Evening star., 1925-01-25
FAILURE TO QUIT COLOGNE
j BARS MANY ADJUSTMENTS
Long Drawn-Out Question of French
Guarantees Involved in Allied Decision
to Hold Bridgehead.

occupation permanently OF German
territory, not the annexation. be ii
understood, but the garrisoning OF
the Rhine bridgeheads, is intolerable.
1t is condition which the German
people will not endure and so far
from brin glng safety, 1t only insures
ultimate danger, when the condi
tions once more provide Germany
with the opportunity. Whether peace
is ever to be assured between France
and Germany. one thing is certain,
and that is that any such method
would be no more than the insurance
of new war.
BY contrast British opinion, despite
differences between France and Eng
land since the war, has pretty gen
orally recognized the justice of the
French insistence upon some form of
guarantee-and 1t must be understood
that France and Belgium stand in the
sa me position here. On the abstract
proposition that Britain should sup
port France and Belgium again, if
Germany should once more make an
unprovoked attack, there is substan-
tial British agreement. Further than
this, there Is recognition that Ger
many strong enough to get to the
British Channel once more would
constitute a menace for Britain which
could not be mistaken.
Britaip's Objections.
What Britain objects to in the sit
uation is undertaking to guarantee
French policy along with French Sc
curity and French alliances along
with France. At the moment France
is bound by treaty to defend the from
ties of Poland and of CzechOslavakIa
against German aggression, bound
not alone by the more or less vague
provisions of the covenant of the
league, but also by definite and
specific treaties. Now the British
have no wish or intention to guar
antee Polish frontiers against Ger
many nor to be involved in new
war becasse France joins Poland in
a struggle provoked by German
attack upon the Poles.
Here British opinion is about what
it was in 1914 when Sir Edward GreN
rather brutally indicated that Brit
ain was not inclined to lift finger
to assist Serbia, SO long as the Ser
bian issue did not involve Russia or
France, that Is, so long as IL was
localized in the Balkans. The Brit
ish as the event showed were ready
to fight to protect Belgium because
Germany in Antwerp and Ostend was
a menace to England, but Austria in
Belgrade and Nish left the British
public quite cold. In the same way
German aggI ession against Poland
does not seem to the British mind
basis for a new war for England.
All the British effect has been to
find some sort of way in which any
British guarantee of French security
should not involve Britain in a guar
antee of French policy. French policy
is not merely concerned with the Sc
curity of France, or rather not merely
concerned with the question of Sc
curity in the west of Europe. France
has sought to find some guarantee
of her safety through alliances with
the new and smaller states of the
middle and southeast of Europe and
thus entered into a. series of contracts
with various states, notably Poland
and Czechoslovakia-
British Oppose Alliances.
Again, aside from the narrow ques-
tion of French policy. the British
in large number are opposed to the
idea of separate alliances, both from
tradition and because many Eng
lishmen believe that the World War
was made inevitable and Britain
forced to engage by reason of the
series of agreements more or less
binding, which were made with
France and with Russia They be-
lieve that the fact of these under
standings had much to do with the
character of French and Russian
policy and gave it confidence which
it would not otherwise have had
This fraction of British public opin-
ion believes that there can be no
foundation of European peace on the
basis of separate alliances and feels
- nF
curity in existing circumstances
would be in reality an alliance with
France against Germany, which
would lead to counter alliances, as
Germany grew strong and would in
the end contribute to making war
not to prevent it.
Macdonald and his Labor as
sociates. who held to this view as do
many Liberals. sought to find in the
League of Nations some method of
avoiding the separate alliance, that
is, they sought to make the league
itself the guarantor of peace and the
member nations bound only to act in
case of menace to world peace
which was certified to by the league
In a word, the Labor lot endeavored
to establish under the league a meth
cd by which they would be saved
from engaging in any war in which
France, for example, was not the at
tackled but the aggressor.
Binding for Arbitration.
Thus. the protocol first bound all
the signatories to accept arbitration,
and secondly an American initiative
defined the aggressor nation as the
country which declined to employ ar
bitration and resorted to force. Under
any such system Britain would only
be bound to support France or Bel
gium provided Germany, declining to
resort to arbitration took up arms
And it is not difficult to see that in
this respect the protocol satisfied
British opinion.
But the difficulty lay and lies in
the fact that it cons tituted a similar
commitmen with respect of countries
whose frontiers the British were
unwilling to guarantee under any
circumstances. Thus, even IL the
Germans should make an unprovoked
attack upon Poland. the British are
not willing to agree, as they would
if they accepted the protocol to go
to the aid of Poland. They believe
that Polish frontiers as now exist
ing are a permanent invitation to
German attack and that peace Is i'm
possible unless Poland is willing to
surrender the, Polish corridor and
Upper Silesia, which, of course, the
Poles will not do.
France and most of the continental
states accepted the protocol because
they have no desire to modify the
existing situation, and are satisfied
with the frontiers as laid down at
Paris and since. All they desire
is that what exists, the status quo,
shall be maintained. They were will
ing to agree not to attack any one,
because they had no ambitions to be
satisfied. For them peace and the
continuation of the existing situation
were identical.