a bargaining spirit ? The Loearno Treaties did much to make the Occupation look foolish. The Pact will do more. Let them leave it at that and await results. They have this week been mistaken enough to draw attention to the manoeuvres of the Armies of Occupation, and we regret that their cries have been used here as a stick with which to beat the Government. As soldiers .our cavalry there need something more in the way of training than the picnic under canvas which is all that their present numbers would mean in manoeuvres by them- selves. The British Army of the Rhine is an exiguous one. We have given up the Cologne area : we are at Wiesbaden, next door to the French. The General Officers have arranged for our Cavalry regiment to join with the French for exercises which would otherwise be denied to them. This trumpery matter of convenience and training is held up as a demonstration against Ger- many a fortnight before the signing of the Pact. For dangerous fatuity this would be hard to beat. It is not Sir Austen Chamberlain, M. Briand and Herr Strese- mann who wear out each other's health and strength in their pursuit of peaceful relations. These three men and those who have loyally supported them—let us not forget the recent meeting in Cologne between M. Herriot and Herr Adenauer—can in August, 1928, look back with pride and thankfulness on their work, and look forward with hopes that will wipe out the fears that beset Sit Austen in 1925,
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