  The Terms of Peace. I shall never forget the grand march of the Allies through Berlin, and the sealing of the Treaty of Peace. There had been much delay regarding what the Terms of Peace should be. Great Britain was the stumbling block. Eighty years before, Washington Irving wrote of "John Bull":— "Though no one fights with more obstinacy to carry a contested point, yet when the battle is over and he comes to reconciliation, he is so much taken up with the mere shaking of hands, that he is apt to let his antagonists pocket all they have been fighting about." England proved that once again in South Africa, for after fighting five years with the Boers, she actually gave them what they were fighting for—their independence. With Germany she was inclined to be generous, but the French, Belgian and Russian delegates urged firmness, and the Terms of Peace were finally settled. It was estimated that the actual expenditure of the Allies was £1,180,000,000, and the loss in shipping £250,000,000, a total loss of £1,430,000,000. Germany and Austria had to hand over to the Allies the whole of their Navies to be held for the protection of the world's peace, and each nation had to pay an indemnity of £1,000,000,000. The German prisoners had to be kept in Belgium for nine months to repair damage done to Belgian towns. The boundaries of France and Belgium were to be extended to the Rhine. Holland was to be absorbed by a joint protectorate that took in the Schleswig-Holstein Peninsula. Poland was to go back to Russia, Servia and Italy being allotted the shorelines of the Adriatic. The Dardanelles was to be an open, undefended waterway. Bulgaria was to absorb Turkey in Europe, Russia obtaining further concessions in Caucasia. There were other details of the terms that need not be here mentioned. But on the 1st day of December, 1915, the Treaty of Berlin confirmed them. There was little demonstration in Germany. The new political party in power, the Humanists, had already agreed to disarmament; so the first part of the treaty did not trouble. The policy of "universal brotherhood" subdued any qualms that might have arisen regarding loss of territory. Regarding the indemnity: it could be met by imposing a heavy income tax on all incomes over 3000 marks (£150). By this means the Humanists would make the capitalists pay for the war. The Humanist Government readily accepted the demand of the Allies that the German prisoners should not be returned to Germany for nine months. They were drafted into great work-camps in Belgium, and were put to replacing bridges, reconstructing buildings, and making good all they had devastated. I remember at the time, how the world jeered at the so-called "Humanist" Government in Germany, because it so readily agreed to the harsh treatment of the "Sons who fought for the German Empire." But the Berlin officials were wise. For nine months an army of 800,000 men were being fed and kept at the Allies' expense. That mob was thus prevented from returning to an overstocked manufacturing nation. They were being held back to give their country nine months' opportunity to "put its house in order." |
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