2. The Rhine (Continued)  
The breakdown of the London conference, and especially the reason for that breakdown, proves the warning I uttered in my last chapter was necessary and timely.
 
M. Poincaré demanded the occupation of the only rich coalfield left to Germany as a guarantee for the carrying out of impossible terms.
 
It is because I am profoundly convinced that the policy represented by this project will lead to trouble of the gravest kind for Europe and the world that I felt moved to sound a note of warning. I knew it would provoke much angry misrepresentation. I am accustomed to that. I deemed it to be my duty to face it.
 
The statement I made in my last chapter about the existence of a strong party in France which regarded the Rhine as the natural barrier of that[Pg 117] country has provoked a storm of denial, repudiation and indignation. It is denounced as a wicked invention. Some are amazed at the impudence of the calumny. Where is the party? France knows nothing of it. Is it not a monster which has emanated from the brain of the enemy of France?
 
Repudiations have their value, especially if they come from men of authority, and I shall bear invective with the fortitude to which all men who wish to be happy though politicians should be hardened provided I elicit denials which may render future international mischief difficult.
 
But a further perusal of the evidence on which I based my statement has served to deepen my apprehensions. What was the statement? Let me quote the actual words I used:—
 
"There was a strong party in France which urged M. Clemenceau to demand that the Rhine should be treated as the natural frontier of their country, and that advantage should be taken of the overwhelming defeat of Germany to extend the boundaries of France to that fateful river.
 
"The most moderate and insidious form this demand took was a proposal that the German [Pg 118]provinces on the left bank of the Rhine should remain in French occupation until the treaty had been fulfilled. That meant for ever. Reparations alone—skilfully handled by the Quai d'Orsay—would preclude the possibility of ever witnessing fulfilment.
 
"The pact was designed to strengthen the hands of M. Clemenceau against the aggressive party which was then, and still is, anxious to commit France to the colossal error of annexing territory which has always been purely German."
 
What was the basis on which I made this assertion? It was thoroughly well known to all those who were engaged in the operations of the Peace conference. The Rhine was the background of all man?uvre for weeks and months. Whether the subject matter was the League of Nations, the German fleet, or the status of Fiume, we knew that the real struggle would come over the Rhine.
 
On one hand, How much would France demand? on the other, How much would the Allies concede? There was a subconscious conflict about the Rhine throughout the whole discussion, however irrelevant the topic under actual consideration happened to be.
 
But unrecorded memories are of little use as[Pg 119] testimony unless corroborated by more tangible proofs. Do such proofs exist? I will recall a few.
 
There was a party which considered the Rhine to be the only natural frontier of France. It was a strong party, with a strong man as its spokesman—in many ways the strongest in France—Marshal Foch. His splendid services in the war gave him a position such as no soldier in France or in any other country could command. The soldier who, by his genius, leads a nation to victory, possesses a measure of influence on the public opinion of the people he has saved from destruction such as no other individual can aspire to—as long as his services are fresh in the memory of his fellow-countrymen. That, I admit, is not very long. Gratitude is like manna—it must be gathered and enjoyed quickly, for its freshness soon disappears. But in the early months of 1919 Marshal Foch was still sitting at the banquet table of popular favour enjoying the full flavour of grateful recognition. His word on all questions affecting the security and destiny of France was heard with a deference which no other man in France could succeed in securing. He has also a quality which is not usually an attribute of generalship: he is a lucid, forceful and picturesque[Pg 120] speaker. He was, therefore, listened to for what he was, for what he said, and for the way he said it.
 
What did he say? He said a good deal on the subject of the Rhine frontier and I cannot quote it all. I will take a few germane sentences out of his numerous utterances on the subject. On the 19th day of April, 1919, there appeared in the London Times an interview with Marshal Foch. From that interview I take these salient passages:—
 
"'And now, having reached the Rhine, we must stay there,' went on the Marshal very emphatically. 'Impress that upon your fellow-countrymen. It is our only safety, their only safety. We must have a barrier. We must double-lock the door. Democracies like ours, which are never aggressive, must have strong natural military frontiers. Remember that those seventy millions of Germans will always be a menace to us. Do not trust the appearances of the moment. Their natural characteristics have not changed in four years. Fifty years hence they will be what they are to-day.'
 
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"From the table at the other end of the room Marshal Foch brought a great map, six or eight feet[Pg 121] square, on which the natural features of this part of western Europe were marked. The Rhine was a thick line of blue. To the west of the river the Marshal had drawn in pencil a concave arc representing the new frontier that France will receive under the Peace treaty. It was clearly an arbitrary political boundary conforming to no natural feature of the land.
 
"'Look at that,' said Marshal Foch. 'There is no natural obstacle along that frontier. Is it there that we can hold the Germans if they attack us again? No. Here! here! here!' and he tapped the blue Rhine with his pencil.
 
"'Here we must be ready to face our enemies. This is a barrier which will take some crossing. If the Germans try to force a passage over the Rhine—ho! ho! But here'—touching the black pencilled line running north-west from Lorraine past the Saar valley to the Belgian frontier—'here there is nothing.'
 
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"'No; if you are wise you insist on having your locks and your wall, and we must have our armies on the Rhine. Some people object that it will take[Pg 122] many troops to hold the Rhine. Not so many as it would take to hold a political frontier. For the Rhine can be crossed only at certain places, whereas the new political frontier of France can be broken anywhere and would have to be held in force along its entire length.'"
 
He expounded his doctrine in greater detail in an official memorandum which, as commander-in-chief of the Allied armies, he submitted to M. Clemenceau:—
 
"To stop the enterprises towards the west of this nation, everlastingly warlike, and covetous of the good things belonging to other people, only recently formed and pushed on to conquest by force regardless of all rights and by ways the most contrary to all law, seeking always the mastery of the world, Nature has only made one barrier—the Rhine. This barrier must be forced on Germany. Henceforward the Rhine will ............