Approaches to the great settlement

Front matter

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Part Two Socialist And Labor Documents

Appeal to the Socialists of the World, Issued BY THE Russian Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Delegates, May 15, 191 7 . . . .165

Petrograd Appeal to Socialists and Labor Unions OF THE World 168

Questionnaire of the Dutch-Scandinavian Socialist Committee 170

Memorandum of the German Majority Socialists 172

Memorandum of the German Minority Socialists 182

Statement of the Austro-German Socialist Delegates 186

Statement of the Hungarian Socialist Delegates 190

Statement of the Bohemian Centralist Socialist Party , 194

Manifesto Addressed to the Dutch-Scandinavian Socialist Committee by MM. Vandervelde and DE Brouckere 196

Italian Socialists' Proclamation 201

Statement of the Finnish Socialist Delegation 206

Declaration on Peace by Australian Labor Socialists, June ii, 1917 208

Joint Socialist Statement on the Refusal of Passports to Stockholm . 211

Arnold Bennett on the Stockholm Conference 213

A Proposed Program for the British National Council of Workmen and Soldiers . . . . 219

British Labor Party Draft of a Program for London Inter- Allied Socialist Conference . 221

The People's Council of America: Objects and Peace Terms 231

Resolutions of the American Alliance for Labor AND Democracy 235

National Nonpartisan League: Resolutions on the War 237

Peace Terms Proposed by the Russian Council OF Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates for the Inter-Allied Conference 240

PEACE PROGRAMS

The " Minimum Program " of the Central Organization FOR A Durable Peace .... 242

Proposal from the Neutral Conference for Continuous Mediation, Stockholm 244

Program Prepared by the American Section of the International Committee of Women for Permanent Peace . 248

The League of Nations Society 251

Chamber of Commerce of the United States: Referendum on Peace 254

Society to Eliminate the Economic Causes of War 256

A German Petition to the Reichstag . . . .258

Bund Neues Vaterland 259

Manifesto of the Deutsche Friedensgesell-

SCHAFT 260

Statement by Dr. David Starr Jordan on the Terms of Peace 262

Peace Program of the Union for Democratic Control 269

Fabian Society: Proposed Articles of Settlement 276

President Eliot's Proposal for a Peace Conference 293

Six Peace Programs: A Comparison of the Main Proposals 300

REFERENCE LIST Other Sources Referred to in the Text . . . 307

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Compiled by Pauline K. Angell

Some of the More Recent Books and Articles

Dealing with the Problems of the

Settlement

I Questions of Territory and Nationality 315

II Question of Seas and Markets . . . 341

III Question of a League of Nations and

Disarmament 346

ILLUSTRATIONS

Racial and National Boundaries in Central x

Europe . Frontispiece J

PACING PAOB

President Wilson 18/

The Allies' Answer Rejoices Death .... 30/

The Russian Offensive 40,

Albert Thomas 52/

Searching for Peace , . 60.

Alexander Kerensky 72

Erzberger and Helfferich 86

Count Von Czernin 92/

Arthur Henderson 104

Pope Benedict XV 114

The Messenger 120

Rt. Hon. David Lloyd George 144

Lord Robert Cecil 156

Philip Scheidemann 172

Karl Liebknecht 182

The Situation 202

The Peace Tree 220

Skobeleff 240/

J. Ramsay Macdonald 252

To the Peace Palace 276

A Difficult Problem 300 /

INTRODUCTION By Norman Angell

This book has a special interest for all who wish to help and not hinder the great international effort to destroy German militarism.

One way to hinder that effort — a way in which many people who really want to assist are now actually hindering it — is to regard any preparation for the peace as inconsistent with the effective prosecution of the war.

The internationalist may, with no surrender of his creed, fully admit that American cooperation with the Allies is a necessary step towards an organized internationalism of the future. But American participation, and victory however complete, will fail to achieve the declared objects of the war, unless they are used to enforce the right policy.

It is easy — and it is disastrous — to assume that all America needs to do is help defeat Germany; that German defeat will by itself cause the destruction of German militarism. But to act on that assumption is to make it certain that the defeat of Germany will have no such result. The distinction between what is necessary, and what is enough, is in war-time particularly hard to establish. German defeat may be necessary: but it is not enough.

Our military defeat of the German Government will contribute to the future security of democracy if we can use it for the purpose of establishing, by some means, at some point, however slowly, an understanding with the German people. But if we fail to use our victory for that purpose, if on the contrary we encourage the German people to go on supporting a militaristic Government, then the future of the world will not be for democracy but for that group which can militarize itself most successfully.

" This I know," said Mr. Balfour recently in the House of Commons, " if Germany does not become free, Europe cannot become free." And in the same speech he made this further significant statement: " No one is foolish enough to suppose that it would be possible to impose on Germany a constitution made outside Germany."

In order to destroy German militarism, then, something more than German defeat is required. The democratization of Germany is essential. And that democratization must come from within; force of foreign arms will not effect it. Upon the selfconversion of the German people from militarism, depends the future security of the whole world.

If, further, it can be shown that our attitude, in America and in the Allied nations, is a large factor in the process which will result either in liberating the German people from the spell of militarism, or in attaching them more firmly to its rule — then a plain duty will have been set before all who wish to bring this war to a satisfactory conclusion.

Our own attitude is a large factor in that process. But here we come upon a truth which, because it runs counter to our instinctive feelings, is likely to be taken as an attempt at paradox-mongering — a thing silly enough at all times, but unpardonable in these. I beg the reader to believe that in what follows I mean exactly what I say in this proposition.

When a country goes to war, it usually proceeds to organize the public expression of its popular opinion and feeling in such a way as to give the maximum of encouragement to the enemy, and the prolongation of his resistance to the utmost.

This unconscious conspiracy in the enemy's interest has been particularly effective in the present war; it threatens to ensure the resistance of the enemy long after the period when, but for it, that resistance would break down ; and will certainly cost the Allied nations thousands of lives, and many conceivably cost them the victory.

Those who make any attempt to stop this aid and comfort to the enemy are regarded by the majority as traitors and anti-patriots, and every effort is made to keep their attempt from succeeding.

There is, of course, in this unconscious conspiracy, no desire to aid the enemy or any knowledge that such aid is being given. It is set in motion by the need to satisfy certain " hungry emotions " ; and, as is the case with any emotion that has reached a high pitch of intensity, those who act in this manner are blinded to the ultimate results of their behavior.

It Is especially important that the attention of Americans should be called to the workings of an Impulse which has wrought havoc among the moral and intellectual forces of the European Allies, since a similar phenomenon is already beginning to be manifest in this country.

Let us examine, in this light, the present situation In our war with Germany. Is it not obvious, to begin with, that the facts which we regard as true about the origin and purposes of this war — that it was on Germany's part an act of unprovoked and unjustifiable aggression; that no one threatened either Germany's national safety or her economic interests; that the German policy of which this war was the outcome was based on autocratic and dynastic ambition, and not on national welfare; that the Allies are fighting, not against any rights of the German people, but against the interests of a little group of ambitious men; that our aim is to make such tyranny impossible in the future, and to liberate all peoples, including the Germans — is it not clear that these facts have either been withheld from the German people or that they have been led to believe something of a contrary nature ?

Suppose that what we believe to be true were so self-evident, even to the German people, that their government were obliged in effect to take this position:

" The war Is not for the defense of the Fatherland or its future; is not for the good of your country or for any great or noble end ; it is not even for your material welfare or for that of your children. It is from first to last for the personal aggrandizement of that class whom most of you particularly dislike, for the subjugation of the country to its interests and of your descendants to its rule. The vast suffering, the sacrifices, the death, the enslavement, is all in order that Germany may continue to be what you Socialists and Liberals have for generations tried to prevent it being. You shall die by hundreds of thousands in order that the ends for which you lived and worked shall be defeated."

If that had been the situation as Germans see it, the German Government would not have been able to keep the war going a week. German mothers would not still continue gladly to give their children, all their children; lads would not tie themselves to their machine guns — as our men have known them to do — so that when the hour of supreme temptation came they would not fail to die at their posts.

Those things are possible because the German people as a whole have been persuaded that if they are beaten their whole future as a people will be blighted, and their nation at the mercy of envious and resentful enemies.

" The German people," says Lord Northcliffe, head of the British War Mission in America, writing in Current Opinion for October, 19 17, " have been purposely deluded into the belief that they are defending themselves against foes who are set upon crushing them out of existence." Lord Northcliffe's observation is confirmed by Mr. Gerard, ex-ambassador from the United States to Germany, in his book, " My Four Years in Germany " : " We are engaged in war against a people whose country was for so many centuries a theater of devastating wars that fear is bred into the very marrow of their souls, making them ready to submit their lives and fortunes to an autocracy which for centuries has ground their faces, but which has promised them as the result of the war . . . security."

The German people as a whole — the great mass of the middle and upper classes, the merchants, manufacturers and traders, the University professors and students, the scientists, writers and journalists, even the majority of the Social Democratic party — take the view, however mistakenly, that the Government, notwithstanding its autocratic form, is fighting their battle, ensuring their security as a nation, establishing their legitimate place and rights in the world. And when the Kaiser declares, as he did the other day in addressing the troops on the Western front, " I need not tell you why you must hold on — it is that the Germany of your children may live," there can be no doubt that most of them believe him. The power of the German Government to carry on the war, resides ultimately in the maintenance of that conviction; and on its intensity depends the degree of German resistance.

It is, plainly enough, to the interest of the German Government to represent the aims of the Allies with regard to Germany as intolerable; while on the other hand, it is to our interest to give to the German Government no grounds for such misrepresentation, no excuse for such misunderstanding. Indeed, it is our duty to make plain to the German people how near our aims are to their own desires.

Is there anything questionable in this reasoning, anything indeed which is other than obviously true? Yet not only is its truth not realized by the general public of the belligerent countries (on either side), but any attempt to act upon it is immediately repressed and punished with extreme severity. Organized and spontaneous efforts of private individuals and public officials alike are directed toward assisting In the maintenance of enemy resistance in the way just described.

Take the question of the Press. The German Government maintains in Berlin a special Bureau whose duty it is to select from American, British, French and Italian papers just those paragraphs which would help persuade the German people that unless they hold out to the end their nationality will be destroyed; thus making use of assistance furnished by the Allies for the maintenance of German morale.^

The Press of the Allied countries may be divided roughly into two groups: the group that favors a punitive and severe settlement with Germany, and the group that favors a milder one. It is, of course, the papers of the former group which the German Government uses for the purpose of its propaganda. The latter group is used by the Minority Socialists for the purpose of their propaganda — for the purpose of proving to the German people that the German Government is deceiving them in representing Allied intentions toward Germany as destructive. One might assume, in view of these facts, that the foreign circulation of this latter group — Socialist papers, or Liberal journals in favor of a moderate settlement — would be encouraged. In every case, however, it is these papers that the various Cetisorships prevent from going abroad, that they sometimes suppress at home and always discourage. It is the former group, used by the enemy Governments, that are imrriune from such prohibition or embarrassment.

It is not merely a matter of official censorship, but of the public temper. Left to themselves, the Governments — who can hardly be ignorant of the services which these minority organs could perform, or of the woeful mischief that the chauvinist organs do — would scarcely pursue a policy which often is

1 This was revealed in the Reichstag debate (see reports in the American press of Oct. 7) in which the Minister of War von Stein, replying to the accusation that the Government had been carrying on political propaganda in the army, said: "It is clear that our soldiers must be enlightened concerning the enemy's real intentioni and the consequences if lae lost."

quite obviously the exact contrary of the public interest. But public clamor compels them to adopt it.

Dr. Helfferich, the German Minister, replying to a peace speech of the Socialist, Cohn, in the Reichstag debate of May 5, said:

" The peace which you advocate does not mean bread, but hunger for our people. It does not mean liberty, It means slavery. That is not just my opinion. These are the words of our enemies. Just read their speeches and their newspapers. The Deputy Haase [of the Social Democratic Minority] shakes his head. I know the newspapers which suit you deserve credit, but the others which do not suit you do not exist for you. I repeat it, you need only look at the foreign press, and you will find no other peace suggested than one which would bring our German people slavery and serfdom. The other day I read in committee an article by the French Senator, Humbert, which closed with something like the following words: ' This race of slaves dreaming of world-hegemony, must be made into slaves.' That Is the sort of peace which our enemies allow us and wish to give us. Such a peace can only be promoted through speeches such as Dr. Cohn's — a peace such as the German nation could not tolerate."

Another Illustration Is afforded by an article, typical of what may be read any day in the German press, in the Kolnische Zeitung of April 27. After quoting the kind of terms In which the British Press of the chauvinist school is so fond of indulging,^ the article goes on:

1 This kind of thing: "The main conditions of peace are, first the complete dismemberment of the German Empire, its separate States each under the control of a governor to be nominated by the

" If any one amongst us believes that moderation or discernment exists in the ranks of our opponents, such a press opinion . . . should enlighten him thoroughly. Only a few days ago, the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung pointed out the mistake made by Social Democrats who hope to make an impression on the agitators in London and Paris by peaceful and moderate resolutions. Every one of our steps is watched — every wish for peace, every inclination to strike, every superfluous lament about shortness of food."

In general it may be said: the more a paper, or a public man, or a proposed measure, serves the purposes of the enemy in this fashion, the greater the popularity of that paper, or man, or measure, at home.^ Few political personages have been so popular in England during the war as Mr. Hughes,

Allies ... a war-indemnity charged upon the revenue ... no army or fleet . . . the German navy must be split up among Britain and her Allies . . . the German colonies divided among them . . . until the indemnity is paid, an army of occupation in the various German and Austrian States." — John Bull (two million circulation a week), London, Sept. i6.

1 The Administration, following the precedent set by the Allied Governments in Europe, has laid down the rule that there should be no discussion of peace-terms. Such a "truce to controversial matter " is always one-sided. What it means in fact is, not that there shall be no discussion of peace-terms, but that there shall be no liberal contribution to that discussion. The Paris Economic Conference was a discussion of peace-terms — of a most mischievous kind. There is plenty of discussion of peace-terms in America by the very persons who insist that they should not be discussed. Thus Mr. Roosevelt, at a meeting in Madison Square Garden, laid down elaborate peace-terms — "complete overthrow of Germany and the dissolution of Austria and Turkey," with such details as an independent Poland including "the whole Baltic coast" — whatever that may mean. There is to be no disarmament after the war. One doubts whether the Austro-German authorities could ask anything better for their purpose than a speech along just such lines from an ex-President of the United States.

the Australian Premier ; and the speeches which contributed to win him this popularity were those which subsequently the German Government is said to have translated and circulated in the German trenches to show the soldiers the kind of fate against which they were fighting. It was Mr. Hughes who was largely responsible for giving a Protectionist interpretation to the Resolutions of the Paris Economic Conference. The subject-matter of that Conference had nothing whatever to do with the conduct of the war; it was concerned purely with after-the-war conditions. But nothing that the veriest pro-German could have devised, was so calculated to aid the enemy's propaganda. It enabled the German bureaucracy to declare that the real objects of England and " her dupes " — objects such as the destruction of German commerce — were now revealing themselves. It was not long after the Paris Conference that Bethmann-HoUweg, speaking through Alfred Zimmermann of the Foreign Office, said to Mr. Bayard Swope : " There can be no doubt as to what Germany is fighting for: it can be reduced to a one-word formula — Existence. . . . We fight for the right to live and earn our living, for which we must have room for commercial expansion." Indeed, if we could imagine the Paris Resolutions being taken seriously, it would mean the riveting of militarism on Germany and the permanent conversion to it of the whole nation.

Yet that Conference, which so played the game of the enemy, was imposed upon the British Government by sheer force of popular opinion.

All these manifestations were very natural and seemingly excusable surrenders to a deep-seated hu- [lo]

man instinct. But there are circumstances when our salvation depends upon the control of strong natural instincts. It is " natural " for the thirst-maddened shipwrecked sailor to drink salt water. But unless he can control the instinct which urges him to satisfy his thirst, he will perish. The future salvation of our society depends upon a like discipline of certain of our instincts.

The Governments of the Central Powers have realized that they can make the morale of their people almost impregnable if they can create a " defense psychosis." Any people, savage or civilized, will fight to the last against what it believes to be national annihilation. To continue to bolster up such a belief in the minds of the German people, is to-day the prime need of the German autocracy.

And in that task the German and Austrian Governments have been greatly helped by the political and diplomatic strategy sometimes adopted by the Allied Governments.

The Allied Governments, it is true, proclaimed at the beginning of the war that their major object was the destruction of German militarism, and the aggression and wickedness for which it stood. That was and remains the highest object of our arms. But we failed to make clear to the enemy what this meant. Did it mean that in the future Germany and Austria were to have no armies? How were they to protect themselves and ensure respect for their rights? On that point there was no declaration (there is still no declaration) . And this silence has enabled the enemy Governments to say to their peoples: " This talk of the destruction of German militarism really means that you are In the future

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to be at the mercy of your enemies, and to be deprived of any means of defending your Fatherland's rights and interests."

It does not suffice that we have disclaimed the intention of destroying the German nation or of putting it at a disadvantage. No virile people will accept mere general declarations from its enemies as sufficient basis of its future security and rights. Mr. H. G. Wells — who will certainly not be accused of pro-Germanism — wrote recently of this situation:

" This is the argument that holds the German people stiffly united. For most men in most countries it would be a convincing argument, strong enough to override considerations of right and wrong. I find that I myself am of this way of thinking, that whether England has done right or wrong in the past — and I have sometimes criticized my country very bitterly — I will not endure the prospect of seeing her at the foot of some victorious nation. Neither will any German who matters. Very few people would respect a German who would."

Now the thing which would make it possible for Germans to repudiate German militarism and turn against the present German Government, would be some plan of reciprocal disarmament; or at least some real international organization which would furnish a possible, if distant, alternative to German military power as a means of national security. When Germans in the mass see in internationalism a means of defending German rights and interests, German militarism will be doomed.

Meanwhile, it is to the interest of the German Government to prove to its people that we are not sincere when we speak of such things as disarmament and arbitration. It wants to create the impression at home that it is wiUing to abandon militarism for international organization, but that when this plan is really offered to the Allied Governments they refuse to consider it.

And that argument of the Central Governments will remain plausible if the debate is left in its present stage. The Central Powers have, in fact, made what will appear to their people a sincere offer to go into the questions of disarmament and arbitration, of a new international order. Silence on our part will be interpreted as proof that we want to avoid any definite and practical discussion of the subject; that our previous talk was mere diplomatic camouflage.

The situation must be reversed. We must show that we are serious in our desire for internationalism, on the basis of respect for the rights of all nations, small as well as great — not on the basis of the right of great States to override the will either of subject peoples or of their own peoples; and we must make it plain that in such a world the German people, like any other, would be secure.

But there is a further reason why the German Government should wish at this juncture to prove that our talk of internationalism is insincere, and any attempt to realize world-arbitration impracticable. Its only hope of obtaining the support of its people to a program of annexations, is to show that such annexations are necessary to national security. While the Reichstag vote of July 19 makes it plain that the Government could never hope to secure popular sanction for annexations as part of a Pan- German or Industrialist policy, it might conceivably do so as part of a policy of self-defense; by the argument that Germany has nothing to depend on but her own resources in men and materials, and the strength of her frontiers.

The truth is that unless the problem of security, by means of some reasonably feasible plan of international organization, is on a fair way to solution before we come to deal with nationality and territorial readjustments, these latter will prove to be well-nigh insoluble. It is not alone the claims of the Central Powers that will make them so. Nations among the Allies are presenting claims which do violence to the principle of nationality. Most powers are moved by two great considerations: national security and the need of economic expansion. These things, it is felt, must come first; and every nation will attempt to make sure of its own safety and rights by the increase of its power and territory — so long as a League of Nations, or other similar plan for preventing aggression of one nation upon another, is merely a vague possibility in the background, and not a clearly-envisaged political reality.

The Pope's note, together with the Austro-German reply, at least places the discussion for the time being on this major problem of security by international organization. It is to the interest of the United States, as of the Allies, not to let it slide from that plane. And for the purpose of forming a sound public opinion, upon which a wise diplomatic strategy can most securely be based, some intimate knowledge of the data so clearly analyzed and presented in this volume, is indispensable.

I

President Wilson's efforts to assist In bringing about a satisfactory ending of the present war date back to its very beginning. On Aug. 3, 19 14, six days after Austria had declared war on Serbia and the very day on which Germany invaded Belgium, he made a formal offer to mediate, which was formally declined.

Early Peace Discussion. There followed sixteen months of inconclusive fighting. Then on December 9, 19 1 5, the German Chancellor, von Bethmann- HoUweg, in a speech to the Reichstag, announced that Germany was ready for peace. This was understood as an Invitation to a general preliminary discussion of peace terms, and it was in fact followed during the succeeding six months by a series of speeches and debates and interviews on the part of statesmen on both sides.

The most significant of these were the debates in Parliament of February 23 and May 24, 1916; the Reichstag debates of April 5 and 6; Sir Edward Grey's interview of May 15, and that of von Bethmann-Hollweg on May 22 in reply; the Reichstag debates of June 5 and 6, and von Bethmann-Hollweg's speech of November 9.^

The fact that an informal discussion of peace had been entered upon gave rise to the hope that the warring countries were approaching a common ground of agreement; and it seemed for a time as though this might be the case. But their mutual distrust was too profound,^ and in the end the discussion came to nothing.

During this discussion rumors of peace moves by the Pope and of mediation by the President of the United States were current in Europe, in connection, especially, with President Wilson's address of May 15 before the Press Club. In this speech he said: " If somebody does not keep the processes of peace going, if somebody does not keep the passions disengaged, by what impartial judgment and suggestion is the world to be aided to a solution when the whole thing is over? " Five days later at Charlotte, N. C, he spoke of Americans as imagining themselves *" lifting some sacred emblem of counsel and of peace, of accommodation and righteous judgment, ^ before the nations of the world." A few days later, in an address before the League to Enforce Peace, the so-called " Declaration of Interdependence," he stated, as a profession of faith, the principles upon which he was later to formulate a definite policy of international relations :