V. THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 114 BOOKS FOR FURTHER READING 125 THE PROBLEM OF FOREIGN POLICY CHAPTER I GERMANY AND FRANCE I. THE PREDICAMENT OF GERMANY A friend of mine was recently travelling in Germany in a third-class railway carriage. The engine was slow and in lack of oil. The carriages, once so clean, warm, and well lighted, were unlit, dirty, and bitterly cold. There was an air of broken nerves and misery among the passengers, and one woman was still sobbing from some indignity offered to her by a foreign official in the occupied area. Presently an old gentleman, apparently a lawyer of some eminence, broke out: "A reckoning must come. My little grandchildren are drinking in revenge with their mother's milk. In thirty years or thereabouts we shall settle accounts with France, and then we shall make"--he swept the air with his hand--"_tabula rasa!_" "Herr Justizrat," answered a younger man, "did you take part in the war? I think not--you would be over the age. I was in the war for four years. . . . I agree with you that, in all probability, in thirty or forty years we shall settle our account with France and make _tabula rasa_. And in thirty or forty years after that France will have her reckoning with us and make _tabula rasa_ of Germany; and then we again, and so on. But, if you will excuse me, Herr Justizrat, I do not find in the prospect any of the satisfaction which it appears to give you." An incident of this sort may be significant or may not. It may be typical or may be exceptional. But my friend's experience seems exactly to agree with the report made by Herr Simons to the Reichstag in the last week of August, 1920, upon the attitude of the German Government towards the war then proceeding between Poland and Russia. The Entente Powers had invited Germany to take certain unneutral steps on the side of Poland; the Government had, as a matter of course, refused. The Soviet Government had also invited Germany to join in the war on their side, holding out the hope that such action by Germany would precipitate a Bolshevik revolution in Poland and other parts of eastern Europe and lead to an alliance capable of defying the Entente. The German Government, said Herr Simons, carefully considered these proposals, as it felt bound to consider any possible prospect of escape for Germany from the intolerable servitude imposed upon her by the Peace of Versailles, but decided that it was not in the public interest to accept them. Thus the German Foreign Minister, a man respected by all parties, expresses in sober and thoughtful language much the same sentiment as the Justizrat in his passion. The Peace of Versailles has, like most settlements imposed by conquerors upon their beaten enemies, produced a condition so intolerable that the vanquished must be expected to seize the first favourable opportunity for fighting to free themselves. It has sown the seeds of future war.