I undertake in the following chapters a double task, beginning with a chronicle of events and a statement of the present facts, and concluding with proposals of what we ought to do. I naturally attach primary importance to the latter. But it is not only of historical interest to glance at the recent past. If we look back a little closely on the two years which have just elapsed (and the general memory unaided is now so weak that we know the past little better than the future), we shall be chiefly struck, I think, by the large element of injurious make–believe. My concluding proposals assume that this element of make–believe has ceased to be politically necessary; that outside opinion is now ready for inside opinion to disclose, and act upon, its secret convictions; and that it is no longer an act of futile indiscretion to speak sensibly in public. FOOTNOTE: [1] “Its merely colorable fulfilment of solemn contracts with a defeated nation, its timorous failure to reckon with economic realities,” as Professor Allyn Young wrote in a review of my book. Yet Professor Young has thought right, nevertheless, to make himself a partial apologist of the Treaty, and to describe it as “a forward–looking document.” CHAPTER II FROM THE RATIFICATION OF THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES TO THE SECOND ULTIMATUM OF LONDON I. _The Execution of the Treaty and the Plebiscites_ The Treaty of Versailles was ratified on January 10, 1920, and except in the plebiscite areas its territorial provisions came into force on that date. The Slesvig plebiscite (February and March, 1920) awarded the north to Denmark and the south to Germany, in each case by a decisive majority. The East Prussian plebiscite (July, 1920) showed an overwhelming vote for Germany. The Upper Silesian plebiscite (March, 1921) yielded a majority of nearly two to one in favor of Germany for the province as a whole,[2] but a majority for Poland in certain areas of the south and east. On the basis of this vote, and having regard to the industrial unity of certain disputed areas, the principal Allies, with the exception of France, were of opinion that, apart from the southeastern districts of Pless and Rybnik which, although they contain undeveloped coalfields of great importance, are at present agricultural in character, nearly the whole of the province should be assigned to Germany. Owing to the inability of France to accept this solution, the whole problem was referred to the League of Nations for final arbitration. This body bisected the industrial area in the interests of racial or nationalistic justice; and introduced at the same time, in the endeavor to avoid the consequences of this bisection, complicated economic provisions of doubtful efficiency in the interests of material prosperity. They limited these provisions to fifteen years, trusting perhaps that something will have occurred to revise their decision