who were suppressing the warnings in his official reports from the Military Commission.
In a similar fashion, the Milner Group knew that the industrialists, the Junkers,
the police, and the judges were cooperating with the reactionaries to suppress all
democratic and enlightened elements in Germany and to help all the forces of
"despotism" and "sin" (to use Curtis's words). The Group refused to recognize these
facts. For this, there were two reasons. One, for which Brand was chiefly responsible,
was based on certain economic assumptions. Among these, the chief was the belief that
"disorder" and social unrest could be avoided only if prosperity were restored to Germany
as soon as possible. By "disorder," Brand meant such activities as were associated with
Trotsky in Russia, Béla Kun in Hungary, and the Spartacists or Kurt Eisner in Germany.
To Brand, as an orthodox international banker, prosperity could be obtained only by an
economic system under the control of the old established industrialists and bankers. This
is perfectly clear from Brand's articles in The Round Table, reprinted in his book, War
and National Finance (1921). Moreover, Brand felt confident that the old economic
groups could reestablish prosperity quickly only if they were given concessions in respect
to Germany's international financial position by lightening the weight of reparations on
Germany and by advancing credit to Germany, chiefly from the United States. This point
of view was not Brand's alone. It dominated the minds of all international bankers from
Thomas Lamont to Montague Norman and from 1918 to at least 1931. The importance of
Brand, from out point of view, lies in the fact that, as "the economic expert" of the Milner
Group and one of the leaders of the Group, he brought this point of view into the Group
and was able to direct the great influence of the Group in this direction.(2)
Blindness to the real situation in Germany was also encouraged from another point of
view. This was associated with Philip Kerr. Roughly, this point of view advocated a
British foreign policy based on the old balance-of-power system. Under that old system,
which Britain had followed since 1500, Britain should support the second strongest
power on the Continent against the strongest power, to prevent the latter from obtaining
supremacy on the Continent. For one brief moment in 1918, the Group toyed with the
idea of abandoning this traditional policy; for one brief moment they felt that if Europe
were given self-determination and parliamentary governments, Britain could permit some
kind of federated or at least cooperative Europe without danger to Britain. The moment
soon passed. The League of Nations, which had been regarded by the Group as the seed
whence a united Europe might grow, became nothing more than a propaganda machine,
as soon as the Group resumed its belief in the balance of power. Curtis, who in December
1918 wrote in The Round Table: "That the balance of power has outlived its time by a
century and that the world has remained a prey to wars, was due to the unnatural
alienation of the British and American Commonwealths"—Curtis, who wrote this in
1918, four years later (9 January 1923) vigorously defended the idea of balance of power
against the criticism of Professor A. F. Pollard at a meeting of the RIIA.
This change in point of view was based on several factors. In the first place, the
Group, by their practical experience at Paris in 1919, found that it was not possible to
apply either self-determination or the parliamentary form of government to Europe. As a
result of this experience, they listened with more respect to the Cecil Bloc, which always
insisted that these, especially the latter, were intimately associated with the British
outlook, way of life, and social traditions, and were not articles of export. This issue was
always the chief bone of contention between the Group and the Bloc in regard to India. In
India, where their own influence as pedagogues was important, the Group did not accept
the Bloc's arguments completely, but in Europe, where the Group's influence was remote
and indirect, the Group was more receptive.
In the second place, the Croup at Paris became alienated from the French because of
the latter's insistence on force as the chief basis of social and political life, especially the
French insistence on a permanent mobilization of force to keep Germany down and on an
international police force with autonomous power as a part of the League of Nations. The
Group, although they frequently quoted Admiral Mahan's kind words about force in
social life, did not really like force and shrank from its use, believing, as might be