WAR AIMS
Sta,—The action of Russia in annexing and occupying the eastern part of Poland without any serious protest either from the Allies or from neutral countries has made the restoration of the status quo ante bellum an obvious impossibility. It is equally certain that Hitler would be only too glad to call off the war forthwith if the Allies would allow Germany to retain Danzig and the Corridor and re-create what was left of Poland as a buffer State whose policy would naturally be subservient to that of the Reich, whether it were granted nominal inde- pendence or formally proclaimed to be a protectorate of Germany.
The Allies refuse peace on such conditions. First and fore- most they are resolved to break the power of Hitler and the Nazi regime. The reason for this is that no guarantee given by them to cease from further acts of aggression could be relied upon. What, however, remains obscure is whether a guarantee from any German Government likely to remain in power after the signing of a peace treaty following a German defeat would be reliable so long as the ideal of Deutschland fiber alles and domination of Europe remains an integral part of the mentality of the German people as a whole.
It is mere wishful thinking and the greatest of mistakes to suppose that the Germans today are not solidly behind their Fiihrer. It is just as fallacious to entertain the idea that, after defeat, the Germans would not again in process of time line themselves up under the leadership of some other dictator as soon as the opportunity offered. The reason is that, since the days of Bismarck, the army has always been the control- ling factor in the German State, as Professor Pollard rightly asserts in a letter to The Times this week, in which he observes that " The Great War was started to retain the control of the German Army over the German Government. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose." Is he not right?
It really, then, comes to this: that so long as Germany is under the sway of a military autocracy—a form of govern- ment quite congenial to the average German, however detest- able it might seem to the average Englishman—there is not the slightest chance of lasting peace in Europe. And what is an equally unpleasant fact to consider is that Germany is not the only country in Europe where the principle that might is right has established itself, though it may suit us to turn a blind eye to this for the time being.
The idea of the pacifist section of our people that a series of acts of self-abnegation on the part of this country would clear up the situation and enable Europe to live as a happy family ever afterwards is simply fatuous. Would France, Italy or Russia consent to have their colonial possessions put under a similar mandate to that proposed for our own by those ideologists who seem to be so particularly concerned about a declaration of our war aims at this stage of the struggle?
Future conditions, presumably, will have to be settled at a conference where France will be entitled equally with our- selves to lay down what they shall be if the Allies are vic- torious. Now the French are a realistic people, as they have every reason to be after all their country has suffered at the hands of Germany since 1870. They will therefore probably insist that this shall be the final reckoning between themselves and Germany, and that the hydra of militarism in the latter country shall have all its heads properly cut off this time be- yond any chance of their resuscitation within the lifetime of the youngest of the present generation. The average French- man saw what would happen once our statesmen allowed Hitler to refortify the Rhineland after having flagrantly broken the clause of the Versailles Treaty which forbade Ger- many to rearm. Where the French made a mistake was by not following our lead in disarmament, which might have con- vinced a Germany whose army was not in power for a few years after 1918, that the victors were not going to make armed force an instrument of policy in future international negotiations.
Our chief war aim should therefore be disarmament. Ger- man militarism is, as it was in the last war, the real enemy. Until this has been smashed it is idle for our ideologists to start a campaign whose virtual aim is to compel the Government to divert its energies towards highly debatable matters when these should be entirely concentrated on the prosecution of the war itself. Their efforts are the more pernicious because they may sow dissension between ourselves and our only ally and, even at home, are more likely to divide than unite the nation at a time when unity is vitally essential.—Yours faithfully, Snt,—With reference to Sir Arthur Salter's most interesting article about War Purposes and War Aims I beg to point out that Sir Arthur mentions the necessity of freeing Poland and Czecho-Slovakia but he says no word on behalf of Austria, which was subjugated by the same brutal and lawless methods as the other two countries, and whose people are languishing under the German yoke just as much as are their fellow sufferers in Poland and Czecho-Slovakia.
When Schuschnigg called on the Austrian people to vote in a plebiscite for or against an independent Christian Austria, the majority for independence was so certain that Hitler would not risk allowing the plebiscite to take place. This was the reason why the German army marched with tanks and heavy guns into peaceful country which desired nothing but to be left free from Nazi domination. More than 40,000 of the best Austrian- patriots, among them Schuschnigg, most of the Cabinet Ministers, the Lord Mayor of Vienna, the Provincial Governors had to go to prison, where those of them who survived, still are ; scores of them, including the Deputy Chancellor Major Fey, Minister Neustiidter-Stiirmer and the Minister of War, General Zelmer, were openly murdered in the days after the Anschluss and hundreds of thousands of loyal Austrians of all political groups opposed to the Nazis were driven into exile, before Herr Biirckel, the German gaoler of Austria, could arrange the ridiculous " plebiscite " comedy by which nobody in this country would have allowed himself to be deceived. On April 12th, 1938, the Nazis duly reported a majority of 99.7 for Hitler, though Herr Hitler had given as excuse for his march into Austria the imminent Communist danger. Did all those dangerous Communists vote for Hitler? And if not, were the .3 opposition so dangerous as to justify the heavily armed German occupation? These facts should suffice to show everybody in England that the so-called " plebiscite " was a shameless farce played in order to suppress Austria's true voice, which cries aloud for freedom and liberation from Nazi oppression.
Moreover, it should by now be known in this country that the independence of Austria is an essential condition for the maintenance of an independent Czecho-Slovakia and Poland. The events of the last two years prove conclusively that the moment Austria fell the Czech Republic, encircled on three sides, could no longer resist against German aggression, and that the destruct:on of Czecho-Slovakia sealed the fate of Poland.
It should therefore be recorded and understood that the independence of Poland, Czecho-Slovakia and Austria form an indissoluble whole and there is no lasting peace possible in Europe unless Austria's independence is secured for all time.
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