by postponing a settlement, the Entente nations were, on the
contrary, certain to find the ground better prepared the longer the day
of reckoning was put off. Germany, they contended, had recovered
temporarily from the Bolshevik fever, but the improvement was fleeting.
The process of decomposition was becoming intenser day by day, although
the symptoms were not always manifest. Lack of industrial production, of
foreign trade and sound finances, was gnawing at the vitals of the
Teuton Republic. The army of unemployed and discontented was swelling.
Soon the sinister consequences of this stagnation would take the form of
rebellions and revolts, followed by disintegration. And this conjunction
would be the opportunity of the Entente Powers, who could then step in,
present their bills, impose their restrictions, and knead the Teuton
dough into any shape they relished. Then it would be feasible to
prohibit the Austrian-Germans from ever entering the Republic as a
federated state. In a word, the Allied governments need only command,
and the Teutons would hasten to obey. It is hardly credible that men of
experience in foreign politics should build upon such insecure
foundations as these. It is but fair to say the Conference rejected this
singular program in theory while unintentionally carrying it out.

Although everybody admitted that the liquidation of the world conflict
followed by a return to normal conditions was the one thing that pressed
for settlement, so intent were the plenipotentiaries on preventing wars
among unborn generations that they continued to overlook the pressing
needs of their contemporaries. It is at the beginning and end of an
enterprise that the danger of failure is greatest, and it was the
opening moves of the Allies that proved baleful to their subsequent
undertakings. Germany, one would think, might have been deprived
summarily of everything which was to be ultimately and justly taken from
her, irrespective of its final destination. The first and most important
operation being the severance of the provinces allotted to other
peoples, their redistribution might safely have been left until
afterward. And hardly less important was the despatch of an army to
eastern Europe. Then Germany, broken in spirit, with Allied troops on
both her fronts, between the two jaws of a vise, could not have said nay
to the conditions. But this method presupposed a plan which unluckily
did not exist. It assumed that the pea