The judge of the French syndicalists was still more severe.  “The Versailles peace,” exclaimed M. Verfeuil, “is worse than the peace of Brest-Litovsk ... annexations, economic servitudes, overwhelming indemnities, and a caricature of the Society of Nations—­these constitute the balance of the new policy,"[329] The Deputy Marcel Cachin said:  “The Allied armies fought to make this war the last.  They fought for a just and lasting peace, but none of these boons has been bestowed on us.  We are confronted with the failure of the policy of the one man in whom our party had put its confidence—­President Wilson.  The peace conditions ... are inacceptable from various points of view, financial, territorial, economic, social, and human."[330]

It is in this Treaty far more than in the Covenant that the principles to which Mr. Wilson at first committed himself are in decisive issue.  True, he was wont after every surrender he made during the Conference to invoke the Covenant and its concrete realization—­the League of Nations—­as the corrective which would set everything right in the future.  But the fact can hardly be blinked that it is the Treaty and its effects that impress their character on the Covenant and not the other way round.  As an eminent Swiss professor observed:  “No league of nations would have hindered the Belgian people in 1830 from separating from Holland.  Can the future League of Nations hinder Germany from reconstituting its geographical unity?  Can it hinder the Germans of Bohemia from smiting the Czech?  Can it prevent the Magyars, who at present are scattered, from working for their reunion?"[331]

These potential disturbances are so many dangers to France.  For if war should break out in eastern Europe, is it to be supposed that the United States, the British colonies, or even Britain herself will send troops to take part in it?  Hardly.  Suppose, for instance, that the Austrians, who ardently desire to be merged in Germany, proclaim their union with her, as I am convinced they will one day, does any statesman believe that democratic America will despatch troops to coerce them back?  If the Germans of Bohemia secede from the Czechoslovaks or the Croats from the Serbs, will British armies cross the sea to uphold the union which those peoples repudiate?  And in the name of which of the Fourteen Points would they undertake the task?  That of self-determination?  France’s interests, and hers alone, would be affected by such changes.  And France would be left to fight single-handed.  For what?

It is interesting to note how the conditions imposed upon Germany were appreciated by an influential body of Mr. Wilson’s American partizans who had pinned their faith to his Fourteen Points.  Their view is expressed by their press organ as follows:[332]