CURRENT_ LITERATURE
THE LIMITATIONS- OF -VICTORY. By A. Fabre -Luce, translated by C. Vesey. (London Allen and Umvin. 12s. (3d.
net.) ' • TrT competent translator and the publishers. of Count Max Montgelai' apobigia for Gerinany, The Caie for the Central Powers, which we reviewed some Months ago, now give 'us an En8lis1i Within of M. Fabre-Lace's La Victoire, of which a great part is again a defence of Germany's policy up to August, 1914. The author goes minutely into the diplomatic and other correspondence and speech-making of 1914, and traces controversies from 1870 onward. He finds much for which to blame M. Delcasse, M. Poincare and others in France, and M. Isvolsky in. Russia. For Germany he finds many excuses. The Kaiser, his Chancellors and diplomats were misled, were victims of panic Which upset the best intentions and so on. In fact, the War arose out of muddles for which everyone was to blame, nobody more than another, though M. Fabre-Luce gives the impression that he would like to blame M. Poineare most of all. All this is very unsatisfying. Of course there is some truth in it. It is even a tenable view that His Majesty's Government and Lord Grey of Fallodon would have better ensued peace by bellicose threats in that July but if atiSiiiie blimeS Great Britain foidirectly 'seeking peace, can he blame her more than Germany for bringing about the War ? If M. Poineare: did make up his stubborn and fatalistic mind that Germany intended to attack and that he must meet the challenge, is that as blameworthy as the inten- tion to attack ? Nothing here shakes our conviction that Germany was willing to challenge the world and that there lay the chief crime. We shall. never know for certain how far Serbia (not necessarily the Serbian Government) went in baiting Austria, nor how far Austria could justify a local war, still less how far she wilfully risked a European War. We can icily accept the general "impression; drawn from conflicting evidence, that Germany could have prevented ,the War and Aft not care to ThiS impression is not wiped out even by a Frenchman's efforts to whitewash her. With the rest of the book, which condemns M. Poineare's policy after:the Peace and ends with-luipefid passages- on the League-of Nations, we can.agree. We do nat look at French policy from M. Fabre- :apparently that of an international pacifist of the left, bit we haYeieen that it was of disseriee to France
alici,to. Europe.... : • "
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