The Geneva Protocol, by David Hunter Miller

CHAPTER VII. 26
Furthermore, it is necessary to point out that the imposed origin of a situation may not continue as the cause of
that situation. It may become accepted and voluntary, a full agreement. An instance here is the reparations
question. The status quo as to reparations (a very uncertain one) imposed by the Treaty of Versailles upon
Germany, has now, under that very Treaty, become an agreed status quo by reason of the voluntary adoption
by Germany of the Dawes Report; for in reality as well as in strictness of law that plan could not have been
adopted, much less be carried out, without the voluntary assent of Germany to its provisions.
However, taking the frontier status quo of the Peace Treaties at its worst, that is to say at its alleged worst,
admitting, in other {34} words, that parts of it are unjust and are the result only of force, what are we to say as
to the future?
The possibility of change which, under the supposition that I have made, would in itself be admittedly
desirable, is along two lines, the line of agreement or the line of war. The so-called fixation or consecration of
this status quo under the League of Nations in no way precludes a change by agreement, the utmost that it can
do is to preclude a change by war.
Accordingly, we are confronted at the outset with the question as to whether the continuance of this status quo
is, or is not, a worse evil than war. Even those who assume or who believe that war is the preferable of the two
must, in order to reach that belief, hold that change by agreement is impossible. Such an assumption is
contrary to the facts of history, but for the sake of this discussion it may be admitted.
In other words, I am willing to assume that a particular part of the frontier status quo is wrong, is unjust, and
was brought about by force, and should be changed, and that it cannot be changed by agreement, and come
directly to the question if, in these circumstances, it should or should not be changed by war. My answer to
this question is: No. And I do not think it is necessary to put this answer merely on the ground of the evil of
the war itself, the death, the destruction and so on. It is sufficient to support a negative answer to point out that
the effect of the war could not be limited. War never is limited, it goes to lengths that have nothing to do with
the supposed injustice for which it is commenced.
Let me give an instance as a concrete supposition. Take the Bulgarian-Greek frontier and suppose, as I do,
that it ought to be changed, and suppose further, as the advocates of war assert, that it should be changed by
war between Bulgaria and Greece; one of two things would happen in all human probability. Either Greece
would be the victor and then not only would the boundary be as unjust to Bulgaria as it is now, but much more
so. Or else Bulgaria would be the victor, in which case the injustice would simply be reversed; the frontier
would not move to any {35} theoretical point of justice, but would move to the point dictated by the new
Peace treaty.
In other words, war is not like a litigation which ends in the settlement of a particular dispute. Any war, in its
settlement, goes far beyond the dispute which brought it about; every war opens up every possible ambition
and desire of the victor.[6] Did the World War end merely in deciding the question about the rights of Austria
and Serbia in connection with the murder of the Archduke? Where was the fate of the German colonies
decided--in East Africa and in the Pacific, or on the Western Front?
This whole question is of vital importance in connection with the Protocol of Geneva. If that Protocol comes
into force and is accepted by Germany, by Austria, by Hungary and by Bulgaria, it will have this effect at
least; it will change what I may call the status of the status quo in regard to these countries to this extent, that
in lieu of that status quo being one imposed by force, it will have become one agreed to, at least to the point
that it is agreed that the status quo may not be changed by war but only by agreement.[7] As a practical
example, it will mean, as we now see, that the German effort to regain some of her lost colonies under the
mandate system, will again be an effort of negotiation[8] and not an effort of force.
All that the Covenant or the Protocol of Geneva attempts to do about the status quo is to say that frontiers