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WOODROW  WILSON 

AND 

WORLD    SETTLEMENT 


Iliirris  i{-  Hiring. 


W  oodi  (t\\   \\  ilson 


WOODROW  WILSON 

AND 

WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

WRITTEN  FROM  HIS  UNPUBLISHED 
AND  PERSONAL  MATERIAL 

BY 
RAY  STANNARD  BAKER 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

FROM 

PHOTOGRAPHS 

FACSIMILES    AND    MAPS 


VOLUME 
I 


LONDON:  WILLIAM  HEINEMANN  LTD. 
NEW  YORK:  DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  CO. 


V.   I 


PRINTED   IN   THE   UNITED    STATES   OF   AMERICA 


"7^  is  a  very  perilous  thing  to  determine  the  foreign  policy 
of  a  nation  in  the  terms  of  material  interest.  .  .  .  Do 
not  think  .  .  .  that  the  questions  of  the  day  are  mere 
questions  of  policy  and  diplomacy.  They  are  shot  through 
with  the  principles  of  life.  We  dare  not  turn  from  the 
principle  that  morality  and  not  expediency  is  the  thing  that 
must  guide  us.     .     .     ." 

WooDROW  Wilson,  at  Mobile,  1913. 


PREFACE  AND  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

THIS  book  is  a  record  of  the  Peace  Conference  of 
Paris,  1919,  written  from  the  original  and  funda- 
mental documents.  It  sets  forth  especially  the 
American  policies,  and  exhibits  the  struggle  of  Woodrow 
Wilson  ^nd_  his  ad visers_to  apply  them  to  the  bitter  prob- 
lems of  the  war-torn  world^  The  first  two  volumes  con- 
tain the  narrative  of  what  happened  at  Paris :  the  third  is 
devoted  wholly  to  the  text  of  letters,  memoranda,  minutes, 
and  other  crucial  documents  referred  to  or  quoted  from  in 
the  narrative.  A  large  proportion  of  this  material  is  from 
the  private  files  of  Woodrow  Wilson  and  little  of  it  has 
hitherto  been  published. 

It  has  been  the  aim  of  the  writer  to  base  this  book  at 
all  points  upon  the  documents,  using  actual  quotations,  so 
far  as  space  would  permit,  to  develop  the  narrative.  With 
problems  as  serious  as  those  now  confronting  the  dis- 
tracted world,  it  would  be  a  light  mind  indeed  that 
would  turn  aside  for  special  pleading,  or  seek  to  make 
out  a  case  either  for  a  person  or  a  programme.  The 
great  purpose  of  this  book  has  therefore  been  to  see 
that  the  issues  were  made  clear:  to  show  what  Am- 
erica did:  what  the  results  really  were.  An  honest 
effort  has  been  made  to  bring  out  the  weaknesses  and 
defects  in  American  policy  as  well  as  the  elements  of 
strength  and  sound  leadership.  However_one_may  think_ 
of  the  Paris  Conference,  whether  as  a  success  or  as  a 

vii 


viii  PREFACE  XSD  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

failure,  it  was  an  adventure  packed  with  significance,  and 
when  all  is  said,  a  remarkable  exliibition  of  the  present 
state  of  civilization,  botli  material  and  spiritual:  its  prob- 
lems, its  vision,  its  quality  of  courage,  its  greeds  and 
aml)itions,  its  obsessions  iuid  fears,  its  vast  limitations. 
If  one  could  come  really  to  understand  this  unique  Peace 
Conference  he  would  understand  what  was  now  the  mat- 
ter with  human  institiitiQjis. 

"A  democracy  which  undertakes  to  control  its  own 
foreign  relations,"  said  Elihu  Koot  some  time  ago,  "ought 
to  know  something  about  the  subject."  The  beginning  of 
that  knowledge  must  be  understanding;  above  everything, 
therefore,  the  effort  of  the  writer  has  been  not  to  persuade 
the  reader  to  this  or  that  point  of  view,  but  to  explain  and 
clarify.  Without  understanding,  there  can  be  no  sound 
tliinking,  no  honest  judgments,  none  of  the  sympathy 
which  must  be  the  basis  of  any  future  world  cooperation. 

Yet  this  book  has  not  been  written  without  a  point  of 
view,  without  a  positive  and  deeply  felt  conviction  as  to 
what  America  should  do.  The  writer  believes  that  the 
only  way  out  of  present  difficulties  is  through  cooperation, 
based  upon  a  new  study  of  the  art  of  living  together  in  a 
crowded  world.  He  believes  not  only  in  political  co- 
operation, as  in  the  League  of  Nations,  but  in  economic 
cooperation,  without  which  there  can  be  no  sound  political 
cooperation.  He  believes,  above  all,  that  the  only  basis 
of  cooperation  is  the  willingness  of  each  of  the  cooperators 
to  assume  new  responsibilities,  to  make  sacrifices  of  im- 
mediate interest  for  future  benefits,  and  be  willing  if 
necessary  to  make  them  first.  He  believes  in  the  truth 
contained  in  Woodrow  Wilson's   saying  at  Manchester: 

"Interest  does  not  bind  men  together:  interest  separates 
men.  There  is  only  one  thing  that  can  bind  men  to- 
gether, and  tluit  is  common  devotion  to  right." 


PREFACE  AND  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS  ix 

In  the  preparation  of  this  book  the  writer  is  under 
obhgations  for  assistance  from  many  sources  greater  than 
he  can  ever  repay.  It  is  superfluous  to  speak  of  his  in- 
debtedness to  Woodrow  Wilson,  not  only  for  access  to  his 
'  invaluable  private  files,  not  only  for  his  readiness  in  many 
instances  to  interpret  documents  where  the  verbal  signifi- 
cance was  not  clear,  but  for  his  steady  confidence  and  his 
willingness  to  have  the  entire  truth,  so  far  as  the  writer 
could  get  at  it,  told  at  every  point. 

Besides  this,  one  of  the  greatest  satisfactions  the  writer 
has  had  has  been  the  generosity  of  many  of  the  other 
members  of  the  American  peace  delegation  at  Paris  in 
giving  him  access  to  their  personal  files,  or  supplying  him 
with  their  own  original  documents,  letters,  diaries,  and  the 
like;  and  in  many  cases  reading  and  criticizing  his  manu- 
scripts or  proofs.  This  cooperation  has  been  of  the  great- 
est value  in  correcting  and  completing  the  record. 

The  writer  feels  deeply  indebted,  among  others,  to 
Norman  H.  Davis,  Bernard  M.  Baruch,  and  John  Foster 
Dulles  for  assistance  in  connection  with  the  difficult  sub- 
ject of  the  economic  settlements;  to  Rear- Admiral  Cary  T. 
Grayson  for  many  friendly  suggestions;  to  Professor 
Douglas  Johnson,  Dr.  Isaiah  Bowman,  Professor  E.  T. 
Williams,  Stanley  K.  Hornbeck,  Professor  Charles  Sey- 
mour, and  others,  for  help  in  connection  with  the  various 
territorial  settlements;  to  Professor  James  T.  Shotwell, 
to  Professor  Manley  Hudson,  to  x\rthur  Sweetser,  to 
Charles  R.  Crane,  to  President  Henry  Churchill  King, 
to  Walter  S.  Rogers,  to  Harold  Phelps  Stokes,  to  Major- 
General  Mason  M.  Patrick,  and  finally  to  Colonel  House 
and  General  Bliss  for  assistance  in  various  ways. 

The  writer  wishes  also  to  acknowledge  his  especial 
indebtedness  to  Dr.  Joseph  V.  Fuller  of  Wisconsin  Uni- 
versity, whose  scholarly  assistance  in  the  analysis  and 


X  PREFACE  AND  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

digestion  of  the  immense  mass  of  the  documentary  ma- 
terial has  been  invaluable  in  the  preparation  of  this  work. 
Doctor  Fuller  has  made  a  specialty  of  modern  European 
history;  he  was  attached  to  the  x\merican  Peace  Com- 
mission  during  the  Paris  Conference  as  a  territorial  ad- 
visor; and  he  is  the  author  of  "Bismarck's  Diplomacy  at 
Its  Zenith,"  published,  1922,  by  the  Harvard  University 
Press.  He  brought  to  the  task,  therefore,  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  the  backgrounds  of  European  diplomacy, 
as  well  as  an  understanding  of  the  immediate  problems  of 
the  Peace  that  were  of  the  greatest  value.  The  loyal 
cooperation  of  Doctor  Fuller  not  only  enlarged,  at  every 
point,  the  scope  and  significance  of  this  book,  but  it 
added  a  zest  of  adventure,  a  flavour  of  common  effort,  to 
the  task,  which  the  writer  can  never  forget. 

An  earnest  attempt  has  been  made  to  consult  all  of  the 
important  books  so  far  written  both  here  and  in  Europe 
upon  the  Peace  Conference,  or  upon  problems  growing  out 
of  it,  and  references  will  be  found  to  many  of  them  in  the 
two  volumes  of  narrative.  Copious  quotations  are  made 
from  the  Secret  INIinutes  of  the  Councils  of  Ten,  Four,  and 
Five,  which  unfortunately  have  not  yet  been  published. 

It  is,  finally,  a  matter  of  great  regret  that  owing  to 
lack  of  time  and  space,  it  has  been  impossible  to  complete 
and  include  within  this  book  several  chapters  dealing  with 
important  aspects  of  the  Peace  Conference;  for  example, 
those  treating  of  Russia  and  Bolshevism,  Labour,  Racial 
and  I^eligious  Minorities — the  Jews  particularly — and  the 
struggle  of  international  organizations  of  women  for 
recognition  at  Paris.  It  may  prove  possible  to  work  out 
these  subjects  at  a  later  time. 

Amherst,  Massachusetts. 
August  15,  1922. 


CONTENTS 
VOLUME  I 

Preface  and  Acknowledgments vii 


FADE 


Important  Dates  Connected  with  the  Peace  Conference     xix 

Introduction:  Sources  of  Material;  President  Wilson's 

Documents xxiii 

PART  I 

Foundations  of  the  Peace  Conference 


CHAPTEB 
■V 


I.    The    American    Peace    Argosy    Sails:    Woodrow 

Wilson's  Vision  of  the  Peace 1 


"  II.  The  Old  Diplomacy  and  What  It  Stood  for— The 
European  Secret  Treaties  and  Their  Effect  upon 
the  Peace  Conference — Attitude  of  America 
toward  Secret  Diplomacy 23 

III.     Terms  of  the  Principal  Secret  Treaties  of  1915, 

1916,  and  1917 47 

,  IV.  The  Turkish  Empire  as  Booty — Terms  of  the 
Secret  Treaties  and  Agreements  for  the  Partition 
of  Turkey 64 

V.    The  Slump  in  Idealism 82 


xii  CONTENTS 

PART  II 

The  Old  and  the  New  Diplomacy:  Organization 

AND  Procedure 

CBAPTEB  PAOI 

VI.  Organization  and  Preparation  of  the  "New 
Diplomacy"  to  Meet  the  Old — The  American 
"Inquiry" — The  Origin  of  President  Wilson's 
Fourteen  Points 97 

VII.  Publicity  and  Secrecy  at  Paris — Institution  of  the 
American  Press  Bureau — Organization  of 
Correspondents — Development  of  Sources  of 
News 116 

VIII.  President  Wilson's  Struggle  for  Publicity  within 
the  Secret  Councils — Attitude  of  France  and 
Great  Britain — Problem  of  Publication  of  the 
Treaty 136 

IX.     Forces  of  the  Old  and  New  Join  Issue  at  Paris — 

Struggle  between  Military  and  Civil  Leaders    .      161 

X.  Organization  of  the  Peace  Conference,  and  Strug- 
gle for  Control 174 

XI.     Struggle   for   a   Programme  of  Procedure — The 

French  Plan— Wilson's  "List  of  Subjects'*.      .      191 

XII.     The   Battle   of   the   Languages:   English  Versus 

French  as  the  Official  Language  of  the  Treaty .     202 

PART  III 
The  League  and  the  Peace 

XIII.  The  Origin  of  the  League  of  Nations — History 

of  the  Covenant — Wilson's  Drafts       .      .      .     213 

XIV.  The  Key  to  the  Peace — Struggle  of  President 

Wilson  to  Make  the  League  of  Nations  an 


CONTENTS 


XIII 

PAGE 


"Integral   Part   of   the    General  Treaty  of 
Peace"    ....     * 235 

XV.  War  Spoils  at  Paris— Struggle  to  Secure  Divi- 
sion of  the  Former  German  Colonies  in  Ad- 
vance of  the  Organization  of  the  League — 
President's  Fight  for  His  Principles     .      .      .     250  ■^ 

XVI.  Framing  the  Covenant — Work  of  the  League  of 
Nations  Commission — Effort  to  Escape  from 
the  Atmosphere  of  War  by  Means  of  a  Pre- 
liminary Treaty  Settling  Military,  Naval,  and 
Air  Terms 276 

XVII.  While  Wilson  Was  Away— Attempts  to  Side- 
Track  the  League  of  Nations — Balfour  Reso- 
lution of  February  22 — Wilson's  Vital  Decla- 
ration of  March  15  that  the  "League  of 
Nations  Should  Be  Made  an  Integral  Part 
of  the  Treaty  of  Peace" — Beginning  of 
Coldness  between  President  Wilson  and 
Colonel  House 295 

XVTII.  American  Criticism  of  the  Covenant — Wilson's 
Programme  for  Revision — Bitter  French  Op- 
position— The  Monroe  Doctrine  and  the 
Covenant — Article  X  the  Storm  Centre   .      .     314 


PART  IV 

Struggle  for  Limitation  of  Armaments 

XIX.     The  American  Programme  for  Limitation  of 
Armaments — Lloyd  George's  Resolutions — 
Wilson  Demands  General  Disarmament,  Not 
Merely  the  Disarmament  of  Germany    . 

XX.  Land  Armament  and  French  Fear — Struggle 
Between  Americans  and  French  Over  Limi- 
tation of  Land  Armament,  Compulsory  Ser- 


343 


XIV 

CHAPTEB 


XXI. 


XXII. 
XXIII. 

-   XXIV. 


CONTENTS 

PAOB 

v'ice,  and  Private  Manufacture  of  Munitions 

of  War 357 

Problems  of  Naval  Disarmament  at  Paris — 
American  Programme  of  Sinking  the  German 
Ships  Defeated  by  French  Demand  for  Dis- 
tribution— British  Sea  Policy       ....     379 

Control  of  Armaments  of  Small  Nations — 
Attitude  of  France 393 

Problems  of  Controlling  the  New  Instrumental- 
ities of  Warfare :  Airplanes,  Poison  Gas,  Sub- 
marines     408 

The  Use  of  Native  African  and  Asiatic  Soldiers 
in  Modern  War 422 


LIST  OF  HALF-TONE  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Woodrow  Wilson .  Frontispiece 


FACING  PAGE 


Cartoon  in  a  British  labour  paper  a  few  weeks  before 
the  Conference  opened  in  Paris 10 

Robert  Lansing,  Secretary  of  State  and  member  of 
the  American  Commission  to  Negotiate  Peace.       42 

Edward  M.  House,  member  of  the  American  Com- 
mission to  Negotiate  Peace 218 

President  Wilson  sailing  to  America  on  the  George 
Washington  with  the  completed  Covenant  of  the 
League  of  Nations,  February  15,  1919.      .      .      .     282 


XV 


LIST  OF  TEXT  ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 


Map  showing  the  proposed  acquisitions  for  Italy, 
agreed  on  in  the  Treaty  of  London       ....       52 

Map  showing  the  territories  promised  to  Rumania 
by  secret  treaty,  on  the  condition  that  she  take 
sides  with  the  Alhes 55 

How  Turkey  was  carved  by  six  secret  agreements    .       66 

The  TFor/c?  Cartoon,  "Nothing  Doing"  .      ...       85 

Don't  Be  Wangled,  Wilson! 88 

Facsimile  of  Page  30  of  Inquiry  Report  with  Presi- 
dent Wilson's  Notes  in  stenography  on  the  mar- 
gin, showing  how  he  worked  out  Point  XIII  of  the 
Fourteen Ill 

Chart  showing  the  origins  of  the  League  of  Nation's 
Covenant         215 

Facsimile  of  original  copy  of  the  Covenant  showing 
corrections  in  Article  III  afterward  Article  X  in 
President  Wilson's  handwriting 220 

Facsimile  of  first  page  of  minutes  of  League  of  Na- 
tion's Commission 233 

President  Wilson's  private  memorandum  written  by 
him  on  his  own  typewriter  for  his  speech  at  the 
Plenary  Session  of  February  14 286 

Three  pencilled  notes  from  Colonel  House  to  Wood- 
row  Wilson 305 

xvii 


xviii  LIST  OF  TEXT  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Facsimile  of  ex-President  Taft's  original  cabled  sug- 
gestions for  revision  of  the  Covenant  with  Presi- 
dent Wilson's  notes  in  his  own  handwriting  .      .     328 

Original  nieniorandum  showing  counter-proposal  of 
British  for  amendment  regarding  Monroe  Doc- 
trine, with  Colonel  House's  memorandum.      .      .     330 


IMPORTANT  DATES  CONNECTED  WITH 
THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE 

April  6, 1917— United  States  declares  war. 

November  7,  1917 — Petrograd  falls  into  the  control  of  the 
Bolsheviki. 

January  5,  1918 — Lloyd  George's  War  Aims  Speech  to  the 
Trade  Union  Conference. 

January  8, 1918 — President  Wilson's  "Fourteen  Points  Speech" 
to  Joint  Session  of  Congress. 

March  3,  1918 — Peace  at  Brest-Litovsk. 

July  4,  1918— President  Wilson's  "Four  Points  Speech"  at 
Mt.  Vernon. 

September  27,  1918 — President  Wilson's  "League  of  Nations 
Speech  "  at  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House,  New  York. 

November  4,  1918 — Meeting  of  Supreme  War  Council  on  reply 
to  Germany,  in  which  British  made  their  reservation  to 
Point  II  and  the  Italians  to  Point  IX  of  the  Fourteen. 

November  11,  1918 — Armistice  signed. 

December  2,  1918 — Conference  of  Lloyd  George,  Clemenceau, 
and  Orlando  in  London  to  discuss  Peace  Conference  ar- 
rangements: Cclcnel  House  representing  America. 

December  14.  1918 — President  Wilson  arrives  in  Paris,  10:30 

A.  M. 

December  25,  1918 — President  Wilson  with  the  American  Army 
at  the  front. 

December  28,  1918 — President  Wilson's  Speech  at  the  Guild- 
hall, London. 

December  30,  1918 — President  Wilson's  Speech  at  Manchester, 
England. 

xix 


XX  CHRONOLOGY 

January  3,  1919 — President  Wilson's  Speech  at  Rome. 

January  12,  1919 — First  meeting  of  the  Council  of  Ten  at  the 
French  Foreign  Office. 

January  18,  1919 — First  plenary  session  of  the  Peace  Confer- 
ence. 

January  25,  1919 — Second  plenary  session  of  the  Peace  Con- 
ference at  which  the  resolution  to  make  the  Covenant 
"an  integral  part  of  the  general  treaty  of  peace"  was 
adopted. 

February  3,  1919 — Speech  of  President  Wilson  to  the  French 
Chamber  of  Deputies. 

February  14,  1919 — Third  plenary  session  of  the  Peace  Con- 
ference. President  Wilson  presents  the  Covenant  of  the 
League  of  Nations. 

February  15,  1919 — The  President  sails  for  home. 

February  19,  1919 — Attempt  made  to  assassinate  M.  Clemen- 
ceau. 

March  14,  1919 — The  President  returns  to  Paris. 

March  15,  1919 — President  Wilson  makes  his  announcement 
that  he  stands  by  the  resolution  of  January  25th,  that  the 
Covenant  is  to  be  an  integral  part  of  the  Treaty  of  Peace. 

March  21,  1919 — Bolshevist  revolution  in  Hungary. 

March  25,  1919 — Formal  meetings  of  the  Council  of  Four  are 
instituted. 

April  3,  1919— The  President  falls  ill,  but  Council  of  Four 
continues  its  meeting  in  the  study  adjoining  his  sick-room, 
with  Colonel  House  acting  as  his  representative.  The 
French  Crisis. 

April  5,  1919 — Bavaria  adopts  Communism. 

April  7,  1919 — President  Wilson  orders  the  George  Wash{ngto7t, 
and  considers  the  withdrawal  of  the  American  delegation 
from  Paris. 

April  11,  1919 — Fourth  plenary  session  of  the  Peace  Confer- 
ence to  discuss  the  international  labour  convention. 

April  14,  1919 — The  Germans  are  invited  to  come  to  Paris  on 
April  25th. 


CHRONOLOGY  „i 

April  19,  1919 — Beginning  of  formal  minutes  of  the  Council  of 
Four. 

April  23,  1919 — Italian  Crisis  acute:  President  Wilson's  state- 
ment to  the  public  on  the  problem  of  Fiume. 

April  24,  1919 — Orlando's  reply.  Orlando,  with  some  of  his 
colleagues,  leaves  for  Italy. 

April  28,  1919 — Fifth  plenary  session  of  the  Peace  Conference. 
Revised  Covenant  of  the  League  of  Nations  adopted  and 
full  text  published.     Japanese  Crisis. 

April  30,  1919 — Settlement  of  the  Japanese  claims  consum- 
mated. 

May  6,  1919 — Sixth  plenary  session  of  the  Peace  Conference 
approves  the  German  treaty.  Foch  protests.  Italians 
return. 

May  7,  1919 — Treaty  presented  to  the  Germans  at  Versailles. 

May  14,  1919 — The  Austrians  arrive  at  St.  Germain. 

May  29,  1919 — Seventh  plenary  session  of  the  Peace  Con- 
ference receives  the  incomplete  Austrian  Treaty. 

May  31,  1919 — Eighth  plenary  session  of  the  Peace  Conference 
with  the  small  powers  in  attendance. 

June  2,  1919 — Treaty  presented  to  the  Austrians  at  St.  Ger- 
main. 

June  3,  1919 — Conference  of  American  Delegation  with  Presi- 
dent Wilson  to  discuss  changes  in  Treaty. 

June  28,  1919 — The  German  Treaty  signed  at  Versailles,  and 
President  Wilson  sails  for  America. 

July  8,  1919 — President  W^ilson  arrives  in  New  York. 

July  10,  1919 — President  Wilson  lays  Treaty  of  Peace  before  the 
Senate. 

July  31,  1919 — Hearings  on  Treaty  begin  before  Committee  on 
Foreign  Relations  of  United  States  Senate. 

August  19,  1919— Conference  of  President  Wilson  with  United 
States  Senators  at  Washington. 

September  29,  1919— The  President  returns  from  his  Western 
trip,  broken  in  health,  to  Washington. 

October  4,  1919 — The  President  is  stricken  with  paralysis. 


xxu 


CHRONOLOGY 


October  29,  1919 — International  Labour  Conference,  a  brancli 
of  the  League  of  Nations,  held  at  Washington. 

January  16,  1920 — First  meeting  of  the  Council  of  the  League 
of  Nations. 

November  15,  1920 — First  meeting  of  the  Assembly  of  the 
League  of  Nations. 

November  12,  1921 — The  Washington  Conference  begins. 

April  10,  1922 — The  Genoa  Conference  begins. 

Jmie  15,  1922 — The  Hague  Conference  begins. 


INTRODUCTION 

Sources  of  Material — ^President  Wilson's 

Documents 

PRESIDENT  WILSON  kept  on  his  desk  at  Paris 
during  the  Peace  Conference  a  large  steel  docu- 
ment box  with  a  spring  lock.  I  have  seen 
him  at  the  close  of  the  day,  after  the  session  of  the 
Council  of  Four,  methodically  put  into  this  box  all 
the  papers  and  memoranda  which  had  come  to  him  in  the 
course  of  the  day's  proceedings.  From  time  to  time,  as 
the  box  filled  up  and  the  documents  were  no  longer  re- 
quired, they  were  removed  to  larger  boxes  and  trunks,  one 
of  them  beautifully  made  by  the  ship's  carpenter  of  the 
George  Washington.  All  of  these  were  brought  home 
with  him  to  the  White  House. 

In  the  winter  of  1920-1921  great  pressure  was  brought 
to  bear  upon  the  President  to  give  his  own  account  of 
what  happened  at  Paris.  He  had  been  under  long  and 
bitter  attack,  and  his  friends,  confident  that  the  best 
response  to  these  criticisms  was  a  true  and  complete  ac- 
count of  the  conference,  urged  him  both  by  letter  and  by 
word  of  mouth  to  present  the  history  of  the  events,  using 
actual  records  and  documents. 

But  the  President,  who  had  been  desperately  ill,  was 
weighed  down  with  the  burdens  of  his  closing  Administra- 
tion.    Moreover,  no  man  who  ever  sat  in  the  White  House 


xxiv  INTRODUCTION 

was  so  little  self-explanatory  as  Mr.  Wilson.  He  rarely 
defended  himself  when  attacked,  nor  gave  his  friends  the 
ammunition  for  such  a  defense.  His  end  of  a  personal 
controversy  was  silence — to  some  of  his  enemies  an  in- 
furiating silence.  He  seemed  incapable  of  presenting  or 
dramatizing  his  own  actions.  A  student  of  his  volumi- 
nous speeches  and  writings  will  find  few  pages  devoted  to 
telling  what  he  did,  how  he  did  it,  or  why.  He  has  been 
a  great  actor  upon  the  world's  stage,  the  chief  figure  in 
supreme  events;  but  he  does  not  readily  visualize  either 
events  or  personalities;  his  characteristic  and  instinct- 
ive interest  is  in  ideas.  He  can  tell  what  he  thinks  and 
hopes  and  believes — ^no  living  man  can  do  it  better — but 
he  has  no  genius  for  telling  what  he  did. 

On  December  18,  1920,  he  wrote  to  me  as  follows:  It 
is  clear  to  me  that  it  will  not  be  possible  for  me  to  write 
anything  such  as  you  suggest,  but  I  believe  that  you 
could  do  it  admirably.     *     *     *     * 

On  December  27  he  wrote  a  letter  the  facsimile  of 
which  appears  on  the  opposite  page. 

In  January,  1921,  I  began  working  upon  these  docu- 
ments at  the  White  House.  They  were  in  two  trunks 
and  three  steel  boxes,  and  for  the  most  part  had  not  been 
touched  since  the  President  put  them  aside  in  Paris. 
They  can  be  grouped  in  three  categories: 

First — ^The  complete  minutes  from  April  19  to  June  24, 
1919,  of  the  Council  of  Four  (which  consisted  of  the  Pres- 
ident of  the  United  States,  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  the  Prime 
Minister  of  Great  Britain,  M.  Clemenceau,  President  of 
the  Council  of  France,  and  Signor  Orlando,  Premier  of 
Italy). 

A  widespread  belief  has  existed  that  no  records  were 
kept  of  the  crucially  important  meetings  of  the  Four.  It 
is  true  that  the  first  two  or  three  weeks  of  these  confer- 


INTRODUCTION  xxv 


HE  WHITE   HOUSE 

WASHINGTON 

27  Decomter,  1920 


^/  dear  Baker t 

Ttianic  you  for  your  letter  of  December 
twenty-third,  which  gaTe  me  a  great  deal  of 
pleasxire.  I  have  a  trunk  full  of  papers »  and 
the  next  time  you  are  down  here  I  would  like  to 
have  you  go  through  thaii  and  see  what  they  are 
and  what  the  best  use  la  that  oan  be  made  of 
them.  I  plunked  them  into  the  trunk  in  Paris 
uad  have  not  had  time  or  physical  energy  even 
to  sort  or  arrange  them.  I  am  looking  forward 
*vith  great  satisfaction  to  the  work  you  are 
purposing  to  do,  and  have  no  doubt  that  it  will 

be  of  the  highest  value. 

V/ith  the  best  wishes  of  the  season. 
Cordially  and  faithfully  yours. 


llr.  Bay  Stonnard  Baker, 
.Amherst,  Llassachu setts. 


Txvi  mXRODUCTION 

ences,  from  about  March  24  to  April  19,  were  informal; 
and  while  no  official  minutes  in  English  were  made  of  the 
actual  conversations  this  period  is  excellently  documented 
with  memoranda,  letters,  reports,  and  copies  of  resolu- 
tions; and  there  exist  informal  records,  such  as  my  own,  of 
daily  conversations  w^ith  the  President,  which  fill  the  gap. 
After  April  19,  however,  and  until  the  close  of  the  con- 
ference, a  remarkably  complete  and  methodical  record  of 
the  entire  proceedings  was  kept.  In  one  or  two  instances 
exact  stenographic  reports  of  the  conversation  are  in 
existence;  but  for  the  most  part  the  record  was  made  in 
English  by  Sir  Maurice  Hankey  of  the  British  Foreign 
Office,  who  was  the  Secretary  of  the  Four.  He  was  some- 
times the  only  man  present  with  the  Four  or  the  Three; 
but  usually  Professor  Mantoux,  the  French  interpreter, 
was  there,  and  when  Orlando  attended  he  also  had  his 
secretary,  Count  Aldrovandi,  with  him;  for  Orlando  was 
the  only  one  of  the  Four  who  spoke  no  English.  Except 
upon  two  or  three  occasions,  no  American  secretary  at- 
tended these  sessions. 

While  Hankey 's  minutes  are  not  verbatim,  but  are 
written  in  the  English  style  of  indirect  narrative,  report- 
ing speeches  and  discussion  in  the  third  person,  they  reach, 
with  the  appendices,  the  rather  tremendous  bulk  of  some 
1,800  typewritten  pages,  legal  size,  probably  not  far 
short  of  three  quarters  of  a  million  words,  and  give  a 
remarkably  faithful,  and  often  vivid,  account  of  the 
discussions  from  day  to  day.  Hankey  was  one  of  those 
incredibly  able  and  efficient  men  of  the  super-secretarial 
type,  who  came  into  prominence  at  the  Peace  Conference. 
Mantoux  was  another,  of  whom  I  hope  to  speak  again. 

This  record  of  the  Council  of  Four,  together  with  the 
minutes  of  the  Council  of  Ten  (consisting  of  the  five  chief 
representatives    and    Foreign    Ministers    of    the    great 


INTRODUCTION  xxrii 

powers — ^America,  France,  Great  Britain,  Italy,  and 
Japan),  from  January  12,  1919,  to  June  17  (although 
the  Ten,  after  March  15,  met  infrequently),  and  the  so- 
called  Council  of  Foreign  Ministers,  the  "Little  Five'* 
(Secretary  Lansing  for  America,  Mr.  Balfour  for  Great 
Britain,  M.  Pichon  for  France,  Baron  Sonnino  for  Italy, 
and  Baron  Makino,  though  he  was  not  a  Foreign  Minister, 
for  Japan),  from  March  27  to  June  12,  of  which  I  have  a 
complete  file — these  latter  records  also  comprising,  with 
their  appendices,  over  1,200  typewritten  pages,  some  half- 
million  words — make  up  the  official  record  in  English  of 
the  Peace  Conference,  none  of  which  has  yet  been  published. 

Second — ^The  second  category  includes  a  large  number 
of  reports  and  memoranda  made  by  the  members  of  the 
American  delegation  for  the  President,  also  British  and 
French  reports  that  came  into  his  hands  in  the  course  of 
the  discussions,  together  with  many  of  the  records  and 
minutes  of  the  subsidiary  commissions,  such  as  the  Su- 
preme Economic  Council,  and  the  various  expert  and 
investigatory  committees.  These  documents  contain 
much  valuable  historical  material,  revealing  the  attitude 
of  the  various  nations  represented  at  Paris  at  each  point 
in  the  discussions,  and  the  exact  opinions  of  the  delegates 
and  experts./^ 

In  this  category,  also,  I  should  place  the  President's 
own  invaluable  memoranda,  often  on  the  margins  of  docu- 
ments, sometimes  upon  separate  sheets  written  upon  his 
typewriter  or  in  his  own  stenographic  hieroglyphics — 
which  he  has,  in  many  cases,  interpreted  for  the  writer. 
Especially  valuable  and  interesting  are  the  notations  in 
the  President's  hand  showing  the  development  of  the 
League  of  Nations  Covenant  and  the  extraordinary 
number  of  changes  made  in  certain  of  the  articles.  Here 
also  are  the  original  drafts  of  the  Covenant  made  by  the 


xxviii  INTRODUCTION 

President,  Colonel  House,  Lord  Robert  Cecil,  Baron  Philli- 
more's  Committee,  General  Smuts,  M.  Bourgeois,  the 
Italian  and  Swiss  schemes,  and  others.  All  this  material 
came  naturally  into  the  hands  of  Mr.  Wilson.  There 
is  nowhere  probably  a  more  complete  or  explanatory 
record  of  every  step  in  the  development  of  the  League 
Covenant  than  this. 

Third — The  third  category,  in  many  ways  the  most 
interesting  of  any,  contains  the  varied  correspondence, 
petitions,  resolutions,  letters,  which  came  personally  to 
the  President  before  and  during  the  Peace  Conference, 
from  every  part  of  the  world.  They  lay  bare  in  an  ex- 
traordinary way — these  appeals  to  the  President  for  help 
in  a  hundred  causes — how  the  stricken  people  of  the  nations 
turned  with  hope  and  faith  to  America,  how  bitter  the 
suffering  was,  and  how  vital  the  need.  I  found  the 
examination  of  this  material  a  breathless  and  exciting 
experience,  like  going  through  a  treasure  chest,  not  filled 
with  gold,  but  with  the  very  souls  of  mankind.  Here,  for 
example,  is  a  bulky  petition  from  17,000  Jugoslavs  in  the 
Fiume  district  beautifully  bound  in  embroidered  silk,  with 
an  eloquent  statement  of  how  the  names  had  been  col- 
lected, partly  by  girls  and  women,  sometimes  with  great 
risk  to  themselves.  Here  are  pathetic  appeals  from 
starving  Armenians,  discontented  Persians,  suffering 
Albanians,  ambitious  Ukrainians,  all  eager  to  get  the  ear 
and  the  friendly  help  of  America;  here  are  communications 
in  the  strangest  variety  and  from  every  sort  of  people; 
autograph  letters  from  most  of  the  heads  of  European 
nations — for  example,  one  from  the  King  of  Spain  written 
in  English  and  enclosing  a  letter  in  German  from  "my 
cousin  Charles,  the  late  Emperor  of  Austria";  here  letters 
from  TJoyd  George,  memoranda  from  Clemenceau  and 
Orlando,  appeals  from  leaders  and  publicists  of  America, 


INTRODUCTION  xxix 

Great  Britain,  France,  and  other  countries,  suggestions 
from  experts  not  connected  with  the  Conference,  warnings 
from  radical  leaders;  an  extraordinary  exhibit  of  the 
thought  of  the  world. 

Those  who  have  a  picture  of  the  President  immured  in 
a  kind  of  cloister  at  Paris  and  cut  off  from  knowledge  of 
what  the  w^orld  was  thinking  about  have,  of  course,  no 
knowledge  of  these  sources  of  information  and  advice.  It 
was  the  commonest  experience,  at  Paris,  to  find  eager 
delegations  who  had  come  hundreds  of  miles,  often  with 
difficulty  and  danger,  trying  to  get  to  the  President  to 
give  him  information  he  already  possessed.  It  would 
have  been  better,  perhaps,  upon  the  human  side,  if  the 
President  could  have  seen  face  to  face  all  these  people — 
he  did  see  an  extraordinary  variety  of  them — for  they 
would  have  gone  away  feeling  that  they  had  had  a  real 
part  in  shaping  the  fate  of  the  world;  this  was  not 
only  physically  impossible  but  it  was  not  the  way  the 
President  worked.  His  training  in  all  his  previous  life, 
it  should  not  be  forgotten,  had  been  that  of  the  scholar, 
the  student,  not  the  politician,  accustomed  to  getting 
his  information,  not  from  people,  but  out  of  books,  docu- 
ments, letters — the  written  word.  Having  thus  the 
essence  of  the  matter,  he  probably  underestimated  the 
value  of  these  human  contacts.  And,  too,  often  it  was 
not  real  information  these  delegations  had  to  offer,  but 
arguments,  propaganda,  irrelevant  appeals  for  sympathy^^ 

In  the  preparation  of  this  history  the  writer  has  also  had 
the  great  advantage  of  many  conversations,  both  at  Paris 
and  since,  with  various  members  of  the  commissions,  both 
American  and  foreign,  and  has  been  able  thus  to  supple- 
ment his  own  knowledge  of  specific  events.  He  has  also 
had  the  good  fortune  to  see  the  personal  records  and 
diaries  made  by  some  of  the  men  who  were  there  and 


XXX  INTRODUCTION 

to  examine  the  documents  brought  home  by  them.  I 
suppose  there  was  never  a  conference  in  which  every 
human  being  present  was  so  struck  with  a  kind  of  historic 
awe.  Ahnost  everyone,  except  the  President,  kept  a 
diary,  of  which  the  President  was  undoubtedly  the  cen- 
tral object,  the  chief  interest.  Some  of  them  wrote  sur- 
reptitiously, some  boldly  and  without  shame.  Secretary 
Lansing  was  an  indefatigable  diarist.  I  remember  seeing 
him  many  times  sitting  alone  in  his  big,  empty  office, 
writing  in  a  small,  neat  book,  in  a  small,  neat,  formal 
hand.  When  one  came  in  to  talk  with  him,  he  would  lay 
down  his  pen,  reach  for  a  pad  of  paper,  and  during  the  con- 
versation draw  one  after  another  pencil  sketches  of  strange, 
grotesque,  and  sinister  faces.  He  worked  equally  well 
with  his  right  or  left  hand.  In  the  course  of  the  months 
at  Paris,  for  he  occupied  his  time  in  the  conferences  in  the 
same  way,  he  must  have  drawn  thousands  of  such  pictures. 

Colonel  House  dictated  his  record  to  his  secretary, 
sitting  on  a  long  couch  with  a  gay-coloured  blanket  thrown 
over  his  legs.  He  spoke  in  a  smooth,  even  voice,  bring- 
ing his  hands  together  softly  from  time  to  time,  sometimes 
just  touching  the  finger-tips,  sometimes  the  whole  palms. 
General  Bliss  wrote  regularly  and  voluminously  in  long- 
hand, and  like  the  outright  and  truthful  old  soldier  he  is, 
made  no  bones  about  it.  It  was  with  him  a  method  of 
clarifying  his  own  thoughts  rather  than  of  setting  down  an 
account  of  events.  I  shall  like  his  memoirs  best  of  all,  I 
think,  when  he  comes  to  publish  them.  As  for  the  others 
who  kept  records  in  that  vast  Crillon  establishment  they 
were  as  the  sands  of  the  sea,  and  the  sound  of  their  pens 
(one  fancied  he  could  identify  it  finally  in  the  watches  of 
the  night)  was  like  the  washing  of  waves  on  the  beach. 

So  much  for  the  documentary  and  other  material.  The 
importance  of  the  subject  to  be  treated  must  excuse  refer- 


INTRODUCTION 


XXXI 


ence  also  to  the  writer's  own  sources  of  knowledge  at  Paris. 

I  spent  nearly  all  of  the  year  1918  as  a  Special  Com- 
missioner of  the  State  Department,  visiting  England, 
France,  and  Italy,  and  making  a  series  of  reports  upon 
certain  economic  and  political  conditions  in  the  allied 
countries.  These  reports  went  primarily  to  the  State  De- 
partment and  also  to  Colonel  House,  who  was  at  the  head 
of  the  President's  Commission  of  Inquiry,  and  some  were 
transmitted  direct  to  the  President  himself.  In  the 
course  of  this  year  of  tremendous  events  I  met  many  of 
the  important  leaders  in  the  allied  countries  and  en- 
deavoured especially  to  see  and  understand  the  powerful 
undercurrents,  the  labour  and  liberal  movements,  at  work 
in  all  these  countries.  I  had  also  a  close  view  of  the  war 
itself  on  the  French  and  Belgian  fronts,  and  in  Italy;  I 
saw  the  stupendous  efforts  of  our  own  army,  and,  at  first 
hand,  the  devastation  wrought  by  the  Germans.  This 
experience  I  found  invaluable  in  giving  me  a  clear  under- 
standing of  the  backgrounds  of  the  Peace  Conference;  the 
real  foundations  of  military  force  and  economic  need  upon 
which  it  rested;  and  the  atmosphere  of  suffering,  dread, 
hatred,  newly  aroused  ambitions,  in  which,  at  Paris,  the 
discussions  took  place.  Too  many  of  the  critics  in  Amer- 
ica of  the  Conference  have  been  without  an  understanding 
of  these  underlying  and  precedent  conditions. 

In  December,  1918,  several  weeks  before  the  Peace  Con- 
ference opened.  President  Wilson  in  the  following  letter  to 
Colonel  House,  wherein  he  also  outlined  the  general  method 
of  publicity  to  be  employed,  appointed  the  writer  to  direct 
the  press  arrangements  of  the  American  Commission: 

My  dear  House: 

I  have  been  thinking  a  great  deal  lately  about  the  contact  of  the 
commission  with  the  public  through  the  press  and  particularly  about 
the  way  in  which  the  commission  should  deal  with  the  newspaper  men 


xxxii  INTRODUCTION 

who  have  come  over  from  the  United  States.  I  have  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  much  the  best  way  to  handle  the  matter  is  for  you  and 
the  other  Commissioners  to  hold  a  brief  meeting  each  day  and  invite 
the  representatives  of  the  press  to  come  in  at  each  meeting  for  such 
interchange  of  information  or  suggestion  as  may  be  thought  neces- 
sary. This  I  am  sure  is  preferable  to  any  formal  plan  or  to  any  less 
definite  arrangement. 

I  am  convinced  also  that  the  preparation  of  all  the  press  matter 
that  is  to  be  issued  from  the  commission  is  a  task  calling  for  a  partic- 
ular sort  of  experienced  ability.  I  beg,  therefore,  that  you  and  your 
fellow  Commissioners  will  agree  to  the  appointment  of  Mr.  Ray 
Stannard  Baker  as  your  representative  in  the  performance  of  this  duty. 
Mr.  Baker  enjoys  my  confidence  in  a  very  high  degree  and  I  have  no 
hesitation  in  commending  him  to  you  as  a  man  of  ability,  vision  and 
ideals.  He  has  been  over  here  for  the  better  part  of  a  year,  has 
established  relations  which  will  be  of  the  highest  value,  and  is  partic- 
ularly esteemed  by  the  very  class  of  persons  to  whom  it  will  be  most 
advantageous  to  us  to  be  properly  interpreted  in  the  news  that  we 
have  to  issue.  If  you  see  no  conclusive  objection  to  this,  I  would  sug- 
gest that  you  request  Mr.  Baker  to  do  us  the  very  great  service  of 
acting  in  this  capacity. 

I  am  writing  in  the  same  terms  to  the  other  members  of  the  com- 
mission. 

Sincerely  yours, 

(Signed)  Woodrow  Wilson. 

So  it  became  my  task  to  organize  the  Press  Bureau  of 
the  American  Commission,  and  offices  were  opened  at 
No.  4  Place  de  la  Concorde,  near  the  Hotel  Crillon. 
Through  this  office  passed  all  the  official  news  of  the  Con- 
ference; and  it  became,  moreover,  a  centre  at  which 
gathered  the  representatives  of  all  the  delegations  and 
commissions  from  all  countries  that  came  to  Paris ;  every- 
one who  was  seeking  the  support  of  American  influence 
and  American  opinion,  and  who  was  not!  We  also  saw  all 
the  various  delegations  from  America — the  Irish,  the  Jews, 
the  labour  leaders,  the  women's  organizations,  the  Negroes. 
It  was  one  of  the  busiest  offices  of  the  commission. 


INTRODUCTION  xxxiii 

The  writer's  duties  brought  him  into  contact  with  the 
American  Commissioners  every  morning  before  the  daily 
session  with  the  correspondents,  and  during  all  the  later 
months  of  the  Conference  he  saw  the  President  each  after- 
noon following  the  close  of  the  session  of  the  Council  of 
Four  (sometimes  oftener),  went  over  fully  the  happenings 
of  the  day,  determined  upon  exactly  what  should  be  made 
public,  and  afterward  met  the  American  correspondents. 
He  crossed  the  ocean  three  times  on  the  George  Washington 
with  the  President,  and  was  able  to  serve  him,  in  several 
instances,  in  important  matters  not  connected  with 
publicity.  The  Supreme  Economic  Council  also  appointed 
him  as  a  member  of  the  board  of  four  men,  one  from  each 
nation,  to  direct  its  publicity,  and  the  records  of  this  im- 
portant commission  thus  came  into  his  hands. 

The  Press  Bureau,  under  his  direction,  had  charge  of  mak- 
ing and  transmitting  the  American  summary  of  the  Treaty. 

The  writer  offers  no  excuse  for  the  personal  note  he 
employs  in  various  parts  of  this  narrative;  for  only  thus 
can  he  convey  what  he  himself  saw  and  knew.  He  is  do- 
ing it  also  with  the  intent  of  making  it  clear  that  the  judg- 
ments of  men  and  events  are  his  own  and  not  those  of  the 
President.  The  President's  own  views  are  expressed  with 
great  completeness  in  the  documents,  memoranda,  and 
letters  which  are  here  reproduced  or  quoted  from. 

It  is  only  honest  to  say  that  the  writer  did  not  agree 
with  the  President  in  some  of  his  conclusions  at  Paris, 
and  argued,  before  the  decision  was  made,  a  different 
course  of  action  from  the  one  taken,  as  in  the  Shantung 
matter.     He  finds  in  his  journal  of  April  29: 

I  went  up  to  the  President's  house  at  9  o'clock  this  morning,  where 
I  laid  before  him  the  notes  I  had  made,  together  with  the  various 
memoranda  furnished  to  me  by  Williams  and  Hornbeck  (the  Far 
Eastern  experts)  and  by  Wellington  Koo  and  others  of  the  Chinese 


xxxiv  INTRODIXTION 

delegation.  There  is  no  possible  doubt  where  the  President's  own 
sympathies  lie.  He  is  for  the  full  rights  of  the  Chinese.  I  told  him 
that  the  sympathy  of  the  world  was  undoubtedly  with  the  Chinese. 

"I  know  that,"' he  said. 

I  made  as  strong  a  case  as  I  could  for  the  Chinese  position,  urging 
some  postponement  at  least.  The  President  pointed  out  how  inex- 
tricably the  whole  matter  was  tied  up  with  the  old  secret  treaties, 
how  Britain  felt  herself  bound  to  Japan,  and  how,  with  Italy  already 
out  of  the  conference  and  Belgium  bitterly  discontented,  the  defection 
of  Japan,  not  an  unreasonable  possibility,  might  not  only  break  up 
the  Peace  Conference,  but  destroy  the  I>eague  of  Nations. 

It  was  also  my  belief  that  a  much  broader  publicity,  a 
constructive  publicity,  could  have  been  had  at  the  con- 
ference and  this  view  was  frequently  urged  upon  the 
President  and  upon  the  Commissioners.  I  still  believe 
that  one  of  the  greatest  mistakes  made  at  the  conference, 
particularly  for  America,  was  a  want  of  better  under- 
standing of  what  happened  there  and  the  exact  reasons 
why,  in  each  particular  case,  the  President  decided  as  he 
did,  for  I  am  confident  that  if  the  American  people  could 
know  what  the  problems  were  in  shell-shocked  Europe  in 
1919,  the  problems  those  desperately  harassed  leaders  at 
Paris  had  to  meet,  there  would  to-day  be  a  better  and  more 
sympathetic  understanding  of  our  newly  developing  in- 
ternational relationships.  This  whole  problem  of  publicity 
and  secrecy  at  Paris  will  be  considered  in  later  chapters.. 

But  it  must  be  clearly  said  that  I  believed  then  in  the 
essential  soundness  of  the  great  principles  the  President 
laid  down  at  Paris,  and  do  so  still;  that  I  had  then,  and 
have  still,  complete  faith  in  the  absolute  sincerity  of  the 
President's  purpose;  and  the  conviction  that  whatever 
may  have  been  his  mistakes,  he  fought  for  his  principles 
under  such  difficulties  and  in  such  an  atmosphere  as  the 
American  people  do  not  yet  understand. 

The  President  did  not  in  those  brief  months  achieve 


INTRODUCTION 


XXXV 


the  "new  world,"  the  "new  order,"  he  so  nobly  phrased, 
so  ardently  desired,  and  so  continuously  fought  for,  but  he 
chose  the  battleground  and  set  forth  some  of  the  issues 
which  will  engage  the  thought  of  the  world  for  years  to 
come.  J)  And  there  is  no  more  instructive  failure — if  it 
was  failure — than  the  President's  at  Paris,  for  when  we 
approach  it  with  a  desire  not  to  condemn  or  defend,  but 
to  understand,  it  reveals,  as  nothing  else  could,  the  real  ele- 
ments of  the  struggle  which  the  liberals  of  the  world  have 
yet  before  them.  We  see  as  in  a  spotlight  the  defects  of 
our  own  governmental  machinery  as  it  concerns  foreign 
affairs;  we  are  able  to  judge  more  clearly  the  state  of  our 
own  public  opinion,  and  above  all  to  get  a  truer  sense  of  our 
relationships  with  the  other  great  nations  of  the  world. 

Finally,  we  see  in  high  relief  the  figure  of  an  extraor- 
dinary human  being,  with  supreme  qualities  of  many 
kinds,  with  temperamental  and  physical  limitations,  who 
will  never  cease  to  fascinate  the  historian  and  biographer 
of  representative  and  decisive  characters. 

Unless  Americans  can  apprehend  what  really  happened 
at  Paris,  what  forces  we  had  to  meet  there,  how  we  were 
led,  and  what  we  did,  we  can  scarcely  go  ahead  with  firm 
ground  under  our  feet  to  discuss  what  to  do  next.  Paris 
must  assuredly  be  the  springboard  for  any  future  plunge 
into  foreign  affairs.  Consequently,  this  is  an  American 
narrative,  from  an  American  point  of  view.  It  is  the 
account  of  what  happened  by  one  who  was  there,  who 
knew  the  men  engaged,  and  who  had  then  and  has  had 
since,  in  even  larger  measure,  full  access  to  the  docu- 
ments— not  merely  the  formal  records,  but  those  tentative 
proposals,  memoranda,  and  correspondence  which  often 
reveal,  in  their  impulsive  sincerity,  later  smoothed  into 
conventional  complaisances,  the  true  purposes,  the  real 
desires,  of  the  actors  upon  that  great  stage. 


PART  I 

FOUNDATIONS  OF  THE  PEACE 
CONFERENCE 


WOODROW  WILSON  AND 
WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

CHAPTER  I 

The  American  Peace  Argosy  Sails  :  Woodrow 
Wilson's  Vision  of  the  Peace 

THREE  weeks  and  three  days  after  the  last  victo- 
rious shots  of  the  great  war  had  been  fired  by 
Yankee  doughboys  in  the  French  Argonne  the 
American  peace  argosy — the  George  Washington,  with 
accompanying  warships — dropped  down  through  the  be- 
decked and  beflagged  harbour  of  New  York,  a  new  Santa 
Maria  on  its  extraordinary  voyage  of  discovery  to  an 
unknown  world.  The  great  ship  passed  majestically  out 
through  the  Narrows,  with  airplanes  cutting  the  sky 
above  and  the  forts  on  either  hand  roaring  with  unprec- 
edented salutes  of  twenty -one  guns;  for  never  before  had 
a  President  of  the  United  States  set  sail  for  a  foreign 
land. 

It  was  at  a  time  before  the  power  and  the  glory,  the 
exaltion  and  emotion  of  victory  had  died  away,  and  there 
was  something  triumphant  about  the  departure  of  this 
American  ship.  It  bore  with  it  the  leader  who  beyond 
any  other  in  those  last  terrible  years  of  the  World  War 
had  touched  the  imagination  of  humanity  and  had  lifted 
the  fainting  spirits  of  the  allied  fighters  by  giving  them  a 
new  vision  of  what  lay  beyond  their  suffering.  There 
was  a  near  passage  to  the  Indies ! 

1 


2  WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

"During  this  war,"  said  a  writer  in  L' Illustration  of 
Paris — but  this  was  before  the  war  closed — "it  has  been 
toward  Wilson  that  our  leaders  have  most  turned;  we 
looked  to  him  as  one  might  look  at  a  clock.  \Miat  does 
Wilson  say?  AMiat  does  he  think?  What  will  he  do? 
Such  were  the  daily  questions  of  the  peoples " 

It  was  the  President's  custom  at  a  certain  time  each 
day  during  his  voyages  across  the  Atlantic — the  present 
writer  accompanied  him  upon  three  of  them — to  tramp 
up  and  down  the  broad  decks  of  the  ship.  Sometimes  he 
walked  with  Mrs.  Wilson,  sometimes  with  his  physician, 
Dr.  Grayson,  infrequently  with  other  members  of  the 
party,  but  in  reality  he  was  always  alone.  On  chance 
meetings  at  a  turn  of  a  passage,  or  the  foot  of  a  gangway, 
there  were  sometimes  moments  of  good  common  talk — 
and  the  President  is  never  more  interesting,  more  human, 
than  in  these  brief  meetings — but  there  was  rarely  a 
feeling  of  genuine  contact  upon  the  great  things  that 
really  mattered.  Sometimes  he  stood  quite  still  at  the 
forward  rail,  looking  off  across  the  wintry  sea — toward 
Europe. 

In  the  time  of  exalted  emotion  before  the  war  closed 
he  had  been  accepted  by  the  people  of  the  nations  as  a  veri- 
table prophet,  and  his  words  had  become  a  living  force, 
"worth  armies,"  in  the  world.  "In  the  eyes  of  millions 
of  people,"  wrote  Count  Czernin  of  Austria,  "his  pro- 
gramme opened  up  a  world  of  hope."  He  set  the  allied 
cause  upon  a  new  moral  plane.  The  statesmen  of  the 
allied  nations,  recognizing  the  power  of  this  wave  of  ideal- 
ism, had  seized  upon  it  eagerly  as  a  means  of  unification 
and  remoralization,  and  great  American  agencies  of  pub- 
licity had  helped  to  popularize  and  legendize  it.  They 
had  done  their  work  even  too  well.  They  had  led  the 
world  to  expect  too  much.     But  if  it  acted  upon  the  allied 


THE  AMERICAN  PEACE  ARGOSY  SAILS  3 

nations  as  an  invigorator,  it  equally  served  to  disintegrate 
the  unity  of  the  Central  Powers — as,  indeed,  it  was  in- 
tended to  do.  ' 

In  Italy,  during  the  fall  of  that  year  (1918),  I  had  seen 
extraordinary  evidences  of  this  feeling.  The  President's 
pictures  were  in  every  window.  I  was  even  told,  in  that 
time  of  exaggerated  speech,  that  the  peasants  in  some 
parts  of  Italy  set  candles  to  burn  before  them.  His 
"sculptured  words"  I  saw  at  Turin  emblazoned  on  every 
kiosk;  his  name  was  on  every  tongue.  Hope  lay  in 
America.  And  what  was  more  exuberantly  evident  in  the 
Latin  south  was  true  also  in  the  north.  Especially  was 
he  the  hope  of  the  weak  countries  of  Central  Europe,  for 
in  him  they  saw  also  the  good-will  of  America.  So 
strong  was  the  feeling  for  him  as  the  "liberator  of  Po- 
land," that  when  university  men  met  each  other — one  of 
them  told  me  this — they  struck  hands  and  cried  out 
"Wilson!"  as  a  greeting. 

The  President  had  brought  with  him  on  the  George 
Washington  a  large  collection  of  documents  which  had  been 
transmitted  to  the  White  House  mostly  during  the  three 
feverish  weeks  after  the  Armistice.  His  tasks  at  that 
time  were  never  more  staggering,  for  the  unexpected  cessa- 
tion of  hostilities  while  the  American  war  machine  was 
in  full  action  involved  vast  problems.  Congress  was  in 
session,  many  domestic  questions  pressed  for  decision. 
He  had  had  little  time  to  consider  in  detail  what  might 
lie  ahead  of  America  at  the  settlements;  but  he  had  heard 
enough  of  the  premonitory  rumblings — they  were  not 
wanting  even  in  the  United  States  Senate — to  know 
that  it  might  take  a  hard  fight  to  realize  at  Paris  the 
principles  he  had  laid  down  as  the  basis  of  the  peace.  He 
had,  therefore,  decided  to  break  all  precedents,  go  to 
Europe  himself,  and  take  a  part  in  the  making  of  the 


4  WOODROW  ^^TLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

peace.     He  gave  his  reasons  for  so  doing  in  his  address  to 
Congress  on  December  2,  three  days  before  saihng. 

The  peace  settlements  which  are  now  to  be  agreed  upon  are  of  tran- 
scendent importance,  both  to  us  and  to  the  rest  of  the  world,  and  I 
know  of  no  business  or  interest  which  should  take  precedence  of  them. 
The  gallant  men  of  our  armed  forces  on  land  and  sea  have  conspicuously 
fought  for  the  ideals  which  they  knew  to  be  the  ideals  of  their  country. 
I  have  sought  to  express  those  ideals;  they  have  accepted  my  statements 
of  them  as  the  substance  of  their  own  thought  and  purpose,  as  the 
associated  governments  have  accepted  them;  I  owe  it  to  them  to  see 
to  it,  so  far  as  in  me  lies,  that  no  false  or  mistaken  interpretation  is 
put  upon  them,  and  no  possible  effort  omitted  to  realize  them.  It  is 
now  my  duty  to  play  my  full  part  in  making  good  what  they  offered 
their  life's  blood  to  obtain.  I  can  think  of  no  call  to  service  which 
would  transcend  this. 

Now  that  he  was  on  the  ocean  between  the  two  w^orlds — 
the  New  World  and  the  Old  World,  the  old  order  and  the 
new — he  began  to  see  more  clearly  the  concrete  problems 
which  lay  just  beyond  America.  There  in  his  dispatch 
case,  in  his  cabin  on  the  George  Washington,  was  the  ex- 
traordinary collection  of  documents  to  which  I  have  re- 
ferred. We  know  the  picture  of  the  world  they  give, 
for  we  have  them  here  before  us.  We  know  also  how 
they  were  added  to  during  that  voyage  by  the  blue-clad 
messenger  who  came  down  from  the  upper  deck  of  the 
ship  day  by  day  with  the  messages  by  wireless.  Not 
even  a  stormy  ocean  could  keep  out  the  woes  of  the  world. 

One  predominant  note  marks  these  papers:  that  of 
passionate  and  hopeful  appeal,  rising  sometimes  to 
peremptory  demand.  There  are  indeed  other  documents 
here — correspondence  with  Mr.  Balfour  regarding  the 
relief  of  starving  Europe,  a  memorandum  from  the  Ger- 
man Government  asserting  that  it  had  truly  reformed  it- 
self, news  of  the  formation  of  a  republic  in  Austria,  a 


THE  AMERICAN  PEACE  ARGOSY  SAILS  5 

number  of  urgent  reports  regarding  conditions  in  Russia, 
a  letter  from  Cardinal  Gibbons  hoping  the  President  will 
call  on  the  Pope,  messages  from  Colonel  House,  who  is 
already  in  Europe,  regarding  the  first  meeting  of  Lloyd 
George,  Clemenceau,  and  Orlando  (on  December  2  and  3) 
to  discuss  plans  for  the  coming  Peace  Conference,  certain 
reports  and  essays  from  experts  on  the  problems  of  the 
settlements  and  the  proposed  League  of  Nations.  But 
dwarfing  all  these  important  documents  is  the  fire-hot 
revelation,  in  many  appeals,  of  what  it  was  that  the 
world  expected  or  demanded  of  America  and  of  this 
American  President.  Here  are  poured  out,  not  only  the 
suffering,  the  longing,  the  need  of  the  world,  but  also  the 
ambition,  the  fear,  and  the  greed. 

It  is  impossible  to  give  more  than  glimpses  of  this 
material — but  perhaps  enough  to  show  the  veritable 
picture  that  must  have  come  now  sharply  into  the  Presi- 
dent's mind. 

*'You  are  leaving  America,"  says  a  final  impassioned 
appeal  from  Armenians  (December  2),  "without  having 
uttered  the  reassuring  word  as  to  the  future  of  Armenia 
which  you  did  in  the  cases  of  other  oppressed  nationalities. 
Why  should  we  have  anything  further  to  do  with  Turks 
or  others  and  not  get  unconditionally  what  is  ours.'^" 

Here  is  a  letter  from  hopeful  Ukrainians  of  Russia 
appealing  for  the  right  to  govern  themselves : 

They  are  desirous  of  having  introduced  and  estabhshed  in  their 
motherland,  the  Ukraine,  American  ideals  of  government  and  the 
American  system  of  education,  in  order  to  perpetuate  sound  demo- 
cratic principles  among  their  people. 

Here  is  an  appeal  of  Rumanians  for  their  fellow 
countrymen  in  Hungary;  here  are  stories  of  cruelty  in 
Shantung;    here    are    voluminous    documents   from    the 


6  WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

Jews  of  the  world  relating  to  the  future  of  Palestine; 
here  is  an  appeal  from  Persia  against  Russian  and  British 
domination. 

"The  cause  of  Christianity,"  says  a  dispatch  from 
China  to  the  President,  "is  largely  tied  up  with  what  you 
advocate  at  the  Peace  Conference,  and  what  it  does." 

Here  are  burning  words  from  a  Korean  delegation  under 
date  of  November  20,  interpreting  his  words  according  to 
their  desires: 

The  war  just  finished  has  decided  once  for  all  the  contest  between 
democracy  and  autocracy,  and  President  Wilson  has  said  very  truly 
that  all  homogeneous  nations  that  have  a  separate  and  distinct 
language,  civilization  and  culture  ought  to  be  allowed  independence. 
.  .  .  Under  Japanese  control  Korea  as  a  nation  is  doomed  to  ex- 
tinction. Therefore,  we,  the  undersigned  citizens  of  Korea,  hereby 
appeal  to  the  people  and  the  Government  of  the  civilized  world  to 
take  up  the  cause  of  Korea  against  Japan. 

There  seemed  to  be  an  impression  that  America  would 
and  could  heal  all  the  old  grievances  of  the  world,  memo- 
ries of  wrongs  committed  in  past  times  by  one  nation 
against  another,  and  inherited  misunderstandings  that 
have  become  festering  sores.  The  Swedes,  for  example, 
though  they  had  had  no  part  in  the  war,  and,  indeed,  had 
profited  by  it,  ask  the  President  for  the  correction  of  the 
"Crime  of  '64"  and  demand  the  Aaland  Islands,  and 
Belgium  wants  a  revision  of  the  treaty  of  '39. 

There  is  apparently  no  injury  too  old,  no  grievance 
too  trivial,  but  this  coming  millennial  peace  congress 
shall  settle  and  cure  it. 

Even  wrongs  done  by  Napoleon  shall  be  righted. 
Poland  asks  to  have  returned  to  her — this  was  a  demand 
made  later  at  the  Conference — the  historic  archives  taken 
by  Austria  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  Belgium  seeks 
to  recover  Rubens's  pictures,  the  "Golden  Fleece"  and 


THE  AMERICAN  PEACE  ARGOSY  SAILS  7 

other  art  objects  carried  away  about  the  time  of  the 
American  Revolution. 

And  if  these  nations  were  to  have  back  their  antiques 
and  their  art  treasures,  Vienna,  on  her  part,  broken  and 
beaten,  begs  that  she  be  not  despoiled.  I  find  among  the 
President's  papers  this  letter: 

I  have  a  pathetic  appeal  from  Loehr,  Keeper  of  Coins  and  Medals 
at  Vienna.  It  appears  that  Italy,  Jugoslavia,  the  Czechs,  &c.,  threaten 
to  break  up  the  Vienna  collection,  taking  each  a  part  to  stock  their 
own  museums.  As  he  says,  this  would  be  equivalent  to  destroying 
the  scientific  value  of  the  collections.  Italy  has  already  taken  a  lot 
of  pictures.  ...  I  feel  very  strongly  .  .  .  that  the  Peace 
Conference  ought  to  appoint  a  small  commission  to  prevent  this 
spoliation. 

And  finally  one  can  scarcely  resist  putting  in  a  few 
sentences  from  the  appeal  of  the  Albanians  to  the  Presi- 
dent: 

We  come,  therefore,  to  you,  sir,  as  to  the  respected  chief  of  the  most 
powerful  democracy,  as  to  the  man  who  has  placed  the  sentiment  of 
justice  far  above  all  interests.  .  .  .  Today  Albania  is  struggling 
painfully  in  the  hands  of  those  who  wish  once  more  to  dismember  her 
and  who  wish  to  take  possession  of  territories  which  do  not  belong 
to  them  and  which  have  never  belonged  to  them.  Unfortunately  for 
her,  Albania,  a  poor  country,  has  found  no  advocate  in  Europe  to 
take  her  part.  Only  a  few  isolated  persons,  struck  by  the  injustice 
committed  against  our  country,  have  helped  us  by  speech  and  by 
writing.  They  do  not  seem  to  have  found  any  echo  in  the  Chancel- 
leries from  which  there  will  issue  shortly  the  destinies  of  a  Europe  one 
would  desire  to  see  regenerated. 

Here,  in  short,  was  the  heart  of  the  world  laid  bare.  \ 
They  are  petitions  for  the  most  part  pathetic  enough 
and,  like  so  many  prayers,  for  immediate  and  material 
ends  and  sometimes  for  ends  which,  if  achieved,  might 
well  do  the  petitioner  more  harm  than  good.     So  many 


8  WOODROW  ^\TLSON  yVND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

ask   for   islands    and    mines    and    harbours    and   secure 
boundaries  and  Rubens  pictures  and  antique  coins ! 

In  all  this  collection  of  appeals  which  the  President 
took  with  him  on  the  George  Washington  I  do  not  find 
a  single  one,  either  from  strong  nations  or  weak,  that 
contains  an  offer  to  help  him  or  help  America  unreservedly 
!  or  disinterestedly  in  applying  at  Paris  the  principles  which 
I  everyone  had  so  acclaimed  as  the  basis  of  the  peace. 
There  are  a  few  wistful  or  warning  letters  from  individuals 
like  one  from  Bishop  Gore  of  Oxford,  which  still  breathe 
confidence  and  offer  support,  but  for  the  most  part  they 
all  ask  America  to  do  something  immediately  for  them, 
to  relieve  some  dire  need — and  there  were,  indeed,  ter- 
rible enough  needs  to  be  relieved — to  give  them  liberty, 
to  enable  them  to  realize  some  passionate  interest  or 
ambition.  Possiblv  a  different  attitude  was  not  to  be 
expected  at  such  a  time,  but  the  fact  must  be  noted  in 
passing. 

We  knew  how  deeply  the  consideration  of  these  appeals 
struck  home  to  the  President  there  on  the  George  Wash- 
ington and  how  clearly  he  sensed  even  then  what  might 
be  the  result  at  Paris,  for  we  have  a  report  of  what  he 
said  one  evening,  while  walking  the  deck,  to  one  of  his 
friends,  Mr.  Creel. 

It  is  to  America  that  the  whole  world  turns  today,  not  only  with 
its  wrongs,  but  with  its  hopes  and  grievances.  The  hungry  expect 
us  to  feed  them,  the  roofless  look  to  us  for  shelter,  the  sick  of  heart 
and  body  depend  upon  us  for  cure.  All  of  these  expectations  have 
in  them  the  quahty  of  terrible  urgency.  There  must  be  no  delay. 
.  .  .  Yet  you  know,  and  I  know,  tliat  these  ancient  wrongs,  these 
present  unhappinesses,  are  not  to  be  remedied  in  a  day  or  with  a  wave 
of  the  hand.  WTiat  I  seem  to  see — with  all  my  heart  I  hope  that  I 
I  am  wrong — is  a  tragedy  of  disappointment.* 

'"The  War,  the  World,  and  Wilson,"  by  George  Creel,  p.  163. 


THE  AlVIERICAN  PEACE  ARGOSY  SAILS  9 

But  even  the  access  he  had  to  the  actual  demands  as 
set  forth  in  these  documents  could  not  at  that  time,  one 
is  sure,  have  revealed  to  him  the  obstinacy  with  which 
these  problems  would  present  themselves  at  the  coming 
conference.  So  much  was  hidden  from  America  because 
of  her  lack  of  knowledge  of  European  affairs,  the  power 
of  European  traditions,  the  urgency  of  European  need. 
She  was  handicapped  in  ways  she  did  not  know  by  years  V 
of  prideful  isolation  and  self-sufficiency.  But  the  Presi- 
dent, even  at  this  time,  saw  the  possibility  of  a  "tragedy 
of  disappointment." 

What  was  it  then — what  faith,  what  warrant  of 
strength,  what  deep  source  of  confidence  did  he  have 
in  confronting  such  a  situation? 

Three  days  before  the  George  Washington  sailed  into 
Brest  Harbour  in  a  blaze  of  glory  the  President  called 
together  a  group  of  the  delegation  for  a  conference. 
There  were  two  members  of  the  Peace  Commission  itself 
on  the  ship,  Secretary  Lansing  and  Mr.  White  (Colonel 
House  and  General  Bliss  being  already  in  Europe),  but  the 
great  body  of  the  delegation  was  made  up  of  geographers, 
historians,  economists,  and  others  upon  whom  the  Presi- 
dent was  to  depend  for  the  basic  facts  to  be  used  in  the 
coming  discussions.  Many  of  these  men  had  been  at 
work  for  months  (under  the  direction  of  Colonel  House's 
Inquiry)  in  gathering  material  of  every  sort  which  might 
contribute  to  the  solution  of  the  problems  raised  at  Paris. 
They  had  brought  along  with  them,  in  great  boxes  now 
stored  in  the  hold  of  the  ship,  a  substantial  library 
of  books,  documents,  reports,  together  with  a  complete 
equipment  of  maps. 

We  have  no  record  of  this  meeting  in  the  ornate  cabin 
of  the  George  Washington  save  notes  made  at  the  time 
by  Dr.  Isaiah  Bowman  (which  he  has  intrusted  to  me); 


10  WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

but  these  notes  show  plainly  enough  what  lay  in  the 
President's  mind  at  the  time,  and  what  he  proposed  to  do. 
Condensed  to  its  essentials,  the  President  said  that  the 
American  delegation  would  be  the  only  people  at  the 
Conference  with  a  disinterested  point  of  view;  it  was  su- 
premely necessary  to  "follow  the  opinions  of  mankind 
and  to  express  the  will  of  the  people  rather  than  that  of  their 
leaders  at  the  Conference,"  and  that  the  decisions  must 
rest  upon  this  opinion  of  mankind  and  "not  upon  the 
previous  determinations  and  diplomatic  schemes  of  the 
assembled  representatives."  Above  all,  there  must  be 
an  organization,  a  league  of  nations,  to  give  both  se- 
curity and  elasticity  to  the  settlements,  and  to  make 
easier  alterations  in  them  after  the  time  of  present  passion 
had  subsided. 

^  He  thought  that  the  German  colonies  should  be  de- 
clared the  common  property  of  the  League  of  Nations  and 
administered  by  small  nations.  The  resources  of  each 
colony  should  be  available  to  all  members  of  the  League, 
and  in  this  and  in  other  matters  involving  international 
relations  the  world  would  be  intolerable  if  only  "ar- 
rangement" ensued;  that  this  was  a  peace  conference 
in  which  arrangements  could  not  be  made  in  the  old 
style.  And  the  problem  of  the  Conference — he  referred 
particularly  to  the  question  of  German  indemnity — 
must  not  be  left  "in  purely  political  hands,"  but  must 
be  studied  by  commissions.  He  made  a  frank  appeal 
to  the  experts  there  for  their  cooperation  during  the 
Conference. 

"Tell  me  what  is  right,"  he  said,  "and  I'll  fight  for 
it;  give  me  a  guaranteed  position." 

He  also  showed  that  he  was  under  no  illusions  as  to  the 
fight  that  was  coming.  Anticipating  the  difficulties  of 
the  Conference  in  view  of  the  suggestion  he  had  made  re- 


THE      HERALD 


DMainbtT  t1.  im. 


DIPLOMATS  AND  THE  SHADOW  ON  THE  BLIND 


THE   PROBLEMS  OF  PEACE 

"  Picsulcnt   lI':!soii   univcs   tn  Paris."  —News  Item 


Cartoon  in  a  P)ritish  labour  paper  a  few  weeks  before  the 
Conferenee  opened  in  Paris 


THE  AMERICAN  PEACE  ARGOSY  SAILS  ii 

specting  the  desires  of  the  people  of  the  world  for  a 
new  order,  he  remarked,  "If  it  won't  work,  it  must  be 
made  to  work,"  because  the  world  was  faced  by  a  task  of 
terrible  proportions  and  only  the  adoption  of  a  cleansing 
process  would  regenerate  it.  ' 

The  poison  of  Bolshevism,  he  said,  was  accepted 
readily  because  "it  is  a  protest  against  the  way  in  which 
the  world  has  worked."  It  was  to  be  our  business  at 
the  Peace  Conference  to  fight  for  a  new  order,  "agree- 
ably if  we  can,  disagreeably  if  we  must." 

Such  was  the  fighting  message  of  the  President  to  his 
associates  there  on  the  ship  three  days  before  they  arrived 
in  France.  But  we  need  to  examine  the  American  idea 
more  in  detail.  What  was  the  essence  of  the  President's 
programme?  WTiat  did  he  mean  by  a  "new  order"?  Ifj 
Bolshevism  was  a  protest  against  "the  way  in  which  the 
world  has  worked,"  what  had  he  to  suggest  as  a  remedy?' 

There  were  two  great  central  ideas  in  his  programme, 
both  American  in  their  origin.  One  concerned  the  po- 
litical rights  and  liberties  of  human  kind,  the  other 
the  obligations  and  controls  of  humankind.  Specifically, 
they  were: 

1.  The  right  of  "self-determination"  of  peoples;  that 
government  must  rest  upon  the  "consent  of  the  governed." 

2.  The  obligation  to  cooperate  in  a  world  association 
for  mutual  aid  and  protection:  in  short,  a  league  of 
nations.  ^"^  I 

Here   was  the  two-fold  balanced  programme  of  the  I  I 
President,  containing  the  two  inevitable  and  struggling 
principles    of_ goyernment  in   a   democracy;   expressed, 
for  example,  in  some  of  its  phases  all  through  American 
history  in    the  balance  between  the  "State  rights"  aru|^ 
.' '  Federal  power. ' '  ^ 

However  he  may  have  been  attacked  by  opponents 


12  WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

of  either  of  these  principles,  the  President  never  at  any- 
time thought  of  them  as  separate;  he  always,  both  in 
speech  and  action,  linked  them  together.  He  put  his 
programme  in  a  nutshell  in  his  Mount  Vernon  speech 
July  4,  1918: 

These  great  objects  (of  the  peace)  can  be  put  in  a  single  sentence. 
What  we  seek  is  the  reign  of  law,  based  upon  the  consent  of  the 
y  governed,  and  sustained  by  the  organized  opinion  of  mankind. 

In  the  principles,  therefore,  which  he  laid  down  in  1917- 
1918,  Wilson  brought  nothing  new  or  original  to  the 
world.  They  had  long  been  the  common  coin  of  American 
oratory.  They  were,  indeed,  far  older  than  America; 
they  had  been  often  upon  the  lips  of  reformers  and  pro- 
phetic statesmen  of  other  nations.  They  had  found 
expression  in  the  most  distinctive  of  American  poetry, 
Emerson  and  Whitman.  Lincoln  had  affirmed  the  vital 
idea  in  his  phrase,  "government  of  the  people,  by  the 
people,  for  the  people." 

Over  and  over  again  the  President  set  forth  the  concept 
of  "self-determination." 

Peoples  [lie  said]  are  not  to  be  bartered  about  from  sovereignty  to 
sovereignty — as  if  they  were  mere  chattels  and  pawns  of  a  game. 

Every  territorial  settlement  involved  in  this  war  must  be  made  in 
the  interest  and  for  the  benefit  of  the  populations  concerned. 

Self-determination  .  .  .  is  an  imperative  principle  of  action 
which  statesmen  will  henceforth  ignore  at  their  peril. 

Here  he  was  only  reiterating  what  had  been  fought  for 
and  laid  down  in  the  greatest  American  documents:  the 
Virginia  Bill  of  Rights,  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
the  Constitution. 

"That  all  power  is  vested  in  and  consequently  de- 
rived from  the  people,"  said  the  Virginia  Bill  of  Rights. 


THE  AMERICAN  PEACE  ARGOSY  SAILS  13 

"Governments  are  instituted  among  men,  deriving 
their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed,"  said 
the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

"We,  the  people,"  said  the  Constitution,  "do  ordain 
and  establish  this  Constitution."  - 

But  the  idea  of  "government  by  consent  of  the  gov- 
erned" was  no  more  American  than  the  idea  of  associa- 
tion for  mutual  protection  which  lies  at  the  root  of  the 
entire  American  system — "to  form,"  in  the  words  of  the 
Constitution,  "a  more  perfect  union,  establish  justice, 
insure  domestic  tranquillity,  provide  for  the  common  de- 
fense."    Our  whole  Federal  system  has  here  its  roots. 

Thus  it  was  the  glowing  idea  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  "government  by  the  consent  of  the  gov- 
erned," that  Wilson  put  into  the  first  principle  of  his 
programme;  it  w^as  the  wise  statesmanship  of  the  Con- 
stitution that  he  hoped  to  imitate,  so  far  as  it  was  possible 
to  do  under  widely  different  and  more  difficult  conditions, 
in  the  second  half  of  his  programme. 

As  he  declared  in  his  address  to  the  Senate  of  January 
22,  1917: 

These  are  American  principles,  American  policies.  We  could 
stand  for  no  others.  And  they  are  also  the  principles  and  policies  of 
forward-looking  men  and  women  everywhere,  of  every  modern 
nation,  of  every  enlightened  community.  They  are  the  principles  of 
mankind  and  must  prevail. 

His  faith  in  these  American  principles  was  rooted  in  the 
deepest  soil  of  his  intense,  hard-knit,  lonely,  passionately 
determined  nature^i  All  his  life  long  he  had  been  a  student 
of  American  history,  the  American  Constitution,  Ameri- 
can ideals.  He  had  been  a  student  especially  of  the 
heroic  period  of  the  nation  and  of  the  principles  upon 
which  it  was  founded.     The  titles  of  his  earlier  books  ex- 


14  WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

press  these  deep  interests:  "Life  of  George  Washington," 
"History  of  the  United  States,"  "Congressional  Govern- 
ment," "The  State,"  "Constitutional  Government  in 
the  United  States." 

The  President  had  come  of  a  stock — the  Scotch  and 
Scotch-Irish — which  is  not  only  deeply  religious,  but  also 
passionately  devoted  to  the  ideals  of  freedom.  It  was 
almost  as  a  religious  faith  that  he  had  grasped  and  ac- 
cepted the  fundamental  American  doctrines.  "Every 
man,"  he  said  in  an  address,  November  4,  1916,  "who 
has  read  and  studied  the  great  annals  of  this  country 
may  feel  his  blood  warm  as  he  feels  these  great  forces  of 
humanity  growing  stronger  and  stronger." 

It  is  unfortunate  at  Paris  that  the  phrase  "self-deter- 
mination" became  a  kind  of  shibboleth  of  the  peace,  a 
mystic  formula,  for  it  represents  only  half  of  the  pro- 
gramme of  the  President.}  It  was  so  easy  to  cry  for  rights; 
so  difficult,  especially  at  that  moment  when  the  fears  and 
hatreds  of  the  war  were  still  so  acute,  to  ask  the]  nations 
to  assume  the  obligations  of  a  new  association.  It  was 
left  for  President  Wilson,  at  times  almost  alone,  to  sup- 
port the  other  and  equally  essential  half  of  his  pro- 
gramme; and  this  he  did  to  the  bitter  end.  For  he  saw 
that  it  was  futile  to  hope  for  the  realization  of  the  one 
without  the  other. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  President  had  put  into 
eloquent  words  what  America  meant  in  its  highest  aspira- 
tions to  the  great  masses  of  her  own  people  and  to  the 
world.  And  yet  the  question  may  be  raised  here — though 
this  is  not  the  place  to  argue  it — as  to  how  far  the  rich  and 
powerful  America  of  1917  and  1918  accepted  the  full  im- 
plication of  these  principles.  Did  America  really  believe 
in  applying  to  other  countries  the  principles  which  had 
made  her  free  and  great?     Did  she  believe  they  could  be 


THE  AMERICAN  PEACE  ARGOSY  SAILS  15 

applied?     The  question  may  also  be  raised  how  far  a'/ 
set  of  principles  so  exclusively  political  were  fitted  to/ 
meet  the  problems  of  a  world  in  which  economic  issues/ 
had  become  so  insistent  and  pressing.     But  the  discus^ 
sion  of  that  problem  must  be  left  for  another  part  of 
this  book.     (Part  VIII,  Volume  II.) 

There  was  on  this  very  ship,  also  sailing  away  to  Europe 
to  help  settle  the  war,  a  member  of  the  appointed  Peace 
Commission,  the  President's  Secretary  of  State,  Mr. 
Lansing,  who  was  also  walking  the  decks  of  the  George 
Washington  and  thinking  about  the  coming  conference. 
And  we  find  him  confiding  some  of  those  thoughts  secretly 
to  his  diary  soon  after  his  arrival  in  Paris: 

The  more  I  think  about  the  President's  declaration  as  to  the  right  of 
"self-determination,"  the  more  convinced  I  am  of  the  danger  of  put- 
ting such  ideas  into  the  minds  of  certain  races.     It  is  bound  to  be  the  |ij 
basis  of  impossible  demands  on  the  Peace  Congress  and  create  trouble  ' 
in  many  lands.     ...  n 

The  phrase  is  simply  loaded  with  dynamite.     .     .     .     What  a   ' 
calamity  that  the  phrase  was  ever  uttered!     What  misery  it  will 
cause !  ^ 

Considered  alone,  indeed,  as  Mt.  Lansing  considers  it 
(for  his  imagination  never  lifted  to  the  idea  of  a  new  and 
effective  world  association  of  nations),  it  was  indeed 
a  phrase  full  of  dynamite.  His  vision  was  one  of 
safety  rather  than  of  service.  He  speaks  of  "national 
safety  as  the  primary  object  to  be  attained  in  territorial 
settlements."  So  also  did  the  Germans  argue,  when  they 
scrapped  their  treaty  and  burst  into  Belgium,  that  the 
interest  and  safety  of  their  State  was  superior  to  any 
other  consideration,  so  did  the  allied  Governments  when 
they  signed  the  secret  treaties  of  1915,  1916,  and  1917, 

^"The  Peace  Negotiations,"  by  Robert  Lansing,  p.  97. 


16  WCX)DROW  WILSON  /VND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

and  this  struggle  between  the  idea  of  the  rights  and  in- 
terests of  peoples  and  the  interest  and  safety  of  States 
lay  at  the  root  of  most,  if  not  all,  of  the  problems  at 
Paris. 

But,  dynamite  or  no  dynamite,  the  President  believed 
to  the  very  roots  of  his  being  in  the  right  of  peoples  to  con- 
trol their  own  government  and  order  their  own  lives — 
and  he  set  it  forth  with  blazing  power  and  directness.  If 
the  American  doctrine  endangered  the  old  order  of  the 
world,  then  there  must  be  a  new  order. 

And  where  Mr.  Lansing  is  timidly  fearful  that  some  of 
the  oppressed  peoples  of  the  earth  will  become  discon- 
tented and  desire  to  live  under  a  government  to  which 
they  consent,  the  President  speaks  with  power  and  pas- 
sion of  the  mission  of  America  to  assist  just  such  weak 
and  oppressed  peoples. 

"If  you  could  catch  some  of  these  voices  that  speak  of 
the  utter  longing  of  the  oppressed  and  helpless  peoples  all 
over  the  world,"  he  says  on  May  18,  1918,  "and  hear 
something  like  the  'Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic,'  hear  the 
^  feet  of  the  great  hosts  of  liberty  going  to  set  them  free,  to 
set  their  minds  free,  to  set  their  children  free,  then  you 
would  know  what  comes  into  the  hearts  of  those  who  are 
trying  to  contribute  all  the  brains  and  power  they  have  to 
this  great  enterprise  of  liberty." 

There  were  also  groups  of  Americans,  with  their  leader- 
ship in  the  Senate,  who  were  bitterly  opposed  to  the 
second  principle,  the  League  of  Nations.  They  were 
against  assuming  international  obligations,  or  taking  any 
essential  part  in  a  new  world  association.  They  repre- 
sented a  kind  of  State  rights  party  in  international  affairs; 
they  were  jealous  of  American  rights,  fearful  of  even  a 
hint  of  a  new  world  federation.  In  response  to  these 
elements  of  opposition  who  believed  still  in  an  isolated 


<y 


/ 


THE  AMERICAN  PEACE  ARGOSY  SAILS  17 

America,  an  America  devoted  to  its  own  selfish  develop- 
ment, the  President  set  forth  an  ardent  vision  of  America 
as  a  powerful  State  committed,  not  to  its  own  aggrandize- 
ment, but  to  the  service  of  the  world.  Here  he  rose  to  his 
greatest  heights  of  prophetic  eloquence.  The  vision  he 
had  of  America  was  a  world  away  from  the  German  idea 
of  a  State  seeking  only  its  own  safety  and  its  own  welfare. 
It  was  a  vision  of  great  States,  like  the  greatest  men,  seek- 
ing not  their  own  ends,  but  serving  humanity,  and  of  a 
new  order  of  international  relationships  founded  upon 
this  spirit. 

We  may  say  his  vision  was  unwarranted,  "impracti- 
cal, "  that  it  did  not  take  sufficient  account  of  the  new 
economic  problems  crowding  upon  the  world,  yet  there 
it  was,  a  part  of  the  moving  spirit  of  the  time,  and 
it  must  be  given  its  full  value  by  the  historian  as  a  pro- 
found element  in  shaping  the  course  of  America  at 
Paris. 

Foreign  writers  have  seemed  to  grasp  more  clearly  the 
true  nature  and  significance  of  the  President's  vision  than 
many  of  his  own  countrymen;  to  perceive  what  it  means 
in  the  world,  how  it  will  inspire  or  plague  future  genera- 
tions. Says  a  writer  in  the  Hibbert  Journal  (Professor 
L.  P.  Jacks  of  Oxford  University) : 

The  germinating  idea  of  Mr.  Wilson's  policy  is  that  America, 
because  of  her  greatness,  of  her  power,  of  her  vast  potentiahties, 
is  a  servant  among  the  nations,  not  a  master.  It  is  a  noble  con- 
ception and  peculiarly  fitted  to  inspire  a  young  and  mighty  people 
with  a  vision  of  its  destiny,  and  so  to  mark  out  for  it  in  the  centuries 
that  are  to  come  a  line  of  development  different  from  and,  I  think, 
higher  than  any  which  the  older  States  of  theworld  have  so  farpursued. 
Though  the  idea  of  greatness  in  service  has  been  long  familiar  in 
other  connections,  where  perhaps  it  had  received  more  lip  service 
than  loyalty,  President  Wilson  is  the  first  statesman  to  make  it  opera- 
tive or  to  endeavour  to  make  it  operative  as  a  guiding  principle  of 


18  WOODROW  AMLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

international  politics,  and  this  alone,  whether  he  succeeds  or  not, 
assures  him  a  distinct  place  in  history  and  in  the  grateful  remembrance 
of  mankind.  Needless  to  say,  this  idea — that  the  greatest  nation 
must  needs  be  a  servant  nation — stands  out  as  the  polar  opposite  to 
the  notion  of  national  greatness  which  prevails  with  the  rulers  and 
apparently  with  the  people  of  Germany;  and  a  prescient  mind,  on 
hearing  it  first  announced  by  Mr.  Wilson  in  the  early  stages  of  the  war, 
might  have  predicted  that  a  moment  would  come  when  the  two  op- 
posites,  driven  by  a  dramatic  or  moral  necessity,  would  break  out  into 
open  conflict  with  one  another. 

In  short,  the  President  applied  to  the  relationships  of 
fixations  the  highest  principles  of  moraHty — Christian 
'  morality — accepted  as  governing  the  actions  of  individ- 
uals. "\Mioever  of  you  will  be  the  chief  est,  shall  be  the 
servant  of  all."  He  thought  of  America  not  in  terms  of 
great  political  power,  nor  of  great  wealth,  nor  of  vast 
trade,  but  in  terms  of  moral  leadership  and  of  international 
service.  .  .        . . 

-  Again  and  again,  both  before  the  war,  after  it  began,  and 
during  the  Peace  Conference,  the  President  reiterated 
these  ideas. 

"America  was  created  to  unite  mankind."  America 
is  to  "think  first  of  humanity." 

A  month  before  the  great  war  broke  out,  July  4,  1914, 
the  President  prophetically  spoke  of  his  vision  of  America 
as  a  world  leader: 

My  dream  is  that  as  the  years  go  by  and  the  world  knows  more  and 
more  of  America  it  .  .  .  will  turn  to  America  for  those  moral 
inspirations  which  lie  at  the  basis  of  all  freedom;  that  the  world  will 
never  fear  America  unless  it  feels  that  it  is  engaged  in  some  enter- 
prise which  is  inconsistent  with  the  rights  of  humanity:  and  that 
America  will  come  into  the  full  light  of  the  day  when  all  shall  know 
that  she  puts  human  rights  above  all  other  rights,  and  that  her  flag 
is  the  flag  not  only  of  America,  but  of  humanity.  What  other  great 
people  has  devoted  itself  to  this  exalted  ideal?  \ 


THE  AMERICAN  PEACE  ARGOSY  SAILS  19 

In  his  speech  of  April  2,  1917,  just  before  the  American 
declaration  of  war,  he  said: 

We  have  no  selfish  ends  to  serve.  We  desire  no  conquest,  no  do- 
minion. We  seek  no  indemnities  for  ourselves,  no  material  compensa- 
tion for  the  sacrifices  we  shall  freely  make.  We  are  but  one  of  the 
champions  of  mankind.  We  shall  be  satisfied  when  those  rights  have 
been  made  as  secure  as  the  faith  and  the  freedom  of  nations  can 
make  them. 

During  the  ordeal  of  the  war  and  the  even  greater  or- 
deal of  the  Peace  Conference  it  was  with  the  thought  of 
the  great  American  statesmen  who  founded  the  nation 
and  of  the  principles  they  enunciated  that  he  constantly 
fortified  his  spirit.  As  he  said  in  one  of  his  speeches 
during  the  arduous  Western  trip  in  September,  1919 — his 
final  hopeless  appeal  to  the  people — ^just  before  his  break- 
down: 

I  can  fancy  those  men  of  the  first  generation  that  so  thoughtfully 
set  up  this  great  Government,  the  generation  of  Washington,  Hamil- 
ton, Jefferson,  and  the  Adamses — I  can  fancy  their  looking  on  with  a 
sort  of  enraptured  amazement  that  the  American  spirit  should  make  a 
conquest  of  the  world. 

If  he  had  felt  the  problems  of  the  peace,  as  he  must 
have  felt  them  there  on  the  ship,  as  merely  his  own  he 
must  have  been  utterly  daunted,  but  he  felt  them  as 
America's  and  he  felt  America  behind  him. 

He  had  also  another  strong  warrant  for  his  confidence. 
This  lay  in  the  almost  universal  acceptance  of  the  Amer-  / 
ican  principles  by  the  nations  of  the  world,  especially  by  I 
the  liberal  and  labour  groups  of  the  allied  nations.     They  I 
were  agreed  to,  signed  and  sealed,  at  the  Armistice^ 

Such  a  mighty  hold,  indeed,  had  the  American  idea 
taken  upon  the  world  that  it  became  the  best  of  politics 
for  the  statesmen  of  the  allied  nations  to  play.     Lloyd 


20  WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

George's  statement  of  war  aims  in  January,  1918,  signi- 
ficantly before  the  Trade  Union  Conference  in  London, 
contains  many  of  the  same  proposals  for  specific  settle- 
ments as  those  laid  down  by  President  Wilson  in  his 
earlier  addresses.  With  characteristic  ardour  Lloyd 
George  not  only  accepts  what  he  perceives  to  be  the  win- 
ning keynote  of  the  coming  settlements,  self-determina- 
tion, but  impulsively  rides  the  logic  of  the  principle  into 
jungles  where  the  President  never  ventured.  He  declares 
in  his  speech  to  the  w^orkers  that  "the  consent  of  the 
governed  must  be  the  basis  of  any  territorial  settlement 
in  tliis  war,"  and  then  asserts  that  even  the  African 
natives  of  the  German  colonies  are  competent  to  decide 
their  own  political  fate.\ 

One  of  the  interesting  figures  at  Paris,  a  gentleman 
and  a  scholar,  though  not  a  strong  leader,  was  Orlando, 
Premier  of  Italy.  No  man  there  better  understood  the 
President's  real  message — though  he  was  later  to  oppose 
bitterly  the  President's  programme.  In  November,  1918, 
two  months  before  the  Peace  Conference,  in  a  speech  to 
the  Chamber  of  Deputies  at  Rome,  he  thus  set  forth  the 
position  of  the  United  States,  as  he  understood  it: 

This  problem  is  not  so  much  that  of  finding  a  new  form  of  social 
life  such  as  will  assure  the  peaceable  adjustment  of  every  future  diffi- 
culty, but  that  of  feeling  and  living  up  to  this  specific  truth:  that  in 
the  ethical  world,  power  is  not  the  spring  of  greater  rights  but  of  wider 
responsibilities  and  therefore  of  greater  duties.  In  recognition  of  this 
President  Wilson  checkmated  the  imperialistic  German  theory  of  the 
right  of  might  by  the  principle  of  the  duty  of  the  strongest,  giving  to 
such  principle  its  noblest  expression  by  placing  the  authority  of  the 
moral  law  above  the  might  of  the  United  States. 

It  was  this  thought  of  a  great  nation,  the  most  power- 
.  ful  in  the  whole  world,  acting  in  the  service  of  hu- 
\    manity,  to  protect  the  weak,  to  raise  up  the  oppressed 


THE  AMERICAN  PEACE  ARGOSY  SAILS  21 

and  downtrodden,  to  bring  justice  into  the  world — it  was 
this  that  raised  those  mighty  shouting  crowds  in  Rome  and 
Paris  and  London.  It  was  this  that,  as  Count  Czernin 
said,  "opened  up  a  world  of  hope"  to  a  world  of  misery. 

Even  M.  Clemenceau  recognized  this  change  in  attitude 
during  the  progress  of  the  war  toward  a  more  idealistic 
position.     He  said  in  response  to  the  President  on  May  26 : 

What  President  Wilson  had  said  about  the  change  of  mind  of  the 
peoples  of  the  world  which  had  occurred  during  the  war  was  a  very 
serious  consideration.  In  the  earlier  part  of  the  war,  people  had 
talked  about  seizure  of  territory  but,  afterwards  had  come  the  idea 
of  the  liberties  of  peoples  and  the  building  up  of  new  relations.^ 

In  short,  these  ideas,  this  body  of  moral  principles, 
represented  not  only  the  deep-seated  aspirations  and 
convictions  of  the  President,  or  of  Americans,  but  they 
also  represented,  as  the  European  political  leaders  well 
knew,  the  aspirations  and  convictions  of  the  masses  of 
the  peoples  of  all  countries.^ 

The  League  of  Nations  was  a  logical  consequence  of 
the  President's  idea  of  service  as  a  national  duty.  The 
nations  of  the  world  should  be  bound  together  in  a  spirit 
of  service  to  each  other — service  of  the  great  to  the  small, 
of  the  rich  to  the  undeveloped,  service  of  those  expe- 
rienced in  freedom  to  the  politically  backward.  If  au- 
tocracy was  to  be  overthrown  and  many  new  and  weak 
democracies  were  to  come  into  being,  it  was  necessary 
that  there  should  be  a  strong  league  of  nations  not  only 
to  prevent  future  war  but  to  protect  these  new  nations 
until  they  could  establish  themselves  firmly. 

It  is  significant  that  of  all  the  allied  leaders,  no  matter 
how  nobly  they  had  borne  the  great  burdens  of  the  war, 

1  Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Four. 


22  WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

it  was  Wilson  who  evoked  the  great  popular  receptions — 
unparalleled  receptions — in  the  capitals  of  Europe. 
There  was  never  a  parade  for  Clemenceau;  Lloyd  George 
slipped  in  and  out  of  Paris  almost  unheralded;  Orlando 
and  Sonnino  came  and  went,  indeed,  like  great  ambassa- 
dors, but  with  no  popular  acclaim.  I  suppose  there  was 
never  anything  like  the  feehng  aroused  by  Wilson  among 
the  people  of  Europe,  and  this  is  to  be  set  down  here  as 
a  historical  fact,  whatever  may  be  the  judgment  of  sub- 
sequent events. 

"The  President's  principles,"  remarks  the  cautious 
writer  of  the  Institute  of  International  Affairs,  "had  con- 
quered Europe,"  and  asks  as  a  kind  of  after-thought: 
"AMiat  still  remains  to  be  seen  is  .  .  .  whether  the  W^il- 
sonian  principles  can  conquer  America."^ 

Of  course,  these  great  principles  were  set  forth  to  the 
world,  and  accepted  by  the  world,  in  a  highly  emotional 
moment  of  common  fear  and  common  suffering.  How 
the  ideas  fared  when  the  emotional  moment  passed, 
when  the  pressing  needs  and  ambitions  and  vast  economic 
problems  were  insistently  brought  before  the  harassed 
delegates  at  Paris,  remains  yet  to  be  considered.  It  is 
the  story  of  the  Peace  Conference. 

On  December  13  the  George  Washington  arrived  in 
Brest,  and  on  the  14th  the  President  rode  down  the 
Champs  Elysees  with  the  President  of  France — a  popular 
reception  of  vast  proportions.  "Vive  I'Amerique," 
"Vive  le  President,"  cried  the  multitudcc  Over  the 
street  where  the  procession  passed  hung  a  great  banner 
bearing  the  words,  "Honour  to  Wilson  the  Just." 

' "  A  I  listory  of  the  Peace  Conference  of  Paris, "  edited  by  H.  W.  V.  Temperley,  Vol. 
I,  p.  204. 


CHAPTER  II 

The  Old  Diplomacy  and  What  It  Stood  for — the 
European   Secret  Treaties  and  Their  Effect 
UPON  THE  Peace  Conference — Attitude  of 
America  toward  Secret  Diplomacy 

THE  President  was  In  France.  He  had  already 
ridden  down  the  Champs  Elysees  and  up  the 
boulevards  in  a  blaze  of  glory.  His  reception 
had  been  unexampled.  He  had  come  with  American 
ideas  and  American  principles,  and  he  was  face  to  face 
at  last  with  the  Old  World,  the  problems  of  the  Old 
World,  the  politicians  of  the  Old  World,  the  diplomacy 
of  the  Old  World,  and  finally  with  the  economic  prob- 
lems of  the  Old  World,  the  importance  of  which  few 
Americans  at  that  time  realized. 

I  have  showTi  in  the  last  chapter  what  the  American 
programme  was  as  set  forth  by  the  President.  I  have 
shown  how  powerful  was  his  faith  in  it  and  the  deter- 
mination to  use  it  in  creating  a  "new  order." 

It  remains  now,  before  exhibiting  the  actual  struggle 
there  by  the  Seine,  or  on  the  stony  hill  of  Paris  where 
the  President  lived,  to  show  what  the  j)ld  World  stood 
for,  in  terms  of  diplomacy  and  politics.  Before  we  can 
understand  this  "JYar  of  the  Peace,"  we  must  see  an^_ 
be  sure  not^  to—underrate  the  forces  of  the  opposition. 
After  all,  there  was  a  past,  there  were  ancient  traditions; 
other  nations  in  the  world  also  had  their  desires,  needs, 
ambitions — ^facts  the  American  is  likely  to  forget. 

If  the  President  during  more  than  two  years  had  been 

23 


24  WOODROW  ^MLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

gradually  building  up,  speech  by  speech,  in  messages  to  Con- 
gress, in  correspondence  with  foreign  powers — all  in  the  free 
public  air,  wide  open  to  the  world  and  known  to  every 
American  soldier — a  solid  and  stately  structure  of  prin- 
ciples which  represented  the  American  attitude  toward 
the  coming  peace,  so  also  had  the  nations  of  Europe  and 
Asia  been  working  out  their  conceptions  of  the  coming 
settlements,  also  in  notes,  "conversations,"  treaties. 
Much  of  this  had  been  done  before  America  entered  the 
war,  and  practically  all  in  the  dark  in  the  form  of 
"secret  treaties" — arrangements  between  diplomats,  which 
were  withheld  from  the  people  who  were  doing  the  actual 
fighting.  It  was  probably  inevitable  that  this  should 
have  been  so,  because  the  Old  World  was  struggling  in 
the  mazes  of  an  antiquated  system  which  no  one  nation, 
even  with  the  best  intent,  could  have  broken  down. 
Nevertheless,  President  Wilson's  absolutely  frank  pro- 
nouncements, with  no  purposes  anywhere  concealed, 
represented  the  "new  diplomacy,"  or  "open  diplomacy," 
and  these  secret  treaties  of  1915, 1916, 1917  represented  the 
"old  diplomacy"  upon  which  rested,  as  upon  a  rock,  the 
Old  W^orld  imperialistic  and  militaristic  system. ]\ 

It  may  be  said  that  the  Governments  of  the  allied 
nations,  after  America  came  in,  accepted  the  American 
ideas.  It  is  true,  they  did:  they  agreed  solemnly  to  the 
President's  principles  at  the  Armistice.  The  great  liberal 
and  labour  groups  were  everywhere  with  him,  and  there 
were  leaders  even  in  the  Governments,  especially  in  Great 
Britain,  who  endeavoured  earnestly  to  stand  by.  But 
when  the  Peace  Conference  began,  the  same  elements 
in  each  nation,  often  the  same  leaders,  who  had  made 
those  secret  treaties  were  still  in  power.  Not  only  did 
most  of  them  know  and  believe  in  that  method  of  diplo- 
macy— some  of  them  had  been  schooled  in  it  all  their 


THE  OLD  DIPLOMACY,  WHAT  IT  STOOD  FOR  25 

lives — not  only  were  they  committed  to  the  full  use  of 
the  military  method,  which  they  also  understood  per- 
fectly, but  far  more  fundamental  than  either,  these  secret 
treaties  represented  the  real  views,  the  real  desires,  the 
real  necessities  of  the  various  Governments.  For  what  a 
man  or  nation  desires  secretly  is  the  reality;  what  he  says 
is  the  appearance,  s 

SuflSce  it  to  say  that  though  conditions  had  radically 
changed  in  the  course  of  the  war,  though  America  had  come 
in  and  American  principles  had  been  universally  accepted, 
though  Russia  had  disappeared  as  a  factor  in  the  settle- 
ment, though  Austria-Hungary  had  entirely  broken  up 
(an  event  predicted  by  no  responsible  statesman  in  the 
early  days  of  the  war,  although  Lloyd  George  had  called 
it,  in  1914,  a  "ramshackle  empire"),  even  though  the 
secret  treaties  had  been  in  some  instances  disclaimed, 
yet  the  demands  set  forth  during  the  Peace  Conference 
by  the  various  nations  w^ere  (as  will  be  shown)  exactly 
the  claims  made  in  those  very  secret  treaties. 

If  we  can  understand  then  as  a  foundation  what  was 
in  these  old  secret  treaties  the  entire  stage  of  the  drama 
at  Paris  will  be  powerfully  illuminated. 

It  is  truly  an  amazing  thing  that  in  all  the  records  of 
the  Peace  Conference  so  far  written  no  complete  or  ade- 
quate account  of  these  secret  arrangements,  and  no 
proper  estimate  of  their  influence  upon  the  councils,  has 
been  given.  This  is  due  to  several  causes.  In  the  first 
place,  the  secret  records  of  the  Peace  Conference — in 
which  all  the  more  important  of  these  treaties  are  dis- 
cussed— have  not  hitherto  been  accessible,  and  it  was 
impossible  for  the  writers  to  know  how  many  days  and 
pages  were  devoted  to  the  endless  controversies  which 
raged  around  them.  In  the  second  place,  some  of  the 
writers  who  well  knew  of  the  existence  of  certain  of  these 


J 


26  WOODROW  WILSON  AND  AYORLD  SETTLEMENT 

secret  arrangements  are  content  to  maintain  that  secrecy 
— such  shreds  of  it  as  are  left — and  minimize  their 
warping  influence  upon  the  Conference.  One  may  read 
]\r.  Andre  Tardieu's  bulky  volume,  which  he  calls  "The 
Truth  about  the  Treaty,"  without  discovering  that  there 
was  ever  such  a  thing  as  a  secret  treaty ! 

But  without  an  understanding  of  these  treaties  there 
can  be  no  true  understanding  of  what  really  happened 
at  Paris.  Two  of  the  great  conflicts  there,  the  Italian  and 
Japanese  settlements,  turned  largely  upon  the  existence 
of  secret  treaties,  and  the  black  trail  of  the  serpent  of 
secret  diplomacy  of  the  earlier  days  of  the  war  also  dis- 
figui*ed  the  discussions  of  the  disposition  of  the  German 
colonies  and  the  settlements  in  Turkey  and  played  a 
part  in  nearly  every  other  important  controversy. 

It  was  the  most  insidious  single  element  working  against 
full  publicity  of  the  proceedings,  for  it  involved  pur- 
poses which  the  European  Powers  dared  not  discuss  in 
public.  It  cramped  and  hampered  the  experts,  it  caused 
the  chief  European  councillors  themselves  to  play  fast 
and  loose  with  one  another.  Nothing  in  the  voluminous 
records  of  the  Council  of  Ten  and  Council  of  Four  at  Paris 
is  more  impressive  than  the  amount  of  time — invaluable 
time,  priceless  energy — devoted  to  trying  to  devise 
methods  of  getting  around  or  over  or  through  these  old 
secret  entanglements.  There,  and  not  in  discussions 
of  the  League  of  Nations,  was  where  the  time  was 
lost/^) 

It  would  be  impossible,  for  example,  to  understand 
the  situation  under  which  such  small  nations  as  Serbia 
and  Rumania  came  into  the  Conference,  and  the  attitude, 
the  duplicities,  of  the  great  Powers  toward  them,  with- 
out knowing  fully  of  the  existence  of  the  secret  treaty 
with  Rumania  and  of  the  manner  in  which  it  had  been 


THE  OLD  DIPLOMACY,  WHAT  IT  STOOD  FOR  27 

concealed  even  from  Serbia,  an  ally  then  fighting  to  the 
limit  of  its  ability  against  the  Central  Empires,  and 
whose  interests  were  directly  affected  by  that  treaty. 
Consider  this  colloquy,  exliibiting  one  of  the  most  shame- 
less acts  of  the  entire  war,  which  took  place  in  the  Council 
of  Ten  soon  al  ccr  the  Conference  opened : 

M.  Vesnitch  [the  Serbian  delegate],  stated  that  he  .  .  . 
had  heard,  with  regret,  that  the  Rumanian  delegation  based  their 
country's  claim  in  part  on  the  secret  treaty  of  1916.  WTien  this 
treaty  was  being  negotiated,  Serbia  was  fighting  on  the  side  of  the 
Allies,  without  asking  for  any  assurances,  in  the  firm  belief  that  after 
the  war  settlement  would  be  made  on  the  principles  of  justice,  on  the 
principles  of  the  self-determination  of  nationahties  and  in  accordance 
with  the  promises  of  the  Allies.     .     . 

M.  Clemenceau  said  that  he  was  not  aware  that  the  treaty  of 
1916  had  been  secret. 

M.  Vesnitch  replied  that  not  only  had  the  treaty  never  been 
published,  but  that  as  a  representative  of  a  power  fighting  with  the 
Allies,  he  had  several  times  asked  here  in  the  Ministry  for  Foreign 
Affairs  to  know  terms  of  the  treaty.  He  had  been  told  that  the 
contents  of  the  treaty  could  not  be  divulged. 

M.  Bratiano  [the  Rumanian  delegate]  stated  that  the  discus- 
sion of  the  claims  of  Rumania  had  been  begun  in  London  in  1916, 
and  had  then  been  transferred  to  Petrograd,  as  a  place  where  the 
examination  of  Eastern  questions  could  be  more  conveniently  carried 
on,  especially  in  regard  to  Serbia. 

M.  PiCHON  [the  French  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs]  then  read  the 
last  paragraph  of  the  Treaty,  which  required  the  maintenance  of 
its  secrecy  to  the  end  of  the  war.^ 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  conversation  what  an  atmos-  I 
phereof  distrust  these  secret  treaties  had  produced  at  ! 
Tans.     Such  stories  as  this,  bruited  about,  infected  all  j 
the   small   nations   with   cynical   suspicion.     Who   knew 
what  other  secret  treaties  existed,  or  had  been  made 

^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  January  31. 


X 


28  WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

behind  their  backs?  Who  knew  that  secret  treaties 
were  not  still  being  made?  Not  only  did  the  small 
nations  suspect  the  great  Allies,  but  the  great  Allies,  I 
shall  show,  suspected  one  another. 

It  was  in  this  atmosphere  that  President  Wilson  came, 
asking  the  nations  to  trust  one  another,  to  have  faith  in 
one  another.  For  the  basis  of  the  old  diplomacy  was 
suspicion,  the  basis  of  the  new,  if  ever  there  is  to  be  a 
new,  must  be  mutual  trust;  and  that  trust  among  nations, 
as  among  individual  men,  must  rest  upon  truth-telling, 
frankness,  openness  of  purpose. 

It  may  truthfully  be  said — the  documents  abundantly 
prove  it — that  this  secret  diplomacy  not  only  cursed 
Europe  during  the  old  armed  peace,  but  nearly  lost  the 
great  war  to  the  Allies. 

For  it  produced  in  each  allied  nation,  but  especially 
in  Great  Britain  and  Italy,  profound  internal  discontent 
and  distrust  on  the  part  of  the  labour  and  liberal  groups. 
It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  great  war  broke  upon 
a  world  very  different,  indeed,  from  that,  say,  of  Napoleon, 
with  a  working  class  better  educated,  better  organized, 
more  self-conscious,  than  ever  before — a  working  class 
that  in  all  the  belligerent  countries  had  the  power  of  the 
ballot.  So  powerful  had  these  groups  grown  in  1914 
that  in  several  countries  they  were  seizing  political 
power,  or  else,  as  in  Russia,  were  close  to  revolution. 
They  were  against  the  entire  old  system  of  militarism 
and  of  diplomacy.  They  wanted,  as  President  Wilson 
did,  a  "new  order,"  a  "new  world,"  although  they 
defined  their  "new  order"  in  different  terms  with  an 
economic  programme  far  beyond  anything  visualized 
by  the  President.N> 

When  the  great  war  came,  all  class  controversies  and 
labour  unrest  were  quickly  forgotten  in  a  stern  uprising 


THE  OLD  DIPLOMACY,  WHAT  IT  STOOD  FOR  29 

to  repel  the  invader.     For  the  Prussian  Monarchy  sym- 
boHzed  all  they  hated. 

But  this  complete  unity  lasted  for  only  a  short  time  in 
any  European  country.  The  powerful  labour  and  so- 
cialistic groups  began  again  to  be  restive.  They  had 
ancient  knowledge — and  fear — of  the  old  diplomacy,  and 
they  were  profoundly  suspicious  of  their  Governments. 
Even  before  it  was  known  that  any  secret  treaties  ex- 
isted, these  opposition  groups  suspected  that  their  Gov- 
ernments were  concerned  not  only  with  the  defense  of 
the  allied  nations  from  German  aggression,  but  with 
territorial  expansions  and  extensions  of  their  own  nation- 
alistic power.  And  they  soon  began  to  have  confirmation 
of  their  suspicions. 

On  April  26,  1915,  nine  months  after  the  war  began, 
the  secret  treaty  of  London,  which  brought  Italy  into 
the  war,  was  signed.  While  the  liberals  of  Europe  knew 
in  part  the  promises  the  Allies  had  made  to  Italy  (had 
had  to  make!)  they  also  knew  the  danger  that  lurked 
in  such  annexationist  commitments.  They  knew  also 
that  other  secret  arrangements  were  being  made  among 
the  Allies,  a  hint  of  that  with  Russia  regarding  Con- 
stantinople, and  certainly  of  that  of  August,  1916,  which 
brought  Rumania  into  the  war,  but  they  were  never 
sure  that  they  knew  all  the  terms  of  these  agreements, 
and  they  shrewdly  suspected  (rightly  enough  as  we  know 
now)  that  there  were  still  other  agreements  of  which  they 
knew  nothing  whatever.  On  one  hand  this  secrecy 
caused  the  opposition  groups  to  exaggerate  the  extent  of 
the  arrangements  among  the  Allies,  and  on  the  other  it 
estopped  responsible  statesmen  like  Asquith  and  Grey 
from  explaining  why  the  Allies  had  been  forced  to  make 
promises,  for  example,  to  Italy  and  Rumania,  in  order 
to  get  them  into  the  war  on  the  side  of  the  Allies.     And 


30  WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

no  doubt,  though  their  fear  of  the  secret  treaties  was  real 
enough,  these  radical  groups  used  them  also  as  a  weapon 
in  their  general  campaign  of  opposition  to  the  Govern- 
ments in  power. 

Italian  opinion,  for  example,  was  by  no  means  un- 
divided at  the  time  regarding  the  secret  treaty  of  London, 
which  gave  to  Italy  such  important  accessions  of  territory. 
For  in  Italj%  as  in  other  allied  countries,  there  were 
powerful  labour  and  liberal  groups,  and  these  elements 
vigorously  endeavoured  to  secure  a  re\'ision  of  the  im- 
perialistic purposes  of  the  treaty.  When  in  Italy  in  1918 
I  found  this  movement  much  in  evidence,  supported  by 
such  powerful  progressive  newspapers  as  the  Corriera 
della  Sera  and  the  Secolo  of  Milan;  and,  of  course,  by 
the  labour  and  socialist  leaders.  Even  Signor  Orlando 
himself  was  at  that  time  a  vigorous  critic  of  the  treaty. 
They  took  the  ground  that  the  treaty  was  a  mistake  for 
Italy  itself,  and  that  the  best  policy  in  the  long  run  was 
not  to  try  to  annex  territory  or  population  at  the  expense 
of  the  nations  to  the  east  and  thus  make  enemies  of  them, 
but  to  cooperate  with  them  and  win  their  friendship. 

In  pursuance  of  this  far-sighted  liberal  policy  there 
was  held  at  Rome  in  April,  1918,  a  Congress  of  the  Op- 
pressed Nationalities  of  Austria-Hungary,  and  an  attempt 
was  made  to  offset  the  bad  impression  produced  in  the 
Balkans  by  the  London  treaty.  But  after  the  Italian 
victories  of  the  following  fall  the  effort  to  revise  the 
treaty  was  given  up,  and  Italy  came  into  the  Peace  Con- 
ference demanding  not  only  all  that  was  in  the  secret 
treaty  of  London,  but  also  the  City  of  Fiume,  which, 
under  that  treaty,  was  assigned  to  the  Croatians.  The 
effects  of  this  secret  treaty  upon  the  Peace  Conference, 
which  were  profound,  will  be  treated  in  their  proper 
place. 


THE  OLD  DIPLOMACY,  WHAT  IT  STOOD  FOR  31 

In  December,  1916,  after  the  German  proposals  of 
peace  to  America  and  the  Pope,  President  Wilson  him- 
self, impressed  by  the  want  of  a  clear  statement  of  real 
war  aims  and  disturbed  by  the  reports  of  secret  arrange- 
ments, requested  the  belligerents  to  set  forth  in  detail 
their  conditions  of  peace.  On  January  10,  1917  (three 
months  before  America  declared  war),  came  the  first 
comprehensive  statement  of  the  Allies.  Read  in  the 
light  of  later  knowledge  this  statement  is  extremely 
vague,  and  either  avoids  or  conceals  in  generalities  many 
of  the  real  and  specific  purposes  to  which  the  Allies  had 
solemnly  agreed  among  themselves  in  the  secret  treaties. 
But  it  was  a  decided  advance  in  definiteness  upon  any 
former  declaration  (and  much  franker  than  the  German 
reply),  and  it  declared  for  the  two  great  general  principles 
in  which  President  Wilson  was  chiefly  interested :  strongly 
for  the  League  of  Nations  and  less  clearly  for  "self- 
determination  . ' ' 

In  April  America  came  into  the  war,  giving  still  greater 
reality  to  Mr.  Wilson's  powerful  effort  to  define  anew 
and  in  constructive  terms — to  give  a  high  moral  signi- 
ficance— to  the  war  aims  of  the  Allies,   i 

But  the  doubts  and  suspicions  of  the  opposition  were 
quieted  only  for  a  brief  time.  New  evidence  kept  drib- 
bling out — often  by  way  of  the  enemy  countries — that 
their  governments  were  not  being  frank  with  them;  that 
the  purposes  of  the  secret  treaties  had  not  really  been 
abandoned  when  the  new  statement  of  war  aims  was 
made,  and  that  there  were  other  secret  arrangements, 
of  which  they  knew  nothing  at  all.  For  example,  the 
old  Russian  Government,  just  before  it  fell  (in  March, 
1917)  and  in  a  last  desperate  effort  to  reinspire  support 
among  its  people  (though  it  had  precisely  the  contrary 
effect),  published  the  fact  that  the  Allies  had  secretly 


I 


32  WOODROW  ^^'ILSON  AND  ^YORLD  SETTLEMENT 

promised  to  give  Constantinople  to  Russia  as  spoils  of 
war. 

It  is  still  difficult  for  Americans  to  realize  the  serious- 
ness with  which  these  things  were  regarded  in  Europe. 

In  America  we  knew  little  and  cared  less  about  these 
European  secret  treaties.  Our  national  interests  were 
at  no  point  directly  affected  by  them;  and  we  had  no 
1  powerful  body  of  liberal  or  radical  opinion,  as  in  England, 
to  agitate  regarding  them.  ^  Everyone  knew,  indeed,  that 
Italy  had  driven  a  hard  bargain  when  she  came  into  the 
war  on  the  side  of  the  Allies — but  this  was  war,  and  in  war 
anything  may  be  necessary.  But  the  importance  of  this 
particular  secret  treaty — the  treaty  of  London — when 
the  time  should  come  for  peace-making  was  never  visu- 
alized in  America,  not  even  by  President  Wilson;  and  little 
was  known  up  to  the  time  of  the  Peace  Conference,  ex- 
cept by  a  small  number  of  students  of  international 
affairs — and  even  then  by  no  means  fully — about  the 
amazing  tangle  of  other  secret  treaties  and  arrangements 
in  which  the  nations  of  Europe  had,  because  of  necessity, 
fear,  or  greed,  become  involved.  This  indifference  was  a 
symbol  of  our  national  isolation. 

Even  the  State  Department  of  the  United  States,  which 
is  the  organization  especially  charged  with  the  duty  of 
knowing  about  foreign  affairs,  seems  to  have  had  no  in- 
terest in  these  secret  treaties  and,  if  Secretary  Lansing 
is  to  be  believed,  little  or  no  knowledge  of  them.     One 

'Earnest  attempts  were  indeed  made  in  America  by  a  small  group  of  radicals  in  New 
York  to  give  publicity  to  such  of  these  secret  treaties  as  were  published  by  the  Bolshe- 
vists in  Noveml)er,  1917.  They  were  published  in  the  New  York  Evening  Posf,  and  in 
part  in  six  other  newspapers  out  of  the  thousands  in  America,  and  copies  were  sent  to 
Meml>ers  of  Congress:  but  with  httle  or  no  eflFect.  Not  only  was  their  serious  signifi- 
cance not  popularly  apj)reciated,  but  the  war-spirit  was  then  running  at  fever-heat  and 
there  was  a  widespread  feeling,  expressed,  for  example,  by  the  New  York  Nation  of 
August  3.  1918,  that  "as  to  the  secret  treaties  .  .  .  their  disclosure  weakened  the 
morale  and  prestige  of  the  Allies,  and  the  treaties  were  very  properly  brushed  aside  by 
President  Wilson." 


THE  OLD  DIPLOMACY,  WHAT  IT  STOOD  FOR  33 

is  dumbfounded  to  read  his  testimony  before  the  Senate 
Committee,  August  6,  1919  (p.  190): 

Senator  Johnson  of  California — Were  you  familiar  with  the 
treaties  that  had  been  made  after  the  commencement  of  the  war  con- 
cerning the  disposition  of  territory  by  the  different  belligerents? 

Secretary  Lansing — I  was  more  familiar  with  the  London  agree- 
ment that  affected  the  Italian  boundaries,  than  any  other. 

Senator  Johnson — Were  you  familiar  with  any  other  agreements 
between — 

Secretary  Lansing — No. 

Senator  Johnson — Did  you  know  that  any  such  existed? 

Secretary  Lansing — No. 

Senator  Johnson — You  do  not  know  whether  there  were  any 
treaties  made  during  the  war  or  not? 

Secretary  Lansing — No;  because  I  never  paid  any  attention  to 
that. 

The  Secretary  could  have  obtained  information  on  the 
subject  easily  enough,  but  shared  the  general  American 
attitude  toward  it.  We  know  that  he  once  discussed  the 
secret  agreements  involving  Japan  with  the  experts  of  the 
Inquiry.  A  note  made  by  him  upon  a  cablegram  from 
Colonel  House,  dated  November  15,  1918,  shows  that  he 
knew  something  of  these  treaties  at  least.  Worst  of  all 
is  the  failure  to  take  any  action  upon  the  cable  referred 
to,  in  which  the  French  Foreign  Office  threw  out  a  mo- 
mentary suggestion  of  willingness  to  scrap  all  the  secret 
treaties  for  the  sake  of  curbing  Italy.  Here  was  an  op- 
portunity neglected  through  failure  to  appreciate  its 
importance. 

While  the  President  must  have  known  in  general  of  these 
secret  agreements,  for  he  often  excoriated  the  practices  of 
"secret  diplomacy,"  he  apparently  made  no  attempt  to 
secure  any  vital  or  comprehensive  knowledge.  Of  all  his 
associates.  Colonel  House,  head  of  the  Inquiry,  was  prob- 


34  WOODROW  VVILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

ably  the  best  informed.  When  Mr.  Balfour  came  to 
Washin^on  as  the  British  commissioner,  in  April,  1917, 
he  explained  certain  of  these  treaties  to  Colonel  House. 
Colonel  House,  however,  said  he  was  not  particularly  in- 
terested, because  it  seemed  to  him  more  important  to 
bend  all  energies  to  the  winning  of  the  war,  and  he  finally 
told  Mr.  Balfour  that  they  were  "dividing  the  bearskin 
before  the  bear  had  been  killed."  Mr.  Balfour,  so  far 
as  the  writer  knows,  did  not  reopen  the  subject  with  our 
Government,  while  Colonel  House  apparentlj^  let  it  drop 
without  reference  to  the  President^  The  President's  ad- 
visers thus  underestimated  the  importance  of  the  whole 
matter  and  felt  that  to  waste  any  time  on  it  would  only 
interfere  with  the  energetic  prosecution  of  the  war,  which 
they  believed  was  the  most  important  consideration  of 
the  moment.  They  trusted,  as  did  the  whole  country, 
that  all  would  come  right  in  the  end  once  we  had  "licked 
the  Kaiser."'> 

Nor  was  any  real  conception  of  these  commitments,  or 
of  their  importance  in  a  dim  future  peace  conference, 
to  be  gleaned  from  the  reports  of  our  Ambassadors  abroad. 
Their  occasional  references  to  the  diplomatic  dealings  of 
the  Allies  among  themselves  convey  only  the  sketchiest 
and  most  distorted  impressions  of  the  state  of  affairs.^ 

^Following  is  a  report  from  Ambassador  Sharp  at  Paris  relating  to  the  arrangements 
in  Asia  Mmor:  ^.^^^ 

Paris 
Dated  August  2,  1917. 
Secretary  of  State  Reed.  August  3,  2:30  p.  m. 

Washington,  D.  C. 

Confidential.  2353  August  2,  7  p.  M. 
Your  telegram  No.  2501,  July  31,  4  p.  m.  In  a  talk  with  Mr.  Cambon  this  morning 
I  learned  of  a  most  interesting  and  rather  comphcated  situation  as  it  bears  upon  the 
question  of  allied  future  interest  in  Asia  Minor.  It  develops  that  prior  to  the  entrance 
of  Italy  into  the  war  England,  France,  and  Russia  had  entered  into  an  alliance  or  at 
least  had  an  understanding  as  to  their  respective  interests  in  that  country.  The  in- 
terests and  aims  of  England  in  the  Valley  of  the  Euphrates  were  tentatively  defined, 
also  those  of  Russia  in  Armenia,  and  those  of  France  in  SjTia  where  she  has  valuable 


THE  OLD  DIPLOMACY,  WHAT  IT  STOOD  FOR  35 

Evidently  little  information  was  freely  given  them;  and 
their  unskillful  inquiries  elicited  evasive  replies  which 
their  own  absence  of  background  prevented  them  from 
interpreting  in  any  true  light.  Their  reports,  conse- 
quently, mean  almost  nothing  by  themselves.  The  pro- 
foundly important  fact  is  that,  among  all  the  papers  Mr. 
Wilson  has  so  carefully  preserved,  there  is  no  document 
giving  any  definite  or  comprehensive  information  concern- 
ing the  secret  treaties. 

We  find  the  President  answering  the  questions  of  the 
Senators  at  the  White  House  conference,  August  19,  1919, 
as  follows: 

Senator  Borah —  .  .  .  When  did  the  secret  treaties  between 
Great  Britain,  France,  and  the  other  nations  of  Europe  with  reference 

properties  and  many  people  of  French  nationality  or  allegiance.  Besides  she  had  in  a 
way  for  several  centuries  protected  Christianity  in  that  country.  This  agreement 
naturally  was  based  upon  the  collapse  and  practical  dissipation  of  Turkish  dominion  in 
the  countries  named.  Mr.  Cambon,  however,  expressed  it  as  his  beUef  that  England 
and  France  would  not  feel  willing  now  to  support  Russia  in  her  control  of  affairs,  stat- 
ing that  that  coimtry  ought  to  be  autonomous  and  free  from  outside  control. 

WTien,  however,  Italy  joined  the  Allies  she  at  once  manifested  a  desire  to  assert  her 
rights  in  the  participation  of  a  future  exercise  of  power  and  possible  acquisition  of 
territory  in  the  eastern  Mediterranean  which  has  not  been  well  received  by  either 
France  or  England.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Sonnino,  the  Italian  Premier,  has  been  in 
London  since  the  adjournment  of  the  conference  here  last  week  in  consultation  with 
Lloyd  George  on  these  questions  as  they  afiFect  these  diflFerent  interests  in  Asia  Minor 
and  surrounding  territory.  ]VIr.  Cambon  said  that  Sonnino  was  pressing  Italy's  claims 
very  persistently  but  that  he  thought  that  it  was  too  early  to  enter  into  a  definite  agree- 
ment and  I  inferred  that  he  also  voiced  the  views  of  England  in  expressing  that  opinion. 
I  have  gathered  from  time  to  time  that  the  contentions  of  Italy  have  been  a  bone  of 
contention  to  harmonious  action  ^vith  the  other  aUied  powers  and  Mr.  Cambon  made  no 
concealment  of  the  fact  that  Serbia  had  previously  cause  for  concern  and  dissatisfaction 
on  account  of  the  ambitions  of  Italy  as  briefly  referred  to  in  my  number  2321,  second 
edition,  July  twenty-fourth.  The  subject  mentioned  in  Mr.  Cambon's  third  question 
and  to  which  your  telegram  number  2501  refers,  has  to  do  with  the  situation  which  I 
have  thus  briefly  set  forth. 

Mr.  Cambon  added  that  natiu*ally  the  questions  were  submitted  to  our  Government 
in  order  that  it  might  be  made  [omission  in  cablegram]  the  questions  which  con- 
fronted the  allied  powers  for  solution  sooner  or  later.  As  I  have  stated  in  my  number 
2352  August  2,  6  p.  m.  Mr.  Cambon  frankly  said  to  me  that  on  account  of  the  enormous 
nature  of  one  or  two  of  these  subjects  of  contention  he  was  really  glad  that  our  Govern- 
ment was  not  represented  at  the  Conference. 

Sharp, 


36  WOODROW  ^MLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

to  certain  adjustments  in  Europe  first  come  to  your  hnowledge?  Was 
that  after  you  reached  Paris  also? 

The  Presidext — Yes,  the  whole  series  of  understandings  were  dis- 
closed to  me  for  tlie  first  time  then. 

Senator  Borah — Then  we  had  no  knowledjre  of  these  secret 
treaties,  so  far  as  our  Government  was  concerned,  until  you  reached 
Paris? 

The  President — Not  unless  there  was  information  at  the  State 
Department  of  which  I  knew  noth.ing. 

It  is  easy,  of  course,  after  the  event,  to  excoriate  this 
American  ignorance,  and  the  failure  to  "pay  any  atten- 
tion" to  such  vital  diplomatic  matters.  It  is  indeed  in- 
excusable, and  yet  there  are  mitigating  circumstances. 
America  has  never  had  a  thoroughly  trained,  well-paid 
professional  diplomatic  service  in  any  way  equal  to  that 
of  the  European  nations.  Its  State  Department,  while 
sometimes  having  brilliant  Secretaries,  has,  in  its  under 
personnel,  been  inadequate  and  inefficient.  Its  great 
Ambassadorial  offices  in  Europe  during  the  mightiest  war 
in  history  were  mostly  held  by  political  appointees,  a  few  of 
them  able  men,  but  wholly  without  training  or  special 
knowledge  of  foreign  affairs.  There  was  no  adequate 
intelligence  service.  This  state  of  affairs  was  not  Demo- 
cratic nor  Republican — it  was  American.  A  Democratic 
Administration  turns  out  Republicans  who  have  begun  to 
get  a  little  knowledge  and  puts  in  Democrats;  a  Republi- 
can Administration  follows  and  does  exactly  the  same 
thing.  The  result  is  that  American  amateurs  are  always 
meeting  European  or  Asiatic  professionals.  Our  diplo- 
matic service  is,  therefore,  not  only  unskillful  in  method, 
but  lacking  in  comprehension  of  its  tasks.  It  possesses 
little  stored-up  knowledge  of  the  aims  and  policies, 
jealousies  and  intrigues  inherent  in  European  diplomacy. 
Straws  which  reveal  whole  winds  of  international  policy 


THE  OLD  DIPLOMACY,  WHAT  IT  STOOD  FOR  S7 

to  the  trained  observers  in  European  chancelleries  appear 
to  it  as  straws  and  nothing  more — to  be  brushed  aside  as 
unimportant. 

If  our  diplomatic  service  lacked  a  background  of  com- 
prehension of  the  significance  of  the  secret  treaties,  what 
shall  be  said  of  our  public  opinion?  Venturing  into  a 
totally  unfamiliar  sea,  driven  blindly  by  a  blast  of  war 
feeling,  a  few  leaves  of  secret  engagements  in  the  wind 
meant  absolutely  nothing  to  it.  They  were  easily  dis- 
missed as  "propaganda" — whether  German  or  Russian. 

So  far  as  the  President  was  concerned,  he  considered 
that  the  full  acceptance  of  his  programme  of  settlement 
by  all  the  Allies  at  the  Armistice,  the  first  point  of  which 
dealt  with  secret  diplomacy,  assured  a  discussion  at  the 
Peace  Conference  of  every  question  upon  its  merits,  not 
upon  former  secret  arrangements.  The  nations  had 
promised  and,  as  he  told  the  joint  session  of  Congress, 
November  11,  1918,  he  believed  that  they  would  do  what 
they  said  they  would.  This  may  have  been  an  unwar- 
ranted confidence,  but  the  President  entertained  it,  and 
throughout  the  Conference  refused  to  accept  secret  treaties 
as  a  basis  of  settlement  of  any  question.,/ 

As  he  said  in  discussing  the  demands  of  Italy: 

He  did  not  know  and  did  not  feel  at  liberty  to  ask  whether  France 
and  Great  Britain  considered  the  treaty  [the  secret  Treaty  of  Lon- 
don] as  consistent  with  the  principles  on  which  the  Peace  Treaty  was 
being  based.  He  was  at  liberty  to  say,  however,  that  he  himself  did 
not.  To  discuss  the  matter  on  the  basis  of  the  Pact  of  London  would 
be  to  adopt  as  a  basis  a  secret  treaty.  Yet  he  would  be  bound  to  say 
to  the  world  that  we  were  establishing  a  new  order  in  which  secret 
treaties  were  precluded.  .  .  .  The  Pact  of  London  was  incon- 
sistent with  the  general  principles  of  the  settlement.  He  knew  per- 
fectly well  that  the  Pact  of  London  had  been  entered  into  in  quite 
different  circumstances,  and  he  did  not  wish  to  criticise  what  had 
been  done.     But  to  suggest  that  the  decision  should  be  taken  on  the 


88  WOODROW  WILSON  AND  AYORLD  SETTLEMENT 

basis  of  the  Treaty  of  London  would  draw  the  United  States  of 
America  into  an  impossible  situation.^ 

After  the  pronouncement  of  war  aims  made  by  the 
allied  leaders  in  January,  1917,  the  suspicion  of  the  op- 
position groups  in  the  allied  countries,  which  had  been 
temporarily  allayed^  began  soon  to  increase  again — and 
at  the  same  time  the  fortunes  of  the  Allies  in  the  war 
began  to  look  doubtful,  if  not  desperate. 

In  March  of  that  year  (1917)  the  old  Russian  Govern- 
ment crumbled  into  dissolution,  the  Tsar  fled,  and  one  of 
the  early  acts  of  the  Revolutionary  Government  (not 
yet  the  Bolshevists)  was  to  set  forth  a  programme  (April 
10)  that  not  only  proposed  a  peace  almost  exactly  like 
that  of  President  Wilson,  but  by  implication  abandoned 
all  the  Russian  claims  under  the  secret  treaties.  But 
when  the  Bolshevists  later  came  into  power  (November 
G,  1917)  they  went  still  a  step  further — a  devastating 
step.  They  not  only  declared  general  principles,  they 
not  only  denounced  the  secret  treaties  by  implication, 
but  they  published  them.  And  nothing  in  the  world  is 
so  awkward  and  absurd  as  a  published  secret  treaty. 
They  opened  up  to  the  daylight  of  the  whole  world 
the  musty  secret  archives  of  the  old  Russian  Govern- 
ment. 

Never  was  there  such  an  example  of  the  sheer  power 
of  publicity.  The  embarrassing  texts  of  the  secret 
treaties  (known  up  to  that  time)  were  printed  by  M. 
Trotzky,  the  Bolshevist  Commissioner  of  Foreign  Affairs, 
in  Isvestiya,  the  official  organ  of  the  Soviets,  in  November, 
1917,  and  they  enabled  him  to  make  a  point  in  his  intro- 
ductory manifesto  which  appealed  strongly  to  the  parties 
of  the  Left  in  all  countries,  that  "the  people  should  have 


^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Four,  April  19. 


THE  OLD  DIPLOMACY,  WHAT  IT  STOOD  FOR  39 

the  documentary  truth  about  those  plots  which  were 
hatched  in  secret  by  financiers  and  industrials,  together 
with  their  parliamentary  and  diplomatic  agents. ''x 

Though  this  publication  was  attacked  and  everywhere 
minimized  at  the  time  as  being  mere  "Bolshevist  propa- 
ganda," yet  later  events,  especially  in  the  Peace  Confer- 
ence, showed  that  they  had  printed  the  truth. 

While  the  text  of  the  secret  treaties  was  published  by 
the  Bolshevists  on  November  17, 1917,  copies  of  the  Isies- 
tiya  containing  them  did  not  reach  western  Europe  for 
some  weeks,  although  intimations  of  what  these  treaties 
contained  began  to  filter  through  at  once,  and  to  cause 
much  excitement  among  the  opposition  forces  in  all  of  the 
allied  Governments. 

More  important  still,  perhaps,  was  the  undoubted 
commotion  caused  by  this  wholly  unexpected  publica- 
tion of  their  secret  arrangements  in  the  Foreign  Offices 
of  Great  Britain,  France,  and  Italy,  and  the  effect  of 
the  extraordinary  demands  by  the  Russians  at  Brest- 
Litovsk  that  "no  secret  diplomacy  "should  be  the  corner- 
stone of  the  peace  negotiations  with  the  Germans. 

The  Government  leaders  in  allied  countries  knew 
that  the  facts,  published  in  Russia,  would  soon  be  known 
in  detail  all  over  Europe  and  might  not  only  produce 
an  ill  effect  upon  the  already  restive  groups  of  the  opposi- 
tion in  allied  countries,  but  arouse  suspicion  and  doubt 
in  America,  and  further  kindle  the  war  spirit  in  Germany. 
Without  question  this  was  the  chief  reason  why  Lloyd 
George  began  immediately  to  try  to  satisfy  labour — 
and  America — with  a  more  advanced  and  idealistic  state- 
ment of  allied  war  aims. 

We  find  among  the  President's  papers  the  following 
remarkably  revealing  cablegram,  dated  January  5,  from 
Mr.  Balfour,  then  British  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs 


40       ^^ooDROw  ^mlson  and  ayorld  settlement 

sent  to  the  American  State  Department  for  communica- 
tion to  the  President: 

Following  for  information  of  the  President,  private  and  secret: — 

Negotiations  have  been  going  on  for  some  time  between  the  Prime 
Minister  and  the  Trades  Unions.  The  main  point  was  the  desire  of 
the  Government  to  be  released  from  certain  pledges  which  were  made 
to  the  labour  leaders  earlier  in  the  war.  This  release  is  absolutely 
indispensable  from  the  military  point  of  view  for  the  development  of 
man  power  on  th.e  western  front.  Finally  the  negotiations  arrived 
at  a  point  at  which  their  successful  issue  depended  mainly  on  the  im- 
mediate publication  by  the  British  Government  of  a  statement  setting 
forth  their  war  aims.  This  statement  has  now  been  made  by  the 
Prime  Minister.  It  is  the  result  of  consultations  with  the  labour 
leaders  as  well  as  the  leaders  of  the  Parliamentary  opposition. 

Under  these  circumstances  there  was  no  time  to  consult  the  Allies 
as  to  the  terms  of  the  statement  agreed  on  by  the  Prime  Minister  and 
the  above  mentioned  persons.  It  will  be  found  on  examination  to  be 
in  accordance  with  the  declarations  hitherto  made  by  the  President 
on  this  subject. 

Should  the  President  himself  make  a  statement  of  his  o\\ti  views 
which  in  view  of  the  appeal  made  to  the  peoples  of  the  world  by  the 
Bolsheviki  might  appear  a  desirable  course,  the  Prime  Minister  is  con- 
fident that  such  a  statement  would  also  be  in  general  accordance  with 
the  lines  of  the  President's  previous  speeches,  which  in  England  as 
well  as  in  other  countries  have  been  so  warmly  received  by  public 
opinion.  Such  a  further  statement  would  naturally  receive  an  equally 
warm  welcome. 

On  the  very  day  of  this  Balfour  cablegram  for  the 
President,  January  5,  1918,  Lloyd  George  made  his  great 
war-aims  speech,  significantly  before  the  Trade  Union 
Congress  in  London,  in  which  he  practically  adopted 
the  principles  which  President  Wilson  had  long  been 
advocating.  He  seized  with  consummate  political  pre- 
science, as  he  had  so  often  done  in  his  career,  upon  the 
group  of  ideas  whit:h  he  saw  rapidly  rising  to  effective 
power  in  the  world.     He  wanted  above   everything  to 


THE  OLD  DIPLOMACY,  WHAT  IT  STOOD  FOR  41 

conciliate  and  satisfy  labour.  In  this  speech  he  made  a 
specific  disavowal  of  the  imperialistic  aims  of  the  Allies 
as  disclosed  in  certain  of  the  secret  treaties,  especially 
those  relating  to  Turkey.  He  said  that  the  subject  lands 
of  Turkey  were  entitled  to  "a  recognition  of  their  separate 
national  conditions"  and  that  the  previous  [secret]  agree- 
ments were  not  to  prevent  a  free  discussion  among  the 
Allies  as  to  their  future,  because  the  Russian  collapse 
had  changed  all  the  conditions.  His  reference  to  Turkey 
shrewdly  did  two  things:  it  reassured  labour  and  it  re- 
assured the  disturbed  Moslems  of  India,  where  the 
British  were  then  trying  to  whip  up  recruiting.  But, 
as  we  know  now,  he  made  no  disavowal  of  other  secret 
treaties  such  as  those  with  Japan  regarding  Shantung  and 
the  Pacific  islands,  which  caused  such  great  trouble  later 
at  Paris  (which  were  not  published  by  the  Bolsheviki  and 
apparently  were  not  known  to  them) . 

The  first  and  one  of  the  very  few  newspapers  in  Great 
Britain  to  publish  translations  of  such  of  these  secret  trea- 
ties as  the  Bolsheviki  had  made  public  was  the  Manchester 
Guardian  (December  12,  1917),  and  in  February,  1918, 
they  were  issued  in  a  little  pamphlet  by  the  National  La- 
bour Press  of  Manchester,  with  maps  showing  what  the 
treaties  meant.  But  the  other  newspapers  in  Great  Brit- 
ain, France,  Italy,  and  America,  with  a  few  exceptions, 
completely  ignored  them.  Of  course,  there  was  a  reason 
for  this,  which  the  historian  of  these  events,  who  is 
trying  to  set  down  what  really  happened,  need  no  longer 
observe,  and  that  was  the  fact  that  the  war  at  the  time 
was  in  a  critical  stage,  and  the  disclosure  of  the  existence 
of  these  treaties  was  disturbing,  and  tended  to  raise  voices 
of  doubt  and  opposition. 

Although  the  great  speeches  of  Lloyd  George  and  of 
President    Wilson    (the    Fourteen    Points    Speech)    were 


42  WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

made  in  January,  1918,  and  terms  of  peace  on  a  new 
basis  seemed  assured — for  the  whole  world  rose  in  ap- 
proval— yet  these  voices  of  skepticism  and  doubt  were 
not  entirely  stilled.  The  opposition  groups  were  still 
worried  about  the  secret  treaties,  still  suspicious  of  their 
own  Governments,  and  at  the  same  time  growing  des- 
perately war-weary. 

Nothing  was  more  surprising  and  inexplicable  at  first 
to  the  American  observer  who  went  to  Europe  during 
the  crisis  of  the  war,  in  1918,  as  I  did,  than  the  discovery 
of  the  extent  and  seriousness  of  this  suspicion  and  dis- 
content. 

On  May  11,  1918,  The  Herald  of  London,  the  chief 
labour  journal  of  Great  Britain,  published  all  these 
treaties  in  full,  also  with  maps  and  the  following-  intro- 
duction : 

We  are  concentrating  this  week  on  the  secret  treaties  because  we 
believe  it  absolutely  and  immediately  necessary  to  give  these  terms 
of  Great  Britain's  concealed  aims  and  commitments  the  widest  pos- 
sible publicity.  The  press  with  a  few  shining  exceptions,  .  .  .  has 
ignored  the  terras  of  the  treaties  made  public  by  the  Bolsheviki,  and 
the  majority  of  people  still  receive  the  mention  of  the  "secret  treaties" 
with  a  stare  of  blank  incomprehension.  In  a  country  boasting  itself  a 
democracy,  and  claiming  to  be  fighting  for  democratic  ends,  this 
state  of  things  is  as  absurd  as  it  is  dangerous. 

But  this  publication  of  the  text  of  the  treaties  was 
not  all,  for  The  Herald  set  forth  in  parallel  columns  a 
series  of  comparisons  of  the  war  aims,  as  stated  pub- 
licly by  various  responsible  spokesmen  of  the  allied 
countries,  with  the  secret  purposes  set  forth  in  the  treaties. 
In  order  to  show  how  these  things  appeared  to  the 
opposition  parties  in  the  allied  countries,  samples  of  these 
comparisons  may  here  be  set  down: 


Roberl  Lansing,  Secretary  ui'  Slate  and  Member-  of  Ihe  American 
Commission  to  Negotiate  Peace 


THE  OLD  DIPLOMACY,  WHAT  IT  STOOD  FOR 


43 


NO  TERRITORIAL  ACQUISITIONS 


PROFESSION 


"We  are  not  fighting  for  addi- 
tional territory." — Mr,  Bonar 
Law,  House  of  Commons,  Feb. 
20,  1917. 


PRACTICE 

"In  the  Spring  of  1916  the  al- 
Hed  British,  French  and  Russian 
Governments  came  to  an  agree- 
ment as  regards  the  future  delimi- 
tation of  their  respective  zones  of 
influence  and  territorial  acquisi- 
tions in  Asiatic  Turkey.    .    .    . 

"Great  Britain  obtains  the 
southern  part  of  Mesopotamia, 
with  Bagdad,  and  stipulates  for 
herself  in  Syria  the  ports  of  Haifa 
and  Akka. " — Russian  Foreign 
Office  memorandum,  March  6, 
1917. 


FREEDOM  OF  SMALL  STATES 


PROFESSION 

"This  is  a  war  .  .  .  for 
the  emancipation  of  the  smaller 
States."— Right  Hon.  H.  H.  As- 
quith.     Guildhall,  Nov.  9,  1916. 

"The  sympathy  with  which 
his  Majesty's  Government  re- 
gard the  legitimate  aspirations 
of  the  Albanian  people  .  .  .  ." 
— Foreign  Office  letter  to  Miss 
Durham,  Jan.  16,  1918. 


PRACTICE 

"The  neutral  zone  in  Persia  is 
to  be  included  in  the  English 
sphere  of  influence  .  .  .  ." — 
Russo-British  agreement,  March 
20,  1916. 

"Having  obtained 
the  Gulf  of  Valona,  Italy  under- 
takes .  .  .  not  to  oppose  the 
possible  desire  of  France,  Great 
Britain  and  Russia  to  repartition 
the  northern  and  southern  dis- 
tricts of  Albania  between  Mon- 
tenegro, Serbia  and  Greece." — 
Treaty  with  Italy,  April  28, 1915. 


Nor  must  it  be  forgotten  that  similar  publications 
were  eagerly  being  made  in  Germany  and  Austria  and 
that  in  these  countries  the  designs  of  the  Allies  as  dis- 
closed by  the  secret  treaties  had  a  profound  effect  in 
strengthening  the  influence  of  the  war  party.  They 
seemed  to  prove  the  case  of  the  war  lords.     For  the 


44  WOODROW  ^^TLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

German  leaders,  hard  driven  to  keep  up  popular  morale, 
could  say  to  their  war- weary  people,  "You  see  what  the 
Allies  are  really  fighting  for:  they  are  fighting  to  dis- 
member Germany  and  Austria  and  Turkey  and  to  seize 
territory  for  themselves  in  every  part  of  the  world." 

Nor  is  there  any  doubt  that  the  discovery  by  the 
Croats  and  Slovenes  who  had  never  been  entirely 
loyal  to  Austria,  that  the  Allies  had  secretly  promised 
to  give  to  Rumania  parts  of  the  Banat  occupied  wholly 
by  Slavic  people  and  to  Italy  the  Dalmatian  coast,  set 
the  Slavs  who  were  still  under  the  Austrian  Empire  to 
fighting  again  with  new  vigour  for  the  Central  Powers. 

*'If  such  are  the  cynical  purposes  of  the  x^llies,"  these 
small  nations  were  tempted  to  ask — as  they  did  ask 
afterward  at  Paris — "why  are  we  better  off  with  the 
Allies  than  with  the  Central  Powers?"  X 
L^  If  it  had  not  been  for  the  powerful  expression  by 
President  Wilson  of  the  new  ideas  of  settlement  at  this 
critical  time  and  the  eager  acceptance  of  his  leadership 
so  far  as  the  peace  programme  was  concerned,  by  the 
allied  Powers,  the  effect  of  these  publications  would  un- 
doubtedly have  been  far  worse  than  it  was — and  might 
easily  have  been  fatal.  It  was  well  known  that  America 
was  bound  in  no  way  by  any  of  these  agreements  and 
that  the  President  was  outspoken  in  his  denunciations 
of  these  very  practices  of  the  old  diplomacy.  It  was 
well  known  also  that  iVmerica  had  no  secret  or  special 
interests  to  serve.  Moreover,  the  President  had  far- 
sightedly  endeavoured  to  meet  this  very  situation.  He 
had  insisted  all  along  that  we  were  not  an  "allied"  but 
an  "associated"  Power;  he  wished  thus  to  make  it  clear 
that  we  were  'not  bound  by  any  previous  action  of  the 
European  Allies,  that  we  preserved  our  own  freedom 
and  independence  in  every  future  decision.     In  his  very 


THE  OLD  DIPLOMACY,  WHAT  IT  STOOD  FOR  45 

first  reference  to  the  secret  treaties  at  the  Peace  Con- 
ference he  lays  down  his  position  clearly: 

As  the  United  States  of  x\merica  were  not  bound  by  any  of  the 
[secret]  treaties  in  question  they  are  quite  ready  to  approve  a  settle- 
ment on  a  basis  of  facts.^ 

Nor  did  the  President  stop  with  a  single  announce- 
ment of  his  peace  programme.  If  the  skepticism  of  the 
opposition  in  Europe  continued  after  the  great  announce- 
ments of  January,  1918,  so  did  the  President's  reiterations, 
even  more  emphatic  and  persuasive,  of  the  new  basis 
of  the  peace.  On  February  11,  1918,  he  developed  his 
principles  in  Congress;  in  March  (11)  he  sent  his  message 
to  the  All-Russian  Congress  of  Soviets  (this  was  the 
revolutionary,  but  not  yet  the  Bolshevist,  Government) 
in  which  he  tells  them  that  "the  whole  heart  of  the  people 
of  the  United  States  is  with  the  people  of  Russia  in  the 
attempt  to  free  themselves  forever  from  autocratic  gov- 
ernment and  become  the  masters  of  their  own  life."  On 
July  4,  at  Mount  Vernon,  he  made  a  still  more  powerful 
statement  of  his  progressive  principles  and  laid  down 
the  four  points  of  settlement.^  I  remember  well  how 
this  speech  reverberated  in  Europe  and  how  deeply  and 
convincingly  it  appealed  to  the  discontented,  war- weary 
elements. 

It  was  to  these  liberal  and  labour  groups  that  President 
Wilson  most  strongly  appealed.  He  drew  the  distinc- 
tion strongly  between  the  desires  of  Governments  and  of 
peoples.  He  wanted  to  be  considered  the  representative 
*'not  of  governments  but  of  peoples."  And  especially 
he  hated  the  old  diplomacy,  and  made  the  very  first  of 


^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  February  1. 
'See  Volume  III,  Document  3. 


46  VVOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

his  Fourteen  Points  an  expression  of  his  ideal  of  the  new 
diplomacy : 

Open  covenants  of  peace  openly  arrived  at,  after  which  there  shall 
be  no  private  international  understandings  of  any  kind. 

This  point  has  been  given  far  too  narrow  an  interpre- 
tation: as  though  it  meant  that  every  diplomatic  dis- 
cussion should  be  open  to  newspaper  correspondents; 
but  what  he  really  did  mean  is  clearly  set  forth  in  a 
curiously  little  known  passage  from  a  letter  to  the  Sec- 
retary of  State,  June  12,  1918: 

When  I  pronounced  for  open  diplomacy,  I  meant,  not  that  there 
should  be  no  private  discussions  of  delicate  matters,  but  that  no 
secret  agreements  should  be  entered  into,  and  that  all  international 
relations,  when  fixed,  should  be  open,  above  board,  and  explicit. 

All  the  nations  accepted  this  principle  as  the  funda- 
mental basis  of  the  peace;  there  was  to  be  a  *'new  order," 
a  new  association.  This  it  was  that  lay  deep  down 
beneath  the  great  popular  reception  which  Wilson  re- 
ceived when  he  reached  Europe  in  December,  1918. 
Yet  there  in  the  background  was  the  mass  of  ugly  old 
entanglements.  America  was  not  bound  by  them,  the 
President  hated  them,  and  considered  that  he  was  in  no 
way  to  recognize  them.  The  masses  of  the  people  in 
Europe — so  far  as  they  were  articulate — bitterly  de- 
nounced them.  Yet  there  they  were;  and  there  to  be 
dealt  with  were  the  Governments  that  made  them  or 
supported  them;  and  it  is  as  necessary  to  understand 
the  points  of  view  they  disclose  as  it  is  to  understand 
the  equipment  of  ideas  with  which  America  entered  the 
Peace  Conference. 


CHAPTER  III 

Terms  of  the  Principal  Secret  Treaties 
OF  1915,  1916,  AND  1917 

CONSIDER  exactly  what  these  "secret  treaties" 
were;  the  actual  agreements  they  contained. 
Here  are  not  only  presented,  in  outline,  those 
which  were  revealed  when  the  secrets  of  the  old  Russian 
Foreign  Office  were  disclosed  in  November,  1917,  and 
later  confirmed  or  further  explained  at  Paris,  but  others, 
like  the  Sykes-Picot  treaty  and  the  secret  agreement 
of  St.  Jean  de  Maurienne  for  the  partition  of  Turkey, 
which  emerged  into  the  half  light  of  the  Peace  Confer- 
ence and  caused  a  bitter  controversy  there. 

One  of  the  most  important  of  all  these  secret  under- 
standings, in  its  effect  upon  the  United  States,  was  kept 
secret,  so  far  as  its  specific  terms  were  concerned,  until 
the  Peace  Conference  at  Paris  reached  the  consideration 
of  the  problems  of  the  Pacific.  I  mean  the  arrangement 
between  the  Allies  and  Japan  concerning  the  disposition 
of  Shantung  in  China  and  the  partition  of  the  German 
Pacific  islands  between  Japan  and  the  British  Empire. 
Only  one  of  these  profoundly  important  treaties — the 
London  treaty  of  1915,  by  which  Italy  was  brought  into 
the  war — has  thus  far  had  an  official  publication. 

A  number  of  lesser  secret  "arrangements"  which  can 
only  be  touched  upon  in  this  preliminary  survey,  but  which 
will  be  fully  treated  in  their  proper  places,  emerged,  some- 
times almost  casually,  during  the  Peace  Conference, 
such,  for  example,  as  the  agreement  between  Great  Britain 

47 


48  WOODROW  A\TLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEIVIENT 

and  France  for  the  division  of  Togoland  and  the  Came- 
roons  in  Africa,  the  further  arrangements  for  the  par- 
tition of  Turkey,  the  projects  for  building  railroads  (and 
even  a  pipe  line)  to  connect  Mesopotamia  with  the 
Mediterranean  Sea.  Some  of  these  conversations  went 
on,  not  only  after  America  came  into  the  war,  not  only 
after  the  general  acceptance  of  the  peace  programme 
as  laid  down  by  President  Wilson  in  January,  1918,  but 
continued  straight  through  the  year  1918  and  actually 
into  the  period  of  the  Peace  Conference,  as  I  shall  show. 
And  they  are  going  on  still,  for  they  are  the  natural 
and  inevitable  expression  of  old  diplomatic  methods. 
Scarcely  a  week  passes  when  some  such  secret  deal  is 
not  reported.  Granted  that  these  represent  only  glimpses 
behind  the  curtain,  they  indicate  a  formidable  process 
going  on. 


RUSSIA    BARGAINS    FOR    CONSTANTINOPLE;    GREAT    BRITAIN 
SECURES   RIGHTS    IN    PERSIA   AND    TURKEY 

In  point  of  time  the  first  of  these  secret  treaties  was 
made  between  Great  Britain  and  France  on  the  one  hand 
and  their  ally  Russia  on  the  other,  and  our  knowledge  of  it 
comes  from  three  memoranda  of  the  Russian  Foreign 
Office,  dated  March  4,  1915;  March  18,  1915,  and  March 
20,  1915.  In  the  first  of  these  memoranda  the  "wish" 
of  Russia  to  annex  Constantinople,  "provided  the  war 
is  successfully  terminated,"  is  set  forth;  and  the  assent 
of  France  and  England  is  noted,  provided  their  "demands 
.  .  .  both  within  the  confines  of  the  Ottoman  Empire 
and  in  other  places,  are  satisfied."  The  second  memo- 
randum reports  the  "complete  consent  in  writing"  by 
the  British  Government,  "to  the  annexation  by  Russia 


PRINCIPAL  SECRET  TREATIES  OF  1915,  1916,  AND  1917    49 

of  the  Straits  and  Constantinople."  The  third  and  most 
important  document  which  finally  clenches  the  whole 
matter  and  shows  what  England  was  to  have  as  her 
share  of  the  bargain,  is  here  published  in  full : 

Confidential  Telegram  from  the  Russian  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs 
to  the  Russian  Ambassador  in  London  No.  1265 

March  20,  1915. 

Referring  to  the  memorandum  of  the  British  Embassy  here  of 
March  12,  1915,  will  you  please  express  to  Grey  the  profound  grati- 
tude of  the  Imperial  Government  for  the  complete  and  final  assent  of 
Great  Britain  to  the  solution  of  the  question  of  the  Straits  and  Con- 
stantinople, in  accordance  with  Russia's  desires.  The  Imperial  Gov- 
ernment fully  appreciates  the  sentiments  of  the  British  Government 
and  feels  certain  that  a  sincere  recognition  of  mutual  interests  will 
secure  forever  the  firm  friendship  between  Russia  and  Great 
Britain. 

Having  already  given  its  promise  respecting  the  conditions  of  trade 
in  the  Straits  and  Constantinople,  the  Imperial  Government  sees  no 
objection  to  confirming  its  assent  to  the  establishment  (1)  of  free 
transit  through  Constantinople  for  all  goods  not  proceeding  from  or 
proceeding  to  Russia,  and  (2)  free  passage  through  the  Straits  for 
merchant  vessels.     .     .     . 

The  Imperial  Government  completely  shares  the  view  of  the 
British  Government  that  the  holy  Moslem  places  must  also  in  future 
remain  under  an  independent  Moslem  rule.  It  is  desirable  to  eluci- 
date at  once  whether  it  is  contemplated  to  leave  those  places  under 
the  rule  of  Turkey,  the  Sultan  retaining  the  title  of  Caliph,  or  to  create 
new  independent  States,  since  the  Imperial  Government  would  only 
be  able  to  formulate  its  desires  in  accordance  with  one  or  other  of 
these  assumptions.  On  its  part  the  Imperial  Government  would 
regard  the  separation  of  the  Cahphate  from  Turkey  as  very 
desirable.  Of  course  the  freedom  of  pilgrimage  must  be  completely 
secured. 

The  Imperial  Government  confirms  its  assent  to  the  inclusion  of  the 
neutral  zone  of  Persia  in  the  British  sphere  of  influence.  At  the  same 
time,  however,  it  regards  it  as  just  to  stipulate  that  the  districts  adjoin- 
ing the  cities  of  Ispahan  and  Yezd,  forming  with  them  one  inseparable 


50  WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

whole,  should  be  secured  for  Russia  in  view  of  the  Russian  interests 
which  have  arisen  there.  The  neutral  zone  now  forms  a  wedge  be- 
tween the  Russian  and  Afghan  frontiers,  and  comes  up  to  the  very 
frontier  line  of  Russia  at  Zulfagar.  Hence  a  portion  of  this  wedge 
will  have  to  be  annexed  to  the  Russian  sphere  of  influence.  Of  essen- 
tial importance  to  the  Imperial  Government  is  the  question  of  railway 
construction  in  the  neutral  zone,  which  will  require  further  amicable 
discussion. 

The  Imperial  Government  expects  that  in  future  its  full  liberty  of 
action  will  be  recognized  in  the  sphere  of  influence  allotted  to  it,  coupled 
in  particular  with  the  right  of  preferentially  developing  in  that  sphere 

its  financial  and  economic  policies 

(Signed)  Sazonoff. 
(Sazonoff  was  the  Russian  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs.) 

The  purpose  of  this  secret  arrangement  is,  of  course, 
clear  enough.  Ever  since  the  time  of  Peter  the  Great, 
Russia  had  had  her  covetous  eyes  upon  Constantinople 
and  the  Straits,  for  her  ambition  and  her  need  was  to 
secure  an  unrestricted  outlet  to  warm  water  for  her  com- 
merce. This  she  had  been  prevented  from  securing, 
chiefly  by  the  British  policy  of  maintaining  the  power  of 
the  *'Sick  Man  of  Europe,"  the  Sultan,  who  controlled 
the  Bosporus.  She  therefore  took  the  earliest  opportu- 
nity in  the  great  war  to  demand  from  her  allies  the  right 
to  annex  this  Turkish  territory  (some  1,600  square  miles 
in  extent)  in  case  the  war  was  won  by  the  Allies. 

But  this  was  only  one  end  of  the  bargain.  As  a  return 
for  the  consent  of  Great  Britain  and  France  (and  later 
Italy)  to  this  extension  of  Russian  territory  and  power, 
Russia  promises  to  keep  secure  the  economic  interests  of 
"Great  Britain  and  preserve  a  similar  benevolent  atti- 
tude .  .  .  toward  the  political  aspirations  of  Eng- 
land in  other  parts."  These  "other  parts"  are  Persia, 
Mesopotamia,  and  Egypt. 

Now,  in  1907,  Great  Britain  and  Russia  had  entered  into 


PRINCIPAL  SECRET  TREATIES  OF  1915,  1916,  AND  1917    51 

a  convention  by  which  the  two  Governments  engaged 
*'to  respect  the  integrity  and  independence  of  Persia," 
though  agreeing  to  the  creation  of  certain  "spheres  of 
influence"  for  commercial  purposes.  The  Persians  them- 
selves were  not  consulted  about  the  matter  in  1907,  nor 
later  in  1915,  when  the  secret  treaty  was  made.  Persia 
was,  indeed,  one  of  the  small  nations  early  at  Paris  ap- 
pealing to  the  President  for  the  right  of  self-determina- 
tion. 

Under  this  new  secret  arrangement  of  1915  Great 
Britain  gets  control  of  the  zone  of  Persia  at  that  time 
left  neutral,  and  Russia  is  assured  "full  liberty  of  action" 
in  north  Persia.  It  is  significant  here  that  by  this  move 
the  British  Government,  which  owned  a  controlling  share 
in  the  Anglo-Persian  Oil  Company,  got  within  its  new 
"sphere  of  influence"  valuable  oil  wells.  This  company 
holds  a  sixty -year  concession  (from  1901)  to  all  the  oil 
fields  of  Persia,  except  those  in  the  northern  provinces 
where  Russia  was  in  control.  This  agreement  was  kept 
entirely  secret  from  the  people  of  Great  Britain  and  France 
(as  well  as  from  those  of  Russia)  until  just  before  the  fall 
of  the  old  Russian  Government,  and  then  it  was  thought 
that  if  the  fact  that  Russia  was  at  last  to  realize  its  ancient 
ambition  to  get  Constantinople  was  to  be  dangled  attrac- 
tively before  the  Russian  people  it  might  help  to  bring 
them  more  strongly  to  the  support  of  the  tottering  Tsar. 
So  this  end  of  the  arrangement  was  suddenly  made  public ; 
but  its  effects  seemed  exactly  contrary  to  what  was  ex- 
pected. It  was  used  by  the  revolutionaries  as  only 
another  proof  of  the  duplicity  of  their  own  government; 
and  one  of  the  first  things  the  revolutionary  government 
did  was  to  renounce  all  territorial  ambitions,  and  to  take 
their  stand  upon  the  formula:  "no  annexations,  no  in- 
demnities, self-determination  of  peoples." 


52 


AVOODROW  WILSON  AND  AYORLD  SETTLEIMENT 


II 

THE    LONDON    SECRET    TREATY:      ITALY    IS    BROUGHT    INTO 
THE  WAR  BY  THE  PROMISE  OF  DALMATIA  AND  OTHER 

TERRITORY 

The  second  of  the  secret  treaties  in  point  of  time — the 
London  treaty  of  April  26,  1915,  which  brought  Italy  into 
the  war — was  perhaps  the  most  comprehensive  and  far- 
reaching  in  its  results  of  any  of  the  secret  arrangements 
among  the  allied  Powers.     It  was  the  chief  obstacle  at  the 


Map  showing  the  proposed  acquisi- 
tions (shaded  portions)  for  Italy,  agreed 
on  in  the  treaty  of  London 


Peace  Conference.  More  actual  time  was  devoted  by  the 
Council  of  Four  and  other  councils  and  commissions  at 
Paris  to  the  controversies  which  raged  around  this  treaty 
than  to  any  other  single  subject  discussed. 

WTien  the  great  war  broke  out  Italy  held  aloof  and 
bargained  with  both  groups  of  Powers.  It  furnished  a 
golden  opportunity  for  her  to  realize  certain  nationalistic 
ambitions.  She  was  animated,  as  her  Foreign  Minister 
(Signor  Salandra)  said,  on  October  18,  1914,  by  the 
sentiment  of  "sacro  egoismo" — "consecrated  selfishness," 


PRINCIPAL  SECRET  TREATIES  OF  1915,  1916,  AND  1917     53 

and  this,  he  said,  should  guide  her  in  her  negotiations  with 
the  beUigerent  Powers.  Sonnino  told  the  Council  of 
Four,  on  April  19  (secret  minutes),  that  "Austria  had  of- 
fered Italy  the  Adige  and  the  islands."  But  the  Allies  at 
London  apparently  agreed  to  more  favourable  terms  than 
the  Austrians  or  the  Germans  would  offer.  In  defending 
his  action  in  being  a  party  to  this  bargain  the  British 
Prime  Minister,  Mr.  Asquith  (February  5,  1920,  at 
Paisley),  said  that 

at  the  time  the  treaty  with  Italy  was  made  the  French  and  ourselves 
were  fighting  for  our  lives  on  the  Western  front.  .  .  .  The 
ItaUan  treaty,  for  which  not  only  he  but  France  and  Russia  were 
equally  responsible,  represented  the  terms  upon  which  Italy  was 
prepared  to  join  forces.  ...  It  involved  undoubtedly  the  ac- 
quisition by  Italy,  if  we  were  successful,  of  not  inconsiderable  acces- 
sions of  territory. 

In  brief,  it  gave  the  Italians  the  districts  of  Trentino 
and  Trieste,  which  were  anciently  Italian;  the  County  of 
Gorizia  and  Gradisca,  the  territory  of  Istria,  and  many 
islands;  and  it  also  gave  them  a  part  of  the  Tyrol  in  the 
Brenner  Pass,  which  contained  a  solid  German  population 
of  200,000  which  had  been  Austrian  subjects  since  thfe 
fourteenth  century.  A  majority  of  the  population  of 
Istria  and  Gorizia-Gradisca  was  Slavic,  and  not  Italian. 
It  gave  the  Italians  also  the  Province  of  Dalmatia,  with 
all  the  best  harbours  (except  Fiume)  on  the  eastern  side  of 
the  Adriatic,  the  town  and  district  of  Valona  in  Albania, 
and  it  so  provided  for  the  neutralization  of  all  other  terri- 
tories touching  on  the  Adriatic  Sea  as  to  make  that  body 
of  water  an  "Italian  lake"  and  to  give  Italy  control  of  all 
the  best  ports  of  entry  (except  Fiume)  for  much  of  the 
great  trade  of  southeastern  Europe.  Austria-Hungary 
by  this  treaty  was  to  be  wholly  cut  off  from  the  sea;  and 


54  WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

many  hundreds  of  thousands  of  Slavs,  Germans,  Albanians, 
and  Greeks  were  to  be  brought  under  Italian  rule. 

But  this  was  not  all.  The  Italians  were  also  to  get  the 
Dodekanese  Islands  of  the  eastern  Mediterranean, 
wholly  inhabited  by  Greeks,  and  a  "right,  in  case  of  the 
partition  of  Turkey,  to  a  share  equal  to  theirs  [Gi-eat 
Britain,  France,  and  Russia]  in  the  basin  of  the  Mediterra- 
nean," that  is,  a  large  territory  in  Asia  Minor  occupied 
by  Greeks,  Turks,  and  other  nationalities.  They  were 
also  promised  an  extension  of  their  territory  in  Africa  in 
case  France  and  Great  Britain  "extend  their  colonial 
possessions  in  Africa  at  the  expense  of  Germany." 

Besides  all  these  territorial  promises  Italy  "is  to  get  a 
share  of  the  war  indemnity"  (this  is  the  first  formal  ref- 
erence to  the  subject  of  a  war  indemnity)  and  a  loan  from 
Great  Britain  of  £50,000,000.  So  was  Italy's  support  in 
the  war  purchased  by  concessions. 

The  final  article  (16)  of  this  treaty  declares: 

The  present  treaty  is  to  be  kept  secret. 

It  was  not,  indeed,  ofiicially  published  until  April  20, 
1920,  and  it  is  the  only  one  of  the  secret  treaties  that  so 
far  has  had  an  official  publication.  It  was,  however, 
published  by  the  Bolsheviki  in  November,  1917,  and  its 
general  terms  were  known  long  before  that  in  Germany 
and  Austria.  Indeed,  they  were  widely  placarded  by 
Austrian  generals  to  stir  up  the  animosity  of  the  Croats 
and  Slovenes  against  the  Italians,  for  the  Croats  and 
Slovenes,  hoping  for  union  with  Serbia  in  a  new  State, 
and  looking  to  the  Allies  as  their  friends,  saw  Italy 
rewarded  by  being  given  territory  and  ports  which 
they  considered  as  belonging  to  them.  This  treaty  also, 
no  doubt,  had  a  disillusioning   and  poisoning  effect  all 


PRINCIPAL  SECRET  TREATIES  OF  1915,  1916,  AND  1917     55 

through  the  Balkans;  it  was  probably  one  great  argument 
used  by  the  Germans  in  persuading  Bulgaria  to  enter  the 
war  on  the  side  of  the  Central  Powers.  It  undoubtedly 
embittered  and  prolonged  the  great  war. 


Ill 

THE    RUMANIAN    SECRET    TREATY 

The  case  of  Rumania  was  similar  to  that  of  Italy,  but 
she  hesitated  for  much  longer  as  to  which  side  she  would 


Map  showing  the  territories  promised  to  Rumania  by  secret  treaty,  on  the  condition 

that  she  take  sides  with  the  Allies 

fight  with.  Both  offered  attractive  baits:  Germany 
promised  to  give  her  Bessarabia — which  belonged  to 
Russia — and  Russia  promised  to  give  her  Transylvania — 
which  belonged  to  Austria-Hungary.  But  no  agreement 
was  formally  made  until  August  18,  1916,  when  a  secret 
treaty  was  signed  by  the  Allies  which  gave  Rumania  not 


56  WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

only  Transylvania,  which  contained  a  large  Rumanian 
population,  but  also  rich  agricultural  territories  in 
Hungary,  and  the  territory  of  the  Banat,  largely  occupied 
by  Serbs  and  Hungarians,  and  Bukovina,  formerly  a  part 
of  Austria,  which  is  largely  occupied  by  Ruthenians. 
This  treaty  was  kept  a  secret  between  the  three  great  Allies 
and  Rumania  from  their  loyal  small  ally  Serbia,  a  cause  of 
much  later  bitterness. 

IV 

FRANCE  AND  RUSSIA  AGREE  AS  TO  THE  CONTROL  OF  POLAND 
AND  THE  DISMEMBERMENT  OF  GERMANY 

On  March  11,  1917,  a  month  before  America  came  into 
the  war,  a  remarkable  secret  agreement  was  concluded 
between  France  and  Russia — apparently  without  con- 
sulting Great  Britain.  The  purpose  of  this  was  to  "allow 
France  and  England  complete  freedom  in  drawing  up  the 
western  frontiers  of  Germany"  on  condition  that  they 
gave  to  Russia  "equal  freedom  in  drawing  up  our  frontiers 
with  Germany  and  Austria."  In  other  words,  France  was 
to  decide  what  should  be  done  with  all  of  Germany  west 
of  the  Rhine,  and  Russia  was  to  have  a  free  hand  with 
Poland.  These  secret  memoranda  are  so  profoundly 
important,  in  view  of  developments  later  at  the  Peace 
Conference,  that  three  of  them  are  here  reproduced: 

Document  No.  2 

Confidential  Telegram  from  the  Russian  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs 
(M.  Pokrovsky)  to  the  Russian  Ambassador  at  Paris 

Petrograd,  February  12,  1917. 
Copy  to  London  confidentially.     At  an  audience  with  the  Most 
High  (the  Tsar)  M.  Doumergue  submitted  to  the  Emperor  the  desire 
of  France  to  secure  for  herself  at  the  end  of  the  present  war  the  restora- 


PRINCIPAL  SECRET  TREATIES  OF  1915,  1916,  AND  1917 


i}  t 


tion  of  Alsace-Lorraine  and  a  special  position  in  the  valley  of  the 
River  Saar,  as  well  as  to  attain  the  political  separation  from  Germany 
of  her  trans-Rheinish  districts  and  their  organization  on  a  separate 
basis  in  order  that  in  future  the  River  Rhine  might  form  a  permanent 
strategical  frontier  against  a  Germanic  invasion.  Doumergue  ex- 
pressed the  hope  that  the  Imperial  Government  would  not  refuse 
immediately  to  draw  up  its  assent  to  these  suggestions  in  a  formal 
manner. 

His  Imperial  Majesty  was  pleased  to  agree  to  this  in  principle,  in 
consequence  of  which  I  requested  Doumergue,  after  communicating 
with  his  Government,  to  let  me  have  the  draft  of  an  agreement,  which 
would  then  be  given  a  formal  sanction  by  an  exchange  of  notes  between 
the  French  Ambassador  and  myself. 

Proceeding  thus  to  meet  the  wishes  of  our  ally,  I  nevertheless  con- 
sider it  my  duty  to  recall  the  standpoint  put  forward  by  the  Imperial 
Government  in  the  telegram  of  February  24,  1916,  No.  948,  to  the 
effect  that  "while  allowing  France  and  England  complete  liberty  in 
delimiting  the  Western  frontiers  of  Germany,  we  expect  that  the 
Allies  on  their  part  will  give  us  equal  liberty  in  delimiting  our  frontiers 
with  Germany  and  Austria-Hungary."  Hence  the  impending  ex- 
change of  notes  on  the  question  raised  by  Doumergue  will  justify  us 
in  asking  the  French  Government  simultaneously  to  confirm  its  assent 
to  allowing  Russia  freedom  of  action  in  drawing  up  her  future  frontiers 
in  the  West.  Exact  data  on  the  question  will  be  supplied  by  us  in  due 
course  to  the  French  Cabinet. 

(Signed)  Pokrovsky. 

Document  No.  3. 

Copy  of  Note  from  the  Russian  Minister   of  Foreign  Affairs  to  the 
French  Ambassador  at  Peirograd  {M.  Doumergue) 

February  14,  1917. 

In  your  note  of  to-day's  date  your  Excellency  was  good  enough  to 

inform  the  Imperial  Government  that  the  Government  of  the  Republic 

was  contemplating  the  inclusion  in  the  terms  of  peace  to  be  offered  to 

Germany  the  following  demands  and  guarantees  of  a  territorial  nature. 

1.  Alsace-Lorraine  to  be  restored  to  France. 

2.  The  frontiers  are  to  be  extended  at  least  up  to  the  limits  of  the 
former  Principality  of  Lorraine,  and  are  to  be  drawn  up  at  the  dis- 


58  WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

cretion  of  the  French  Government  so  as  to  provide  for  the  strategical 
needs  and  for  the  inclusion  in  French  territory  of  the  entire  iron  dis- 
trict of  Lorraine  and  of  the  entire  coal  district  of  the  Saar  Valley. 

3.  The  rest  of  the  territories  situated  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine, 
which  now  form  part  of  the  German  Empire,  are  to  be  entirely  sepa- 
rated from  Germany  and  freed  from  all  political  and  economic  depend- 
ence upon  her. 

4.  The  territories  of  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine  outside  French 
territory  are  to  be  constituted  an  autonomous  and  neutral  State,  and 
are  to  be  occupied  by  French  troops  until  such  time  as  the  enemy 
States  have  completely  satisfied  all  the  conditions  and  guarantees 
indicated  in  the  treaty  of  peace. 

Your  Excellency  stated  that  the  Government  of  the  Republic  would 
be  happy  to  be  able  to  rely  upon  the  support  of  the  Imperial  Govern- 
ment for  the  carrying  out  of  its  plans.  By  order  of  his  Imperial 
Majesty,  my  most  august  master,  I  have  the  honour,  in  the  name  of 
the  Russian  Government,  to  inform  your  excellency  by  the  present 
note  that  the  Government  of  the  Republic  may  rely  upon  the  support 
of  the  Imperial  Government  for  the  carrying  out  of  its  plans  as  set  out 
above. 

Document  No.  4 

Telegram  from  the  Russian  Ambassador  at  Paris  to  the  Ritssian  Minister 

of  Foreign  Affairs 

March  11,  1917. 
See  my  reply  to  telegram  No.  167,  No.  2.  The  Government  of  the 
French  Republic,  anxious  to  confirm  the  importance  of  the  treaties 
concluded  with  the  Russian  Government  in  1915  for  the  settlement 
on  the  termination  of  the  war  of  the  question  of  Constantinople  and 
the  Straits  in  accordance  with  Russia's  aspirations,  anxious,  on 
the  other  hand,  to  secure  for  its  ally  in  military  and  industrial  respects 
all  the  guarantees  desirable  for  the  safety  and  the  economic  develop- 
ment of  the  empire,  recognizes  Russia's  complete  liberty  in  establish- 
ing her  western  frontiers. 

(Signed)  Isvolsky. 

The  purpose  of  the  French  here  is  clearly  stated:  to 
get  Alsace-Lorraine  the  iron  of  Lorraine  and  the  coal  of 
the  Saar,  and  to  make  out  of  the  Rhine   provinces  a 


PRINCIPAL  SECRET  TREATIES  OF  1915,  1916,  AND  1917     59 

buffer  State  to  be  controlled  by  the  French  for  an  un- 
specified number  of  years.  ^ 

The  secret  agreement  was  concluded  March  11, 
1917,  more  than  two  months  after  the  Allies  had  joined 
their  replies  to  President  Wilson  as  to  peace  terms  in 
which  they  had  declared  in  favour  of  "self-determina- 
tion." President  Wilson  had  also  come  out  (January  22, 
1917)  for  a  "united,  independent,  and  autonomous  Poland." 
It  is  remarkable  that  the  British  not  only  denied  having 
approved  this  treaty  but  would  not  admit  "encouraging 
the  idea."  Mr.  Balfour,  Foreign  Minister,  to  counteract 
the  effect  of  the  revelation  of  this  secret  treaty  by  the 
Bolsheviki  in  November,  1917,  said  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, on  December  19,  1917: 

We  have  never  expressed  our  approval  of  it.  .  .  .  Never  did 
we  desire  and  never  did  we  encourage  the  idea. 

Within  a  week  after  this  secret  agreement  between 
the  Tsar  and  the  French  Republic  was  concluded  the 
Russian  Government  fell.  Nevertheless,  the  French  pro- 
gramme, as  set  forth  in  this  secret  treaty,  concluded  in 
March,  1917,  was  practically  identical  with  that  for  which 
they  laboured  at  the  Peace  Conference  in  1919,  although 
by  roundabout  proposals. 


JAPAN   AND   GREAT   BRITAIN   DIVIDE   UP   THE   FORMER   POS- 
SESSIONS  OF   GERMANY   IN    THE   FAR   EAST 

There  remains  one  profoundly  important  secret  ar- 
rangement made  just  before  the  downfall  of  the  Tsar. 
It  was  not  published  during  the  Peace  Conference,  but 

! 

^Compare  with  French  claims  at  the  Peace  Conference  as  set  forth  in  Chapter  XXV. 


60  WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

was  known  to  the  Council  of  Four  at  Paris  and  its  pro- 
visions were  much  discussed  at  the  Peace  Conference. 
This  was  the  treaty,  or  "exchange  of  ideas,"  as  Baron 
Makino  called  it,  between  the  British  and  French  on  the 
one  hand  and  Japan  on  the  other,  which  laid  the  basis 
for  the  Japanese  demands  at  the  Peace  Conference.  It 
provided  for  the  disposition  of  German  rights  and 
properties  in  the  Pacific.  The  Shantung  concession  in 
China  was  to  go  to  Japan,  together  with  all  the  German 
islands  north  of  the  Equator,  while  the  British  were  to 
get  all  the  former  German  islands  south  of  the  Equator. 
WTiile  this  was  the  bargain  actually  set  forth  in  the 
text  of  the  treaties,  the  real  quid  pro  quo  on  Japan's  part 
was  naval  assistance  against  the  U-boats  in  the  Medi- 
terranean, which  Japan,  despite  her  obligations  as  an 
ally,  refused  to  give  until  she  had  received  the  pledge 
asked.  The  negotiations  lasted  a  whole  month,  and  the 
situation  in  the  Mediterranean  grew  so  serious  that 
Great  Britain  finally  agreed  to  the  Japanese  demands 
on  February  16,  1917.  Lloyd  George  in  explaining 
this  agreement  to  the  Council  of  Three  (the  representa- 
tives of  Japan  not  being  present)  made  this  statement: 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  explained  that  at  that  time  the  submarine  cam- 
paign had  become  very  formidable.  Most  of  the  torpedo-boat  de- 
stroyers were  in  the  North  Sea  and  there  was  a  shortage  of  these  craft 
in  the  Mediterranean.  Japanese  help  was  urgently  required  and 
Japan  had  asked  for  this  arrangement  [the  agreement  regarding  the 
North  Pacific  Islands  and  Shantung]  to  be  made.  We  had  been  very 
pressed  and  had  agreed.^ 

Here  is  the  exact  wording  of  the  fii*st  memorandum 
dated  at  Tokio,  Japan,  February  16,   1917.     It  is  from 


^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Four,  April  22. 


PRINCIPAL  SECRET  TREATIES  OF  1915,  1916,  AND  1917     61 

the  British  Ambassador  to  Viscount  Motono,  the  Japa- 
nese Foreign  Minister: 


With  reference  to  the  subject  of  our  conversation  of  the  27th  ultimo, 
when  your  Excellency  informed  me  of  the  desire  of  the  Imperial  Gov- 
ernment to  receive  an  assurance  that  on  the  occasion  of  the  Peace  Con- 
ference his  Britannic  Majesty's  Government  will  support  the  claims  of 
Japan  in  regard  to  the  disposal  of  Germany's  right  in  Shantung  and 
possessions  in  islands  north  of  the  Equator,  I  have  the  honour,  under 
instructions  received  from  his  Britannic  Majesty's  principal  Secretary 
of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs,  to  communicate  to  your  Excellency  the 
following  message  from  his  Britannic  Majesty's  Government: 

His  Majesty's  Government  accedes  with  pleasure  to  the  request  of 
the  Japanese  Government  for  assurance  that  they  will  support  Japan's 
claims  in  regard  to  the  disposal  of  Germany's  rights  in  Shantung  and 
possessions  in  islands  north  of  the  Equator  on  the  occasion  of  the 
Peace  Conference,  it  being  understood  that  the  Japanese  Government 
will,  in  the  eventual  peace  settlement,  treat  in  the  same  spirit  Great 
Britain's  claims  to  German  islands  south  of  the  Equator. 

On  February  19,  1917,  after  the  really  important 
matters  had  been  settled.  Viscount  Motono  wrote  to 
the  Russian  and  French  Ambassadors  at  Tokio  that  in- 
asmuch as  the  Allies  have  been  negotiating  for  the 
"disposition  of  the  Bosporus,  Constantinople,  and  the 
Dardanelles,"  that  the  time  has  come  for  Japan  also  to 
"express  her  desiderata,"  and  tells  them  what  she  "intends 
to  demand"  at  the  peace  negotiations,  namely  the  cession 
of  Shantung  and  the  islands  north  of  the  Equator. 
France,  on  her  part,  agreed  on  March  1.  The  price 
she  demanded  was  that  China  be  brought  into  the  war 
on  the  side  of  the  Allies.  This  was  an  euphemism  for 
the  withdrawal  of  Japanese  objection  to  China's  entrance 
into  the  war.  China  had  offered  three  times  before 
this  to  join  the  Allies,  but  had  been  dissuaded  at  first 
by  Great  Britain  on  the  ground  that  it  would  displease 


62  WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

Japan,  one  of  whose  statesmen  had  said,  "Japan  cannot 
afford  to  see  400  million  Chinese  armed  for  war."  Later 
France  and  Great  Britain  urged  China  to  come  in,  but 
Japan  and  Germany  opposed,  although  they  were  sup- 
posed to  be  at  war  with  one  another.  Russia,  then  just 
falling  into  the  abyss,  agreed  with  its  last  breath  to  this 
secret  treaty.  And  finally,  on  March  23,  after  everything 
was  settled,  Japan  took  Italy  into  her  confidence. 

This  treaty  caused  one  of  the  great  crises  of  the  Peace 
Conference,  and  was  the  chief  influence  in  what  is  known 
as  the  Shantung  Settlement.  It  was  made  after  the 
Allies  had  declared  their  peace  principles  in  January, 
1917  (in  reply  to  President  Wilson's  request),  and  before 
America  came  into  the  war  in  April.  The  effect  of  this 
treaty  upon  the  discussions  at  Paris  will  be  more  fully 
developed  in  the  chapters  dealing  with  the  Japanese  crisis. 

VI 

CARVING  TURKEY 

The  greatest  and  richest  of  the  spoils  of  the  war  was 
the  Turkish  Empire.  It  was  to  be  expected  that  the 
disposition  of  these  enormously  valuable  territories  should 
present  a  golden  opportunity  for  the  old  diplomacy  and 
this  is  what,  in  reality,  we  find.  Here  are  a  remarkable 
group  of  secret  treaties,  "arrangements,"  "conversa- 
tions," the  most  entangling  of  any,  and  at  the  same 
time  the  most  enlightening  in  their  disclosures  of  the  real 
purposes  and  methods  of  the  "old  order."  Here  we 
find,  most  clearly  exhibited,  the  newer  economic  aspects 
of  diplomacy,  with  its  preoccupation  with  oil  deposits, 
railroads,  and  pipe  lines.  In  the  case  of  Turkey  the 
secret  conversations  did  not  stop  with  the  entry  of 
America  into  the  war,  they  did  not  stop  even  after  the 


PRINCIPAL  SECRET  TREATIES  OF  1915,  1916,  AND  1917     63 

acceptance  of  the  Fourteen  Points  as  the  basis  of  peace 
with  their  provisions  concerning  open  diplomacy  and  the 
agreement  (in  Point  XII)  regarding  the  disposal  of 
Turkey.  They  even  continued  secretly  between  Great 
Britain  and  France  after  the  Peace  Conference  began 
to  sit! 


CHAPTER  IV 

The  Turkish  Empire  as  Booty — Terms  of  the  Secret 

Treaties  and  Agreements  for  the 

Partition  of  Turkey 

WE  COME  now  to  the  most  illuminating  of  all  the 
exhibits  of  the  old  diplomacy — the  group  of 
"secret  treaties,"  "arrangements,"  "conversa- 
tions" by  which  the  old  Turkish  Empire  was  to  be  carved 
up  between  the  allied  nations.  We  can  now  set  forth 
not  only  the  terms  of  these  treaties,  but  the  whole  en- 
lightening history  of  their  stormy  progress  through  the 
Peace  Conference,  where  in  secret  councils  the  real  pur- 
poses of  the  nations  were  bluntly  set  forth. 

Turkey  was  by  all  odds  the  richest  spoil  of  the  war, 
richer  than  Shantung.  There  were  indeed  colonies  in 
Africa  and  islands  in  the  Pacific,  there  were  thin  border 
provinces  in  Europe,  like  Alsace-Lorraine  and  Dalma- 
tia,  but  none  of  them  compared  in  sheer,  undeveloped 
wealth  with  the  old  Empire  of  the  Turks.  Here  were 
untouched  deposits  of  oil,  copper,  silver,  salt;  vast 
riches  in  agricultural  land  easily  within  reach  of  the  ir- 
rigation engineer.  Here,  above  all,  were  large  and 
industrious  populations,  long  enured  to  labour,  which, 
given  a  stable  government,  would  immediately  become 
great  producers  of  wealth  and  creators  of  trade.  More- 
over, the  break-up  of  Turkey  meant  new  arrangements 
in  Egypt  and  new  possibilities  of  opening  to  communi- 
cation and  exploitation  another  old  empire — that  of 
Persia.     The  control  of  the  eastern  Mediterranean  also 

64 


THE  TURKISH  EMPIRE  AS  BOOTY  65 

turned  upon  the  possession  of  the  coastal  cities  of  Asia 
Minor,  Syria,  and  Palestine. 

Germany  had  had  a  clear  vision  of  the  enormous  im- 
portance of  the  Near  East.  Before  the  war  she  had 
projected  and  partly  built  the  Berlin-Bagdad  railroad 
and  had  attempted  "peaceful  penetration"  by  every 
means  in  her  power.  The  great  war  has  even  been  de- 
scribed as  primarily  a  struggle  for  the  domination  of 
the  Near  East. 

It  was  quite  natural  that  allied  diplomats,  once  the 
war  broke  out,  should  begin  to  consider  what  would 
happen  if  they  won  and  Germany  lost;  what  was  to  be 
done  with  Turkey  .f' 

In  the  case  of  the  secret  treaties  with  Italy,  Rumania, 
and  possibly  Japan,  the  Allies  had  the  excuse  that  such 
arrangements  were  necessary  in  order  to  bring  in  new 
nations  to  support  the  allied  cause  in  their  desperate 
struggle  with  Germany,  but  in  the  case  of  the  Turkish 
treaties,  except  possibly  for  the  slice  of  Turkish  territory 
given  Italy,  there  can  be  no  such  excuse.  These  were 
frankly  arrangements  for  the  division  of  the  spoils  of 
the  war. 

Secret  negotiations  began  soon  after  the  great  war 
broke  out,  and  in  the  spring  of  1915  the  very  first  of  the 
important  secret  treaties  among  the  Allies  (described 
in  the  last  chapter)  gave  Russia,  "provided  the  war  is 
successfully  terminated,"  her  ancient  ambition — Con- 
stantinople. Great  Britain  in  return  was  to  have  certain 
rather  vague  but  vast  "  satisfactions  .  .  .  within  the 
Ottoman  Empire,  and  in  other  places." 

So  far,  so  good.  But  about  the  same  time  the  Allies 
were  raising  heaven  and  earth  to  get  Italy  into  the  war. 
Germany  and  Austria  had  dangled  glittering  offers  before 
the  Italians  to  get  them  in  on  their  side.     Italy  knew 


66 


WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 


her  power  and  drove  a  hard  bargain  with  the  Allies. 
She  also  looked  with  longing  eyes  toward  the  Turkish 
treasure  house,  and  provided  in  the  London  treaty  (also 
described  in  the  last  chapter)  for  a  "right,  in  case  of  the 


HOW  TURKEY  WAS  CARVED  BY  SIX  SECRET  AGREEMENTS 

The  Franco-Russo-British  agreement  of  March,  1915,  gave  Russia  Constantinople. 
The  Sazonov-Paleologue  treaty  of  April  26,  1916,  delimited  the  French  and  Russian 
shares  in  Asia.  The  Sykes-Picot  treaty  of  May,  1916,  divided  what  lay  beyond  be- 
tween France  and  Great  Britain.  The  treaty  of  London,  April  26,  1915,  gave  Italy 
the  region  of  Adalia.  The  St.  Jean  de  Maurienne  agreement,  completed  in  August, 
1917,  promised  Italy  Smyrna  and  the  rest  of  the  territory  shorni.  The  Clemenceau- 
Lloyd  George  understanding  of  December,  1918,  transferred  Mosul  to  Great  Britain, 
but  left  a  dispute  as  to  whether  the  new  line  should  run  east  or  west  of  Tadmar. 


partition  of  Turkey,  to  a  share  equal  to  theirs  (Great 
Britain,  France,  and  Russia)  in  the  basin  of  the  Medi- 
terranean— that  part  of  it  which  adjoins  the  province 
of  Adalia." 

These  "rights"  and  "shares"  were  vague,  only  Italy's 
share  being  even  definitely  located,  and  to  tlie  diplomats, 
particularly  the  French,  extremely  unsatisfactory.     For 


THE  TURKISH  EMPIRE  AS  BOOTY  67 

the  British  were  actually  on  the  ground  and  had  been 
negotiating  with  the  Arab,  King  Hussein,  as  to  the 
creation  of  an  independent  Arab  State  in  return  for 
Arab  assistance  in  the  war.  The  French  were  fearful 
that  the  British  would  become  too  powerful  in  that  part 
of  the  world,  get  too  strong  a  grip  on  Turkey.  There- 
fore, they  began  by  negotiating  with  their  old  friends 
the  Russians,  and  at  the  same  time  demanded  a 
*' showdown"  with  the  British.  The  result  was  two 
new  secret  treaties  devoted  wholly  to  the  disposal  of 
Turkey. 

First,  the  Sazonov-Paleologue  treaty  between  Russia 
and  France  (disclosed  in  a  memorandum  of  the  old 
Russian  Foreign  Office  dated  a  year  later,  March,  1917) 
dealing  with  northern  Asiatic  Turkey.  Under  this 
arrangement  Russia  staked  out  a  vast  domain,  60,000 
square  miles,  between  the  Persian  frontier  and  the 
Black  Sea,  with  rich  resources  of  copper,  silver,  and  salt. 
The  fortress  of  Erzerum  and  the  important  port  of 
Trebizond  were  included  in  this  territory. 

The  French  for  their  share  were  given  a  great  slice 
to  the  south  and  west  reaching  to  the  Mediterranean, 
the  actual  boundaries  of  which  she  was  to  determine 
by  arrangements  with  the  British. 

Second,  northern  Turkey  having  thus  been  disposed 
of,  arrangements  were  made  between  France  and  Great 
Britain  regarding  the  vast  southern  part  of  Asiatic 
Turkey.  Sir  Mark  Sykes  represented  Great  Britain  and 
M.  Picot  represented  France  in  these  negotiations;  and 
the  resulting  secret  treaty  of  May,  1916,  was  called  they 
Sykes-Picot  treaty.  Under  this  arrangement  (see  map' 
page  66)  France  got  all  the  important  coast  of  Syria  on  the 
Mediterranean  as  far  south  as  Acre,  and  all  the  ports — 
except  that  Alexandretta  was  to  be  free  to  British  trade. 


68  WOODROW  ^MLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

France  also  got  a  great  hinterland — a  veritable  prin- 
cipality— reaching  east  as  far  as  the  Tigris  River. 

Great  Britain  got  for  direct  administration  only  the 
Mediterranean  ports  of  Acre  and  Haifa  and  the  portion 
of  Mesopotamia  between  Bagdad  and  the  Persian  Gulf — 
a  tidy  bit  of  territory  with  great  riches  in  oil  and  in  agri- 
cultural land  when  irrigated. 

Between  these  claims,  and  north  of  the  Arabian  pen- 
insula, lay  a  great  interior  mass  of  Turkish  territory 
still  not  disposed  of,  including  the  important  cities  of 
Damascus,  Homs,  and  Aleppo.  This  was  adjudged  to 
some  hypothetical  "Arab  State  or  confederation  of  Arab 
States,"  with  which  France  and  Great  Britain  were  to  come 
to  an  understanding  later.  But  this  territory  also  was 
divided  into  zones  of  influence  in  which  the  respective 
Powers  should  have  "prior  rights  over  local  enterprises 
and  loans"  and  "be  the  only  ones  to  furnish  foreign 
advisers  and  officials." 

There  remained  Palestine,  and  this  was  set  aside  also 
for  future  agreement. 

But  this  secret  treaty  not  only  dealt  with  divisions  of 
territory.  It  also  contained  a  solemn  agreement  on  the 
part  of  the  French  and  British  to  allow  no  other  nations 
any  rights  in  all  this  great  part  of  the  old  Turkish  Em- 
pire— this  undoubtedly  meant  their  ally,  Italy — and  plans 
were  made  to  begin  economic  development  by  building  a 
new  railroad  from  Bagdad  direct  to  Aleppo,  where  Great 
Britain  could  get  connection  out  to  the  sea  at  Alexandretta 
for  her  Mesopotamian  oil. 

No  sooner  were  these  secret  agreements  made  between 
the  French  and  British  than  the  Italians,  no  doubt  learn- 
ing of  the  general  provisions  in  the  roundabout  ways 
known  to  the  old  diplomacy,  became  much  discontented. 
They  saw  that  France  was  getting  a  much  larger  share  in 


THE  TURKISH  EMPIRE  AS  BOOTY  69 

Turkey  than  was  Italy,  under  the  secret  treaty  of  London. 
So  new  secret  negotiations  began,  this  time  including  the 
Italians,  and  dragged  along  during  all  the  year  just  before 
the  Americans  came  into  the  war  and  at  the  very  time  that 
allied  statesmen  were  issuing  declarations  of  unselfish 
war  aims. 

In  April,  1917  (America  declared  war  April  6),  Mr. 
Lloyd  George  met  the  French  and  Italians  at  St.  Jean  de 
Maurienne  and  tried  to  patch  up  the  disagreements  and 
so  satisfy  the  Italians.  There  were  other  important  mat- 
ters at  issue  here — proposals  for  a  separate  peace  with 
Austria-Hungary  just  launched  by  the  "Sixtus  letters," 
and  the  prosecution  of  war  in  the  Near  East,  in  which 
France  and  Great  Britain  needed  unqualified  Italian 
support.  And  the  Italians  never  gave  their  support  for 
nothing ! 

To  get  this,  Lloyd  George  offered  to  give  Smyrna  and 
certain  other  Turkish  territory  to  the  Italians. 

Mr.  Balfour,  his  Foreign  Minister,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, was  just  then  in  America,  helping  to  cheer  along 
American  participation  in  the  war.  He  told  Wilson  and 
Clemenceau  during  a  meeting  of  the  Council  on  May  11, 
1919: 

While  I  was  away  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  no  doubt  for  reasons  which 
appeared  to  him  sufficient,  had,  at  St.  Jean  de  Maurienne,  agreed  to 
let  the  Italians  have  Smyrna  on  certain  conditions.^ 

But  even  this  did  not  satisfj^  the  Italians.  The  nego- 
tiations dragged  along  and  finally,  in  August,  a  secret 
agreement  was  reached  giving  Italy  not  only  Smyrna,  but 
also  a  zone  of  influence  of  great  value  north  of  it,  inhabited 
chiefly  by  Greeks  and  Turks.  This  agreement  was,  how- 
ever, to  be  dependent  upon  the  approval  of  the  Russians. 

^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Four,  May  11. 


70  WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

But  the  Russian  Government,  which  had  just  been  over- 
thrown by  the  revolutionists,  never  gave  that  consent. 
The  result  was  that  a  vast  controversy  developed  at  the 
Peace  Conference  as  to  whether  or  not  the  promises  to  the 
Italians  of  St.  Jean  de  Maurienne  were  binding  upon 
France  and  Great  Britain.^ 

In  January,  1918,  the  Fourteen  Points  were  set  forth  by 
President  Wilson  as  a  proposed  basis  of  the  peace  and 
Lloyd  George  told  the  world  (January  5)  that  the  Allies 
were  no  longer  fettered  by  the  secret  treaties  in  discussing 
the  future  of  Turkey;  yet  these  secret  discussions  kept 
right  on,  for  the  spoils  to  be  divided  were  indeed  rich. 

In  November,  at  the  Armistice  with  Germany,  the 
President's  programme  of  settlement  was  generally  ac- 
cepted as  the  basis  of  the  coming  peace.  It  included  Point 
I  providing  for  open  diplomacy,  and  Point  XII  relating 
to  Turkey.^  Yet  these  secret  conversations  between  the 
British  and  the  French  relating  to  their  Turkish  claims 
kept  right  on.  We  have  the  most  unimpeachable  evi- 
dence of  this  in  the  words  of  M.  Pichon,  French  Minister 
of  Foreign  Affairs,  during  a  secret  meeting  of  the  Four  in 
Lloyd  George's  apartment  on  March  20,  1919.  Further 
reference  will  be  made  to  this  meeting  later,  for  it  was 
important  in  many  respects.  M.  Pichon  said  at  this 
time  that  after  the  agreement  with  the  Italians  in  1916 
"there  had  been  a  long  further  correspondence  and  an 
exchange  of  many  notes  between  France  and  Great 
Britain"  concerning  these  Turkish  claims. 

Of  course,  these  conversations  were  secret,  and  it 
appeared  that  it  was  the  British  now  who  were  not  satis- 
fied. They  were  doing  the  brunt  of  the  fighting  without 
French  help,  and  they  wanted  more  concessions  in  Tur- 

'See  for  a.  more  complete  account  of  this  controversy,  Chapter  XXXIII. 
^See  Document  3,  Volume  III,  for  text  of  Fourteen  Points. 


THE  TURKISH  EMPIRE  AS  BOOTY  71 

key.  Lloyd  George's  immensely  clever  gesture  (in  Jan- 
uary, 1918)  of  putting  the  old  treaties  regarding  Turkey 
aside  not  only  helped  to  reassure  labour  in  England, 
whipped  up  recruiting  in  India  where  the  Moslems  were 
fearful  regarding  the  future  of  Turkey,  and  gave  evidence 
of  support  of  President  Wilson,  but  it  also  frightened  the 
French  to  such  an  extent  that  they  were  willing  to  buy  a 
confirmation  of  the  Sykes-Picot  treaty  by  consenting  to 
its  revision.  Never  was  there  a  cleverer  stroke.  It  did 
duty  at  once  in  three  different  causes  and  in  both  kinds  of 
diplomacy!  It  backed  up  the  open  diplomacy  of  Wilson, 
it  scored  a  point  in  the  secret  dealings  with  the  French. 
Here  we  have  again  Pichon's  narrative: 

As  the  diflSculties  between  the  two  Governments  continued,  and  as 
the  French  Government  particularly  did  not  wish  them  to  reach  a 
point  where  ultimate  agreement  would  be  compromised,  the  President 
of  the  Council  [Clemenceau],  on  his  visit  to  London  in  December, 
1918,  had  asked  Mr.  Lloyd  George  to  confirm  the  agreement  between 
the  two  countries.  Mr.  Lloyd  George  had  replied  that  he  saw  no 
difficulty  about  the  rights  of  France  in  Syria  and  Cilicia,  but  he  made 
demands  for  certain  places  which  he  thought  should  be  included  in  the 
British  zone,  and  which,  under  the  1916  agreement,  were  in  the  French 
zone  of  influence,  namely,  Mosul.     He  also  asked  for  Palestine.^ 

This  was  in  December,  1918,  after  the  close  of  the  war, 
when,  it  must  be  remembered,  the  Allies  had  accepted  the 
Fourteen  Points  as  the  basis  of  the  peace.  It  was  also 
just  at  the  time  when  President  Wilson  was  ready  to  sail 
for  Europe  to  help  make  the  peace. 

But  even  then  the  discussions  were  not  at  an  end. 
They  continued  privately  between  the  British  and  French 
(unknown  either  to  the  "associated"  Americans  or  the 
"allied"  Italians)  even  after  the  Peace  Conference  began 
to  sit.     The  French  hated  to  yield,  and  Clemenceau's 

'Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Four,  March  20. 


72  WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEIMENT 

final  acceptance  of  the  British  proposal  was  not  given 
until  February  15 — a  month  after  the  Peace  Conference 
meetings  began.  The  difficulty  lay  in  drawing  the  new 
line  of  demarcation.  The  Frencli  still  wished  to  retain 
all  the  hinterland  of  Syria;  while  the  British  insisted  that 
the  line  should  run  far  enough  to  the  northwest  to  give 
them  the  oasis  of  Tadmor  and  complete  control  of  a  line 
of  railway  (to  be  built)  passing  through  it  between  Bagdad 
and  the  port  of  Haifa  on  the  Mediterranean.  In  short, 
they  insisted  on  having  a  railroad  line  entirely  within 
their  own  sphere  of  influence,  else  in  case  of  war  their  oil 
supplies  from  Mesopotamia  might  be  held  up  by  the 
French.  On  this  point  the  transaction  was  still  hanging 
fire  when  the  conference  of  March  20  was  called  at  Lloyd 
George's  apartment  and  the  whole  entanglement  was 
disclosed. 

As  I  have  said,  the  meeting  of  ^Nlarch  20  was  one  of  the 
great  and  crucial  meetings  of  the  Peace  Conference.  It 
was  held  long  before  the  policy  of  the  small  secret  confer- 
ences of  the  "Big  Four"  had  been  formally  adopted.  The 
Council  of  Ten  was  then  the  official  body.  So  that  this 
meeting  of  March  20  was  secret  even  from  the  other  mem- 
bers of  the  Ten,  and  the  minutes  of  it  were  not  included 
with  the  official  bound  set  supplied  to  President  Wilson. ^ 
Most  of  the  "Big  Four"  meetings  were  in  President  Wil- 
son's study,  but  this  was  across  the  street  in  Lloyd  George's 
flat  in  the  Rue  Nitot.  President  Wilson  represented  Amer- 
ica; Lloyd  George,  Balfour,  and  General  Allenby  repre- 
sented the  British  Empire;  Clemenceau,  Pichon,  and 
Berthelot  represented  France,  and  Orlando  and  Sonnino, 
Italy. 

It  was  evidently  considered  a  vital  meeting.  President 
Wilson  had  only  just  returned  from  America.     Before  he 

'See  Volume  III,  Document  1,  for  the  minutes  of  this  entire  discussion. 


THE  TURKISH  EMPIRE  AS  BOOTY  73 

had  gone  away  he  had  done  two  very  important  things: 
First,  he  had  forced  the  adoption,  after  fierce  controversy7 
of  the  mandatory  principle  for  the  control  of  the  "old 
empires"  and  of  the  former  German  colonies.  Second, 
he  had  made  a  blunt  declaration  of  the  American  attitude 
toward  the  old  secret  treaties,  although  at  that  time  he 
knew  definitely  of  only  a  few  of  them  and  had  no  idea  of 
the  vast  web  of  secret  diplomacy  yet  to  be  revealed. 

As  the  United  States  of  America  were  not  bound  by  any  of  the 
[secret]  treaties  in  question  they  were  quite  ready  to  approve  a  settle- 
ment on  a  basis  of  facts. ^ 

There  had  evidently  been  some  hard  thinking  about 
these  pronouncements  of  the  President  while  he  was 
away.  What  did  he  mean.^  How  far  did  he  intend  to 
go?  For  if  the  mandatory  system  were  to  be  sincerely 
adopted  as  the  policy  of  the  world  it  meant  a  knockout 
blow  to  many  of  the  advantages  of  foreign  spheres  of  in- 
fluence in  which  the  old  diplomacy  was  so  deeply  inter- 
ested. It  meant,  for  example,  the  "open  door" !  And  of 
what  use  was  colonial  expansion  without  economic  control 
or  privilege? 

And  a  settlement  on  a  "basis  of  facts"!  The  old 
order  wanted  possession,  not  facts.  It  would  let  in  at 
once  inquiries,  not  of  what  they,  the  great  Powers,  wanted 
for  themselves  in  oil,  silver,  copper,  pipe  lines,  but  what 
the  people  who  inhabited  all  these  vast  regions,  of  whom 
nobody  was  thinking,  what  they  wanted,  and  how  their 
true  welfare  was  to  be  secured.  Facts  meant  all  sorts  of 
embarrassing  inquiries  into  oil  supply,  control  of  rail- 
roads, domination  of  ports  and  sea-channels,  armament  of 
natives,  fortifications,  even  customs  duties  and  finances. 

These  two  principles  of  the  President,  then,  if  carried 

^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  February  1. 


74  WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

out,  would  knock  the  old  diplomacy  sky-high,  and  rob 
the  secret  treaties  of  every  shred  of  their  importance  or 
value. 

Hence  the  importance  of  this  meeting  of  March  20. 
The  French  had  put  up  on  the  wall  of  Lloyd  George's 
study  a  large  map  of  Asiatic  Turkey  with  territories 
coloured  to  show  the  entire  history  of  the  secret  nego- 
tiations. This  was  the  first  occasion,  I  believe,  that 
President  Wilson  had  ever  heard  of  the  Sykes-Picot  treaty, 
or  of  the  agreements  at  St.  Jean  de  Maurienne. 

I  remember  afterward  his  speaking  to  me  with  great 
disgust  of  this  Sykes-Picot  treaty;  said  that  it  sounded 
like  the  name  of  a  tea;  called  it  "a  fine  example  of  the  old 
diplomacy." 

Pichon  opened  the  meeting  with  a  long  statement  of 
the  whole  history  of  the  effort  to  carve  up  Turkey,  made 
a  defense  of  French  claims,  and  objected  to  the  British 
demand  for  more  rights  in  Turkey.  Lloyd  George  fol- 
lowed with  a  defense  of  British  claims,  at  the  same  time 
charging  that  the  French  were  preparing  to  encroach 
upon  the  Arabs.  He  argued  bluntly  that  the  British 
had  done  the  fighting  in  Turkey  almost  without  French 
help,  and,  therefore,  ought  to  have  what  they  wanted. 
Here  are  some  of  the  things  he  said: 


He  had  begged  the  French  Government  to  cooperate,  and  had 
pointed  out  to  them  that  it  would  enable  them  to  occupy  Syria,  al- 
though, at  the  time,  the  British  troops  had  not  yet  occupied  Gaza. 
This  had  occurred  in  1917  and  1918,  at  a  time  when  the  heaviest 
casualties  in  France  also  were  being  incurred  by  British  troops.  From 
that  time  onwards  most  of  the  heavy  and  continuous  fighting  in 
France  had  been  done  by  British  troops,  although  Marshal  Petain  had 
made  a  number  of  valuable  smaller  attacks.  This  was  one  of  the 
reasons  why  he  had  felt  justified  in  asking  Marshal  Foch  for  troops  [for 
use  in  Turkey].    He  had  referred  to  this  in  order  to  show  that  the 


THE  TURKISH  EMPIRE  AS  BOOTY  75 

reason  we  had  fought  so  hard  in  Palestine  was  not  because  we  had  not 
been  fighting  in  France. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  then  disclosed  the  fact  of  a  secret 
arrangement  of  the  British  with  King  Hussein  of  the 
Arabs  which  was  older  than  the  Sykes-Picot  treaty. 
And  it  instantly  appeared  that  not  even  the  French 
had  previously  known  of  it.  It  was  secret  from  them! 
Here  is  what  Pichon  says: 

M.  Pichon  said  that  this  undertaking  had  been  made  by  Great 
Britain  (Angleterre)  alone.  France  had  never  seen  it  until  a  few 
weeks  before  when  Sir  Maurice  Hankey  had  handed  him  a  copy. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  said  the  agreement  might  have  been  made  by 
England  (Angleterre)  alone,  but  it  was  England  (Angleterre)  who 
had  organized  the  whole  of  the  Syrian  campaign.  There  would  have 
been  no  question  of  Syria  but  for  England  (Angleterre).  Great 
Britain  had  put  from  900,000  to  1,000,000  men  in  the  field  against 
Turkey,  but  Arab  help  had  been  essential;  that  was  a  point  on  which 
General  Allenby  could  speak. 

General  Allenby  said  it  had  been  invaluable. 

M.  Pichon  said  that  this  had  never  been  contested,  but  how  could 
France  be  bound  by  an  agreement  the  very  existence  of  which  was 
unknown  to  her  at  the  time  when  the  1916  agreement  was  signed? 

At  this  point,  the  controversy  having  become  heated, 
President  Wilson  broke  in  with  a  blunt  inquiry  as  to  why 
he  was  at  the  Conference. 

President  Wilson  said  that  he  would  now  seek  to  establish  his  place 
in  the  Conference.  Up  to  the  present  he  had  had  none.  He  could 
only  be  here,  like  his  colleague,  M,  Orlando,  as  one  of  the  representa- 
tives assembled  to  establish  the  peace  of  the  world.  This  was  his 
only  interest,  although,  of  course,  he  was  a  friend  of  both  parties  to  the 
controversy.  He  was  not  indifferent  to  the  understanding  which 
had  been  reached  between  the  British  and  French  Governments,  and 


76  WOODROW  AYILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

was  interested  to  know  about  the  undertakings  to  King  Hussein  and 
the  191G  agreement,  but  it  was  not  permissible  for  him  to  express  an 
opinion  thereon. 

He  then  made  observations  in  which  he  again  set 
forth  clearly  the  American  position  and  programme. 

First,  the  right  of  self-determination  of  these  people. 
Here  are  his  words: 

The  point  of  view  of  the  United  States  of  America  was  .  .  . 
indifferent  to  the  claims  both  of  Great  Britain  and  France  over  peo- 
ples unless  those  peoples  wanted  them.  One  of  the  fundamental 
principles  to  which  the  United  States  of  America  adhered  was  the 
consent  of  the  governed.  This  was  ingrained  in  the  thought  of  the 
United  States  of  America.  Hence,  the  ....  United  States 
[wanted  to  know]  whether  France  would  be  agreeable  to  the  Syrians. 
The  same  applied  as  to  whether  Great  Britain  would  be  agreeable  to 
the  inhabitants  of  Mesopotamia.  It  might  not  be  his  business,  but 
if  the  question  was  made  his  business,  owing  to  the  fact  that  it  was 
brought  before  the  Conference,  the  only  way  to  deal  with  it  was  to 
discover  the  desires  of  the  population  of  these  regions. 

Second,  he  wanted  a  settlement  on  a  basis,  not  of  secret 
diplomacy,  but  of  facts. 

The  present  controversy  .  .  .  broadened  into  a  case  affecting  the 
peace  of  the  whole  world.  .  .  .  He  was  told  that,  if  France  in- 
sisted on  occupying  Damascus  and  Aleppo,  there  would  be  instant  war. 

He  therefore  suggested  a  commission  of  inquiry  in 
Turkey,  and  he  gave  his  opinion  of  exactly  what  they 
should  do. 

Their  object  should  be  to  elucidate  the  state  of  opinion  and  the 
soil  to  be  worked  on  by  any  mandatory.  They  should  be  asked  to 
come  back  and  tell  the  Conference  what  they  found  with  regard  to 
these  matters  ...  it  would  .  .  .  convince  the  world  that  the 
Conference  had  tried  to  do  all  it  could  to  find  the  most  scientific  basis 


THE  TURKISH  EMPIRE  AS  BOOTY  77 

possible  for  a  settlement.  The  commission  should  be  composed  of  an 
equal  number  of  French,  British,  Italian,  and  American  representa- 
tives. He  would  send  it  with  ca^te  blanche  to  tell  the  facts  as  they 
found  them. 


The  President  grew  most  enthusiastic  and  urgent  in 
pressing  this  idea.  M.  Clemenceau  said  he  "adhered 
in  principle"  to  an  inquiry — one  of  the  favourite  phrases 
of  diplomacy — but  if  an  inquiry  was  made  he  wanted 
it  to  apply,  not  only  to  Syria  and  the  French  claims,  but 
to  Palestine  and  Mesopotamia,  where  the  British  were. 
While  Lloyd  George  also  accepted  the  idea  "in  prin- 
ciple" and  said  he  was  ready  to  support  such  an  inquiry 
he  was  lukewarm.  However,  the  President  considered 
his  suggestion  accepted.  I  saw  him  shortly  afterward, 
and  he  told  me  with  enthusiasm  about  his  plan: 

"I  want  to  put  the  two  ablest  Americans  now  in  Europe 
on  that  commission." 

He  asked  me  if  I  could  make  any  suggestions  as  to 
possible  appointees.  I  suggested  President  Henry 
Churchill  King  of  Oberlin  College,  a  man  of  sound  judg- 
ment and  high  ideals.  The  President  immediately  asked 
me  to  get  in  touch  with  President  King  and  he  was  ap- 
pointed, with  Charles  R.  Crane,  as  a  member  of  the 
commission. 

But  the  French  refused  to  appoint  their  members, 
and  the  British  blew  hot  and  cold,  and  finally,  after  long 
delays,  the  American  commissioners  started  out  alone, 
made  their  investigations  in  Turkey,  and  brought  back 
a  report. 

Of  further  developments,  however,  in  the  Turkish 
controversy,  I  shall  treat  in  later  chapters,  my  only 
purpose  here  being  to  present  and  illustrate  the  methods 
of  the  old  secret  diplomacy.     Suffice  it  to  say  that  Presi- 


78  WOODROW  ^^^LSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEIVIENT 

dent  Wilson's  proposal  to  base  a  final  settlement  on  the 
findings  of  a  disinterested  commission  bore  no  fruit  in 
the  end,  for  it  was  frustrated  by  the  French  with  the  tacit 
support  of  the  British. 

One  more  development  in  the  struggle,  however,  must 
be  noted  because  it  illustrates  vividly  the  concern  of 
secret  diplomacy  not  only  with  political  and  territorial 
expansion,  but — far  more  important — with  immediate 
economic  exploitation.  Although  nothing  was  settled 
regarding  Turkey,  though  no  peace  had  been  made,  it 
suddenly  emerged  in  the  secret  councils,  May  22,  that 
powerful  British  and  French  commercial  interests  were 
at  that  moment  negotiating  for  the  laying  of  a  pipe  line 
from  the  Mesopotamian  oil  fields  to  the  port  of  Tripoli  in 
the  French  zone  of  Syria.  These  negotiations  had  been  in- 
itiated by  the  British — represented  by  Mr.  Walter  Long — 
though  Lloyd  George  told  the  council  emphatically  that 
he  (Lloyd  George)  had  not  been  spoken  to  about  them. 
On  the  part  of  the  French  they  were  managed  by  M.  Ber- 
anger,  and  Clemenceau  also  denied  that  he  had  known 
anything  about  them. 

He  [Clemenceau]  only  heard  this  very  morning  of  the  negotiation 
between  M.  Beranger  and  some  British  petroleum  people  for  laying 
a  pipe  line  to  the  coast.  He  knew  nothing  of  the  details  of  the 
arrangement.  .  .  .  He  was  not  very  much  interested  in  this 
matter,  as  Lloyd  George  had  erroneously  assumed  on  the  previous 
day. 

To  this  Lloyd  George  replied: 

Of  the  pipe  line  he  knew  nothing,  and  was  very  annoyed  when  he 
first  learned  of  it.  There  seemed  to  have  been  some  negotiation  be- 
tween the  people  in  Paris  interested  in  oil  and  those  in  London.  Con- 
sequently, at  the  moment  when  M.  Clemenceau  had  said  that  he  did 
not  like  the  arrangement  (M.  Clemenceau  interjected  that  he  had 
referred  to  something  quite  different),  he  had  cancelled  it.     He  did 


THE  TURKISH  EMPIRE  AS  BOOTY  79 

not  want  to  be  mixed  up  with  oil  trusts  in  London  or  America  or 
Paris,  as  he  was  afraid  it  would  vitiate  the  whole  business.  Con- 
sequently, on  the  previous  afternoon,  he  had  written  to  M.  Clem- 
enceau  to  cancel  the  whole  of  these  oil  negotiations.' 

In  this  connection  it  is  to  be  noted,  as  evidence  of  the 
trend  of  the  times,  that  these  private  compacts  are  be- 
coming more  and  more  predominantly  economic  in 
character.  The  Sykes-Picot  agreement  was  political 
in  its  main  features,  though  with  a  strong  economic 
flavour  pervading  all  its  terms ;  the  latest  Franco-Turkish 
treaty  (1921)  is  almost  w^holly  economic — indeed,  the 
French  renounce  a  narrow  political  position  in  return 
for  broader  economic  advantages.  In  the  negotiations 
concerning  the  railroads  and  pipe  line  which  followed 
the  Sykes-Picot  treaty,  economic  considerations  overrode 
political  transactions.  It  is  such  economic  "deals"  that 
are  undoubtedly  going  on  in  every  corner  of  the  world 
to-day.  >  Although  concerned  primarily  with  the  pro- 
duction and  exchange  of  commodities,  th^y  often  pro- 
foundly affect  destinies  of  large  local  populations  and 
the  whole  scheme  of  international  relations.  Although 
frequently  negotiated  by  industrial  and  financial,  rather  v 
than  diplomatic  agents.  Governments  stand  behind  them  '\, 
with  the  armed  force  of  nations.  The  old  order  changes  p 
its  methods,  but  not  its  spirit. "  "^^ 

Such  were,  in  general,  the  desires,  needs,  ambitions  ' 
of  the  allied  Governments  set  forth  in  the  secret  treaties. 
So  they  intended,  if  they  won  the  war,  to  divide  up  the 
world;  so  they  actually  tried  to  divide  it  up  at  the  Peace 
Conference.  Though  outwardly  they  were  combating 
imperialism  as  symbolized  by  Germany,  they  were  them- 
selves seeking  vast  extensions  of  their  own  imperial  and 

^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Four,  May  22. 


80  AVOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

economic  power.  yThey  kept  these  agreements  secret 
from  their  own  people,  fearing  their  effect  on  the  great 
masses  of  the  workers  and  the  hberal  groups;  they  kept 
them  secret  also  from  their  smaller  allies,  like  Serbia, 
and  they  kept  them  secret  from  America  both  before 
and  after  America  came  into  the  war.  These  treaties, 
partly  disclosed  in  enemy  countries  through  the  pub- 
lication of  the  Bolsheviki,  and  greatly  exaggerated  there, 
were  powder  and  shot — army  corps! — to  the  enemy,  for 
they  were  used  to  prove  the  contentions  of  the  German 
war  lords  that  the  Allies  were  really  fighting  to  gobble 
up  the  world. 

And  finally  they  bore  a  crop  of  suspicion,  controversy, 
balked  ambition,  which  twice,  at  least,  nearly  wrecked 
the  Peace  Conference,  poisoned  its  discussions,  and  warped 
and  disfigured  its  final  decisions. 

I  am  conscious  that  this  makes  a  pretty  dark  picture, 
but  it  is  necessary  to  look  squarely  at  it  in  considering  the 
atmosphere  in  which  the  Paris  negotiations  were  carried 
on.  And  yet,  through  it  all,  the  President  not  only 
combated,  steadily  and  with  determination,  settlements 
based  upon  these  old  secret  desires  and  agreements,  but 
patiently  worked  out  provisions  in  the  Covenant  of  the 
League  of  Nations  which,  in  future,  should  wipe  out  the 
entire  disgraceful  old  system.  Article  XVIII  of  the  Cove- 
nant reads : 

Every  treaty  or  international  engagement  entered  into  hereafter  by 
any  member  of  the  league  shall  be  forthwith  registered  with  the  secre- 
tariat and  shall  as  soon  as  possible  be  published  by  it.  No  treaty  or 
international  engagement  shall  be  binding  until  so  registered. 

This  provision,  if  once  all  the  nations  go  into  the 
league  with  determination  and  good-will,  is  of  an  im- 
portance that  can  scarcely  be  exaggerated.      It  would 


THE  TURKISH  EIVIPIRE  AS  BOOTY  81 

cut  away  all  secret  diplomacy;  it  would  usher  in  the  new 
era  of  open  diplomacy. 

Yet  everything  depends  upon  the  good-will  and  sin- 
cerity with  which  the  nations  support  and  carry  out 
these  provisions.  President  Wilson  could  help  give 
the  nations  an  instrumentality  for  expressing  their  good- 
will, but  he  could  not  give  them  good-will.  Since  the 
League  of  Nations  came  into  existence  more  than  one 
hundred  and  fifty  treaties  have  been  registered  under 
this  provision — a  great  step — and  yet  we  know  that 
"secret  arrangements"  are  still  being  made,  all  or  parts  of 
which  have  not  been  registered. 

I  have  endeavoured  thus  to  set  forth  the  ripe  products 
of  the  old  diplomacy.  To  a  certain  extent,  of  course, 
these  arrangements  were  forced  upon  the  Allies  as  a 
measure  of  war;  for  Germany  was  also  making  secret 
offers  to  Italy,  to  Rumania,  to  Bulgaria,  to  Turkey,  and 
probably  to  Japan,  which  had  to  be  countered.  We 
know  that  Germany  even  tried  secret  diplomacy  with 
Mexico.  Leaders  of  liberal  and  progressive  minds  on 
all  domestic  issues,  like  Asquith  and  Grey,  were  forced, 
owing  to  the  antiquated  and  evil  system  of  the  old  diplo- 
macy, to  take  part  in  such  secret  practices. 

In  the  high  emotional  time  of  danger  and  suffering 
under  the  leadership  of  President  Wilson  these  old  aims, 
these  secret  desires,  were  apparently  forgotten,  apparently 
disclaimed.  The  whole  world  was  momentarily  lifted  to 
a  higher  moral  plane.  The  people  of  the  world  were  with 
the  President.  But  the  moment  the  war  closed  the  re- 
action began.  The  old  Governments  and  the  old  system 
were  in  control,  and  there  was  a  portentous  "slump  in 
idealism"  which  I  shall  describe  in  the  next  chapter. 


CHAPTER  V 

The  Slump  in  Idealism 

ALL    great    human    catastrophes    are    more   or   less 

/_\  alike.  I  remember  being  in  San  Francisco  just 
.X  m  after  the  great  earthquake  of  1906,  in  which  for 
a  brief  moment,  a  few  weeks,  men  were  shaken  out  of 
themselves. 

"Men  served  instead  of  demanding  service;  they  gave 
instead  of  receiving.  They  helped  their  neighbours.  For 
a  splendid  moment  this  ruined  city  was  a  Christian 
city." 

People  called  it  "earthquake  love,"  and  it  soon  faded. 
Great  Utopian  schemes  for  the  rebuilding  of  the  city, 
the  widening  of  the  streets,  the  removal  of  Chinatown, 
plans  for  a  better  city  government,  and  more  coopera- 
tion between  labour  and  capital  were  eagerly  decided 
upon.  Nothing  in  the  future  was  to  be  as  it  had  been  in 
the  past.  San  Francisco  was  to  be  beautiful,  clean, 
righteous ! 

"The  period  of  mutual  aid  lasted  about  one  month. 
.  .  .  Gradually,  a  little  here  and  a  little  there,  personal 
greed  and  private  interest  began  to  break  through.  Men 
remembered  themselves  again.  "^ 

The  grand  schemes  of  cooperation  were  forgotten, 
the  Burnham  plan  for  the  rebuilding  of  a  more  beautiful 
city  was  blocked  by  the  fierce  needs  and  ambitions  of 
private  property  owners,   labour  and  capital  began  to 

^"ATest  of  Men:The  San  Francisco  Disaster,"  by  Ray  Stannard  Baker,  American 
Magazine,  November,  1906. 

82 


THE  SLUMP  IN  IDEALISM  83 

quarrel  again,  the  "political  boss,"  temporarily  deposed, 
came  back  into  power.  "Why  should  it  be  necessary," 
the  observer  cried  out,  "for  intelligent  men,  capable  of 
serving  and  working  together,  as  they  did  in  the  early 
days  after  the  earthquake,  to  slump  back  into  the  reign 
of  instinct,  and  submit  themselves  again  to  the  law  of 
the  jungle?" 

How  often  in  the  months  immediately  following  the 
Armistice  with  Germany,  November  11,  1918,  was  one 
reminded  of  that  former  catastrophe!  The  common 
suffering  and  the  common  fear  of  the  war  had  produced 
the  same  splendid  moment  of  "world  love";  the  allied 
nations  had  subordinated  their  own  interests  and  had 
worked  nobly  together.  The  "old  order"  was  forever 
to  be  put  aside — a  "  world  beautiful "  was  to  be  constructed 
upon  the  shaken  and  smoking  ruins  of  the  old  civiliza- 
tion. Small  nations  as  well  as  great  were  to  have  justice, 
and  the  great  were  to  disarm.  There  was  to  be  a  world 
league  for  peace. 

No  sooner  had  the  war  ended  than  the  high  emotional 
and  moral  enthusiasm  which  marked  its  concluding 
year  began  to  fade  away.  The  spirit  of  unity  began  to 
disintegrate.  The  Allies  had  not,  after  all,  common 
purposes.  Each  had  its  ancient  loyalties,  necessities, 
jealousies,  ambitions,  and  these  immediately  began  to 
reassert  themselves.  The  purposes  of  the  secret  treaties 
were  again  crowded  into  the  foreground.  No  miracle  had 
really  occurred.  Men  found  themselves  back  in  the  old 
familiar  world — and,  more  than  that,  in  a  state  of  exhaus- 
tion and  demoralization  which  tended  to  irritate  rather 
than  calm  the  natural  differences  of  opinion.  It  must 
never  be  forgotten  that  it  was  in  a  time  of  national  shell- 
shock,  exaggerated  appearances,  exaggerated  fears,  that 
the  Treaty  was  made. 


84  WOODROW  ^YILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

There  is  no  true  historical  approach  to  the  events  of  the 
Peace  Conference  without  a  clear  understanding  of  these 
changes  in  psychology.  It  is  significant  that  the  forces 
which  had  given  the  President  the  strongest  support  and 
relied  upon  him  most  implicitly,  that  is,  the  liberal  and 
labour  groups  in  the  allied  countries  (and  indeed  in  Ger- 
many and  Austria),  were  also  the  first  to  disco^'er  the 
sudden  and  cvnical  chancre  in  sentiment.  No  one  who 
was  in  Europe  immediately  after  the  Armistice  in  No- 
vember and  December,  1918,  and  January,  1919  (as  I 
was),  will  ever  forget  the  cry  of  alarm  which  went  up 
from  all  these  groups  when  the  leaders  of  the  old  order 
again  began  to  show  their  heads. 

"Have  we  lost  the  peace .f^"  cries  a  writer  in  the  Herald, 
the  principal  labour  journal  of  Great  Britain. 

"The  soldiers  won  the  war,"  it  says,  "our  demagogues 
will  lose  the  peace." 

The  Manchester  Guardian,  the  leading  liberal  news-, 
paper  of  Great  Britain,  comments  as  early  as  December  31 
on  the  "Slump  in  Idealism,"  and  on  December  19 — some 
five  weeks  after  the  Armistice  and  less  than  a  month  before 
the  sitting  of  the  Peace  Conference — thus  reports  the 
situation : 

President  Wilson  has  come  with  certain  perfectly  definite  principles 
of  policy  in  his  mind  and  a  perfectly  resolute  intention  to  see  them 
carried  out  in  any  settlement  to  which  he  is  to  be  a  party.  These  are 
the  principles  which  he  himself  has  enunciated,  which  the  vast  major- 
ity of  the  American  people  approve  and  which  the  Allies  have  quite 
formally  and  definitely  accepted.  Yet,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  they 
have  thus  been  accepted  and  that  the  surrender  of  Germany  took 
place  on  that  clear  understanding  and  no  other,  President  Wilson  can- 
not long  have  breathed  the  diplomatic  air  of  Paris  without  discover- 
ing certain  strange  discrepancies  between  this  professed  acceptance 
and  the  sectional  and  purely  nationalistic  demands  actually  put  for- 
ward in  various  countries,  not  excluding  our  own. 


December  ti,  1918. 


Cb«    inovl6 


'#T 


^^.Z    /^-^ 


i^>- 


NOTHING    DOING! 
Tresident  (Esau)  PVihon :  "  It's  a  nice  mess,  Jacob." 
'John  (Jacob)  Bull :  "  Nothing  to  the  mess  I  should  be  in  if  I  took  it." 


S5 


86  WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

The  Nation,  another  hberal  journal,  cried  out,  December 
21,  in  these  words: 

We  hear  little  or  nothing  of  the  League  of  Nations.  On  the  other 
hand,  we  hear  a  good  deal  of  a  series  of  purely  individual  nationalistic 
adventures.  The  restoration  of  Alsace-Lorraine  cannot  be  regarded 
as  one  of  them.  It  comes  within  the  Fourteen  Points,  and  the  re- 
union with  the  motherland  is  a  matter  of  form  rather  than  of  principle. 
But  a  French  protectorate  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine,  a  French 
annexation  of  the  Saar  coal  fields,  a  Belgian  claim  to  Dutch  soil  and 
German  soil,  an  Italian  claim  to  Dalmatia,  bring  us  straight  back  to 
Brest-Litovsk,  to  Might-policy,  to  strategic  frontiers,  to  the  practice 
of  aggressive  nationalism.  So  does  Mr.  George's  theory  of  indem- 
nities as  entitling  a  victor  nation  to  recover  the  whole  cost  of  war  from 
the  vanquished.  Put  the  theory  and  practice  together,  and  add  to 
them  a  war  on  revolutionary  Russia,  and  the  Fourteen  Points  are 
destroyed.  Mr.  Wilson's  mission  is  sterilized,  and  the  policy  of  labour 
turned  down. 

Much  the  same  alarm  is  expressed  in  the  French  and 
Italian  liberal  and  labour  papers  and  by  the  leaders  of 
these  groups.  In  VCEuvre  of  Paris,  January  10,  two 
days  before  the  first  session  of  the  Peace  Conference,  we 
read: 

The  luminous  outlook  of  a  universal  peace,  founded  on  mutual  con- 
fidence and  friendship  of  nations,  is  more  and  more  becoming  reduced 
to  a  new  equilibrium  of  forces.  .  .  .  There  is  only  talk  of  reinforcing 
frontiers,  and  the  old  precept,  "If  you  want  peace,  prepare  for  war," 
seems  to  be  an  obsession  in  the  minds  of  the  old  politicians  charged 
with  renewing  the  world. 

The  same  note  of  apprehension  and  pessimism  is  struck 
by  onlooking  liberals  in  neutral  countries,  who  see  per- 
haps more  clearly  than  any  others  the  power  of  the  old 
diplomacy  and  the  strength  of  the  old  nationalism,  the  en- 
tanglements of  the  secret  treaties.     Georg  Brandes,  the 


THE  SLUMP  IN  IDEALISM  87 

Scandinavian  scholar,  in  an  interview  with  an  American 
correspondent,  had  this  to  say: 

The  Allies  are  drunk  with  victory  and  are  too  bent  upon  inflicting 
punishments  to  make  a  just  and  durable  peace.  I  am  an  old  man, 
and  can  well  remember  that  when  Paris  surrendered  (in  1870)  train- 
loads  of  provisions  were  in  movement  from  England  within  twenty- 
four  hours  to  feed  the  hungry.  But  what  do  we  see  now?  Germany 
surrendered  more  than  three  months  ago,  and  the  Allies  still  prevent 
the  provisioning  of  Germany.  Surely  no  peace  made  in  that  spirit 
can  be  followed  by  those  feelings  of  political  contentment  upon  which 
any  peace  must  rest.     .     .     . 

I  admire  and  appreciate  the  principles  of  President  Wilson;  but 
I  cannot  understand  how  any  one  who  has  his  eyes  open  for  a  moment 
believes  in  their  realization.  .  .  .  Wilson's  policy  of  moderation  is 
the  only  right  one.  .  .  .  War  cannot  bring  peace.  Only  love 
and  mercy  bring  peace,  and  where  are  love  and  mercy?  ^ 

Leaders  of  these  groups  feared  that  the  President  did 
not  fully  realize  the  extent  and  power  of  the  reaction 
against  him.  The  Herald^  the  National  Labour  Weekly,  in 
December  appeared  with  these  words  emblazoned  upon 
its  entire  front  page: 

"Don't  Be  Wangled,  Wilson!" 

On  December  23,  1918,  Bishop  Gore  of  Oxford,  who 
had  just  returned  from  America,  warns  the  President 
in  a  personal  letter  that  he  has  "become  more  and  more 
convinced  how  much  there  is  among  the  'educated'  classes 
in  Europe,  which  is  set  to  resist  the  idea  of  international 
justice,  and  the  principles  of  peace  settlements  for  which 
you  stand.  But  I  am  also  convinced  that  the  heart  and 
mind  of  the  common  people  are  with  you." 

If  the  liberal  and  labour  groups,  who  were  the  most 
sincere  supporters  of  the  President's  programme,  were 
alarmed,  the  old  leaders  and  the  conservative  press  grew 
more  and  more  confident  and  cynical. 

'William  C.  Dreher  in  the  New  York  Nation. 


Britain's  New  War  with  Rusi^ia.    (See  page  2) 

THE   HERALD 

THE   NATIONAL   LABOUR   WEEKLY 

N«w S«rit..  No.  979.       Ht-— ino>«  -.  i  -ly.        SATURDAY,  DECEMBER  21,  1918.  ""iSHJ^CT"  ONE  PENNV 

DONT 

BE 

WANGLED, 
WILSON! 

(See  page  7) 


THE  SLUMP  IN  IDEALISM  89 

"Here  and  there,"  remarks  the  Paris  Figaro^  "one  hears 
of  people  who  still  dream  of  a  Wilson  peace." 

"Let  us  reconstruct  Central  Europe  in  accordance  with 
French  interests,"  says  Le  Temps. 

On  November  26,  1918,  Winston  Spencer  Churchill, 
British  Minister  of  Munitions,  speaking  at  Dundee, 
said  he  was  a  friend  of  the  League  of  Nations,  but  it  was 
no  substitute  for  the  supremacy  of  the  British  fleet;  and 
he  declared  that  none  of  the  German  colonies  would  ever 
be  restored  to  Germany,  and  none  of  the  conquered  parts 
of  Turkey  would  ever  be  returned  to  Turkey. 

Early  in  December,  1918,  I  w^as  in  Italy  and  heard  the 
talk  everywhere  (how  different  from  that  of  April,  1918!) 
of  the  expansion  of  Italy,  the  possession  of  the  Dalmatian 
Coast  and  the  control  by  Italy  of  the  entire  Adriatic. 
And  there  had  already  been  fighting  in  Fiume  between  the 
Italians  and  Croats  for  the  possession  of  that  city. 

The  reaction  was  not  due  merely  to  the  leaders — al- 
though they  were  bitterly  blamed  by  the  liberal  and 
labour  groups — but  was  in  the  very  psychology  of  the 
masses  of  the  people.  The  shrewdest  political  leader  in 
Europe,  or  indeed  in  the  world,  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  knew 
this  w^ell  enough,  staged  his  general  election  for  December 
14  at  the  climax  of  this  reaction,  made  his  issue  a  hard  and 
bitter  peace  w^ith  Germany — "hang  the  Kaiser  and  make 
the  Germans  pay  the  cost  of  the  war" — and  w^on  a  sweep- 
ing victory.  And  while  President  Wilson  was  in  England 
making  his  great  speeches  at  Manchester  and  elsewhere, 
in  which  he  set  forth  with  new  power  his  progranmie  for 
the  peace  and  the  League  of  Nations,  Clemenceau  was 
telling  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  at  Paris  that  he  still  be- 
lieved in  the  old-fashioned  system  of  alliances.  Although 
both  he  and  Lloyd  George  had  accepted  fully  the  Presi- 
dent's basis  of  settlement,  the  Fourteen  Points,  Lloyd 


>i^ 


90  WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

George  was  now  for  making  Germany  pay  to  the  "  last  shil- 
ling," and  notable  French  leaders  were  advancing  territorial 
and  other  claims  which,  if  granted,  would  defeat  the  very 
principles  to  which  the  Allies  had  agreed  at  the  Armistice. 
Of  course  there  was  a  reason  for  this  popular  reaction 
of  which  the  political  leaders  were  so  keenly  aware.  The 
French,  especially,  had  suffered  frightfully  during  four 
years  of  war,  had  lost  millions  of  men  killed  and  wounded, 
had  seen  some  of  their  fairest  provinces  devastated  with 
a  ruthlessness  never  known  in  any  former  war,  and  now 
that  the  war  had  resulted  in  victory  each  man  wanted 
immediate  satisfaction.  As  Clemenceau  said  in  one  of 
the  early  meetings  of  the  Peace  Conference: 

The  first  wish  of  the  French  frontier  peasants  had  been  to  get  back 
the  cattle  which  had  been  stolen  from  them  by  the  hundred  and  by  the 
thousand,  and  which  they  could  watch  grazing  on  the  German  side. 
These  peasants  kept  saying,  "We  have  been  victorious,  of  course, 
but  cannot  the  Germans  be  asked  to  give  us  back  our  cattle?" 
.  .  .  Mr.  Balfour  would  not,  as  a  philosopher,  contradict  him  when 
he  said  that  there  was  such  a  thing  as  a  philosophy  of  war,  when 
events  accumulated  in  the  human  brain  and  put  it  out  of  gear,  destroy- 
ing the  balance  of  entire  nations.^ 

Such  events  had  accumulated,  and  in  tliese  days  entire 
nations  were  indeed  out  of  balance! 

How  was  it  in  America .''  Exactly  the  same  reaction 
had  here  set  in.  In  spite  of  criticisms  by  Roosevelt, 
Lodge,  and  other  opposition  leaders,  Wilson  undoubtedly 
had  the  powerful  and  nearly  united  support  of  America 
until  the  fall  of  1918 — and  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
his  policies,  all  through  his  Administration,  had  been 
antagonistic  to  what  may  be  called  the  conservative  in- 
terests in  the  country.     His  programme  of  legislation  was 

'Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  February  12. 


THE  SLUIVIP  IN  IDEALISM  91 

felt  by  these  groups  to  be  unduly  favourable  to  labour,  to 
the  farmer,  and  to  the  small  business  man  against  the 
great  business  man.  In  November,  1918,  when  the 
elections  went  against  his  party  and  the  people  returned 
a  Congress  opposed  to  him,  all  the  voices  of  opposition 
broke  out  with  a  new  force. 

While  the  President  was  saying  in  Europe  that  the 
United  States  wanted  nothing  for  herself — "We  have  no 
selfish  ends  to  serve" — Senator  Lodge  was  declaring  in 
Senate  (speech  of  December  21)  that  there  must  be 
heavy  indemnities  paid  by  Germany  (although  the  agree- 
ment in  the  Armistice  was  that  only  reparations,  not 
indemnities,  were  to  be  paid),  and  that  "in  these  in- 
demnities the  United  States  must  have  its  proper  and 
proportional  share."  And  while  the  President  was 
voicing  strongly  his  vision  of  the  American  nation  serving 
the  world  and  taking  its  part  in  a  league  of  nations. 
Senator  Johnson  and  Senator  Borah  were  asking  Ameri- 
cans to  take  council  of  their  fears,  preserve  their  isolation, 
and  leave  the  nations  of  Europe  to  their  own  devices. 

"I  hope,"  said  Senator  Johnson,  "that  out  of  it  w411 
come  a  determination  on  the  part  of  the  Senate  and  the 
Government  of  the  United  States  to  leave  to  the  nations 
beyond  the  seas  the  policing  of  the  world  hereafter,  and 
to  bring  home  our  troops  wherever  they  may  be  as  soon 
as  our  present  obligations  shall  have  been  fulfilled." 

And  Senator  Borah  opposed  the  bill  to  provide 
$100,000,000  for  feeding  the  hungry  people  of  Europe 
because  Mr.  Hoover's  work  had  been  "carried  out  with- 
out thought  for  the  interests  of  American  taxpayers." 

It  was  thus  that  Wilson's  idea  of  "humanity  first," 
this  vision  of  America  as  a  great  servant  of  the  world, 
began  to  be  superseded  by  the  new  slogan,  "America  first." 

In  spite  of  all  this  the  President  still  felt  with  all  the 


92  WOODROW  \MLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEIVIENT 

intensity  of  his  faith  that  he  was  truly  voicing  the  real 
longings  and  aspirations  of  the  people  of  the  world,  that 
he  really  had  the  people  with  him,  and  that  if  opposition 
appeared  he  had  only  to  speak  to  them  and  they  would 
rise  to  his  support.  He  had  an  almost  pathetic  belief 
in  the  people  and  in  America.  In  one  of  the  greatest 
speeches  he  made  in  Europe,  that  at  the  Sorbonne  at  Paris, 
January  25,  1919  (ten  days  after  the  Peace  Conference 
opened) ,  he  expressed  again  his  belief  that 

the  select  classes  of  mankind  are  no  longer  the  governors  of  man- 
kind. The  fortunes  of  mankind  are  now  in  the  hands  of  the  plain 
people  of  the  whole  world.  Satisfy  them  and  you  have  justified  their 
confidence  not  only,  but  have  established  peace.  Fail  to  satisfy  them, 
and  no  arrangement  that  you  can  make  will  either  set  up  or  steady 
the  peace  of  the  world. 

He  also  felt  that  the  people,  the  "plain  people,"  of 
the  United  States  were  also  with  him. 

You  can  imagine  [he  says  in  the  same  address]  the  sentiments  and 
the  purpose  with  which  the  representatives  of  the  United  States 
support  this  great  project  for  a  league  of  nations.  We  regard  it  as 
the  keynote  of  the  whole,  which  expresses  our  purposes  and  ideals  in 
this  war  and  which  the  associated  nations  have  accepted  as  the  basis 
of  a  settlement. 

If  we  return  to  the  United  States  without  having  made  every  effort 
in  our  power  to  realize  this  programme,  we  should  return  to  meet  the 
merited  scorn  of  our  fellow  citizens.  For  they  are  a  body  that  con- 
stitute a  great  democracy.  They  expect  their  leaders  to  speak,  their 
representatives  to  be  their  servants. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  think  that  Wilson  was  not 
aware  of  the  struggle  before  him.  He  said  as  far  back 
as  July,  1917:  "Peace  cannot  be  had  witliout  concession 
and  sacrifice."  And  in  the  notable  conference  which  he 
held  with  the  American  experts  on  the  George  Washington 


THE  SLUMP  IN  IDEALISM  93 

during  the  first  voyage  from  America,  he  not  only  ex- 
pressed his  anticipation  of  future  diflSculties,  but  declared 
with  great  force  his  determination  to  face  "a  task  of 
terrible  proportions." 

Anticipating  the  difficulties  of  the  Conference  in  view  of  the  sugges- 
tion he  has  made  respecting  the  desires  of  the  people  of  the  world  for 
a  new  order,  he  remarked:  "If  it  won't  work,  it  must  be  made  to 
work,"  because  the  world  was  faced  by  a  task  of  terrible  proportions, 
and  only  the  adoption  of  a  cleansing  process  would  recreate  or  regener- 
ate the  world.  The  poison  of  Bolshevism  was  accepted  readily  be- 
cause "it  is  a  protest  against  the  way  in  which  the  world  has  worked." 
It  was  to  be  our  business  at  the  Peace  Conference  to  fight  for  a  new 
order,  "agreeably  if  we  can,  disagreeably  if  we  must."^  / 

But  he  had  such  a  profound  faith  in  the  power  of  moral 
ideas  and  in  the  willingness  of  the  "plain  people"  to  do 
right,  once  they  knew  what  the  right  was — and  had  not 
the  whole  world  accepted  his  principles  as  the  basis  of 
the  peace? — that  he  went  into  the  Peace  Conference  with 
unabated  confidence.  In  any  event  and  no  matter  what 
the  opposition,  he  was  prepared  to  make  the  fight.  / 

This  spirit  was  what  the  people  of  Europe  so  clearly  7 
sensed.  He  "meant  it  terribly."  And  of  all  the  leaders 
there,  he  was,  by  virtue  of  the  American  system  of  elect- 
ing a  President  for  a  specific  term  of  years,  the  only  one 
free  from  fierce  momentary  waves  of  popular  feeling. 
Lloyd  George  had  out-Wilsoned  Wilson  in  his  application 
of  the  idea  of  self-determination  in  January,  1918 — for 
it  was  then  the  winning  slogan  of  the  world — but  in 
December,  1918,  he  was  contesting  an  election  on  a  very 
different  slogan!  >  But  the  President  had  laid  down  his 
principles:  and  stood  upon  them.  "It  is  our  business  . 
at  the  Peace  Conference,"  he  had  said,  "to  fight  for  a 

^From  notes  taken  at  the  time  by  Dr.  Isaiah  Bowman. 


94  WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

new  order,  agreeably  if  we  can,  disagreeably  if  we  must." 
Mr.  Balfour,  who  beyond  any  other  man  wHo^pIayed 
a  great  part  in  the  Peace  Conference  was  able  to  maintain 
the  somewhat  ironical  view  of  a  detached  observer  of 
events,  remarked  on  November  28: 

It  is  going  to  be  a  rough-and-tumble  affair,  this  Peace  Conference ! 


PART  II 

THE    OLD    AND    THE    NEW    DIPLOMACY: 
ORGANIZATION  AND  PROCEDURE 


CHAPTER  VI 

Organization     and     Preparation     of    the     "New 

Diplomacy"   to  Meet  the  Old — The  American 

"Inquiry" — The     Origin     of     President 

Wilson's  Fourteen  Points 

FROM  the  great  day  on  which  the  curtain  rang 
down  upon  the  vast  grim  drama  of  the  war  (No- 
vember 11,  1918)  until  it  went  up  on  the  drama  of 
the  Peace  Conference  at  Paris  (January  12,  1919)  two  full 
months  elapsed.  President  Wilson  had  arrived  in  Europe 
on  December  13,  ready  and  expecting  to  begin  the  con- 
ferences at  once,  or  within  a  few  days — and  a  month 
slipped  away.  " 

To  the  impatient  publics  of  the  world,  suffering  for 
peace,  this  delay  may  have  seemed  empty  and  barren 
enough;  but  it  was  packed  with  intention,  and  to  a 
notable  extent  the  entire  course  of  the  Peace  Conference 
was  determined  at  the  Armistice  and  during  these  pre- 
paratory months. 

A  certain  delay,  possibly  a  month,  was,  of  course,  reason- 
able and  inevitable.  This  was  a  world  peace.  Arrange- 
ments had  to  be  made  in  twenty-seven  allied  nations, 
delegations  had  to  come  half  around  the  world  from 
Japan,  China,  Australia,  South  Africa,  South  America, 
India.  A  month  was  evidently  the  period  envisaged 
when  the  Armistice  was  signed;  the  limit  for  fulfilment 
of  the  terms  in  every  case  (except  one)  was  fixed  at 
thirty-one  days  (one  was  thirty -six  days).  Mr.  Lloyd 
George,  who  had  gone  to  the  country  for  a  stronger 

97 


98  WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

mandate  for  his  policies  at  Paris,  had  set  the  British 
general  election  for  December  14.  Thus  Lloyd  George 
had  his  political  campaign  out  of  the  way.  President 
Wilson  was  in  Europe  ready  to  begin,  and  the  liberal  and 
radical  press  in  England  and  France  had  already  begun 
to  complain  sharply  of  the  delay. 

Now,  nothing  is  ever  uncalculated  in  diplomacy,  and 
delay,  which  always  favours  the  thing  that  is,  has  ever 
been  one  of  the  stock  weapons  in  that  warfare/^rTfTihe 
diplomats,  and  especially  the  French,  who  were  acting 
as  hosts  of  the  Conference  and  who  were  thus  chiefly 
responsible  for  determining  such  matters  of  procedure— 
they  must  say  when  their  house  was  ready  and  in  order — 
had  desired  or  thought  it  in  their  interest  to  speed  up 
the  Peace  Conference,  it  could  and  would  have  been 
done.  But  they  evidently  calculated  that  delay,  up  to 
a  certain  point,  w^orked  to  their  advantage.  By  putting 
off  as  long  as  possible  the  demobilization  of  the  most 
formidable  army  ever  known,  which  was  under  the  com- 
mand of  a  French  general — INIarshal  Foch — it  made 
doubly  sure  the  realities  of  the  defeat  of  the  Central 
Powers,  and  with  the  blockade  which  was  still  main- 
tained by  the  most  powerful  fleet  that  ever  sailed  the 
seas,  it  held  Germany  in  a  grip  of  steel,  while  she  crumbled 
into  political  and  economic  dissolution.  Even  at  this 
period  the  course  of  the  world  was  being  steered  by  the 
compass  of  French  fear. 

Moreover,  the  allied  diplomats  were  well  satisfied  to 
wait  until  they  had  secured  the  last  grain  of  advantage  un- 
der the  most  drastic  armistice  terms  known  to  modern 
war.  While  President  Wilson  had  indeed  laid  down  the 
principles  of  the  peace,  the  military  men,  who  were  then 
eflBciently  in  control,  had  made  the  terms  of  the  Armistice, 
and  the  Armistice  was  in  effect  a  preliminary  imposed 


PREPARATION  OF  THE  "NEW  DIPLOMACY"  90 

treaty  in  which  not  only  the  usual  and  immediate  military 
and  naval  terms  were  prescribed,  but  in  broad  outline 
many  of  the  boundaries  which  were  subsequently  to  be 
demanded,  and  even  financial  and  economic  provisions 
were  added.  President  Wilson  was  thus  partly  defeated 
by  the  military  men — or  at  least  his  task  made  more 
difficult — before  he  arrived  in  Europe.^  During  the  weeks 
of  delay  in  December  and  January  the  French  were  mak- 
ing good  the  physical  possession  of  Alsace-Lorraine,  the 
Saar  coal  fields,  and  the  Rhine  frontier.  The  Italians, 
too,  were  in  territories  claimed  under  the  secret  treaty  of 
London.  They  thus  put  themselves,  under  the  Armistice, 
in  a  powerful  position  to  approach  the  peace  deliberations. 
They  had  won  the  nine  points  of  possession.  ^ 

Moreover,  the  leaders  of  Europe  were  well  aware  of  the 
rekction  of  public  opinion  in  the  world,  now  that  the  emo- 
tional strain  of  the  war  was  over,  as  was  shown  in  the 
last/ chapter,  "The  Slump  in  Idealism."  Lloyd  George 
had  played  upon  it  and  catered  to  it  in  his  election  in 
December;  Clemenceau  had  set  it  forth  with  almost  brutal 
frankness  in  speeches  in  the  French  Chamber.  Presi- 
dent Wilson  could  go  about  Europe  making  speeches, 
reiterating  his  programme;  he  would  be  warmly  cheered 
by  the  more  liberal  or  radical  groups  of  the  populations, 
but  the  control  of  affairs  was  again  firmly  in  the  hands  of 
the  old  leaders  and  they  knew  that  the  tide  was,  at  least 
temporarily,  setting  against  the  President,  against  his 
broad  programme  of  a  peace  of  justice  and  toward  the 
hard,  bitter,  retributive  peace  which  the  French  and 
Italians  and,  to  a  far  lesser  degree,  the  British  desired. 
Delay,  therefore,  tended  on  the  one  hand  to  strengthen  the 
old  leaders  and  give  new  force  to  traditional  methods  which 
were  known  and  had  worked,  however  badly,  in  the  past, 
while  on  the  other  hand  it  tended  to  weaken  the  new 


100        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

American  leadership  and  confuse  its  programme  which, 
faced  now  with  a  chaotic  and  suffering  world,  seemed 
remote  and  difficult  of  achievement. 

In  short,  if  the  old  diplomacy,  the  old  order,  had  had 
the  shock  of  its  life  during  the  last  months  of  the  war, 
when  President  Wilson  became  the  accepted  world  leader, 
it  now  had  its  innings.  Beginning  with  the  Armistice 
everything  began  to  go  its  way,  and  this  continued 
straight  through  to  the  mighty  battles  of  the  early  days 
of  the  Conference  itself. 

There  is  every  evidence  that  the  old  leaders  expected 
to  carry  things  through  with  a  high  hand.  It  must  not  be 
forgotten  that  they  were  committed  to  one  another  by 
many  secret  treaties,  then  largely  unknown  to  the  Amer- 
icans; they  were  so  confident  during  this  two-month  in- 
terim that  they  were  continuing  the  secret  conferences 
among  themselves  concerning,  for  example,  the  partition 
of  Turkey.  But  they  failed  to  take  account  of  a  number 
of  new  factors  which  were  entering  powerfully,  for  the 
first  time,  into  international  affairs.  It  was  a  sheer  failure 
on  their  part  in  imagination  (most  of  the  failures  at  Paris 
were  failures  in  imagination),  for  they  did  not  see — they 
never  saw  nor  felt — as  President  Wilson  did,  the  new 
world  they  lived  in  and  the  new  forces  that  were  irresist- 
ibly rising  there  and  which,  if  momentarily  obscured, 
were  soon  to  exert  themselves  strongly  in  the  Peace  Con- 
ference. 

Let  us  for  a  moment  glance  at  the  forces  of  the  *' new 
order"  which  were  marshalling  at  Paris.  If  its  organiza- 
tion was  undeveloped  it  had  behind  it  a  vast  more  or  Jess 
inarticulate  public  opinion.  If  it  had  not  traditions  it 
had  principles  and  aspirations;  if  few  trained  leaders^ -a 
prophet. 

Paris  was  as  different  from  Vienna  as  the  Battle  of  the 


PREPARATION  OF  THE  "NEW  DIPLOMACY"  101 

Argonne  was  different  from  the  Battle  of  Waterloo.  It 
flew,  it  ran  by  electricity!  What  was  said  or  done  at 
Vienna  reached  London  a  week  later — post  riders,  stage 
coaches,  sailing  vessels — and  penetrated  even  then  little 
beyond  the  charmed  circle  of  the  governmental  classes; 
but  what  was  done  at  Paris — and  when  all  is  said,  Paris, 
compared  with  Vienna,  was  wide  open  to  the  world— was 
read  the  next  morning  in  the  cafes  of  Melbourne  and  Cape 
Town,  or  by  ricksha wmen,  from  the  smudgy  newsprints 
of  Tokio.  From  the  huge  wireless  tower  at  Bordeaux, 
then  in  process  of  completion  by  the  American  Navy, 
news  could  be  flashed  simultaneously  to  San  Francisco, 
Bombay,  and  Buenos  Aires — or  the  operators  could  pick 
up  their  own  messages  around  the  world  in  the  seventh  of 
a  second. 

At  Vienna,  a  hundred  years  ago,  they  danced  their 
way  to  peace.  "The  emperors  danced,  the  kings  danced, 
Metternich  dances,  Castlereagh  dances.  Only  the  Prince 
de  Talleyrand  does  not  dance" — shaving  a  club  foot. 
"He  plays  whist."     They  danced  for  fifteen  months. 

But  in  Paris  in  1919  no  one  danced.  At  Paris  they 
worked.  It  was  a  conference  hard-driven  by  the  lash  of 
events.  I  can  never  at  all  get  the  pleasing  picture,  so 
dramatically  presented  by  more  than  one  commentator, 
of  Four  Olympians  dominating  the  course  of  the  world. 
I  can  recall  only  the  groups  of  hard-pressed  and  harried 
human  beings — the  Four  the  most  of  any — struggling 
with  tasks  too  great  for  them,  and  smarting  under  the 
unrelenting  attacks  of  a  public  opinion  that  was  vastly 
different  and  far  more  alert  than  it  was  in  1815. 

No,  they  did  not  dance  at  Paris.  Either  there  was 
less  suffering  after  the  Napoleonic  wars,  or  else  the  world 
since  then  has  grown  more  sensitive  to  human  needs  and 
human  hopes.      Or  probably  those  who  suffer  most  of 


102         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

all  from  tlie  war  have  in  that  century  grown  less  submis- 
sive, more  articulate.  For  one  remembers  vividly  how 
the  councils  at  Paris  were  given  no  rest,  day  or  night, 
from  hearing  the  woes  of  the  world:  how  they  were 
constantly  agitated  by  cries  of  hunger  from  without, 
coming  up  from  Menna  or  Armenia  or  Russia,  or  alarmed 
by  the  noises  of  new  wars  broken  out  in  Poland  or  the 
Balkans  or  distracted  by  the  fierce  uprisings  of  peoples,  as 
in  Hungary,  too  miserable,  cold,  hungry,  hopeless,  to  await 
the  orderly  processes  of  the  peace.  And  at  all  times,  at 
every  turn  of  the  negotiations,  there  rose  the  spectre  of 
chaos,  like  a  black  cloud  out  of  the  east,  threatening  to 
overwhelm  and  swallow  up  the  world.  There  was  no 
Russia  knocking  at  the  gates  of  Vienna!  At  Vienna, 
apparently,  the  revolution  was  securely  behind  them;  at 
Paris  it  was  always  with  them.  The  "new  order"  was 
crowded  always  toward  the  old  by  a  newer. 

It  may  not  have  been  a  wiser  world,  a  better  world,  a 
kindlier  world  that  was  dramatized  there  upon  the  great 
stage  of  Paris  (that  question  is  for  the  philosopher  rather 
than  the  historian),  but  it  was  immensely  more  com- 
plicated than  the  world  of  Vienna,  more  crowded,  more 
restless,  more  intensely  self-conscious,  better  engineered, 
with  more  mechanisms  for  the  annihilation  of  space  and 
time.  While  the  Peace  Conference  was  sitting  at  Paris 
it  was  considered  nothing  at  all  for  members  of  the  British 
delegation  to  hop  to  London  by  airplane  of  an  afternoon 
for  tea;  and  in  June  of  that  year  bold  young  Read  of  the 
American  Navy  conquered  for  the  first  time  the  passage 
by  air  of  the  stormy  Atlantic  and  called  upon  the  Presi- 
dent scarcely  four  days  from  American  soil.  Oh,  it  was 
a  time  of  miracles — mechanical  miracles,  at  least — those 
months  at  Paris! 

Only  as  w^e  visualize  these  things,  these  new  forces  come 


PREPARATION  OF  THE  "NEW  DIPLOMACY"  103 

into  the  world,  can  we  arrive  at  an  adequate  understand- 
ing of  what  happened  at  Paris.  Mechanical  invention 
had  changed  the  whole  world  since  Vienna,  it  had  forced 
men  into  irritable  contact  as  never  before ;  popular  educa- 
tion had  awakened  the  under  groups  of  the  people  to  a 
new  self -consciousness ;  a  popular  press  and  world-wide 
cheap  communication  had  laid  the  foundations  of  a  new 
world  public  opinion.  And  this  public  opinion  was  capa- 
ble at  a  moment  of  high  exaltation,  during  the  last  years 
of  the  war,  of  being  led  and  inspired  as  President  Wilson 
led  and  inspired  it,  in  behalf  of  the  highest  and  noblest 
principles.  It  could  even  force  the  hands  of  the  old  order, 
and  lay  down  the  principles  of  a  peace  not  based  upon  fear 
or  ambition  or  greed  or  revenge,  but  upon  justice  and 
liberty  and  cooperative  effort.  No  one  more  clearly  saw 
and  felt  the  possibilities  of  the  power  so  exerted  in  those 
great  last  years  of  the  war  than  President  Wilson.  Again 
and  again  he  refers  to  the  power  of  people  as  contrasted 
with  governments,  thinks  of  himself  as  the  representative 
of  a  people  rather  than  of  a  government,  warms  to  the 
vision  of  a  new  order  based  upon  the  will — the  good-will — 
of  the  people. 

"Gentlemen,"  he  said  at  the  Peace  Conference,  "the 
select  classes  of  mankind  are  no  longer  the  governors  of 
mankind.  The  fortunes  of  mankind  are  now  in  the  hands 
of  the  plain  people  of  the  whole  world.  Satisfy  them  and 
you  have  justified  their  confidence  not  only,  but  estab- 
lished peace.  Fail  to  satisfy  them,  and  no  arrangement 
that  you  can  make  will  either  set  up  or  steady  the  peace  of 
the  world."' 

He  had  thus  a  passionate  faith  in  the  people — in  the 
higher  nature  of  the  people ! 

But  this  public  opinion  was  also  capable  of  powerful 

^Minutes,  Plenary  Session,  January  25. 


104         AVOODROW  AMISON  AND   WORLD  SETTLE^IENT 

revulsions  of  feeling,  like  that  which  occurred  after  the 
Armistice.  Nevertheless,  the  great,  the  permanent,  the 
important  fact  lies  not  in  the  position  that  it  took  at  any 
given  time,  but  in  the  fact  that  it  existed,  that  it  had, 
at  last,  become  a  living  force. 

At  the  time  of  the  Armistice  'Wilson  was  what  might 
be  called  the  majority  leader  of  this  world  public 
opinion.  He  dominated  the  situation,  he  laid  down  the 
world  policies.  But  at  the  Peace  Conference  he  was 
the  leader  of  the  opposition,  a  powerful  opposition,  but 
undoubtedly  a  minority. 

The  older  order  was  better  prepared,  better  organized 
than  the  new,  but  the  new  forces  in  the  world  were  not 
without  organization  or  powerful  representation  at  Paris, 
and  they  were  the  forces  which  President  Wilson  had 
with  him.  In  a  real  sense  the  preparation  for  the  Paris 
Conference  was  based  upon  the  supposition  that  it  would 
be  a  new  kind  of  peace.  Most  of  it  was  made  while  the 
world  was  still  under  the  spell  of  the  President's  leader- 
ship— before  the  reaction  came — and  the  commissions 
came  to  Paris  expecting  to  carry  out  the  President's 
accepted  pomts  and  principles. 

When  Lord  Castlereagh  went  to  Vienna  in  1815  as 
representative  of  the  British  Government  he  took  with 
him  a  staff  of  fourteen  men.  It  was  enough.  It  was 
enough  to  make  the  kind  of  closet  peace  they  intended 
to  make.     The  people  were  not  concerned. 

But  the  preparations  for  Paris  assumed  that  the  people 
of  all  4h€  world  would  be  represented  there^  and  they 
were.  The  British  delegation  at  Paris,  in  contrast  to 
that  at  Vienna,  filled  five  hotels.  As  for  America,  there 
were  at  one  time  1,300  persons  in  the  personnel  of  the 
American  delegation  (including  army  officers  and  soldiers 
assigned  to  service  in  various  departments  of  the  com- 


PREPARATION  OF  THE  "NEW  DIPLOMACY"  105 

mission),  and  they  occupied  a  place  and  performed  a 
service  curiously  underestimated  in  connection  with 
the  peace-making.  Besides  these  officials  connected 
with  the  American  Commission  there  were  always  at 
Paris  various  independent  delegations,  often  most  in- 
fluential, representing  every  stratum  of  American  society, 
every  kind  of  American  interest — Irish,  Jews,  Negroes, 
women,  peace  associations,  relief  associations,  farmers' 
organizations,  various  business  interests,  to  say  nothing 
of  a  large  corps  of  newspaper  correspondents  and  other 
writers  (we  had  at  one  time  over  one  hundred  and 
fifty  accredited  correspondents  upon  our  lists  at  Paris), 
photographers,  historians,  artists.  The  Commission  itself 
occupied  an  entire  hotel — the  Crillon — and  overflowed  in 
several  other  buildings,  and  even  then  some  of  the  dele- 
gates, notably  those  connected  with  the  economic  and 
financial  commissions,  occupied  apartments  in  other  hotels. 
The  President  had  his  own  house,  and  Mr.  Hoover  and  his 
staff  also  occupied  a  separate  apartment. 

Interests  never  in  the  least  visualized  at  Vienna  were 
vitally  active  at  Paris.  Economic  interests  and  the 
world  struggle  for  the  raw  materials  of  industry  were 
represented  there,  and  with  a  power  behind  them  that 
Talleyrand  and  Castlereagh  could  never  have  imagined 
possible.  For  if  the  old  order  was  best  represented  by 
the  Soldier  and  the  Diplomat,  the  new  is  best  represented 
by  the  Worker,  using  that  term  in  its  widest  sense  to 
represent  the  economic  activities  of  the  world — those 
who  thrive  in  peace.  There  was  no  Supreme  Economic 
Council  at  Vienna  (though  commerce  and  finance,  of 
course,  were  represented),  but  one  half  of  the  Treaty  of 
Versailles  is  made  up  of  economic  provisions.  Organized 
labour  also  was  there,  and  strong  enough  to  demand  and 
obtain  a  place  in  the  Councils;  women  were  there  (shades 


106        WOODROW  Wn.SON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

of  Vienna!)  and  strange  submerged  racial  minorities  from 
every  part  of  the  earth  were  there — Jews  from  Poland 
and  Palestine  and  America,  Negroes  from  our  own  South, 
Arabs  from  their  desert  retreats,  Koreans,  Persians, 
Egyptians,  and  denizens  of  old  Mount  Lebanon,  where 
King  Solomon  cut  the  cedars  for  his  temple.  And  all 
broad  awake. 

One  wonders  what  those  dancing  delegates  at  Vienna 
would  have  thought  of  having  to  receive  and  consider  the 
needs  or  rights  or  ambitions  of  Arabs  and  Indians  and 
Jews  and  Negroes — and  workers — and  women! 

Indeed,  the  work  of  the  Commission  was  organized  upon 
the  initial  assumption  that  it  was  a  great  public  under- 
taking, that  it  would  have  to  keep  open  the  avenues  of 
communication  with  the  people  of  all  the  world  and  pro- 
vide means  of  present  and  future  publicity.  That  very 
assumption  was  a  new  thing  in  the  world.  It  was  so  new 
that  it  was  not,  alas,  acted  upon  to  the  extent  it  might 
have  been! 

Thus,  the  American  Commission  had  its  own  courier 
service,  reaching  all  over  western  Europe,  and  indeed  to 
America,  with  forty -two  officers  employed.  It  had  to  be 
in  instant  touch  with  the  affairs  of  the  world — just  as  the 
British  were,  or  the  French,  for  here,  too,  applied  the 
rules  of  competitive  preparation.  Even  with  this  equip- 
ment our  courier  service  was  not  equal  to  that  of  the 
British  Empire. 

We  had  our  own  hard-working  printing  plant,  handling 
the  considerable  printing  necessities  of  the  Commission, 
and  issuing,  for  a  time,  a  daily  summary  of  information. 
We  had  our  own  post  oflBces  and  postal  service,  connected 
up  with  the  army  system,  as  well  as  with  the  postal  ser- 
vice in  America.  We  had  a  department  of  photography 
and  of  history  to  make  the  record  of  the  work  done.     We 


PREPARATION  OF  THE  "NEW  DIPLOMACY"  107 

had  a  transportation  section.  Fifty-two  army  motor 
cars  were  set  aside  for  the  use  of  the  Commission;  and, 
finally,  we  had  our  own  American  telephone  and  telegraph 
system  quite  independent  from  the  French,  connecting 
all  the  local  offices  in  Paris  and  indeed  reaching  many 
cities  in  western  Europe.  From  any  oflBce  in  the  Hotel 
Crillon  it  was  possible  at  any  time  to  call,  by  long-distance 
American  wires,  London,  Liverpool,  Coblenz,  Brest,  Bor- 
deaux, and,  later,  Brussels.  American  girl  operators  had 
charge  of  the  various  centrals.  A  lead-covered  telephone 
circuit,  running  through  the  great  conduits  of  Paris,  built 
by  the  American  service,  connected  President  Wilson's 
house  with  the  Hotel  Crillon,  enabling  the  President  to 
reach  any  commissioner  or  adviser  upon  short  notice. 
There  were  American  telegraph  instruments  clicking  and 
American  telephones  ringing  just  behind  the  glass  walls  in 
the  Hall  of  Mirrors  of  the  ancient  palace  of  Louis  the  XIV 
at  Versailles  while  the  Peace  was  being  signed.  There  is 
a  not  unthrilling  story  yet  untold  of  how  the  Americans 
laid  their  wires  through  those  old  walls.  But  try  as  they 
would,  the  Americans  never  got  a  telephone  into  the 
sacred  precincts  of  the  French  Foreign  Office. 

All  this  modern  organization  and  equipment  consti- 
tuted a  complete  service,  costing,  for  the  period  of  the  Con- 
ference, according  to  the  report  made  by  the  President  to 
Congress,  August  28,  1919,  upward  of  $1,500,000.  And 
yet  it  was  only  keeping  pace  with  what  the  other  great 
Powers  were  doing.  The  British  Empire  had  in  certain 
departments  a  larger  personnel;  and  the  French,  being  in 
their  own  capital  city,  had  the  advantages  of  a  national 
equipment  beyond  the  reach  of  any  other  nation.  The 
Italians  and  the  Belgians  both  occupied  entire  hotels  and 
had  considerable  staffs.  Even  the  smaller  or  more  distant 
States — Greece,  Poland,  the  Jugoslavs,  the  Czechoslovaks, 


108        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

the  Hedjaz,  Japan,  and  China — had  more  or  less  extensive 
headquarters  and  official  advisers. 

But  while  all  these  things  represent  the  modern  spirit 
and  modern  facilities,  the  most  important  and  significant 
development  at  Paris  was  the  presence  of  expert  advisers 
and  scientists ;  and  the  effort  there  made  to  base  the  settle- 
ments not  upon  caprice,  or  force,  or  greed,  or  fear,  but 
upon  exact  knowledge.  For  if  there  is  anything  that  is 
hostile,  at  every  point,  to  the  crude,  deceptive,  and  de- 
structive methods  of  the  old  military  and  diplomatic 
regime,  it  is  the  spirit  of  modern  inquiry.  There  was  thus 
a  completeness  and  accuracy  of  knowledge  of  the  entire 
earth,  its  people  and  its  resources  available  at  Paris  that 
was  utterly  beyond  the  imagination  or  the  capacity  of  the 
Vienna  of  1815. 

The  Congress  of  Vienna,  indeed  in  its  Statistical  Com- 
mission, had  the  beginnings  of  an  expert  service,  but  it  was 
limited  to  statistics  of  population,  the  counting  of  heads 
being  then  the  basis  adopted  in  making  territorial  adjust- 
ments. At  Vienna  *'the  people  existed  only  to  be  traf- 
ficked in."  But  long  before  the  great  war  closed  it  was 
recognized  by  all  the  great  nations  that  scientific  knowl- 
edge would  play  an  unprecedented  part  in  the  coming 
Peace  Conference,  and  especially  if  the  settlements  were 
to  be  based  upon  broad  general  principles  such  as  those 
laid  down  by  President  Wilson. 

A  peace  of  the  old  kind  could  be  patched  up  by  the 
diplomats,  but  a  peace  of  the  new  kind  required  immense 
and  accurate  scientific  knowledge.  For  this  reason  each 
of  the  great  nations  appointed  committees  of  inquiry, 
that  of  the  United  States  being  organized  in  September, 
1917,  by  Colonel  Edward  M.  House,  with  its  headquarters 
in  the  building  of  the  American  Geographical  Society  in 
New  York,  whose  Secretary,  Dr.  Isaiah  Bowman,  served 


1 


PREPARATION  OF  THE  "NEW  DIPLOMACY"  108 

as  executive  officer.  Dr.  S.  E.  Mezes  was  its  general 
director.  At  one  time  the  personnel  of  the  inquiry  num- 
bered about  one  hundred  and  fifty  persons.  It  brought 
together  a  notable  group  of  historians,  geographers,  stat- 
isticians, ethnologists,  economists,  and  students  of  gov- 
ernment and  international  law.  Huge  cases,  amounting 
to  carloads  of  books,  maps,  and  reports,  were  taken  to 
Paris  with  the  President's  party  on  the  George  Washington. 
These  specialists  and  their  assistants  and  staffs,  number- 
ing several  hundred,  were  in  three  general  groups — the 
economic  advisers,  the  advisers  on  international  law,  and 
the  territorial  and  ethnographical  experts.  There  were 
also  connected  with  the  Commission,  drawn  from  the 
United  States  Army  and  Navy,  competent  advisers  on 
military,  naval,  and  air  problems,  and  the  delicate  ques- 
tions of  the  control  of  international  communication  by 
cables  and  wireless. 

The  British  and  French  also  had  extensive  inquiries  at 
work  long  before  the  war  closed,  and  were  served  by  con- 
siderable staffs  of  experts.  The  French  had  two  com- 
missions, one  a  comite  cVehides,  headed  by  Professor 
Ernest  Lavisse,  and  the  other  by  Senator  Jean  Morel.  In 
Great  Britain  studies  were  made  by  the  General  Staff,  the 
Admiralty,  and  the  War  Trade  Board.  Two  considerable 
series  of  handbooks  were  published  by  the  British,  one 
edited  hy  Professor  Henry  N.  Dickson  of  the  Naval 
Intelligence  Division,  and  the  other  by  Sir  George  Prothero 
of  the  historical  section  of  the  Foreign  Office. 

The  American  Inquiry  was  of  great  service  to  the 
President  in  formulating,  not  his  general  principles  of  the 
peace,  but  the  application  of  them  to  certain  of  the  speci- 
fic problems. 

Of  course  the  ideas  underlying  all  of  the  points  were 
rooted  deeply  in  many  of  the  utterances  in  his  speeches 


110         WOODROW  \MLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

during  the  earlier  years  of  the  war.     For  example,  in  his 
speech  of  January  27,  1917,  he  said: 

I  am  proposing  government  by  the  consent  of  the  governed: 
that  freedom  of  the  seas  which  our  ancestors  have  urged,  and  that 
moderation  of  armament  which  makes  armies  and  navies  a  power 
for  order  merely,  not  an  instrument  of  aggression  or  selfish  violence. 

Careful  studies  of  the  various  territorial  settlements 
were  made  by  the  Committee  of  the  Inquiry  with  these 
principles  in  mind,  and  early  in  January,  1918,  a  report, 
requested  by  the  President,  was  made  by  Dr.  S.  E.  Mezes, 
David  Hunter  Miller,  and  Walter  Lippmann.  Six  of  his 
Fourteen  Points,  the  territorial  points,  were  directly  fram- 
ed upon  this  report.^  The  President  worked  out  his  state- 
ment in  each  case  in  stenographic  notes  upon  the  margins 
of  the  manuscript.  It  may  be  interesting  to  trace  the 
exact  development  of  one  of  these  points;  for  example, 
that  relating  to  Poland. 

The  conclusion  of  the  Committee  of  Inquiry  regarding 
Poland  is  as  follows:  "An  independent  and  democratic 
Poland  shall  be  established.  Its  boundaries  shall  be  based 
on  a  fair  balance  of  national  and  economic  considerations, 
giving  due  weight  to  the  necessity  for  adequate  access 
to  the  sea.  The  form  of  Poland's  government  and  its 
economic  and  political  relations  should  be  left  to  the  de- 
termination of  the  people  of  Poland,  acting  through  their 
chosen  representatives." 

On  the  margin  of  this  statement  the  President  made  the 
following  memorandum  in  stenographic  notes: 

An  independent  Polish  State  must  be  established,  whose  political 
and  economic  independence  and  territorial  integrity  shall  be  guaran- 
teed by  international  covenant.  It  shall  include  the  territories  in- 
habited by  an  indisputably  Polish  population,  and  shall  be  granted  a 
free  and  secure  access  to  the  sea. 

'See  Document  2,  Volume  III  for  this  basic  report,  with  President  Wilson's  notes. 


I 


PREPARATION  OF  THE  "NEW  DIPLOMACY"  111 

Oa  Pr«i«Bt  Situatios:      f*t»  thirty 


the  bukivs*  110  just  or  laitinq  settleuqit 

Op.the  iamgled  problems  COSFBOBTIHG 
the  dtslj  wbcsiged  peoples  op  the  iu.- 
johs  cab  be  based  upoh  the  abbitrart      '^  '~  ^"> 
treaty  op  bucharest.      that  treaty  was 
i  product  of  m  evil  diplomacy  which 
the  peoples  of  the  world  are  now  deter 
icied  to  ebd.      that  treaty  wronged  every 
jtatiob  in  the  6alka5s,  evsh  those  which, 
it  appeared  to  pavofi,  by  imposimc  dpoh 
them  all  the  permanent  menace  op  war.    it 
dxquestiokably  tore  mem  and  women  op  bul- 
gamab  loyaity  from  their  matural  alleci- 
ibce.     it  denied  to  serbia  that  access 
to  the  sea  which  she  must  have  in  order  to 
colflete  her  independence.     any  just 
settlement  most  of  course  begin  with  the 
evacuation  of  rumakia,  serbia,  and  monte- 
negro by  the  armies  op  the  central  powers, 
and  the' restoration  op  serbia  and  icbte* 

IIEGRO.       THE  ULTIMATE  RELATIONSHIP  OF  THX. 

Facsimile  of  Page  30  of  Inquiry  Report  with  President  Wilson's  notes  in  stenographj' 
on  the  margin,  showing  how  he  worked  out  Point  XIII  of  the  XIV 

In  its  final  form  it  becomes  Point  XIII  of  the  Four- 
teen Points,  as  follows: 

An  independent  Polish  State  should  be  erected  which  should  in- 
clude the  territories  inhabited  by  indisputably  Polish  "populations, 
which  should  be  assured  a  free  and  secure  access  to  the  sea,  and  whose 


112        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

political  and  economic  independence  and  territorial  integrity  should 
be  guaranteed  by  international  covenant.^ 

Consider  now  the  new  way  of  making  Jth^peace^asJiu 
dicated  by  these  preparations  as  contrasted  mthjJie_old. 
The  old  way  was  for  a  group  of  diplomats,  cacli  represent- 
ing a  set  of  selfish  national  interests,  to  hold  secret  meet- 
ings, and  by  jockeying,  trading,  forming  private  rings 
and  combinations  with  one  another,  come  at  last  tn  a 
settlement  that  was  to  be  maintained  by  treaties  (often 
secret  treaties)  and  balances  of  power  based  upon  mili- 
tary force. 

The  new  way  so  boldly  launched  at  Paris  (so  ineffec- 
tively carried  out !)  was,  first,  to  start  with  certain  general 
principles  of  justice,  such  as  those  laid  down  by  President 
Wilson  and  accepted  by  all  the  world;  and,  second^to  have 
those  principles  applied,  not  by  diplomats  ^nd  poUticians 
each  eager  to  serve  his  own  interests,  but  by  dispassion- 
ate  scientists — geographers,  ethnologists,  economists — who 
had  made  studies  of  the  problems  involved.  It  has  often 
been  charged  that  Wilson  had  no  programme:  this  yms  his 
programme. 

*  The  principles  were  before  the  world  and  had  been 
generally  accepted  by  it.  The  same  specialists  of  the  In- 
quiry who  had  aided  Wilson  in  their  formulation  were 
accompanying  him  to  Europe  to  assist  in  their  application. 
The  hold  of  the  George  Washington  was  crammed  with  the 
materials  for  scientific  research  on  all  the  problems  of  the 
peace.  And  after  their  arrival  at  Paris,  the  American 
experts,  at  Wilson's  direction,  outlined  their  views  of  a 
territorial  settlement  in  accordance  with  the  President's 
principles  in  the  "Black  Book,"  distributed  to  the  pleni- 
potentiaries in  January. 

'See  the  Fourteen  Points,  Document  3,  Volume  III. 


PREPARATION  OF  THE  "NEW  DIPLOMACY"  113 

This  was  the  American  method,  and  it  was  more  possi- 
ble for  America  to  practise  it  than  for  other  nations  be- 
cause she  had  so  few  material  interests  to  serve.  It  was 
preeminently  President  Wilson's  method,  and  he  used  it, 
or  endeavoured  to  use  it,  at  every  turn. 

He  saw  in  it  the  only  calm,  safe,  sure  basis  upon  which 
the  peace  could  be  made  to  rest ;  the  only  thing  that  would 
take  it  out  of  the  realm  of  immediate  passion,  ambition, 
and  fear.  While  on  the  way  across  the  Atlantic  on  the 
George  Washington  the  President  said  to  the  specialists  of 
the  Commission: 

Tell  me  what  is  right  and  I  will  fight  for  it.  Give  me  a  guaranteed 
position.^ 

No  other  delegation  at  Paris  leaned  so  heavily  upon  its 
scientific  advisers  as  the  American,  for  none  so  desired  the 
truth  of  the  matter  stripped  of  all  immediate  political  or 
strategic  interests,  and  this  applied  especially  to  the  Presi- 
dent. 

On  February  12,  in  the  Council  of  Ten,  we  find  the 
President  giving  his  testimony  to  his  dependence  upon  the 
experts  of  the  American  Commission: 

President  Wilson  said  that  M.  Clemenceau  had  paid  him  an 
undeserved  compliment.  In  technical  matters  most  of  the  brains  he 
used  were  borrowed;  the  possessors  of  these  brains  were  in  Paris. / 

Dean  Charles  H.  Haskins  of  Harvard  University,  one  of 
the  territorial  specialists  at  Paris,  has  said : 

Certainly  none  of  the  chief  delegates  was  more  eager  for  the  facts  of 
the  case  than  was  the  President  of  the  United  States,  and  none  was 
able  to  assimilate  them  more  quickly  or  use  them  more  eflficiently  in 
the  discussion  of  territorial  problems  .2 

^Notes  made  at  the  time  by  Dr.  Isaiah  Bowman. 

'"Some  Problems  of  the  Peace  Conference,"  by  C.  H.  Haskins  and  R.  H.  Lord,  p.  31. 


114        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

As  to  the  President's  dependence  upon  the  experts  of 
the  Commission,  Thomas  W.  Lamont,  one  of  the  economic 
advisers,  says: 

I  never  saw  a  man  more  ready  and  anxious  to  consult  than  he. 
Again  and  again  would  he  say  to  Mr.  Lloyd  George  or  M. 
Clemenceau:  "My  expert  here,  Mr.  So-and-So,  tells  me  such-and- 
such,  and  I  believe  he  is  right.     You  will  have  to  argue  with  him  if 
you  want  to  get  me  to  change  my  opinion."^ 

Criticism  has  been  levelled  at  the  President,  as  by  Mr. 
Lansing,  for  not  "taking  council."  Undoubtedly  he  did 
not  take  his  own  commissioners  into  consultation  as  much 
as  he  should  have  done;  he  is  too  much  the  solitary 
worker;  he  delegates  authority  with  difficulty;  he  has  too 
little  appreciation  of  the  need  of  explanation,  conference, 
team  play,  the  human  lubricants;  but  Mr.  Lansing  was  a 
type  of  many  men  at  the  Conference  who  were  forever  giv- 
ing the  President  opinions,  or  urging  upon  him  points  of 
view  or  principles  quite  different  from  his  own,  when  he 
wanted  facts,  knowledge,  information.  He  had  thought 
out  his  general  principles  and  set  his  course;  they  were  of 
the  very  warp  and  woof  of  his  life.  They  were  his  faith. 
They  were  his  religion.  And  they  were  unchangeable  so 
far  as  he  was  concerned.  He  did  not,  then,  desire  other 
principles  or  opinions  (Mr.  Lansing  wanted  him  to  base 
the  peace  primarily  upon  legal  principles,  while  he  was 
determined  that  it  should  be  based  primarily  upon  moral 
principles),  but  he  did  desire,  and  eagerly  seek,  informa- 
tion, facts,  all  the  light  he  could  get  to  apply  the  principles 
which  he  had  set  forth  and  all  the  world  had  accepted  as 
the  basis  of  the  peace.  If  he  was  adamant  in  his  general 
principles,  he  was  the  humblest  of  men  before  the  facts. 

^"What  Really  Happened  at  Paris,"  edited  by  E.  M.  House  and  Charles  Seymour, 
p.  273. 


PREPAKATION  OF  THE  "NEW  DIPLOMACY"  115 

Mr.  Lansing,  of  course,  was  as  fully  entitled  to  his  own 
principles,  his  faith,  as  the  President;  but  finding  that 
they  were  in  fundamental  disagreement,  for  example,  in 
the  matter  of  "self-determination,"  as  he  confides  se- 
cretly to  his  diary, ^  it  was  his  duty  to  resign;  for  the  re- 
sponsibility of  the  peace  rested  not  upon  him  but  upon  the 
President. 

Such  was  the  organization  and  intent  of  the  new 
order  at  Paris,  and  such  the  leadership.  Before  de- 
scribing the  actual  struggle  with  the  old,  which  had  been 
having  everything  its  own  way  since  the  Armistice,  one 
other  aspect  of  the  new  world  at  Paris — perhaps  the  most 
important  of  all — must  be  fully  presented.  This  was  the 
representation  at  Paris  of  the  public  opinion  of  the  world 
by  its  unofficial  ambassadors :  the  press ;  in  short,  the  whole 
great  new  problem  of  publicity  and  secrecy. 

*"The  Peace  Negotiations, "  by  Robert  Lansing,  p.  97. 


CHAPTER  YU 

Publicity  and  Secrecy  at  Paris — Institution  of  the 
American  Press  Bureau — Organization  of  Cor- 
respondents— Development  of  Sources   of 

News 

ONE  fact  stands  out  at  the  Paris  Peace  Conference 
as  distinctive  and  determining:  the  fact  that  the 
people  of  the  world,  publics,  were  there  repre- 
sented and  organized  as  never  before  at  any  peace  confer- 
ence. At  the  older  congresses,  the  diplomats  occupied 
the  entire  stage,  bargained,  arranged,  and  secretly  agreed; 
but  at  Paris  democracy,  like  the  blind  god  in  Dunsany's 
play,  itself  comes  lumbering  roughly,  powerfully,  out  upon 
the  stage. 

In  many  ways  the  most  powerful  and  least  considered 
group  of  men  at  Paris  were  the  newspaper  correspondents 
,  — we  had  one  hundred  and  fifty  of  them  from  America 
alone.  I  heard  them  called  "ambassadors  of  public  opin- 
ion." Here  they  were  with  rich  and  powerful  news  asso- 
ciations or  newspapers  or  magazines  behind  them,  and 
with  instant  communication  available  to  every  part  of  the 
world.  Since  Vienna  in  1815,  since  Verona  in  1822,  when 
the  great  Powers  agreed  secretly  to  suppress  the  liberty 
of  the  press  because  "it  is  the  most  powerful  means  used 
by  the  pretended  supporters  of  the  rights  of  nations  to  the 
detriment  of  those  of  Princes" — since  those  old  times  pop- 
ular education,  universal  suffrage,  a  cheap  press,  and  easy 
communication  had  utterly  changed  the  world. 

At  Paris  these  ambassadors  of  public  opinion — at  least 

116 


PUBLICITY  AND  SECRECY  AT  PAEIS  117 

those  from  America — had  come,  not  begging,  but  demand- 
ing. They  sat  at  every  doorway,  they  looked  over  every 
shoulder,  they  wanted  every  resolution  and  report  and 
wanted  it  immediately.  I  shall  never  forget  the  dele- 
gation of  American  newspaper  men,  led  by  John  Nevin, 
I  saw  come  striding  through  that  holy  of  holies,  the  French 
Foreign  Office,  demanding  that  they  be  admitted  to  the 
first  general  session  of  the  Peace  Conference.  They 
horrified  the  upholders  of  the  old  methods,  they  desper- 
ately offended  the  ancient  conventions,  they  were  as  rough 
and  direct  as  democracy  itself. 

WTiile  there  was  a  gesture  of  unconcern,  of  don't-care- 
what-they-say,  on  the  part  of  some  of  the  leaders,  no  as- 
pect of  the  Conference  in  reality  worried  them  more  than 
the  news,  opinions,  guesses,  that  went  out  by  scores  of 
thousands  of  words  every  night,  and  the  reactions  which 
came  back  so  promptly  from  them.  Unlike  the  Princes 
at  Vienna  a  hundred  years  before,  nearly  every  leader  at 
Paris  well  knew  that  he  was  dependent  upon  a  parliament, 
and  back  of  that  an  electorate,  that  might  shout  at  any 
moment,  "Off  with  his  head!"  and  that  the  judgment  of 
that  electorate  was  based  upon  what  these  aggressive  am- 
bassadors of  public  opinion  were  nightly  putting  out  to 
the  four  wunds  from  the  wireless  tower  at  Lyons,  or  send- 
ing by  cable  under  the  seas. 

The  diplomats  at  Paris  w^ere  not  only  alarmed  by  the 
invasion  of  the  public — especially  the  aggressive  and  power- 
ful invasion  of  the  American  press — but  puzzled,  gen- 
uinely puzzled.  They  were  just  through  with  an  ironclad 
censorship  of  the  press  which  had  lasted  four  years.  Men 
like  Balfour,  trained  in  the  old  school,  would  have  liked 
to  find  a  new  way,  but  did  not  know  how  and  were  afraid. 
The  whole  technique,  indeed,  of  dealing  with  publics  in  the 
matter  of  foreign  affairs  was  fire-new.     There  was  no 


118        WOODROW  ^VILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

background,  no  experience,  to  go  by,  except  the  grim  tra- 
ditions of  a  man  like  Sonnino  of  Italy,  who  was  for  plod- 
ding straight  ahead  oblivious  of  public  opinion,  according 
to  the  old  methods  of  secret  meetings,  secret  bargains, 
secret  treaties.  He  was  the  only  leader  in  Paris  who 
seemed  never  to  doubt. 

How  far  was  the  public  to  be  taken  into  the  confidence 
of  the  delegates  ?  How  could  the  press  be  kept  in  the  dark 
and  yet  remain  docile  enough  to  be  used  when  needed? 
Was  the  press  to  be  censored  or  controlled  by  the  leaders 
in  power  or  by  the  Foreign  Office,  as  the  French  had  tried 
to  do  it?  Clemenceau  had  a  dozen  papers  at  Paris  which 
would  change  their  positions  over  night  when  he  crooked 
his  finger. 

Should  the  press  be  shouldered  peremptorily  aside,  as 
one  group  of  Italians  sought  to  do  it,  or  dined  and  wined 
and  spoon-fed  with  propaganda,  as  another  Italian  group 
tried  to  do  it?  Or  should  the  press  be  treated  as  Lloyd 
George  treated  it,  by  flattering  one  group  and  fighting  an- 
other? By  knighting  or  raising  friendly  editors  to  the  peer- 
age and  launching  heated  attacks  in  Parliament  on  the  un- 
friendly editors — as,  for  example,  upon  the  London  Times 
— in  which  he  called  Lord  Northcliffe  a  grasshopper?  Or 
should  the  Wilson  method,  which  was  the  polar  opposite 
of  the  Lloyd  George  method,  be  adopted,  of  avoiding  to  the 
point  of  actual  squeamishness  any  discrimination  between 
newspapers  or  any  attempt  whatever  either  to  influence  or 
to  attack  them? 

It  may  seem  at  first  sight  that  the  importance  of  the 
problem  of  secrecy  and  publicity  at  the  Conference  has 
here  been  exaggerated,  but  an  examination  of  the  minutes 
and  documents  gives  astonishing  evidence  of  the  amount 
of  time,  anxiety,  discussion,  devoted  to  the  consideration 
of  what  to  do  about  public  opinion  and  the  press.     The 


PUBLICITY  AND  SECRECY  AT  PARIS  119 

effort  began  on  the  very  first  day  to  get  at  some  standard, 
some  method,  which  would  meet  the  widely  different  con- 
ditions in  different  countries,  and  this  continued  through- 
out the  Conference.  It  influenced  the  entire  procedure7~A 
it  was  partly  instrumental  in  driving  the  four  heads  of 
States  finally  into  small  secret  conferences.  The  full 
achievement  of  publicity  on  one  occasion — Wilson's  Ital- 
ian note — nearly  broke  up  the  Conference  and  overturned 
F  'a  Government.  The  bare  threat  of  it  upon  other  occa- 
sions changed  the  course  of  the  discussion.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  nothing  concerned  the  Conference  more  than  what 
democracy  was  going  to  do  with  diplomacy.  \  ^ 

Almost  the  first  of  President  Wilson's  official  acts  in 
connection  with  the  Peace  Conference,  after  his  arrival, 
was  to  provide  for  an  organization  for  publicity.  During 
the  war  the  Committee  on  Public  Information,  under 
George  Creel's  direction,  had  given  publicity  throughout 
the  world  to  the  purposes  of  America.  It  was  frankly 
propagandist,  it  was  a  part  of  war,  to  which  propaganda  is 
as  necessary  g,s  gunpowder.  But  the  moment  the  war 
closed  its  function  ceased,  and  Mr.  Creel  began  winding 
up  its  affairs.  On  November  14,  three  days  after  the 
Armistice,  announcement  was  made  of  the  discontinuance 
of  the  voluntary  censorship  agreement  under  which  the 
American  press  had  loyally  worked,  and  on  November  15 
all  press  censorship  of  cables  and  mails  was  discontinued. 
President  Wilson  was  strongly  in  favour  of  putting  the 
relationship  of  Government  and  press  as  quickly  as  possi- 
ble upon  a  peace  basis  of  absolute  freedom. 

Not  only  did  the  Government  refrain  from  bringing  any 
influence  to  bear  upon  publicity,  but  it  made  every  effort 
to  facilitate  the  passage  of  newspaper  writers,  of  every 
shade  of  opinion,  to  France,  throwing  down  all  passport 
barriers  and  providing  a  ship,  the  Orizaba^  for  their  free 


120        WOODROW  ^\TLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

transportation,  and  afterward,  during  the  Conference,  in 
order  to  relieve  the  congestion  of  the  commercial  cables, 
transmitting  free,  by  arrangement  with  the  French  Gov- 
ernment, and  without  any  sort  of  censorship  or  discrimina- 
tion between  newspapers  friendly  to  the  Administration 
and  those  opposed  to  it,  a  large  volume  of  press  dispatches 
daily  by  wireless.  While  the  press  was  thus  intensely 
suspicious  of  Governmental  influence  upon  its  news  or 
opinions,  it  was,  at  the  same  time,  asking  and  receiving 
important  material  and  mechanical  assistance  from  the 
Government. 

On  December  13  President  Wilson  arrived  in  Europe 
accompanied,  on  the  George  Washington,  by  representa- 
tives of  the  three  great  press  associations  and  closely 
follow^ed  by  some  eighty  newspaper  correspondents  who 
had  come  by  the  Orizaba  and  other  ships.  There  were 
thirty  or  forty  American  correspondents  already  in  Paris, 
every  one  of  them  hungry  for  news.  It  was  necessary  to 
institute  at  once  some  channel  for  the  information  of  these 
men  and  through  them  the  public  of  America.  On  De- 
cember 17,  therefore,  the  President  took  the  matter  under 
advisement,  consulting  with  Colonel  House  and  Mr.  Creel, 
and  outlined  his  plan  in  a  letter  to  each  of  the  commis- 
sioners.^ 

The  plan  advanced  two  methods :  one  of  direct  access  to 
the  commissioners,  though  not  to  the  President  himself; 
the  other  a  publicity  organization  to  be  headed  by  the 
writer,  both  aimed  at  giving  the  correspondents  as  much 
access  and  assistance  as  possible.  It  did  not  and  could 
not,  of  course,  provide  admittance  to  the  sessions  of  the 
Peace  Conference  itself,  for  that  depended  upon  the  future 
action  of  the  allied  delegates. 
r~  From  this  point  onward  the  struggle  for  and  against 

'See  Introduction,  pages  xxvii  and  xxviii  of  this  volume,  for  full  copy  of  this  letter. 


PUBLICITY  AND  SECRECY  AT  PARIS  121 

publicity  at  Paris — the  whole  new  problem  of  how  publics 
were  to  be  informed  of  international  affairs — developed 
in  two  broad  channels :  one  inside  the  secret  councils  of  the 
Peace  Conference,  the  other  outside  among  the  powerful 
agencies  of  the  press.  Neither  of  these  aspects  of  the 
Peace  Conference,  each  of  which  reacted  powerfully  upon 
the  other,  has  anywhere  been  adequately  presented. 

The  forces  outside  the  secret  conferences  will  be  con- 
sidered first;  these  were  the  forces  of  attack,  demand- 
ing wider  publicity.  What  did  they  represent,  how  were 
they  organized,  and  how  did  they  carry  on  their  campaign? 
After  that  we  shall  consider  (in  the  next  chapter)  how  the 
Peace  Conference  reacted  as  recorded  in  the  Secret  Min- 
utes. The  old  diplomacy  was  distinctly  upon  the  defen- 
sive and  yielded  every  inch  of  ground  with  reluctance  and 
bitterness,  and  finally  dug  itself  in.  The  record  here  of 
America  and  of  President  Wilson  is  most  important  and 
significant. 

There  was  never  before  anything  like  such  a  gathering  of 
the  forces  of  publicity  from  every  part  of  the  world.  Con- 
servatively estimated,  at  the  height  of  the  Conference  five 
hundred  writers  were  devoting  their  whole  time  to  spread- 
ing abroad  information  and  opinion  as  to  what  was  hap- 
pening— commending,  criticizing,  telling  the  truth,  telling 
what  was  not  the  truth — shaping,  in  short,  the  opinion  of 
the  world.  It  was  a  formidable  body  of  men  and  women, 
more  powerful  in  certain  ways  than  the  delegates  them- 
selves. 

Here  were  writers,  not  only  from  the  so-caUed  great 
Powers,  but  from  China,  Korea,  India,  Egypt,  South 
America  and,  during  a  part  of  the  period,  writers  from 
Germany  and  Austria.  Most  of  the  neutral  countries 
were  represented  and  often  by  exceedingly  able  men,  like 
those  from  Holland.     Every  shade  of  opinion  from  con- 


122      ^^ooDRO^v  wilson  and  world  settleisient 

servative  to  radical  was  represented.  There  developed  a 
kind  of  congress  of  the  press — a  conference  of  the  ambassa- 
dors of  public  opinion — outside  of  the  Peace  Conference, 
which  was  of  great  value  to  all  writers  there,  for  profitable 
friendships  were  formed  and  mutual  understandings  of  the 
utmost  value  developed. 

If  American  writers,  many  of  whom  had  in  the  begin- 
ning practically  no  background  of  knowledge  of  foreign  af- 
fairs, especially  benefited  by  these  contacts,  it  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  they  infected  correspondents  from  other 
countries  with  something  of  their  aggressive  spirit.  One 
of  the  incidental  but  important  results  of  the  Paris  Confer- 
ence was  the  schooling  of  a  large  number  of  younger  writers 
of  all  countries,  who  will  be  shaping  the  public  opinion  of 
the  next  quarter  century  in  knowledge  of  world  affairs  and 
in  the  understanding  of  other  peoples. 

The   French,    with   fine   hospitality,   had   provided   a 

4 

gorgeous  club,  the  Hotel  Dufayel,  in  the  Champs  Elysees, 
which  was  a  common  meeting  ground  for  the  TVTiters  of  all 
nations.  They  had  Jioped  also  to  make  it  a  common  work- 
ing place,  but  its  social  aspects  were  irresistibly  uppermost, 
and  the  American  correspondents  particularly  desired  to 
be  closer  to  the  headquarters  of  the  American  Commission. 
If  the  ghosts  of  those  leaders  at  Vienna  in  1815 — 
Castlereagh  and  Talleyrand  and  the  Tsar  of  Russia — 
could  have  dropped  down  into  Paris,  nothing  would  have 
surprised  and  scandalized  them  more  than  this  extraordi- 
nary group  of  writers  that  could  not  be  controlled,  and 
they  would  have  had  trouble  indeed  in  grasping,  at  all,  the 
new  world  opinion  that  lay  behind  and  supported  these 
unofficial  delegates.  And  finally  it  would  have  been 
utterlj^  hopeless  to  make  them  understand  how  these  men 
functioned,  how  the  words  they  wrote  to-night  would  be 
read  to-morrow  morning  on  the  farther  side  of  the  globe. 


PUBLICITY  AND  SECRECY  AT  PARIS  123 

It  sometimes  indeed  came  over  the  modern  man  at 
Paris — the  sheer  miracle  of  the  thing.  The  writer  sat  in 
his  office  many  evenings  Hstening  to  the  whir  of  the  cor- 
respondents' typewriters  and  thinking  of  the  waves  of 
ideas,  opinions,  information,  flowing  outward  through 
darkness  and  space  with  the  speed  of  hghtning,  both 
through  the  air  and  under  the  seas,  and  of  how  these  re- 
ports would  be  read  in  the  morning  in  the  subways  of 
New  York,  or  in  Melbourne,  or  Cape  Town,  or  Tokio; 
how  they  would  build  up,  little  by  little,  one  way  or  an- 
other, that  subtle  but  incalculably  powerful  new  force, 
world  public  opinion.  Here  was  the  ganglion,  the  nerve 
centre  of  the  Peace  Conference,  sending  forth  to  humanity 
those  impulses  to  action — wise  action  or  unwise  action — 
upon  which  rested  the  future  of  the  world.  It  seemed  to 
him  at  such  times  that  nothing  in  the  world  was  more 
important  than  the  work  of  these  men,  that  there  was  no 
graver  task  at  Paris  than  that  of  keeping  the  channels 
freely  open  and  the  sources  clear  and  true. 

The  mechanical  problem  of  the  Continental  and  even  of 
the  British  press  (the  British  correspondents  used  tele- 
phones extensively  or  could  upon  occasion  hop  home  of  an 
afternoon  in  a  flying-machine)  was  comparatively  simple; 
but  that  of  the  American,  Asiatic,  Australian,  South  Afri- 
can press  was  often  difficult  and  complicated.  The  volume 
of  news  was  enormous.  According  to  the  best  available 
estimates  American  correspondents  alone  sent  over  by 
wireless  and  cables  a  good-sized  volume,  70,000  or  80,000 
words  (often  more)  every  day,  to  say  nothing  of  an  im- 
mense amount  by  mail. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  Peace  Conference  there  were 
seventeen  cables  in  existence  between  America  and  Europe, 
but  only  eight  of  them  were  in  working  condition,  and 
these  had  to  carry  not  only  press  dispatches,  but  all  urgent 


124         AVOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEIVIENT 

Government  and  military  business,  as  well  as  a  vast  vol- 
ume of  commercial  dispatches.  Two  of  the  three  main 
lines  of  communication  eastward  with  Asia  were  out  of 
commission,  owing  to  the  war,  so  that  these  Atlantic  lines 
westward  had  also  to  carry  a  heavy  burden  of  traffic  for 
Japan  and  the  Far  East.  The  result  was  a  constant  over- 
load and,  during  the  latter  part  of  the  Conference  espe- 
cially, many  delays. 

Every  effort  was  made  by  the  United  States  Govern- 
ment to  assist  the  newspapers  in  overcoming  these  me- 
chanical difficulties.  Walter  S.  Rogers,  who  had  been 
with  the  Committee  of  Public  Information  and  who  was  in 
charge  of  communications  for  the  American  Peace  Com- 
mission, made  arrangements  with  the  French  Government 
to  send  9,000  words  a  day  of  press  material  from  the  wire- 
less tower  at  Lyons.  This  service  was  generously  per- 
formed by  the  French  without  charge  to  America.  The 
allotment  was  divided  as  follows :  Three  thousand  words 
were  set  apart  for  the  text  of  routine  documents,  resolu- 
tions, reports,  and  speeches  for  the  use  of  newspapers  in 
America.  By  this  method  duplicate  sending  by  the  press 
associations  and  by  the  press  correspondents  was  entirely 
avoided.  The  documents  to  be  transmitted  were  des- 
ignated by  our  Press  Bureau,  sent  by  courier  to  Mr. 
Rogers'  office,  thence  to  the  wireless  operators  at  Lyons, 
and  thence  to  New  York  and  distributed  there  to  the 
press  associations.  Three  thousand  words  more  were 
divided,  1,000  words  each,  among  the  three  American 
press  associations — The  Associated  Press,  The  United 
Press,  and  the  Universal  Service — to  be  used  as  they  saw 
fit.  The  remaining  3,000  words  were  divided  between  a 
score  of  special  correspondents  of  great  newspapers,  some 
getting  as  low  as  100  words  a  day. 

Over  1,000,000  words  were  thus  handled  free  during 


PUBLICITY  AND  SECRECY  AT  PARIS  125 

the  Conference  for  the  American  press  in  an  effort  to  get 
more  complete  pubhcity.  The  amount  of  money  ex- 
pended by  American  newspapers,  magazines,  and  press 
associations  on  cable  tolls — let  alone  the  costly  business  of 
sending  to  Paris  and  maintaining  there  a  small  army  of 
men — must  have  run  well  into  millions  of  dollars. 

One  of  the  greatest  problems  ever  presented  to  the  news- 
papers of  the  world  was  that  of  the  transmission  of  the 
summary  of  the  Treaty.  As  the  Treaty  neared  comple- 
tion we  suddenly  came  to  realize  the  immense  bulk  of  it. 
It  was  nearly  as  long  as  a  Dickens  novel,  and  if  put  on  the 
cables  at  any  one  time  would  swamp  and  disorganize  the 
entire  service  for  days.  The  writer  discussed  the  matter 
fully  with  President  Wilson,  and  even  before  it  was  de- 
cided by  the  Council  of  Four  whether  or  not  the  Treaty 
itself  should  then  be  given  out — a  subject  more  fully 
discussed  in  the  next  chapter — he  was  directed  to  go  ahead 
immediately  with  the  preparation  of  a  summary  and 
authorized  to  secure  from  the  various  commissions  all  the 
drafts  of  clauses  for  insertion  in  the  Treaty.  The  French, 
on  their  part,  also  began  the  preparation  of  a  summary 
under  the  direction  of  M.  Tardieu.  The  actual  work  on 
the  part  of  America  was  in  the  hands  of  my  assistant,  Ar- 
thur Sweetser,  and  we  cooperated  fully  with  the  British, 
who  were  represented  by  George  Mair. 

When  the  summary  was  first  issued  in  America,  it  was 
attacked  in  the  United  States  Senate  as  not  being  a  faith- 
ful record  of  what  was  in  the  Treaty,  but  as  a  matter  of 
fact  the  various  paragraphs  of  it  were  most  carefully  pre- 
pared, often  by  the  experts  themselves  who  had  drafted 
them,  and,  so  far  as  I  know,  after  comparison  with  the 
Treaty  itself,  there  was  never  any  further  question  of  its 
accuracy. 

This  summary  was  about  14,000  words  in  length,  and 


126        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

the  problem  of  transmitting  it  to  various  parts  of  the  world 
in  such  a  manner  that  newspapers  of  every  nation  would 
have  a  fair  chance,  and  so  that  there  would  not  be  pre- 
mature publication  in  any  nation  with  the  danger  of  a 
flash-back,  say,  from  New  York  to  London  or  London  to 
Paris,  was  a  most  difficult  one.  If  it  were  sent  separately 
by  the  press  associations  or  by  each  correspondent  to  his 
own  newspaper  the  communication  facilities  of  the  world 
would  be  swamped  for  days  and  the  total  cost  stupendous. 

The  writer  called  a  meeting  of  the  heads  of  the  Amer- 
ican, British,  and  French  press,  with  the  communication 
experts  of  each  (Mr.  Rogers  for  America)  to  meet  at  the 
Hotel  Dufayel  to  discuss  this  matter.  The  technical  prob- 
lems were  extremely  difficult,  but  we  agreed  upon  a 
method  of  dividing  up  the  world  so  that  the  summary 
would  reach  every  part  of  it  with  a  single  transmission. 

We  arranged  that  the  United  States  should  transmit 
the  summary  for  North  America,  sending  it  by  way  of 
Canada,  where  it  would  be  taken  off  for  the  Canadian 
press,  thence  on  to  New  York  for  the  American  press.  We 
also  agreed  to  see  that  it  was  distributed  for  the  West 
Coast  of  South  America  and  to  Japan  and  China.  The 
British  undertook  to  transmit  it  to  their  own  possessions 
throughout  the  world — Australia,  South  Africa,  and  India 
— and  to  the  East  Coast  of  South  America  and  the  Scan- 
dinavian countries.  The  French,  on  their  part,  agreed  to 
flash  it  broadcast,  after  due  notification  of  the  wave  length 
to  be  used,  from  the  great  wireless  tower  of  Lyons,  where 
it  could  be  picked  up  by  all  the  wireless  stations  through- 
out Continental  Europe.  It  was  a  feat  never  before 
attempted  in  the  world  and  was  a  real  example  of  the  in- 
formal functioning  of  a  league  of  nations,  and  all  nations, 
allied  and  enemy,  great  and  small,  equally  benefited. 

^Iien  the  summary  was  complete  I  took  it  up  to  Presi- 


PUBLICITY  AND  SECRECY  AT  PARIS  127 

dent  Wilson  to  secure  his  approval  (for  no  one  but  the  indi- 
vidual experts  had  seen  a  word  of  it),  but  he  scarcely 
glanced  at  it,  being  then  under  an  unbelievably  heavy 
load  of  responsibility  connected  with  the  Conference  itself. 
So  I  took  the  responsibility  of  sending  it  out  as  it  was. 
It  was,  so  far  as  I  know,  the  longest  single  continuous  cable 
dispatch  ever  sent  up  to  tliat  time.  After  it  was  off,  we  were 
under  a  great  strain  of  anxiety  for  fear  that  someone  would 
break  over  the  agreement  and  the  newspapers  of  some 
nation  would  secure  an  advantage  over  the  others.  But 
to  our  delight  it  went  through  exactly  as  planned,  leaving 
Paris  at  10  p.  m.  May  6,  and  was  published  simultan- 
eously throughout  the  world  on  Thursday,  May  8 — the 
day  after  the  Treaty  itself  was  given  to  the  German  dele- 
gates. 

Having  this  ambassadorial  representation  of  the  public 
at  Paris,  with  a  highly  developed  mechanical  organization 
for  spreading  news  throughout  the  whole  world,  how  was 
it  to  be  connected  with  the  Peace  Conference  itself?  How 
were  the  channels  to  be  kept  open  between  the  representa- 
tives of  the  Governments  of  the  world  and  the  people  of 
the  world? 

This  was  the  very  heart  of  the  problem;  here  all  the 
difficulties  lay;  and  here,  it  must  be  confessed,  there  was 
partial  failure,  a  consideration  of  the  elements  of  which 
will  be  found  highly  illuminating. 

Let  us  consider,  first,  the  machinery  and  sources  of 
information. 

Offices  were  opened  for  the  American  Press  Bureau 
only  a  few  steps  from  the  Crillon  Hotel,  the  headquarters 
of  our  peace  commission.  It  was  at  one  of  the  famous 
street  corners  of  the  world — where  the  Rue  Royale  opens 
out  into  the  broad  Place  de  la  Concorde — and  it  soon  be- 
came one  of  the  busiest  offices  of  the  commission.     Every 


128        AVOODROW  ^VILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

one  who  wanted  to  reach  Americans  or  American  opin- 
ion— and  who  did  not? — sooner  or  later  found  his  way  into 
our  offices.  An  old  red  carpet  which  covered  the  floor 
when  we  came  in  was  soon  worn  to  shreds.  Government 
typewriters,  Government  couriers,  and  Government  mes- 
sengers were  provided,  and  everything  was  done  to  facili- 
tate the  work  of  the  press  representatives. 

We  considered  it  the  function  of  the  Press  Bureau  not 
in  any  way  to  influence  opinion,  but  to  serve  and  work  on 
terms  of  the  fullest  cooperation  with  the  correspondents. 
We  became  the  channel  for  notices  of  meetings,  for  all 
official  documents  and  reports.  We  bore  up  under  a  con- 
stant fire  of  pamphlets  and  propaganda  from  other  coun-  I 
tries.  We  had  the  highly  difficult — gun -powdery ! — prob-  ■ 
lems  to  solve  of  press  representation  at  plenary  and  other 
open  sessions,  where  only  a  few  press  seats  could  be  pro- 
vided. A  system  of  identification  passes  was  instituted, 
and  we  had  on  our  lists,  during  most  of  the  Peace  Confer- 
ence, from  one  hundred  and  fifty  to  one  hundred  and 
seventy  WTiters.  These  included  many  representatives  of 
the  three  powerful  news  associations,  special  correspon- 
dents of  the  thirty  or  forty  principal  newspapers  of  the 
United  States,  and  writers  for  newspaper  syndicates  and 
magazines.  No  distinctions  were  made  at  any  time  be- 
tween representatives  of  newspapers.  We  had  with  us 
not  only  the  correspondents  of  the  most  powerful  news- 
papers of  New  York,  but  of  small  radical  and  socialist 
newspapers,  and  several  representatives  from  foreign  lan- 
guage newspapers. 

Soon  after  settling  down  in  Paris  the  American  press 
representatives — some  of  whom  were  veteran  AVashington 
correspondents  with  experience  of  the  value  of  organiza- 
tion in  the  press  galleries  of  Congress — met  in  the  office  of 
the  Press  Bureau  and  formed  an  association,  and  from 


PUBLICITY  AND  SECRECY  AT  PARIS  129 

that  time  onward  they  not  only  decided  many  of  the 
diflBcult  problems  of  representation  in  the  public  meetings 
of  the  Peace  Conference,  the  distribution  of  the  wireless 
allotments  provided  by  the  Government,  but  they  exer- 
cised an  influence  and  pressure  upon  the  Conference  it- 
self far  more  important  than  the  public  yet  realizes.  If 
it  had  not  been  for  the  energetic  campaign  of  this  Ameri- 
can organization,  as  the  secret  records  of  the  Peace  Confer- 
ence clearly  reveal,  there  would  have  undoubtedly  been  far 
less  access  to  the  Conference  than  there  was,  and  possibly 
no  plenary  sessions  at  all.  President  Wilson,  as  I  shall 
show  later,  used  the  resolutions  and  demands  of  the  Ameri- 
can correspondents  as  a  powerful  weapon,  within  the 
councils,  in  his  struggle  for  more  publicity.  / 

One  of  the  greatest  difficulties  at  first  confronting  most 
American  journalists  was  a  fundamental  want  of  knowl- 
edge or  background  of  international  affairs.  They  had 
come  from  a  country  which  had  been  traditionally  isolated, 
with  no  great  interests  outside  its  own  borders.  Most  of 
them  spoke  no  language  but  English ;  some  had  never  been 
abroad  before,  and  yet  they  were  now  asked,  in  peril  of 
their  reputations,  to  write  upon  the  most  complicated  and 
difficult  network  of  questions  known  to  men.  A  few 
American  correspondents  had  been  long  in  Europe  and 
were  as  well  acquainted  with  international  affairs  as  most 
of  the  English  and  French  writers,  but  to  a  large  pro- 
portion of  Americans  at  first — though  they  learned 
quickly — the  conditions,  problems,  personalities,  psychol- 
ogy, language  were  all  new,  and  the  handicap  was  great. 

We  had  in  the  American  Peace  Commission,  of  course, 
a  group  of  experts  who  had  all  this  background  informa- 
tion instantly  available.  I  discussed  with  Mr.  Lansing 
and  Colonel  House,  and  finally  with  the  President,  the  ad- 
visability of  securing  access  of  correspondents  to  these 


ISO        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

sources,  but  the  problem  presented  many  diflSculties. 
The  experts  were  busily  engaged  in  the  work  of  their  com- 
missions, and  the  task  of  going  over  the  same  ground  with 
scores  of  correspondents  was  formidable. 

I  suggested,  therefore,  that  as  the  various  problems 
arose  we  should  prepare  under  the  direction  of  the  Press 
Bureau  a  statement  of  the  historical,  geographical,  and 
political  elements  involved  in  it  by  conference  with  the 
experts  of  the  commission,  this  to  be  put  out  for  use  by  the 
newspaper  correspondents.  This  was  at  first  strongly 
opposed  by  Mr.  Lansing  because  he  thought  that  such 
statements  might  involve  us  in  diplomatic  difficulties,  but 
I  took  it  up  with  President  Wilson  and  explained  to  him 
that  it  was  our  intent  to  make  a  w^holly  unbiased  state- 
ment of  the  facts,  and  that  this  would  be  of  the  greatest 
value  to  the  correspondents.  He  at  once  approved  the 
idea.  Our  first  statement  was  on  Poland  and  was  written 
by  Dr.  R.  H.  Lord  of  Harvard  University,  who  was  the 
American  expert  on  that  subject.  It  was  welcomed  by 
the  newspaper  correspondents  and  even  sent  over  by  cer- 
tain of  them  in  full.  This  was  the  first  of  a  long  series  of 
such  statements.  Not  one  of  them  (put  out  by  our 
Bureau)  was  in  any  way  propagandist.  They  were  pre- 
pared solely  for  the  information  of  correspondents. 

So  much  for  the  formal  machinery  outlined  in  the  Presi- 
dent's original  plan.  The  other  source  of  information  for 
correspondents  suggested  by  the  President — daily  access 
to  the  Commissioners — proved  in  the  beginning  quite  use- 
ful. Mr.  Lansing  was  then  sitting  in  the  Council  of  Ten, 
and  for  a  time  all  four  of  the  Commissioners,  including 
Colonel  House,  Mr.  White,  and  General  Bliss,  received  the 
correspondents,  and  the  gathering  of  from  twenty  to  fifty 
correspondents  every  morning  in  Secretary  Lansing's 
large  room  in  the  Crillon  Hotel  was  one  of  the  notable 


PUBLICITY  AND  SECRECY  AT  PARIS  ISl 

events  of  the  day.  Gradually,  however,  the  attendance 
of  the  Commissioners  dwindled  away.  Both  General 
Bliss  and  Colonel  House  ceased  appearing,  and  during  all 
the  latter  part  of  the  Conference  the  correspondents  were 
received  by  Secretary  Lansing  or  Mr.  White,  and  the 
meetings  yielded  very  little  real  news — they  were  indeed 
farcical — although  the  discussions  that  the  correspondents 
often  indulged  in  were  of  some  value.  Although  Mr. 
Lansing,  in  his  book  on  the  Peace  Conference,  comments 
on  the  want  of  publicity  at  Paris,  he  was  in  practice  one 
of  the  most  difficult  of  men  to  approach,  and,  in  connection 
with  the  commissions  in  which  he  was  himself  directly 
engaged,  was  the  least  communicative  of  any  of  the  Com- 
missioners. 

Another  source  of  information  and  discussion  was  the 
smaller  gatherings  of  newspaper  men  who,  during  the 
latter  part  of  the  Conference,  met  Colonel  House  every 
day.  Colonel  House  was  not  only  more  closely  in  touch 
with  the  President  than  any  of  the  other  Commissioners, 
but  he  had  a  genius  for  human  contact  and  was  constantly 
meeting  the  representative  men  from  other  delegations 
and  receiving  visitors  from  America  who  sought  through 
him  to  reach  the  President,  so  that  his  conferences  were 
always  interesting,  though,  during  the  latter  part  of  the 
Peace  Conference,  yielding  little  real  news  of  what  was 
going  on  in  the  Council  of  Four — for  upon  these  things 
Colonel  House  was  almost  as  little  informed  as  the  other 
Commissioners. 

For  a  time  the  American  correspondents  were  also 
received  by  members  of  foreign  delegations,  like  Mr. 
Balfour  and  Lord  Robert  Cecil  among  the  British,  and 
M.  Pichon  among  the  French,  and  their  own  widening 
acquaintance  and  familiarity  with  conditions  opened  still 
further  avenues  of  information. 


132        WOODROW  ^\^LSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

After  the  President  returned  from  America  in  March 
and  the  Council  of  Four  was  instituted,  access  to  really 
important  information  concerning  what  the  heads  of 
States  were  doing  became  still  further  blocked.  A  sharp 
protest  arose  among  the  press  over  this  state  of  affairs. 
The  writer  took  up  the  subject  with  the  President  and 
urged  that  some  channel  of  regular  information  be  opened, 
and  it  was  finally  arranged  that  the  writer  go  up  to  his 
house,  where  the  Council  of  Four  was  meeting,  every  day 
at  6  o'clock,  and  this  practice,  once  begun,  continued  to 
the  end  of  the  Conference.  I  arrived  usually  just  as  the 
other  members  of  the  Council  of  Four  were  departing. 

I  have  a  vivid  picture  of  Lloyd  George  coming  out  of 
the  President's  study,  with  his  head  thrown  back  and  his 
gray  hair  ruffled  with  the  excitements  of  the  discussion, 
talking  and  often  joking  with  Sir  Maurice  Hankey,  who 
followed  with  his  document  file.  Then  would  come  Or- 
lando with  his  secretary,  M.  Aldrovandi,  and,  usually 
last  of  all,  Clemenceau,  in  his  long  black  coat,  making  an 
impressive  figure  of  solidity  and  power.  With  him  came 
M.  Mantoux,  his  secretary  and  interpreter.  I  would  or- 
dinarily find  the  President  in  his  study,  gathering  up  the 
papers  of  the  day  and  putting  them  aside  in  his  steel  docu- 
ment box.  Sometimes  we  would  talk  there  in  the  study, 
and  sometimes  cross  the  hall  into  Mrs.  Wilson's  drawing 
room,  which  was  always  bright  with  flowers;  and  the  Presi- 
dent would  go  over  the  events  of  the  day  and  afterward 
decide  on  what  should  be  made  public.  There  were  days 
and  days  of  endless  controversy  over  such  subjects  as 
reparation,  the  disposition  of  the  Saar  Valley,  the  Polish 
question,  with  absolutely  no  decisions  arrived  at,  and  with 
nothing  of  salient  news  value  to  report. 

Following  this  conference  with  the  President  I  returned 
at  once  to  the  office  of  the  Press  Bureau  and  reported  to 


PUBLICITY  AND  SECRECY  AT  PARIS  133 

the  correspondents  everything  that  the  President  had 
authorized  me  to  give  out.  Occasionally  this  news  was  of 
great  importance,  as  on  the  day  on  which  the  Shantung 
decision  was  announced,  but  ordinarily  the  report  was 
disappointing,  because  the  proceedings  of  the  Four  were 
disappointing  and  inconclusive. 

The  more  I  saw  of  the  Peace  Conference  the  more  I 
appreciated  the  difficulties  which  beset  both  the  President 
and  the  American  delegates  generally  in  the  matter  of 
publicity.  Conditions  were  so  complicated  and  the  in- 
terests and  fears  of  the  other  nationalities  were  so  acute  as 
to  make  the  problem  of  publicity  an  extremely  delicate 
one. 

The  writer  had  an  illuminating  experience  with  this  as 
a  member  of  the  Press  Committee  appointed  on  April  9 
to  handle  the  publicity  for  the  Supreme  Economic  Council. 

Our  committee  consisted  of  four  representatives,  one 
each  from  Great  Britain,  the  United  States,  France,  and 
Italy.  All  of  the  minutes  and  other  information  relating 
to  the  action  of  the  Supreme  Economic  Council  came  into 
our  hands.  When  the  writer  was  appointed,  he  regarded 
it  as  a  great  opportunity  to  get  out  more  real  information 
on  these  important  subjects  to  the  American  public;  but 
from  the  very  beginning  difficulties  of  every  kind  arose. 
Important  actions  of  the  Supreme  Economic  Council, 
like  plans  for  feeding  the  starving  Austrians,  came  up. 
It  seemed  that  this  was  most  interesting  and  important 
news  to  transmit  to  America,  helpful  in  building  up  the 
new  feeling  of  cooperation  and  friendliness  on  which  the 
peace  must  rest,  but  I  found  at  once  strong  and  not  un- 
reasonable objection  from  the  Italians,  supported  by  the 
French.  The  Italians  feared  the  effect  on  their  own 
public  opinion  of  the  news  that  the  Austrians  were  being 
fed  while  their  own  people  were  in  many  cases  close  to  the 


134         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

point  of  suffering.  The  tendency  was  all  in  the  direction 
of  considering  the  effect  of  the  news,  not  its  value  as  in- 
formation, and  in  those  times  of  turmoil,  with  war  still  in 
the  air,  the  effect  might  be  most  important. 

Sometimes  there  were  real  military  considerations  in- 
volved, oftener  diplomatic  or  political  considerations.  In 
any  event,  we  usually  parted,  after  hours  of  more  or  less 
fruitless  discussion,  with  a  report  exceedingly  general  and 
vague  in  its  terms. 

What  was  to  be  done.'^  If  the  American  on  the  com- 
mittee were  to  stand  absolutely  on  his  own  principle  of 
full  publicity,  either  one  of  two  things  would  happen: 
First,  the  committee  would  be  discontinued,  for  the  atti- 
tudes of  the  representatives  there  were  fully  supported  by 
the  men  behind  them  on  the  Supreme  Economic  Council; 
or,  second,  the  American  representative  would  have  to 
resign  and  some  other  method  of  publicity  be  devised. 
And  in  a  conference  of  nations,  the  fundamental  purpose  of 
which  was  to  come  to  an  agreement  and  to  set  up  a  ma- 
chinery for  future  agreement,  could  any  one  nation  force 
its  policy  upon  the  others?  Must  there  not  be  give  and 
take?  Was  it  not  better  to  remain  on  the  committee,  con- 
stantly urging  the  American  point  of  view  and  endeavour- 
ing to  get  all  the  publicity  possible?  It  was  thus,  in  this 
minute  sphere  of  activity,  that  the  problem  that  con- 
fronted the  President,  as  well  as  all  the  other  Americans  at 
Paris,  was  clearly  illustrated.  In  this  particular  case  the 
writer  remained  upon  the  committee  and  did  the  best  he 
could  to  get  all  the  publicity  possible. 

It  is  easy,  of  course,  to  criticize  the  publicity  methods 
at  Paris,  but  the  failure,  if  it  was  failure,  was  highly  com- 
plicated. It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  war  was  still 
only  halted  by  a  truce,  and  that  many  little  conflicts,  which 
might  easily  become  greater,  were  going  on  all  over  Eu- 


PUBLICITY  AND  SECRECY  AT  PARIS  135 

rope.  War  is  secretive,  and  the  fear  and  greed  which  He 
behind  war  are  secretive.  The  old  diplomacy,  with  its 
tenacious  traditions,  was  secretive,  and  the  nations  were 
entangled  in  a  mesh  of  secret  treaties.  For  more  than  four 
years  the  press  had  been  strangled  with  a  rigid  censorship. 
It  was  a  new  thing  for  publics  to  be  represented  at  such 
conferences  at  all;  there  were  no  standards,  no  technique.' 
To  ask  complete  frankness  at  that  time  was  to  ask  that 
the  world  stop  instantly  being  fearful,  greedy,  revenge- 
ful. 

The  struggle  for  publicity  was  thus  a  part  of  the  struggle 
out  of  war  into  peace,  out  of  the  traditions  of  the  old  di- 
plomacy into  new  methods,  out  of  the  conception  of  inter- 
national dealings  as  the  concern  of  a  few  autocratic  heads 
of  States  toward  a  new  conception  of  international  deal- 
ings as  the  business  of  the  people. 

The  attack  thus  went  on  from  the  outside;  it  also  went 
on  within  the  secret  councils  of  the  Ten  and  the  Four,  as  I 
shall  show  in  the  following  chapter. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

President  Wilson's  Struggle  for  Publicity — Within 

THE  Secret  Councils — Attitude  of  France  and 

Great  Britain — Problem  of  Publication 

OF  the  Treaty 

THE  first  session  of  the  Peace  Conference  (January 
12)  did  not  occur  until  two  months  after  the  Ar- 
mistice and  a  month  after  President  Wilson's  ar- 
rival in  Europe.  By  that  time  the  press  and  public  opin- 
ion of  the  whole  world,  and  especially  that  of  America, 
were  on  tip-toe  with  expectation.  The  writers  at  Paris 
'had  sent  broadcast  throughout  the  world  an  immense  vol- 
ume of  preliminary  material.  They  had  exhausted  their 
adjectives  in  describing  the  vast  fanfare  of  celebrations 
with  which  the  chief  characters  of  the  coming  drama, 
especially  President  Wilson,  had  been  welcomed  upon  the 
stage  of  Paris.  They  had  pictured  the  matchless  settings 
there  by  the  Seine,  the  ancient  dingy  pile  of  the  French 
Foreign  Office  on  the  Quai  d'Orsaj^  where  the  chief  scenes 
were  to  be  enacted,  not  forgetting  provocative  glimpses 
at  such  stage  properties  as  the  secret  double-doored  con- 
ference rooms. 

WTien  these  things  began  to  wear  out  and  the  actual 
peace  negotiations  were  still  delayed,  a  vast  wave  of 
rumour,  speculation,  and  prognostication  began.  No 
doubt  the  situation  was  over-dramatized,  no  doubt  the 
expectations  of  a  world  full  of  suffering  were  raised  to  an 
unwarranted  pitch. 

Various  elements  entered  into  this  immense  develop- 

136 


PRESIDENT  WILSON'S  STRUGGLE  FOR  PUBLICITY      137 

ment  of  preliminary  expectancy.  The  delay  itself  was 
perhaps  the  greatest  single  factor.  Another  was  the  fact, 
already  commented  upon,  that  most  of  the  American 
correspondents  at  the  beginning  had  too  little  background 
of  knowledge  of  foreign  affairs  or  of  the  history  and  tradi- 
tions that  lay  behind  every  act  in  the  drama.  Too  much 
emphasis  was  therefore  given  at  first  to  the  superficial, 
spectacular,  and  optimistic,  and  too  little  to  the  grave 
fundamental  issues  at  stake.  There  was  too  much  poli- 
tical drama,  too  little  attention  to  deep-seated  economic 
and  financial  problems.  Everything  was  made  to  look 
too  easy.  The  gathering  conference  was  even  written 
about  as  a  kind  of  international  circus  staged  for  the 
amusement  of  the  world,  not  as  an  assemblage — even  a 
tragic  assemblage — faced  with  problems  too  vast  for  it  or 
any  other  group  of  men  to  solve,  and  yet  forced  to  act,  act, 
act,  with  every  act  affecting  the  destinies  of  mankind. 

Still  another  important  element  of  this  world  over-ex- 
pectancy lay  in  the  liberal  interpretation  of  President 
Wilson's  first  point: 

*'Open  covenants  of  peace  openly  arrived  at."     .     .     . 

It  was  assumed  that  "open  covenants  openly  arrived 
at"  meant  that  every  process  at  every  point  would  be 
wide  open  to  public  view.  The  President  never  meant 
that  "the  birth  pains  of  the  peace"  should  be  utterly  ex- 
posed, but  his  explanation,  which  he  did  his  best  to  cir- 
culate, never  overtook  the  impression  made  by  this  earlier 
pronouncement. 

"WTien  I  pronounced  for  open  diplomacy,"  he  wrote, 
June  12,  1918,  in  a  memorandum  for  the  United  States 
Senate,  "I  meant,  not  that  there  should  be  no  private  dis- 
cussions of  delicate  matters,  but  that  no  secret  agreements 
should  be  entered  into,  and  that  all  international  relations, 
when  fixed,  should  be  open,  above-board,  and  explicit." 


138        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

What  he  meant  was  the  aboHtion  of  secret  treaties,  not 
of  private  discussions.  Soon  after  the  Conference  began 
I  asked  the  President,  for  my  own  guidance,  as  to  his  posi- 
tion regarding  pubHcity. 

*'I  am  for  all  we  can  get,"  he  said,  "yet  I  must  work 
with  other  men  of  other  nations  whose  ideas  of  publicity 
are  different  from  ours.  We  are  at  present  merely  compar- 
ing views,  finding  out  where  we  stand.  It  is  a  kind  of 
world  cabinet  meeting  in  which  every  member  may  express 
his  real  views  freely.  If  we  announced  partial  results,  or 
one  decision  at  a  time,  it  might  easily  result  in  bloodshed. 
W^e  must  do  nothing  that  will  incite  more  war,  we  must 
do  everything  to  get  a  speedy  peace.  When  we  reach  real 
decisions  everything  must  be  made  known  to  the  world." 

At  other  times  the  President  compared  the  conferences 
to  the  Board  of  Directors  of  a  corporation  or  the  Executive 
Committee  of  a  trade  union,  with  private  discussions  but 
public  decisions. 

Whatever  the  complicated  causes,  however,  it  is  a  fact 
that  by  January  12,  when  those  twenty -two  men — four 
from  America,  four  from  Great  Britain,  three  from  Italy, 
and  eleven  from  France — met  for  the  first  time  there  in 
the  already  famous  council  room  in  the  Quai  d'Orsay,  the 
public  interest,  anxiety,  and  expectation  had  grown  to 
enormous  proportions.  The  curtain  was  at  last  to  rise. 
A  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth  were  to  be  revealed. 

And  then  the  anticlimax!  The  curtain  did  not  go  up. 
At  the  close  of  the  day  a  secretary,  slipping  apologetically, 
as  it  were,  out  from  behind  that  curtain,  told  the  audience 
in  five  dry  lines  what  the  actors  had  done.  Here  is  what 
he  said: 

After  the  meeting  of  the  Supreme  War  Council  authorized  to  study 
the  necessary  conditions  for  the  renewal  of  the  Armistice,  the  repre- 


PRESIDENT  WILSON'S  STRUGGLE  FOR  PUBLICITY      139 

sentatives  of  the  Powers  took  up  the  examination  of  the  procedure 
and  the  methods  to  be  followed  in  the  conversations  to  settle  the 
preliminaries  of  the  peace.^ 

It  was  the  writer's  function  to  be  a  kind  of  connecting 
link  between  the  Council  of  Ten  and  the  press.  When 
the  communique  had  been  worked  out  at  the  Foreign 
Office  I  took  it  in  hand  and  carried  it  at  once  to  the  corre- 
spondents gathered  at  the  Press  Bureau.  I  shall  never 
forget  the  disappointment,  exasperation,  disgust,  when  that 
first  communique  was  put  out. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  if  every  word  uttered  in  that  first 
conference  had  been  made  public  it  would  have  been  re- 
garded, on  the  whole,  as  a  rather  dull  performance;  the 
people  of  the  world  would  probably  have  been  disap- 
pointed, but  they  would  have  known,  they  would  have 
understood.  As  the  President  remarked  a  day  or  so  later 
while  arguing  in  the  Council  for  more  publicity: 

Mr.  Wilson  thought  that  what  had  transpired  so  far  in  these  private 
sessions  would  not  set  the  world  on  fire,  even  if  it  became  public.^ 

Nevertheless,  there  were  powerful  reasons  within  the 
Council  for  secrecy.  In  the  first  place,  the  war  was  not\/ 
over;  they  were  still  dealing  with  armistice  conditions, 
and  war  and  secrecy  are  bound-brothers.  It  was  probably 
a  great  mistake,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  liberal 
forces  at  Paris,  to  mingle  war  matters  and  peace  matters 
in  the  same  conferences ;  it  made  for  military  methods  and 
secret  dealings.  In  the  second  place,  there  existed  tradi-  / 
tions,  habits,  and  proprieties,  of  a  vitality  which  the  Ameri- 
cans never  properly  evaluated,  which  for  centuries  had 
hedged  about  diplomacy.     A  certain  decorum,  as  of  high 


^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  January  12. 
^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  January  15. 


140        WOODROW  WTLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

and  recondite  matters  not  understood  by  ordinary  people, 
was  to  be  preserved,  and  secrecy  was  of  its  very  essence. 

But  there  were  far  deeper  and  more  potent  reasons,  as 
will  be  shown,  for  the  secrecy  at  Paris  than  military  danger 
or  diplomatic  tradition.  The  Americans  might  argue  as 
they  pleased  for  more  publicity;  the  allied  leaders  knew 
that  their  purposes,  as  set  forth  in  the  secret  treaties, 
would  sooner  or  later  have  to  be  discussed.  They  knew 
also  that  there  would  be  great  difficulties  with  the  restless, 
suspicious,  and  ambitious  small  Powers  if  all  the  cards  were 
placed  at  once  on  the  table. 

The  reaction  after  the  first  secret  meeting  of  January 
12,  as  I  have  said,  was  intense.  Rumours  everywhere  be- 
gan to  fly  about.  It  was  whispered  that  a  crisis  with 
Germany  had  arisen  (were  not  Marshal  Foch  and  his 
Generals  in  attendance?)  that  there  were  explosive  dis- 
agreements between  Wilson  and  Clemenceau,  that  steps 
had  been  taken  to  crush  Bolshevism,  and  finally,  and  more 
important  than  anything  else,  it  was  reported  that  the 
Conference  had  decided  to  meet  wholly  in  secrecy  and 
that  the  press  was  not  even  to  be  allowed  to  meet  the 
delegates  of  the  various  commissions.  Wliere  nothing  is 
known  everything  is  distorted.  Rumour  grows  like  a 
mushroom  in  the  dark.  Great  indignation  began  to  be  ex- 
pressed by  both  American  and  British  correspondents, 
the  more  so  because  it  was  evident  that  there  had  been 
a  "careful  leakage,"  as  President  Wilson  once  ironically 
called  it,  of  certain  news  to  the  French  press. 

Immediately  a  great  volume  of  red-hot  comment  on 
secrecy,  "  gag  rule, "  "  diplomacy  in  the  dark, "  began  to  go 
across  to  America,  and  on  January  14  the  American  corre- 
spondents met  in  the  office  of  the  Press  Bureau  and,  after 
a  heated  session,  drew  up  and  signed  the  following  com- 
munication to  President  Wilson: 


PRESIDENT  WILSON'S  STRUGGLE  FOR  PUBLICITY      141 

Mr.  President :  The  American  press  delegation  in  Paris  has  just 
been  officially  informed  that  the  Peace  Conference  has  adopted  a  rule 
whereby  not  only  is  the  press  barred  from  the  current  sessions,  but  is 
also  excluded  from  personal  contact  with  members  of  the  several 
missions.  We  are  also  advised  that  all  news  of  the  sessions  is  to  be 
limited  to  brief  daily  communiques  from  the  Secretariat,  which  may 
be  followed  by  second-day  statements  in  the  nature  of  comment  upon 
the  minutes. 

We  direct  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  this  method,  if  followed, 
will  limit  our  information  to  things  accomplished.  It  will  further 
prevent  the  publication  of  those  matters  not  yet  closed  which  the 
public  demands  the  right  to  follow  through  to  their  consummation. 
Unless  this  right  be  granted,  the  public  will  be  denied  the  opportunity 
to  be  informed  of  the  positions  assumed  by  the  various  elements 
within  the  Conference,  and  public  opinion  will  thus  have  no  chance 
to  function  in  the  way  that  you  have  always  advocated  and  that  you 
defined  in  the  Fourteen  Points. 

Wherefore,  we  vigorously  protest,  on  behalf  of  the  American  press 
representatives,  against  what  we  have  every  reason  to  regard  as  gag- 
rule;  and  in  common  with  the  action  of  our  British  colleagues,  who 
have  laid  their  case  before  the  Prime  Minister,  we  appeal  to  you  for 
relief  from  this  intolerable  condition. 

We  stand  where  you  stand:  "Open  covenants  of  peace,  openly 
arrived  at." 

Respectfully, 

Ed.  L.  Keen,  United  Press. 

J.  J.  Williams,  Universal  News  Service. 

H.  C.  Probert,  Associated  Press. 

Arthur  B.  Krock,  Courier- Journal. 

John  Edwin  Nevin. 

H.  B.  SwoPE,  New  York  World. 

Arthur  M.  Evans,  Chicago  Tribune. 

Richard  V.  Oulahan,  New  York  Times. 

Laurence  Hills,  New  York  Sun. 

Burr  Price,  New  York  Herald. 

The  writer  handed  this  protest  to  President  Wilson  with 
a  memorandum  urging  immediate  action.  At  the  same 
time  a  backfire  began  to  come  from  America.     Secretary 


142        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

Tumulty  cabled,  January  13  and  16,  regarding  the  unfa- 
vourable comments  in  the  American  press.  He  said  in  his 
cablegram  of  the  13th: 

Situation  could  easily  be  remedied  if  you  would  occasionally  call  in 
the  three  press  association  correspondents  who  crossed  on  George 
Washington  with  you,  merely  giving  them  an  understanding  of  the 
developments  as  they  occur  and  asking  them  not  to  use  information 
as  coming  from  j^ou,  but  merely  for  their  own  guidance. 

On  the  16th  he  cabled  as  follows  to  Rear- Admiral 
Grayson,  the  President's  physician: 

American  newspapers  filled  with  stories  this  morning  of  critical 
character  about  rule  of  secrecy  adopted  for  Peace  Conference,  claim- 
ing that  the  first  of  the  fourteen  points  had  been  violated.  In  my 
opinion,  if  President  has  consented  to  this,  it  will  be  fatal.  The 
matter  is  so  important  to  the  people  of  the  world  that  he  could  have 
afforded  to  go  any  length  even  to  leaving  the  Conference  than  to  sub- 
mit to  this  ruling.  His  attitude  in  this  matter  will  lose  a  great  deal 
of  the  confidence  and  support  of  the  people  of  the  world  which  he  has 
had  up  to  this  time. 

That  the  President  was  honestly  puzzled  by  the  prob- 
lem is  to  be  seen  in  his  reply  to  Secretary  Tumulty  on 
January  16: 

Your  cable  about  misunderstandings  concerning  my  attitude  to- 
ward problems  created  by  the  newspaper  cablegrams  concerns  a 
matter  which  I  admit  I  do  not  know  how  to  handle.  Every  one  of 
the  things  you  mention  is  a  fable.  I  have  not  only  yielded  nothing 
but  have  been  asked  to  yield  nothing.  These  manoeuvres  which  the 
cablegram  speaks  of  are  purely  imaginary.  I  cannot  check  them 
from  this  end  because  the  men  who  sent  them  insist  on  having  some- 
thing to  talk  about,  whether  they  know  what  the  facts  are  or  not. 
I  will  do  my  best  with  the  three  press  associations.^ 


'"Woodrow  Wilson  as  I  Know  Him,"  by  Joseph  P.  Tumulty,  pp.  518-519. 


PRESIDENT  WILSON'S  STRUGGLE  FOR  PUBLICITY      143 

The  effect  of  this  great  and  sudden  agitation  upon  the 
Conference,  together  with  the  fact  that  there  were  leak- 
ages to  the  French  press — where  such  leakages  would 
help  the  French  cause — were  instant  and  disconcerting. 
On  January  15,  at  the  very  opening  of  the  council,  Mr. 
Lloyd  George  voiced  a  sharp  protest  against  the  French 
leakages : 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  referred  to  the  agreement  that  no  information 
regarding  what  took  place  at  the  meetings  should  be  given  out  other 
than  that  issued  by  the  Secretariat.  He  wished  to  point  out  that  he 
had  noticed  that  the  French  Press  had  published  the  clause  regard- 
ing the  proposed  demands  on  the  German  Government  to  deliver  its 
gold  reserve,  etc. 

M.  PiCHON  explained  that  while  it  was  true  that  it  had  been  pub- 
lished here,  this  was  due  to  the  fact  that  the  French  journalists  knew 
that  it  was  known  to  British  and  American  journalists,  and  that  it 
would  appear  in  their  papers,  as  there  was  no  British  or  American 
censorship  of  the  Press. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  American  journalists  never 
knew  these  facts,  nor  published  them. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  remarked  that  if  this  were  true,  their  whole 
system  was  faulty.  He  referred  to  the  fact  that  the  British  Delegation 
had  a  man  in  Paris  especially  for  the  purpose  of  handling  the  Press, 
and  stated  that  he  was  quite  certain  that  the  information  had  not 
been  obtained  from  this  representative. 

The  French  then  set  forth  their  ideas  of  how  the  press 
should  be  managed.  There  should  be  absolute  secrecy  of 
proceedings,  a  communique  each  day  by  the  Secretariat, 
and  finally,  as  M.  Pichon  said,  "all  else  should  be  cen- 
sored." 

To  make  this  effective  *'it  would  be  necessary  to  stop 
any  communications  by  cable,  and  he  suggested  that  each 
Government  appoint  a  representative  to  discuss  this 
matter  and  take  the  necessary  steps." 


lU        WOODROW  ^MLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

This  would  have  made  the  Conference  absolutely  secret, 
absolutely  in  the  control  of  the  leaders  present,  who  could 
give  out  such  information  to  the  world  as  they  thought 
favoured  the  causes  in  which  they  were  interested. 

Nothing,  of  course,  was  more  obnoxious  to  the  American 
tradition,  and  to  President  Wilson,  than  any  censorship 
whatsoever.  He  had  even  been  against  the  practice  of  all 
of  the  belligerent  countries  in  censoring  the  mails  during 
the  war,  though  he  was  strongly  urged  in  May,  1917,  by 
his  Secretary  of  State,  Mr.  Lansing,  to  order  such  censor- 
ship. And  no  sooner  was  the  war  over  than  all  censor- 
ship of  cable  and  wireless  messages  was  removed.  More- 
over, a  clear  understanding  with  the  French  Government 
existed  to  the  effect  that,  if  the  Peace  Conference  came  to 
Paris,  there  should  be  no  French  censorship  of  American 
dispatches.  While  at  the  very  beginning  there  were  a 
few  instances  in  which  the  French  military  censors  did 
interfere  on  the  ground  that  military  matters  were  in- 
volved, they  were  trivial,  and  throughout  the  Conference 
American  correspondents  were  wholly  untrammelled  by 
any  censorship  whatsoever. 

President  Wilson  therefore  objected  to  the  French  pro- 
posal, and  the  following  discussion  took  place : 

Mr.  Wilson  referred  to  the  taking  over  of  the  cables  by  the  United 
States  Government.  This  action  on  his  part  had  furnished  an  oppor- 
tunity to  his  poHtical  opponents  to  criticize  him,  claiming  that  he 
had  taken  this  action  for  the  purpose  of  censorship  of  information  re- 
garding his  actions  in  Europe.  He  had,  of  course,  repudiated  the 
idea.  Therefore,  should  he  now  try  to  put  a  censorship  in  force,  it 
would  afford  an  opportunity  to  his  opponents  to  further  embarrass 
him.  He  felt  confident  if  those  present  were  thoughtful  regarding 
what  they  stated  to  the  Press,  censorship  would  be  unnecessary. 

M.  Clemenceau  observed  that  if  there  were  no  censorship  in  the 
United  States,  and  censorship  in  Europe,  half  the  world  would  know 
what  was  going  on  and  the  other  half  would  be  left  in  ignorance. 


PRESIDENT  WILSON'S  STRUGGLE  FOR  PUBLICITY      145 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  thought  that  the  British  people  would  have 
something  to  say  if  all  the  news  came  from  America.^ 

Here  was  the  issue  clearly  joined  between  the  French 
idea  and  the  American  idea.  The  more  the  Paris  Confer- 
ence is  studied  the  clearer  grows  the  impression  that  the 
struggle  throughout,  upon  this  as  upon  nearly  all  other 
subjects,  was  directly  between  French  policies  and  Ameri- 
can principles. 

When  the  Conference  began  President  Wilson  had 
hoped  for  great  and  steady  support  from  Mr.  Lloyd 
George,  but  this  hope  soon  faded.  As  the  Conference 
deepened  the  President's  personal  respect  and  admiration 
for  Clemenceau  increased.  They  agreed  upon  scarcely 
anything  whatsoever,  but  each  recognized  that  the  other 
stood  honestly  for  a  certain  definite  and  intelligent  policy 
which  could  be  argued  and  fought  for.  And  each  recog- 
nized in  the  other  an  antagonist  worthy  of  his  steel. 
1  This  struggle  over  publicity,  then,  was  primarily  be- 
tween the  French,  with  secret  diplomacy,  a  censored 
press,  many  newspapers  controlled  by  Foreign  Office  in- 
fluence, or  subsidized  by  foreign  governments  (as  by 
Turkey  and  Italy),  and  the  Americans  with  their  demand 
for  all  the  publicity  possible,  a  free  press,  and  no  censor- 
ship. The  Italians  throughout  sided  with  the  French. 
The  Japanese,  with  sphinx-like  self-control,  said  nothing, 
but  never  lost  sight  of  a  single  angle  in  the  discussion. 
Mr.  Lloyd  George  dreaded  and  feared  the  press  and  yet 
tried  to  control  it.  He  would  undoubtedly  have  liked  to 
play  the  full  French  game,  but  came  from  a  country  where 
the  press,  or  a  large  part  of  it,  is  obstinately  free.  He  was 
always  thinking  of  the  political  aspects  of  every  publicity 
question,  as  on  January  16: 

^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  January  15. 


146        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEIVIENT 

Mr,  Lloyd  George  observed  that  there  were  papers  in  each  of 
the  Alhed  countries  which  were  opposed  to  the  government,  and 
that  these  papers  would  make  use  of  any  information  which  tliey 
might  obtain  from  the  delegates  of  one  government  to  discredit  the 
delegates  of  another.  There  were  several  English  papers  which  he 
knew  were  determined  to  discredit  the  plans  of  the  British  Govern- 
ment. 

Here  was  the  secret  spring  of  Lloyd  George's  policy — 
and  his  fear — throughout.  Clemenceau  did  not  fear  his 
press  because  he  could  control  most  of  it;  Wilson  could 
not  control  a  single  newspaper  in  America,  but  he  never 
feared  the  press,  because  he  thought  he  had  American 
I  public  opinion  behind  him. 

On  January  16  the  discussion  of  publicity  opened  in  the 
Council  of  Ten  with  new  violence.  President  Wilson 
laid  upon  the  table  the  letter  of  protest  he  had  received 
from  the  American  correspondents.  He  remarked  also 
that  he  had  been  receiving  most  unfavourable  reports  from 
America  regarding  the  secrecy  of  the  Conference.  He 
was  determined  to  have  more  publicity. 

Nor  was  Clemenceau,  upon  his  part,  happy.  He,  too, 
was  meeting  the  new  fact  that  every  nation  at  Paris  had  to 
meet — that  national  isolation  went  to  the  scrap  heap  with 
the  great  war:  if,  for  example,  one  nation  had  a  censored 
press,  it  was  in  danger  from  all  nations  with  a  free  press. 
Here  is  Clemenceau's  statement: 

M.  Clemenceau  stated  that  he  did  not  think  that  the  solution  ar- 
rived at  regarding  the  Press  was  practical.  He  pointed  out  that  there 
was  no  censorship  of  the  Press  in  the  United  States  or  in  England, 
while  there  was  a  French  censorship  in  operation.  Consequently  this 
was  manifestly  unfair,  as  false  news  could  be  sent  from  here  to  the 
United  States  or  England,  and  come  back  via  America.  Coming  from 
America,  it  would  be  impossible  to  stop  it.  He  also  referred  to  the 
story  carried  in  the  New  York  Tribune  which  practically  threatens 
the  Allied  Governments  with  withdrawal  of  U.  S.  forces  in  Europe, 


PRESIDENT  WILSON'S  STRUGGLE  FOR  PUBLICITY      147 

It  would  seem  desirable  to  have  either  total  secrecy  on  all  sides, 
which  is  absolutely  impossible,  or  complete  publicity^ 

President  Wilson  then  threw  a  bomb  into  the  proceed- 
ings by  suggesting  "complete  publicity  of  all  that  hap- 
pened." 

Here,  then,  was  the  issue,  which  Clemenceau,  with  his 
clear  French  mind,  plainly  saw,  between  "total  secrecy 
on  all  sides,"  and  "complete  publicity." 

President  Wilson  followed  up  his  suggestion  for  com- 
plete publicity  by  saying  that  "the  public  of  the  United 
States  wanted  open  sessions." 

Whenever  the  delegates  came  thus  to  an  utter  impasse, 
with  complete  disagreement  staring  them  in  the  face, 
Clemenceau  invariably  made  a  speech  demanding  that  the 
conferees  maintain  unanimity  at  any  cost.  "I  will  sacri- 
fice much  for  unanimity,"  he  said  often  and  often.  And 
that  thought  was  also  constantly  in  the  minds  of  every 
man  there.  The  world  was  in  chaos,  it  was  peace  or 
anarchy,  the  only  authority  left  in  the  world  was  in 
their  four  hands.  It  would  have  been  a  light  mind,  in- 
deed, that  would  have  allowed  any  minor  consideration 
to  break  up  the  Conference.  When  these  two  doggedly 
determined  men,  Wilson  and  Clemenceau — and  if  they 
were  alike  in  little  else  they  were  alike  in  being  obstinate 
fighters — faced  one  another  it  was  either  break  or  find  a 
way  through.  Consequently  each  side  began  to  suggest 
compromises : 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  observed  that  the  issuance  of  some  kind  of 
statement  explaining  the  danger  of  giving  out  information  from  day 
to  day  before  a  final  decision  on  any  one  question  was  reached,  ap- 
pealed strongly  to  him.  He  thought  it  would  be  well  to  issue  an  ap- 
peal to  the  public  not  to  pay  too  much  attention  to  unauthorized 
news.  .  .  ,  He  believed  that  a  majority  of  the  public  would 
understand  such  an  appeal,  and  would  discredit  the  news. 


148         WOODROW  ^YILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

President  Wilson  then  returned  to  his  idea  of  a  press 
committee  of  allied  nations,  which  he  had  suggested  on 
the  day  before,  and  inquired 

whether  those  present  saw  any  virtue  in  the  suggestion  that  Sir  George 
Riddle,  Mr.  Baker  and  the  representatives  of  the  Italian  and  French 
delegates  meet  the  newspaper  correspondents,  tell  them  frankly  that 
the  object  of  these  conversations  is  to  come  to  an  understanding,  and 
that  if  news  were  to  be  given  out  from  moment  to  moment,  a  false  im- 
pression would  be  made. 

M.  Clemenceau  did  not  think  that  this  would  stop  the  man  who 
wanted  to  send  false  news  from  doing  so. 

President  Wilson  did  not  see  how  he  could  be  stopped  in  any  case. 
He  thought  that  his  proposal  would  be  the  most  efficacious  way  of 
handling  the  matter,  as  regards  small  conferences,  and  suggested  that 
meanwhile  those  present  resolve  that  the  large  conferences  shall  be 
open  to  the  Press. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  remarked  that  the  Press  once  let  in  could 
never  be  excluded. 

Mr.  Balfour  inquired  whether  the  company  present  had  carefully 
considered  what  would  be  the  function  of  the  great  conferences,  if  they 
were  made  entirely  open  to  the  Press.  Would  it  not  result  in  their 
becoming  purely  a  matter  of  form? 

After  further  discussion,  Mr.  Lloyd  George  finally  re- 
ferred to  the  suggestion  of  President  Wilson  and  said  he 
supported  the  proposal  to  have  the  representatives  of  the 
delegates  obtain  the  views  of  the  press  by  the  following 
day.  He  asked  President  Wilson  to  be  good  enough  to 
repeat  his  suggestion. 

President  Wilson  stated  that  the  three  representatives  (Sir  George 
Riddle,  Ray  Stannard  Baker,  and  Captain  Pueux)  should  call  the  rep- 
resentatives of  the  Press  and  explain  the  difficulties  with  which  the 
delegates  were  faced  with  regard  to  the  question  of  giving  out  in- 
formation and  inform  them  that  the  delegates  did  not  think  it 
would  facilitate  results  if  the  details  of  the  present  discussions  were 
outlined  in  public.  The  three  representatives  should  also  make  it 
clear  to  the  Press  that  it  was  the  desire  of  the  delegates  to  tell  them  as 


PRESIDENT  WILSON'S  STRUGGLE  FOR  PUBLICITY      149 

fully  and  freely  as  possible  of  the  determination  taken  at  these  con- 
ferences. In  conclusion,  the  three  representatives  should  ask  the 
Press  to  express  their  views  as  to  what  they  considered  the  best 
method  for  carrying  out  the  desires  of  the  delegates. "^ 

The  meeting  suggested  by  the  Council  was  called  by 
the  representatives  and  met  at  the  Hotel  Dufayel  (the 
Interallied  Press  Club)  at  5  o'clock.  A  large  attendance 
of  the  press  of  all  countries  was  present,  perhaps  the  first 
session  of  the  kind  ever  to  be  held.  It  was  a  rather  curi- 
ous circumstance  that  marked  divisions  of  opinion  existed 
among  the  correspondents  themselves  as  to  the  degree  of 
publicity  which  should  be  demanded.  The  American  ^ 
correspondents  were  generally  for  complete  publicity  for 
everything.  The  British  correspondents,  nearly  all  of 
whom  had  very  much  more  experience  in  international 
affairs  than  the  Americans,  were  more  sensitive  to  the 
problems  and  difficulties  attendant  upon  such  circum- 
stances and  were  not  so  sure  that  undiluted  publicity  of 
the  proceedings  was  either  wise  or  possible,  and  the  French 
correspondents  were  either  so  closely  in  touch  with  the 
Foreign  Office  and  indeed  so  concerned  with  the  common 
fears  and  ambitions  of  France  that  their  position  was  not 
different  from  that  of  Clemenceau. 

Because  of  this  diversity,  the  want  of  any  common 
standard  or  technique,  the  meeting,  of  course,  failed  in  its 
purpose.  Underneath  the  President's  suggestion  had 
lain  the  familiar  American  idea  of  being  frank  with  the 
press,  explaining  the  difficulties  honestly,  and  then  trust- 
ing to  the  honour  and  good  sense  of  the  correspondents. 
It  had  been  proved  over  and  over  again  that  no  group  of 
men  can  be  more  fully  trusted  to  keep  a  confidence  or  use 
it  wisely  than  a  group  of  experienced  newspaper  corre- 
spondents— if  they  are  honestly  informed  and  trusted  in 

^Secret  Minutes,  Coimcil  of  Ten,  January  16, 


150         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

the  first  place.  But  when  the  American  press  representa- 
tive arose  to  speak  he  could  not  promise  the  primary  con- 
dition, real  frankness,  and  could  not  therefore  ask  caution. 
I  reported  the  results  of  this  meeting  to  the  President  and 
said  frankly  that  I  did  not  think  the  results  satisfactory. 
The  Council  also  tried,  the  next  day,  the  plan  suggested 
by  Lloyd  George  of  sending  a  general  admonition  to  the 
press,  warning  them  of  the  danger  of  too  much  publicity, 
referring  to  the  Conference  as  a  Cabinet  meeting  and  set- 
ting forth  the  vital  spirit  of  the  President's  view  in  these 
w^ords : 

The  essence  of  democratic  method  is  not  that  deliberations  of  a 
Government  should  be  conducted  in  public,  but  that  its  conclusions 
should  be  subject  to  the  consideration  of  a  popular  Chamber  and  to 
free  and  open  discussions  on  the  platform  and  in  the  Press. ^  / 

But  these  efforts  seemed  only  to  encourage  the  Ameri- 
can correspondents  to  greater  activity,  more  meetings, 
and  further  resolutions.^ 

The  President  had  also  suggested  having  the  large  con- 
ference, the  plenary  sessions,  open  to  the  public.  This 
was  at  first  opposed  by  every  other  leader  and  was  once 
decided  in  the  negative,  but  the  President  finally  won  out 
in  his  contention,  and  the  correspondents  were  admitted 
to  the  first  general  session  of  the  Conference  on  January 
18  and  to  most  of  those  that  followed.  While  it  w^as  a 
real  victory  for  the  American  idea,  in  which  the  American 
correspondents  and  the  President  both  played  a  great 
part,  the  effect  was,  as  Balfour  predicted,  to  make  the  open 
sessions  largely  matters  of  form. 

'See  Volume  III,  Document  4,  for  full  text. 

'On  January  16  the  American  and  British  correspondents,  at  a  meeting  at  the  Ritz 
Hotel,  lasting  most  of  the  night,  endeavoured  to  secure  united  action  on  the  part  of  the 
press  of  all  nations,  but  met  obstinate  opposition  from  the  French.  Two  sets  of 
resolutions  were  finally  adopted  and  sent  to  the  heads  of  States;  one  in  which  the  French 
joined  and  one  independent  of  the  French.     See  Volume  HI,  Document  5,  for  full  text. 


PRESIDENT  WILSON'S  STRUGGLE  FOR  PUBLICITY      151 

Such  was  the  general  method  adopted.  \Miile  it  pro- 
vided for  more  pubHcity  than  the  "old  order"  desired,  it 
also,  by  implication,  limited  the  right  of  the  President  to 
appeal  to  public  opinion  in  differences  with  other  leaders —  | 
one  of  his  most  important  potential  weapons.  He  adhered 
to  the  "Cabinet"  rule  in  the  case  of  the  struggle  with 
France,  but  broke  it  in  the  case  of  the  Italians — with 
results  which  must  be  treated  elsewhere. 

We  come  now  to  another  difficult  element  in  the  problem 
of  publicity — the  temperamental  limitations  of  the  Presi- 
dent himself.  It  is  astonishing,  but  it  is  true,  that  neither 
the  correspondents  themselves  nor  the  public  in  America 
ever  knew  what  a  fight  the  President  had  made.  He  had 
a  wonderful  opportunity  here ;  his  cause  in  reality  was  the 
same  as  that  of  the  American  press  and  the  American 
people.  By  taking  the  correspondents  into  his  confidence 
at  this  time — as  indeed  the  writer  urged  him  strongly  to 
do — ^he  could  have  made  common  cause  with  them  and 
bound  them  to  him  with  bands  of  steel.  He  could  have 
had  press  support  he  never  got,  that  might  in  the  upshot 
have  gained  him  the  very  little  additional  support  he 
needed  in  America  to  put  through  the  Treaty  and  the 
League.  He  did  not  even  let  the  correspondents  know 
afterward  what  he  had  done;  he  did  not  inform  me  defi- 
nitely enough  of  his  own  part  so  that  I  could  in  my  official 
capacity  give  it  out;  it  probably  never  occurred  to  him  to 
tell  even  Mrs.  Wilson. 

Again  and  again  I  urged  conferences  with  correspond- 
ents at  Paris;  on  the  two  or  three  occasions  when  he  did 
meet  them,  he  made  a  convincing  impression,  but  he  seem- 
ed to  dread  such  meetings.  He  never  seemed  to  appreciate  W 
the  value  of  mere  human  contact.  I  know  he  sympa- 
thized with  the  appeal  of  the  correspondents  of  January 
14;  he  used  that  appeal  effectively:  but  he  never  thought 


i 


152        WOODROW  ^MXSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

of  telling  them  so;  he  never  thanked  them,  and  conse- 
quently many  of  them  thought  him  hostile.  Once  when 
I  urged  that  he  see  a  group  of  correspondents  and  tell 
them  about  a  certain  subject,  he  remarked: 

"But  I've  already  said  it." 

He  had  said  it,  yes,  in  a  speech! 

One  element  in  this  aloofness  that  grew  more  pro- 
nounced as  the  burdens  of  the  Conference  increased  was 
the  state  of  his  health.  He  was  always  working  to  the 
very  limit  of  his  endurance,  or  past  it.  Often  at  the  close 
of  the  day,  when  I  went  up  to  see  him,  he  seemed  utterly 
beaten  down,  worn  out.  It  seemed  cruelty  to  ask  him  to 
do  another  thing,  say  another  word.  Dr.  Grayson  was 
always  warning  him  not  to  go  too  far.  Contacts  with  the 
correspondents  took  physical  and  nervous  energy,  and 
therefore  he  reserved  his  strength  for  what  he  considered 
more  important  matters.  But  at  Paris,  where  so  much 
depended  upon  the  right  publicity  and  the  support  of  world 
public  opinion,  these  temperamental  and  physical  limita- 
tions were  costly  indeed. 

But,  in  spite  of  all  warnings  and  elaborate  arrangements 
made  to  maintain  secrecy  in  the  small  meetings,  there 
w^as  still  leakage.  As  the  American  and  British  corre- 
spondents became  acquainted,  various  private  channels 
were  opened  and  they  occasionally  secured  information 
that  the  councils  wished  to  keep  secret.  But  the  great 
leakage  was  still  to  the  French  press.  The  French  Foreign 
Office  was  permeated  with  channels  of  information  for 
friendly  journalists,  and  these  were  wonderfully  directed  to 
obtain  the  results  which  the  French  desired.  Correspond- 
ents from  other  countries,  barred  from  direct  information 
as  to  what  was  happening,  drew  on  these  French  sources, 
and  the  news  to  every  part  of  the  world  thus  came,  more 
and  more,  to  have  a  French  tinge. 


PRESIDENT  WILSON'S  STRUGGLE  FOR  PUBLICITY      153 

One  day  in  February,  while  he  was  at  a  crucial  point  in 
his  fight  for  the  League  of  Nations,  the  President  showed 
me  a  memorandum  which  he  said  he  had  from  unimpeach- 
able sources  giving  the  instructions  just  sent  out  to  the 
French  Government  press: 

(1)  To  magnify  Republican  opposition  in  the  United  States  to  the 
President  and  his  Administration. 

(2)  To  emphasize  chaotic  conditions  in  Russia, 

(3)  To  show  that  Germany  is  wilHng  and  able  to  renew  the 
struggle. 

"If  this  keeps  on  I  shall  suggest  moving  the  Conference 
to  Geneva,  or  somewhere  out  of  Paris,"  said  the  President. 

Indeed,  what  can  be  thought  of  a  situation  like  this,  in 
which,  during  a  friendly  conference  of  allied  nations  a 
group  of  newspapers  well  known  to  be  influenced  by  the 
Government  of  one  of  them  is  used  to  attack  and  make  as 
difficult  as  possible  the  course  of  the  chief  delegate  of  an- 
other nation? 

On  March  14  Tumulty  cabled  the  President:  "Publi-  \j 
city  from  European  end  doing  great  damage  here."  On 
the  same  day  he  telegi-aphed :  "  Country  greatly  disturbed 
over  stories  appearing  Paris  and  elsewhere  under  Associ- 
ated Press  head  that  League  of  Nations  is  not  to  be  in- 
cluded in  peace  treaty." 

Another  development  affecting  publicity  also  took 
place.  WTiile  the  Council  of  Ten  in  the  beginning  had 
been  quite  strictly  limited  to  the  two  leading  delegates  of 
each  of  the  four  or  five  nations  with  a  few  secretaries  and 
experts,  the  tendency  of  the  meetings  was  to  grow  larger. 
On  March  6  the  military  experts  were  present,  and  these, 
with  the  members  of  the  delegations  and  the  secretaries, 
made  up  an  attendance  of  fifty-five.  The  tendency  was 
to  increase  the  length  of  the  speeches  and  also  to  increase 
enormously  the  likelihood  of  leaks. 


154         ^YOODROW  ^^TLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  especially  had  been  restive  under 
this  condition,  and  on  March  6  he  said  he  "thought  that 
the  text  itself  should  not  be  discussed  before  so  large  a 
Meeting.  The  British  delegates  could  not  see  their  way 
to  accept  the  terms  as  they  appeared  at  the  present  mo- 
ment without  large  modifications;  but  those  were  ques- 
tions which  the  Delegates  themselves  could  alone  discuss, 
as  they  alone  would  be  responsible  for  the  final  decisions 
taken." 

He  said  at  another  time  he  was  afraid  of  getting  "a 
kind  of  public  meeting." 

All  of  these  factors,  together  with  a  now  violently  in- 
sistent demand  throughout  the  world  that  peace  be  made 
quickly,  were  elements  in  bringing  about  the  still  smaller 
councils  of  the  four  heads  of  the  great  Powers,  where  only 
the  four  leaders  (sometimes  only  three),  with  two  or  three 
utterly  impenetrable  secretaries,  were  present.  In  these 
conferences  of  the  "Big  Four,"  decisions  that  had  long 
hung  fire  were  rapidly  made  and  the  Treaty  formulated. 
A  more  complete  account  of  the  complicated  reasons  for 
this  secrecy  and  what  came  of  it  must  be  left  for  the  I 
chapters  of  the  "Dark  Period"  in  which  the  real  struggle 
between  Wilson  and  Clemenceau  took  place. 

Sufiice  it  to  say  that  from  the  middle  of  March  to  the 
end  of  the  Conference  the  actual  conversations  of  the  Big 
Four  were  kept  secret  to  a  remarkable  degree,  but  the 
decisions  were  fully  made  known  from  time  to  time. 
President  Wilson  was  greatly  criticized  for  not  taking  his 
fellow  Commissioners  into  his  confidence — even  Colonel  ^ 
House — but  the  same  criticism  was  also  made  of  Clemen- 
ceau and  Lloyd  George,  that  their  fellow  delegates  did  not 
know  what  was  going  on  and  could  not  find  out.  Even 
Mr.  Balfour  was  often  in  complete  darkness  regarding  the 
details  of  what  was  happening.     Each  of  the  four  no 


PRESIDENT  WILSON'S  STRUGGLE  FOR  PUBLICITY      155 

doubt  gave  to  his  official  press  representative  each  day,  as 
the  President  gave  to  me — as  described  in  the  last  chap- 
ter— a  general  survey  of  the  subjects  discussed,  which  he 
in  turn  passed  on  to  the  correspondents,  but  it  was  never  a 
satisfactory  method. 

Two  other  critical  problems  in  publicity  arose  during 
the  Conference.  One  centred  around  the  demand  of  the 
press  to  be  present  at  the  presentation  of  the  Treaty  to  the 
Germans  at  Versailles ;  the  other  involved  the  still  greater 
problem  of  the  publicity  of  the  Treaty  itself. 

Probably  the  most  dramatic  and  impressive  meeting  of 
the  entire  Peace  Conference  was  that  of  May  7,  when  the 
leaders  of  the  victorious  allied  Powers  met  the  leaders  of 
defeated  Germany  for  the  first  time.  It  was  the  occasion 
upon  which  the  completed  Treaty  was  formally  presented 
to  the  German  delegation.  No  people  in  the  world  are  so 
skillful  in  staging  such  a  spectacle  as  the  French,  and  they 
had  done  their  best  to  give  due  impressiveness  and  solem- 
nity to  this  particular  assemblage  as  a  symbol  of  their  vic- 
tory over  their  historic  enemies.  They  had  in  their  minds, 
no  doubt,  the  traditions  of  former  gatherings  of  this  kind ; 
full  of  ceremony,  yet  with  the  distinction  of  simplicity, 
and  the  whole  idea  of  the  press — the  representatives  of 
democracy — crowding  into  the  scene,  w^as  intensely  re- 
pugnant to  them. 

But  they  had  to  recognize  that  there  was  a  public  and  a 
press  in  the  world,  so  they  made  arrangements  in  the  yard 
outside,  near  the  gate,  which  they  camouflaged  with 
shrubs  and  behind  which  they  proposed  to  allow  corre- 
spondents to  stand  and  see  the  delegates  go  in,  and  after- 
ward come  out.  It  may  be  imagined  what  a  shout  went 
up  from  the  American  correspondents.  The  enclosures 
in  the  yard  were  at  once  denominated  the  "dugouts" 
and  "communication  trenches.*'     Again  they  held  meet- 


156        ^VOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

ings  in  the  office  of  the  Press  Bureau  and  passed  resolu- 
tions.^ The  writer  had  gone  to  Versailles  and  discovered 
that  there  was  room  for  a  reasonable  number  of  corre- 
spondents within  the  building.  When  I  came  back  I 
tried  to  enlist  Mr.  Lansing's  help  in  changing  the  arrange- 
ment, but  he  quite  agreed  with  the  French,  so  I  carried 
the  matter  to  the  President,  and  he  promised  to  make 
the  fight  for  us  in  the  Council  of  Four.  This  he  did  on 
April  30 : 

President  Wilson  said  that  he  was  informed  that  the  Allied  and 
Associated  journalists  were  very  anxious  to  see  the  Treaty  of  Peace 
handed  to  the  Germans.  He  understood  that  under  present  arrange- 
ments they  were  only  to  be  permitted  to  view  the  approach  of  the 
Germans  from  behind  a  hedge.  He  was  informed  that  there  was  a 
room  .  .  .  [where]  a  number  of  journalists  could  be  accommo- 
dated    .     .     .     and  view  the  proceedings. 

To  this  Mr.  Lloyd  George  objected  strenuously: 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  suggested  that  it  was  very  undignified  and  im- 
proper to  admit  the  journalists  and  to  treat  the  meeting  almost  as 
though  it  were  a  menagerie.  He  did  not  mind  so  much  the  presence 
of  two  or  three.  But  it  had  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  Germans 
were  in  a  very  delicate  and  disagreeable  position  and  might  have  just 
cause  to  complain  at  descriptions  being  given  of  the  precise  manner  in 
which  they  received  the  Treaty.  He  had  no  bowels  of  compassion  for 
the  Germans,  but  he  thought  that  the  admission  of  journalists  on 
such  an  occasion  would  be  unprecedented. 

M.  Clemenceau  suggested  that  at  any  rate,  they  might  be  admitted 
to  be  present  at  the  end  of  the  corridor  in  order  to  witness  the  arrival 
and  departure  of  the  Delegates. 

President  Wilson  said  he  did  not  agree  in  this  decision,  as  he  con- 
sidered on  principle  that  the  journalists  should  be  present,  but  he  did 
not  press  his  objection. 

(It  was  agreed  that  the  journalists  should  be  permitted  to  witness 


'See  Volume  III,  Document  6,  for  these  protests. 


PRESIDENT  WILSON'S  STRUGGLE  FOR  PL-RLICITY      157 

the  arrival  of  the  delegates  from  the  end  of  the  corridor  in  the  Trianon 
Hotel. 1 

This  got  the  journalists  into  the  corridor;  it  took  an- 
other fight  by  the  President  to  get  them  into  the  room  it- 
self— but  finally,  to  make  the  distinction  clear,  they  were 
required  to  enter  by  the  back  door !  Five  journalists  from 
each  nation,  including  Germany,  were  admitted.  Three 
of  the  American  press  tickets  went  of  course  to  the  press 
;associations,  and  the  other  two,  after  much  discussion, 
were  assigned  by  lot  by  the  special  correspondents  them- 
selves, the  two  going  to  Mr.  Oulahan  of  the  New  York 
Times  and  Mr.  Hayden  of  the  Detroit  News.  In  this  case 
the  press  of  the  entire  world  profited  by  the  fight  made  by 
the  American  correspondents  and  the  backing  they  got 
from  President  Wilson  in  the  Council  of  Four. 

The  problem  of  the  time  for  publishing  the  Treaty  was 
more  important  and  far-reaching  in  its  consequences.  It 
began  in  the  Council  of  Three  (the  Italians  then  being 
absent)  as  early  as  April  23  and  came  up  frequently  for 
extended  discussion  during  the  coming  month.  Here  a 
curious  situation  developed.  Clemenceau  was  insistently 
for  publication  of  the  Treaty  when  it  was  given  to  the 
Germans,  May  7.     He  said: 

M.  Clemenceau  strongly  urged  that  the  Treaty  should  be  pub- 
lished when  it  was  communicated  to  the  Germans.  It  would  not  be 
fair  to  our  own  people  to  let  the  Germans  see  the  Treaty  and  to  conceal 
it  from  them.  His  own  position  would  be  an  impossible  one  if  the 
Treaty  were  not  published.  It  was  absolutely  certain  that  the  Ger- 
mans would  publish  it,  particularly  if  they  wished  to  make  mischief 
for  us  and  it  would  make  a  very  bad  impression  in  the  countries  of  the 
Allied  and  Associated  Powers  if  the  public  first  learnt  of  the  terms  of 
the  Treaty  of  Peace  from  the  German  wireless. 2 


'Secret  Minutes,  Conncil  of  Ten.  April  30. 
'Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Four,  April  23. 


158        WOODROW  \VILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLERIENT 

There  were  other  reasons  why  the  French  desired  im- 
mediate pubHcation.  The  Treaty  not  only  went  far 
toward  giving  the  French  the  terms  they  had  argued  for, 
especially  those  relating  to  reparations,  Silesia,  and  the 
Saar,  but  published  at  once  and  before  the  Germans  were 
given  any  opportunity  to  repljs  changes  would  be  more 
difficult  to  make.  And  the  French  wanted  every  item  of 
the  Treaty  imposed  unconditionally  upon  the  Germans: 
they  wanted  no  changes  whateveri^^ 

But  Lloyd  George  opposed  publication  as  insistently  as 
Clemenceau  supported  it.  As  the  terms  of  the  Treaty  be- 
gan to  be  known  in  England  there  had  arisen  sharp 
criticism,  especially  among  the  liberal  and  labour  ele- 
ments. Such  eminent  leaders  as  General  Smuts  and 
General  Botha  were  dissatisfied — General  Smuts  even 
threatened  that  he  would  not  sign  the  Treaty;  some  of  the 
great  British  economic  interests  suddenly  discovered  that 
it  was  a  "French  peace"  and  would  so  cripple  Germany  as 
to  delay  the  economic  revival  of  Europe.  This  disturbed 
Lloyd  George  and  he  began  thinking  of  making  changes. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  said  he  had  received  a  message  from  General 
Smuts,  who  considered  that  the  Germans  would  obtain  a  considerable 
diplomatic  advantage  if  the  Treaty  were  published.  In  such  a  gigantic 
document  there  would  have  to  be  a  good  many  alterations,  and  the 
Germans  would  claim  these  to  be  a  diplomatic  victory  for  them.  He 
pointed  out  that  in  many  parts  of  the  Treaty  he  himself  had  had  to 
trust  to  experts  who  were  not  really  looking  at  the  Treaty  as  a  whole. 
He  anticipated,  when  he  read  the  Treaty  as  a  whole,  that  he  might  find 
a  good  many  unexpected  clauses,  some  inconsistent  with  others,  just 
as  had  happened  to  him  sometimes  in  introducing  a  complicated  Bill 
into  Parliament.^ 

At  first  President  Wilson  was  doubtful  about  what 
course  he  should  take.     On  April  24  he  had  said  that, 

'Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Four,  May  5. 


I 


PRESIDENT  WILSON'S  STRUGGLE  FOR  PUBLICITY      159 

although  publication  was  undesirable,  it  was,  he  believed, 
also  unavoidable,  but  later,  upon  hearing  Lloyd  George's 
arguments — and  in  the  hope  that  he  now  had  of  joining 
with  Lloyd  George  and  securing  certain  modifications  in 
some  of  the  harsher  terms  of  the  Treaty — he  agreed  that 
the  text  ought  not  to  be  published  at  once.  But  they 
compromised  with  Clemenceau  by  arranging  for  the  prep- 
aration and  publication  of  a  summary  of  the  Treaty 
described  in  the  last  chapter.  This,  however,  did  not 
prevent  Clemenceau  from  pressing  his  argument  again 
and  again — until  the  German  replies  were  printed — for 
the  publication  of  the  Treaty. 

There  also  began  to  be  a  demand  in  the  British  Parlia- 
ment and  the  American  Senate  for  the  text.  Parts  of  it 
had  leaked  out.  A  copy  soon  afterward  reached  Wall 
Street  and  was  seen  by  Senator  Lodge,  who  made  a  bitter 
speech  in  the  Senate  criticizing  the  President  for  with- 
holding the  Treaty.  One  day,  at  the  very  height  of  the 
controversy,  a  full  copy  of  the  Treaty  in  German  was  laid 
upon  my  desk,  and  we  were  informed  that  copies  could  be 
had  for  two  francs  each  in  Belgium.  With  cables,  wireless, 
and  printing  presses,  secrecy  had  become  practically  an 
impossibility  in  the  world.  On  May  12  the  following 
discussion  took  place  in  the  Council  of  Four: 


Mr.  Lloyd  George  said  that  there  was  a  demand  from  the  British 
Parliament  for  the  Treaty  of  Peace  to  be  laid  on  the  Table  of  the  House. 
He  had  rephed  that  he  must  consult  his  colleagues  before  he  could 
possibly  consent.  Mr.  Bonar  Law  had  given  his  view  that  as  a  sum- 
mary had  been  published,  the  inference  would  be  drawn  if  the  Treaty 
was  not  published  that  the  summary  was  inaccurate. 

M.  Clemenceau  said  he  had  already  refused  to  lay  the  Treaty,  both 
to  the  Senate  and  the  House  of  Representatives. 

M.  Orlando  said  he  did  not  like  publication,  as  it  made  it  so  much 
more  difficult  to  make  changes. 


160        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

M.  SoNNiNO  agreed  with  this  view. 

President  Wilson  said  that  he  could  not  lay  the  Treaty  before  th6 
Senate  until  he  returned  to  the  United  States. 

(It  was  agreed  that  the  text  of  the  Treaty  of  Peace  as  handed  to  the 
Germans  should  not  be  laid  before  the  legislatures  of  the  Allied  and 
Associated  Powers.) 


The  President,  having  made  his  decision,  adhered  to  it, 
and  the  Treaty  was  not  officially  made  pubUc  in  America 
until  transmitted  to  the  Senate. 

Such  was  the  struggle  for  publicity  at  Paris.  It  was 
wholly  without  precedent  in  any  former  world  congress, 
and  had  a  profound  effect  upon  the  dehberations  of  the 
Conference  itself. 

Having  thus  outlined  the  forces  of  the  new  order  as 
distinguished  from  the  old,  we  can  proceed  to  the  tactical 
struggles  for  position,  for  control,  for  organization,  which 
marked  the  early  days  of  the  Conference.  Much  de- 
pended upon  these  matters  of  procedure. 


CHAPTER  IX 

Forces  of  the  Old  and  New  Join  Issue  at  Paris — 
Struggle  Between  Military  and  Civil  Leaders 

IT  IS  going  to  be  a  rough-and-tumble  affair,  this  Peace 
Conference, "  INIr.  Balfour  had  prophesied  two  months 
before  it  began. 

It  was  a  sagacious  prophecy.  The  forces  of  the  Old 
Order  went  to  Paris,  as  has  been  shown,  quite  confident 
of  making  a  peace  of  their  own  kind.  They  were  in  the 
stronger  tactical  position.  They  had  with  them  tradi- 
tion, experience,  trained  diplomatic  leadership,  and,  above 
all,  consummate  organization.  No  parts  of  the  govern- 
mental fabrics  of  Europe,  sensitive  to  their  own  security, 
were  so  perfectly  developed  as  the  diplomatic  and  mili- 
tary systems. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  forces  of  the  New  Order,  as 
shown  in  previous  chapters,  were  also  gathered  at  Paris, 
not  without  vigorous  organization  and  leadership,  and, 
if  wanting  in  tradition,  full  of  enthusiasm  and  aspiration; 
and  confident  (however  justly)  that  if  they  did  not  have 
the  support  of  the  leaders  of  the  European  Governments, 
at  least  they  had  with  them  the  people  of  the  world. 
These  two  forces  now  came  strongly  into  conflict,  and  in 
the  first  place,  naturally  enough,  over  tactical  problems 
of  organization  and  procedure.  Wio  should  control  this 
vital  world  conference  ?  Should  it  be  the  military  men  who 
had  been  controlling  Europe  for  four  years,  or  should  the 
civil  authorities  again  assert  their  dominance  .^^ 

Few  people  realize  what  a  struggle  went  on  at  Paris — 

161 


162        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

throughout  the  Conference — between  the  miUtary  group 
and  heads  of  States.  This  effort  within  the  secret  confer- 
ences to  escape  from  mihtary  dominance  and  the  miUtary 
spirit  will  be  treated  in  the  present  chapter.  After  that 
came  the  not  less  vital  struggle  as  to  what  Powers  should 
control  the  Conference,  what  procedure  should  be  followed, 
and  what  language — language  is  always  a  symbol  of 
power — should  be  regarded  as  official. 

In  the  eagerness  to  know  what  was  done  at  Paris  too 
little  attention  has  been  given  to  these  enormously  impor- 
tant initial  matters  of  organization.  In  any  political 
convention,  any  trade  union,  any  business  organization, 
it  is  the  A  B  C  of  the  proceedings  to  make  sure  of  control- 
ling organization  and  procedure.  .  So  it  was  preeminently 
at  Paris.  A  large  proportion  of  the  settlements  were 
either  decided  or  profoundly  influenced  before  they  were 
even  discussed. 

I  remember  well  my  first  sight  of  Marshal  Foch,  at  a 
curiously  dramatic  moment,  which  I  shall  think  of  always 
as  a  kind  of  symbol  of  the  entire  Peace  Conference.  It 
was  in  the  ante-room  of  M.  Pichon's  Cabinet  at  the  French 
Office  in  the  Quai  d'Orsay,  that  high-ceiled  room  with  its 
old  tapestries  and  rich  carpets  and  upholstery  and  liv- 
eried servants,  who  were  always  going  noiselessly  in  and  out. 

In  the  room  beyond  were  meeting  the  chiefs  of  the  four 
great  Powers  with  their  various  advisers  and  secretaries. 
The  President  of  the  United  States  was  there  and  the 
Prime  Minister  of  Great  Britain,  the  Premier  of  Italy,  and 
the  President  of  the  Council  of  France. 

One  entered  M.  Pichon's  Cabinet  of  State  through 
double  doors  fitted  with  steel  rods  so  that  they  closed  to- 
gether and  made  the  room  within  quite  sound  proof.  I 
found  out  later  that  this  secrecy  was  only  one  of  the  fine 
ceremonials  of  diplomacy  and  that  the  proceedings  within 


STRUGGLE  OF  MILITARY  AND  CIVIL  LEADERS         163 

trickled  out  through  channels  closed  by  no  double  doors; 
but  as  a  ceremonial  it  was  highly  impressive. 

One  morning — this  was  in  January  not  long  after  the 
beginning  of  the  Conference — I  saw  these  doors  burst 
suddenly  open  as  though  vigorously  pushed  from  within, 
and  out  strode  a  short,  stocky,  gray-haired  man,  very 
erect,  who  looked  like  some  old  and  studious  college  pro- 
fessor, but  who  wore  the  uniform  of  a  marshal  of  France. 
Behind  him  came  flying  the  little,  agile  Pichon,  pleading 
with  him  to  return. 

'"Jamais,  Jamais!'"  said  Marshal  Foch  angrily. 

No,  he  would  never  return.  He  was  through  with  the 
Peace  Conference.     He  would  never  go  back. 

But  in  a  moment  he  was  suddenly  persuaded;  and  he 
did  go  back,  and  the  secret  doors  closed  again  behind  him. 
I  never  saw  him  afterward  without  having  the  impression 
that  he  looked  more  like  a  contemplative  old  scholar  than 
like  a  great  general.  And  he  had  amiability  and  charm  of 
manner. 

"I  want  to  shake  your  hand.  Marshal  Foch,"  said  an 
American  who  met  him. 

"  Shake  both  of  them, "  he  replied  heartily,  holding  them 
out. 

I  have  sometimes  thought  of  the  incident  I  have  de- 
scribed as  a  symbol  of  the  Peace  Conference,  for  through- 
out those  troubled  months  at  Paris  the  generals  and  the 
admirals,  it  seemed,  were  forever  being  thrust  out  of  the 
councils  by  the  frock  coats  and  forever  being  called  back 
again,  or  coming  back  of  their  own  accord.  It  must 
never  be  forgotten  that  they  had  until  that  hour,  for  more 
than  four  years,  been  supreme  in  the  world.  They  had  at 
Paris  in  the  Supreme  War  Council,  with  its  powerful 
economic  satellites,  a  world  government,  a  real  super- 
State,  a  league   of   nations,  by  the   side   of  which  the 


164        WCK)DROW  ^VILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

League  later  covenanted  at  Paris,  so  far  as  immediate 
power  was  concerned,  was  a  pale  reminiscence.  They 
were  strong  men,  these  generals,  accustomed  to  untram- 
melled power,  and  they  let  go  reluctantly. 

This  is  no  mere  allegory  of  what  happened  at  Paris;  it 
was  actually  the  way  the  Peace  Conference  began.  At 
the  head  of  the  first  page  of  the  Secret  Minutes  of  the 
Peace  Conference,  on  January  12,  1919,  the  first  day  of 
the  session,  will  be  found  this  caption,  "Notes  of  a  Meet- 
ing of  the  Supreme  War  Council." 

Not  only  the  peacemakers  were  there,  but  the  generals, 
too :  Foch  and  Weygand  for  France,  Sir  Henry  Wilson  for 
Great  Britain,  General  Bliss  for  America.  And  Marshal 
Foch,  the  hero  of  France,  was  present  with  great  new 
military  plans.  He  was  still  for  fighting!  He  recom- 
mended sending  immediately  an  allied  army  (chiefly  of 
Americans  and  commanded  by  an  American)  to  Poland; 
he  was  for  crushing,  instantly,  the  Bolshevists  of  Russia; 
he  was  for  sorting  out  all  the  vast  numbers  of  Russian 
prisoners  of  war  in  Germany  and  sending  home  those  who 
were  opposed  to  the  Bolshevists ;  he  was  for  keeping  mili- 
tary possession  of  the  Rhine  permanently  for  France. 

Thus  it  was  that  the  American  peacemakers  coming  to 
Europe  to  attend  a  peace  conference  found  themselves, 
first  of  all,  in  a  supreme  council  of  war  concerned  with  a 
renewal  of  the  Armistice  and  the  immediate  military  prob- 
lems of  Europe.  The  initial  problem  that  presented  it- 
self was  no  mere  struggle  to  apply  accepted  principles 
to  a  static  situation,  no  mere  grappling  of.  the  new  diplo- 
macy, the  new  order,  with  the  old;  no  great  and  noble 
endeavour  to  establish  a  world  organization,  but,  in  very 
truth,  a  driven  effort  to  put  out  the  still  obstinately  blaz- 
ing embers  of  war.  Peace  had,  indeed,  been  agreed  upon 
in  November,  but  peace  had  not  arrived. 


STRUGGLE  OF  MILITARY  AND  CIVIL  LEADERS         165 

On  page  7  of  these  historic  records  of  the  first  day's 
session  (January  12)  one  will  find  these  words: 

He  then  [M.  Pichon,  the  Chairman]  decided  that  the  meeting  should 
continue  without  the  military  men  who  thereupon  withdrew. 

There  follows  a  double  spacing  upon  the  page,  and  then 
these  words: 

M.  Pichon  thought  that  it  was  in  order  for  the  meeting  to  consider 
the  procedure  of  the  Conference. 

In  this  informal,  yet  somehow  studied,  way,  the  Peace 
Conference  began,  slipping  from  a  Supreme  War  Council 
into  a  Supreme  Peace  Council — as  it  again  and  again  so 
easily  slipped  back.  The  Americans  who  came  to  Paris 
thus  stepped  into  a  moving  machine,  well  oiled,  and 
operated  by  men  who  had  long  been  working  together; 
and  working  for  destructive,  not  for  reconstructive  pur- 
poses. Moreover,  the  military  men  had  in  reality,  in 
making  such  sweeping  armistice  terms,  gone  far  toward 
predetermining  and  shaping  the  peace  settlements.  The 
French  got  the  line  of  the  Rhine,  the  Italians  that  of  the 
London  treaty — and  possession  is  nine  points. 

Critics  after  the  event  forget  that  peace  had  to  be  made 
in  an  atmosphere  still  reeking  with  the  fumes  of  war  and 
still  more  or  less  dominated  by  the  military  spirit.  It 
could  not  have  been  otherwise.  For  four  years  the  nations 
had  been  committed  to  the  use  of  every  agency  in  build- 
ing up  a  war  psychology ;  to  giving  men  the  martial  spirit, 
instilling  hatred  as  an  antidote  for  fear,  driving  nations  into 
an  artificial  unity  of  purpose  by  the  force  of  sheer  neces- 
sity. As  a  monument  to  this  passion  and  bitterness  there 
were  7,500,000  men  lying  dead  in  Europe  and  20,000,000 
had  been  wounded;  there  were  devastated  cities,  ruined 
mines  and  factories,  stupendous  debts.     Build  up  such  a 


166        WOODROW  AYILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

psycliology  for  four  years,  inoculate  the  entire  public 
opinion  of  the  world  with  it,  and  then  ask  four  men  at 
Paris — or  one  man  at  Paris — to  change  it  all  in  three 
months !  It  was  not  merely  a  world  peace  that  had  to  be 
made  but  a  world  psychology  that  had  to  be  changed. 

No  inconsiderable  part  of  the  attention  of  the  Confer- 
ence was  directed,  all  the  way  through,  to  extinguishing 
the  little  remaining  fires  left  over  from  the  great  conflagra- 
tion— in  Russia,  Hungary,  Asia,  and  elsewhere.  Once  we 
counted  no  fewer  than  fourteen  such  small  wars  going  on 
in  various  parts  of  Europe.  The  military  men  "who 
thereupon  witlidrew"  on  January  12  kept  returning  all 
through  the  Conference,  with  their  military  methods, 
their  military  suggestions,  their  military  ambitions — as 
they  have  been  returning  ever  since;  or  they  confused  its 
purposes  and  balked  its  activities  by  summary  action  on 
their  own  account.  They  were  always  breaking  out  in 
Poland,  Russia,  Germany,  Hungary,  Jugoslavia,  and 
elsewhere,  trying  to  take  things  into  their  own  hands,  and, 
too  often,  as  I  shall  show  later,  they  were  secretly  encour- 
aged by  leaders  within  the  very  councils  of  the  Powers 
themselves.  We  find  French  generals  encouraging  a 
revolution  in  the  Rhine  provinces;  a  British  general  set- 
ting up  a  "\Miite"  government  in  western  Russia;  Italian 
officers  acting  on  their  own  account  on  the  Adriatic  and 
in  Asia  Minor,  and  even  an  American  officer  leading  the 
Czechs  into  the  Teschen  coal  basin ! 

Literally  the  first  clashes  in  the  Conference  arose  di- 
rectly out  of  the  attempt  to  substitute  civil  for  military 
methods.  Thus  when  INIarshal  Foch  suggested  that  an 
allied  army,  made  up  chiefly  of  American  troops,  be  sent  to 
Poland  immediately,  for  the  purpose  of  fighting  the  Bol- 
shevists, President  Wilson  strongly  opposed  the  plan.  He 
said  "there  was  great  doubt  in  his  mind  as  to  whether 


STRUGGLE  OF  MILITARY  AND  CIVIL  LEADERS         167 

Bolshevism  could  be  checked  by  arms,  therefore  it  seemed 
to  him  unwise  to  take  action  in  a  military  form  before 
the  Powers  were  agreed  upon  a  course  of  action  for  check- 
ing Bolshevism  as  a  social  and  political  danger." 

Military  leaders  had  been  all-powerful  for  so  long  it  was 
difficult  for  them  to  stop  functioning.  They  sought  not 
only  military  control,  but  desired  to  dominate  in  political 
and  economic  matters  as  well.  When  our  Treasury  rep- 
resentative, Mr.  Davis,  arrived  in  Paris  he  was  informed 
by  M.  Klotz,  French  Minister  of  Finance,  that  he  would 
simply  be  an  adviser  to  Marshal  Foch,  to  which  he  im- 
mediately and  strenuously  objected.  \Mien  it  was  pro- 
posed that  civil  experts  be  attached  to  Marshal  Foch 
in  his  dealings  with  the  Germans  at  Spa,  he  indignantly 
spurned  the  suggestion  and  for  a  time  refused  to  carry  out 
the  orders  of  his  own  Government  unless  he  was  allowed 
to  retain  full  power.  Clemenceau  had  actually  to  plead 
with  him. 

M.  Clemenceau  said  that,  putting  aside  altogether  his  own  personal 
opinions,  he  would  allow  himself  to  ask  Marshal  Foch  whether  he 
would  not  subordinate  his  own  personal  feelings  and  inclinations,  in 
order  to  remain  the  mouthpiece  of  the  Allies.  ...  It  was  essen- 
tial that  no  dissensions  should  appear  among  the  Allies  on  the  eve  of 
taking  a  decision  which  might  lead  to  very  serious  consequences,  even 
to  a  renewal  of  hostilities.^ 

But  Foch  rejected  the  idea  of  having  any  authority 
above  him.  He  would  not  go  to  Spa  "merely  to  deliver 
a  letter."     He  was  not  "merely  a  letterbox." 

It  took  a  private  session  with  the  heads  of  the  Govern- 
ments (on  March  24)  finally  to  persuade  him. 

Thus  the  struggle  to  keep  down  or  abate  the  military 
spirit  arose   often  to  the  sharpest  controversies.     Once 

^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  March  21. 


168        WOODROW  \\TLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

Clemenceau  (February  7)  burst  out  with  the  remark  that 
"Marshal  Foch  was  not  a  mihtary  Pope;  he  was  some- 
times mistaken.  He  was  a  great  general  and  all  were 
prepared  to  do  him  honour  as  such,"  but  there  was  other 
work  here  to  do !  In  a  later  session,  when  Marshal  Foch 
practically  demanded  that  the  peace  terms  be  ready  by 
April  1,  Mr.  Balfour  observed  that  the  military  delegates 
"wished  to  force  the  Council  to  settle  peace  by  that 
date  under  pain  of  not  being  able  to  enforce  their  will 
upon  the  enemy.  This  was  equivalent  to  holding  a  pistol 
at  the  head  of  the  Council." 

Lloyd  George  had  often  to  defy  the  generals.  "No 
general's  opinion  will  shake  my  decision,"  he  said  on 
March  7. 

Constantly  the  remedies  suggested  were  those  of  force. 
Here  were  great  armies  still  unde mobilized;  why  not  use 
them?  That  army  of  2,000,000  young  Americans  in 
superb  condition  was  a  vast  temptation  to  the  generals; 
expeditions  over  half  the  world  were  planned  for  it  in  the 
six  months  after  the  Armistice. 

No  man  fought  harder  than  President  Wilson  to  prevent 
extensions  of  war,  to  get  away  from  the  military  spirit, 
to  set  up  again  normal  agencies  and  civil  processes.  I 
remember  once  taking  up  to  him  some  excellent  reports 
by  the  experts  on  the  situation  in  Central  Europe.  He 
read  them  carefully  and  said : 

They  are  like  most  of  the  reports  we  get;  good  enough  in  present- 
ing the  facts,  but  they  do  not  tell  us  what  to  do.  They  all  ask  us 
to  make  more  war. 

It  was  the  Prussian  idea  of  force,  of  military  sanctions 
and  military  methods  that  he  was  seeking  to  get  away 
from — that  had  to  be  got  away  from  before  peace  could  bf 


\i 


STRUGGLE  OF  MILITARY  AND  CIVIL  LEADERS         169 

made.  This  was  a  part  of  the  "  old  order  "  that  had  caused 
the  war;  he  was  there  to  estabhsh  a  *'new  order."  They 
had  hewn  away,  with  stupendous  effort,  the  head  of  the 
Prussian  hydra,  and  here  had  grown  new  hydra-heads  all 
over  Europe.  The  old  forces  were  even  here  in  the  Peace 
Conference,  trying  to  dictate  or  at  least  influence  the 
settlements.  In  an  eloquent  argument  in  the  Council  of 
Four,  while  the  Italian  question  was  under  discussion  and 
Sonnino  was  arguing  on  the  basis  of  the  secret  treaty  of 
London  for  the  control  of  the  Adriatic  by  Italy,  for  mili- 
tary reasons,  the  President  said: 

Military  men  with  their  strategic,  military,  economic  arguments, 
had  been  responsible  for  the  Treaty  of  1815.  Similarly,  military  men 
had  been  responsible  for  Alsace-Lorraine.  It  was  military  men  who 
had  led  Europe  to  one  blunder  after  another.  .  .  .  We  were  now 
engaged  in  setting  up  an  international  association.  ...  If  this 
did  not  suffice,  then  two  orders  would  exist — the  old  and  the  new. 
.  .  .  We  could  not  drive  two  horses  at  once.  The  people  of  the 
United  States  of  America  would  repudiate  it.  They  were  disgusted 
with  the  old  order.  Not  only  the  American  people  but  the  people  of 
the  whole  world  were  tired  of  the  old  system  and  they  would  not  put 
up  with  Governments  that  supported  it.^ 

But  the  French  desired  a  strong,  hard  peace,  and  if 
they  had  suffered  terribly  by  military  force  they  still  clung 
desperately  to  it.  They  were  still  afraid,  and  not  without 
reason,  of  Germany.  It  was  they  who  had  suffered  most, 
borne  the  brunt  of  the  war;  it  was  they  who  would  be 
most  likely  to  suffer  again  should  Germany  rise  to  power 
and  prove  revengeful.  They  were  well  aware  what  terms 
the  Germans  would  have  imposed  upon  them  if  they  had 
been  the  victors.  They  were,  therefore,  fearful  of  a  too 
swift  demobilization  of  the  allied  armies,  a  too  rapid  sub- 

^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Four,  AprU  19. 


170         WOODROW  ^YILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

sidence  of  the  martial  spirit.  They  wished  to  maintain 
large  armies  for  possible  use  against  Germany  or  Russia. 
It  was  plain  that  the  more  vigorous  the  maintenance  of  the 
war  feeling,  the  severer  the  peace  terms  could  be  made. 

It  was  one  of  the  great  criticisms  of  the  President  by  the 
French  that  he  delayed  so  long  in  visiting  the  devastated 
regions.  They  apparently  wished  to  steel  him  to  severity 
by  giving  him  a  visual  demonstration  of  how  France  had 
suffered,  how  France  felt,  imparting  to  him  some  meas- 
ure of  their  own  sorrow  and  bitterness.  On  February  10 
M.  Klotz,  French  Minister  of  Finance,  was  brought  into 
the  Council  and  began  reading  a  pamphlet  regarding  the 
frightful  destruction  of  French  industries  by  the  Germans 
in  the  occupied  regions.  But  President  Wilson  said  that 
"  this  evidence  might  no  doubt  affect  their  frame  of  mind, 
but  what  effect  would  it  have  on  their  plans?  "  He  felt  with 
all  his  strength  that  the  peace  must  not  be  approached  in  a 
spirit  of  passion  or  hatred  or  fear,  but  with  all  the  calm- 
ness, the  reason,  the  patience,  that  could  be  commanded. 
It  was  peace  that  they  wanted,  not  the  spirit  of  revenge. 
This  he  worked  for,  early  and  late. 

At  each  renewal  of  the  already  severe  armistice  terms 
Marshal  Foch  endeavoured  to  impose  more  and  harder 
conditions  upon  the  enemy  and  even  to  anticipate,  by 
armistice  extensions  which  could  be  finally  enforced  by 
military  action,  settlements  which  properly  belonged  in 
the  Peace  Treaty. 

President  Wilson  set  down  his  foot  firmly  against  these 
extensions,  arguing  that  the  Germans  had  ceased  fighting 
upon  certain  agreed  terms  and  that  it  was  not  just  or 
right  to  force  them  to  accept  new  terms  in  advance  of  the 
Treaty.  The  Allies  had  endorsed  his  plan  of  settlement; 
and  the  Germans  had  ceased  fighting  upon  a  clear  under- 
standing of  its  provisions.     He  saw  in  such  methods  only 


STRUGGLE  OF  MILITARY  AND  CIVIL  LEADERS         171 

a  revival  of  the  hatreds  and  bitterness  of  the  war,  which 
he  was  seeking  to  allay. 

President  Wilson  said  that  ...  he  had  thought  it  his  duty 
to  oppose  any  addition  to  the  armistice  terms.  He  thought  that  the 
Council  should  have  known  what  it  was  doing  when  the  armistice  was 
drawn  up,  and  that  it  was  not  sportsmanlike  to  attempt  to  correct 
now  the  errors  that  had  then  been  made.^ 

In  this  he  was  strongly  supported  by  General  Bliss, 
who  had  made  his  fight  previously  in  the  Military  Section 
of  the  Supreme  War  Council,  and  even  sent  to  the  Ten 
a  minority  report  embodying  his  objection.  "The  in- 
troduction of  such  demands  into  the  renewed  armistice, 
accompanied  by  threat  to  use  force,  is  dishonourable 
.  .  .  it  is  not  necessary,  and  ...  it  may  mean 
the  resumption  of  the  war."^ 

Mr.  Lloyd  George,  and  more  especially  Mr.  Balfour, 
supported  the  Americans  in  this  contention. 

But  throughout  the  Conference  Marshal  Foch  stub- 
bornly fought  for  the  extreme  French  demands.  The 
whole  Peace  Conference  must  have  been  a  hateful  ex- 
perience for  the  grizzled  old  general  who  had  won  the  war. 
All  his  life  long  he  had  been  trained  to  no  other  end  than 
to  make  war;  he  knew  only  military  ways  and  military 
methods,  and  throughout  the  Conference  he  worked 
passionately  for  the  welfare  of  France,  as  he  saw  it,  and  in 
the  only  way  he  knew,  which  was  the  warlike  way.  One 
had  often  the  impression  that  though  he  was  the  most 
acclaimed  man  in  all  France,  walking  always  in  glory,  yet 
that  he  was  full  of  bitterness  of  spirit.  If  he  had  had  his 
way  he  would  no  doubt  have  plunged  Europe  into  more 

^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  February  7. 

^From  letter  from  General  Bliss  to  President  Wilson  summarizing  this  minority 
report. 


172         W'OODROW  ^\TLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

war,  not  only  immediate  war,  but  more  fearful  future 
war,  but  he  nevertheless  thought  himself  absolutely  right 
in  his  contentions.  He  could  kneel  humbly  at  Mass 
each  morning,  as  was  his  invariable  custom,  and  ask  the 
blessing  of  God  upon  what  he  did.  Finally,  so  unrelent- 
ing was  his  oppositio'n  that  they  made  the  Treaty  without 
even  allowing  him  to  see  a  copy  of  its  provisions  before  it 
was  presented  to  the  sixth  plenary  session. 

"I  should  have  certain  remarks  to  make,"  he  said  in  a 
powerful  speech  on  that  occasion,  "if  I  had  the  text  of 
the  Treaty  draft,  but  I  must  admit  it  is  not  yet  in  my 
possession." 

Nevertheless,  he  stood  up  there,  a  bold,  obstinate, 
brave,  short-sighted  old  soldier,  to  fight  to  the  last  a 
treaty  he  thought  not  severe  enough.  That  he  had  with 
him  a  large  following  of  French  public  opinion  is  certain — 
a  public  opinion  that  deposed  Clemenceau  as  soon  as  the 
Peace  Conference  was  at  an  end. 

As  an  unescapable  corollary  of  this  war  spirit,  as  a  result 
of  the  overwhelming  victory  of  the  Allies,  the  impulse 
everywhere  among  both  the  great  and  small  nations  of 
Europe — ^the  small  nations  were  as  unrestrained  as  the 
great — was  to  seize  instantly  upon  the  material  fruits  of 
victory — to  grab.  There  had  been  vast  losses,  losses  in 
men  and  property;  these  must  be  recouped  and  recouped 
at  once.  And  this  was  by  no  means  the  spirit  alone  of  the 
leaders,  who  wanted  islands,  coal  mines,  cities,  or  ships; 
every  peasant  who  had  lost  a  cow  wanted  his  cow — or  two 
cows! — instantly  returned  to  him.  This  aspect  of  the 
situation,  after  the  Peace  Conference  began,  became  so 
bitter,  so  menacing,  that  on  Januarj^  24  President  Wilson 
drew  up  the  following  communication  to  the  nations  of 
the  world,  read  it  to  his  associates  in  the  Conference,  and 
with  their  approval  it  was  issued.     This  warning  against 


STRUGGLE  OF  MILITARY  AND  CIVIL  LEADERS         173 


''  X., 


I 


the  world-wide  spirit  of  grab  was  thus  his  first  important 
pubHc  utterance  at  the  Peace  Conference. 

The  governments  now  associated  in  conference  to  effect  a  lasting 
peace  among  the  nations  are  deeply  disturbed  by  the  news  which 
comes  to  them  of  the  many  instances  in  which  armed  force  is  being 
made  use  of,  in  many  parts  of  Europe  and  the  East,  to  gain  possession 
of  territory,  the  rightful  claim  to  which  the  Peace  Conference  is  to  be 
asked  to  determine.  They  deem  it  their  duty  to  utter  a  solemn  warn- 
ing that  possession  gained  by  force  will  seriously  prejudice  the  claims 
of  those  who  use  such  means.  It  will  create  the  presumption  that 
those  who  employ  force  doubt  the  justice  and  validity  of  their  claim 
and  propose  to  substitute  possession  for  proof  of  right  and  set  up  sov- 
ereignty by  coercion  rather  than  by  racial  or  national  preference  and 
natural  historical  association.  They  thus  put  a  cloud  upon  every 
evidence  of  title  they  may  afterward  allege  and  indicate  their  distrust 
of  the  Conference  itself.  Nothing  but  the  most  unfortunate  results 
can  ensue.  If  they  expect  justice,  they  must  refrain  from  force  and 
place  their  claims  in  unclouded  good  faith  in  the  hands  of  the  Confer- 
ence of  Peace. 

But  his  words  at  this  time,  as  I  shall  show  later,  were 
words  in  the  wind. 

The  Peace  Conference,  therefore,  must  not  be  considered 
apart  from  its  setting:  not  as  a  separate  and  detached 
body,  calmly  considering  what  was  best  for  the  world, 
but  as  a  stormy  transition  period  between  war  and  war 
psychology,  and  the  best  arrangement  for  peace  that  could 
be  made  at  a  moment  still  dominated  by  the  spirit  of  war. 
It  was  a  time  when  men  "wandered  between  two  worlds, 
one  dead,  the  other  powerless  to  be  born." 


/ 


J 


CHAPTER  X 

Organization  of  the  Peace  Conference 
AND  Struggle  for  Control 

WHEN  the  nations  came  to  grapple  at  Paris  one  of 
the  first  and  most  important  questions  to  arise 
was  Who  should  control? 

Twenty-seven  nations  were  there;  which  should  control 
the  Conference?  Should  the  small  and  weak  nations  be 
accorded  equality  of  representation  with  the  great  empires 
and  Powers?  Should  enemy  nations  be  admitted?  If  so, 
at  what  point  in  the  proceedings? 

These  questions  penetrate  to  the  very  core  of  the  issue  at 
Paris ;  in  the  discussion  of  them  the  real  position  of  the  nations 
and  their  representatives  was  developed ;  the  true  metal  of 
each  leader  tested;  the  ultimate  lines  of  action  determined. 

The  most  fundamental  problem  of  control,  remarkable 
as  it  may  seem,  was  settled  practically  without  discussion. 
It  was  assumed  that  the  Conference  was  to  be  controlled 
by  the  allied  nations  without  consulting  Germany,  Aus- 
tria, Hungary,  Turkey,  or  Bulgaria.  This  was,  indeed,  the 
inevitable  corollary  of  the  crushing  victory  achieved  bj^ 
the  Allies  and  the  bitter  hatreds  excited  by  a  war  of  unprec- 
edented ferocity.  The  peace  was  thus  to  be  imposed,  not 
negotiated.  It  was  not  to  be  a  Congress  where  all  the 
nations,  former  enemies  as  well  as  former  friends,  were 
represented,  but  a  Conference  alone  of  the  Allies. 

While  this  decision  grew  so  naturally  out  of  the  condi- 
tions of  the  time  as  to  occasion  scarcely  a  ripple  of  com- 
ment, it  was  in  reality  of  far-reaching  importance;  for  it 

174 


ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE  175 

imposed  at  once  upon  the  Allies  the  heavy  burden,  one  of 
the  most  difRcult  tests  of  human  nature,  of  trying  to  do 
justice — or  assuming  to  try! — while  they  themselves  still 
smarted  under  a  warping  sense  of  monstrous  injury,  and 
of  doing  it  without  hearing  or  conferring  with  the  other 
side;  indeed,  while  still  profoundly  fearing,  distrusting, 
hating  the  other  side. 

President  Wilson  had  seen  this  problem,  as  he  saw  most 
of  the  problems  of  the  war,  with  great  clarity  of  vision. 
In  the  earlier  days  of  the  war,  before  such  depths  of 
bitterness  had  been  reached,  before  America  came  in,  and 
while  yet  the  secret  treaties  represented  the  real  foreign 
policies  of  the  nations,  he  had  spoken  (in  January,  1917) 
of  "peace  without  victory."^  He  evidently  hoped  that  a 
negotiated  peace  might  be  possible — and  there  was,  as  we 
now  know,  some  warrant  at  that  time  in  hoping  that  it 
might  be  brought  about — for  he  feared  the  results  of  an 
overwhelming  victory  and  an  imposed  peace  by  either  side. 

I  am  seeking  [he  says]  only  to  face  realities.  .  .  .  Victory  would 
mean  peace  forced  upon  the  loser,  a  victor's  terms  imposed  upon  the 
vanquished.  It  would  be  accepted  in  humiliation,  under  duress,  at  an 
intolerable  sacrifice,  and  would  leave  a  sting,  a  resentment,  a  bitter 
memory  upon  which  terms  of  peace  would  rest,  not  permanently,  but 
only  as  upon  quicksand. 

A  sweeping  victory  indeed  of  the  Allies  at  that  time  (and 
this  applied  still  more  forcibly  to  a  German  victory)  with 
a  literal  application  of  the  agreements  already  made  by  the 
diplomats,  both  secretly  and  openly,  with  no  programme 
for  settlements  on  new  principles  of  justice,  no  vision  of  a 
new  basis  of  international  relationships,  would  have  re- 
sulted, as  the  President  clearly  saw,  only  in  new  and  more 
dangerous  balances  of  power,  and  new  and  more  jealous 


^Address  to  United  States  Senate,  January  22,  1917. 


176        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  ^YORLD  SETTLEMENT 

combinations  of  interest;  and  eventually  lay  the  founda- 
tions for  new  wars./ 

But  the  struggle  deepened;  the  Germans  were  insanely 
determined  to  drive  the  logic  of  military  force  to  its  utter- 
most conclusion.  In  April,  1917,  America  came  in,  and 
it  became  more  evident  every  month  that  the  war  would 
have  to  be  fought  to  a  finish.  There  would  have  to  be 
what  Lloyd  George  called  a  "knock-out  blow."  In  short, 
it  became  evident  that  there  must  be,  in  spite  of  the 
dangers  which  the  President  had  so  plainly  seen,  a  victor's 
peace.  He  accepted  it  as  a  reality,  and  began  at  once  to 
devise  a  method,  the  foundations  of  which  he  had  already 
laid,  to  meet  it.  He  had  to  develop,  and  develop  so  power- 
fully that  no  nation  could  get  away  from  them,  policies  of 
statesmanship  which  would  make  a  victor's  peace  safe 
for  the  world.  He  must  lift  the  whole  psychology  of  the 
struggle  to  a  higher  plane;  a  moral  plane.  He  must,  by 
appealing  to  every  idealistic  force  in  the  world,  by  using 
the  great  prestige  of  America,  by  boldly  asserting  Ameri- 
can disinterestedness,  commit  the  victors  beforehand  to  a 
peace  of  justice  and  right,  founded  upon  a  new  inter- 
national cooperative  organization  to  guarantee  that  peace. 

His  programme  was  both  clear  and  simple:  it  rested 
upon  historic  American  principles;  and  it  convinced  the 
world  because  it  set  forth  plainly  what  men,  in  their 
innermost  souls,  knew  to  be  true.  Everyone  remembers 
the  building  of  that  edifice  of  statecraft:  the  various  ad- 
dresses, the  "points,"  the  acceptance  by  nation  after 
nation  of  the  American  programme,  and  at  length  tlie 
finale  that  led  up  to  the  Armistice.  In  one  year's  time 
the  President  had  lifted  the  whole  world  to  a  new  plane 
of  conscience  and  of  action.  Even  the  leaders  accepted 
his  programme,  if  not  with  full  confidence  and  under- 
standing, at  least  as  a  great  unifying  influence 


I 


ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE  177 

Thus  in  November,  1918,  America  had  the  solemn 
promise  of  France  and  Great  Britain  and  Italy — and 
Germany — that  peace  should  be  made  on  the  basis  of  the 
Fourteen  Points.  They  had  accepted,  not  merely  casu- 
ally, but  formally,  the  principle  (the  President  made  it  the 
first  of  five  principles  in  his  address  of  September,  1918) 
that  "the  impartial  justice  meted  out  must  involve  no 
discrimination  between  those  to  whom  we  wish  to  be 
just  and  those  to  whom  we  do  not  wish  to  be  just." 

The  President — and  America — sincerely  believed  that 
the  nations  of  Europe  meant  what  they  said;  believed  not 
only  that  they  intended  to  do  exactly  what  they  had 
promised  to  do,  but  that  they  could  do  it.\  On  the  very 
day  of  the  Armistice — who  that  was  there  can  ever  forget 
it.f^ — the  President  stood  before  Congress,  the  two  Houses 
meeting  together,  to  set  forth  the  great  news  that  the. 
end  of  the  war  had  come,  "this  tragical  war  whose  con- 
suming flames  swept  from  one  nation  to  another  until 
all  the  world  was  on  fire."  He  gave  Congress  the  great 
tidings  that  "  armed  imperialism  is  at  an  end  .  .  .  en- 
gulfed in  black  disaster."  And  then  he  expressed  his 
own  belief  and  the  belief  of  America  that  the  victors 
could  be  trusted  to  make  a  peace  on  American  princi- 
ples. 

The  great  nations  which  associated  themselves  to  destroy  it  [the 
military  power  of  Germany]  have  now  definitely  united  in  the  common 
purpose  to  set  up  such  a  peace  as  will  satisfy  the  longing  of  the  whole 
world  for  disinterested  justice,  embodied  in  settlements  which  are 
based  upon  something  much  better  and  much  more  lasting  than  the 
selfish  competitive  interests  of  powerful  States.  There  is  no  longer 
conjecture  as  to  the  objects  the  victors  have  in  mind.  They  have  a 
mind  in  the  matter,  and  not  only  a  mind  but  a  heart  also.  Their 
avowed  and  concerted  purpose  is  to  satisfy  and  protect  the  weak  as 
well  as  to  accord  their  just  rights  to  the  strong.     .     .     . 

I  am  confident  that  the  nations  that  have  learned  the  discipline  of 


178        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLE^LENT 

freedom  and  that  have  settled  with  self-possession  to  its  ordered 
practice  are  now  about  to  make  the  conquest  of  the  world  by  the  sheer 
power  of  example  and  of  friendly  helpfulness. 

But  he  did  not  then  understand — few  Americans  could, 
for  they  were  far  removed  from  the  hatreds  of  Europe — 
how  terribly  the  nations  had  suffered  from  the  war,  how 
bitter  they  had  grown  or  how,  like  a  canker,  the  spirit 
of  war  and  of  all  the  black  passions  let  loose  by  war  had 
eaten  into  and  corrupted  the  soul  of  Europe;  and  how 
difficult  it  would  be  to  keep  alive  the  exalted  spirit  upon 
which  America  depended  for  the  realization  of  the  noble 
principles  laid  down.  Nor  did  he  realize  that  the  same 
reaction — less  violent,  perhaps — was  soon  to  take  place 
in  his  own  country.  He  saw  later  what  a  struggle  it 
would  be,  but  determined  to  fight  it  through,  "agreeably 
if  we  can,  disagreeably  if  we  must,"  as  he  told  his  asso- 
ciates on  the  George  Washington. 

So  it  was  that  this  great  initial  decision,  as  I  have  said, 
was  made  almost  without  discussion.  It  was  a  foregone 
conclusion.  But  everyone  who  was  really  looking  for  a 
peace  of  justice  at  Paris,  a  permanent  peace — and  not 
merely  an  old,  greedy,  and  revengeful  peace — knew  what 
a  handicap  the  peacemakers  thus  lightly  accepted  at  the 
very  start. 

But  the  next  step  in  the  problem  of  the  control  of  the 
Conference  led  to  lively  skirmishes — the  first  blood  shed 
in  the  Conference — on  January  12.  For  there  were  no 
fewer  than  twenty-seven  eager  and  expectant  nations, 
big  and  little,  come  to  Paris  to  help  make  the  peace. 
There  were  not  only  the  great  empires  and  States  that 
had  won  the  war,  but  little  fellows  like  Siam  and  Nicara- 
gua and  Liberia,  that  had  shaken  a  fist  at  Germany, 
and  new  states  like  Poland  and  Czechoslovakia  which 
had  not  yet  got  full  command  of  their  legs,  but  were  full 


ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE  179 

of  ambition.  And  it  was  a  strange,  and  yet  human,  thing 
that  some  of  these  Uttle  States,  the  protection  of  which 
was  one  of  the  stated  purposes  of  the  war,  at  once  became 
more  clamorous,  more  imperiaHstic,  than  the  great  States 
that  had  fought  the  war.  And  every  one  of  them,  arguing 
the  equal  rights  of  small  nations,  desired  an  equal  part  in 
making  the  peace. 

The  question  at  once  arose :  Were  all  the  twenty -seven 
to  be  taken  in  upon  equal  terms,  or,  if  not,  which  should 
control  the  Conference,  and  how  should  it  be  done? 

It  will  be  seen  that  here  was  a  problem  that  went  to  the 
heart  of  the  matter,  and  two  extremes  of  opinion  at  once 
emerged. 

The  first  was  frankly  that  of  the  old  military  and  diplo- 
matic leaders,  which  was  to  maintain  the  control  abso- 
lutely in  the  hands  of  the  four  or  five  great  Powers  which, 
as  Lloyd  George  said,  "had  run  the  war,"  and  to  regulate 
the  settlements  with  reference,  primarily,  to  the  fears 
and  desires  of  these  great  nations.  Clemenceau,  who 
was  quite  honestly  the  chief  exponent  of  this  idea,  seeing 
nothing  but  the  interest  and  security  of  France,  was  not 
willing  at  first  even  to  consider  consultation  with  the 
smaller  nations.  He  put  the  whole  matter  in  a  nutshell 
during  the  discussion  on  the  first  day  of  the  Conference : 

M.  Clemenceau  :  Am  I  to  understand  from  the  statement  of  Presi- 
dent Wilson  that  there  can  be  no  question,  however  important  it  may 
be  for  France,  England,  Italy,  or  America,  upon  which  the  representa- 
tive of  Honduras  or  of  Cuba  shall  not  be  called  upon  to  express  his 
opinion?  I  have  hitherto  always  been  of  the  opinion  that  it  was 
agreed  that  the  five  great  Powers  should  reach  their  decisions  upon 
important  questions  before  entering  the  halls  of  the  Congress  to 
negotiate  peace.  If  a  new  war  should  take  place,  Germany  would  not 
throw  all  her  forces  upon  Cuba  or  upon  Honduras,  but  upon  France; 
it  would  always  be  upon  France.     I  request  then  that  we  stand  by 


180        WOODROW  \^TLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEI^IENT 

the  proposals  which  have  been  made,  proposals  to  the  effect  that 
meetings  be  held  in  which  the  representatives  of  the  five  countries 
mentioned  shall  participate,  to  reach  decisions  upon  the  important 
questions,  and  that  the  study  of  secondary  questions  be  turned  over 
to  the  commissions  and  the  committees  before  the  reunion  of  the 
conference.^ 

This  was  one  extreme.  At  the  other  were  those  few 
who  believed,  at  least  theoretically,  that  all  the  nations 
should  be  brought  into  the  Conference  upon  an  equal 
basis,  and,  inferentially,  that  all  should  have  an  equal 
vote — Siam  with  the  British  Empire,  Costa  Rica  with  the 
United  States.  Mr.  Lansing  apparently  held  this  posi- 
tion, although  he  did  not  argue  it  directly  in  the 
Conference : 

The  President,  as  I  now  see  it  [he  says],  should  have  insisted  on 
everything  being  brought  before  the  Plenary  Conference.  He  would 
then  have  had  the  confidence  and  support  of  all  the  smaller  nations 
because  they  would  have  looked  up  to  him  as  their  champion  and 
guide.     They  would  have  followed  him.^ 

The  inference  here  is  that  the  President  in  such  a  con- 
ference of  twenty -seven  nations  could  have  formed  a  bloc 
of  the  small  nations  which  "would  have  followed  him," 
and  thus  seized  control  of  the  Conference  against  the 
British  Empire,  France,  Italy,  and  Japan.  Mr.  Lansing's 
assumption  seems  to  have  been  that  the  small  nations, 
thus  fully  represented  in  the  Conference,  would  be  some- 
how less  greedy,  less  influenced  by  interest,  than  the 
great  nations. 

Here  we  have  the  two  extremes:  the  first  a  militaristic 
idea  based  upon  the  assumption  which  Clemenceau  was 
ever  frank  to  make,  paraphrasing  Clausewitz,  that  "peace 

'Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  January  12. 

^"The  Peace  Negotiations,"  by  Robert  Lansing,  p.  219. 


ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE  181 

IS  but  war  pursued  in  another  manner";  the  second,  a 
legahstic  idea  (deeply  rooted  in  the  ancient  conception 
of  the  divine  equality  of  monarchs)  that  all  nations  are 
equal.  The  first  idea,  however  we  may  scorn  it,  was 
practicable — more,  it  was  traditional — as  a  means  of  con- 
trol at  Paris;  while  the  second,  as  a  means  of  dealmg  with 
a  turbulent  world  situation  such  as  that  which  existed  at 
Paris,  was  totally  untried,  and  was  not  even  seriously  dis- 
cussed except  by  Mr.  Lansing  secretly  in  his  diary. 

But  the  extreme  legalists  at  Paris  made  President  Wil- 
son scarcely  less  impatient  than  the  extreme  militarists; 
both  seemed  so  far  from  grasping,  or  understanding,  his 
vision  of  the  settlement.  For  his  was  a  moral  idea  as  con- 
trasted with  either  a  military  or  a  legal  idea.  The  whole 
approach,  the  spirit,  was  different.  Real  peace,  in  his 
view,  could  not  rest  upon  either  military  force  or  legal 
mechanism,  though  both  might  have  their  place  in  bring- 
ing it  about.  It  must  be  inspired  by  a  new  moral  purpose, 
directed  by  dispassionate  scientific  inquiry,  and  guaran- 
teed as  a  positive  responsibility.^  He  asked  not  so  much  a 
change  of  method,  though  he  desired  that,  too,  as  a  change 
of  attitude.  In  his  passion  for  the  reality,  the  spirit  of  the 
matter,  he  was  too  careless  of  those  elements  of  organiza- 
tion and  procedure,  the  tactical  usefulness  of  which  the 
wilier  diplomats  clearly  appreciated.  They  were  thinking 
always  narrowly  in  terms  of  the  rights,  the  interests,  the 
security,  of  their  own  States,  while  the  President  was 
thinking  broadly  of  the  duties,  responsibilities,  opportuni- 
ties for  service  of  the  great  States,  especially  of  America^ 
These  two  points  of  view,  of  course,  are  as  far  apart  as  the 
poles,  and  there  can  be  no  understanding  of  the  Peace 
Conference  without  a  clear  recognition  of  the  different 
approach.  It  was  a  bold  application  of  one  of  the  oldest 
and  noblest  moral  principles  that  the  President  was  mak- 


/ 


1 


182        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

ing  to  the  turgid,  corrupt,  selfisli,  gi-eedy  relationships  of 
the  old  diplomacy,  but  he  believed  then  witli  his  whole 
soul — and  not  even  Paris  was  able  to  dim  his  conviction — 
that  no  real  peace,  no  real  justice,  is  ever  again  possible 
upon  the  old  basis  of  interest;  and  that  there  must  be  a 
new  attitude  in  the  world  before  humankind  can  solve 
the  life-and-death  problem  it  now  faces.  \ 

"You  know,"  he  told  the  citizens  of  Manchester,  Eng- 
land, December  30,  1918,  "that  heretofore  the  world  has 
been  governed,  or  at  any  rate  an  attempt  has  been  made 
to  govern  it,  by  partnerships  of  interest,  and  they  have 
broken  down.  Interest  does  not  bind  men  together;  in- 
terest separates  men.  For  the  moment  there  is  the 
slightest  departure  from  the  nice  adjustment  of  interests, 
then  jealousies  begin  to  spring  up.  There  is  only  one 
thing  that  can  bind  people  together,  and  that  is  common 
devotion  to  right.  Ever  since  the  history  of  liberty  began 
men  have  talked  about  their  rights,  and  it  has  taken 
several  hundreds  of  years  to  make  them  perceive  that  the 
principal  part  of  right  is  duty,  and  that  unless  a  man  per- 
forms his  full  duty  he  is  entitled  to  no  right." 

However  battered  this  great  idea  may  have  been  at 
Paris,  it  will  rise  and  rise  again  to  plague  and  purge  the 
nations  of  the  earth,  as  it  has  for  so  long  irritated  and 
purified  the  soul  of  man — for  it  is  true.  It  is  not  only 
true,  but,  as  the  President  was  constantly  urging  at  the 
Conference,  it  is  the  only  truly  practical  plan.  For  ex- 
ample, he  reiterated  again  and  again  the  idea  that  it  was 
not  to  the  best  interests  of  Italy  to  seize  the  shores  of  the 
Adriatic  and  Fiume  and  thus  make  enemies  of  the  Jugo- 
slavs, but  rather  to  make  friends  of  them,  assist  them,  as 
a  basis  for  the  future  prosperity  and  development  of  both 
countries.  But  the  Italians  preferred  immediate  gains, 
immediate  safety,  and  were  willing  to  risk  the  future. 


ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE         183 

When  this  problem  of  control  arose  on  January  12,  the 
President  had  again  to  face  the  reality  of  the  situation. 
It  was  to  be  an  imposed  peace — although  the  conferees 
dodged  that  term  throughout  the  Conference — and  the 
great  Powers,  with  their  vast  navies  and  armies  still  in  the 
field  and  the  world  still  thinking  and  feeling  war,  were 
in  actual  control,  and  must  of  necessity  settle  most  of  the 
problems — which  were  at  first  fully  as  much  war  problems 
as  peace  problems — that  would  arise.  But  these  men, 
and  the  nations  they  represented,  had  accepted  the  Ameri- 
can basis  of  peace;  they  had  promised!  They  must  be 
trusted  and  worked  with.  Moreover,  the  President  had  a 
profound  sense  of  the  rightness,  the  disinterestedness,  as 
well  as  the  power,  of  America ;  and  a  boundless  determina- 
tion, upon  his  own  part,  no  matter  what  the  other  dele- 
gates might  do,  to  adhere  to  his  principles,  to  maintain  the 
right  attitude.  He  was  too  confident  of  the  sheer  power 
of  a  correct  position. 

At  any  rate,  after  arguing  as  against  Clemenceau  and 
Lloyd  George  for  a  greater  opportunity  for  the  smaller 
nations,  he  finally  set  forth  his  view  of  procedure  as  fol- 
lows: 

The  President  was  in  favour  of  holding  informal  conversations 
amongst  the  great  powers,  but  believed  that  they  must  have  an  organi- 
zation of  all  the  nations,  otherwise  they  would  run  the  risk  of  having  a 
small  number  of  nations  regulate  the  affairs  of  the  world,  and  the 
other  nations  might  not  be  satisfied.^ 

He  was  thinking  not  only  of  the  immediate  peace  settle- 
ments, but  of  the  future  organization  of  the  world,  and 
this  was  practically  the  compromise  adopted — a  small 
conference  of  great  powers  with  whom  the  final  decisions 
rested  (the  Council  of  Ten,  afterward  the  Council  of  Four), 

^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  January  12. 


184         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEIVIENT 

birt  an  organization  of  all  the  powers,  big  and  little,  to 
meet  in  plenary  sessions.  The  smaller  powers  were  also 
admitted  to  many  of  the  commissions,  and  they  were 
heard  freely  where  their  interests  were  involved  by  the 
councils  of  the  great  Powers.  It  was  a  great  advance  over 
the  method  pursued  at  Vienna  a  hundred  years  before,  for 
tjbere  the  smaller  powers  did  not  even  get  a  voice. 

In  accepting  this  method  of  control  by  the  great  Powers 
during  the  turbulent  transition  period,  until  the  League 
of  Nations,  wherein  all  the  nations,  large  and  small,  were 
to  have  representation,  could  be  brought  into  being,  the 
President  felt  himself  well  fortified  in  maintaining  his 
position — though  he  did  not  then  realize  the  power  of  the 
tradition  nor  the  vitality  of  the  interests  of  the  old  di- 
plomacy. Consider  what  his  warrants  were.  He  had, 
first,  as  I  have  said,  the  solemn  promise  of  the  Allies — 
of  these  very  leaders  sitting  at  Paris — to  make  a  peace 
based  upon  the  accepted  American  principles;  and,  sec- 
ond, he  had  a  vital  sense  of  the  power  and  disinterestedness 
of  America  to  support  him  in  his  own  unfaltering  deter- 
mination. 

But  besides  these,  there  was  another  tremendous  factor 
that  he  knew  he  could  count  upon.  I  have  already  re- 
ferred to  the  preparatory  development  at  Paris  of  the 
staff  of  experts  and  scientists  which  far  exceeded  that  of 
any  former  conference.  The  primary  assumption  of  the 
new  kind  of  peace  which  was  to  be  based  upon  accepted 
general  principles  of  justice  rather  than  upon  old  secret 
treaties  and  nationalistic  greed  and  fear  was  that  the 
application  of  these  principles  should  be  made  by  dis- 
passionate scholars  and  experts,  seeking  only  facts,  de- 
siring only  the  truth.  It  was  for  this  reason  that  the 
President  at  every  turn  in  the  discussions,  often  against 
the  fierce  opposition  of  the  other  conferees,  endeavoured  to 


ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE  185 

have  the  problems  first  studied  by  the  expert  comniissions. 
For  he  knew  that  the  open,  dispassionate,  scientific  spirit 
of  inquiry  appHed  to  international  problems  was  opposed 
to  everything  that  the  old  devious  diplomacy  and  the  old 
militarism  stood  for;  it  was  light  against  darkness. 

This  struggle,  with  the  President  trying  to  use  the 
weapons  of  the  new  diplomacy  against  the  old,  marked 
every  stage  of  the  Conference.  The  old  advanced  its 
secret  treaties,  its  strategic  necessities,  its  nationalistic 
ambitions;  and  the  new  demanded  always  a  study  of  the 
facts  based  upon  the  accepted  principles.  In  this  America 
led,  because  America  was  practically  without  immediate 
material  interests  to  serve;  Great  Britain  was  next,  be- 
cause her  interests  were  mostly  satisfied  before  the  Peace 
Conference  began  to  sit.  The  French  experts,  though  often 
of  the  highest  learning,  were  too  often  politicians  as  well, 
and  the  Italians  generally  were  against  inquiry. 

On  February  1,  for  example,  there  arose  in  the  Council 
of  Ten  a  most  significant  and  illuminating  discussion  of 
the  two  contrasting  methods  of  control.  The  problem  of 
the  complicated  Rumanian  territorial  claims  was  before 
the  Conference — then  sitting  in  a  Council  of  Ten  with 
President  Wilson  and  Secretary  Lansing  representing  the 
United  States. 

After  hearing  the  statement  of  M.  Bratiano,  the  Ruma- 
nian Prime  Minister,  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  having  consulted 
with  President  Wilson,  said  "it  was  extremely  difficult 
to  decide  questions  of  boundaries  on  statements,  how- 
ever lucid,  made  in  the  course  of  a  Conversation,"  and  he 
thereupon  proposed  a  commission  of  two  experts  from 
each  of  the  four  great  Powers  to  study  the  problems  in- 
volved in  the  Rumanian  settlement  and  even  suggested 
authorizing  them  "to  consult  the  representatives  of  the 
peoples  concerned." 


186        WOODROW  ^ATT.SON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

M.  Orlando,  tlie  Italian  Premier,  at  once  took  alarm 
and  fell  back  upon  the  secret  treaty  of  the  Allies  with 
Rumania. 

He  did  not  wish,  [he  said]  to  defend  secret  treaties  which,  in- 
deed, were  now  out  of  fashion;  but  a  treaty  having  been  signed  by 
Italy,  France  and  Great  Britain,  he  could  make  no  distinction  between 
a  secret  treaty  and  a  pubhc  treaty. 

He  then  attacked  the  whole  idea  of  the  use  of  special- 
ists: 

Mr.  Lloyd  George's  resolution  said  that  specialists  would  be  ap- 
pointed. What  kind  of  specialists?  If  it  was  intended  to  appoint 
specialists  on  the  Rumanian  question,  he  himself  had  none;  and  they 
would  be  difficult  to  find.  But  even  then  he  would  ask :  What  branch 
of  the  Rumanian  question  should  these  specialists  represent?  Should 
they  be  geographical,  historical,  strategical,  or  ethnographical  spe- 
cialists? .  .  .  Further,  the  resolution  said  that  the  Committee 
would  consult  the  representatives  of  the  people  concerned.  The 
experts  would  thus,  in  fact,  become  examining  magistrates.  Mr.  Lloyd 
George's  proposal  thus  became  a  very  serious  one,  since  the  experts 
would  constitute  the  Court  of  First  Instance  and  the  delegates  of  the 
Great  Powers  the  Final  Court  of  Appeal.  He  failed  to  see  how  such  a 
procedure  would  expedite  matters.  In  his  opinion,  it  necessarily 
meant  delay,  especially  if  the  experts  decided  that  the  inquiry  must 
take  place  in  situ. 

It  was  very  alarming  to  the  Italians  in  this  case,  and  to 
other  nations  in  many  later  cases,  where  their  interests 
were  involved,  to  think  of  having  investigations  made 
by  impartial  scientific  commissions.  Baron  Sonnino,  the 
Italian  Foreign  Minister,  added  his  weight  to  that  of  his 
chief,  expressing  the  view  that  "the  experts  might  find 
themselves  compelled  to  go  to  the  spot  to  consult  the 
representatives  of  the  people  concerned."  He  did  not 
want  to  have  the  people  who  were  concerned  consulted! 

President  Wilson  then  expressed  his  view: 


ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE  187 

President  Wilson  .  .  .  said  that  he  was  seeking  enhghtenment, 
and  this  would  no  doubt  be  afforded  by  a  convincing  presentation  by 
the  experts.  If  the  resolution  proposed  by  Mr.  Lloyd  George  did  not 
receive  acceptance,  he  would  find  himself  compelled  to  fight  the  ques- 
tion merely  on  the  views  expressed  by  the  American  experts;  but  he 
would  prefer  that  these  conclusions  should  be  corrected  by  the  views 
of  the  French,  British,  and  Italian  experts. 

He  also  laid  down  at  this  time  his  general  policy  re- 
garding the  use  of  the  scientists.     He  said: 

Ever  since  the  United  States  of  America  had  entered  the  war,  he  had 
had  a  body  of  scholars  continuously  studying  such  questions  of  fact  as 
racial  aspects,  historical  antecedents,  and  economic  and  commercial 
elements :  the  two  latter  being  of  very  great  importance  in  many  of  the 
questions  under  dispute,  as  had  been  realized  in  the  case  of  the  Banat. 
Furthermore,  it  must  be  remembered  that  however  complete  their 
confidence  might  be  in  the  delegates  of  Rumania,  Serbia,  and  other 
countries,  who  would  present  claims,  these  delegates  were  merely 
advocates,  and  they  made  opposite  claims  as  to  the  right  inferences 
to  be  drawn  from  facts.  They  did  not  represent  their  facts  in  the 
same  way,  and  there  would  always  be  something  that  was  not  quite 
clear.  As  the  United  States  of  America  were  not  bound  by  any  of 
the  [secret]  treaties  in  question,  they  were  quite  ready  to  approve  a 
settlement  on  a  basis  of  facts.  But  the  claimants  did  not  always 
restrict  themselves  even  to  the  limits  set  by  Treaties  and  their  claims 
frequently  exceeded  what  was  justified  by  the  Treaties. 

The  resolutions  adopted  at  this  meeting  of  the  Con- 
ference regarding  the  use  of  experts  are  so  important  as  a 
model  for  later  resolutions  of  reference  that  they  are  here 
reproduced: 

It  was  agreed  that  the  questions  raised  in  M.  Bratiano's  statement 
on  the  Rumanian  territorial  interests  in  the  Peace  settlement  should 
be  referred  for  examination  in  the  first  instance  by  an  expert  com- 
mittee, composed  of  two  representatives  each  of  the  United  States  of 
America,  the  British  Empire,  France  and  Italy. 

It  shall  be  the  duty  of  this  Committee  to  reduce  the  questions  for 


sT^ 


188        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

decision  within  the  narrowest  possible  limits,  and  to  make  recommen- 
dations, for  a  just  settlement. 

The  Committee  is  authorized  to  consult  the  representatives  of  the 
peoples  concerned. 

More  and  more  as  the  discussions  advanced,  important 
problems  were  assigned  to  the  experts  for  investigation 
and  recommendation;  and  it  soon  became  the  practice, 
where  the  experts  of  all  tlie  nations  were  in  agreement,  for 
the  Four  or  the  Five  to  accept  their  findings  without 
further  comment.  Probably  three  quarters,  perhaps  a 
larger  proportion,  of  the  treaty  provisions  were  settled  in 
this  way.  So  important  was  the  work  of  these  experts 
that  one  thought  of  them  sometimes  as  a  kind  of  im- 
promptu or  informal  parliament  studying  problems  and 
working  out  solutions  to  submit  to  the  heads  of  the  States 
for  their  approval  or  veto. 

There  were  no  fewer  than  fifty-eight  of  these  technical 
commissions,  upon  which  sat  the  specialists  of  the  four  or 
five  great  nations,  to  consider  every  kind  of  territorial, 
economic,  ethnographic,  and  strategic  problem,  and  these 
hard-worked  commissions  held  1,646  meetings.  Also,  in 
spite  of  the  objections  to  Hie  proposals  when  first  made, 
there  were  twenty-six  investigations  made  by  commissions 
on  the  spot,  consulting  the  wishes  of  the  people  concerned. 
A  number  of  commissions,  like  that  on  Syria,  were  sent 
out  by  the  Americans  alone,  though  vigorously  opposed  by 
the  French,  in  order  to  fortify  their  own  knowledge  of  the 
situation  under  discussion. 

The  decisions  of  the  experts  were  not  always  followed. 
The  passions  of  the  war  were  still  too  sharp,  the  political 
and  military  desires  or  necessities  of  the  powers  too  in- 
sistent, to  accept  always  a  cool,  scientific  judgment. 
Sometimes  the  experts  disagreed  sharply  among  them- 
selves, as  in  the  Italian  settlements,  and  in  some  cases 


ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  PEACE  CONFERENCE  189 

experts  became  as  partisan  and  as  politically  minded  as 
any  diplomat;  and  in  some,  the  experts  assigned  were  not 
really  experts  at  all,  but  diplomatic  advocates  of  the  in- 
terests of  the  nation  concerned. 

Then,  too,  the  major  problems  of  the  peace,  such  as 
the  French,  Italian,  and  Japanese  claims,  were  not  re- 
ferred to  expert  commissions  for  preliminary  study.  The 
interested  powers  combined  to  prevent  it.  These  prob- 
lems were  discussed  in  secret  councils  according  to  the 
traditional,  approved  practices  of  diplomacy.  Yet  the 
methods  of  the  new  order  could  not  be  wholly  ignored  in 
meetings  where  its  foremost  advocate  was  present  and 
had  to  be  convinced.  Claims  must  be  presented  on  a 
!  basis  of  right  as  well  as  of  interest;  the  wishes  of  peoples 
I  figured  more  largely  in  the  arguments  than  the  balance 
of  power.v  Maps  and  statistics  were  freely  introduced  in- 
to the  discussion;  and  the  experts  were  constantly  con- 
sulted, by  separate  delegations  or  in  joint  committees. 
Yet  the  oil  and  water  of  the  two  systems  never  quite 
mixed.  The  experts,  even  the  Americans  in  closest 
touch  with  President  Wilson,  were  kept  in  the  dark  con- 
cerning these  inner  controversies  in  which  their  services 
were  enlisted.  On  the  other  hand,  interest  often  proved, 
after  all,  the  deciding  factor  in  the  settlement  of  those 
controversies. 

But  the  Conference  got  further  away  from  mere  dic- 
tatorial methods  of  control  and  nearcr  to  the  methods  of 
scientific  and  dispassionate  inquiry  upon  which  the  settle- 
ments of  the  future — if  they  are  to  be  lasting — must  rest 
than  any  former  conference. 

Thus  while  the  control  of  the  Peace  Conference  rested 
in  the  hands  of  the  four  or  five  great  Powers,  yet  the  use  of 
that  control  according  to  the  needs  and  interests  of  the  old 
diplomacy  was  profoundly  changed  and  tempered  from 


190         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

within  by  President  Wilson,  who  fought  stubbornly 
against  heavy  odds,  throughout  the  Conference,  for  his 
vision  of  a  new  use  of  national  or  world  power.  He  be- 
lieved as  much  in  the  reality  of  the  power  of  great  states 
as  Clemenceau.  "Wliere  the  great  force  lies,"  he  said, 
"there  must  be  the  sanction  of  peace," ^  but  his  great 
message  to  the  world  was  that  this  power  should  be 
used  for  the  service,  not  the  oppression,  of  humanity,  for 
the  benefit  of  the  world,  not  the  interests  of  particular 
states,  in  the  performance  of  duties,  not  the  assertion  of 
rights.  He  thought  it  "excellent  to  have  a  giant's 
strength  but  tyrannous  to  use  it  like  a  giant." 

^JVIinutes,  Seventh  Plenary  Session. 


CHAPTER  XI 

Struggle  for  a  Programme  of  Procedure — the 
French  Plan — Wilson's  "List  of  Subjects" 

THE  Peace  Conference  in  many  of  its  aspects  was 
only  a  political  meeting  upon  a  vast  stage.  It 
was  inevitable  that  there  should  be  a  struggle  in 
the  beginning,  not  only  to  control  the  organization,  as 
described  in  the  last  chapter,  but  to  make  its  programme 
of  procedure.  No  one  knew  better  than  the  diplomats  at 
Paris  the  truth  in  the  old  maxim  that  "all  great  political 
problems  are  at  bottom  problems  of  procedure";  each 
knew  how  much  depended  upon  securing  the  adoption  of 
his  own  plan  or  programme. 

Mr.  Lansing  devotes  an  entire  chapter  in  his  book  to 
the  "lack  of  an  American  programme"  and  blames  Presi- 
dent Wilson.  M.  Tardieu,  in  his  book,  accuses  both 
Americans  and  British,  who,  he  assumes,  have  no  plan  of 
their  own,  of  defeating  the  French  plan,  and  attributes  it 
to  "the  instinctive  repugnance  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  to 
the  systematized  constructions  of  the  Latin  mind."^ 

What  both  Mr.  Lansing  and  M.  Tardieu  mean,  of 
course,  by  a  programme  is  a  scheme  of  procedure  carefully 
worked  out  beforehand,  based  upon  legal  precedents,  and 
adopted  by  the  Conference. 

In  this  sense  the  Peace  Conference  never  had  a  pro- 
gramme— no  nation  had  one,  except  the  French.  Yet 
nothing  is  clearer  than  the  struggle  over  the  matter  of 
procedure ;  the  plan  on  which  the  Peace  Conference  was  to 

i"The  Truth  about  the  Treaty,"  by  Andre  Tardieu,  p.  91. 

191 


192        WOODROW  ^^TLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

be  run;  the  programme  of  each  nation.  It  was  clear, 
for  example,  that  it  was  part  of  the  British  and  American 
plan  not  to  accept  the  French  plan.  The  trouble  at 
Paris,  indeed,  lay  not  in  the  want  of  a  plan,  but  in  the 
fact  that  there  were  two  plans,  two  programmes.  This  was 
what  nearly  broke  up  the  meeting.  It  was  as  though  in  a 
political  convention,  say  in  Wisconsin,  two  groups  were 
struggling  for  control  of  the  platform :  the  Old  Guard  with  a 
programme  and  set  of  resolutions  to  present  to  the  meeting, 
and  the  Progressives  with  another  programme  and  set  of 
resolutions.     This  is  calculated  to  make  trouble  anywhere. 

At  Paris  there  was  the  clear-cut  programme,  the  plat- 
form of  the  old  diplomacy,  advanced  by  the  French  and 
called  felicitously  by  M.  Tardieu  "the  systematized  con- 
structions of  the  Latin  mind."  There  was  also  the 
programme,  the  platform  of  the  "new  order,"  advanced 
by  the  Americans  and  fought  by  President  Wilson.  Here, 
as  throughout  the  Conference,  the  real  struggle  was  be- 
tween the  ideas  and  the  leadership  of  the  French  on  the 
one  hand  and  the  Americans  on  the  other. 

Now  the  "organization,"  the  "machine,"  has  always 
a  strength  of  position  and  a  clearness  of  purpose  that 
the  "insurgents"  lack.  It  always  knows  exactly  what  it 
wants.  The  Old  Guard  is  for  the  thing  that  is  and  has 
been,  it  is  for  continuing  its  hold  upon  the  offices  and 
the  rewards;  while  the  "insurgents"  not  only  want  a 
change  in  control  but  usually  a  change  in  the  "system." 

President  Wilson  saw  with  the  utmost  clearness  the 
lines  of  division  which  were  certain  to  appear.  He  said 
in  his  speech  at  the  Guildhall  in  London,  December  28, 
1918,  two  weeks  before  the  Conference  began: 

Our  thought  was  always  that  the  key  to  the  peace  was  the  guarantee 
of  the  peace,  not  the  items  of  it;  that  the  items  would  be  worthless 


PROGRAMME  OF  PROCEDURE  193 

unless  there  stood  at  the  back  of  them  a  permanent  concert  of  power 
for  their  maintenance. 


He  saw  that  the  emphasis  of  the  "old  order"— he 
called  it  that — would  be  upon  the  "items"  of  the  peace — 
islands,  strips  of  territory,  oil  wells,  coal  mines,  "zones  of 
influence,"  reparations,  the  punishment  of  the  Kaiser. 
When  they  made  out  their  programme  and  prepared 
their  "skeleton  treaty"  these  elements  would  necessarily 
occupy  the  foreground. 

But  "our  thought,"  as  he  says,  the  plan  of  the  "new 
order,"  involved  a  wholly  different  emphasis.  It  in- 
volved a  complete  change  of  system:  a  new  method  of 
cooperation  for  mutual  defence,  not  of  limited  alliances, 
but  of  all  the  nations.  And  the  object  of  this  coopera- 
tion was  not  islands  and  oil  wells,  but  international 
justice  and  peace,  guaranteed  by  "a  single  overwhelm- 
ing powerful  group  of  nations  who  shall  be  the  trustee 
of  the  peace  of  the  world."  Wlien  the  "new  order," 
therefore,  made  out  its  programme  and  visualized  its 
treaty  this  new  element  would,  with  equal  logic,  be  found 
in  the  foreground. 

We  may  now  examine  exactly  what  happened. 

We  find  the  old  order  in  advance  of  the  new  in  pre- 
senting its  programme,  if  not  in  its  development.  The 
experienced  diplomats  of  Europe,  indeed,  well  knew  the 
value  of  having  a  plan  elaborately  and  definitely  worked 
out  to  meet  every  situation;  for  a  plan  tends  to  shape  the 
views  of  everyone  present  and  place  all  the  other  con- 
ferees in  the  position  of  critics.  And  it  was  so  easy  to 
play  the  old,  familiar,  traditional  game;  so  difiicult  to 
play  the  new. 

Less  than  three  weeks  after  the  Armistice  was  signed 
we  find  the  skilled  and  veteran  French  Ambassador  at 


194         WOODROW  \A1LS0N  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

Washington,  M.  Jusserand,  going  down  from  the  French 
Embassy  to  the  State  Department  and  carrying  in  his 
own  hand  (as  the  correspondence  shows)  what  he  calls 
"a  preliminary  study"  of  the  various  problems  that 
may  arise  in  the  Peace  Conference.  ^Miile  this  docu- 
ment w^as  dated  November  29,  and  was  cabled  from 
Paris,  it  must  have  been  in  preparation  while  the  Ameri- 
can soldiers  were  still  storming  machine  gun  nests  in 
the  Argonne.^ 

"Mv  Government,"  writes  M.  Jusserand  in  this  memo- 
randum  of  transmittal,  "would  be  glad  to  know  whether 
the  plans  of  studies  suggested  by  it,  and  the  principles 
upon  which  they  rest,  meet  with  the  general  approval 
of  the  American  Government." 

It  would  have  been  a  great  thing  at  this  stage  for 
France  if  America  had  approved  the  "plan"  and  "prin- 
ciples" here  suggested. 

On  December  2,  while  the  President  was  in  a  whirl 
of  preparation  for  the  sailing  of  the  American  peace 
argosy  to  Europe,  this  document  was  placed  in  his  hands 
and  he  took  it  with  him  on  the  George  Washington. 

Now,  this  French  document  did  two  things  and  did 
them  well.  It  laid  down  the  French  idea  of  the  tactics 
for  conducting  the  Peace  Conference,  and  second,  it  re- 
vealed, cleverly  and  yet  clearly  enough,  what  the  French 
really  expected  the  peace  settlements  to  be. 

We  discover  in  the  first  paragraph  that  the  French, 
in  seeking  plans  for  Paris,  are  looking  backward  to  the 
models  of  the  old  congresses  of  Europe:  "congresses 
of  the  old  order,"  as  President  Wilson  had  called  them. 

"The  French  Government,"  it  says,  "upon  examina- 
tion of  the  Congresses  of  Vienna,  1814-15;  Paris,  1856, 

'See  Volume  III,  Document  7,  for  complete  text  of  this  basic  document,  with  letters 
of  transmission. 


TROGRAMME  OF  PROCEDURE  195 

and  Berlin,  1878,  has  taken  up  the  various  problems 
raised"  by  the  coming  Peace  Conference  at  Paris. 

The  plan  then  proposed  follows  the  traditional  models. 
There  is  to  be  a  congress  witli  the  enemy  powers  rep- 
resented in  it.  But  before  this  congress  meets,  on  the 
"arrival  of  President  Wilson  in  Paris  in  the  middle  of 
December,"  there  is  to  be  a  Conference  of  the  "four 
great  Powers  [for  this  plan  leaves  out  Japan]  to  agree 
among  themselves  upon  the  conditions  of  the  peace  pre- 
liminaries to  be  imposed  severally  on  the  enemy  without 
any  discussion  with  him."  The  principal  questions  that 
are  raised  are  even  to  be  "settled  directly  among  the 
great  Powers  without  calling  upon  any  committee  to 
discuss  them."  And  it  is  remarked  especially  that  "this 
applies  to  Colonial  affairs  which  essentially  concern  Eng- 
land and  France." 

After  everything  has  been  decided,  territorial  lines 
settled,  colonies  distributed,  indemnities  fixed,  then  the 
peace  congress  itself  is  to  meet.  This  peace  congress 
is  to  have  representatives  from  all  enemy  and  neutral  na- 
tions— including  the  small  nations — but  as  the  document 
says,  "the  great  victorious  powers  alone  will  attend  all 
its  sessions  ...  as  for  the  neutrals  and  States  in 
formation,  they  may  be  called  when  their  own  interests 
are  at  stake." 

Finally,  after  all  the  material  problems  have  been 
settled,  there  is  to  be  a  general  meeting  of  the  congress, 
attended  by  all  the  nations,  and  this,  it  is  naively  re- 
marked, "could  place  itself,  as  has  sometimes  been 
done  in  the  past,  under  the  invocation  of  some  of  the 
great  principles  leading  to  justice,  morals,  and  liberty, 
which  would  be  proclaimed  at  its  very  opening."  In 
other  words,  after  a  settlement  is  completely  made  on 
the  old  order  of  diplomacy  and  each  great  nation  has 


196        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

got  all  it  can  get,  there  is  to  be  a  pious  statement  of  "prin- 
ciples leading  to  justice,  morals,  and  liberty."  This  part 
of  the  congress  is  to  discuss  the  organization  of  a  society 
of  nations. 

This  was,  in  general,  the  plan  the  French  desired  and 
struggled  hard  to  have  accepted  in  the  early  days  of  the 
Peace  Conference,  but  which,  according  to  M.  Tardieu's 
explanation — it  is  good  enough  to  bear  repetition — failed 
owing  to  "that  repugnance  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  to  the 
systematized  constructions  of  the  Latin  mind." 

The  President  had  two  courses  open  to  him:  one  to 
oppose  the  adoption  of  the  French  plan,  the  other  to 
go  forward  with  a  plan  of  his  own.     He  did  both. 

The  President  feared  the  adoption  of  a  cut-and-dried 
programme  on  the  old  diplomatic  models  of  Vienna  and 
Paris  and  Berlin,  based  upon  interest  and  strategic 
necessity  as  primary  considerations,  \  and  relegating  the 
discussion  of  a  league  of  nations  to  some  dim  future 
congress  to  be  held  after  all  the  spoils  of  the  war  had  been 
divided.  He  had  new  general  principles  to  apply,  and 
modern  agencies,  such  as  the  expert  commissions,  to  use. 
He  had  also  a  much  keener  consciousness  than  any  other 
leader  at  Paris,  except  Lloyd  George,  of  the  new  power 
of  public  opinion  in  world  affairs  and  of  the  presence 
and  pressure  of  an  eager  press.  In  his  preoccupation 
with  his  new  plans,  his  vision  of  a  new  kind  of  peace  and 
his  determination  to  bring  it  about,  he  was  undoubtedly 
not  as  much  concerned  as  he  should  have  been  with  the 
forms  and  the  traditions,  or  with  the  methods  which, 
after  all,  must  be  used  in  considering  the  "items"  of 
the  peace. 

And  this  was  what  disturbed  a  man  like  Mr.  Lansing, 
with  his  legalistic  and  conventional  mind.  Mr.  Lansing, 
although  he  bitterly  excoriates  the  old  diplomacy,  was 


PROGRAMME  OF  PROCEDURE  197 

essentially  a  diplomat  of  the  old  school.  His  look  was 
honestly  backward  toward  precedent;^  he  could  never 
understand,  much  less  appreciate,  the  President's  type 
of  mind — prophetic,  creative,  struggling  to  meet  new 
realities  with  new  instrumentalities — a  mind  intensely 
interested  in  the  substance  and  spirit  of  the  matter, 
too  little  in  the  method.  Thus  to  Mr.  Lansing,  when 
there  was  no  programme  written  down,  there  was  no 
programme. 

But  that  the  President  went  stumbling  blindly  into 
the  Conference  "without  a  programme  of  any  sort  or 
even  a  list  of  subjects,"  as  Mr.  Lansing  says,^  is  of  course 
absurd.  He  knew  exactly  what  he  wanted  and  what 
he  intended  to  do.  A  week  before  the  first  session  he 
requested  his  fellow  commissioners  to  furnish  him  with 
a  list  of  subjects  to  be  considered  first  at  the  Conference, 
and  in  reply  had  the  following  letter  (dated  January  8) : 

Dear  Mr.  President:  In  compliance  with  your  desire  to  be  fur- 
nished with  a  list  of  the  subjects  which,  in  our  opinion,  should  be  taken 
up  first  at  our  conferences,  we  beg  to  suggest  that  we  now  proceed  to 
consider  the  following  questions  in  the  order  given  below: 

1.  Representation. 

2.  The  League  of  Nations. 

3.  Reparation. 

4.  New  States. 

5.  Territorial  Adjustments. 

6.  Colonial  Possessions. 

We  are,  dear  Mr.  President, 

Respectfully  yours, 

Robert  Lansing, 
Henry  White, 
E.  M.  House, 
Tasker  H,  Bliss, 
Commissioners  Plenipotentiary. 

^"The  Peace  Negotiations,"  by  Robert  Lansing,  p.  199. 


198        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

On  January  13,  when  this  problem  came  up  to  be 
settled  in  the  Council  of  Ten,  Mr.  Lansing  also  being 
present,  the  President  said: 

He  hoped  those  present  would  not  agree  on  any  fixed  order  of  dis- 
cussion. For  instance,  he  believed  it  more  important  at  the  moment 
that  those  present  should  consider  the  whole  question  of  treatment 
of  Russia. 

He  therefore  submitted  his  list  of  subjects,  following 
exactly  the  advice  of  the  other  American  commissioners 
(except  in  the  matter  of  representation,  which  had 
already  been  argued  by  the  council) : 

League  of  Nations. 

Reparation. 

New  States. 

Boundaries. 

Colonies. 

He  suggested  that  this  list  should  be  referred  at  once 
to  each  national  delegation,  and  that  their  views  be  ob- 
tained as  a  basis  of  future  discussions.  This  seemed  to 
him  a  reasonable  method  of  developing  the  views  of  each 
group  and  arriving  at  something  that  could  be  discussed. 
On  the  very  first  day  of  the  Conference  the  Russian  and 
Polish  questions,  both  of  vast  intricacy  and  importance, 
had  been  precipitated  into  the  conversations,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  the  military  problems  of  the  renewal  of  the  Armis- 
tice. He  did  not  see  how  it  could  be  practicable  in  a 
turbulent  world  to  follow  any  cut-and-dried-plan.^  As  he 
said  later  regarding  another  aspect  of  the  same  situation: 
*'The  question  had  to  be  studied  like  a  problem  of  dy- 
namics concerning  the  action  of  forces  in  a  body  in  un- 
stable equilibrium." 

Thus  the  Conference  improvised  as  it  went  along  and 
met  each  problem  as  it  arose.     It  was  the  inevitable 


PROGRAMME  OF  PROCEDURE  199 

corollary  of  the  adoption  of  small  secret  conferences  of  the 
great  Powers — especially  when  the  Four  met  alone,  when 
an  elaborate  plan  of  procedure  would  have  been  absurd. 
This  informality  had  both  great  advantages  and  great 
disadvantages.  It  no  doubt  enabled  the  Four  to  expedite 
business,  to  cut  through  red  tape,  to  get  things  done.  It 
also  enabled  the  President  to  press  at  every  point  his  gen- 
eral principles,  to  encourage  the  use  of  expert  commissions, 
and  to  get  a  clearer  field  for  the  consideration  of  the 
League  of  Nations. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  had  real  disadvantages.  It 
tended  to  throw  great  power  into  the  hands  of  the  chair- 
man, M.  Clemenceau,  for  he  could  dictate  to  a  large  extent 
the  subjects  which  should  come  up  from  time  to  time,  he 
had  the  power — which  he  exercised  freely  in  both  small 
and  large  conferences — of  limiting  debate,  setting  the 
time  of  adjournments,  and  so  on.  It  also  enabled  that 
extraordinary  virtuoso,  Lloyd  George,  to  produce,  often 
quite  unexpectedly,  the  most  remarkable  histrionic  effects, 
as  when  one  day  he  took  the  Council  of  Four  by  storm  by 
staging  the  Moslem  world  to  prove  a  point  he  wished  to 
make.  He  brought  in  the  striking  group  of  British  Mo- 
hammedan leaders,  strangely  clad  in  combinations  of 
their  native  costumes  and  the  uniforms  of  the  British 
Army,  and  one  after  another,  in  dramatic  fashion,  they 
presented  the  case  of  Islam  with  reference  to  the  settle- 
ments in  Turkey.  At  another  time,  and  quite  as  precipi- 
tately, he  staged  the  British  Empire  before  the  Council 
of  Ten,  in  the  persons  of  the  Prime  Ministers  of  all  the 
British  Colonies.  And  the  British  Empire  can  be  most 
impressive  when  properly  staged! 

No  one  could  equal  Lloyd  George  in  such  devices  as 
these,  although  Clemenceau  at  one  time,  quite  without 
warning    and    much    to    Lloyd    George's    discomfiture, 


200        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

brought  in  the  Belgian  delegation  to  argue  their  colo- 
nial claims  in  Africa  and  incidentally  to  support  the 
French  colonial  claims  as  against  tlie  British.  If  Presi- 
dent Wilson  had  none  of  these  arts,  he  was  also  little 
swayed  by  the  practice  of  them  by  the  others.  A  great 
disadvantage  also  lay  in  the  confusion  which  existed  dur- 
ing all  the  early  weeks  of  the  Conference  as  to  whether 
there  was  to  be  a  preliminary  peace,  or  armistice  exten- 
sions to  include  some  part  of  the  peace  arrangements,  or  a 
final  and  definitive  treaty.  And,  finally,  it  was  a  great 
disadvantage  not  to  have  had  the  discussions  of  the  Peace 
Conference  wholly  separated  from  those  of  the  Supreme 
War  Council,  even  though  the  same  men,  or  some  of  them, 
sat  in  both.  Nevertheless,  it  was,  as  Tardieu  says,  the 
Anglo-Saxon  method. 

So  much  for  the  matter  of  programme  in  the  general 
conferences — the  Councils  of  Ten  and  of  Four — which 
dealt  throughout  with  the  items  of  the  peace  rather  than 
the  broader  principles  of  the  peace. 

To  have  a  definite  programme  which  would  result  in 
dividing  up  the  world  in  the  old  way  was  an  easy  thing; 
but  to  have  a  definite  programme  for  devising  instrumen- 
talities for  a  new  order,  based  upon  principles  new  to  in- 
ternational relationships — especially  when  the  spirit  of  the 
new  order  was  only  dimly  adumbrated  in  men's  minds — 
that  was  quite  another  and  far  more  difficult  problem. 

Where  the  President's  own  intense  convictions  as  to 
what  was  really  the  most  important  purpose  of  the  Paris 
Conference  were  concerned — the  realization  of  the  Ameri- 
can principles  of  the  peace — no  man  at  Paris  had  clearer 
or  more  definite  ideas  of  what  he  intended  to  do.  He  had 
begun  thinking  and  speaking  upon  his  project  long  before 
the  war  closed;  he  had  worked  out — as  will  be  fully  de- 
scribed  in    a   later   chapter — his    scheme    for    a   league 


PROGRAMME  OF  PROCEDURE  201 

of  nations.  In  that  Covenant  he  outlined  specifically 
what  he  meant  by  certain  of  his  "Points,"  notably  the 
one  on  limitation  of  armaments.  He  presented  it  at 
Paris  early  in  the  Conference.  He  became  chairman  of 
the  commission  to  study  and  report  upon  it.  It  was  the 
most  important  commission  at  Paris,  often  rivalling  in 
interest  the  Council  of  Ten  or  of  Four.  He  secured  the 
adoption  of  the  plan  for  making  the  League  of  Nations 
an  integi'al  part  of  the  treaty  of  peace  as  early  as  the 
second  plenary  session,  January  25,  and  throughout  the 
Conference  he  hewed  to  the  line  in  the  realization  of  what 
he  considered  to  be  American  principles  with  unabated 
determination.  If  the  plan  was  not  all  written  down  be- 
forehand, it  was  none  the  less  a  plan  and  a  programme, 
and  probably  as  definite  a  one  as  could  be  devised  for  the 
exploration  of  a  diplomatic  wilderness  hitherto  unpene- 
trated.  It  is  not  the  intent  here  to  describe  this  struggle — 
that  will  come  later — but  merely  to  point  out  the  definite- 
ness  of  the  President's  programme  for  obtaining  the  sub- 
stance of  the  things  that  he  thought  really  mattered — 
not  the  "items"  of  the  peace,  but  the  creative  principles 
of  it. 


CHAPTER  XII 

The    Battle    of    the    Languages:    English    versus 
French  as  the  Official  Language  of  the  Treaty 

IS  NOT  the  return  to  the  past, "  asks  Clemenceau,  "the 
first  impulse  of  countries  whose  power  is  founded  upon 
the  force  of  traditions?"^ 

It  was  the  French  who  were  the  great  defenders  of  the 
old  practices  of  European  statecraft;  and  it  was  America 
chiefly  that  demanded  change  and  sought  new  methods 
to  meet  new  realities. 

While  the  problems  of  procedure  were  before  the  Con- 
ference, an  impassioned  argument  took  place  regarding 
the  choice  of  an  official  language  for  the  Treaty.  The 
predominance  of  their  language  in  diplomacy  has  ever 
been  a  mark  of  power  upon  which  the  French  have  set 
great  store,  and  this  was  a  battle  royal  between  French 
and  English. 

This  discussion  of  January  15  is  at  once  so  symbolical 
of  the  rise  of  a  new  influence  in  the  world  and  in  itself  so 
typical  of  the  give  and  take  of  the  secret  councils  at  Paris, 
that  it  is  here  set  down  complete.  They  were  discussing 
Section  8  of  the  proposed  French  plan  of  procedure  in 
which  French  was  made  the  official  language  of  the 
Treaty : 

M.  PiCHON  pointed  out  that  French  has  invariably  been  used  as  the 
language  for  the  standard  texts  of  treaties.     The  proposal  that  French 

i"The  Truth  about  the  Treaty,"  by  Andre  Tardieu,  from  Introduction  by  M.  Clem- 
enceau. 

202 


THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  LANGUAGES  203 

be  the  official  language  did  not  mean  that  delegates  should  not  have 
the  right  to  use  their  own  language.  The  particular  reason  for  having 
one  language  as  the  official  language  is  that  there  may  be  assured  but 
one  document  containing  the  standard  text.  There  has  been  no  ex- 
ception to  the  use  of  French  for  that  purpose.  M.  Pichon  referred 
particularly  to  the  last  conference  at  The  Hague.  Moreover,  this 
requirement  would  not  affect  the  right  of  delegates  to  use  their  own 
language,  such  as  English,  which  has  the  widest  circulation  in  the 
world. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  observed  that  he  was  very  sorry  not  to  be  able 
to  accept  the  text  proposed  for  this  section.  He  wished  to  say  that  it 
was  not  a  matter  of  prejudice,  but  for  the  first  time  we  now  had  the 
case  of  the  United  States  taking  part  in  a  European  Peace  and  this 
made  with  the  British  Empire  a  majority  of  the  Associated  Govern- 
ments having  English  as  their  official  language.  He  thought  M. 
Pichon's  point  about  a  single  document  a  good  one,  but  it  was  interest- 
ing to  recall  that  both  English  and  Dutch  are  used  side  by  side  in 
South  Africa,  and  English  and  French  in  Canada.  In  both  countries 
all  documents  are  published  in  both  languages,  and  both  hold.  This 
is  more  important  than  in  the  case  of  treaties,  where  differences  arise 
on  questions  of  principle,  rather  than  shades  of  meaning.  In  these 
instances,  questions  come  up  in  connection  with  the  interpretation  of 
legal  documents,  and  he  knew  of  no  case  where  any  difficulty  had 
arisen.  Consequently,  inasmuch  as  the  majority  of  the  Alliance  use 
the  English  language,  he  proposed  an  amendment  to  Section  VIII, 
making  English  as  well  as  French  an  official  language  of  the  Con- 
ference. 

M.  SoNNiNO  stated  that  he  preferred  that  one  language  be  used, 
for  if  two  languages  were  chosen,  the  Italian  language  would  appear  to 
be  placed  in  an  inferior  position. 

Mr.  Wilson  observed  that  all  recognized  the  historical  claim  for 
French  to  be  made  the  official  language,  but  there  were  some  circum- 
stances which  he  believed  should  not  be  overlooked.  For  instance, 
the  official  language  of  the  East  is  English,  and  diplomatic  documents 
are  in  that  language.  This  is  not  a  matter  of  discrimination,  as  M. 
Sonnino  has  said,  but  a  matter  of  generality  of  use.  It  seemed  to 
him  that  a  language  which  is  the  official  language  of  the  greater  part 
of  the  world  should  be  the  official  language  of  the  Conference.  He 
did  not,  however,  propose  that  French  be  excluded.     He  only  asked 


204        W(X)DRO\Y  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEALENT 

that  it  be  considered  in  a  preferential  manner,  as  compared  with 
Itahan. 

M.  PiCHON  referred  to  the  fact  that  the  resolutions  of  the  Versailles 
Conference  were  in  French. 

M.  Clemenceau  admitted  that  he  was  considerably  embarrassed. 
He  saw  the  justice  of  the  claim  that  the  English  language  was  the 
language  most  commonly  spoken  throughout  the  world,  and  that  it 
has  carried  civilization  and  liberal  institutions  wherever  it  has  pene- 
trated, but  he  would  point  out  that  French  has  taken  the  place  of 
Latin,  which,  in  its  time,  was  the  official  language  of  the  world,  and, 
moreover,  it  has  the  advantage  of  extreme  precision.  Nevertheless, 
he  had  the  greatest  desire  to  give  each  language  its  full  right.  Conse- 
quently, if  English  is  admitted,  it  would  not  be  right  to  exclude  Italian. 

He  therefore  proposed  that  there  should  be  three  official  languages, 
and  if  a  question  of  interpretation  should  ever  arise,  the  French  text 
would  rule. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  observed  that  this  would  make  French  the 
official  language,  or,  as  Mr.  Wilson  suggested,  the  standard  language. 

Mr.  Wilson  inquired  whether  the  official  minutes  would  then  be 
kept  in  all  three  languages. 

Mr.  Balfour  requested  that  M.  Clemenceau  be  good  enough  to 
submit  his  proposal  in  writing,  so  that  he  might  see  the  actual  wording 
of  the  clause,  and  that  this  should  be  presented  for  consideration  at 
the  afternoon  meeting. 

The  conversations  were  resumed  at  2:30  p.  m. 

M.  PiCHON  submitted  a  new  text  for  Article  VIII,  proposed  by 
M.  Clemenceau.  (English,  French,  and  Italian  to  be  the  official 
languages — French  the  standard  text.) 

Mr.  Wilson  asked  permission  to  present  the  following  aspects  of 
the  matter:  French  has  been  the  language  of  European  diplomacy, 
but  we  have  now  reached  the  beginning  of  a  new  era,  and  enter  upon 
world  diplomacy.  It  is  hardly  decisive  to  follow  European  precedence 
which  gives  the  French  language  this  position.  The  language  of  the 
other  side  of  the  Globe  is  English,  and  this  is  a  congress  of  the  world. 
Moreover,  the  greater  part  of  the  people  represented  in  this  congress 
use  the  English  language.  He  sincerely  doubted  whether  any  Amer- 
ican when  looking  at  this  document  in  French  would  be  satisfied  that 
it  was  an  exact  expression  of  the  decision  of  the  Conference. 


THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  LANGUAGES  205 

As  regards  the  arguments  for  the  Itahan  language,  he  would  venture 
to  point  out  that  it  was  spoken  by  a  Hmited  part  of  what  might  be 
called  the  constituency  of  the  Conference. 

If  English  and  French  were  placed  on  a  parity  there  would  be  a  per- 
fect concurrence  of  mind  of  those  who  understood  the  French  version 
with  those  who  used  the  English  version. 

Mr.  Wilson  also  pointed  out  that  it  was  proposed  to  have  a  per- 
manent Secretariat  for  the  Conference,  and  this  was  one  more  reason 
why  the  documents  of  this  Secretariat  should  be  in  both  languages. 
Moreover,  should  another  minority  language  be  admitted,  others 
would  have  to  be  included  also. 

He  ventured  again  to  lay  stress  upon  the  fact  that  a  new  element 
has  been  introduced  in  the  diplomacy  of  the  world  by  the  entrance  of 
a  new  power  speaking  English.  For  these  reasons,  he  urged  that  both 
English  and  French  be  made  the  official  languages  of  the  Conference. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  submitted  a  proposal  providing  for  the  use  of 
French  and  English  as  the  official  languages  of  the  Conference,  and 
for  the  reference  to  the  League  of  Nations  for  decision  of  any  question 
of  interpretation  that  may  arise. 

M.  PiCHON  remarked  that  this  was  not  the  first  time  that  the  United 
States  and  other  States  of  both  North  and  South  America  had  adopted 
French  as  the  official  language.  He  referred  to  the  conferences  at 
The  Hague  where,  according  to  precedent,  French  had  been  adopted 
as  the  official  language  by  all  those  present. 

In  answer  to  the  contention  that  The  Hague  Conferences  had 
served  no  purpose  and  had  been  disregarded,  M.  Pichon  replied 
that  it  was  not  the  fault  of  France  that  this  had  occurred. 

In  conclusion  he  referred  to  President  Wilson's  statement  that 
France  in  this  matter  had  an  historical  privilege.  He  believed  that 
President  Wilson  would  be  the  last  not  to  recognize  that  privilege. 
In  view  of  what  France  had  gone  through,  and  in  view  of  all  her  suffer- 
ings, he  thought  it  strange  that  the  first  act  of  this  conference  should 
be  to  withdraw  from  her  that  right.  He  pointed  out  that  M.  Clem- 
enceau  had  suggested  a  formula  which  seemed  to  meet  the  desires  of 
the  President,  and  still  left  France  her  privilege. 

M.  SoNNiNO  pointed  out  that  while  it  was  true  that  Italy  had  not  a 
majority  of  population,  nevertheless,  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that 
she  had  contributed  her  full  share  to  the  War,  and  had  put  into  the 
Field  from  four  to  five  million  soldiers.     He  repeated  that  if  an  excep- 


206        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

tion  were  to  be  made  to  the  historical  rule,  and  Italy  were  left  out, 
it  would  be  a  distinct  slight  against  her.  He  wished  to  support 
M.  Cleraenceau's  proposal.     Mr.  Wilson  spoke  as  follows : 

"My  sentiments  would  respond  at  once  to  M.  Pichon's  appeal — 
not  only  my  own,  but  also  those  of  all  the  people  of  the  United 
States — but  I  felt  obliged  to  leave  sentiment  out  by  views  of  prac- 
tical effects.  The  look  of  this  Conference  is  to  the  future.  We  are 
trying  to  draw  now  together  to  do  away  with  contest.  These  docu- 
ments which  we  are  to  draw  up  and  sign  will  be  the  basis  and  life  of 
government  all  over  the  world.  The  interpretation  of  them  will 
affect  situations  which  are  to  come,  and  in  such  interpretations  a 
preponderance  of  the  peoples  of  the  world  will  use  the  English  text. 
I  cannot  refrain  from  reminding  myself  that  we  are  engaged  in  a 
practical  business,  and  I  am  bound  to  lay  matters  of  precedent 
aside.  What  will  be  the  languages,  in  time  to  come,  which  will  be 
easiest  to  interpret?  French  and  English.  The  world  will  find  it 
easier  to  interpret  French  and  English  texts,  far  easier  than  any 
other.  Let  me  say  that  it  is  not  in  my  heart  to  show  disrespect. 
Let  us  so  act  that  the  future  generations  will  say:  'These  men  had 
hard  common  sense,  and  put  practical  interests  to  the  front.'" 
After  some  general  discussion  the  Chairman  read  the  text  of  Article 
VIII,  and  put  the  question  as  to  whether  it  was  approved.  He  re- 
ferred to  the  fact  that  French  had  been  the  official  language  of  the 
Versailles  Conference  of  the  Inter- Allied  High  Commission, 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  observed  that  when  the  Commission  sat  in 
London,  English  had  been  the  official  text.  He  reverted  again  to  his 
former  argument  that  English  was  the  oflScial  language  of  a  great  sec- 
tion of  the  world.  He  laid  stress  on  the  point  that  the  forthcoming 
Conference  was  to  lay  out  a  new  era,  and  inasmuch  as  it  was  now 
necessary  to  deal  with  realities,  he  gave  his  support  to  President  Wil- 
son's appeal,  although  he  found  it  most  difficult  to  resist  the  appeal 
of  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs. 

M,  Clemenceau  believed  that  those  present  were  more  in  accord 
than  it  appeared.  Mr.  Wilson  had  mentioned  the  part  taken  in  the 
War  by  English-speaking  people.  This  is  true.  He  frankly  rec- 
ognized the  debt  which  PVance  owed  to  the  men  who  speak  English. 
Like  Mr.  Wilson,  he  was  ready  to  face  new  problems.  It  was  not 
only  necessary  to  try,  but  also  to  succeed.  This  War,  however,  took 
place  in  France.     It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  his  proposal  was 


THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  LANGUAGES  207 

that  the  official  text  shall  be  English,  French,  and  Italian,  and  he,  a 
Frenchman,  had  proposed  it.  If  it  was  now  argued  that  the  English- 
speaking  people  must  be  able  to  read  the  text,  he  admitted  it,  and  has 
proposed  English,  French,  and  Italian.  The  mere  fact  that  a  small 
text  is  hidden  away  in  the  archives  at  The  Hague  will  not  make  any 
diflFerence  if  it  is  in  the  French  language.  As  regards  Italian  I  believe 
that  not  only  now,  but  in  the  future,  it  will  be  necessary  to  have  many 
more  officially  stamped  texts,  but  from  the  merely  practical  point  of 
view  there  should  be  but  one  text  in  the  hands  of  the  judge.  There 
should  be  but  one  standard  to  refer  to. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  observed  that  the  question  now  under  con- 
sideration was  whether  there  shall  be  but  one  text,  not  two  or  three. 
If  the  French  text  is  the  standard  for  scrutinization,  the  British  dele- 
gate would  have  to  examine  it  very  carefully.  Why  should  it  not  be 
well  to  have  two  or  three  official  languages,  and  if  there  is  a  dispute, 
instead  of  referring  it  to  a  text,  why  not  leave  it  to  the  League  to  de- 
cide? In  Canada,  if  the  judge  says  that  the  texts  are  different  the 
matter  is  referred  to  Parliament.  Such  cases  will  undoubtedly  arise, 
and  it  would  be  appropriate  and  preferable  to  have  the  matter  referred 
to  the  League  rather  than  to  a  text.  Why  could  not  the  French 
language,  so  to  speak,  serve  for  all  Latin  peoples,  and  the  English 
text  represent  the  others?  He  suggested,  therefore,  that  it  would  be 
better  to  proceed  to  the  consideration  of  the  amendment  first  pro- 
posed, that  is  to  say,  that  there  be  two  official  texts,  English  and 
French.  If  that  be  accepted.  Baron  Sonnino's  proposal  might  then  be 
taken  into  consideration. 

Mr.  Wilson  thought  it  of  interest  to  remind  those '  present  that  in 
treaties  between  the  United  States  and  France  the  text  is  in  English 
and  French.  The  Senate  of  the  United  States  approves  the  Eng- 
lish text.  Therefore,  so  far  as  the  United  States  is  concerned,  the 
English  text  would  rule.  Should  there  be  a  disagreement,  the  mat- 
ter would  be  discussed  and  an  agreement  reached  between  the  two 
governments. 

M.  Clemenceau  observed  that  the  Versailles  Treaty  was  in  French 
alone.     Mr.  Wilson  thought  that  this  treaty  had  lapsed. 

M.  PicHON  repeated  that  in  all  international  agreements  the  French 
text  ruled.  Even  at  the  Congress  of  Berlin,  French  was  used.  Mr. 
Wilson  pointed  out  that  he  did  not  dispute  the  fact  that  French 
has  been  the  standard,  but  as  to  the  Congress  of  Berlin,  he  would 


208        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

observe  that  America  was  not  represented.  M.  Clemenceau  stated 
that  he  could  not  go  further  than  the  amendment  he  had  proposed. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  suggested  that  if  that  were  to  be  the  case  it 
would  be  better  to  have  no  official  text,  and  each  country  would  only 
understand  the  text  which  its  representatives  signed. 

M.  Clemenceau  observed  that  if  so  much  importance  were  at- 
tached to  such  small  matters  it  was  truly  a  bad  beginning  for  the 
society  of  the  League  of  Nations. 

Mr.  Wilson  observed  that  he  was  extremely  sorry  that  this  aspect 
had  been  given  to  the  question.  He  did  not  like  to  leave  a  question  of 
this  sort  where  it  then  rested,  and  suggested  that  the  delegates  think 
the  matter  over,  sleep  on  it,  and  take  it  up  at  the  next  meeting.^ 

The  upshot  of  the  matter  was  that  English  and  French 
were  both  made  official  and  the  Treaty  was  printed  with 
English  on  one  page  and  French  on  the  next.  It  was  one 
of  many  evidences  of  the  shifting  of  power  from  the  old  to 
the  new.  Indeed,  English  was  the  dominant  language  at 
the  Conference.  A  large  proportion  of  the  foreign  dele- 
gates, like  the  Chinese,  Japanese,  South  Americans,  and 
others,  spoke  it  as  their  second  language,  and  of  the  Coun- 
cil of  the  five  heads  of  the  great  Powers  only  Orlando  of 
Italy  spoke  no  English,  while  only  two,  Clemenceau  and 
Orlando,  spoke  French.  Clemenceau  and  Sonnino  (For- 
eign Minister  of  Italy)  spoke  English  fluently,  and  Baron 
Makino  of  Japan  spoke  it  well. 

When  the  Three  (the  President,  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  and 
M.  Clemenceau)  were  in  sessions  alone,  as  they  often  were 
during  the  later  days  of  the  Conference,  the  conversation 
was  wholly  in  English.  At  other  times,  and  in  all  of  the 
larger  conferences,  the  speeches  had  to  be  interpreted 
from  English  to  French  and  French  to  English.  This 
work  was  done  by  a  remarkable  Frenchman,  Professor 
Mantoux.     I  have  seen  him  sit  through  a  long  conference, 

'From  Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  January  15. 


THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  LANGUAGES  209 

and  as  each  speech  was  made  in  English,  rapidly  make 
notes  in  French,  or  if  the  speech  was  in  French,  his  notes 
were  in  English;  and  when  the  speaker  finished,  he  arose 
immediately  and  repeated  his  speech  at  length — often 
eloquently — and  with  such  accuracy,  such  complete  un- 
derstanding, that  he  was  rarely  corrected. 

Italian  was  occasionally  heard  at  the  conferences,  and 
German,  of  course,  at  the  single  meeting  with  the  Germans 
at  Versailles,  but  other  languages  almost  never.  When 
the  picturesque  Emir  Feisal,  the  delegate  from  Arabia, 
who  had  only  his  native  Arabian,  spoke  at  a  conference,  he 
was  interpreted  in  English  by  Colonel  Lawrence.  Veni- 
zelos,  the  Greek  Premier,  spoke  French  to  perfection. 

No  doubt  this  decision  to  make  English  coequal  with 
French  as  the  diplomatic  language  of  the  world  hurt 
French  sensibilities  and  especially  hurt  Clemenceau. 
But  Clemenceau  met  this  and  other  setbacks  at  Paris,  for 
which  he  was  later  bitterly  criticized,  like  the  wise  old 
philosopher  he  was. 

The  state  of  mind  of  our  allies  [he  explained  (as  quoted  by  M. 
Tardieu)],  is  not  necessarily  the  same  as  our  own,  and  when  we  are 
not  in  agreement  with  them  it  is  unjust  to  blame  those  who  do  not 
succeed  in  convincing  them  or  to  blame  them  for  evil  intentions  which 
are  not  in  their  hearts. 

What  are  you  going  to  do  about  it?  Each  of  us  lives  encased  in 
his  own  past.  Auguste  Comte  said  that  we  live  dead  men's  lives  and 
it  is  true.     .     .     . 

There  should  be  no  surprise  at  the  resistance  we  have  encountered. 
The  one  said  or  thought,  "I  am  English,"  the  other  thought  "I  am 
American."  Each  had  as  much  right  to  say  so  as  we  had  to  say  we  are 
French.  Sometimes  it  is  true  they  made  me  suffer  cruelly.  But  such 
discussions  must  be  entered  into  not  with  the  idea  of  breaking  off,  or 
smashing  the  serving  tables  and  the  china,  as  was  Napoleon's  wont, 
but  with  the  idea  of  making  one's  self  understood.'^ 

*"The  Truth  about  the  Treaty,"  by  Andre  Tardieu,  pp.  95-96, 


PART  ni 
THE  LEAGUE  AND  THE  PEACE 


I  ! 


CHAPTER  XIII 

The  Origin  of  the  League  of  Nations — History  of 
THE  Covenant — Wilson's  Drafts 

"My  ancestors  were  troublesome  Scotchmen  and  among  them 
were  some  of  that  famous  group  that  were  known  as  the  Cove- 
nanters. Very  well,  there  is  the  Covenant  of  the  League  of 
Nations.  I  am  a  covenanter." — President  Wilson  at  Kansas 
City,  September,  1919. 

THE  most  vital  struggle  of  the  Peace  Conference 
was  the  effort  to  bring  into  being  a  league  of 
nations,  and  relate  it  definitely  to  the  Treaty  of 
Peace.  It  was  the  climax  of  the  conflict  between  the 
New  World — in  its  larger  meaning — and  the  Old,  the 
chief  champion  of  the  one  being  America,  of  the  other, 
France. 

It  is  necessary  first  to  look  into  the  origins  of  this  im- 
portant and  significant  document — the  Covenant — which 
the  Americans  were  now  fighting  for.  No  subject  before 
the  world,  in  the  years  from  1918  to  the  present  day,  has 
been  more  widely  discussed  than  this.  A  presidential 
campaign  in  America  turned  upon  it,  the  policies  of  Europe 
and  Asia  have  been  profoundly  affected  by  it.  The 
League  that  grew  out  of  it  has  now  been  accepted  by 
fifty-one  nations  and  is  regularly  functioning.  Every 
important  nation  in  the  world,  except  America,  Germany, 
and  Russia,  has  joined  it.  Whatever  one's  view  of  it— 
and  views  in  America  vary  from  bitter  execration  to  the 
most  ardent  support — it  cannot  be  denied  that  this  docu- 

213 


214        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

ment  had  within  it  strange  potencies,  capable  of  newly 
stimulating  or  dividing  the  thought  of  the  world. 

Where,  then,  did  it  come  from?  Who  made  it,  and  how? 
What  forces  lay  behind  it? 

No  collection  of  documents  among  all  those  the  Presi- 
dent brought  back  with  him  from  Paris  is  more  complete, 
or  important,  or  interesting,  than  those  dealing  with  the 
League  of  Nations.  Here  are  all  the  various  drafts, 
correspondence,  memoranda;  nearly  the  complete  equip- 
ment of  the  President's  mind.  Here  are  his  own  tentative 
notes  in  shorthand,  or  written  on  his  own  typewriter —  he 
never  discarded  a  scrap  of  paper — giving  strangely  the 
impression  of  one  thinking  not  aloud,  but  in  notes  and 
memoranda.  These  documents  not  only  deal  with  the 
origin  of  the  League  during  1918  and  early  1919,  but 
illuminate  the  discussions  of  the  entire  Conference. 

One  fact  arises  above  all  others  in  studying  these  in- 
teresting documents:  practically  nothing — not  a  single 
idea — in  the  Covenant  of  the  League  was  original  with 
the  President.  His  relation  to  it  was  mainly  that  of 
editor  or  compiler,  selecting  or  rejecting,  recasting  or 
combining  the  projects  that  came  in  to  him  from  other 
sources.  He  had  two  great  central  and  basic  convictions : 
that  a  league  of  nations  was  necessary;  that  it  must  be 
brought  into  immediate  existence.  In  voicing  these  he 
felt  himself  only  a  mouthpiece  of  the  people  of  the  world. 

All  the  brick  and  timber  of  the  structure  was  old,  as 
old  as  the  Articles  of  Confederation  and  the  Constitu- 
tion— older  by  far!  He  was  adapting  them  to  the  new 
end  he  had  in  view.  No  leader  can  be  original  in  ideas; 
he  can  be  original  only  in  expression  and  in  action. 
Lincoln  was  not  original  in  his  idea  that  slavery  should 
be  abolished:  what  upset  his  world  was  his  decision 
to  abolish  it.     The  idea  of  the  League  was  not  original 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS 


215 


Powerful  Undefined  Public  Opinion  of  World 
in  Favor  of  a  League  of  Nations. 


Pan  American  Sctieme  1916 

Earlier  General  Guarantee 

Article  X. 


American  League 
to  Enforce  Peace 


Elihu  Root 
(international 
coi^rt.) 


British 

League  of  Nations 

Societies 


British  Labor  & 
Socialist  War  Aims, 

Feb.  1918 
(Mandatory  principle.) 


Baron  Philiimore  draft 

March  1918 

(guaranteed  arbitration.) 


-^ 


Colonel  House  draft 
June  1918 


General  Smuts  draft 
December  1918 
(Council  of  League) 
Lord  Robert 
Cecil  draft 
December  1918 


WILSON  (first  draft)  July  1918 


Scott-Miller 
Lansing  Jan.  7 


Miier 


Lansing  Suggestions 

Dec.  23, 1918 

Jewish  &  Labor  Demand. 

L 


WILSON   (third  draft) Jan  20, 1919 


British  draft 
Jan  20, 1918 

r 


Hurst- Miller  draft  Feb.  3,  1919 

Used  as  basis  of  discussion 

League  of  Nations  Commission 

Chart  showing  the  origins  of  the  League  of  Nations  Covenant 


with  Wilson:  what  upset  the  world  at  Paris  was  his  de- 
termination to  realize  it  immediately  and  as  a  part  of 
this  peace. 

By  the  middle  of  1918,  the  last  year  of  the  war,  the 
project  of  a  league  of  nations  had  taken  definite  shape 
in  the  minds  of  many  thoughtful  men,  both  in  America 
and  in  Europe.  Early  in  the  spring  of  that  year  the  British 
Government,  acting  through  Mr.  Balfour,  had  appointed 
a  committee  of  eminent  international  lawyers  to  draw 


216        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEIVIENT 

up  a  basis  for  a  definite  plan.  The  report  of  this  com- 
mittee, made  on  March  29,  1918,  was  sent,  in  May,  to 
the  War  Cabinet,  the  Dominion  Premiers,  and  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States.  This  document  of  eighteen 
articles,  known  as  the  Phillimore  report,  from  the  chair- 
man. Baron  Phillimore,  became  the  foundation  of  the 
League's  constitution.^  It  was  no  new  creation,  any 
more  than  the  plans  which  sprang  from  it.  It  formu- 
lated in  legal,  diplomatic  phraseology  what  seemed  most 
practical  in  the  schemes  already  before  the  world. 

Wilson  was,  of  course,  in  touch  with  the  general  cur- 
rents of  thought  then  sweeping  the  world  regarding  a 
future  league.  In  America  there  was  the  League  to 
Enforce  Peace  and  later  the  League  of  Free  Nations 
Society.  In  England  there  was  the  old  League  of  Nations 
Society,  headed  by  Sir  W^.  H.  Dickinson,  and  there  were 
active  new  organizations.  The  League  had  been  made 
a  part  of  the  war  aims  of  the  Inter-Allied  Labour  and 
Socialistic  Conference  of  February,  1918,  which  also 
resolved  that  it  should  be  made  a  part  of  the  coming 
settlements.  The  idea  swept  England  more  completely 
than  it  did  America.  In  a  report  to  the  State  Depart- 
ment of  the  United  States  sent  by  the  writer  from  Eng- 
land on  June  30,  1918,  occur  these  words: 

Interest  in  the  League  of  Nations  has  now  become  a  veritable  flood. 
It  is  being  discussed  everywhere  and  in  all  kinds  of  publications.  The 
Daily  Mail  snipes  at  it  and  there  are  letters  of  opposition  and  doubt  in 
other  papers,  but  even  the  Times  now  appears  to  give  guarded  ap- 
proval and  the  House  of  Lords  has  accepted  a  motion  approving  "the 
principle  of  a  League  of  Nations"  and  commending  to  the  Govern- 
ment "a  study  of  the  conditions  required  for  its  realization."  The 
most  surprising  thing  of  all  was  the  solemn  speech  the  other  day  in  the 
House  of  Lords  by  Lord  Curzon,  who  gave  a  somewhat  half-hearted 

^See  Volume  III,  Document  8,  for  full  text  of  the  Phillimore  report. 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS  217 

support  to  a  more  or  less  half-hearted  League.  Viscount  Grey's 
pamphlet  has  had  a  most  favourable  reception.  The  Labour  Confer- 
ence was  for  the  proposal  in  vigorous  language.  The  forces  that  are 
against  it  are,  as  always,  the  old  unimaginative  Conservative  and 
Imperialistic  groups,  which  are  much  stronger  than  appear  on  the  sur- 
face. 

When  President  Wilson  reached  the  point,  then,  of 
studying  concretely  the  subject  of  a  league  of  nations, 
in  June,  1918,  he  turned  to  the  Phillimore  report,  which 
had  been  sent  to  him  in  the  month  before.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  essential  ideas  of  the  Phillimore  report  were 
much  the  same  as  those  of  the  programme  of  the  American 
League  to  Enforce  Peace.     These  were: 

That  no  nation  should  declare  war  without  first  sub- 
mitting its  cause  of  quarrel  to  some  form  of  arbitration 
or  conciliation. 

That  the  nations  of  the  world  should  agree  to  unite  in 
various  measures  of  punishment,  including  the  use  of 
armed  force,  against  any  nation  that  should  go  to  war 
without  so  submitting  its  case. 

These  provisions  which  have  passed  into  Articles  XII  to 
XVI  of  the  present  Covenant  of  the  League  constitute 
a  species  of  indirect  guarantee.  All  members  are  pledged 
to  aid  any  one  of  them  which  may  be  attacked  either 
by  surprise  or  against  the  judgment  of  an  international 
body  on  the  rights  of  the  case. 

Beyond  these  points  the  Phillimore  report  contained 
little  that  was  definite.  The  organ  of  conciliation  which 
was  to  operate  as  an  alternative  to  the  traditional  methods 
of  arbitration  was  to  be  simply  a  "Conference  of  the 
Allied  States,"  meeting  whenever  its  services  were  re- 

I  quired;  and  its  decisions,  to  operate  as  valid  injunctions 
against  war,  must  be  unanimous,  excluding  the  interested 
parties. 


218        ^YOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

President  Wilson  discussed  the  Phillimore  proposal 
with  Colonel  House.  He  considered  it  insufficient  in 
many  respects  and  finally  turned  it  over  to  Colonel 
House  with  the  request  that  he  draw  up  a  new  draft  of 
a  "covenant" — the  word  was  his  own — on  the  basis  of 
the  ideas  expressed  in  their  discussion,  and  with  the 
advice  of  the  legal  and  other  experts  with  whom  House 
had  been  associated  for  more  than  a  year  in  the  Inquiry. 

Colonel  House  was  spending  his  summer  on  the  sea- 
shore at  Magnolia,  Massachusetts,  and  it  was  here  that  he 
worked  out  his  draft  which  he  sent  with  a  letter  of  ex- 
planation to  the  President  on  July  16,  1918.  This  draft 
of  twenty-three  articles  forms  the  second  step  in  the 
evolution  of  the  Covenant.^ 

The  House  draft  differed  from  the  British  proposals 
in  several  important  respects.  It  not  only  went  into 
greater  detail  on  the  subject  of  organization  and  pro- 
vided for  a  permanent  secretariat,  but  it  made  notable 
additions.  During  the  spring  Colonel  House  had  had 
conferences  with  Elihu  Root,  and  as  a  result  added  to  the 
machinery  of  the  League  an  International  Court  of  Jus- 
tice.    In  his  covering  letter  to  the  President  he  wrote: 

"In  the  past  I  have  been  opposed  to  a  court,  but 
in  working  the  matter  out  it  has  seemed  to  me  a  neces- 
sary part  of  the  machinery.  In  time  the  court  might 
well  prove  the  strongest  part  of  it." 

This  court  would  not  displace  procedure  by  arbitra- 
tion or  conciliation,  but  offered  a  third  method  of  settling 
disputes.  The  other  two  were  retained  from  the  Philli- 
more report,  but  with  striking  alterations.  But  most 
fundamental  was  the  change  in  the  means  of  punishing 
a   state   which    violated   the   agreements.     All   recourse 

^  See  Volume  III,  Document  9,  for  text  of  Colonel  House's  draft  and  letter  of  trans- 
mission and  explanation  to  l*resident  Wilson. 


Edward  j\I.  House,  Member  of  the  American  Commission 

to  Negotiate  Peace 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS  219 

to  armed  force  was  eliminated,  leaving  as  the  final  and 
most  stringent  measure  of  coercion  a  complete  blockade 
of  the  offending  state. 

Besides  these  elaborations  and  alterations  of  the  Philli- 
more  project,  the  House  draft  contained  articles  on  many- 
additional  matters.  An  important  article  provided  for 
reduction  of  all  armaments  to  a  standard  of  "safety,"  for 
the  nationalization  of  manufacture  of  war  material,  and 
for  full  publicity  in  military  affairs. 

By  far  the  most  important  of  the  new  elements  in 
the  House  draft  was  the  article  of  direct  guarantee  of 
the  "territorial  integrity  and  political  independence"  of  the 
members  of  the  League.  This  provision,  which  devel- 
oped into  the  famous  Article  X,  had  a  most  interesting 
history. 

Two  methods  of  guarantee  were  much  discussed  in 
connection  with  the  League — and  a  third  was  mentioned. 

1.  A  guaranteed  process  of  arbitration  such  as  that 
recommended  in  the  Phillimore  report.  This  was  finally 
incorporated  in  Articles  XII  to  XVI  of  the  Covenant. 

2.  A  simple  guarantee  of  rights  and  possessions  against 
invasion  was  supported  by  President  Wilson,  and  be- 
came Article  X  of  the  Covenant. 

The  direct  guarantee  had  been  discarded  by  British 
writers  on  the  League.  All  content  themselves  with  the 
guarantees  surrounding  the  arbitration  agreements  as 
sufficient  to  insure  safety  of  the  members.  It  is  found 
in  none  of  the  significant  plans  of  later  years  except 
Wilson's. 

The  President  believed  that  the  guarantee  must  be 
strong  and  direct.  He  could  see  no  other  way  to  stabi- 
lize a  turbulent  and  too  swiftly  changing  world.  He 
could  see  no  other  way  of  reassuring  terror-stricken 
France  against  a  sudden  invasion  from  the  East.     But 


I 


Facsimile  of  original  copy  of  the 
Covenant  showing  corrections  in 
Article  III  (afterward  Article  X) 
in    President   Wilson's   handwriting 


220 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS  221 

strong  as  the  guarantee  of  Article  X  was  made,  it  was 
never  strong  enough  to  satisfy  France. 

Here  again,  in  this  method  of  direct  guarantee,  he 
drew  his  inspirations  straight  from  the  fundamental 
American  documents,  as  the  Articles  of  Confederation 
in  which  (Article  III)  the  Colonies  bind  themselves  "to 
assist  each  other  against  all  force  offered  to,  or  attacks 
made  upon  them,  or  any  of  them"  and  as  in  the  Con- 
stitution (Article  IV,  Section  4)  "The  United  States 
shall  guarantee  to  every  State  in  this  Union  a  republican 
form  of  government,  and  shall  protect  each  of  them 
against  invasion     .     .     ." 

He  had  incorporated  this  idea  of  direct  guarantee  in 
his  so-called  Pan-American  plan  for  assuring  peace  in 
the  Western  Hemisphere.  On  January  6,  1916,  he  told 
Congress  that  discussions  were  under  way  with  the  other 
American  States  for  a  general  understanding  based  on 
an  agreement  to  unite  "in  guaranteeing  to  each  other 
absolute  political  independence  and  territorial  integrity." 
The  Pan-American  project  did  not  materialize,  but  the 
verbal  form  of  guarantee  he  had  adopted  for  it  remained 
in  his  mind.  In  the  Fourteenth  Point  of  January  8, 
1918,  the  association  of  nations  is  characterized  as  "for 
the  purpose  of  affording"  this  direct  guarantee. 

Consequently  when  the  Phillimore  plan  reached  him 
he  was  not  satisfied  to  accept  its  guaranteed  agreements 
for  arbitration  and  conciliation  as  a  true  accomplishment 
of  his  purpose.  The  direct  guarantee  had  to  go  in,  too, 
and  House,  knowing  the  President's  wishes,  put  it  into 
his  draft. 

But  House  recognized,  as  did  also  the  President,  that 
this  guarantee  of  the  "territorial  integrity"  of  nations 
might  make  the  world  organization  too  inflexible  and 
so  the  guarantee  article  in  House's  draft  is  followed  by 


222        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  ^YORLD  SETTLEMENT 

a  long,  involved  set  of  clauses  providing  for  such  future 
modifications  of  the  status  quo  as  may  be  demanded 
*' pursuant  to  the  principle  of  self-determination  and  as 
shall  also  be  regarded  by  three  fourths  of  the  delegates 
as  necessary  and  proper."  This  qualification  of  the 
guarantee,  he  explains  in  his  letter,  is  advisable  in  order 
to  avoid  making  "territorial  guarantees  inflexible";  and 
he  cites  as  possible  contingencies  for  which  a  door  should 
be  left  open  the  desire  of  Canada  or  Lower  California 
to  unite  with  the  United  States. 

So  much  for  the  House  draft  which  the  President  had  in 
his  hands  in  July,  1918.  He  set  to  work  at  once  upon  it, 
checking  in  the  margin  the  articles  of  which  he  approved. 
The  one  most  conspicuously  not  so  checked  was  that  pro- 
viding for  an  international  court.  Then  he  began  recast- 
ing what  he  had  selected  into  a  new  project. 

He  delighted  in  such  work  as  this.  He  delights  in 
words:  in  exact  expression.  Words  are  beautiful  to  him; 
and  he  is  fond  of  new  words  which  more  clearly  express 
the  content  of  his  ideas.  "Covenant"  he  seized  upon  as 
a  perfect  expression  of  his  conception  of  the  new  relation- 
ship among  the  nations.  He  later  took  eagerly  Smuts's 
word  "mandatory"  to  represent  his  idea  of  the  trusteeship 
of  the  great  nations  of  the  League  toward  weak  and  back- 
ward peoples.  One  finds  in  the  many  documents  that 
came  swiftly  under  his  hand  at  the  Peace  Conference  many 
changes  which  have  for  their  sole  purpose  clearer  and  more 
lucid  English  expression.  I  don't  know  how  many  times 
the  President  changed  the  phrase  "in  respect  to,"  which 
irritated  him  intensely,  to  "in  respect  of. "  In  almost  the 
only  two  notable  excursions,  in  the  writings  of  his  life- 
time, outside  of  the  field  of  politics,  history,  and  econo- 
mics— his  essay  called  "Mere  Literature"  and  an  address 
on  the  Bible — he  expresses  this  love  of  literary  form. 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS  »i3 

In  another  way  he  expressed  a  strain  of  the  enigmatic 
in  his  character.  He  has  always  been  strongly  interested 
in  the  number  thirteen  (the  number  of  letters  in  his  name) , 
which  indeed  has  curiously  and  strikingly  applied  to  many 
of  the  facts  of  his  life.  When  he  redrew  Colonel  House's 
plan  of  twenty-three  articles,  he  reduced  the  number  to 
thirteen  and  adhered  to  this  number,  even  in  later  drafts, 
adding  other  necessary  provisions  as  "supplementary 
agreements." 

That  summer  he  worked  in  the  big,  quiet  study  in  the 
White  House,  looking  out  across  the  little  green  park 
toward  the  gray  shaft  of  the  Washington  Monument 
piercing  the  sky.  He  wrote  with  his  own  typewriter  on 
small  sheets  of  paper. ^ 

Besides  the  omission  of  the  international  court,  the 
most  significant  alteration  made  by  the  President  was  the 
restoration  of  armed  force  to  a  place  among  the  means  of 
punishing  violations  of  the  agreements.  This  was  done 
by  retaining  the  form  of  House's  articles  on  arbitration 
and  adding,  after  the  agreement  to  use  the  blockade  as  a 
sanction,  the  words:  "And  to  use  any  force  that  may  be 
necessary  to  accomplish  that  object."  Another  signi- 
ficant change  was  in  the  standard  for  reduction  of  arma- 
ments— to  "domestic  safety."  The  guarantee  article 
(which  in  his  first  draft  was  Article  III)  Wilson  left  as 
House  had  drafted  it,  with  certain  verbal  changes — 
qualifying  clauses  and  all.  It  must  be  remembered  that 
down  to  the  close  of  January,  1919,  when  the  President 
spoke  of  a  guarantee  as  the  "key  to  the  peace,"  it  was 
this  qualified,  flexible  guarantee  he  had  in  mind. 

Having  completed  his  work,  the  President  went  up  for 
a  few  days'  rest  to  Magnolia,  where  he  discussed  the  Cove- 

^See  Volume  III,  Document  10,  for  text  of  President  Wilson's  6rst  draft  of  the  Cove- 
nant. 


224         ^YOODRO^V  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

nant  with   Colonel   House,  explained   his   changes,  but 
made  no  further  modifications  in  his  draft. 

This  first  draft  of  the  Covenant  was  what  Wilson  had 
with  him  when  he  left  America.  On  arriving  in  Europe 
he  was  confronted  with  two  new  projects,  both  British, 
drawn  up  by  General  Smuts  and  Lord  Robert  Cecil. 
Both  were  based  in  large  degree  upon  the  Phillimore  re- 
port, but  each  had  characteristic  features  of  its  own.  The 
Smuts  plan  especially  impressed  the  President  as  being 
well  thought  out,  and  convinced  him  that  his  own  draft 
needed  revision. 

General  Smuts  was  one  of  the  two  or  three  world  leaders 
developed  by  the  Peace  Conference.  An  extraordinary 
man,  scarcely  fifty  years  old ;  one  of  the  youngest  leaders 
at  the  Conference,  yet  a  Lieutenant  General  in  the  British 
Army  and  a  Cabinet  Minister  of  the  Union  of  South  Africa. 
Born  on  a  farm  in  Cape  Colony  of  Boer  parentage,  he 
had  been  one  of  the  most  brilliant  Cambridge  University 
scholars  of  his  time,  carrying  off  all  the  prizes.  He  devel- 
oped early  as  a  thoroughgoing  idealist.  He  fought  bit- 
terly against  the  British  in  the  Boer  War — and  when  the 
Boers  were  beaten  he  retired — at  thirty!  "I  prefer  to  sit 
still  to  water  my  orange  trees,  and  to  study  Kant's  '  Critical 
Philosophy.'"  In  a  few  years  he  was  the  foremost  leader 
in  the  Union  of  South  Africa.  His  knowledge  of  world 
conditions  was  extensive  and  realistic.  Though  his  course 
at  Paris  was  marked  by  certain  curious  contradictions, 
he  was  one  of  President  Wilson's  strongest  supporters. 
Personally,  he  was  a  rather  taciturn  and  unapj^roachable 
man,  with  a  high  forehead,  steely  eyes,  straight  brows  de- 
pressed in  a  habitual  half  frown,  tightly  closed  lips,  and 
a  powerful  chin;  he  was  a  man  who  looked  the  part  of  the 
leader.  He  was  always  at  hand  when  there  was  difficult 
work  to  do — as  in  the  mission  to  Hungary. 


THE  OKIGIN  OF  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS  225 

General  Smuts  really  wanted,  just  as  Wilson  did,  to 
make  the  League  of  Nations  the  foundation  of  a  new 
international  system,  basing  its  authority  to  prevent  war 
upon  its  peace-time  prestige.  Moreover,  he  sought  to 
endow  the  League  with  duties  and  responsibilities  that 
should  make  it  the  source  of  order  in  the  reconstruction 
of  the  world  out  of  chaos.  "Europe  is  being  liquidated," 
he  declared,  "and  the  League  of  Nations  must  be  the 
heir  to  this  great  estate." 

Smuts's  recommendations  were  not  presented  schemati- 
cally, but  were  interspersed  in  the  text  of  a  pamphlet 
with  paragraphs  of  explanation.  The  President  had 
tliem  all  copied  out  together  and  proceeded  to  work  them 
into  his  own  draft. ^  He  wrote  these  all  out  on  his  own 
typewriter  as  before,  using  sheets  of  the  same  size;  re- 
taining the  thirteen  articles,  but  adding  six  supplementary 
articles.  When  he  had  finished  he  had  eleven  pages  of 
new  material  to  nine  of  original  draft.  ^ 

From  Smuts  he  took  over  a  whole  new  scheme  of  or- 
ganization, establishing  a  smaller  Council  in  addition  to 
the  general  conference  of  the  League.  This  idea  was  by 
no  means  original  with  Smuts.  The  practice  of  putting 
international  affairs  into  the  hands  of  small,  effective 
councils  dominated  by  the  principal  allied  and  associated 
powers  had  developed  extensively  in  the  last  j^ear  of  the 
war.  It  already  had  a  name,  "diplomacy  by  conference." 
It  seemed  natural  to  many  to  continue  this  practice  in 
time  of  peace  and  to  give  the  League  a  more  effective 
organ  than  the  unwieldj^  general  conference  of  all  nations. 
In  the  League  the  problem  of  numbers  of  small  states 


'See  Volume  III,  Document  11,  for  copy  of  Smuts's  recommendations.  Cecil's  plan 
is  not  reproduced:  it  may  be  foimd  in  the  Hearings  of  the  Senate  Committee  on  the 
Treaty  of  Peace,  pp.  1163-&4. 

^See  Volume  III,  Document  1:2,  for  President  Wilson's  second  draft  of  the  Covenant, 


226        WOODROW  \\1LS0N  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

would  present  itself  much  more  acutely  than  during  the 
war,  when  the  smaller  active  belligerents  were  relatively 
few.  It  had  been  safe  to  admit  them  to  a  certain  parti- 
cipation in  the  work  of  the  Councils  without  danger  of 
being  swamped.  In  the  Supreme  War  Council  they  had 
been  called  in  whenever  their  interests  were  involved  in 
the  discussion.  In  the  League  there  would  be  a  large 
number  of  small  powers  which  could  not  conveniently  be 
allowed  to  take  part  in  all  business.  Instead  of  consulting 
only  particular  States  when  their  interests  were  involved, 
Smuts  favoured  a  plan  of  permanent  representation  of  small 
states  on  the  Council  in  a  minority  of  one  to  the  great 
Powers.  All  this  constitutional  machinery  was  lifted 
bodily  from  Smuts's  plan  by  Wilson  and  substituted  for 
the  article  previously  taken  over  from  House's  draft. 
Again  a  permanent  secretariat  was  included. 

Smuts's  recommendations  on  the  subject  of  arbitration 
and  the  guarantees  surrounding  it  were  also  taken  over, 
partly  in  substitution  for  former  clauses,  partly  in  addition 
to  them.  Essentially,  most  of  this  material  goes  back  to 
the  original  Phillimore  report,  whence  Smuts  had  derived 
it.  The  expression  is  more  decisive  than  Wilson's  modifi- 
cation of  House's  diluted  version.  But  the  machinery  of 
arbitration  was  retained  from  House. 

The  article  on  reduction  of  armaments  was  expanded  by 
two  paragraphs  taken  from  Smuts — one  on  the  abolition 
of  conscription,  the  other  on  the  establishment  of  scales 
of  equipment  and  war  material  corresponding  to  actual 
forces. 

The  most  considerable  section  of  new  material  incor- 
porated in  Wilson's  new  draft  from  the  Smuts  project  was 
a  set  of  four  supplementary  agreements  defining  the 
mandatory  system.  But  it  must  not  be  supposed  that 
the  system  was  an  invention  of  Smuts.     Not  only  did  the 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  LEx\GUE  OF  NATIONS  227 

central  idea  have  deep  roots  in  American  policy,  so  that 
it  seemed  a  natural  growth  to  the  President;  but  Smuts 
had  borrowed  it  from  more  radical  thinkers  than  himself. 
The  Inter-Allied  Labour  and  Socialist  programme  of 
February,  1918,  had  looked  forward  to  a  supervision  by 
the  League  of  all  colonial  empires — those  of  the  Allies 
as  well  as  those  wrested  from  the  enemy,  including  the 
subject  lands  of  Turkey.  The  concept  of  Smuts,  limited 
to  territories  split  off  from  the  old  empires  of  Russia, 
Austria-Hungary  and  Turkey,  while  it  embraced  sections 
of  Europe  not  covered  by  the  Labour  programme,  did  not 
follow  it  at  all  into  the  colonial  field,  properly  speaking. 
Wilson,  in  taking  over  the  project,  extended  its  scope  to 
the  former  German  colonies. 

But  there  appeared  in  this  revised  version  of  the  Cove- 
nant two  more  supplementary  agreements  besides  the  four 
on  the  mandatory  system.  These  were  from  origins  other 
than  the  Smuts  plan.  One  was  a  recognition  of  the  in- 
creasing consideration  given  labour  in  the  determination 
of  world  affairs.  It  was  an  undertaking  of  all  members 
of  the  League  to  strive  for  the  establishment  of  "fair  hours 
and  humane  conditions  of  labour"  in  their  own  and  other 
countries.  In  somewhat  altered  form,  this  has  become 
(a)  of  Article  XXIII,  of  the  existing  Covenant. 

The  last  supplementary  agreement  of  this  second  Wil- 
son draft  was  an  article  requiring  all  new  States  to  grant 
equal  rights  to  their  "racial  or  national  minorities.'* 
This  article  was  undoubtedly  derived  from  the  propaganda 
of  the  Jews,  who  always  put  their  cause  on  the  same  foot- 
ing as  that  of  the  Lithuanians  in  Poland  or  Slovenes  in 
Italy.  Probably  associated  with  this  article  was  a  new 
paragraph,  afterward  developed  into  the  present  Article 
XI,  which  Wilson  has  so  often  referred  to  as  his  "favourite 
article  " — a  set-off  giving  flexibility  to  Article  X.     It  estab- 


228         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEIVIENT 

lished  the  friendly  right  of  any  nation  to  call  the  attention 
of  all  to  "any  circumstances  anywhere  which  threaten  to 
disturb  international  peace  or  the  good  understanding  be- 
tween nations."  This  clause  would  enable  a  Lithuanian 
or  Jugoslav  state  to  bring  before  the  League  questions 
affecting  the  treatment  of  its  racial  kinsmen  in  Poland 
or  Italy — and  the  United  States  to  bring  up  questions  of 
the  treatment  of  the  Jews  anywhere. 

Smuts,  Labour,  and  the  Jews  thus  account  for  all  the  al- 
terations which  appear  in  the  President's  second  draft. 
There  were  other  suggestions  before  him,  but  he  made  no 
use  of  them.  One  was  the  brief  outline  drawn  up  by 
Cecil.  Like  the  Smuts  plan,  it  provided  for  an  upper 
council,  but,  unlike  it,  this  body  was  to  consist  only  of  the 
representatives  of  great  Powers,  and  it  was  to  do  all  the 
real  work  of  the  League,  Strong  as  were  the  President's 
feelings  on  the  subject  of  the  responsibility  of  the  great 
Powers,  this  naked  form  of  dictation,  based  frankly  on  the 
precedent  of  1815,  was  too  much  for  him. 

Then  there  were  the  famous  suggestions  forwarded  by 
Lansing  with  his  letter  of  December  23.^  It  lies  in  the 
file  almost  as  fresh  and  unhandled  as  when  the  Secretary 
appended  his  signature.  The  President  knew  Lansing's 
views  without  reading  this  document.  Even  more 
strongly  than  House,  Lansing  was  opposed  to  the  use  of 
force  as  a  sanction  for  the  authority  of  the  League  over 
recalcitrant  members.  He  would  have  nothing  to  do  with 
forcible  guarantees,  either  of  the  processes  of  arbitration 
or  of  the  territorial  and  political  status  quo.  He  would  go 
no  further  in  collective  action  than  a  pledge  of  non-inter- 
course with  offending  States — a  kind  of  "negative  guaran- 
tee." His  curiously  distorted  version  of  the  general 
guarantee  article,  pledging  all  member  States  not  to  vio- 

'See  'The  Peace  Negotiations,"  by  Robert  Lansing,  pp.  48  ff. 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS  229 

late  each  other's  integrity  or  independence,  but  allowing 
individual  States  to  do  so  by  authorization  of  the  League, 
was  surely  a  charter  of  very  doubtful  value  for  the  peace  of 
the  world.  It  resulted  in  no  changes  in  the  President's 
draft. 

Many  other  proposals  of  American  origin,  as  well  as  the 
French  plan,  sent  to  him  January  20,  a  Swiss  discussion, 
Belgian  suggestions,  and  so  on,  are  among  the  President's 
documents,  but  none  of  them  seem  to  have  exerted  any 
influence  upon  him  in  making  his  second  draft. 

This  second  draft  of  his  project,  having  been  completed, 
was  handed  to  Colonel  House  and  hurriedly  and  secretly 
printed.  It  was  this  draft,  distributed  by  the  President 
to  the  American  Commissioners  and  to  certain  British 
leaders  on  January  10,  that  caused  such  a  commotion 
among  the  diplomats.  For  they  saw  in  it,  for  the  first 
time,  the  concrete  statement  of  what  the  President  in- 
tended to  do — for  example,  i*egarding  limitation  of  arma- 
ment and  control  of  colonies.  Here  was  a  specific  pro- 
gramme. It  was  this  second  draft  that  was  given  by 
Mr.  Bullitt  to  the  Senate  Committee  as  the  President's 
original  Covenant — which  it  was  not. 

The  circulation  of  the  President's  draft  brought  forth  a 
number  of  comments  and  criticisms  (which  he  had  asked 
for).  Only  two  of  these — the  ones  submitted  by  General 
Bliss  and  David  Hunter  Miller — he  considered  of  suflBcient 
importance  to  necessitate  changes  in  his  draft. 

The  lengthy  commentary  by  General  Bliss  contained 
many  sound  observations  and  suggestions,  most  of  them 
matters  of  phrasing.^  Two  of  these  that  were  adopted  go 
together.  Among  the  objects  to  be  secured  by  the  League 
enumerated  in  Wilson's  preamble  stood  "orderly  govern- 

'See  Voliirue  III,  Document  13,  for  General  Tasker  H.  Bliss's  commentary  on  the 

Covenant. 


230        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

ment.'  To  tliis  Bliss  objected:  "There  are  some  people 
who  may  be  frightened  at  the  words  .  .  .  as  a  sugges- 
tion of  the  possible  use  of  the  League  to  put  dow^n  internal 
disorders."  This  echo  of  the  Holy  Alliance  was  deleted 
from  the  revised  draft.  Upon  Bliss's  suggestion,  too, 
the  direct  guarantee  of  integrity  and  independence  was 
qualified  by  the  phrase  "as  against  external  aggression." 
Miller's  comments  and  suggestions,  which  were  even  more 
lengthy,  have  already  been  published.^ 

With  these  suggestions  in  hand  the  President  at  once 
prepared  a  third  American  draft  of  the  Covenant.^  It 
was  printed  like  the  second  but  apparently  not  circulated, 
as  it  is  little  known.  In  addition  to  the  changes  just  de- 
scribed, as  deriving  from  Bliss,  it  contained  four  more 
supplementary  agreements.  One  of  these  was  the  trouble- 
some religious  equality  clause.  This  may  w^ell  have  been 
the  President's  own  contribution,  based  upon  familiar 
American  tradition.  The  Jews  were  always  insistent 
upon  not  being  regarded  as  a  religious  body.  The  racial 
minority  clause  met  their  main  demands.  But  it  may 
have  suggested  the  other — particularly  as  a  means  of  ap- 
proaching such  questions  in  other  than  new  States. 

The  last  three  of  the  new  articles  appear  to  have  been 
derived  either  from  a  set  of  suggestions  handed  to  the 
President  by  Lansing  on  January  7,  or  from  Miller's 
criticism.  One  was  concerned  with  that  old,  thorny  ques- 
tion, the  freedom  of  the  seas,  which  the  British  thought 
had  been  securely  shelved  by  their  reservation  on  the 
second  of  the  Fourteen  Points.  Only,  whereas  Lansing 
had  drawn  his  article  to  provide  for  the  codification  of 
international  law  on  this  subject,  Wilson  went  on  the 
supposition  that  this  had  already  been  accomplished,  and 

'See  Senate  Hearings,  pp.  1177-1213. 

^See  Volume  III.  Document  14.  for  the  Pfesident's  third  draft  of  the  Covenant. 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS  2S1 

stipulated  an  agreement  "that  no  power  or  combination  of 
powers  shall  have  a  right  to  overstep  in  any  particular  the 
clear  meaning  of  the  definitions  thus  established."  But 
the  League,  acting  collectively,  should  have  power  to  close 
the  seas  in  whole  or  in  part  as  a  means  of  enforcing 
agreements.  The  other  two  articles  provided  for  the 
publication  of  all  future  treaties  and  forbade  commercial 
discrimination  among  members. 

This  account  of  the  evolution  of  the  President's  plan  for 
a  league  indicates  how  completely  he  was  prepared,  how 
thoroughly  he  had  thought  out  the  problems  involved, 
before  any  commission  was  even  formed.  The  analysis 
also  discloses  how  little  of  the  project  was  his  own,  how 
his  function  was  almost  purely  that  of  selecting  the  ideas, 
and  the  very  language,  of  other  men.  The  context  also 
shows  that  there  were  many  at  Paris  as  well  prepared  as  he 
was.  Further  modifications  were  yet  to  be  forced  upon 
him  by  other  processes  than  his  own  logic.  One  thing  of 
his  own  (now,  if  not  originally  so)  he  was  to  carry  through — 
the  direct  guarantee  which  became  Article  X. 

At  about  the  same  time  that  Wilson's  third  draft  was 
completed,  appeared  also  the  official  project  of  the  British 
delegation  embodying  in  great  detail  the  plan  upon  which 
it  was  prepared  to  take  its  stand  in  the  discussion. ^  It 
was  transmitted  to  the  President  (in  mimeograph)  by 
Colonel  House,  on  January  19,  with  a  note  reminding  him 
of  a  conference  to  be  held  with  Lord  Robert  Cecil  that 
evening.  Next  day  Cecil  himself  sent  in  a  printed  copy. 
That  Wilson's  draft  had  been  employed  in  preparing  it  is 
clear  from  the  fact  that  it  contains  an  article  of  direct 
guarantee,  in  much  altered  language,  covering  only  "terri- 
torial integrity."  Another  article  provides  for  possible 
revisions  of  the  territorial  settlement,  but  limits  the  action 

'See  Volume  III,  Document  15,  for  text  of  British  plan. 


232         WOODROW  'WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEIMENT 

of  the  League  to  recommending  the  change  to  the  states 
concerned  and  removing  its  guarantee  from  the  territory 
in  question. 

It  was  no  doubt  the  President's  ardent  hope  that  his 
third  draft  of  the  Covenant,  in  which  he  had  endeavoured  to 
reconcile  all  views,  would  form  the  basis  of  discussion  by 
the  heads  of  states  in  the  Council  of  Ten.  But  the  British 
draft  contained  too  many  vital  differences  to  be  disposed 
of  in  a  few  revisions.  There  were,  for  example,  the  ex-- 
tremely  controversial  question  as  to  whether  British  colo- 
nies should  have  representation  separate  from  the  British 
Empire,  the  problems  of  a  permanent  court  of  inter- 
national justice  and  the  rights  of  minorities.  The  Presi- 
dent's talks  with  Cecil  and  Smuts  convinced  him  that 
these  were  controversies  that  could  be  settled  only  by 
personal  conferences  and  close  study.  Just  at  this  time, 
also,  the  pressure  of  work  in  the  Council  of  Ten,  and  other 
demands  on  the  President's  time,  had  become  overwhelm- 
ing. 

It  was  therefore  agreed  between  the  Americans  and  the 
British  that  the  two  drafts  be  referred  to  their  legal  ad- 
visers, David  Hunter  Miller  for  the  United  States  and 
C.  J.  B.  Hurst  for  Great  Britain.  The  outcome  was  a 
composite  draft,  fully  satisfactory  to  neither  side,  but 
finally  accepted,  when  the  League  of  Nations  Commission 
met  on  February  3,  as  the  basis  of  discussion.^ 

Such  was  the  origin  of  the  Covenant  which  became  tlie 
basis  of  the  discussions  in  the  League  of  Nations  Com- 
mission. 

In  the  meantime,  another  struggle,  intimately  connected 
with  the  American  contention  at  Paris,  was  in  full  swing. 
There  were  two  distinct  elements  in  the  President's  pro- 


'See  \'olume  III,  Document  16,  for  the  Hurst-Miller  plan,  from  minutes  of  the 
Leaijue  of  Nations  Commission. 


FIRST   JtfEtTING. 
Held  at  the  Hotel  Crillok,  Febkuaut  3,  1919,  at  230  p.m. 


PresiJeiU  Wilson  in  the  Chair. 


Preseut : 


President  Wilson 

Colonel  House    -  -  - 

Lord  Robert  Cecil 

Lieutenant  General  J.  C.  Smuts 

Mr.  Leon  Bourgeois 

Dr.  Laroaude     .  -  - 

Mr.  Oilantlo        .  .  - 

Senator  Scialoja 

Baron  Makiuo    -  -  - 

Viscount  Chioda 

Mr.  Hynians       .  .  • 

Mr.  Epitacio  Pessoa 

5Ir.  V.  K.  Wellington  Koo 

3Ir.  Jayme  Batalha  Rcis 

Mr.  Vesnitch 


*  I  United  States  of  America. 
"  I  British  Empire.  ' 
[  >  France.- 

:j  Italy. 

*  >  Japa 


pan. 

Belgium. 
Brazil . 
China. 
Portuqal. 
Serbia. 


Tlie  Chairman  laid  before  the  Commission  a  Draft  Covenant,  the  tcx!  of  uliicli  is 
contained  in  Annex  1,  Avhich  it  was  agreed  should  form  the  basis  of  the  C'ommis.sion'n 
deliberations.  Mr.  Leon  Bourgeois  laid  before  the  Commission  the  Freiuli  |in.iii)R;ils 
relating  to  the  creation  of  a  League  of  Nations  (Annex  2).  Mr.  Orlando  laid  lu^fore 
the  Commission  an  Italian  Draft  Scheme  (Annex  3). 

A  general  discussion  followed  dealing  with  the  procedure  to  be  adoptod. 

(The  meeting  adjourned  to  meet  at  S30  p.m.  on  the  4th  February  at  the  sumc  jilaic.) 


Annex  1  to  Minutes  of  Fint  MeeUng. 


DRAFT  COVENANT. 
Preamble. 

In  order  to  secure  international  peace  and  security  by  the  acceptance  of  oI>lig;i- 
tions  not  to  resort  to  the  use  of  armed  force,  by  the  prescription  of  open,  jiibt  and 
honourable  relations  between  nations,  by  the  firm  esiablishnient  of  the  understandings 
of  international  law  as  the  actual  rule  of  conduct  among  governiheats,  and  by  the 
maintenance  of  justice  and  a  scrupulous  respect  for  all  treaty  obligations  in  the 
dealings  of  organised  peoples  with  one  another,  and  in  order  to  promote  iutcrnational 
ci>-operation,  the  Powers  signatory  to  this  Covenant  adopt  this  constituiioa  of  the 
League  of  Nattoos. 

Article  L 

The  action  of  the  High  Contracting  Parties  under  the  terms  of  this  Covenant 
shall  be  effected  through  the  instrumentality  of  meetings  of  Delegates  representing 
the  High  Contracting  Parlies,  of  meetings  at  more  frequent  intervals  of  an  Executive 
Council  representing  the  States  more  immediately  concerned  in  tiie  matters  uuCler 
discussion,  and  of  a  permanent  International  Secretariat  to  be  established  at  the 
capital  of  the  League. 

Article  2. 

Meetings  of  the  Body  of  Delegates  shall  be  held  from  -  time  to  time  as  occasion 
may  require  for  the  purpose  of  dealing  with  matters  withia  the  sphere  of  action  of 
the  League. 

Facsimile  of  first  page  of  minutes  of  League  of  Nations  Commission. 
(For  a  description  of  this  meeting,  see  page  279.) 


233 


234         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 


b 


gramme:  One,  there  must  be  a  League  of  Nations;  two,  it 
must  be  an  integral  part  of  the  Treaty  of  Peace.  It  will 
assist  in  the  orderly  miderstanding  of  what  happened  at 
Paris  to  consider  the  controversy,  which  was  raging,  at  the 
time  that  the  Covenant,  as  described  above,  was  being  de- 
veloped, over  this  second  element  in  the  President's  pro- 
gramme. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

The  Key  to  the  Peace — Struggle  of  President  Wil- 
son TO  IVIake  the  League  of  Nations  an  "Integral 
Part  of  the  General  Treaty  of  Peace" 

"A  League  of  Nations  seems  to  me  to  be  a  necessity  of  the 
whole  settlement.  I  accept  it  as  a  key  to  the  whole  settle- 
ment."— President  Wilson's  reply  to  a  delegation  representing  the 
International  League  of  Nations,  consisting  of  Lord  Parmoor, 
Lord  Buckmaster,  the  Bishop  of  Oxford,  and  Mr.  G.  P.  Gooch, 
at  London,  December  28,  1918. 

WE  COME  now  to  the  true  reasons  why  President 
Wilson  insisted  with  unshakable  determination 
upon  making  the  League  of  Nations  "an  integral 
part  of  the  general  treaty  of  peace." 

This,  in  many  respects,  is  the  most  important  subject 
connected  with  the  Peace  Conference;  for  it  was  the  con- 
crete symbol  of  the  whole  struggle  between  the  "new  or- 
der" and  the  "old  order."  Again  and  again  Wilson 
called  the  League  the  "key  to  the  whole  settlement." 

The  European  Allies  and  Japan  wanted  the  territorial, 
military,  and  economic  settlements  made  first  and,  in  gen- 
eral, according  to  the  provisions  of  the  old  secret  treaties: 
a  peace  based  upon  the  necessities,  interests,  and  fears  of 
the  gTeat  nations.  The  League  was  to  come  afterward — if 
at  all ! 

President  Wilson  wanted  the  American  principles  and 
programme,  which  had  been  accepted  at  the  Armistice, 
applied  now  and  to  all  the  terms  of  the  settlement.  He 
regarded  the  League  of  Nations  as  the  cornerstone  of  that 


236        WOODROW  ^^TLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEIVIENT 

programme  without  which  the  principles  could  not  be 
upheld,  nor  the  future  peace  of  the  world — America's 
supreme  concern — soundly  guaranteed.  He  was,  there- 
fore, for  the  League  now,  and  knit  into  every  part  of  the 
settlement.  It  was  not  Wilson's  principles  that  caused 
the  trouble  at  Paris,  but  his  determination  to  apply  them. 

President  Wilson  once  said  of  himself  that  he  had  a 
"single-track  mind."  He  exemplified  it  in  those  early 
days  of  the  Conference.  No  matter  what  happened  he 
moved  straight  forward  toward  his  objectives. 

On  the  first  day  of  the  Conference  the  French  offered 
their  plan  of  procedure,  which  put  the  consideration  of 
the  League  of  Nations  last.  On  the  next  day  the  Presi- 
dent introduced  his  "list  of  subjects,"  which  put  the 
League  first.  He  evidently  expected  that  it  would  be 
discussed  by  the  Council  itself,  and  its  principles,  if  not 
its  details,  w^orked  out  by  the  heads  of  States  as  the  basis 
of  the  settlements. 

The  British,  in  their  usual  fashion,  set  to  w^ork  at  once 
to  draft  a  resolution  to  bring  the  matter  definitely  before 
the  Conference.  Both  tlie  British  and  French  were  adepts 
in  the  preparation  of  such  documents;  they  knew  well  the 
tactical  value  of  putting  down  the  actual  written  proposal. 

The  principal  purpose  of  this  British  resolution  was  to 
get  the  discussion  of  the  League  out  of  the  Council  and 
into  the  hands  of  a  special  committee.  The  copy  that 
w^e  find  in  Mr.  Wilson's  file  is  printed  on  a  single  sheet  of 
paper  crowned  by  the  British  seal  and  dated  January  15. 
It  was  handed  to  the  President,  no  doubt,  for  immediate 
approval,  but  he  held  it  back  for  a  week. 

During  all  this  time  discussions  were  going  on  outside 
the  Council.  The  President's  Covenant — described  in 
the  last  chapter — at  least  certain  concrete  proposals  in 
it,  like  those  for  cutting  down  armaments  and  the  manda- 


THE  KEY  TO  THE  PEACE  237 

tory  control  of  colonies — had  fallen  into  the  European 
camp  with  something  of  the  effects  of  a  bombshell.  These 
things  gave  the  allied  leaders  a  clear  glimpse,  for  the  first 
time,  of  what  the  Americans  intended  to  do — if  they 
could.  Wide  differences  of  view  at  once  developed,  es- 
pecially with  the  French  and  Italians. 

Nevertheless,  the  President  still  hoped  that  the  League 
would  be  discussed,  so  far  as  its  general  principles  were 
concerned,  in  the  main  councils  and  by  the  heads  of 
States.  On  January  21  he  told  Clemenceau,  who  so  in- 
formed the  Ten,  that  he  intended  to  "submit  the  ques- 
tion of  a  League  of  Nations  at  the  next  meeting."  Here 
follows  the  discussion: 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  stated  that  he  agreed  to  this,  and  suggested 
that  the  question  of  the  League  of  Nations  be  taken  up  at  the  next 
meeting,  and  that  those  present  lay  dowTi  the  general  principles  and 
then  appoint  an  international  committee  to  work  on  the  constitution 
of  the  League.     .     .     . 

President  Wilson  asked  whether  Mr.  Lloyd  George  contemplated 
a  committee  formed  of  delegates. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  answered  that  he  thought  it  would  be  desirable 
to  have  qualified  persons  on  the  committee. 

President  Wilson  then  explained  for  the  information  of  those 
present  how  he  had  gone  about  drawing  up  a  constitution.  He 
stated  that  he  had  taken  the  Phillimore  report  and  had  asked  Colonel 
House  to  rewrite  it.  He  had  then  rewritten  Colonel  House's  con- 
stitution to  suit  his  own  ideas.  Subsequently  he  had  studied  the 
plans  prepared  by  General  Smuts  and  Lord  Robert  Cecil,  and  then  he 
had  rewritten  the  constitution  once  more.  Finally,  he  had  had  a  talk 
with  Mr.  Bourgeois,  and  he  was  glad  to  say  that  he  had  found  his 
ideas  in  substantial  accord  with  Mr.  Bourgeois,  General  Smuts  and 
Lord  Robert  Cecil. 

Mr.  Balfour  suggested  that  the  President's  draft  be  referred  to 
the  committee. 

President  Wilson  thought  it  well  that  the  committee  be  formed  of 
those  men  who  had  already  studied  the  question. 


238         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  agreed  to  this,  and  as  he  would  Uke  to  have 
both  General  Smuts  and  Lord  Robert  Cecil  on  the  committee,  he 
suggested  that  the  committee  be  composed  of  two  persons  appointed 
by  each  of  the  delegations  of  the  Great  Powers.^ 

It  was  not  only  the  diversity  of  opinion  that  was  devel- 
oping over  the  Covenant  that  caused  the  President  to  ac- 
cept the  Committee  idea,  but  the  Council  itself  was  already 
overwhelmed  with  the  problems  of  Russia  and  Poland  and 
of  a  world  still  in  chaos.  For  the  world  was  not  waiting 
either  for  the  Council  of  Ten  or  for  a  league  of  nations 
commission!  It  was  everywhere  in  dangerous  flux.  On 
January  19,  for  example,  there  w^as  a  political  crisis  in 
Italy  and  the  general  elections  in  Germany,  both  of  which 
were  sources  of  anxiety.  Austria  was  starving;  Hungary 
was  already  drifting  toward  revolution. 

On  the  following  day  (January  22)  the  minutes  record: 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  read  certain  resolutions  regarding  the  League 
of  Nations,  and  they  were  accepted  with  certain  amendments  pro- 
posed by  President  Wilson. 

These  were  the  British  resolutions  which  had  been  in 
the  President's  hands  for  a  week,  and  the  amendments  re- 
ferred to,  which  the  President  had  made — one  in  type- 
writing and  one  in  his  own  handwriting,  were  of  immense 
significance.     The  printed  text  ran : 

This  League  should  be  created  as  part  of  the  peace. 

Under  this  provision  the  settlements  might  be  made 
according  to  the  French  plan  of  having  two  divisions  of 
the  Peace  Conference,  in  the  first  of  which  all  the  settle- 
ments were  to  be  made  according  to  the  old  ideas,  and 
then  a  second  congress  which  would  "discuss  a  Society  of 
Nations." 

Usccret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  Januarj'  21. 


THE  KEY  TO  THE  PEACE  239 

With  the  President's  changes  it  read: 

"This  League  should  be  created  as  an  integral  part  of 
the  general  treaty  of  peace."  In  short,  he  wanted  the 
League  to  be  an  "integral  part" — indeed,  the  corner- 
stone— of  the  peace. 

While  this  was  his  long-held  purpose,  there  was  also  an 
immediate  tactical  significance  in  this  amendment.  If 
he  could  get  immediate  consideration  of  the  principles  of 
the  League  in  the  Council  and  by  the  heads  of  the  States, 
as  he  had  intended,  he  would  so  place  the  Council  on 
record  that  the  League  could  not  be  sidetracked.  While 
this  resolution  was  adopted,  although  with  a  reservation 
by  Baron  Makino,  the  very  next  day  (January  23)  Lloyd 
George  precipitated  the  attempt  (which  will  be  described 
in  the  next  chapter)  to  divide  up  the  German  colonies 
among  the  British  dominions,  the  French,  and  the  Japa- 
nese— which  in  itself  was  an  attempt  to  sidetrack  the 
League  and  get  the  settlements  on  the  basis  of  the  secret 
agreements  rather  than  on  the  basis  of  the  "new  order." 
On  January  25,  during  the  second  plenary  session  of  the 
Conference,  while  the  conflict  over  the  colonies  was  rag- 
ing in  the  Council  of  Ten,  these  resolutions  of  January  22 
were  passed  by  all  the  nations,  an  action  which  later 
proved  of  unexpected  importance.  The  League  project 
was  thus  fairly  launched.  Wilson,  in  a  powerful  speech  on 
that  day,  drove  home  his  main  contention  that  the  League 
was  to  be  "the  keystone  of  the  whole  programme"  of  the 
peace. 

This  is  the  central  object  of  our  meeting  [he  said].  Settlements 
may  be  temporary,  but  the  actions  of  the  nations  in  the  interests  of 
peace  and  justice  must  be  permanent.  We  can  set  up  permanent 
processes.     We  may  not  be  able  to  set  up  permanent  decisions.^ 


^Minutes  Second  Plenary  Session,  January  25. 


240        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

How  far  any  of  his  hearers  sympathized  with  this  point 
of  view  may  be  doubted ;  but  they  accepted  the  resolution 
providing  for  a  committee  to  draft  the  Covenant.  There 
were  still  plenty  of  chances  for  them  either  to  get  the  essen- 
tial settlements  made  before  the  Covenant  was  ready  and 
accepted — ^as  they  were  at  that  moment  trying  to  do  with 
German  colonies — or  else  to  get  a  covenant  to  suit  them. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  other  heads  of  States — 
not  one  of  whom  really  believed  in  the  League  (Smuts  and 
Cecil  believed  in  it,  but  not  Lloyd  George)  considered 
that  in  referring  it  to  a  commission  they  were  getting  it, 
at  least  temporarily,  out  of  the  way — so  they  could  pro- 
ceed to  the  business  that  really  interested  them:  the 
division  of  the  colonies,  the  assessment  of  damages  against 
the  Germans,  and  so  on.  And  they  began  by  making  the 
new  commission  as  awkward  and  unwieldy  as  possible — 
as  nearly  a  debating  society — by  adding  members  to  it 
from  as  many  small  nations  as  possible.  Clemenceau, 
Lloyd  George,  and  Sonnino,  who  had  been  so  intent  upon 
excluding  the  small  nations  from  the  effective  delibera- 
tions of  the  great  Powers  on  the  terms  of  the  Treaty,  now 
insisted  that  those  small  nations  be  allowed  a  share  in  the 
formulation  of  the  League. 

So,  for  reasons  of  expediency,  it  was  agreed  to  allow 
delegates  from  five  small  powers  on  the  commission — ^a 
number  which  was  increased  to  nine  after  the  sessions  be- 
gan. As  the  great  Powers  each  had  two  delegates,  there 
was  thus  finally  formed  a  commission  of  nineteen,  with 
the  small  powers  in  a  minority  of  one,  as  planned  for  the 
council  of  the  League. 

This  colloquy  in  the  secret  session  of  January  22  of  the 
Council  of  Ten  is  at  once  so  subtle,  so  significant,  so 
touched,  indeed,  to  the  understanding  mind,  with  irony, 
that  it  is  here  reproduced : 


THE  KEY  TO  THE  PEACE  241 

President  Wilson  observed  that  as  a  practical  matter  he  would 
suggest  that  an  initial  draft  for  the  League  of  Nations  be  made  by  a 
commission  appointed  by  the  Great  Powers.  This  draft  could  then  be 
submitted  to  a  larger  commission  on  which  all  the  small  powers  would 
be  represented.  In  a  word,  the  drafting  would  be  done  by  the  Great 
Powers,  and  the  result  submitted  to  the  criticism  of  the  small  powers. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  thought  that  inasmuch  as  the  League  of 
Nations  is  to  be,  in  fact,  a  sort  of  shield  of  the  small  powers,  they 
should  be  represented  on  the  drafting  committee.  Perhaps  it  might 
be  better  to  have  the  Great  Powers  nominate  their  own  representa- 
tives, and  also  name  the  small  powers,  who  should  likewise  have  repre- 
sentatives on  the  commission. 

President  Wilson  stated  he  would  prefer  to  see  a  more  elastic 
arrangement,  and  thought  it  most  desirable  that  the  opinion  of  the 
thoughtful  men  representing  the  small  powers  should  be  sought. 
Would  it  not  be  well  to  have  the  commission  of  ten  to  be  appointed 
by  the  Great  Powers  authorized  to  call  in  any  one  they  choose  and 
discuss  with  representatives  of  the  small  powers  those  features  of  the 
scheme  most  likely  to  affect  the  latter?  Moreover,  they  need  not 
confine  themselves  to  a  few.  It  seemed  to  him  that  it  was  most  ad- 
visable to  proceed  in  this  way.  Much  more  v.ould  be  gotten  out  of 
the  small  powers,  if  they  were  called  in  as  friends  and  advisers. 
Furthermore,  in  that  way  the  Great  Powers  would  avoid  the  difficulty 
of  seeming  to  pick  out  men  whom  the  small  powers  should  themselves 
choose. 

M.  Clemenceau  observed  that  the  work  was  as  much  for  the  Great 
Powers  as  it  was  for  the  small  powers.  He  thought  it  most  desirable 
that  the  great  and  small  powers  should  get  together,  and  that  their 
work  should  be  intimately  connected.  It  was  important  to  let  the 
public  feel  that  their  work  was  connected.  He  suggested  that  the 
Great  Powers  name  two  representatives  apiece  and  the  small  powers 
name  five.  He  thought  they  would  be  only  too  glad  to  follow  the  ad- 
vice of  the  representatives  of  the  Great  Powers.  He  proposed  that 
the  Bureau  ask  the  small  powers  to  get  together  and  name  five.  The 
responsibility  would  then  be  theirs.  He  spoke,  of  course,  of  belliger- 
ents only,  and  not  of  neutrals.  He  was  most  anxious  the  work  should 
begin  as  soon  as  possible,  and  he  hoped  the  commission  would  be  ap- 
pointed at  once. 

President  Wilson  observed  that  it  was  impossible  to  draft  an 


242         W(X)DROW  ^MLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEIVIENT 

instrument  on  a  large  committee.  It  would  be  far  more  practical  to 
appoint  a  manageable  drafting  committee,  letting  this  small  commit- 
tee of  a  few  men  prepare  and  submit  a  draft  to  the  others,  and  obtain 
their  impressions  and  opinions. 

Mr.  Balfour  understood  it  was  intended  that  the  committee 
should,  from  time  to  time,  consult  the  members  of  the  Great  Powers. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  thought  it  well  to  remember  that  the  small 
powers  were  becoming  very  restive,  and  felt  they  had  been  locked  out, 
so  to  speak.  \Miy  not  let  President  Wilson  prepare  a  draft  for  im- 
mediate consideration  by  the  commission?  He  did  not  think  it  would 
be  impossible  to  have  a  commission  of  fifteen  representatives.  As  to 
the  fear  that  the  assignment  of  only  five  to  represent  all  the  small 
powers  might  cause  some  embarrassment  to  their  delegates,  he  saw 
no  reason  why  the  matter  should  not  be  put  up  to  them,  letting  them 
discuss  and  fight  over  the  question  of  who  should  represent  them. 

M.  Clemenceau  repeated  that  he  thought  it  most  necessary  that 
the  Great  Powers  should  make  the  Conference  feel  that  they  wanted 
the  smaller  powers,  and  ask  all  to  come  in  with  them. 

Lloyd  George  and  Clemenceau  had  thus  got  the  League 
idea  temporarily  sidetracked  in  a  committee  and  then 
they  had  overloaded  the  committee,  making  it  a  kind  of 
blowing-off  place  for  the  small  powers ;  so  that  they  could 
be  left  free,  in  their  small  council  of  the  great  Powers,  to 
settle  and  divide  up  the  world  as  they  pleased.  But  the 
President,  although  severely  hampered,  accepted  the  chal- 
lenge: and  then  did  something  that  the  others  had  never 
in  the  least  calculated  upon.  They  had  expected  Colonel 
House  to  be  the  chief  /Vmerican  representative  on  the 
League  of  Nations  Commission — ^knowing  his  deep  in- 
terest in  the  subject — but  the  President  himself  became  a 
member  and  chairman  of  the  League  of  Nations  Commis- 
sion, thus  giving  it  unexpected  power  and  prominence. 
He  and  Orlando  were  the  only  heads  of  great  States  upon 
it.  Lloyd  George,  having  already  appointed  Smuts  and 
Cecil,  could  not  easily  come  in,  even  if  he  had  cared  to  do 
so.     Interest  even  shifted  from  the  Council  itself  to  the 


THE  KEY  TO  THE  PEACE  243 

League  of  Nations  Commission.     It  was  keen  strategy 
on  both  sides! 

What  the  European  and  Japanese  leaders  never  seemed 
to  understand  was  the  deadly  earnestness  and  determina- 
tion of  this  American  President.  They  did  not  realize 
at  the  time  the  clearness  with  which  he  had  made  up  his 
mind  as  to  his  course  or  to  what  depths  his  convictions 
went,  that  he  represented  not  only  the  ideals  and  tradi- 
tions of  America,  but  the  hope  of  the  world.  During  the  / 
tragedy  and  suffering  of  the  war  every  one  had  thought, 
talked,  and  written  about  some  great  vague  association  of 
nations  that  must  emerge  in  the  final  settlements  to  pre- 
vent the  recurrence  of  such  a  disaster.  It  filled  men's 
minds.  All  statesmen,  French  and  British  as  well  as 
American,  included  it  in  their  declarations  of  policy. 
Only  the  Japanese  never  let  go  emotionally!  None  had 
given  clearer  and  more  forcible  expression  to  this  great 
hope  than  Wilson;  but  whereas  many  of  these  spoke  of  it 
under  the  fleeting  impulse  of  a  current  of  sentiment  or 
of  political  expediency,  leaving  harder  and  more  sordid 
motives  undisturbed  underneath,  the  American  President 
meant  every  word  he  said  and  came  to  Paris  determined 
to  do  what  he  had  agreed  to,  what  had  been  promised. 

It  is  most  impressive — ^and  necessary  at  this  point — to 
examine  the  genesis  of  W  ilson's  determination  to  make  the 
League  "an  integral  part  of  the  general  treaty  of  peace," 
and,  indeed,  the  most  important  part.  It  was  no  sudden 
or  capricious  decision,  no  mere  tactical  feint  as  some  of  the 
diplomats  seemed  to  think.  He  had  been  wrestling  with 
the  problems  it  presented  for  three  years,  throughout  the 
ordeal  of  the  war.  It  had  been  gradually  evolved,  and  in 
his  mind  was  the  inevitable  and  logical  result  to  be 
achieved  from  American  intervention  in  the  war.  What 
other  interest  or  purpose  had  America  than  to    secure 


M4        WOODROW  ^\TLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEIMENT 

from  these  settlements  the  future  permanent  peace  of  the 
world?  The  diplomats  of  Europe  had  no  conception 
of  the  depth  of  the  President's  conviction  upon  this 
point. 

His  thinking  on  the  subject  had  gone  through  four  dis- 
tinct stages,  each  corresponding  to  the  changing  attitude 
of  America  toward  this  world  conflagration. 

Early  in  the  war  he  began  to  see  that  America,  what- 
ever the  outcome,  would  be  profoundly  affected;  that 
our  isolation  as  a  nation  was  henceforward  impossible. 

We  are  participants,  whether  we  would  or  not,  in  the  life  of  the 
world.  .  .  .  We  are  partners  with  the  rest.  What  affects  mankind 
is  inevitably  our  afifair  as  well  as  the  affair  of  the  nations  of  Europe 
and  of  Asia. 

He  said  this  in  an  address  to  the  League  to  Enforce 
Peace,  May  27,  1916,  nearly  a  year  before  x\merica  en- 
tered the  war.  If  this  great  new  fact  was  true,  then  what 
should  America  do?  What  should  she  demand  in  place 
of  the  security  of  her  former,  but  now  inevitably  dis- 
appearing, isolation?  She  could  arm  herself;  become  a 
great  military  power;  this  was  what  the  nations  of  Europe 
were  doing.  He  rejected  this  idea  utterly.  The  only 
alternative  was  some  form  of  international  cooperation, 
in  which  America  could  lead.  She  should  therefore  join 
with  the  other  nations  of  the  world  "to  see  that  right  pre- 
vails as  against  any  sort  of  selfish  aggression,"  and  thus 
preserve  peace  in  the  world.  In  short,  there  should  be  an 
association  of  nations.  This  logic  seemed  to  him  unescap- 
able.  But  at  that  time  we  were  neutrals;  the  present  war 
must  be  settled  "as  the  belligerents  may  agree."  We 
could  have  nothing  to  do,  of  course,  with  the  terms  of  the 
peace.  We  might  come  into  the  association  of  nations 
afterward. 

Our  interest  is  only  in  peace  and  its  future  guarantees. 


THE  KEY  TO  THE  PEACE  245 

In  other  words,  the  beUigerents  were  to  settle  the  terms 
of  the  peace  by  negotiation  (with  Germany,  of  course,  at 
the  peace  table),  and  we  were  to  come  in  afterward  as  a 
member  of  the  association  of  nations  to  hold  the  world 
steady. 

But  the  fiercer  grew  the  war,  and  the  nearer  America 
came  to  being  swept  into  it,  the  more  earnestly  the  Presi- 
dent began  to  ask  himself  concerning  the  relationship  of 
this  association  of  nations  with  the  terms  of  the  peace. 
He  still  envisaged  a  peace  by  negotiation,  a  "peace  without 
victory,"  as  he  told  the  Senate  on  January  22,  1917:  and 
he  still  believed  that  the  future  peace  of  the  world  could 
not  be  guaranteed  without  the  participation  of  the  United 
States.  But  he  had  seen  the  passions  of  Europe  rising  to 
greater  and  greater  heights ;  he  had  begun  to  perceive  how 
difficult  it  would  be,  in  such  an  atmosphere  of  hatred  and 
fear  and  greed,  to  get  a  "just  peace."  He  therefore  began 
to  be  concerned  about  the  terms  of  the  peace.  He  tells 
the  Senate  that  before  we  guarantee  the  peace  it  must  be 
"worth  guaranteeing"  in  itself.  We  are  to  condition  our 
entrance  to  the  future  association  upon  the  justice  of  the 
terms. 

But  when  we  took  the  great  plunge  into  the  war  itself,  in 
April,  everything  was  changed.  We  were  no  longer  neu- 
tral; we  were  fighting  side  by  side  with  the  Allies;  we 
would  have  to  sit  in  at  the  peace  table.  It  would  be  a 
peace  with  victory,  imposed,  not  negotiated.  America 
would  be  in  it:  Germany  out  of  it.  We  now  became 
deeply  involved  in  responsibility  for  the  terms:  we  could 
no  longer  stand  aside  negatively  and  say,  "It  is  up  to  you 
to  make  a  just  settlement,  or  we  will  not  guarantee  it." 

Consequently,  the  President  devoted  a  great  deal  of 
hard  thought  and  effort  to  the  formulation  of  terms  such  as 
the  United  States  could  undertake  to  support  positively 


246         WOODROW  WILSON  .\ND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

and  guarantee.  The  association  of  nations  always  ap- 
peared along  with  these  terms.  It  was  the  last  of  the 
Fourteen  Points  in  January,  1918. 

But  it  is  not  until  September,  1918  (Metropolitan 
Opera  House  Speech),  that  he  comes  finally  to  the  decision 
that  the  constitution  of  the  League  of  Nations  is  to  be  the 
"most  essential  part  of  the  peace  settlement  itself,"  be- 
cause "without  such  an  instrumentality,  by  which  the 
peace  of  the  world  can  be  guaranteed,  peace  will  rest  in 
part  upon  the  word  of  outlaws."  But  much  emphasis  is 
still  laid  upon  the  terms  of  peace.  The  price  all  must  pay 
is  "impartial  justice  in  every  item  of  the  settlement,  no 
matter  whose  interest  is  crossed." 

Again  in  his  "Armistice  speech"  to  Congress,  No- 
vember 11,  he  reinforces  the  same  idea. 

Then  the  President  came  to  Europe  and  began  to  face 
the  stark  realities  there.  He  felt  in  the  very  atmosphere 
the  opposition  that  was  growing  up,  the  "slump  in  ideal- 
ism." An  avalanche  of  problems,  expressed  in  petitions, 
appeals,  demands — all  for  the  realization  of  some  im- 
mediate or  material  interest — descended  upon  him.  He 
began  to  feel  that  "disinterested  justice"  would  not  be 
easy  to  obtain,  despite  the  solemn  engagements  taken. 
He  began  to  see  how  enormously  difficult  it  would  be  to 
assure  the  full  justice  of  all  the  terms. 

He  confesses  in  his  speech  at  Manchester,  England: 

I  am  not  hopeful  that  the  individual  terms  of  the  settlement  will  be 
altogether  satisfactory.^ 

But  all  this,  instead  of  weakening  his  purpose,  seems 
only  to  have  hardened  it.  For  he  is  still  convinced  that 
the  great  interest  and  need  and  hope  of  America  is  future 
peace.     In  order  to  secure  this  in  an  anarchic  world,  from 

'December  30,  1918. 


THE  KEY  TO  THE  PEACE  247 

which  injustice  cannot  be  immediately  abohshed,  there 
was  a  greater  need  of  the  League  than  ever.  It  was  even 
more  important  than  the  terms.  He  told  his  hearers  in 
the  Guildhall  speech  at  London,  December  28,  that  "the 
key  to  the  peace  was  the  guarantee  of  the  peace,  not  the 
items  of  it."  Two  days  later,  at  Manchester,  he  ad- 
vanced the  further  idea,  the  logical  next  step — for  if  the 
individual  terms  are  not  satisfactory  there  must  be  ma- 
chinery for  changing  them — that  the  League  would  also 
"provide  the  machinery  of  readjustment,  .  .  .  the 
machinery  of  good- will  and  friendship,"  for  the  redemp- 
tion of  the  settlement  from  any  defects  which  the  heat 
and  passion  of  the  time  might  inject  into  it.  It  must, 
therefore,  more  than  ever,  be  a  vital  part  of  the  Treaty 
itself. 

It  is  most  important  to  bear  in  mind  that  Wilson's 
original  concept  of  the  guarantee  article  in  his  draft  con- 
stitution for  the  League  included  provision  for  modifying 
the  status  quo  as  the  treaty  of  peace  should  leave  it,  by 
self-determination  and  by  vote  of  three  fourths  of  the 
member  States.  And  he  considered  always  that  Article 
XI  of  the  final  Covenant — which  he  called  his  "favourite 
article" — also  served  this  purpose  of  making  the  guarantee 
flexible.  He  never  conceived  of  the  guarantee  as  saddling 
an  unjust  settlement  forever  upon  the  world. 

The  President's  mind  was  therefore  fixed  regarding  the 
relationship  of  the  League  to  the  treaties  of  peace  long  be- 
fore the  Conference  opened.  It  must  be  a  part  of  the 
immediate  settlement;  it  was  indispensable  to  guarantee 
the  peace  of  the  world,  because  it  was  the  only  instrument 
that,  by  adjusting  such  future  causes  of  war,  especially 
those  that  might  arise  out  of  the  treaties,  could  be  used  to 
prevent  nations  from  flying  again  at  one  another's  throats. 
In  short,  it  was  the  only  thing  that  would  give  America 


248        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

what,  primarily,  she  had  fought  for,  peace  and  security 
(without  great  armaments)  after  the  war. 

As  the  Peace  Conference  developed,  still  another 
reason,  not  originally  in  the  President's  mind,  for  insist- 
ing that  League  and  Treaty  go  together  became  an  element 
in  further  hardening  his  determination.  This  was  the 
doubt  that  now  began  to  grow,  whether  if  the  League 
were  not  made  an  inseparable  part  of  the  peace,  accepted 
then  and  there,  the  assent  of  all  the  Powers  (perhaps  even 
America!)  could  be  obtained — at  least  for  a  long  time. 
He  had  not  originally  foreseen  any  reluctance  to  enter  the 
League — had  not  the  nations  all  been  for  it? — and  when 
such  reluctance  appeared  it  only  emphasized  his  convic- 
tion that  League  and  Treaty  must  be  accepted  as  one  act. 

This  was  the  situation  up  to  January  25,  when  the 
famous  resolution  regarding  the  League  of  Nations  was 
adopted.  It  was  a  fight  skillfully  carried  on  by  the  Presi- 
dent, and  he  had,  to  an  extraordinary  degree  (in  all  these 
early  battles),  won  his  points.  He  was  getting  the  ma- 
chinery for  the  creation  of  the  League  well  started ;  he  had 
achieved  his  great  purpose  of  securing  the  acceptance,  by 
all  nations,  at  the  open  conference  of  January  25,  of  his 
central  principle  that  the  League  must  be  an  "integral 
part  of  the  general  treaty  of  peace."  And  if  by  force  of 
circumstances  he  had  been  prevented  from  having  the 
broad  principles  of  the  League  discussed  and  the  elements 
of  the  programme  adopted  in  the  Supreme  Council,  as  he 
had  hoped,  he  was  soon  to  make  the  League  of  Nations 
Commission,  to  which  the  task  of  organization  was  being 
entrusted,  almost  as  important,  at  least  in  the  public  eye, 
as  the  Council  itself  by  becoming  himself  the  chairman  of 
it.  Indeed,  those  long  meetings  in  the  Crillon  to  dis- 
cuss the  new  League  for  a  time  almost  blanketed  the 
work  of  the  Council  of  Ten. 


THE  KEY  TO  THE  PEACE  249 

But  these,  as  I  have  said,  were  only  early  skirmishes. 
The  great  battles  were  to  come  later.  ^Vliile  the  Allies 
had  accepted  the  idea  of  the  League  Covenant  as  a  part  of 
the  Treaty,  it  was  on  the  assumption,  of  course,  that  it 
would  be  the  kind  of  a  covenant  that  would  please  and 
satisfy  them.  Consequently,  they — the  French  especially 
— carried  their  fight  into  the  League  of  Nations  Commis- 
sion— as  will  be  shown  later.  But  they  also  had  another 
method,  which  they  now  hastened  to  attempt.  They 
had  got  the  discussion  of  the  League  safely  pocketed,  as 
they  thought,  in  a  committee;  why  not  unite  and  push  for- 
ward instantly  with  the  division  among  themselves  of  the 
spoils  of  war — the  German  colonies — before  the  President's 
committee  could  report  .f^  This  remarkable  coup  of  the 
old  diplomacy,  engineered  with  consummate  skill  by  Mr. 
Lloyd  George,  will  be  described  in  the  next  chapter. 


CHAPTER  XV 

War  Spoils  at  Paris — Struggle  to  Secure  Division 

OF  THE  Former  German  Colonies  in  Advance  of 

THE  Organization  of  the  League — President's 

Fight  for  His  Principles 

THE  last  two  chapters  have  shown  with  what  vigour 
and  success  the  President  had  driven  forward  the 
development  of  the  two  primary  elements  of  the 
American  programme  at  Paris.  He  had  brought  his  plan 
for  a  league  of  nations  strongly  into  the  foreground  of 
the  discussions,  and  was  himself  the  chairman  of  the  com- 
mission which  was  preparing  a  constitution  for  it.  He  had 
also  secured  the  reluctant  acceptance  of  the  equally  im- 
portant aspect  of  this  programme ;  that  this  League  was  to 
be  organized  as  a  part  of  the  peace  itself.  Apparently  the 
new  order  was  winning  all  along  the  line. 

But  the  wilier  diplomats  of  the  old  order  had  not  been 
sleeping  on  their  arms. 

They  did  not  like  this  League;  and,  above  all,  they  did 
not  want  it  in  the  Treaty.  Moreover,  they  had  been  genu- 
inely alarmed  at  certain  of  the  proposals  in  Wilson's 
Covenant.  Could  he  mean  to  stand,  for  example,  for  the 
mandatory  control  of  all  the  former  German  colonies,  and 
all  Turkey,  as  he  proposed  .^^  It  was  particularly  disturb- 
ing to  the  British  Dominions  and  to  Japan,  who  wished  to 
divide  immediately  the  German  colonies  in  the  Pacific  and 
in  Africa  as  spoils  of  war. 

This  alarm  increased  as  the  President  pressed  forward 

250 


WAR  SPOILS  AT  PARIS  251 

with  his  League  plan — and  was  evidently  determined  to 
make  it  a  real  and  vital  part  of  the  peace.  What  should 
they  do? 

Their  plan  was  simple — ^to  demand  at  once  a  division 
of  the  spoils,  before  the  discussion  of  the  League,  or  of  the 
mandatory  system,  could  even  be  begun.  They  had  got 
the  consideration  of  the  Covenant  (as  was  shown  in  the 
last  chapter)  put  away  safely,  as  they  thought,  in  a  com- 
mission, through  the  resolution  of  January  22. 

On  the  very  next  day,  January  23,  the  impetuous 
Lloyd  George  precipitated  the  discussion  of  the  disposition 
of  the  German  colonies.  He  did  this  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  the  council  had  already  accepted  (January  13)  the 
President's  "list  of  subjects  for  discussion,"  in  which  the 
League  of  Nations  was  first,  followed  by  reparations  and 
territorial  questions,  with  "colonies"  last  of  all. 

It  was  an  exceedingly  bold  and  clever  tactical  move, 
calculated  in  the  first  place  to  get  the  Allies  what  they 
wanted,  and  in  the  second,  to  test  out  the  capacities  and 
fighting  qualities  of  this  American  leaderj 

For  President  Wilson  was  the  great  unknown  factor  at 
Paris.  While  everyone  knew  what  he  had  said,  no  one 
knew  yet  what  he  would  do. 

Was  he  merely  an  inspirational  preacher  who  had 
caught  the  enthusiasm  of  the  world,  or  did  he  mean  busi- 
ness.?    How  much  of  a  fighter  was  he? 

Lloyd  George,  Clemen ceau,  Soimino  had  long  been 
working  together,  and  knew  one  another  well.  They  had 
met  in  conference  and  decided  military  problems  of  the 
first  magnitude;  they  had  faced  political  crises  together, 
and  they  had  negotiated — as  we  now  know  more  definitely 
than  we  did  at  the  time — regarding  many  of  the  coming 
settlements  of  the  peace,  both  those  founded  upon  the 
earlier  secret  treaties  and  those  which  had  arisen  since 


252         WOODROW  ^VILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

American  interposition  in  the  war  had  assured  ultimate 
victory  to  the  alHed  arms. 

But  not  one  of  the  principal  leaders  except  Mr.  Balfour 
had  previously  met  face  to  face  this  American  President 
who  had  exercised  so  powerful  a  moral  leadership  in  the 
world.  They  had  wilhngly  accepted  him  as  the  grand 
strategist  of  the  diplomacy  of  the  last  year  of  the  war,  for 
he  represented  the  strengtli  of  America,  and  his  principles, 
widely  accepted  by  the  restive  liberals  and  radicals  of  all 
Europe,  had  provided  as  powerful  a  unifying  influence  in 
the  allied  countries  as  it  was  corrosive  in  the  Central 
Empires.  But  the  time  had  come  now  for  employing  the 
tactics  of  diplomacy  as  contrasted  with  its  strategy.  And 
the  struggle  was  now  among  themselves :  not  with  a  foreign 
enemy.  What  would  Wilson  do.^  Was  this  America, 
full  of  strange  ideas  and  new  principles,  to  sit  in  wuth  the 
family  of  Europe  as  an  honoured  guest,  politely  accepting 
its  ancient  customs.^  Or  w^as  America  to  be  like  the  rich 
and  powerful  pioneer  son,  returned  from  far  lands,  who 
had  just  saved  the  old  home  from  foreclosure  and  now 
proposed  to  banish  the  antique  furniture  and  change  the 
plumbing.^ 

When,  therefore,  Lloyd  George  proposed  on  January  23 
that  the  colonial  matters  be  discussed,  M.  Clemenceau 
of  France  and  Signor  Sonnino  of  Italy  instantly  agreed — as 
though  it  had  all  been  understood  beforehand. 

It  was  perfectly  plain  to  the  President  what  this  swift 
and  astonishingly  clever  shift  in  tactics  meant.  In  no 
other  way  could  they  more  shrewdly  drive  forward  their 
own  ideas  of  the  peace  settlement  as  opposed  to  those  of 
the  President.  In  no  other  case  than  this  relatively 
simple  one  of  the  distribution  of  the  spoils  of  war,  already 
in  their  hands,  could  the  allied  nations  present  such  a 
united    front.     Here    were   hundreds    of    islands    dotted 


WAR  SPOILS  AT  PARIS  253 

throughout  the  Pacific  Ocean,  a  great  sUce  of  China  and 
vast  areas  in  Africa  inhabited  by  13,000,000  people — ^the 
former  German  colonies — to  be  "divided  up."  Lloyd 
George  was  also  thinking  of  the  treasure  house  of  the  old 
empires  of  the  Near  East  and  spoke  of  the  "Turkish 
Empire,"  a  large  part  of  which  would  be  "parcelled  out." 
These  were  the  most  tangible  spoils  of  war,  and  most 
easily  disposed  of.  A  distribution  now  would  leave  all 
the  parties  feeling  that  they  had  "got  something  definite" 
and  in  diplomatic  good-humour  to  attack  harder  problems. 
Indeed,  the  reason  given  by  Lloyd  George  for  suggesting 
this  action  was  that  "Oriental  questions  and  colonial  ques- 
tions were  less  involved  [than  European  questions],  and 
to  economize  time  he  suggested  that  these  matters  be 
tackled  at  once."^ 

The  President  immediately  objected — ^all  the  quota- 
tions here  used  are  made  directly  from  the  Secret  Minutes 
— ^arguing  that : 

the  world's  unrest  arose  from  the  unsettled  condition  of  Europe,  not 
from  the  state  of  affairs  in  the  East,  or  in  the  Colonies,  and  that  the 
postponement  of  these  questions  would  only  increase  the  pressure  on 
the  Delegates  of  the  Peace  Conference.  He  would  therefore  prefer 
to  set  in  process  immediately  all  that  was  required  to  hasten  a  solution 
of  European  questions. 

As  a  result  of  this  discussion  the  President  apparently 
won  his  point,  for  it 

was  then  decided  that  the  Secretary  General  should  ask  all  Delega- 
tions representing  Powers  with  territorial  claims  to  send  to  the  Secre- 
tariat their  written  statements  within  10  days. 

The  President,  however,  was  profoundly  disturbed. 
It  was  clear  enough  now  that  he  was  to  have  shrewd 
opponents — the  shrewdest  in  the  world.  They  were 
not  going  to  fight  him  on  his  main  contentions.     That 

^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  January  23. 


254         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

would  have  been  poor  tactics.  It  was  the  fainihar 
poHcy  which  he  himself  described  later  in  the  Council 
of  "acceptance  in  principle,  but  negation  in  detail." 

In  short,  after  a  settlement  had  been  completely  made 
on  the  order  of  the  old  diplomacy  and  according  to  the 
provisions  of  the  secret  treaties,  and  each  nation  had 
got  all  it  could  get  materially,  strategically,  and  politi- 
cally, there  was  to  be  a  pious  statement  of  "principles 
leading  to  justice,  morals,  and  liberty"  and  a  discussion 
of  the  organization  of  a  society  of  nations ! 

But  the  President  determined  to  settle  this  war  accord- 
ing to  the  new  principles  which  had  been  accepted  at 
the  Armistice.  They  were  to  be  applied  now.  The 
League  of  Nations  was  not  to  be  relegated  to  some  vague 
future  congress  but  brought  at  once  into  being.  It  is 
not  at  all  troublesome  to  suffer  idealists  in  the  world, 
provided  they  are  not  determined  upon  applying  their 
ideals  immediately jiik 

But  the  first  principle  of  successful  diplomacy,  as  of 
war,  is  attack — swift  and  unexpected  attack.  While 
President  Wilson  thought  he  had  succeeded  in  getting 
the  discussion  of  colonial  claims  postponed,  he  had  not 
counted  upon  the  mercurial  Lloyd  George.  At  the  after- 
noon session  of  January  24  there  was  a  great  stir  in  the 
outer  room  of  the  French  Foreign  Office,  where  behind 
double-locked  doors  the  Council  of  Ten  was  sitting. 

"At  this  stage,"  reports  the  Secret  Minutes,  "the 
Dominion  Prime  Ministers  entered  the  room":  a  dry 
way,  indeed,  of  setting  forth  the  dramatic  arrival  of  the 
British  Empire!  Lloyd  George  was  incomparable  in 
staging  such  effects  as  this. 

Perhaps  the  figures  among  them  that  stood  out  most 
impressively  at  first  glance  were  Massey  of  New  Zealand, 
a  great  shaggy,  rough-hewn  bulk  of  a  man;  and  Smuts  of 


WAR  SPOILS  AT  PARIS  255 

South  Africa,  the  youngest  and  most  distinguished  of 
the  group  in  the  uniform  of  a  Lieutenant  General  of  the 
British  Army.  Hughes  of  Austraha,  a  small,  deaf,  rather 
dried-up  old  man  with  an  electric  ear  phone,  and  Borden 
of  Canada,  the  "handsomest  man  at  the  Peace  Confer- 
ence," completed  the  group.  They  were  ushered  into 
the  Council  room  and  welcomed  by  Clemenceau.  They 
had  come  to  present  their  claims  for  the  possession  of 
most  of  the  former  German  colonies  which,  as  Lloyd 
George  explained,  had  been  captured  by  Dominion  troops. 
Mr.  Lloyd  George  made  a  brief  statement  showing  that 
the  German  colonial  policy  had  been  a  bad  one — "in 
Southwest  Africa  they  had  deliberately  pursued  a  policy 
of  extermination." 

All  he  would  like  to  say  on  behalf  of  the  British  Empire  as  a  whole 
was  that  he  would  be  very  much  opposed  to  the  return  to  Germany 
of  any  of  these  Colonies. 

President  Wilson  said  that  he  thought  all  were  agreed  to  oppose 
the  restoration  of  the  German  Colonies. 

M.  Orlando,  on  behaK  of  Italy,  and  Baron  Making,  on  behalf 
of  Japan,  agreed. 

(There  was  no  dissentient  and  this  principle  was  adopted.    .     .     .) 

In  this  brief  and  summary  way  all  the  German  colonies 
were  alienated  from  German  control.  The  Allies  already 
had  military  and  political  sanctions  for  this  alienation; 
and  they  felt  that  the  maladministration  of  these  Colo- 
nies by  Germany  gave  them  moral  sanctions.  Even 
j  Herr  Erzberger  in  the  days  before  the  war — for  the 
scandals  of  German  colonization  had  been  aired  at  home 
as  well  as  abroad — remarked  that  "it  would  be  a  curse 
if  the  German  colonies  could  only  be  made  profitable  if 
they  were  manured  by  the  blood  of  the  natives."^ 

^Many  German  leaders  made  similar  sharp  criticisms  of  German  colonial   policy. 
i         Herr  Dernbm-g,  then  Secretary  of  State,  who  visited  the  colonies  in  1907,  said  in  the 


256        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  ^^'ORLD  SETTLEIVIENT 

The  next  question  was  to  decide  what  to  do  with  these 
vast  dereHct  populations  of  more  or  less  helpless  native 
people.  If  there  was  a  moral  sanction  for  taking  them 
away  from  Germany  it  imposed  an  equal  moral  duty 
upon  the  Allies  to  devise  a  system  which  should  not  result 
in  the  same  abuses  under  any  future  control. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  was  at  his  best  in  presenting  and 
dramatizing  such  a  situation  as  this.  Vigorously  on  his 
feet,  with  his  leonine  head  thrown  back,  and  his  argu- 
ments pouring  from  him  in  a  colourful  torrent,  he  was 
an  engaging  and  persuasive  figure.  He  now  presented 
three  possible  methods  of  future  control  of  the  colonies. 
The  first  was  internationalization  or  direct  administration 
by  the  League  of  Nations — and  this  he  rejected  without 
argument — and  it  was  never  indeed  seriously  considered 
by  the  Conference.  Former  experience  of  such  inter-" 
national  control  as  in  the  Congo,  Samoa  and  the  New 
Hebrides,  in  Egypt  and  Morocco,  had  been  unfortunate. 
The  second  was  "that  one  nation  should  undertake  the 
trusteeship  on  behalf  of  the  League  as  mandatory" — 
the  idea  already  widely  discussed  as  a  part  of  the  League 
of  Nations  scheme.  The  third  was  frank,  old-fashioned 
annexation — and  this  was  what  the  British  Dominions 
wanted  and  wanted  at  once — and  in  this  policy  of  an- 
nexation Mr.  Lloyd  George  supported  them.  If  he 
could  establish  this  policy  in  connection  with  the  colonies, 
where  his  anxiety  was  not  so  much  for  Great  Britain 
herself  as  on  behalf  of  her  dominions,  it  would  make 
easier  sailing  when  the  problem  of  "parcelling  out  the 
Turkish  Empire,"  which  he  saw  just  ahead,  came  up. 

Reichstag,  February  18,  1908:  "The  planters  are  at  war  with  everybody.  .  .  . 
Their  only  principle  is  to  make  as  much  money  as  possible.  .  .  .  The  State  is  asked 
always  to  carry  a  whip  in  its  hand." 

Herr  Bebel,  social  democratic  leader,  said  in  the  Reichstag,  March  20, 1918:  "What 
we  have  heard  up  to  date  from  our  colonies  often  equals  the  acts  of  oriental  despots. 
There,  too,  are  acts  of  cruelty,  acts  of  brutality  of  which  one  cannot  conceive." 


WAR  SPOILS  AT  PARIS  257 

"He  would  like,"  he  said,  "the  Conference  to  treat 
the  territories  as  part  of  the  Dominions  which  had  cap- 
tured them." 

He  was  as  vigorous  and  vivid  in  his  arguments  now 
for  this  solution,  which  President  Wilson  a  little  later 
called  a  "mere  distribution  of  the  spoils,"  as  he  had  been 
vigorous  and  vivid  in  January,  1918,  when  the  shib- 
boleth "self-determination"  was  sweeping  the  world  and 
he  had  pressed  its  application  further  than  President 
Wilson  had  ever  thought  of  doing — ^to  the  native  tribes 
of  Africa.  On  January  5,  1918,  he  had  said  to  the  Trade 
Union  Congress  which  was  vigorously  supporting  the 
principle  of  "no  annexations": 

With  regard  to  the  German  colonies,  I  have  repeatedly  declared 
that  they  are  held  at  the  disposal  of  a  conference  whose  decisions  must 
have  primary  regard  to  the  wishes  and  interests  of  the  native  inhabi- 
tants of  such  colonies. 

At  that  time  he  had  vividly  imagined  these  colonies  as 
somehow  controlling  their  own  destinies,  but  in  the  pres- 
ent argument,  where  he  had  a  wholly  different  purpose  to 
serve,  he  saw  some  of  them  with  equal  vividness  as 
"cannibal  colonies,  where  people  were  eating  each  other." 

The  Dominion  Prime  Ministers  then  presented  their 
cases,  one  after  another:  First,  Mr.  Hughes  of  Australia 
who  wanted  New  Guinea  and  other  islands;  then  Mr. 
Massey  of  New  Zealand,  who  wanted  Samoa;  and  then 
General  Smuts  of  South  Africa,  who  wanted  German 
Southwest  Africa.  They  were  all  frankly  for  outright 
annexation  and  their  arguments  were  based  practically 
upon  the  same  premises: 

1.  The  cost  and  losses  of  the  Dominions  in  the  war, 
and  the  fact  that  Dominion  or  British  troops  were  now 
in  possession. 


258        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

2.  The  strategic  security  and  military  necessity  of 
the  Dominions.  "Any  strong  power  controlling  New 
Guinea,"  said  INIr.  Hughes,  "controlled  Australia." 
"Samoa,"  argued  Mr.  Massey  of  New  Zealand,  "was 
of  great  strategic  importance,  and  the  key  to  the  Pacific," 
and  therefore  it  should  be  controlled  absolutely  by  New 
Zealand. 

3.  Each  Dominion  argued  that  the  interests  of  the 
natives  would  be  secure  under  a  policy  of  direct  annexa- 
tion. The  Dominions  were  democracies:  "They  were 
doing  their  best  for  civilization  in  that  part  of  the  world." 
Mr.  Massey  mentioned  the  fact  that  "there  were  six 
native  Members  in  the  New  Zealand  Parliament  to-day." 

General  Smuts  made  a  slightly  different  case,  for  he 
showed  that  German  Southwest  Africa  was  practically 
"a  desert  country  without  any  product  of  great  value," 
and  because  of  its  small  population  a  mandatory  system 
W'Ould  not  work  practically  as  well  as  direct  annexation. 

Finally  Sir  Robert  Borden  of  Canada  said  that  "the 
Dominion  he  represented  had  no  territorial  claims  to 
advance,"  but  he  was  for  giving  the  other  Dominions 
what  they  wanted.  Throughout  the  Conference,  al- 
though Canada  had  had  great  losses  and  made  great 
sacrifices  in  the  war — far  greater  in  proportion  than 
those  of  the  United  States — she  made  no  selfish  claim 
whatever  for  herself.  Canada,  of  course,  was  unlike 
the  other  Dominions  in  having  no  fear  for  her  security. 
Australia  and  New  Zealand,  watching  the  rise  of  the 
new  Empire  of  Japan  and  the  coming  struggle  for  the 
control  of  the  Pacific,  were  in  a  widely  different  situa- 
tion. Moreover,  Canada,  like  the  United  States,  had 
vast,  undeveloped  resources  and  needed  no  more  territory. 

If  the  British  Dominions  were  frank  in  their  demands 
for  the  prompt  division  of  the  "spoils  of  war" — before 


WAR  SPOILS  AT  PARIS  259 

settling  anything  else — the  Japanese  and  the  French 
were  not  less  so.  On  January  27  in  the  Council  of 
Ten  the  Japanese,  whom  someone  called  the  "silent  part- 
ners of  peace,"  appeared  in  the  person  of  Baron  Makino 
and  said  that  "The  Japanese  Government  feels  justified  in 
claiming  from  the  German  Government  the  unconditional 
cession  of: 

(a)  The  leased  territory  of  Kiaochow  together  with  the  railways 
and  other  rights  possessed  by  Germany  in  respect  of  Shantung 
province. 

(b)  All  of  the  Islands  in  German  possession  in  the  Pacific  Ocean 
North  of  the  Equator. 

The  following  day  M.  Simon,  French  Minister  for  the 
Colonies,  presented  an  equally  frank  demand  by  France 
for  the  annexation  of  Togoland  and  the  Cameroons  in 
Africa,  basing  his  claim  in  part  upon  the  existence  of 
certain  secret  agreements  between  Great  Britain  and 
France.  He  argued  in  favour  of  "annexation  pure  and 
simple,  which  he  had  come  to  support  that  day."  It 
also  developed  presently  that  the  Belgians  expected  a 
piece  of  German  East  Africa,  and  that  Italy  had  certain 
other  provisional  claims  based  upon  the  secret  treaty  of 
London.  A  little  later,  when  she  discovered  what  was  go- 
ing on,  Portugal  also  lifted  up  a  piping  treble,  but  no  one 
paid  any  attention. 

Nothing  could  be  clearer  than  the  issue  here  joined. 
To  President  Wilson  it  negatived  his  whole  principle  of  the 
peace:  the  principle  that  had  been  accepted  by  all  the  na- 
tions at  the  Armistice. 

"No  annexations"  and  "self-determination"  had  been 
the  watchwords  of  the  peace  programme;  not  "mere 
phrases"  but  "pledges  of  the  most  binding  order." 
"People  and  provinces,"  he  had  said,  "were  not  to  be 


"-^l-fT|irr>i    iilimn-rTtktnm-nmfiMi^  iw  nn-tr- — ■■■• 


260         WOODROW  WTLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

bartered  about  from  sovereignty  to  sovereignty  as  if  they 
were  mere  chattels  and  pawns  in  a  game."  "The  day  of 
conquest  and  aggrandizement  has  gone  by,"  he  had  said 
in  his  "Fourteen  Points"  speech.  And  the  fifth  point  of 
the  Fourteen  had  been :  ^''^  p^*^  ^  -  /\j''c^s.d-r^ 

A  free,  open-minded,  and  absolutely  impartial  adjustment  of  all 
colonial  claims,  based  upon  a  strict  observance  of  the  principle  that 
in  determining  all  such  questions  of  sovereignty  the  interests  of  the 
populations  concerned  must  have  equal  weight  with  the  equitable 
claims  of  the  government  whose  title  is  to  be  considered. 

But  here,  so  it  seemed  to  the  President,  the  claims  were 
based  primarily  upon  the  security  and  interest  of  the 
great  governments,  not  upon  the  "principle  that  the 
interest  of  the  weakest  is  as  sacred  as  is  the  interest  of  the 
strongest."  In  short,  to  him,  it  was  frankly  an  applica- 
tion of  the  old  method  of  grab — "a  mere  distribution  of 
the  spoils."  He  did  not  mince  words  in  expressing  his 
opinion  there  in  the  Council — sitting  a  little  forward  in 
his  chair,  speaking  in  a  steady,  rather  low  voice,  with 
his  eyes  fixed  for  a  moment  on  Lloyd  George,  then  on 
Clemenceau : 

The  world  would  say  that  the  Great  Powers  first  portioned  out  the 
helpless  parts  of  the  world,  and  then  formed  a  league  of  Nations. 
The  crude  fact  would  be  that  each  of  these  parts  of  the  world  had  been 
assigned  to  one  of  the  Great  Powers.  He  wished  to  point  out,  in  all 
frankness,  that  the  world  would  not  accept  such  action :  it  would  make 
the  League  of  Nations  impossible  and  they  would  have  to  return  to  the 
system  of  competitive  armaments,  with  accumulating  debts  and  the 
burden  of  great  armies.^ 

It  was  a  new  principle  that  he  sought  to  establish,  a 
"new  order  ";  a  new  attitude  of  the  strong  nations  toward 
weak  and  helpless  peoples.     He  was  not  doing  this  merely 

'Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  January  28. 


WAR  SPOILS  AT  PARIS  261 

because  it  was  right  or  ideal  but  because  it  was  the  most 
practical  way  to  remove  the  dangers  and  cost  of  militarism 
and  the  causes  of  war. 

But  any  leader  who  rejects  an  old  method  of  settle- 
ment must  be  able  to  assert  and  explain  a  new  method. 
Thus  President  Wilson  was  forced — as  the  others  knew 
he  would  be — to  defend  a  system  which  he  and  his  com- 
mission on  the  League  of  Nations  had  not  yet  had  the 
time  to  work  out!  They  had  attacked  his  line  at  its 
weakest   point.     But   he   rose   strongly   to   the   defense. 

On  January  27,  in  the  Council  of  Ten,  he  made  a  "clear 
statement  of  what  was  in  the  mind  of  those  who  pro- 
posed a  trusteeship  by  the  League  of  Nations  through 
the  appointment  of  mandatories."  It  was  a  very  dis- 
tinguished group  of  men  who  listened  to  him  there  on 
that  day  in  the  old  French  building  on  the  Quai  d'Orsay. 
He  had  before  him  the  chief  figures  of  the  three  great 
European  nations — the  British  Empire,  France,  and  Italy — 
each  accompanied  by  his  foreign  minister.  There  were 
also  present  all  the  British  Dominion  Prime  Ministers 
and  the  representatives  of  Japan  (Makino,  Matsui,  and 
Saburi)  and  China  (Wang,  Koo,  and  Chao).  In  all,  with 
the  experts,  secretaries,  and  interpreters,  there  were 
thirty-two  persons  in  the  room — and  probably  twenty- 
five  of  them  (perhaps  all  except  the  Chinese)  were  actively 
hostile  to  the  President's  new  principles.  Here  is  what 
the  President  said: 

The  basis  of  this  idea  was  the  feehng  which  had  sprung  up  all  over 
the  world  against  further  annexation.  Yet,  if  the  Colonies  were 
not  to  be  returned  to  Germany  (as  all  were  agreed),  some  other 
basis  must  be  found  to  develop  them  and  to  take  care  of  the  inhabi- 
tants of  these  backward  territories.  It  was  with  this  object  that  the 
idea  of  administration  through  mandatories  acting  on  behalf  of  the 
League  of  Nations  arose.     .     .     .     Some  institution  must  be  found  to 


262        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

carry  out  the  ideas  all  had  in  mind,  namely,  the  development  of  the 
country  for  the  benefit  of  those  already  in  it  and  for  the  advantage  of 
those  who  would  live  there  later. 

The  purpose  was  to  serve  the  people  in  undeveloped  parts,  to  safe- 
guard them  against  abuses  such  as  had  occurred  under  German  admin- 
istration and  such  as  might  be  found  under  other  administrations. 
Further,  where  people  and  territories  were  undeveloped,  to  assure 
their  development  so  that,  when  the  time  came,  their  interests,  as 
they  saw  them,  might  qualify  them  to  express  a  wish  as  to  their  ulti- 
mate relations — perhaps  lead  them  to  desire  their  union  with  the 
mandatory  power.     .     .     . 

In  the  first  place,  the  League  of  Nations  would  lay  dowTi  certain 
general  principles  in  the  mandate,  namely,  that  districts  be  adminis- 
tered primarily  with  a  view  to  the  betterment  of  the  conditions  of  the 
inhabitants.  Secondly,  that  there  should  be  no  discrimination  against 
members  of  the  League  of  the  Nations  so  as  to  restrict  economic  access 
to  the  resources  of  the  districts.  .  .  .  All  countries  would  pay  the 
same  duties,  all  would  have  the  same  right  of  access.     .     .     . 

If  the  process  of  annexation  went  on,  the  League  of  Nations  would 
be  discredited  from  the  beginning.  Many  false  rumours  had  been  set 
about  regarding  the  Peace  Conference.  Those  who  were  hostile  to  it 
said  that  its  purpose  was  merely  to  divide  up  the  spoils.  If  they 
justified  that  statement  in  any  degree,  that  would  discredit  the  Con- 
ference. 

This,  in  brief,  was  the  President's  idea  of  the  new 
principle  he  sought  to  have  applied.  It  was  opposed, 
root  and  branch,  to  the  old  imperialistic  practices. 

I  have  spoken  of  this  as  the  "President's  idea,"  but 
it  was  not  his:  it  was  America's.  It  had  its  roots  in  the 
traditional  principles  and  policies  of  the  United  States,  al- 
though, as  I  shall  show.  President  Wilson  pressed  it  a  step 
further  forward,  using  General  Smuts's  plan  for  a  manda- 
tory system  as  the  practical  basis  of  his  programme. 

America  inevitably  had  a  more  liberal  background 
for  its  colonial  policy  than  did  any  of  the  nations  of  the 
Old  World.  The  necessities  of  commerce  and  the  in- 
vestment of  capital  never  imposed  on  us  an  obligation 


WAR  SPOILS  AT  PARIS  263 

for  colonial  expansion  as  it  did  on  Great  Britain.  The 
necessity  of  finding  an  outlet  for  surplus  population 
never  counted  with  us  as  it  has  with  Japan  or  Italy  or  y 
Germany.  A  vigorous  minority  even  opposed  such 
conditional  expansion  as  this  country  embarked  upon 
at  the  close  of  the  Spanish  War,  and  the  issue  of  "Im- 
perialism" was  raised  vigorously,  if  not  successfully. 

The  ideals  of  trusteeship,  as  applying  to  colonial 
possessions,  had  been  set  forth  by  many  former  American 
leaders,  regardless  of  political  partisanship:  Elihu  Root, 
then  Secretary  of  War,  in  his  instructions  to  the  Taft 
Commission  of  1900  to  the  Philippines  warns  the  com- 
mission to  "bear  in  mind  that  the  government  which 
they  are  establishing  is  designed  not  for  our  satisfaction 
or  for  the  expression  of  our  theoretical  views,  but  for 
the  happiness,  peace,  and  prosperity  of  the  people  of  the 
Philippine  Islands." 

President  McKinley  wrote  in  his  message  to  Congress 
(December  3,  1900): 

The  fortunes  of  war  have  thrown  upon  this  nation  an  unsought 
trust  which  should  be  unselfishly  discharged  and  devolves  upon  this 
Government  a  moral  as  well  as  a  material  responsibility  toward  those 
millions  we  have  freed  from  an  oppressive  yoke.  .  .  .  Our  obligation 
as  guardian  was  not  lightly  assumed. 

President  Roosevelt  declared  in  his  annual  message 
to  Congress  of  December  6,  1904,  that 

our  chief  reason  for  continuing  to  hold  them  [the  Philippines]  must  be 
that  we  ought  in  good  faith  to  try  to  do  our  share  of  the  world's  work. 

President  Taft  went  a  step  further  and  asserted  in 
his  annual  message  to  Congress  in  December,  1912,  that 

we  are  seeking  to  arouse  a  national  spirit,  and  not,  as  under  the  older 
colonial  theory,  to  suppress  such  a  spirit.     The  character  of  the  work 


264         WOODROW  \^^LSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEIVIENT 

which  we  have  been  doing  is  keenly  recognized  in  the  Orient,  and  our 
success  thus  far,  followed  with  not  a  little  en\^  by  those  who,  initiat- 
ing the  same  policy,  find  themselves  hampered  by  conditions  grown  up 
in  earlier  days  and  under  different  theories  of  administration.     .     .     . 

President  Wilson  accepted  and  followed  this  American 
policy  with  enthusiasm.  On  April  20,  1915,  we  find 
him  saying: 

We  do  not  want  a  foot  of  anybody's  territory.  If  we  have  been 
obliged  by  circumstances,  or  have  considered  ourselves  to  be  obliged 
by  circumstances  in  the  past,  to  take  territory  which  we  otherwise 
would  not  have  thought  of  taking,  I  believe  I  am  right  in  saying  that 
we  have  considered  it  our  duty  to  administer  that  territory  not  for 
ourselves  but  for  the  people  living  in  it,  and  to  put  this  burden  upon 
om*  consciences — not  to  think  that  this  thing  is  ours  for  our  use,  but 
to  regard  ourselves  as  trustees  of  the  great  business  for  those  to  whom 
it  does  really  belong. 

Various  words  had  been  used  to  express  the  new  prin- 
ciple of  colonial  relationship.  McKinley  had  thought  of 
America  as  a  "guardian"  and  Wilson  as  a  "trustee." 

But  there  was  another  vital  and  more  advanced  ele- 
ment in  the  American  idea.  We  were  not  only  to  be 
trustees  of  weaker  people,  an  idea  also  familiar  in  the 
best  British  thought  on  colonial  obligations  (the  "white 
man's  burden")  but  we  w^ere,  in  President  Taft's  words, 
"to  arouse  a  national  spirit,  and  not  as  under  older 
colonial  theory,  to  suppress  such  a  spirit." 

This  idea  President  Wilson  developed  again  and  again 
in  his  speeches,  as  at  Topeka,  in  the  course  of  his  Western 
preparedness  tour: 

The  greatest  surprise  the  world  ever  had,  politically  speaking,  was 
when  the  United  States  withdrew  from  Cuba.  We  said,  "We  are 
fighting  this  war  for  the  sake  of  the  Cubans,  and  when  it  is  over  we 
are  going  to  turn  Cuba  over  to  her  own  people,"  and  statesmen  in 
every  capital  in  Europe  smiled  behind  their  hands.     .    .    .    TheAmeri- 


WAR  SPOILS  AT  PARIS  265 

can  people  felt  the  same  way  about  the  Philippines,  though  the  rest 
of  the  world  does  not  yet  believe  it.  We  are  trustees  for  the  Fihpino 
people,  and  just  as  soon  as  we  feel  that  they  can  take  care  of  their 
own  affairs  without  our  direct  interference  and  protection,  the  flag 
of  the  United  States  will  again  be  honoured  by  the  fulfillment  of  a 
promise. 

Such  was  the  essence  of  the  American  idea  at  the  end 
of  the  war.  It  was  an  idea  of  national  service  to  the 
world. 

Up  to  the  time  of  his  arrival  in  Europe,  however,  the 
President  does  not  appear  to  have  considered  the  incor- 
poration of  such  a  principle  in  the  League  of  Nations. 
It  occurs  in  none  of  the  earlier  drafts  of  the  Covenant. 
On  reaching  Paris,  however,  he  read  the  pamphlet  ("The 
League  of  Nations,  a  Practical  Suggestion")  written  by 
General  Jan  Smuts  of  South  Africa  and  published  in 
December,  1918.  He  had  also  considered  Smuts 's  detailed 
proposals  for  a  league  of  nations.  Those  contained  pro- 
posals for  setting  up  a  "mandatory  system"  to  deal  with 
territories  belonging  to  the  old  Empires  of  Russia,  Austria- 
Hungary,  and  Turkey.  President  Wilson,  as  already 
shown,  was  greatly  impressed  by  the  statesmanlike  sugges- 
tion of  General  Smuts — and  the  idea  of  the  mandatory 
system  as  a  part  of  the  responsibility  of  the  League  at  once 
joined  up  with  the  American  principles  already  in  his 
thoughts  and  became  his  own.  And  once  he  got  into 
the  Conference  itself  and  saw  the  fierce  rivalry  for  nation- 
alistic and  militaristic  expansion — with  the  spirit  of 
trusteeship  utterly  beclouded — he  became  more  than 
ever  convinced  that  it  would  take  all  the  power  of  a 
league  of  nations  with  America  in  it  to  support  the  vital 
colonial  principles  for  which  America  stood. 

But  the  President,  when  he  used  General  Smuts's  sug- 
gestion, had  pressed  it  further  than  General  Smuts  ever 


266         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

intended.  He  universalized  it.  General  Smuts  never 
thought  of  applying  the  principle  to  the  former  Ger- 
man colonies,  but  only  to  the  old  empires  that  were 
to  be  "liquidated."  But  the  President  perceived  the 
direct  annexation  of  these  vast  colonial  territories  in 
Africa,  Asia,  and  the  Pacific,  with  their  millions  of  popu- 
lation and  their  great  strategic,  political,  and  economic 
value,  to  be  quite  as  dangerous  in  practice  and  as  likely  to 
be  the  cause  of  future  wars  as  the  annexation  of  parts 
of  Turkey,  Russia,  or  Austria.  He  clearly  foresaw  the 
difficulties  which  would  later  arise  over  the  control  of 
the  Pacific  and  of  China — if  the  new  principle  w^as  not 
adopted  at  the  start. 

So  we  find,  curiously  enough,  in  the  first  heated  dis- 
cussions of  the  dispositions  of  the  German  colonies,  the 
President  supporting  the  broad  general  application  of 
the  mandatory  principle  and  General  Smuts  arguing,  so 
far  as  German  Southwest  Africa  was  concerned,  for 
direct  annexation  to  his  ow^n  dominion  of  South  Africa. 
Indeed,  the  whole  struggle  in  the  council  in  behalf  of 
the  new  principle  fell  upon  the  President:  even  his  own 
Secretary  of  State,  Mr.  Lansing,  was  secretly  opposed  to 
him. 

The  discussion  thus  precipitated  by  Mr.  Lloyd  George, 
on  January  23,  occupied  most  of  the  time  of  the  Council 
of  Ten  for  an  entire  week,  and  developed  much  heat 
and  bitterness.  If  the  struggle  was  deliberately  cal- 
culated as  a  test  of  the  sincerity  and  fighting  capacity 
of  the  President,  itjeft,  at  the  end  of  that  week,  no  doubt 
in  any  one's  mind  of  his  qualities  as  a  clear-sighted  and 
determined  fighter — and  that  the  "old  order"  would  not 
easily  have  its  way.  It  has  been  argued  that  if  the 
President  had  somehow  managed  to  dominate  the  or- 
ganization of  the  Conference,  or  dictate  its  programme, 


WAR  SPOILS  AT  PARIS  267 

that  he  could  have  "put  across"  his  principles  more 
completely,  but  this  sort  of  fundamental  difference  could 
not  have  been  met  by  any  trick  of  organization  or  any 
cunning  arrangement  of  programme.  Sooner  or  later 
it  had  to  be  met  and  fought  out:  it  was  of  the  very  sub- 
stance of  the  matter,  not,  as  the  old  tacticians  seemed 
to  think,  merely  in  the  form.  "A  new  regime  is  now 
about  to  be  established,"  said  the  President,  and  scarcely 
a  man  in  the  room  believed  in  that  new  regime! 

To  show  how  little  the  others  understood  how  terribly 
in  earnest  the  President  was  we  find  Lloyd  George,  who 
had  himself  introduced,  on  January  22,  the  resolutions 
providing  for  a  mandatory  system,  remarking  on  Jan- 
uary 27: 

This  was  the  first  time  that  they  had  heard  an  exposition  of  the  [man- 
datory] principle  ...  A  new  principle  had  been  put  before  them, 
and  he  would  like  to  have  it  examined. 

He  said  he  was  in  favour  of  the  principles  of  the  man- 
datory, but  he  was  also  in  favour  of  having  the  British 
colonies  get  what  they  wanted  first.  "He  did  not  think," 
records  the  Secret  Minutes,  "that  a  special  exception  in 
favour  of  the  Dominions  would  spoil  the  whole  case." 
Mr.  Hughes  of  Australia  "would  readily  admit  that  the 
mandatory  system  would  be  applicable  to  other  parts, 
but  it  could  never  apply  to  New  Guinea."  Mr.  Massey 
of  New  Zealand  said  he  was  a  "great  enthusiast  for  the 
League  of  Nations"  but  he  was  anxious  not  to  make 
"its  burden  too  heavy  in  the  beginning,"  and  therefore 
he  would  distribute  the  colonies  first  and  then  "let  the 
League  of  Nations  start  with  a  clean  sheet."  They 
were  willing  to  let  the  President  have  his  principles  and 
the  League  after  they  had  annexed  the  colonies  they 
wanted. 


268         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

The  French  on  their  part  were  far  more  honest:  they 
made  no  pretense  of  beheving  either  in  the  mandatory 
system  or  the  League  of  Nations  as  methods  of  deaUng 
with  colonies.  M.  Simon,  the  French  Colonial  Minister, 
argued  for  "annexation  pure  and  simple";  he  said 
France  asked  "to  be  allowed  to  continue  her  work  of 
civilization  in  tropical  Africa."  M.  Simon  was  also 
prepared  to  base  the  claims  of  France  quite  frankly  upon 
the  secret  treaties  made  earlier  in  the  war.  He  indeed 
offered  to  "read  two  letters  exchanged  between  M. 
Cambon  [French  Foreign  Minister]  and  Sir  Edward  Grey 
[British  Foreign  Secretary]  during  the  war,  dealing 
with  the  provisional  division  of  Togoland  and  the  Cam- 
eroons,"  but  he  was  promptly  headed  off  by  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  who  "did  not  think  it  would  serve  any  useful  pur- 
pose to  read  these  documents  just  then."^ 

Although  Lloyd  George  was  anxious  not  to  have  the 
secret  treaties  injected  into  the  discussions  at  this  time, 
it  soon  became  plain  how  thoroughly  the  Allies  con- 
sidered themselves  committed  by  these  old  agreements. 
In  discussing  the  Pacific  Islands,  for  example,  the  Presi- 
dent soon  found  that  he  was  having  to  argue  the  applica- 
tion of  his  new  principle  against  the  tenacious  secret 
agreement  between  Japan  and  Great  Britain  by  the  terms 
of  which  Great  Britain  was  to  have  all  the  former  German 
Pacific  Islands  south  of  the  Equator  and  Japan  all  those 
north  of  the  Equator. 

On  January  28,  the  discussion  came  close  to  an  open 
rupture. 

President  Wilson  [as  the  minutes  narrate]  observed  that  the  dis- 
cussion so  far  had  been,  in  essence,  a  negation  in  detail  ...  of  the 
whole  principle  of  mandatories.  The  discussion  had  been  brought 
to  a  point  where  it  looked  as  if  their  roads  diverged. 

'Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  January  28. 


WAR  SPOILS  AT  PARIS  269 

Here  Mr.  Balfour,  so  often  the  mollifier  of  diflScult 
situations,  broke  in  with  the  observation  that  "the 
British  Delegates  did  not  reject  the  idea  of  a  Mandatory 
Power."  He  himself  was  strongly  in  favour  of  the  prin- 
ciple. The  objection  applied  not  to  the  "areas  conquered 
by  British  arms  and  managed  from  London"  but  to 
"areas  conquered  by  the  self-governing  Dominions."  He 
would  like  time  "to  think  these  questions  over." 

President  Wilson  then  made  a  powerful  appeal  for  the 
acceptance  of  the  new  principle: 

He  admitted  that  the  idea  was  a  new  one  and  it  was  not  to  be  expected 
that  it  would  be  found  developed  in  any  records  or  statements.  .  .  . 
Here  they  were  at  this  stage  when  the  only  acceptance  had  been  on  the 
part  of  the  Imperial  British  Government  with  respect  to  the  area 
taken  from  Germany  by  troops  under  the  direct  authority  of  the 
Government  in  London.  This  was  an  important  exception  in  which 
he  rejoiced  but  it  appeared  to  be  the  only  exception  to  the  rejection 
of  the  idea  of  trusteeship  on  the  part  of  the  League  of  Nations.  .  .  . 
There  must  be  a  League  of  Nations,  and  they  could  not  return  to  the 
status  quo  ante.  .  .  .  To  secure  it  no  sacrifice  would  be  too  great. 
He  could  not  postpone  the  matter  any  more  than  Mr.  Lloyd  George 
could.     The  date  of  his  departure  was  set.     .     .     . 

\Mien  it  became  plain  at  last  that  the  President  would 
not  give  in — that  he  could  not  be  fooled  into  accepting 
a  vague  future  promise  of  a  league  with  the  immediate 
settlements  upon  the  basis  of  the  old  military  and  nation- 
alistic interests — his  opponents  at  once,  and  again  with 
great  cleverness,  shifted  their  method  of  attack.  The 
French  tried  one  way,  the  British  another — each  thor- 
oughly characteristic  of  the  nation  attacking.  At  Paris, 
throughout  the  Conference,  the  French  were  always  more 
direct  and  outspoken  than  the  British.  If  they  believed 
a  thing  they   said    it.     One   knew    where    Clemenceau 


270        ^YOODROW  \\1LS0N  AND  WORLD  SETTLEI^IENT 

stood  and  what  he  intended  to  do;  one  never  knew  where 
Lloyd  George  stood:  he  never  stood  twice  in  the  same 
place. 

Thus  the  French,  when  they  could  not  get  the  Presi- 
dent to  accept  their  blunt  idea  of  "annexation  pure  and 
simple"  in  the  secret  conferences,  began  a  red-hot  attack 
upon  him  outside  in  the  press,  especially  in  those  news- 
papers which  act  notoriously  as  instruments  of  the  French 
Foreign  Office.  They  began  to  comment  bitterly  upon 
the  President  and  his  "impracticable  ideals."  Although 
the  proceedings  behind  the  muffled  doors  at  the  Quai 
d'Orsay  were  supposed  to  be  absolutely  secret — so  that 
American  correspondents  could  get  next  to  nothing  at 
all  concerning  what  was  going  on — ^the  French  papers 
were  evidently  fully  informed.  Certain  British  papers 
also  published  quite  completely  an  account  of  the  con- 
troversy between  Mr.  Wilson  and  Mr.  Hughes  of  Australia 
which  lost  nothing  in  emphasis  and  dramatic  importance 
nor,  it  may  be  said,  in  the  essential  truth  of  the  facts 
stated,  because  the  proceedings  had  been  secret.  Mr. 
Hughes  gave  out  interviews  with  scarcely  veiled  attacks 
upon  Mr.  Wilson. 

On  January  30  the  President  protested  against  these 
attacks,  as  he  said,  "in  unaffected  good-humour,"  but 
as  a  "question  of  privilege." 

It  was  stated  [he  said]  that,  as  regards  President  Wilson's  ideals,  he 
(President  Wilson)  did  not  know  how  his  ideals  would  work.  If  these 
articles  continued  to  appear,  he  would  find  himself  compelled  to  pub- 
lish his  own  views.  So  far  he  had  only  spoken  to  people  in  that  room 
and  to  members  of  the  American  Delegation,  so  that  nothing  had  been 
communicated  to  the  Press  regarding  President  Wilson's  views,  either 
by  himself  or  by  his  associates.  .  .  .  Nevertheless  the  time  might 
come  when  he  would  be  compelled  against  his  own  wishes  to  make 
a  full  public  expose  of  his  views. 


WAR  SPOILS  AT  PARIS  271 

At  once  the  direct  attacks  in  the  French  press  ceased, 
for  the  French  desired  no  pubHc  appeal  by  the  President 
upon  this  issue  of  their  annexationist  programme;  but 
from  that  time  onward,  in  a  certain  number  of  the  papers, 
there  was  an  underlying  subtle  spirit  of  criticism  of  the 
President.  This  constant,  clever,  witty  opposition,  so 
evasive  as  not  to  be  easily  met — the  kind  of  criticism 
by  innuendo  of  which  the  French  are  past  masters — read 
every  day  by  all  those  connected  w^th  the  Peace  Con- 
ference, had  a  profound  influence  in  making  the  Presi- 
dent's task  more  difficult.  There  were  those  in  the 
American  commission  who  suggested  the  removal  of  the 
Conference  to  some  neutral  city  like  Geneva,  to  escape 
this  atmosphere.         . 

The  British  upon  their  part  had  a  much  subtler  scheme. 
If  they  could  not  move  Wilson  from  his  demand  that  the 
colonies  come  under  the  mandatory  system,  they  might 
get  the  distribution  made  and  the  conditions  defined  in 
advance  and  apart  from  the  Covenant  of  the  League. 
They  therefore  advanced  the  tempting  theory  that  the 
League  "had  really  been  born,"  as  Lloyd  George  ex- 
pressed it,  with  the  passage  of  the  resolution  in  the 
plenary  session  of  January  25.  As  Hughes  of  Australia 
put  it,  a  ''de  facto  League  of  Nations  [was]  already  in 
existence  in  that  room."  This  de  facto  league  could 
therefore  parcel  out  the  colonies — as  mandates  if  it  chose 
to  call  them  so,  but  on  conditions  agreeable  to  the  re- 
cipients. What  they  wanted  was  possession!  Lloyd 
George  had  held  a  separate  meeting  of  the  British  Empire 
delegation — which  from  all  accounts  was  heated — and 
with  great  difficulty  got  the  Dominion  Premiers  to  agree 
to  a  resolution  defining  the  mandatory  system  in  fairly 
generous  terms  in  the  hope  that  this  would  satisfy  the 
President  and  induce  him  to  agree  to  an  immediate  distri- 


272        WOODROW  AMLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

bution.     He  came  into  the  Council  of  Ten  (January  30) 
and  said: 


Great  Britain  had  deliberately  decided  to  accept  the  principle  of  a 
mandatory:  but  that  decision  had  not  been  wholly  accepted  by  the 
Dominions.  The  Dominions,  however,  were  prepared  to  accept  the 
conclusions  reached  in  the  document  as  a  compromise,  because  they 
fully  realized  that  there  could  be  no  greater  catastrophe  than  for  the 
delegates  to  separate  without  having  come  to  a  definite  decision.  It 
had  been  decided  to  accept  the  doctrine  of  a  mandatory  for  all  con- 
quests of  the  late  Turkish  Empire  and  in  the  German  colonies. 

The  resolution  then  presented  by  Lloyd  George  was 
generous  enough  with  respect  to  Turkish  territories 
and  the  German  lands  in  Central  Africa — these  forming 
two  classes  of  mandates.  But  the  third  class,  embracing 
German  Southwest  Africa  and  the  Pacific  Islands,  the 
lands  in  which  the  Dominions  were  interested,  was  de- 
fined in  terms  coming  as  near  to  the  outright  annexation 
demanded  as  was  possible  while  preserving  any  appear- 
ance of  the  system.  They  were  to  be  "administered 
under  the  laws  of  the  mandatory  State  as  integral  portions 
thereof,"  and  the  only  restrictions  imposed  were  the 
"safeguards  ...  in  the  interests  of  the  indigenous 
population."  "Equal  opportunities  for  the  trade  and 
commerce  of  other  members  of  the  League  of  Nations," 
in  short,  the  "open  door,"  stipulated  for  the  Central 
African  territories,  was  conspicuously  omitted  here. 

The  President  did  not  quarrel,  however,  with  the  terms 
of  the  resolution;  indeed,  he  pronounced  it  "a  very  grati- 
fying paper."  But  he  would  not  be  hurried  into  action 
on  the  basis  of  it. 

"He  had  been  accused  of  being  a  hopeless  idealist,  but, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  never  accepted  an  ideal  until  he 
could  see  its  practical  application."  In  tlie  second  place. 


WAR  SPOILS  AT  PARIS  273 

the  mandatory  principle  depended  upon  the  League  of 
Nations  for  its  proper  functioning,  and  the  League  of 
Nations  had  not  been  worked  out  or  adopted  by  the 
nations.  "It  would  be  impossible  to  refer  to  an  unde- 
fined instrument." 

In  short,  he  was  still  opposed  to  the  distribution  of 
the  colonies  until  he  was  sure  of  the  acceptance  of  the 
entire  programme.  For  once  the  islands  and  the  African 
colonies  were  actually  assigned,  there  would  be  no  fur- 
ther interest  in  building  up  "the  solid  foundations,"  as 
the  President  expressed  it,  "which  would  carry  this  super- 
structure." The  mandates  must  wait  for  the  League,  but 
the  League  would  be  rushed. 

But  this  did  not  satisfy  the  Allies.  As  Baron  Sonnino 
remarked  on  another  occasion:  "They  wanted  to  know 
exactly  what  they  were  to  get."  And  at  once  the  con- 
troversy broke  out  again  with  renewed  fury. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  remarked  that  with  all  due  reference  to  Pres- 
ident Wilson,  he  could  not  help  saying  that  the  statement  to  which 
they  had  just  listened  filled  him  with  despair. 

He  reminded  the  President  that  the  Dominion  Priir.  ^ 
Ministers  had  been  prevailed  upon  to  accept  the  man- 
datory idea,  with  difiiculty,  and  only  as  a  compromise. 

Now,  President  Wilson  had  expressed  the  view  that  the  mandatory 
business  should  not  be  trusted  until  more  was  known  about  it — that 
was  to  say,  until  the  League  of  Nations  was  definitely  set  forth  on 
paper.  To  this  the  representatives  of  the  Dominions  would  obviously 
reply  that  they  wished  to  see  it  working  and  not  on  paper.  .  .  . 
The  suggestion  that  the  constitution  of  the  League  of  Nations  would  be 
completed  by  the  end  of  next  week,  he  considered  rather  sanguine,  as 
it  meant  formulating  the  constitution  of  the  whole  world.  .  .  .  To 
think  that  a  federation  of  the  whole  world  could  be  produced  in  nine 
or  ten  days  would  be  ideal.  However,  he  was  only  pleading  for  im- 
mediate peace. 


274         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

It  was  nonsense,  of  course,  to  imply  that  "immediate 
peace"  depended  upon  the  distribution  of  the  German 
islands  in  the  Pacific  or  the  settlement  of  x\frican  or  even 
Turkish  questions.  There  were  no  questions  that  could 
have  been  delayed  so  easily — which  were  indeed  finally 
long  delayed.  The  great  and  important  problems  were 
those  right  before  them  in  Europe.  But  no  other  ques- 
tion could  be  used,  tactically,  so  successfully  and  power- 
fully, to  confound  the  President  as  this,  or  to  make  his 
attempt  to  apply  the  principles  which  they  had  all  ac- 
cepted look  impossible. 

President  Wilson  expressed  the  view  that  he  had  said  nothing  which 
need  justify  discouragement.  He  was  willing  to  accept  Mr.  Lloyd 
George's  proposals,  subject  to  reconsideration  when  the  full  scheme 
of  the  League  of  Nations  was  drawn  up.  .  .  .  Mr.  Lloyd  George 
said  that  the  League  of  Nations  had  already  been  accepted  and  that 
it  would  be  necessary  to  turn  to  it  for  the  settlement  of  various  ques- 
tions. In  his  opinion,  that  view  emphasized  the  necessity  to  know  the 
instrumentality  which  was  to  deal  with  those  questions.  .  . 
Therefore,  he  would  urge  his  colleagues  to  press  on  the  drafting  of 
the  League  of  Nations  in  a  definite  form. 

With  the  detailed  discussion  of  the  provision  of  Mr. 
Lloyd  George's  resolutions  came  further  arguments  and 
objections  from  Mr.  INIassey  and  Mr.  Hughes,  still  in 
favour  of  direct  annexation.  At  length,  the  discussion 
grew  so  acrid  that  President  Wilson  turned  upon  Mr. 
Hughes  and  Mr.  Massey. 

President  Wilson  asked  if  he  was  to  understand  that  New  Zealand 
and  Australia  had  presented  an  ultimatum  to  the  Conference.  They 
had  come  there  and  presented  their  cases  for  annexation  of  New 
Guinea  and  Samoa.  Was  he  now  to  understand  that  this  was  the  min- 
imum of  their  concession?  That  their  agreement  upon  a  plan  de- 
pended upon  that  concession?     And  that  if  they  could  not  get  that 


WAR  SPOILS  AT  PARIS  275 

definitely  now,  they  proposed  to  do  what  they  could  to  stop  the 
whole  agreement? 

Mr.  Hughes  was  very  deaf,  and  laboured  under  the 
disadvantage  of  not  hearing  the  arguments  of  the  other 
side  of  the  case. 

Mr.  Hughes  replied  that  President  Wilson  had  put  it  fairly  well,  and 
that  that  was  their  attitude,  subject  to  the  reservation  which  he  had 
stated  that  morning.  .  .  .  For  the  present  that  represented  the 
maximum  of  their  concession  in  that  direction.^ 

But  in  spite  of  this  defiance  both  Hughes  and  Massey 
finally  said  they  expected  to  accept  the  resolution.  While 
the  Dominions  thus  permitted  the  question  of  mandates 
to  go  to  the  League  of  Nations  Commission,  they  were 
sore  enough.  The  French  also  were  bitterly  disappointed, 
not  only  over  this  failure  to  get  the  immediate  division 
of  the  colonies,  but  for  another  crucial  reason.  They 
wished  to  have  the  right  in  their  mandatory  colonies 
to  raise  native  troops,  not  merely  for  police  use  in  the 
colonies,  but  to  fight  for  France  elsewhere.  Here  they 
also  met  the  determined  opposition  of  President  Wilson, 
as  will  be  fully  shown  in  a  later  chapter.^  Undoubtedly 
the  Japanese  were  also  disappointed,  but  they  held  their 
peace  and  bided  their  time. 

Such  was  the  first  great  struggle  of  the  Peace  Con- 
ference. The  President  had  made  it  plain  that  he  in- 
tended to  fight  every  attempt  to  adopt  settlements  on 
the  "old  order,"  that  he  would  demand  that  the  League 
be  not  relegated  to  the  pious  consideration  of  some  vague 
future  congress,  but  set  up  as  an  "integral  part  of  the 
peace."  But  it  was  only  the  first  battle  of  a  long  and 
deadly  war. 

^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  January  30.        • 
2See  Chapter  XXIV. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

Framing  the  Covenant — Work  of  the  League  of 
Nations   Commission — Effort    to   Escape   from 
Atmosphere   of  War  by  Means  of  a  Pre- 
liminary Treaty  Settling  Military, 
Naval,   and  Air  Terms 

HAVING  made  it  plain,  in  his  struggle  against  the 
immediate  division  of  the  former  German  colo- 
nies as  spoils  of  the  war  (as  described  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter)  that  he  intended  to  fight  every 
attempt  to  adopt  settlements  on  the  "old  order,"  and 
having  won,  by  the  famous  resolution  of  January  25,  his 
essential  demand  that  the  League  of  Nations  be  an 
"integral  part  of  the  general  treaty  of  peace,"  the  Presi- 
dent now  had  to  proceed,  under  pressure  and  as  swiftly 
as  possible,  to  the  business  of  making  the  constitution 
of  that  League.  His  plan  was  ready,  as  was  shown  in  a 
former  chapter,  and  on  February  3  the  first  meeting  of 
the  League  of  Nations  Commission  was  held. 

But  if  he  had  won  the  acknowledgment  of  what  he 
considered  the  "key  of  the  whole  settlement" — the  most 
important  action  in  some  respects  of  the  entire  Peace 
Conference — the  other  Allies  were  still  in  an  enormously 
strong  tactical  position.  They  had  two  methods  of 
countering  the  President's  purpose,  and  they  now  tried 
both.  The  first  was  to  press  forward  with  the  actual 
settlements  according  to  their  own  interests  and  the  secret 
treaties  and  get  what  they  wanted  while  the  project  for 
a  league  of  nations  was  tied  up  in  the  preliminary  dis- 

276 


FRAMING  THE  COVENANT  277 

cussions  of  the  League  of  Nations  Commission.  I  have 
already  described  how  they  attempted  this  course  in 
seeking  to  divide  up  the  German  colonies  as  "spoils  of 
war" — and  how  the  President  headed  them  off.  Failing 
in  this,  they  were  ready  with  the  other  method,  which 
was  to  get  the  kind  of  a  league  of  nations  they  wanted. 
With  a  covenant  that  suited  them  they  were  ready  enough 
to  have  it  an  integral  part  of  the  Treaty.  If  the  French, 
for  example,  could  get  a  league  which  was  a  military 
alliance  with  an  international  army  (commanded,  of 
course,  by  French  generals)  and  the  possibility  of  uni- 
versal compulsory  military  service — ^which  they  tried  to 
get — they  would  be  more  than  glad  to  have  it  tied  up 
with  and  knit  into  any  treaty  that  might  be  made. 

It  is  plain  then  why  the  interest  shifted,  after  Feb- 
ruary 3,  from  the  Council  of  Ten  to  the  League  of  Nations 
Commission.  The  President  himself,  as  I  have  said,  rec- 
ognized the  great  importance  of  this  struggle  by  becom- 
ing chairman  of  the  Commission  and  leading  the  fight. 
He  had  got  the  League  accepted  as  a  part  of  the  peace: 
now  he  must  get  the  kind  of  league  the  Americans 
wanted. 

It  was  not  without  significance  that  the  headquarters 
of  the  Council  of  Ten,  where  the  territorial  and  economic 
and  military  settlements  were  being  made,  was  in  the  old 
French  Foreign  Office,  by  the  Seine,  in  the  atmosphere 
and  surroundings  of  the  old  diplomacy,  while  the  head- 
quarters of  the  League  of  Nations  Commission  was  in 
the  temporary  and  informal  quarters  of  the  American 
Commission  at  the  Hotel  Crillon — entirely  devoid  of 
traditions.  One  was  secret  with  "careful  leakage";  the 
the  other  was  practically  open  to  the  world.  One  had 
in  it  only  the  great  Powers ;  the  other  had  both  great  and 
small    Powers.     One   looked    back;   the   other   forward. 


278         AVOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEIMENT 

One  was  concerned  chiefly  with  the  immediate  interests 
and  fears  of  the  great  alHed  Powers;  the  other  with  the 
future  stabiHty,  peace,  and  justice  of  the  entire  w^orld. 

For  the  next  six  weeks,  from  February  3  to  the  middle 
of  March — the  period  which  included  the  making  of  the 
Covenant  (February  3-14)  and  the  President's  trip  home 
to  America  (February  15-March  14) — the  attention  of 
the  world  was  kept  to  a  large  degree  upon  the  American 
programme,  the  "new  order,"  the  League  of  Nations. 
It  was  the  great  and  hopeful  period  of  the  Conference. 
The  Americans  w^ere  apparently  winning;  the  Crillon  had 
usurped  the  place  of  the  Quai  d'Orsay.  It  was  a  brilliant 
piece  of  strategy,  and  the  President  here  showed  his 
great  pow^ers  to  the  uttermost. 

But  the  world  is  very  old;  habit  is  old,  tradition  is  old; 
the  Quai  d'Orsay  has  been  there  by  the  Seine  a  long, 
long  time.  It  is  gray  with  age.  Great  stone  walls  and 
iron  gates  surround  it.  It  waits  there  in  its  entrench- 
ments. It  looks  across  the  Place  de  la  Concorde  toward 
the  Hotel  Crillon  and  waits.  It  is  wise  and  cynical — and 
sure!  What  has  been,  it  says,  will  be.  "We  live  dead 
men's  lives,"  says  Clemenceau,  quoting  Comte,  "and 
it  is  true."  Yes,  Clemenceau — and  the  French — are 
indeed  the  personification  of  the  old.  And  Wilson  and 
the  Americans  personify  the  new. 

No  one  at  Paris  more  closely  typified  the  new  than 
Colonel  House — from  Texas.  Texas  and  Paris!  Texas 
— with  little  background  but  with  ideals  and  slogans,  full 
of  pioneer  neighbourliness  yet  with  a  shrewd  judgment 
of  men:  direct,  bold,  and  optimistic,  yet  too  ready  to  think 
that  problems  are  settled  in  the  heart  rather  than  in  the 
head — Texas  is  the  veritable  antipodes  of  Paris. 

Thus  history  appropriately  stages  her  great  events. 
It  was  in  Colonel  House's  office  at  the  Crillon — on  the 


FRAMING  THE  COVENANT  279 

third  floor — that  this  meeting  of  the  nations  to  make  a 
new  world  constitution  was  held.  You  went  up  quickly 
in  an  elevator — and  there  you  were. 

It  was  Colonel  House  who  cunningly  staged  the  meet- 
ings. The  President  sat  at  the  head  of  the  table.  On 
his  right  was  Orlando,  the  Italian  Premier,  the  only  other 
chief  of  a  great  power.  On  his  left  sat  Colonel  House 
himself,  active,  bright-eyed,  watchful,  silent.  In  a  chair 
just  behind  and  between  them,  leaning  forward  to  whisper, 
was  the  American  legal  adviser  of  the  Commission,  David 
Hunter  Miller.  On  Colonel  House's  left  were  the  British 
members.  Lord  Robert  Cecil  and  General  Smuts.  This 
was  what  may  be  called  the  pro-league  bloc.  Farther 
away  sat  the  French  delegates,  M.  Bourgeois  and  M.  Lar- 
naude,  who  may  be  called  the  opposition. 

Baron  Makino  and  Viscount  Cliinda  were  there  for 
Japan:  silent,  unemotional,  but  watchful;  rising  with 
power  only  when  their  own  interests  were  affected.  Koo, 
for  China,  spoke  much  more  than  the  Japanese  put  to- 
gether and  was  nearer  the  American  position  than  any 
other  delegate.  Belgium,  Brazil,  Portugal,  and  Serbia 
were  represented  in  the  earlier  meetings,  and  later  Greece 
— headed  by  able  Venizelos — Poland,  Rumania,  and 
Czechoslovakia  were  added  to  the  Commission. 

In  point  of  time  consumed  in  the  discussion  M.  Bour- 
geois of  France  spoke  more  than  all  the  other  members 
of  the  Commission  combined.  The  President,  as  pre- 
siding officer,  was  over-indulgent  in  welcoming  discussion : 
and  he  made  one  great  speech — on  the  Monroe  Doctrine. 
It  was  not  reported,  but  those  who  heard  it  join  in  de- 
claring that  it  was  one  of  the  greatest  speeches  he  made 
in  Europe.  These  men,  several  of  whom,  like  the  Presi- 
dent and  Orlando,  were  hard- worked  in  other  conferences, 
met  here  in  fifteen  sessions   (ten  before  the   President 


280        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

went  home,  five  after  he  returned),  mostly  held  in  the 
evening,  and  some  of  them  dragging  into  the  weary  hours 
beyond  midnight.  It  was  the  hardest-driven  commission 
at  Paris.  The  President  drove  it,  knowing  how  much 
the  element  of  time  counted,  how  the  settlements  being 
eagerly  pressed  in  the  Council  of  Ten  turned  upon  it, 
how  completely  the  American  programme  was  bound  up 
in  it. 

The  first  meeting  was  on  February  3  at  2:30  in  the 
afternoon.  Three  proposed  drafts  for  a  constitution  of 
a  future  league  of  nations  were  presented  there  for  the 
consideration  of  the  delegates:  the  American-British 
draft,  the  French  draft,  and  the  Italian  draft.  The  Presi- 
dent's plan  for  the  Covenant  as  it  was  evolved  through 
three  drafts  has  been  described  in  Chapter  XIII.  This 
had  to  be  reconciled  with  the  British  plan,  and  a  com- 
promise draft  was  produced  by  D.  H.  Miller  for  America 
and  C.  J.  B.  Hurst  for  Great  Britain.^  This  was  satis- 
factory to  neither  side,  particularly  not  to  the  President, 
but  was  finally  accepted  as  the  basis  for  discussion.  This 
in  itself  was  a  distinct  tactical  victory.  It  placed  the 
French,  who  were  the  only  strong  opponents,  in  the 
position  of  critics  seeking  amendments  to  a  document 
already  tentatively  accepted.  France  was  as  much 
hampered  at  the  Crillon  as  was  America  at  the  Quai 
d'Orsay. 

Ten  meetings  of  the  League  of  Nations  Commission 
were  held  before  the  President  sailed  for  home,  the  last 
on  February  13,  at  3:30  o'clock,  in  settling  these  diver- 
sities of  view  regarding  the  Covenant.  It  would  have 
been  relatively  easy  to  reconcile  the  views  of  the  Ameri- 
cans and  the  British,  but  the  controversy  with  the  French 
(and  Italians),  once  the  discussion  opened  in  the  Com- 

•See  Volume  III,  Document  16,  for  full  text  of  the  Miller-Hurst  draft. 


FRAMING  THE  COVENANT  281 

mission,  revealed  almost  irreconcilable  differences  as  to 
what,  fundamentally,  the  League  should  be  and  do.^ 
Several  groups  of  issues  were  raised  in  these  discussions : 

1.  Organization  and  Representation. 

2.  Machinery  of  Arbitration. 

3.  Guarantees. 

4.  The  Mandatory  System. 

5.  Minority  Rights:  Racial  and  Religious. 

6.  Limitation  of  Armaments. 

7.  Commercial  Equality  and  Freedom  of  Transit. 
The  last  five  of  these  groups  are  so  important  that 

they  require  special  development.  The  subject  of  col- 
onies and  mandatory  system  has  been  dealt  with  in  the 
preceding  chapter.  The  question  of  guarantees  was 
discussed  at  some  length  in  Chapter  XIII,  and  will  be 
taken  up  again  in  connection  with  the  revision  of  the 
Covenant.  It  must  be  noted  here,  however,  that  the  qual- 
ifying clauses  of  the  President's  article,  allowing  for  the 
revision  of  the  status  quo,  were  omitted  from  the  Hurst- 
Miller  draft ;  so  that  the  final  form  of  Article  X  became  a 
flat  guarantee  of  the  treaty  settlements,  except  in  so  far  as 
modified  by  Article  XI,  which  permits  threats  to  the  peace 
of  the  world  to  be  brought  before  the  Council  by  any  mem- 
ber. The  three  final  topics  are  treated  in  other  con- 
nections. 

From  the  very  beginning  it  was  Wilson's  idea,  of 
course,  that  all  nations  should  come  into  the  League. 
Some  delay  might  occur  before  Germany  and  other  ex- 
enemy  nations  were  admitted,  but  sooner  or  later  they, 
too,  should  come  in. 

If  it  was  a  real  league  with  mutual  guarantees  of  any 


^Since  the  interest  of  the  French  plan  lay  mainly  in  its  development  of  military 
sanctions,  description  and  discussion  of  it  are  reserved  for  Part  IV — see  especially 
Chapter  XX.     For  complete  text  of  the  plan  see  Volume  III,  Document  17. 


282        \YOODROW  \MLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

value,  not  a  mere  conference  or  court  like  The  Hague 
Tribunal,  there  must  be  some  instrumentality  of  control. 
AMiat  should  this  be?  What  nations  should  be  repre- 
sented? 

Two  ideas  at  once  emerged  regarding  this  vital  prob- 
lem, for  the  stronger  the  League  the  more  important 
was  the  problem  of  organization  and  representation: 

1.  Undisguised  and  complete  control  by  the  great 
Powers.  This  was  Cecil's  plan  (December,  1918),  and 
it  was  practically  that  of  the  Holy  Alliance  of  1815. 
During  the  great  war,  especially  toward  the  last  of  it, 
there  had  developed  a  kind  of  diplomacy  by  conference 
in  which  the  heads  of  the  great  States  had  met  and  de- 
cided the  course  of  the  allied  nations.^  It  had  worked 
excellently  in  war:  why  not  continue  it? 

2.  Control  by  a  body  or  bodies  consisting  of  represen- 
tatives of  both  great  and  small  Powers,  but  with  final 
decisions  resting  with  the  great  Powers.  This  was  un- 
doubtedly Wilson's  original  idea,  but  it  was  not  worked 
out.  It  was  also  Smuts's,  and  Wilson  embodied  Smuts's 
more  detailed  proposals  in  his  second  (first  printed)  draft. 
It  was  the  development  of  the  exact  lines  of  the  system 
which  caused  the  discussion. 

Wilson's  real  attitude  toward  control  by  the  great  Pow- 
ers is  clear.  While  the  other  leaders — except  possibly 
Smuts — were  thinking  always  of  this  control  in  terms  of 
the  rights  and  interests  of  the  great  Powers,  Wilson  was 
always  thinking  of  it  as  a  responsibility,  a  burden,  a  duty. 
He  never  lost  sight  of  the  larger  moral  issues,  and  can 
therefore  never  be  understood  by  critics  of  whom  Lansing 
is  a  type,  to  whom  such  arrangements  must  either  be 
based  upon  a  fictitious  "equality  of  rights"  or  a  balance 

^See  valuable  study,  "Diplomacy  of   Conference,"  by  Sir  Maurice  Hankey,  The 
Round  Table.  March,  1921. 


President  Wilson  sailing  to  America  on  the  George  Washinqion,  with 
the  completed  Covenant  of  the  League  of  Nations,  February  15.  1^)19 


FRAMING  THE  COVENANT  283 

between  equality  of  rights  and  equality  of  powers.  Thus 
President  Wilson  argues  with  the  representatives  of  the 
small  States  (May  31)  for  the  validity  of  control  by  the 
great  Powers  because  of  the  "fundamentally  important 
fact  that  when  the  decisions  are  made  .  .  .  the  chief 
burden  of  their  maintenance  will  fall  upon  the  greater 
Powers."^ 

The  President  always  thought  of  the  function  of  Amer- 
ica in  the  League  as  a  duty  or  service — which  in  the  end,  of 
course,  by  stabihzing  the  world,  would  be  of  enormous 
material  as  well  as  moral  advantage  to  America  and  all 
nations — but  never  as  something  that  would  redound  to 
the  advantage  of  America  alone,  or  of  the  great  Powers 
alone.  No  one  can  understand  Wilson's  course  at  Paris 
unless  he  constantly  bears  in  mind  this  central  factor  of 
his  doctrine:  that  he  was  always  thinking  first  of  the 
advantage  of  humanity,  of  all  nations,  not  of  a  few.  He 
was  for  the  instrumentality,  whatever  the  control,  that 
would  in  his  judgment,  under  the  conditions  existing  in 
the  world,  best  serve  to  bring  this  about. 

What  actually  happened  in  the  League  of  Nations 
Commission  is  very  simple,  although  much  time  was 
spent  in  discussion.  The  Commission  itself  was  made  up 
of  representatives  of  five  great  Powers  and  nine  small 
Powers,  and  when  the  matter  of  the  composition  of  the 

1 1  Council  of  the  League  came  up  the  small  Powers  immedi- 
ately made  a  drive  for  representation  and  could  not  be 

'!  denied.  Thus  (on  February  13)  the  plan  of  a  council 
composed  of  representatives  of  five  great  Powers  and 

■  I  four  small  Powers  was  adopted  with  the  further  proposal 
that  any  small  power,  even  though  not  on  the  Council 
"when  its  interests  are  directly  affected,"  should  "sit  as 
a  member."     Thus,  small  Powers  in  the  League  as  or- 

'See  Minutes,  Eighth  Plenary  Session,  May  31.  1919. 


284         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

ganized  are  admitted  to  the  Council  under  two  provisions 
— a  regidar  minority  representation  and  a  special  repre- 
sentation when  their  interests  are  involved.  This  Council, 
with  the  Assembly,  made  up  of  all  nations,  forms  the 
bony  framework  of  the  League. 

The  question,  much  discussed  in  America,  of  repre- 
sentation of  the  British  Dominions  in  the  League  was 
never  discussed  directly  at  all  in  the  Commission.  Wilson 
had  at  first  opposed  their  special  representation  in  the 
Peace  Conference,  but  having  yielded  in  this  point,  could 
not  contest  it  in  regard  to  the  League. 

The  discussion  of  representation  and  organization  had 
pretty  well  cleared  away  what  may  be  called  the  executive 
and  legislative  functions,  however  rudimentary,  of  the 
League.     There  remained  the  judicial  functions. 

In  the  beginning  Wilson  was  against  a  permanent 
judicial  body  as  an  organ  of  the  League.  Colonel  House, 
as  was  shown  in  a  preceding  chapter,  provided  for  such 
a  court  in  his  draft  of  the  Covenant,  thought  it  necessary, 
and  predicted  that  it  might  have  a  great  future.  Wilson 
omitted  it  from  his  drafts.  He  relied  instead  wholly  upon 
the  arbitral  machinery  provided  in  all  former  League 
proposals,  which  he  put  into  Article  V  of  his  first  draft. 
A  long  and  complicated  discussion  of  this  whole  subject 
ensued,  both  in  the  original  ten  sessions  in  which  the 
Covenant  was  drafted  and  in  the  five  during  which  it  was 
revised.  Since  these  discussions  relate  chiefly  to  matters 
of  procedure  rather  than  to  matters  of  principle,  they 
need  not  here  be  developed.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  both 
the  Permanent  Court  of  International  Justice  (Article 
XIV)  and  an  elaborate  system  of  arbitration  (Articles  XII, 
XIII,  XV)  were  established.  Since  that  time  the  Court 
has  actually  been  organized  and  had  its  first  session  (1922) 
at  The  Hague. 


I 


FRAMING  THE  COVENANT  285 

So  the  League  was  worked  out  in  the  Commission.^ 
On  February  14,  the  most  important  and  interesting 
of  all  the  plenary  sessions  of  the  Peace  Conference  was 
held.     The  completed  Covenant  was  presented  and  read 
aloud  by  the  President. 

I  am  happy  to  say  that  it  is  a  unanimous  report  from  the  Represen- 
tatives of  fourteen  nations. 

His  speech  was  ardent  and  hopeful. 

A  living  thing  is  born.  .  .  .  While  it  is  elastic,  while  it  is  general 
in  its  terms,  it  is  definite  in  the  one  thing  that  we  are  called  upon  to 
make  definite.  It  is  a  definite  guarantee  of  peace.  It  is  a  definite 
guarantee  by  word  against  aggression. 

He  is  also  clear  as  to  how  these  guarantees  shall  be 
enforced.     He  says: 

Armed  force  is  in  the  background  in  this  programme,  but  it  is  in  the 
background,  and  if  the  moral  force  of  the  world  will  not  suflSce,  the 
physical  force  of  the  world  shall.  But  that  is  the  last  resort,  because 
this  is  intended  as  a  constitution  of  peace,  not  as  a  League  of  War. 

He  also  lays  stress  upon  the  use  of  the  League,  not  only 
to  guarantee  peace,  but  in  other  matters  of  international 
cooperation. 

It  is  not  in  contemplation  that  this  should  be  merely  a  League  to 
secure  the  peace  of  the  world.  It  is  a  League  that  can  be  used  for  co- 
operation in  any  international  matter. 

The  President  had  thus  got  his  covenant,  but  just 
before  he  departed  from  Europe  to  present  it  to  his  owji 
people  (February  15)  he  had  to  meet  one  other  great  and 
vital  problem  which  had  been  troubling  him  from  the 
beginning. 

^See  Volume  III,  Document  18,  for  text  of  the  Covenant  of  February  14, 


286         WCX)DROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLE^IENT 
Plenary   Conference,     14   Eebruary,     1919* 

•o«ooooeoeo« 


Introduction  of  the  Peport,  unanimously  adopted 
by  the  C  oooi  s  s  i  OD,  in  which  were  represent*- 
ed  the  five  Great  Powers  and  nine  of  the 
other  Powers*  ^* 

Beading  of  the  Report* 

Character  of  the  discussions  and  significaaoe 
of  the  result* 

Character  of  the  document: 

2 •  No  straight-jacket,  but  a  yehicle  of  llfe» 
/.  Simplicity  of  constitution,  elasticity  of 

representation* 
^-*  Peace  upon  definite  guarAntees* 

Cooperation  upon  broad  lines*  (Labour) 
^i   League  of  free  sta'tes* 
Open  agreements* 
Maadatories  (no  annexations) 

A    PRACTICAL  and  HUMANE  document  which  8boald^/^< 
purify -and  enrich  the  life  of  the  world*   *^^ 

••e«eoeee«ooe* 

United  States  Belgium,  Brazil,  China, 

Creat  Britain  Czecho-Sl ovakia,  Greece, 

France  Poland,  Portugal,  Buaania, 

Italy  Serbia* 

Japan 

President  Wilson's  private  memorandum  written  by  him  on  his  own  typewriter  for  his 
speech  at  the  Plenary  Session  of  February  14 

This  related  to  what  might  be  called  the  atmosphere 
of  the  Peace  Conference. 

The  war  was,  indeed,  hardly  over.  Paris  lived  in  an 
atmosphere  of  alarms,  of  armies  on   the  alert,  of  still- 


FRA^nNG  THE  COVENANT  287 

gaping  wounds  and  still-smouldering  ruins.  It  was 
the  kind  of  atmosphere  that  might  be  favourable  to 
the  making  of  a  hard,  bitter,  retributive  peace  such  as  the 
"old  order"  wanted:  it  was  not  the  atmosphere  in  which 
a  peace  of  " distinterested  justice"  or  a  correcting  and 
tempering  organization  such  as  the  League  of  Nations 
could  breathe  and  work. 

The  Americans  early  felt  the  absolute  need  of  getting 
out  of  this  atmosphere,  getting  the  war  over  with  and 
the  military  and  naval  terms  settled.  Theji  the  peace 
conditions  could  be  taken  up  in  calmer  mood.  General 
Bliss,  at  the  armistice  negotiations,  had  stood  stoutly 
for  demanding  the  immediate  disarmament  of  Germany. 
If  the  German  Army  was  demobilized,  he  argued,  and 
armament  surrendered,  then  the  allied  armies  could  also 
be  quickly  demobilized  and  sent  home.  Normal  conditions 
would  sooner  return  and  the  peace  could  be  discussed 
on  a  fairer  basis. 

But  Bliss  was  outvoted  by  the  other  Allies.  The 
French  feared,  above  all  things,  the  quick  demobiliza- 
tion of  the  great  allied  armies,  and  were  against  any- 
thing, even  the  immediate  disarmament  of  Germany, 
which  would  lead  to  that  end.  Their  programme  was  to 
cripple  Germany  and  at  the  same  time  keep  up  the 
powerful  allied  armies.  They  had  two  reasons  for  this 
policy : 

First,  they  had  stern  and  sweeping  terms  to  demand, 
including  the  permanent  economic  shackling  and  future 
military  control  of  Germany,  and  these  could  not  be  im- 
posed without  the  threat  of  large  armies  afoot  and  ready 
to  march  at  once  to  Berlin. 

Second,  the  more  extreme  French  militarists,  as  Foch 
proposed  in  the  very  first  days  of  the  Conference  and  after- 
ward urged  repeatedly,  wanted  to  use  these  vast  armies — 


288        WOODROW  \NTLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

including  the  2,000,000  fresh  young  soldiers  from  America 
— ^to  march  across  Germany  and  subdue  Russia.  He 
had  Napoleonic  dreams  of  colossal  new  wars  in  which  the 
conquest  of  Russia  was  an  element. 

In  judging  these  plans,  of  course,  it  must  always  be 
remembered  how  France  felt,  how  she  had  suffered,  what 
danger  she  had  so  narrowly  escaped,  how  utterly  she 
distrusted  and  feared  her  enemy  across  the  Rhine. 
German  policies  of  economic,  as  well  as  military,  de- 
struction in  Belgium  and  northern  France  had  given  them 
a  vivid  idea  of  what  the  Germans  would  have  done  if 
they  had  won.  France  was  in  reality  suffering  from  a 
kind  of  national  "shell-shock." 

But  the  function  of  the  Americans  at  Paris  was  pre- 
cisely not  to  be  carried  away  by  these  extreme  demands, 
this  nervous  apprehension,  which  did  not  represent  reason 
but  panic  fear.  Wilson  saw,  on  the  other  hand,  the  ab- 
solute basic  necessity  of  guaranteeing  France  from  attack 
— thus  relieving  her  fear — and  this  he  proposed  to  do 
by  the  strong  and  direct  mutual  guarantee  of  all  the 
nations  in  Article  X  of  the  Covenant.  And  later,  when 
this  did  not  quiet  the  French,  he  made  even  more  sure 
the  guarantee  by  agreeing  to  a  special  Anglo-iVmerican 
compact  to  protect  France  until  the  League  could  be- 
come solidly  organized:  a  compact  bitterly  assailed  in 
America  and  not  ratified  by  the  Senate.  And  yet  how 
to  get  peace  in  the  world  and  secure  some  real  measure 
of  disarmament,  without  relieving  French  (and  other 
national)  fears,  these  opponents  of  the  President's  con- 
structive plans  did  not  say. 

Having  thus  agreed  (in  the  Covenant)  to  defend  France 
"from  external  aggression,"  it  was  then  obviously  the 
function,  the  bounden  duty,  of  the  Americans  to  mitigate 
extreme  demands,  to  get  reasonable  settlements — settle- 


FRAMING  THE  COVENANT  289 

ments  that   would    stand  after  the   war,   and  not  lead 
quickly  to  new  wars  of  revenge  and  reprisal. 

Consequently  the  President  struggled,  at  every  turn, 
to  get  as  quickly  as  possible  out  of  the  atmosphere  of 
military  force  and  away  from  control  of  the  generals. 
He  fought  the  whole  French  programme  for  the  economic 
crippling  of  Germany,  for  the  permanent  military  control 
of  German  industry,  for  the  use  of  the  allied  armies 
against  Russia.  The  French  proposed,  in  discussing  the 
monthly  renewal  of  the  Armistice,  which  was  due  to  come 
about  the  time  Wilson  was  sailing  for  America,  to  ex- 
pand the  terms  and  add  new  conditions  which  could  be 
imposed  only  by  the  threat  to  use  the  armies.  Wilson 
and  Bliss  were  utterly  against  this.  They  argued  that 
an  agreement  had  been  made  with  Germany  on  Novem- 
ber 1 1  and  that  they  could  not,  in  honour, change  it.  Both 
were  also  against  the  idea  of  a  military  peace. 

There  were  stormy  sessions  over  these  problems  in  the 
Ten,  especially  on  February  7  and  12,  chiefly  between 
Wilson  and  Clemenceau.  The  British  on  the  whole  sided 
with  the  Americans;  the  Italians  sympathized  with  the 
French,  but  did  not,  at  this  stage,  assert  themselves. 

But  in  spite  of  the  French  demands,  events  were  inex- 
orably working  against  them.  It  was  utterly  impossible 
to  maintain  the  huge  allied  armies.  Lloyd  George  felt  that 
he  could  delay  demobilization  only  at  great  political  risk  to 
himself.  As  for  Wilson,  he  was  for  getting  the  boys  home 
'*as  fast  as  ships  could  carry  them."  Even  Clemenceau 
(but  not  Foch)  was  worried  by  the  popular  demand  in 
France  that  the  war-weary  veterans  be  released. 

The  struggle  came  to  a  head  on  February  12,  three 
days  before  the  President  sailed.  It  was  a  direct  clash 
over  the  renewal  of  the  Armistice  (on  February  16). 
Clemenceau   wanted   new   terms,   which    were   in    effect 


290        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

reparations,  imposed  at  the  Armistice:  he  wanted  the 
renewal  to  be  for  another  month;  he  wanted  the  alHed 
armies  maintained.  Wilson  demanded  that  the  final 
military  and  naval  terms  be  drawn  up  and  presented  to 
the  Germans,  so  that  Germany  could  be  disarmed  at 
once  and  completely,  and  the  allied  armies  immediately 
demobilized.  But  Clemenceau  fairly  raged  at  this, 
charged  Wilson  with  "putting  the  question  in  an  aca- 
demic, theoretical,  and  doctrinal  light,"  said  "he  knew 
the  Germans,"  and  that  the  only  safety  lay  in  keeping 
up  an  army  to  intimidate  them.  He  had  no  confidence 
in  anything  but  a  military  peace  imposed  upon  them, 
nor  any  but  a  long-continued  economic  control  backed 
by  military  force. 

Here  Balfour  came  strongly  to  the  support  of  the 
President  and  presented  resolutions  providing  that  the 
Armistice  should  be  renewed  practically  on  the  former 
terms,  for  an  indefinite  period,  and  that  the  final  military 
and  naval  terms  be  immediately  drawn  up  in  the  form 
of  a  preliminary  treaty  and  presented  to  the  Germans. 

This  was  directly  opposed  to  Clemenceau's  demands, 
but  in  the  afternoon  session  of  that  day  he  accepted  it. 

Wilson  had  thus  won  his  contentions.  There  was  to 
be  a  preliminary  treaty  containing  the  military,  naval, 
and  air  terms.  This  w^as  to  be  worked  out  by  a  com- 
mittee of  military  experts  while  he  was  away  in  America. 
He  said: 

He  had  complete  confidence  in  the  views  of  his  mihtary  advisers. 
.  .  .  He  did  not  wish  his  absence  to  stop  so  important,  essential 
and  urgent  work  as  the  preparation  of  a  preliminary  peace  [as  to  mili- 
tary, naval  and  air  terms].  He  hoped  to  return  by  the  13th  or  15th 
March,  allowing  himself  only  a  week  in  America.  .  .  .  He  had 
asked  Colonel  House  to  take  his  place  while  he  was  away.^ 

'Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  February  12. 


FRAMING  THE  COVENANT  291 

He  felt  this  quick  settlement  of  the  military  terms  a 
most  important  move.  It  fitted  in  perfectly  with  his 
other  plans  for  the  peace.  By  the  time  he  returned  the 
troublesome  military  and  naval  terms  would  be  out  of 
the  way  and,  the  League  of  Nations  having  been  accepted, 
the  Conference  could  proceed  to  draw  up  the  broad  general 
terms  of  settlement  under  calmer  conditions.  His  plan, 
as  he  said  (February  12),  "would  make  safety  antedate 
the  peace." 

When  President  Wilson  sailed  out  of  Brest  Harbour 
for  America  on  that  wintry  February  day  (the  15th)  with 
the  guns  booming  from  the  ancient  French  forts  and 
French  marines  at  salute  along  the  walls,  he  had  reason 
enough  to  feel  triumphant.  He  was  on  his  way  home- 
ward with  the  hard-won  constitution  of  a  new  world 
league — the  essential  element  of  the  American  programme 
— in  his  pocket.  It  had  been  unanimously  accepted,  at 
the  Conference  the  day  before,  by  all  the  nations.  He 
was  carrying  it  back  to  present  to  his  own  people. 

The  first  month  of  the  Peace  Conference,  from  Janu- 
ary 12  to  February  15,  had  been  a  remarkable  one.  At 
its  beginning,  as  previous  chapters  have  shown,  the  tide 
seemed  to  be  settling  hea\dly  against  Wilson  and  the 
American  conception  of  the  settlements.  There  had 
been  a  world-wide  "slump  in  idealism."  The  "old 
order"  had  come  into  the  conferences  at  Paris  quite 
confident  of  itself.  But  the  President,  by  a  series  of  bold 
and  skillful  strokes,  had  snatched  the  reins  of  leadership, 
had  brought  the  American  programme  strongly  into  the 
foreground,  and  during  a  large  part  of  the  time  the  League 
of  Nations  Commission  shared  the  "spotlight"  of  the 
world's  interest  with  the  Councils  of  the  Quai  d'Orsay. 
He  had  blocked,  one  after  another,  projects  of  the  old 
order  to  make  settlements  according  to  their  own  con- 


292         WOODROW  ^^^LSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

ceptions  of  the  peace;  the  most  important  being  their 
effort  to  divide  immediately  the  "spoils  of  the  war,"  the 
German  colonies.  He  had  secured  an  arrangement  for 
getting  the  main  labours  of  the  Conference  out  of  the 
atmosphere  of  war.  And,  finally,  he  had  won,  decisively, 
in  the  two  great  central  purposes  for  which  he  had  come 
to  Europe. 

First,  he  had  secured,  on  January  25,  the  unanimous 
acceptance  of  what  he  considered  the  "key  of  the  whole 
settlement" — that  the  League  of  Nations  be  made  "an 
integral  part  of  the  general  treaty  of  peace." 

Second,  he  had  secured,  on  February  14,  the  unani- 
mous acceptance  of  a  covenant  that  reasonably  satisfied 
the  American  purposes. 

It  had  been  a  hard  fight:  in  spite  of  the  greatest  diffi- 
culties and  against  tremendous  odds  the  American  pro- 
gramme— the  "new  order,"  as  the  President  was  fond  of 
calling  it — seemed  to  be  winning.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  President  was  safe  on  no  point:  the  real  battles  were 
yet  to  come. 

Although  the  President  could  say  with  satisfaction 
that  there  had  been  "unanimous  agreement"  to  both 
of  his  great  central  proposals,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  none 
of  the  Allies  was  satisfied.  They  felt  that  they  had  been 
beaten;  they  were  discontented  with  the  results.  They 
saw  no  way,  according  to  the  President's  programme, 
to  get  what  they  really  wanted — the  security  they  thought 
they  needed,  the  territorial  and  economic  ambitions  they 
hoped  to  realize  under  the  secret  treaties. 

Consider  the  situation.  The  British  Dominions  had 
failed  in  their  efforts  to  drive  through  an  immediate 
partition  of  the  German  colonies.  Under  pressure  they 
had  accepted  the  mandate  resolution  of  January  30,  and 
had  seen  it  incorporated  in  the  Covenant,  but  it  had  not 


FRAMING  THE  COVENANT  393 

brought  forth  the  hoped-for  cutting  of  the  colonial  pie. 
So  long  as  that  was  held  up,  they  saw  little  reason  to  be 
pleased  either  with  the  Covenant  or  with  its  inclusion 
with  the  treaty  of  peace. 

The  French  were  even  more  bitterly  disappointed  with 
the  course  of  events.  They  had  accepted  the  plan 
of  having  the  Covenant  an  integral  part  of  the  Treaty  on 
January  25  because  they  felt  sure  of  one  or  both  of  two 
things,  either  of  getting  the  settlements  they  wanted 
before  the  League  could  be  brought  into  being,  or  of 
getting  the  kind  of  a  league  they  wanted.  But  they 
had  got  neither.  Their  plan  for  a  league — a  strong, 
centralized  organization  with  powerful  military  forces 
at  its  disposal,  which  had  formed  an  indispensable  feature 
of  their  whole  elaborate  programme  of  security — had 
been  relentlessly  voted  down  in  the  League  of  Nations 
Commission.  The  League,  as  it  stood  on  February  14, 
was  thus  not  satisfactory  to  them,  and  although  M. 
Bourgeois  had  stoutly  declared  at  the  plenary  session  that 
he  was  not  through  with  his  fight,  the  Covenant  had 
been  unanimously  accepted  and  there  seemed  small  hope 
of  getting  substantial  changes.  Much  better  sidetrack 
it  and  work  all  the  harder  for  the  other  measures  of  real 
security ! 

The  Japanese,  too,  had  reason  to  be  sore,  though 
they  remained  silent,  for  their  racial  equality  clause, 
which  touched  their  pride  to  the  quick,  had  met  the 
same  fate  as  the  French  amendments.  Moreover,  they 
— and  the  French  also,  for  that  matter — shared  the  dis- 
appointment of  the  British  dominions  in  not  getting,  at 
once,  their  share  of  the  German  colonies.  The  Japanese 
had  also  made  clear  their  purposes  regarding  Shantung — 
and  had  been  put  off. 

While  the  Italians  who  were  chiefly  interested  in  the 


294        WOODROW  ^YILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

Austrian  settlements  had  not  been  greatly  active  thus 
far  in  the  discussions,  they  decidedly  did  not  like  the 
looks  of  a  settlement  such  as  the  President  was  evidently 
set  upon  getting. 

No  sooner,  then,  had  the  President  sailed  away  than 
the  gates  were  opened  for  a  great  flood  of  dissatisfaction 
— which  soon  developed  into  a  remarkable  diplomatic 
intrigue. 

His  absence  at  this  time  was  probably  inevitable :  never- 
theless, it  was  dangerous.  It  left  the  forces  of  the  "new 
order"  without  effective  generalship;  it  gave  opportun- 
ity for  all  the  elements  that  were  against  him  and  against 
settlements  on  the  American  basis,  to  get  their  breath, 
to  reconstruct  their  positions,  to  begin  a  powerful  counter 
movement.  If  the  President  had  remained  at  Paris 
straight  along  to  carry  forward  his  offensive,  to  "con- 
solidate his  gains,"  final  results  might  have  been  different. 
But  he  was  not  there. 

For  this  reason,  the  month  while  the  President's  back 
was  turned  becomes,  to  the  student,  one  of  the  most 
interesting  and  significant  of  the  entire  Conference. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

While  Wilson  Was  Away — Attempts  to  Sidetrack 
THE  League  of  Nations — Balfour  Resolution  of 
February  22 — Wilson's  Vital  Declaration  of  March 
15,  That  the  "League  of  Nations  Should  Be  Made 
an  Integral  Part  of  the  Treaty  of  Peace" — Be- 
ginning OF   Coldness    between    President    Wilson 

AND  Colonel  House 

NO  SOONER  had  the  President  left  Paris,  on  Feb-' 
ruary  15,  than  the  forces  of  opposition  and  dis- 
content began  to  act.  On  February  24,  resolutions 
were  adopted  by  the  Council  of  Ten  which,  if  carried 
through,  would  wreck  the  entire  American  scheme  for  the 
peace. 

It  was  exceedingly  shrewd  strategy  these  skilled 
diplomats  played.  They  did  not  like  the  League  as 
drafted  and  they  did  not  want  the  Covenant  in  the  Treaty, 
but  they  made  no  direct  attack  on  either  proposal.  The 
League  was  scarcely  mentioned  in  the  conferences  until 
just  before  the  President  returned. 

Their  strategy  was  as  simple  as  it  was  ingenious.  They 
had  been  left,  as  was  shown  in  the  last  chapter,  with  reso- 
lutions which  the  President  had  strongly  supported,  to 
make  quickly  a  preliminary  peace  treaty  including  only 
military,  naval,  and  air  terms.  What  was  easier  or  more 
obvious  than  to  generalize  that  treaty,  put  into  it  also 
all  the  other  terms  that  really  mattered  to  them — 
boundaries,  reparations,  colonies:  in  short,  crowd  the 
whole  peace  into  the  preliminary  treaty  without  any 
reference  to  the  League.    This  would  get  them  the  settle- 

895 


296        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEIVIENT 

ments  they  wanted,  and  it  would  prevent  demobiliza- 
tion of  the  allied  armies  until  the  terms  were  imposed 
upon  the  Germans.  It  was  just  another  aspect  of  the 
French  attempt,  whicli  had  already  been  balked  by 
Wilson  and  Bliss,  to  crowd  peace  terms  into  the  Armis- 
tice and  thus  get  them  imposed  by  military  force  before 
the  Treaty,  let  alone  the  League,  was  even  discussed. 
If  the  League  got  squeezed  out  in  the  process,  or  was 
consigned  to  some  innocuous  future  conference  after  all 
the  settlements  were  made,  who  cared? 

Thus  while  it  is  too  much  to  say  that  there  was 
a  direct  plot,  while  Wilson  was  away,  to  kill  the  League 
or  even  cut  it  out  of  the  Treaty,  one  can  affirm  with  cer- 
tainty that  there  was  an  intrigue  against  his  plan  of  a 
preliminary  military  and  naval  peace — which  would 
have  indirectly  produced  the  same  result.\ 

It  seemed  that  every  militaristic  and  nationalistic 
force  came  instantly  to  the  front  when  Wilson  departed. 
Lloyd  George  had  gone  home,  but  instead  of  leaving  the 
liberal  leaders  in  control  in  Paris,  men  who  were  imbued 
with  the  purposes  laid  down  in  the  League — Cecil,  Smuts, 
and  Barnes — who  were  indeed  Lloyd  George's  associates 
on  the  British  Peace  Commission,  he  sent  over  Winston 
Churchill,  the  most  militaristic  of  British  leaders. 
Churchill  was  not  a  member  of  the  peace  delegation  and 
had  had  nothing  before  to  do  with  the  Peace  Conference. 
Moreover,  he  was  a  rampant  opponent  of  the  League. 
Part  of  the  time  also  Sir  Robert  Borden,  the  Canadian 
leader,  sat  in  the  Supreme  Council.  AVliile  he  asked 
nothing  for  Canada,  he  strongly  supported  the  claims 
of  the  other  British  dominions  for  an  immediate  dis- 
tribution of  the  German  colonies.  These  men,  with  Mr. 
Balfour  and  Lord  Milner,  were  thus  to  direct  British 
affairs  at  Paris  while  the  President  was  away. 


WHILE  WILSON  WAS  AWAY  297 

The  first  thing  that  Winston  Churchill  did  was  to 
demand  instant  action  regarding  Russia,  and  he  practi- 
cally supported  Foch's  Napoleonic  scheme,  which  was 
now  resurrected  with  new  determination,  for  applying 
military  force  against  Soviet  Russia.  Great  armies 
were  to  be  gathered,  including  the  Americans,  and  a  vast 
war  was  to  be  waged  to  pacify  eastern  Europe. 

On  the  morning  of  February  19,  just  as  Clemenceau 
was  getting  into  his  automobile  to  go  to  the  Conference, 
an  assassin  crept  up  and  shot  him. 

"I  am  a  Frenchman  and  an  Anarchist,"  shouted  Cottin. 

"The  animal  shoots  well,"  said  Clemenceau  as  he 
pitched  forward.     "It  is  nothing." 

But  the  hard-knit,  formidable  old  man  at  least  had 
to  go  to  bed.  This  left  Balfour  the  outstanding  states- 
man at  the  Conference,  with  Pichon,  who  represented 
everything  that  was  old  in  diplomacy,  in  charge  of  the 
French  delegation.  While  Clemenceau  was  no  liberal, 
yet  he  had  wisdom.  Thus  Foch,  whom  only  Clemen- 
ceau could  keep  in  hand,  rose  powerfully  into  the  fore- 
ground. 

Curiously  also— and  as  though  it  were  part  of  a  well- 
worked-out  plan — Orlando,  who  represented  the  liberal 
forces  in  Italy,  had  also  gone  home,  leaving  Sonnino, 
without  doubt  the  most  reactionary  statesman  at  Paris, 
in  control. 

As  for  America,  Mr.  Lansing  was  titular  head  of  the 
delegation,  although  President  Wilson  had  told  the 
Council  of  Ten  (February  12)  that  he  had  asked  "Colonel 
House  to  take  his  place  while  he  was  away." 

Not  one  word  was  said  in  the  Council  about  the  pre- 
liminary military  terms — the  most  important  outstand- 
ing business  before  them — for  an  entire  week.  But 
conferences,  we  know,  were  busily  going  on  behind  the 


298        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

scenes.  We  have  Mr.  Balfour's  own  word,  spoken  in 
the  secret  councils,  that  he  consulted  privately  with  M. 
Pichon,  and  even,  so  important  did  he  consider  the 
matter,  that  he  went  with  M.  Pichon  to  see  Clemenceau, 
then  lying  ill  of  his  wounds. 

In  the  session  of  February  22,  Balfour  introduced  his 
extraordinary  new  resolution,  providing  that  the  Council 
proceed  without  delay  to  the  consideration  of  other  pre- 
liminary peace  terms  with  Germany — these  including 
the  frontiers  of  Germany,  financial  and  economic  arrange- 
ments, responsibility  for  breaches  of  the  laws  of  war  (and 
later,  colonies) — practically  everything  except  the  League 
of  Nations!  The  resolution  also  demanded  hurry — and 
directed  that  commissions  send  in  their  reports  "not  later 
than  Saturday,  March  8" — which  was  a  week  before 
President  Wilson  could  return.^ 

Although  this  proposal  had  not  even  been  mentioned 
before  in  the  Council  and  there  is  no  recorded  discussion, 
it  was  instantly  and  enthusiastically  accepted — save  by 
Lord  Milner  (as  will   be  shown  later)  and   by  Sonnino, 

iText  of  the  Balfour  Resolution  of  February  22,  from  Secret  Minutes,  Council  of 
Ten: 

(1)  Without  prejudice  to  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  War  Council  to  present  Naval, 
Military  and  Air  Conditions  of  Peace,  to  Germany  at  an  early  date,  the  Conference 

.agrees  that  it  is  desirable  to  proceed  without  delay  to  the  consideration  of  other  pre- 
liminary Peace  Terms  with  Germany  and  to  press  on  the  necessary  investigations  with 
all  possible  speed. 

(2)  The  Preliminary  Peace  Terms,  other  than  the  Naval,  Military  and  Air  Con- 
\  ditions,  shall  cover  the  following  points: 

(a)  The  approximate  future  frontiers  of  Germany: 

(b)  The  financial  arrangements  to  be  imposed  on  Germany: 

(c)  Our  economic  relations  with  Germany  after  the  war : 

(d)  Responsibility  for  breaches  of  the  Laws  of  War. 

(3)  In  order  that  the  Conference  may  have  at  its  disposal  with  the  least  possible 
delay  the  result  of  the  labours  of  the  various  Commissions  which  have  been  investigat- 
ing these  subjects  it  is  requested  that  the  various  Commissions  will  send  in  their 
reports  to  the  Secretary-General  not  later  than  Saturday,  March  8th.  This  will 
not  apply  to  Commissions  set  up  after  February  15th  which  may  be  unable  to  render 
their  final  reports  at  so  early  a  date,  but  it  is  requested  that  in  these  cases  interim 
reports  may  be  presented  dealing  with  all  matters  aflFecting  the  preliminaries  of  Peace 
with  Germany. 


WHILE  WILSON  WAS  AWAY  299 

who  was  not  opposed  to  the  principle  but  who  did  not 
want  the  German  settlements  made  ahead  of  the  Austrian. 
Here  are  the  comments: 

M.  PicHON  agreed  that  Mr.  Balfour  had  very  correctly  inter- 
preted M.  Clemenceau's  views.  M.  Clemenceau  held  that  the  whole 
of  the  Preliminary  Peace  Terms  should  be  pressed  forward  with  as 
little  delay  as  possible  in  order  to  take  full  advantage  of  the  present 
situation  in  Germany.  In  this  opinion  M.  Clemenceau  was  supported 
by  Marshal  Foch  and  his  mihtary  advisers. 

Mr.  House  said  he  was  very  glad  to  see  that  the  Conference  in- 
tended to  bring  about  as  soon  as  possible  a  Preliminary  Peace.  .  .  . 
He  had  always  felt  that  delay  could  only  be  favourable  to  Germany 
and  the  longer  the  signing  of  Peace  were  postponed,  the  more  chance 
would  there  be  of  circumstances  becoming  less  favourable  to  the  Allies 
In  regard  to  the  two  proposals  now  before  the  Conference,  very  severe 
military  terms  would  have  to  be  imposed  on  the  Germans.  And  he 
thought  the  Germans  would  be  more  inclined  to  accept  those  condi- 
tions if,  at  the  same  time,  the  whole  Peace  Terms  were  made  known  to 
them.     .     .     . 

Mr.  Lansing  [said]  ...  he  would  prefer  to  embody  all  the  terms 
of  a  preliminary  peace  in  one  document  .  .  .  He  thoroughly  agreed 
with  M.  Clemenceau's  viewpoint, 


The  only  sincere  support  of  Wilson's  proposal  was  from 
Lord  Milner,  who  had  been  present  when  it  was  accepted 
on  February  12  (just  as  Lansing  had  been)  and  now  pro- 
posed to  stand  upon  the  agreement  made  at  that  time. 
He  thought  it  "more  important  than  anything  else  for 
the  Conference  to  devote  its  time  to  a  consideration  of 
the  final  naval  and  military  terms  with  Germany.  Once 
an  agreement  was  reached  on  that  subject,  one  compart- 
ment of  the  peace  work  would  be  finally  dispensed  with." 
At  the  following  meeting  Lord  Milner  returned  again, 
more   vigorously,   to   the   argument,   expressing  almost 

'Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  February  22. 


SOO         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

exactly  the  idea  of  President  Wilson  and  General  Bliss. 
He  said  (we  have  here  a  verbatim  report) : 

Speaking  for  myself,  personally,  I  still  think  that  the  final  disarma- 
ment of  Germany,  I  mean  our  bringing  her  down  to  that  degree  of 
f  strength  for  war  purposes  which  we  are  willing  to  allow  her_pgrma- 
p  _nently  to  maintain,  is  extremely  urgent,  that  it  is  a  step  which  we 
ought  to  take  as  soon  as  we  possibly  can,  and  that  it  is  a  step  which, 
when  taken,  will  greatly  expedite  the  acceptance  ...  of  all  other 
conditions  of  peace.  It  is  also  an  absolutely  essential  preliminary 
to  our  own  demobilization. 

But,  of  course,  demobilization  was  exactly  what  the 
French  did  not  want!  And,  as  Piclion  said,  Clemenceau 
was  in  agreement  with  Foch;  and  Balfour,  Lansing,  and 
House  were  in  agreement  with  Clemenceau.  Colonel 
House  indeed  responded  to  Lord  Milner's  argument  as 
follows : 

Mr.  House  persisted  in  his  opinion  that  the  Conference  should  go 
back  to  Mr.  Balfour's  original  proposal  as  regards  Germany. 

With  both  French  and  Americans  and  Mr.  Balfour,  the 
leading  British  delegate,  against  him,  it  was  useless  for 
Lord  Milner  to  pursue  the  argument. 

One  nation  remained  yet  to  be  heard  from,  Japan. 
The  Japanese  delegates,  Makino  and  Matsui,  waited  al- 
ways, like  their  own  stone  Buddhas,  in  silence,  until 
something  arose  that  really  concerned  them.  Then,  in  a  | 
low  voice,  in  the  fewest  possible  words,  with  an  almost 
apologetic  air,  at  the  end  of  the  meeting,  they  shot  as 
straiffht  as  did  their  soldiers  at  Port  Arthur. 


'to' 


Baron  Making  enquired  whether  the  approximate  future  frontiers 
of  Germany  referred  to  in  paragraph  2  (a)  [of  the  Balfour  resolution], 
inchided  the  German  colonies. 

Mr.  Balfour  replied  that  it  was  intended  to  include  the  col- 
onies. 


WHILE  WILSON  WAS  AWAY  301 

M.  Matsui  enquired,  with  reference  to  paragraph  2  (a)  whether 
that  would  include  all  rights,  such  as  rights  over  the  railways  and 
mines  in  China  acquired  by  Germany. 

Mr.  Balfour  thought  that  the  words  '"inter  alia"  would  cover  such 
questions. 

Mr.  Lansing  agreed,  and  remarked  that  the  words  "inter  alia"  would 
also  cover  the  question  of  prisoners  of  war,  which  he  had  intended  to 
raise  separately.^ 

Thus  the  Japanese,  having  inquired  as  to  colonies, 
railroads,  mines,  Shantung,  and  been  generously  reas- 
sured by  Mr.  Balfour,  relapsed  again  into  silence.  Here 
was  where  the  Shantung  settlement,  so  bitterly  attacked 
in  America,  was  begun — while  Wilson  was  away. 

By  this  simple  process  everyone  had  been  assured  of 
getting  all  the  "practical  details"  into  the  preliminary 
treaty — boundaries,  reparations,  colonies,  mines,  rail- 
roads— without  hindrance  from  the  clogging  idealism  of 
Wilson's  principles  or  reference  to  the  League  of  Nations. 

Most  difficult  to  explain  are  the  reasons  why  Mr.  Bal- 
four had  fathered  this  movement.  The  British  had  been 
eager,  as  Lord  Milner  argued,  to  reach  conditions  per- 
mitting demobilization  ahead  of  the  long  debates  on 
other  terms.  Balfour  himself  (Lloyd  George  having  just 
gone  home)  had  drawn  up  and  supported  the  resolutions, 
only  ten  days  before,  formulating  Wilson's  plan  for  a 
preliminary  military  treaty.  He  had  apparently  stood — 
at  that  time — strongly  with  Wilson. 

What  had  converted  him  so  suddenly.'' 

The  complete  answer  is  probably :  Lloyd  George. 

Lloyd  George  had  gone  home,  like  Wilson,  to  report 
to  the  country ;  there  had  been  a  great  and  heated  Cabinet 
meeting.  Conditions  in  Russia,  which  had  been  most  un- 
satisfactory, had  been  presented.     Churchill  was  there  de- 

*  Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  February  22. 


302        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

manding  a  new  and  vigorous  Russian  policy,  and  no 
doubt  attacking  "this  nonsense"  of  a  league  of  nations. 
There  had  also  been  aired  another  thing — the  bitter 
discontent  of  the  Dominion  Premiers  over  not  getting 
the  colonies  that  they  wanted — for  Premier  Hughes  of 
Australia  had  been  making  irritating  speeches  in  London. 
Everyone,  also,  was  beginning  to  be  impatient  at  the 
delay — the  peace  must  be  hurried ! 

Lloyd  George  had  evidently  suffered  one  of  his  char- 
acteristic catapultic  changes  of  opinion.  Opposition, 
which  always  hardened  Wilson  behind  his  principles, 
had  exactly  the  contrary  effect  upon  the  mercurial  Welsh- 
man, who  had  politics  but  no  principles — it  sent  him 
bounding  to  the  other  extreme.  Lloyd  George  began  to 
think  he  had  gone  too  far  with  this  league  business.  So 
he  sent  over  to  Paris  the  most  militaristic  leader  of  them 
all,  Churchill,  and  a  few  days  later  Balfour  made  his 
extraordinary  change  of  programme.^ 

Balfour  was  one  of  the  most  fascinating  figures  at  the 
Peace  Conference.  A  truly  remarkable  intellect,  no 
memoranda  prepared  at  Paris,  no  arguments  in  the  con- 
ferences, are  more  brilliant  or  witty  than  his.  His 
memorandum  on  the  Turkish  settlements  with  refer- 
ences to  Italian  claims  is  a  literary  classic.  It  was 
beautiful  to  see  him  at  work,  with  this  half -ironical  philo- 
sophic interest  in  events.  But  he  was  to  his  very  marrow 
a  conservative,  and  his  philosophy  one  of  doubt  (as  Wil- 
son's philosophy  was  one  of  faith);  he  was  ever  sure, 
"like  the  very  English  Hamlet,  of  the  disadvantage  of 
every  course  of  action."  With  Wilson's  powerful  and 
stimulating  leadership  he  had  come  far — too  far!  With 
Wilson  gone,  the  prospect  looked  bleak  and  the 
struggle  hard;  peace  quickly  and  on  any  terms  seemed 
infinitely  desirable,  especially  a  peace  that  would  satisfy 


WHILE  WILSON  WAS  AWAY  308 

quickly  the  clamouring  British  Dominions  and  get  the 
Empire  what  it  wanted  in  Turkey.  With  a  man  at  his 
side  hke  Churchill,  who  knew  violently  and  explosively 
what  he  wanted,  and  a  leader  at  home  who  wanted  one 
thing  to-day  and  the  opposite  to-morrow — Balfour  intro- 
duced his  resolution  of  February  22. 

This  can  be  said  truly:  if  Lloyd  George  had  loyally 
and  steadfastly  stood  by  the  plan  agreed  to  by  the  Council 
of  Ten  on  February  12  to  make  a  preliminary  military 
and  naval  peace,  it  would  have  gone  through. 

What  about  the  Americans?  Of  Lansing  little  need 
be  said.  He  was  against  the  League  as  drafted,  he  was 
against  including  it  in  the  Treaty.  He  had  no  glimmer 
of  the  President's  vision  of  the  peace,  or  of  the  part 
America  should  play  in  it.  While  he  had  had  no  definite 
instructions  from  the  President  (as  he  stated  in  his  book) 
as  to  what  to  do  while  the  President  was  away,  yet  he  had 
been  in  every  session  of  the  council,  knew  fully  what  was 
going  on,  knew  what  the  President  had  fought  for  and 
wanted,  and  had  himself  accepted  the  resolution  pro- 
viding for  a  preliminary  military  treaty.  Yet  the  moment 
the  President  turned  his  back  he  agreed  fully  with  Balfour 
and  Clemenceau  and  Foch  in  a  scheme  which  would  wreck 
the  President's  whole  plan.  He  never  apparently  thought 
of  supporting  the  President's  resolution:  he  probably 
never  even  sensed  the  larger  diplomatic  consequences  of 
the  move,  or  understood  what  was  being  "put  over^l!^ 

Colonel  House's  situation  was  far  more  complicated. 
He  had  not  been  in  the  Council  of  Ten ;  he  did  not,  like 
Lansing,  know  fully  the  course  of  the  struggle.  He  had 
not  been  in  touch  with  the  inner  strategy  as  Lan- 
sing had.  President  Wilson  had  told  the  Council  that 
he  was  leaving  House  to  take  his  place,  but  had  not  fully 
explained  to  or  instructed  House.     Here  again  entered  one 


S04        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEIklENT 

of  the  President's  peculiar  limitations — his  inability  to 
explain  himself,  his  assumption  that  the  minds  of  his 
associates,  having  accepted  his  leadership,  would  necessar- 
ily follow  along  his  own  clear,  vivid,  swift-leaping  logical 
processes.  He  always  assumed  that  moral  or  emotional 
support  meant  also  clear  intellectual  understanding — 
which  does  not  at  all  follow.  This  assumption  as  applied 
to  the  people  at  large,  as  well  as  to  close  associates,  lay 
at  the  root  of  many  of  the  President's  most  serious  diffi- 
culties. Having  said  a  thing  once,  he  seemed  to  think  it 
was  all  clearly  understood  and  accepted — was  it  not 
reasonable? — while,  as  many  a  humbler  politician  could 
have  told  him,  it  had  to  be  repeated  a  thousand  times,  pub- 
lished in  every  newspaper,  put  in  the  movies,  set  to 
music! 

Colonel  House  for  years  had  been  of  the  greatest  ser- 
vice to  this  lonely  thinker  and  leader.  He  had  been  a 
true  friend  where  friendship  was  difficult;  he  had  not 
wanted  anything  for  himself  where  everyone  was  clam- 
ouring for  offices  or  honours.  Pie  had  many  of  the 
qualities  that  the  President  lacked;  a  genius  for  under- 
standing human  beings,  a  love  of  personal  contacts,  a 
spirit  of  friendly  compromise.  He  broke  through,  with 
an  irrepressible,  Texan  good-fellowship,  the  President's 
defenses  and  inhibitions.  One  cannot  resist  Colonel 
House!  Long  after  it  was  supposed  that  the  President 
and  Colonel  House  had  "broken,"  after  the  President 
was  ill,  he  said  at  a  meeting  of  his  Cabinet,  when  someone 
ventured  to  criticize  House : 

*'I  have  a  great  affection  for  Colonel  House." 
Among  the  President's  papers  are  to  be  found,  care- 
fully preserved,  many  little  pencilled   notes  of  Colonel 
House  sent  to  him  at  Paris  or  otherwhere,  after  some 
speech  or  in  connection  with  some  proposed   resolution. 


AVHILE  WILSON  WAS  AWAY 


305 


'^^C-«,-»/C-t-^ 


£yC<,^<,^^y'i'-'^ 


-• 


Three  pencilled  notes  from  Colonel 
House  to  Woodrow  Wilson 


Here  are  samples: 

Dear  Governor :     The  very  best  you  ever  made. 


E.  M.  H. 


Nothing  could  be  better.     It  has  made  assurance  doubly  sure. 

E.  M.  H. 

After  the  President's  powerful  speech  on  February  3 
in  the  French  Chamber  of  Deputies  this  pencilled  note 
came  from  the  Colonel: 

Dear  Governor:  I  believe  that  what  you  have  said  to-day  will 
hearten  the  people  of  the  world  as  nothing  you  have  said  before.  It 
was  complete  and  satisfying. 

This  was  no  mere  flattery:  it  was  meant  and  felt;  and  it 
was  infinitely  cheering  to  the  President. 


306        WOODROW  >MLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

So  long  as  Colonel  House  was  what  Clemenceau  called 
"an  ear,  but  not  a  mouth,"  silent,  listening,  reporting  vera- 
ciously  and  voluminously  to  the  President,  everything  went 
well.  His  help  was  great  and  valuable.  The  President 
thus  secured  facts,  views,  knowledge  of  personalities,  that 
otherwise  he  could  not  have  had.  House  furnished  the 
raw  material  which  the  President  needed  in  his  thinking. 
Along  with  his  human  likeableness  House  had  a  tested 
shrewdness  in  judgment  of  men  and  events.  The  President 
could  take  or  leave  his  facts  and  opinions — as  he  did  do — 
and  act  then  as  he  pleased. 

But  when  Colonel  House  was  placed  in  a  great  position 
where  action  based  upon  utterly  clear  thinking  and  sharp 
and  definite  decisions  were  required,  he  began  to  suffer 
from  the  defects  of  his  own  qualities.  Instinctively  and 
emotionally  he  was  as  truly  liberal  as  the  President  and  he 
was  a  loyal  supporter  of  the  League  of  Nations :  but  he  had 
never  thought  through.  He  never  knew  quite  where  he 
was,  but  he  was  always  optimistic.  There  was  nothing 
hard,  clear,  sure,  definite,  in  his  intellectual  processes. 
He  liked  and  sympathized  with  people  and  hated  to  decide 
against  them ;  he  wanted  to  get  them  all  together,  use  soft 
words,  and  assure  them  that  there  were  no  real  differences 
of  view — when  there  were.  Thus  when  Lord  Milner  was  ar- 
guing against  Marshal  Foch  regarding  the  plan  for  a  prelimi- 
nary military  treaty  on  February  24,  we  find  this  remark: 

Mr.  House  expressed  the  view  that  in  reality  no  difference  of  opin- 
ion existed  between  the  Members  of  the  Conference. 

Well,  the  deepest  and  the  most  vital  differences  did 
exist,  as  the  President  well  knew :  it  was  not  a  sham  fight : 
it  was  real ;  it  could  not  be  patted  down,  or  smoothed  over, 
or  compromised  away.  It  was  not  a  matter  of  mere 
personal  good-will  and  friendly  relationship  which  could 


WHILE  WILSON  WAS  AWAY  S07 

be  brushed  aside:  it  was  a  naked  difference  of  principle. 
Colonel  House  never  really  seemed  to  see  the  great  stark 
lines  of  the  conflict  or  realize  at  the  time  what,  by  these 
sinuous  moves,  the  "old  order"  was  trying  to  accompHsh. 
He  never  intended  for  a  moment  to  be  disloyal  to  the 
President;  thought  he  was  serving  the  cause  of  a  speedy 
peace;  sent  the  President  long  cablegrams  as  to  what  was 
going  on  at  Paris.  But  the  real  effect  of  ^his  action  here, 
as  later  in  the  Conference,  was  to  confuse  everything,  and 
in  action  in  this  case  at  least  to  serve  exactly  the  contrary 
purpose  from  the  one  the  President  had  in  view.  This 
judgment  is  based  not  alone  upon  the  writer's  own  con- 
clusions growing  out  of  personal  contact  at  Paris  with 
both  men,  but  upon  careful  survey  of  the  entire  record 
of  the  Peace  Conference.  ' 

It  was  the  dispatches  from  Colonel  House  that  gave 
the  President  the  first  inkling  of  the  course  of  affairs  at 
Paris — and  no  doubt  sharpened  the  challenge  in  his  great 
speech  of  March  4,  at  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House  in 
New  York,  just  before  sailing  again  for  France,  in  which  he 
asserted  that  the  Covenant  must  be  knit  into  the  Treaty: 

When  that  treaty  comes  back,  gentlemen  on  this  side  will  find  the 
covenant  not  only  in  it,  but  so  many  threads  of  the  Treaty  tied  to 
the  covenant,  that  you  cannot  dissect  the  covenant  from  the  Treaty 
without  destroying  the  whole  vital  structure. 

Colonel  House  met  the  President  when  he  arrived  at 
Brest  and  rode  up  to  Paris  with  him.  From  this  time  on- 
ward there  began  to  grow  up  a  coldness  between  the  two 
men  to  which  I  shall  refer  again,  for  it  had  an  important 
and  unfortunate  bearing  upon  the  Peace  Conference.  This 
coldness  was  not  due  to  trivial  personal  causes  or  to  little, 
mean  jealousies,  as  popularly  reported,  although  it  had 
indeed  personal  and  trivial  aspects,  but  was  based  upon  far 
deeper  failures  in  understanding  and  action. 


308         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

When  all  is  said,  the  course  of  the  Council  during  that 
crucial  month  was  more  stupid  than  designino'.     It  was 
tremendously  human.     Wilson,  the  leader  and  prophet, 
who  was  demanding  such  discipline  and  self-sacrifice,  had 
gone  away;  they  set  up  a  golden  calf.     They  slipped  back 
into  courses  and  methods  they  understood ;  they  took  what 
seemed  the  easy  way  to  get  what  they  wanted.     Of  all  the 
men  there,  Clemenceau,  with  his  extraordinary  clearness 
of  intelligence,  was  the  only  one  who  understood  exactly 
what  was  going  on,  as  he  was  the  first  (as  will  be  shown)  to 
call  a  halt  when  he  saw  that  the  plan  would  not  work. 
Such  courses  as  these  at  Paris  were  rarely,  I  believe,  due 
so  much  to  evil  design  as  to  sheer  want  of  vision,  moral 
ardour,  farsightedness.     The  men  there  had  their  eyes 
on   some   immediate   selfish   purpose    which   obliterated 
everything  else.     They  made  decisions  piecemeal  with- 
out standing  off  to  observe  the  total  effect  of  their  work. 
Observers  on  the  outside,  however,  scanned  the  news  with 
concern   or   with   glee,   according   to    their   convictions. 
Foes  of  the  League  were  doubtless  too  quick  to  jump  to 
the  conclusion  they  desired — that  the  League  was  done  for, 
cut  out  of  the  Treaty,  and  left  to   perish  of  inanition. 
But  there  was  a  real  kernel  of  truth  in  their  predictions. 
These  were  repeated  eagerly,  reached  the  United  States, 
and  inspired   Tumulty  to  cable   in    alarm    (March   14) 
warning  the  President  on  his  return  to  Paris  of  what  was 
being  cooked  up  against  him. 

Almost  the  first  well-informed  man  the  writer  talked 
with  after  landing  again  on  French  soil  said,  with  a  smile: 

"Well,  your  league  is  dead." 

And  that  was,  indeed,  the  conviction  of  the  French 
Press.  At  least  the  League  was  sidetracked — put  off 
until  the  real  settlements  could  be  made.  So  Pichon 
was  quite  frankly  saying;  so  even   Lord  Robert  Cecil,  a 


WHILE  WILSON  WAS  AWAY  309 

true  friend  of  the  League,  was  admitting;  so  the  London 
Times  was  assuming,  arguing  that  the  peace  as  now 
planned  was  in  reahty  only  a  kind  of  enlarged  armistice. 
There  was  even  talk  of  the  future  congress — after  the 
present  Peace  Conference — which  was  to  discuss  and 
organize  the  League. 

There  does  not  seem  to  have  been  any  intention  of 
pushing  the  new  plan  to  completion  before  the  Presi- 
dent's return,  but  only  to  commit  the  Conference  with 
a  fait  accompli  and  so  raise  the  expectations  of  the  people 
for  speedy  settlements,  that  the  President  would  be  un- 
able to  stem  the  tide.  A  complete  settlement  would  not 
have  been  possible  even  if,  as  urged  m  the  beginning,  all 
the  committee  reports  had  been  in  by  March  8.  Foch, 
with  his  own  plans  in  mind,  tried  to  force  the  Council  to 
more  haste  on  March  3,  but  without  avail.  For  there 
were  fundamental  reasons  why  the  scheme,  sharp  as  it 
was,  was  doomed  from  the  beginning.  While  they  all 
wanted  a  quick  peace  on  the  *'old  order,"  yet,  when  it 
got  down  to  details,  all  sorts  of  controversies  began  to 
crop  up.  British  and  French  could  not  in  the  least  agree 
upon  the  military  terms,  especially  the  disposition  of 
the  captured  German  Navy.  The  British  and  Japanese 
differed  over  the  distributions  of  former  German  cables: 
Italians  and  Jugoslavs  were  at  swords'  points.  Wilson 
never  said  a  truer  or  wiser  thing  than  in  his  speech  at 
Manchester  (December  30,  1918): 

Interestdoe9notbindmentogether;interest  separates  men.  .  .  . 
There  is  only  one  thing  that  can  bind  people  together,  and  that  is 
common  devotion  to  right. 

Thus  with  the  strongest  intent  in  the  world  to  unite 
to  wreck  the  whole  Wilson  scheme,  they  found  them- 
selves  absurdly   unable   to   agree.     Everyone    suddenly 


310         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

began  to  be  suspicious  of  Foch  and  his  wild  plans.  Lloyd 
George  quarrelled  with  Clemenceau,  and  the  Italians 
were  beginning  to  object  more  than  ever  to  a  quick  peace 
with  Germany  which  left  Austrian  problems  in  abeyance. 
They  all  began  to  grope  around  for  some  "principle  of 
settlement."  Rejecting  Wilson's  principle,  they  had, 
perforce,  in  order  to  overcome  these  swiftly  and  bitterly 
developing  jealousies  and  rivalries,  to  have  some  other 
principle — and  there  was  none.  They  even  began  to  refer 
again  to  the  League  of  Nations.  Finally  Clemenceau 
who  had  come  back  into  the  Council,  looking  pale  but 
still  vigorous,  declared  that  settlements  must  be  de- 
ferred until  both  Wilson  and  Lloyd  George  (Lloyd  George 
having  again  gone  home)  had  returned. 

The  President's  information  about  the  progress  of 
events  during  his  absence  was  fragmentary,  but  it  was 
speedily  completed  upon  his  return — on  the  14th  of  March. 
The  Council  had  scheduled  a  meeting  on  the  15tli  to 
consider  the  now  complete  (but  unaccepted)  military 
terms.  Wilson,  refusing  to  be  rushed  into  decisions, 
asked  for  a  postponement  and  began  a  careful  study  of 
the  complicated  draft  of  those  terms.  We  have  that 
draft  now  among  his  documents  with  his  own  significant 
and  vital  notations  on  the  margin.  One  of  the  chief 
things  indicated  was  his  determination  to  destroy  the 
whole  scheme  for  a  permanent  military  (and  even,  in 
part,  economic)  control  of  Germany  after  the  peace  by 
allied  military  commissions.  He  did  not  appear  in  the 
Council  until  Monday,  the  17th. 

But  in  the  meantime  he  had  acted — with  stunning 
audacity  and  directness.  Saturday  morning,  March  15, 
about  11  o'clock,  he  called  the  writer  on  the  telephone, 
through  a  secret  circuit  which  ran  directly  from  his  study 
in  the  Place  des  Etats  Unis  to  the  Hotel  Crillon.     He 


WHILE  WILSON  WAS  AWAY  311 

asked  me  to  deny  the  report,  now  everywhere  current 
in  Europe — and  to  some  extent  in  America — that  there 
would  be  a  separate  preHminary  peace  treaty  with  the 
Germans  excluding  the  League  of  Nations. 

"I  want  you  to  say  that  we  stand  exactly  where  we 
stood  on  January  25  when  the  Peace  Conference  adopted 
the  resolution  making  the  Covenant  an  integral  part  of 
the  general  treaty  of  peace." 

I  therefore  drew  up  a  statement,  took  it  up  to  the 
President  and  secured  his  approval  and  issued  it  immedi- 
ately.    It  follows: 

March  15,  1919. 

The  President  said  to-day  that  the  decision  made  at  the  Peace  Con- 
ference at  its  plenary  session,  January  25,  1919,  to  the  effect  that  the 
establishment  of  a  League  of  Nations  should  be  made  an  integral 
part  of  the  Treaty  of  Peace,  is  of  final  force  and  that  there  is  no  basis 
whatever  for  the  reports  that  a  change  in  this  decision  was  contem- 
plated. 

The  resolution  on  the  League  of  Nations,  adopted  January  25, 
1919,  at  the  plenary  session  af  the  Peace  Conference,  was  as  follows : 

1.  It  is  essential  to  the  maintenance  of  the  world  settlement,  which 
the  associated  nations  are  now  met  to  establish,  that  a  League  of 
Nations  be  created  to  promote  international  cooperation,  to  insure 
the  fulfillment  of  accepted  international  obligations,  and  to  provide 
safeguards  against  war. 

2.  This  League  should  be  treated  as  an  integral  part  of  the  general 
Treaty  of  Peace,  and  should  be  open  to  every  civilized  nation  which 
can  be  relied  upon  to  promote  its  objects. 

3.  The  members  of  the  League  should  periodically  meet  in  inter- 
national conference,  and  should  have  a  permanent  organization  and 
secretariat  to  carry  on  the  business  of  the  League  in  the  intervals  be- 
tween the  conferences. 

This  bold  pronouncement  fell  like  a  veritable  bomb- 
shell in  Paris.  It  overturned  in  one  swift  stroke  the 
most   important   action    of   the   Conference  during  the 


312         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

President's  absence.  The  obscure  tendencies,  the  "dark 
forces"  which  had  been  at  work  for  the  past  month,  were 
brought  up  with  a  jerk. 

The  President  did  not  go  out  of  his  way  to  criticize  what 
had  been  done,  or  to  attack  any  one :  he  merely  announced 
his  purpose.  It  was  an  extraordinarily  able  stroke.  By 
definitely  recalling  the  previous  action  of  the  Conference, 
which  had  not  been  rescinded,  he  was  in  an  utterly  im- 
pregnable position.  By  this  action  he  centred  interest 
again  upon  the  League  of  Nations.  As  to  whether  the 
treaty  they  were  now  making  was  called  "preliminary" 
or  "final"  he  did  not  in  the  least  care,  if  he  secured  the 
reality  which  he  was  seeking :  that  the  Covenant  be  made 
the  basis  of  any  "general "  treaty  of  peace  which  contained 
territorial,  economic,  colonial,  and  other  settlements.  \ 

Bitter  and  fierce  attacks  upon  the  President  immedi- 
ately developed  in  both  French  and  British  newspapers, 
to  which  he  made  no  reply.  His  pronouncement  ap- 
parently destroyed  the  popular  expectations  of  an  early 
peace,  which  not  only  rested  upon  a  real  passion  of 
weariness,  a  real  and  deep  desire  to  get  the  armies  demo- 
bilized and  the  wheels  of  industry  started  again,  but  an 
expectation  fostered  by  certain  reactionary  newspapers 
in  France  and  England.  The  policy  of  these  papers  was : 
Don't  bother  about  new  principles  or  ideals;  settle  the 
war  quickly ;  form  a  new  military  alliance  among  the  Allies, 
including  America,  divide  up  the  spoils  among  the  victors, 
excepting  America,  and  get  back  home. 

The  Daily  Express  of  London,  for  example,  called  it 
a  "pyrrhic  victory,"  said  it  was  a  "hold-up,"  and  de- 
manded that  the  British  Government  refuse  to  support 
the  President.  Pichon,  the  French  Foreign  Minister, 
gave  an  interview  sharply  critical  of  the  President,  which 
was  hastily  suppressed. 


WHILE  WILSON  WAS  AWAY  313 

These  attacks  were  the  forerunners  of  the  tremendous 
struggle  which  now  followed  swiftly.  The  net  results  of 
the  bold  counter-stroke  of  March  15  were  mixed,  and 
did  not  by  any  means  represent  a  complete  victory 
for  the  President.  He  had  been  absent  from  the  battle- 
field and  could  not  recover  all  the  lost  ground.  If  nothing 
more  was  heard  of  a  general  peace  without  the  League, 
neither  was  anything  more  heard  of  a  military  settlement 
and  demobilization  preceding  the  general  peace — a  con- 
dition Wilson  desired  and  thought  he  had  assured  before 
he  left  Paris.  In  this  matter  the  French  gained  their 
point.  No  preliminaries  of  any  description  were  ever 
signed,  and  the  final  treaty  was  signed  with  considerable 
armies  still  afoot  and  ready  to  march  into  Germany. 
They  were  depleted  by  continued  demobilization  to  an 
extent  displeasing  to  Foch,  but  to  nothing  like  the  extent 
contemplated  before  Wilson's  departure  in  the  middle 
of  February.  The  general  terms  had  therefore  to  be 
drawn  up  in  an  atmosphere  of  war,  not  peace,  and  showed 
the  efl^ects  of  it.  \ 

But  Wilson  could  still,  perhaps,  count  the  greater 
triumph  his.  It  must  be  remembered  that  he  had  largely 
discounted  the  terms  of  the  Treaty  in  advance  and  pinned 
his  faith  to  the  League.  He  was  keeping  the  League 
pretty  much  as  he  wanted  it,  and  he  had  prevented  the 
French  from  building  up  an  international  military  sur- 
veillance of  Germany  outside  it.  These  were  solid  ac- 
complishments. Above  all,  he  had  kept  the  League 
closely  tied  to  the  Treaty,  thus  insuring  its  immediate 
creation  as  a  corrective  to  any  undesirable  features  the 
Treaty  might  take  on.  Under  the  regime  of  the  League 
he  counted  on  the  new  order  to  come  into  its  own  and 
correct  past  failures  and  mistakes.^ 

But  a  great  struggle  was  still  ahead  of  him. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

American    Criticism    of    the    Covenant — Wilson's 
Programme   for   Revision — Bitter   French   Op- 
position— The   Monroe   Doctrine  and   the 
Covenant — Article     X     the     Storm 

Centre 

NEVER  was  a  leader  more  sorely  beset  on  every 
hand  than  President  Wilson  upon  his  return  to 
Paris  in  March.  A  general  cannot  leave  a  great 
battle  at  its  height  for  a  month  and  find  it,  when 
he  returns,  just  where  he  left  it.  His  bold  declaration 
of  the  15th  had  indeed  fallen  like  a  bombshell  in  the 
councils  of  the  Quai  d'Orsay,  and  had  done  much  to  re- 
cover the  ground  lost  during  his  absence  in  America; 
but  in  reality  his  difficulties  were  now  far  more  serious 
than  ever  before. 

It  was  not  so  much  the  newly  determined  opposition 
of  the  European  and  Japanese  leaders,  who  had  been  in- 
triguing against  his  programme  and  gathering  strength 
for  a  new  campaign  while  he  was  away,  that  troubled 
him;  it  was  not  even  the  heartbreaking  discovery  that 
his  own  American  delegates  had  failed  to  understand  or 
uphold  him;  it  was  the  feeling  that  he  could  not  count 
with  certainty  upon  his  support  at  home. 

If  the  President  had  left  dissatisfaction  behind  him 
in  Europe,  he  had  also  to  face  opposition,  springing  from 
wholly  different  sources,  at  home.  It  was  largely  political, 
and  even  personal ;  but  political  opposition,  however  facti- 
tious, must  have  some  solid  basis  in  public  opinion  or  emo^ 

314 


AMERICAN  CRITICISM  OF  THE  COVENANT  315 

tion.  There  had  been  a  tremendous  reaction  in  America 
— a  part  also  of  the  world  "slump  in  idealism."  We  had 
fought  the  war;  now  let  us  return  to  the  safety  of  our  iso- 
lation.    Let  us  get  back  to  business.     "America  first!" 

There  had  been  during  the  war  a  vast,  more  or  less 
vague,  benevolent  sentiment — a  good  intent — in  favour 
of  a  league  of  nations.  It  was  looked  on  as  a  quick  cure- 
all  for  the  ills  of  the  world.  Let's  give  it  to  the  nations! 
But  behind  it  lay  an  abysmal  ignorance  of  real  inter- 
national conditions  and  problems — a  result  of  our  long 
isolation — and  when  we  began  to  see  how  serious  the 
world  disease  was  and  what  it  would  cost  to  cure  it  in 
self-sacrifice,  in  money,  and  even  in  danger  to  ourselves, 
there  developed  a  kind  of  panic  opposition.  We  benevo- 
lently wanted  the  League — but  we  didn't  expect  to  have 
to  pay  anything  for  it! 

Thus  the  voices  of  reaction,  fear,  and  partisan  opposi- 
tion raising  the  traditional  slogans,  "avoid  entangling 
alliances,"  "defend  the  Monroe  Doctrine,"  found  ready 
listeners.  The  President  had  counted  upon  a  moral 
hardness  of  conviction  and  a  clearness  of  understanding 
in  the  country  that  did  not,  for  lack  of  basic  knowledge, 
then  exist.  He  had  thought  the  thing  through;  he  knew 
the  problem:  he  knew  what  the  cost  would  be;  but  the 
country,  as  a  whole,  did  not.  The  President  himself, 
later  in  the  year,  perceiving  this  very  difficulty,  tried  in 
one  last  desperate  effort  the  "swing-around"  of  Septem- 
ber, 1919,  which  broke  him  down,  to  expound  the  situa- 
tion to  the  people,  to  explain  what  he  had  done  and  why 
— but  it  was  even  then  impossible. 

Thus  he  was  torn  between  two  sets  of  fears.  If  the 
French  feared  that  the  Covenant  which  the  President  was 
carrying  across  the  Atlantic  was  too  weak  for  their  se- 
curity, the  Americans  feared  it  too  strong  for  theirs! 


31 G         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

The  trip  home  had,  at  best,  been  a  dangerous  venture; 
but  it  had  seemed  absolutely  necessary.  The  immediate 
occasion,  of  course,  was  the  adjournment  of  Congress  on 
March  4;  but  the  real  reason  was  to  report  progress  and 
make  a  powerful  effort  to  consolidate  his  support  at 
home.  For  how  could  he  continue  to  make  a  bold  fight 
at  Paris  for  the  American  programme  if  he  knew  that 
everything  he  did  might  be  blocked  later  at  Washington  ? 

He  felt  all  along — he  had  always  felt — that  his  strength 
was  in  his  hold  upon  the  people  of  America — and  of  the 
world — if  he  could  only  get  to  them  and  explain.  But 
the  men  he  had  actually  to  deal  with,  who  held  over  him, 
as  it  were,  the  veto  power,  were  the  opposition  leaders 
of  the  United  States  Senate. 

Here  the  inelastic  American  system  of  treaty  making 
with  the  divided  responsibility  for  foreign  affairs  as 
between  the  President  and  the  Senate,  became  a  greater 
handicap,  because  the  crisis  was  greater  than  ever  before 
in  our  history.  America  has  never  yet  devised  a  sound 
or  efficient  technique  of  diplomacy.  The  statement  might 
be  broadened  by  saying  that  democracy  has  nowhere  yet 
acquired  a  satisfactory  diplomatic  method.  The  early 
American  Colonies,  suspicious,  and  rightly  so,  of  the 
secret  dealings  of  the  old  diplomats,  had  so  hedged  about 
their  new  system  of  government  with  checks  and  balances 
— providing  that  while  the  President  might  negotiate 
treaties,  two  thirds  of  the  Senate  must  ratify  them — 
that  it  has  been  made  impossible  for  America  to  speak  with 
a  bold  and  united  voice.  Nearly  every  important  treaty 
the  country  has  been  called  upon  to  make  has  become 
a  bone  of  contention  between  the  Executive  and  the  Sen- 
ate. It  is  certain  that  in  the  years  to  come,  if  we  are  to 
go  forward  in  the  new  paths  and  stand  for  a  clear-cut  world 
policy,    we   must   devise    some    method   of   speaking   to 


AMERICAN  CRITICISM  OF  THE  COVENANT  317 

the  world  promptly  and  with  an  undivided  voice.  Our 
present  system  leads  to  utter  weakness,  muddle,  and  de- 
lay: it  forces  both  sides  to  play  politics,  and  instead  of 
meeting  the  issue  squarely  to  indulge  in  a  vast  contro- 
versy over  the  prerogatives  of  two  coordinate  branches 
of  the  Government.  The  deadlock  between  the  Executive 
and  the  Senate  every  time  we  face  a  really  critical  foreign 
problem  is  intolerable.  It  not  only  disgraces  us  before 
the  nations,  but  in  some  future  world  crisis  may  ruin  us. 

The  President,  of  course,  clearly  saw  this  difficulty, 
and  relied,  in  circumventing  it,  upon  keeping  public 
opinion  in  America  so  alive,  so  committed  to  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  peace  he  advocated,  as  to  force  unity  of 
action. 

But  the  trouble  at  Washington,  as  at  Paris,  was  that 
while  the  reaction  of  democracy  is  sluggish  and  confused, 
the  President  had  to  act  quickly.  He  did  not  have  time 
to  explain  to  the  people  how  the  Covenant  he  had  brought 
back  answered  their  vision.  It  required  a  knowledge  of 
history,  foreign  affairs,  law,  that  even  the  leaders  did  not 
have.  Doubt — a  perfectly  natural  hesitation — began  to 
appear,  and  it  was  in  this  ready  soil  of  doubt  that  the 
leaders  of  the  Senate  planted  their  seeds  of  opposition. 
Some  of  them  were  honestly  doubtful,  others  were  too 
willing  to  use  popular  hesitation  to  make  political  capital. 

It  is  easy,  of  course,  to  say  that  there  should  have  been 
better  and  freer  publicity  at  Paris  and  at  home.  The 
writer  believes  that  the  great  failure  of  the  Americans 
at  the  Peace  Conference  was  a  failure  in  constructive 
publicity,  but  it  was  a  highly  complicated  failure,  and 
even  with  the  best  publicity  the  development  of  the  pub- 
lic opinion  of  a  nation  of  110,000,000  people  must  have 
been  a  slow  business. 

The  long  voyages  across  the  Atlantic,  during  which  the 


318        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

President  remained  almost  wholly  alone,  gave  him  time 
to  jBght  out  all  these  problems  in  his  own  mind.  He  saw 
the  forces  that  were  arraying  themselves  against  him 
with  penetrating  clearness,  and  they  only  served  to  harden 
his  determination  to  make  his  essential  idea  prevail.  The 
world  seemed  sinking  into  anarchy  and  chaos ;  everything 
seemed  more  and  more  to  depend  upon  having  a  strong, 
cooperative  organization  to  hold  it  together  and  rebuild 
it,  and  to  have  the  organization  immediately. 

The  voyages  on  the  comfortable  George  Washington 
had  given  the  President  not  only  time  to  think,  but  a 
much-needed  opportunity  to  rest  under  the  close  care 
of  Dr.  Grayson.  If  it  had  not  been  for  these  respites  * 
during  the  heavy  struggle  at  Paris  one  doubts  whether 
the  President  would  have  been  physically  able  to  endure 
the  strain  as  long  as  he  did.  He  was,  as  I  have  said,  much 
alone,  "wrapped  in  his  own  spirit ";  and  yet  that  picture  of 
aloofness  must  ever  be  lightened  and  modified  by  glimpses 
of  the  President  as  a  simple  human  being. 

I  may  venture  to  give  a  glimpse  of  this  voyage  from 
my  notes  made  at  the  time : 


At  Sea,  March  13. 
I  lunched  with  the  President  and  Mrs.  Wilson  yesterday  in  their 
private  cabin.  Most  interesting  talk.  In  these  informal  relation- 
ships the  President  and  Mrs.  Wilson  are  altogether  charming,  friendly, 
simple  people.  President  is  full  of  stories — not  of  the  indigenous, 
homely  sort  that  Lincoln  told,  but  remembered  anecdotes,  limericks, 
puns.  He  applies  them  with  amazing  aptness.  Yesterday  he  told 
a  number  of  Scotch  golfing  stories,  pleasantly  imitating  the  Scotch 
burr,  as  he  can  also  imitate  the  Negro  dialect  when  he  tells  a  Negro 
story.  We  talked  of  the  prohibition  amendment,  which  he  signed  the 
other  day  (with  Miss  Benham's  fountain  pen)  on  the  way  to  Washing- 
ton. He  said,  with  a  humorous  turn,  that  the  new  law  would  cause 
some  personal  deprivation,  but  once   we  became  adjusted  to  it,  it 


AMERICAN  CRITICISM  OF  THE  COVENANT  319 

would  be  of  inestimable  value.     He  believed  that  the  masses  of  the 
people  were  behind  it  upon  conviction. 

Now  that  our  voyage  is  concluding  I  wish  I  could  set  down,  not  so 
much  the  facts,  but  an  adequate  impression  of  this  voyage.  It  has 
been  quiet  and  simple,  a  small  group  and  friendly.  Coming  out  of 
strenuous  days,  controversies,  and  great  meetings,  the  President  has 
rested.  He  looked  worn  and  gray  when  he  came  aboard.  I  have 
never  seen  him  looking  wearier  than  at  the  Metropolitan  speech,  but 
he  soon  recuperated  under  Dr.  Grayson's  care,  so  that  now  he  looks 
as  well  as  ever.  He  shows  in  these  quiet  and  friendly  relationships 
at  his  best,  in  a  light  in  which  I  wish  many  Americans  who  think  him 
a  cold,  unamiable  man  could  see  him.  He  and  Mrs.  Wilson  are  fre- 
quently on  deck;  once  they  played  deck  shuffle-board.  They  came 
in  quite  regularly  to  the  moving  picture  shows  and  seemed  to  enjoy 
them  greatly,  and  they  listened  to  the  excellent  music  of  the  ship's 
orchestra.  Sometimes  after  meals  or  after  the  evening's  entertain- 
ment we  would  find  President  and  Mrs.  Wilson  at  the  bottom  of  the 
stairs  near  their  cabin  and  have  a  good  talk,  very  little  of  the  prob- 
lems, but  talk,  once,  for  example,  of  Lafayette,  again  of  the  French 
people  and  their  characteristics,  again  of  golf  and  golfing  with  many 
stories  and  much  laughter.  Mrs.  Wilson  is  not  only  the  pleasantest 
of  women,  but  possesses  great  courage  and  good  sense,  and  it  is  plain 
enough  that  the  President  leans  heavily  upon  her.  On  two  or  three 
days  the  President  had  various  members  of  the  party  to  luncheon  or 
dinner,  starting  simply  with  a  quiet  grace  said  in  low  tones,  and  the 
meal  itself  passing  off  with  the  friendly  give  and  take  of  any  American 
family  gathering.  After  one  of  these  luncheons  I  heard  a  member 
of  the  party  say,  "Well  I  never  knew  that  the  President  was  that 
kind  of  a  man  at  all,  so  human  and  so  simple."  The  President  and 
Mrs.  Wilson  have  quite  won  the  hearts  of  the  officers  and  crew  ol 
the  ship.  They  have  been  passengers  now  for  three  voyages — 
twenty-seven  days  aboard.  "It  is  getting  to  be  a  kind  of  house- 
boat," said  Mrs.  Wilson,  "almost  like  a  big  family."  At  the  closing 
entertainment  in  the  cabin  on  Wednesday  night,  just  as  we  were 
about  to  break  up,  a  group  of  seamen  in  the  back  of  the  hall  began 
to  sing,  "God  Be  With  You  Till  We  Meet  Again," continuing  through 
all  the  verses.  Then  the  whole  company,  including  the  President, 
sang  together,  "Auld  Lang  Syne."  I  wondered  among  what  other 
people  in  this  world  could  there  develop  just  such  relationships  or 
such  a  spirit. 


3«0         AYOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

If  the  President  had  firmly  made  up  his  mind  regard- 
ing the  inclusion  of  the  Covenant  in  the  general  treaty 
of  peace,  he  had  still  the  equally  vital  problem  as  to  what 
to  do  in  regard  to  American  criticism  of  the  Covenant 
itself — chiefly  the  guarantees  of  Article  X.  This  was 
truly  the  "heart  of  the  Covenant"  because  it  affected 
the  crucial  element  in  the  whole  settlement,  which  was 
French  security.  Without  first  relieving  French  fear 
by  a  world  guarantee  there  was  no  hope  of  speedy 
limitation  of  armament  or  of  settlements  upon  a  broad 
basis  of  justice  and  right.  The  guarantee  in  the  Cove- 
nant, designed  to  accomplish  this  end,  was  already  re- 
garded as  too  weak  by  the  French.  The  President  had 
had  a  struggle  in  the  first  place  to  get  the  French,  who 
demanded  a  strong  military  alliance,  to  accept  it  at  all. 
But  it  was  regarded  in  America  as  too  strong,  as  threat- 
ening our  traditional  Monroe  Doctrine  and  involving  us 
in  possible  "entangling  alliances."  The  President  was 
astonished  and  deeply  worried  by  the  volume  of  criticism 
along  these  lines  that  he  found  in  America. 

Yet  if  he  sought  to  satisfy  American  opposition  and 
solidify  the  forces  behind  him  by  getting  the  amend- 
ments suggested  by  Taft  and  others,  he  would  at  once 
have  to  face  French  opposition  and  the  charge  that  the 
Covenant  was  being  weakened. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  he  paid  no  attention  to  opposition 
at  home  and  made  no  changes  in  the  Covenant,  he  would 
lend  more  fuel  to  the  fire  of  criticism  w^iich  charged  him 
with  being  a  dictator,  of  demanding  his  own  way  re- 
gardless of  the  advice  of  other  leaders  or  of  public  opinion; 
and  the  fight  when  he  finally  returned  with  the  Treaty 
might  be  ruinous  to  his  whole  programme. 

What  should  he  do?  Either  course  was  beset  with 
danger. 


AMERICAN  CRITICISM  OF  THE  COVENANT  321 

At  times  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  considered  going 
straight  through  and  making  the  fight  against  the  Paris 
opposition  on  the  basis  of  the  Covenant  as  drawn.  He 
was  afraid  that  if  he  demanded  changes  on  behalf  of 
America,  it  would  open  the  floodgates  for  new  demands 
by  the  Allies  and  that  he  would  be  forced  into  concessions 
that  would  ruin  his  whole  plan.  He  felt  also  that  no 
matter  what  he  did,  the  opposition  in  the  Senate,  eager 
for  partisan  advantage,  would  only  advance  its  ground 
of  criticism — as  indeed  happened. 

"No  matter  what  I  do,"  he  told  a  friend  on  the  George 
Washington,  "they  will  continue  the  attack." 

Yet  he  saw  one  clear  ray  of  hope.  This  was  the  friendly 
helpfulness  of  a  number  of  leaders  of  great  prominence 
in  America — like  ex-President  Taft — who  were  outside  the 
partisan  squabble  and  were  willing  in  the  public  interest 
to  advance  the  whole  programme  of  international  co- 
operation. Taft  had  spoken  with  President  Wilson  to 
the  same  great  audience  at  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House 
on  March  4.  If  he  could  satisfy  these  men  and  at  the 
same  time  draw  closer  to  him  powerful  leaders  in  his  own 
party,  like  Senator  Hitchcock,  by  consulting  with  them 
and  using  their  advice,  he  might  go  far  to  quiet  the 
obstreperous  Senate  group,  win  public  opinion,  and  secure 
the  indispensable  American  support  behind  him.  It 
would  mean  a  new  and  terrific  struggle  with  France; 
but  he  could  stand  that  if  he  was  sure  of  America. 

Consequently,  he  decided  upon  the  latter  course:  revise 
the  Covenant  to  satisfy  American  opposition  and  find 
some  other  way  to  make  up  to  France  for  the  weakening 
of  the  guarantee.  No  sooner  had  he  returned  than  such 
a  method  was  unexpectedly  suggested  to  him.  It  had 
already  been  worked  out  by  the  British.  It  was  to  be 
an  Anglo-American  pact  to  come  to  the  support  of  France 


322        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

in  case  of  an  attack.  It  had  many  disadvantages  from 
the  President's  point  of  view;  he  knew  it  would  be 
called  a  "special  alliance,"  and  it  promised  to  be  diffi- 
cult to  steer  through  the  Senate,  yet  it  was  a  way  of 
peaceful  cooperation  and  not  peace  by  military  force, 
and  it  was  only  of  temporary  duration  to  bridge  the  gap 
between  war  and  the  firm  functioning  of  the  League  of 
Nations;  and,  finally,  if  he  had  to  weaken  the  guarantee 
in  the  Covenant  to  satisfy  American  opposition  it  would 
perhaps  make  up  to  France  what  she  had  lost. 

Having  made  up  his  mind  which  of  the  dangerous 
courses  to  adopt,  the  President,  with  characteristic  single- 
ness of  purpose,  not  only  drove  it  through  to  the  end,  but 
did  it  handsomely,  by  accepting  Taft's  suggestions  as 
the  basis  of  his  principal  changes. 

One  week  after  his  return,  on  March  22,  the  League 
of  Nations  Commission  met  to  begin  the  revision.  Five 
night  sessions  were  held — exhausting  night  sessions,  two 
of  them  continuing  beyond  midnight — with  the  first 
physical  breakdown  of  the  President  intervening — and 
on  April  11  the  revised  Covenant  was  finally  adopted. 
It  was  just  as  the  President  had  feared.  The  attempt  to 
revise  the  instrument  on  the  part  of  the  Americans 
opened  the  floodgates  of  all  the  old  controversies,  newly 
embittered  by  delay.  For  the  President's  action  in  in- 
sisting, when  he  returned  to  Paris,  upon  the  original  plan 
to  make  the  Covenant  an  "integral  part  of  the  Treaty" 
drove  the  French  to  make  a  harder  effort  than  ever  be- 
fore to  get  the  kind  of  a  covenant  they  wanted.  If  they 
had  to  have  a  league  of  nations  they  were  determined 
that  it  must  be  one  that  would  serve  their  own  interests. 
But  the  President  drove  his  programme  through — at 
the  same  time  beginning  the  new  struggle  of  the  "Dark 
Period"  with  the  other  leaders  of  the  "Big  Four,"  but 


AMERICAN  CRITICISM  OF  THE  COVENANT  323 

now  with  new  handicaps  and  a  feehng  of  the  uncertainty 
of  his  support  from  home. 

When  the  President  returned  to  Paris  he  had,  of  course, 
a  pretty  complete  idea  of  the  amendments  to  the  Cove- 
nant that  were  most  urgently  needed  to  satisfy  the  criti- 
cism of  his  own  countrymen.  These  are  outlined,  for 
example,  in  a  letter  from  the  friendly  and  loyal  Senator 
Hitchcock,  dated  March  4.^ 

Three  principal  changes  and  a  fourth  of  lesser  impor- 
tance were  demanded,  and  all  of  them,  but  especially  the 
first  two,  either  struck  at  and  weakened  the  essential 
element  of  the  guarantees  or  else  tended  to  limit  the  full 
and  hearty  participation  of  powerful  America  in  the  affairs 
of  the  League.     These  changes  were: 

1.  Specific  recognition  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine. 

2.  Provision  for  withdrawal  of  America  from  the 
League. 

3.  Specific  exclusion  of  domestic  questions  (tariffs,  im- 
migration, etc.)  from  the  field  of  disputes  open  to  inter- 
national jurisdiction. 

4.  Stipulation  that  the  acceptance  of  mandates  was 
optional  with  the  designated  mandatory.  This  last 
was  to  enable  America  to  refuse  to  take  a  mandate  if 
she  wished  to  avoid  that  responsibility. 

These  changes  had  not  only  been  outlined  in  the  letter 
of  Senator  Hitchcock  which  the  President  had  with  him 
on  his  voyage  back  to  France,  but  in  cablegrams  from 
former  President  Taft  (March  18  and  21),  and  President 
Lowell  of  Harvard  University  (March  21),  who  had  been 
ardent  supporters  of  the  League  to  Enforce  Peace,  and 
from  Elihu  Root. 

The  Taft  cablegram  of  March  18,  which  became  the 

'See  Volume  III,  Document  19,  for  text  of  letter  of  Senator  Gilbert  M.  Hitchcock 
of  Nebraska. 


384         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

basis  of  the  President's  amendment  regarding  the  Monroe 
Doctrine,  is  so  important  that  it  is  reproduced  here  in  full : 

The  White  House, 
Washington,  March  18,  1919. 
President  Wilson,  Paris : 

Following  from  William  H.  Taft : 

"K  you  bring  back  the  treaty  with  the  League  of  Nations  in  it 
make  more  specific  reservations  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  fix  a  term 
for  the  duration  of  the  League,  and  the  limit  of  armament,  require 
expressly  unanimity  of  action  of  Executive  Council  and  body  of 
Delegates,  and  add  to  Article  15  a  provision  that  where  the  Ex- 
ecutive Council  of  the  Body  of  Delegates  finds  the  difference  to 
grow  out  of  an  exclusively'  domestic  policy,  it  shall  recommend  no 
settlement,  the  ground  will  be  completely  cut  from  under  the  oppo- 
nents of  the  League  in  the  Senate.  Addition  to  Article  15  will  answer 
objection  as  to  Japanese  immigration,  as  well  as  tariffs  under  Article 
21.     Reservation  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  might  be  as  follows: 

"Any  American  State  or  States  may  protect  the  integrity  of  Amer- 
ican territory  and  the  independence  of  the  Government  whose 
territory  it  is,  whether  a  member  of  the  League  or  not,  and  may,  in 
the  interests  of  the  American  peace,  object  to  and  prevent  the  further 
transfer  of  American  territory  or  sovereignty  to  any  power  outside 
the  Western  Hemisphere. 

"Monroe  Doctrine  reservation  alone  would  probably  carry  the 
treaty,  but  others  would  make  it  certain, 

(Signed)  "Willia^m  H.  Taft." 

Tumulty. 

The  pressure  to  which  the  President  was  subjected — 
as  well  as  the  promise  he  had  from  these  influential  Re- 
publican sources  that  if  he  got  the  amendments  "treaty 
will  be  promptly  ratified"- — will  be  indicated  by  a  later 

cablegram  as  follows: 

The  White  House, 
Washington,  April  13,  1919. 
President  Wilson,  Paris: 

Following  is  sent  at  the  request  of  Mr.  Taft : 

"Friends  of  the  covenant  are  seriously  alarmed  over  report  that 
no  amendment  will  be  made  more  specifically  safeguarding  Monroe 


AMERICAN  CRITICISM  OF  THE  COVENANT  325 

Doctrine.  At  full  meeting  of  Executive  Committee  of  League 
to  Enforce  Peace,  with  thirty  members  from  eighteen  States  pres- 
ent, unanimous  opinion  that  without  such  amendment  Repub- 
lican Senators  will  certainly  defeat  ratification  of  treaty,  because 
public  opinion  will  sustain  them.  With  such  amendment,  treaty 
will  be  promptly  ratified." 

(Signed)  "William  H.  Taft. 

"A.  Lawrence  Lowell." 

Tumulty. 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  how  crucially  important  a 
matter  the  Monroe  Doctrine  was  considered  as  affecting 
American  opinion.  It  had  also  been  of  the  utmost  im- 
portance in  the  President's  thinking  from  the  very  be- 
ginning, and  he  not  only  did  not  wish  to  destroy  its 
essential  principle,  but  considered  that  he  w^as  extending 
and  making  it  more  powerful.  For  this  reason  he  prob- 
ably underestimated  the  pother  at  home,  and  failed  to 
evaluate  properly  the  demand  for  the  specific  mention 
of  the  Doctrine  in  the  Covenant. 

It  is  well  known,  of  course,  that  practically  all  of  Wil- 
son's programme  for  world  peace  and  reconstruction  was 
based  upon  traditional  American  policies  and  experi- 
ence broadened  to  fit  world  conditions.  He  considered 
the  Monroe  Doctrine  as  one  of  the  most  vital  of  these 
fundamental  American  policies;  and  the  whole  devel- 
opment of  his  programme  for  a  "new  order"  may,  indeed, 
be  viewed  as  a  generalization  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  in 
its  positive  aspect. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  there  are  two  com- 
plementary propositions  in  the  Monroe  Doctrine:  the 
first,  positive,  directed  against  European  intervention 
in  the  American  continents ;  the  second,  negative,  against 
American  intervention  in  Europe. 

The  latter  proposition  is  more  commonly  associated 


326        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

with  Washington's  Farewell  Address,  *' avoid  entangling 
alliances,"  but  it  is  contained  also  in  Monroe's  Message, 
and  any  unqualified  assertion  or  repudiation  of  the  Monroe 
Doctrine  involves  it.  These  two  principles  have  formed 
for  a  century  the  bulwark  of  American  isolation.  Our 
sense  of  national  safety  has  rested  upon  our  isolation. ^ 
Therefore,  any  proposal  to  change  the  Monroe  Doctrine 
in  any  way,  even  to  enlarge  its  application,  naturally 
awakened  American  fears  and  anxieties. 

The  essential  positive  principle  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine, 
under  which  the  United  States  assumed  to  protect  the 
weaker  South  and  Central  American  republics — the  prin- 
ciple of  the  responsibility  of  the  strong  for  the  safety  and 
welfare  of  the  weak — had  taken  a  powerful  hold  upon  the 
President.  It  was  to  him  a  fundamental  moral  principle. 
It  was  the  only  principle  that  would  save  great  and  pow- 
erful nations  from  the  snares  and  pits  of  imperialism. 

He  therefore  wished  to  extend  and  emphasize  this 
principle.  He  had  been  a  strong  advocate  of  the  Pan- 
American  Union  projected  in  1916  for  drawing  all  the 
states  of  the  Western  Hemisphere  into  closer  relation- 
ships. He  had  suggested  as  a  basis  of  this  union  a  mutual 
guarantee  of  "territorial  integrity  and  political  inde- 
pendence" (and  these  words  became  afterward  the  heart 
of  Article  X).  Round  this  guarantee  was  to  be  built  up 
a  permanent  organization  for  the  peaceable  conduct  of 
all  the  affairs  of  North  and  South  America. 

What  more  natural  than  to  extend  this  central  idea 
of  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  with  the  mutual  guarantees, 
to  the  proposed  world  league?  The  President  told  the 
Senate,  January  22,  1917: 

I  am  proposing,  as  it  were,  that  the  nations  should  with  one 
accord  adopt  the  doctrine  of  President  Monroe  as  the  doctrine  of 
the  world. 


AMERICAN  CRITICISM  OF  THE  COVENANT  327 

Clearly  enough  this  was  not  "scrapping  the  Monroe 
Doctrine,"  as  his  enemies  charged,  but  giving  it  a  broader 
development.  And  if  all  nations  came  into  one  league, 
with  mutual  guarantees  of  peace  and  protection,  the 
negative  proposition  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  providing 
against  our  intervention  in  European  affairs,  would 
entirely  lose  its  importance.  We  would  step  out  of  our 
isolation,  and  take  our  place  in  world  affairs  under  the 
aegis  of  our  own  great  international  principle  set  forth 
in  the  Monroe  Doctrine. 

"We  still  read  Washington's  immortal  warning  against 
'entangling  alliances'  with  full  comprehension  and  an 
answering  purpose,"  he  said  in  his  address  of  Septem- 
ber 27,  1918.  "But  only  special  and  limited  alliances 
entangle  and  we  .  .  .  hope  for  a  general  alliance 
which  will  avoid  entanglements." 

Elsewhere  he  referred  to  the  League  as  a  "disentan- 
gling alliance." 

The  Monroe  Doctrine  was  a  statement  of  methods, 
not  of  ends,  and  if  the  ends  were  as  well  served,  and  in 
larger  measure,  by  a  league  of  nations,  surely  one  could 
regard  its  new  application  as  an  interpretation  rather  than 
a  contradiction  of  these  classical  American  principles. 

President  Wilson  thus  saw  no  essential  conflict  between 
the  guarantees  of  Article  X  and  the  essential  purpose  of 
the  Monroe  Doctrine.  He  told  friends  on  the  George 
Washington  that  specific  mention  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine 
was  "mere  repetition." 

Taft  understood  this  situation  exactly.  In  a  cable- 
gram of  March  16,  through  Secretary  Tumulty,  are  these 
significant  words: 

He  P^aft]  said  that  these  suggestions  [for  amendments  to  the 
covenant]  do  not  look  to  the  change  of  the  structure  of  the  League, 


ll 


928 


TvooDROw  ^^^LSON  and  world  settlement 


^i 


.1 


CODE. 

The  President. 

March  18;  12  P.U.         "If  you  bring  baok  the  treaty  with 
the  league  of  Nations  In  It,   nake  more  speolfio  reservation  of 
the  Monroe  Dootrlno,   fix  a  term  for  duration  of  the  League,  and 
the  Unit  of  arraament,  require  expressly  unanlTnity  of  aotlon  in 
the  Executive  Council  and  Body  of  Delegates,  and  add  to  Article 
15  a  provision  that  Where  the  Executive  Council  of  the  Body  of 
Delegatee  finds  the  difference  to  grow  out  of  an  exclusively 
domestic  policy.   It  shall  recommend  no  settlement,  the  ground 
will  be  completely  cut  from  under  the  opponents  of  the  league  In 
the  Senate.     Addition  to  Article  15  will  apswer  objection  as  to 
Japanese  Immigration,  aa  well  as  tariffs  under  Article  21. 
Reservation  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  might  be  as  follows:   "Any 
American  state  or  states  i»y'  protect  the  Integrity  of  American 
territory  and  the  independence  of  the  government  vfcose  territory 
*♦■  is.  whetlier  a  nen'oer  of  the  league  or  not,  -Mai-way,   in  the 
Interest  of  Ar.erican  peace,    object  to  and  prevent  the  further 
transfer  of  American  territory  or  sovereignty  to  any  povrer  out- 
side the  Western  hemisphere," 

■'Konroe  Doctrine  reservation  alone  would  probably  carry 
the  treaty,  but  others  would  make  it  certain,     nfllllaa  H.  Taft* 

Tumulty. 


Facsimile  of  ex-President  Taft's  original  cabled  suggestions  for  revision  of  the  Cove- 
nant with  President  Wilson's  notes  in  his  own  handwriting 


the  plan  of  its  action  or  its  real  character,  but  simply  to  removing 
objections  in  minds  of  conscientious  Americans,  who  are  anxious 
for  a  league  of  nations,  whose  fears  have  been  roused  by  suggested 
constructions  of  the  League  which  its  language  does  not  justify 
and  whose  fears  could  be  removed  without  any  considerable  change 
of  language. 


AMERICAN  CRITICISM  OF  THE  COVENANT  829 

While  Wilson  thus  felt,  just  as  Taft  did,  that  the 
language  of  the  Covenant  did  not  justify  American  fears, 
and  that  an  effort  to  revise  the  Treaty  in  order  to  mention 
the  Monroe  Doctrine  specifically  would  lead  to  great 
difficulties  and  a  weakening  of  the  American  position  at 
Paris  (as  it  did),  yet  he  was  constrained  by  political 
necessity  to  go  forward. 

Wilson  drew  up  his  three  proposed  amendments  (about 
March  22)  covering  the  three  principal  points  at  issue: — 
(1)  Monroe  Doctrine,  (2)  withdrawal  from  League,  (3) 
domestic  questions — on  a  single  sheet  of  paper,  using  his 
own  typewriter. 

The  first  was  an  addition  to  Article  X,  as  follows: 

Nothing  in  this  covenant  shall  be  deemed  to  affect  or  deny  the  right 
of  any  American  State  or  States  to  protect  the  integrity  of  American 
territory  and  the  independence  of  any  American  Government  whose 
territory  is  threatened,  whether  a  member  of  the  League  or  not,  or  in 
the  interest  of  American  peace,  to  object  to  or  prevent  the  further 
transfer  of  American  territory  or  sovereignty  to  any  power  outside  the 
Western  Hemisphere. 

The  history  of  this  amendment  is  most  significant. 
The  President  took  the  copy  of  the  cablegram  from  Mr. 
Taft,  printed  above,  and  made  pencil  changes  upon  it, 
bringing  it  to  the  form  of  the  typewritten  text  referred  to.^ 

The  second  amendment — to  Article  XV — reserving 
domestic  questions  from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  League 
is  taken  from  a  second  Taft  cable,  forwarded  March  21. 
The  third  amendment  on  the  list,  providing  for  possible 
withdrawal  from  the  League,  had  a  less  definite  origin. 
Wilson  had  two  proposals  before  him,  differing  in  temporal 
elements.  Taft's  proposal  of  the  21st  would  permit 
withdrawal  after  1929  on  two  years'  notice.     Another 


^See  fascitnile,  p.  328. 


(^a^^oJL^^'tf^-^^ 


VoUUng  In  tbis  CoroBat  •hall  !>«  dattaed  to  affaot  ov 
Sstaarnatl  anal  «ga^WMnt  or  TBderstotdlas  f  or  ••cnrlB^  tti« 
pMo*  or  the  world  nnh  as  troatlss  of  arbitratlaB  and  th* 
■oaroa  Doctrine. 


Original  memorandum  showing  counter-proposal  of  British  for  amendment  regarding 
Monroe  Doctrine,  with  Colonel  House's  memorandum 


330 


AMERICAN  CRITICISM  OF  THE  COVENANT  331 

proposal  from  President  Lowell  of  Harvard  University 
was  for  withdrawal  after  ten  years,  upon  two  months' 
notice.  The  ten-year  period  was  retained,  as  common  to 
both,  and  the  time  of  notice  set  at  one  year.  The  lan- 
guage was  mainly  that  of  Lowell's  cable. 

This  draft  of  the  amendments  was  submitted  through 
Colonel  House  to  the  British  for  consideration  before 
going  to  the  Commission.  They  agreed  readily  enough  to 
the  last  two  proposals,  but  objected  to  that  on  the  Monroe 
Doctrine.  They  even  made  a  counter-proposal  naming 
the  doctrine,  but  not  defining  it,  and  grouping  it  with 
other  engagements  and  understandings  "such  as  treaties 
of  arbitration."^ 

Just  why  the  British  preferred  this  form  to  the  other 
is  not  easy  to  discern.  It  is  hard  to  see  anything  very 
objectionable  from  their  point  of  view  in  the  American 
proposal;  yet  they  preferred  to  have  the  doctrine  unde- 
fined. When  the  French  pressed  for  definition,  on  April 
10,  Cecil  replied:  "It  was  well  to  leave  it  undefined, 
.  .  .  for  any  attempt  at  definition  might  extend  or 
limit  its  application."^  The  most  obvious  similar  "under- 
standing" (the  adjective  "regional"  was  not  in  the  origi- 
nal British  proposal),  of  which  recognition  was  implicitly 
included,  w^ould  be  the  Anglo- Japanese  alliance,  as  Koo 
of  China  quickly  realized.  It  was  probably  with  the 
idea  of  protecting  certain  of  their  own  similar  under- 
standings that  the  British  thus  broadened  the  wording 
of  the  amendment. 

The  second  and  third  American  amendment  suggested 
by  the  President,  as  well  as  a  fourth  deriving  from  Ameri- 
can sources,  to  make  optional  the  acceptance  by  a  nation 
of  a  colonial  mandate,  were  adopted  without  great  dis- 

^See  facsimile,  p.  330. 

2  Minutes,  League  of  Nations  Commission,  p.  94. 


332         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEIVLENT 

cussion.  The  centre  of  attack  was  upon  the  Monroe 
Doctrine  amendment,  which  was  introduced  by  the 
President  on  April  10  and  occupied  most  of  the  time  of 
the  last  two  sessions — the  most  extended  sessions  in  the 
entire  conference — of  the  League  of  Nations  Commission. 
The  President  made  a  great  speech,  unreported,  but 
acknowledged  by  all  who  heard  it  to  be  one  of  his  greatest 
efforts  at  the  Peace  Conference,  in  which,  taking  the 
Monroe  Doctrine  as  a  text,  he  set  forth  his  vision  of 
the  new  order,  the  need  of  a  new  attitude  of  mind,  and 
the  part  America  must  play  in  future  world  relationships. 
It  was  not  the  letter  of  the  instrument  they  were  making 
that  so  much  counted,  he  said,  as  the  spirit  of  good-will 
and  cooperation  with  which  the  great  nations  approached 
these  new  relationships.  They  must  satisfy  the  people 
of  the  world,  the  people  of  America  and  the  people  of 
France,  and,  having  accepted  the  instrumentality  now 
in  their  hands,  go  forward  with  world  settlements  upon 
that  new  basis  of  justice  and  permanent  peace. 

But  the  President  found  himself  again  face  to  face  with 
the  formidable  obstacle  of  French  fear,  French  demands 
for  security.  The  entire  struggle  opened  anew.  France 
had  originally  accepted  the  guarantee  in  Article  X  with 
reluctance,  thinking  it  too  weak;  and  she  regarded  the 
President's  amendments  as  making  it  still  weaker,  less 
definite  and  clear,  and  both  the  French  delegates,  Bour- 
geois and  Larnaude,  began  an  obstinate  attack.  It 
was  clearly  recognized  by  everyone  that  this  controversy 
over  guarantees  was  vital.  Article  X  was  truly,  as  the 
President  said  later,  the  "heart  of  the  Covenant."  Lord 
Robert  Cecil  told  the  Commission  that  the  anxiety  of  the 
French  delegates  was  caused  by  the  fact  that  the  amend- 
ment had  been  introduced  as  an  addition  to  Article  X, 
"which  was  of  the  greatest  importance  to  France." 


AMERICAN  CRITICISM  OF  THE  COVENANT  333 

"They  feared,"  he  said,  "that  the  amendment  might 
Hmit  the  protection  which  was  afforded  by  Article  10."^ 

The  President  argued  that  the  adoption  of  the  amend- 
ment was  only  stating  definitely  in  the  Covenant  that 
"which  was  already  implied."  This  had  been  Taft's 
argument  in  his  cablegram  (through  Tumulty)  of  March 
16.  Lord  Robert  Cecil  also  now  supported  him  in  this 
contention : 

The  amendment  had  been  inserted  in  order  to  quiet  doubts,  and 
to  calm  misunderstandings  [in  America].  It  did  not  make  the  sub- 
stance of  the  Doctrine  more  or  less  valid.  .  .  .  There  was  nothing 
in  the  Monroe  Doctrine  which  conflicted  with  the  Covenant,  and 
therefore  nothing  in  the  Covenant  which  interfered  with  international 
understandings  like  the  Monroe  Doctrine.^ 

But  the  very  mention  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  raised 
all  manner  of  questions  and  doubts.  The  French  thought 
that  "if  it  was  not  inconsistent  with  the  terms  of  the 
Covenant,  it  was  unnecessary  to  refer  to  it."  They  also 
asked  immediately  to  "have  a  clear  definition  of  the 
Monroe  Doctrine.  .  .  .  Did  President  Wilson's  amend- 
ment consecrate  or  change  this  policy.'^" 

At  once  the  two  aspects  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  came 
under  discussion.  What  effect  would  the  amendment 
have  in  emphasizing  the  positive  side  of  the  Monroe 
Doctrine:  that  of  preventing  European  Governments 
from  meddling  in  America.'^  This  aspect  of  the  matter 
was  what  at  once  struck  Mr.  Reis,  the  delegate  from 
Brazil.  On  the  other  hand,  what  effect  would  it  have 
in  emphasizing  the  negative  aspect  of  the  doctrine:  that 
America  was  not  to  entangle  herself  in  European  affairs? 
This  was  what  profoundly  concerned  the  French,  for  they 

^Minutes,  League  of  Nations  Commission,  p.  96. 
^Ibid.,  p.  94. 


334         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

wanted  America  bound,  without  doubt  or  question,  under 
the  Covenant  to  come  to  their  assistance  if  attacked. 

While  the  President  beheved  that  the  Covenant  super- 
seded the  Monroe  Doctrine  by  widening  its  apphcation, 
he  yet  had  to  meet  these  swift-gathering  doubts  and 
questions. 

Consider  first  the  positive  aspect  of  the  Doctrine, 
which  Wilson  met  with  a  clear  exposition  of  his  whole 
conception  of  the  Covenant: 

Mr.  Reis  asked  whether  tlie  Monroe  Doctrine  would  prevent 
League  action  in  American  affairs. 

President  Wilson  replied  in  the  negative.  The  Covenant  pro- 
vided that  members  of  the  League  should  mutually  defend  one 
another  in  respect  of  their  political  and  territorial  integrity.  The 
Covenant  was  therefore  the  highest  possible  tribute  to  the  Monroe 
Doctrine.  It  adopted  the  principle  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  as  a 
world  doctrine.  .  ,  .  His  colleagues  in  America  had  asked  him 
whether  the  Covenant  would  destroy  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  He 
had  replied  that  the  Covenant  was  nothing  but  a  confirmation  and 
extension  of  the  doctrine.^ 

President  Wilson  also  agreed  to  the  statement  of  Cecil, 
on  April  11. 

Lord  Robert  Cecil  believed  that  the  Monroe  Doctrine  would 
in  nowise  prevent  the  forces  of  an  European  State  from  going 
to  America  in  order  to  defend  the  rights  of  the  oppressed.  The 
sole  object  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  was  to  prevent  any  European 
Power  from  acquiring  any  influence,  territory  or  political  supremacy 
on  the  American  continent. 

The  President  in  taking  this  position,  of  course,  con- 
sidered that  the  Covenant  would  completely  safeguard 
the  true  purpose  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  by  its  broader 
and  stronger  sanctions;  it  involved  only  a  change  in 
method,  not  a  change  in  principle.    Still,  the  very  mention 

'Minutes,  League  of  Nations  Commission,  p.  94. 


AMERICAN  CRITICISM  OF  THE  COVENANT  336 

of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  specifically,  as  in  the  proposed 
amendment,  tended  to  raise  questions  and  doubts  such  as 
Mr.  Reis  suggested ;  tended  to  cloud  and  befog  the  real  atti- 
tude of  America  in  case  the  problem  of  the  intervention  of 
the  League  in  American  affairs  should,  in  future,  arise. 

But  the  Europeans,  especially  the  French,  were  not 
interested  in  the  positive  aspect  of  the  Doctrine.  They 
did  not  want  to  interfere  in  America;  what  concerned 
them,  and  concerned  them  deeply,  was  the  other  aspect 
of  the  Doctrine.     This  anxiety  was  thus  expressed: 

Mr.  Larnaude  thought  that  it  would  certainly  be  very  un- 
fortunate if  the  Monroe  Doctrine  should  be  interpreted  to  mean 
that  the  United  States  could  not  participate  in  any  settlement  of 
European  affairs  decided  by  the  League.     .     .     . 

President  Wilson  again  assured  Mr.  Larnaude  that  if  the 
United  States  signed  this  document  they  would  be  solemnly  obliged 
to  render  aid  in  European  affairs,  when  the  territorial  integrity  of 
any  European  State  was  threatened  by  external  aggression.^ 

This  did  not  mean,  of  course,  that  we  were  obliged  to 
render  aid  without  a  vote  of  Congress  in  each  case. 

Larnaude  would  not  let  sleeping  dogs  lie.  He  de- 
manded that  the  United  States  be  "  legally  bound  "  beyond 
possibility  of  misunderstanding. 

Cecil  attempted  to  allay  the  fear  of  the  French  "that 
the  amendment  might  limit  the  protection  which  was 
afforded  by  Article  X"  by  placing  it  under  Article  XX, 
concerned  with  treaties  and  obligations  in  general.  (It 
was  finally  made  a  separate  article — XXI.) 

Larnaude  then  insisted  on  a  definition  which  would 
make  it  clear  that  non-intervention  was  not  included. 
"He  wished  to  have  an  obligation  imposed  on  America 
to  take  part  in  European  affairs." 

^Minutes,  League  of  Nations  Commission,  p.  95. 


336        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

When  Wilson  tried  to  shame  him  by  asking  if  he 
doubted  America's  readiness  to  meet  any  threat  to 
Europe's  Hberty,  he  made  an  answer  which  disclosed,  as 
in  a  flash,  what  lay  deep  behind  the  French  demands, 
the  consciousness  of  the  future  economic  struggle  of 
nations  and  the  desire  to  be  assured  also  of  the  safety 
of  France  in  this  field — a  very  ugly  and  thorny  question. 

Future  wars  [said  Larnaude]  might  not  .  .  .  be  wars  of  liberation. 
They  might  be  economic  in  origin.  The  question  was,  therefore, 
whether  the  United  States  would  come  to  the  help  of  France  should 
she  be  engaged  in  a  struggle  with  a  country  which  happened  to  be 
quite  as  liberal  as  herself.^ 

W^ilson  did  not  ask  Larnaude  to  interpret  this  utter- 
ance. He  did  ask  why  France  so  distrusted  the  United 
States  and  "did  she  wish  to  stop  her  signing  the  Cove- 
nant?" 

This  question  carried  the  day  on  April  10.  But  the 
French  never  at  Paris  gave  over  a  contention;  and  on  the 
next  day — the  last  session  of  the  League  of  Nations  Com- 
mission— Larnaude  was  back  with  an  amendment  to 
the  amendment,  qualifying  "understandings"  by  the 
clause  "in  so  far  as  they  do  not  in  any  way  prevent  the 
signatory  States  from  executing  their  obligations  under 
this  Covenant." 

President  Wilson  could  only  try  again  to  reassure  the 
French;  he  "remarked  that  there  was  no  fear  in  America 
that  the  Monroe  Doctrine  was  contrary  to  the  obliga- 
tions of  the  Covenant.  There  was,  however,  a  fear  that 
the  Covenant  might  to  some  extent  invalidate  the  Monroe 
Doctrine.  If  there  were  anything  in  the  Doctrine  in- 
consistent with  the  Covenant,  the  Covenant  would  take 
precedence  over  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  not  only  because 

^Minutes,  League  of  Nations  Commission,  p.  96. 


AMERICAN  CRITICISM  OF  THE  C0\1ENANT  337 

it  was  subsequent  to  it,  but  because  it  constituted  a  body 
of  definite  international  engagements." 

The  discussion  at  this  point  came  perilously  near  to 
an  open  break.  The  French  persisted  in  their  argument 
though  it  was  past  midnight.  They  considered,  in  spite 
of  all  assurances,  that  the  American  amendment  did 
weaken  the  guarantees  of  Article  X.  But  Wilson  had 
by  this  time  reached  a  personal  understanding  with 
Clemenceau  on  the  general  question  of  the  French 
claims  in  which  sufficient  concessions  were  made  to 
France  in  other  matters  for  Clemenceau  to  be  willing  to 
let  the  Covenant  go  through  as  the  Americans  wanted 
it.^  Wilson  felt  his  position  secure  enough  to  close  the 
debate  at  last  by  abruptly  declaring  the  French  amend- 
ment not  adopted. 

The  American  amendments  were  thus  accepted,  but 
the  situation  that  the  President  now  had  to  face  was 
rendered  far  more  difficult.  The  French,  sharply  dissatis- 
fied with  the  Covenant,  pinned  their  faith  more  than 
ever  to  guarantees  of  security  outside  the  League.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  amendments  which  the  President  had 
sponsored  in  the  hope  of  quieting  American  opposition 
failed  in  the  end  to  serve  even  that  purpose.  It  was  in- 
deed an  impossible  situation  he  had  to  face :  if  he  satisfied 
the  American  opposition  he  alarmed  France;  if  he  satisfied 
France  he  goaded  American  opposition. 

If  Wilson  had  stood  to  the  end  on  his  original  concept 
of  the  Covenant — that  the  negative  aspect  of  the  Monroe 
Doctrine  is  obsolete,  and  that  the  positive  aspect  is 
merged  in  the  vaster  and  stronger  project  of  a  world 
guarantee — he  could  not  have  gone  down  harder  in 
America  than  he  did,  but  he  would  have  gone  down  on 
a  clearer  issue,  the  issue  upon  which,  so  far  as  America 

iSee  Chapter  XX VIII. 


338         \VCX)DROW  ^^TLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

is  concerned,  the  battle  for  a  new  world  order  must 
ultimately  be  fought. 

Besides  the  objections  against  both  aspects  of  the 
Monroe  Doctrine  itself  there  was  a  third  objection  raised 
against  its  inclusion  in  a  whole  class  of  "regional  under- 
standings," of  all  of  which  the  validity  w^as  admitted. 

Wellington  Koo  of  China  quickly  perceived  what  this 
word  "understandings"  might  imply  as  regards  Chinese 
interests.  He  feared  that  a  kind  of  Monroe  Doctrine 
might  be  advanced  by  the  Japanese  as  applying  to  the 
continent  of  Asia.  "It  appeared  to  him  to  be  too  broad. 
It  would  cover  all  kinds  of  undertakings,  good,  bad,  and 
indifferent."^  He  would  have  the  Doctrine  simply  rec- 
ognized by  itself,  but  his  repeated  objections  were  over- 
ridden. He  made  a  clever  point  the  second  day  of  this 
debate,  however,  which  in  part,  at  least,  served  his  pur- 
pose, when  he  secured  the  insertion  of  the  words  "or 
understandings,"  in  the  sentence  of  Article  XX,  pro- 
viding for  the  abrogation  of  all  obligations  inconsistent 
with  the  League. 

Where  does  this  leave  the  Monroe  Doctrine.'^  Well, 
it  is  not  properly  an  "understanding,"  after  all,  but  a 
declaration  of  policy;  and  how  far  it  is  lived  up  to  depends 
upon  us.  And  it  is  inconsistent  with  the  League  or  not 
as  we  interpret  it.  In  short,  the  real  future  struggle  for 
a  new  world  order  lies  in  the  soul  of  America — in  America's 
decisions  as  to  what  her  own  rights,  duties,  and  respon- 
sibilities as  the  most  powerful  world  State  are  to  be. 
Shall  a  narrow  and  selfish  American  doctrine  guarantee- 
ing American  isolation  and  security  be  kept  uppermost.'' 
Or  shall  America  adopt  the  wider  world  order  demanded 
by  Wilson,  in  which,  if  America  is  asked  to  assume  new 
responsibilities,  she  also  performs  a  new  service,  under- 

'Minutes,  League  of  Nations  Commission,  p.  94. 


AMERICAN  CRITICISM  OF  THE  COVENANT  339 

takes  a  nev/  leadership  and  thereby  acquires  greater  rights 
than  she  has  ever  known  before?  If  the  vision  set  forth 
by  Wilson  at  Paris — the  vision  of  a  great  State  serving 
the  world — was  tarnished  in  the  dirt  and  heat  of  the  con- 
flict of  Paris,  it  is  imperishable;  and  the  door  to  its  re- 
alization— whatever  compromises  Wilson  was  forced  to 
accept — yet  remains  open;  and  it  is  Wilson,  who,  after 
all,  kept  it  open. 

At  the  plenary  session  of  April  28  the  final  Covenant 
was  formally  and  unanimously  adopted  and  then  became 
an  "integral  part  of  the  general  treaty  of  peace,"  just 
as  the  President  had  planned.^ 

*See  Volume  III,  Document  20,  for  6nal  text  of  the  Covenant  of  the  League  as 
it  appears  in  the  Treaty. 


i 


PART  IV 
STRUGGLE  FOR  LIMITATION  OF  ARMAMENTS 


1 


CHAPTER  XIX 

The  American   Programme  for   Limitation   of  Ar- 
maments— Lloyd  George's  Resolutions — Wilson 
Demands  General  Disarmament,  Not  Merely 
the  Disarmament  of  Germany 

A  FULL  disclosure  of  exactly  what  was  said  and 
done  at  Paris,  taken  from  private  documents 
and  minutes  of  secret  meetings,  will  furnish  an 
incomparably  valuable  basis  of  experience  for  present 
and  future  discussions  of  the  problems  of  disarma- 
ment. France  stands  for  the  same  things  that  she 
stood  for  at  Paris:  for  she  is  France;  and  her  position  is 
inexorably  ^dictated  by  her  national  interests  anH  fpars . 
So  it  is  with  the  Pjitish  Empire  and  JLapaiLand  Italy. 
So  it  is  with_America.  So  it  is  with  any  leaders,  whether 
they  be  the  same  who  were  at  Paris  or  others  who  may 
appear  to  represent  national  interests  and  aspirations. 
Every  essential  problem  connected  with  military  power 
and  military  armament — the  policy  of  conscription,  size 
of  armies  and  navies,  and  the  principles  of  limitation, 
problems  of  communication  and  blockade,  the  use  of  the 
new  instrumentalities  of  war,  such  as  airplanes,  wire- 
less telegraph,  poison  gases,  submarines — was  fully  dis- 
cussed at  Paris.  We  know  definitely  not  only  what 
each  leader  of  the  Great  Five  said,  but  what,  under 
pressure,  he  did,  which  is  more  important.  The  record 
reveals,  as  nothing  else  could,  the  difficulties,  the  dan- 
gers, the  possibilities  and  impossibilities  of  meeting  this 
problem. 

343 


S44        WOODROW  \MLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

If  the  great  war  represented  a  clash  of  the  greatest 

material  forces  of  the  age,  the  Peace  Conference  which 

followed  it  represented  an  equally  vital  clash  of  its  great- 

^estjdeas^ 

And  no  single  idea  moved  forward  into  the  battle  line 
at  Paris  had  harder  fighting,  resisted  sterner  attacks, 
surmounted  more  entanglements,  suffered  greater  losses, 
and  yet  somehow  held  its  position,  than  the  idea  of  world 
reduction  in  military  armaments. 

It  was  one  of  the  ideas  or  principles  which  the  Ameri- 
cans brought  with  them  to  Paris.  It  had  been  clearly 
set  forth  by  the  American  leader,  President  Wilson,  as 
one  of  the  formal  bases  of  the  coming  peace.  It  was  the 
Fourth  Point  of  the  Fourteen;  and  at  the  Armistice  it 
had  been  "accepted  in  principle,"  as  the  diplomats  say, 
by  all  the  belligerent  nations — friends  and  enemies  alike. 
All  that  it  seemed  necessary  now  to  do  was  to  move  for- 
ward and  occupy  the  new  position.  No  one  at  the  time 
realized  the  treacherous  ground  that  had  yet  to  be  fought 
over! 

In  itself  the  idea  of  preventing  men  from  fighting  by 
removing  the  implements  of  war  is  as  ancient,  probably, 
as  the  Stone  Age.  It  had  been  the  vision  of  many  a 
prophet — Isaiah  was  for  beating  swords  into  ploughshares 
— and  the  programme  of  many  a  statesman.  Before  the 
great  war  British  leaders  sought  an  agreement  with  Ger- 
many for  "a  naval  holiday. "  It  was  one  of  the  ideals  of 
the  Hague  Peace  Conference — to  be  dismissed  with  pious 
resolutions. 

WTien  President  Wilson  began  to  think  about  the  peace 
as  the  vital  concern  of  America,  he  saw  clearly  that  the 
limitation  of  armaments  niust  form  one  of  the  pillars  upon 
which  a  just  settlement  was  to  rest.  We  did  not  enter  the 
war  until  April,  1917,  but  three  months  before  we  find  the 


THE  AlVIERICAN  DISARMAJVIENT  PROGRMOIE  S45 

President,  in  an  address  (to  the  United  States  Senate, 
January  22,  1917),  which  I  heard  a  French  editor  call 
"Wilson's  greatest  utterance,"  laying  down  this  idea  as 
one  of  the  "essential  principles  of  an  enduring  peace." 
Here  are  his  words: 

The  question  of  limiting  naval  armaments  opens  the  wider  and 
perhaps  more  difficult  question  of  the  Hmitation  of  armies  and 
of  all  programmes  of  military  preparation.  .  .  .  There  can  be 
no  sense  of  safety  and  equality  among  the  nations  if  great  pre- 
ponderating armaments  are  henceforth  to  continue  here  and  there 
to  be  built  up  and  maintained.  The  statesmen  of  the  world  must 
plan  for  peace  and  nations  must  adjust  and  accommodate  their 
policy  to  it  as  they  have  planned  for  war  and  made  ready  for  pitiless 
conquest  and  rivalry.  The  question  of  armaments,  whether  on  land 
or  sea,  is  the  most  immediately  and  intensely  practical  question  con- 
nected with  the  future  fortunes  of  nations  and  of  mankind. 

A  year  later,  in  January,  1918,  when,  after  much  thought 
and  discussion,  he  came  finally  to  outline  his  complete 
programme  for  the  coming  settlement,  he  set  forth  the 
principle,  reduced  to  its  naked  elements,  as  Point  Four 
of  the  Fourteen: 

Adequate  guarantees  given  and  taken  that  national  armaments 
mil  be  reduced  to  the  lowest  point  consistent  with  domestic  safety. 

1  Here  is  the  plank  in  the  platform  upon  which  rested  all 
the  controversy  at  Paris.  It  is  important,  therefore,  to 
anderstand  just  what  it  means. 

Most  of  the  advocates  of  disarmament  in  the  past  have 
cautiously  avoided  trying  to  set  up  a  standard  of  arma- 
nent  for  the  world ;  they  have  contented  themselves  with 
)roposals  to  cut  away  a  certain  number  of  battleships  and 
he  outlawing  of  certain  new  weapons  or  devices.  To 
.tout  bowmen  and  swordsmen  of  a  few  centuries  ago 
junpowder  was  a  violation  of  the  laws  of  war.     But  in 


846        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

Point  Four  President  Wilson  boldly  grapples  with  the  two 
fundamental  problems  of  armament: 

First,  what  shall  be  the  true  function  and  standard  of 
national  armament?  Second,  how  shall  the  peace  and 
security  of  nations  be  assured  without  "great  prepon- 
derating armaments"? 

There  are  thus  two  main  ideas  expressed  in  Point  Four : 

(1)  That  armaments  "will  be  reduced  to  the  lowest 
point  consistent  with  domestic  safety."  Domestic  safety 
was  to  be  the  standard,  and  "domestic"  was  the  very  first 
word  pounced  upon  by  the  critics  at  Paris,  who  considered 
that  it  meant  the  reduction  of  the  armies  and  navies  of  the 
future  to  a  position  of  mere  national  or  international 
police.  It  set  them  a-shiver,  for  it  seemed  a  blow  at  their 
safety;  and,  indeed,  without  the  other  principle  set  forth 
in  Point  Four,  it  was  a  chimera.     This  principle  was: 

(2)  "Adequate  guarantees  given  and  taken"  that  this 
standard  will  be  maintained  throughout  the  world.  In 
short,  there  must  be  a  new  and  adequate  cooperation 
among  the  nations,  so  strong  as  to  obviate  the  necessity 
of  armaments  for  any  other  purposes  than  to  insure 
domestic  or  international  safety.  The  whole  idea  of  a 
league  of  nations  with  mutual  guarantees  is  implicit  in 
this  phrase.  For  if  there  is  a  league  of  nations  strong 
enough  to  guarantee  international  peace,  what  need  is  there 
of  national  armaments  for  any  other  purpose  than  to 
preserve  domestic  safety? 

President  Wilson  drew  the  inspiration  for  Point  Four, 
as  he  drew  most  of  his  inspirations,  from  the  principle; 
and  practices  of  America.  Here  were  forty-eight  States 
in  a  Union.  No  State  needed  to  maintain  more  than  i 
militia  to  preserve  domestic  order,  for  there  was  a  unioi 
of  all  of  them  to  guarantee  the  safety  of  each.  He  wa: 
applying  the  American  idea  to  the  world. 


THE  AMERICAN  DISARMAMENT  PROGRAMME         347 

He  had  already  said  in  his  second  inaugural  address, 
just  before  America  entered  the  war  (March  5,  1917) : 

We  shall  be  the  more  American  if  we  but  remain  true  to  the 
principles  in  which  we  have  been  bred.  .  .  .  We  have  knowTi 
and  boasted  all  along  that  they  were  the  principles  of  a  liberated 
mankind.  These,  therefore,  are  the  things  we  shall  stand  for,  whether 
in  war  or  in  peace.     .     .     . 

That  national  armaments  should  be  limited  to  the  necessities  of 
national  order  and  domestic  safety. 

As  has  been  described,  in  Chapter  XIII,  the  President's 
idea  of  limitation  of  armament  was  included  from  the  first 
in  the  projects  for  a  covenant  of  the  League  of  Nations. 
Wilson  had  taken  over  and  elaborated  the  article  drawn 
by  Colonel  House,  changing  the  word  "safety,"  employed 
by  the  latter,  back  to  the  "domestic  safety ''nf  Point- 
Four  and  providing  for  the  use  of  armed  forces  for  "the 
'  enforcement   by   common   action   of   international   obli- 
i  gat  ions."     He  had  expanded  the  article  still  further  by 
'  clauses  regarding  conscription  and  scales  of  equipment 
derived  from  Smuts.     The  text  w^hich  finally  emerged  as 
Article  IV  of  the  draft  which  the  President  had  printed 
and  distributed,  early  in  January,  read  as  follows: 

The  Contracting  Powers  recognize  the  principle  that  the  establish- 
,  ment  and  maintenance  of  peace  will  require  the  reduction  of  national 
armaments  to  the  lowest  point  consistent  with  domestic  safety  and 
the  enforcement  by  common  action  of  international  obligations; 
and  the  delegates  are  directed  to  formulate  at  once  plans  by  which 
such  a  reduction  may  be  brought  about.  The  plan  so  formulated 
shall  be  binding  when,  and  only  when,  unanimously  approved  by 
i  the  Governments  signatory  to  this  Covenant. 

As  the  basis  for  such  a  reduction  of  armaments,  all  the  Powers 
subscribing  to  the  Treaty  of  Peace  of  which  this  Covenant  consti- 
tutes a  part  hereby  agree  to  abolish  conscription  and  all  other  forms 
of  compulsory  military  service,  and  also  agree  that  their  future 
forces  of  defense  and  of  international  action  shall  consist  of  militia 


348         ^VOODRO^Y  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

or  volunteers,  whose  numbers  and  methods  of  training  shall  be  fixed, 
after  expert  inquiry,  by  the  agreements  with  regard  to  the  reduction 
of  armaments  referred  to  in  the  last  preceding  paragraph. 

The  Body  of  Delegates  shall  also  determine  for  the  consideration 
and  action  of  the  several  governments  what  direct  military  equipment 
and  armament  is  fair  and  reasonable  in  proportion  to  the  scale  of 
forces  laid  down  in  the  programme  of  disarmament;  and  these  limits, 
when  adopted,  shall  not  be  exceeded  without  the  permission  of  the 
Body  of  Delegates. 

The  Contracting  Powers  further  agree  that  munitions  and  imple- 
ments of  war  shall  not  be  manufactured  by  private  enterprise  or 
for  private  profit,  and  that  there  shall  be  full  and  frank  publicity  as 
to  all  national  armaments  and  military  or  naval  programmes. 

Since  this  was  the  concrete  American  programme  for 
limitation  of  armaments  proposed  at  Paris,  and  since  the 
discussions  centred  around  it  during  the  long  sessions 
both  of  the  Councils  of  Ten  and  of  Four  and  the  Com- 
mission on  the  League  of  Nations,  it  is  most  important 
to  know  exactly  what  were  the  concrete  ideas  here  ad- 
vanced.    They  were  six  in  number: 

1.  Armaments  were  to  be  used  for  only  two  purposes: 
first,  to  preserve  "domestic  safety"  within  the  nations 
and,  second,  to  meet  the  requirement  of  maintaining 
international  order  by  force  if  any  member  of  the  family j 
of  nations  refused  to  respect  the  general  laws  and  de- 
cisions. 

2.  Nothing  definite  could  be  accomplished  immedi- 
ately ;  only  principles  could  be  laid  down  to  be  worked  outl 
later  by  another  body  (an  organ  of  the  League)  after  the| 
settlement  of  the  peace. 

3.  Disarmament  must  entail  the  complete  abolitioi 
of  compulsory  military  service  (a  deep-rooted  Anglo- 
Saxon  aversion). 

4.  Manufacture  of  munitions  by  private  enterprise  oi 
for  private  profit  must  be  abolished. 


I 


THE  AMERICAN  DISARMAMENT  PROGRAMME  349 

5.  Publicity  would  take  care  of  any  possible  departure 
from  the  schedules  of  armament  finally  agreed  upon. 

6.  There  must  be  unanimous  agreement  by  the 
"Governments  signatory  to  this  Covenant." 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  which  I  shall  develop  later,  that 
the  President's  "impractical  ideal"  of  limitation  of  arma- 
ment as  here  set  forth  was  almost  literally  applied  by 
the  Peace  Commissioners  at  Paris  to  Germany.  Her 
armament  was  reduced  strictly  to  the  standard  of  "do- 
mestic safety,"  with  the  accompanying  implication  that 
under  the  Treaty  she  would  be  protected  by  "adequate 
guarantees"  from  foreign  aggression.  But  when  the/ 
allied  nations  tried  to  apply  the  same  principles  to  them-Y 
selves  we  shall  see  what  happened!  They  treated  their 
enemy,  so  far  as  burdensome  and  costly  armaments  were 
concerned,  better  than  they  treated  themselves. 

A  strong  supporter  of  the  President  in  his  original 
proposal  was  the  military  member  of  the  American  Com- 
mission, General  Tasker  JI.  Bliss.  While  a  member  of 
the  Supreme  War  Council,  before  the  Armistice,  he  had 
argued  for  the  disarmament  of  Germany  to  the  limit  of 
"such  forces  as  were  needed  for  the  maintenance  of 
order,"  but  he  coupled  this  proposal  for  stern  reduction — 
ju^  as  the  President  did — with  the  idea  of  a  guarantee  of 
safety  from  external  aggression.  He  saw  clearly  that  one 
was  not  permanently  attainable  without  the  other.  Dur- 
ing the  transition  period,  while  Europe  was  still  disturbed, 
he  proposed  that  "the  Powers  should  guarantee  the  neu- 
trality of  Germany  as  she  had  guaranteed  that  of  Bel- 
gium."^ Afterward,  when  Germany  came  into  the 
League  of  Nations,  her  external  safety  would,  of  course, 
be  strengthened  by  the  common  guarantee  of  all  nations. 

I  remember  the  surprised  remark  of  a  Frenchman  re- 

'Secret  Minutes,  Supreme  War  Council,  March  10. 


350         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

garding  General  Bliss :  that  it  seemed  strange  that  so  great 
a  soldier  should  also  be  so  strong  an  advocate  of  military 
disarmament.  But  the  fact  was  that  General  Bliss  was 
first  of  all  an  American  and  after  that  a  soldier.  He  was 
one  of  the  best-trusted  men  at  Paris,  and  the  President 
relied  heavily  upon  his  advice,  not  only  in  military  but 
often  in  other  matters.  In  conferences  he  was  the  very 
personification  of  the  gruff,  silent,  honest  soldier.  He  is 
a  strongly  built  man,  not  tall,  and  just  a  little  stooping  at 
the  shoulders.  Nature  intended  him  to  be  a  hairy  man, 
gave  him  thick  eyebrows  and  bristling  moustache,  and  then 
changed  its  mind  and  made  him  bald — an  extreme  shiny 
baldness,  except  for  a  bristling  fringe  of  hair  at  the  back 
and  sides  of  his  head.  His  deep-set  eyes  appear  at  first 
rather  sleepy,  but  when  he  warms  up  they  open  wide  and 
glow  with  feeling.  He  is  an  intensely  shy  man,  hating 
publicity  above  everything,  asks  profanely  why  the  ideas 
are  not  enough  without  having  to  tag  them  with  a  name— 
his  name,  above  all !  He  has  been  a  hard  student  all  his 
life.  Years  ago,  when  I  first  met  him  on  a  voyage  to 
Panama,  he  was  engaged  day  after  day  in  investigating 
tables  of  experiments  relating  to  army  rationing;  and  at 
Paris  no  member  of  the  delegation  spent  more  time  in  the 
study  of  the  fundamental  problems  which  underlay  the 
issues  raised. 

No  man  there  believed  more  strongly  in  radical  dis- 
armament and  the  need  for  a  league  of  nations  than  this 
old  soldier  with  the  four  stars  on  his  shoulder.  It  was 
with  him  a  kmd  of  spiritual  attitude  in  which  a  new 
organization  of  nations,  with  a  will  to  disarm,  seemed  as 
utterly  reasonable,  necessary,  and  practical  as  it  seemed 
unattainable,  absurd,  unreal  to  those  who  could  not 
escape  the  ancient  ideas.  But  a  league  of  nations  all  of 
which  were  armed  to  the  teeth  he  did  not  believe  in. 


THE  AMERICAN  DISARMAMENT  PROGRAiMME 

Indeed,  one  wonders  if  there  can  be  any  realization  of  the 
new  ideas,  the  "new  order,"  without  this  radical  change 
of  attitude— and  that  seems  now  a  long  way  off.  So 
General  Bliss  felt  it  and  predicted  more  than  once  that  if 
the  problem  of  disarmament  were  not  immediately  and 
courageously  faced  the  great  war  might  prove  only  the 
first  four  years  of  a  new  Thirty  Years'  War.  . 

We  now  come   to   the   actual   opening   of  the   Peace  \ 
Conference  where  the  principles  proposed  by  America,    ^ 
and  accepted  at  the  Armistice  as  the  basis  of  the  peace, 
were  to  be  put  to  stern  tests.  : 

The  first  reference  to  the  subject  was  on  January  21, 
nine  days  after  the  Conference  first  met,  and  at  the  close 
of  a  discussion  in  the  Council  of  Ten  on  what  to  do  with  I 
the  Russians,  which  had  veered  to  the  President's  proposal 
to  take  immediate  steps  to  organize  a  League  of  Nations. 
It  was  then  that  Mr.  Balfour  said  he  thought  that  inas- 
much as  a  committee  was  now  to  be  formed  to  consider  the 
League  of  Nations,  another  committee  should  at  once  con- 
sider the  problem  of  military  disarmament.  I 

If  the  League  of  Nations  is  to  be  practical  [he  said],  the  delegates 
must  make  up  their  minds  as  soon  as  possible  regarding  the  question 
of  disarmament.  It  was  most  important  to  come  to  some  agreement 
as  to  what  arms  Germany  was  to  be  allowed  to  have.  It  is  evident 
that  a  league  of  nations  would  be  a  sham  if  there  is  no  disarmament.^ 

In  this  very  first  reference  there  begins  to  appear  the 
two-fold  nature  of  the  problem  of  disarmament,  which 
continued  throughout  the  Conference.  Here  were  ±wo 
questions:  First,  the  programme  of  general  disarmament 
of  all  nations  bound  up  with  the  League  of  Nations  in 
which  the  Americans  were  chiefly  interested;  second,  the 
immediate  disarmament  of  Germany,  in  which  the  Allies 

^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  January  21. 


S52        WOODROW  ^^'ILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLE^IENT 

were  chiefly  concerned.  In  the  first  the  conferring 
powers  must  consider  their  own  ultimate  disarmament; 
in  the  second  the  disarmament  of  the  enemy — vastly 
different  problems. 

I  have  commented  elsewhere  upon  the  extraordinary 
efficiency,  due  to  long  training,  of  the  British  and  French 
foreign  offices.  They  always  had  a  plan  ready,  and  even 
if  the  basic  idea  came,  as  did  that  of  the  limitation  of 
armaments,  from  Americans,  the  resolution  which  placed 
it  before  the  Council  was  often  the  product  of  these  ex- 
perienced diplomats.  There  is,  obviously,  a  great  ad- 
vantage in  this,  as  these  experienced  negotiators  well 
knew,  for  a  plan  tends  to  shape  the  views  of  everyone 
present  and  place  other  conferees  in  the  position  of  critics. 
Two  days  later,  on  January  23,  when  M.  Clemenceau 
again  raised  the  problem  of  disarmament,  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  was  readj^  with  a  draft  of  resolutions,  in  which  the 
special  and  immediate  problem  of  the  disarmament  of 
Germany  is  given  first  place. 

That  a  Commission  be  appointed  with  two  representatives  apiece 
from  each  of  the  five  Great  Powers,  and  five  representatives  to  be 
elected  by  the  other  Powers  represented  at  the  Conference: — 

1,  to  advise  an  immediate  and  drastic  reduction  in  the  armed 
forces  of  the  enemy : 

2.  to  prepare  a  plan  in  connection  with  the  League  of  Nations 
for  a  permanent  reduction  in  the  burden  of  military,  naval  and 
aerial  forces  and  armaments. 

Throughout  the  Conference,  whenever  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  presented  a  resolution,  he  was  immediately  on  his 
feet  with  a  glowing  address  in  support  of  it.  So  it  was 
now.  He  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  draft  con- 
tained two  distinct  proposals,  but  beyond  this  reference 
he  gave  his  entire  attention  to  the  first — the  disarmament 


THE  AMERICAN  DISARMAMENT  PROGRAMME  353 

of  Germany.     Here  is  what  lie  said,  as  set  forth  in  the 
Secret  Minutes: 

A  decision  on  this  point  was,  for  Great  Britain,  a  matter  of  very 
grave  moment.  Unless  the  enemy's  forces  were  immediately  re- 
duced, the  British  Government  might  be  forced  to  maintain  com- 
pulsory service.  He  did  not  know  what  might  be  the  political  result 
of  such  a  decision.  .  .  .  He  would,  therefore,  urge  that  the 
first  clause  in  the  draft  be  proceeded  with  at  once.  The  second  could 
be  reserved  for  a  future  date. 

This  is  a  significant  speech:  as  was  also  that  of  M. 
Clemenceau  which  followed  it,  proposing  that  Marshal 
Foch  be  summoned  at  once  to  discuss  methods  of  disarm- 
ing Germany.  Here  were  expressed  the  immediate  and 
burning  issues  that  cried  for  settlement  as  European 
leaders  had  to  face  them.  Here  was  the  prompt  proposal, 
so  readily  made  in  the  earlier  days  of  the  Conference, 
particularly  by  the  French,  to  call  in  the  generals  and 
make  peace  by  military  methods.  Here  also  was  the 
preoccupation  of  the  leaders  with  the  eflFect  of  action  at 
Paris  on  home  politics — ^to  which  Lloyd  George  was  ever 
peculiarly  susceptible.  He  was  always  thinking,  as  he 
here  phrases  it,  "what  might  be  the  political  result  of  such 
a  decision."  It  was  so  easy  to  "proceed  at  once"  with 
questions  of  immediate  interest;  so  easy  to  reserve  the 
general  principles  "for  a  future  date."  No  one  is  to  be 
censured  for  this;  it  is  inevitable;  it  grew  out  of  the  situ- 
ation, but  it  must  be  clearly  noted  in  order  to  understand 
what  happened  at  Paris.  It  characterized  nearly  every 
discussion  of  the  Conference,  and  was,  at  its  roots,  the 
cause  of  every  crisis — this  mighty  struggle  between 
general  principles  and  the  programme  for  a  permanent 
settlement,  as  supported  by  the  Americans,  and  the 
immediate  necessities,  interests,  and  fears  of  the  other 


354         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

allied  nations.  In  any  future  discussion  of  limitation  of 
armaments  exactly  the  same  division  is  sure  to  appear, 
and  it  will  require  clearness  of  view  and  obstinacy  of 
courage  to  maintain,  among  the  confusion  and  dust  of 
immediate  and  minor  interests,  any  vision  whatsoever 
of  the  general  and  permanent  good  of  the  world. 

President  Wilson  saw  the  problem  at  Paris  with  pene- 
trating clearness.  He  saw  that  the  needs  and  fears  of  the 
Allies,  as  exhibited  in  this  problem  of  limitation  of  arma- 
ments, if  often  exaggerated,  had  a  real  basis.  Indeed,  he 
was  himself  strongly  for  the  disarmament  of  Germany, 
for  he  wished  to  release  at  the  earliest  possible  moment  the 
great  American  army  still  in  France.  But  he  never  lost 
sight  for  a  moment  of  his  greater  plan,  Jiis  vision  of  a 

_permanent  peaceupon  a  new^bgLsis  of  justice  and  inter- 
national  cooperation.     The  more  insistent  the  demands 

ToFthe^consideration  of  immediate  interests  upon  the  part 
of  the  other  leaders,  the  more  determined  his  stand  for  a 
corresponding  recognition  of  permanent  principles. 

If  the  Peace  Conference,  as  it  was  plain  enough  from 
the  discussion  of  January  23,  were  to  insist  upon  the 
immediate  disarmament  of  Germany,  as  provided  in 
Clause  1  of  the  resolutions,  then  he  proposed  to  insist 
upon  the  equal  importance  in  the  Treaty  of  Clause  2 — ^the 
programme  for  general  disarmament  as  set  forth  in  the 
Covenant  of  the  League.  He  drove  his  argument  home 
a  few  days  later,  on  January  29,  in  commenting  on  a  state- 
ment made  by  M.  Dmowski,  the  chief  delegate  of  Poland, 
before  the  Council  of  Ten.  M.  Dmowski  had  appeared 
with  an  eloquent  and  lengthy  appeal  which  ran  counter 
to  the  whole  principle  of  disarmament.  He  not  only  had 
no  thought  of  limiting  Polish  armaments,  but  he  argued 
that  Poland  was  in  a  position  of  great  danger  between 
Germany  and  Russia,  and  that  it  needed  more  armament, 


THE  AMERICAN  DISARMAMENT  PROGRAMME         355 

more  military  force,  rather  than  less.  Indeed,  this  was 
the  insistent  demand  of  the  smaller  nations  throughout 
the  Conference.     The  President's  comment  was: 

M.  Dmowski  had  said  that  Poland  must  be  a  barrier  between 
Russia  and  Germany.  Did  that  not  mean  a  barrier  based  on  ar- 
maments? Obviously  not,  because  Germany  would  be  disarmed 
and  if  Germany  was  disarmed  Poland  could  not  be  allowed  to  arm 
except  for  police  purposes.  To  carry  out  such  disarmament  the 
necessary  instrumentality  for  superintendence  would  have  to  be 
set  up.  That  was  the  gist  of  the  question.  Therefore,  he  would 
urge  his  colleagues  to  press  on  the  drafting  of  the  League  of  Nations 
in  a  definite  form.^ 

President  Wilson  thus  put  the  logic  of  his  position — 
which  contained,  as  before,  the  two  mutually  depend- 
ent proposals — disarmament  to  the  point  of  "domestic 
safety,"  or,  as  he  here  expresses  it,  *'police  purposes,"  and 
the  League  of  Nations  to  guarantee  external  safety.  If 
there  was  to  be  the  one,  there  must  be  the  other. 

From  this  time  forward  we  find  the  problem  x)f  limi- 
jtation  of  armament s^proceeding  in  two  distinct,  though 
often  commingling,  streams  through  the  Conference ;  each 
inevitably  modifying  and  influencing  the  other.  The 
immediate  problem  of  disarming  Germany,  arranging 
military,  naval,  and  air  terms  for  the  Treaty,  deciding  the 
disposition  of  German  warships  and  cables,  were  all 
fought  out,  close  up,  first  in  the  military  and  naval  com- 
missions and  then  in  the  Council  of  Ten  and  the  Council  of 
Four,  while  the  broader  and  more  general  problem  was 
discussed  with  no  less  vigour  in  the  most  important 
commission  of  the  Conference,  that  on  the  organization  of 
the  League  of  Nations,  of  which  President  Wilson  was 
chairman. 

Two  great  problems  at  once  arose,  both  of  which  are 

^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  January  30. 


356        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  A^'ORLD  SETTLEMENT 

vital  to  any  discussion,  present  or  future,  of  the  limitation 
of  armament.  One  had  to  do  with  the  fundamental 
question  of  a  standard  of  armament.  AYas  it  to  be  "do- 
mestic safety"  or  some  other  standard.^  The  other  was  a 
question  of  method — but  a  vital  one — ^that  of  compulsory 
military  service.  In  this  latter  question  a  direct  issue 
was  joined  between  the  Americans  and  British,  wuth  their 
programme  of  complete  abolition  of  compulsory  service 
— and  the  French  and  Italians  defending  that  institution, 
which  they  had  copied  from  German  practice  as  the  bed- 
rock foundation  of  Continental  safety  and  power.  Here 
the  issue  was  squarely  drawn;  here  the  battle  begai)\/ 


CHAPTER  XX 

Land   Armament   and   French   Fear — Struggle   be- 
tween Americans  and  French  over  Limitation 
OF    Land    Armament — Compulsory    Service 
AND  Private  Manufacture  of 
Munitions  of  War 

IT  IS  easy  enough  to  accept  general  principles — 
all  the  world  paj's  pious  homage  to  the  phrase 
"disarmament"  or  "limitation  of  armament" — 
but  the  real  fight  begins  with  the  concrete  application 
of  those  principles.  When  the  first  printed  draft  of 
Wilson's  Covenant  was  distributed,  rumours  soon  became 
current  in  Paris  of  what  the  Americans  really  meant  by 
the  reduction  of  armaments  as  expressed  in  the  fourth 
of  the  Fourteen  Points,  "to  the  lowest  point  consistent 
with  domestic  safety." 

Article  IV  of  the  President's  mysterious  new  Covenant 
contained  the  terms  of  a  programme  that  cut  at  the 
very  root  of  Continental  power  and  safety.  Among  other 
things,  compulsory  military  service  was  to  be  abolished 
not  only  in  Germany  but  everywhere — "all  the  powers 
subscribing  to  the  Treaty  of  Peace."  The  manufacture 
of  "mimitions  and  implements  of  war  by  private  enter- 
prise or  for  private  profit"  was  to  be  forbidden.  "Full 
and  frank  publicity  as  to  all  national  armaments"  was 
to  disturb  the  cornerstone  of  secrecy  upon  which,  under 
the  old  system,  military  preparation  had  always  rested. 
And,  above  all,  there  was  a  new  standard  of  armament 

357 


358         AVOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

proposed:  that  of  "domestic  safety."  It  was  as  though 
Samson  had  given  a  first  shake  to  the  pillars  of  the  Temple ! 

The  storm  broke  at  once;  private  conferences  were 
held  by  the  President,  notably  one  with  the  alarmed 
Premier  of  Italy,  Orlando,  another  in  which  the  whole 
subject  of  the  Covenant  was  discussed  with  Lord  Robert 
Cecil  and  General  Smuts;  and  the  discussion  opened  up 
soon  afterward  both  in  the  Council  of  Ten  and  in  the 
important  League  of  Nations  Commission.  For  Article 
IV  of  the  Covenant  based  upon  Point  Four  laid  bare  what 
was  undoubtedly  the  fundamental  problem  of  the  Peace 
f  Conference:  the  problem  of  the  safety  of  nations  and  by 
'     what  means  it  was  to  be  made  secure. 

The  great  war  had  shaken  the  old  world  into  ruin;  old 
habits  and  relationships  had  broken  down;  and  each 
nation,  feeling  its  very  existence  in  danger,  flew  to  arms 
to  protect  itself.  A  great  fear  prevailed.  Each  nation 
had  reverted  to  a  primitive  reliance  upon  its  own  sword. 
The  sword  of  France  was  its  army,  and  the  army  rested 
upon  the  institution  of  compulsory  service.  The  sword 
of  Britain  was  her  navy  and  her  power  upon  the  seas. 

Therefore,  the  proposal  to  limit  armaments  struck 
at  the  very  roots  of  European  safety.  When  it  touched 
land  armament  it  set  France  and  Italy  a-shiver;  when 
it  touched  naval  armament,  the  British  Empire  shook, 
and  every  small  nation  in  Europe,  fearful  of  its  neigh- 
bours, was  in  deadly  fear  lest,  if  it  were  not  permitted  to 
keep  up  a  large  army,  its  very  existence  would  be 
endangered. 

It  w^ould  have  been  the  wildest  folly,  as  the  President 
clearly  saw,  to  propose  any  real  disarmament  without 
setting  up  some  new  guarantee  of  safety  in  place  of  it, 
which  would  relieve  the  fears  of  Europe  and  restore  confi- 
dence.    He  proposed  only  what  many  thoughtful  men 


LAND  ARIVIAMENT  AND  FRENCH  FEAR  359 

had  proposed  before  him,  and  what  the  American  colonies 
had  achieved:  a  guarantee  of  safety  based  upon  common 
agreement,  backed  by  force  if  necessary,  in  which  the 
nations  could  trust;  in  short,  a  strong  cooperative  league 
of  nations. 

But  the  President,  like  most  Americans— 3for_Anifirica. 
had  never  been  thoroughly -frightened^^did  not  fully 
realize  until  he  arrived  in  Europe  how  enormously  ex- 
aggerated were  the  fears  and  how  precarious  the  safety 
of  Europe;  how  every  discussion,  for  example,  where 
France  was  concerned,  got  back  to  a  question  of  French 
security. 

It  was  borne  in  upon  him  at  every  conference,  the 
press  was  full  of  it,  the  very  atmosphere  reeked  with  it. 

On  one  occasion,  in  the  Council : 

M.  Clemenceau  said  that  the  French  were  the  nearest  neighbours 
of  Germany,  and  could  be  at  all  times,  as  they  had  been  in  the  past, 
suddenly  attacked  .  .  .  France  realized  that  Great  Britain  had 
responsibilities  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  and  could  not  keep  the  whole 
of  her  strength  concentrated  at  one  point.  America  was  far  away 
and  could  not  come  at  once  to  the  assistance  of  France.  If  the 
f-  League-oO^jations  and  the  peace  of  the  world  were  to  be  established, 
it  must  not  begin  by  placing  France  in  a  perilous  position.  America 
was  protected  by  the  whole  breadth  of  the  ocean,  and  Great  Britain 
by  her  fleet. ^ 

At  every  turn,  also,  the  concrete  evidences  of  what  war 
meant  to  France  were  ready  at  hand;  the  visual  demon- 
stration of  their  reasons  for  being  afraid.  Clemenceau  was 
forever  interjecting  into  the  discussion  such  remarks  as — 

The  fact  must  be  faced  that  during  four  years  of  war  the  country- 
side of  France  had  been  devastated  and  subjected  to  the  worst  kind 
of  savagery.  .  .  .  He  wished  to  repeat  what  he  had  already  said, 
namely,  that  the  fortune  of  war  had  been  such  that  neither  American 

^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  January  30. 


860        WOODROW  ^MXSON  AKD  WORLD  SETTLET^IENT 

nor  British  territories  had  suffered,  whilst  the  territory  of  France  had 
been  so  ravaged  that  it  would  seem  as  though  recovery  w^ould  be  im- 
possible. .  .  .  The  industries  of  France  had  been  scientifically 
destroyed.  .  .  .  France  had  lost  3,000,000  men,  either  killed  or 
mutilated.' 

The  President  clearly  revealed  In  his  speeches  at  that 
time  that  he  realized  increasingly  the  gravity  of  the  prob- 
lem. 

I  remember  well  the  powerful  impression  made  upon  a 
crowded  audience  in  the  French  Chamber  of  Deputies  by 
the  President's  address  delivered  February  3,  soon  after 
he  had  visited  the  ruins  at  Rheims.  ("I  saw  the  noble 
city  of  Rheims  in  ruins,  and  I  could  not  help  saying  to 
myself:  'Here  is  where  the  blow  fell,  because  the  rulers 
of  the  world  did  not  sooner  see  how  to  prevent  it.'")  He 
said  of  France  in  this  address: 

Hers  was  the  immediate  peril.  Hers  was  the  constant  dread.  .  .  . 
I  do  not  need  to  point  out  to  you  that  east  of  you  in  Europe  the  future 
is  full  of  question.  Beyond  the  Rhine,  across  Germany,  across 
Poland,  across  Russia,  across  Asia,  there  are  questions  unan- 
swered. .  .  .  France  stands  in  the  presence  of  these  threatening 
and  unanswered  questions — threatening  because  unanswered — stands 
waiting  for  the  solution  of  matters  which  touch  her  directly,  inti- 
mately, and  constantly,  and  if  she  must  stand  alone,  what  must  she 
do.? 

Here  the  President  was  putting  the  problem  of  the 
French  as  eloquently  as  they  themselves  put  it;  but  his 
proposal  for  meeting  it  was  wholly  different  from  that  of 
the  French.  When  reduced  to  its  last  analysis  the  French 
saw  safety  only  in  military  armament,  an  armed  nation 
or  an  armed  alliance;  while  the  President  saw  safety  only 
in  a  cooperation  of  nations,  "which  will  make  it  unneces- 

'  Secret  Minutes,  Supreme  War  Council,  February  12. 


LAND  ARMAMENT  AND  FRENCH  FEAR  361 

sary,  in  the  future,  to  maintain  those  crushing  armaments 
which  make  the  peoples  suffer  almost  as  much  in  peace  as 
they  suffered  in  war." 

The  Frenchj^osition  at  Paris  was_seliQrtlLand  defended, 
with   matchless   ingenuity_ai^^^  No   matter 

what^aHy^aTTeader  belonged  to,  or  whether  he  was  a 
statesman,  a  soldier,  a  diplomat,  or  a  financier,  he  was 
first  of  all  French — 100  per  cent.  French! — and  moved 
straight  ahead  securing  French  safety.  Foch  had  a 
military  plan  of  safety,  Bourgeois  a  diplomatic  plan, 
Loucheur  and  Klotz  an  economic  plan  (but  the  coordina- 
tion between  them  was  perfect),  and  Clemenceau  was  the 
supreme  strategist  of  the  entire  campaign.  If  the  French 
did  not  achieve  all  they  sought  at  Paris,  it  was  not  for  lack 
of  sheer  intelligence ! 

The  French  had  their  entire  programme  worked  out 
before  the  Peace  Conference  met.  They  were  the  first 
to  place  their  memoranda  in  the  President's  hands.  No 
other  nation  approached  them — unless  it  was  the  Japa- 
nese— in  diplomatic  preparedness  or  singleness  of  purpose. 
The  British  seemed  not  prepared  at  all;  always  appeared 
to  live  from  hand  to  mouth,  diplomatically  speaking,  and 
yet  never  lost  a  trick,  while  the  Italians  were  so  divided 
in  their  inner  councils  as  never  to  strike  any  clear  note. 

Among  the  President's  papers  is  Marshal  Foch's  de- 
tailed memorandum  on  the  military  aspects  of  French 
safety,  dated  January  10  (two  days  before  the  first  session 
of  the  Peace  Conference);  so  also  is  the  Bourgeois  plan 
for  a  league  of  nations,  and  certain  early  memoranda, 
concerning  the  economic  aspects  of  French  safety.^ 

Marshal  Foch  wishes  to  hold  the  Rhine  as  the  "common 
barrier  of  security  necessary  to  the  league  of  democratic 
nations,"  and  in  order  to  do  this  he  demands  that  "the 

^See  Volume  III,  Documents  25  and  17,  for  texts. 


862        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

powers  of  the  Entente  ...  be  organized  henceforth 
on  a  mihtary  basis  to  render  possible  the  timely  interven- 
tion of  the  other  States  which  are  the  defenders  of  civili- 
zation." His  league  would,  in  effect,  be  a  continuation 
of  the  alliance  of  the  allied  powers  that  won  the  war,  with  a 
strong  unified  military  force  holding  the  Rhine. 

When  M.  Bourgeois,  a  scholar,  a  diplomat,  long  a  dis- 
tinguished leader,  and  once  Premier  of  France,  introduced 
the  French  plan  for  a  league  of  nations  (in  the  League  of 
Nations  Commission,  two  weeks  later),  it  was  found  to 
harmonize  completely  with  Marshal  Foch's  military  plan. 
It  filled  in  the  details  of  the  organization  behind  the  line 
of  defense.  It  provided  for  an  international  army  and 
navy,  with  a  permanent  staff  to  see  that  this  force  was 
kept  up  to  standard  and  to  prepare  plans  for  its  speedy 
and  effective  use.  So  far  from  forcing  the  abolition  of 
compulsory  military  service,  it  provided  for  the  possible 
adoption  of  that  principle  by  the  entire  world,  for  it  per- 
mitted the  international  body  to  require  a  member  State 
to  adopt  compulsory  service  on  recommendation  of  the 
General  Staff.  Its  emphasis  was  on  fixing  minimum 
rather  than  maximum  limits  upon  armaments.^ 

On  February  7,  the  French  economists  set  up  the  third 
leg  of  the  tripod  upon  which  French  security  was  to  rest. 
This  was  in  a  report  on  the  disarmament  of  Germany  by 
a  committee  of  the  Supreme  War  Council  headed  by 
M.  Loucheur.^  M.  Loucheur  was  one  of  the  able  financial 
leaders  of  France  and  was  serving  in  Clemenceau  's  Cabi- 
net as  Minister  of  Reconstruction.  This  report  pro- 
ceeded upon  the  assumption  that  modern  war  rests  on 
an  economic  basis.     In  order,  therefore,  to  be  absolutely 

'See  Volume  III,  Document  17,  for  complete  text  of  the  French  plan  of  a  league  of 
nations. 

^See  Volume  III,  Document  21,  for  full  text. 


LAND  ARMAMENT  AND  FRENCH  FEAR  363 

safe,  the  Allies  must  not  only  impose  military  disarma- 
ment" upon  Germany  "with  the  control  of  the  Rhine 
frontier,  backed  by]  an  armed  league  of  nations,  but 
Germany  niust_als-Q-Jbe-4iisarnied__or  crippled  economi- 
cally.    For    here   the   French    clearly    recognized    their 

^Inferiority.     The  Loucheur  report  called  for  supplement- 
ing military  disarmament  by  a  control  of  the  arms  and 
munitions  factories   of   Germany   to   prevent   rearming. 
rAllied^_Qfficers_W£re  thus  to  supervise  German  industry 

—to  see  that  military  supplies  were  jaot  produced.  As 
a  secondary  proposal  the  Loucheur  report  called  for  the 

,  "absolute  control  by  military  occupation  of  .  .  . 
Essen  and  the  principal  Krupp  establishments,  the  greater 
part  of  the  Rhenish-Westphalian  coal  fields  and  the  me- 
tallic industries  which  depend  upon  these." 

President  Wilson  was  vigorous  in  his  expression  re- 
garding the  findings  of  M.  Loucheur,  which  General 
Bliss  had  also  opposed  when  they  were  advanced  earlier 
in  the  Supreme  War  Council.  He  even  went  so  far  as 
to  call  it  a  "panic  programme."  Here  is  his  exact  com- 
ment: 

President  Wilson  considered  the  recommendations  contained  in 
the  Loucheur  report  to  be  a  panic  programme.  The  report  not  only 
called  for  the  surrender  of  big  guns,  which  in  his  opinion  should  be 
given  up,  but  it  also  went  into  details  of  aircraft  and  factory  produc- 
tion. .  .  .  He  thought  that  if  officers  were  sent  there  they  would 
get  into  trouble  and  would  have  to  be  supported  by  military  forces.^ 


I 


While  the  Loucheur  programme  was  defeated  by 
American  and  British  criticism,  yet  the  basic  idea  of 
crippling  Germany  permanently  in  an  economic  sense, 
as  a  guarantee  of  French  security,  lay  deep  underneath 
the  struggle  for  the  permanent  control  of  the  coal  of  the 

'Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  February  7. 


364         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEI^IENT 

Saar,  the  permanent  control  of  the  Rhine  frontier,  and 
the  weakening  of  Germany  in  the  Silesian  districts.  It 
was  even  directly  proposed  by  the  French  during  the 
month  while  President  Wilson  was  absent  from  the  Peace 
Conference  (on  the  voyage  to  America,  February  15  to 
March  15)  that  there  should  be  a  perpetual  supervision 
by  commissions  of  German  armament  and  of  German 
industry  in  so  far  as  it  might  possibly  be  turned  to  the 
production  of  armament — which  meant,  in  effect,  the 
permanent  supervision  by  French,  British,  American, 
and  Italian  officers  of  German  chemical,  airplane,  and 
steel  industries.     AVe  find  Clemenceau  saying  on  March  3 : 

He  was  not  content  to  tell  Germany  to  limit  her  forces  until  the 
Peace  Terms  were  fulfilled  and  to  leave  the  future  to  the  mercy  of 
events.  .  .  .  Other  countries  might  be  content  with  transitory 
naval  terms.  He  himself  was  not  prepared  to  sign  an  invitation  to 
Germany  to  prepare  for  another  attack  by  land  after  an  interval  of 
three,  ten,  or  even  forty  years.  He  would  not  be  prepared  to  sign  a 
peace  of  that  character.^ 

Two  davs  after  the  President  returned  to  France,  when 
these  proposals  came  up  in  the  Council,  he  attacked  them 
vigorously  and  secured  sweeping  modifications.  He 
called  them  "an  instrumentality  permanently  limiting  the 
sovereignty  of  Germany"  and  this  he  could  not  accept, 
for  it  meant  an  "indefinite  continuation"  of  the  military 
control  of  Germany.  It  also  meant  constant  interfer- 
ence, meddling,  and  prying  into  trade  secrets,  which  would 
certainly  lead  again  to  war.     He  said: 

If  the  allied  armies  were  to  be  maintained  forever,  in  order  to  con- 
trol the  carrying  out  of  the  Peace  Terms;  not  peace,  but  Allied  armed 
domination  would  have  been  estalilished.  His  Government  would 
never  agree  to  enter  such  an  arrangement,  and,  were  he  to  enter  into 

'Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten. 


LAND  ARMAIMENT  AND  FRENCH  FEAR  365 

such  an  agreement,  he  would  be  far  exceeding  his  authority  under  the 
United  States  Constitution.^ 

^^Tiat  he  proposed  was  to  limit  the  activity  of  the 
interallied  cominissions  to  the  period  during  which  the 
reduction  of  German  armaments  would  be  carried  out, 
and  in  all  prohibitive  clauses  he  changed  the  word 
"never"  to  "not." 

The  singleness  of  devotion  to  the  idea  of  French  safety 
impaled  France  upon  the  horns  of  a  hopeless  dilemma, 
where  she  still  struggles.  For,  if  Germany  was  crippled 
and  weakened  economically,  how  could  she  pay  the  huge 
bill  for  reparations?  Thus  was  France  buffeted  between 
her  fear  and  her  need — but  the  fear  was  then,  and  has  been 
ever  since,  the  really  dominating  element.  Distressing 
as  was  French  devastation,  France  desired  safety  more 
than  reconstruction.  This  was  the  inevitable  logic  of 
the  military  spirit,  which  is  inspired  by  fear  and  stimu- 
lates in  a  nation  a  greater  concern  for  the  weakening  or 
destruction  of  her  enemy  than  for  her  own  recovery. 
For,  if  Germany  were  allowed  to  build  herself  up  economi- 
cally in  order  to  pay  reparations,  she  would  at  the  same 
time  reestablish  her  old  predominant  position  as  a  power 
greater  in  population  and  with  a  more  highly  developed 
industrial  organization  than  France,  and  therefore,  accord- 
ing to  military  logic,  again  dangerous  to  French  safety. 

This  dilemma  was  strikingly  illustrated  by  the  contro- 
versy over  the  Army  of  Occupation.  The  French  de- 
manded that  a  great  army  remain  stationed  on  the  Rhine, 
the  cost  of  maintenance  to  be  borne  by  Germany.  Time 
and  again  it  was  argued  that  this  meant  a  reduction  of 
reparation.  In  one  of  his  slashing  outbursts,  Lloyd 
George  said  that  "  when  the  German  Army  was  reduced  to 


(I         ^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  March  17. 


366         ^^OODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

a  strength  of  100,000  men,  it  was  ridiculous  to  maintain 
an  army  of  occupation  of  200,000  men  on  the  Rhine. 
.  .  .  It  would  cost  100  millions  [sterling]  a  year  if  the 
burden  were  placed  on  the  German  Exchequer  and  the 
result  of  this  would  be  that  there  would  be  nothing  left 
for  compensation."^ 

Indeed  the  cost  of  this  army  of  occupation  since  the 
Armistice  has  been  stupendous.  Up  to  April,  1921, 
according  to  figures  officially  issued  by  the  Reparations 
Commission,  the  totals  are  as  follows  in  gold  marks : 

Gold  Marks 

France 1,276,450,838 

United  States 1,167,327,830 

Great  Britain   991,016,859 

Belgium 194,706,228 

Italy 10,064,861 

Yet  the  French  consistently  preferred  these  enormous 
expenditures  for  safety  rather  than  for  reconstruction. 
Of  course,  there  is  another  aspect  of  this  policy,  for  by 
this  method,  bitterly  and  somewhat  exaggeratedly  de- 
scribed by  Lloyd  George  in  the  argument  of  June  2, 
already  referred  to,  "of  quartering  the  French  army  on 
Germany  and  making  Germany  pay  the  cost,"  France 
gets  back  part  of  that  cost.  In  passing,  it  may  be  noted 
that  Germany  is  now  being  taxed  to  support  the  militar- 
ism in  France  from  which  she  has  herself  been  absolved, 
though  by  no  desire  of  her  own. 

Thus  did  the  insatiable  demand  for  safety  operate  in 
the  economic  field;  and  thus  did  the  economists  work 
together  with  the  soldiers  and  the  diplomats  for  the 
French  conception  of  safety — although  at  the  same  time 
pursuing  the  irreconcilable  aim  of  reparation. 

'  Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Four,  June  2. 


LAND  ARMAMENT  AND  FRENCH  FEAR  367 

All  these  elements  in  the  French  position  must  be 
borne  in  mind  in  order  to  understand  the  struggle  over 
the  limitation  of  armaments. 

We  come  now  to  the  detailed  items  of  that  struggle; 
and  the  first  of  these  concerns  the  vital  problem  of  a  future 
standard  of  armament.  What  military  force  should  a 
nation  be  permitted  to  keep.'^ 

President  Wilson's  original  conception  of  a  standard 
of  disarmament  as  set  forth  in  Point  Four  was  a  reduction 
"to  the  lowest  point  consistent  with  domestic  safety" — 
which  will  no  doubt  in  future,  when  the  world  is  genuinely 
prepared  to  face  the  problem,  be  found  to  be  the  only 
safe  standard  upon  which  to  base  the  mutual  guarantee 
of  an  association  of  nations. 

But  when  this  drastic  proposal  came  up  for  the  first 
reading  in  the  League  of  Nations  Commission,  Febru- 
ary 6,  the  word  "domestic"  was  at  once  pounced  upon. 
France,  Italy,  and  Japan  were  all  against  that  standard 
of  land  armament,  even  when  counterbalanced  by  the 
guarantee  of  a  league  of  nations,  and  Great  Britain  was 
also  probably  uncertain  as  to  what  it  meant  in  its  possible 
application  to  naval  armament.  The  actual  objection 
in  the  meeting  came  from  Baron  Makino,  the  Japanese 
delegate.  He  suggested  that  the  words  "national  safety" 
be  substituted  for  "domestic  safety,"  and  this  was  adopt- 
ed and  so  appears  in  the  final  draft  of  the  Treaty. 

"National  safety"  as  against  "domestic  safety"  rep- 
resented a  weakening  of  the  President's  original  idea; 
but  in  that  tumultuous  time,  before  the  League  was  or- 
ganized, national  safety  loomed  as  an  overwhelming 
problem.  But  the  change  in  wording  let  in  the  whole 
array  of  French  argument  and  appeal  for  France's  own 
national  safety  and  a  hopeless  effort  to  determine  what 
military  force  was  sufficient  for  national  safety,  when 


368        WOODROW  ^VILSOX  AND  ^YORLD  SETTLEMENT 

each  nation  was  its  own  judge  of  what  was  necessary  to 
its  safety. 

M.  Bourgeois  was  quick  to  seize  upon  the  change  in 
wording  to  emphasize  his  demand  that  the  new  standard 
of  "national  safety"  not  only  demanded  strong  national 
armament  but  a  league  of  nations  with  an  international 
control  of  armament  and  a  general  staff. 

One  of  the  bitterest  controversies  of  the  entire  Con- 
ference developed  around  this  difference  between  the 
American  view  and  that  of  the  French. 

The  French  advanced  still  another  proposal  designed 
to  insure  their  own  safety — a  doctrine  of  special  risk — 
that  some  nations  (France  particularly),  owing  to  their 
geographical  position,  were  more  exposed  to  attack  than 
others  and  that,  therefore,  they  should  be  permitted  a 
larger  armament  than  others,  or  be  protected  by  special 
guarantees.  It  was  the  logic  of  this  *' special  risk"  that, 
later  in  the  Conference,  led  to  the  agreement  upon  a  special 
Anglo-American  agreement  to  come  to  the  defense  of 
France  in  case  of  attack  by  Germany.  In  the  President's 
view  this  was  a  better  method  of  temporarily  calming 
French  fears  than  the  adoption  of  any  of  the  various 
military  guarantees  obstinately  demanded  by  the  French. 
At  least  it  was  a  method  of  peace  and  cooperation. 

President  Wilson,  strongly  supported  by  Lord  Robert 
Cecil,  opposed  the  French  idea  of  international  armament. 
He  saw  in  it,  as  he  said,  a  method  of  "substituting  inter- 
national militarism  for  national  militarism,"  and  the 
whole  idea  of  control  was  repugnant  to  him. 

No  nation  [he  said]  will  consent  to  control.  As  for  us  Americans, 
we  cannot  consent  to  control  because  of  our  Constitution.  We  must 
do  everytliing  that  is  possible  to  ensure  the  safety  of  the  world.  .  .  . 
I  know  how  France  has  suffered,  and  I  know  that  she  wishes  to  obtain 
the  best  guarantees  possible  before  she  enters  the  League,  and  every- 


LAND  ARMAMENT  AND  FRENCH  FEAR  369 

thing  that  we  can  do  in  this  direction  we  shall  do,  but  we  cannot  accept 
proposals  which  are  in  direct  contradiction  to  our  Constitution.  .  .  . 
The  only  method  by  which  we  can  achieve  this  end  lies  in  our  having 
confidence  in  the  good  faith  of  the  nations  who  belong  to  the  League. 
There  must  be  between  them  a  cordial  agreement  and  good  will.^ 

But  the  formidable  Bourgeois,  though  voted  down  in 
the  Commission,  never  surrendered  in  his  main  contention 
and  kept  bringing  up  his  proposal  for  a  military  league  in 
various  forms,  directly  and  indirectly;  and  when  he  failed 
to  make  his  point,  final  French  acceptance  of  the  Amer- 
ican-British form  of  the  Covenant  was,  in  part,  condi- 
tioned upon  the  special  guarantee  by  America  and  Great 
Britain,  in  order  to  quiet  French  fears,  until  "the  League 
itself  affords  sufficient  protection, "  to  come  to  the  support 
of  France  in  case  of  attack  by  Germany. 

But  if  the  Allies  refused  to  adopt  the  President's  stand- 
ard ^  iiisarmanient-.as_^pplying  to  themselves,_if  they 
whittled  down  as  much  as  they  could  the  American  pro- 
gramme, yet  when  the  problem  of  disarming  Germany^ 
arose,  they  applied  both  the  principle  and  the  programme 
almost  literally — for^^^eemed^n  that  case,  perfectly 
reasonable.  On  February  12,  President  Wilson  thus 
stated  tlie^ogramme  as  pertaining  to  German  disarma- 
ment: 

Disarmament  contained  two  elements — (1)  the  maintenance  of  an 
adequate  force  for  internal  police;  (2)  the  national  contribution  to  the 
general  force  of  the  future  League  of  Nations.  At  present  we  did  not 
contemplate  that  Germany  should  make  any  contribution  to  the 
latter  force.  .  .  .  All  we  need  contemplate  was  the  amount  of 
armed  force  required  by  Germany  to  maintain  internal  order  and  to 
keep  down  Bolshevism.  ...  In  general  he  felt  that  until  we 
knew  what  the  German  Government  was  going  to  be  and  how  the 
German  people  were  going  to  behave,  the  world  had  a  moral  right  to 

^Minutes,  League  of  Nations  Commission,  February  11,  pp.  43-45, 


370         \N'OODROW  ^^TLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

disarm  Germany,  and  to  subject  her  to  a  generation  of  thoughtful- 
ness.^ 

So  it  was  that  the  ideal  standard  was  appHed  to  the 
enemy,  compulsory  service  abolished,  the  army  reduced  to 
a  police  force  of  100,000  men,  and  the  navy  to  a  mere  basis 
of  defense.  Moreover,  as  a  concession  to  the  French 
demand  for  international  control  which  had  failed  of 
acceptance  as  a  general  proposition,  Germany's  arma- 
ments are  subject  to  investigation  at  any  time  by  majority 
vote  of  the  League  of  Nations,  even  after  her  admission. 

So  much  for  the  struggle  over  a  standard  of  disarma- 
ment; we  come  now  to  the  equally  bitter  controversy  over 
the  terms  in  the  programme,  and  the  first  and  most  im- 
portant of  these  was  the  proposal  to  abolish  compulsory 
service. 

This  proposal  cut  at  the  very  root  of  the  Continental 
military  system ;  and  yet  the  President  was  here  only  giving 
the  commonplace  American  interpretation  of  the  principle 
of  Point  Four,  asking  that  the  world  accept  the  traditional 
American  (and  British)  policy  of  volunteer  armies  as 
contrasted  with  conscript  armies.  Germany  had  been 
the  originator  of  the  modern  practice  of  compulsory  ser- 
vice, and  it  had  become  the  highest  expression  of  the 
military  spirit.  He  was  proposing  a  wholly  different 
practice,  not  theoretical,  but  the  traditional  method  of 
the  English-speaking  races.  Later  the  proposal,  as 
applied  to  the  smaller  States,  was  to  be  known,  in  the 
discussions  of  the  Council  of  Four,  as  the  "American- 
British  Proposal,"  as  contrasted  with  the  "French- 
Italian  Proposal." 

Protests  were  made  at  once;  one  of  the  earliest  by 
Orlando  of  Italy.     We  know  exactly  what  Orlando  told 

'Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  February  12. 


LAND  ARMAMENT  AND  FRENCH  FEAR  371 

the  President,  for  we  have  it  in  his  own  words,  used  later, 
in  the  Council  of  Four  (May  15) : 

As  he  had  then  explained  to  President  Wilson,  Italy  would  not  be 
able  to  raise  an  Army  by  voluntary  service.  Such  a  system  would 
be  too  difficult  in  its  application,  since  the  whole  traditions  of  the 
country  went  against  it.  Consequently,  the  Italian  Army  would 
have  to  be  organized  on  a  basis  of  compulsory  service. 

It  appeared  also  that  the  French  held  exactly  the  same 
position. 

Even  though  the  President's  proposal  looked  only  to 
the  future,  when  the  League  of  Nations  should  be  function- 
ing, and  provided  that  the  plans  formulated  should  "be 
binding  when  and  only  when  unanimously  approved  by 
the  Governments  signatory  to  this  covenant" — which 
might  be  a  long  way  off — yet  the  Italians  and  French  were 
fearful  even  of  discussing  the  principle  as  concerning 
themselves;  though  they  later  agreed,  with  reluctance,  to 
the  application  of  it  to  Germany  and  Austria. 

These  considerations  were  brought  up  also  in  the  Con- 
ference with  Lord  Robert  Cecil  and  General  Smuts,  in 
January.  Both  of  these  men  shared  the  strong  aversion 
of  English-speaking  races  to  the  idea  of  compulsory  ser- 
vice, but  both  also  recognized  the  practical  difficulty  of 
securing  the  support  of  France  and  Italy  to  a  future  co- 
operation of  the  nations  with  so  strong  a  provision  regard- 
ing compulsory  service.  In  the  Hurst-Miller  draft  of  the 
Covenant,  therefore,  the  provision  regarding  compulsory 
service  was  thus  whittled  down: 

It  It  [the  Executive  Council]  shall  also  enquire  into  the  feasibility  of 
abolishing  compulsory  military  service,  and  the  substitution  therefor 
of  forces  enrolled  upon  a  voluntary  basis,  and  into  the  military  and 
naval  equipment  which  it  is  reasonable  to  maintain. 


372         WOODROW  ^MXSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

But  even  this  device  of  mere  inquiry  was  too  strong  for 
the  French,  and  when  the  article  came  up  for  the  first  time 
in  the  League  of  Nations  Commission  (Februarj^  6),  which 
met  in  the  evening  in  Colonel  House's  large  office  in  the 
Hotel  Crillon,  we  find  M.  Bourgeois  rising  quickly  to 
object.  He  did  not  wish  even  the  possibility  of  abolishing 
compulsory  service  to  be  discussed. 

This  position  was  further  developed  by  Signor  Orlando 
of  Italy  and  M.  Larnaude,  the  other  French  delegate,  and, 
finally,  in  order  to  meet  this  determined  opposition  even 
to  the  mention  of  compulsory  military  service  and  yet 
keep  a  door  open  for  future  action  by  the  League  of 
Nations  the  President  proposed  the  following  substitute: 

The  Executive  Council  shall  also  determine  for  the  consideration 
and  action  of  the  several  Governments  what  military  equipment  and 
armament  is  fair  and  reasonable  in  proportion  to  the  scale  of  forces 
laid  doTvm  in  the  programme  of  disarmament;  and  these  limits,  when 
adopted,  shall  not  be  exceeded  without  the  permission  of  the  Body  of 
Delegates.^ 

In  short,  the  President  here  throws  the  whole  power  of 
initiating  action  in  the  matter  of  limitation  of  armament 
into  the  hands  of  the  future  League  of  Nations.  AYhile 
this  proposal  was  adopted  at  the  moment,  it  did  not,  by 
any  means,  close  the  discussion,  and  the  final  wording  of 
the  proposal  was  reached  only  after  much  controversy 
and  the  introduction  of  the  idea  of  "special  risk"  so 
vigorously  demanded  by  the  French.  Here  is  the  word- 
ing as  it  finally  appears  in  the  Treaty: 

The  Council,  taking  account  of  the  geographical  situation  and 
circumstances  of  each  State,  shall  formulate  plans  for  such  reduction 
for  the  consideration  and  action  of  the  several  Governments.     Such 


^Minutes,  League  of  Nations  Commission,  February  6,  p.  25. 


LAND  AR]\L\MENT  AND  FRENCH  FEAR  373 

plans  shall  be  subject  to  reconsideration  and  revision  at  least  every 
ten  years.  After  these  plans  shall  have  been  adopted  by  the  several 
Governments,  the  limits  of  armaments  therein  fixed  shall  not  be  ex- 
ceeded without  the  concurrence  of  the  Council. 

But  the  abolition  of  compulsory  service  was  forced 
upon  Germany!  And  it  may,  indeed,  prove  to  be  one  of 
the  real  gains  at  Paris — ^this  destruction  of  the  practice 
in  the  citadel  of  its  origin.  IL  wilLundoubtedly  have 
far-reaching  economic  as  well^asinilitary  results;  for  a 


iiiillion  or  so  young  men  will__beworkingJn_jndustry  in 
Germany  while  a  corresponding  million  or  so  are  march- 
mg  and  learning  to  shoot  at  the  expense  of  the  State  in 
prance  and  Italy. 

A  real  gain  was  also  made  in  the  matter  of  publicity  as 
a  factor  in  the  limitation  of  armaments.  Publicity,  in 
President  Wilson's  first  draft  of  the  Covenant,  had  formed 
one  of  the  cornerstones  of  the  programme.  "There  shall 
be  full  and  frank  publicity  as  to  all  national  armaments 
and  military  and  naval  programmes."  Here  again  French 
fears  presented  an  obstacle.  M.  Bourgeois  argued  that 
so  long  as  certain  powers  (he  meant  Germany)  remained 
outside  the  League,  it  would  be  folly  to  let  them  know  the 
military  secrets  of  those  inside;  and  even  when  they  came 
in,  one  must  not  trust  them  too  far.  ,Wbpt  he  wfliTited  was 
piibhVity  rpp;a.rHin|cy  tbp  German  armament,  hut  not  the 
armfl.mpnt  ^the  allied  nations.  Finally,  "full  and  frank 
publicity"  became  "interchange  of  information"  among 
the  members  of  the  League — a  more  limited  proposal,  but 
an  advance  over  anything  in  the  past.  The  final  clause 
of  the  Covenant  upon  this  subject  reads  as  follows : 

The  members  of  the  League  undertake  to  exchange  full  and  frank 
information  as  to  the  scale  of  their  armaments,  their  military,  naval, 
and  air  programmes  and  the  condition  of  such  of  their  industries  as 
are  adaptable  to  war-like  purposes. 


374        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETILEAIENT 

In  llie  matter  of  manufacture  of  munitions  of  war  by 
private  enterprise,  tliough  the  President  did  not  secure 
his  full  programme,  yet  there  is  an  advance  over  anything 
in  the  past.  The  President  had  taken  a  positive  stand 
on  this  subject  in  his  original  Covenant.  "The  contract- 
ing powers  further  agree  that  munitions  and  implements 
of  war  shall  not  be  manufactured  by  private  enterprise  or 
for  private  profit."  This  occasioned  considerable  dis- 
cussion: it  would  place  weak  nations,  with  little  industrial 
development,  at  the  mercy  of  great  nations.  The  provi- 
sion was  cut  out  of  one  draft  of  the  Covenant,  restored  in 
another  by  the  President's  motion,  and  it  finally  appears 
in  the  Treaty  as  follows: 

The  Members  of  the  League  agree  that  the  manufacture  by  private 
enterprise  of  munitions  and  implements  of  war  is  open  to  grave 
objections.  The  Council  shall  advise  how  the  evil  effects  attendant 
upon  such  manufacture  can  be  prevented,  due  regard  being  had  to  the 
necessities  of  these  Members  of  the  League  which  are  not  able  to 
manufacture  the  munitions  and  implements  of  war  necessary  for  their 
safety. 

Not  only  are  there  these  gains  in  dealing  with  concrete 
aspects  of  the  problem  of  disarmament,  but  the  Treaty  sets 
up  machinery  which  has  been  used  to  bring  the  subject 
of  limitation  of  armaments  to  the  attention  of  the  whole 
world.  This  provision  is  in  Article  IX,  of  the  Covenant, 
which  was  originally  presented  (by  Lord  Robert  Cecil) 
as  a  compromise  with  the  French  demand  for  an  inter- 
national general  staff.  It  provides  that  "a  permanent 
Commission  shall  be  constituted  to  advise  the  Council  on 
the  execution  of  Articles  I  and  VIII  on  military,  naval, 
and  air  questions  generally."  This  permanent  commission 
was  named  at  the  Rome  meeting  of  the  council  in  May, 
1920,  and  its  first  work  was  not  to  draw  up  plans  for  the 


LAND  ARMAMENT  AND  FRENCH  FEAR  375 

use  of  League  forces,  as  the  French  desired,  but  to  set 
up  inquiries  regarding  Hmitation  of  armaments  as  the 
council  is  empowered  to  do  under  Article  VIII. 

Another  important  general  gain  lies  in  the  formal  ac- 
knowledgment by  all  the  nations  signatory  to  the  Treaty 
that  the  general  limitation  of  armaments  is  one  of  the 
conditions  of  the  peace.  This  originated  in  a  proposal 
by  President  Wilson  on  April  26  for  a  preamble  to  the 
military,  naval,  and  air  clauses  of  the  Treaty,  which  now 
appears  on  page  74  of  that  document.  This  was  the  collo- 
quy: 

President  Wilson  suggested  that  it  would  make  the  Naval, 
Military  and  Air  terms  more  acceptable  to  the  enemy  if  they  were 
presented  as  preparing  the  way  for  a  general  limitation  of  armaments 
for  all  nations. 

M.  Clemenceau  said  he  would  like  to  see  the  formula  before  he 
agreed.^ 

The  preamble  was  finally  couched  in  the  following 
words : 

In  order  to  render  possible  the  initiation  of  general  limitation  of  the 
armaments  of  all  nations  Germany  undertakes  strictly  to  observe  the 
mihtary,  naval,  and  air  clauses  which  follow. 

General  Bliss  regards  this  as  one  of  the  most  important 
provisions  in  the  Treaty.  "In  all  good  faith  and  honour, " 
he  said  in  his  address  at  Philadelphia,  "these  [twenty- 
seven  nations  and  Germany]  have  pledged  themselves  to 
initiate  as  soon  as  practicable  a  general  limitation  of 
armaments  after  Germany  has  complied  with  her  first 
obligation."^ 

But  the  greatest  gain  of  all,  potentially,  was  in  securing 

^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Four,  April  26. 
2"What  Really  Happened  at  Paris,"  p.  372. 


S76         WOODROW  ^\TLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

the^^option  of  a  new  instrumentality  in  the  League  of 
Nations  for  guaranteeing  the  safetj^  of  nations,  thereby 
reHeving  them  of  the  necessity  of  keeping  up  great  arma- 
ments to  preserve  their  own  safety.  This  is  the  root  of 
the  problem  of  national  safety.  Once  accepted  and  used 
this  would  represent  the  most  fundamental  factor  of  all 
in  reducing  armament.  To  have  got  the  League  through 
and  to  have  brought  all  the  allied  nations  into  it  without 
admitting  the  poisonous  element  of  the  French  armament 
plan,  and  thus  extending  rather  than  curtailing  military 
organization  and  armament,  was  in  itself  a  great  achieve- 
ment, although  purchased  at  the  sacrifice  of  part  of  the 
actual  disarmament  programme. 

Up  to  the  present  moment  the  League  has  not  been 
able  to  make  any  material  progress  toward  reduction. 
Even  the  proposal  of  the  first  Assembly  that  the  nations 
agree  not  to  increase  their  armaments  budget  for  two 
years  met  with  no  conclusive  response.  Efforts  to  collect 
information  regarding  existing  forces  and  estimated  re- 
quirements as  the  basis  for  a  programme  of  reduction 
have  proved  similarly  unfruitful.  There  is  no  disguising 
the  fact  that  the  main  obstacle  in  the  way  of  progress 
with  the  reduction  of  land  armament  is  France,  the  lead- 
ing military  power  of  the  present  day.  France  is  not 
satisfied  with  the  guarantees  she  possesses  against  Ger- 
many. Had  she  obtained  the  special  pledges  of  support 
from  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain,  or  the  establish- 
ment of  a  strong  international  military  organization  under 
the  League,  or  even  a  permanent  control  over  German 
armaments,  the  case  might  possibly  be  different.  She  is 
still  hoping  for  and  striving  after  all  these  things,  the 
things  she  asked  at  Paris.  So  long  as  she  does  not  obtain 
them  she  is  unwilling  to  relinquish  the  slightest  degree 
of  independence  in  the  determination  of  her  own  military 


LAND  ARMAMENT  AND  FRENCH  FEAR  377 

policy.  She  will  not  so  much  as  accept  a  discussion  of 
the  subject  or  give  an  estimate  of  her  requirements,  even 
though  discussion  and  estimates  be  based  on  the  doctrine 
of  special  risk  which  the  French  themselves  inserted  in 
the  Covenant.  Wlien  the  effort  was  made  to  pursue 
the  subject  outside  the  League,  in  a  conference  including 
the  United  States  as  well  as  the  League  Powers,  France's 
attitude  remained  the  same.  At  the  Washington  Con- 
ference on  Limitation  of  Armaments  Premier  Briand 
stated  flatly  his  refusal  to  discuss  the  reduction  of  France's 
army,  rehearsing  all  the  familiar  arguments  for  his  stand. 
At  the  Genoa  Conference  the  French  were  even  more 
intransigent.  The  situation  remains  exactly  as  it  was 
in  1919. 

This  situation  is  by  no  means  simple.  So  long  as 
France  stands  for  the  enforcement  against  Germany  of 
terms  of  which  the  other  Powers  do  not  approve  and  be- 
lieve to  be  dangerous  to  the  future  peace  of  the  world, 
they  cannot  whole-heartedly  give  her  the  support  and 
guarantees  she  demands.  And  since  a  considerable 
proportion  of  the  terms  to  which  France  clings  have  no 
validity  apart  from  their  backing  of  armed  force,  she  has 
no  choice  but  to  try  and  supply  that  force  herself.  Yet 
this,  in  turn,  is  a  hopeless  position  for  her  to  take:  if  put 
to  the  test,  it  leads  to  her  own  isolation. 

The  only  way  out  is  by  the  road  of  sincere  and  world- 
wide international  cooperation.  No  four  powers,  or  nine 
powers,  or  any  special  alliance  of  great  nations  can  save 
the  situation.  If  the  Washington  Conference  of  1921-22 
proved  anything,  it  proved  exactly  President  Wilson's  con- 
tention that  no  great  progress  can  be  made  toward  freeing 
the  world  of  the  burden  of  competitive  armaments  without 
substituting  some  effective  guarantee  of  national  security 
in  their  place.     The  particular  instrument  of  true  inter- 


378        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEIVIENT 

national  cooperation  is  not  so  important  as  the  deter- 
mination to  use  it  with  good-will  to  achieve  true  justice 
and  peace  in  the  world.  Such  an  instrument  already 
exists  in  the  League  of  Nations ;  but  the  spirit  is  wanting. 
If  the  nations  would  take  this  instrument  and  use  it 
vigorously  in  times  less  feverish  than  those  of  1919,  to 
grapple  with  the  fears  and  greeds,  not  only  of  France  but 
of  all  other  nations,  a  speedy  improvement  of  the  present 
intolerable  situation  could  certainly  be  counted  upon. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

Problems  of  Naval  Disarmament  at  Paris — ^American 

Programme  of  Sinking  the  German  Ships 

Defeated   by    French    Demand   for 

Distribution — ^British  Sea  Policy 

N''  AVAL  disarmament  was  never  discussed  at  Paris 
with  anything  hke  the  completeness  and  frank- 
ness which  characterized  the  controversy  over 
limitation  of  land  armament  and  the  abolition  of  com- 
pulsory military  service. 

There  were  the  best  of  reasons  for  this.  Great  Britain, 
whose  power  was  on  the  sea,  emerged  from  the  war  in  a 
widely  different  situation  from  the  French.  The  French, 
as  a  result  of  the  war,  felt  themselves,  in  the  stew  of  Con- 
tinental Europe,  less  secure  than  before,  and  the  whole 
problem  of  military  armament  or  an  alliance  of  armed 
nations  to  fortify  French  security  became  of  burning  im- 
portance. The  British,  on  the  other  hand,  came  out  of 
the  war  feeling  more  secure.  Their  only  great  naval 
rival  in  Europe  was  crushed:  the  redoubtable  German 
fleet,  two  score  of  great  battleships  and  cruisers,  a  hundred 
or  more  lesser  fighting  vessels,  lay  rusting  safely  in  the 
northern  British  harbour  of  Scapa  Flow.  The  slight 
future  threat  of  submarine  warfare  or  of  armed  flying 
craft  could  be  easily  dealt  with  in  the  coming  Peace  Con- 
ference. 

In  the  past  the  next  most  important  world  naval  power, 
the  United  States,  had  derived  great  strength  from  the 
potential  hostility  of  the  British  and  German  fleets,  each 

379 


T- 


S80         1\'00DR0W  ^^■ILSON  AND  AYORLD  SETTLEI^IENT 

of  which  was  kept  close  at  home  for  fear  of  the  other. 
But  the  disappearance  of  the  German  Navy  left  the 
British  in  a  position  of  unparalleled  power  upon  the  seas, 
which  they  continue  to  hold  to-day.  This  was  further 
augmented  by  the  alliance  between  the  British  and  the 
Japanese,  the  third  great  naval  power  of  the  world. 
AMiile  the  possibility  of  a  conflict  between  Great  Britain 
and  the  United  States  was  remote,  not  merely  for  reasons 
of  sentiment,  which  were  powerful,  but  because  both  had 
plenty  of  room  in  the  world  and  there  was  no  real  cause 
for  aggression  upon  the  part  of  either,  yet  the  fact  of 
Great  Britain's  supremacy  upon  the  seas  was  a  potent 
element  in  determining  her  course  at  the  Peace  Confer- 
ence. 

Thus  it  was  that,  while  the  central  policy  of  the  French 
was  to  struggle  desperately  at  Paris  for  more  power,  more 
security,  and  even  more  rather  than  less  military  arma- 
ment, thereby  bringing  all  the  problems  of  compulsory 
military  service,  private  manufacture  of  war  munitions, 
and  the  like,  strongly  into  the  foreground,  the  central 
policy  of  the  British  was  to  preserve  the  status  quo.  The 
French  (and  the  Italians)  had  something  to  get  at  the 
Peace  Conference,  while  the  British  (and  the  Japanese) 
had  only  something  to  keep.  The  French  felt  their  weak- 
ness, their  potential  inferiority  at  Paris;  the  British  knew 
their  power,  and  they  acted  to  perfection  according  to  the 
traditional  British  diplomatic  policy:  "Wait  and  see." 

"While  the  chief  interest  of  the  French — then  and  since — 
was  their  own__safety  rather^  than  reparations  or  future 
commercial  expansion,  the  chief  interest  of  the  British  was 
'^Eo'make  sure  of  the  new  access  to  raw  materials^the  new 


trade  routes,  the  new  colonies,  wHiclTw'ere  already  practi- 
cally in  their  possession,  and  to  secure  a  proper  share  of  the 
reparations. 


PROBLEMS  OF  NAVAL  DISARMAMENT  AT  PARIS       381 

Thus  it  was  that  while  the  vital  problem  of  sea  power 
loomed  sometimes  in  the  background  of  the  discussions  at 
Paris,  and  once,  in  April,  while  the  disposition  of  the  cap- 
tured German  Navy  was  sharply  under  consideration — 
it  even  threatened  to  break  through  the  barriers  of  avoid- 
ance which  seemed  always  to  hedge  it  about — it  was  never 
really  and  frankly  met.  It  w^as  not  met  because  it  did 
not  have  to  be  met,  while  the  problem  of  land  armament 
did  have  to  be  met.  It  did  not  have  to  be  provided  for 
in  the  Treaty.  It  was  a  matter  not  so  much  between  the 
Allies  and  Germany,  as  between  Great  Britain,  America, 
and  Japan. 

But  the  British  left  no  doubt  whatever  as  to  their 
absolute  commitment  to  the  idea  of  British  naval  suprem- 
acy. 

In  November,  1918,  only  a  short  time  after  the  Armis- 
tice, Winston  Spencer  Churchill,  then  British  Minister  of 
Munitions,  put  the  position  bluntly  in  a  speech  at  Dundee. 
He  said,  "a  league  of  nations  is  no  substitute  for  the 
supremacy  of  the  British  fleet." 

The  British,  although  in  a  far  stronger  position,  left  no 
more  doubt  than  the  French  as  to  what  they  considered 
their  basic  requirement — their  own  security.  Both  before 
and  after  the  President's  arrival  in  Europe  their  press 
was  full  of  it;  it  was  echoed  by  every  public  speaker. 

"One  thing  is  clear, "  said  the  London  Times  of  Decem- 
ber 11.  "This  war  could  not  have  been  won  for  civiliza- 
tion but  for  the  British  sea  power.  There  can  therefore 
be  no  question,  so  far  as  this  country  is  concerned,  of 
diminishing  the  sharpness  of  the  weapon  that  has  given 
us  the  victory  in  this  war." 

Practically  every  argument  that  was  adduced  by  the 
French  was  also  put  forward  by  the  British.  There  was 
the  argument  of  '* special  risk";  that  Great  Britain  was  in 


882         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

a  peculiarly  dangerous  position.  "We  could  not  give  up 
our  naval  superiority,  because  we  are  an  island  power," 
wrote  Gilbert  Murray;  "and  if  we  were  once  defeated  at 
sea  and  blockaded  we  could  all  be  starved  to  death  or 
submission  in  a  few  weeks." 

And  just  as  Leon  Bourgeois  argued  for  the  French  that 
if  the  guarantee  of  the  League  of  Nations  was  accepted,  as 
a  substitute  for  armament  in  securing  the  safety  of  France, 
a  permanent  military  organization  and  a  general  staff 
would  be  a  necessary  feature  of  the  League,  so  the  British 
Admiralty  envisaged  a  possible  League  naval  staff — 
which  they  promptly  rejected. 

Powerful  elements  in  Great  Britain,  exactly  as  in 
France,  also  suggested  special  alliances  which  would 
further  guarantee  their  security — an  alliance  which  the 
French  finally  secured  in  the  Anglo-American  Treaty. 
In  Great  Britain  the  suggestion  took  the  form  of  an' 
Anglo-American  alliance. 

"All  of  us,"  said  the  London  Times  of  December  11, 
1918,  "recognize  that  the  future  happiness  of  the  world 
depends  on  drawing  closer  the  bonds  between  us  and  the 
United  States,  and  to  that  end  we  shall  work  with  all  the 
strength  that  is  in  us." 

But  in  England,  as  in  France,  the  President  hewed  to 
the  line  of  his  original  programme  of  a  league  of  nations 
which  would  eventually  guarantee  the  safety  which  the 
nations  imperatively  demanded.  He  talked  not  arma- 
ments or  alliances,  but  a  "concert  of  power." 

"There  must  now  be,"  as  he  told  the  English  in  his 
Guildhall  speech  of  December  28,  "not  a  balance  of  power, 
not  one  powerful  group  of  nations  set  off  against  another, 
but  a  single  overwhelming,  powerful  group  of  nations 
who  shall  be  the  trustee  of  the  peace  of  the  world." 

He  had  accepted  the  British  modification  of  the  Armis- 


PROBLEMS  OF  NAVAL  DISARMAMENT  AT  PARIS        383 

tice  terms  in  regard  to  the  "freedom  of  the  seas"  because, 
as  he  told  a  group  of  his  associates  at  Paris,  when  he  came 
to  examine  the  question  of  the  freedom  of  the  seas  in 
relation  to  the  League  of  Nations  he  saw  that,  in  case  of 
war  in  the  future,  there  would  be  no  neutrals  with  property 
rights  to  protect,  for,  under  the  League,  all  nations  would 
join  to  enforce  its  decisions  as  against  the  unruly  nation 
or  nations,  and  the  seas  would  be  controlled  by  the  powers 
of  the  League.  The  important  thing,  therefore,  was 
first  to  get  the  League,  with  its  essential  guarantees  of 
safety,  and  then  the  associated  nations  could  work  out 
regulations  for  sea  traffic  and  provide  for  limitations  of 
naval  armaments. 

In  England  the  President  found  a  support  for  his  pro- 
gramme that  did  not  exist  in  France:  for  in  France  the 
leadership  was  unified  by  a  common  fear,  while  in  England 
the  sense  of  naval  superiority  encouraged  the  development 
of  two  groups  of  opinion.  One  was  the  conservative, 
Admiralty-influenced  group — the  Morning  Post,  Lord 
Curzon,  Winston  Spencer  Churchill — which  was  for  main- 
taining naval  supremacy  at  all  odds  and  for  more  rather 
I  than  less  sea  power.  The  Morning  Post  saw  in  the 
League  of  Nations  only  an  "insidious  scheme  for  inter- 
nationalizing the  British  Empire  and  distributing  its 
resources  among  foreigners." 

But  there  was  another  powerful  liberal-labour  group 
in  the  empire,  led  by  such  men  as  General  Smuts  and 
Lord  Robert  Cecil,  expressed  by  such  newspapers  as  the 
Manchester  Guardian,  which  strongly  supported  the 
President's  programme.  While  they  were  never  for 
weakening  the  security  of  Great  Britain,  especially  in  a 
time  of  world  turmoil,  they  shared  the  President's  vision 
of  world  safety  not  dependent  upon  the  dominant  military 
power  of  any  one  State,  not  even  Great  Britain,  but  upon 


S84        ^YOODROW  ^^TLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEIVIENT 

a  generous  cooperation  of  the  nations  in  guaranteeing 
their  mutual  safety.  They  looked  forward  to  the  future 
limitation  of  naval  armament  and  to  a  league  of  nations 
that  "should  discharge  for  liberty  some  of  the  functions 
hitherto  performed  by  the  British  Navy.^/ 

As  for  Mr.  Lloyd  George  he  used  and  played  both  of 
these  groups  at  Paris  as  the  momentary  exigencies  of 
politics  demanded.  He  took  with  him  as  his  immediate 
associates,  however — and  this  is  significant — the  chief 
League  of  Nations  advocates,  Smuts  and  Cecil,  and  even 
a  representative,  in  Mr.  Barnes,  of  the  labour  group; 
but  on  occasion  he  summoned  Churchill  and  Curzon  as 
counter-irritants.  Clemenceau  represented  the  unity  of 
France;  Lloyd  George,  the  diversity  of  Britain.  The 
League  of  Nations  would,  of  course,  never  have  material- 
ized at  all  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  determined  team- 
play  of  American  and  British  liberals.  -^ 

I  have  referred  to  the  two  groups  of  opinion  in  Great 
Britain  regarding  the  limitation  of  naval  armament;  but 
there  were  also  two  in  America,  and  both  were  represented 
at  Paris.  For  if  there  were  British  leaders  who  saw  the 
future  security  of  their  empire  dependent  upon  the  su- 
premacy of  naval  armament,  so  there  were  American 
leaders  who  feared  for  the  future  security  of  America 
unless  American  naval  armament  was  at  least  equal  to 
that  of  Great  Britain. \^  Among  the  very  able  reports 
submitted  to  the  Peace  Conference  were  those  of  Admiral 
Benson,  American  naval  adviser,  and  his  argument, 
early  and  late,  was  that  the  United  States  should  have 
a  fleet  equal  to  that  of  Great  Britain.  In  a  memo- 
randum submitted  to  the  President  on  April  9  he  sets 
forth   the  case  of  the   strong  navy  group. ^     With  the 

iSee  Volume  III,  Documents  22  and  23,  for  text  of  this  memorandum  and  another 
submitted  March  14. 


PROBLEMS  OF  NAVAL  DISARMAMENT  AT  PARIS        385 

German  fleet  destroyed,  the  British  Navy  is  more  powerful 
in  the  world  than  ever  before,  "strong  enough  to  domi- 
nate the  seas  in  whatever  quarter  of  the  globe  that 
domination  may  be  required."  This  is  not  only  danger- 
ous, he  argues,  for  America,  but  "it  hampers  our  influence 
in  the  councils  of  the  world  whether  within  the  League 
or  outside  of  it." 

Just  as  the  military  men  of  France  and  Great  Britain 
argue  "special  risk"  as  a  reason  for  armament,  so  also 
does  Admiral  Benson  for  America: 

Our  own  present  and  prospective  world  position  needs  special 
consideration.  We  are  setting  out  to  be  the  greatest  commercial 
rival  of  Great  Britain  on  the  seas.  .  .  .  Heretofore  we  have 
lived  apart,  but  now  we  are  to  live  in  constant  and  intimate  relation 
with  the  rest  of  the  world.  We  must  be  able  to  enter  every  world 
conference  with  the  confidence  of  equality. 

He  argued,  therefore,  for  an  American  Navy  equal 
to  that  of  Great  Britain  and  suggested,  in  order  to  secure 
this  without  increasing  world  armament,  that  the 
British  Navy  be  reduced  to  an  equality  with  the  American 
Navy  and  afterward  that  "Great  Britain  and  America 
determine  jointly  from  time  to  time  what  the  strength 
of  the  two  fleets  shall  be." 

In  this  position  Admiral  Benson  was  strongly  supported 
by  Secretary  Daniels,  who  came  to  Paris  during  the  Peace    \l 
Conference. 

"The  United  States  should  have  a  navy  equal  to  any 
that  sails  the  seas,"  he  said. 

Indeed,  it  is  possible  to  quote  President  Wilson  him- 
self as  supporting  this  programme — before  we  came  into 
the  war.  He  said  in  an  address  at  St.  Louis,  February  3, 
1916: 


386        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

There  is  no  other  na\'y  in  the  world  that  has  to  cover  so  great  an 
area  of  defense  as  the  American  Navy,  and  it  ought,  in  my  judgment, 
to  be  incomparably  the  most  adequate  navy  in  the  world. 

He  recognized  as  clearly  in  the  case  of  America  as  in 
that  of  France  or  Great  Britain  that  security  was  funda- 
mental, and  that  if  the  sense  of  security  that  rested  upon 
armament  was  to  be  disturbed  by  limiting  armament, 
then  there  must  be  a  new  guarantee  of  safety  set  up.  If 
the  basis  of  the  peace  was  to  be  armed  ships  and  great 
guns,  as  it  had  been  in  the  past,  then  America  must  be 
prepared  for  that  also;  but  he  was  for  another  method, 
and  to  this  he  bent  every  energy  at  Paris,  and  he  was 
supported  by  the  liberal-labour  group  in  Great  Britain,  who 
saw  as  clearly  and  dreaded  as  profoundly  the  possibility 
of  a  new  competition  in  naval  armament. 

No  one  at  Paris  was  a  more  ardent  advocate  of  limita- 
tion of  land  armament  than  Lloyd  George,  and  none 
avoided  the  problem  of  limitation  of  naval  armament, 
except  as  it  applied  to  Germany,  more  skillfully.,^ 

British  naval  supremacy  was  assured  as  the  result  of 
the  war;  the  British  policy,  therefore,  was  merely  to  pre- 
serve that  supremacy. 

Only  one  thing  immediately  threatened  to  make  it  less 
pronounced — and  that  was  the  possible  distribution  of 
the  great  rival  German  and  Austrian  fleets  among  the 
allied  and  associated  Powers.  Most  of  these  ships  were 
safely  interned  and  guarded  in  the  British  Harbour  of 
Scapa  Flow.  In  total,  these  constituted  a  great  and 
powerful  fleet:  27  battleships  and  battle  cruisers,  in- 
cluding several  great  dreadnoughts;  19  light  cruisers; 
101  destroyers,  and  about  135  submarines.  Admiral 
Benson  estimated  that  the  distribution  of  these  German- 
Austrian  ships  would  increase  the  strength  of  the  naval 
armaments  of  the  great  Powers  about  30  per  cent.    The 


PROBLEMS  OF  NAVAL  DISARMAMENT  AT  PARIS       387 

American  naval  advisers  had  no  doubt  what  ought  to 
be  done  with  them;  they  ought  to  be  sailed  out  into  the 
deep  sea,  the  sea  cocks  opened,  and  the  entire  fleet  sunk 
to  the  bottom. 

"The  destruction  of  the  German-Austrian  vessels," 
said  Admiral  Benson,  "would  be  a  practical  demonstra- 
tion to  the  world  of  the  sincerity  of  the  High  Contracting 
Parties  in   their  determination   to   reduce  armaments." 

Admiral  Benson  assumed  in  his  reports  that  Great 
Britain  desired  distribution  rather  than  destruction; 
but  there  is  little  to  bear  out  this  assumption.  The 
diflSculties  would  be  too  great,  the  rivalries  aroused  too 
bitter,  and  in  the  end  the  distribution  might  well  reduce 
the  ratio  of  ascendancy  of  the  British.  Besides,  the 
German  ships  were  built  on  wholly  different  mechanical 
standards  from  the  British — by  metric  measurements — 
and  maintenance  might  have  been  almost  as  expensive 
as  the  production  of  new  ships.  Although  Lloyd  George 
apparently  used  the  disposition  of  the  German  ships 
strategically  in  the  conferences,  the  destruction  of  the 
rival  navy  seems  to  have  been  the  real  poHcy  of  the  British 
Admiralty.  It  was  the  French  who  stood  out  for  dis-^ 
tribution;  who  desired  to  increase,  rather  than  decrease, 
their  armaments. 

The  naval  conditions  of  the  peace  proposed  by  the 
admirals  in  the  session  of  March  6  provided  for  the  de- 
struction of  all  submarines  and  all  warships  beyond  those 
Germany  should  be  permitted  to  retain.  The  French 
reserved  on  each  of  these  clauses  and  a  long  tussle  began. 
It  finally  headed  up  in  a  sharp  passage  during  a  meeting 
on  April  25  at  President  Wilson's  residence  in  the  Place 
des  Etats-Unis.  The  Italian  Premier  had  gone  home  to 
protest  against  the  attitude  of  the  council  regarding 
Fiume.     Only  the  so-called  "Big  Three"  were  in  attend- 


388         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

ance — ^Yilson,  Lloyd  George,  and  Clemenceau — but  each 
had  with  him  his  chief  naval  adviser,  Admiral  Ben- 
son for  America,  Rear  Admiral  Hope  for  Great  Britain, 
and  Admiral  de  Bon  for  France.  It  was  at  this  meeting 
that  a  general  discussion  of  naval  disarmament  was  al- 
most precipitated,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  remarks  of  Lloyd 
George : 

Admiral  Benson  pointed  out  that  any  decision,  except  to  sink  the 
ships,  meant  an  increase  of  armaments. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  said  he  could  give  Admiral  Benson  his  pro- 
posal for  stopping  the  increase  of  armaments,  and  even  bring  about 
a  decrease,  but  he  doubted  if  the  Admiral  would  accept  it.  [The 
proposal  an  American  Admiral  would  find  unacceptable  meant  prob- 
ably a  proposal  for  reduction,  keeping  to  existing  proportions.]  The 
British  Government  did  not  want  these  ships  and  were  ready  to  dis- 
cuss even  the  decrease  of  Navies,  provided  all  would  agree.  This, 
however,  was  a  very  big  question.  .  .  .  He  fully  agreed  that  the 
French  position  in  this  matter  ought  to  be  considered.  His  idea  was 
that  France  should  have  some  of  these  ships,  and  sink  a  corresponding 
number  of  old  ships,  or,  if  unwilling  to  sink  them,  she  might  break 
them  up,  which  Admiral  Hope  told  him  would  be  a  business  propo- 
sition. 

President  Wilson  then  asked  the  reason  for  the  French 
objection  to  the  destruction  of  the  ships  and  Admiral 
de  Bon  replied: 

Admiral  de  Bon  said  the  reason  was,  first,  that  by  sinking  the 
ships,  valuable  property  would  be  destroyed,  and  there  would  be  an 
increase  in  the  general  losses  of  the  war.  French  public  opinion  was 
strongly  against  this.  A  more  especial  reason  was,  however,  that  if  the 
ships  were  divided  among  the  Allied  and  Associated  Powers  it  would 
make  a  considerable  addition  ...  to  the  peace  strength  of  the 
French  Navy.  During  five  years,  owing  to  the  immense  efforts  of 
French  industries  in  supplying  the  armies,  it  had  not  been  possible  to 
complete  any  capital  ships.  These  ships  would  be  very  useful  to  show 
the  French  flag  and  spread  the  national  influence  in  the  world. 


PROBLEMS  OF  NAVAL  DISARMA:MENT  AT  PARIS        389 

France's  naval  strength  was  greatly  reduced,  especially  as  compared 
with  other  nations.  For  no  aggressive  desires  of  any  kind,  France 
did  not  want  to  lose  this  opportunity  for  repairing  her  losses. 

The  result  was  a  postponement  of  the  question  of  dis- 
posal, which  was  a  virtual  victory  of  the  principle  of  dis- 
tribution as  supported  by  the  French. 

But  the  problem  was  strangely  taken  out  of  the  hands 
of  the  Peace  Conference  and  settled  in  another  way.  On 
June  21  the  Germans  who  still  manned  the  ships  at  Scapa 
Flow,  by  concerted  action,  themselves  opened  the  sea 
cocks  and  sunk  most  of  their  own  ships  in  the  harbour. 
The  disposal  of  those  that  remained  was  a  matter  of  little 
concern.  Lloyd  George  offered  them  all  to  France  to 
restrain  Clemenceau  from  making  this  and  other  inci- 
dents the  occasion  for  a  new  resort  to  force.  They  might 
make  good  France's  naval  war  losses,  but  all  prospect 
was  destroyed  of  considerably  adding  to  her  naval  arma- 
ment. Thus  it  was  the  act  of  the  Germans  in  scutthng 
their  ships,  rather  than  the  decisions  of  the  Peace  Con- 
ference, that  prevented  a  considerable  increase,  rather 
than  a  limitation  of  naval  armaments  on  the  part  of  the 
allied  Powers.  But  Germany  was  disarmed  on  sea, 
although  not  as  completely  as  on  the  land.  The  Treaty 
allows  her  six  battleships  and  six  light  cruisers,  with 
twelve  destroyers  and  twelve  torpedo  boats.  These  have 
obviously  no  connection  with  the  maintenance  of  internal 
order,  and  can  be  intended  only  for  national  defense. 
Furthermore,  Germany  is  allowed,  under  Article  196,  to 
retain  all  works  of  coast  defense  not  bearing  the  character 
of  offensive  bases  or  menacing  to  the  passage  into  the 
Baltic.  When  Lansing  opposed  the  destruction  of  these, 
Lloyd  George  supported  his  argument  of  Germany's  right 
to  defend  herself. 

Why  did  not  the  British  exert  themselves  to  strip  Ger- 


890         WOODKOW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

many  on  the  naval  side  as  the  French  did  on  the  land  side? 
It  is  probable  that  they  did  not  want  to  lay  her  defenseless 
to  France  by  sea.  They  no  longer  feared  Germany  on 
the  water.  The  instruments  of  naval  warfare  cannot 
be  so  readily  improvised  as  those  of  land  warfare.  Eng- 
land could  feel  sure  of  her  superiority  on  her  element,  but 
she  had  done  enough  for  France  in  giving  her  security  by 
land.  The  fleet  left  to  Germany  was  no  menace  to  France, 
but,  together  with  the  coast  defenses,  might  restrain  her 
from  dominating  Germany  by  sea.  If  any  one  was  to 
do  that,  it  must  be  England. 

But,  if  little  actual  progress  was  made  at  the  Peace 
Conference  in  the  matter  of  limiting  naval  armament, 
the  door  was  kept  open  for  future  investigation  and  dis- 
cussion as  in  the  case  of  limitation  of  land  armament,  by 
the  provision  of  Articles  VIII  and  IX  of  the  Covenant. 
While  the  only  specific  mention  of  naval  armament  in 
Article  VIII  is  the  final  clause  providing  for  publicity 
("exchange  of  full  and  frank  information  as  to  the  scale 
of  their  armaments")  regarding  naval  as  well  as  military 
programmes,  yet  it  must  be  understood  that  the  eventual 
limitation  is  intended  to  apply  to  navies  as  well  as  armies, 
and  the  permanent  commission  appointed  at  the  Rome 
meeting  of  the  Council  in  May,  1920,  was  directed  to 
make  inquiries  regarding  both  naval  and  land  arma- 
ment. 

Although  naval  disarmament  was  never  actually  dis- 
cussed at  Paris,  the  problem  was  really  less  difficult  of 
approach  than  that  of  land  disarmament.  The  leading 
naval  power  of  the  world.  Great  Britain,  jealous  as  she 
was  of  her  supremacy,  proved  ultimately  to  be  far  less 
opposed  to  a  discussion  of  the  basis  of  her  position  than 
was  the  leading  military  power,  France.  Lloyd  George 
had  offered  to  discuss  naval  reduction,  though  he  said  he 


PROBLEMS  OF  NAVAL  DISARMAMENT  AT  PARIS        391 

doubted  if  his  proposals  would  be  found  acceptable  by 
American  authorities.  In  the  end,  Great  Britain  has 
actually  accepted  American  proposals  on  the  subject. 

The  causes  of  Great  Britain's  larger  amenability  to 
reason  are  not  far  to  seek.  There  was  little  war  hysteria 
to  be  overcome  in  her  case,  for  she  had  not  been  invaded 
and  ravaged,  as  had  France.  The  crippling  of  the  com- 
mon enemy,  Germany,  by  sea  was  much  more  complete 
and  permanent  than  on  land.  Other  large  fleets  remained, 
those  of  America  and  Japan,  but  neither  could  be  seriously 
considered  as  a  menace  to  the  security  of  the  British 
Empire.  Great  Britain  was  not  intent  upon  the  main- 
tenance by  force  of  the  most  rigorous  application  possible 
of  the  terms  of  the  Treaty  of  Versailles.  Finally,  it  may 
be  said  that  sensible  British  leaders  were  becoming  aware 
that,  with  the  development  of  new  agencies  of  warfare, 
the  usefulness  of  the  "capital  ship"  was  no  longer  in 
proportion  to  its  enormous  cost.  And  Great  Britain  was 
desperately  anxious  to  get  back  on  a  sound  economic 
basis.  Two  years  of  reflection  sufficed  to  prepare  her  for 
a  great  sacrifice  of  her  secular  prestige,  a  sacrifice  that 
constitutes  a  real,  if  not  a  very  considerable,  step  on  the 
road  to  disarmament. 

This  step  was  not  taken  through  the  instrumentality 
of  the  League,  since  one  of  the  Powers  whose  cooperation 
was  essential  to  its  success,  the  United  States,  had  kept  out 
of  the  League.  It  could  not  be  a  very  radical  step,  since 
the  United  States  was  not  prepared  to  join  in  any  per- 
manent and  effective  international  organization,  without 
which,  in  substitution  for  armed  force  as  a  guarantee 
of  national  security,  no  far-reaching  programme  of  dis- 
armament is  possible.  Yet  within  these  limitations  the 
Government  of  President  Harding  did  all  in  its  power 
to  reduce  the  danger  of  a  future  clash  among  the  great 


392        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

naval  Powers  of  the  world.  It  took  the  initiative  in  the 
Washington  Conference.  It  offered  sacrifices  and  laid 
down  a  concrete  programme.  It  even  went  so  far,  in 
endeavouring  to  reduce  possibilities  of  friction  in  the 
Pacific,  as  to  enter  upon  a  treaty  that  has  many  of  the 
doubtful  and  even  dangerous  features  of  a  special  alliance 
— with  Japan,  Great  Britain,  and  France. 

The  result,  in  terms  of  naval  disarmament,  is  not  large. 
The  very  idea  of  disarmament  was  renounced  at  the  start 
in  favour  of  "limitation  of  armament."  Likewise,  all 
efforts  to  arrive  at  any  absolute  standard  of  limitation 
had  to  be  abandoned  in  favour  of  the  empirical  standard 
of  the  status  quo.  Definitions  of  "national  security," 
the  term  forced  into  the  Covenant  by  Japan  and  France, 
were  found  to  be  simply  impossible.  Yet  the  idea  could 
not  be  supplanted  by  that  of  "domestic  security,"  since 
there  was  no  adequate  substitute  offered  for  guaranteeing 
national  security.  The  only  possible  programme  was  that 
of  stopping  further  naval  increases  on  a  basis  of  maintain- 
ing existing  and  potential  ratios  of  strength.  It  is  not, 
did  not  pretend  to  be,  disarmament,  and  the  check  is 
slight.  Burdens  have  been  temporarily  prevented  from 
growing,  but  they  have  not  been  greatly  reduced.  The 
principle  of  security  through  armament,  which  lies  at  the 
centre  of  the  whole  problem,  has  not  been  abandoned. 
Perhaps  the  most  significant  fact  in  the  whole  set  of  de- 
velopments is  Great  Britain's  acceptance  of  the  ultimate 
ratio  of  equality  with  the  United  States. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

Control  of  Armaments  of  Small  Nations — ^Attitude 

OF  France 

ONE  evening  late  in  May,  at  a  critical  moment  of 
the  Peace  Conference  (I  find  it  recorded  in  my 
notes  of  that  time),  I  found  the  President  stand- 
ing alone  before  a  large-scale  map  of  southeastern  Europe. 
It  hung  on  the  wall  of  his  study,  where  the  "Big  Four" 
held  their  daily  meetings.  It  was  a  warm  evening  and 
the  window  stood  partly  open.  In  the  bit  of  driveway 
outside  paced  an  American  sentinel. 

For  some  moments  after  I  came  in  the  President  con- 
tinued to  study  the  map  with  deep  absorption.  It  was 
plain  to  see  that  he  had  had  a  hard  day  of  it,  for  he  showed 
it  in  the  drawn  lines  of  his  face. 

It  was,  indeed,  a  trying  time  for  everybody.  While  the 
German  treaty  had  been  finished  and  delivered,  it  was 
doubtful  if  the  Germans  would  ever  sign  it.  They  were 
attacking  it  bitterly.  No  one  in  the  world  seemed  satis- 
fied with  anything  that  had  been  done,  and  now  that  the 
Council  had  turned  its  attention  to  the  Austrian  treaty,  a 
swarm  of  new  problems  relating  to  the  crumbling  empires 
of  the  east  and  southeast — ^Austria-Hungary,  Turkey,  and 
Russia — assailed  them.  Revolution  was  still  smouldering 
in  Hungary,  and  brush  fires  of  national  conflict  or  civil  war 
were  burning  over  half  of  Europe.  It  seemed  at  the  time 
a  veritable  race  of  peace  with  anarchy.  The  President's 
case  was  still  further  complicated  by  home  problems.  He 
had  just  finished — ^nobody  knows  how  he  managed  it — a, 

393 


894         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

long  message  to  Congress,  working  it  out  in  spare  moments 
on  his  typewriter  before  or  after  the  meetings  of  the  Four; 
an  Irish-American  committee  recently  come  to  Paris  was 
making  it  hot  for  him  and  everybody  else;  and,  finally, 
the  attacks  upon  him  and  upon  the  League  Covenant  had 
broken  out  with  new  bitterness  in  Congress. 

I  thought  of  the  enormous  difficulties  that  this  man 
faced,  trying  to  work  out  just  settlements  in  this  ancient 
hotbed  of  strife — with  the  Austrians  fretting  at  that  mo- 
ment at  Saint  Germain  for  an  unfinished  treaty — ^trying 
to  work  out  just  settlements  when  there  was  no  good- will 
anywhere  to  be  found !  And  it  was  a  spirit  of  good-will, 
mutual  helpfulness,  that  the  President  had  sought  to 
inspire,  and  upon  which  his  settlements,  if  they  were  to  be 
effective,  must  rest.  It  was  no  wonder,  I  thought,  that 
these  bitter  weeks  were  wearing  him  out ;  that  sometimes 
of  an  evening,  after  the  Conference  had  ended  and  he  had 
relaxed,  his  face  looked  like  death;  and  sometimes  one 
side  of  it,  and  his  eye,  would  twitch  painfully.  Yet  he 
never  gave  over  trying,  in  that  stew  of  problems,  to  keep 
his  principles  in  the  foreground  and,  if  he  could  not  realize 
them  in  their  entirety,  to  prevent  or  mitigate,  as  far  as 
possible,  proposals  which  contravened  them.  His  as- 
sociates, and  especially  Clemenceau,  no  matter  how  hard 
they  fought  him,  recognized  the  utter  sincerity  of  his  pur- 
pose. Occasionally  this  feeling  slipped  out,  as  in  the 
words  of  Clemenceau: 

President  Wilson  had  come  to  Europe  with  a  programme  of  peace 
for  all  men.  His  ideal  was  a  very  high  one,  but  it  involved  great 
difficulties,  owing  to  these  century  old  hatreds  between  some  races.^ 

"We  have  been  studying  the  new  boundaries  of  Aus- 
tria," the  President  said  to  me  finally.     "The  Austrians 

'Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Four,  May  20. 


CONTROL  OF  ARMAMENTS  OF  SMALL  NATIONS        395 

are  at  swordspoints  with  the  Jugoslavs  here  m  the  Klagen- 
furt  Basin.  We  have  been  trying  to  arrange  for  an  early 
plebiscite." 

"They  prefer  to  fight,"  I  said. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "they  all  prefer  to  fight.  Clemenceau 
told  us  the  other  day  that  here  in  Istria  both  sides  were 
putting  up  barbed  wire  and  preparing  for  war.  Up  here 
the  Rumanians  and  Hungarians  are  fighting;  and  the 
Czechs  and  the  Poles." 

I  told  him  that  we  had  counted  up  fourteen  small  wars 
going  on  in  various  parts  of  Europe. 

"  I  do  not  doubt  it,"  he  said.  "  We  have  been  consider- 
ing the  limitations  of  armament  of  these  restless  small 
States;  but  how  can  the  great  Powers  impose  disarmament 
upon  them  when  they  will  not  impose  it  upon  themselves.^" 

A  few  days  later  he  put  the  same  question,  even  more 
bluntly,  to  his  associates: 

The  principal  Powers  might  find  it  embarrassing  [he  said]  if  they 
were  asked  whether  they  intended  to  impose  a  limitation  of  arma- 
ments on  themselves.  The  reply  would  be,  "Yes,  the  Council  of  the 
League  of  Nations  is  to  present  a  plan."  To  this  the  representatives 
of  the  small  States  would  reply,  "Are  you  bound  to  accept  it?"  and 
the  principal  Powers  would  have  to  reply,  "No."  ' 

To  this  neither  Lloyd  George  nor  Orlando  made  any 
reply,  but  Clemenceau,  as  the  record  sets  forth,  "pointed 
out  the  much  greater  responsibilities  of  the  principal 
Powers." 

No  problems,  indeed,  proved  more  difficult  throughout 
the  Conference  than  those  of  the  new  small  States.  Dur- 
ing the  war  the  President  had  been  a  strong  champion  of 
the  rights  of  the  small  States.  He  had  encouraged  the 
Poles  and  the  Serbs,  and  formally  recognized  the  Czecho- 

^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Four,  June  4. 


396        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

Slovaks.  This  was  not  merely  a  policy  of  the  greatest 
value  in  breaking  down  the  morale  of  the  enemy  powers, 
by  destroying  their  unity,  but  it  represented  his  own  deep 
conviction  regarding  the  rights  of  peoples  to  determine 
their  own  government,  and  the  duty  of  the  strong  to  assist 
them.  He  was  more  concerned  always  with  the  duties  of 
the  strong  than  with  the  rights  of  the  weak.  He  was 
greatly  attracted  by  an  address  by  Marshal  Joffre  at  the 
French  Academy  and  copied  off  a  sentence  of  it  which  he 
used  afterward  during  his  speech  at  the  Guildhall  in  Lon- 
don and  elsewhere.     This  sentence  was  as  follows: 

Let  her  [France]  never  forget  that  the  weak  and  the  small  cannot 
live  free  in  the  world  if  the  strong  and  the  great  are  not  ever  ready  to 
place  their  strength  and  power  at  the  disposal  of  right. 

This  was  exactly  the  President's  doctrine  and  he  de- 
lighted in  it;  he  believed  that  the  acid  test  of  democracy 
lay  in  the  treatment  by  the  strong  of  the  weak. ', 

But  no  sooner  had  the  Peace  Conference  opened  than 
new  policies  began  to  develop,  as  far  as  the  poles  removed 
from  the  President's,  and  Joffre's,  idea;  for  they  sought 
to  use  the  weak  to  help  protect  and  make  more  secure  the 
strong.  The  central  purpose  of  the  policy  of  France — 
here,  as  always,  dictated  by  French  fears — was  to  build 
up  a  ring  of  small  States  around  Germany  and  make  these 
dependent  upon  her,  rather  than  upon  Germany,  for 
protection.  Poland,  with  the  Polish  Army  commanded 
by  French  generals,  thus  became  a  military  satellite  of 
France;  and  this  was  almost  equally  true  of  Rumania 
and  of  others  of  the  small  States.  The  French  supported 
throughout  the  Peace  Conference — the  record  is  full  of  it 
— the  demands  of  these  smaller  States  for  the  utmost  ag- 
grandizement at  the  expense  of  the  enemy  States.  This 
policy  tended,  of  course,  irrespective  of  its  justice  or  in- 


CONTROL  OF  ARMAMENTS  OF  SMALL  NATIONS        397 

justice  in  particular  cases,  to  make  each  small  State  ap- 
prehensive regarding  its  new  gains,  and  fearful  of  the 
possible  revenge  of  the  old  enemy  powers  (they  retained 
a  profound  respect  for  the  prowess  of  the  Germans)  and 
obliged  them  to  turn  to  France,  then  and  since,  the  strong- 
est Continental  State,  for  protection.  "^The  more  unjust 
the  settlement  might  be,  the  greater  the  fear  of  the  small 
State  and  the  sharper  the  sense  of  needed  protection. 
And  the  more  help  they  got  the  fiercer  grew  the  nationalis- 
tic spirit  among  them;  and  the  more  excited  the  scramble 
for  wider  boundaries,  for  coal  and  iron  mines,  for  rail- 
roads and  industrial  centres. 

We  have  a  vivid  picture  of  the  situation  in  central 
Europe  in  the  secret  report  to  the  President  of  the  Ameri- 
can officer.  Major  Gen.  F.  J.  Kernan,  who  was  the  chief 
American  representative  on  the  Interallied  Commission 
to  Poland.     He  says  (April  11): 

In  central  Europe,  the  French  uniform  is  everywhere  in  evidence, 
officers  and  men.  There  is  a  concerted,  distinct  effort  being  made  by 
these  agents  to  foster  the  military  spirit  in  Poland,  Czechoslovakia, 
and,  I  believe,  in  Rumania.  The  imperialistic  idea  has  seized  upon 
the  French  mind  like  a  kind  of  madness,  and  the  obvious  effort  is  to 
create  a  chain  of  States,  highly  militarized,  organized  as  far  as  possible 
under  French  guidance,  and  intended  to  be  future  allies  of  France.  I 
have  no  doubt  whatever  of  this  general  plan,  and  it  is  apparently 
meeting  with  great  success.  Poland  is  endeavouring  to  raise  an  army 
of  approximately  600,000;  the  Czechs  are  striving  to  raise  an  army  of 
about  250,000,  and  Rumania  is  struggling  under  a  very  extensive 
military  burden.  All  of  this  means  that  these  people  have  no  belief 
in  the  efficacy  of  the  League  of  Nations  to  protect  them,  and  that 
under  the  guidance  of  the  French,  a  strong  military  combination  is 
being  built  up,  capable  perhaps  of  dominating  Europe.  This  purpose, 
of  course,  is  not  avowed.  The  claim  is  that  this  chain  of  strong 
military  States  is  essential  to  hold  back  the  tide  of  Russian  Bolshevism. 
I  regard  this  largely  as  camouflage.     Each  of  the  three  States  named 


898        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

has  aggressive  designs  upon  the  surrounding  territory,  and  each  is 
determined  to  get  by  force,  if  need  be,  as  large  an  area  as  possible.^ 

The  *' aggressive  military  action"  predicted  by  General 
Kernan  in  April  actually  took  place  later.  It  is  surely 
one  of  the  tragic  incidents  of  the  Peace  Conference  that 
the  legitimate  rights  and  interests  of  the  Poles,  in  which 
the  President  had  long  been  profoundly  interested,  should 
have  been  so  confused,  even  submerged,  by  the  selfish, 
conflicting  interests  and  purposes  of  the  great  Powers^ 
But  Poland  has  ever  been  a  tragic  figure  in  history,  much 
used,  never  served,  by  her  greater  neighbours.  Again 
and  again  in  the  conference,  the  French  were  perfectly 
frank  in  speaking  of  this  use  of  Poland,  not  to  help  the 
Poles,  but  to  serve  the  interests  of  the  allied  Powers. 

On  June  2,  for  example,  Clemenceau  said: 

When  we  spoke  of  establishing  Poland,  it  must  be  remembered  that 
this  was  not  done  merely  to  redress  one  of  the  greatest  wrongs  in 
history.  It  was  desired  to  create  a  barrier  between  Germany  and 
Russia.2 

The  Poles  were  to  be  used  to  hold  back  Bolshevism,  to 
weaken  Germany,  to  balance  the  power  of  the  Czechs — 
everything  in  the  world  except  to  build  up  a  sound  Polish 
State. 

As  for  the  British,  their  attitude  toward  the  small 
States — the  note  oftenest  sounded  in  the  Peace  Conference 
— was  one  of  sharp  impatience  with  the  small  Powers  be- 
cause they  were  trouble-makers  and  costly,  and  so  long  as 
they  would  not  settle  down,  there  could  be  no  return  to 
peace,  and  no  revival  of  normal  trade  and  commerce  in 
which  the  British  (and  to  a  lesser  degree  the  Americans) 

'See  Volume  III,  Document  24,  for  full  text . 
'^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Four. 


CONTROL  OF  ARMAMENTS  OF  SMALL  NATIONS        399 

were  vitally  interested.  We  find  Lloyd  George  lashing 
out  in  denunciation  of  the  "monstrous  demands  of 
Czechoslovakia"  (March  11),  or  the  "miserable  ambi- 
tions" of  the  small  States  (May  23).  For  these  States 
spent  the  money  and  supplies  they  got,  not  in  reconstruc- 
tion, but  in  building  up  their  armaments  and  in  drilling 
soldiers — and  this  money  had  to  come  out  of  the  pockets 
of  the  great  Powers.  Once  in  the  Conference  Mr.  Lansing 
asked  the  British  if  they  recognized  the  King  of  Monte- 
negro. 

"We  do,"  replied  Mr.  Balfour  dryly.  "We  pay  for 
him." 

There  also  existed  the  feeling  that  some  of  these  small 
Powers  might  get  entirely  out  of  hand  and  further  upset 
the  equilibrium  of  Europe. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  urged  that  the  Great  Powers  should  not  allow 
the  small  States  to  use  them  as  catspaws  for  their  miserable  am- 
bitions. Prussia  had  begun  just  as  these  States  were  beginning,  and 
at  that  time  had  not  a  population  as  large  as  Jugoslavia.^ 

In  the  case  of  the  Italians,  there  was  never  any  general 
policy  toward  the  problem  of  the  small  States,  except  to 
keep  all  of  them,  but  especially  Jugoslavia,  small  and  weak, 
for  Italy,  unlike  France,  could  not  expect  any  small  State, 
except  possibly  Albania,  to  look  to  her  for  protection. 
Italy  even  preferred  to  strengthen  her  old  but  now  helpless 
enemy,  Austria,  as  against  the  powerful  new  State  of 
Jugoslavia,  which  was  right  at  her  eastern  door. 

Such  was  the  situation  when  the  problem  of  the  limi- 
tation of  armament  of  small  States  arose  acutely  on  May 
15.  On  the  day  before,  the  Austrian  delegates  had  ar- 
rived at  Saint  Germain,  and  it  had  become  necessary  to 
settle  at  once  the  military  terms  of  the  Austrian  treaty. 

^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Four,  May  23. 


400         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

It  appeared  that  a  fundamental  difference  of  opinion  ex- 
isted. In  the  proposed  draft  of  mihtary  clauses,  Article 
II  contained  an  "American-British"  proposal  that  com- 
pulsorj^  military  service  be  abolished,  and  a  "French-  j 
Italian"  proposal  providing  for  a  "one-year  compulsory 
short-term  service." 

Here  the  Americans  and  British,  both  of  whom  relied 
on  sea  power  rather  than  on  land  power,  were  expressing 
their  traditional  hostihty  to  compulsory  armies;  while  the 
French  and  Italians  were  naturally  enough  defending 
the  basic  institution  upon  which  rested  continental  mili- 
tary power. 

After  these  proposals  had  been  submitted  by  Presi- 
dent Wilson,  Mr.  Lloyd  George  arose  at  once:  j 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  said  that  the  very  first  chapter  .  .  .  raised 
a  very  big  question  of  principle  which  would  have  to  be  considered, 
not  only  in  regard  to  Austria,  but  also  in  reference  to  all  the  new 
little  States  which  might  be  formed.  Should  it  be  decided  that  each 
of  these  little  States,  including  Rumania,  Czecho-Slovakia,  and  Jugo- 
slavia, were  each  to  be  allowed  to  maintain  comparatively  large 
armies,  nothing  would  keep  them  from  going  to  war  with  one  an- 
other. ...  In  his  opinion,  it  was  essential  that  the  Council 
should  lay  down  definite  principles  in  regard  to  armaments,  which 
would  be  applied  to  Austria,  Hungary,  and  all  adjoining  States.^ 

But  what  was  that  "general  principle"  to  be.^  Wilson 
had  proposed  a  general  principle  of  disarmament  in  his 
Fourteen  Points — reduction  to  "the  lowest  point  consist- 
ent with  domestic  safety" — but  when  he  endeavoured 
to  get  it  adopted  as  a  future  standard,  as  I  have  shown 
Ln  former  chapters,  he  was  bitterly  opposed.  Yet  the 
Allies  had  applied  that  principle,  which  they  declined 
to  accept  for  themselves,  to  the  enemy!  Germany  was 
to  have  only  a  "police  force"  of  100,000  men.     And  now 

'Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Four,  May  15. 


CONTROL  or  ARMAMENTS  OF  SMALL  NATIONS        401 

had  come  the  problem  of  little  weak  Austria,  surrounded 
by  potential  enemies.  The  military  men  had  suggested 
that  she  be  allowed  40,000  soldiers,  while  Clemenceau 
was  suggesting  15,000.  But  Austria,  with  6,000,000 
population  and  40,000  soldiers,  was  all  out  of  proportion 
to  Germany  with  60,000,000  population  and  100,000 
soldiers,  and  if  Austria  was  kept  down  even  to  40,000  and 
the  Jugoslavs,  Rumanians,  Czechoslovaks,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  Greeks  and  Bulgarians,  were  to  have  compulsory  ser- 
vice and  great  armies,  what  chance  was  there  for  Austria 
to  survive,  or,  indeed,  for  preventing  war  among  all  the 
other  snarling,  restless,  fearful  nationalities.'^  And  how 
to  apply  the  same  rules  to  States  which,  like  Austria 
and  Bulgaria,  had  been  enemies  of  the  Allies,  and  States 
like  Serbia  and  Rumania,  that  had  been  friends  and  sup- 
porters? 

Plainly  a  general  principle  was  needed ;  but  what  should 
it  be?  The  abolition  of  compulsory  service,  as  the  Ameri- 
cans and  British  suggested?  The  French  and  Italians 
were  alarmed  at  this.  Orlando  told  his  associates  frankly 
(May  15)  that  Italy  could  not  raise  an  army  on  the  vol- 
unteer basis.  France  intended  to  keep  the  compulsory 
service  system  for  herself  (she  had  then,  and  has  had 
since,  the  most  powerful  and  efficient  army  in  the  world) — 
why  then  let  it  be  abolished,  say,  in  Poland  and  Rumania, 
which  were  military  allies  of  France?  France  did  not 
want  small  armies  in  any  of  these  central  States  except 
Austria.  And  this  latter  end — sl  weak  Austrian  Army — 
Clemenceau  easily  secured  by  promptly  saying  (May  15) 
that  he  accepted  the  American-British  plan  for  abolishing 
compulsory  service  in  Austria.  He  could  hardly  do 
otherwise,  indeed,  after  accepting  the  principle  for  Ger- 
many. But  this  did  not  satisfy  Italy,  because  it  did 
not  meet  the  problem  of  armament  in  Jugoslavia;  so 


402        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

Orlando  proposed  the  examination  of  the  whole  question 
on  a  broader  basis;  he  wanted  a  study  of  "the  armament 
plans  to  be  enforced  in  all  parts  of  the  late  Austro-Hunga- 
rian  Empire." 

President  Wilson,  seeing  here  a  chance  to  advance  his 
whole  programme  of  limitation  of  armaments,  agreed 
with  Orlando. 

"All  these  questions,"  he  said,  "  hung  together  to  form  a 
single  scheme, "and  then  he  promptly  suggested  his  original 
standard  of  tlie  Fourteen  Points,  that  "the  military  regime 
apphed  to  Germany  should  be  taken  as  the  standard." 

The  council,  accepting  the  President's  proposal,  referred 
the  whole  programme  to  the  military  representatives 
of  the  Supreme  War  Council,  asking  them  to  submit 
a  report  "showing  what  forces  should  be  allowed  to 
Austria,  Hungary,  Czechoslovakia,  Jugoslavia  (including 
Montenegro),  Rumania,  Poland,  Bulgaria,  and  Greece, 
taking  the  German  figures  as  a  proportional  standard." 

Apparently  they  meant  business !  But  two  days  later, 
and  while  this  subject  was  still  under  consideration  by 
the  military  men,  a  most  embarrassing  incident  occurred. 
Lord  Robert  Cecil  had  discovered  that,  at  this  very 
moment,  when  the  Allies  were  ejideavouring  to  stamp 
out  war  in  central  Europe  and  secure  disarmament, 
enormous  quantities  of  war  supplies  were  being  shipped 
to  these  States.  He  had  an  investigation  made  and  a 
report  written  by  Mr.  W.  T.  Leyton,  which  on  May  17  he 
sent  in  to  the  Council  of  Four.  It  was  a  most  awkward 
document.  It  reported  that  "quantities  of  munitions  are 
being  allocated  to  various  nations  by  France  on  the  in- 
structions of  Marshal  Foch,"  and  that  "in  addition  to 
this  the  various  new  States  are  making  application  to 
the  Allies  ...  to  purchase  their  surplus  stocks,  and 
there  is  nothing  except  the  financial  difficulty  to  prevent 


CONTROL  OF  ARMAMENTS  OF  SMALL  NATIONS        403 

the  various  Governments  from  selling  these  stocks  while 
the  market  is  brisk." 

So  this  was  what  was  happening! 

The  report  suggested  the  adoption  of  some  policy  to 
govern  this  matter  in  order  to  prevent  war  and  bank- 
ruptcy among  the  small  States.  But  the  report  was 
smothered  promptly  in  committee,  and,  although  an 
arms-traffic  convention  was  afterward  signed,  ratification 
is  still  incomplete;  and  no  doubt  trade  in  surplus  war 
materials  continued  brisk  among  the  small  States.  For 
there  was  an  unlimited  amount  of  ammunition  left  to  be 
shot  away. 

On  May  23  the  generals  made  their  report  on  the 
limitation  of  armaments  of  small  States.  It  was  an 
epoch-making  meeting;  the  largest,  except  one,  ever  held 
by  the  Council  of  Four.  The  Conference  had  to  move 
upstairs  out  of  the  President's  small  room.  There  were 
thirty-three  in  attendance,  including  a  splendid  array 
of  gold-laced  generals  and  admirals.  A  great  speech — 
.one  of  the  greatest  speeches  of  the  entire  Peace  Confer- 
ience — was  made  by  the  American  general.  Bliss.  It  was 
the  kind  of  straightforward  speech,  touched  with  powerful 
conviction,  that  turned  opinion  then  and  there.  Such 
iwas  the  impression  it  made  that  Clemenceau  suggested 
that  "a  copy  of  General  Bliss's  speech  be  circulated"; 
Orlando  said  that  "General  Bliss's  speech  had  made  a 
considerable  impression  on  him";  President  Wilson  re- 
marked tliat  "the  considerations  which  General  Bliss  had 
urged  were  .  .  .  very  serious  and  large,  and  required  to  be 
very  carefully  considered";  while  Mr.  Lloyd  George  said 
that  *'he  had  been  greatly  impressed  by  the  remark  made 
;by  General  Bliss  in  the  course  of  his  statement  in  regard 
to  the  possible  formation  of  a  Germano-Slav  alliance." 

General  Bliss  set  forth  what  the  military  representa- 


404        WOODROW  AMXSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

tives  had  done.  They  had  calculated  the  armament  of  the 
small  States  on  the  basis  of  the  armament  already  allowed 
to  Germany — 100,000  men.  This  would  mean  for  Austria 
only  15,000  men;  for  Hungary,  18,000;  Bulgaria,  10,000; 
Czechoslovakia,  22,000;  Jugoslavia,  20,000;  Rumania, 
28,000;  Poland,  44,000,  and  Greece,  12,000.  But,  he  said, 
the  military  men  did  not  consider  these  figures  sufficient  for 
the  protection  of  the  small  States,  especially  where  there 
were  large  cities  to  police  or  where  frontiers  were  threatened 
by  Bolshevist  incursions,  and  they  therefore  suggested 
other  figures  for  armies:  for  example,  40,000  for  Austria 
instead  of  15,000;  80,000  for  Poland  instead  of  44,000; 
20,000  for  Bulgaria  instead  of  10,000.  While  these  were 
trivial  armies  compared  with  what  the  small  States  desired 
and  at  the  time  actually  possessed,  they  were  large 
enough  for  defensive  and  not  at  all  for  offensive  pur- 
poses. 

General  Bliss  said  frankly  that  he  thought  the  army 
of  100,000  men  allowed  to  Germany  was  too  small  even 
for  "domestic  safety" — and  that,  if  armies  of  all  central 
Europe  were  reduced  to  the  same  scale,  the  little  States 
"would  be  converted  into  mere  vassals  of  the  two  Con- 
tinental powers  of  the  Entente  [France  and  Italy]."  .  .  . 
He  did  not  think  that  "such  a  situation  pointed  to  the 
maintenance  of  the  peace  of  Europe  in  the  future." 
And  then  he  made  a  remark  that  struck  home. 

"The  brilliancy  of  the  military  glory,"  he  said,  "which 
now  lighted  up  certain  of  these  western  nations  of  Europe, 
might  in  reality  not  be  an  evidence  of  health,  but  only 
the  hectic  flush  of  disease  which  would  eventually  result 
in  the  downfall  of  our  strip  of  Latin  and  Anglo-Saxon 
civilization  along  the  western  coast  of  Europe." 

He  meant,  and  said,  that  there  was  a  danger  of  "future 
combinations   between   Germanic,  Slavonic,  and  Asiatic 


I 


CONTROL  OF  ARMAMENTS  OF  SMALL  NATIONS        405 

races,  which  might  eventually  sweep  the  civilization  of 
western  Europe  out  of  the  way." 

But  Clemenceau  was  utterly  unwilling  to  have  the 
question  of  the  German  Army  reopened;  nor  did  he 
wish  even  such  drastic  reductions  as  those  proposed  by 
the  military  men,  except  for  Austria,  in  the  armies  of 
central  Europe.  After  interminable  further  discussion 
it  was  hurriedly  decided — ^because  the  Austrian  treaty 
had  to  be  made  ready — that  the  Austrian  Army  should 
be  a  volunteer  force  of  30,000  men;  but  it  was  impossible 
to  decide  how  to  limit  the  armaments  of  all  the  other  States. 
Clemenceau  was  opposed  to  any  further  action,  but 
Wilson  and  Lloyd  George  were  anxious  that  something 
be  done. 

President  Wilson  said  that  he  fully  shared  the  fears  of  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  [that  the  small  States  would  build  up  great  armies].  At 
present  these  peoples  appeared  to  be  out  for  fighting  and  for  what  they 
could  get.  His  suggestion  was  that  a  period  should  be  fixed  within 
which  it  might  be  anticipated  that  the  ferment  in  Eastern  Europe 
would  subside.  ...  It  might  be  provided  in  the  Treaty  of  Peace 
that  after  January  1st,  1921,  the  various  States  should  agree  to  accept 
such  and  such  limitation  of  forces,  unless  in  the  judgment  of  the 
Council  of  the  League  of  Nations  some  extension  was  desirable.^ 

Again  a  tussle  of  argument,  and  finally  the  President 
sadly  pointed  out  (in  the  words  quoted  above)  the  em- 
barrassing fact  that,  in  all  this  discussion,  the  Allies  were 
asking  these  smaller  States  to  do  something  they  had 
declined  to  do  themselves.  Even  the  settling  of  a  reason- 
ably distant  date  for  the  limitation  of  armament  implied 
something  vastly  more  definite  than  anything  the  great 
Powers  were  committed  to. 

Finally,  it  was  proposed  that  the  representatives  of  the 

^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Four,  June  4. 


406         ^VOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

smaller  States  be  called  in  to  discuss  the  whole  subject; 
to  see  if  they  would  not  agree  to  a  general  limitation  of 
armament. 

It  would  require  a  pen  dipped  in  irony  to  report  properly 
what  happened  in  this  conference  which  was  held  on  June 
5  at  President  Wilson's  house.  The  great  men  of  five 
small  but  ambitious  States  were  there:  Paderewski  for 
Poland,  Benes  for  Czechoslovakia,  Bratiano  and  Misu  for 
Rumania,  Venizelos  for  Greece,  and  Vesnitch  for  Serbia. 
These  were  able  men,  every  one,  and  some  of  them  were 
men  who,  in  a  larger  arena,  might  well  have  qualified  as 
among  the  greatest  contemporary  figures.  They  made 
good  speeches,  strong  speeches.  They  all  accepted  the 
principle  of  the  desirability  of  limitation  of  armaments 
just  as  the  great  Powers  had  done — and,  just  as  the  great 
Powers  had  done,  argued  the  absolute  necessity  of  provid- 
ing for  their  own  safety;  they  argued  their  own  "special 
risks";  they  doubted  the  immediate  efficacy  of  a  league 
of  nations,  and  demanded  more  rather  than  less  arma- 
ment. Every  argument  that  the  great  Powers  had  made 
the  little  Powers  threw  back  at  them.  Lloyd  George, 
sensing,  no  doubt,  the  weakness  of  their  case,  when  they 
themselves  set  no  example  of  disarmament,  argued  with 
Paderewski  that  after  peace  was  signed  "there  would  be 
great  reduction  in  the  military  force  of  the  British  Empire. 
The  Rumanian  Army  would  almost  certainly  be  larger 
than  the  British,  and  probably  the  same  could  be  said  of 
the  Polish." 

But  Paderewski  countered  dryly  with  a  dart  that  had 
sting  that  "Great  Britain  did  not  have  to  'fight  the 
water'  on  its  frontier." 

And  if  the  little  Powers  there  represented  were  to  dis- 
arm, what  about  the  neutrals  who  were  not.^^  Would  not 
they  be  worse  off  than  Holland  or  Switzerland.'^     Finally, 


I 

CONTROL  OF  ARMAMENTS  OF  SMALL  NATIONS        407 

Dr.  Bene^  shot  another  bolt  that  hurt.  He  said  that  the 
threat  to  the  small  States  was  not  only  from  Russia  or  the 
neutral  States,  but,  "for  that  matter,  the  Western  Pow- 
ers." What!  Were  the  small  States  also  afraid  of  their 
protectors  ? 

And  so  the  representatives  of  the  small  States  filed  out ; 
and  the  "Big  Four"  agreed  that  the  problem  was  too 
diflficult  by  far  to  tackle  further,  and  dropped  it  forth- 
with. Four  days  later,  on  June  9,  there  were  fresh  reports 
of  bitter  fighting  in  the  Balkans. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

Problems  of  Controlling  the  New  Instrumental- 
ities OF  Warfare:  Airplanes,  Poison  Gas, 

Submarines 

"The  whole  of  modern  civihzation  is  at  stake,  and  whether  it 
will  perish  and  be  submerged,  as  has  happened  to  previous  civil- 
izations of  older  types,  or  whether  it  will  live  and  progress,  de- 
pends upon  whether  the  nations  engaged  in  this  war,  and  even 
those  that  are  onlookers,  learn  the  lessons  that  the  experience 
of  war  may  teach  them.  .  .  .  The  application  of  scientific 
knowledge  and  the  inventions  of  science  during  the  war  have 
made  it  more  and  more  terrible  and  destructive  each  year.  .  .  . 
If  there  is  to  be  another  war  in  twenty  or  thirty  years'  time, 
what  will  it  be  like.-^  If  there  is  to  be  concentrated  preparation 
for  more  war  the  researches  of  science  will  be  devoted  henceforth 
to  discovering  methods  by  which  the  human  race  can  be  de- 
stroyed. These  discoveries  cannot  be  confined  to  one  nation,  and 
their  object  of  wholesale  destruction  will  be  much  more  com- 
pletely achieved  hereafter  even  than  in  this  war." — Lord  Grey, 
1918. 

WHAT  was  to  be  done  with  new  instrumen- 
talities of  destruction  which  had  come  into  swift 
use  during  the  great  war?  Here  were  strange, 
unpredictable,  uncontrollable  new  inventions — ^only  at  the 
beginning  of  their  possible  development — that  turned 
topsy-turvy  familiar  tactics.  Hitherto  impregnable 
national  boundaries  lost  their  significance  with  the  air 
above  humming  with  flying  machines;  poison  gases  obliter- 
ated distinctions  between  combatants  and  non-combat- 
ants, killing  all  alike;  wireless  telegraphy  wiped  out  time 
and  space,  and  submarines  revolutionized  war  at  sea. 

408 


AIEPLANES,  POISON  GAS,  SUBMARINES  409 

From  time  to  time,  even  during  the  Peace  Conference, 
some  new  evidence  of  these  "miracles"  startled  men's 
thoughts,  and  set  the  imagination  to  racing.  Early  in 
June,  for  example,  young  Read — ''NC-4  Read" — ^arrived 
in  France,  having  made  the  first  passage  of  the  stormy 
Atlantic  by  airplane.  He  and  his  associates  called  upon 
the  President  at  the  Paris  "White  House,"  a  modest 
young  man  in  the  uniform  of  a  lieutenant  commander 
of  the  American  Navy.  The  members  of  the  Council  of 
Four  were  just  coming  in  at  the  moment  to  their  morning 
meeting,  and  the  President  introduced  them  and  the 
admirals  with  them  to  Clemenceau,  Lloyd  George,  and 
Orlando. 

"I  congratulate  you,"  said  the  President,  referring  to 
the  adulation  they  were  receiving  in  Paris,  "on  keeping 
your  heads  on  the  ground  as  well  as  in  the  air." 

Read  and  his  companions  had  halved  the  distance  be- 
tween America  and  Europe,  and  many  there  were  to 
comment  upon  the  fact  that  if  this  could  be  done  in  peace 
it  could  be  done  in  war — and  going  in  either  direction. 
What,  then,  became  of  the  isolation  of  any  nation.'*  Such 
possibilities  weighed  heavily  in  many  of  the  discussions 
at  Paris. 
^  The  French  generals  argued  strongly  against  permitting 
the  manufacture  and  use  by  the  enemy  powers  even  of 
commercial  airplanes,  because  they  might,  almost  over- 
night, be  fitted  with  explosives,  possibly  more  dangerous 
than  any  yet  known,  and  in  a  surprise  attack  destroy 
whole  cities. 
i  Lord  Hardinge  said  "that  the  aerial  situation  might 
by  1923  have  so  greatly  changed  that  it  would  be  unwise 
for  the  Governments  at  present  to  say  what  should  then 
be  done."^ 

^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Foreign  Ministers,  April  26. 


410        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT  ' 

"Germany,"  said  Lloyd  George,  "might  discover  some 
new  gas,  with  which  she  might  suddenly  overwhelm  her 
enemies."^ 

Who  could  say  what  was  in  men's  minds?  And  who 
could  stop  them  thinking,  even  if  their  thought  was 
turned  toward  destruction? 

Yet  something  had  to  be  done  to  limit  these  new  in-  . 
strumentalities — if   not   the   establishment   of   any   new 
general  policy  for  all  nations,  at  least  the  disarmament 
of  Germany. 

President  Wilson  had  seen  the  larger  aspects  of  the 
problem  with  a  prophetic  eye.  He  asked  the  Peace  Con- 
ference to  "take  a  picture  of  the  world"  into  its  mind. 
"Is  it  not,"  he  said,  "  a  startling  circumstance  .  .  . 
that  the  great  discoveries  of  science,  that  the  quiet  studies 
of  men  in  laboratories  .  .  .  have  now  been  turned  to 
the  destruction  of  civilisation?"^ 

He  sets  forth  also  the  method,  as  he  sees  it,  for  meeting 
this  new  problem: 

"Only  the  watchful  and  continuous  cooperation  of  men 
can  see  to  it  that  science,  as  well  as  armed  men,  is  kept 
within  the  harness  of  civilisation." 

The  discussion  of  this  great  new  problem  began  early 
in  February  and  continued  intermittently  until  the  mid- 
dle of  June — and  was  then  left  unsettled  in  most  of  its 
really  important  phases.  Whole  days  were  devoted  to 
argumentation,  and  every  possible  aspect  of  the  problem 
was  threshed  out.  In  some  of  the  struggles  over  disarma- 
ment there  had  developed,  as  in  connection  with  the 
abolition  of  compulsory  military  service,  an  American- 
British  point  of  view  as  contrasted  with  a  French-Italian 
point  of  view.     But  in  the  case  of  these  new  instrumentali- 

^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Four,  April  28. 
^Minutes,  Plenary  Conference,  January  25. 


AIRPLANES,  POISON  GAS.  SUBMARINES  411 

ties  of  war  (except  submarines,  where  the  Americans  and 
British  were  substantially  in  agreement  on  the  policy: 
"sink  the  pests")  the  Americans  had  a  vigorous  policy  of  ^ 
their  own  and  all  the  other  nations  were  against  them. 
A  clear  understanding  of  these  differences  of  view  is  of  the 
utmost  importance,  for  they  strike  down  to  the  funda- 
mentals not  only  of  the  Paris  Peace  Conference  but  of  all 
other  international  conferences. 

Two  things  were  at  once  assumed  by  the  Conference 
and  brushed  aside,  as  the  most  vital  problems  often  are, 
practically  without  discussion: 

First,  that  Germany  should  be  utterly  disarmed,  so  far 
as  military  uses  were  concerned,  of  airplanes,  poison  gas, 
submarines,  tanks,  etc.     Everyone  agreed  to  that. 

Second,  no  one  at  Paris  considered  for  a  moment  any 
immediate  general  reduction  of  armament  in  these  new 
instrumentalities  which  should  apply  to  the  Allies  as  well 
as  to  the  enemy  States.  There  were  provisions  for  future  / 
inquiry  by  the  League  of  Nations,  but  this  was  a  long  way 
off.  The  immediate  effect  was  to  increase  rather  than 
reduce  allied  resources  in  airplanes,  poison  gases,  sub- 
marines, and  the  like;  for  all  the  vast  German  armament 
was  to  be  turned  over  to  the  Allies  and  distributed  among 
them. 
j  But  from  this  point  onward  a  vital  difference  of  opinion 
developed  between  the  Americans  and  the  Europeans. 

Too  much,  by  far,  has  been  made  of  the  difference  be- 
tween certain  members  of  the  American  delegation;  for 
example,  Mr.  Lansing  and  the  President.  And  there 
were  indeed  vital  differences  of  opinion  and  of  method — to 
say  nothing  of  differences  in  temperament — the  soreness 
of  which  was  bound  to  be  ventilated  while  they  still  hurt; 
but  when  it  came  to  an  expression  of  the  American  atti- 
tude toward  specific  problems  of  the  peace  there  was  in 


y 


412        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

almost  all  cases  an  extraordinary  singleness  in  point  of 
view.  It  was  the  point  of  view  of  the  outsider,  seeking 
to  look  at  controversial  issues  fairly  and  to  reach  practical 
solutions  that  could  be  upheld  without  engendering  fresh 
controversies.  It  was  the  point  of  view  of  a  nation  with  a 
large  tradition  of  free,  self-reliant  development  behind  it. 
Thus  Mr.  Lansing  in  the  Council  of  Foreign  Ministers, 
General  Bliss  in  the  Supreme  War  Council,  Baruch  or 
Lamont  or  Davis  or  Hoover  in  the  Supreme  Economic 
Council,  and  Haskins  or  Lord  or  Seymour  or  Beer  or 
Young  in  the  various  commissions,  struck  the  American 
note,  and  set  forth,  in  general,  the  same  principles  that 
the  President  was  standing  for  in  the  Council  of  Four. 
And  these  larger  principles  and  traditions  remain  the  same 
whether  Mr.  Wilson  or  Mr.  Harding  sits  in  the  White 
House;  they  are  those  governing  ideas  which  represent  the 
genius  of  the  race  and  are  above  and  beyond  partisan 
quarrels  and  temporary  changes  in  administration. 

This  unity  of  purpose  on  the  part  of  the  Americans,  as 
well  as  the  difference  of  view  between  the  Americans  and 
the  other  Allies,  was  illustrated  in  many  ways  in  meeting 
the  problem  of  these  new  instrumentalities  of  war.  The 
other  Allies  attempted  persistently  to  do  two  things  in 
regard,  for  example,  to  aircraft : 

First,  not  only  to  take  away  all  military  aircraft  from 
Germany,  but  to  deprive  her,  for  a  long  time,  at  least,  of 
all  aircraft — ^literally  break  up  her  whole  aircraft  industry. 

Second,  to  give  the  Allies  the  right  to  fly  over  and 
alight  in  Germany  without  time  limit,  while  allowing 
Germany  no  reciprocal  rights. 

She  was  thus  not  only  to  be  disarmed  in  a  military 
sense,  but  crippled  more  or  less  permanently,  so  far  as 
these  new  inventions  were  concerned,  in  an  economic 
sense. 


AIRPLANES,  POISON  GAS,  SUBMARINES  413 

These  proposals  were  disputed  at  every  point  by  the 
Americans,  in  the  Aeronautical  Commission  by  General 
Patrick,  in  the  Council  of  Foreign  Ministers  by  Mr.  Lan- 
sing, and  in  the  Supreme  Council  by  the  President. 
They  all  consistently  maintained  that  this  was  a  needless 
and  dangerous  intrusion  upon  the  sovereignty  of  Ger- 
many; they  insisted  that  a  distinction  be  drawn  between 
military  and  civilian  uses  of  these  instrumentalities,  and 
that,  while  Germany  should  be  prohibited  from  continuing 
their  military  development,  their  economic  use  should 
not  and  could  not  be  prevented,  and  that  if  temporary 
discriminations  against  Germany  in  the  use  of  commercial 
airplanes  were  necessary,  until  peace  should  be  established, 
a  definite  time  limit  should  be  set.  The  Americans  saw 
in  such  permanent  prohibitions  only  an  indefinite  ex- 
tension of  military  control  and  a  continuance  of  the 
military  spirit.  They  were  for  getting  the  war  over  and 
the  normal  methods  of  peace  reestablished  as  soon  as 
.  possible. 

This  difference  was  vividly  illustrated  in  the  argument 
on  March  17  over  the  proposed  article  of  the  preliminary 
air  terms,  which  provided  that  Germany  be  prohibited 
"until  the  signature  of  the  final  Treaty  of  Peace "  from 
manufacturing  or  importing  airplanes  or  "parts  of  aircraft, 
seaplanes,  flying  boats,  or  dirigibles,  and  of  engines  for 
aeroplanes." 

This,  of  course,  would  stop  the  entire  industry,  military 
as  well  as  commercial,  for  many  months,  but  still  it  did 
not  go  far  enough.  General  Duval,  the  French  expert, 
said  that  the  British,  Italian,  Japanese,  and  French 
representatives  had  asked  for  the  addition  of  a  clause 
providing  in  the  Treaty  for  a  much  longer  prohibition. 

"This  proposal,"  he  remarked,  "had  been  opposed  by 
the  American  representative"  (who  was  General  Patrick). 


414        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

He  then  presented  the  Council  with  the  report  of  the 
Commission  showing  exactly  the  position  taken  by  each 
of  the  five  great  nations  regarding  this  most  important 
problem.     The  question  put  to  each  was  as  follows: 

After  the  Treaty  of  Peace  and  in  view  of  the  easy  transformation  of 
commercial  aircraft  into  weapons  of  war,  will  it  be  necessary  to  pro- 
hibit civilian  aviation  in  Germany  and  all  other  enemy  States? 

Here  are  the  answers: 

Great  Britain:  Yes,  for  a  period  long  enough  to  dissipate 
the  very  extensive  air  industry  now  existing  in  Germany  and  all 
States  which  became  our  enemies  by  reason  of  the  war.  This 
period  should  not,  in  its  opinion,  be  less  than  from  two  to  five  years. 

France  :  Yes,  for  20  or  30  years,  a  period  required  for  the  destruc- 
tion of  all  existing  flying  material  and  dispersions  of  personnel,  for 
it  is  impossible  to  foresee  the  progress  of  flying  in  the  immediate 
future. 

Italy  :  Yes,  for  a  long  period,  since  Germany  and  all  enemy  States 
deserve  to  be  penalized  and  the  Allies  are  entitled  to  take  pre- 
cautions. 

Japan:    Yes  [agreeing  with  the  majority]. 

The  United  States:  No,  considering  all  such  restrictions  of  the 
entire  flying  activity  of  Germany  and  her  Allies  after  the  signa- 
ture of  the  Treaty  of  Peace  to  be  neither  wise  nor  practicable.^ 

In  the  discussion  of  this  proposal  the  President  took 
exactly  the  position  held  by  the  American  representative. 

He  could  not  accept  any  such  additional  condition,  he 
told  the  Council,  adding:  "Railroad  trains  could  be 
used  to  carry  guns;  should  the  manufacture  of  trains 
therefore  be  limited?  Some  types  of  ships  could  be  readily 
converted  for  military  use;  should  the  construction  of 
ships  be  limited  on  this  account.^" 

Owing  to  his  opposition  this  amendment  was  dropped 
and  a  prohibition   (in  Article  201)  for  six  months  was 

'Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  March  17, 


AIRPLANES,  POISON  GAS,  SUBMARINES  415 

adopted  to  provide  for  possible  danger  until  the  war  was 
out  of  the  way. 

While  the  President  was  absent  in  America  we  find  Mr. 
Lansing  taking  exactly  the  same  attitude  regarding  the 
distinction  between  military  and  commercial  uses  of  these 
new  inventions.     He  told  the  Council: 

As  long  as  airplanes  existed  which  could  be  used  for  commercial 
purposes,  they  could  always  be  converted  into  military  machines. 
The  problem  presented  the  same  difficulties  as  that  connected  with 
horses,  which  could  be  used  to  draw  guns  or  to  draw  ploughs.  Every- 
thing depended  on  the  use  made  of  the  article  in  question. "^ 

When  the  provision  giving  unlimited  liberty  of  passage 
and  landing  over  and  in  Germany  for  allied  airplanes 
came  up  in  the  Council  of  Foreign  Ministers  (April  26) 
Mr.  Lansing  attacked  it  with  almost  brutal  directness. 

There  was  no  reciprocity  about  them  [the  provisions];  Germany 
was  given  no  rights,  and  it  appeared  as  though  the  Allied  Governments 
were  trying  to  suppress  all  economic  aerial  activity  on  her  part.  .  .  . 
He  did  not  see  why  Germany  was  not  given  the  right  to  pass  through 
the  air  of  other  countries  when  the  Allies  reserved  for  themselves  full 
powers  to  use  the  air  routes  of  Germany. 

He  therefore  proposed  a  clause  establishing  a  date  of 
limitation — ^January  1,  1923 — upon  the  obligations  im- 
posed in  the  matter  of  passage  and  landing,  and  this  was, 
after  much  discussion,  adopted  and  became  Article  320 
of  the  Treaty. 

These  contests  did  not  mean  that  the  Americans  were 
a  whit  less  positive  in  their  view  that  Germany  be  com- 
pletely disarmed  in  a  military  sense.  They  supported 
the  following  most  sweeping  provisions  in  the  Treaty: 

The  armed  forces  of  Germany  must  not  include  any  military  or  naval 
air  forces.     ...     No  dirigible  shall  be  kept.     (Article  198.) 

^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  March  12. 


416        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

What  they  wanted  to  avoid  was  a  long-continued, 
irritating  interference  with  the  economic  Ufe  of  the  enemy 
nations — which  they  beHeved  would  lead  speedily  to 
future  wars. 

Much  the  same  problem  arose  in  connection  with  the 
use  of  poison  gases.  All  were  agreed  on  an  absolute 
prohibition  of  the  military  use  of  gases. 

The  use  of  asphyxiating,  poisonous  or  other  gases  and  all  analogous 
liquids,  materials  or  devices  being  prohibited,  their  manufacture  and 
importation  are  strictly  forbidden  in  Germany. 

But  the  other  Allies  wished  to  go  much  further.  They 
wished  to  compel  the  German  Government  to  disclose 
German  chemical  processes  and  secrets;  and  even  to  per- 
mit the  allied  Governments  "to  inspect  all  plants  used  for 
the  manufacture  "  of  chemicals  used  in  the  manufacture  of 
poison  gases. 

The  British  strongly  supported  this  contention — ^and 
were  seconded  by  France.  It  came  up  first  on  April  15  in 
the  Council  of  Foreign  Ministers — ^the  "Little  Five" — 
where  it  was  strenuously  met  by  Mr.  Lansing.  In  setting 
forth  his  opposition  he  said  "he  expressed  the  views  of 
President  Wilson." 

As  a  matter  of  fact  [he  continued],  the  communication  of  details 
relating  to  chemical  processes  really  constituted  an  economic  question 
rather  than  a  military  one,  and  since  the  use  of  asphyxiating,  poison- 
ous or  other  gases  and  all  analogous  matters  or  devices  had  been  pro- 
hibited, including  their  manufacture  and  importation,  he  thought 
that  was  suflBcient  safeguard  without  asking  the  German  Government 
to  put  the  Allies  in  an  effective  possession  of  all  their  chemical  proc- 
esses, including  the  production  of  substances  from  which  such  things 
could  be  made  .  .  .  [he]  expressed  the  view  that  all  the  processes 
could  be  covered  by  the  term  "dyes." 


AIRPLANES,  POISON  GAS,  SUBMARINES  417 

The  Five  not  being  able  to  settle  the  problem — even 
after  much  heated  discussion — ^they  referred  it  to  the 
Council  of  Four,  where  it  came  up  on  April  28.  Here 
the  British  proposal  was  vigorously  supported  by  Mr. 
Lloyd  George.  He  said  that  "he  was  advised  by  Lord 
Moulton  that  the  Germans  were  three  years  ahead  of  the 
Allies  in  these  matters." 

The  British  military  authorities  [he  continued]  .  .  .  considered  that 
there  was  a  real  danger  that  Germany  might  discover  some  new  gas 
and,  without  any  considerable  armaments,  might  employ  this  as  a 
means  for  attacking  the  Allied  and  Associated  Powers,  thus  frustrat- 
ing the  provisions  made  for  disarmament. 

But  the  President  came  back  strongly  with  the  Ameri- 
can contention: 

President  Wilson  said  that  the  objection  to  this  proposal  was 
that  the  Germans  could  not  reveal  this  information  without  also 
revealing  trade  secrets.  He  was  advised  by  his  experts  that  nearly 
every  chemical  used  for  the  war  was  related  to  commercial  chemistry, 
and  it  was  impossible  to  ascertain  one  secret  without  ascertaining 
others.  .  .  .  What  he  wanted  to  avoid  was  an  article  which  could 
be  used  in  a  roundabout  way  for  irritating  investigation  of  all  possible 
secrets.  Such  matters  did  not  come  within  the  purview  of  the  mili- 
tary terms.  ^ 

He  also  argued  that  the  means  would  not  accomplish 
the  end  desired:  *'he  did  not  think  that  the  German 
chemists  would  allow  their  true  secrets  to  be  discovered." 
There  was  no  way  of  examining  their  minds ! 

After  some  discussion  the  provision  requiring  the  Ger- 
mans to  disclose  the  mode  of  manufacture  of  poison  gases 
used  for  military  purposes  was  adopted:  but  the  pro- 
vision for  allied  inspection  was  eliminated. 

As  to  submarines,  the  Americans  agreed  that  they  had 

'Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Four,  April  28, 


418        WOODROW  \VTLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

no  peace  uses  and  were  willing,  like  the  British,  to  see  them 
all  abolished. 

Lloyd  George  said  that  "it  would  be  better  to  destroy  as 
many  of  these  pests  as  possible."^ 

President  Wilson  said  that  "he  himself  was  opposed  to 
submarines  altogether  and  hoped  the  time  would  come 
when  they  would  be  contrary  to  International  Law.  In 
his  view  they  should  be  regarded  as  outlaws." 

But  the  French  objected  to  this.  They  wanted  the 
submarines  to  increase  their  own  navy. 

The  French  Admiral  de  Bon  said  that  "his  policy  was 
to  keep  the  German  submarines,  of  which  France  had  re- 
ceived some  fifty.     France  had  very  few  of  her  own." 

Here  is  part  of  the  exact  discussion : 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  said  that  he  did  not  think  that  navies  ought 
to  be  strengthened  by  submarines. 

M.  Clemenceau  said  that  if  ever  France  had  another  war  with 
Germany  they  might  be  useful,  although  he  hoped  long  before  that 
they  would  be  obsolete. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  said  he  would  like  to  destroy  all  the  German 
submarines. 

M.  Clemenceau  said  that  France  had  very  few,  whereas  Great 
Britain  had  very  many.^ 

The  French  contention  prevailed  and  the  clause  provid- 
ing that  submarines  "be  destroyed  or  broken  up"  was 
stricken  out. 

Thus,  while  Germany  was  completely  disarmed  in  the 
matter  of  submarines,  the  allied  nations  increased  their 
submarine  fleets.  In  all  these  new  instrumentalities 
the  Peace  Conference  left  the  allied  nations  more  strongly 
armed  than  ever  before — ^although  with  a  pledge  to  Ger- 

^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  February  6. 
'Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Four,  April  25. 


AIRPLANES,  POISON  GAS,  SUBMARINES  419 

many  in  the  preamble  of  the  military  clauses  of  the  Treaty 
and  certain  agreements  in  the  Covenant  of  the  League  of 
Nations  to  take  up  later  the  whole  matter  of  limitation  of 
armaments. 

It  became  crystal  clear  as  these  discussions  developed 
that  everything  depended  upon  point  of  view,  attitude  of 
mind.  If  men  looked  upon  inventions  and  scientific 
appliances  only  from  the  point  of  view  of  war,  then  every- 
thing became  dangerous;  there  must  be  an  attempt  to  cor- 
ner every  contingency  with  a  prohibition,  and  often  a 
perpetual  prohibition  at  that;  with  a  final  reductio  ad 
absurdum  in  trying  to  penetrate  the  secrets  of  men's 
minds.  "Railroad  trains  and  ships,"  as  Wilson  said, 
"horses,"  as  Lansing  said,  thus  became  potential  imple- 
ments of  war — ^and  a  step  further,  scythes,  knives,  stones 
— ^until  nothing  civilized  was  left ! 

What  Wilson  argued,  day  by  day,  patiently  and  per- 
sistently, was  that  the  only  future  hope  of  peace  lay  in  a 
new  attitude  of  mind;  and  an  organization  not  for  war, 
or  to  enforce  prohibitions,  but  for  peace,  and  to  protect 
the  use  of  these  splendid  new  instrumentalities,  the  finest 
scientific  fruits  of  the  human  mind,  for  the  benefit,  not  the 
destruction,  of  civilization. 

Prohibitions  were  not  enough;  there  must  be  construc- 
tive and  creative  effort:  a  cooperative  rather  than  a 
military  spirit;  moral  force  uppermost,  rather  than  armed 
force.  This  he  preached  early  and  late;  and  because  of 
this  conviction,  which  was  as  deep  as  his  nature,  he  stood 
for  setting  up,  at  any  cost,  some  "permanent  instru- 
mentality"— ^the  League  of  Nations — which  mankind, 
when  it  came  out  of  the  obsession  of  war,  might  use  for 
its  new  purposes. 

In  no  respect  has  the  correctness  of  Wilson's  position 
been  more  amply  demonstrated  than  in  its  relation  to  the 


420        WOODROW  ^MLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

new  instrumentalities  of  warfare.  When  the  Washington 
Conference,  with  its  lack  of  a  substitute  for  armed  force 
as  a  guarantee  of  national  security,  approached  such  prob- 
lems as  those  of  submarines  and  poison  gas,  it  found  it- 
self as  helpless  as  the  old  Hague  Conferences  had  been; 
and  its  action  in  regard  to  them  was  about  as  effective. 
It  had  meant  to  keep  off  the  subject  entirely,  but  it  was 
forced  upon  the  attention  of  the  delegates — poison  gas  by 
the  pressure  of  public  opinion,  submarines  by  the  obsti- 
nacy of  France  in  refusing  to  accept  the  ratios  set  by  the 
Hughes  programme.  France's  opposition  to  the  ratio  in 
capital  ships  was  doubtless  inspired  by  amour  propre;  but 
the  same  thing  cannot  be  said  in  regard  to  her  stand  on  the 
subject  of  submarines  and  auxiliary  ships.  The  capital 
ship  is  an  expensive  and  obsolescent  instrument ;  competi- 
tion in  its  field  was  too  costly  and  uncertain  a  business  to 
be  thought  of  practically.  The  submarine  and  aircraft 
are  weapons  of  the  future.  Committed  incorrigibly 
to  the  old  idea  of  security  through  armament,  France  re- 
sisted all  limitations  upon  the  construction  or  employ- 
ment of  these  new  instrumentalities.  When  the  idea 
of  limitations  on  the  construction  of  auxiliary  craft  and 
submarines  had  to  be  abandoned,  the  project  of  an  agree- 
ment to  limit  the  uses  of  submarines  was  introduced  in 
the  shape  of  Elihu  Root's  resolutions.  It  is  hardly  worth 
while  to  stop  to  question  their  effectiveness  or  that  of  the 
agreement  regarding  poison  gas.  Agreements  for  mitigat- 
ing the  horrors  of  war — even  provided  they  are  kept — 
or  agreements  for  reducing  the  burdens  of  armed  peace, 
are  very  far  from  meeting  the  desperate  need  of  mankind 
at  this  crisis  in  its  history.  Other  agencies  of  warfare,  per- 
haps still  more  horrible,  will  be  found  to  replace  those 
renounced.  Limited  forces  can  still  fight  and  can  be  ex- 
panded by  improvised  means.     The  threat  of  the  next,  and 


AIRPLANES,  POISON  GAS,  SUBMARINES  421 

possibly  catastrophic,  war  is  always  with  us  so  long  as  no 
substitute  methods  of  deciding  international  disputes 
are  made  effective,  so  long  as  each  nation  is  left  to  de- 
pend upon  its  own  armed  force  and  its  special  alliances  for 
its  own  security. 


.J 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

The  Use  of  African  and  Asiatic  Soldiers 
IN  Modern  War 

"The  United  States  .  .  .  should  demand  as  its  right,  the 
right  of  civiHzation,  that  .  .  .  milHons  of  men  of  savage 
races  shall  not  be  trained  to  take  part  in  possible  wars  of  civil- 
ized nations.  If  civilization  wants  to  destroy  itself  it  can  do  it 
without  barbarian  help." — General  Tasker  H.  Bliss. 

ONE  of  the  most  vital  problems  coimected  with  the 
limitation  of  armament,  as  it  affects  civilization, 
has  attracted,  since  the  Peace  Conference,  almost 
no  attention .  This  concerns  the  right  of  the  great  nations 
of  the  world,  which  have  in  tutelage  the  weaker  races  of 
Africa  and  Asia,  to  arm  these  natives  and  use  them  as 
soldiers  in  fighting  their  own  wars.  There  were  those  at 
Paris  who  were  profoundly  concerned  over  the  growth  of 
this  ugly  practice;  who  saw  in  the  use  in  the  great  war 
of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  Chinese,  Siamese,  Senegalese, 
Arabs,  and  Sikhs,  a  profound  menace  to  future  civilization. 
Easy  and  cheap  transportation  from  all  parts  of  the  earth 
had  made  it  possible  to  employ  these  troops,  under  the 
command  of  white  officers,  as  never  before.  WTiat  was 
to  prevent  the  spread  of  this  practice.?  And  now  that 
natives  had  been  trained  and  disciplined  in  military 
matters  what  was  to  prevent  their  turning  this  knowledge 
against  their  white  neighbours?  The  use  by  the  French 
of  coloured  troops  in  Germany  after  the  war  closed — which 
the  Germans  resented  as  the  "black  horror  on  the  Rhine" 
— caused  great  bitterness  of  feeling. 

422 


I 


THE  USE  OF  AFRICAN  AND  ASIATIC  SOLDIERS        423 

Leaders  who,  like  General  Smuts  of  South  Africa,  knew 
most  about  the  danger,  were  most  concerned.  He  had 
had  actual  experience  with  what  it  might  mean  in  the 
struggle  to  overcome  the  Germans  in  East  Africa. 

"The* native  Askari  soldiers,  well  trained  and  disciplined 
under  white  German,  officers,  proved  a  very  formidable 
and  effective  force." 

It  was  one  of  the  accepted  ideas  of  the  German  colonial 
enthusiasts  that  great  native  armies  could  be  built  up  in 
German  Africa  which  could  be  used  not  only  in  African 
wars,  but  for  fighting  for  German  causes  elsewhere  in  the 
world.  Herr  Zimmermann  anticipated  that  in  fifty  years 
the  German  colonial  empire  would  have  a  population  of 
50,000,000  blacks  and  500,000  whites,  and  that,  if  properly 
trained,  an  army  of  1,000,000  natives  could  be  mobilized 
at  any  time.  The  control  of  the  seas  by  the  British  fleet 
during  the  great  war  prevented  the  use  of  such  troops  by 
Germany  except  in  Africa  itself,  but  the  French,  who  had 
long  had  a  form  of  compulsory  military  service  in  certain 
parts  of  her  colonial  empire,  did  use  such  troops  largely  on 
or  behind  the  battle  lines  in  Europe,  and  so  did  the  British. 
Up  to  July  1,  1918,  the  French  alone  had  employed  in  the 
great  war  nearly  1,000,000  coloured  troops. 

In  the  African  colonies  taken  from  Germany  there  was 
a  population  of  nearly  13,000,000  natives.  Could  any- 
thing be  done  to  prevent  these  natives  from  being  armed 
by  the  nations  who  were  to  hold  them  as  mandatories.'^ 
Could  any  new  precedent  be  set  for  dealing  with  this 
whole  dangerous  problem? 

Certain  of  the  leaders  at  Paris,  American  and  British, 
had  positive  views  upon  the  subject  and  were  determined 
to  set  up  new  policies  and  prohibitions.  The  history  of 
the  origin  and  development  of  their  programme  is  of  pro- 
found interest  and  importance,  for  it  reveals  the  difficul- 


424         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

ties  which  hedge  about  any  interference  with  the  present 
system. 

President  Wilson  had  set  forth  clearly  two  principles, 
both  of  which  applied  to  the  practice: 

First,  armament  of  all  States  "will  be  reduced  to  the 
lowest  point  consistent  with  domestic  safety."  (Point 
Four  of  the  Fourteen.)  That  is,  troops  were  to  be  raised 
merely  to  maintain  internal  order. 

Second,  the  Powers  which  were  to  have  mandatory 
rights  over  these  undeveloped  peoples  were  to  act  as  trus- 
tees for  them  and  not  to  benefit  from  their  trusts.  If 
troops  were  to  be  raised  in  colonies  they  were  to  be  used 
for  the  benefit  and  protection  of  the  people  of  the  colonies 
and  not  for  the  benefit  of  the  power  that  held  the  man- 
datory. This  he  regarded  as  a  fundamental  American 
principle. 

General  Smuts  took  a  decided  position  before  the 
Peace  Conference  met.  In  his  plan  for  a  league  of 
nations  issued  in  December,  1918,  he  sets  forth  his  idea 
of  the  use  of  native  troops: 

That  the  mandatory  state  .  .  .  shall  form  no  military  forces 
beyond  the  standard  laid  down  by  the  League  for  purposes  of  internal 
police.^ 

It  is  well  known  that  President  Wilson  read  and  was 
greatly  impressed  by  General  Smuts 's  plan  for  a  league  of 
nations,  and  added  to  his  original  draft  of  the  Covenant 
a  number  of  supplementary  articles,  in  which  he  incor- 
porated some  of  General  Smuts's  ideas,  and  this  among 
them;  but  he  made  a  very  important  extension  of  the 
principle.  Under  Smuts's  plan  the  provision  applied 
only  to  territories  of  the  "old  empires"  of  Turkey  and 
Austria-Hungary,   but   the   President   applied   it   to   all 

'See  Volume  III,  Document  11,  for  Smuts's  plan. 


THE  USE  OF  AFRICAN  AND  ASIATIC  SOLDIERS         425 

former  colonies  of  Germany  in  Africa  and  the  Pacific  as 
well,  and  went  a  long  step  further  by  making  a  specific 
assertion  of  the  standard  of  armament  he  had  set  forth 
in  Point  Four  of  the  Fourteen:  "for  the  purpose  of  internal 
police."     His  provision  was: 

The  mandatary  State  or  agency  shall  in  no  case  form  or  maintain 
any  military  or  naval  force  in  excess  of  definite  standards  laid  down 
by  the  League  itself  for  the  purposes  of  internal  police. 

After  the  President  presented  his  draft  of  the  Covenant 
to  the  American  Commissioners  (January  10)  Greneral 
Bliss,  the  American  military  representative,  responded 
(January  14)  with  a  letter  strongly  supporting  and  em- 
phasizing this  provision  of  the  President.^  His  convic- 
tions regarding  the  danger  to  civilization  of  the  practice 
of  arming  African  natives  were  deep. 

It  soon  became  clear  that  the  Americans  and  British 
were  quite  in  agreement  regarding  the  new  policy  as  set 
forth  by  the  President,  at  least  as  it  applied  to  the  former 
German  colonies.  The  problem  of  arming  and  training 
natives  in  the  older  British,  French,  Belgian,  and  Portu- 
guese colonies  in  Africa  and  Asia — including  India — of 
course  never  arose,  although  it  was  remarked  that  if  the 
practice  could  be  prevented  in  the  new  mandatory  colonies 
a  great  step  would  have  been  taken,  with  the  probability 
that  it  would  soon  affect  usages  in  the  older  colonies. 

The  subject  was  first  mentioned  in  the  Council  of  Ten 
(January  24)  by  Lloyd  George.  In  the  course  of  an  argu- 
ment that  Germany  be  deprived  of  all  her  colonies  he  said : 

In  many  cases  the  Germans  had  treated  the  native  populations 
very  badly.  For  instance,  in  Southwest  Africa  they  had  deliberately 
pursued  a  policy  of  extermination.  In  other  parts  of  Africa  they  had 
been  very  harsh,  and  they  had  raised  native  troops  and  encouraged 

^See  Volume  III,  Document  13,  for  General  Bliss's  comments. 


426        WOODROW  \^TLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

these  troops  to  behave  in  a  manner  that  would  even  disgrace  the 
Bolsheviks.  The  French  and  British,  doubtless,  had  also  raised 
native  troops  but  they  had  controlled  them  better. 

There  was  further  discussion  between  the  Americans 
and  British,  and  when  INIr.  Lloyd  George  on  January  30 
brought  in  his  resolution  providing  for  a  mandatory  sys- 
tem for  the  control  of  the  former  German  colonies,  it  went 
even  a  step  further  regarding  armaments  of  natives  and 
included  a  positive  prohibition  of  the  arms  traffic.  Actual 
and  definite  prohibitions  were  inserted. 

The  mandatory  must  .  .  .  guarantee  the  prohibition  of 
.  .  .  the  arms  traffic  .  .  •  and  the  prevention  of  the  es- 
tablishment of  fortifications  or  military  or  naval  bases,  and  of 
the  military  training  of  the  natives  for  other  than  police  purposes 
and  the  defense  of  territories. 

No  sooner  had  this  provision  been  considered  (that  very 
day)  in  the  Council  than  the  French,  arguing  as  usual 
French  security,  began  to  make  objections  and  to  demand 
the  right  to  raise  troops  in  colonies  mandated  to  them. 
In  order  to  show  exactly  what  took  place,  the  entire  de- 
bate from  the  Secret  minutes  is  here  inserted : 

M.  PicHON  said  that  France  could  not  renounce  the  right  of 
raising  volunteers  in  the  countries  under  her  administration,  what- 
ever they  might  be.  The  Germans  had  recognized  the  importance 
of  the  support  France  had  received  from  her  Colonies.  Before 
powerful  American  troops  came  to  aid,  France  had  resisted  with  her 
own  forces  for  a  long  time,  together  with  the  British  Armies,  and  it 
was  certain,  but  for  the  help  she  had  received  from  her  Colonial 
Possessions,  the  situation  would  have  been  very  critical.  It  was 
necessary  that  France  should  be  empowered  to  recruit  not  con- 
scripts, but  volunteers  from  all  colonial  territories  under  her  control. 
That  was  absolutely  necessary  for  her  future  security. 

President  Wilson  enquired  if  this  referred  to  the  territories  con- 
trolled as  mandatory  states  as  well  as  to  the  present  colonies. 

M.  Clemenceau  said  that  the  French  were  the  nearest  neigh- 


THE  USE  OF  AFRICAN  AND  ASIATIC  SOLDIERS        427 

bours  of  Germany,  and  could  be  at  all  times,  as  they  had  been  in  the 
past,  suddenly  attacked.  He  did  not  know  whether  it  was  possible 
to  disarm  Germany,  but  an  attempt  would  be  made  to  do  so.  France 
realised  that  Great  Britain  had  responsibilities  in  all  parts  of  the 
world,  and  could  not  keep  the  whole  of  her  strength  concentrated  at 
one  point.  America  was  far  away,  and  could  not  come  at  once  to  the 
assistance  of  France.  If  the  League  of  Nations  and  the  peace  of  the 
world  were  to  be  established,  it  must  not  begin  by  placing  France  in  a 
perilous  position.  America  was  protected  by  the  whole  breadth  of 
ocean,  and  Great  Britain  by  her  fleet.  If  France  was  not  to  be  per- 
mitted to  raise  volunteers  in  the  territories  under  her  administration, 
the  people  of  France  would  greatly  resent  any  such  arrangement  and 
would  have  a  grievance  against  the  Government. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  pointed  out  that  as  regards  tropical  col- 
onies, at  the  beginning  of  this  war.  Great  Britain  had  native  forces 
in  Uganda  and  Nigeria  and  other  places,  and  the  French  also  had 
forces  in  Senegal  and  other  territories,  but  these  forces  were  intended 
solely  for  the  defense  of  those  territories.  They  had  never  raised, 
armed  and  equipped  great  forces  for  carrying  on  big  offensive  oper- 
ations outside  those  territories. 

M.  Clemenceau  observed  that  nevertheless  the  right  to  raise 
forces  did  exist. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  said  that  there  was  nothing  in  the  clause 
under  review  to  prevent  volunteer  forces  being  raised.  The  words 
used  were:  "For  other  than  police  purposes  and  the  defense  of  terri- 
tory." He  really  thought  those  words  would  cover  the  case  of 
France.  There  was  nothing  in  the  document  which  would  prevent 
her  doing  exactly  the  same  thing  as  she  had  done  before.  What  it  did 
prevent  was  the  kind  of  thing  the  Germans  were  likely  to  do,  namely, 
to  organize  great  black  armies  in  Africa,  to  be  used  for  the  purpose  of 
clearing  everybody  else  out  of  that  country.  That  was  the  avowed 
policy  of  Germany,  and  if  the  same  policy  was  to  be  encouraged 
among  other  nations,  even  though  war  in  Europe  might  be  averted, 
the  same  sort  of  thing  might  in  Africa  occur  as  had  happened  in  the 
17th  and  18th  centuries  in  India  when  France  and  Great  Britain  were 
at  war  there,  while  being  fairly  good  friends  in  Europe.  Great  native 
armies  were  constantly  being  raised  to  fight  against  each  other  in 
India.  There  was  nothing  in  this  document  which  would  prevent 
France  raising  an  army  for  the  defense  of  her  territories. 


428        WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

M.  Clemenceau  said  that  if  France  had  the  right  in  the  event 
of  a  great  war  to  raise  troops  in  African  territories  under  her  control, 
he  would  ask  for  nothing  more. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  replied  that  France  would  have  exactly  the 
same  rights  she  had  previously  enjoyed.  The  resolution  proposed  by 
him  was  only  intended  to  prevent  a  mandatory  from  drilling  all  the 
natives  and  from  raising  great  armies. 

M.  Clemenceau  said  that  he  did  not  want  to  do  that.  All  that 
he  wished  was  that  the  matter  should  be  made  quite  clear,  and  he 
did  not  want  anybody  to  come  and  tell  him  afterwards  that  he  had 
broken  away  from  the  agreement.  If  this  clause  meant  that  France 
had  the  right  to  raise  troops  in  the  African  territories  under  her  con- 
trol in  case  of  a  general  war,  he  was  satisfied. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  said  that  so  long  as  M.  Clemenceau  did  not 
train  big  nigger  armies  for  the  purposes  of  aggression,  that  was  all  the 
clause  was  intended  to  guard  against. 

M.  Clemenceau  said  that  he  did  not  want  to  do  that.  He 
therefore  understood  that  Mr,  Lloyd  George's  interpretation  was 
adopted. 

President  Wilson  said  that  Mr.  Lloyd  George's  interpretation 
was  consistent  with  the  phraseology. 

M.  Clemenceau  said  that  he  was  quite  satisfied.^ 

It  was  not  surprising  that,  as  a  result  of  this  colloquy, 
the  secretariat  should  have  been  puzzled  as  to  what  was 
really  meant.  The  poor  secretaries  often  had  a  time  of 
it  after  the  session  was  over  in  trying  to  set  down  the 
result  of  the  discussion,  and  often  the  same  diversities 
which  had  parted  the  heads  of  States  were  found  among 
the  secretaries.  In  this  case  they  produced  the  following 
masterpiece : 

It  was  agreed  that  the  acceptance  of  the  resolutions  proposed  by 
Mr.  Lloyd  George  would  not  prevent  mandatories  from  raising 
volunteers  in  the  territories  under  their  control  for  the  defense  of  their 
countries  in  the  event  of  their  being  compelled  to  attack.^ 

'Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Ten,  January  30. 

'^The  final  phrase  is  probably  garbled  in  the  mimeographed  version  of  the  Minutes. 
It  should  doubtless  read  "being  attacked,"  or  "being  compelled  to  meet  attack." 
Even  so,  the  conclusion  remains  vague  enough. 


THE  USE  OF  AFRICAN  AND  ASIATIC  SOLDIERS         429 

"WTiile  Clemenceau  had  said  he  was  "quite  satisfied" 
it  was  not  truly  the  case.  The  wording  of  the  clause  was 
still  there;  and  it  did  not  at  all  satisfy  the  French.  They 
wanted  definite  assurances  of  their  right  to  raise  and 
train  Negro  troops  to  use  in  Europe  or  elsewhere  if  neces- 
sary. 

Consequently,  when  the  subject  came  up  for  discussion 
in  the  League  of  Nations  Commission  (of  which  President 
Wilson  was  Chairman)  over  the  provision  in  the  Covenant 
prohibiting  the  raising  of  Negro  armies  by  mandatory 
States  the  French  again  endeavoured  to  satisfy  their  de- 
mands. On  February  8  General  Smuts  had  introduced  an 
article  for  the  Covenant  regarding  the  mandatory  system 
with  a  clause  in  it  exactly  like  that  to  which  the  French 
had  objected  in  the  Council  of  Ten  on  January  30.  Leon 
Bourgeois,  the  French  representative  on  the  Commission, 
also  introduced  a  substitute  amendment,  in  which  all  ref- 
erence, significantly,  to  raising  troops  among  the  savage 
or  half -civilized  population  of  the  former  German  colonies 
was  omitted.  However,  it  was  the  Smuts  wording  that 
was  accepted  and  incorporated  in  the  draft  of  the  Cove- 
nant which  was  to  go  into  the  Treaty.  All  the  delegates 
considered  the  matter  settled — except  the  French.  They 
still  worried  about  it. 

Three  days  before  the  Treaty  was  presented  to  the  Ger- 
mans, on  May  4,  while  everything  was  in  great  confusion 
and  every  effort  was  being  made  to  get  the  Treaty  printed, 
Clemenceau,  without  consulting  either  his  colleagues  of 
the  Council  of  Four  or  the  members  of  the  League  of 
Nations  Commission  which  had  the  Covenant  in  charge, 
sent  instructions  to  the  Drafting  Committee,  through  the 
French  member  of  it — ^M.  Fromageot — ^to  change  the 
wording  of  the  Covenant  so  as  to  permit,  specifically, 
mandatories  of  colonies  to  raise  troops,  not  only  for  main- 


430         WOODROW  WILSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

taining  internal  order,  but  to  fight,  if  necessary,  for  the 
mother  country. 

Although  nothing  emerged  into  the  daylight  of  publicity 
regarding  this  action  of  the  French,  it  caused  considerable 
commotion  among  those  who  were  concerned.  It  was 
brought  at  once  to  the  attention  of  Colonel  House  and 
Lord  Robert  Cecil,  American  and  British  members  of  the 
League  of  Nations  Commission,  and  they  made  efforts  to 
have  the  former  accepted  wording  restored.  But  the 
French  argued  that  their  interpretation  was  the  true  one 
and  they  proposed  to  have  it  down  in  black  and  white. 
Colonel  House  argued  with  them  (as  he  told  me  afterward) 
that  it  would  mean  that  if  France  and  Britain  should  go 
to  war  each  of  them  might  arm  Arab  or  Negro  troops  for 
fighting  the  other.  Thus  Arabs  might  be  slaughtering 
Arabs  and  Negroes,  Negroes,  for  no  cause  of  their  own,  but 
for  the  ambitions  or  greeds  or  fears  of  distant  States  of 
which  they  knew  nothing.  But  argument  proved  useless, 
and  the  whole  matter  had  to  be  brought  up  to  President 
Wilson  and  INIr.  Lloyd  George,  and  on  IVIay  5  it  came  out 
into  the  open  discussion  of  the  Three  (for  Orlando  was 
then  absent  in  Italy).  A  report  from  the  Drafting  Com- 
mittee was  read  by  the  Secretary,  Sir  Maurice  Hankey: 

The  alteration  in  Article  22  [of  the  Covenant — dealing  with 
colonies  and  mandatories]  was  made  under  instructions  given 
personally  to  M.  Fromageot  by  M.  Clemenceau,  the  President  of  the 
Conference. 

The  following  conversation  then  took  place: 

M.   Clemenceau   said  that   it   was   very   important  to  France 

that  some  words  should  be  put  in  to  enable  her  to  utilize  native 

troops  for  the  defence  of  French  territory  just  as  she  had  done  in  this 

war.     He  was  not  responsible  for  the  actual  wording  employed. 

(President   Wilson   drew   attention   to   the    previous   discussion 


THE  USE  OF  AFRICAN  AND  ASIATIC  SOLDIERS         431 

which  had  taken  place  on  this  subject  at  the  Council  of  Ten  on 
January  30th,  when  it  had  been  agreed  that  precisely  similar  word- 
ing in  the  resolutions  on  the  subject  of  mandates,  namely,  "for 
other  than  police  purposes  and  the  defense  of  territory,"  would 
cover  France's  needs. ^ 

It  was  decided  not  to  use  the  French  wording  but  to 
restore  the  clause  as  it  originally  appeared  in  the  Covenant. 
And  so  it  was  finally  written  down  in  the  Treaty. 

But  the  French  were  still  determined,  and  have  carried 
their  contention  into  the  commissions  set  up  for  the 
working  out  of  the  provisions  of  the  mandatories  and  into 
the  League  of  Nations.  In  all  mandatory  arrangements 
for  colonies  taken  over  by  the  British  and  the  Belgians 
the  prohibitions  according  to  Article  XXII  are  adopted 
almost  in  the  wording  of  the  Covenant,  but  when  the 
draft  for  the  French  mandates  for  Togoland  and  the 
Cameroons  was  presented  to  the  Council  of  the  League 
of  Nations  on  December  20, 1920,  the  following  provision 
was  included  in  Article  III : 

It  is  understood,  however,  that  the  troops  thus  raised  [in  French 
Togoland  and  the  Cameroons]  may,  in  the  event  of  a  general  war,  be 
utilized  to  repulse  an  attack,  or  for  defense  of  territory  outside  that 
over  which  the  mandate  is  administered. 

This  controverted  the  provision  already  agreed  to  in 
the  Covenant,  but  it  represented  the  French  contention 
from  the  very  beginning,  and  is  an  example  of  the  tenacity 
with  which  the  French  pursued  at  Paris,  and  since,  the 
realities  of  their  programme.  "When  the  provision  quoted 
came  under  the  critical  eye  of  the  Secretariat  of  the  League 
of  Nations  at  Geneva,  they  appended  in  the  oflBcial  record 
this  comment: 


^Secret  Minutes,  Council  of  Four,  May  5. 


432        WOODROW  ^^MLSON  AND  WORLD  SETTLEMENT 

.  .  .  the  Secretariat  quotes  the  clauses  in  Article  XXII  of  the 
Covenant  which  seem  to  be  inconsistent  with  the  foregoing  permission. 

These  proposed  drafts  of  mandatories  have  not  yet 
been  accepted  by  the  League  of  Nations;  and  the  matter 
stands,  therefore,  in  abeyance.  In  the  meantime,  the 
process  of  militarizing  Africa  goes  on — if  not  openly  in  the 
former  German  colonies,  certainly  in  the  other  colonies. 

One  recalls  the  Roman  Empire,  in  its  declining  days, 
conscious  of  being  the  exponent  of  some  of  the  highest 
aspects  of  civilization,  calling  in  the  resources  of  jungle 
savagery  to  defend  her  against  her  stronger,  cruder,  more 
virile  neighbours.  The  Romans  themselves,  depleted 
and  debilitated,  posted  their  barbarian  legions  on  the 
European  frontiers — Ethiopians,  Arabs,  Persians,  and 
what-not — so  that  the  cults  of  Isis  from  Africa  and  of 
Mithra  from  Asia  pushed  their  altars  beyond  the  Rhine 
and  the  English  Channel.  But  such  forces,  called  in  from 
without,  not  bred  steadily  from  within,  failed  to  save  the 
Roman  Empire,  and  rather  hastened  its  decline. 

END  OF  VOLUME  I. 


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