of Justice, and why they feel much more inclined to look upon it as a club. It may be a club in the high sense of the word. It may be a club where great and noble problems are discussed; and where countries separated by natural distance may learn to know each other, and thereby to come to a better mutual understanding. How many personal susceptibilities may be smoothed out by the mutual relations brought up in a club! What useful arrangements can there not be made through the medium of a club! But a Court of Justice needs something more more authority—and something less-less nervosity.

Now let us return to the Greco-Italian conflict, and form our conclusions. The conflict has cast light upon a certain number of points that should not be forgotten. In the first place it has proved that in the actual state of Europe, one must unhappily expect here and there certain acts of violence. Certain countries still value human life too lightly; and the representatives of the most pacific organizations, working for the most justifiable of purposes, run as much risk of being killed as the soldiers who some eight years ago ventured forth to battle from their trenches. If the nation whose representative had been foully murdered is a bit quick-blooded, can one stop it from desiring to avenge the outrage at once? Can one stop it from defending its dignity?

And again, it has once more been proved that the old form of diplomacy, which has been so criticised and condemned,—the old diplomacy, silent and knowing its business,—is still more efficient than the new diplomacy, so idolized, which discusses matters in the street in its shirt sleeves. It was really marvelous to note how four old diplomats of the Paris Council solved the problem of Corfu, of which the one hundred and twenty younger diplomats of the League of Nations did not even dare to take hold.

Signor Mussolini is perhaps the newest man in Europe. He has, however, put into relief some of the oldest axioms in the world that humanity can perfect itself but slowly; and that it is not enough simply to draw up a Covenant in order to bring peace on earth. No Super-State can keep ordinary States from quarrelling, any more than the Super-God Jupiter in his Olympian heights could appease the dissensions among the ordinary gods. STEPHANE LAUZANNE.

"WHEN GERMANY OCCUPIED FRANCE":

A REPLY

BY HANS DELBRÜCK

Professor of History at the University of Berlin

I ASK permission to add some supplementary remarks to the article1 which Mr. Stephane Lauzanne has published in THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

Mr. Lauzanne says Germany (he writes "Prussia") in the war of 1870 had "so to say not even suffered as much as a broken window". He has forgotten that at that time, next to England, France was the strongest naval power, and that Germany then, so to speak, had no navy whatever. Owing to this fact the French were able completely to interrupt Germany's overseas trade and to inflict great damage upon it. Germany's overseas trade, though not nearly as important as in 1914, was even then of very considerable volume.

Mr. Lauzanne lays stress upon the allegation that the Allied and Associated Powers in 1919 had demanded no indemnity from Germany, "but merely asked reparation for the terrible destruction of life and property". He omits to say that the Allied and Associated Powers in the Armistice had solemnly pledged themselves to demand compensation solely for the damages inflicted upon the civilian population. If this stipulation had been adhered to, Germany would have fulfilled her obligations long ago and peace would reign in the world. In the Treaty of Versailles, however, Germany's obligations were extended by the interpretation that the soldiers, too, who subsequently returned to civilian life, belonged to the civilian population, and on the strength of this argument Germany was also burdened with all pensions. President Wilson objected and his juridical advisers declared that no American lawyer would lend 1 Entitled When Germany Occupied France.-THE EDITORS,

himself to approve this interpretation. In spite of this, however, the President gave way to the joint pressure of Lloyd George and Clémenceau. Thereby German reparations have been trebled. Germany asserts, in concurrence with almost all financial experts of the world, that the performance exceeds her capacity of payment. She offers a neutral impartial investigation and Court of Arbitration. France, however, declines this offer and, without the slightest legal title, occupies a number of German towns and the Ruhr District.

Mr. Lauzanne says that, with the exception of the occupation of the left bank of the Rhine, the Treaty of Versailles had provided no guarantee for its fulfilment. He is forgetting the principal thing, viz., the complete disarmament of Germany, dismantling of fortresses, and neutralization of a zone of 50 kilometres east of the Rhine. In 1871 Germany not only did not disarm France but, on the contrary, returned to her all prisoners of war and allowed them to be supplied with arms in order to enable France to suppress the revolutionary outbreak of the Commune and to reëstablish inland order. For the reason that France remained under arms, Germany was compelled to keep parts of French territory occupied until payment of the reparation. For the rest, however, Germany did everything that was possible to facilitate a speedy payment of the reparation on the part of the French; she furthered the International Loan, and even German bankers subscribed to it; today, however, France does everything in her power to make payments by Germany impossible. Mr. Poincaré himself has publicly stated that he would be displeased if Germany were to pay, for the reason that then France would have to evacuate the Rhineland. (Le Populaire of July 26, 1922.) When Mr. Briand was endeavouring to conclude an agreement which would have given Germany a possibility of payment, he was overthrown by Mr. Poincaré.

Mr. Lauzanne compares the payment of her debt by France to Germany within two years with Germany's non-payment today. This comparison requires a supplement in the form of the question as to the reason why France paid and Germany has not. France paid, because the amount fixed was so reasonable that the coun

try was able to pay it within a short time and because German policy aided the speedy restoration of French credit. Germany has not paid, because the sum demanded exceeds her capacity and because French policy prevents the restoration of Germany's credit. The devastation which French policy causes in German economic life today is immeasurably greater by far than all the devastation which the four years of war caused in French economic life. If the French really intended nothing but the payment of a reparation within the limits of Germany's capacity, there would be a very simple remedy in their hands. The occupation of the Rhine and Ruhr District is the most unfit method for obtaining payments from Germany, for the reason that the costs of occupation devour the greatest part of what Germany is able to pay, and because the occupation is most seriously injurious to German economic life. The foreign army of occupation in the Rhine Province is twice as large in numbers as the German troops garrisoned there before 1914. The pay of an English private (according to the rate of exchange prior to the invasion of the Ruhr District) amounted to about one and a half times the salary of the German Chancellor; a General who presides over one of the innumerable Commissions of Control receives, beside his quarters, a cash salary higher than the total salaries of the President of the German Republic, the German Chancellor, all twelve Federal Ministers and all eight Prussian Ministers together.

If France were to evacuate all the occupied territory, with the reservation of reoccupying it should Germany fall in arrears in payments, France would be in possession of a guarantee that could not possibly be more effective and productive. For Germany would make the most extreme efforts to forestall reoccupation by French troops by punctual payments. In case one were to reply that Bismarck, though a wise statesman, did not proceed in this manner in 1871, but kept French Departments occupied until payment, reference must be made to the vast difference that France then had an army, arms and fortifications, whereas Germany today is defenceless. The fact that the French were able to occupy Düsseldorf, Duisburg, the Ruhr District and many other towns, and that according to German opinion in

contravention of the Treaty of Versailles, without any resistance having been offered by Germany, proves that Germany is completely in the hands of France.

Why then does France need further guarantees, if she really wishes nothing but the payment of the reparation due to her? Mr. Lauzanne cites Mr. Poincaré as saying: “We shall not hold this mortgage a single day longer than is necessary." Germany and a great part of the world believe, however, that Mr. Poincaré and the French Government will always assert that the occupation of the district is "absolutely necessary" for France. As regards Bismarck, it is an established fact that he wished the occupation of French territory to last as short a time as possible. Mr. Poincaré has the opposite desire. This seems to be a very essential difference between the occupation of that time and of today.

From this difference many other things follow. Mr. Lauzanne refers to the very reasonable instructions which President Thiers at that time issued to the French officials, and asks why President Ebert did not act in the same way. This comparison must be supplemented by the facts that, first, Bismarck at that time issued exactly the same instructions as Thiers; and, second, that the German authorities today have shown even greater considerateness than the French at that time, but that the atrocious brutality with which the French troops of occupation oppress the German population in the occupied territory does not tend to establish now the friendly relations which actually existed between the German troops of occupation and the French population from 1871 to 1873.

I do not wish to illustrate here the incredible atrocities with which the French troops of occupation systematically torture the German population. Even in war there would be no excuse for many of them. Every day people who, peacefully and expecting no wrong, walk along the streets, are shot by French patrols. Many thousands of officials, provincial governors, burgomasters, railway officials, post officials, forest officials, customs officials, have been driven from their homes and expelled from the occupied territory, and not only they alone but also their whole families. Suddenly, within a few hours, sometimes,