concessions would not be used against everything the Group held dear, he left the inner
circle of the Group and moved to the second circle. He was not convinced that Germany
could be redeemed by concessions made blindly to Germany as a whole, or that Germany
should be built up against France and Russia. He made his position clear in a brilliant and
courageous speech at Oxford in May 1925, a speech in which he denounced the steady
sabotage of the League of Nations. It is not an accident that the most intelligent member
of the Group was the first member to break publicly with the policy of appeasement.
The Milner Group thus regarded the Treaty of Versailles as too severe, as purely
temporary, and as subject to revision almost at once. When
the treaty in its issue of June 1919, it said, in substance: "The punishment of Germany
was just, for no one can believe in any sudden change of heart in that country, but the
treaty is too severe. The spirit of the Pre-Armistice Commitments was violated, and, in
detail after detail, Germany was treated unjustly, although there is broad justice in the
settlement as a whole. Specifically the reparations are too severe, and Germany's
neighbors should have been forced to disarm also, as promised in Wilson's Fourth Point.
No demand should have been made for William II as a war criminal. If he is a menace, he
should be put on an island without trial, like Napoleon. Our policy must be
magnanimous, for our war was with the German government, not with the German
people." Even earlier, in December 1918,
desirable that the treaties should not be long term, still less perpetual, instruments.
Perpetual treaties are indeed a lien upon national sovereignty and a standing contradiction
of the principle of the democratic control of foreign policy. . . . It would establish a
salutary precedent if the network of treaties signed as a result of the war were valid for a
period of ten years only." In March 1920,
Conference, the Covenant of the League of Nations aimed too high and too far. Six
months ago w e looked to it to furnish the means for peaceful revision of the terms of the
peace, where revision might be required. Now we have to realize that national sentiment
sets closer limits to international action than we were willing then to recognize." The
same article then goes on to speak of the rejection of the treaty by the United States
Senate. It defends this action and criticizes Wilson severely, saying: "The truth of the
matter is that the American Senate has expressed the real sentiment of all nations with
hard-headed truthfulness.... The Senate has put into words what has already been
demonstrated in Europe by the logic of events—namely that the Peace of Versailles
attempted too much, and the Covenant which guarantees it implies a capacity for united
action between the Allies which the facts do not warrant. The whole Treaty was, in fact,
framed to meet the same impractical desire which we have already noted in the reparation
terms—the desire to mete out ideal justice and to build an ideal world."
Nowhere is the whole point of view of the Milner Group better stated than in a speech
of General Smuts to the South African Luncheon Club in London, 23 October 1923.
After violent criticism of the reparations as too large and an attack on the French efforts
to enforce these clauses, he called for a meeting "of principals" to settle the problem. He
then pointed out that a continuation of existing methods would lead to the danger of
German disintegration, "a first-class and irreparable disaster.... It would mean immediate
economic chaos, and it would open up the possibility of future political dangers to which
I need not here refer. Germany is both economically and politically necessary to Central
Europe." He advocated applying to Germany "the benevolent policy which this country
adopted toward France after the Napoleonic War.... And if, as I hope she will do,
Germany makes a last appeal . . . I trust this great Empire will not hesitate for a moment
to respond to that appeal and to use all its diplomatic power and influence to support her,
and to prevent a calamity which would be infinitely more dangerous to Europe and the
world than was the downfall of Russia six or seven years ago." Having thus lined Britain
up in diplomatic opposition to France, Smuts continued with advice against applying
generosity to the latter country on the question of French war debts, warning that this
would only encourage "French militarism."
“Do not let us from mistaken motives of generosity lend our aid to the further
militarization of the European continent. People here are already beginning to be
seriously alarmed about French armaments on land and in the air. In addition to these
armaments, the French government have also lent large sums to the smaller European