1940: World Peace

War on Four Continents.

The year 1940 was a year marked by war in four of the five continents, while the fifth continent participated in the war to a slight degree, and was by it deeply affected in its political and economic life. The absence of world peace throughout 1940 made its desirability even more obvious and increased everywhere the discussions of permanent foundations for a just and lasting peace. The year 1940 brought definite proof that peace cannot be established on the old simple devices of neutrality or isolation. A large number of countries which had clung firmly to these concepts and had faithfully adhered to their requirements found themselves involved in the war against their will and saw their whole national life destroyed. Nor was the old system of alliances considered a sufficient guarantee of peace. The spread of the war began to convince more and more people that the only guarantee of a lasting peace would be the creation of an international order in which all nations would cooperate. (See also EUROPEAN WAR.)

Two Concepts of Coming World Peace.

As regards this coming world order, two different and opposed schools of thought have arisen. Germany, Italy and Japan claimed that this new world order could be based only on Fascist totalitarian ideas; that it could not be built by the cooperation of free and equal nations, but only on the basis of a strict hierarchy in which certain nations would take the leadership and assign to all other nations their place and rank according to the conceptions and needs of the leading or master nations. On Dec. 16 the Japanese admiral, Nobumasa Suetsugu, a former Cabinet Minister, opened the first conference of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, the new unitary political organization of the Japanese totalitarian state, with an address in which he said: 'The Great War raging in Asia and in Europe is entirely different from past wars. It aims at the construction of a new world order by the rising states, who oppose the old order based on individualism with the Anglo-Saxon as its nucleus. Japan in Asia and Germany and Italy in Europe are each striving to destroy that old order.'The nucleus of the new world order which, so it was assured, would bring world peace, was the alliance concluded on Sept. 27, 1940, in Berlin, binding Germany, Italy and Japan to close military, economic and cultural collaboration.

A different conception of world peace was envisaged in the allocution of Pope Pius XII on Christmas Day 1939, in which he regarded as the fundamental condition of a just and honorable peace the assurance of the right of independence to all nations, large or small, strong or weak. The most prominent part of his address was a strong rebuke to the Fascist conception of peace, when he said: 'One nation's will to live must never be tantamount to the death sentence of another. When this equality of rights has been destroyed, injured or imperiled, juridical order requires reparation, whose measure and extent is not determined by the sword or selfish arbitrary judgment, but by the standards of justice and reciprocal equity.' The Pope further insisted upon the necessity for the reconstruction of a League of Nations as a guarantee of security and upon the obligations of all nations to meet the needs and just demands of racial minorities. The Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano, on Nov. 27, 1940, emphasized the fact that the Pope still adhered to his basis for peace as announced on Christmas Day 1939.

These suggestions by the Pope coincided on the whole with the democratic ideals of the basis of world peace, which may be summed up as the complete equality of all nations, large or small, and the protection of their security by mutual cooperation and collective action. King George VI, in his speech at the opening of Parliament on Nov. 21, made it clear that the continuation of the struggle against the aggressor nations until freedom is made secure offers the only hope that afterwards the nations, released from oppression and violence, can work together again on a basis of ordered liberty and social justice. Growing numbers in the democratic countries realized that victory in the present struggle against Fascist aggression and threats of aggression was not enough, but that it was only the necessary condition for the establishment of a lasting world peace; because otherwise the nations might again be faced by a similar struggle after a short time.

United States and Great Britain as Nucleus for World Peace.

Similarly to the German-Japanese cooperation which was to be the nucleus of a Fascist world order, the United States and Great Britain emerged more and more as the necessary nucleus for the establishment of a democratic world peace. No definite plans for the forms of peace organization have yet been put forward. The League of Nations, which had been the outcome of the first World War, has practically stopped its activities as a result of the present war. On July 26, 1940, Joseph Avenol announced his resignation as Secretary-General of the League, a position which he had assumed on July 1, 1933, after having been for many years Deputy Secretary-General under Sir Eric Drummond. Thus the political activity of the League of Nations came to an end. Its economic and financial departments were transferred from Geneva, Switzerland, to Princeton, New Jersey, where the University offered to provide a haven for them for the duration of the war. The International Labor Office was moved from Geneva to Canada. The domination of the European continent by Fascist influences, after France had capitulated to Germany and established a semi-Fascist government which readily abandoned democracy and the traditions of the French Revolution, necessarily shifted the center of all democratic endeavors to establish world peace from the European continent to the Atlantic nations.

Proposals for Federated Union of Democracies.

In view of this situation the plan of an American journalist, Mr. Clarence Streit, who had been for many years the correspondent for The New York Times at the seat of the League of Nations, gained adherents rapidly. Mr. Streit had published in 1939 a book called Union Now, in which he proposed the formation of a federation of the existing democracies in a way similar to that in which the thirteen states in North America had combined to form the Federal Government of the United States. As in that case, so now on a much enlarged scale, federal cooperation would assure the security of all member states, would case immensely the burden of their military establishments, and would increase considerably the economic well-being of the populations, solving thus the two most urgent problems of the present time, military and economic security, and solving them in a democratic way after the example of the United States. Mr. Streit believed that the close cooperation of the democratic states would not only stem the tide of Fascist aggression and would bring peace to all the democracies without the necessity of war, because the united strength of all the democracies would be sufficient to deter all possible aggression; he also regarded the inter-democratic federation as a possible nucleus for a future federal world government of equal and free nations on a democratic basis. When Mr. Streit made his proposal, the democracies of Europe were still all in existence; in 1940 most of them had disappeared and the others had become strategically immobilized, like Switzerland or Sweden. For the moment, therefore, the federal union had to consist mainly of the United States, Great Britain and the British dominions. The inclusion of Eire would also solve advantageously the thorny problem of Ireland's relation to the defense of Great Britain and of the Atlantic Ocean.

It is noteworthy that shortly before the fall of French democracy the British government headed by Winston Churchill made a similar proposal to France. The British suggested that the French and British Empires be united in a federation that would put the resources of both to common use and advantage, and establish one common citizenship for the citizens of both countries and empires. There is no doubt that such a suggestion, if acted upon earlier, would have saved not only France but also French democracy, and would have changed the course of the war entirely. Unfortunately the suggestion came too late. The Federal Unionists at present emphasize, therefore, the need of establishing such a common tie to avert a possible catastrophe and to save Great Britain, and later the United States, from the necessity of facing alone the superior power of a coalition of Fascist enemy forces.

Further Cooperative Proposals.

As a step in the direction of federal cooperation for the establishment of peace, the Czechoslovak and Polish governments concluded in London on Nov. 11 an agreement according to which, after having regained their independence, the two nations would enter a close association in political, economic and defense matters. They envisaged a common foreign policy, a unified army, a customs union, a common monetary system, a free interchange of goods, and unification of railways and communications. This new association is regarded as a union of free peoples, which can be joined by others on a free and equal basis. A joint Polish-Czechoslovak coordination committee was set up to continue the study of this union and to put into practice those of its phases which are applicable immediately. Thus Poland and Czechoslovakia closed the period of past recriminations and disputes to help build a new order arising from the free will of free peoples.

The Turkish government also tried to build up a close confederation of all the Balkan states as the only means of maintaining their freedom and peace by concerted action, and thus to make impossible Fascist aggression against one of these states after the other. These efforts, however, were of no avail, and as a result of the isolationist policies of the different Balkan states the Balkan nations faced being drawn into the war and losing their independence.

United States Arms Against Totalitarian States.

In the United States a growing number of people became aware of the immediate self-interest of America in the reestablishment of world peace on a secure foundation. This change in public opinion was not only based on the conviction that the United States cannot live at peace in a world of lawlessness and anarchy, and that the nation is therefore obliged through self-interest to cooperate in finding ways and means to organize internationally for concerted action in opposition to aggression; with the certainty of an Anglo-French victory (which most Americans had assumed in 1939) fading, the Administration and the majority of the people recognized the immediate danger to American security and forms of life involved in a Fascist victory. The openly declared cooperation of Germany and Japan, the fusion of the wars in Europe and Asia into one great enterprise with common aims, made it imperative for the security of America to keep the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans under the control of the American navy or of friendly powers from whom an attack against America could not be expected. Alarmed by the prospects of the situation, the United States in 1940 entered upon an armament program of unprecedented dimensions, introduced military conscription, and began to reorganize its industrial production so as to be able to meet the requirements of modern war and to hold aggressors at a respectful distance from the American continent. A transaction with Great Britain, in which the United States gave to the latter country fifty of its old World War destroyers in exchange for nine naval, air and military bases in British possessions in the Western Atlantic increased considerably the security of the continental United States and the Panama Canal against attacks from across the Atlantic Ocean. Successive Gallup Polls showed that a growing majority of the American people wished to go further and further in giving Great Britain and China (and later on Greece) all possible assistance in warding off the attacks by the aggressor nations, and so to protect the United States against direct involvement in war. (See also UNITED STATES.)

Principles of United States on World Peace.

The principles governing the United States with regard to world peace were clearly put forward in a most important speech made by Secretary of State Cordell Hull before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Jan. 15, 1941. According to this statement, the efforts of the American government were directed to the following objectives: 'Peace and security for the United States with advocacy of peace and limitation and reduction of armament as universal international objectives; support for law, order, justice, and morality and the principle of non-intervention; restoration and cultivation of sound economic methods and relations, based on equality of treatment; development in the promotion of these objectives, of the fullest practicable measure of international cooperation; promotion of the security, solidarity, and general welfare of the Western Hemisphere.' Secretary Hull pointed out that the United States, and the world at large, were faced by an extraordinary situation, that neither non-aggression agreements nor the law of neutrality, nor any neutrality legislation, served as a protection to peaceful countries when it suited the convenience of the aggressor nations to disregard their own pledges. He maintained that the Fascist countries have proclaimed boldly and openly their purpose of world-wide conquest, and have said that their philosophy is inconsistent with and directly opposed to that of the democracies, which is outmoded and must give way to Fascism. For the United States 'to withhold aid to victims of attack would not result in a restoration of peace. It would merely tend to perpetuate the enslavement of nations already invaded and subjugated and provide an opportunity for the would-be conquerors to gather strength for an attack against us.' Thus it may be said that during 1940, as a result of events abroad, the conviction grew in the United States that the self-interest and the security of the country itself are indissolubly linked with the problem of establishing world peace by defeating the intentions of the aggressor nations, and by then building up a stable system of international cooperation and respect for international law, backed by the collective efforts of all peace-loving nations. See also articles on various nations involved and articles on EUROPEAN WAR; WORLD ECONOMICS; and MILITARY SCIENCE.