GEOGRAPHIC DISARMAMENT
By Major-General J. H. Marshall-Cornwall . .
The title of this very opportune addition to the valuable series of monographs issued under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Milford, 12s. 6d.) needs explanation, and it finds it in the sub-title, -" a Study-- of
Regional Demilitarisation." But that, perhaps, as interpreted by the average reader, narrows the subject too much. General
Marshall-Cornwall discusseS various barriers to immediate aggression—neutral territories and buffer States, as well as demilitarised zones proper. Of the latter the most effective— apart fromthe famous undefended American-Canadian frontier. which in any case is something a little different—is the thirty kilometre zone on each side of the river Maritza, constituting the Greco-Turkish frontier in Eastern Thrace. When this'
volume was written there was, of course, another, the Rhine- land, to which General Marshall-Cornwall devotes a chapter. It was not, as he observes, what a demilitarised zone should be, for it was on one side of the frontier only, and it was not designed to prevent the outbreak of hostilities but to prevent France from being taken at a disadvantage at the outbreak of hostilities. His proposal that France should voluntarily offer to demilitarise Alsace-Lorraine as compensation for Germany's demilitarisation of the Rhineland is, unfortunately, no longer very practical politics. But the events of March 7th and the discussions in progress now -give the book a very special relevance.
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