The first examples of independent action, in defiance of the treaties and the agreement to act together, was the seizure of Fiume by the Italian irregulars soon after the Treaty of St.-Germain was signed. Gabriele d’Annunzio demonstrated how easy it was to resist both Supreme Council and League. Then General Gouraud, officially responsible to France, violated spirit and letter of Article XXII of the Covenant by seizing Damascus. The unwillingness of members of the Council of the League to abide by the Covenant led to other breaches of good faith and disturbances of the precarious peace. For lawlessness breeds lawlessness. How can the great powers expect smaller states to respect principles of international equity which they themselves ignore? Refusing to recognize the authority of the League and the binding character of an armistice entered into by his own government, the Polish General Zeligowski invaded Lithuania in October, 1920, took possession of the capital, Vilna, and gave battle merrily to the Lithuanians. Because he knew that he had Poland and France behind him, Zeligowski had no fear of being called to account. The Poles did the same thing in Upper Silesia a year and a half later. The Lithuanians in January, 1923, made a _coup d’état_ in Memel, against which the Poles cried loud and long. The Zeligowski escapade accelerated the whirl of the international whirlpool more than those of d’Annunzio and Gouraud. For this refractory general mixed things up and discredited the League in the most dangerous spot in Europe. Differences between Jugoslavs and Italians, and between Arabs and French, did not threaten so seriously the general peace as events in the border-land of Germany, Russia, and Poland. The support Poland gave to Zeligowski--or, at least, her failure to suppress him, as Italy finally did d’Annunzio--jeopardized the existence of Poland. For among the border states of the Romanoff and Hohenzollern Empires it is either live and let live or repartition. Unless one believes that the German and Russian races have been crushed into impotence, Occidental Europe will play a losing game in establishing Poland as the lone sentinel, at the expense of her neighbors, between Germany and Russia. In debating the permanent success of France’s occupation of the Ruhr, Russia is the unknown factor. And whether Russia will or can help Germany depends fully as much upon the new Baltic republics as upon Poland.