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THE WORLD UNBALANCED


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BT THE SAME AUTHORTHE WORLD IN REVOLTA Psychological Study of ModernTimes. Translated by BernardMiALL. Demy 8vo, cloth, 12/6 net.THE CROWDA Study of the Popular MindLarge Cr. 8vo, cloth, j/S net."It is certainly a book which no thoughtfulman can afford to ignore." Daily Chronicle.

T. Fisher Unwin Ltd, London, W.C 2


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THE WORLDUNBALANCEDBy GUSTAVE LE BON

T. FISHER UNWIN LTDLONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE


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DLH 5

First published in English . 1924

(All rights reserved)


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TOTHE ILLUSTRIOUS

GENERAL CHARLES MANGIN

In the somhre days of Verdun^ when your-penetrating wisdom and your valour con-tributed so powerfully to changing theorientation of Destiny, I received fromyou, my dear General, a photograph witha dedication reminding me that you weremy disciple. Since that day you havetold me that it was my teaching whichguided you in preparing the decisivevictory of the 18 July 1918 and duringthe subsequent operations. The psycho-logist, having the rare fortune of findingsuch a pupil to apply his principles,must needs owe him a debt of gratitude.

This is what I feel in dedicating mybook to you.


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CONTENTSPAGEINTRODUCTION : THE FACE OF THE WORLD TO-DAY , 9

BOOK ITHE POLITICAL CHAOS

CHAPTERI. THE EVOLUTION OF THE IDEAL 15

II. POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL ERRORS . 19III. THE professors' PEACE 28IV. THE AWAKENING OF ISLAM 33V. Europe's misunderstanding of mahomedan mentality 39VI. THE PROBLEM OF ALSACE 45

VII. THE PRESENT FINANCIAL SITUATION. WHO WILL PAYTHE COST OF THE WAR ? 56

BOOK IITHE SOCIAL CHAOS

I. SOCIAL DISCIPLINE AND THE REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT . 69II. THE MYSTICAL ELEMENTS IN REVOLUTIONARY ASPIRATIONS 74iIII. THE SOCIALISATION OF WEALTH 80IV. SOCIAIJSTIC EXPERIMENTS IN DIVERS COUNTRIES . . 87

BOOK IIITHE FINANCIAL DISTURBANCE AND THESOURCES OF WEALTH

I. THE PRESENT POVERTY OF EUROPE 99II. ANCIENT AND MODERN FACTORS OF WEALTH . . . 105

111. THE APPARENT MYSTERIES OF THE RATE OF EXCHANGE 111IV. HOW A DEBT MAY VARY WITH TIME 119V. CAUSES OF THE HIGH COST OF LIVING .... 123

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8 The World Unbalanced

BOOK IVTHE WORLD'S ECONOMIC CHAOSCHAPTER PAGE

I. THE NEW FORCES GUIDING THE WORLD .... 185II. SOCIAL INFLUENCES OF THE POWER DERIVED FROM COAL

AND OIL 189III. THE ECONOMIC SITUATION OF GERMANY . . . .145IV. PSYCHOLOGICAL ELEMENTS OF FINANCE .... 151V. FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY . 157

BOOK VTHE NEW COLLECTIVE POWERS

I. MYSTICAL ILLUSIONS CONCERNING THE POWER OF ASSEM-BLIES 163

II. RESULTS OBTAINABLE BY COLLECTIVE DELIBERATION :THE GENEVA CONGRESS 168

III. THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY AGGREGATIONS . . . 173IV. THE EVOLUTION OF COLLECTIVITIES TOWARDS DIVERSE

FORMS OF DESPOTISM 178V. ILLUSIONS CONCERNING THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS . . 185VI. THE POLITICAL INFLUENCE OF PRESTIGE .... 192

BOOK VIHOW TO REFORM THE MENTALITY OF A PEOPLE1. AMERICAN IDEAS ON EDUCATION 199II. TEACHING REFORMS IN FRANCE AND THE GERMAN UNI-

VERSITIES 207III. MORAL INSTRUCTION IN SCHOOLS 213IV. THE CREATION OF MORAL HABITS BY THE ARMY . . 218

BOOK VIIALLIANCES AND WARS

I. THE VALUE OF ALLIANCES 227II. THE FIGHT FOR HEGEMONY AND THE STRUGGLE FOR

EXISTENCE 237III, THE PROBLEM OF SECURITY 244IV. FUTURE FORMS OF WAR AND THE DISARMAMENT ILLUSION 249


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INTRODUCTIONTHE FACE OF THE WORLD TO-DAY

MODERN civilisations present themselves tous under two aspects which are so dissimilar,so contradictory, that if viewed from adistant planet they would seem to belong to twototally different worlds.One of these aspects is the realm of science and

its applications. Its structures radiate the brilliantilluminations of harmony and pure truth.The other is the dark domain of political and

social life. Its shaky edifices remain enveloped inillusions, errors, and hatreds, and furious strugglesfrequently lay them low.

This striking contrast between the differentdomains of the great civilisations is due to the factthat their structural elements do not obey the samelaws, and have no common measure.

Social life is governed by needs, sentiments, andinstincts bequeathed to us by heredity, whichthrough whole strata of evolution represented theonly guides of conduct.

In this domain, progressive evolution remainsfeeble. The feelings of ambition, jealousy, ferocity,and hatred, which animated our first ancestors,remain unchanged.During vast periods, whose tedious length is

revealed by science, man was but slightly differen-tiated from that animal world which it was destinedsome day to transcend so enormously in intellect.


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10 The World UnbalancedHaving remained the equals of animals in the

domain of organic life, we are not much beyondthem in the domain of sentiment. It is only inthe cycle of intelligence that our superiority hasbecome immense. It is owing to this that thecontinents have been joined and that thought istransmitted from hemisphere to hemisphere withthe speed of light.But the intellect which, in the recesses of our

laboratories, arrives at so many discoveries hashitherto exercised but a feeble influence uponsocial life. It remains under the dominance ofimpulses which are not governed by reason. Thesentiments and the rages of the earliest ages havekept their hold on the souls of the nations, anddetermine their actions.We cannot understand events unless we takeaccount of the profound differences which separatemystic and emotional impulses from rationalconsiderations. They explain why individuals ofsuperior intelligence have at all times accepted themost infantile beliefs such as the worship of theSerpent or of Moloch. Millions of human beingsare still dominated by the imaginings of illustrioushallucinated founders of religious and politicalfaiths. Even in our days, communistic chimerashave had the power to ruin a gigantic empire andto threaten other countries.

It is also because intellectual development haslittle influence on the sentiments that we saw in thelast war men of high culture set fire to cathedrals,massacre the old people and ravage provinces forthe sole lust of destruction.We do not know what influence reason will oneday exercise on the march of history. If its onlyinfluence is to provide those emotional and mysticalimpulses which still threaten the world with more


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The Face of the World To-day nand more powers of devastation our great civilisa-tions are doomed to share the fate of the greatAsiatic Empires whose power did not save themfrom destruction, and whose last traces are nowcovered by sand.

Future historians, meditating on the causes ofthe ruin of modern societies, will then no doubtsay that they perished because the sentiments oftheir defenders did not evolve as rapidly as theirintellects.The complication of social problems which atpresent disturbs the Hfe of the people is partly dueto the difficulty of reconciling opposite interests.In times of peace, the divergences between peoplesand between the classes of the same people alsoexist, but the necessities of life finally bring abouta balance of conflicting interests. Harmony isestablished, or at least a partial harmony.But such an agreement does not survive great

upheavals like that of the Great War. Theequilibrium is upset. Freed from old constraints,the conflicting sentiments, beliefs, and interestsrevive and enter upon a violent struggle.And that is how, since the beginning of the war,

the world has entered upon a phase of instabilityfrom which it cannot emerge.

It is all the more unable to emerge because thenations and their masters aim at solving entirelynew problems by ancient methods which to-day areno longer applicable.The sentimental and mystical illusions which

gave birth to the war still dominate the peace.They have created the darkness into which Europeis plunged, a darkness which no lighthouse has yetilluminated.To avoid the menace of the future we must studywithout passion or illusion those problems which


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12 The World Unbalancedemerge on all sides and the repercussions which theyproduce. That is the object of this book.The Future is indeed within us and is woven byourselves. Not being fixed, like the Past, it can

be transformed by our own efforts. The Repar-able of the present soon becomes the Irreparableof the future. The action of Chance, that is tosay, of unknown causes, is considerable in themarch of events, but it has never yet stopped anation from deciding its own fate.


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BOOK ITHE POLITICAL CHAOS


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CHAPTER ITHE EVOLUTION OF THE IDEAL

I HAVE often, in the course of my books,considered the preponderant place taken by theideal in the life of peoples. I must, however,return to the subject once more, for the presenttime shows itself more and more as a strugglebetween conflicting ideals. The old religious andpolitical ideals, whose power has waned, are indeedfaced by new ideals which seek to replace them.

History clearly shows that a people which hasno common interests, beliefs or sentiments, isnothing but a dust of individuals without cohesion,without stability, and without force.The unification which brings a race from bar-

barity to civilisation is accomplished by theacceptance of a common ideal. The hazards ofconquest do not replace it.

Ideals capable of unifying the soul of a peopleare of various kinds : Catholicism, the worship ofAllah, the hope of a Paradise, etc. As a means ofoperation their efficacy is the same once they havewon the hearts of the people.With an ideal capable of an influence over souls,

a people prospers. Its decadence begins when thisideal weakens. The decline of Rome dates fromthe period when the Romans ceased to veneratetheir institutions and their gods.The ideal of every people contains some very

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i6 The World Unbalancedstable elements, patriotism for example, and otherswhich vary from time to time according to thematerial needs, the interests, and the mentality ofeach period.Take France alone during only the last ten

centuries. It is obvious that the elements con-stituting her ideal have often varied. They stillcontinue to vary.

In the Middle Ages, the theological elementspredominated, but feudalism, chivalry, and thecrusades gave them a special character. The ideal,however, remained in Heaven and was guided by it.

Ideas changed with the Renaissance. The ancientworld emerged from oblivion and changed thehorizon of thought. Astronomy enlarged it inproving that the Earth, hitherto supposed to bethe centre of the universe, is nothing but aheavenly body of the smallest dimensions lost inthe immensity of the firmament. The divine idealcontinued, no doubt, but it ceased to be unique.Many earthly preoccupations were mingled withit. Art and science sometimes surpassed theologyin importance.Time passes and the ideal swings round again.Kings, whose power was formerly limited by popesand peers, ended by becoming absolute. Theseventeenth century is brilliant with the splendourof a monarchy no longer contested by any otherpower. Unity, order and discipline reign in allparts. The energy formerly spent in politicalstruggles is turned towards literature and the arts,which attain their highest degree of splendour.The years roll by and the ideal undergoes another

change. The absolutism of the seventeenth centuryis succeeded by the critical spirit of the eighteenth.Everything is questioned. The principle of authorityweakens and the old masters of the world lose the


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The Evolution of the Ideal ^7prestige from which they derived their strength.The old governing classes, royalty, nobility, andclergy, are succeeded by another which obtains allauthority. The principles which it proclaims,equality above all, spread throughout Europe andturn it into a battlefield for twenty years.But as the past dies but slowly in the souls of

a people the old ideas soon burst forth again. Oldand new ideals come into conflict. Restorationsand revolutions succeed each other during nearlya whole century.What was left of the old ideals was being graduallyeffaced. The catastrophe which recently upheavedthe world weakened their hold still more. The gods,obviously powerless to shape the lives of nations,became but half-forgotten shadows.Shown to be equally powerless, the most ancientmonarchies found themselves overthrown by the

fury of the people. Once again the collective idealwas changed.The disappointed peoples seek how to protectthemselves. For the dictatorship of gods and kingsthey try to substitute that of the proletariat.

This ideal is being put forward, unfortunately,at a period when the world, transformed by theprogress of science, can no longer advance exceptunder the influence of the elite. Formerly, itmattered little to Russia that she did not possessthe intellectual abilities of an elite. To-day, themere fact of having lost them has plunged herinto an abyss of powerlessness.One of the difficulties of the present generationresults from the fact that no ideal has yet beenfound which is capable of serving as a bond ofunion for the majority of minds.The triumphant democracies seek this necessary

ideal but do not find it. Not one of those suggested2


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i8 The World Unbalancedhas been able to draw together enough adherents toimpose itself on the world.

In the universal disorder, the socialist ideal triesto monopolise the management of the people, butignorant of the fundamental laws of psychology andpolitics, it hurls itself against obstacles which canno longer be overcome by determination. It willnot therefore replace the old ideals.

In a rocky cave overlooking the road to Thebes,in Boeotia, there lived a long time ago, according tothe legend, a mysterious being who set riddles forhuman wisdom to solve and who condemned todeath all those who could not guess the answer.

This symbolical story accurately portrays thefateful dilemmaguess or perishwhich has sooften arisen at critical moments in the history ofnations. Never, perhaps, have the great problemsdetermining the destiny of peoples been moredifficult than they are to-day.Although the hour has not yet struck for the

putting forward of a new ideal, it is already possibleto determine the elements which must enter intoits composition, and those which must necessarilybe omitted. Several pages of this book will bedevoted to this investigation.


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CHAPTER IIPOLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF

PSYCHOLOGICAL ERRORSFAILURE in foreseeing imminent events andinexact observation of current events werefrequent in the war and in the ensuing peace.

Failures to foresee things occurred at every periodof the conflict. Germany did not foresee the entryinto the war of England, nor of Italy, nor especiallyof America. France did not anticipate the defectionof Bulgaria or Russia, nor other events.Nor did England show a greater sagacity. I

pointed out elsewhere that, three weeks before thearmistice, her Foreign Secretary, having no sus-picion of the demoralisation of the German army,said in a speech that the war would last a longwhile yet.The difficulty of foreseeing even close events is

conceivable, but the difficulties encountered byGovernments to know what is happening incountries where they maintain at great cost agentswhose business it is to keep them informed isdifficult to understand.The mental blindness of agents of informationis no doubt the result of their impotence to discernthe general trend among the particular cases opento their observation.

Apart from the serious errors of psychologywhich cost us the ruin of several Departements,

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20 The World Unbalancedbut which I need not discuss here, several faults,charged with grave consequences, have been com-mitted since the Armistice.The first of these was the failure to facilitatethe dissociation of the different States of the GermanEmpire, a dissociation which set in spontaneouslyon the morrow of defeat.Another error was to favour the disintegration

of Austria, which in the interests of European peaceshould have been avoided at all costs.A less important error, but still a serious one,was to check the importation into France of stocksaccumulated by German industry during thewar.

Let us examine the mechanism of the conse-quences resulting from these errors.The first consequence was fundamental. As I

said many times before the conclusion of peace, itwould have been a major interest for the world'ssecurity to favour the division of Germany intopolitically separate States, as they were before1870.The task was much simplified by the fact that

Germany, after her defeat, spontaneously split upinto several independent republics.

This separation would not have been at allartificial. It was, on the contrary, unity which wasartificial, since Germany consists of different raceswith a right to autonomy as concerned in theprinciple of nationality so dear to the Allies.

It took the powerful grip of Prussia and fiftyyears of school and barracks to weld into a singleblock those countries which had been apart forages and which professed very slight sympathy foreach other.Only the advantages of that union could maintain

it. When the advantages disappeared, it would


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Political Consequences of Psychological Errors 21dissolve. And that is just what occurred afterdefeat.

If that division had been favoured, by grantingbetter times of peace to some of the newly foundedrepublics, the spontaneous dissociation might havebeen stabilised.The Allies did not understand this. Perhaps

they thought they would obtain greater advantagesfrom the German block than from separate States.Now it is too late. The German governing powershave profited by the interminable shufflings of the

Peace Conference in order painfully to re-establishtheir unity.

It is now complete. In the new German con-stitution, the Empire seems subdivided into anumber of free and equal States. It is but anappearance. All the results of legislation belongto the Empire. The confederated States are muchless autonomous in reality than they were beforethe war. As they only represent simple provincesof the Empire, they are as little independent asare the French provinces with respect to the centralpower established in Paris.The only change in the new German unity isthat the hegemony formerly exercised by Prussia

has disappeared.The political error of favouring the disintegration

of Austria was even more serious. Austria wasindeed a ramshackle Empire, but it possessedtraditions and an organisation and that armaturewhich only the centuries can build.Had there been less illusion and more wisdomthe necessity of preserving the Austrian Empirewould have been clear to all.Europe sees now, and will see more and more,what it will cost to dissolve Austria into small

States without resources, without a future, and


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22 The World Unbalancedwhich are no sooner formed than they enter intomutual conflict.

It was particularly on account of the new con-flagrations with which these fragmentary Statesthreatened Europe, that the American Senaterefused to accept a League of Nations which mightforce the United States to intervene among therivalries of the uncivilisable people of the Balkans.The disintegration of Austria will have other and

graver consequences. One of the first will be, infact, to enlarge Germany by the territory inhabitedby nine or ten million Germans of the old AustrianEmpire. Feeling their weakness, they are evennow turning to Germany and demanding annexa-tion.The Allies, of course, oppose this annexation.But how can they hinder it for ever when theAustrians of German race support their claim toannexation by appealing to the very principle ofself-determination which has been loudly pro-claimed by the Allies ?Here we see once more, as we do so often in

history, the danger of false ideas. The principleof nationality, which is supposed to replace thatof the balance of power, seems very just from therational point of view, but it becomes erroneousimmediately when we see men swayed by senti-ments, passions, and beliefs rather than by reason.How can we apply this illusory principle incountries where from province to province and fromvillage to village there are populations of differentraces, languages, and religions, separated by age-long hatreds, whose only ideal is to massacre eachother ?The third mistake enumerated above, that of

having prevented in every way the introductioninto France of the German industrial products


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Political Consequences of Psychological Errors 23accumulated during the war, is one of those whichhave most contrilDuted to the estabhshment ofhigh prices.That prohibition did not, of course, result from

the decisions of the Peace Conference but solelyfrom the action of the French Government, whichwas the only one to make this blunder. Wiserthan our own, the American and British Govern-ments opened their doors wide for German goodsand profited by their cheapness to fill up theirstocks and reduce the cost of living.To do business preferably with countries whose

rate of exchange is favourable is such an evidentand elementary economic advantage that one cannotconceive of a statesman failing to understand it.The mistaken reason for the prohibition of

imports, or, what comes to the same thing,our prohibitive import duties, was to favoursome manufacturers who were actually unable toproduce one-tenth of the objects needed by France.To please a few industrialists, the public wasforced to buy from British and American merchants,at a price three or four times too high, thoseproducts which they bought very cheaply inGermany, and which we could have obtained thereourselves.The psychological blunders we have examined

were committed at the moment of peace. Sincethat epoch, European statesmen have committedmany more.One of the gravest, because it nearly com-promised the security of Europe, was the attitude

taken with regard to Poland by the Minister whoat that time ruled the destinies of England.

In the hope of conciliating the Russian Com-munists, that Minister did not hesitate publicly toadvise the Poles to accept the absurd conditions


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24 The World Unbalancedproposed by Russia, notably a disarmament thefirst consequence of which would have beenthe pillage of Poland, frightful massacres, and theinvasion of Europe.To display his goodwill towards the Bolshevists,the same Minister prohibited, against all lawindeed, the passage through Danzig of munitionsdestined for Poland, and obtained from Belgiumthe same prohibition as regarded Antwerp.The result of this intervention was first of allto provoke among the neutralsnot to mentionFrancea very vivid indignation. This is what

was written about it in the Journal de GeneveThese two acts of hostility against Poland have producedamong the admirers of England extraordinary amazement and

painful disappointment. To-day, these admirers say thatEngland, thanks to the shedding of French, Belgian, Italian,and Polish as well as English blood, is secure in her islandrealm, while France, Belgium, and Poland remain exposed inthe front line.Does England believe it to be in conformity with her traditions

of sincerity or even with her obvious interest, that her Alliesshould be exhausted in the struggle to arrest Bolshevism inits westward march without her using all her power andinfluence to help them ?The commercial interests which determined thepolitical orientation of the British statesman areeasily understood. He did not, however, perceivethe consequences which might have resulted fromhis conduct with regard to the Poles.

If Poland, in accordance with British suggestions,had renounced the struggle, Bolshevism, allied withIslam, which had been so tactlessly dealt within Turkey, would have become even more dangerousthan it is to-day. Had Poland been beaten, thealliance of Bolshevist Russia with Germany wouldhave been certain.

Fortunately for ourselves,and more so, perhaps,


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Political Consequences of Psychological Errors 25for England,our Government had a clearer viewof the situation of England.Though the Polish plight seemed desperate,because the Red army was at the gates of Warsaw,

our Premier did not hesitate to assist them notonly with munitions but by entrusting MarshalFoch's Chief of Staff with the direction of thePolish armies. Thanks to the influence of thatgeneral, the Poles, who were always retreatingwithout troubling to fight, took courage, and afew able manoeuvres transformed their persistentdefeat into a brilliant victory.The consequences followed at once ; Poland

delivered, Germany's hopes disappointed, Bol-shevism rolled back, and Asia freed from the worstmenace.To obtain these results it sufficed to see clearlyand act quickly. We cannot too highly praise our

governors for having exhibited qualities which hadfor some time become rare among them.European politics live on ancient ideas corre-

sponding to needs which no longer exist. Themodern notion of the interdependence of nationsand the demonstration of the uselessness of con-quests have no influence on the conduct of thediplomatists. They remain sure that a nation canenrich itself by ruining the commerce of anothernation, and that the ideal of any country must beto expand by conquest.

These well-worn conceptions seem shocking tonations unmoved by our prejudices and atavisticpassions.A Brazilian paper expressed its astonishment inthe following words which clearly express the ideasof the New World :

All the nations of the Old World, whatever they are, havean antic^uated conception of the world and of life. What do


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26 The World Unbalancedthey want ? To take. What do they see at the end of awar ? An occasion to grab as much as they can. It is theold idea, the Past of many centuries acting among the ruhngspirits and the masses, even among the sociahst and workingclasses, where ideas are confused and appetites exasperatedsimply by class egoism.European statesmen often speak present-day

language but behave according to old-world ideas.England loudly proclaims the principle ofnationality, but seizes or tries to seize Egypt,Persia, the German colonies, Mesopotamia, etc.The new little republics founded from the splintersof ancient empires also profess grand principles,but are equally anxious to grow at the expense oftheir neighbours.

Peace will not be established in Europe untilthe anarchy created by psychological errors ceasesto dominate people's minds. It often requiresmany, many years to bring home to a people thedangers of its illusions.The war having upset the doctrines which

guided the chiefs of the army as well as those ofthe statesmen, an uncertain empiricism remainstheir sole guide.

This mental state was placed clearly in evidencein a speech delivered by a Premier before theFrench Parliament. He said : " We have wagedthe war empirically, and made the peace empiri-cally, because it could not be otherwise. As foreconomic doctrines, nobody here has any."

Empiricism necessarily represents the initialperiod of all sciences, but in their progress theysucceed in deriving from experience those generallaws which permit them to foresee the course ofphenomena and to give up empiricism.

There is no need for empiricism, for instance,for knowing that if a body falls freely in space


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Political Consequences of Psychological Errors 27its speed at a given moment is proportional to thetime of falling and the space fallen through to thesquare of the time.Physical laws are so certain that if they do notseem to hold good we are sure that some disturbingfactor intervenes, of which we may determine thesize. Thus the astronomer Leverrier, finding thata certain heavenly body did not seem to obey thelaws of attraction rigorously, concluded that itsmovement must be disturbed by an unknownplanet. From the perturbation observed, theposition of the disturbing planet was calculated,and the latter was soon found in the place indicated.Psychology and political economy, like all natural

phenomena, are subject to immutable laws, butwe know but few of these, and those which we doknow are subject to so many perturbations thateven the most certain laws may be doubted, thoughnumberless facts support them.

It is evident that the European Governmentshad neither during the war nor after the peace anyfixed rule of conduct. Their forgetfulness of certaineconomic and psychological laws does not impairthe existence of those laws. And they often fallvictims to their own lack of knowledge.


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CHAPTER IIITHE PROFESSORS' PEACETO the psychological errors enumerated abovewe must add the illusions presiding over the

drafting of the Peace Treaty. Their impor-tance will appear in the course of this chapter.Few men in the course of history possessed apower equal to that of President Wilson when,landing in Europe, he dictated the conditions ofpeace. During the culminating period of his powerthe representative of the New World remainedenveloped in a prestige which Gods and Kings didnot always attain to the same degree.

According to his marvellous promises, a newlight was about to shine on the Universe. Tonations who had emerged from an inferno and werefearing to be plunged back into it, the dawn ofan eternal peace seemed to be breaking. An ageof fraternity ^would replace the era of carnage anddevastation.

Those vast hopes did not endure long. Realitysoon proved that the treaties so painfully elaboratedhad no result but to precipitate Europe into anarchyand the East into a series of inevitable wars.Nearly all the small States created by cutting upancient monarchies soon invaded their neighbours,and for many months no intervention of the GreatPowers succeeded in calming their fury.Of the various causes which brought those great

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The Professors Peace 29hopes to naught, one of the most fatal was a mis-construction of certain fundamental psychologicallaws which, from the earliest ages, have directedthe life of nations.

President Wilson was the only personage strongenough to impose the cutting up of Europe underconditions which, as somebody put it, made commonsense howl. We now know that he was not theirsole author.The revelations of the American AmbassadorElkus, published by Le Matin, have shown that

the various clauses of the Treaty were drafted bya small phalanx of professors.When President Wilson confided to Colonel House the

mission of choosing the future delegates he stipulated : " Ionly want University professors."

In vain did the Colonel remind him that America possessedgreat ambassadors, the world's greatest industrialists, andstatesmen with a profound experience of Europe. " I wantnone but professors," repeated the President.

It was therefore a platoon of professors whichmanned the commissions. " Studying texts andnot souls they consulted great abstract principlesand closed their eyes to facts." Thus the peacebecame what Ambassador Elkus called a " pro-fessors' peace." It showed once more to whatextent doctrinaires full of science but unacquaintedwith the realities of the world may be devoid ofcommon sense, and therefore dangerous.The Peace Treaty consisted in reality of twoparts :(1) Creation of new States, mainly at theexpense of Austria and Turkey.(2) Constitution of a League of Nations, designed

to maintain perpetual peace.As regards the creation of new States at the

expense of Austria and Turkey, experience soon


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30 The World Unbalancedshowed, as I have already indicated, what such astep would amount to. Its first results were toestablish ruin, anarchy, and war in those countries.It was then seen how chimerical was the idea ofrefashioning centuries of history by means ofdecrees. It was a mad enterprise to cut up oldempires into separate provinces without consideringtheir possibility of existence. None of these newcountries, divided by a divergence of interests andracial hatreds, possessed any economic stability, andso they were bound to come into conflict.The tiny Austria of to-day is a product of thegreat political illusion which led the master ofthe Conference to disintegrate one of the world'soldest monarchies.What can the Allies do when Austria, reducedto the depth of misery, finds she can only hve byuniting with Germany ? It is only then that theauthors of the Treaty will reaUse the blunder com-mitted in destroying the useful and inoffensiveblock constituted by the old Austria.What vanity to try and rebuild by a scrap ofpaper the European edifice slowly built up by athousand years of history ! Mr. Morgenthau, theAmerican Ambassador, recently gave the followingdescription of the small States manufactured bythe Peace Conference :What a picture is presented by Central Europe to-day !

Here we have a dust of small republics without real physicalforces, without industries, without armies, which have every-thing to create, seeking to extend their territories withoutknowing whether they have sufficient force to administer themand control them. And there, on the other hand, we see acompact State of seventy million people who know the valueof discipline, who know that they failed by a few inches toimpose their domination upon the entire world, who haveforgotten none of their hopes, and will forget none of theirhatreds.


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The Professors' Peace 3^England respected the Utopias of President

Wilson and received solid realities in exchange forher tolerance. Gaining immense territories, whichmade her the greatest beneficiary of the war, shehad no interest in opposing those parts of theTreaty which did not concern her.

In her isolation, France had to give way to allthe exigencies of the Wilsonian ideas, which werethe more exacting for being ostensibly based uponpure reason.The manifest error committed by PresidentWilson and his crew of professors was just theirbelief in the sovereign power of Reason over thedestinies of nations. All history should havetaught them, on the other hand, that sentimentsand passions are the real guides of human groupsand that rational influences produce an almostnegligible effect upon them.

Politics, or the art of guiding men, demandsmethods quite different from those which theprofessors employed. They must always rest uponthe basis that sentiments are governed by senti-ments and not by reasonable arguments.The constitution of the League of Nations,though distinct from the Peace Treaty, is yet

intimately linked with it. Its object was, indeed,to maintain that peace.

It begun with a striking set-back, the refusal ofthe American Senate to have anything to do withPresident Wilson's creation.Though inclined to idealism, the directing powers

of America yet maintain a clear view of realitiesand professional discourses do not affect themgreatly. Mr. Wilson's successor put the reasons fortheir refusal in the following terms :The only covenant we accept is the covenant of our con-

science. It is preferable to a written contract which fetters


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32 The World Unbalancedour freedom of action and gives away our rights into the handsof a foreign alHance. No world assembly, no military alliancewill ever force the sons of this Republic to go to war. Thesupreme sacrifice of their life can never be asked of themexcept for America and the defence of her honour. That isa sanctity of right which we shall never delegate to anyone.We shall have more to say of the League

of Nations. Based upon data contrary to allpsychological principles, it has only justifiedAmerican opinion by showing its uselessness andits impotence. It required indeed a prodigiousdose of illusions to imagine that a great countrylike the United States would consent to submit tothe orders of a small group of foreigners withoutpower or prestige. It would have amounted tothe recognition of a sort of super-Government inEurope whose decisions would have controlled theworld.


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CHAPTER IVTHE AWAKENING OF ISLAMTHE series of psychological errors to whichwe have devoted several chapters is notended. We shall have to examine others.

For centuries British policy has been directedtowards the one end of increasing English domina-tion at the expense of various rivals, first Spain,and then France, who endeavoured to oppose thatextension. It has successively deprived them ofIndia, Canada, Egypt, etc. The last of her greatrivals, Germany, having gone down, England hasbeen able to possess herself of all German colonies.

This is not the place to examine the qualities ofcharacter and principles which have led to suchpersistent success, we need only remark that,occupied exclusively with utilitarian ends, Englishstatesmen profess an absolute contempt of idealismand always endeavour to adapt their policy to thenecessities of the moment. They sometimes makemistakes, but do not hesitate to repair theirblunders by modifying their line of conduct, withoutworrying about amour-propre and about the criti-cisms provoked by such oscillations.A recent example of profound importance for thefuture of the East, shows what rapid and radicalveerings English policy is capable of.

After hard fighting in jMesopotamia, which showedthat an army of 70,000 men was insufficient to3


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34 The World Unbalancedovercome the resistance of the natives, Englandsuddenly abandoned an expedition as costly andunproductive as our own expedition to Syria.Withdrawing her troops, she replaced them by anative sovereign, the Emir Feysul, whom we hadto expel from Damascus on account of his persistenthostility.The apparent object of this solution was indicated

in a speech in the House of Commons : " To establish,with ancient Baghdad as a capital, a Moslem Statewhich may revive the ancient glory of the Arabianrace."The installation of a declared enemy near our

Syrian frontiers was obviously not a move directedby friendship for France. But in British policyutility has always been put before friendship, andno notice was taken of the observations of theFrench Government.The new sovereign was installed at Baghdad with

great pomp, and, as an exceptional privilege,the King of England sent him a letter of warmcongratulation.

This thinly disguised annexation of one of theworld's countries richest in oil figures among thenumerous gains with which British diplomacy has,since the end of the war, endowed England.

English soldiers have been replaced by engineerswho exploit the country for the benefit of GreatBritain.The new King of Iraq will not only rule over

Baghdad, but also over the old sites of Ninivehand Babylon, a territory as large as England andformerly celebrated for its fertility.

This brilliant operation would, if the Englishprotectorate had succeeded in imposing itself onthe whole East, have had more important resultseven than merely commercial benefits. The most


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The Awakening of Islam 35obvious benefit would have been to give Englandan overland route to Persia and India. If thenshe had succeeded in conquering Constantinople,cither directly or through the Greeks, Britishdomination of the East would have been completeand its hegemony, which our pale diplomatistsresisted so feebly, would have weighed the moreheavily upon the world.England had thus very ably repaired some of

the faults committed in the East, but otherpsychological blunders, irreparable this time, haveoccurred to ruin her power in the East for a longtime. To sustain the contradictory aspirations ofthe Mahomedans in Mesopotamia, the Jews inPalestine, and the Greeks in Turkey constituteda Machiavellian policy from w hich Machiavelli him-self might have shrunk. The illustrious Florentineknew very well that it is imprudent to interferewith the Gods or their representatives.The English completely forgot that principle whenthey tried to dismember Turkey and destroy at Con-stantinople the power of the Sultan, who is con-sidered by all Mahomedans as the " commander ofthe Faithful " and the representative of God onearth. Immediate consequences resulted. Fromthe Bosphorus through Egypt to the Ganges theINIahomedan world revolted.

Since the English politicians did not understandthe great influence of Islam upon the mind in theEast, it is useful to summarise its origin anddevelopment.New gods are not rare in history. Their usual

fate was to perish with the political power of thenations who saw them arise.By rare good fortune the fate of Islam has beendifferent. It not only survived the fall of the


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36 The World Unbalancedimmense Empire created by its founders, but thenumber of its adherents has constantly increased.From Morocco to the ends of China, 250 milUonhuman beings obey its laws. There are at thepresent day seventy million Mahomedans in India,thirty million in China, twenty million in Turkey,ten million in Egypt, and so on.The creation of the Arab empire, which the

English pretend to revive to their own profit byimposing on Baghdad a caliph of their own choosing,is one of the most wonderful adventures of history.So marvellous, indeed, was it that great writerslike Renan did not succeed in understanding it andalways contested the originality of the civilisationto which it gave rise.

This foundation of the Arab empire which Ishall sketch in a few lines will always remainintelligible to those who are convinced that therational logic attributed to History takes no accountof the immense reservoir of mystical forces in whichso many great events originate.At the beginning of the seventh century of our

era there lived at Mecca an obscure camel driverof the name of Mahomet. When he was aboutforty years of age he had visions in which theangel Gabriel dictated to him the principles ofthe religion which was destined to shake theworld.One can understand that the countrymen of thenew prophet, who at that time professed a rathervague polytheism without profound convictions,should easily adopt a new religion, which was alsovery simple, because it only declared that there wasbut one God and that Mahomet was His prophet.

It is more difficult to understand the lightningspeed with which that faith spread throughoutthe world then known, and how its adherents


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The Awakening of Islam 37found in it the necessary power to found an empiregreater than Alexander the Great's.

Driven from Syria, of which they thought them-selves the permanent masters, the Romans wereamazed to see wandering tribes, electrified by theardent faith which united them, conquer in a fewyears Persia, Egypt, Northern Africa and part ofIndia.The vast Empire thus built up maintained itself

for several centuries. It was not an ephemeralcreation like those of the various Asiatic con-querors, such as Attila, because it gave birth toan entirely new civilisation of a dazzling brilliancy,while Western Europe was plunged in barbarism.

In a very short time, the Arabs succeeded inerecting monuments of such originality that themost untrained eye can recognise them at firstsight.The Arab Empire was too vast to escape disin-

tegration. It split up into small kingdoms whichbecame feeble and were conquered by variouspeoples, Mongols, Turks, and the rest.But the Mahomedan religion and civilisation

were so strong that all the conquerors of theancient Arab kingdoms adopted the religion, thearts, and often the language of the conquered.Thus it was that India, for instance, though sub-dued by the Mongols, continued to cover itselfwith Mahomedan monuments.And not only did the Arab religion survive thedisappearance of their political power, but so farfrom being extinguished it continues to spread.The faith of its adherents remains so intense thateach of them is an apostle and spreads his faithas such.The great political strength of Mahomedanism

lay in imparting to its various races that com-


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38 The World Unbalancedmunity of thought which has always been one ofthe strongest means of welding together people ofdifferent races.Present-day events have shown the power ofsuch a link. We have seen that it may drive backthe formidable might of England in the East.The British governing powers did not know the

power of Islam when they dreamt of drivingthe JMahomedans out of Turkey. They did notsuspect it until they saw not only the Turks, butthe Mahomedans of the whole world, arising againstthem.The English, who had thought to keep Con-

stantinople, where they had already installed aCommissioner who bore himself as a master, thendiscovered the greatness of their illusion. Theyfelt it particularly when the Turks, defeated andalmost unarmed, refused the peace they wereoffered, and drove the Greeks from Smyrna.To-day Islam has become strong enough againto defy Europe.


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CHAPTER VEUROPE'S MISUNDERSTANDING OFMAHOMEDAN MENTALITYTHE awakening of Islam which I have justsummarised profoundly astonished Europe

The Mahomedan mentality is generally solittle understood that it will be useful to devote afew pages to it.The East has always charmed its visitors. It

always lured me in my youth, so that aftertravelling over it, I wrote a book called La Civilisa-tion des Arabes.^

In spite of many requests, I have never con-sented to its republication since its revisionwould have been too laborious. If I mention ithere it is only to show that the author of thepresent work is not altogether incompetent inEastern questions.As regards modern Mahomedans, the heirs of the

Arabs, I sometimes found myself, before the war,in contact with them over Turkish and Arabian

1 This work was published very hixuriously by Messrs. Didot,who spent over 100,000 francs on it. The French edition is longout of print, and when it happens to be on the market by the saleof a private library it commands fantastic prices. Its translationinto Arabic serves the teaching of hundreds of students in theMosque El Azhar in Cairo, a veritable Mahomedan University.It was translated into Hindustani by one of the Ministers of theNizam of Hyderabad.

39


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40 The World Unbalancedtranslations ^ of some of my books. A few monthsbefore hostilities commenced, the Grand Vizier andOttoman Foreign Minister, Said Halim Pasha,asked me through the Paris Ambassador to go toConstantinople to deliver some lectures on politicalphilosophy.

I have always regretted that reasons of healthprevented me from accepting that proposal, as Iwas sureand my opinion was shared by myeminent friend Isvolski, then Russian Ambassadorat Paristhat it was not impossible to keepTurkey neutral. Even after the struggle hadbegun it would have been sufficient, as was admittedafterwards by a British Minister in Parliament, ifan admiral had been bold enough to follow theGoeben and Breslau when they steamed intoConstantinople. That was a case where the valueof a man could have been reckoned in billions,for Turkish neutrality would have undoubtedlyshortened the war by two years. Nelson at onetime was such a man for England. How manyarise in a century ?" It is difficult to know thyself," says an ancientproverb. It is even more difficult to know thebeings who surround us. It is almost impossibleto determine the mentality and its reactions ingiven circumstances, of a people whose past andwhose beliefs are different from ours. It is at allevents the sort of knowledge that most modernstatesmen lack to an extraordinary extent.The events of the last ten years fully justifythat assertion.If the Germans lost the war, it is because not

one of their leading men was clever enough to guess^ The best Arabian translations are those of Fathy Pasha, then

Minister of Justice in Cairo, and the Turkish ones those made byDr. Djevdet Bey.


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Europe and Mahomedan Mentality 41the possible reactions of Belgium, England, andAmerica to certain acts, the consequences ofwhich a sufficiently clear mind should haveforeseen.The Lausanne Congress furnishes another example

of total lack of comprehension towards the soul ofa people.

This lack of comprehension is the more sur-prising since France and England constitute, throughtheir colonies, great Mahomedan powers. Frequentdealings with Mahomedans should have enabledthem to know better.The first Lausanne Congress, and also the second,

proved that they did not comprehend anything.The lack of comprehension was as great as it wouldhave been if the barons of Charlemagne and theprofessors of a modern law school had met inconference.A total lack of success, which could have beenforeseen, resulted from this lack of comprehension.A discussion which should have taken only a fewhours took many months.Nobody talked of either the Crescent or theCross at these conferences. Yet it was the strugglebetween those two symbols which was the heartof the disagreement.We have on a previous occasion shown how, byits misunderstanding of Islam, the British Empirelost Persia, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, and saw Indiathreatened. An ardent Presbyterian, the BritishMinister, Mr. Lloyd George, the true author of thesedisasters, thought to punish the Crescent byexpelling the Turks from Europe through a Greekattack on Constantinople. He encountered amystic faith as strong as his own and the wholecolonial power of England was shaken by theencounter.


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42 The World UnbalancedThe ways of unifying the interests and sentiments

of a dust of human beings to make a nation arenot numerous. They may be reduced to three :The will of a leader ; respect for the law ; and astrong religious faith.

All the great Asiatic empires originated in thewill of a chieftain, notably the Moghul Empire.They lasted as long as did the capacities of thechieftain and his successors.Those founded on an accepted religion were morestable. So long as the religious code subsists its

unifying influence continues.This action of a religious faith becomes in rare

cases strong enough to unite different races andgive them a common mind which generates identicalwills.For the disciples of the Koran the civil code andthe religious code, so completely separated in the

text, are identical.In the eyes of the Musulman, all power comes

from Allah and must be respected, whatever itsresult, because it is the will of Allah.

In permitting the Turks to drive the infidelsfrom Smyrna it was clear that Allah accorded hisprotection to his followers. This protection seemedto manifest itself even more clearly at Lausanne,because the European delegates could not prevailagainst the Ottoman delegates.The Allies gave way, indeed, on all important

points. Had they understood the Moslem soul theywould have known that he would only give wayto force. The necessity of coming to an under-standing in order to impose the will of Europeon fundamental points would then have beenobvious, and peace in the East, which is threatenedto-day, would have been established for a long time.On the other hand, one cannot deny the justice


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Europe and Mahomedan Mentality 43of certain Moslem claims. Since their civilisationwas certainly well worth that of the other Balkanpeoples, Serbians, Bulgarians, etc., they had theright to be masters in their own capital, Con-stantinople, in spite of British designs. But theyhad no right to repudiate their debts, notably themany milliards lent by France. On this point, ason many others, the demands of the Turkishdelegates at Lausanne went beyond all bounds.Their tone was often that of conquerors to theconquered.Thanks to the poor psychology of the Western

delegates, European prestige in the East is destroyedfor a long time. But prestige was always the mostsolid basis of a people's power.The Turkish excuse, besides the religious motives

explained above, is the undeniable injustice ofEngland towards them in her intention to expelthem from Europe and especially from Constanti-nople through the intermediary of the Greeks.The only reason given for this expulsion was thehabit attributed to the Turks of constant massacresof their Christian subjects. It has been justly saidthat if the Turks had committed the tenth partof the massacres of which the British Governmenthas accused them, there would have been noChristians in the East for a long time already.The truth is that all the Balkan people of everyrace and faith are much given to massacre. I hadoccasion to say that to M. Venizelos himself. Tokill off your opponent is the only figure of speechadmitted in the Balkans.

This method, by the way, only took on largedimensions when British policy made the pro-vinces formerly subject to Turkey independent.We know with what fury Bulgarians, Serbs, Greeks,etc., rushed at each other as soon as they were


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44 The World Unbalanced' " ' ' ' ' ' I '"" III ^^-i . . II I'll ii"^^^;;

delivered from the peaceful bonds with which theTurkish regime controlled their violence.The feebleness of the Allies at Lausanne will havemany evil consequences. Among the documentswhich foreshadow these I may quote a letter full

of judicious observations written by one of our bestmilitary chiefs in Syria :From the political and military point of view I believe we

shall have an eventful year. One cannot deal with the Turksunless one can make them feel that one is the stronger, forcebeing the only argument which counts with them. Now atLausanne they were allowed to put on the airs of conquerors.The result is that they are defiant and think the world tremblesbefore them. The Angora people openly claim Alexandretta,Antioch, and Aleppo, although these regions were recognisedas belonging to Syria in the last Franco-Turkish agreementand are inhabited by Arabs. Although the Turks are in aminority there they want to regain possession. We mayexpect the same events as in Cilicia : no official war, but moreand more active bands, composed of so-called inhabitantsinsurgent against French domination, but in reality disguisedTurkish regulars commanded by Turkish or German officers.These bands will attack small posts and convoys, and will cutroads and railways. They will become more and morenumerous, they will even have guns, and will involve us in apainful and difficult guerilla warfare, in which the Turks hopeto gain the desired result, which is to disgust the Syrians withthe French and the French with Syria.For a philosopher this new attitude of theMahomedans is full of instruction. It shows oncemore the extent to which the mystic forces which

have always ruled the world rule it still.Civilised Europe, which thought it had finished

with religious struggles, finds itself, on the contrary,threatened by them more than ever.

It is not only against Islam but against socialismand communism, the new religions, that civilisa-tions will have to fight. The hour of peace andrest seems a long way off.


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46 The World UnbalancedThese fundamental facts are a little confused in

works on Alsace. Finding that sentimental argu-ments have a preponderant place, I asked thelearned historian Battifol to write for theBibliotheque de Philosophie Scientifique, which I amediting, a work, written on modern lines, on llieOld Alsatian Bepuhlics^ and I shall borrow the mostimportant documents in this chapter from his work.

Let us enquire (1) whether the Alsatian popula-tions belong to a German race

; (2) whether, notbeing German, they were finally Germanised in thecourse of centuries.The least doubtful of the characteristics which

permit us to classify the human races is, after thecolour of their skin, the shape of their head.Nobody denies that a white man, a negro, and ayellow man belong to different races. And nobodyclaims that a brachycephalic race, with almostspherical heads, has any affinity with a dolicho-cephalic or long-headed race.The Germans themselves consider this feature

so important that they always appeal to dolicho-cephaly to justify their claim to be a superior racedestined to dominate the world.Now from researches made by the most renownedof German anthropologists on Alsatian skulls fromburial grounds belonging to every epoch of thelast two thousand years it follows that the Alsatianpeople are among the most brachycephalic in theworld.The persistence of this brachycephaly throughthe ages shows that the Alsatian race has never

been modified by crossings. The permanence ofthis character led Dr. Bayer to conclude that " allcrossing with strangers must have been severelyforbidden by matrimonial laws or by prejudicesstronger than laws. 5)


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The Problem of Alsace 47Even after Alsace had been attached to theGerman Empire the purity of race remained.

The proportion of doUchocephaUc skulls did notreach 2 per cent.

Instead of being less brachycephalic than itsforebears, contemporary Alsace is more so. Itscephalic index is identical with that of the peopleof Lower Brittany.

Psychological data confirm these anatomical data.The Alsatian character shows many Celtic charac-teristics, notably the love of liberty and anantipathy to foreigners.

So far from belonging to a German race, there-fore, the Alsatians constitute, according to thetestimony of the German savants themselves, arace having no affinity with the Germanic popu-lations.But, while remaining a special race, theAlsatians might have been Germanised and mightthus have justified German claims.

History will deal with this aspect of the problem.Enclosed between the Rhine and the Vosges,

Alsace was long considered to be almost impene-trable. The Rhine with its many branches, witha torrential rainfall, and few and very variablefords, constituted with the Vosges a completeobstacle to invasion. Those rough mountains,barely traversed by valleys, allowed no passageexcept to the north and the south, by the gap ofBelfort and by the saddle of Saverne (Zabern).To go round Alsace was much easier than to passthrough it.

This geographical disposition is one of theprincipal causes which for long assured the inde-pendence of Alsace and maintained its racialpurity and the continuity of its political and socialinstitutions.


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4^ The World UnbalancedAnother cause contributed to conserve the

individuaUty of Alsace. The wealth and variety ofits products enabled it to dispense with the helpof its neighbours for centuries. It retained anagricultural population of stable and traditionalcustoms, with a touch of distrust, and a localpatriotism limited to each city and not tendingtowards a political centre. And so it remaineddivided into independent cities of which Strassburgis the type.The continuity of anatomical and psychologicalcharacter of the Alsatians extracts all the validityfrom the assertions of some German historians whoassure us that Alsace was peopled originally byTeutonic tribes, the Triboci. Tacitus and Caesarindeed clearly deny that assertion. In their timeAlsace had been inhabited for a long time by aCeltic race, the Sequani.The primitive race which occupied Alsace atunknown prehistoric periods has therefore per-petuated itself through the ages, as we have seen,without change of characteristics, in spite of theaction of very different peoples who conquered them.The whole history of Alsace shows efforts toeliminate foreign influences.During the Roman occupation that was easy.Rome respected its independence and interfered

neither with its institutions nor its liberties. Thephases of the Roman domination and the Frenchdomination of the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies were, for the Alsatians, the happiest intheir history.The flood of great invasions barely touched

Alsace. Flowing either through Bale and Belfortor through Belgium, in order to avoid geographicalobstacles, it left Alsace almost intact.

Clovis incorporated it in his kingdom by his


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The Problem of Alsace 49victory over Syagrius in 485 at Soissons, but itdid not suffer by that. Linked at first with thefate of Roman Gaul, it remained attached to thedestiny of France until about the eleventh century,and manifested as much sympathy for France asaversion from the Germans.When, under the successors of Charlemagne, the

Germans sought to possess themselves of Alsace,a period of struggles set in which is very instructivefor the understanding of our problem, for it showshow deep-seated and constant was the resistanceoffered by the Alsatians to Germanic influences.The Treaty of Verdun, in 843, did not give

Alsace to Germany, but created a buffer state ruledby Lothaire, a grandson of Charlemagne. It wasonly in 855 that the German emperor Ludwigincorporated Alsace with Germany.Neither Alsace nor France accepted that act ofviolence. For a century and a half the Alsatiansceaselessly called to France for help. But, forcedto defend themselves against the Normans at theother end of their kingdom, our kings were forcedto abandon Alsace, after having reconquered itseveral times.In 979, Alsace could be regarded as definitelyattached to Germany. That date marks thebeginning of repeated struggles and permanentinsecurity. It was conquered but unsubdued. Thesequel of its history proves this clearly.The rivalries of the German emperors having

covered the land with ruins, the Alsatians succeededin defending themselves by founding fortified citieswhich prospered more and more, and transformedthemselves in the thirteenth century into smallindependent republics. The emperors favouredtheir development, indeed, to counterbalance thepower of the nobles and declared several of them

4


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50 The World Unbalanced" Imperial Cities," which were directly under theirauthority.

Such a vague and distant dependence meant areal independence for the new republics, particularlyStrassburg. They framed their own constitutionson the Roman model. The chief authority wasvested in sheriffs corresponding to the Romanconsuls. Their chief duty was to prevent Germaninroads.Each self-governing city, as I have pointed out,formed a small republic exercising royal privileges,

coining money, legislating for itself, and attachedto the Empire by nothing but a purely honorarylink.These republics enlisted troops, sent ambassadors,

and contracted alliances without any authorityfrom the emperor. Like the Swiss cantons, theysometimes united to repel invasions, especiallythose of Charles the Bold. In 1354, the Germanemperor, Charles IV, sanctioned the famous unionof ten Alsatian cities called the Decapolis, whichbrought unity to Alsace under a nominal Germanprotectorate.

Alsace never missed an occasion of proving itsindependence, whether by a refusal to pay theimperial tax ; or by refusing to admit to its citiessovereigns not recognised by them ; or by enteringinto alliances. Thus in 1492 Alsace refused point-blank to march with the emperor Maximilianagainst France.The Alsatian republics always showed themselves

to be thoroughly democratic. They repeatedlyexpelled the nobles or forced them, if they wishedto vote, to declare themselves bourgeois. That isalways the mark of an independence which cannotbear any yoke, either political or social.The presence of strangers, even of simple work-


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The Problem of Alsace 51men, was always unwelcome to the Alsatians.When the development of industry forced them totolerate them, they formed a class apart, whichpaid a special tax. The Alsatian city of the MiddleAges remained as impenetrable to all foreigninfluence as did the Greek cities of antiquity.

Alsace gave a favourable reception to theReformation, which suited its independent spirit,but that choice gave rise to prolonged conflictswith the German sovereigns. In order to escapethese, the Alsatians turned to France, for whichsince the Roman epoch their sympathies had beenso strong that the German emperors constantlyreproached them for their French proclivities.Under the ministry of Richelieu that sympathy

became an alliance. But the kings of France hadno intention of annexing Alsace, notwithstandingthe German allegation that Alsace was torn awayby violence. It was of their own accord, and bythe consent of the people, that the Alsatian republicsone by one swore allegiance to France in returnfor protection till the conclusion of general peace.When, after the extension of the French pro-

tectorate over several Alsatian cities, the whole ofAlsace except Strassburg requested Louis XIII toextend his protection over the whole country,Richelieu at first opposed this and only consentedafter repeated steps taken by the Alsatians.The French protectorate left the country a great

deal of independence. The Alsatian towns kepttheir liberty of conscience and their institutions.Nothing was changed. A small French garrisonkept by the king assured the safety of the towns.At the Peace of Westphalia, which brought the

Thirty Years' War to a close, the French pro-tectorate which had been only provisional wastransformed into a definite annexation. In 1648,


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52 The World UnbalancedGermany ceded Alsace to the King of France infull sovereignty, with the exception of Strassburg.Having escaped from German absolutism, Alsace

had a moment of anxiety with regard to theabsolutism of the French monarchy. Its uneasinessdid not last long. The country kept all its liberties,especially its liberty of conscience. Respecting thetreaties,^ Louis XIV, despite the ardour of hisfaith, never dreamt of imposing the revocation ofthe Edict of Nantes, though over half the Alsatianswere Catholics.No taxes were imposed. The French customsbarrier did not extend over Alsace. The king'srepresentatives simply set themselves to unify theadministration of justice and finance and gave thecountry peace, order and security. It prosperedso greatly that the population, reduced by a thirdthrough the war, was soon doubled.The same liberal policy was continued under the

successors of Louis XIV.Progressively and willingly the Alsatian soul

absorbed French civilisation as it had previouslyabsorbed Roman civilisation. Our ideas and actsdirected its moral evolution and linked it more andmore closely to the great mother country.The Germans themselves, notably Goethe, ad-

mitted that at the end of the eighteenth centuryAlsace was completely French.The Revolution succeeded in fusing its par-

ticularism into an ardent national patriotism. Weall know the enthusiasm of the Alsatian volunteersof 1792 and how Strassburg, the famous city solong self-contained in its policy, intoned the firstFrench national hymn, the symbol of the newaspirations of the nations.

1 Article 47 of the Treaty of Miinster (1648) and Article 5, par. 25,of the Treaty of Osiiabruck.


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The Problem of Alsace 53Until 1871, Alsace had no more particular

history. Its history was that of France, of whichit was one of the most devoted provinces.During the fifty years which followed the war

of 1871, Germany exercised over Alsace an absolutesway. She could have made herself so agreeableand profitable to the country that the inhabitantsmight have preferred to remain under the domina-tion of their new masters.We know that it was not so, and that Alsace hadto suffer such intolerable oppression that 250,000French people preferred quitting the country ratherthan suffer it. They were replaced by 300,000Germans who, however, never succeeded in mixingwith the rest of the population.

Neither by barracks, nor schools, nor institutionsdid Germany succeed in Germanising Alsace. Herlack of success in modern times was as completeas it had been in the past. It is therefore impossibleto claim that she made Alsace into a Germanterritory.We know with what enthusiasm the Alsatianscelebrated their return to France. The Germanregime had become odious to them, not on accountof German institutions, some of which wereexcellent, but on account of the hardness andbrutality of the agents who applied them. Throughtheir inability to understand the character of otherraces, the Germans have, according to their ownconfession, always aroused the hatred of the peoplethey ruled, even where their economic actionrendered incontestable services.

It was only in religious matters, so importantto Alsace, that German domination did not showitself to be oppressive. Hoping to win the peoplethrough the influence of the clergy, the Germans


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54 The World Unbalancedconsiderably increased the salaries of the priestsand respected the Concordate regulating theirrelations with Rome.History had taught them that it is not safe tomeddle with the religious beliefs of a people.

Victorious France did not at first act with thesame wisdom. While the Commission appointedon the conclusion of peace to define the religiousstatus of Alsace-Lorraine required an impartialperson at its head, one of the most notoriouslyintolerant Freemasons, the President of the masoniclodge of the Grand Orient, was made its chief.

Catholic Alsatians were naturally indignant atsuch a choice. The passages from the speeches ofthe Freemason quoted by them left no doubtconcerning his opinions.To the Alsatians who consider it essential thattheir children receive religious instruction and aretaken to church by their teachers, the uncom-promising chairman of the Commission declaredthat it was necessary " to free the schools fromthe denominations and the human brain fromillusions and lies." " Neither God nor Master "was his formula.Such intolerable conceptions are manifestations

of the terrible Jacobin spirit which, in politics asin religion, has cost France so dear.The Jacobin, who believes himself the store-house of pure truth, seeks to impose it by forceas soon as he is given the power. The gods whomhe worships in the masonic temples are the onlytrue gods and he Avill not tolerate any others.The possessor of striking certitudes, he will nothave them denied and considers it his duty toextirpate error. Hence the savage intolerancewhich dominates him.


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The Problem of Alsace 55After some months of trial, it was recognised

that the Jacobin spirit cannot be appHed toAlsace.

It was already rather late. It was on the veryday of the signature of peace that Alsace shouldhave been protected against the Jacobin mentalityby confiding Alsatian administration to Alsatians.It is hardly necessary to explain why. TheAlsatian intends to remain Alsatian. He wishesto see his religious faith, his schools, and hiscustoms respected.

If we do not wish Alsace to regret parting fromGermany, France must send administrators entirelyfree from the Jacobin spirit.


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CHAPTER VIITHE PRESENT FINANCIAL SITUATION.WHO WILL PAY THE COST OF THE WAR ?THE present instability of the world has itssole origin in psychological blunders. There

have also been a number of economic andjuridical illusions.

Right and justice represent human creationswhich are unknown to Nature. It is, indeed,because she ignores them that she has madeprogress.

Natural law operates with the regularity ofmechanism. ^V'e protest against her vigour whenher laws oppose our sentiments, but our protestsare in vain.No epoch has been so overshadowed by economicnecessities as ours. But never have the nationsrebelled so much against them.To-day Europe sees a violent conflict between

economic necessities and the sentiments of rightand justice which oppose those laws.The problem of reparations is the origin of thisconflict. According to our ideas of right and

justice, the Germans must make good their devas-tations. But the economic laws which rule theinterdependence of nations are so powerful that notonly are complete reparations almost impossible,but the cost entailed, instead of falling upon the

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The Present Financial Situation S7vanquished, would not only strike the victors butalso neutral foreigners.Some brief explanations will justify theseassertions.Let us remark at once that the following

explanations apply to the present state of Germany,but not to its state before the Armistice.

It is said that after hearing Marshal Fochexpounding the conditions of the Armistice, one ofthe German delegates timidly asked what sumGermany would have to pay. The generalissimowas obliged to confess that his Government hadgiven him no instructions on that subject.We know now that, fearing the capitulations of"her army and the entry of Allied troops intoBerlin, Germany was prepared for considerablepayments, and would have obtained the moneyfrom the industrials whose fortune had not sufferedor by a foreign loan. That loan would have beeneasily subscribed, for although the Germans werein military defeat, their commercial credit wasunshaken. In the course of the Peace Conferenceshe offered 100 milliards.When that period passed, the Germans bethoughtthemselves of means to evade payments. By aprocess of inflation they almost entirely annulledthe value of their bank-notes and thus rendered allpayment impossible.

In one of his speeches, our Minister of Finance,M. de Lasteyrie, thus sketched the present situation :For four years Germany has only sought to gain time and

to break up the entente between the AlHes. Not at anymoment has she intended to pay us.Even while she professed inability to pay, she found milliardsfor developing her economic machinery, recreating her merchantfleet, building canals and railways, and developing andbeautifying her towns,


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6o The World Unbalancedannual deficit rapidly increases the amount of ourdebt.For details of our expenditure, the Minister of

Finance in April 1923 gave the following figures :Credits for arrears of loans have increased tenfoldsince 1913, passing from 1,355 millions to 13,405millions, and thus constituting for 1922 a sum inexcess of half the total expenditure. " It is to thisintangible element that we must attribute the maincause of the increase in the budget."

Military expenditure amounted to 18,185 millionin 1919, falhng to 7,648 miUion in 1920, 6,312 in1921, and to 5,341 million in 1922.Expenses of civil administration, which in 1920

reached 11,377 million francs, still come to 7,328million in 1922.

All these figures show that if Germany paid allthe sums demanded of her, the annual deficit ofour budget would remain terribly high.

It has taken a long time to find out that themuch-repeated formula " Germany will pay " withwhich the most useless expenditure was formerlysupposed to be justified, was an illusory hope.As it has now become clear that even after theGermans had paid all their debts, our budget wouldstill show a deficit, we must needs seek for anothercause.To enhance the yield of our natural wealth andreduce our expenditure is the only possible solutionof the problem.Until that is brought home to all, we must liveby expedients. Thanks to the facility of printingbank-notes without a guarantee in coin, expensesare constantly increasing, and Ministers oppose avery feeble resistance to a frenzied course makingfor irreparable financial catastrophe.


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The Present Financial Situation 6iThe example of Great Britain, whose budget for

1923 balanced with a surplus of several milliards,thanks particularly to the curtailment of expenseby a Government strong enough to impose itswill on Parliament, has not yet found any imitatorsin France.The British Empire, however, in spite of its

prosperity, suffers from the economic anarchy whichweighs upon Europe. The foodstuffs which Englandconsumes and the raw materials necessary to herindustries come almost exclusively from abroad.She pays for what she buys by the export ofmanufactured goods. Moreover, whatever maybe the method of payment employed, goods areobtained after all is said and done only in exchangefor other goods.Manufactured productsthe real money of Eng-landhave no useful value unless they can findbuyers, and England has lost one of her bestcustomers in Germany. That is why she strivesat all costs, even at the cost of France, to restorethe economic condition of her old customer.Meanwhile she seeks other buyers, but as she

finds in foreign markets competitors who sellcheaper, she has to reduce her selling prices andconsequently her wages, notably those of the miners.

This caused a very costly strike of the miners,which lasted three months. To yield to the minerswould have had the fatal result of commercial ruinfor the British Empire.

This single example is sufficient to show thestrength of certain economic laws and theimpossibility of fighting against them.Never have nations hated each other as they do

to-day. If will-power were enough to kill men,Europe would be a desert.


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The Present Financial Situation 63led to over-production, and the consequences likelyto arise were clearly pointed out by an EnglishMinister in a speech at Manchester. He said :

If Germany, during the next forty or fifty years, were ableto pay her debts, she would, by that very act, make herselfmistress of all the markets of the world. She would becomethe greatest exporting nation ever heard ofpractically theonly exporting nation on the globe. And if, during the comingperiod of forty or fifty years, the United States of Americawere to receive all that is due to them, they would simul-taneously be contributing to a marked decrease in their exporttrade. They would see their people deprived of a large partof its most essential arts and industries. They would see thebreaking up of the whole of their national economic system.Germany, the debtor nation, would show an unhealthy activity,and the United States, the creditor, an equally unhealthystagnation.

These obvious truths are emerging slowly fromthe chaos of economical blunders in which the worldis plunged.

If Germany paid her debt to France by thedelivery of goods, in quantities necessarily large inview of the size of the debt, our country wouldpossess such a surplus of German products thatour own manufacturers would have to slow downor cease production altogether. Whence wouldarise general stoppage and impoverishment. Pay-ment in kind therefore means that France would" lose on the roundabouts what she made on theswings."

In order to avoid this too obvious consequence,it was decided to put a tax of 12 per cent, on theGerman exports for the benefit of the Allies. Thatmeant, naturally, that the selling price of exportedgoods was augmented 12 per cent. All buyers ofGerman goods, of whatever nationality, thereforepaid 12 per cent, more than formerly. It is quiteobvious, therefore, that it was not the Germans


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64 The World Unbalancedbut the buyers of all countries who would pay apart of the indemnity destined for reparations.

Another proposal, and perhaps the best one yetput forward, was to force the big German manu-facturers to give up a certain number of shares intheir factories, a third, for example. But, theseshares being already allotted, the German Govern-ment would be obliged to indemnify the owners.Thus, as before, the price of manufactured goodswould rise, and it would still be the foreign con-sumer who would contribute to the liquidation ofthe German debt.

All these incidental facts at first escaped the noticeof the public, to say nothing of Governments. Theyare better understood to-day. Foreign opinion onthis subject is clearly expressed in the followingextract from a great American paper :The addition of a 12 per cent, tax puts a protectionist tariff

on all nations who receive German goods. It is a tax on theAmerican consumer for all German exports landed here ; butit goes into the Allied coffers, when Germany has collectedit, and not into the treasury of the United States, as w^oulda similar tax imposed by our own fiscal system. The effectof this tax will be to augment prices and diminish exports.

All the foregoing assertions, however unpleasantthey may be, deserve consideration. They wouldfurnish the League of Nations with anti-wararguments of a much weightier nature than thevague humanitarian discourses which occupy itssittings.The repercussions which we have just consideredshow, indeed, beyond any possibility of dispute,

that by reason of the growing interdependence ofraces, when one nation is beaten, it is the otherswho have to pay the indemnity which she owesto the victor.

This necessity, created by the economic evolution


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The Present Financial Situation 65of the world, was formerly quite unknown. Then,great races grew rich by their conquests. In thetimes of the Romans, the sums levied on thedefeated formed a considerable part of the budget.

After the second Punic war, according to Ferrero,Carthage deposited with the Romans 55 millionfrancs, an enormous sum for the times. PaulusiEmilius,the conqueror of Persia, was paid, accordingto Pliny, 57 millions. The defeated were, besides,despoiled of all they possessed. Marcellus, havingtaken Syracuse, seized all the objects of value whichthe great city contained.

It is not very long since this heroic age came toan end ; but it is ended for ever. Nations may stillfight, for supremacy like Germany, or to protecttheir homes like the Turks, but henceforth they willbe unable to enrich themselves at the expense ofthe vanquished.

If the League of Nations wanted an inscriptionto decorate the facade of its palace, I would willinglyrecommend the following : ^' All modern wars are asdisastrous for the victor as for the vanquished. ^^ Ifthe inscription seemed too short it could belengthened by the addition: ''Henceforth all nationswill bear the costs of a war undertaken by any oneof them. It is therefore in their own interests to unitefor the purpose of ^ireventing fresh conflicts.''^To tell men to love one another is advice nevertaken by nations. " Help one another in your owninterest " is a maxim which could transform theworld if it sank deep into the hearts of men afterconvincing their minds.


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BOOK IITHE SOCIAL CHAOS


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70 The World UnbalancedDiscipline creates a sort of equilibrium between

the instinctive impulses of human nature and socialnecessities.

Severe measures are necessary to establish it inthe first place. But the written law has no forceuntil it is inscribed in the souls of the people.

External discipline imposed by restraint thusbecomes an unconscious discipline and is convertedinto a habit by heredity. Then and only then dopenalties become unnecessary and the human soulis stabilised. But this is far from being the casewith all nations yet.Slow to be formed, and at times rather uncertain,

social discipline is easily disturbed by great catas-trophes. Nations then escape from the restraintof laws and have no other guide than their mereimpulses, resembling a ship without a rudder,tossed hither and thither upon the waves.The fundamental importance of discipline is

apparent when it is found that a people onlyachieves civilisation when discipline is established,and returns to a state of barbarism when it is lost.

It was lack of discipline which, in olden times,brought the citizens of Athens into servitude, andthe hour struck for the fall of Rome when, allrespect for discipline being destroyed, there existedno other law than the will of ephemeral emperorselected and deposed by the soldiery. Only thencould the barbarian invaders triumph.

In a work entitled Comment meurent les Patries,M. Camille JuUian shows that the independence ofthe Gauls was lost in the same way. " Nobodyany longer obeyed the law. Justice, finance,everything which makes for social order wasconstantly set at nought." That is why Caesarcould so easily csLrry out his conquests.The whole of Europe is now passing through a


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Social Discipline and the Revolutionary Spirit 71critical phase of indiscipline which cannot beprolonged without causing anarchy and decadence.Old principles, hitherto faithfully observed, havelost their command, and those which might replacethem are not yet formed.

If the number of actual rebels is not yet verygreat, that of the undisciplined is becoming-enormous. In families as in schools, in workshopsand factories, the authority of the father, masterand employer grows less every day. Insubordina-tion is increasing. The inability of masters toenforce obedience is proved everywhere.

This loosening of discipline is accompanied to-dayby certain symptoms of moral disintegration,mainly the following : Dislike of any sort ofconstraint ; continued lowering of the prestige oflaw and government ; general hatred of superiority,whether of fortune or intelligence ; absence ofsolidarity between the various social strata, andclass struggles ; utter contempt for the old idealsof liberty and fraternity ; progress of the extremistdoctrines preaching the destruction of the estab-lished social order, no matter what that ordermay be ; and substitution of autocratic collectivepowers for old forms of government.Such symptoms, especially the distaste for con-

straint and the undisciplined contempt for law,necessarily lead to the development of a revo-lutionary spirit with its inseparable companions,violence and hatred.

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