GERMANY AND THE FOURTEEN POINTS

By WILSON HARRIS

IT is more than twenty-one years now since President Wilson's famous Fourteen Points were formulated, but they are still a storm-centre of forensic conflict. Herr Hitler is never tired of harking back to the Peace Conference of 1919 and its fruit the Treaty of Versailles, and insisting that the treaty is a shameful travesty of the Fourteen Points on which the treaty purports to be based. And too many people in this country—though most of them might be hard 'put to it to quote four of the fourteen correctly—help to dis- seminate the legend. The peace legend as a whole indeed goes back further still, for it includes the dogmatic allegation that Germany collapsed, while her armies were still unbeaten, on account of political disintegration at home and the pressure of the blockade. That, no doubt, had its effect, but if arguments are to be based today on these allegations —and they are being—it is desirable to see just where truth lies. Take first the Armistice negotiations. They sprang directly from the defeat of the German armies in the field and from nothing else. The turning-point (as Ludendorff's own Memoirs plainly demonstrate) was Haig's offensive of August 8th. From that day the Germans were in continuous retreat, and by the end of September Ludendorff and Hindenburg were urging on the German Government with almost frenzied insistence the need for immediate peace negotiations.

President Wilson was accordingly approached, and through his agency an agreement to make peace was reached. It was to be based "on the terms of peace laid down in the President's Address to Congress of January 8th, 1918 [the Fourteen Points speech] and the principles of settlement enunciated in his subsequent addresses "—subject to a reservation made by the Allies regarding the Second Point (Freedom of the Seas) and a declaration by them on the general question of Reparations. Those terms Germany—which had rejected them contemptuously when they were formulated in January —accepted in November, and an armistice was signed on November nth; President Wilson had warned the Germans that it would be made drastic enough to render it impossible for them to renew the War. And in January, 1919, the Peace Conference assembled to translate into the detailed and explicit articles of a treaty the broad principles embodied in the Fourteen Points and the subsequent addresses. How far is the treaty a cynical abandonment of the principles?

In certain respects it can be argued that it is. The weakest spots are disarmament and reparations. But the question is best answered by taking the Points seriatim—or rather such of them as are relevant, for some of them did not affect Germany, and therefore had no relation to the Treaty of Versailles. I. Open diplomacy. Did not specially concern Germany. Article xviii of the Treaty stipulated that all treaties should be registered with the League of Nations and published, and not be binding till so registered.

II. Freedom of the Seas. Did not specially concern Germany, and in any case was sidetracked by the reserva- tions of the Allies (in which Germany acquiesced).

III. "Removal, so far as possible, of economic barriers" and establishment of equality of trade conditions. This principle was referred to the League of Nations to put into effect ; the League had some success with it till economic nationalism became rampant after about 1930.

IV. Reduction of Armaments. One of Germany's most genuine grievances, to be discussed more fully below.

V. Colonies. "A free, open-minded and absolutely im- partial adjustment of all colonial claims," taking full account of the interests of the population concerned. The claims were those of the Allies; President Wilson took it for granted (as he stated in December, 1918 and January, 1919) that Germany's colonies should not be returned to her. The mandate system was devised to safeguard the natives' interests.

VI. The Evacuation of Russia (by Germany) and sym- pathetic co-operation with her by the Allied Powers. Ger- many has no grievance here.

VII. Belgium to be evacuated and "restored." Germany has no grievance here.

VIII. French Territory to be freed and "restored." Germany has no grievance apart from the general reparation question.

IX. Readjustment of Italian Frontiers—did not con- cern Germany.

X. Austria. "The freest opportunity of autonomous development" for the peoples of Austria-Hungary. Did not concern Germany.

XI. The Balkans. Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro to be evacuated, and the occupied territories "restored." Germany has no grievance here.

XII. Turkish Empire. Secure sovereignty for purely Turkish territory, but security and autonomy for nationalities then subject to her. Did not concern Germany.

XIII. Poland. An independent Polish State on territory indisputably Polish, with "free and secure access to the sea." This is the justification for the so-called Polish Corridor. Whether Germany has a grievance here is arguable.

XIV. Creation of a League of Nations. Germany might claim (but does not) that she had a grievance in not being allowed to join the League at once.

What is to be said of the execution of the Fourteen Points, in the light of subsequent history and in particular of their translation into the Treaty of Versailles ? There has obvi- ously been no wholesale violation of the Wilsonian principles. As a whole, indeed, they did, as they should, form the basis of the treaty. Its territorial provisions were open to small objection; but in two fields—disarmament and reparations —a strong German case can undeniably be made. About disarmament the plain fact is that, while Germany was largely disarmed by land and sea and completely disarmed by air, the provision in the Fourth Point for "adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety" was only to a very limited degree honoured by the victorious Powers. Their armaments were, of course, reduced. Britain cut her army to its insignificant pre-War figure, virtually scrapped her air force and sank some 1,800,000 tons of warships by the end of the year 1922, while France reduced her three-year military service to one year, which meant reducing her total force by almost two-thirds. It can be argued that what checked that process was the knowledge that Germany was secretly arming in contra- vention of the Treaty. But no one today will contend that the plain intention of Point IV, which both the Allies and Germany accepted, was ever adequately carried out by the former.

With regard to Reparations it may be observed that the term nowhere occurs in the Fourteen Points. Mention was made of the " restoration " of various occupied territories. and the Allies took the occasion to explain in the course of the pre-Armistice negotiations (on November 5th) that by that "they understand that compensation will be made by Germany for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allies, and their property, by the aggression of Ger- many by land, by sea and from the air." That stipulation, transmitted by the American Government to Germany, which made no objection to it, should be the basis of the reparation clauses of the treaty. Here, it has to be admitted, the German case is strong. The formula quoted clearly stipulated for reparation of actual damage done, not fOr pay- ment, or attempted payment, of the cost of the war. And though General Smuts drafted, and President Wilson as well as Mr. Lloyd George and M. Clemenceau approved, a clause bringing under the head of " compensation " the whole cost of pensions and reparation allowances in the Allied armies, no one can characterise that as anything but plain sophistry. The bill even without such expansion might well have been beyond Germany's capacity to pay ; so inflated, it became fantastically impossible. And it was Germany's failure to pay that led in 1923 to the French occupation of the Ruhr, a measure which far beyond any other in the post-War period poisoned and embittered Germany's relations with her former enemies.

The economic distress caused by Reparations, directly and indirectly paved the way for Hitler's rise to power.