Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, The Lansing Papers, 1914–1920, Volume II

763.72/5163½

The Chief of the British Special Mission (Balfour) to the Secretary of State

Washington, 18 May, 1917 .

My Dear Mr. Secretary: On that delightful Sunday which we spent in the country I promised to send you the main points of a statement which I made on foreign policy to the Imperial War Council. The proceedings of the Imperial War Council are of course absolutely secret. I feel that many of the problems dealt with are inadequately treated, but I trust that you may find it of some value.

Believe me [etc.]

Arthur James Balfour

[Enclosure]

Mr. Balfour’s Statement on Foreign Policy to the Imperial War Council

The Prime Minister: I will now ask Mr. Balfour to give his statement on Foreign Policy.

Mr. Balfour: I do not think it is necessary really for me to say much about either of the two important foreign countries, America and Russia, at this moment, because about America some of the gentlemen here have more direct knowledge than is possessed by the Foreign Office. The Canadian representatives have a knowledge of America which we hardly possess, while as regards Russia we have already discussed the situation, and I think the Cabinet understands it as well as anybody can understand this rapidly moving cinematograph of Russian politics. The real thing that is important to us I think is to know whether, if, as we hope, the reasonable and moderate reformers win, they will be able successfully to administer the country. If you look back upon Russian history you will see that every great movement of reform has come when the administrative inefficiency of the autocracy has been followed by some great calamity. The Crimean War, which broke the heart of Nicholas I. was immediately followed by the greatest of all revolutions, the freeing of the serfs, and other great legal reforms of the early reign of Alexander II The calamity of the Japanese War was followed by the establishment of the Duma, and the administrative disgraces of the present war are followed by the revolution which is now going on before our eyes. But we have to notice that while the general feeling of disgust and discontent with the inefficiency of the autocracy has always been able to produce these reforms, we have never had the opportunity of seeing whether the democracy will be able to do what the autocracy utterly failed to do, which is to administer this enormous country and to organize it for purposes either of war or peace. The total failure of the autocracy is amazing if you look back, and my fear is whether these new people will do so much better than the old. In Russia there is no middle class. Corruption has eaten deeply into their vitals and we must not hope for too much. It seems certain, however, that they cannot do worse than their predecessors. I think that is quite clear.

The Central Powers, as we all know, have an enormous military advantage over us in their central position. They have a corresponding advantage from the point of view of their aims. Germany dominates the aims of the whole of the coalition against us, but none of the other Powers have aims which are inconsistent or even divergent from those of Germany. Austria, for example, has, or had, in the earlier days of the War, nothing except to gain by German successes. Germany’s desire to press on in the East was not only good for Germany but for Austria. Turkey, of course, was promised hegemony in the farther East, which certainly, when it came to the point, Germany would never have allowed her to exercise. But Turkey felt that her objects were identical with Germany, so there has been not only a central direction but a central motive. Now we and our Allies, on the other hand, are not only not contiguous with each other, but we are as widely separated as we well can be. Our most important Ally, next to France, is Russia, and we cannot get at Russia. Even to take away a single individual or a single mission from Russia is a matter which the Admiralty has seriously to consider, and steps for which they have to work out with the utmost caution. Japan is at the extreme end of the world, we are separated geographically; but there is a much more important separation, and that is the separation of temperament, and the separation of history and tradition. It is really an extraordinary thing on which to reflect that of the five Great Powers now fighting on the Entente side, Japan and Russia were in death grips about ten or eleven years ago. France and England were on the edge of war more than once, and on more than one subject, until the Entente arrangement was finally made in the year 1904. Italy was actually joined by treaty with the Central Powers as a counterpoise to France and Russia, whilst we and Russia were regarded as almost traditional enemies. I remember quite well in the first days of the Committee of Imperial Defence, which started in the year I think 1902 or 1903, we worked out the many problems with which the Empire was then faced. What were they? How to prevent Russia getting to India and how to deal with a war with France. That was twelve or more years ago. Now the change which has been brought about largely by German ambition backed by German diplomacy, which is the worst diplomacy in the world, has welded all those nations into one coalition determined to put down this world tyranny. We have to accept the fact that residues of the old condition of things must to a certain extent remain, and one of the diplomatic troubles which we have to deal with for example, is the eternal jealousy between Italy and France. It is curious that these two Latin nations, one of which owes so much to the other because, without France, Italy would hardly have gained her unity, in spite of that they cannot get on with each other. We are the link between the two. I think if you were to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty, he would tell you that one of our difficulties in the Adriatic is that the French will not work under the Italians. We ourselves are quite ready to do so. We have sent ships to help them and our ships work under an Italian Admiral; but the French will not do this. In the Eastern Mediterranean there is jealousy at this moment which is hampering our diplomacy, I do not say in a serious way, but it is vexatious and irritating. Greece, which is the scandal of contemporary diplomacy, is a scandal because three nations—the French, the English and the Italians—are trying to manage her, all of whom have divergent views. The Italians detest M. Venizelos—I do not know why—but they appear to think that under M. Venizelos Greece might attain to a position of influence in the Aegean Sea, which is inimical to the ambitions of Italy. Merely as a characteristic mark of what is going on, the Italians have been sending troops to Corfu, but nobody knows why. We cannot get any explanation. The French say, “Cannot you send even a corporal’s guard so that the British flag may be hoisted there as well as the French, the Greek and the Italian.” Broadly speaking, however, everything is working well with the exception of these little elements of discord, which are very vexatious to the Foreign Office but which I hope will not profoundly modify the general course of the war.

I do not want to go at length into the question of Japan because that is too large, but perhaps I ought to say a little about it. The great Dominions and the United States of America are naturally, and I think rightly, jealous of Japan’s obtaining any footing within their territories. Japan on the other hand, at present quite genuinely believes that what has been the sheet anchor of her policy for the last twelve years, namely, the British alliance, is still the sheet anchor of her present policy and they still cling to that. Of course, we are talking quite privately and I do not think we can conceal from ourselves that there is in every quarter of the Eastern world a certain uneasiness as to whether Japan is in the future going to try and play the part in those regions which Prussia has played in Europe,—whether she is not going to aim at some kind of domination. That fear hangs over the world. I do not venture to give any opinion on that at all. Lord Grey held the view that if you are going to keep Japan out of North America, out of Canada, out of the United States, out of Australia, out of New Zealand, out of the islands South of the Equator in the Pacific, you could not forbid her to expand in China. A nation of that sort must have a safety valve somewhere, and although I think Lord Grey carried his doctrine to excess, I think there is something in it. I do not, however, propose to touch further on this question.

As regards the War in the immediate future, I have myself no doubt that Japan, with an eye to her own interests, is quite genuinely helping the Allies, and helping the Allies to the best of her ability. She is making money, unlike the rest of us, she is doing well: but I do not think we ought to underrate the services she has given or the services she is giving, and the present administration so far as I can judge is incomparably more reasonable in its Chinese policy than the ministry which immediately preceded it. They are making great professions of leaving China to work out her own salvation. Whether these professions will be carried out to the full remains to be seen, but certainly I have not observed anything at present which ought to inspire us with suspicion. I do not believe suspicion is well placed. The only reason for which I mention that is I am told that at this moment the Germans still have hopes of detaching Japan. That telegram which was sent to Mexico²¹ and which produced all that excitement, you remember, suggested that Mexico should act as an intermediary between Japan and Germany. I do not know whether you have that in your minds. The plan was to bring in Japan on the German side. I believe that was one of Germany’s extraordinary blunders which she is always making, and I do not myself look forward with the least apprehension to anything that Japan is likely to do during the course of the War.

If I turn from these considerations, which affect the Allies, to the diplomatic relations between the Allies and the Central Powers other than the immediate military relations between the Allies and the Central Powers, the most important question is,—are the Terms of Peace to which we are committed of a kind which are unnecessarily going to prolong the War? There is no doubt that Germany, as we have heard today, is in very great peril. How are they keeping up the spirits of their people? They are keeping them up in two ways. They are saying in the first place that England will succumb under the submarine warfare. They are saying in the second place, “You must go on fighting at whatever sacrifice, because, if you do not win, our enemies are determined not merely to beat us but to destroy us”; and every nation worth anything, of course, will fight to the last crust of bread and to the last cartridge, if its actual destruction is going to be the result of an unsuccessful war.

The practical destruction of the Turkish Empire is undoubtedly one of the objects which we desire to attain. The Turks may well be left—I hope they will be left—in a more or less independent position in Asia Minor. If we are successful unquestionably Turkey will be deprived of all that in the larger sense may be called Arabia; she will be deprived of the most important portions of the Valley of the Euphrates and the Tigris; she will lose Constantinople; and Syria, Armenia and the southern parts of Asia Minor will, if not annexed by the Entente Powers, probably fall more or less under their domination.

If we turn from Turkey, however, to Austria, the position is somewhat different. According to rumours, which you must all have heard, Austria is so exhausted that she would desire to have a separate peace; but, again, one of the difficulties about a separate peace is what, by the terms as interpreted in our Note to President Wilson,²² will be left of Austria if we do make a separate peace? We have entered into treaties with Italy, Roumania and Serbia, all of which affect Austrian territory. Italy, who came into the war in April, I think it was, of 1915, opened her mouth rather widely: that is Italy’s way; and she not only got the Allies to promise her Italia Irredenta, the populations bordering upon her frontier, who are of Italian origin, speak Italian and possess Italian culture, but she asked also for parts of Dalmatia which neither ethnologically nor for any other valid reason can be regarded as a natural part of Italy. Her justification, however, was not ethnological, it was purely military, or rather, naval. Italy is very unfortunately situated in the Adriatic; she possesses the whole of the western seaboard of that sea, but along her coasts from Venice to Brindisi there really is nothing which deserves to be called a harbour at all. But opposite, threatening her, within easy striking distance and within a few hours’ steam, there is the coast of Dalmatia with its islands and it harbours contrived by nature to suit modern submarine warfare, and it is most natural that Italy should say: We should like, in our own interests and for our own protection to possess this coast. Except from that military point of view I am not aware that it is easy to justify handing over the Dalmatian coast, which is not Italian, to Italy. But there it is, it is in the Treaty to which we are bound. We, the French, the Russians and the Italians, are bound to each other never to make peace without the other, and among the conditions which we have mutually promised are these cessions of territory which so far as Italy is concerned I have just described.

If you turn to Serbia, we promised Serbia Bosnia and Herzegovina, and I think that it is a most legitimate promise. They are of the same race, of the same language, and of the same religion. They are not old provinces of Austria; they were Turkish provinces up to the Treaty of 1878 in the full sense of the word, and after 1878 until 1908 when Austria broke through the Treaty of Berlin they were still Turkish provinces in name, though not in administration or in any other substantial sense. Still, they are not old provinces of Austria and if Austria lost them nobody could say that Austria was destroyed. If you go a little further north and ask how you are going to treat the Slav population which also speaks the same form of Slav language, the Croat and other Slav communities to the south of the Danube you undoubtedly are going to make a great breach in the traditional Austrian Empire. But I am not aware that we are by treaty bound in any sense to do that.

The Prime Minister: The promise to Serbia was conditional.

Sir Robert Borden: Did we promise anything more than Bosnia and Herzegovina?

Mr. Balfour: We promised an outlet to the Adriatic.

The Prime Minister: We wanted Serbia to give up a certain portion of Macedonia to Bulgaria, and then we said, if you do this when the settlement comes we will give you these provinces the populations of which are more or less akin to your own. If the war is won by the Allies then we will give you access to the Adriatic.

Mr. Balfour: I do not see that so far as Italy and Serbia are concerned it can be said that even if we had the sort of peace we liked it could be said that we had destroyed Austria, certainly not the historic Austria, the Austria of the 18th century, in any sense of the word at all.

When you come to our promises to Roumania and our promises in connection with Poland, in connection with which I shall speak presently, the case is different. We promised Roumania, if she came in, that that part of Hungary which is predominantly Roumanian in race and in language should be handed over to Roumania. There are people who say that there are Roumanians in Hungary who do not wish to be handed over to Roumania. I do not know whether that is true or not; I should doubt it. But at all events it is undeniable that to take away the Roumanian part of Hungary, namely Transylvania, and hand that to Roumania is to break up historic Hungary. That does touch the historic kingdom of Hungary.

As regards another historic Kingdom with an important past, Bohemia. Bohemia is predominantly Slav in language and in civilization. It differs of course from the Southern Slavs, from the Serbs, for instance, in being Roman Catholic in religion and in speaking a language of a variety of Slav which is very different from that spoken by their brothers further South. It has a history and a tradition of its own. It has been quite abominably used by Austria in this war. If all accounts are true Bohemia has a hatred of German civilization and German propaganda which is intense and I think inextinguishable. Whether, however, all those feelings could not be adequately satisfied by giving Bohemia some form of autonomy in the Austrian Empire I am not so clear. I happened to meet a few months before his assassination with the poor man who was the beginning of all our troubles. He was then heir to the Austrian Throne, and he had a view that the only way to keep Austria together was to make it a triple State instead of a dual State.

At present it is a dual State which is the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He wanted to make a third element in the Empire, namely a Southern Slav. It seems to me that if you made it a quadruple Empire and gave Bohemia autonomy, it would be a very curious construction, but not more curious than Austria has been through all these centuries and it might really meet the views of the populations without absolutely destroying Austria as history knows it. But I am afraid that does not touch the Roumanian difficulty. I do not see any way out of that at present.

With regard to Poland, I do not think you can call the Polish part of Austria—in fact, it would be absurd to call it a part of historic Austria; it became Austrian because Frederick the Great, Catherine II, and Maria Theresia chose to cut up Poland and divide it among themselves. Galicia is not part of historic Austria, and might and ought to go to the Poland of the future. But what is the Poland of the future? That, I think is now, as it has been ever since the great crime of partition was accomplished, the greatest crux of European diplomacy. A very distinguished Pole came to see me yesterday, whose name I will not even venture to pronounce, (Lord R. Cecil: Mr. Dmowski²³) but he is a man of very high character and great position. He is an ardent advocate for a completely independent Poland which should include all the Poles. But, I asked him: “What relations does the Poland that you desire, the Polish Poland that you desire created, bear to the Poland of 1772, the year of the first partition?” “Well”, he said, “I quite agree you cannot precisely follow those old frontiers”. Part of what was then Poland is more Russian than Polish—the Eastern part of it—and we could not ask that it should be taken from Russia and handed over to Poland. On the other hand, there is a part of Upper Silesia which had been taken from ancient Poland before the partition; Frederick the Great, in fact, took it from Austria. “That”, he said, “is quite genuinely Polish”. I think, he said, 80% of the inhabitants of the Polish area of Silesia were Poles by birth and Poles by language; and in his view that ought to be added to Poland. Then I said to him, “Well, what about Dantzig?” Dantzig, as you will remember, is one of the old Hanseatic towns, and undoubtedly, subject to its municipal independence, it was part of the Polish kingdom. But I suspect, myself, it has been practically German for many centuries; it is certainly predominantly German at this moment. The country immediately around it, or a great deal of the country in its immediate neighbourhood, is just as Polish as other parts of Poland; at any rate, more than 50% are Poles. But here comes the difficulty. He said, without Dantzig, Poland is impossible. Dantzig is the one outlet, the one adequate outlet to the sea, which the restored Poland would have, and unless you are prepared to give back Dantzig to Poland it is useless to try and create a really flourishing modern State. Of course, you will remember Dantzig belonged to Poland at the time of the Partition. In fact, it belonged to Poland after the first Partition. Frederick the Great was content not to take it at that time because he said, with great truth, that “Anybody who has the Vistula, or the upper waters of the Vistula, will become in time the owner of Dantzig”; as indeed he did become; but still, I think everybody must admit that to take away Dantzig from Germany would be to deprive Germany of a town which is predominantly German; but if you have the map in your mind, it cuts off Königsberg, and all East Prussia from the rest of the Prussian State, and therefore undoubtedly that is a thing which would touch German emotions and German interests very quickly. Königsberg and East Prussia would become a kind of enclave, separate from Germany, but remaining German, embedded in a Polish and Russian framework. The difficulties of that are very great, but you see you are in a dilemma, according to my friend, whether Poland is absolutely independent, as he desires, or whether it becomes an autonomous State, bound more or less closely to Russia. However that may be, whether you include Dantzig or not, any idea to make a Poland which does not include Posen is, in his view, destroying Poland. On the other hand, Posen is, at present, a very integral part of Germany, and Germany, no doubt, would feel that if Posen were taken by a Power which was potentially a great power it would bring it very close up to the gates of Berlin. And yet, supposing we are successful, can we allow this war to come to an end without doing something substantially to get rid of the Polish scandal? It is true that Poland brought it upon herself. If Poland had understood the elements of reasonably good government, the idea that she could be partitioned like an inert mass, as she was, is out of the question. But that is in the past, and it is quite possible that the Poland of the future will be a useful member of the European community; but until she is satisfied you will have this nucleus of bitter discontent, and a nation going back to great and glorious memories, when it was the most powerful State in Eastern Europe. I frankly admit that when the Germans say that we are fighting for a cause which means their destruction, it is not true in one sense; we are not destroying a German Germany, but we are trying to destroy the rather artificial creation of the modern Prussia, which includes many Slav elements which never belonged to Germany until about 140 years ago, and ought, really, not to belong to Germany at this moment.

I am afraid I am merely stating difficulties; I am sorry to say I am not solving them. If we are not successful in the war, there is no hope of solving them. If the war is a drawn battle, these great causes, I am afraid, will never be satisfactorily dealt with by us. If we win triumphantly, then we shall be able to deal with them. Let me return for a moment to my Polish friend. He urged me very strongly to make a public appeal now on behalf of Poland. “Now”, said he, “that the Tsar has gone, the Entente Nations ought to announce publicly that they are going to establish an independent Poland; and if you do not do that”, he said, “there is great danger that the Germans may succeed in the future in doing what they have failed to do in the past, which is to raise a Polish army”.

His view was, that the recruiting of this Polish army had largely failed because the magnates whether ecclesiastical or lay in Poland had taken the oath of allegiance to the Tsar and were not prepared to break it. The Tsar has gone, the oath has gone, and he declared that his view was that the constant pressure of Germany, after this particular doubt had been removed, might succeed in producing this great addition to her man-power. If it did, the effect upon the Allied cause would undoubtedly be most serious. He put the numbers down at between 700,000 and 1,000,000. Supposing Poland came in, in that way, on the side of the Central Powers, and supposing Russia fell into disorganization and military chaos, the whole of the position in the East would be changed disastrously for the worse. Whether we are in a position to proclaim our intentions with regard to Poland and whether, if we did, it would have the effect which he says, I do not know; I think, very likely, it would. I put this question to him: “The Tsar has gone, and with the Tsar one obstacle may have gone, but can you ask this new Russian Government to begin its career by handing over what the Russians regard as an indisputable part of their territory?” He seemed to think it would be possible. I confess I have my doubts. I am sending an account of this conversation to Sir George Buchanan²⁴ and I shall be interested to hear what he says about it.

Personally, from a selfish Western point of view, I would rather that Poland was autonomous under the Russians, because if you make an absolutely independent Poland, lying between Russia and the Central States, you cut off Russia altogether from the West. Russia ceases to be a factor in Western politics, or almost ceases. She will be largely divided from Austria by Roumania. She will be divided from Germany by the new Polish State; and she will not be coterminous with any of the belligerents. And if Germany has designs in the future upon France or the West, I think she will be protected by this new State from any action on the part of Russia, and I am not at all sure that that is to the interests of Western civilization. It is a problem which has greatly exercised my mind, and for which I do not see a clear solution. These are disjointed observations in regard to Poland; they lead to no clear-cut recommendation on my part. I am not pleading for a cause; I am trying to lay before the Cabinet the various elements in the problem as they strike me.

The next branch of the subject on which I have anything to say is the smaller neutrals.

Sir Robert Borden: “Is there any point about Belgium?[”]

Mr. Balfour: With regard to Belgium, I think I can very shortly describe the position to the Cabinet. It is more an economic than a diplomatic problem. I take it, that whatever we fight for, we fight for the restoration of Belgium to her old limits and her old condition of independence and prosperity. The Belgian Minister has more than once been to see me and has put to me this problem. He says: “All of us, every nation, will, after the War, have to face a whole series of new and difficult questions, social, economic, military; the upsetting of everything is so complete, that there is not a nation in the world that will not have to face a new set of things, and do their very best to solve the problem raised.” All that is true of Belgium. But what is true of Belgium is true to some extent of no other country. Unless the Allies will, while the war is going on, make preparation to help Belgium, when peace comes, even though its independence be restored and its old frontiers established, she will be left derelict; it is an industrial community, thickly populated, depending for its very livelihood and bread for its people upon mining and upon manufactures. The Germans have not only over-run the country, but they have taken away all the machinery, all the raw material, they have practically taken away everything for the carrying on of the elementary economic effort of the country, and it is impossible for Belgium to make itself again a going concern unless the Allies are prepared at the moment of peace, at the first moment possible, to pour in the raw material, to supply the machinery to make Belgium, in other words, something like what it was before the Germans overwhelmed it. I have no answer to that; I believe what he said is perfectly true, and I believe the appeal which the Belgian Minister makes to the Allies is one which ought to be considered. We are overwhelmed with work; my office can do nothing; I am not sure what office ought to do it. So great is the pressure that I have not had time to put this case before the Prime Minister and our smaller Cabinet. I only circulated an account of my conversation with the Belgian Minister, but the question must be raised and it must be faced. I think it is one of the most important things, outside the war itself, but how it is to be done, other Ministers and other Departments must say.

Sir Joseph Ward: In regard to that restoration of machinery, do you mean prior to the re-building of the devastated Belgium?

Mr. Balfour: I think we ought to be ready to pour it into the country if we can.

The Prime Minister: It is impossible for the simple reason that all our available manufacturing capacity is put to urgent war work. If we have anything to spare, we put it into agricultural work.

Mr. Balfour: Perhaps I should add that in my view, the notion which is going through the German mind that they can restore Belgian independence enough to satisfy the world, and yet keep a grip upon Belgian economic life and Belgian ports, I regard as absolutely inadmissible. I think that is almost as bad as annexing Belgium, and I would fight against it to the last drop of my blood. I do not think that is arguable.

As regards the Neutrals—the small Neutrals I mean—Sweden and Royalist Greece, which must be regarded as more or less hostile, Spain and Holland, which I think are friendly, but more doubtful, Norway and Denmark, which are certainly very weak, especially Denmark—there is a great deal of important diplomatic work and Foreign Office work done with these countries; but most of that work really belongs to my colleague, the Minister of Blockade, and measured by telegrams it is far greater, I believe, than that of all the other Offices of State put together; but he will make a statement upon the subject. I do not believe I have anything more to say except this one observation.

Mr. Austen Chamberlain: Are you going to say anything more about German aims in the Middle East and their consequence to us?

Mr. Balfour: I feel intensely upon that question. It was referred to, I think, by the Prime Minister in his statement the day before yesterday, but I am quite ready to say something about it if you think it desirable. This War has been described, and quite accurately I think, as a war against the world domination of Germany, but I think that Germany after all was not equally anxious to have world domination in every direction at one and the same time. What Germany wanted to do was not to make every country equally subservient to her economic designs; I think her economic ambitions in these later years were largely directed, not, of course, wholly, but largely directed to developing the communications between Germany, through Austria, through subordinate States like Bulgaria and Turkey to the Persian Gulf and ultimately to India and the Far East. All the German literature of the last ten years is full of these dreams. Germany has borrowed a great deal from Napoleon, almost always the worst things of Napoleon’s. These are the dreams and they have eaten very deeply into the social imagination of the whole community. They picture to themselves Asia Minor, the Valleys of the Euphrates and the Tigris and beyond, India and the East; they picture that as a happy field where German enterprise can reign undisturbed. They found Great Britain and the United States had got before them in entirely new countries. South America they were nibbling at, but they had never made up their minds to deal with it. But they thought they had a really fair field in these Oriental regions, and I believe that it was within their power to do it. I believe that if they were successful in this war, they would do it and that their success would undoubtedly adversely affect the British Empire. I will not say the British Empire would fall, I do not think it would, but it would have a very severe struggle for existence and the whole balance of the world’s trade and the world’s power would be altered. The Dominions like Australia and New Zealand would be in an entirely different position from what they are now. India would be in an entirely different position from what it is now, and I am not at all sure that among the dangers of German domination, which every country has to fear, the particular dangers that arise through their being able to establish an unbroken avenue of influence from the North Sea to the Persian Gulf is not the greatest of all. I think whatever else happens in the war, that recent events have upset that dream, and I do not think that things could possibly go so badly that Germany could piece together the scattered fragments of this structure which they are striving to complete. In that particular I think we have been successful. I wish I could feel that our success was as complete in other fields of operations and that we could look forward with equal confidence to breaking the designs of Germany in Europe as I hope we have been now in breaking her designs in Turkey and the Middle East generally.

Mr. Massey: Can you tell us anything with regard to the French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine?

Mr. Balfour: The importance of Alsace and Lorraine is two-fold. In the first place, if we could transfer them back to France we should, I think, do something to improve the equilibrium of Europe. You would remove a population which does not wish to be under Germany to France which it does wish to be under. You would further increase the population of France relative to the population of Germany, which undoubtedly must make for the equilibrium of Europe, and because it makes for the equilibrium of Europe, makes also for the peace of the world. Then there is another point. Since Alsace and Lorraine were taken by Germany, means have been found to utilise the great iron deposits of Lorraine to an extent which makes them a very formidable adjunct to Germany’s industrial power. I frankly admit that I should very much like to see these great fields of industrial enterprise restored to their original owners. Germany’s strength in coal and steel is an absolutely new phenomenon, you must remember, since the war of 1870, and it is one of the most formidable factors in her success in this War.

The Prime Minister: And it is one you cannot touch by the Blockade.

Mr. Balfour: I was told that when the war broke out, Germany had a greater power of producing munitions at the moment than the whole of the rest of the world put together. She owed that, of course, partly to her desire to be prepared in a military sense, but partly to these enormous resources which she has developed since 1870, of which the iron and coal fields west of the Rhine are an important part and, therefore, from that point of view as well as from the more strictly political and diplomatic point of view, I should be most desirous to see Alsace and Lorraine restored to France. I am told that the French are not so eager about them as they were. Or let me put it rather differently; I am told that the war-weariness in certain sections of French society in consequence of their terrific losses and the general burdens which the war has thrown upon them are so great that if they could get an honourable peace, even without Alsace and Lorraine, or even a small fragment of Alsace and Lorraine, they might be content to take it. I should be very disappointed if this War ends without the complete restoration of the ancient frontiers of France.

The only other thing I have to say is that German atrocities have really had an important diplomatic effect. I think that when Lord Robert Cecil comes to speak, he will tell you how great an effect upon allied diplomacy has been the terrorism which Germany has inspired and produced in Holland, Denmark and Norway. These countries are trembling at the German terrorism. They hate Germany, they hate the domination of Germany, but they feel that if they quarrel with Germany, they will be as Belgium is, and that is undoubtedly a very great diplomatic weapon in the hands of Germany. It is painful to have to admit it, but I think it is true.

The Prime Minister: I am sure we are very much obliged to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs for his most illuminating exposition. I do not know whether any members of the Cabinet would like to ask any further questions.

21. Foreign Relations, 1917, supp. 1, p. 158.
22. Ibid., p. 6.
23. Roman Dmowski, President of the Polish National Committee.
24. British Ambassador to Russia.