No kind of high-handedness, no combined effort, will ever be able to
keep afloat absurdities like the dream of the vast indemnity, the
Polish programme, the hope of annexing the Saar, etc. As things go
there is almost more danger for the victors than for the vanquished.
He who has lost all has nothing to lose. It is rather the victorious
nations who risk all in this disorganized Europe of ours. The
conquerors arm themselves in the ratio by which the vanquished disarm,
and the worse the situation of our old enemies becomes, so much
the worse become the exchanges and the credits of the victorious
continental countries.
Yet, in some of the exaggerated ideas of France and other countries of
the Entente, there is not only the rancour and anxiety for the future,
but a sentiment of well-founded diffidence. After the War the European
States belonging to the Entente have been embarrassed not only on
account of the enormous internal debts, but also for the huge debts
contracted abroad.
If Germany had not had to pay any indemnity and had not lost her
colonies and mercantile marine we should have been confronted with the
absurd paradox that the victorious nations would have issued from
the War worn out, with their territories destroyed, and with a huge
foreign debt; Germany would have had her territory quite intact, her
industries ready to begin work again, herself anxious to start
again her productive force, and in addition with no foreign debt,
consequently ample credit abroad.
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