Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-11-11
CERMANY'S COMEBACK
in PEACE MAKES RECORD
Tenth Armistice Anniversary Finds
Nation Challenging Industrially
as 1t Did MiIitarily.

Monarchists and Republicans. are
agreed that the existing situation is
impossible. But revision is possible only
after war, for Polish determination to
resist all change is just as solid as
German will to procure it.
At the moment Germany is still
poWerleSS. All her effort must be di-
rected at Fastening evacuation, that
she may be master of her own house.
The same necessity dictates her policy
in pressing for the flxation of repara-
tionS figures and the termination of
financial control. Until she is free at
home Germany can have no real for
eign policy.
Thus 10 years after armlsc1cA we have
this curious paradox: Germany is re-
publican and peaceful, but thnER politi-
cal parties and those Leaders most
closely identified with republican and
pacific policies are still dominated by
purposes which can only be realized
by war. And already the economic and
industrial progress of Germany since
the war discloses the fact that she
could easily become as formidable on
the battlefield as she was in the World
War.
New Problem Arises.
There, after ALL is the cotemporary
problem in Europe. The hopes which
centered about Locarno are proving
futile, because it has been impossible
to find a Locarno settlement for the
problems of the east. Alsace-Lorraine
is no longer source of international
dispute, but the Polish Corridor has
become an Alsace-Lorraine of almost
unimaginable proportions.
The status quo on the Rhine has
been accepted by republican Germany,
but the union of the German and Aus
TRAN republics, demanded by the Ger
man Republicans, would result in the
erection of a Germany larger in area,
population and resources than that of
1914. 1t would mean the restoration of
Mltteleuropa, to dissolve which Europe
fought for four years.
And what makes the situation the
more serious is that there is no visible
means of preventing a collision. All
the German people believe that the
Polish Corridor is a monument of in
justice and must be abolished. But
all the Polish people believe that It is
no more than partial restitution of
what was stolen in the partitions. Every
Pole will fight to retain it and France
is bound to support Poland and Czecho-
slovakia is bound to stand with France.
Moreover, in a certain sense there
may yet be confirmation of the despair
ing forecasts of decade ago that Ger
many, having lost the war, would win
the peace. The fact is that the Ger
mans remain, next to the Russians, the
most numerous and in all ways the
most powerful people on the Continent.
There are nearly 100000 of them,
forming solid block in the heart of
Europe
United. it is hard to see how thew
could fail to dominate the Continent
And the destruction of the Hapsburg
Empire made the larger German unity
Wellnigh inevitable. But such union
would automatically destroy the balance
OF power in Europe, and the destruction
OF the balance of power has invariably
ied TO war either Immediately or even
| tually.
Following the armistice. the victors of
1913 had either to make peace with
Germany or destroy it, but in fact they
old neither They reduced Germany to
limits which were for the German peo
pie mtolerable, but they left her still
strong enough eventually to challenge
decisions which were unacceptable. This
was what Napoleon did to Prussia after
Jena and he paid for it at Leipzig and
at Waterloo. ''--N
mus the conquerors of the World
war nave still to make peace with a
germany daily growing stronger or
accept the certainty of another We.
tought 10 maintain the status QUO
the treaty of Versailles.
(Copyright, 1929