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As I was browsing through some of the pamphlets, I came across one pamphlet entitled \u201cWhat About the Secret Treaties?\u201d \u00a0This piece was an editorial published by the weekly periodical called \u201cThe New Age,\u201d which reviewed politics, literature, art, and culture and was based in London. \u00a0I think that this pamphlet is important because it shows an accurate representation of how many British people felt toward their government during this war and is reflected in today\u2019s society when state secrets are published on websites like Wikileaks.<\/span><\/p>\n These secret treaties were documents that Great Britain and other European Allies had created to decide how to divide up territories between themselves after the war was over. \u00a0When the Bolsheviks dominated Russian control, they published these secret treaties to prove that the larger nations in Europe were not fighting, as they had previously claimed, for small countries\u2019 rights, since they were planning on taking advantage of small national groups within their own colonies (Manella 38).<\/span><\/p>\n One of the things that struck me as interesting about this piece was that the author chose to write it anonymously under the name of \u201cThe Foreign Editor (1).\u201d \u00a0He might have chosen to use a pseudonym because his views were controversial to both pacifists and to those who were in favor of the secret treaties. \u00a0He believed that the people who created these secret treaties \u00a0should be held accountable and should give an explanation as to why these treaties were made in secret. \u00a0However, unlike pacifists, he believed that there is an understandable explanation as to why it was made a secret. \u00a0\u201c[We] must not fall into the error of suspecting, as the pacifists do, that because the secret treaties require to be explained, therefore no satisfactory explanation of them exists, and that all explanation is a vain attempt to explain away (3).\u201d \u00a0Despite the fact that the author believed that it was wrong for the British prime minister to not address the secret treaties once the Bolsheviks published them, he did believe that there are comprehensible reasons that these nations would keep the treaties a secret. \u00a0One of the more prominent reasons that the author justifies is that these documents contained ways to weaken Germany and strengthen the Allied powers, so it would make sense that the Allies would not want to broadcast this plan (7). \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n One of the author\u2019s main critiques of the treaties was that they were designed to decide the fates of territories by transferring them from one nation to another without regard to the people that occupy these areas, which contradicted the democratic methods that these nations were supposedly going to war over (3). \u00a0The argument that many of these Allied nations in Europe gave to their citizens as a justifiable reason to go to war was that they were fighting for the democracy of all people, but these treaties showed that the governments of Allied countries that people have risked their lives for are betraying their trust by lying to their citizens. \u00a0Another problem that the author had with the treaties was that it likely prolonged Germany\u2019s involvement in the war because the treaties were designed to demolish Germany\u2019s economy (4). \u00a0If these treaties had not been as harsh as they were toward Germany, then the Germans may have backed out of the war earlier, which would have saved thousands of lives for both the Allied and Central Powers. <\/span><\/p>\n The concerns expressed by the author and many other British citizens about the lack of accountability of the government when these secret treaties were published mirrored some of the reactions by many American citizens when Edward Snowden released classified information to \u201cThe Guardian.\u201d \u00a0These documents included information about the NSA and CIA hacking private citizens\u2019 and world leaders\u2019 personal devices to obtain information about them, which is supposed to be illegal without a warrant. \u00a0While most Americans were upset that the government would do this without their permission, other people thought that the U.S. was justified if it was protecting the security of the citizens. \u00a0Although it is sometimes important for nations to keep secrets, so that they do not alert their adversaries to their future plans, these secrets can also be very harmful to those that are affected by them, especially when the government does not address the reasoning behind them.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As I was browsing through some of the pamphlets, I came across one pamphlet entitled \u201cWhat About the Secret Treaties?\u201d \u00a0This piece was an editorial published by the weekly periodical called \u201cThe New Age,\u201d which reviewed politics, literature, art, and … Continue reading