France has special reason for asking for
such a guarantee. She has twice been attacked and twice invaded by
Germany in half a century. She has been so attacked because she has
been the principal guardian of liberal and democratic civilization
against Central European autocracy on the continent of Europe. It is
right that the other great Western democracies should enter into an
undertaking which will ensure that they stand by her side in time to
protect her against invasion should Germany ever threaten her again,
or until the League of Nations has proved its capacity to preserve the
peace and liberty of the world.
III
If, however, the Peace Conference is really to secure peace and prove
to the world a complete plan of settlement which all reasonable men
will recognize as an alternative preferable to anarchy, it must deal
with the Russian situation. Bolshevik imperialism does not merely
menace the States on Russia's borders. It threatens the whole of Asia,
and is as near to America as it is to France. It is idle to think that
the Peace Conference can separate, however sound a peace it may have
arranged with Germany, if it leaves Russia as it is to-day.
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