General Ludendorff recently made certain declarations which have a capital importance, since they fit the facts exactly.  He declared that a war of reconquest by Germany against the Allies and especially against France is for an indefinite time completely impossible from the technical and military point of view.  France has an army largely supplied with all the means of battle, ready to march at any time, which could smash any German military organization hostile to France.  The more so since by the destruction of the German war industries Germany has lost every possibility of arming herself afresh.  It is absurd to believe that a German army ready for modern warfare can be organized and put on a war footing secretly.  A German army which could fight with the least possible hope of success against an enemy army armed and equipped in the most modern manner would first of all have to be based on a huge German war industry, which naturally could not be improvised or built up in secret.  Even if a third power wished to arm Germany, it would not be possible to arm her so quickly and mobilize her in sufficient time to prevent the enemy army from obtaining an immediate and decisive victory.

It would be necessary, as everyone realizes even in France, that Germany should wish to commit suicide.  In consequence of the treaty there is the “maximum of obstacles which mind can conceive” to guard against any German peril; and against Germany there have been accumulated “such guarantees that never before has history recorded the like” (Tardieu), and Germany cannot do anything for many years.  Mobilization requires years and years for preparation and the greatest publicity for its execution.

Wilson spoke of guarantees given and received for the reduction of armaments.  Instead, after the treaties had been concluded, if the conquered were completely disarmed, the conquering nations have continued to arm.  Almost all the conquering nations have not only high expenses but more numerous armies.  If the conditions of peace imposed by the treaties were considered supportable, remembering the fact that the late enemies were harmless, against whom are these continuous increase of armaments?

We have already seen the military conditions imposed on Germany—­a small mercenary army, no obligatory conscription, no military instruction, no aviation, no artillery except a minimum and insignificant quantity required by the necessities of interior order.  Austria, Bulgaria and Hungary can only have insignificant armies.  Austria may maintain under arms 30,000 men, but her ruined finances only permit her, according to the latest reports, to keep 21,700; Bulgaria has 20,000 men plus 3,082 gendarmes; Hungary, according to the Treaty of Trianon, has 35,000.  Turkey in Europe, which hardly exists any more as a territorial State, except for the city of Constantinople, where the sovereignty of the Sultan is more apparent than real, has not an actual army.