Premier Nitti had been right in his prophecy at San Remo that representative Turks could not be found to sign the treaty. The Turkish delegation at Sèvres represented only a Constantinople Government in captivity to the Entente Powers. There was a day of mourning at Constantinople in protest against the treaty. But the Turkish Nationalists issued a defiance from Angora, declaring that the Turks would not be bound by the signature. Behind them stood not only Soviet Russia, which had refused to recognize the four preceding treaties, but also France and Italy, who had begun to fear that the Greeks were agents of the British, and that the scheme of demilitarizing the Straits would mean their control by the dominant sea-power.
The Treaty of Sèvres was not ratified. Its sole hope of success depended upon the Greek army. In the end it was going to be seen that force would save Turkey from partition, as it saved Albania, and that, in the chaos and anarchy and slaughter ahead, the League of Nations was going to make no effort to settle the Near Eastern question.
THE INTERNAL EVOLUTION AND FOREIGN POLICY OF RUSSIA UNDER THE SOVIETS
In the good old days, when the alliance with Russia was regarded as the salvation of France, Romanoffs frequently radiated from Deauville to other Norman watering-places. The honor of a visit from a Russian royal personage was commemorated in the favorite French fashion by municipalities where Socialists did not predominate. So at Houlgate, my summer home, the street leading to the Grand Hôtel used to be the Rue Marie Feodorovna. In the summer of 1917 we found that the name had been changed to Rue Prince Lvoff. Before the end of the summer it became Rue Kerensky in honor of the investigator of Brusiloff’s last offensive. That name, of course, was no longer possible in 1918. In the first summer of the victory, after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, events dictated Rue de l’Amiral Kolchak. It was replaced by Rue Wrangel, and then the street was taken away from Russia altogether!
I am not telling this as a funny story, but because it illustrates the tragedy of France torn from her moorings, aware of her inability to ride the storm alone on the high seas of recharted Europe, not knowing which way to turn, and instinctively cherishing the hope that the bond with Russia would not be definitely broken. Great Britain and the United States do not need alliances with other powers as the essential condition of national existence. Italy sees the door wide open to return to the Germanic alliance. But the Russian revolution confronted France with a problem that victory over Germany could not solve. Only with this fact constantly in mind can we discuss intelligently the internal evolution and foreign policy of Russia under the Soviets. For all that has happened in Russia since the overthrow of the Czarist Government is inextricably bound up with the attitude of the victors in the World War toward Russia. In the great volume of books and articles on the experiment with Communism one finds an almost universal failure to recognize this fact. Partisans pro and contra have given us pictures of Soviet Russia that are accurate enough impressions of confusion and anarchy, but that are lacking when the attempt is made to explain how and why these things have happened.