New-York tribune., 1920-03-25
The Neu Problem
By Franz II. Simonds

mate but not less manifest national
self-interest, will agree in all under
takings designed to restore Germany
and specifically in all efforts to modify
the Treaty of Versailles to this end.
But the French, on the contrary, have
not gained the security as . result of
the war which the British gained by
the destruction Of the German feet and
the annexation Of tho German colonies,
or the Italians acquired as a result of
the recognition Of their demands to
carry their frontiers to the summit Of
the Alps. Moreover, while neither
Italy nor Great Britain has any ma
terial claim upon Germany for repara-
ton, the French claims are enormous,
and it they are not honored the repudi-
alton may prove the prelude to French
bankruptcy.
France thus secs her recent allies
now becoming the champions Of her
traditional enemy. She realized that
the British and the Italians have de-
AAVCA ~N1 ACoSSA oCS0Ilty tn0h u&o Sic
from the war, absolute security, in
fact, and are now Joining in demand
that Germany be made more powerful
by the addition of German Austria,
while France and her necessary ally,
Poland, are made weaker both on the
financial and the territorial side,
through concessions demanded in the
name Of European stability and gen.
eral economic reorganization.
Our American Mistake
America, naturally more open to
British than to French opinion, as a
result of the common language, has for
many months been filled with the vari-
Gus expressions of the British view, of
which the Keynes book was one example
of unconscious, but not less potent
propaganda. But the French view has
been very little explained and, as a
result very little understood. There has
been a tendency to see in the French
position deliberate purpose to prevent
German rehabilitation and to insist upon
continued plunder Of defenseless Ger
many. Yet the truth is quite otherwise.
What the French have objected to, what
the British has advocated and the 1tal-
lans have approved Of, is not merely the
rehabilitation of Germany, but the re-
storation Of Germany at the expense of
France and without cost to themselves,
that is to the British and the Italians.
Now the German revolution has given
new opportunity for the urging of these
Anglo-1talian policies, and there is every
evidence that new disputes and fresh
difficulties are in sight. Yet, whatever
else may be the American view, it is at
least essential to perceive that France,
with more dead in the war than Italy
and Britain combined, with far greater
losses due to enemy destruction, now
finds herself called upon by her recent
allies, both of whom have obtained their
maximum Of security and profit out of
the common victory, to surrender mate
rial circumstances in her far less de-
clslve gains to an undertaking sure to
~ VI PAOiC ~ DiItdli anu 1Idly. DuC
not less certain to lessen French indem-
nifty and perhaps abolish French Sc
curity.
France United
French resistance to Anglo-Italian
pressure will be the more determined
because the present French Ministry,
far more than the British or the Italian.
possesses a national mandate for its
policy. Indeed the suspicion that the
Millerand cabinet was planning to make
concessions would bring it down in
stantly, while it's advocacy of national
its defense of what the whole
nation regards as French rights, will
tortify its position in a Parliament in
which there is no real minority, SO far
as international issues are concerned.
Not even in the great crises of the war
was France more united or more deter
mined than to-day, when she feels her
self in the presence of new dangers.
when she feels that the legitimate fruits
of the victory won at such terrible cost
are being snatched from her hands.
(copvr|0ht, 1920. bv the Mcclure Ne.cspoper
SDndicute)