File No. 763.72119/394
The British Ambassador ( Spring Rice ) to the Secretary of State
[A copy of the following note from the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to the British Ambassador at Washington was left by the Ambassador at the Department of State on January 16.]
Sir: In sending you a translation of the Allied note I desire to make the following observations which you should bring to the notice of the United States Government.
I gather from the general tenour of the President’s note that while he is animated by an intense desire that peace should come soon and [Page 18] that when it comes it should be lasting, he does not for the moment at least concern himself with the terms on which it should be arranged. His Majesty’s Government entirely share the President’s ideas; but they feel strongly that the durability of peace must largely depend on its character and that no stable system of international relations can be built on foundations which are essentially and hopelessly defective.
This becomes clearly apparent if we consider the main conditions which rendered possible the calamities from which the world is now suffering. These were the existence of great powers consumed with the lust of domination in the midst of a community of nations ill prepared for defence, plentifully supplied indeed with international laws, but with no machinery for enforcing them and weakened by the fact that neither the boundaries of the various states nor their internal constitution harmonised with the aspirations of their constituent races or secured to them just and equal treatment.
That this last evil would be greatly mitigated if the Allies secured the changes in the map of Europe outlined in their joint note is manifest, and I need not labour the point.
It has been argued indeed that the expulsion of the Turks from Europe forms no proper or logical part of this general scheme. The maintenance of the Turkish Empire was, during many generations, regarded by statesmen of world-wide authority as essential to the maintenance of European peace. Why, is it asked, should the cause of peace be now associated with a complete reversal of this traditional policy?
The answer is that circumstances have completely changed. It is unnecessary to consider now whether the creation of a reformed Turkey mediating between hostile races in the Near East was a scheme which, had the Sultan been sincere and the powers united, could ever have been realised. It certainly can not be realised now. The Turkey of “Union and Progress” is at least as barbarous and is far more aggressive than the Turkey of Sultan Abdul Hamid. In the hands of Germany it has ceased even in appearance to be bulwark of peace and is openly used as an instrument of conquest. Under German officers Turkish soldiers are now fighting in lands from which they had long been expelled and a Turkish Government controlled, subsidized and supported by Germany has been guilty of massacres in Armenia and Syria more horrible than any recorded in the history even of those unhappy countries. Evidently the interests of peace and the claims of nationality alike require that Turkish rule over alien races shall if possible be brought to an end; and we may hope that the expulsion of Turkey from Europe will contribute as much [Page 19] to the cause of peace as the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine to France, of Italia Irredenta to Italy, or any of the other territorial changes indicated in the Allied note.
Evidently however such territorial rearrangements, though they may diminish the occasions of war, provide no sufficient security against its recurrence. If Germany, or rather those in Germany who mould its opinions and control its destinies, again set out to domineer the world, they may find that by the new order of things the adventure is made more difficult, but hardly that it is made impossible. They may still have ready to their hand a political system organised through and through on a military basis; they may still accumulate vast stores of military equipment; they may still persist in their methods of attack, so that their more pacific neighbours will be struck down before they can prepare themselves for defence. If so, Europe when the war is over will be far poorer in men, in money and in mutual good will than it was when the war began, but it will not be safer: and the hopes for the future of the world entertained by the President will be as far as ever from fulfilment.
There are those who think that for this disease international treaties and international laws may provide a sufficient cure. But such persons have ill learned the lessons so clearly taught by recent history. While other nations, notably the United States of America and Britain, were striving by treaties of arbitration to make sure that no chance quarrel should mar the peace they desired to make perpetual, Germany stood aloof. Her historians and philosophers preached the splendours of war: power was proclaimed as the true end of the state; and the General Staff forged with untiring industry the weapons by which at the appointed moment power might be achieved. These facts proved clearly enough that treaty arrangements for maintaining peace were not likely to find much favour at Berlin: they did not prove that such treaties once made would be utterly ineffectual. This became evident only when war had broken out; though the demonstration, when it came, was overwhelming. So long as Germany remains the Germany which without a shadow of justification overran and barbarously ill-treated a country it was pledged to defend, no state can regard its rights as secure if they have no better protection than a solemn treaty.
The case is made worse by the reflection that these methods of calculated brutality were designed by the Central powers not merely to crush to the dust those with whom they were at war, but to intimidate those with whom they were still at peace. Belgium was not only a victim: it was an example. Neutrals were intended to note the outrages which accompanied its conquest, the reign of terror [Page 20] which followed on its occupation, the deportation of a portion of its population, the cruel oppression of the remainder. And lest the nations happily protected either by British fleets or by their own from German armies should suppose themselves safe from German methods, the submarine has (within its limits) assiduously imitated the barbarous practices of the sister service. The war staffs of the Central powers are well content to horrify the world if at the same time they can terrorize it.
If then the Central powers succeed, it will be to methods like these that they will owe their success. How can any reform of international relations be based on a peace thus obtained? Such a peace would represent the triumph of all the forces which make war certain and make it brutal. It would advertise the futility of all the methods on which civilization relies to eliminate the occasions of international dispute and to mitigate their ferocity. Germany and Austria made the present war inevitable by attacking the rights of one small state, and they gained their initial triumphs by violating the treaty guaranties of the territories of another. Are small states going to find in them their future protectors or in treaties made by them a bulwark against aggression? Terrorism by land and sea will have proved itself the instrument of victory. Are the victors likely to abandon it on the appeal of neutrals? If existing treaties are no more than scraps of paper, can fresh treaties help us? If the violation of the most fundamental canons of international law be crowned with success, will it not be in vain that the assembled nations labour to improve their code? None will profit by their rules but powers who break them. It is those who keep them that will suffer.
Though therefore the people of this country share to the full the desire of the President for peace, they do not believe peace can be durable if it be not based on the success of the Allied cause. For a durable peace can hardly be expected unless three conditions are fulfilled. The first is that existing causes of international unrest should be as far as possible removed or weakened. The second is that the aggressive aims and the unscrupulous methods of the Central powers should fall into disrepute among their own peoples. The third is that behind international law and behind all treaty arrangements for preventing or limiting hostilities some form of international sanction should be devised which would give pause to the hardiest aggressor. These conditions may be difficult of fulfilment. But we believe them to be in general harmony with the President’s ideas and we are confident that none of them can be satisfied, even imperfectly, unless peace be secured on the general lines indicated [Page 21] (so far as Europe is concerned) in the joint note. Therefore it is that this country has made, is making and is prepared to make sacrifices of blood and treasure unparalleled in its history. It bears these heavy burdens not merely that it may thus fulfil its treaty obligations nor yet that it may secure a barren triumph of one group of nations over another. It bears them because it firmly believes that on the success of the Allies depend the prospects of peaceful civilization and of those international reforms which the best thinkers of the New World, as of the Old, dare to hope may follow on the cessation of our present calamities.
I am [etc.]