CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE

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ARCHIBALD CARY COOLIDGE, Editor of FOREIGN AFFAIRS, Professor of History in Harvard University NORMAN H. DAVIS, Financial Advisor to the American Peace Commission and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, 1919; Under-Secretary of State, 1920-21 THEODORE E. BURTON, for several years United States Senator from Ohio, now a Member of Congress; "keynote speaker" at the 1924 Republican National Convention *** ROBERT MORSS LOVETT, Associate Editor of The New Republic • SNOUCK HURGRONJE, Professor at the University of Leiden, for many years the leading western authority on Mohammedanism D, Anonymous ROBERT F. KELLEY, of the Division of Eastern European Affairs in the Department of State * ROBERT DeC. WARD, Professor of Climatology, Harvard University, author of several scientific works *** COUNT HUGO LERCHENFELD, former Prime Minister of Bavaria, now a Member of the Committee for Foreign Affairs of the German Reichstag THEODORE D. HAMMATT, Special Agent of the Department of Commerce, engaged at present on a study of the American wheat situation. J. A. STEVENSON, Canadian correspondent of the Manchester Guardian and Parliamentary correspondent of the Toronto Star *** FREDERICK DEANE, an American business man, for some time resident in China.

The articles in FOREIGN AFFAIRS do not represent any consensus of beliefs. We do not expect that readers of the review will sympathize with all the sentiments they find there, for some of our writers will flatly disagree with others; but we hold that while keeping clear of mere vagaries FOREIGN AFFAIRS can do more to guide American public opinion by a broad hospitality to divergent ideas than it can by identifying itself with one school. It does not accept responsibility for the views expressed in any articles, signed or unsigned, which appear in its pages. What it does accept is the responsibility for giving them a chance to appear there.

The Editors.

HEN the year 1914 had half run its course the world as a whole appeared fairly tranquil. It is true that there had just been two wars in the Balkans, whence ominous rumblings were still being emitted, that there was strife in Mexico and American troops had been landed at Vera Cruz, that disorder was rife in China, and that the situation in Ireland was critical, nevertheless in the main there was peace on earth and a reasonable amount of good will among men. Today we have peace once more, but of good will among men, or at least among nations, there has been a deplorable decrease. In the last ten years a large part of mankind has passed through a period of untold suffering which in many cases has not yet ended. We have witnessed disasters of appalling magnitude, a waste of human life, a destruction of property, an overthrow of long established governments and the erection of new ones, an unsettlement of the most fixed relations and countless other subversive phenomena undreamt of and undreamable. What does it all mean and whither are we going?

The World War burst upon us like a sudden thunderclap. The storm had long been brewing, so long indeed that many had got used to the threat and gave little heed to it. Statesmen in the countries concerned might be full of apprehensions, and military men be expecting war very soon, as is their wont, but the mass of the public had no particular forebodings. When the crisis did. come, five of the six leading European nations were swept into the maelstrom within a fortnight. The Austrian ultimatum started an inexorable sequence, against which rulers and statesmen seemed to struggle in vain. The ultimatum itself was so severe and meant to be-that no self-respecting state could accept it. When it was not submitted to unconditionally, Austria, who had prepared her demand with deliberation and

with a realization of the seriousness of the risks incurred, felt she would stultify herself if she accepted the Serbian refusal. Russia could not leave Serbia to her fate. The whole history of the Eastern Question, every ambition of Russia in the Near East, the intensity of her public sentiment as to her duty to protect the weaker Slav peoples, forbade this. But if Russia attacked Austria, Germany, bound by the assurances Berlin had given to Vienna at the start, as well as by the Austro-German treaty of 1879, must support her ally. But then, France was even more bound in honor to stand by Russia, otherwise the Franco-Russian alliance would have been the veriest scrap of paper.

The next development, however, was more uncertain. Germany and France were the only states in Europe brought into the war by existing treaties of alliance. England was tied to France by no formal pact of this sort, and in spite of Anglo-German rivalry and of the Anglo-French entente there were high hopes in Berlin that she would remain neutral. If the Germans, instead of violating the neutrality of Luxemburg and Belgium, had remained on the defensive in the west, taking the ground that they had no quarrel with France, and had thrown their main strength against Russia, we may well doubt whether England, where at first the majority of the Cabinet were against intervention, would have laid her sword on the scale. Had she stood aside, Italy and Rumania might sooner or later have joined the Central Powers, their old allies, instead of doing just the opposite. But the German Government chose to sacrifice political and moral considerations to what it believed to be military ones, as it did a second time with equally fatal effect in 1917 in its relations with the United States.

After the conflict had once begun, the vast majority of people involved, high and low, were convinced, as most of them still are, of the essential righteousness of their cause. This was not altered by the fact that four of the states bargained hard and long with both parties before casting in their lot with either. When they did act, they were as sure as anyone else that they were animated by the highest principles. Their motives were comprehensible and even their miscalculations were not altogether foolish. Turkey and Bulgaria have indeed paid heavily for having guessed wrong, but in 1917 it looked as if it was they who would emerge triumphant and aggrandized, while Italy and Rumania would suffer for their disastrous mistakes.

The war was fertile in surprises. At the outset no one foresaw its length, though Lord Kitchener came near to doing so. Even the wildest fancies were surpassed by the immensity of the effort, the consumption of life and treasure, the sheer destruction of every kind. The battle of the Marne meant the miscarriage of the long and meticulously prepared German plan of striking France to earth by one terrific blow. On the other hand, British failure at the Dardanelles may well have prolonged the struggle by a couple of years. The Russian Revolution, followed by the withdrawal of Russia from the field and by the forced capitulation of Rumania, would probably have meant German victory but for the entrance into the war of the United States, a contingency undreamt of in July, 1914. The German submarine warfare proved a complete miscalculation in its ultimate objects, but who can say how near it came to success? Had the Leviathan alone been sunk by a torpedo, with her cargo of twelve thousand soldiers, we cannot tell what would have been the effect on American opinion and on the transport of armies across the ocean. When at last Bulgaria, Turkey, and Austria had collapsed and Germany had been beaten to her knees, the victorious Allied and Associated Powers, in congress assembled, were called upon to determine how the world was to be refashioned. Thanks chiefly to the desire of President Wilson to array against the Central Empires the moral opinion of mankind, the Allies had welcomed to their ranks a number of nominal adherents-Cuba, Liberia, Siam, and others--who added to the congestion of representatives at the Peace Conference. Under such circumstances all the real decisions had to be made by a few men. It was hard enough to get even them to agree on the many and complicated questions. Though their principles might be theoretically the same, their views were far apart and the interests of their countries differed. Nothing could have been achieved by public debate in a general conclave where all might have a voice and a vote, but where no majority could bind sovereign states. To get results much compromise was indispensable, and compromise can best be reached by a few responsible individuals whose arguments are addressed to each other and not to the gallery. In delicate negotiations, public or private, however friendly, "open diplomacy" is sometimes about as feasible as open strategy in warfare.

Contrary to precedent, the defeated foes were not invited to take part in the discussions of the terms which were to be imposed

upon them. Such objections as they were permitted to make afterwards met with scant attention. This has been resented by them ever since as a crying injustice. It is unlikely, however, that the presence of their delegates throughout the Conference would have had serious influence on the final result. There were no new facts they could bring forth or arguments they could urge which would have affected the sentiments of the nations which had just come out victorious after four years and a half of life and death conflict. At any rate the Allies did not wish to be bothered by representatives of their enemies to make the difficult work of obtaining a consensus of opinion more difficult still, nor did they propose to run the risk of having some German diplomat repeat the exploits of Talleyrand at the Congress of Vienna.

Certain notable articles of the Peace of Versailles were due primarily to a popular craving that those responsible for the terrific suffering and loss the world had undergone should be brought to justice before the tribunal of mankind. This is the explanation of the futile provision for the trial of the Kaiser (the one thing which could have rehabilitated him), who was already well out of harm's way, and also of the extraordinary demand that Germany must acknowledge her guilt as the author of the war. Such a requirement was as unwise as it was unusual. The German people had fought for years in the belief that they were defending themselves against the unprovoked aggression of a coalition of jealous rivals. To be forced now at the point of the sword to announce that the blame was theirs appeared to them a monstrous perversion of the truth. They submitted because they had to, but without the least moral acceptance. Ever since they have been investigating with passion the subject of the origin of the war and of course they are as convinced as ever of their own essential innocence. Even in regard to Belgium they have been unwilling to plead guilty, though outside opinion has been practically unanimous against them. They have jumped at every scrap of so-called evidence that the English and French had intended to act in the same way, and that the Belgians deserved their fate, assumptions of a kind common among culprits. Many of them believe, too, that if they could discover a document which would fasten the responsibility for the World War on some other nation the whole peace treaty would be overturned as being based on a false premise and would have to be remade on totally different lines.