camps—­the friends and the enemies of liberty, right, and justice; and the main functions of the League as narrowed by the Treaty will be to hinder or defeat the machinations of the enemies.  Moreover, the deliberate concessions made by the Conference to such agencies of the old ordering as the grouping of two or three Powers into defensive alliances bids fair to be extended in time.  For the stress of circumstance is stronger than the will of man.  At this rate the last state may be worse than the first.

The world situation, thus formally modified, remained essentially unchanged, and will so endure until other forces are released.  The League of Nations forfeited its ideal character under the pressure of national interests, and became a coalition of victors against the vanquished.  By the insertion of the Covenant in the Treaty the former became a means for the execution of the latter.  For even Mr. Wilson, faced with realities and called to practical counsel, affectionately dismissed the high-souled speculative projects in which he delighted during his hours of contemplation.  Although the German delegates signed the Treaty, no one can honestly say that he expects them to observe it longer than constraint presses, however solemn the obligations imposed.

In the press organ of the most numerous and powerful political party in Germany one might read in an article on the Germans in Bohemia annexed by Czechoslovakia:  “Assuredly their destiny will not be determined for all time by the Versailles peace of violence.  It behooves the German nation to cherish its affection for its oppressed brethren, even though it be powerless to succor them immediately.  What then can it do?  Italy has given it a marvelous lesson in the policy of irredentism, which she pursued in respect of the Trentino and Trieste."[306]

With the Treaty as it stands, nationalist France of this generation has reason to be satisfied.  One of its framers, himself a shrewd business man and politician, publicly set forth the grounds for this satisfaction.[307] Alsace and Lorraine reunited to the metropolis, he explained, will assist France materially with an industrious population and enormous resources in the shape of mineral wealth and a fruitful soil.  Germany’s former colonies, Kamerun and Togoland, are become French, and will doubtless offer a vast and attractive field for the expansion and prosperity of the French population.  Morocco, freed from German enterprise, can henceforth be developed by the French population alone and without let or hindrance, for the benefit of the natives and in the true sense of Mr. Wilson’s humanitarian ordinances.  The potash deposits, to which German agriculture largely owed its prosperity, will henceforward be utilized in the service of French agriculture.  “In iron ore the wealth of France is doubled, and her productive capacity as regards pig-iron and steel immensely increased.  Her production of textiles is greater than before the war by about a third."[308] In a word, a vast area of the planet inhabited by various peoples will look to the French people for everything that makes their collective life worth living.