DEPRESSION OVER EUROPE
THE British, American and German Governments have decided that this is not the moment to admit that the European Defence Community is dying, any more than it is the time to discuss what they propose to do when it is dead. From Chartwell, Washington and Bonn have come the same statements expressing the hope (though not, be it noted, the expectation) that the French Assembly will rise to the occasion and ratify the treaty as it stands; expressing also a Politely obstinate refusal to contemplate anything further ahead than the beginning of next week. Not for months have any three western countries done anything, even though it be only tb bury their heads, so smartly in unison. And the tragedy 15 that they are doing it not because they believe what they say but because to do anything else—to imply that a tolerable alternative can be devised—would, they feel, blow away the last faint wisp of a chance that the Assembly of the Fourth Republic will rise to an occasion for the first time in its history.
But though this may be a reason for refusing to speculate on the future, it is no reason at all for refusing to wipe the !and out of one eye and look at the ludicrous contradiction Into which Western policy has now been pushed. All the six signatories of the EDC, together with Britain and the United States, have repeated in various formula: over the past week that the ' principal aims of their European policy remain Unchanged '; that these include ` tightening up European co-operation . . . and avoiding all neutralisation of Germany' (the Brussels communiqué); that ` the Ministers were agreed on the importance of maintaining theounity .of the free nations of the West and the necessity of early practical steps to give effect to this ' (the Chartwell communique); that ' the choice for us today is between a German rearmament on which we can still keep an eye and rearmament which would escape all control on our part' (M. Mendes-France); that ` that treaty [of the EDC] embodies principles which are vital to the perpetua- tion of peace and freedom in Western Europe' (Mr. Dulles). From all of which, everybody would seem to .agree that Germany must be rearmed, and 'that the best way of doing this is within a closer European framework than NATO. They even appear to be agreed that the matter is urgent. It is urgent because Russia is investing week by week more charm, more skill, and more appeal in its efforts to prevent the rearmament of Western Germany and is receiving, week by week, greater dividends. Who would have thought, for Instance, that the Soviet Note of July 25, inviting the Western Powers to discuss Russian membership of NATO, would be lying about unanswered five weeks later because the West could not decide how to answer it? This is a degree of doubt !bat Stalin never managed to instill. Rearmament of Germany Is also urgent because Dr. Adenauer, though his party was returned less than a year ago with almost an absolute majority 111 the Federal elections, is now in trouble. He is in trouble on the Left because the Social Democrats are arguing each week with greater effect that ` the next-step is a new policy of Putting the unity of East and West Germany first '; he is in trouble on the Right because the German Nationalists are arguing each week with greater effect that Western Germany, dented her place in the European community, should develop a national army and a national policy; he is in trouble generally b ccause the defections of Dr. John and Herr Schmidt-Wittmack have been regarded, inevitably, as symbols of his trouble. He 13 in trouble finally because far too many people in the West are allowing themselves to be confused about him. In even the most respectable intellectual circles, people are to be heard Ponderously believing that Dr. Adenauer is a ` front' for a Nazi revival. If this goes on, the West will be in a fair way to throwing out of the window its best natural asset—that is, the presence of a strong yet anti-totalitarian German at the head of the Federal Republic, a man whose determination it is to deprive the totalitarians of just those opportunities which enabled Hitler to destroy the Weimar Republic.
Finally, the rearmament of Germany is urgent because Russia has the largest army in the world and China has the second largest army in the world, and the proved intentions of both these powers are hostile to the non-Communist world. It is urgent because, among other things, there are in Eastern Germany about 85,000 ` military police ' (over and above a civilian police force of 92,000) organised in four infantry divisions and three mechanised divisions with 1,300 tanks and the same number of guns. • So the Western Powers are agreed that the rearmament of Germany is urgent, and they agree that it is better to rearm Germany within some kind of European community than in the amorphous conglomeration of national armies and international officials which at present constitutes NATO. Yet the recos; nition of these facts does not appear to have prevented the French Government from demanding modifications in the treaty which would once again have postponed the final decision, or the governments of the five other European countries, supported by the United States, from rejecting these modifications although they must have suspected that the alternative to a modified treaty would be no treaty at all.
Why either side behaved as they did is not easy to under- stand. M. Mendes-Prance said that he believed (and he must know) that with his changes the treaty would probably be ratified by the French Assembly, but without them it could not be. Yet, though the removal of the supra-national charac- teristics of the treaty and the introduction of some discrimina- tion against Germany may have appealed to the French Right Wing, it semed equally likely to repulse a fair section of the MRP (which has still not forgiven the Prime Minister for his ' surrender' in Indo-China) and that half of the Socialist Party which was in favour of the original treaty.
The other five, for their part, appeared to be more violent in their opposition to M. Mendes-France's approach than either his demands or the general circumstances justified. It is true that some of the proposals, particularly those which would have exempted part of the French Army in Europe from participating in the Community and were therefore discrimina- tory against Germany, would have meant that the treaty had to be ratified again. But 4he Community was at stake. It might have been worth going even this far to save it. The truth is, however, that the French are no longer believed and no longer trusted in Western Europe. They have asked for too many protocols and annexes to a treaty that was signed two years ago, and they have had too many abortive debates at which too many decisions have been passed up for too long. And, for all his brilliance and his successes, M. Mendes-France, the man whom the Communists'voted for and who was backed by some as the leader of a new Front Populaire, does not seem to be the man to restore Europe's confidence in France. As he is almost certainly the only man who can restore the con- fidence of the French people in their own government, his• failure at Brussels was tragic.
Failing a miracle in the French Assembly next week, the onus of this tragedy must be carried by Great Britain. It is true, but not enough, to say that the failure is a French failure. Perhaps France would have failed Europe even if Britain had not failed France; but that is not a good reason for the British to go on evading their true commitments to Europe. Ever since the end of the war, it has been nonsense for Britain to continue to behave in its relations with Europe as if it were an Imperial Power. Either it must protect its Empire, which it has decided that it can no longer do, or it must recognise that, for military purposes, it is primarily a part of continental Europe. With the withdrawal from the Suez Canal, and the announced intention of creating a strategic reserve in this country,, the arguments against acknowledging these European commitments become even Nireaker just at the time when the arguments for recognising them become overwhelming. It may be too late to save the EDC. It is very nearly too late to start evolving some other device to perform the same functions. But so long as Dr. Adenauer remains alive and in good health, it is probably not quite too late to create some kind of a European military community with Germany which does not involve supra-nationalism' or ` federalism,' or anything else to which the British need have constitutional objections, but which uses the last opportunity to adopt Germany as a civilised friend instead of a dangerous ally.
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