The essentials of an enduring victory

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Preface

A considerable number of the Allies believe that the conclusion of the armistice with Germany on November 10th, 1918, signified that all was over, that we were assured of absolute victory, and that the general demobilization could be immediately begun.

As this is an erronous belief, it constitutes a source of immense danger.

The object of this book is to show this danger in the strongest light, and to convince public opinion that it is urgently necessary to guard against it without delay. I shall show that our victory may be very seriously compromised during the armistice preceding peace.

Many of my readers may possibly be surprised by this statement, especially those who as yet know nothing of me; and for this reason I must first explain why I am particularly entitled to be heard by the general public at this crucial moment of the world's history.

During a period of twenty years before

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1914, I devoted all my time and all my means to the defense of peace. In order to avoid entirely the horrors of this war, I had carefully studied the conditions which would cause it with the view of showing how it could best be prevented.

Events have shown that the measures I advanced in my books, published from 1901 to 1914, to prevent the German aggression, were right. If, therefore, these measures had been followed, this horrible war would never have taken place, and millions of men would still be living. These things justify me in thinking that I can give some information that will be especially useful to prevent a recurrence of the war.

There are other reasons why confidence may be accorded me:

The two maps given on pages viii and ix demonstrate that already in 1901 I had clearly explained in what the Pangerman plan consisted, exactly as it was realized sixteen years later, in 1917.

In 1912, I declared that the European war would begin by an attack on Serbia (see La Defense Nationale, November 30th, 1912), that the German offensive against France which would follow would be ''terrific in its na-

PREFACE vii

ture," and "pushed to the verge of frenzy" (see La Grise frangaise, page 507) .

As the result of four months' investigation in the Balkans at the beginning of 1914, I published in the Paris Correspondant (June, 1914) indications which showed that the government of Vienna ''was about to set off an explosion which should destroy the state of things beginning to take shape in the Balkans." In August, 1914, I pointed out that Bulgaria would declare war against the Allies as soon as they met with a military defeat, which came to pass after the affair in the Dardanelles.

In my book. The Pangerman Plot Unmasked, published at the beginning of 1916 (see page 73), I denounced in advance the series of German pacifist manoeuvres, including the one now in progress — the armistice trick, based on the evacuation of Belgium and France, to be followed by a negotiated peace which finally, in spite of first appearances, would result in a German victory.

This peril still exists in a much greater degree than is believed, but we can completely avert it if the Allies take advantage of the tremendous effect produced by the defeat of Bulgaria and the revolt of the oppressed

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PREFACE

IX

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peoples in Austria-Hungary, who have opened to the AUies a free, triumphal road from Belgrade or Fiume to northern Bohemia; that is, to a point only 250 kilometres south of Berlin. These events, which in the single month of October, 1918, completely transformed the general situation of the Allies, grew out of the application of a political strategy on the principles and methods of which I have not ceased to point out from the beginning of the war. See U Illustration^ January 2d, 1915; "How to Destroy Pangermany," Atlantic Monthly, December, 1917; Pangermany, the Disease and Cure, and a Plan for the Allies. On page 211 of this book, published by the Atlantic Monthly early in 1918, will be found a formula summarizing the conditions of victory, which, as events have since shown, were amply carried out by the Allies in September-October, 1918.

On page 212 of the same book, I said once more: ''In reality it is enough that the Austro- German communications should be seriously disturbed for the situation to become, with extraordinary swiftness, very difficult both morally and materially for the armies concentrated on the western front by the German Staff."

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I said at the end of this book: "If we encourage the Slavs, we shall inevitably bring about an internal explosion in Pangermany, and before the close of 1918 complete victory will be ours."

A long series of events sustain my predictions. Not that I am at all a prophet; I am only what may be called a good mechanicengineer who has studied the very complicated European machine long and deeply, and, as is only natural under such circumstances, I can see much farther into the future than those who have not undergone the same special training.

The service which I may now be able to render lies in pointing out to the general public the great dangers of the period of armistice, and the way to avert them.

We must first understand that the armistice signed by Germany is not identical with an unconditional surrender. This agreement gives strong guarantees to the Allies, no doubt, but none the less it limits their action, as they are not allowed to occupy the whole territory of Germany. The German army is not demobilized, it is simply to withdraw beyond a xii PREFACE

definite zone, and a portion of its material is still in its possession.

The armistice is therefore an agreement which assumes, on the one hand, that the Germans will keep their word, and, on the other, that the Allies will know how to draw the most advantages from the securities which have been given them.

The application of the principle of reparation for damage caused is in particular remarkably elastic. It may be applied in a way so inadequate that — as I shall show later on — the final result would be that France would in reality completely lose the war — a result which would have as its consequence the defeat of all the AUies.

The armistice is, then, a convention, that is, a paper, worth just as much as its application; and while the armistice is in force the Germans and those who take their part in the different Allied countries will surely attempt —

1st. To increase the enormous lessening of morale which the conclusion of the armistice has brought about among the Allied troops by making them think that there can be immediate demobilization.

2d. To modify the conditions of the armistice or to secure their incomplete execution.

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3d. To stir up rivalries which may naturally exist between the greater Allies and between the peoples to be set free by the Entente in central and eastern Europe, but which have hitherto been held in check by the restraints of the war.

4th. By means of this situation to reach a negotiated peace.

5th. To obtain much more favorable conditions of peace, on the plea that the Germans are now republicans.

When one is familiar with the persistency and power of German propaganda it is clear that if these modes of action are systematically applied for several months, at the peace the Allied victory will be shorn of much of its greatness.

I state below certain things which have taken place or became known in the space of only seventy-two hours before or after the signature of the armistice by Germany, November 10th, 1918.

The Evening Post of November 11th announces that the delegates from the Central Powers will have preparatory conferences with the envoys of the Allies. A negotiated peace in conformity with Boche ideas is, then, in preparation, which is contrary to the wish of the immense majority of the American xiv PREFACE

public, which has clearly pronounced in favor of a dictated peace.

In New York, on the 10th of November, 4,000 socialists held a meeting at the Star Casino to protest against the occupation of German fortresses by the Allies {New York Tribune, November 11th, 1918).

Even before the armistice had been signed, on November 8th, Lord Robert Cecil, British Under-Secretary of State, said: ''A genuine democratic German government assuredly would be accorded better peace terms."

On November 11th, Doctor Solf, German Secretary for Foreign Affairs, begs President Wilson to persuade the Allies to "mitigate the fearful conditions of the armistice."

However this may be, if these facts and this information can be known in three days, what will be the effect of events of the same sort which cannot fail to increase from now to the conclusion of peace ? It is certain that these results would have the effect of making the victory of the Allies ''evaporate" to a considerable extent.

This will be better understood if we analyze the constituents of victory, understanding clearly what "virtual" victory means, and what are the conditions to transform it into "real" victory.

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The reason which decided Germany to sign the armistice hes in the fact that the AUies, having ''virtually" mastered the right to pass through Austria-Hungary, could attack Germany on the south. Under these conditions, being no longer able to prevent a military defeat on her own soil, Germany had no interest in the continuance of the struggle. It is therefore a ''virtual" threat of the Allies that has brought about for them a victory which, before the realization of the armistice and of the conditions of peace, is also in a virtual state.

The greater number of the Allies believe that the armistice signed by Germany, being a written acknowledgment of defeat accepted in her name, constitutes victory for the Allies; but this is not true. The armistice in itself is only one of the probabilities of victory, since it is worth no more than the application which is made of its terms and the force which the Allies can derive from this application in imposing conditions of peace which assure them a truly lasting and curative victory. It is of cardinal importance to remember that after four years of an extremely complex struggle, which has overturned Europe in a manner unprecedented in history, real victory will not result from the signature of a document^

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or even from the recovery of territory once lost, like Alsace-Lorraine for France, but from a difference in the whole situation of the victor by comparison with that of the vanquished.

Two contestants enter a contest, each with 100; when accounts are settled one is found to have 60, the other 80; the latter is clearly the winner. But what may possibly give rise to serious and even fatal mistakes is the fact that the difiference in the final state of the two antagonists in this war, resulting from the siun of various factors and from accounts long and very difficult to draw up, will show themselves only when months or even years have elapsed after the conclusion of peace.

This is the reason why it is absolutely necessary to insure ourselves against any risk of error, by means of the most extreme caution in strictly applying the conditions of the armistice, and in definitely imposing conditions of peace which have been studied out with the greatest technical care.

As an illustration, let us take the example of France to show the imperative nature of these necessities. The permanent character of the victory of France is unquestionably

PREFACE xvu

the very condition of the real and definitive victory of the AUies. It is certain, for instance, that if, twenty years after the conclusion of peace, France should succumb as a result of the remote consequences of the war, Germany would rule Europe. It would thus be shown that the AlHes would have been completely deceived in declaring, as many of them are doing at this moment, that they were certain of having brought off a final victory.

France, being the pivot of the coalition which has just imposed conditions for an armistice on Germany, is consequently victorious; but for the present only in the virtual and conditional sense, even after the occupation of Alsace-Lorraine. Undoubtedly, it is in many respects a great advantage for France to regain her lost provinces. But, in the first place, France is only doing this after she has been deprived of them for forty-seven years, and, secondly, the advantage resulting from this restoration will only be a real one for France if the "peace conditions are such that she can keep Alsace-Lorraine permanently.

On the signature of the armistice securing to France the occupation of the lost provinces France has not the certainty of being able to keep them permanently, because of the xviii PREFACE

conditions brought about by the war, first, in their population, and, secondly, in their finances, conditions which at the moment of the signature of the armistice^ in spite of appearances, put France in a clearly unfavorable situation with respect to Germany. • Everything is a question of comparison. The Americans are 100 millions, and their war losses (about 55,000 dead and 180,000 wounded) are very rightly felt by them. But the harm done by the war to the French people assumes proportions infinitely more considerable.

It is a tremendous fact which should be kept in mind by all those who wish to guarantee the immediate future of Europe and of peace that France has lost more men than Germany, not only in proportion to the population of the two countries but actually in absolute figures.

As a matter of fact, Germany with its 68,- 000,000 inhabitants in 1914 has had 1,580,000 killed, while France with its scarcely 40,000,000 inhabitants has a total of dead which has not been oflficially published at the moment of this writing but which those who are semi-oflBcially informed know to be greater than the figures of German deaths just given.

Besides, not to speak of the numberless

PREFACE XIX

wounded who may recover sooner or later, France has about one miUion cripples and invalids, and one milHon and a half coming out of the war with serious and permanent forms of illness; say, 4 millions of the physically and morally best men of France destroyed or reduced to the most serious incapacity. (If, in proportion to its population, the United States had had losses on the same scale as those of France, these losses would be about 10 millions of Americans).

This is not all. At least 2 millions of French civilians have endured the Boche yoke for the space of four years, and the health of great numbers among them has been broken down by what they have undergone. Thousands of women and girls have been forced to bear the worst ineffaceable stain.

The evil effects of the war on the population of France will be still more aggravated by the fact that the French birth-rate is a third less than that of Germany. It is, therefore, certain that Germany will repair her losses in men much more quickly than France.

This situation of the French population is so serious that it will make real and definitive victory for France impossible, unless the conditions of peace imposed by the Allies shall bring about

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in Europe such a condition that Germany shall not be able to profit by her superiority in numbers by renewing her attacks on France,

Let us now take up the economic inferiority in which France finds herself with respect to Germany at the moment of the signature of the armistice.

War expenses have been very much heavier for France than for Germany. A French shell made with English coal and American steel is, of course, very much dearer than a German shell made with metal stolen from Briey and coal seized from the Belgians; and this is true not only of nearly all materials of war but also food, when we compare the expenses of the two countries during the war.

The richest provinces of France have been devastated; they cannot be restored under a very long time, even if Germany pays the expenses. Germany, on the other hand, is intact, therefore in an infinitely more advantageous position to resume her activities after the peace.

Any reparation for direct damage done which Germany makes to France, can only at the best put things back as they were before the war. But it must be distinctly understood that this reparation for direct damage

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leaves still existing the indirect damage which has been inflicted upon the whole of France by the war — indirect damage which is almost never spoken of, and which in the material field is infinitely greater than the direct damage done to the invaded French departments. This indirect material damage consists in the costs of the war to France — so great that only to pay the interest on the loans made and the pensions to the widows, orphans, and wounded, the taxes paid by the French, which were 1 billion of dollars before the war, will be increased in a nearly permanent form to almost 3 billions of dollars. Thus, in spite of the optimistic assertions which I sometimes hear, I claim that in a country of which the population has been so thoroughly decimated as that of France, it would be practically impossible to make the people pay each year for a length of time three times as much in taxes as before the war. The word "reparation" only having been generally understood hitherto as applying to direct damages, we have as a result that, owing to the fact of the indirect material damages which the war has caused France, she finds herseK at the time of signing the armistice under a financial burden considerably heavier than that of Germany.

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These things lead us to the inevitable conclusion that when the armistice was signed the losses of all kinds produced by the war were considerably greater for France, and it is therefore perfectly fair to say that the conclusion of the armistice only assures a virtual victory to France. In fact, if the conditions of peace to be imposed on Germany do not radically abolish in some way the difference in mutual situation between France and Germany when the armistice was concluded, as far as actual losses of men and money are concerned, the superiority in the mutual position which will finally decide the real victory of France over Germany cannot be realized. In this case, in a very few years after the conclusion of peace, France, to the surprise of all the world, would appear in a condition of real and irremediable defeat, after having been in a condition of virtual victory at the moment of the signature of the armistice. It is, therefore, plain that this signature and even the occupation of Alsace-Lorraine are by no means sufficient to secure the real and definitive victory to France. This can only be settled long after the conclusion of peace, provided first that the terms of the armistice are thoroughly applied, and afterward that the conditions of peace, carefully considered

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in the interest of Europe and the whole world, assure to France material reparation extensive enough to compensate for the immense disadvantage from the point of view of indebtedness and the state of population, as explained above, at which she stands with regard to Germany at the present time.

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The whole German pacifist manoeuvre since the conclusion of the armistice has precisely in view the prevention of France and her Allies from accomplishing those results which are the conditions of real victory. This Boche manoeuvre in its essence consists in this: To profit by the words "republic" and "socialism," so that the Boche Social Democrats, who are nearly all tainted with the Pan-Germanist spirit and have vigorously supported the Kaiser for four years, may bring about by their connection with the pacifist Socialists of the Allied countries, who know nothing of Germany and easily allow themselves to be taken in by phrases, that peace shall be negotiated with the greatest possible speed and concluded with the approval of the "Internationale." The success of this manoeuvre will secure for Germany the following results:

1st. Peace will be concluded very quickly

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before an exhaustive study by the AlKes of the vast and difficult problems which the war has presented.

2d. The responsibility for the war being concentrated on Kaiserism, the German people for the sake of republican fraternity will only be forced to repair a small part of the damage they have caused.

These two results will of themselves be sufficient to save Germany from defeat to-day, and to assure her of victory to-morrow, for they will leave the following consequences when but a few years have passed:

The peace being merely a patched-up one, the anti-Pan-Germanist Slavic states, Bohemia, Jugo-Slavia, Roumania and Poland, will not be securely organized. The Germans will keep on with their intrigues among them all the more easily because they will have remained practically the masters of Russia, deprived of its middle class destroyed by the Bolshevists.

France having to support the burden of the enormous excess of its war expenses in comparison with Germany would succumb financially. The French birth-rate, lower than that of Germany, and the French losses in men, greater than those of Germany, would each year after the war increase the relative weak-

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ness of France. Thus a state of things would be brought about which would enable the German people to accomplish that of which Maximilian Harden warned us nearly three years ago when he said:

''If it is felt in France that peace can be possible only through the restoration of Alsace- Lorraine, and if we are forced to sign such a peace, the 70 millions of Germans will soon destroy it." (See the Temps, February 9th, 1916).

On the day when this attack is brought about by the conditions just explained, France — which has saved the world by giving England time to arm herself and the United States time to become convinced of the Pan-Germanist peril — will go down irretrievably in the midst of her glory.

This is the result that the Germans are seeking, and that the Allies of France, morally and materially united, ought to prevent at any price. What I have said shows that we are at ^present really in this curious position: we may have to-day the appearance of victory and to-morrow the reality of defeat. To avoid the danger, however, it is enough to see the Boche manoeuvre clearly and not allow ourselves to be misled by ideologists.

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It would be a terrible mistake to believe that a German republic will abandon all warlike ideas and wishes for revenge. Very probably a German republic would be extremely military, particularly if the Allies were so foolish as not to deprive the Germans of the means to rebuild their forces; and in any case no precaution can be too great to avoid a repetition of the war. I have explained in detail in this book (see page 70 and following) that one of the surest ways to prevent another war for the possession of Alsace-Lorraine would be to create in central Europe a barrier of free states, strongly anti-German, and as this would restrain Germany from fresh outbreaks in any direction, it should be brought about in the interest of the entire world.

The essential object of the peace conference is to assure the reparation by the German people of the damages they have caused and to reconstruct Europe, but this reconstruction, to be durable, must be well done. In order that the new European machine which is to be built up from the parts of Pangermany should work smoothly under normal conditions, it should be very thoroughly put in

PREFACE xxvii order by skilled mechanics, which is as much as to say that the rehabilitation of Europe demands the right solution of very numerous and difficult problems which require precise information on ethnography, national psychology, and practical political economy. Such information was certainly not possessed by many leaders in the Entente when the armistice was signed. The proof is this:

It was only at the end of the fourth year of the war that the Entente understood the importance to the world of the Czecho-Slovak people, which for twenty-five years at least the Germans had considered as one of the greatest obstacles in the way of the Pangerman plan. It is only at the end of 1918 that Czecho-Slovaks were recognized by the AUies as an independent people.

When the armistice was concluded the Roumanians and the Jugo-Slavs had not yet been recognized by the Entente with anything like the same formahty as in the case of the Czecho-Slovaks, though the creation of Greater Roumania and of a strong Jugo-slav state is just as necessary to the foundation of peace as the independence of Bohemia. I will not speak of a crowd of other questions raised by the war, particularly those relating xxviii PREFACE

to finance, which are of immense importance, and have only been touched by the AUies in the most superficial way. Thus, the vital fact that the indirect damages made by German aggression in France are far larger than the direct damages, and like them call for reparation, has not yet been clearly brought out.

It is under such circumstances that as I write these lines there is talk of an extremely early meeting of the peace conference, with the aim of deciding all these questions on which for many years the fate of nations will depend.

I hold it as my solemn duty, in no way to be set aside, to declare openly that if the peace congress meets without taking the time needed to obtain in Central Europe informations which are now still lacking, fatal mistakes will inevitably result, and causes sure to provoke future conflicts will remain, which will soon bring forth their evil fruit.

One cannot all at once "patch up" a peace and reconstitute Europe on a firm basis; the thing cannot be done.

If the Germans are making the greatest effort to bring the peace conference together at the earliest possible moment it is because

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they are well aware that the AUies lack information, and hope to gain great advantage thereby.

Public opinion would do well to protest at once against the hasty conclusion of the peace conference. The Allied people have spent their blood and their gold like water, and it is their right and their duty to insist that the fruit of so many sacrifices shall not be spoiled by unnecessary haste.

In order to show the absolute need of avoiding a precipitate decision, I have in this book taken examples drawn from the war, chosen in such a way as also to enlighten my readers on the great events which have just passed with such extraordinary rapidity that their vast import is not easy to grasp.

Chapter I reminds us how the Germans must have constantly deceived us, from the beginning of the war; for instance, by making us think that they were starving long before this famine had become a reality, which happened in September-October, 1918, when revolts in Austria-Hungary and the Allied occupation of the Danube cut communications between Germany and the East.

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This general survey of German methods of deceit shows us with what distrust we ought to receive their promises and transformations during the armistice. Aheady, it is easy to detect that these transformations are to a great extent camouflage.

In Chapter II, I show under what terribly dangerous conditions the Germans made ready for the armistice trick, which would have perhaps succeeded if the great success of the Allies in the Balkans, and the insurrection of oppressed peoples in Austria-Hungary, had not — in October, 1918 — abruptly changed the general situation in favor of the Allies.

Chapter III makes clear that it was not owing to diplomatic discussions but to military actions and Slavic insurrections in September-October, 1918 (the downfall of Bulgaria and of Austria-Hungary), which drove Germany to conclude an armistice on terms dictated by the Allies.

Chapter III also shows that on the solution in favor of the Allies of the effectives problem depended the events of October, 1918, in central Europe, for up to that time the superiority in man-power was on the side of Pangermany. The same chapter contains an exhaustive

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description of the errors, which in my opinion are made by the AUies, even at the present moment, as to German man-power. The deduction is that if the Alhes can really be wrong on a subject vitally important, it is certain that they lack indispensable information as to numbers of other questions, on the proper answers to which depends a firm and enduring peace.

In the same chapter, I have studied the sources of military effectives which could possibly be utilized in Russia by the German Republicans ( ! ) coquetting with the Russian Bolshevists. This shows that the Allies should cut Germany entirely off from Russia by a series of states organized as strongly as possible: Poland, Bohemia, a democratic Magyar state. Greater Roumania, and Jugo-Slavia.