Spiking the Guns
455 SPIKING THE GUNS THE Briand reply to President Coolidge's invitation to attend the proposed Washington conference is an exceedingly interesting document. In declaring that his country...
...Articles in all treaties specify that the Central Powers undertake "to submit to any investigation which the Council of the League of Nations, acting if need be by a majority vote, may consider necessary...
...There is no doubt that Briand has done more to create a rapprochement with Germany than any other man could have accomplished...
...In declaring that his country is "conscious of the obligations imposed upon it as a member of the League of Nations," the French Minister may have been subtly rebuking the United States for its aloofness from foreign affairs, but he was primarily restating in effective form the European policy he has been so steadily pursuing...
...If, therefore, the prestige of Geneva is fortified, the danger from German belligerence will almost automatically cease to exist...
...It made the same agreement regarding the provinces of Eupen and Malmedy, which were taken from it through a made-to-order plebiscite, without any semblance of justice...
...Later on, the allied powers appended the following remarks: "The . . . powers wish to emphasize the fact that their stipulations regarding the armament of Germany have for their purpose not merely to make it impossible for the German government to resume its policy of military offense...
...The Versailles Treaty bound the allied powers to curtail armed forces...
...M. de Broqueville maintained that Germany's army of 100,000 men is costing three-fifths of the total sum she expended for land armies before the war, and that it could easily be expanded into a fighting force of a million men...
...The people of the United States must, therefore, hope that the attitude sponsored by M. Briand on behalf of France will prevail...
...Article Five said very clearly: "In order to make possible the beginning of a general limitation of armaments by all nations, Germany agrees to carry out faithfully the provisions regarding the land army, the sea power, and the aviation forces...
...They must also avoid trying to turn the disarmament current into a channel alien from the League of Nations, or themselves taking any stand at Geneva which would make it difficult to carry out the moral obligation assumed by the League...
...The attention given to a recent "disclosure" made by the Belgian Minister of Defense may, for instance, be taken as significant of what many are thinking...
...This program has, indeed, become the point upon which German apologists are most insistent...
...Similarly, almost every moderate organ and statesman in France have openly endorsed Briand, regardless of the many things they may not approve in the man...
...Duisberg, the Ruhr magnate, have steadily applauded the program realized at Locarno and Thoiry...
...One may think this claim somewhat exaggerated, but the facts it summarizes do indicate that Germany has gone very far in meeting the spirit represented by M. Briand...
...Under the pressure of the Military Control Commission, it has gone farther than the mandatory clauses of the Versailles Treaty stipulated...
...And therefore, Article Eight of the League covenant stated the principle of disarmament on the basis of which the recently held conferences have acted, and in the spirit of which real diplomatic progress toward international reconciliation has been effected...
...These stipulations are designed rather as the first step toward universal limitation and reduction of armaments, which the powers indicated seek to bring about as one of the best means to prevent wars...
...They do not seem to remember either the point which is central in the German attitude toward disarmament...
...but others have considered the "sacrifices" imposed too great for any nation to bear...
...Most of the parliamentary debating now going on in European countries is, as a matter of fact, the outgrowth of these differences...
...Briand's answer to it has consistently been the right to investigate Germany's observation of disarmament stipulations laid down by the Treaty of Versailles, which has been conferred upon the Council of the League...
...Meanwhile, fears and doubts, prevalent in nationalistic circles, ought to be discounted in favor of a constructive political desire to make those fears and doubts more and more untenable...
...Writing in Hochland, Count Montgelas, the well-known German student of contemporary affairs, has this to say: "Germany has disarmed, in so far as personnel and materials are concerned, more fully than any other white nation in history...
...People who make too much of the Reichswehr forget such matters as where the frontier is, what barriers the moral obligations imposed by treaties are, and what eRect the consciousness of insufficient defense has upon a strong nation...
...This is, of course, an old bogey and creates a sensation whenever it is brought to the fore...
...Germans like Dr...
...Finally, at Locarno, it made a sacrifice unparalleled in the records of civilized nations—a sacrifice which was moral as well as material—by agreeing that it would never seek to regain by force that Alsace which for thousands of years has been inhabited by Germanic peoples and which, in so far as language, custom, and culture are concerned, is still nine-tenths German...
...while on the other hand, opposition to him—led, we must believe, by Poincare himself—has been vigorous all the time...
...Briand's corollary from this conclusion is that France should discontinue irritating the population of the Reich and work to create confidence by helping to carry out the League program of disarmament as speedily as possible...
...It is likewise clear that this achievement has made for him a great many enemies at home and abroad...
...It accepted the one-sided demilitarization of its west province, so that its own frontier is now fifty kilometers in from the Rhine...
...They declare that the greatest hindrance to military curtailment is a moral one, and that honesty and sincerity are needed to clear it out of the way...
Vol. 5 • March 1927 • No. 17
