The

Edinburgh Review

OCTOBER, 1918

No. 466

A PROGRAMME FOR PEACE-REVISED

WINTER will certainly bring us further offers of peace

from the enemy. Not all of them will be insincere. Some may seem tempting. They will be accompanied by subtly-disguised campaigns of propaganda, of which the real object will be to sow dissension between us and our Allies, and especially between our Continental Allies and 'Anglo-Saxonism.' We cannot be sure that the source of these enemy offensives will always be detected in time or exposed with convincing completeness. It behoves us, therefore, not only to organize our defences against them, but to prepare betimes our own peace offensive.'

In preparing and conducting it we need to be honest with ourselves and honest with the enemy. Propaganda not based on policy, and policy not in harmony with facts, are alike worthless. But in order to be honest with ourselves we must know clearly what it is that we are resolved to secure in the way of a peace settlement. We must define and proclaim. our programme for peace while we are still at war, lest peace, coming as a thief in the night, take us unawares and find us unready.

In the EDINBURGH REVIEW for April, 1916, was published a tentative definition of Allied war aims. The article, entitled 'A Programme for Peace,' was written under the influence of a visit to the battle-field of Verdun early in March. Its avowed purpose was to stimulate a discussion that may help to clear up obscure points and to further the acceptance All rights reserved.

VOL. 228. NO. 466.

' of a general (peace) programme.' For purposes of comparison and reference it is here reproduced, although some of its postulates have since been fulfilled and others rendered obsolete by the course of the war. It ran :

'(1) That the Allies win the war so thoroughly as to be able to dictate their terms. An inconclusive peace, following upon even a victorious war, would be but a prelude to a fresh period of armaments and of preparation for a struggle still more cruel.

(2) That, as a preliminary step to the winning of the war, the British people entrust its management to a few men filled with the war spirit and determined to conquer literally at all costs.

(3) That the co-ordination of Allied effort, and particularly of Franco-British effort, be carried much farther than it has hitherto been. To this end the British forces in France should be regarded as an integral part of the French Army, and should receive orders, not merely suggestions or advice, from the French Commanderin-Chief and his Chief of Staff. Just as the French Navy is, in practice, subordinate to the British Navy, so the British Army, with its reserves and resources, should be effectively subordinate to the French Army, which, in the conduct of a Continental war, is at least as superior to our Army as the British Navy is superior to the French Navy.

(4) That as soon as a Government for War shall have been formed in Great Britain, a policy of economic alliance between the various parts of the Empire, with the help of statesmen from the Overseas Dominions, shall be drafted on broad lines.

(5) That this policy having been formulated and adopted in principle, the British Empire, as a whole, shall concert with its Allies a scheme for economic defence against Germany and her allies both during and after the war. The objects of this scheme would be: (a) To tighten the blockade' of Germany; (b) to convince Germany and her allies that the longer they continue the struggle the more complete will be their economic ruin, and the more protracted the period of economic servitude through which they must pass until they have fully indemnified those of the Allies who have most suffered from Germany's action; (c) to establish, as a settled principle of Allied policy, that, until these indemnities have been fully paid, the British and Allied Navies will not recognize the German or any enemy flag upon the high seas; and that the Allies will exact such additional guarantees of the payment of these indemnities by occupation of territory or otherwise as may be deemed essential.

(6) That, simultaneously with the formation of an Allied economic policy, there shall be taken in hand the establishment of a definite scheme of European reconstruction, territorial and political, such a scheme to include:

(a) The restoration of Alsace-Lorraine to France;

(b) The adjustment of Belgian territory in accordance with Belgian requirements;

(c) The constitution of an ethnically-complete Serbia in the form of a United States of Yugoslavia ;

(d) The constitution of a unified self-governing Poland under the Russian sceptre;

(e) The constitution of an independent, or at least autonomous, Bohemia, including Moravia and the Slovak country of northwestern Hungary;

The allotment to Rumania of the Rumane regions of Hungary and the Bukovina, provided that Rumania shall have helped effectively to liberate those regions from AustroHungarian rule;

(g) The establishment of the freedom of the Bosphorus and of the Dardanelles to shipping, after Russia has secured, or has been given, possession of Constantinople;

(h) The completion of Italian unity by the inclusion within the frontiers of the kingdom of Italy of all Italian districts in the Trentino and the Carnic Alps, on the Triestine littoral and the Istrian coast; the establishment of Italian naval control in the Adriatic by the possession of Pola, Lissa and Valona.'

This programme' evidently needs revision in the light of the last two and a half years of war. During that period we have seen the intervention and the overthrow of Rumania; the Russian revolution and the collapse of the Russian army under German and Bolshevist influence; the declaration of war by the United States and its effects in Central and South America; the defeat and recovery of Italy; the overthrow of defeatist tendencies in France; the bringing of the American hosts to Europe and the establishment of a unified military command; the repulse of the German offensive and the Allied victories in France, Palestine and the Balkans; the recognition of the Czecho-Slovaks and the prospective recognition of the Yugoslavs as Allied and belligerent peoples. These and other events have so quickened the flight of Victory that the beat of her wings is already in our ears and her form and features are coming into sight. It seems therefore desirable to bring up to date the 'programme' of 1916, and to examine those of its postulates which still await realization.

Late in 1916 the formation of the British War Cabinet went some way towards fulfilling the suggestion that, as far as Great Britain was concerned, the management of the war should be entrusted to a few men filled with the war spirit.'

The successes of Mr. Lloyd George's administration have been due to its war spirit, just as its failures may be traced to some flagging of that spirit on his part and on the part of his colleagues and advisers. He and his colleagues have faltered far too often, and, on some occasions, have run after false gods or sought broad and easy paths to an inglorious peace. But much may be pardoned him and them for their steadfastness in securing the unification of the supreme Allied military command. Their task in this respect was hardharder than the public ever suspected. Prejudice, intrigue, and even defeatism masquerading as super-patriotism, had to be overcome before Marshal Foch could be placed in the position which has enabled him to lead the Allied armies to triumph. It now remains to unify the economic and the political command of the Allied cause. The economic command is, indeed, in process of unification, but there is much to be done before the Governments of the Allies and of the United States agree to a common political programme and place its execution under joint control.

Nevertheless, progress has been made in this direction also. Since January, 1917, when the Allies made their first official attempt to define their peace programme in answer to President Wilson's appeal of December 19th, 1916, the discussion of War Aims' has not ceased. The motives which prompted that appeal have not yet been authentically established. It is certain only that after his second election President Wilson felt that unless the war were speedily ended the United States would not be able long to remain neutral. Before facing the choice between continued neutrality and a declaration of war, he held himself bound publicly to ascertain the motives of the two belligerent groups.

It has sometimes been suggested that even before launching the appeal his mind was made up, and that the appeal itself was a deft manœuvre to put the Central Powers in the wrong and the Allies in the right before the public opinion of America. The suggestion is based upon a misconstruction of the President's own attitude and of his reading of the situation. President Wilson is human and has his shortcomings, but trickiness is certainly not among them. His mind moves slowly, but it is essentially honest. He has been described as a Scotch Presbyterian,' and there is in him much that is

more readily comprehensible if the Scottish Covenanter strain in his character be taken into account. Unless I am entirely misinformed, he was not as convinced, towards the end of 1916, of the final triumph of the Allied cause as were the peoples and the statesmen of Allied countries. He knew that Germany contemplated unrestricted submarine warfare. He believed that such warfare would probably involve a breach with the United States, but he was fearful lest the German submarines should strike a fatal blow at British sea-power and ruin the Allied cause before the United States could intervene effectively in the contest. Therefore he called upon all the nations now at war' to make' such an avowal ' of their respective views as to the terms upon which the war 'might be concluded. . . as would make it possible frankly 'to compare them.' He added, 'It may be that peace is 'nearer than we know; that the terms which the belligerents on the one side and on the other would deem it necessary 'to insist upon are not so irreconcilable as some have feared.'

Had the Germans answered this appeal politely and with even ostensible sincerity, President Wilson would certainly have given the fullest consideration to their plea. They preferred to treat his well-meant request with ill-disguised contempt. The Allies, on the other hand, replied on January 10th, 1917, with courtesy and firmness. Their war aims they declared to be:

'Necessarily and first of all the restoration of Belgium, Serbia, and Montenegro with the compensations due to them; the evacuation of the invaded territories in France, in Russia, in Rumania, with just reparations; the reorganization of Europe, guaranteed by a stable régime and based at once on respect for nationality and on the right to full security and liberty of economic development possessed by all peoples, small and great, and at the same time upon territorial conventions and international settlements such as to guarantee land and sea frontiers against unjustified attack; the restitution of provinces formerly torn from the Allies by force or against the wish of their inhabitants; the liberation of the Italians, as also of the Slavs, Rumanes and Czecho-Slovaks from foreign domination; the setting free of the populations subject to the bloody tyranny of the Turks and the turning out of Europe of the Ottoman Empire as decidedly foreign to Western civilization. The intentions of H.M. the Emperor of Russia in regard to Poland have been clearly indicated by the manifesto he has just addressed to his Army.'