This was a product of later ideas born of war weariness and antimilitarism. Germany would have been left the definitely weaker Power, full of anger at her defeat, constantly scheming for alliances which would redress the balance sufficiently for a return match. In short, a French victory in 1914 would have merely reversed the rôles which France and Germany had been playing since 1871.

The delay of victory for four years was an unrelieved misfortune for France. Firstly, the war ceased to be a commercial proposition. Secondly, during the long years of doubtful fortune, France, in order to retain the support of her allies, had to give a sullen support to new anti-militarist theories which were really altogether incompatible with her ideas of the struggle.

Why were these necessary? Because, after the war had ceased to be a commercial proposition, Great Britain, in order to keep going, needed some higher ideals than annexations and indemnities. In order to keep aflame the enthusiasm of the populace, the necessity arose of presenting some other objects than the material profits of future victory, which obviously could not replace a tithe of the material sacrifices of the moment. Thus was evolved the theory that the war was being fought in order to end for ever the conditions under which it had arisen-militarism, autocracies, annexations, subject populations. Only by such a dream of a democratic millennium could the average Englishman be brought to continue his tremendous sacrifices.

But the average Frenchman needed no such stimulus. The spirit of revanche urged him on. Still he assented, more or less sullenly, to the fine ideas of his allies, who lacked his hereditary spirit of racial hatred to impel them.

Victory came at last, and France found herself in a strong position. Her army, due to the economy with which it had been employed during the last years of the struggle, was shortly to be by far the most powerful of the Continental armies. The French Army, its older glories of Austerlitz and Jena blended with the new glory of Verdun, had become even more than formerly a cherished part of the national life, and could therefore be kept up to its full strength indefinitely without serious opposition, while in the case of her allies Great Britain and America, both great industrial States, rapid demobilisation set in immediately. Still France in 1919 did not feel herself strong enough openly to renounce her acceptance of ideas which recently, in the less prosperous times, she had so enthusiastically acclaimed; and so in the Treaty of Versailles she made a nominal disclaimer of her hopes of territorial annexation.

Now, it is essential to remember that the basis of the English claim against Germany is Germany's war guilt.' 'Since Germany wickedly and deliberately caused the war,' she must pay

for it-the English claim stands or falls with this proposition. But the basis of the claim of France is totally different. Her claim is based on the recognised rule of war that the victor may take as much of the vanquished's possessions as he may find desirable and convenient. This was as much a recognised rule of war in 1914 as in the Trojan war it was the recognised rule to make concubines of the conquered's wives and daughters. Why should the conquered, whether Trojans or Germans, be allowed to vary the rules which they had never questioned till defeat came? Germany showed at Brest Litovsk that up to the very last she accepted this rule and applied it unhesitatingly in her own favour. Why should she be allowed to vary it because she lost? The Trojans, from all accounts, made no complaint. Why should the Germans ?

These two points of view are so utterly and fundamentally distinctive that all attempts to harmonise them must inevitably end in absurdity. France's action may or may not be justified from her own standpoint, but any attempt to show that it is justified from the British standpoint-i.e., that France is merely debt-collecting-can only result in nonsense, the effect of which is that people who think at all in these matters come to the conclusion that France can have no case at all. This is a mistake, since France's action, on the whole, seems justified from her own point of view. Her case is at least arguable. The real problem here is whether or not France is prevented (or, to use the correct legal expression, is estopped') from setting up her claim on her own grounds by her definite acceptance of the British standpoint during the stress and peril of the darker times of the war. But this matter does not concern us here. And, at all events, as Germany is disarmed, France is, and will long remain, the judge of her own case.

We find, then, France in 1919 reluctantly submitting to the British point of view. Why should she quarrel with her good friends over mere phrases? And rightly, since this submission was merely nominal. All Germany's possessions could not pay a tithe of the cost of the war. As long as France could take what she wanted, what did it matter why she could take it? Also there was no hurry. France had obtained this one solitary advantage from the Anglo-American anti-militarist ideas. With the hearty consent of her allies, she had procured the complete disarmament of Germany. This was a vital gain. Time was no longer essential. If Bismarck had changed his mind about Belfort in 1875 he would have found the French Army ready; but Germany was as defenceless in 1923 as in 1919.

Thus the main effect of the prolongation of the war was this. Everything received a monetary value. Everything that was

taken from Germany was in theoretical discharge of part of the cost of the war. The latter was so vast that there was no conceivable chance of any limitation of France's desires.

But the next proposal of her allies was of a very different nature, and struck at the very root of the question. They suggested reducing Germany's 'debt' to a sum which it was conceivable Germany might pay. France refused point-blank. The difference here was vital. France's danger would then be, not that Germany would not pay, but that she might! So at length France, tired of the intricacies of her position and realising its possible dangers, carried out her original purpose and openly seized the Ruhr Valley. What form exactly this annexation will take remains for the future. Once again, as in 1806, France has obtained her long-coveted eastern frontier. A peaceful withdrawal from it is utterly unthinkable; a forcible withdrawal is out of the question for many years.

Granting, then, that France definitely intends to annex, in one form or another, the Rhine Valley, the task which lies before her is one of great difficulty. Bismarck in 1871 had a comparatively simple task, as more than three-quarters of the inhabitants of Alsace-Lorraine were allied by race and language, if not by sympathy, with their new masters. France may be said to have three main policies from which to choose. She may attempt to appeal to the nationalist feeling of the inhabitants of the Rhine Valley and to pose as their protector against the tyranny of Berlin. Why should the rich and flourishing Rhineland, "the milch-cow of Germany," be taxed to provide for the wants of the barren plains of Prussia?' Unfortunately, the Rhinelanders are not a distinct race, and seem to have little more 'nationalist' feeling than the inhabitants of the counties south of the Thames have against their northern countrymen. Of course, various individuals are perfectly willing to accept money from the French Secret Service, but they also require strong police protection from their indignant fellow-citizens. The prospects of a pro-French Rhine republic do not seem very promising.

The second policy is to appeal to the Labour, and even Communist, tendencies which are undoubtedly very strong in the great industrial areas. National feeling is in all countries admittedly weakest in the industrial classes of the population, and it is possible that the workers of Krupps, with increased wages and all fear of conscription gone, might be willing to tolerate for a time a foreign régime. The difficulty, however, of a bourgeois, militarist State like France, with her external policy of hostility to Soviet Russia and her internal policy of repression of all proletarian manifestations, playing an anti-capitalist, anti-militarist rôle, is only too obvious.

The third of the three policies from which the rulers of France must make their selection may be termed the 'Assyrian policy.' This, of course, consists of drastic repression, of the sternest punishment at the slightest sign of resistance, of the deportation of any who show any trace of hostility, and the gradual expulsion, by the imposition of intolerable conditions of life, of all but the meekest and basest, and their replacement by French families, who under this system would be encouraged to settle in the Rhine Valley. Here, again, the difficulties of a State with a declining population of less than forty million in absorbing so large a territory are sufficiently obvious.

After three months' occupation it is still not clear which policy France has selected. So far she has been trying, in a hesitating way, all three concurrently, but with an obvious and strong predilection for the last. On the one hand, she is spending very large sums on the Rhine 'Separatists,' while on the other hand, after the unfortunate incident at Essen, French aeroplanes flew over the town dropping pamphlets explaining that the instigators of it were the directors of Krupps. At the same time no opportunity is missed to goad and humiliate the Germans of all classes, and no policy of conciliation is allowed to hamper the task of revenging the memories which stretch from Rossbach to Sedan. The use of negroes and other African troops for the purpose of arrests and ejections can be for no other object, as these colonial forces form but a small proportion of the French Army, and the occupation of the Ruhr could have been undertaken without them without the slightest inconvenience. It is noteworthy and suggestive also that the odium of the use of blacks to dominate white men, certain to cause strong feeling in America, is no deterrent to their employment.

Only one question now remains: Is this task of governing, by one method or another, twelve million hostile Germans an impossible one for France? The examples of the Austrians in Italy and the British in Ireland are often cited as absolute proof to the contrary. But the fallacy of this argument lies in the fact thatthe racial dislike of the French for the Germans is overlooked. The Irish disliked the English, and the Italians disliked the Austrians. True, but the English people never felt the least hatred for the Irish, nor did the Austrian people for the Italian. The hatred in these cases was all one way. In the burning of Cork, for example, many English people deplored it; a few excused it; the majority were indifferent. None gloried in it. Imagine the attitude of the average Frenchman upon hearing of a similar case to that of Essen. Imagine the attitude of French soldiers in the presence of a German mob. Imagine the fate of a German Sinn Fein.' Imagine the exuberant reprisals. The true

analogy to the French in the Ruhr is the Prussians in Alsace. Internal resistance by the subject population never achieved more than affording the military an excuse for drastic action.

To sum up. The Rhine and Ruhr frontier, which would have come about directly if victory had been speedier, has now, after a delay of four years, become an accomplished fact. Will it last? There seems no reason to suppose the contrary. It is difficult to imagine any outside course of events affecting it for many years, perhaps till well into the second half of this century. It will no more be affected from within than was Bismarck's frontier of 1871. External forces take long to gather. France, although never disarmed, took nearly fifty years.

F. J. P. VEALE.