n domination as an
equivalent for a cash payment." One of the most influential press organs
complained that the Treaty "bartered German men, women, and children for
coal; subjected some districts with a thoroughly German population to an
obligatory plebiscite[326] under interested supervision; severed others
without any consultation from the Fatherland; delivered over the
proceeds of German industry to the greed of foreign capitalists for an
indefinite period; ... spread over the whole country a network of alien
commissions to be paid by the German nation; withdrew streams, rivers,
railways, the air service, numerous industrial establishments, the
entire economic system, from the sovereignty of the German state by
means either of internationalization or financial control; conferred on
foreign inspectors rights such as only the satraps of absolute monarchs
in former ages were empowered to exercise; in a word, they put an end to
the existence of the German nation as such. Germany would become a
colony of white slaves...."[327]

Fortunately for the Allies, the reproach of exchanging human beings for
coal was seen by their leaders to be so damaging that they modified the
odious clause that warranted it. Even the comments of the friendly
neutral press were extremely pungent. They found fault with the Treaty
on grounds which, unhappily, cannot be reasoned away. "Why dissimulate
it?" writes the foremost of these journals; "this peace is not what we
were led to expect. It dislodges the old dangers, but creates new ones.
Alsace and Lorraine are, it is true, no longer in German hands, but ...
irredentism has only changed its camp. In 1914 Germany put her faith in
force because she herself wielded it. But crushed down under a peace
which appears to violate the promises made to her, a peace which in her
heart of hearts she will never accept, she will turn toward force anew.
It will stand out as the great misfortune of this Treaty that it has
tainted the victory with a moral blight and caused the course of the
German revolution to swerve.... The fundamental error of the instrument
lies in the circumstance that it is a compromise between two
incompatible frames of mind. It was feasible to restore peace to Europe
by pulling down Germany definitely. But in order to accomplish this it
would have been necessary to crush a people of seventy millions and to
incapacitate them from rising to their feet again. Peace could also have
been secur