Note 73 — Chapter VII · THE SPIRITUAL ROOTS OF THE SETTLEMENT

We know now (see the interview with M. Paderewski in the New York World) that we compelled Poland to remain at war when she wanted to make peace. It has never been fully explained why the Prinkipo peace policy urged by Mr Lloyd George as early as December 1918 was defeated, and why instead we furnished munitions, tanks, aeroplanes, poison gas, military missions and subsidies in turn to Koltchak, Denikin, Yudenitch, Wrangel, and Poland. We prolonged the blockade—which in the early phases forbade Germany that was starving to catch fish in the Baltic, and stopped medicine and hospital supplies to the Russians—for fear, apparently, of the very thing which might have helped to save Europe, the economic co-operation of Russia and Central Europe.