The Washington herald., 1919-03-21
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this Is nddling for disaster. What
ever prevents the existing govern
ments In Europe from re-establishlns
normal life encourages those who say
thai the existing governments are
damned and that there Is no saliva
ton in them.
Lenin MisunderstooA.
The reason why Lenin may succeed
Is that the victors do not take seri-
ously enough what he represents.
They are frightened to be sure, they
are even panicky, but they are not
serious enough about the menace to
be willing to subordinate every other
consideration to the creation of Eu-
rope which WILDE sterile to Bolshev-
ism. They want to fight Lenin with
one hand and use the other for their
own purposes. They are repeating the
error Of those who wanted to win the
war and at the same time continue
to do business as usual.
Out of this desire arise those in
geniouss diplomatic utilities by which
the old intrigue is to be maintained
as method OF crushing Bolshevist
power. Having realized that the
armies OF France and Great Britain
cannot be used to police Russia, and
that, the American people do not in
tend to bury half a million boys in q
wilderness for ten years or SO, the
idea OF direct military intervention has
been abandoned. and for It has been
substituted the fashionable phrase
sanitary Gordon" The theory is that
a dam is to be erected in the east OF
Europe consisting Of Poland. Czecho-
Slovakia, a Greater Rumania. and
Jugo-Slavia. and statesmen represent
ing these nations have actually been
found who are willing to have their
countries used as a dam. These new
and fragile republics are to be erected
between Bolshevist Russia, communist
Hungary and Spartacide Germanp.
Then another dam Is to be erected on
the Rhine. and the whole thing guar
anteed by an alliance with Great Brit
aine and America disguised as q
league of nations.
Dangerous FooiinE.
This is a very dangerous bit of fool
ing. No one who knows anything OF
the internal conditions of the new
states of Eastern Europe can for q
moment imagine that they will survive
squeezed in between gigantic revolu-
tions in both Germany and Russia
Those new states are fragments OF
destroys empires, and each contains
within itself problems that have all the
seeds of disorder. Each one more
over is at least partially in the hands
OF men whose ideas reflect the old i'm
perial system, with the result that
there has been through the winter a
tangle of little wars on the frontiers
of all of them. One American OBJ
server returning in January from what
was Austria Hungary had accounted
for eleven separate military campaigns
going on in the sanitary Gordon.
The motive for using these little
states as the buffer of the world is
clear. It is to evade the disagreeable
necessity of effecting a reconciliation
between the German people and the
Western nations. II the Gordon can be
made to stand up 1t Is possible to keep
Germany prostrate and oescape the
danger to Europe II her people be-
come desperate; the new states are
to be an iron fence dividing two areas
OF Bolshevism from each other. This
Is a more complicated version OF what
was tried at Brest-Litovsk, the scheme
there was to use these same border
states as a buffer. and then to para
lyze Russia By splitting off the Ukra-
inc. The new version is to use these
states as a buffer facing two ways,
and to paralyze Germany by splitting
off a Rhenlsh republic. 1t would re-
quire as its first condition the main-
tenance for an indefinite period of a
huge army on the Rhine. With Ger
many in profound disorder, as II will
be, If food is not given and factories
set going and the burden OF debt made
bearable. the occupation of Germany
would have to follow. For Bolshevism
in both Russia and Germany would
soon eat the heart out OF Po.
land. Rumania and Hungary. where
social conditions are already des.
perate. Now anyone who sup
poses that the populations OF
France and Great Britain will endure
the human and economic cost of such
an occupation is suffering from a Sc
we're case of reading nothing but CEN
sored news.
The plain fact Is that the recon
struction of Europe requires an or.
derly government and a contented pop.
ulation in Germany. The very exist.
ence of the new states depends upor
protecting their fianks against revo.
luton. A moderate socialist republic
in Germany. such as the Ebert gov
ernment represents. is the only type
of government in Central Europe to-
day which can make that part OF the
world immune against the disorder
which is travelling westward. II wha'
Ebert represents Is a failure, IL it can.
not preserve Germany from dismem.
berment and a long economic bond
age, then the only alternatives open
are to restore the Hohenzollerns OF
to give up in desperation. repudiate al
authority and obligation and e
Bolshevist. OF the three possible Ger.
manys-Junker. Ebert or Spartacide
there can be not doubt that Ebert
is the one with which the world car