But the directing line of work of the treaties has been to break down
Germany, to cut her up, to suffocate her.

France had but one idea, and later on did not hesitate to admit it:
to dismember Germany, to destroy her unity. By creating intolerable
conditions of life, taking away territory on the frontier, putting
large districts under military occupation, delaying or not making any
diplomatic appointments and carrying on communications solely through
military commissions, a state of things was brought about which must
inevitably tend to weaken the constitutional unity of the German
Empire. Taking away from Germany 84 thousand kilometres of territory,
nearly eight million inhabitants and all the most important mineral
resources, preventing the unity of the German people and the six
million and five hundred thousand of German Austrians to which
Austria was then reduced, putting the whole German country under an
interminable series of controls--all this did more harm to German
unity than would have been done by taking the responsibility of a
forcible and immediate division to which the Germans could not have
consented and which the Allies could not have claimed to impose.

What has been said about Germany and the Versailles Treaty can be said
about all the other conquered countries and all the other treaties,
with merely varying proportions in each case.

The verdict that has to be passed on them will very soon be shown by
facts--if indeed facts have not shown already that, in great measure,
what had been laid down cannot be carried out. One thing is certain,
that the actual treaties threaten to ruin conquerors and conquered,
that they have not brought peace to Europe, but conditions of war and
violence. In Clemenceau's words, the treaties are a way of going on