World War, 1914-1918 -- Reparations; World War, 1914-1918 -- Treaties
It is easy to see that, sooner or later, the Bolshevik degeneration
over, Russia will be recomposed; Germany, in spite of all the attempts
to break her up and crush her unity, within thirty or forty years will
be the most formidable ethnical nucleus of Continental Europe. What
will then happen to a Poland which pretends to divide two people who
represent numerically and will represent in other fields also the
greatest forces of Continental Europe of to-morrow?
Amongst many in France there is the old conception of Napoleon I, who
considered the whole of European politics from an erroneous point of
view, that of a lasting French hegemony in Europe, when the lasting
hegemony of peoples is no longer possible. In the sad solitude of his
exile at Saint Helena, Napoleon I said that not to have created a
powerful Poland keystone of the roof of the European edifice, not to
have destroyed Prussia, and to have been mistaken in regard to Russia,
were the three great errors of his life. But all his work had as an
end to put the life of Europe under the control of France, and was
necessarily wrecked by reality, which does not permit the lasting
mistake of a single nation which places herself above all the others
in a free and progressive Europe.
If the policy of the Entente towards Germany and towards the conquered
countries does not correspond either to collective declarations made
during the War, or to the promises solemnly made by Wilson, the policy
towards Russia has been a whole series of error. In fact, one cannot
talk of a policy of the Entente, in so far that with the exception of
a few errors committed in common, Great Britain, France and Italy have
each followed their own policy.
In his sixth point, among the fourteen points, no longer pure, but
violated and outraged worse than the women of a conquered race by a
tribe of Kurds, Wilson said on January 8, 1918, that the treatment
meted out to Russia by the sister nations, and therefore their loyalty
in assisting her to settle herself, should be the stern proof of
their goodwill. They should show that they did not confound their
own interests, or rather their egoism, with what should be done for
Russia. The proof was most unfortunate.
The attitude of the Entente towards Russia has had different phases.
In the first phase, the prevailing idea, especially on the part of
one of the Allies, was to send military expeditions in conjunction
especially with Rumania and Poland. This idea was immediately
abandoned on account of its very absurdity.
In the second phase, the greatest hopes were placed in the blockade;
of isolating Russia completely, cutting off from her (and for the rest
she no longer had it) every facility of trade exchange. At the same
time war on the part of Poland and Rumania was encouraged, to help the
attempt which the men of the old regime were making in the interior.
France alone reached the point of officially recognizing the Tsarist
undertaking of General Wrangel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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