it is bad policy to treat vanquished Germany as a passive tool. arm Whether Germany should against the Bolsheviki depends on the Entente treatment of the second aim of German foreign policy. Germany's economic needs, her population problems, and the necessity for export trade point to the pathways of the seas. The armistice conditions have placed this question entirely in the hands of the Entente-England and America especially. The exorbitant demands of the enemy, especially of revengeful France, amount to complete annihilation of German economic life. Faced with the choice of slow strangulation by the Entente, or collapse under Bolshevism, councils of despair would gain in force. Here we come up against the intimate connection between home and foreign policy. Germany appeals to the solidarity of labor and the common interests of the workers of all lands, even the Entente. It sets up the social State, and invites the proletariat of all lands to internationalize labor processes. We propagate the idea of free international traffic and a share in the world's raw products, as against the brutal and exclusive exploitation of the Entente. What success may follow these methods is uncertain. Paris and London may be so blinded as to throw to the winds Wilson's moderating proposals and seek to draw the last deductions from Germany's collapse. The armed force of the Entente is to-day, perhaps, able to crush Bolshevism also, even should it spread over a lethargic Germany. For this possibility we must prepare ourselves. The historic example of France points the way. After 1870, France protested against the injustice of the Treaty of Frankfort. We shall protest against the injustice of The Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung VOL. 14-NO. 682 1918 and 1919. With a national energy which won the admiration of the world, France set about erasing the damage of 1870, and as early as 1878 amazed the world by an Exposition that proved the new development of her industries. The new army was fast bound to the idea of the Republic, and in both State and army the sacred fire of national ideas was nourished. In such-like tasks would Germany's inner-State education and foreign policy meet. The more merciless the conduct of the foe, the stronger would this synthesis of ideals become, even among the slow-witted Germans. For this reason clever England has always preferred milder methods; but, apart from the fact that she cannot treat even vanquished Germany with the same complaisance as Portugal or the Boer State, she is withheld from a diplomatic policy by the passionate irrationality of France. Whoever follows the present aimless juxtaposition of our individual foreign tasks of the moment might say that Germany has no policy but to conclude peace. National abdication and elimination of the connection between past and future in the consciousness of the people would be the fateful consequence. It is true that our relations with such countries as Rumania, Bulgaria, Peru, or Japan cannot be settled yet; but what we can do in the ruin of our foreign policy is to lay the foundations for the building of our State in general, and therewith also of its foreign tasks. Then, however, for all emergencies we must keep alive the consciousness that no ruin, be it ever so deep, can compel us to despair of the future or acknowledge injustice as justice. More than ever since the beginnings of Bismarck's work does the guidance of our foreign policy coincide with the task of national leadership and education of the people. mandatory principle gave at once a reality to the League of Nations, which before was lacking, and the effect of this was immediate. It was at once seen that the Congress of Paris was in earnest in its intention to apply new principles to the drafting of the terms of peace, and that the mere fact of possession would cease to have the weight it used to carry with the old diplomacy. A warning issued by the Great Powers, that the process of claimjumping and land-grabbing, which had been going on in Eastern Europe since the armistice was first signed, must cease, was promptly respected. The Czecho-Slovaks and the Poles began to compose their differences, while Italy, Rumania, and the Jugo-Slavs agreed to await the decision of the Conference as to their future frontiers, and the atmosphere was immediately cleared. All these questions, grave as they are, become secondary in comparison with the problems of the future of Russia and of Germany. These are the tests by which the decision to make the League of Nations the foundation of the peace will stand or fall. The atmosphere of Paris is not altogether conducive to calm judgment and cool decision. France is to-day quite naturally dominated by the sense of escape from an appalling disaster, and is just beginning to realize that she is free, after living for close on fifty years under the perpetual menace of invasion. The stream of criticism which has poured from the Paris press almost without intermission since the Conference opened is the expression of this emotion. The daily demand is for security, for immediate settlement with Germany, for the restoration of order in Russia. If we are to carry France with us, we must appreciate her point of view. For years after 1871 she lived under the sense of her isolation and weakness in face of the Central Powers. Then the Russian Alliance came to her as the means of salvation and of restoration to her old position in Europe. In gratitude she poured her millions into Russia, and when the great trial came Russia proved a broken reed. Half the bourgeoisie of Paris have some part of their savings invested in Russian funds. To-day the chief thought in the mind of the average Frenchman is that France, with her forty millions of population, will have seventy-five millions of Germans as neighbors, and that there will be no effective counterpoise in Eastern Europe. The howl which greeted the issue of the invitation to the Prinkipo Conference was a cri du cœur rather than an expression of reasoned opinion. It was taken as an official recognition of Bolshevism, and the idea of parleying with the wreckers of their hopes was abhorrent. The Council of Ten have themselves to thank for most of the criticism which the Prinkipo Conference has aroused, because they vouchsafed no explanation of their objects and intentions. Now that explanations have been given, the proposal is being examined more judicially. Even in France the practical difficulties in the way of armed intervention are accepted. Personally, I am convinced that, if it were practicable, it would be a gross blunder. All the most reliable evidence is to the effect that the military power of Bolshevism is on the decline. The peasants are growing daily more and more weary of disorder and mob rule. The Bolshevik government is less and less able to feed them, and its influence is proportionately diminishing. The one measure that would rally its adherents would be to give it the occasion for raising the cry that the Allies were interfering with the sovereignty of the Russian people and its right of self-determination. The possible courses are to con fer, to do nothing, or to endeavor to does not readily appreciate the im- The other outstanding difficulty is to convince France that she will find in the League of Nations the security for which she asks, and that she will get it in no other way. Every Frenchman alive to-day has been brought up to look for security in military force and in a strategic frontier. His one desire at the moment is to avoid all danger of his beloved country again becoming the cockpit of Europe. The advantages to be gained by removing the causes of war by means of international agreements upon questions where the interests of nations clash or overlap appear to him to be vague and remote. He has not naturally the sea sense, and The draft constitution of the league has been placed before the delegates for their consideration and criticism. So REVOLUTIONARY DAYS IN ALSACE BY ALFRED DÖBLIN ONE Saturday morning early in 1919, the Strassburg Neue Zeitung reported: Our telephone dispatches from Berlin have not arrived to-day. The line is not open. We hope to be able to explain the reasons to our readers soon. In the afternoon I was at the office of the head inspector, who reported the situation, without special excitement, like an old functionary. A government officer from Saarbrücken was there. He had just received a telephone message from his superior to put on civilian clothing. Sailors had arrived. There was a revolution like that at Kiel. At the same time the garrison commander from the neighboring watering-place of N. called up to send guards quickly, for the people had started a revolt. The head inspector chuckled: 'It's a mad world. Everything topsyturvy. Keep your head! Keep your head!' some During the day there was trouble in the barracks of our little garrison town, in which sailors were the prime movers. In the forenoon the soldiers marched out of their barracks to the military headquarters and occupied it without encountering resistence. The senior officer, General S., lost his temper. They threatened to break his sword. Thereupon, everything went off in an orderly way. Toward four o'clock in the afternoon, following many extraordinary rumors, music suddenly struck up in the barracks street. A great multitude of soldiers came along in disorder, with their hands in their pockets and without arms, following a wildly waving red flag. A sergeant was leading them. They wound their way up the street in a disorderly manner to the doors of the barracks. The sentries laughed and let them through. They passed from one building to another. The procession grew steadily longer. There was hurrahingand shouting. The civilians crowded after them. They got the prisoners from the guardhouse. Before long, half the town was tagging behind them. I pressed forward and talked with some of the soldiers. They are not going to take orders from any officer after this: that is done with. And there is going to be no more throwing a man in the guardhouse if he overstays his leave. That was all they had to say. I ran after other soldiers and asked them to explain why they were all so happy. The war is over and they are going home. To-day taps will not sound until eleven o'clock at night. They are not going to salute their officers any more. There is unusual tension and excitement in the town. The population crowds into the streets, which are already packed with soldiers. The latter wear red arm-bands. All of the barracks and military establishments have emptied themselves of their occupants. There are young recruits, cripples from the military hospitals, and old reservists. The Alsatians look on with an expression of countenance as if they were watching a masquerade. The thing is done. We are checkmated. We cannot mend things. Rumors are current that the French have broken our lines at Saarburg. They will be here in one or two days. By Jove! What is going to happen to us? Extra papers were issued at dusklittle local sheets. We hastened to buy them. They were read aloud to the crowds standing by. Yes, this is the second disaster. The first was the speech of Prince Max requesting an armistice, which was such a ghastly exposure of our situation. Now the Kaiser has abdicated — the Kaiser and King. The government has been put in the hands of Ebert, actually in the hands of the Social Democrat, Ebert. But that is only a by-play, this transfer of the government. The fact is that we are in the midst of revolution. Berlin is in the same situation that we are. The government has not been given to Ebert; he has taken it. Here I sit in this accursed corner. The French are on our heels. How am I to escape? I want to get to Berlin. an Sunday morning my people greeted me with smiles at the hospital. They wore great arm-bands. The passages were empty. The desks at the office were unoccupied. The sick were lying in bed in their wards, unattended. One Sister of Mercy was wandering about. Everyone had run off to town early in the morning. A Soldiers' Council was being organized, and they had to elect a representative for the hospital. There in the ward lay a dead man influenza victim-right among the living patients. There was no one to prepare him for burial. I hunted through the hospital. An officer took pity on me. Only a day before officers of high rank stalked through this very house. They had honorary titles and wore orders. They were inspector-generals and sergeant-generals, and everybody trembled and bowed down to them. They inspected each corner. An orderly tagged after them with a book. Every little table was noticed. Every omission was checked up, the repair of the beds, the painting of the blackboards at their head. There are still hanging over the door lists of all the chairs, curtain-poles, and cuspidors in the ward. Now at a single stroke-! The old undertaker's assistant met me and saluted sadly. He had served at this hospital for thirty years. Who is going to pay his pension? In the afternoon great mass meetings occurred on the parade ground. It was a sunny autumn day. On the way there little D., our X-ray assistant, met me with a photographic camera; but after exchanging a few words escaped, as he did not want to be seen in company with a German. In the square itself a beautiful, broad little square with tile roofs found a crowd of disorganized soldiers with red cockades, surrounded by a circle of excited civilians. There was a roar of voices and a flash of light. we Look! The officers are in their midst. They have been degraded. They are pale, and without their shoulder-straps, standing in timid groups like lambs in a wolf's den. Look yonder! There are some cockades-the appointed victims. The windows and balconies of the houses on the market-place were full of civilians. They were radiantly joyous, and maliciously amused and contemptuous and overbearing. In the window of Café G. were crowded the tall, wellfed citizens of higher rank, smiling, or rather grimacing, animated, unconcernedly watching the show. There, with his hands in his pockets and a first-class cigar in his mouth, was little fat M., head of the Food Office, a millionaire famous during the whole war. He nodded his head. 'Fine work for the Prussians.' The lawyer W. was clearly at a loss for enough jokes. He talked to the people on his right and to those on his left, pointing out first this group of soldiers and then another. The honorable Burgomaster M. was there. Of course he was there! Pre |