I happened to be in Geneva when, on September 6, the affair was brought up before the League. A public that was both ardent and nervous filled the Assembly room. The air was fairly saturated with feverish passion. The emotion of the audience reached its height after it had heard Signor Salandra plead the cause of Italy and M. Politis that of Greece. Lord Robert Cecil rose. A strange light burned in his eyes. With impressive solemnity, he asked that the articles of the pact be read. He then added: "If the treaties are not observed, Europe no longer exists." A thrill passed through the galleries; and the reporters stopped writing to applaud. Women stood up and acclaimed the speaker, waving their handkerchiefs. But, for my part, I could not help but think that there were in the Peace Treaty many other articles that are now dead letters. There is, for example, Article 226, which states: "The Allied and Associated Powers publicly accuse William II of Hohenzollern of supreme offence against international morals and the sacred authority of treaties. A special tribunal shall be constituted to judge the accused." This was signed by twenty-seven nations. The article has never been observed; yet Europe continues to exist.

In fact, I have never had so little an impression of a Court of Justice as I had that day of September 6, 1923, when the League of Nations wanted to render justice. Both the jury and the audience were agitated with too much passion. In order to render international justice, just as in the rendering of justice in an ordinary criminal case, a more serene atmosphere, and less noise, is necessary. It is necessary to feel that politics is not brooding over the court. It is also necessary that an inflexible jurisprudence exist upon which the judges may lean with authority. Now the Geneva court has no definite rule of judgment; and its attitude may vary according to time, circumstances and the pleaders. One cannot, for instance, help being struck by its indifference toward events in the Near East in 1921 and 1922. At that time, the whole of Asia Minor was a prey to fire and sword. Fighting was taking place along thousands and thousands of miles. Whole provinces were devastated. Towns were burning. Thousands of human beings perished. Greece threw herself headlong into the conquest of an immense territory.

What did the League of Nations do then? Nothing. What did the conscience of the world say? Nothing. Not once did a debate on the subject arise in Geneva. And the only initiative that the League of Nations thought proper to take in the Near East was to create an inspection of the harems!

Now, this was by no means the first case wherein the League of Nations had been called upon to act on serious divergences between its members. It was at least the fourth. Once, it had before it a divergence between Bolivia and Chile; a second time it was asked to arbitrate between Poland and Lithuania on the Vilna problem; a third time between Great Britain and France on Upper Silesia; and, most recently, on the dispute between Italy and Greece. Let us see what the verdict of the World's Court was in each of these cases.

One day, in September, 1921, Bolivia bitterly complained against Chile before the Assembly of the League. "Our country is as large as France," its delegate pointed out pathetically, "yet, because of a treaty imposed upon us after our defeat of 1883, we are in a state of semi-dependence. We are cut off from the sea; and in view of the fact that Article 19 of the pact states that 'The League from time to time may invite its members to proceed to a new examination of treaties that have become inapplicable,' we ask for a revision of the treaty that has been imposed upon us." Chile objected that one could not continually revise treaties. Furthermore, it added with some pertinence, the Monroe Doctrine did not permit the League of Nations to intervene in the quarrels of the various American States. Seized with respect and terror at this invocation of the Monroe Doctrine, the League immediately put the question into the hands of a Commission, which has been so careful about formulating an opinion that Bolivia has not as yet been able to obtain a reply.

With regard to Vilna, claimed by Lithuania, and annexed by Poland, the attitude of the League has been even more ridiculous. M. Paul Hymans, the Belgian statesman, who was charged by the League with the arbitration of this difference, rendered three successive judgments, none of which has been executed; the Lithuanians taking in his decision that part which served their purpose, and refusing to adhere to that part which displeased

them. The Poles did the same. For two years, the League endeavoured to conciliate the enemy pleaders, with no results. Finally, on March 14, 1923, the Council of Ambassadors, sitting in Paris, traced the eastern frontiers of Poland, and assigned Vilna to that country. That was the end of the dispute. All the merit for this goes to the Council of Ambassadors.

The case of Upper Silesia is practically the only one wherein the decision of the League of Nations was strictly and immediately adhered to by the appealing parties, Great Britain and France. It is therefore the case of which the League is most proud. Now, whenever anyone casts any doubt on the authority of the Geneva Assembly, he is immediately confronted with the Upper Silesia decision. "Do not forget," one is told, "that the League solved the problem confronting the world in Upper Silesia." But, in all honour, one may still point out that any other arbiter might have settled it in a like manner. If, instead of appealing to the Council of the League of Nations, France and Great Britain had appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, or to the Pope, they might no doubt have obtained a similar verdict; and have bowed before it just as they bowed before the decision of the Geneva Council.

Last, but not least, we have had the conflict between Italy and Greece. It has been settled-but not by the League of Nations. It has been settled by the Council of Ambassadors in Paris.

So, to sum up, of the four cases brought before the League for judgment, in the first (the case of Bolivia and Chile), it failed to render any decision at all; in the second (the case of Vilna), and in the fourth (that of Corfu), it failed to conciliate the pleaders, and was forced to place them in the hands of the Council of Ambassadors in Paris. It was only once (in the case of Upper Silesia) that it succeeded. But any one would have succeeded, as the adverse parties had decided to submit the question to arbitration. Even then, we assisted at the extraordinary spectacle of one of the judges-the Spanish arbiter-refusing to take the responsibility of forming the sentence, and passing his pen to another judge-the Japanese arbiter. This explains why, today, so many Europeans are but little disposed to consider the League of Nations as the World's Court

of Justice, and why they feel much more inclined to look upon it as a club. It may be a club in the high sense of the word. It may be a club where great and noble problems are discussed; and where countries separated by natural distance may learn to know each other, and thereby to come to a better mutual understanding. How many personal susceptibilities may be smoothed out by the mutual relations brought up in a club! What useful arrangements can there not be made through the medium of a club! But a Court of Justice needs something more more authority-and something less-less nervosity.

Now let us return to the Greco-Italian conflict, and form our conclusions. The conflict has cast light upon a certain number of points that should not be forgotten. In the first place it has proved that in the actual state of Europe, one must unhappily expect here and there certain acts of violence. Certain countries still value human life too lightly; and the representatives of the most pacific organizations, working for the most justifiable of purposes, run as much risk of being killed as the soldiers who some eight years ago ventured forth to battle from their trenches. If the nation whose representative had been foully murdered is a bit quick-blooded, can one stop it from desiring to avenge the outrage at once? Can one stop it from defending its dignity?

And again, it has once more been proved that the old form of diplomacy, which has been so criticised and condemned,—the old diplomacy, silent and knowing its business,—is still more efficient than the new diplomacy, so idolized, which discusses matters in the street in its shirt sleeves. It was really marvelous to note how four old diplomats of the Paris Council solved the problem of Corfu, of which the one hundred and twenty younger diplomats of the League of Nations did not even dare to take hold.

Signor Mussolini is perhaps the newest man in Europe. He has, however, put into relief some of the oldest axioms in the world—that humanity can perfect itself but slowly; and that it is not enough simply to draw up a Covenant in order to bring peace on earth. No Super-State can keep ordinary States from quarrelling, any more than the Super-God Jupiter in his Olympian heights could appease the dissensions among the ordinary gods. STEPHANE LAUZANNE.

"WHEN GERMANY OCCUPIED FRANCE":

A REPLY

BY HANS DELBRÜCK

Professor of History at the University of Berlin

I ASK permission to add some supplementary remarks to the article' which Mr. Stephane Lauzanne has published in THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

Mr. Lauzanne says Germany (he writes "Prussia") in the war of 1870 had "so to say not even suffered as much as a broken window". He has forgotten that at that time, next to England, France was the strongest naval power, and that Germany then, so to speak, had no navy whatever. Owing to this fact the French were able completely to interrupt Germany's overseas trade and to inflict great damage upon it. Germany's overseas trade, though not nearly as important as in 1914, was even then of very considerable volume.

Mr. Lauzanne lays stress upon the allegation that the Allied and Associated Powers in 1919 had demanded no indemnity from Germany, "but merely asked reparation for the terrible destruction of life and property". He omits to say that the Allied and Associated Powers in the Armistice had solemnly pledged themselves to demand compensation solely for the damages inflicted upon the civilian population. If this stipulation had been adhered to, Germany would have fulfilled her obligations long ago and peace would reign in the world. In the Treaty of Versailles, however, Germany's obligations were extended by the interpretation that the soldiers, too, who subsequently returned to civilian life, belonged to the civilian population, and on the strength of this argument Germany was also burdened with all pensions. President Wilson objected and his juridical advisers declared that no American lawyer would lend 1 Entitled When Germany Occupied France.-THE EDITORS.