L ffJ
CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
3 1924 064 023 900
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The Peace Conference
The Peace Conference
: By Dr. E. J. Dillon :
Jinthor of " The Eclipse of Russia," etc.
LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO.
PATERNOSTER ROW
t'x
'HA.r'
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^ra^S. -fy^^^^ ^^f ^)Sll^l % UiS
TO
E. L. DOHENY
IN REMEMBRANCE OF INTERESTING MEETINGS ON -HISTORIC
OCCASIONS IN BOSTON. NEW YORK, PARIS
AND LONDON
THESE PAGES ARE INSCRIBED
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. — ^The Citt of thb Conferencb.
II. — Signs of the Times
III.— The Delegates
IV. — Censorship and Secrecy
V. — ^AiMS and Methods
VI. — ^The Lesser States.
VII. — ^Poland's Outlook in the Future
VIII.— Italy
IX.— Japan
X. — Attitude towards Russia
XI. — ^Bolshevism ....
XII. — How Bolshevism was fostered
XIII. — Sidelights on the Treaty
XIV. — ^The Treaty with Germany .
XV. — ^The Treaty with Bulgaria .
XVI. — The Covenant and Minorities
Index
page
I
38
49
99
115
156
224
231
273
292
320
340
347
387
395
399
437
FOREWORD
It is almost superfluous to say that this book does not claim to be a
history, however summary, of the Peace Conference, seeing that such
a work was made sheer impossible by the chief Delegates themselves
when they decided to dispense with records of their conversations
and debates. It is only a sketch : a sketch of the problems which
the war created or rendered more acute ; of the conditions under
which they cropped up ; of the simplicist ways in which they were
conceived by the distinguished politicians who volunteered to solve
them ; of the Delegates' natural limitations and electioneering commit-
ments and of the secret influences by which they were swayed ; of
the peoples' needs and expectations ; of the unwonted procedure
adopted by the Conference and of the fateful consequences to the
world of its decisions.
In dealing with all those matters I aimed at impartiality, which
is an unattainable ideal, but I trust that sincerity and detachment
have brought me reasonably close to it. Having no pet theories of
my own to champion, my principal standard of judgment is derived
from the law of causality.
The surest touchstone by which to test the capacity and the achieve-
ments of the world-legislators is their attitude towards Russia in the
political domain and towards the labour problem in the economic
sphere. And in neither case was their action or inaction the out-
come of statesmanlike ideas, or, indeed, of any higher consideration
than that of evading the central issue and transmitting the problem
to the League of Nations or some other body. The results are manifest
to all.
xii FOREWORD
The continuity of human progress depends upon labour, and it
is becoming more and more doubtful whether the civilized races of
mankind can be reckoned on to supply it for long on conditions akin
to those which have in various forms prevailed ever since the institu-
tions of ancient times. If this forecast should prove correct, the only
alternative to a break in the continuity of civilization is the frank
recognition of the principle that certain inferior races are destined
to serve the cause of mankind in those capacities for which alone they
are qualified and to readjust social institutions to this idea.
In the meanwhile the Conference has transformed Europe into a
seething mass of mutually hostile States powerless to face the economic
competition of their overseas rivals and has left the very elements
of society in flux.
E. J. Dillon.
THE PEACE CONFERENCE
CHAPTER I
THE CITY OF THE CONFERENCE
THE choice of Paris for the historic Peace Conference was an
afterthought. The Anglo-Saxon Governments first fav-
oured a neutral country as the most appropriate meeting-ground
for the world's peace-makers. Holland was mentioned only to
be eliminated without discussion, so obvious and decisive were
the objections. French Switzerland came next in order, was
actually fixed upon, and for a time held the field. Lausanne
was the city first suggested and nearly chosen. There was a
good deal to be said for it on its own merits, and in its suburb,
Ouchy, the treaty had been drawn up which terminated the war
between Italy and Turkey. But misgivings were expressed as
to its capacity to receive and entertain the formidable peace
armies without whose co-opeiration the machinery for stopping
all wars could not well be fabricated. At last Geneva was
fixed upon, and so certain were influential delegates of the
ratification of their choice by all the Allies, that I felt justified
in telegraphing to Geneva to have a house hired for six months
in that picturesque city.
But the influential delegates had reckoned without the French,
who in these matters were far and away the most influential.
Was it not in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, they asked, that
Teuton militarism had received its most powerful impulse ?
And did not poetic justice, which was never so needed as in these
evil days, ordain that the chartered destroyer who had first
I
The Peace Conference
seen the light of day in that hall should also be destroyed
there ? Was this not in accordance with the eternal fitness of
things? Whereupon the matter-of-fact Anglo-Saxon mind,
unable to withstand the force of this argument and accustomed
to give way on secondary matters, assented, and Paris was
accordingly fixed upon. . . .
" Paris herself again," tourists remarked, who had not been
there since the fateful month when hostiUties began— meaning
that something of the wealth and luxury of bygone days was
venturing to display itself anew as an afterglow of the epoch
whose sun was setting behind banks of thunder clouds. And
there was a grain of truth in the remark. The Ville LumiSre
was crowded as it never had been before. But it was mostly
strangers who were within her gates. In the throng of Anglo-
Saxon warriors and cosmopolitan peace-lovers following the
trailing skurts of destiny, one might with an effgrt discover a
Parisian now and again. But they were few and far between.
They and their principal European guests made some feeble
attempts to vie with the Vienna of 1814-1815 in elegance and
taste if not in pomp and splendour. But the general effect was
marred by the element of the nouveaux-riches and nouveaux-
pauvres which was prominent, if not predominant. A few of the
great and would-be great ladies outbade each other in the effort
to renew the luxury and revive the grace of the past. But the
atmosphere was numbing, their exertions half-hearted, and the
smile of youth and beauty was cold like the sheen of winter ice.
The shadow of death hung over the institutions and survivals
of the various civiUzations and epochs which were being dis-
solved in the common melting-pot, and even the man in the
street was conscious of its chilUng influence. Life in the capital
grew agitated, fitful, superficial, unsatisfying. Its gaiety was
forced — something between a challenge to the Destroyer and
a sad farewell to the past and present. Men wer6 instinctively
aware that the morrow was fraught with bitter surprises, and
they deliberately adopted the maxim : Let us eat and drink, for
to-morrow we die. None of these people bore on their phy-
siognomies the dignified impress of the olden time barring a
2
The City of the Conference
few aristocratic figures from the Faubourg St. Germain, who
looked as though they had only to don the perukes and the
distinctive garb of the eighteenth century to sit down to table
with Voltaire and the Marquise du Chatelet. Here and there,
indeed, a coiffure, a toilet, the bearing, the gait, or the peculiar
grace with which a robe was worn, reminded one that this or
that fair lady came of a family whose life-story in the days
of yore, was one of the tributaries to the broad stream of Euro-
pean history. But on closer acquaintanceship, especially at
conversational tournaments, one discovered that Nature, con-
stant in her methods, distributes more gifts of beauty than of
intellect.
Festive banquets, sinful suppers, long spun-out lunches, were
as frequent and at times as Lucullan as in the days of the Regency.
The outer, coarser attributes of luxury abounded in palatial
restaurants, hotels and private mansions ; but the refinement,
the grace, the brilliant conversation even of the Paris of the
Third Empire were seen to be subtle branches of a lost art.
The people of the Armistice were weary and apprehensive —
weary of the war, weary of politics, weary of the worn-out
framework of existence, and filled with a vague, nameless appre-
hension of the unknown. They feared that in the chaotic slough
into which they had fallen they had not yet touched bottom.
None the less, with the exception of fervent Catholics and a
number of earnest sectarians, there were few genuine seekers
after anything essentially better.
Not only did the general atmosphere of Paris undergo radical
changes, together with its population, but the thoroughfares,
many of them officially changed their names since the outbreak
of the war.
The Paris of the Conference ceased to be the capital of France.
It became a vast cosmopoHtan caravanserai teeming with
unwonted aspects of life and turmoil, filled with curious samples
of the races, tribes and tongues of four continents who came
to watch and wait for the mysterious to-morrow. The intensity
of life there was sheer oppressive : to the tumultuous striving of
the living were added the silent influences of the dead. For it
3 I*
The Peace Conference
was also a trysting-place for the ghosts of sovereignties and
states, militarisms and racial ambitions which were permitted
to wander at large until their brief twilight should be swallowed
up in night. The dignified Turk passionately pleaded for
Constantinople, and cast an imploring look on the lone Armenian
whose relatives he had massacred, and who was then waiting for
political resurrection. Persian delegates wandered about like
souls in pain, waiting to be admitted through the portals of the
Conference Paradise. Beggared Croesus passed famishing
LucuUus in the street, and once mighty Viziers shivered, under
threadbare garments in the biting frost as they hurried over
the crisp February snow. Waning and waxing Powers, vacant
thrones, decaying dominations had, each of them, their accusers,
special pleaders and judges, in this multitudinous world-centre
on which tragedy, romance and comedy rained down potent
spells. For the Conference city was also the clearing-house of
the Fates, where the accounts of a whole epoch, the deeds and
misdeeds of an exhausted civiUzation were to be balanced and
squared.
Here strange yet famiUar figures, survivals from the past,
started up at every hand's turn and greeted one with smiles or
sighs. Men on whom I last set eyes when we were boys at school,
playing football together in the field or preparing lessons in the
school-room, would stop me in the street on their way to repre-
sent nations or peoples whose lives were out of chime, or to
inaugurate the existence of new republics. One face I shall
never forget. It was that of the self-made temporary dictator
of a little country whose importance was dwindling to the
dimensions of a footnote in the history of the century. I had
been acquainted with him personally in the halcyon day of his
transient glory. Like his picturesque land,, he won the immor-
tality of a day, was courted and subsidized by competing states
in turn, and then suddenly cast aside like a sucked orange.
Then he sank into the depths of squalor. He was eloquent,
resourceful, imaginative and brimful of the poetry of untruth.
One day through the asphalt streets of Paris he shuffled along
in the procession of the doomed, with wan face and sunken eyea
4
The City of the Conference
wearing a tragically mean garb. And soon after I learned that
he had vanished unwept into eternal oblivion.
An Arabian Nights' touch was imparted to the dissolving
panorama by strange visitants from Tartary and Kurdistan, Corea
and Aderbeijan, Armenia, Persia and the Hedjaz — men with
patriarchal beards and scimitar-shaped noses, and others from
desert and oasis, from Samarcand and Bokhara. Turbans and
fezzes, sugar-loaf hats and head-gear resembling episcopal
mitres, old mihtary uniforms devised for the embryonic armies
of new states on the eve of perpetual peace, snowy-white bur-
nouses, flowing mantles, and graceful garments like the Roman
toga, contributed to create an atmosphere of dreamy unreality
in the city where the grimmest of realities were being faced and
coped with.
Then came the men of wealth, of intellect, of industrial enter-
prise, and the seed-bearers of the ethical new ordering, members
of economic committees from the United States, Britain, Italy,
Poland, Russia, India and Japan, representatives of naphtha
industries and far-off coal mines, pilgrims, fanatics and char-
latans from all climes, priests of all religions, preachers of every
doctrine, who mingled with princes, field-marshals, statesmen,
anarchists, builders-up and pullers-down. All of them burned
with desire to be near to the crucible in which the poUtical and
social systems of the world were to be melted and recast. Every
day, in my walks, in my apartment, or at restaurants, I met
emissaries from lands and peoples whose very names had seldom
been heard of before in the West. A delegation from the Pont-
Euxine Greeks called on me, and discoursed of their ancient
cities of Trebizond, Samsoun, TripoH, Kerassund, in which I
resided many years ago, and informed me that they, too, desired
to become welded into an independent Greek Republic, and had
come to have their claims allowed. The Albanians were repre-
sented by my old friend Turkhan Pasha, on the one hand, and
by my friend Essad Pasha on the other — the former desirous of
Italy's protection, the latter demanding complete independence.
Chinamen, Japanese, Coreans, Hindus, Kirghizes, Lesghiena,
Circassians, Mingrelians, Buryats, Malays and Negroes and
5
The Peace Conference
Negroids from Africa and America were among the tribes and
tongues foregathered in Paris to watch the rebuilding of the
political world system and to see where they " came in."
One day I received a visit from an Armenian Deputation;
its chief was described on his visiting-card as President of the
Armenian RepubHc of the Caucasus. When he was shown into
my apartment in the Hotel Vendome, I recognized two of its
members as old acquaintances with whom I had occasional
intercourse in Erzeroum, Kipri Keui, and other places during
the Armenian massacres of the year 1895. We had not met
since then. They revived old memories, completed for me
the hfe-stories of several of our common friends and acquaint-
ances, and narrated interesting episodes of local history. And
having requested my co-operation, the President and his col-
leagues left me and once more passed out of my life.
Another actor on the world stage whom I had encountered
more than once before was the " heroic " King of Montenegro.
He often crossed my path during the Conference, and set me
musing on the marvellous ups and downfe of human existence.
This potentate's hfe offers a rich field of research to the psycho-
logist. I had watched it myself at various times and with curious
results. For I had met him in various European capitals
during the past thirty years, and before the time when Tsar
Alexander III. pubUcly spoke of him as Russia's only friend.
King Nikita owes such success in life as he can look back on with
satisfaction to his adaptation of St. Paul's maxim of being all
things to all men. Thus in St. Petersburg he was a good Russian,
in Vienna a patriotic Austrian, in Rome a sentimental Italian.
He was also a warrior, a poet after his own fashion, a money-
getter and a speculator on 'Change. His alleged martial feats
and his wily, diplomatic moves ever since the first Balkan war
abound in surprises, and would repay close investigation. The
ease with which the Austrians captured Mount Lovtchen and
his capital made a lasting impression on those of his AUies who
were acquainted with the story, the consequences of which he
could not foresee. What everybody seemed to know was that
if the Teutons had defeated the Entente, King Nikita's son
6
The City of the Conference
Mirko, who had settled down for the purpose in Vienna, would
have been set on the throne in place of his father by the Aus-
trians ; whereas if the AlUes should win, the worldly-wise monarch
would have retained his crown as their champion. But these
well-laid plans went all agley. Prince Mirko died and King
Nikita was deposed. For a time he resided at a hotel a few
houses from me, and I passed him now and again as he was on
his way to plead his lost cause before the distinguished
wreckers of thrones and regimes.
It seemed as though in order to provide Paris with a cosmo-
politan population, the world were drained of its rulers, of its
prosperous and luckless financiers, of its high and low adven-
turers, of its tribe of fortune-seekers and its pushing men and
women of every description. And the result was an odd blend
of classes and individuals worthy, it may be, of the new demo-
cratic era, but unprecedented. It was welcomed as of good
augury, for instance, that in the stately Hotel Majestic, where
the spokesmen of the British Empire had their residence,
monocled diplomatists mingled with spry typewriters, smart
amanuenses, and even with bright-eyed chambermaids at the
evening dances.* The British Premier himself occasionally
witnessed the cheering spectacle with manifest pleasure. Self-
made statesmen, scions of fallen dynasties, ex-premiers and
ministers, who formerly swayed the fortunes of the world,
whom one might have imagined capaces imperii nisi imper assent,
were now the unnoticed inmates of unpretending hotels. Am-
bassadors whose most trivial utterances had once been listened
to with concentrated attention, sued days and weeks for an
audience of the greater Plenipotentiaries, and some of them sued
in vain. Russian diplomatists were refused permission to
travel in France, or were compelled to undergo more than
average discomfort and delay there. More than once I sat
down to lunch or dinner with brilliant commensals, one of whom
was understood to have made away with a well-known person-
age, in order to rid the State of a bad administrator, and another
* Cf. Daily Mail (Paris edition], 12th March, 1919.
The Peace Conference
had, at a secret Vehmgericht in Turkey, condemned a friend of
mine, now a friend of his, to be assassinated.
In Paris, this temporary capital of the worid, one felt the reper-
cussion of every event, every incident of moment wheresoever
it might have occurred. To reside there while the Conference
was sitting was to occupy a comfortable box in the vastest
theatre the mind of men has ever conceived. From this rare
coign of vantage one could witness soul-gripping dramas of
human history, the happenings of years being compressed
within the limits of days. The revolution in Portugal, the
massacre of Armenians, Bulgaria's atrocities, the slaughter of
the inhabitants of Saratoff and Odessa, the revolt of the Coreans
— all produced their effects in Paris, where of&cial and unofficial
exponents of the aims and ambitions, religions and interests
that unite or divide mankind were continually coming or
going, working above ground or burrowing beneath the surface.
It was within a few miles of the place where I sat at table
with the brilliant company alluded to above that a few indivi-
duals of two different nationalities, one of them bearing, it was
said, a well-known name, hatched the plot that sent Portugal's
strong man. President Sidonio Paes, to his last account, and
plunged that ill-starred land into chaotic confusion. The plan
was discovered by the Portuguese Military Attach6, who warned
the President himself and the War Minister. But Sidonio Paes,
quixotic and foolhardy, refused to take or brook precautions.
A few weeks later the assassin, firing three shots, had no difficulty
in taking aim, but none of them took effect. The reason was
interesting : So determined were the conspirators to leave
nothing to chance, they had steeped the cartridges in a poisonous
preparation, whereby they injured the mechanism of the
revolver, which, in consequence, hung fire. But the adversaries
of the reform movement which the President had inaugurated
again tried and planned another attempt, and Sidonio Paes,
who would not be taught prudence, was duly shot, and his
admirable work undone* by a band of semi-Bolshevists.
Less than six months later it was rumoured that a number
• On i8th December, 1918.
8
The City of the Conference
of specially prepared bombs from a certain European town had
been sent to Moscow for the speedy removal of Lenin. The
casual way in which these and kindred matters were talked of
gave one the measure of the change that had come over the
world since the outbreak of the war. There was nobody left
in Europe whose death, violent or peaceful, would have made
much of an impression on the dulled sensibilities of the reading
public. All values had changed, and that of human life had
fallen low.
To follow these swiftly-passing episodes, occasionally glancing
behind the scenes, during the pauses of the acts, and watch the
unfolding of the world drama, was thrillingly interesting. To
note the dubious source, the chance occasion of a grandiose
project of world policy, and to see it started on its shuffling
course, was a revelation in politics and psychology, and reminded
one of the saying mistakenly attributed to the Swedish Chan-
cellor Oxenstjern : " Quam parva sapieniia regitur mundus."*
The wire-pullers were not always the Plenipotentiaries.
Among those were also outsiders of various conditions, some-
times of singular ambitions, who were generally free from con-
ventional prejudices and conscientious scruples. As travelling
to Paris was greatly restricted by the Governments of the world,
many of these unofficial delegates had come in capacities widely
differing from those in which they intended to act. I confess
I was myself taken in by more than one of these secret emissaries,
whom I was innocently instrumental in bringing into close
touch with the human levers they had come to press. I actually
went to the trouble of obtaining for one of them valuable data
on a subject which did not interest him in the least, but which
he pretended he had travelled several thousand miles to study.
A zealous prelate, whose business was believed to have something
to do with the future of a certain branch of the Christian Church
in the East, in reality, held a brief for a wholly different set of
interests in the West. Some of these envoys hoped to influence
decisions of the Conference, and they considered they had suc-
ceeded when they got their points of view brought to the favour-
* " With what little wisdom the world is governed."
9
The Peace Conference
able notice of certain of its delegates. What surprised me
was the ease with which several of these interlopers moved
about, although few of them spoke any language but their
own.
Collectivities and religious and political associations, including
that of the Bolshevists, were represented in Paris during the
Conference. I met one of the Bolshevists, a bright youth, who
was a-^ veritable apostle. He occupied a post which, despite
its apparent insignificance, put him occasionally in possession
of useful information withheld from the public, which he was
wont to communicate to his political friends. His knowledge of
languages and his remarkable intelligence had probably attracted
the notice of his superiors, who can have had no suspicion of
his leanings, much less of his proselytizing activity. However
this may have been, he knew a good deal of what was going on
at the Conference, and he occasionally had insight into docu-
ments of a certain interest. He was a seemingly honest and
enthusiastic Bolshevik, who spread the doctrine with apostolic
zeal guided by the wisdom of the serpent. He was ever ready
to comment on events, but before opening his mind fully to a
stranger on the subject next to his heart, he usually felt his way,
and only when he had grounds for believing that the fortress
was not impregnable did he open his batteries. Even among
the initiated, few would suspect the role played by this young
proselytizer within one of the strongholds of the Conference,
so naturally and unobtrusively was the work done. I may
add that luckily he had no direct intercourse with the dele-
gates.
Of all the collectivities whose interests were furthered at the
Conference, the Jews had perhaps the most resourceful and
certainly the most influential exponents. There were Jews
from Palestine, from Poland, Russia, the Ukraine, Roumania,
Greece, Britain, Holland and Belgium ; but the largest and
most brilliant contingent was sent by the United States. Their
principal mission, with which every fair-minded man sympathized
heartily, was to secure for their kindred in Eastern Europe
rights equal to those of the populations in whose midst they
10
The City of^the Conference
reside.* And to the credit of the Poles, Roumanians and
Russians, who were to be constrained to remove all the existing
disabilities, they enfranchised the Hebrew elements spon-
taneously. But the Western Jews, who championed their
Eastern brothers, proceeded to demand a further concession
which many of their own co-religionists hastened to disclaim
as dangerous — a kind of autonomy which Roumanian, Polish
£uid Russian statesmen, as well as many of their Jewish feUow-
subjects, regard as tantamount to the creation of a state within
the state. Whether this estimate is true or erroneous, the con-
cessions asked for were given, but the supplementary treaties
ensuring the protection of minorities are believed to have little
chance of being executed, and may, it is feared, provoke mani-
festations of elemental passions in the countries in which they
are to be applied.
Twice every day, before and after lunch, one met the " auto-
crats," the world's statesmen whose names were in every mouth
— the wise men, who would have been much wiser than they
were if only they had credited their friends and opponents with
a reasonable measure of political wisdom. These individuals,
in bowler hats, sweeping past in sumptuous motors, as rarely
seen on foot as Roman cardinals, were the destroyers of thrones,
the carvers of continents, the arbiters of empires, the fashioners
of the new heaven and the new earth — or were they only the flies
on the wheel of circumstance, to whom the world was unaccount-
ably becoming a riddle ?
This commingling of civilizations and types brought together
in Paris by a set of unprecedented conditions was fuU of interest
* " Mr. Bernard Richards, Secretary of the delegation from the American
Jewish Congress to the Peace Conference, expressed much satisfaction with
the work done in Paris for the protection of Jewish rights and the furtherance of
the interests of other minorities involved in the peace settlement." (The New
York Herald, 20th July, 1919). How successful was the influence of the Jewish
community at the Peace Conference may be inferred from the following : " Mr.
Henry H. Rosenfelt, Director of the American Jewish Relief Committee, an-
nounces that all New York agencies engaged in Jewish relief work will join in a
united drive in New York in December to raise $7,500,000 (^1,500,000] to provide
clothing, food and medicines for the 6,000,000 Jews throughout Eastern Europe,
as well as to make possible a comprehensive programme for their complete rehabilita-
tion. — American Radio News Service." Cf. Daily Mail, 19th August, 1919.
n
The Peace Conference
and instruction to the observer privileged to meet them at dose
quarters. The average observer, however, had little chance o£
conversing with them, for, as these foreigners had no common
meeting-place, they kept mostly among their own folk. Only
now and again did three or four members of different, races^
when they chanced to speak some common language, get an
opportunity of. enjoying their leisure together. A friend of mine,
a highly-gifted Frenchman of the fine old type, a descendant
of Talleyrand, who was born a hundred and fifty years too late,
opened his hospitable house once a week to the Slite of the world,
and partially met the pressing demand.
To the gaping tourist the Ville Lumi^re resembled nothing
so much as a huge world-fair, with enormous caravanserais,
gigantic booths, gaudy merry-go-rounds, squaUd taverns and
huge inns. Every place of entertainment was crowded, and
congregations patiently awaited their turn in the streets, unde-
terred by rain or wind or snow, offering absurdly high prices
for scant accommodation and disheartened at having their offers
refused. Extortion was rampant and profiteering went un-
punished. Foreigners, mainly American and British, could be
seen wandering, portmanteau in hand, from post to pillar,
anxiously seeking where to lay their heads, and made desperate
by failure, fatigue and nightfall. The cost of living which
harassed the bulk of the people was fast becoming the stumbling-
block of governments and the most powerful lever of revolu-
tionaries. The chiefs of the peace armies resided in sumptuous
hotels, furnished luxuriously in dubious taste, flooded after
sundown with dazzling light, and filled by day with the buzz of
idle chatter, the shuffling of feet, the banging of doors and the
ringing of bells. Music and dancing enlivened the inmates
when their day's toil was over and time had to be killed. Thus,
within one could find anxious deliberation and warm debate,
without noisy revel and vulgar brawl. " Fate's a fiddler, life's
a dance."
To few of those visitors did Paris seem what it really was — a
nest of golden dreams, a mist of memories, a seed-plot of hopes,
a storehouse of time's menaces.
13
The City of the Conference
The Paris Conference and the Congress of Vienna.
There were no solemn pageants, no impressive ceremonies, such
as those that rejoiced the hearts of the Viennese in 1814-1815
until the triumphal march of the Allied troops.
The Vienna of Congress-days was transformed into a paradise
of delights by a briUiant Court which pushed hospitality to
the point of lavishness. In the Burg alone were two Emperors,
two Empresses, four Kings, one Queen, two Crown-Princes, two
Arch-Duchesses and three Princes. Every day the Emperor's
table cost 50,000 gulden — every Congress day cost him ten
times that sum. Galaxies of Europe's eminent personages
flocked to the Austrian capital, taking with them their Ministers,
secretaries, favourites and " confidential agents." So eager were
these world-reformers to enjoy themselves, that the Court did not
go into mourning for Queen Marie Caroline of Naples, the last
of Marie Theresa's daughters. Her death was not even an-
nounced officially lest it should trouble the festivities of the
jovial peace-makers !
The Paris of the Conference, on the other hand, was democratic,
with a strong infusion of plutocracy. It attempted no such
brilliant display as, that which flattered the senses or fired the
imagination of the Viennese. In 1919 mankind was simpler in
its tastes and perhaps less aesthetic. It is certain that the froth
of contemporary frivolity had lost its sparkling whiteness, and
was grown turbid. In Vienna, balls, banquets, theatricals,
military reviews, followed each other in dizzy succession and
enabled politicians and adventurers to carry on their intrigues and
machinations unnoticed by all except the secret police. And,
as the Congress marked the close of one bloody campaign and
ushered in another, one might aptly term it the interval between
two tragedies. For a time it seemed as though this part of the
likeness might become applicable to the Conference of Paris.
Moving from pleasure to politics, one found strong contrasts
as well as surprising resemblances between the two peace-making
assembUes, and, it was assumed, to the advantage of the Paris
13
The Peace Conference
Conference. Thus, at the Austrian Congress, the members, while
seenaingly united, were pulling hard against one another, each
individual or group tugging in a different direction. The Powers
had been compelled by necessity to unite against a common
enemy, and having worsted him on the battlefield, fell to
squabbling among themselves in the Council Chamber as soon as
they set about dividing the booty. In this respect, the Paris
Conference — the world was assured in the beginning — towered
aloft above its historic predecessor. Men who knew the facts
declared repeatedly that the delegates to the Quai d'Orsay were
just as unanimous, disinterested and single-minded during the
armistice as they were throughout the war. Probably they were.
Another interesting point of comparison was supplied by the
dramatis personse of both illustrious companies. They were
nearly all representatives of old States, but there was one ex-
ception.
The Congress Chief
Mistrusted, Feared, Humoured and Obeyed.
A relatively new Power took part in the deliberations of the
Vienna Congress, and, perhaps, because of its loftier intentions,
introduced a jarring note into the concert of nations. Russia
was then a new-comer into the European councils ; indeed she
was hardly yet recognized as European. Her gifted Tsar,
Alexander I., was an idealist who wanted, not so much peace
with the vanquished enemy as a complete reform of the ordering
of the whole world, so that wars should thenceforward be abolished
and the welfare of mankind be set developing like a sort of pacific
perpetuum mobile. This blessed change, however, was to be
compassed, not by the peoples or their representatives, but by
the Governments, led by himself and deliberating in secret. At
the Paris Conference it was even so.
This curious type of public worker — a mixture of the mystical
and the practical — was the terror of the Vienna delegates. He
put spokes in everybody's wheel, behaved as the autocrat of
the Congress and felt as self-complacent as a saint. Countess
14
The City of the Conference
von Thurheim wrote of him : " He mistrusted his environment
and let himself be led by others. But he was thoroughly good
and high-minded and sought after the weal, not merely of his own
country, but of the whole world. Son coeur eiit embrasse le
bonheur du monde." He realized in himself the dreams of the
philosophers about love for mankind, but their Utopias of human
happiness were based upon the perfection both of subjects and of
princes, and, as Alexander could fulfil only one half of these
conditions, his work remained unfinished and the poor Emperor
died, a victim of his high-minded illusions.*
The other personages, Metternich in particular, were greatly
put out by Alexander's presence. They labelled him a marplot
who could not and would not enter into the spirit of their game,
but they dared not offend him. Without his brave troops they
could not have been victorious and they did not know how
soon they might need him again, for he represented a numerous
and powerful people, whose economic and military resources
promised it in time the hegemony of the world. So, while they
heartily disliked the chief of this new great country, they also
feared and, therefore, humoured him. They all felt that the
enemy, although defeated and humbled, was not perhaps per-
manently disabled, and might, at any moment, rise, phcenix-like,
and soar aloft again. The great visionary was therefore feted and
lauded and raised to a dizzy pedestal by men who, in their hearts,
set him down as a crank. His words were reverently repeated
and his smiles recorded and remembered. Hardly anyone had
the bad taste to remark that even this millenial philosopher in
the statesman's armchair left unsightly flaws in his system for
the welfare of man. Thus, while favouring equality generally,
he obstinately refused to concede it to one race, in fact, he would
not hear of common fairness being meted out to that race. It
was the Polish people which was treated thus at the Vienna
Congress, and, owing to him, Poland's just claims were ignored,
her indefeasible rights were violated and the work of the peace-
makers was botched. , . .
* Countess Lulu von Thurheim, " My Life,'' 1788-1852. German Edition
Munich, 1913-1914.
15
The Peace Conference
Happily, optimists said, the Paris Conference was organized
on a wholly different basis. Its members considered themselves
mere servants of the public — stewards, who had to render an
account of their stewardship and who therefore went in salutary
fear of the electorate at home. This check was not felt by the
plenipotentiaries in Vienna. Again, everything the Paris dele-
gates did was for the benefit of the masses, although most of it
was done by stealth and unappreciated by them.
The remarkable document which will for ever be associated
with the name of President Wilson was the clou of the Conference.
The League of Nations scheme seemed destined to change fun-
damentally the relations of peoples towards each other, and the
change was expected to begin immediately after the Covenant
had been voted, signed and ratified. But it was not relished
by any Government except that of the United States, and it was
in order to enable the delegates to devise such a wording of the
Covenant as would not bind them to an obnoxious principle or
commit their electorates to any irksome sacrifice, that the peace
treaty with Germany and the liquidation of the war were post-
poned. This delay caused profound dissatisfaction in Contin-
ental Europe, but it had the incidental advantage of bringing
home to the victorious nations the marvellous recuperative
powers of the German race. It also gave time for the drafting
of a compact so admirably tempered to the human weaknesses
of the rival signatory nations, whose passions were only curbed
by sheer exhaustion, that all their spokesmen saw their way to
sign it. There was something almost genial in the simplicity of
the means by which the eminent promoter of the Covenant in-
tended to reform the peoples of the world. He gave them credit
for virtues which would have rendered the League unnecessary
and displayed indulgence for passions which made its speedy
realization hopeless, thus affording a superfluous illustration of
the truth that the one deadly evil to be shunned by those who
would remain philanthropists, is a practical knowledge of men,
and of the truism that the statesman's bane is an inordinate
fondness for abstract ideas.
One of the decided triumphs of the Paris Peace Conference over
i6
The City of the Conference
the Vienna Congress lay in the amazing speed with which it
got through the difficult task of solving offhandedly some of
the most formidable problems that ever exercised the wit of man.
One of the Paris journals contained the following remarkable
announcement : " The actual time consumed in constituting
the League of Nations, which it is to be hoped will be the means
of keeping peace in the world, was thirty hours. This doesn't
seem possible but it is true."*
How provokingly slowly the dawdlers of Vienna moved in
comparison may be read in the chronicles of that time. The
peoples hoped and believed that the Congress would perform its
tasks in a short period, but it was only after nine nionths gestation
and sore travail that it finally brought forth its offspring — a
mountain of Acts which have been mouldering in dust ever since.
The Wilsonian Covenant, which bound together thirty-two
States — a league intended to be incomparably more powerful than
was the Holy Alliance — ^will take rank as the most rapid im-
provisation of its kind in diplomatic history.
A comparison between the features common to the two in-
ternational legislatures struck many observers as even more
reassuring than the contrast between their differences. Both
were placed in like circumstances, faced with bewildering and
fateful problems to which an exhausting war, just ended, had im-
parted sharp actuality. One of the delegates to the Vienna
Congress wrote :
" Everything had to be re-cast and made new, the destinies of
Germany, Italy and Poland settled, a solid groundwork laid for
the future, and a commercial system to be outlined. "f Might
not those very words have been penned at any moment during the
Paris Conference with equal relevance to its undertakings ?
Or these : " However easily and gracefully the fine old French
wit might turn the topics of the day. people felt vaguely beneath
it all that these latter times were very far removed from the
departed era and, in many respects, differed from it to an in-
• New York Herald (Paris Edition), 23rd February, 1919.
t " Denkwiirdigkeiten des bayrischen Staatsministers Maximilian," Graf
ron Montgelas. See also Dr. Karl Soil, " Der Wiener Kongress."
17 3,
The Peace Conference
comprehensible degree."* And the veteran Prince de Ligne
remarked to the Comte de la Garde ; " From every side come
cries of Peace, Justice, Equilibrium, Indemnity. . . . Who will
evolve order from this chaos and set a dam to the stream of
claims ? " How often have the same cries and queries been
uttered in Paris ?
When the first confidential talks began at the Vienna Congress,
the same difficulties arose as were encountered over a century
later in Paris about the number of States that were entitled
to have representatives there. At the outset, the four Cabinet
Ministers of Austria, Russia, England and Prussia kept things
to themselves, excluding vanquished France and the lesser
Powers. Some time afterwards, however, Talle3n:and, the
spokesman of the worsted nation, accompanied by the Portuguese
Minister, Labrador, protested vehemently against the form and
results of the deliberations. At one sitting, passion rose to
white heat and Talleyrand spoke of quitting the Congress alto-
gether, whereupon a compromise was struck and eight nations
received the right to be represented. In this way the Committee
of Eight was formed, f In Paris discussion became to the full
as lively, and on the first Saturday, when the representatives of
Belgium, Greece, Poland and the other smaU States delivered
impassioned speeches against the attitude of the Big Five they
were maladroitly answered by M. Clemenceau, who relied, as
the source from which emanated the superior right of the Great
Powers, upon the twelve million soldiers they had placed in the
field. It was unfortunate that force should thus confer privileges
at a Peace Conference which was convoked to end the reign of
force and privilege. In Vienna it was different, but so were the
times.
Many of the entries and comments of the chroniclers of 1815
read like extracts from newspapers of the first three months of
1919. " About Poland, they are fighting fiercely and, down to
the present, with no decisive result," writes Count Carl von
Nostitz, a Russian military observer. ..." Concerning Germany
and her future federative constitution, nothing has yet been done,
• Varnhagen von Ense. f Friedrich von Gentz.
18
The City of the Conference
absolutely nothing."* Here is a gloss written by Countess Elise
von Bernstorff, wife of the Danish Minister : " Most comical was
the mixture of the very different individuals who all fancied they
had work to do at the Congress. . . . One noticed noblemen and
scholars who had never transacted any business before but now
looked extremely consequential and took on an imposing bearing,
and professors,, who mentally set down their University chairs
in the centre of a listening Congress but soon turned peevish
and wandered hither and thither, complaining that they could not,
for the life of them, make out what was going on." Again : " It
would have been to the interest of all Europe — rightly understood
— to restore Poland. This matter may be regarded as the most
important of all. None other could touch so nearly the policy of
all the Powers represented, "t wrote the Bavarian Premier, Graf
von Montgelas, just as the Entente press was writing in the year
1919. '
The plenipotentiaries of the Paris Conference had for a short
period what is termed a good Press, and a rigorous censorship
which never erred on the side of laxity, whereas those of the
Vienna Congress were criticized without ruth. For example, the
population of Vienna, we are told by Bavaria's chief delegate,
was disappointed when it discerned in those whom it was wont
to worship as demi-gods, only mortals. " The condition of State
affairs," writes von Gentz, one of the clearest heads at the
Congress, " is weird, but it is not, as formerly, in consequence
of the crushing weight that is hung around our necks, but by
reason of the mediocrity and clumsiness of nearly all the workers." J
One consequence of this state of things was the constant upspring-
ing of new and unforeseen problems, until, as time went on, the
bewildered delegates were literally overwhelmed. " So many
interests cross each other here," comments Count Carl von
Nostitz, " which the peoples want to have mooted at the long-
wished-for League of Nations, that they fall into the oddest
shapes. . . . Look wheresoever you will, you are faced with
* " Count Carl von Nostitz:"
t Cf. Dr. Karl Soil : " Der Wiener Kongress."
{ " Friedrich von Gentz," K. Soil.
19 a*
The Peace Conference
incongruity and confusion. . . . Daily the claims increase as
though more and more evil spirits were issuing forth from hell at
the invocation of a sorcerer who has forgotten the spell by which
to lay them."* It was of the Vienna Congress that those words
were written.
In certain trivial details, too, the likeness between the two
great peace-assemblies is remarkable. For example. Lord
Castlereagh, who represented England at Vienna, had to return
to London to meet Parliament, thus inconveniencing the august
assembly, as Mr. Wilson and Mr. George were obliged to quit
Paris, with a like effect. Before Castlereagh left the scene of his
labours, uncharitable judgments were passed on him for allowing
home interests to predominate over his international activities.
The destinies of Poland and of Germany, which was then about
to become a Confederation, occupied the forefront of interest at
the Congress as they did at the Conference. A similarity is
noticeable also in the state of Europe generally, then and now.
" The uncertain condition of all Europe," writes a close observer
in 1815, " is appalling for the peoples : every country has mo-
bilized . . . and the luckless inhabitants are crushed by taxation.
On every side people complain that this state of peace is worse
than war . . . individuals who despised Napoleon say that under
him the suffering was not greater . . . every coimtry is sapping
its own prosperity, so that financial conditions, in lieu of im-
proving since Napoleon's collapse, are deteriorating everywhere."!
In 1815 as in 1919, the world-pacifiers had their Court painters,
and Isabey, the French portraitist, was as much run after as was
Sir William Orpen in 1919. In some respects, however, there
was a difference. " Isabey," said the Prince de Ligne, " is
the Congress become painter. Come ! His talk is as clever as
his brush." But Sir William Orpen was so absorbed by his work
that he never uttered a word during a sitting. The contem-
poraries of the Paris Conference were luckier than their forbears
of the Vienna Congress — for they could behold the life-like
features of their benefactors in a kinema. " It is understood,"
* " Count Carl von Nostitz," Soil, p. 109.
I Jean Gabriel Eynard— the representative of Geneva.
20
The City of the Conference
wrote a Paris journal, " that the necessity of preserving a per-
manent record of the personalities and proceedings at the Peace
Conference has not been lost sight of. Very shortly a series of
kinematographic films of the principal delegates and of the com-
missions is to be made on behalf of the British Government, so
that, side by side with the Treaty ^f Paris, posterity will be able
to study the physiognomy of the men who made it."* In no
case is it likely to forget them.
So the great heart of Paris, even to a greater degree than that
of Vienna over a hundred years ago, beat and throbbed to cosmic
measures while its brain worked busily at both national, provincial
and economic questions.
Side by side with the good cheer prevalent that kept the eminent
law-givers of the Vienna Congress in buoyant spirits went the
cost of living, prohibitive outside the charmed circle in conse-
quence of the high and rising prices. " Every article," writes the
Comte de la Garde, one of the chroniclers of the Vienna Congress,
" but more especially fuel, soared to incredible heights. The
Austrian Government found it necessary, in consequence, to allow
all its officials supplements to their salaries and indemnities."!
In Paris, things were worse. Greed and disorganization combined
to make of the French capital a vast fleecing machine. The sums
of money expended by foreigners in France during aU that time
and a much longer period is said to have exceeded the revenue
from foreign trade. There was hardly any coal, and even the
wood fuel gave out now and again. Butter was unknown. Wine
was bad and terribly dear. A public conveyance could not be
obtained unless one paid " double, treble and quintuple fares
and a gratuity." The demand was great and the supply some-
times abundant, but the authorities contrived to keep the two
apart systematically.
The Cost of Living.
In no European country did the cost of living attain the height
it reached in France in the year 1919. Not only luxuries and
* The Daily Mail (Paris Edition), 22nd March, 1919.
"Count de la Garde."
21
The Peace Conference
comforts, but some of life's necessaries, were beyond the reach
of home-coming soldiers, and this was currently ascribed to the
greed of merchants, the disorganization of transports, the strikes
of workmen and the supineness of the authorities, whose main
care was to keep the nation tranquil by suppressing one kind of
news, spreading another, and giving way to demands which could
no longer be denied. There was another and more effectual
cause : the war had deprived the world of twelve million work-
men and a thousand milliard francs worth of goods. But of this
people took no account. The demobiUzed soldiers who, for years,
had been well-fed and relieved of solicitude for the morrow, re-
turned home, flushed with victory, proud of the commanding
position which they had won in the State and eager to reap the
rewards of their sacrifices. But they were bitterly disillusioned.
They expected a country fit for heroes to live in, and what awaited
them was a condition of things to which only a defeated people
could be asked to resign itself. The food to which the poilu had,
for nearly five years, been accustomed at the front was become,
since the armistice, the exclusive monoply of the capitalist or
the nouveau-riche in the rear. To obtain a ration of sugar, he,
or his wife, had to stand in a long queue for hours, perhaps go
away empty-handed and return on the following morning. When
his sugar card was eventually handed to him, he had again to stand
in Hne outside the grocer's door and, when his turn came to enter
it, was frequently told that the supply was exhausted and would
not be replenished for a week or longer. Yet his newspaper in-
formed him that there was plenty of colonial sugar, ready for
shipment but forbidden by the authorities to be imported into
France. I met many poor people from the provinces and some
resident in Paris who for four years had not once eaten a morsel
of sugar although the well-to-do were always amply supplied I
In many places even bread was lacking, while biscuits, shortbread
and fancy cakes, available at exorbitant prices, were exhibited
in the shop windows. Tokens of unbridled luxury and glaring
evidences of wanton waste were flaunted daily and hourly in the
faces of the humbled men who had saved the nation and wanted
the nation to realize the fact. Lucullan banquets, opulent lunches,
22
The City of the Conference
all-night dances, high revels of an exotic character testified to
the peculiar psychic temper as well as to the material prosperity
of the passive elements of the community and stung the poilus
to the quick. " But what justice," these asked, " can the living
hope for, when the glorious dead are so soon forgotten ? " For
one ghastly detail remains to complete a picture to which Boccaccio
could hardly have done justice. " WhUe all this wild dissipation
was going on among the monied class in the capital the corpses
of many gallant soldiers lay unburied and uncovered on the
shell-ploughed fields of battle near Rheims, on the road to
Neuville-sur-Margival and other places — sights pointed out to
visitors to tickle their interest in the grim spectacle of war. In
vain individuals expostulated and the Press protested. As
recently as May persons known to me — my English secretary was
one — looked with the fascination of horror on the bodies of men,
who, when they breathed, were heroes. They lay there where
they had fallen and agonized, and now, in the heat of the May sun,
were mouldering in dust away — a couple of hours' motor drive
from Paris. . . ."*
The soldiers mused and brooded. Since the war began they had
undergone a great psychic transformation. Stationed at the very
centre of a sustained fiery crisis, they lost their feeling of ac-
quiescence in the established order and in the place of their own
class therein. In the sight of death they had been stirred to
their depths and volcanic fires were found burning there. Re-
signation had thereupon made way for a rebellious mood and re-
beUion found sustenance everywhere. The poikt demobilized
retained his military spirit, nay, he carried about with him the
very atmosphere of the trenches. He had rid himself of the
sentiment of fear and the faculty of reverence went with it.
His outlook on the world had changed completely and his inner
sense reversed the social order which he beheld, a§ the eye re-
*Ci.Le Matin, 31st May, 1919. A noteworthy example of the negligence
of the authorities was narrated by this journal on the same day. To a wooden
cross with an inscription recording that the grave was tenanted by " an unknown
Frenchman " was hung a disc containing his name and regiment I And here and
there the skulls of heroes protruded from the grass, but the German tombs were
piously looked after by Boche prisoners.
23
The Peace Conference
verses the object it appreKends. Respect for persons and
institutions survived in relatively few instances the sacredness
of life and the fear of death. He was impressed too with the all-
importance of his class, which he had learned during the war to
look upon as the Atlas on whose shoulders rest the RepubUc
and its Empire overseas. He had saved the State in war and he
remained in peace-time its principal mainstay. With his value
as measured by these priceless services he compared the low
estimate put upon him by those who continued to identify
themselves with the State— the over-fed, lazy, self-seeking
money-getters who reserved to themselves the fruits of his
toil.
One can well imagine — I have actually heard — ^the points
putting their case somewhat as follows : "So long as we filled
the gap between the death-dealing Teutons and our privileged
compatriots we were well-fed, warmly clad, made much of.
During the war we were raised to the rank of pillars of the State,
saviours of the Nation, arbiters of the world's destinies. So
long as we faced the enemy's guns nothing was too good for us.
We had meat, white bread, eggs, wine, sugar in plenty. But
now that we have accomplished our task, we have fallen from
our high estate and are expected to become pariahs anew. We
are to work on for the old gang and the class from which it comes,
until they plunge us into another war. For what ? What is
the reward for what we have achieved, what the incentive for
what we are expected to accomplish ? We cannot afford as
much food as before the war, nor of the same quality. We are
in want even of necessaries. Is it for this that we have fought ?
A thousand times no. If we saved our nation we can also save
our class. We have the will and the power. Why should we
not exert them ? " The purpose of the section of the com-
munity to which these demobilized soldiers mainly belonged
grew visibly definite as consciousness of their collective force
grew and became keener. Occasionally it manifested itself
openly in symptomatic spurts.
One dismal night, at a brilliant ball in a private mansion, a
select company of both sexes, representatives of the world of
24
The City of the Conference
rank and fashion, were enjoying themselves to their hearts'
content, while their chauffeurs watched and waited outside in
the cold, dark streets, chewing the cud of bitter reflections.
Between the hours of three and four in the morning, the latter
held an open-air meeting, and adopted a resolution which they
carried out forthwith. A delegation was sent upstairs to give
notice to the light-hearted guests that they must be down in their
respective motors within ten minutes on pain of not finding any
conveyances to take them home. The mutineers were nearly
all private chauffeurs in the employ of the personages to whom
they sent this indelicate ultimatum. The resourceful host,
however, warded off the danger and placated the rebelUous
drivers by inviting them to an improvised little banquet of
pates de foie gras, dry champagne and other delicacies. The
general temper of the proletariat, however, remained unchanged.
Tales of rebellion still more disquieting were current in Paris,
which, whether true or false, were aids to a correct diagnosis of
the situation.
A dancing mania broke out during the armistice, which was
not confined to the French capital. In Berlin, Rome, London,
it aroused the indignation of those whose sympathy with the
spiritual life of their respective nations was still a living force.
It would seem, however, to be the natural reaction produced
by a tremendous national calamity, under which the mainspring
of the collective mind temporarily gives way and the psychical
equilibrium is upset. Disillusion, despondency and contempt
for the passions that lately stirred them, drive the people to
seek rehef in the distractions of pleasures, among which dancing
is perhaps one of the mildest. It was so in Paris at the close of
the long period of stress which ended with the rise of Napoleon.
Dancing then went on uninterruptedly despite national cala-
mities and private hardships. " Luxury," said Victor Hugo,
" is a necessity of great States and great civilizations, but there
are moments when it must not be exhibited to the masses."
There was never a conjuncture when the danger of such an ex-
hibition was greater or more imminent than during the armistice
on the Continent— for it was the period of incubation preceding
25
The Peace Conference
the outbreak of the most malignant social disease to which
civilized communities are subject.
The festivities and amusements in the higher circles of Paris
recall the glowing descriptions of the fret and fever of existence
in the Austrian capital during the historic Vienna Congress a
hundred years ago. Dancing became epidemic and shameless.
In some salons the forms it took were repellent. One of my
friends, the Marquis X., invited to a dance at the house of a
plutocrat, was so shocked by what he saw there that he left
almost at once in disgust. Madame Machin, the favourite
teacher of the choreographic art, gave lessons in the new modes
of dancing, and her fee was 300 francs a lesson. In a few weeks
she netted, it is said, over 100,000 francs.
The Prince de Ligne said of the Vienna Congress : " Le Congres
danse mais il ne marche pas." The French press uttered similar
criticisms of the Paris Conference, when its Delegates were
leisurely picking up information about the coimtries whose
affairs they were foregathered to settle. The following paragraph
from a Paris journal — one of many such — describes a char-
acteristic scene :
" The domestic stafE at the Hotel Majestic, the headquarters of the British
Delegation at the Peace Conference, held a very successful dance on Monday
evening, attended by many members of the British Mission and Stafi. The ball-
room was a medley of plenipotentiaries and chambermaids, generals and orderlies.
Foreign Office attachfes and waitresses. All the latest forms of dancing were
to be seen, including the jazz and the hesitation waltz, and, according to the
opinion of experts the dancing reached an unusually high standard of excellence.
Major Lloyd George, one of the Prime Minister's sons, was among the dancers.
Mr. G. H. Roberts, the Food Controller, made a very happy little speech to the
hotel stag."*
Thei following extract is also worth quoting :
" A packed house applauded Hullo, Paris ! from the rise of the curtain to the
finale at the new Palace Theatre (in the Rue Mogador), Paris, last night. . . .
President Wilson, Mr. A. J.' Balfour and Lord Derby all remained until the fall
of the curtain at 12.15 * . . and . . . were given cordial cheers from the dis-
persing audience as they passed through the line of Municipal Guards, who
presented arms as the distinguished visitors made their way to their motor-cars." t
• The Daily Mail (Continental Edition], 12th March, 1919.
■f The Daily Mail (Continental Edition), 23rd April, 1919.
26
The City of the Conference
Juxtaposed with the grief, discontent and physical hardships
prevailing among large sections of the population which had
provided most of the holocausts for the Moloch of War, the
ostentatious gaiety of the prosperous few might well seem a
challenge. And so it was construed by the sullen lack-alls who
prowled about the streets of Paris, and told each other that their
turn would come soon.
When the masses stare at the wealthy with the eyes one so
often noticed during the eventful days of the armistice, one
may safely conclude, in the words of Victor Hugo, that " it
is not thoughts that are harboured by those brains, it is
events."
By the labouring classes the round of festivities, the theatrical
representations, the various negro and other foreign dances,
and the less refined pleasures of the world's bhthest capital were
watched with ill-concealed resentment. One often witnessed
long lines of motor cars driving up to a theatre, fashionable
restaurant or concert hall, through the opening portals of which
could be caught a glimpse of the dazzling illumination within,
while, a few yards further off, queues of anaemic men and women
were waiting to be admitted to the shop where milk, or eggs or
fuel could be had at the relatively low prices fixed by the State.
The scraps of conversation that reached one's ears were far from
reassuring.
I have met on the same afternoon the international world-
regenerators, smiling, self-complacent or preoccupied, flitting
by in their motors to the Quai d'Orsay, and also quiet, deter-
mined-looking men, trudging along in the snow and slush, wend-
ing their way towards their labour conventicles, where they,
too, were drafting laws for a new and strange era, and I volun-
tarily fell to gauging the distance that sundered the two move-
ments, and asked myself which of the inchoate legislations would
ultimately be accepted by the world. The question since then
has been partially answered. As time passed, the high cost of living
was universally ascribed, as we saw, to the insatiable greed
of the middlemen and the sluggishness of the authorities, whose
incapacity to organize and unwillingness to take responsibility
27
The Peace Conference
the outbreak of the most malignant social disease to which
civilized communities are subject.
The festivities and amusements in the higher circles of Paris
recall the glowing descriptions of the fret and fever of existence
in the Austrian capital during the historic Vienna Congress a
hundrfed years ago. Dancing became epidemic and shameless.
In some salons the forms it took were repellent. One of my
friends, the Marquis X., invited to a dance at the house of a
plutocrat, was so shocked by what he saw there that he left
almost at once in disgust. Madame Machin, the favourite
teacher of the choreographic art, gave lessons in the new modes
of dancing, and her fee was 300 francs a lesson. In a few weeks
she netted, it is said, over 100,000 francs.
The Prince de Ligne said of the Vienna Congress : " Le Congres
danse mais il ne marche pas." The French press uttered similar
criticisms of the Paris Conference, when its Delegates were
leisurely picking up information about the countries whose
affairs they were foregathered to settle. The following paragraph
from a Paris journal — one of many such — describes a char-
acteristic scene :
" The domestic stafE at the Hdtel Majestic, the headquarters of the British
Delegation at the Peace Conference, held a very successful dance on Monday
evening, attended by many members of the British Mission and Stafi. The ball-
room was a medley of plenipotentiaries and chambermaids, generals and orderlies.
Foreign Office attaches and waitresses. All the latest forms of dancing were
to be seen, including the jazz and the hesitation waltz, and, according to the
opinion of experts the dancing reached an unusually high standard of excellence.
Major Lloyd George, one of the Prime Minister's sons, was among the dancers.
Mr. G. H. Roberts, the Food Controller, made a very happy little speech to the
hotel staff."*
The following extract is also worth quoting :
" A packed house applauded Hullo, Paris ! from the rise of the curtain to the
finale at the new Palace Theatre (in the Rue Mogadorj, Paris, last night. . . .
President Wilson, Mr. A. J. Balfour and Lord Derby all remained until the fall
of the curtain at 12.15 . . . and . ■ . were given cordial cheers from the dis-
persing audience as they passed through the line of Municipal Guards, who
presented arms as the distinguished visitors made their way to their motor-cars." t
• The Daily Mail (Continental Edition), 12th March, 1919.
t The Daily Mail (Continental Edition), 23rd April, 1919.
26
The City of the Conference
Juxtaposed with the grief, discontent and physical hardships
prevailing among large sections of the population which had
provided most of the holocausts for the Moloch of War, the
ostentatious gaiety of the prosperous few might well seem a
challenge. And so it was construed by the sullen lack-alls who
prowled about the streets of Paris, and told each other that their
turn would come soon.
When the masses stare at the wealthy with the eyes one so
often noticed during the eventful days of the armistice, one
may safely conclude, in the words of Victor Hugo, that " it
is not thoughts that are harboured by those brains, it is
events."
By the labouring classes the round of festivities, the theatrical
representations, the various negro and other foreign dances,
and the less refined pleasures of the world's blithest capital were
watched with ill-concealed resentment. One often witnessed
long lines of motor cars driving up to a theatre, fashionable
restaurant or concert hall, through the opening portals of which
could be caught a glimpse of the dazzling illumination within,
while, a few yards further off, queues of anaemic men and women
were waiting to be admitted to the shop where milk, or eggs or
fuel could be had at the relatively low prices fixed by the State.
The scraps of conversation that reached one's ears were far from
reassuring.
I have met on the same afternoon the international world-
regenerators, smiling, self-complacent or preoccupied, flitting
by in their motors to the Quai d'Orsay, and also quiet, deter-
mined-looking men, trudging along in the snow and slush, wend-
ing their way towards their labour conventicles, where they,
too, were drafting laws for a new and strange era, and I volun-
tarily fell to gauging the distance that sundered the two move-
ments, and asked myself which of the inchoate legislations would
ultimately be accepted by the world. The question since then
has been partially answered. As time passed, the high cost of living
was universally ascribed, as we saw, to the insatiable greed
of the middlemen and the sluggishness of the authorities, whose
incapacity to organize and unwillingness to take responsibility
27
The Peace Conference
increased and augured ill of the future of the country unless men
of different type should in the meanwhile take the reins.' Practi-
cally nothing was done to ameliorate the carrying power of the
railways, to utiUze the water-ways, to employ the countless
lorries and motor vans that were lying unused, to purchase,
convey and distribute the provisions which were at the disposal
of the Government. Various ministerial departments would
dispute as to which should take over consignments of meat or
vegetables, and while reports, notes and replies were being
leisurely written and dispatched, weeks or months rolled by,
during which the foodstuffs became unfit for human consumption.
In the middle of May, to take but one typical instance, 2,401
cases of lard and 1,418 cases of salt meat were left rotting in the
docks at Marseilles. In the storage magazines at Murumas,
6,000 tons of salt meat were spoiled because it was nobody's
business to remove and distribute them. Eighteen refrigerator
cars loaded with chilled meat arrived in Paris from Havre in the
month of June. When they were examined at the cold storage
station, it was discovered that the doors having been negligently
left open, the contents of the cases had to be destroyed.* From
Belgium 108,000 kilos of potatoes were received and allowed
to lie so long at one of the stations that they went bad, and had
to be thrown away. When these and kindred facts were pub-
lished, the authorities, who had long been silent, became apolo-
getic but remained throughout inactive. In other countries
the conditions, if less accentuated, were similar.
One of the dodges to which unscrupulous dealers resorted with
impunity and profit was particularly ingenious. At the Central
markets, whenever any food is condemned, the public health
authorities seize it and pay the owner full value at the current
market rates. The market men often turned this equitable
arrangement to account by keeping back large quantities of
excellent vegetables, for which the population was yearning,
and when they rotted and had to be carted away, received their
money value from the Public Health Department, thus attaining
their object, which was to lessen the supply and raise the prices
• Cf. New York Herald (Paris Edition), 8th June, 1919.
28
The City of the Conference
on what they kept for sale.* The consequence was that Paris
suffered from a continual dearth of vegetables and fruits.
Statistics published by the United States Government showed
the maximum increase in the cost of living in four countries
as follows : France, 235 per cent. ; Britain, 135 per cent. ;
Canada, 115 per cent., and the United States, 107 per cent.f
But since these data were published, prices continued to rise,
until, at the beginning of July, they had attained the same level
as those of Russia on the eve of the Revolution there. In Paris,
Lyons, Marseilles, the prices of various kinds of fish, shell-fish,
jams, apples, had gone up 500 per cent., cabbage over 900 per
cent-., and celeriac 2,000 per cent. Anthracite coal, which in
the year 1914 cost 56 francs a ton, could not be purchased in
1919 for less than 360 francs.
The restaurants and hotels waged a veritable war of plunder
on their guests, most of whom, besides the scandalous prices,
which bore no reasonable relation to the cost of production, had
to pay the Government luxury tax of 10 per cent, over and
above. A well-known press correspondent, who entertained
seven friends to a simple dinner in a modest restaurant, was
charged 500 francs, 90 francs being set down for one chicken,
and 28 for three cocktails. The maitre d'hotel, in response to
the press-man's expostulations, assured him that these charges
left the proprietor hardly any profit. As it chanced, however,
the journalist had just been professionally investigating the
cost of Uving, and had the data at his finger ends. As he dis-
played his intimate knowledge to his host, and obviously knew
where to look for redress, he had the satisfaction of obtaining a
rebate of 150 francs.J
Nothing could well be more illuminating than the following
curious picture contributed by a journal whose representative
made a special inquiry into the whole question of the cost of
living.§ " I was dining the other day at a restaurant of the
Bois de Boulogne. There was a long queue of people waiting
*Cf. New York Herald, 2nd June, 1919.
fCf. New York Herald (Paris EditionJ, 20th April, 1919.
} Le Figaro, 8th June, 1919.
\VHurrtaniti, loth July, 1919.
29
The Peace Conference
at the time of the peace celebrations. Rents for flats and houses
soared proportionately.
One explanation of the fantastic rise in rents is characteristic.
During the war and the armistice, the Government — and not
only the French Government — proclaimed a moratorium, and
no rents at all were paid, in consequence of which many house-
owners were impoverished and others actually beggared. And it
was with a view to recoup themselves for these losses that they
fleeced their tenants, French and foreign, as soon as the oppor-
tunity presented itself. An amusing incident arising out of
the moratorium came to light in the course of a lawsuit. An
ingenious tenant, smitten with the passion of greed, not content
with occupying his flat without paying rent, sublet it at a high
figure to a man who paid him well and in advance, but by mis-
chance set fire to the place and died. Thereupon the tenant
demanded and received a considerable sum from the insurance
company in which the defunct occupant had had to insure the
flat and its contents. He then entered an action at law against
the proprietor of the house for the value of the damage caused
by the fire, and he won his case. The unfortunate owner was
condemned to pay the sum claimed, and also the costs of the
action.* But he could not recover his rent.
Disorganization throughout France, and particularly in Paris,
verged on the border of chaos. Everyone felt its effects, but
none so severely as the men who had won the war. The work
of demobilization, which began soon after the armistice, but was
early interrupted, proceeded at snail's pace. The homecoming
soldiers sent hundreds of letters to the newspapers, complaining
of the wearisome delays on the journey and the sharp privations
which they were needlessly forced to endure. Thus, whereas
they took but twenty-eight hours to travel from Hanover to
Cologne— the lines being German, and therefore relatively well
organized— they were no less than a fortnight on the way
between Cologne and Marseilles.! During the German section
of the journey they were kept warm, supplied with hot soup
and coffee twice daily ; but during the second half, which lasted
• Lt Figaro, 6th March, 1919. f VHumanitt, ajrd May, 1919.
32
The City of the Conference
fourteen days, they received no beverage, hot or cold. "The
men were cared for much less than horses." That these
poilus turned against the Government and the class respon-
sible for this gross neglect was hardly surprising. One of them
wrote : " They (the authorities) are frightened of Bolshevism.
But we who have not got home, we all await its coming. I
don't, of course, mean the real Bolshevism, but even that kind
which they paint in such repellent hues."* The conditions of
telegraphic and postal communications were on a par with
everjrthing else. There was no guarantee that a message paid
for would even be sent by the telegraph-operators, or, if with-
held, that the sender would be apprised of its suppression. The
war arrangements were retained during the armistice. And
they were superlatively bad. A committee appointed by the
Chamber of Deputies to inquire into the matter officially, re-
ported that,t at the Paris Telegraph Bureau alone, 40,000
despatches were held back every day^ — 40,000 a day, or
58,400,000 in four years ! And from the capital alone. " The
majority of them were never dehvered, and the others were
distributed after great delay. The despatches which were
retained were, in the main, thrown into a basket, and, when the
accumulation had become too great, were destroyed. The
Control Section never made any inquiry, and neither the senders
nor those to whom the despatches were addressed were ever
informed. J Even important messages of neutral ambassadors
in Rome and London fell under the ban. The recklessness of
these censors, who ceased even to read what they destroyed,
was such that they held up and made away with State orders
transmitted by the great munitions factories, and one of these
was constrained to close down because it was unable to obtain
certain materials in time.
The French Ambassador in Switzerland reported that, owing
to these holocausts, important messages from that country,
containing orders for the French national loan, never reached
* Ibidem,
t Le Gaulois, 23rd March, 1 91 9. New York Herald (Paris Edition J, 22nd March,
1919. L'Echo de Paris, izth June, 1919.
} New York Herald, 22nd March, 1919.
33 3
The Peace Conference
their destination, in consequence of which the French nation
lost from ten to twenty milUon francs. And even the letters and
telegrams that were actually passed were so carelessly handled
that many of them were lost on the way or delayed until they
became meaningless to the addressee. So, for instance, an official
letter despatched by the Minister of Commerce to the Minister of
Finance in Paris was sent to Calcutta, where the French Consul-
General came across it, and had it directed back to Paris. The
correspondent of the Echo de Paris, who was sent to Switzerland
by his journal, was forbidden by law to carry more than i,ooo
francs over the frontier, nor was the management of the journal
permitted to forward to him more than 200 francs at a time.
And when a telegram was given up in Paris, crediting him with
200 francs, it was stopped by the Censor. Eleven days were
let go by without informing the persons concerned. When
the administrator of the journal questioned the chief Censor,
he declined responsibility, having had nothing to do with the
matter, but he indicated the Central Telegraph Control as the
competent department. There, too, however, they were innocent,
having never heard of the suppression. It took another day
to elicit the fact that the economic section of the War Ministry
was alone answerable for the decision. The indefatigable
manager of the Echo de Paris applied to the department in
question, but only to learn that it, too, was without any know-
ledge of what had happened, but it promised to find out. Soon
afterwards it informed the zealous manager that the depart-
ment which had given the order could only be the Exchange
Commission of the Ministry of Finances. And during all this
time the correspondent was in Ziirich without money to pay
for telegrams or to settle his hotel and restavirant bills.*
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs itself, in a report on the whole
subject, characterized the section of Telegraphic Control as
" an organ of confusion and disorder which has engendered
extraordinary abuses, and risked compromising the Government
seriously." t It did not merely risk, it actually went far to
* L'Echo de Paris, 12th June, 1919.
t New York Heraid, 32nd March, 1919.
34
The City of the Conference
compromise the Government and the entire governing class as
well.
It looked as though the rulers of France were still unconsciously
guided by the maxim of Richelieu, who wrote in his testament :
" If the peoples were too comfortable, there would be no keeping
them to the rules of duty." The more urgent the need of re-
sourcefulness and guidance, the greater were the listlessness
and confusion. " Ther^ is neither imity of conduct," wrote a
Press organ of the masses, " nor co-ordination of the Depart-
ments of War, Public Works, RevictuaUing, Transports. All
these services commingle, overlap, clash and paralyse each
other. There is no method. Thus, whereas France has coffee
enough to last her a twelvemonth, she has not sufficient fuel
for a week. Scruples, too, are wanting, as are punishments ;
everjrwhere there is a speculator who offers his purse, and an
official, a station-master or a subaltern to stretch out his hand.
. . . Shortsightedness, disorder, waste, the frittering away of
public moneys and irresponsibility : that is the balance. . . ."*
That the spectacle of the country sinking in this administra-
tive quagmire was not conducive to the maintenance of confi-
dence in its ruling classes can well be imagined. On all sides
voices were uplifted, not merely against the Cabinet, whose
members were assumed tq be actuated by patriotic motives
and guided by their own lights, but against the whole class from
which they sprang, and not in France only, but throughout
Europe. Nothing, it was argued, could be worse than what these
leaders had brought upon the country, and a change from the
bourgeoisie to the proletariat could not well be inaugurated at
a more favourable conjuncture.
In truth the bourgeoisie were often as impatient of the re-
straints and abuses as the homecoming poiht. The middle-class
during the armistice was subjected to some of the most galling
restraints that only the war could justify. They were practically
bereft of communications. To use the telegraph, the post, the cable
or the telephone was for the most part an exhibition of childish
faith, which generally ended in the loss of time and money.
* L'HumaniU, 23rd May, 1919.
35 3*
The Peace Conference
This state of affairs called for an immediate and drastic
remedy, for, so long as it persisted, it irritated those whom it
condemned to avoidable hardship, and their name was legion.
It was also part of an almost imperceptible revolutionary process
similar to that which was going on in several other countries
for transferring wealth and competency from one class to another
and for goading into rebellion those who had nothing to lose by
" violent change in the pohtico-social ordering." The Govern-
ment, whose powers were concentrated in the hands of M.
Clemenceau, had little time to attend to these grievances. For
its main business was the re-estabhshment of peace. What it
did not fully reahze was the gravity of the risks involved. For
it was on the cards that the utmost it could achieve at the Con-
ference towards the restoration of peace might be outweighed and
nullified by the consequences of what it was leaving undone and
unattempted at home. At no time during the armistice was any
constructive poUcy elaborated in any of the allied countries.
Rhetorical exhortations to keep down expenditure marked the
high-water level of ministerial endeavour there.
The strikes called by the revolutionary organizations whose
aim was the subversion of the regime under which those mon-
strosities flourished, at last produced an effect on the parliament.
One day in July the French Chamber left the Cabinet in a
minority by proposing the following resolution : " The Cham-
ber, noting that the cost of living in Belgium has diminished by
a half and in England by a fourth since the armistice, while it
has continually increased in France since that date, judges the
Government's economic policy by the results obtained and passes
to the order of the day."*
Shortly afterwards the same Chamber recanted and gave
the Cabinet a majority. In Great Britain, too, the House of
Commons put pressure on the Government which at last was
forced to act.
On the other hand extravagance was systematically encouraged
everywhere by the shortsighted measures which the authorities
adopted and maintained as well as by the wanton waste pro-
• On i8th July, 1919. Cf. Matin. Echo de Paris. Figaro, 10 July 1919
36
The City of the Conference
moted or tolerated by the incapacity of their representatives.
In France the moratorium and immunity from taxation gave a
fillip to recklessness. People who had hoarded their earnings
before the war, now that they were dispensed from paying rent
and relieved of fair taxes, paid out money ungrudgingly for
luxuries and then struck for higher salaries and wages.
Even the Deputies of the Chamber, which did nothing to
mitigate the evil complained of, manifested a desire to have
their own salaries — six hundred pounds a year — augmented pro-
portionately to the increased cost of living ; but in view of the
headstrong current of popular opinion against parliamentarism
the Government deemed it impolitic to raise the point at that
conjuncture.
Most of the working men's demands in France as in Britain
were granted, but the relief they promised was illusory, for prices
stiU went up, leaving the recipients of the relief no better off.
And as the wages payable for labour are limited, whereas prices
may ascend to any height, the embittered labourer fancied he
could better his lot by an appeal to the force which his organiza-
tion wielded. The only complete solution of the problem, he was
assured, was to be found in the supersession of the governing
classes and the complete reconstruction of the social fabric on
wholly new foundations.* And some of the leaders rashly
declared that they were unable to discern the elements of any
other.
* Cf. L'Humaniti (French Syndicalist Organ), nth July, 1919.
37
CHAPTER II
SIGNS OF THE TIMES
SOCIETY during the transitional stage through which it
has for some years been passing underwent an unprece-
dented change, the extent and intensity of which are as yet
but imperfectly realized. Its more striking characteristics
were determined by the gradual decomposition of empires and
kingdoms, the twilight of their gods, the drying up of their
sources of spiritual energy and the psychic derangement of com-
munities and individuals by a long and fearful war. PoUtical
principles, respect for authority and tradition, esteem for high
moral worth, to say nothing of altruism and pubUc spirit, either
vanished or shrank to shadowy simulacra. In contemporary
history currents and cross currents, eddies and whirlpools be-
came so numerous and bewildering that it was not easy to deter-
mine the direction of the main stream. Unsocial tendencies
coexisted with collectivity of effort, both being used as weapons
against the larger community and each being set down as a
manifestation of democracy. Against every kind of authority
the world, or some of its influential sections, was up in revolt,
and the emergence of the passions and aims of classes and
individuals had freer play than ever before.
To this consummation conservative governments, and later
on their chiefs at the Peace Conference, systematically contri-
buted with excellent intentions and efficacious measures. They
implicitly denied, and acted on the denial, that a nation or a race,
Uke an individual, has something distinctive, inherent and
enduring that may aptly be termed soul or character. They
38
Signs of the Times
ignored the fact that all nations and races are not of the same
age nor endowed with like faculties, some being young and
helpless, others robust and virile, and a third category senescent
and decrepit, and that there are some races which Nature has
wholly and permanently unfitted for service among the pioneers
of progress. In consequence of these views, which I venture to
think erroneous, they applied the same treatment to all States.
Just as President Wilson, by striving to impose his pinched con-
ception of democracy and his lofty ideas of political moraUty on
Mexico, had thrown that country into anarchy, the two Anglo-
Saxon Governments by enforcing their theories about the pro-
tection of minorities and other political conceptions in various
States of Europe helped to loosen the cement of the poUtico-
social structure there.
Through these as well as other channels virulent poison pene-
trated to the marrow of the social organism. Language itself,
on which all human intercourse hinges, was twisted to suit
unwholesome ambitions, further selfish interests and obscure
the vision of all those who wanted real reforms and unvarnished
truth. During the war the armies were never told plainly
what they were struggling for ; officially they were said to be
combating for justice, right, self-determination, the sacredness
of treaties and other abstract nouns to which the heroic soldiers
never gave a thought and which a section of the civil population
misinterpreted. Indeed, so little were these shibboleths under-
stood even by the most intelhgent among the politicians who
launched them that one half of the world still more or less
conscientiously labours to establish their contraries and is
anathematizing the other half for championing injustice, might
and unveracity — ^under various misnomers.
Anglo-Saxondom, taking the lead of humanity, imitated the
Catholic States of by-past days, and began to impose on other
peoples its own ideas, as well as its practices and institutions, as
the best fitted to awaken their dormant energies and contribute
to the social reconstruction of the world. In the interval, lan-
guage, whether appUed to history, journalism, or diplomacy, was
perverted and words lost their former relations to the things
39
The Peace Conference
connoted, and solemn promises were solemnly broken in the name
of truth, right or equity. For the new era of good faith, justice
and morahty was inaugurated, oddly enough, by a general tearing
up of obligatory treaties and an ethical violation of the most
binding compacts known to social man. This happened coinci-
dently to be in keeping with the general insurgence against all
checks and restraints, moral and social, for which the war is
mainly answerable, and to be also in harmony with the regular
supersession of right by might which characterizes the present
epoch and with the disappearance of the sense of law. In a word,
under the auspices of the amateur world-reformers, the tendency
to Bolshevism throve and spread — an instructive case of people
serving the devil at the bidding of God's best friends.
As in the days of the Italian despots, every individual has
the chance of rising to the highest position in many of the States,
irrespective of his antecedents and no matter what blots may
have tarnished his scutcheon. Neither aristocratic descent, nor
pubhc spirit nor even a blameless past is now an indispensable
condition of advancement. In Germany the head of the Republic
is an honest saddler. In Austria the chief of the Goverrmient
until recently was the assassin of a prime minister. The chief
of the Ukraine State was an ex-inmate of an asylum. Trotzky,
one of the Russian duumvirs, is said to have a record which
might of itself have justified his change of name from Braunstein.
Bela Kuhn, the Semitic Dictator of Hungary, had the reputa-
tion of a thief before rising to the height of ruler of the Magyars.
... In a word. Napoleon's ideal is at last realized : "La carriere
est ouverte aux talents."
Among the peculiar traits of this evanescent epoch may be
mentioned inaccessibility to the teaching of facts which run
counter to cherished prejudices, aims and interests. People
draw from facts which they cannot dispute only the inferences
which they desire. An amusing instance of this occurred in
Paris, where a Syndicalist organ* published an interesting and
on the whole truthful account of the chaotic confusion, misery
and discontent prevailing in Russia and of the brutal violence
* L'HumaniU, 6th and i8th March, 1919,
40
Signs of the Times
and foxy wiles of Lenin. The dreary picture included the cost
of living ; the disorganization of transport ; the terrible mor-
tality caused by the after-effects of the war ; the crowding of
prisons, theatres, cinemas and dancing saloons ; the eagerness
of employers to keep their war prisoners employed while thousands
of demobilized soldiers were roaming about the cities and villages
vainly looking for work ; the absence of personal liberty ; the
numerous arrests, and the relative popularity withal of the
Dictator. This popularity, it was explained, the Press con-
tributed to keep alive,' especially since the abortive attempt made
on his Ufe, when the journals declared that he was indispensable
for the time being to his country.
He himself was described as a hard despot, ruthless as a
tiger who strikes his fellow-workers numb and dumb with
fear. " But he is under no illusions as to the real sentiments
of the members of the Soviet who back him, nor does he deign
to conceal those which he entertains towards them. . . . When-
ever Lenin himself is concerned justice is expeditious. Some men
will be delivered from prison after many years of preventive
confinement without having been brought to trial, others who
fired on Kerensky will be kept untried for an indefinite period,
whereas the brave Russian patriot who aimed his revolver at
Lenin, and whom the French Press so justly applauded had only
three weeks to wait for his condemnation to death."
This article appearing in a Syndicalist organ seemed an event.
Some journals summarized and commented it approvingly,
until it was discovered to be a skit on the transient conditions in
France, whereupon the " admirable expose based upon con-
vincing evidence" and the "forcible arguments" became
worthless.*
An object lesson in the difficulty of legislating in Anglo-
Saxon fashion for foreign countries and comprehending their
psychology was furnished by two political trials which, taking
place in Paris during the Conference, enabled the Delegates
to estimate the distance that separates the Anglo-Saxon from
the Continental mode of thought and action in such a funda-
* Cf. L'HumaniU, loth April, 1919.
41
The Peace Conference
mental problem as the administration of justice. Raoul Villain,
the murderer of Jean Jaurfis — France's most eminent statesman
— ^was kept in prison for nearly five years without a trial. He
had assassinated his victim in cold blood. He had confessed and
justified the act. The eye-witnesses all agreed as to the facts.
Before the Court, however, a long procession of Ministers of
State, politicians, historians and professors defiled, narrating
in detail the Ufe-story, opinions and strivings of the victim, who,
in the eyes of a stranger, unacquainted with its methods, might
have seemed to be the real culprit. The jury acquitted the
prisoner.
The other accused man was a flighty youth who had fired
on the French Premier and wounded him. He, however, had not
long to wait for his trial. He was taken before the tribunal
within three weeks of his arrest and was promptly condemned to
die. * Thus the assassin was j ustified by the j ury and the would-be
assassin condemned to be shot. " Suppose these trials had taken
place in my country," remarked a delegate of an Eastern State,
" and that of the two condemned men one had been a member
of the privileged minority, what an uproar the incident would
have created in the United States and England ! As it happened
in Western Europe, it passed muster."
How far removed some Continental nations are from the
Anglo-Saxons in their mode of contemplating and treating
another momentous category of social problems may be seen
from the circumstance that the Great Council in Basel adopted
a bill brought in by the Socialist Welti, authorizing the practice
of abortion down to the third month, provided that the husband
and wife are agreed, and in cases where there is no marriage
provided it is the desire of the woman and that the operation
is performed by a regular physician, f
Another striking instance of the difference of conceptions
between the Anglo-Saxon and Continental peoples is contained
in the following unsavoury document, which the historian, whose
business it is to flash the light of criticism upon the dark nooks
♦ The sentence was subsequently commuted.
I La Gaiette (fe Lausanne, 26th May, 1919.
4«
Signs of the Times
of civilization, can neither ignore nor render into English. It
embodies a significant decision taken by the General Staff of
the 256th Brigade of the Army of Occupation* and was issued
on June 21st, igig.f
The value of that document derives from its having been issued
as an ordinary regulation, from its having been reproduced in a
widely-circulated journal of the capital without evoking com-
* 128 th Division.
t It was reproduced by the French Syndicalist organ L'HumaniU, of the Jth
July, 1919.
EXPLOITATION ET POLICE DE LA MAISON PUBLIQUE DE
MtJNCHEN-GLADBACH
(i.) Les deux femmes composant 1' unique personnel de la maison publique
de Gladbach (2, Gasthaustrasse), sont venues en delegation declarer
qu'elles ne pouvaient suffire k la nombreuse clientele qui envahit lenr
maison, devant laquelle stationneraient en permanence de nombreux
groupes de clients affames.
EUes declarent que defalcation faite du service qu'elles doivent assurer
4 leurs abonnes beiges et allemands, elles ne peuvent fournir k la division
qu'un total de vingt entrees par jour (10 pour chacune d'elle).
L'etablissement d'ailleurs ne travaille pas la nuit et observe strictement
le repos dominical. D'autre part les ressources de la ville ne permettent
pas, paraitril, d'augmenter le personnel. Dans ces conditions, en vue
d'6viter tout d^sordre et de ne pas demander k ces femmes un travail
au-dessus de leurs forces, les mesures suivantes seront prises :
(2.) JOURS DE TRAVAIL : Tous les jours de la semaine, saufle dimanche.
RENDEMENT MAXIMUM : Chaque jour chaque femme re5oit 10
hommes, soit 20 pour les deux personnes, 120 par semaine.
HEURES D'OUVERTURE : 17 heures a 21 heures. Aucune reception
n'aura lieu en dehors de ces heures.
TARIF : Pour un s6jour d'un quart heure (entree et sortie de l'etablisse-
ment comprises) ... 5 marks.
CONSOMMATIONS : La maison ne vend aucune boisson. II n'y
a pas de salle d'attente. Les clients doivent done se presenter par deux.
(3.) REPARTITION : Les 6 jours de la semaine sont donn6s :
Le lundi — ler bat. du 164 et C.H.R. t
Le mardi — ler bat. du 169 et C.H.R.
Le mercredi — 2e bat. du 164 et C.H.R.
Le jeudi — 2e bat. du 169 et C.H.R.
Le vendredi — 36 bat. du 164.
Le samedi — 3e bat. du 169.
(4.) Dans chacjue bataillon il sera 6tabli le jour qui leur est fixe, 20 tickets
deposes aux bureaux des sergents-majeur k raison de 5 par compagnie.
Les hommes d^sireux de rendre visite k l'etablissement reclameront au
bureau de leur sergent-majeur, i ticket qui leur donnera droit de priority,
43
The Peace Conference
ment, and from the strong light which it projects upon one of
the darkest corners of the civilization which has been so often
and so eloquently eulogized.
Manifestly the currents of the new moral life which the Con-
ference was to have set flowing are as yet somewhat weak ;
the new ideals are still remote and the foreshadowings of a
nobler future are faint. Another token of the change which
is going forward in the world was reported from the Far East,
but passed almost unnoticed in Europe. The Chinese Ministry
. of Public Instruction, by an Edict of the 3rd November, 1919,
officially introduced in all secondary schools a phonetic system
of writing in place of the ideograms theretofore employed.
This is undoubtedly an event of the highest importance in the
history of culture, little though it may interest the Western world
to-day. At the same time, as a philologist by profession, I agree
with a Continental authority* who holds that, owing to the
monosyllabic character of the Chinese language and to the further
disadvantage that it lacks wholly or partly several consonants,^
it will be practically impossible, as the Japanese have already
found, to apply the new alphabet to the traditional hterary
idiom. Neither can it be employed for the needs of education,
journalism, of the administration or for telegraphing. It will,
however, be of great value for elementary instruction and for
postal correspondence. It is also certain to develop and extend.
But its main significance is twofold : as a sign of China's awaken-
ing and as an innovation, the certain effect of which will be to
weaken national unity and extend regionaUsm at its expense.
From this point of view the reform is portentous.
Another of the signs of the new times which calls for mention
is the spread and militancy of the labour movement, to which
the war and its concomitants gave a potent impulse. It is dif-
ferentiated from all previous ferments by this, that it constitutes
merely an episode in the universal insurgency of the masses, who
are fast breaking through the thin social crust formed by the upper
classes and are emerging rapidly above the surface. One of the
• R. de Saussure. Cf. Journal de Genive, i8th August and also 26th May, 1919.
t d, r, t, 1, g (partly) and p, except at the beginning of a word.
44
Signs of the Times
most impressive illustrations of this general phenomenon is the
rise of wages, which in Paris has set the municipal street sweepers
above university professors, the former receiving from 7,600 to
8,000 francs a year, whereas the salary of the latter is some 500
francs less.*
This general disturbance is the outcome of many causes,
among which are the over-population of the world, the spread of
education and of equal opportunity, the anonymity of industrial
enterprises, scientific and unscientific theories, the specialization
of labour and its depressing influenccf These factors produced
a labour organization which the railways, newspapers, and tele-
graph contributed to perfect and transform into a proletarian
league, and now all progressive humanity is tending steadily and
painfully to become one vast collectivity for producing and sharing
on more equitable lines the means of living decently. This con-
summation is coming about with the fatality of a natural law,
and the utmost the wisest of governments can do is to direct
it through pacific channels and dislodge artificial obstacles in
its course.
One of the first reforms towards which labour is tending
with more or less conscious effort is the abolition of the heredi-
tary principle in the possession of wealth and influence and
of the means of obtaining them. The division of labour in the
past caused the dissociation of the so-called nobler avocations
from manual work, and gradually those who followed higher
pursuits grew into a sort of hereditary caste which bestowed
relative immunity from the worst hardships of life's struggle
and formed a ruUng class. To-day the masses have their hands
on the principal levers for shattering this top crust of the social
sphere and seem resolved to press them.
The problem for the solution of which they now menacingly
clamour is the establishment of an approximately equitable
principle for the redistribution of the world's resources — land,
capital, industries, monopolies, mines, transports and colonies.
* Cf . the French papers generally for the month of May — also Bonsoir, 26th
July, 1919.
■f Walther Rathenau has dealt with this question in several of his recent
pamphlets, which are not before me at the moment.
45
The Peace Conference
Whether sociaUzation — their favourite prescription — ^is the most
effectual way of achieving this object may well be doubted, but
must be thoroughly examined and discussed. The end once
achieved it is expected that mankind will have become one gigantic
living entity, endowed with senses, nerves, heart, arteries, and all
the organs necessary to operate and employ the forces and wealth
of the planet. The process will be complex because the factors
are numerous and of various orders, and for this reason few poli-
tical thinkers have realized that its many phases are aspects of
one phenomenon. That is also a partial explanation of the
circumstance that at the Conference the political questions were
separated from the economic and treated by politicians as para-
mount, the others being relegated to the background. The
labour legislation passed in Paris reduced itself therefore to
counsels of perfection.
That the Conference was incapable of solving a problem of
this magnitude is self-evident. But the delegates could and
should have referred it to an international parliament, fully re-
presentative of all -the interests concerned. For the best way of
distributing the necessaries and comforts of life which have been
acquired or created by manual toil is a problem that can neither
be ignored nor reasoned away. So long as it remains a problem
it will be a source of intermittent trouble and disorder throughout
the civilized world. The titles which the classes heretofore
privileged could invoke in favour of possession, are now being
rapidly acquired by the workers, who in addition dispose of the
force conferred by organization^ numbers and resolve. At the
same time most of the stimuli and incentives to individual enter-
prise are being gradually weakened by legislation which it would
be absurd to condemn and dangerous to regard as a settlement.
In the meanwhile productivity is falling off, while the demand
for the products of labour is growing proportionately to the
increase of population and culture.
Hitherto the laws of distribution were framed by the strong,
who were few and utilized the many. To-day their relative
positions have shifted ; the many have waxed strong and are no
longer minded to serve as instruments in the hands of a class,
46
Signs of the Times
hereditary or selected. But the division of mankind into pro-
ducers and utiHzers has ever been the solid and durable mainstay
of that type of civilization from which progressive nations are
now fast moving away, and the laws and usages against which
the proletariat is up in arms are but its organic expression.
From the days of the building of the Pyramids down to those
of the digging of the Panama Canal the chasm between the two
social orders remained open. The abolition of slavery changed
but little in the arrangement — was, indeed, effected more in the
interests of the old economics than in deference to any strong
religious or moral sentiment. In substance the traditional
ordering continued to exist in a form better adapted to the modi-
fied conditions. But the filling up of that chasm which is now
going forward involves the overthrow of the system in its entirety,
and the necessity of either rearing a wholly new structure, of
which even the keen-sighted are unable to discern the outlines,
or else the restoration . of the old one on a somewhat different
basis. And the only basis conceivable to-day is that which
would start from the postulate that some races of men come
into the world devoid of the capacity for any more useful part
in the progress of mankind than that which was heretofore
allotted to the proletariat. It cannot be gainsaid that there
are races on the globe which are incapable of assimilating the
higher forms of civilization, but which might well be made to
render valuable services in the lower without either suffering
injustice themselves or demoralizing others. And it seems
nowise impossible that one day these reserves may be mobilized
and systematically employed in virtue of the principle that the
weal of the great progressive community necessitates such
a distribution of parts as will set each organ to perform the
functions for which it is best qualified.
Since the close of the war internationalism was in the air,
and the labour movement intensified it. It stirred the thought
and warmed the imagination aUke of exploiters and exploited.
Reformers and pacifists yearned for it as a means of establishing
a well-knit society of progressive and pacific peoples and setting
a term to sanguinary wars. Some financiers may have longed
47
The Peace Conference
for it in a spirit analogous to that in which Nero wished that the
Roman people had but one neck. And the Conference chiefs
seemed to have pictured it to themselves — if, indeed, they medi-
tated such an abstract matter — in the guise of a pax Anglo-
Saxonica, the distinctive feature of which would lie in the transfer
to the two principal peoples — and not to a board representing
all nations — of those attributes of sovereignty which the other
States would be constrained to give up. Of these three currents
flowing in the direction of internationalism only one — that of
finance — appears for the moment likely to reach its goal. . . .
48
CHAPTER III
THE DELEGATES
THE plenipotentiaries who became the world's arbiters for
a while were truly representative men. But they mir-
rored forth not so much the souls of their respective peoples
as the surface spirit that flitted over an evanescent epoch. They
stood for national grandeur, territorial expansion, party interests,
and even abstract ideas. Exponents of a narrow section of the
old order at its lowest ebb, they were in no sense heralds of the
new. Amid a labyrinth of ruins they had no clup to guide their
footsteps, in which the peoples of the world were told to follow.
Only true political vision, breadth of judgment, thorough mastery
of the elements of the situation, an instinct for discerning central
issues, genuine concern for high principles of governance and the
rare moral courage that disregards popularity as a mainspring
of action — could have fitted any set of legislators to tackle the
complex and thorny problems that pressed for settlement and to
effect the necessary preliminary changes. That the Delegates
of the principal Powers were devoid of many of these qualities
cannot fairly be made a subject of reproach. It was merely
an accident. But it was as unfortunate as their honest con-
viction that they could accomplish the grandiose enterprise
of remodelling the communities of the world without becoming
conversant with their interests, acquainted with their needs
or even aware of their whereabouts. For their failure, which was
inevitable, was also bound to be tragic, inasmuch as it must
involve, not merely their own ambition to live in history as the
makers of a new and regenerate era, but also the destinies of the
49 4
The Peace Conference
nations and races which confidently looked up to them for the
conditions of future pacific progress, nay, of normal existence.
During the Conference it was the fashion in most European
countries to question the motives as well as to belittle the quali-
fications of the Delegates. Now that political passion has some-
what abated and the atmosphere is become lighter and clearer,
one may without provoking contradiction pay a well-deserved
tribute to their sincerity, high purpose and quick response to
the calls of public duty and moral sentiment. They were ani-
mated with the best intentions, not only for their respective
countries, but for huihanity as a whole. One and all they burned
with the desire to go as far as feasible towards ending the era
of destructive wars. Steady, uninterrupted, pacific develop-
ment was their common ideal, and they were prepared to give
up all that they reasonably could to achieve it. It is my belief,
for example, that if Mr. Wilson had persisted in making his
League project the corner-stone of the new world structure and
in appl3H[ng his principles without favour, the Italians would
have accepted it almost without discussion, and the other States
would have followed their example. All the Delegates must
have felt that the old order of things, having been shaken to
pieces by the war and its concomitants, could not possibly sur-
vive, and they naturally desired to keep within evolutionary
bounds the process of transition to the new system, thus accom-
plishing by policy what revolution would fain accompUsh by
violence. It was only when they came to define that policy
with a view to its application that their unanimity was broken
up and they split into two camps, the pacifists and the mili-
tarists, ^r the democrats and imperialists, as they have been
roughly labelled. Here, too, each member of the assembly worked
with commendable single-mindedness, and under a sense of high
responsibility, for that solution of the problem which to him
seemed the most conducive to the general weal. And they
wrestled heroically one with the other for what they held to be
right and true relatively to the prevalent conditions. The
circumstance that the cause and effects of this clash of opinions
and sentiments were so widely at variance with early antici-
50
The Delegates
pations had its roots partly in their hmited survey of the complex
problem, and partly too in its overwhelming vastness and their
own unfitness to cope with it.
The Delegates who aimed at disarmament and a society of
pacific peoples made out as good a case— once their premises
were admitted — as those who insisted upon guarantees, economic
and territorial. Everything depended, for the theory adopted
upon each individual's breadth of view, and for its realization
upon the temper of the peoples and that of their neighbours.
As under the given circumstances either solution was sure to
encounter formidable opposition, which only a doughty spirit
would dare to affront; compromise, offering a side-exit out of
the quandary, was avidly taken. In this way the collective
sagacities, working in materials the nature of which they hardly
understood, brought forth strange products. Some of the in-
congruities of the details, such, for instance, as the invitation
to Prinkipo, dispatched anonymously, occasionally surpass
satire, but their bewildered authors are entitled to the benefit
of extenuating circumstances.
On the momentous issue of a permanent peace based on Mr.
Wilson's pristine concept of a league of nations, and in accord-
ance with rigid principles applied equally to all the States, there
was no discussion. In other words it was tacitly agreed that
the fourteen points should not form a bar to the vital postulates
of any of the Great Powers. It was only on the subject of the
lesser States and the equality of nations that the debates were
intense, protracted and for a long while fruitless. At times
words flamed perilously high. For months the solutions of the
Adriatic, the Austrian, Turkish and Thracian problems hung in
poignant suspense, the public looking on with diminishing interest
and waxing dissatisfaction. The usual optimistic assurances
that all would soon run smoothly and swiftly fell upon deaf ears.
Faith in the Conference was melting away.
The plight of the Supreme Council and the vain exhortations
to believe in its efficiency reminded me of the following story.
A French parish priest was once spiritually comforting a
member of his flock who was tormented by doubts about the
51 4*
The Peace Conference
goodness of God as measured by the imperfection of His creation.
Having listened to a vivid account of the troubled soul's high
expectation of its Maker and of its deep disappointment at His
work, the pious old cur^ said : " Yes, my child. The world is
indeed bad, as you say, and you are right to deplore it. But don't
you think you may have formed to yourself an exaggerated idea
of God ? " An analogous reflection would not be out of place
when passing judgment on the Conference which implicitly
arrogated to itself some of the highest attributes of the Deity,
and thus heightened the contrast between promise and achieve-
ment. Certainly people expected much more from it than it
could possibly give. But it was the Delegates themselves who
had aroused these expectations announcing the coming of a new
epoch at their fiat. The peoples were publicly told by Mr.
Lloyd George and several of his colleagues that the war of 1914-
18 would be the last. His " Never again " became a winged
phrase, and the more buoyant optimists expected to see over the
palace of arbitration which was to be substituted for the battle-
field, the inspiring inscription : " A la demi^re des guerres,
rhumanit6 reconnaissante."* Mr. Wilson's vast project was
still more attractive.
Mr. Lloyd George is too well known in his capacity of British
parliamentarian to need to be characterized. The splendid
services he rendered the Empire during the war, when even his
defects proved occasionally helpful, will never be forgotten.
Typifying not only the aims, but also the methods, of the British
people, he never seems to distrust his own counsels whencesoever
they spring nor to lack the courage to change them in a twinkling.
He stirred the soul of the nation in its darkest hour and com-
municated his own glowing faith in its star. During the vicissi-
tudes of the world struggle he was the right man for the respon-
sible post which he occupied, and I am proud of having been oiie
of the first to work in my own modest way to have him placed
there. But a good war-leader may be a poor peace-negotiator,
and, as a matter of fact, there are few tasks concerned with the
* Cf. Le Temps, 23rd May, 1919. It is an adaptation of the inscription over
the Panth6on : " Aux grands hommes, la Patrie reconnaissante."
5a
The Delegates
welfare of the nation which Mr. George could not have tackled
with incomparably greater chances of accompUshing it than that
of remodeUing the world. His antecedents were all against him.
His lack of general equipment was prohibitive, even his inborn
gifts were disquaUiications. One need not pay too great heed
to acrimonious colleagues who set him down as a word-weaving
trimmer, between whose utterances and thoughts there is no
organic nexus, who dechnes to take the initiative unless he sees
adequate forces behind him ready to hie to his support, who lacks
the moral courage that serves as a parachute for a fall from
popularity, but possesses in abundance that of taking at the flood
the rising tide which balloon-Uke hfts its possessor high above
his fellows. But judging him in the light of the historic events
in which he played a prominent part, one cannot dismiss these
criticisms as groundless.
Opportunism is an essential element of statecraft, which is
the art of the possible. But there is a line beyond which it
becomes shiftiness, and it would be rash to assert that Mr. George
is careful to keep on the right side of it. At the Conference
his conduct appeared to careful observers to be traced mainly
by outside influences, and as these were various and changing
the result was a zigzag. One day he would lay down a certain
proposition as a dogma not to be modified, and before the week
was out he would advance the contrary proposition and maintain
that with equal warmth and doubtless with equal conviction.
Guided by no sound knowledge and devoid of the ballast of
principle, he was tossed and driven hither and thither hke a wreck
on the ocean. Mr. Melville Stone, the veteran American jouma-
hst, gave his countrymen his impression of the first British
Delegate. " Mr. Lloyd George," he said, " has a very keen
sense of humour and a great power over the multitude, but with
this he displays a startling indifference to, if not ignorance of,
the larger affairs of nations." In the course of a walk Mr. George
expressed surprise when informed that in the United States
the war-making power was invested in Congress. " What ! "
exclaimed the Premier, " you mean to tell me that the President
of the United States cannot declare war ? I never heard that
53
The Peace Conference
before." Later, when questions of national ambitions were
being discussed, Mr. George asked : " What is that place Rou-
mania is so anxious to get ? " meaning Transylvania.*
The stories current of his praiseworthy curiosity about the
places which he was busy distributing to the peoples whose des-
tinies he was forging would be highly amusing if the subject
were only a private individual and his motive a desire for useful
information, but on the representative of a great Empire they
shed a light in which the dignity of his country was necessarily
affected and his own authority deplorably diminished. For
moral authority at that conjuncture was the sheet anchor of the
principal Delegates. Although without a programme Mr. Lloyd
George would appear to have had an instinctive feeUng, if not a
reasoned belief, that in matters of general policy his safest course
would be to keep pace with the President of the United States.
For he took it for granted that Mr. Wilson's views were identical
with those of the American people. One of his colleagues, en-
deavouring to dispel this illusion, said : " Your province at this
Conference is to lead. Your colleagues, including Mr. Wilson,
will follow. You have the Empire behind you. Voice its aspira-
tions. They coincide with those of the English-speaking peoples
of the world. Mr. Wilson has lost his elections, therefore he does
not stand for as much as you imagine. You have won your
elections, so you are the spokesman of a vast community and the
champion of a noble cause. You can knead the Conference
at your will. Assert your will. But even if you decide to act
in harmony with the United States, that does not mean subor-
dinating British interests to the President's views, which are
not those of the majority of his people." But Mr. George, in-
vincibly diffident — ^if diffidence it be — shrank from marching
alone, and on certain questions-which mattered much Mr. Wilson
had his way.
One day there was an animated discussion in the twilight of
the Paris conclave while the Press was belauding the plenipo-
tentiaries for their touching unanimity. The debate lay between
the Unites States as voiced by Mr. Wilson and Great Britain
* The Daily Mail, 25th April, 1919 (Paris edition],
54
The Delegates
as represented by Mr. Lloyd George. On the morrow, before the
conversation was renewed, a collQ^gue adjured the British Premier
to stand firm, urging that his contention of the previous day was
just in the abstract and beneficial to the Empire as well. Mr.
George bowed to the force of these motives, but jdelded to the
greater force of Mr. Wilson's resolve. " Put it to the test,"
urged the colleague. " I dare not," was the rejoinder, " Wilson
won't brook it. Already he threatens, if we do, to leave the
Conference and return home." " Well then, let him. If he did,
we should be none the worst off for his absence. But rest assured,
he won't go. He cannot afford to return home' empty-handed
after bis splendid promises to his countrymen and the world."
Mr. George insisted, however, and said : " But he will take his
army away too." " What ! " exclaimed the tempter. " His
army ? Well, I only . . ." but it would serve no useful purpose
to quote the vigorous answer in full.
This odd mixture of exaggerated self-confidence, mismeasure-
ment of forces and pliability to external influences could not but
be baleful in one of the leaders of an assembly composed, as was
the Paris Conference, of men each with his own particular axe
to grind and impressible only to high moral authority or over-
whelming military force. It cannot be gainsaid that no one,
not even his own familiars, could ever foresee the next move
in Mr. George's game of statecraft, and it is demonstrable that
on several occasions he himself was so little aware of what he
would do next that he actually advocated as indispensable
measures diametrically opposed to those which he was to pro-
pound, defend and carry a week or two later. A conversation
which took place between him and one of his fellow workers
gives one the measure of his irresolution and fitfulness. " Do
tell me," said this collaborator, " why it is that you members
of the Supreme Council are hmriedly changing to-day the de-
cisions you came to after five months' study, which you say was
time well spent ? " " Because of fresh information we have
received in the meanwhile. We know more now than we knew
then and the different data necessitates different treatment."
" Yes, but the conditions have not changed since the Conference
55
The Peace Conference
opened. Surely they were the same in January as they are in
June. Is not that so ? " " No doubt, no doubt, but we did
not ascertain them before June, so we could not act upon them
until now."
With the leading Delegates thus drifting and the pieces on
the pohtical chessboard bewilderingly disposed, outsiders came
to look upon the Conference as a lottery. Unhappily it was a
lottery in which there were no mere blanks, but only prizes or
heavy forfeits.
To sum up : the first British Delegate, essentially a man of
expedients and shifts, was incapable of measuring more than
an arc of the political circle at a time. A comprehensive survey
of a complicated situation was beyond his reach. He relied
upon imagination and intuition as substitutes for precise know-
ledge and technical skill. Hence he himself could never be sure
that his decision, however carefully worked out, would be final,
seeing that in June facts might come to his cognizance with which
five months' investigations had left him unacquainted. This
incertitude about the elements of the problem intensified the
ingrained hesitancy that had characterized his entire public
career, and warped his judgment effectually. The only approach
to a guiding principle one can find in his work at the Conference
was the loosely held maxim that Great Britain's best policy
was to stand in with the United States in all momentous issues
and to identify Mr. Wilson with the United States for most
purposes of the Congress. Within these limits Mr. George was
unyielding in fidelity to the cause of France, with which he
merged that of civiUzation.
M. Clemenceau is the incarnation of the tireless spirit of
destruction. Pulling down has ever been his delight, and it is
largely to his success in demolishing the defective work of rivals
— and all human work is defective — that he owes the position
of trust and responsibility to which the Parliament raised him
during the last phase of the war. Physically strong, despite
his advanced age, he is mentally brilliant and superficial, with a
bias for paradox, epigram and racy, unconventional phraseology.
His action is impulsive. In the Dreyfus days I saw a good deal
56
The Delegates
of M. Qemenceau in his editorial office, when he would unburden
his soul to M. M. Vaughan, the poet Quillard and others. Later
on I approached him while he was chief of the Government on
a delicate matter of international combined with national politics,
on which I had been requested to sound him by a friendly Govern-
ment, and I found him, despite his developed and sobering sense
of responsibility, whimsical, impulsive and credulous as before.
When I next talked with him he was the rebellious editor of
U Homme Enchaine, whose corrosive strictures upon the Govern-
ment of the day were the terror of Ministers and Censors. Soon
afterwards he himself became the wielder of the great national
gagging machine, and in the stringency with which he manipu-
lated it he is said by his own countrymen to have outdone the
Government of the Third Empire. His alter ego, Georges Mandel,
is endowed with qualities which supplement and correct those
of his venerable chief. His grasp of detail is comprehensive
and firm, his memory retentive and his judgment bold and
deliberate. A striking illustration of the audacity of his resolve
was given in the early part of 1918. Marshal Jofire sent a tele^
gram to President Wilson in Washington, and because he had
omitted to dispatch it through the War Ministry, M. Mandel,
who is a strict disciplinarian, proposed that he be placed under
arrest. It was with difficulty that some public men moved him
to leniency.
M. Qemenceau, the professional destroyer, who can boast
that he overthrew eighteen Cabinets, or nineteen if we include
his own, was unquestionably the right man to carry on the war.
He acquitted himself of the task superbly. His faith in the Allies'
victory was unwavering. He never doubted, never flagged,
never was intimidated by obstacles nor wheedled by persons.
Once during the Armistice, in May or June, when Marshal Foch
expressed his displeasure that the Premier should have issued
miUtary orders to troops under his command* without first con-
sulting him, he was on the point of dismissing the Marshal and
appointing General Petain to succeed him.-j- Whether the quali-
ties which stood him in such good stead during the world struggle
• In Germany. f General Petain is said to have rejected the suggestion.
57
The Peace Conference
could be of equal, or indeed of much, avail in the general con-
structive work for which the Conference was assembled is a
question that needs only to be formulated. But in securing
every advantage that could be conferred on his own country
his influence on the Delegates was decisive. M. Clemenceau,
who before the war was the intimate friend of Austrian journa-
lists, hated his country's enemies with undying hate. And he
loved France passionately. I remember significant words of
his, uttered at the end of the year 1899 to an enterprising young
man who had founded a Franco-German review in Munich
and craved his moral support. " Is it possible," he exclaimed,
" that it has already come to that ? Well, a nation is not con-
quered until it accepts defeat. Whenever France gives up
she will have deserved her humiliation."
At the Conference M. Clemenceau moved every lever to deliver
his country for all time from the danger of further invasions.
And being a realist he counted only on miUtary safeguards. At
the League of Nations he was wont to sneer until it dawned upon
him that it might be forged into an effective weapon of national
defence. And then he included it in the Utany of abstract
phrases about right, justice and the self-determination of peoples,
which it became the fashion to raise to the inaccessible heights
where those ideals are throned which are to be worshipped but
not incarnated. The pubUc somehow never took his conversion
to Wilsonianism seriously, neither did his pohtical friends until the
League bade fair to become serviceable in his country's hands. M.
Clemenceau's acquaintanceship with international pohtics was
at once superior to that of the British Premier and very slender.
But his programme at the Copference was simple and coherent,
because independent of geography and ethnography : France
was to take Germany's leading position in the world, to create
powerful and devoted States in Eastern Europe, on whose co-
operation she could reckon, and her Allies were to do the needful
in the way of providing due financial and economic assistance
so as to enable her to address herself to the cultural problems
associated with her new role. And he left nothing undone that
seemed conducive to the attainijnent of that object. Against
58
The Delegates
Mr. Wilson he manoeuvred to the extent which his adviser, M.
Tardieu, deemed safe, and one of his most daring speculations
was on the President's journey to the States, during which M.
Clemenceau and his European colleagues hoped to get through
a deal of work on their own lines and to present Mr. Wilson with
the decisions ready for ratification on his return. But the
strategem was not merely apparent ; it was bruited abroad with
indiscreet details, whereupon the first American Delegate on his
return broke the tables of their laws-^r-one of which separated
the Treaty from the Covenant — and obliged them to begin anew.
It is fair to add that M. Clemenceau was no uncompromising
partisan of the conquest of the left bank of the Rhine, nor
of colonial conquests. These currents took their rise elsewhere.
" We don't want protesting deputies in the French Parliament,"
he once remarked in the presence of the French Minister of
Foreign Affairs.* Offered the choice between a number of bridge-
heads in Germany and the military protection of the Anglo-
Saxon peoples, he unhesitatingly decided for the latter, which
had been offered to him by President Wilson after the rejection
of the Rhine frontier,
M. Clemenceau, whose remarkable mental alacrity, self-
esteem and love of sharp repartee, occasionally betrayed him
into tactless salUes and epigrammatic retorts, deeply wounded
the pride of more than one Delegate of the lesser Powers in a
way which they deemed incompatible alike with circumspect
statesmanship and the proverbial hospitality of his country.
For he is incapable of resisting the temptation to launch a bon
mot, however stinging. It would be ungenerous, however, to
attach more importance to such quickly forgotten utterances
than he meant them to carry. An instance of how he behaved
towards the representatives of Britain and France is worth
recording, both as characterizing the man and as extenuating
his offence against the Delegates of the lesser Powers.
One morningt M. Clemenceau appeared at the Conference
door, and seemed taken aback by the large number of unfamiliar
• Cf. " Bulletin des Droits de rHomme,'' ipgme ann^e, p. 461.
t It was either Friday, the 4th, or Saturday, the 5th July,
59
The Peace Conference
faces and figures behind Mr. Balfour, towards whom he sharply
turned with the brusque interrogation : " Who are those people
behind you ? Are they English ? " " Yes, they are," was
the answer. " Well, what do they want here ? " " They have
come on the same errand as those who are now following you."
Thereupon the French Premier, whirling round, beheld with
astonishment and displeasure a band of Frenchmen moving
towards him, led by M. Pichon, the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
In reply to his question as to the motive of their arrival, he was
informed that they were all experts, who had been invited to
give the Conference the benefit of their views about the revic-
tualling of Hungary. " Get out, all of you. You are not
wanted here," he cried in a commanding voice. And they all
moved away meekly, led by M. Pichon, the Minister of Foreign
Affairs. Their services proved to be unnecessary, for the result
reached by the Conference was negative.
M. Tardieu cannot be separated from his chief, with whom
he worked untiringly, placing at his disposal his intimate know-
ledge of the nooks and crannies of professional and unprofes-
sional diplomacy. He is one of the latest arrivals and most
pushing workers in the sphere of old-world statecraft, affects
Yankee methods and speaks English. For several years political
editor of the Temps, he obtained access to the State archives,
and wrote a book on the Agadir incident which was well
received, and also a monograph on Prince von Billow, became
Deputy, aimed at a ministerial portfolio, and was finally
appointed Head Commissary to the United States. Faced by
difficulties there — mostly the spectres of his own former utter-
ances evoked by German adversaries — ^his progress at first was
slow. He was accused of having approved some of the drastic
methods^— especially the U-boat campaign — ^which the Germans
subsequently employed, because in the year 1912, when he was
writing on the subject, France believed that she herself possessed
the best submarines, and she meant to employ them. He was
also challenged to deny that he had written, in August, 1912,
that in every war churches and monuments of art must suffer,
and that " no army, whatever its nationality, can renounce
60
The Delegates
this." He was further charged with having taken a kindly
interest in air-war and bomb-dropping, and given it as his
opinion that it would be absurd " to deprive of this advantage
those who had made most progress in perfecting this weapon,"
But M. Tardieu successfully exorcised these and other ghosts.
And on his return from the United States he was charged with
organizing a press bureau of his own, to supply American jour-
nalists with material for their cablegrams, while at the same time
he collaborated with M. Clemenceau in reorganizing the political
communities of the world. It is only in the French Chamber,
of which he is a distinguished member, that M. Tardieu failed
to score a brilliant success. Few men are prophets in their own
country, and he is far from being an exception. At the Con-
ference, in its later phases, he found himself in frequent opposi-
tion to the Chief of the Italian delegation, Signor Tittoni. One
of the many subjects on which they disagreed was the fate of
German Austria and the political structure and orientation of
the independent communities which arose on the ruins of the
Dual Monarchy. M. Tardieu favoured an arrangement which
would bring these populations closely together and impart to
the whole an anti-Teutonic impress. If Germany could not be
broken up into a number of separate States, as in the days of
her weakness, all the other European peoples in the territories
concerned could, and should, be united against her, and at the
least hindered from making common cause with her. The
unification of Germany he considered a grave danger, and he
strove to create a countervailing state system.
To the execution of this project there were formidable diffi-
culties. For one thing, none of the peoples in question was
distinctly anti-German. Each one was for itself. Again they
were not particularly enamoured of each other, nor were their
interests always concordant, and to constrain them by force to
unite would have been not to prevent but to cause future wars.
A Danubian federation — the concrete shape imagined for this
new bulwark of European peace— did not commend itself to the
Itahans, who had their own reasons for their opposition besides
the Wilsonian doctrine. Which they invoked. If it be true,
6i
The Peace Conference
Signor Tittoni argued, that Austria does not desire to be amal-
gamated with Germany, why not allow her to exercise the right
of self-determination accorded to other peoples ? M. Tardieu,
on the other hand, riot content with the prohibition to Germany
to unite with. Austria, proposed* that in the Treaty with
Austria that country should be obliged to repress the unionist
movement in the population. This amendment was inveighed
against by the Italian delegation in the name of every principle
professed and transgressed by the world-mending Powers. Even
from the French point of view he declared it perilous, inasmuch
as there was, and could be, no guarantee that a Danubian Con-
federation would not become a tool in Germany's hands.
Two things struck me as characteristic of the principal pleni-
potentiaries : as a rule, they eschewed first-rate men as fellow-
workers, one integer and several zeros being their favourite
formula, and they took no account of the flight of time, planning
as though an eternity were before them and then suddenly impro-
vising as though afraid of being late for a train or a steamer. These
peculiarities were baleful. The lesser States, having mainly first-
class men to represent them, illustrated the law of compensation
which assigned many mediocrities to the Great Powers. The
former were also the most strenuous toilers, for their tasks bristled
with difficulties and abounded in startling surprises, and its
aCcompUshment depended on the will of others. Time and
again they went over the ground with infinite care, counting and
gauging the obstacles in their way, devising means to overcome
them and rehearsing the effort in advance. So much stress had
been laid during the war on psychology and such far-reaching
consequences were being drawn from the Germans' lack of it,
that these public men made its cultivation their personal care.
Hence, besides tracing large scale maps of provinces and compre-
hensive mapsf of the countries to be reconstituted, and ran-
sacking history for arguments and precedents, they conscien-
tiously ascertained the idiosyncrasies of their judges, in order
* At the end Of August, 1919.
T One delegate froiSi a poor and friendless country had to take the maps of a
rival state and retouch them in accordance with the ethnographical data which he
considered alone correct,
62
The Delegates
to choose the surest ways to impress, convince, or persuade them.
And it was instructive to see them try their hand at this new
game.
One and all gave assent to the axiom that moderation would
impress the arbiters more favourably than greed, but not all
of them wielded suficient self-command to act upon it. The
more resourceful Delegates, whose tasks were especially redoubt-
able because they had to demand large provinces coveted by
others, prepared the ground by visiting personally some of the
more influential arbiters before these were of&cially appointed,
forcibly laying their cases before them and praying for their
advice. In reality they were striving to teach them elementary
geography, history and politics. The Ulysses of the Conference,
M. Venizelos, first pilgrimaged to London, saying : " If the
Foreign Office is with Greece, what matters it who is against
her." He hastened to call on President Wilson as soon as that
statesman arrived in Europe, and, to the surprise of many, the
two remained a long time closeted together. " Whatever did
you talk about ? " asked a colleague of the Greek Premier^
" How did you keep Wilson interested ih your national claims
all that time ? You must have " " Oh, no," interrupted
the modest statesman, " I disposed of our claims succinctly
enough. A matter of two minutes. Not more. I asked him to
dispense me from taking up his time with such complicated
issues which he and his colleagues would have ample oppor-
tunity for studjdng. The rest of the time I was getting him to
give me the benefit of his familiarity with the subject of the
League of Nations. And he was good enough to enumerate the
reasons why it should be realized and the way in which it must
be worked. I was greatly impressed by what he said." " Just
fancy ! " exclaimed a colleague, " wasting all that time in talk-
ing about a scheme which will never come to anything ! " But
M, Venizelos knew that the time was not misspent. President
Wilson was at first nowise disposed to lend a favourable ear to
the claims of Greece, which he thought exorbitant, and down
to the very last he gave his support to Bulgaria against Greece
wholeheartedly. The Cretan statesman passed many an hour
63
The Peace Conference
of doubt and misgiving before he came within sight of his goal.
But he contrived to win the President over to his way of
envisaging many oriental questions. He is a past-master in
practical psychology.
The first experiments of M. Venizelos, however, were not wholly
encouraging. For all the care he lavished on the chief luminaries
of the Conference seemingly went to supplement their education,
and fill up a few of the geographical, historical, philological,
ethnological and political gaps in their early instruction rather
than to guide them in their concrete decisions, which it was
expected would be always left to the" Commissions of Experts."
But the fruit which took long to mature ripened at last, and
Greece had many of her claims allowed. Thus in reorganizing
the communities of the world the personal factor played a pre-
dominant part. Venizelos was, so to say, a fixed star in the
firmament, and his light burned bright through every rift in the
clouds. His moderation astonished friends and opponents.
Everyone admired his exposS of his case as a masterpiece.. His
statesmanlike way of viewing things national, together with the
international setting, in perspective, the readiness with which
he put himself in the place of his competitor and struck up a fair
compromise, endeared him to many, and his praises were in
everyone's mouth. His most critical hour — it lasted for months —
struck when he found himself struggling with the President of
the United States, who was for refusing the coast of Thrace to
Greece and bestowing it on Bulgaria. But with that dispute I
deal in another place.
Of Italy's two plenipotentiaries during the first five months
one was the most supple and the other the most inflexible of her
statesmen, Signor Orlando and Baron Sonnino. If her case was
presented to the Conference with less force than was attainable,
the reasons are obvious. Her Delegates had a formal treaty on
which they rehed ; to the attitude of their country from the
outbreak of the war to its finish they rightly ascribed the possi-
bility of the Allies' victory, and they expected to see this price-
less service recognized practically ; the moderation and supple-
ness of Signor Orlando were neutralized by the uncompromising
64
The Delegates
attitude of Baron Sonnino, and, lastly, the gaze of both states-
men was fixed upon territorial questions and sentimental aspira-
tions to the neglect of economic interests vital to the State —
in other words, they beheld the issues in wrong perspective.
But one of the most popular figures among the Delegates was
Signer Orlando, whose eloquence and imagination gave him
advantages which would have been increased a hundredfold if
he might have employed his native language in the conclave.
For he certainly displayed resourcefulness, humour, a historic
sense, and the gift of moulding the wills of men. But he was
greatly hampered. Some of his countrymen alleged that Baron
Sonnino was his evil genius. One of the many sa5dngs attributed
to him during the Conference turned upon the quarrels of some
of the smaller peoples among themselves. " They are," the
Premier said, " like a lot of hens being held by the feet and
carried to market. Although all doomed to the same fate, they
contrive to fight each other while awaiting it."
After the fall of Orlando's Cabinet, M. Tittoni repaired to
Paris as Italy's Chief Delegate. His reputation as one of
Europe's principal statesman was already firmly established ;
he had spent several years in Paris as Ambassador, and he and
the late di San Giuliano and Giolitti were the men who broke
with the Central Empires when these were about to precipitate
the world war. In French nationalist circles Signor Tittoni had
long been under a cloud, as the man of pro-German leanings.
The suspicion — for it was nothing more — was unfounded. On
the contrary, M. Tittoni is known to have gone with the Allies
to the utmost length consistent with his sense of duty to his
own country. To my knowledge he once gave advice which his
Italian colleagues and political friends and adversaries now
bitterly regret was disregarded. The nature of that counsel
will one day be disclosed. . . .
Of Japan's Delegates, the Marquis Saionji and Baron Makino,
little need be said, seeing that their qualifications for their task
were demonstrated by the results. Mainly to statesmanship and
skilful manoeuvring Japan is indebted for her success at the
Paris Conference, where her cause was referred by MM. Lloyd
63 5
The Peace Conference
George and Clemenceau to Mr. Wilson to deal with. The
behaviour of her representatives was an illuminating object
lesson in the worth of psychological tactics in practical politics.
They hardly ever appeared in the footUghts, remained constantly
silent and observant, and were almost ignored by the Press. But
they kept their eyes fixed on the goal. Their programme was
simple. Amid the flitting shadows of political events they
marched together with their Allies, until these disagreed among
themselves, and then they voted with Great Britain and the
United States. Occasionally they went further, and proposed
measures for the lesser States which Britain framed, but desired
to second rather than propose. Japan, at the Conference, was
a staunch collaborator of the two English-speaking principals
until her own opportunity came, and then she threw all her
hoarded energies into her cause, and by her firm resolve dispelled
any opposition that Mr. Wilson may have intended to offer.
One of the most striking episodes of the Conference was the swift,
silent and successful campaign by which Japan had her secret
treaty with China hall-marked by the puritanical President of
the United States, whose sense of morality could not brook the
secret treaties concluded by Italy and Roumania with the
Greater and Greatest Powers of Europe. Again, it was with
statesmanlike sagacity that the Japanese judged the Russian
situation and made the best of it — ^first, shortly before the
invitation to Prinkipo, and, later, before the celebrated eight
questions were submitted to Admiral Koltchak. I was especially
struck by an occurrence, trivial in appearance, which demon-
strated the weight which they rightly attached to the psycholo-
gical side of politics. Everybody in Paris remarked and many
vainly complained of the indifference, or rather unfriendliness, of
which Russians were the innocent victims. Among the Allied
troops who marched under the Arc de Triomphe on the 14th
July there were Roumanians, Greeks, Portuguese and Indians,
but not a single Russian. A Russian General drove about in the
forest of flags and barmers that day looking eagerly for symbols
of his own country, but for hours the quest was fruitless. At
last, when passing the Japanese Embassy, he perceived to his
66
The Delegates
delight an enormous Russian flag waving majestically in the
breeze, side by side with that of Nippon. " I shed tears of joy,"
he told his friends that evening, " and I vowed that neither I nor
my country would ever forget this touching mark of friendship."
Japanese public opinion criticized severely the failure of their
Delegates to obtain recognition of the equality of races or nations.
This judgment seems unjust, for nothing that they could have
done or said would have wrung from Mr. Wilson and Mr. Hughes
their assent to the doctrine, nor, if they had been induced to
proclaim it, would it have been practically applied.
In general, the lawyers were the most successful in stating their
cases. But one of the Delegates of the lesser States who made
the deepest impression on those of the greater, was not a member
of the Bar. The head of the Polish Delegation, Roman Dmowski,
a picturesque, forcible speaker, a close debater and resourceful
pleader, who is never at a loss for an image, a comparison, an
argumentum ad hominem, or a repartee, actually won over some
of the arbiters who had at first leaned towards his opponents —
a noteworthy feat if one realizes all that it meant in an assembly
where potent influences were working ■ against some of the
demands of resuscitated Poland. His speech in September on
the future of Eastern Galicia was a veritable masterpiece.
M. Dmowski appeared at the Conference under all the dis-
advantages that could be heaped upon a man who has incurred the
resentment of the most powerful international body of modem
times. He had the misfortune to have the Jews of the world
as his adversaries. His Polish friends explain this hostility as
follows. His ardent nationalist sentiments placed him in anta-
gonism to every movement that ran counter to the progress of
his country on nationalist lines. For he is above all things a
Pole and a patriot. And as the Hebrew population of Poland,
disbelieving in the resurrection of that nation, had long since
struck up a cordial understanding with the States that held it
in bondage, the gifted author of a book on the " Foundations of
Nationalism," which went through four editions, was regarded
by the Hebrew elements of the population as an irreconcilable
enemy. In truth, he was only the leader of a movement that
67 5*
The Peace Conference
was an historical necessity. One of the theses of the work was
the necessity of cultivating an anti-German spirit in Poland as
the only antidote against the Teuton virus introduced from
Berlin through economic and other channels. And as the
Polish Jews, whose idiom is a corrupted German dialect and whose
leanings are often Teutonic, felt that the attack upon the whole
was an attack on the part they anathematized the author and
held him up to universal obloquy. And there has been no
reconciliation ever since. In the United States, where the
Jewish community is numerous and influential, M. Dmowski
found spokes in his wheel at every stage of his journey, and
in Paris, too, he had to full-front a tremendous opposition, open
and covert. Whatever unbiassed people may think of this
explanation and of his hostility to the Germans and their agents,
Roman Dmowski deservedly enjoys the reputation of a straight-
forward and loyal fighter for his country's cause, a man who
scorns underhand machinations and proclaims aloud — perhaps
too frankly — the principles for which he is fighting. Polish Jews
who appeared in Paris, some of them his bitterest antagonists,
recognized the chivalrous way in which he conducts his electoral
and other campaigns. Among the Delegates his practical
acquaintanceship with East European politics entitled him to high
rank. For he knows the world better than any living states-
man, having travelled over Europe, Asia and America. He
undertook and successfully accomplished a delicate mission in
the Far East in the year 1905, rendering valuable services to
his country and to the cause of civilization.
- " M. Dmowski's activity," his friends further assert, " is im-
passioned and unselfish. The ambition that inspires and nerves
him is not of the personal sort, nor is his patriotism a ladder
leading to place and power. Polish patriotism occupies a cate-
gory apart from that of other European peoples, and M. Dmowski
has typified it with rare fidelity and completeness. If Wilsonianism
had been realized, Polish nationalism might have become an anach-
ronism. To-day it is a large factor in European politics, and is
little understood in the West. M. Dmowski Uves for his country.
Her interests absorb his energies. He would probably agree
68
The Delegates
with the historian Paolo Sarpi, who said : ' Let us be Venetians
first and Christians after.' Of the two widely divergent currents
into which the main stream of political thought and sentiment
throughout the world is fast dividing itself, M. Dmowski moves
with the national away from the international championed by
Mr. Wilson. The frequency with which the leading spirits
of Bolshevism turn out to be Jews — to the dismay and disgust of
the bulk of their own community — and the ingenuity they dis-
played in spreading their corrosive tenets in Poland may not
have been without effect upon the energy of M. Dmowski's
attitude towards the demand of the Polish Jews to be placed in
the privileged position of wards of the League of Nations. But
the principle of the protection of minority — Jewish or Gentile —
is assailable on grounds which have nothing to do with race or
religion." Some of the most interesting and characteristic inci-
dents at the Conference had the Polish statesman for their
principal actor, and to him Poland owes the most solid and
enduring benefits conferred on her at the Conference.
Of a different temper is M. Paderewski, who appeared in Paris
to plead his country's cause at a later stage of the labours of
the Conference. This eminent artist's energies were all blended
into one harmonious whole, so that his meetings with the great
plenipotentiaries were never disturbed by a jarring note. As
soon as it was borne in upon him that their decisions were as
irrevocable as decrees of Fate he bowed to them, and treated
the authors as Olympians who had no choice but to utter the stern
fiat. Even when called upon to accept the obnoxious clause
protecting religious and ethnic minorities, against which his
colleague had vainly fought, M. Paderewski sunk political passion
in reason and attuned himself to the helpful role of harmonizer.
He held that it would have been worse than useless to do otherwise.
He was grieved that his country must acquiesce in that decree,
he regretted intensely the necessity which constrained such proven
friends of Poland as the Four to pass what he considered a severe
sentence on her ; but he resigned himself gracefully to the inevit-
able and thanked Fate's executioners for their personal sympathy.
This attitude evoked praise and admiration from Messrs.
69
The Peace Conference
Lloyd George and Wilson, and the atmosphere of the Conclave
seemed permeated with a spirit that induced calm satisfaction
and the joy of elevated thoughts. M. Paderewski made a deep
and favourable impression on the Supreme Council.
Belgium sent her most brilliant parliamentarian, M. Hymans,
as first plenipotentiary to the Conference. He was assisted by
the chief of the Socialist party, M. Vandervelde, and by an
eminent authority on international law, M. Van den Heuvel.
But for reasons which elude analysis, none of the three delegates
hit it off with the duumvirate who were spinning the threads of
the world's destinies. M. Hymans, however, by his warmth,
sincerity and courage impressed the representatives of the lesser
States, won their confidence, became their natural spokesman,
and blazed out against all attempts — and they were numerous
and deliberate — to ignore their existence. It was he who, by
his direct and eloquent protest, took M. Clemenceau off his
guard, and ehcited the amazing utterance that the Powers
which could put twelve million soldiers in the field were the
world's natural arbiters. In this way he cleared the atmosphere
of the distorting mists of catchwords and shibboleths.
How decisive a role internal politics played in the designation
of plenipotentiaries to the Conference was shown with excep-
tional clearness in the case of Roumania. That country had no
legislature. The Constituent Assembly, which had been dis-
solved owing to the German invasion, was followed by no fresh
elections. The King, with whom the initiative thus rested
had reappointed M. Bratiano Chief of the Government, and M.
Bratiano was naturally desirous of associating his own historic
name with the aggrandisement of his country. But he also
desired to secure the services of his political rival, M. Take
Jonescu, whose reputation as a far-seeing statesman and as a
successful negotiator is world-wide. Among his qualifications
are an acquaintanceship with European countries and their
affairs and a rare facility for give and take which is of the
essence of international politics. He can assume the initiative
in pourparlers, however uncompromising the outlook ; frame
plausible proposals ; conciliate his opponents by showing how
70
The Delegates
thoroughly he understands and appreciates their point of view,
and by these means he has often worked out seemingly hopeless
negotiations to a satisfactory issue. M. Clemenceau wrote
of him : " C'est un grand Europeen."*
M. Bratiano's bid for the services of his eminent opponent was
coupled with the offer of certain portfolios in the Cabinet to M.
Jonescu himself and to a number of his parhamentary supporters.
While negotiations were slowly proceeding by telegraph,
M. Jonescu, who had already taken up his abode in Paris, was
assiduously weaving his plans. He began by assuming what
everybody knew, that the Powers would refuse to honour the
secret treaty with France, Britain and Russia, which assigned
to Roumania all the territories to which she had laid claim, and
he proposed first striking up a compromise with the other
interested States, then ■ compacting Roumania, Yugoslavia,
Poland, Czechoslovakia and Greece into a solid block, and asking
the Powers to approve 9x16. ratify the new league. Truly it
was a genial conception worthy of a broad-minded statesman.
It aimed at a durable peace based on what he considered a fair
settlement of claims satisfactory to all, and it would have light-
ened the burden of the Big Four. But whether it could have
been realized by peoples moved by turbid passions, and repre-
sented by trustees some of whom were avowedly afraid to relin-
quish claims which theyknewto be exorbitant,may well be doubted.
But the issue was never put to the test. The two statesmen
failed to agree on the Cabinet question ; M. Jonescu kept aloof
from office, and the post of second Delegate fell to Roumania's
greatest diplomatist and philologist, M. Mishu, who had for
years admirably represented his country as Minister in the
British capital. From the outset M. Bratiano's position was
unenviable, because he based his country's case on the claims of
the secret treaty, and to Mr. Wilson every secret treaty which he
could effectually veto was anathema. Between the two men, in
lieu of a bond of union, there was only a strong force of mutual re-
pulsion, which kept them permanently apart. They moved on
different planes, spoke different languages, and Roumania, in the
* L'Homme Enchain^, 14th December 1914.
71
The Peace Conference
person of her Delegates, was treated like Cinderella by her step-
mother. The Council of Three kept them systematically in the
dark about matters which it concerned them to know, negotiated
over their heads, transmitted to Bucharest injunctions which only
they were competent to receive, insisted on their promising to ac-
cept future decrees of the Conference without an inkling as to their
nature, and on their admitting the right of an alien institution
— the League of Nations — to intervene in favour of minorities
against the legally constituted Government of the country.
M. Bratiano, who in a trenchant speech inveighed against these
claims of the Great Powers to take the governance of Europe
into their own hands, withdrew from the Conference and laid
his resignation in the hands of the King.
One of the most remarkable debaters in this singular parlia-
ment, where self-satisfied ignorance and dullness of apprehension
were so hard to pierce, was the youthful envoy of the Czecho-
slovaks, M. Benes. This politician, who before the Conference
came to an end was offered the honourable task of forming a
new Cabinet, which he wisely declined, displayed a masterly
grasp of Continental politics and a rare gift of identifying his
country's aspirations with the postulates of a settled peace. A
systematic thinker, he made a point of understating his case at
the outset. He would begin his expose by detaching himself
from all national interests and starting from general assump-
tions recognized by the Olympians, and would lead his hearers
by easy stages to the conclusions which he wished them to
draw from their own premises. And two of 'them, who had no
great sympathy with his thesis, assured me that they could
detect no logical flaw in his argument. Moderation and sin-
cerity were the virtues which he was most eager to exhibit, and
they were unquestionably the best trump cards he could play.
Not only had he a firm grasp of facts and arguments, but he
displayed a sense of measure and open-mindedness which enabled
him to implant his views on the minds of his hearers.
Armenia's cause found a forcible and suasive pleader in
Boghos Pasha, whose way of marshalling arguments in favour
of a contention that was frowned upon by many commanded
72
The Delegates
admiration. The Armenians asked for a vast stretch of territory
with outlets on the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, but they
were met with the objections that their total population was
insignificant ; that only in one province were they in a majority,
and that their claim to Cilicia clashed with one of the reserved
rights of France. The ice, therefore, was somewhat thin in
parts, but Boghos Pasha skated over it gracefully. His descrip-
tion of the Armenian massacres was thrilling. Altogether his
ex-pose was a masterpiece, and was appreciated by Mr. Wilson
and M. Clemenceau.
The Yugo-Slav Delegates, MM. Vesnitch and Trumbitch,
pd,triotic, tenacious, uncompromising, had an early oppor-
tunity of showing the stuff of which they were made. When
they were told that the Yugo-Slav State was not yet recognized,
and that the kingdom of Serbia must content itself with two
Delegates, they lodged an indignant protest against both deci-
sions, and refused to appear at the Conference unless they were
allowed an adequate number of representatives. Thereupon
the Great Powers compromised the matter by according them
three, and with stealthy rage they submitted to the refusal of
recognition. They were not again heard of until one day they
proposed that their dispute with Italy about Fiume and the
Dalmatian coast should be solved by submitting it to President
Wilson for arbitration. The expedient was original. President
Wilson, people remembered, had had an animated talk on the
subject with the Italian Premier, Orlando, and it was known
that he had set his face against Italy's claim and against the
secret treaty that recognized it. Consequently the Serbs were
running no risk by challenging Signer Orlando to lay the matter
before the American Delegate. Whether, all things considered,
it was a wise move to make has been questioned. Anyhow, the
Italian Delegation declined the suggestion on a number of
grounds which several Delegates considered convincing. The
Conference, it urged, had been convoked precisely for the pur-
pose of hearing and settling such disputes as theirs, and the
Conference consisted, not of one, but of many Delegates, who
collectively were better qualified to deal with such problems
73
The Peace Conference
than any one man. Europeans, too, could more fully appre-
ciate the arguments, and the atmosphere through which the
arguments should be contemplated, than the eminent American
idealist, who had more than once had to modify his judgment
on European matters. Again, to remove the discussion from
the international court might well be felt as a slight put upon
the men who composed it. For why should their verdict be less
worth soliciting than that of the President of the United States ?
True, Italy's Delegates were themselves judges in that tribunal,
but the question to be tried was not a matter between two
countries, but an issue of much wider import — ^namely, what
frontiers accorded to the embryonic State of Yugo-Slavia would
be most conducive to the world's peace. And nobody, they
held, could offer a more complete or trustworthy answer than
they and their European colleagues, who were conversant with
all the elements of the problem. Besides, but this objection
was not expressly formulated, had not Mr. Wilson already decided
against Italy ? On these and other grounds, then, they decided to
leave the matter to the Conference. It was a delicate subject,
and few onlookers cared to open their minds on its merits.
Albania was represented by an old friend of mine, the venerable
Turkhan Pasha, who had been in diplomacy ever since the
Congress of Berlin in the seventies of last century, and who
looked like a modernized Nestor. I made his acquaintance many
years ago when he was Ambassador of Turkey in St. Petersburg.
He was then a favourite everywhere in the Russian capital as a
conscientious Ambassador, a charming talker and a professional
peacemaker, who wished well to everybody. The Young Turks
having recalled him from St. Petersburg, he soon afterwards
became Grand Vizier to the Mbret of Albania. Far resonant
events removed the Mbret from the throne, Turkhan Pasha
from the Vizierate, and Albania from the society of nations
and I next found my friend in Switzerland ill in health, eating the
bitter bread of exile, temporarily isolated from the world of
politics and waiting for something to turn up. A few years more
gave the AUies an unexpectedly complete victory and brought
back Turkhan Pasha to the outskirts of diplomacy and politics.
74
The Delegates
He suddenly made his appearance at the Paris Conference as
the representative of Albania and the friend of Italy.
Another Albanian friend of mine, Essad Pasha, whose plans
for the regeneration of his country differed widely from those
of Turkhan, was for a long while detained in Salonica. By dint
of solicitations and protests, he at last obtained permission to
repair to Paris and lay his views before the Conference, where
he had a curious interview with Mr. Wilson. The President
having received from Albanians in the United States many
unsolicited judgments on the character and antecedents of Essad
Pasha, had little faith in his fitness to introduce and popularize
democratic institutions in Albania. And he unburdened himself
of these doubts to friends who diffused the news. The Pasha
asked for an audience, and by dint of patience and perseverance
his prayer was heard. Five minutes before the appointed hour
he was at the President's house accompanied by his interpreter,
a young Albanian natned Stavro, who converses freely in French
Greek and Turkish, besides his native language. But while
in the antechamber, Essad, remembering that the American
President speaks nothing but pure English, suggested that
Stavro should drive over to the Hotel Grillon for an interpreter
to translate from French. Thereupon one of the secretaries
stopped him, saying : " Although he cannot speak French^ the
President understands it, so that a second interpreter will be
unnecessary." Essad then addressed Mr. Wilson in Albanian,
Stavro translated his words into French, and the President
listened in silence. It was the impression of those in the room
that, at any rate, Mr. Wilson understood and appreciated the
gist of the Pasha's sharp criticism of Italy's behaviour. But,
to be on the safe side, the President requested his visitor to set
down on paper at his leisure everything he had said and to send
it to him.
President Wilson
President Wilson, before assuming the redoubtable role of
world arbiter, was hardly more than a name in Europe, and it
75
The Peace Conference
was not a synonym for statecraft. His ethical objections to the
rule of Huerta in Mexico, his attempt to engraft democratic
principles there and the anarchy that came of it were matters
of history. But the President of the nation to whose unbounded
generosity and altruism the world owes a debt of gratitude that
can only be acknowledged, not repaid, deservedly enjoyed a
superlative measure of respect from his foreign colleagues, and
the author of the project which was to link all nations together
by ties of moral kinship was literally idolized by the masses.
Never has it fallen to my lot to see any mortal so enthusiastically,
so spontaneously welcomed by the dejected peoples of the
universe. His most casual utterances were caught up as oracles.
He occupied a height so far aloft, that the vicissitudes of every-
day life and the contingencies of politics seemingly could not
touch him. He was given credit for a rare degree of selflessness
in his conceptions and actions, and for a balance of judgment
which no storms of passion could upset. So far as one could
judge by innumerable symptoms. President Wilson was con-
fronted with an opportunity for good incomparably vaster than
had ever before been within the reach of man.
Soon after the opening of the Conference the shadowy outlines
of his portrait began to fill in, 'slowly at first, and before three
months had passed the general public beheld it fairly complete,
with many of its natural lights and shades. The quality of an
active politician is never more clearly brought out than when
raised to an eminent place he is set an arduous feat in sight of
the multitude. Mr. Wilson's task was manifestly congenial to
him, for it was deliberately chosen by himself, and it comprised
the most tremendous problems ever tackled by man bom of
woman. The means by which he set to work to solve them were
starthngly simple : the regeneration of the human race was to
be compassed by means of magisterial edicts secretly drafted
and sternly imposed on the interested peoples, together with a
new and not wholly appropriate nomenclature.
In his own country, where he has bitter adversaries as well
as devoted friends, Mr. Wilson was regarded by many as a
composite being made up of preacher, teacher and politician.
76
The Delegates
To these diverse elements they refer the fervour and unction,
the dogmatic tone and the practised shrewdness that marked his
words and acts. Independent American opinion doubted his
qualifications to be a leader. As a politician, they said, he had
always followed the crowd. He had swum with the tide of
public sentiment in cardinal matters, instead of stemming or
canaUzing and guiding it. Deficient in courageous initiative,
he had contented himself with merely executive functions. No
new idea, no fresh policy, was associated with his name. His
singular attitude on the Mexican imbroglio had provoked the
sharp criticism even of friends and the condemnation of political
opponents.' His utterances during the first stages of the world-
war, such as the statement that the American people were too
proud to fight, and had no concern with the causes and objects
of the war,* when contrasted with the opposite views which he
propounded later on, were ascribed to quick political evolution —
but were not taken as symptoms of a settled mind. He seemed
a pacifist when his pride revolted at the idea of settling any
intelligible question by an appeal to violence, and a semi-
militarist when, having in his own opinion created a perfectly
safe and bloodless peace guarantee in the shape of the League
of Nations, he agreed to safeguard it by a military compact which
sapped its foundation. He owed his re-election for a second
term partly, it was alleged, to the belief that during the first he
had kept his country out of the war despite the endeavours of
some of its eminent leaders to bring it in ; yet when firmly seated
in the saddle, he followed the leaders whom he had theretofore
withstood and obliged the nation to fight.
As chief of the great country, his domestic critics add, which
had just turned victory's scale in favour of the Allies, Mr. Wilson
saw a superb opportunity to hitch his waggon to a star, and
now for the first time he made a determined bid for the leader-
ship of the world. Here the idealist showed himself at his best.
But by way of preparation he asked the nation at the elections
to refuse their votes to his political opponents despite the fact
♦ " With its causes and objects we have no concern." Speech delivered by
Mr. Wilson before the League to Enforce Peace in Washington, on 24th May, 1916.
77
The Peace Conference
that they were loyally supporting his policy, and to return only
men of his own party, a;nd in order to silence their misgivings he
declared that to elect republican senators would be to repu-
diate the administration of the President of the United States
at a critical conjuncture. This was urged against him as the
inexpiable sin. The electors, however, sent his political oppo-
nents to the Senate, whereupon the President organized his
historic visit to Europe. It might have become a turning-point
in the world's history had he transformed his authority and
prestige into the driving-power requisite to embody his beneficent
scheme. But he wasted the opportunity for lack of moral
courage. Thus far American criticism. But the peoples of
Europe ignored the estimates of the President made by his
fellow-countrymen, who, as such, may be forgiven for failing to
appreciate his apostleship, or set the full value on his humani-
tarian strivings. The war-weary masses judged him not by
what he had achieved or attempted in the past, but by what he
proposed to do in the future. And measured by this standard,
his spiritual stature grew to legendary proportions.
Europe, when the President touched its shores, was as clay
ready for the creative potter. Never before were the nations so
eager to follow a Moses who would take them to the long promised
land where wars are prohibited and blockades unknown. And
to their thinking he was that great leader. In France men
bowed down before him with awe and affection. Labour leaders
in Paris told me that they shed tears of joy in his presence, and
that their comrades would go through fire and water to help
him to realize his noble schemes.* To the working classes in
* The testimony of a leading French press organ is worth reproducing here :
" La situation du President Wilson dans nos democraties est magnifique, souver-
aine et extrSmement p6rilleuse. On ne connalt pas d'hommes, dans les temps
contemporains, ayant eu plus d'autoritfi et de puissance ; la popularitfe lui a
donn6 ce que le droit divin ne confferait pas toujours aux monarques h^rMitaires.
En revanche et par le fait du choc en retour, sa responsabilit6 est supferieure eL celle
du prince le plus absolu. S'il r6ussit k organiser le monde d'aprSs ses r6ves, sa
gloire dominera les plus hautes gloires ; mais il faut dire hardiment que s'il
6chouait il plongerait le monde dans un chaos dont le bolchevisme russe ne nous
offre qu'une faible image ; et sa responsabilit6 devant la conscience humaine
d6passerait ce que pent supporter un simple mortel. Redoutable alternative I "
— Cf. Le Figaro, loth February, 1919.
78
The Delegates
Italy his name was a heavenly clarion at the sound of which
the earth would be renewed. The Germans regarded him
and his humane doctrine as their sheet-anchor of safety. The
fearless Herr Muehlon said : " If Pr^ident Wilson were to
address the Germans, and pronounce a severe sentence upon
them, they would accept -it with resignation and without a
murmur and set to work at once." In German-Austria his fame
was that of a saviour, and the mere mention of his name brought
balm to the suffering and surcease of sorrow to the afflicted.
A touching instance of this which occurred in the Austrian
capital, when narrated to the President, moved him to tears.
There were some five or six thousand Austrian children in the
hospitals at Vienna who, as Christmas was drawing near, were
sorely in need of medicaments and much else. The head of
the American Red Cross took up their case and persuaded the
Americans in France to send two million dollars' worth of
medicaments to Vienna. These were duly despatched, and had
got as far as Berne, when the French authorities, having got
wind of the matter, protested against this premature assistance
to infant enemies on grounds which the other Allies had to
recognize as technically tenable, and the medicaments were
ordered back to France from Berne. Thereupon Dr. Ferries,
of the International Red Cross, became wild with indignation
and laid the matter before the Swiss Government, which under-
took to send some medicaments to the children, while the
Americans were endeavouring to move the French to allow at
least some of the remedies to go through. The children in the
hospitals, when told that they must wait, were bright and hopeful.
" It will be all right," some of them exclaimed ; " WUson is
coming soon, and he will bring us everything."
Thus Mr. Wilson had become a transcendental hero to the
European proletarians, who in their homely way adjusted his
mental and moral attributes to their own ideal of the latter-
day Messiah. His legendary figure, half saint, half revolutionist,
emerged from the transparent haze of faith, yearning and
ignorance, as in some ecstatic vision. In spite of his recorded
acts and utterances the mythopseic faculty of the peoples had
79
The Peace Conference
given itself free scope and created a messianic democrat destined
to free the lower orders, as they were called, in each State from the
shackles of capitaUsm, legalized thraldom and crushing taxation,
and each nation from sanguinary warfare. Truly, no human
being since the dawn of history has ever yet been favoured
with such a superb opportunity. Mr. Wilson might have made
a gallant effort to lift society out of the deep grooves into which
it had sunk, and dislodge the secular obstacles to the enfranchise-
ment and transfiguration of the human race. At the lowest
it was open to him to become the centre of a countless multitude,
the heart of their hearts, the incarnation of their noblest thought,
on condition that he scorned the prudential motives of politi-
cians, burst through the barriers of the old order, and deployed
all his energies and his full will-power in the struggle against
sordid interests and dense prejudice. But he was cowed by
obstacles which his will lacked the strength to surmount, and
instead of receiving his promptings from the everlasting ideals
of mankind and the inspiriting audacities of his own highest
nature and appealing to the peoples against their rulers, he felt
constrained in the very interest of his cause to haggle and barter
with the Scribes and the Pharisees, and ended by recording a
pitiful answer to the most momentous problems couched in the
impoverished phraseology of a political party.
Many of his political friends had advised the President not
to visit Europe lest the vast prestige and influence which he
wielded from a distance should dwindle unutilized on close
contact with the realists' crowd. Even the war-god Mars, when
he descended into the ranks of the combatants on the Trojan
side, was wounded by a Greek, and, screaming with pain, scurried
back to Olympus with paling halo. But Mr. Wilson decided to
preside and to direct the fashioning of his project, and to give
Europe the benefit of his advice. He explained to Congress
that he hiad expressed the ideals of the country for which its
soldiers had consciously fought, had had them accepted " as
the substance ol their own thoughts and purpose " by the
statesmen of the associated Governments, and now, he con-
cluded : " I owe it to them to see to it, in so far as in me lies,
80
The Delegates
H2at 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 lives and
blood to obtain. I can think of no call to service which could
transcend this."* No intention could well be more praiseworthy.
vSoon after the George Washington, flying the Presidential flag,
had steamed out of the bay on her way to Europe, the United
Press received from its correspondent on board, who was attached
to Mr. Wilson's person, a message which invigorated the hopes
of the world, and evoked warm outpourings of the seared soul
of suffering man in gratitude towards the bringer of balm. It
began thus : " The President sails for Europe to uphold American
ideals, and literally to fight for his fourteen points. The
President, at the peace table, will insist on the freedom of the
seas and a general disarmament. . . . The seas, he holds, ought
to be guarded by the whole world."
Since then the world knows what to think of the literal fighting
at the peace table. The freedom of the seas was never as much
as alluded to at the peace table, for the announcement of Mr.
Wilson's militant championship brought him a wireless message
from London, to the effect that that proposal, at all events,
must be struck out of his programme if he wished to do business
with Britain. And without a fight or a remonstrance the Presi-
dent struck it out. The fourteen points were not discussed at
the Conference.f One may deplore, but one cannot misunder-
stand what happened. Mr. Wilson, too, had his own fixed
aim to attain : Intent on associating his name with a grandiose
humanitarian monument, he was resolved not to return to his
country without some sort of a covenant of the new inter-
national life. He could not afford to go home empty-handed.
Therein lay his weakness and the source of his failure. For
whenever his attitude towards the Great Powers was taken to
mean : " Unless you give me my Covenant, you cannot have
* From Mr. Wilson's address to Congress read on December 2nd, 1918. Cf.
The Times, December 4th, 1918.
t Cf . Secretary Lansing's evidence before the Senate Foreign Relations Com-
mittee, Chicago Tribune, 27th August, 1919.
81 6
The Peace Conference
your Treaty," the retort was ready : " Without our Treaty there
will be no Covenant."
Like Dejoces, the first King of the Medes, who, having built
his palace at Ecbatana, surrounded it with seven walls and
permanently withdrew his person from the gaze of his subjects,
Mr. Wilson in Paris admitted to his presence only the authorized
spokesmen of States and causes, and not all of these. He
declined to receive persons who thought they had a claim to see
him, and he received others who were believed to have none.
During his sojourn in Paris he took many important Russian
affairs in hand after having publicly stated that no peace could
be stable so long as Russia was torn by internal strife. And as
famiharity with Russian conditions was not one of his accom-
plishments, he presumably needed advice and help from those
acquainted with them. Now a large number of Russians,
representing all political parties and four governments, were in
Paris waiting to be consulted. But between January and May
not one of them was ever asked for information or counsel. Nay,
more, those who respectfully solicited an audience were told
to wait. In the meanwhile men unacquainted with the country
and people were sent by Mr. Wilson to report on the situation,
and to begin by obtaining the terms of an acceptable treaty from
the Bolshevik Government.
The first plenipotentiary of one of the principal lesser States
was for months refused an audience, to the delight of his political
adversaries, who made the most of the circumstance at home.
An eminent diplomatist who possessed considerable claims to
be vouchsafed an interview was put off from week to week,
until at last, by dint of perseverance, as it seemed to him, the
President consented to see him. The diplomatist, pleased at his
success, informed a friend that the following Wednesday would
be the memorable day. " But are you not aware," asked the
friend, " that on that day the President will be on the high seas
on his way back to the United States ? " He was not aware
of it. But when he learned that the audience had been deliber-
ately fixed for a day when Mr. Wilson would no longer be in
France, he felt aggrieved.
. 82
The Delegates
In Italy the President's progress was a veritable triumph.
Emperors and kings had roused no such enthusiasm. One might
fancy him a deity unexpectedly discovered under the outward
appearance of a mortal and now being honoured as the god that
he was by ecstatic worshippers. Everything he did was well
done, everything he said was nobly conceived and worthy of
being treasured up. In these dispositions a few brief months
wrought a vast difference.
In this respect an instructive comparison might be made
between Tsar - Alexander I. at the Vienna Congress and the
President of the United States at the Conference of Paris. The
Russian monarch arrived in the Austrian capital with the halo
of a Moses focussing the hopes of all the peoples of Europe.
His reputation for probity, public spirit and lofty aspirations
had won for him the goodwill and the anticipatory blessings of
war-weary nations. He, too, was a mystic, believed firmly in
occult influences, so firmly indeed that he accepted the fitful
guidance of an ecstatic lady whose intuition was supposed to
transcend the sagacity of professional statesmen. And yet the
Holy Alliance was the supreme outcome of his endeavours, as
the League of Nations was that of Mr. Wilson's. In lieu of
universal peace all Eastern Europe was still warring and revolting
in September and the general outlook was disquieting. The
disheartening effect of the contrast between the promise and the
achievement of the American statesman was felt throughout the
world. But Mr. Wilson has the solace to know that people hardly
ever reach their goal — though they sometimes advance fairly near
to it. They either die on the way or else it changes or they do.
It was doubtless a noble ambition that moved the Prime
Ministers of the Great Powers and the Chief of the North American
Republic to give their own service to the Conference as heads of
their respective missions. For they considered themselves to be
the best equipped for the purpose, and they were certainly free
from such prejudices as professional traditions and a confusing
knowledge of details might be supposed to engender. But in
almost every respect it was a grievous mistake and the source
of others still more grievous. True, in his own particular sphere
83 6*
The Peace Conference
each of them had achieved what is nowadays termed greatness.
As a war leader Mr. Lloyd George had been hastily classed with
Marlborough and Chatham, M. Clemenceau compared to Danton
and Mr. Wilson set apart in a category to himself. But without
questioning these journalistic certificates of fame one must admit
that all three plenipotentiaries were essentially politicians, old
parhamentary hands, and therefore expedient-mongers whose
highest qualifications for their own profession were drawbacks
which unfitted them for their self-assumed mission. Of the
concrete world which they Set about reforming their knowledge
was amazingly vague. " Frogs in the pond," says the Japanese
proverb, " know naught of the ocean." There was, of course,
nothing blameworthy in their unacquaintanceship with the
issues, but only in the offhandedness with which they belittled
its consequences. Had they been conversant with the subject or
gifted with deeper insight, many of the things which seemed
particularly clear to them would have struck them as sheer
inexplicable, and among these perhaps their own leadership of
the world parliament.
What they lacked, however, might in some perceptible degree
have been supplied by enlisting as their helpers men more
happily endowed than themselves. But they deliberately chose
mediocrities. It is a mark of genial spirits that they are well
served, but the plenipotentiaries of the Conference were not
characterized by it. Away in the background some of them
had familiars or casual prompters to whose counsels they were
wont to listen, but many of the adjoints who moved in the Ume-
light of the world-stage were gritless and pithless.
As the heads of the principal Governments implicitly claimed
to be the authorized spokesmen of the human race and en-
dowed with unlimited powers, it is worth noting that this claim
was boldly challenged by the peoples' organs in the Press. Nearly
all the journals read by the masses objected from the first to the
dictatorship of the group of Premiers, Mr. Wilson being excepted.
" The modern parasite," wrote a respectable democratic news-
paper,* " is the politician. Of all the privileged beings who have
* La Dimocratie Nouvelle, 27th May, 1919,
84
The Delegates
ever governed us he is the worst. In that, however, there is
nothing surprising ... he is not only amoral but incompetent
by definition. And it is this empty-headed individual who is
entrusted with the task of settling problems with the very rudi-
ments of which he is unacquainted." Another French journal*
wrote : " In truth it is a misfortune that the leaders of the Con-
ference are Cabinet chiefs, for each of them is obsessed by the
carking cares of his domestic policy. Besides, the Paris Conference
takes on the likeness of a lyrical drama in which there are only
tenors. Now would even the most beautiful work in the world
survive this excess of beauties ? "
The truth as revealed by subsequent facts would seem to be
that each of the plenipotentiaries recognizing parliamentary
success as the source of his power was obsessed by his own political
problems and stimulated by his own immediate ends. As these
ends, however incompatible with each other, were believed by
each one to tend towards the general object, he worked zealously
for their attainment. The consequences are notorious. M.
Clemenceau made France the hub of the universe. Mr. Lloyd
George harboured schemes which naturally identified the welfare
of mankind with the hegemony of the English-speaking races.
Signor Orlando was inspired by the " sacred egotism " which
had actuated all Italian Cabinets since Italy entered the war,
and President Wilson was burning to associate his name and also
that of his country with the vastest and noblest enterprise in-
scribed in the annals of history. And each one moved over his
own favourite route towards his own goal. It was an apt illus-
tration of the Russian fable of the swan, the crab and the pike
being harnessed together in order to remove a load. The swan
flew upwards, the crab crawled backwards, the pike made with
all haste for the water, and the load remained where it was.
A lesser but also a serious disadvantage of the delegation of
government chiefs made itself felt in the procedure. Embarrassing
delays were occasioned by the unavoidable absences of the prin-
cipal Delegates whom pressure of domestic pohtics called to their
respective capitals, as well as by their tactics, and their colleagues
* Le Figaro, 26th March, 1919.
83
The Peace Conterence
profited by their absence for the sake of the good cause. Thus
all Paris, as we saw, was aware that the European chiefs, whose
faith in Wilsonian orthodoxy was still feeble at that time, were
prepared to take advantage of the President's sojourn in Washing-
ton to speed up business in their own sense and to confront
him on his return with accomplished facts. But when, on his
return, he beheld their handiwork he scrapped it, and a consider-
able loss of time ensued for which the world has since had to pay
very heavily.
Again, when Premier Orlando was in Rome after Mr. Wilson's
appeal to the Italian people a series of measures were passed
by the Delegates in Paris affecting Italy, diminishing her im-
portance at the Conference and modifying the accepted interpre-
tation of the Treaty of London. Some of these decisions had
to be cancelled when the Italians returned. These stratagems
had an undesirable effect on the Italians.
Not the least of the Premiers' disabiUties lay in the circmn-
stance that they were the merest novices in international affairs.
Geography, ethnography, psychology and political history were
sealed books to them. Like the Rector of Louvain University
who told Oliver Goldsmith that, as he had become the head
of that institution without knowing Greek he failed to see why
it should be taught there, the chiefs of State having attained
the highest position in their respective countries without more
than an inkling of international affairs were unable to reahze
the importance of mastering them or the impossibility of repairing
the omission as they went along.
They displayed their contempt for professional diplomacy
and this feeling was shared by many, but they extended that
sentiment to certain diplomatic postulates which can in no case
be dispensed with, because they are common to all professions.
One of them is knowledge of the terms of the problems to be
solved. No conjuncture could have been less favourable for
an experiment based on this theory. The general situation
made a demand on the Delegates for special knowledge and
experience, whereas the Premiers and the President, although
specialists in nothing, had to act as speciaUsts in everything.
86
The Delegates
Traditional diplomacy would have shown some respect for the
law of causality. It would have sent to the Conference diplo-
matists more or less acquainted with the issues to be mooted
and also with the mentality of the other negotiators, and it would
have assigned to them a number of experts as advisers. It would
have formed a plan similar to that proposed by the French
authorities and rejected by the Anglo-Saxons. In this way at
least the technical part of the task would have been tackled on
right lines, the war would have been liquidated and normal
relations quickly re-established among the belligerent States.
It may be objected that this would have been a meagre contri-
bution to the new politico-social fabric. Undoubtedly it would,
but however meagre, it would have been a positive gain. Possibly
the first stone of a new world might have been laid once the ruins
of the old were cleared away. But even this modest feat could
not be achieved by amateurs working in desultory fashion and
handicapped by their political parties at home. The resultant
of their apparent co-operation was a sum in subtraction because
dispersal or effort was unavoidably substituted for concentration.
Whether one contemplates them in the light of their public
acts or through the prism of gossip, the figures cut by the Dele-
gates of the Great Powers were pathetic. Giants in the par-
liamentary sphere, they shrank to the dimensions of dwarfs in
the international. In matters of geography, ethnography,
history and international politics they were helplessly at sea,
and the stories told of certain of their efforts to keep their heads
above water while maintaining a simulacrum of dignity would
have been amusing were the issues less momentous. "Is it
after Upper or Lower Silesia that those greedy Poles are han-
kering ? " one Premier is credibly reported to have asked some
months after the Polish Delegation had propounded and defended
its claims and he had had time to familiarize himself with them.
" Please point out to me Dalmatia on the map," was another
characteristic request, " and tell me what connection there is
between it and Fiume." One of the principal plenipotentiaries
addressed a Delegate who is an acquaintance of mine approxi-
mately as follows : " I cannot understand the spokesmen of
87
The Peace Conference
the smaller States. To me they seem stark mad. They single
out a strip of territory and for no intelligible reason flock round
it like birds of prey round a corpse on the field of battle. Take
Silesia, for example. The Poles are clamouring for it as if the very
existence of their country depended on their annexing it. The
Germans are still more crazy about it. But for their eagerness
I suppose there is some solid "foundation. But how in heaven's
name do the Armenians come to claim it ? Just think of it,
the Armenians ! The world has gone mad. No wonder France
has set her foot down and warned them off the ground. But
what does France herself want with it ? What is the clue to
the mystery ? " My acquaintance, in reply, pointed out as con-
siderately as he could that Silesia was the province for which Poles
and Germans were contending, whereas the Armenians were plead-
ing for Cilicia, which is further East, and were therefore frowned
upon by the French, who conceive that they have a civilizing
mission there and men enough to accomplish it.
It is characteristic of the epoch, and therefore worthy of the
historian's attention, that not only the members of the Con-
ference but also other leading statesmen of Anglo-Saxon coun-
tries were wont to make a very little knowledge of peoples and
countries go quite a far way. Two examples may serve to famili-
arize the reader with the phenomenon and to moderate his sur-
prise at the defects of the world dictators in Paris. One English-
speaking statesman, dealing with the Italian Government* and
casting around for some effective way of helping the Italian people
out of their pitiable economic plight, fancied he hit upon a felici-
tous expedient which he unfolded as follows. " I venture,"
he said, " to promise that if you will largely increase your culti-
vation of bananas the people of my country will take them aU.
No matter how great the quantities, our market will absorb them
and that will surely make a considerable addition to your balance
on the right side." At first the Italians believed he was joking.
But finding that he really meant what he said they ruthlessly
revealed his idea to the nation under the heading : " Italian
bananas ! "
• Both of them occurred before the armistice but during the war.
88
The Delegates
Here is the other instance. During the war the Pohsh people
was undergoing unprecedented hardships. Many of the poorer
classes were literally perishing of hunger. A Polish commission
was sent to an Enghsh-speaking country to interest the Govern-
ment and people in the condition of the sufferers and obtain
relief. The envoys had an interview with a Secretary of State
who inquired to what port they intended to have the foodstuffs
conveyed for distribution in the interior of Poland. They an-
swered " We shall have them taken to Dantzig. There is no
other way." The statesman reflected a little and then said :
" You may meet with difhculties. If you have them shipped
to Dantzig you must of course first obtain Italy's permission.
Have you got it ? " " No. We had not thought of that. In
fact, we don't yet see why Italy need be approached." " Because
it is Italy who has command of the Mediterranean and if you
want the transport taken to Dantzig, it is the Itahan Govern-
ment that you must ask ! "*
The Delegates picked up a good deal of miscellaneous informa-
tion about the various countries whose future they were regulat-
ing, and to their credit it should be said that they put questions '
to their informants without a trace of false pride. One of the two
chief Delegates wending homewards from a sitting at which M.
Jules Cambon had spoken a good deal about those Pohsh districts
which, although they contained a majority of Germans, yet be-
longed of right to Poland, asked the French Delegate why he had
made so many allusions to Frederic the Great. " What had
Frederic to do with Poland ? " he inquired. The answer was
that the present German majority of the inhabitants was made
up of colonists who had immigrated into the districts since
the time of Frederic the Great and the partition of Poland. ' ' Yes,
I see," exclaimed the statesman. " but what had Frederic the
Great to do with the partition of Poland ? " . . . In the domain
of ethnography there were also many pitfaUs and accidents.
During an official expose of the Oriental situation before the
Supreme Council, one of the Great Four, listening to a narrative
♦ For the accuracy of this and the preceding story I vouch absolutely. I have
the names of persons, places and authorities, which are superfluous here
89
The Peace Conference
of Turkish misdeeds, heard that the Kurds had tortured and
killed a number of defenceless women, children and old men.
He at once interrupted the speaker with the query : " You now
call them Kurds. A few minutes ago you said they were Turks.
I take it that the Kurds and the Turks are the same people ? "
Loath to embarrass one of the world's arbiters, the delegate re-
spectfully replied, " Yes, sir, they are about the same, but the
worse of the two are the Kurds."*
Great Britain's first Delegate with engaging candour sought
to disarm criticism by frankly confessing in the House of Com-
mons that he had never before heard of Teschen, about which such
an extraordinary fuss was then being made, and by asking ;
" How many members of the House have ever heard of Teschen ?
Yet," he added significantly, " Teschen very nearly produced an
angry conflict between two allied States."t
The circumstance that an eminent parliamentarian had never
heard of problems that agitate Continental peoples is excusable.
Less so was his resolve, despite such a capital disqualification, to
undertake the task of solving those problems single-handed,
although conscious that the fate of whole peoples depended on
his succeeding. It is no adequate justification to say that he
could always fall back upon special commissions, of which there
was no lack at the Conference. Unless he possessed a safe
criterion by which to assess the value of the commissions' con-
clusions, he must needs himself decide the matter arbitrarily.
And the Delegates, having no such criterion, pronounced very
arbitrary judgments on momentous issues. One instance of this
turned upon Poland's claims to certain territories incorporated
in Germany which were referred to a special commission under
the presidency of M. Carabon. Commissioners were sent to the
country to study the matter on the spot, where they had received
every facility for acquainting themselves with it. After some
weeks the commission reported in favour of the Polish claim with
* The Kurds are members of the great Indo-European family to which the
Greeks, Italians, Celts, Teutons, Slavs, Hindoos, Persians and Afghans belong,
whereas the Turks are a branch of a wholly different stock, the Ural-Altai group,
of which the Mongols, Turks, Tartars, Finns and Magyars are members.
t l6th April, 1919.
90
The Delegates
unanimity. But Mr. Lloyd George rejected their conclusions and
insisted on having the report sent back to them for reconsidera-
tion. Again the commissioners went over the familiar ground,
but felt obliged to repeat their verdict anew. Once more, how-
ever, the British Premier demurred, and such was his tenacity
that despite Mr. Wilson's opposition the final decision of the
Conference reversed that of the commission and non-suited the
Poles. By what line of argument, people naturally asked,
did the first British Delegate come to that conclusion ? That
he knew more about the matter than the special inter-allied
commission is hardly to be supposed. Indeed, nobody assumed
that he was any better informed on that subject than about
Teschen. The explanation put in circulation by interested
persons was that, like Socrates, he had his own familiar demon to
prompt him, who, like all such spirits, chose to flourish, like
the violet, in the shade. That this source of light was accessible
to the Prime Minister may, his apologists hold, one day prove
a boon to the peoples whose fate was thus being spun in darkness
and seemingly at haphazard. Possibly. But in the meanwhile
it was construed as an affront to their intelligence and a violation
of the promise made to them of " open covenants openly arrived
at." The Press asked why the information requisite for the work
had not been acquired in advance, as these semi-mystical ways
of obtaining it commended themselves to nobody. Wholly
mystical were the methods attributed to one or other of the
men who were preparing the advent of the new era. For super-
stition of various kinds was supposed to be as well represented
at the Paris Conference as at the Congress of Vienna. Charac-
teristic of the epoch was the gravity with which individuals
otherwise well-balanced exercised their ingenuity in finding out
the true relation of the world's peace to certain lucky numbers.
For several events connected with the Conference the thirteenth
day of the month was deliberately, and some occultists added
felicitously, chosen. It was also noticed that an effort was made
by all the Delegates to have the Allies' reply to the -German
counter-proposals presented on the day of destiny, Friday, the
13th June. When it miscarried a flutter was caused in the dove-
91
The Peace Conference
cots of the illuminated. The failure was construed as an in-
auspicious omen and it caused the spirits of many to droop.
The principal clairvoyante of Paris, Madame N., who pltmies
herself on being the intermediary between the Fates that rule
and some of their earthly executors, was consulted on the subject,
one knows not with what result.* It was given out, however,
as the solemn utterance of the oracle in vogue that Mr. Wilson's
enterprise was weighted with original sin ; he had made one false
step before his arrival in Europe and that had put everything out
of gear. By enacting fourteen commandments he had countered
the magic charm of his lucky thirteen. One of the fourteen, it
was soothsaid, must therefore be omitted — it might be, say, that of
open covenants openly arrived at, or the freedom of the seas,
in a word, any one so long as the mystic number thirteen remained
intact. But should that be impossible, seeing that the fourteen
points had already become household words to all nations and
peoples, then it behoved the President to number the last of his
saving points I3«.t
This odd mixture of the real and the fanciful — a sjanptom, as
the initiated believed, of a mood of fine spiritual exaltation —
met with little sympathy among the impatient masses whose
struggle for bare life was growing ever fiercer. Stagnation held
the business world, prices were rising to prohibitive heights, partly
because of the dawdling of the world's conclave; hunger was
stalking about the ruined villages of the northern departments
of France, destructive wars were being waged in Eastern Europe,
and thousands of Christians were dying of hunger in Bessarabia.J
Epigrammatic strictures and winged words barbed with stinging
satire indicated the feelings of the many. And the fact remains
on record that streaks of the mysticism that buoyed up Alexander I.
at the Congress of Vienna, and is supposed to have stimulated
♦ Mme. N showed a friend of mine an autograph letter -vyhich she claims
to have received from one of her clients, " a world's famous man." I was several
times invited to inspect it at the clairvoyante's abode, or at my own, if I preferred.
f Articles on the subject appeared in the French Press. To the best of my
recollection there was one in Bonsoir.
} The American Red Cross buried i,6oo of them in August, 1919. Chicago
Tribune (Paris Edition), 30th August, 1919.
92
The Delegates
Nicholas II. during the first world-parliament at The Hague,
were noticeable from time to time in the environment of the Paris
Conference. The disclosure of these elements of superstition
was distinctly harmful and might have been hindered easily by
the system of secrecy and censorship which effectively concealed
matters much less mischievous.
The position of the plenipotentiaries was unenviable at best
and they well deserve the benefit of extenuating circumstances.
For not even a genius can efficiently tackle problems with the
elements of which he lacks acquaintanceship, and the mass of
facts which they had to deal with was sheer unmanageable.
It was distressing to watch them during those eventful months
groping and floundering through a labyrinth of obstacles with
no Ariadne clue to guide their tortuous course, and discovering
that their task was more intricate than they had imagined. The
ironic domination of temper and circumstance over the fitful
exertions of men struggling with the partially realized difficulties
of a false position led to many incongruities upon which it would
be ungracious to dwell. One of them, however, which illustrates
the situation seems almost incredible. It is said to have occurred
in January. According to the current narrative, soon after
the arrival of President Wilson in Paris he received from a French
publicist named M. B. a long and interesting memorandum
about the island of Corsica, recounting the history, needs and
aspirations of the population as well as the various attempts
they had made to regain their independence, and requesting
him to employ his good offices at the Conference to obtain for them
complete autonomy. To this demand M. B. is said to have
received a reply* to the effect that the President " is persuaded
that this question will form the subject of a thorough examina-
tion by the competent authorities of the Conference ! " Corsica,
the birthplace of Napoleon and as much an integral part of France
as the Isle of Man is of England, seeking to slacken the ties that
link it to the Republic and receiving a promise that the matter
would be carefully considered by the Delegates sounds more like
* The reply, of which I possess what was given to me as a copy, is dated Paris,
9th January, 1919, and is in French.
93
The Peace Conference
a mystification than a sober statement of fact. The story was
sent to the newspapers for pubHcation, but the Censor very wisely
struck it out.
These and kindred occurrences enable one better to appreciate
the motives which prompted the Delegates to shroud their con-
versations and tentative decisions in a decorous veil of secrecy.
It is but fair to say that the enterprise to which they set their
hands was the vastest that ever tempted lofty ambitions since
the tower-builders of Babel strove to bring heaven within reach
of the earth. It transcended the capacity of the contemporary
world's greatest men.* It was a labour for a wonder-worker
in the pristine days of heroes. But although to solve even the
main problems without residue was beyond the reach of the
most genial representatives of latter-day statecraft, it needed
only clearness of conception, steadiness of purpose and the
proper adjustment of means to ends, to begin the work on the
right lines, and give it an impulse that might perhaps carry it
to completion in the fullness of time.
But even these postulates were wanting. The eminent par-
liamentarians failed to rise to the gentle height of average state-
craft. They appeared in their new and august character of
world-reformers with all the roots still chnging to them of the
rank electoral soil from which they sprang. Their words alone
* Imagine, for instance, the condition of mind into whicli the following day's
work must have thrown the American statesman, beset as he was with political
worries of his own. The extract quoted is taken from the Daily Mail of April 1 8 th,
9-19 (Paris Edition).
" President Wilson had a busy day yesterday, as the following list of engage-
ments shows :
"II a.m. Dr. Wellington Koo, to present the Chinese Delegation to the Peace
Conference.
" II. 10 a.m. Marquis de Vogu6 ha,d a delegation of seven others, representing
the Congrfes National FranQais, to present their view as to the disposition of the
left bank of the Rhine.
" 11.30 a.m. Assyrian and Chaldean Delegation, with a message from the
Assyrian-Chaldean Nation.
" 11.4s a-in. Dalmatian Delegation, to present to the President the result
of the plebiscite of that part of Dalmatia occupied by Italians.
" Noon. M. Bucquet, Charg6 d'Afiaires of San Marino, to convey the action
of the Grand Council of San Marino, conferring on the President Honorary Citizen-
ship in the Republic of San Marino, '
94
The Delegates
were redolent of idealism, their deeds were too often marred by
pettifogging compromises or childish blunders : constructive
phrases and destructive acts. Not only had they no settled
method of working, they lacked even a common proximate
aim. For although they all employed the same phraseology
when describing the objects for which their countries had fought
and they themselves were ostensibly labouring, no two Delegates
attached the same ideas to the words they used. Yet, instead of
candidly avowing this root-defect and remedying it, they were
content to stretch the euphemistic terms until these covered
conflicting conceptions, and gratified the ears of every hearer.
Thus, " open covenants openly arrived at " came to mean
arbitrary ukases issued by a secret conclave, and " the self-
determination of peoples " connoted implicit obedience to dic-
tatorial decrees. The net result was a bewildering phantas-
magoria.
And yet it was professedly for the purpose of obviating such
misunderstandings that Mr. .Wilson had crossed the Atlantic.
Having expressed in plain terms the ideals for which American
soldiers had fought, and which became the substance of the
thoughts and purposes of the associated statesmen, " I owe it
to them," he had said, " to see to it in so far as in me lies that
no false or mistaken interpretation is put upon them, and no
" 12.10 p.m. M. Colonder, Swiss Minister of Foreign Affairs.
" 12.20 p.m. Miss Rose Schneiderman and Miss Mary Anderson, delegates
of the National Women's Trade Union League of the United States.
" 12.30 p.m. The Patriarch of Constantinople, the head of the Orthodox
Eastern Church.
" 12.45 P-*»- Essad Pasha, delegate of Albania, to present the claims of
Albania.
" I p.m. M. M. L. Coromilas, Greek Minister at Rome, to pay his respects.
" Luncheon. Mr. Newton D. Baker, Secretary for War.
" 4 p.m. Mr. Herbert Hoover.
"4.15 p.m. M. Bratiano, of the Roumanian Delegation.
■■ 4.30 p.m. Dr. Afionso Costa, former Portuguese Minister, Portuguese
Delegate to the Peace Conference.
■'4.45 p.m. Boghos Nubar Pasha, president of the Armenian National
Delegation, accompanied by M. A. Aharoman and Professor A. Der Hagopian,
of Robert College.
" 5.15 p.m. M. Pasitch, of the Serbian Delegation.
" 5-30 ^•»»- Mr. Frank Walsh, of the Irish-American Delegation."
95
The Peace Conference
possible effort omitted to realize them." And that was the
result achieved.
No such juggling with words as went on at the Conference
had been witnessed since the days of medieval casuistry. New
meanings were infused into old terms, rendering the help of
" exegesis " indispensable. Expressions Uke " territorial equili-
brium " and " strategic frontiers " were stringently banished,
and it is affirmed that President Wilson would wince and his
expression change at the bare mention of these obnoxious sym-
bols of the effete ordering which it was part of his mission to
do away with for ever. And yet the things signified by those
words were preserved withal under other names. Nor could it
well be otherwise. One can hardly conceive a durable state
system in Europe under the new any more than the old dispensa-
tion without something that corresponds to equilibrium. An
architect who should boastingly discard the law of gravitation
in favour of a different theory would stand little chance of being
entrusted with the construction of a palace of peace. Similarly
a statesman, who, while proclaiming that the era of wars is not
yet over, would deprive of strategic frontiers the pivotal states
of Europe which are most exposed to sudden attack would
deserve to find few disciples and fewer clients. Yet that was
what Mr. Wilson aimed at and what some of his friends affirm
he has achieved. His foreign colleagues re-echoed his dogmas
after having emasculated them. It was instructive and un-
edifpng to watch how each of the Delegates, when his own
country's turn came to be dealt with on the new lines, reversed
his tactics, and, sacrificing sound to substance, insisted on safe-
guards, relied on historic rights, invoked economic requirements
and appealed to common sense, but all the while loyally abjured
" territorial equilibrium " and " strategic guarantees." Hence
the fierce struggles which MM. Orlando, Dmowski, Bratiano,
Venizelos and Makino had to carry on with the chief of that
State which is the least interested in European affairs in order
to obtain all or part of the territories which they considered
indispensable to the security and well-being of their respective
countries.
96
The Delegates
At the outset Mr. Wilson stood for an ideal Europe of a wholly
new and undefined type, which would have done away with the
need for strategic frontiers. Its contours were vague, for he
had no clear mental picture of the concrete Europe out of which
it was to be fashioned. He spoke, indeed, and would fain have
acted, as though the Old Continent were like a thinly-inhabited
territory of North America fifty years ago, unencumbered by
awkward survivals of the past and capable of receiving any
impress. He seemingly took no account of its history, its
peoples, or their interests and strivings. History shared the
fate of Koltchak's Governmenti and the Ukraine ; it was not
recognized by the Delegates. What he brought to Europe
from America was an abstract idea, old and European, and at
first his foreign colleagues treated it as such. Some of them
had actually sneered at it, others had damned it with faint
praise, and now all of them honestly strove to save their own
countries' vital interests from its disruptive action while help-
ing to apply it to their neighbours. Thus Britain, who at that
time had no territorial claims to put forward, had her sea-doctrine
to uphold, and she upheld it resolutely. Before he reached
Europe the President was notified in plain terms that his theory
of the freedom of the seas would neither be entertained nor
discussed. Accordingly he abandoned it without protest. It
was then explained away as a journEiUstic misconception.
That was the first toll paid by the American reformer in Europe,
and it spelled failure to his entire scheme, which was one and
indivisible. It fell to my lot to record the payment of the tribute
and the abandonment of that first of the fourteen command-
ments. The mystic thirteen lemained. But soon afterwards
another went by the board. Then there were twelve. And
gradually the number dwindled.
This recognition of hard reaUties was a bitter disappointment
to all the friends of the spiritual and social renovation of the
world. It was a spectacle for cynics. It rendered a frank
return to the ancient system unavoidable and brought grist to
the mill of the equilibrists. And yet the conclusion was shirked.
But even the tough realities might have been made to yield a
97 7
The Peace Conference
tolerable peace if they had been faced squarely. If the new
conception could not be realized at once, the old one should have
been taken back into favour provisionally until broader founda-
tions could be laid, but it must be one thing or the other. From
the political angle of vision at which the European delegates
insisted on placing themselves, the old-world way of tackling
the various problems was alone admissible. Their programme
was coherent and their reasoning strictly logical. The former
included strategic frontiers and territorial equilibrium. Doubt-
less this angle of vision was narrow, the survey it allowed was
inadequate, and the results attainable ran the risk of being
ultimately thrust aside by the indignant peoples. For the
world-problem was not wholly nor even mainly poUtical. Still,
the method was intelligible and the ensuing combinations
would have hung coherently together. They would have satis-
fied all those — and they were many — ^who beUeved that the
second decade of the twentieth century differs in no essential
respect from the first and that latter-day world-problems may
be solved by judicious territorial redistribution. But even that
conception was not consistently acted on. Deviations were
permitted here and insisted upon there, only they were spoken
of unctuously as sacrifices incumbent on the lesser states to the
fourteen points. For the Delegates set great store by their
reputation for logic and coherency. Whatever other charges
against the Conference might be tolerated, that of inconsistency
was bitterly resented, especially by Mr. Wilson. For a long
while he contended that he was as true to his fourteen points
as is the needle to the pole. It was not until after his return to
Washington, in the summer, that he admitted the perturbations
caused by magnetic currents — sympathy for France he termed
them.
The effort of imagination required to discern consistency in
such of the Council's decisions as became known from time to
time was so far beyond the capacity of average outsiders that
the ugly phrase " to make the world safe for hypocrisy " was
early coined, uttered and propagated.
98
CHAPTER IV
CENSORSHIP AND SECRECY
NEVER was political veracity in Europe at a lower ebb
than during the Peace Conference. The blinding dust
of half-truths cunningly mixed with falsehood and deliberately
scattered with a lavish hand, obscured the vision of the people
who were expected to adopt or acquiesce in the judgments of
their rulers on the various questions 'that arose. Four and a
half years of continuous and deliberate lying for victory had
disembodied the spirit of veracity and good faith throughout
the world of politics. Facts were treated as plastic and capable
of being shaped after this fashion or that, according to the aim
of the speaker or writer. Promises were made, not because the
things promised were seen to be necessary or desirable, but
merely in order to dispose the public favourably towards a
policy or an expedient, or to create and maintain a certain frame
of mind towards the enemies or the Allies. At elections and in
Parliamentary discourses, undertakings were given, some of
which were known to be impossible of fulfilment. Thus the
Ministers in some of the Allied countries bound themselves to
compel the Germans not only to pay full compensation for
damage wantonly done, but also to defray the entire cost of the
war.
The notion that the enemy would thus make good all losses
was manifestly preposterous. In a century the debt could not
be wiped out, even though the Teutonic people could be got to
work steadily and selflessly for the purpose. For their pro-
ductivity would be unavailing if their victorious adversaries
99 7*
The Peace Conference
were indisposed to admit the products to their markets. And
not only were the Governments unwilling, but some of the
peoples announced their determination to boycott German wares
on their own initiative. None the less the nations were for
months buoyed up with the baleful delusion that all their war
expenses would be refunded by the enemy.*
It was not the Governments only, however, who, after having
for over four years coloured and refracted the truth, now con-
tinued to twist and invent " facts." The newspapers, with
some honourable exceptions, buttressed them up and even
outstripped them. Plausible unveracity thus became a patriotic
accompHshment and a recognized element of poUtics. Parties
and states employed it freely. Fiction received the hall-mark
of truth and fancies were current as facts. PubUc men who
had solemnly hazarded statements belied by subsequent events
denied having ever uttered them. Never before was the baleful
theory that error is helpful so systematically appUed as during
the war and the armistice. If the falsehoods circulated and the
true facts suppressed were to be collected and pubUshed in a
volume one would reaUze the depth to which the standard of
intellectual and moral integrity was lowered, f
The censorship was retained by the Great Powers during the
Conference as a sort of soft cushion on which the self-constituted
dispensers of Fate comfortably reposed. In Paris, where it was
particularly severe and unreasoning, it protected the secret
conclave from the harsh strictures of the outside world, con-
cealing from the pubhc, not only the incongruities of the Con-
ference, but also many of the warnings of contemporary history.
In the opinion of unbiassed Frenchrnen no such rigorous, sys-
tematic and short-sighted repression of Press hberty had been
* The French Minister of Finances made this the corner-stone of his policy
and declared that the indemnity to be paid by the vanquished Teutons would
enable him to set the finances of France on a permanently sound basis. In
view of this expectation new taxation was eschewed.
t A selection of the untruths published in the French Press during the war has
been reproduced by the Paris journal Bonsoir. It contains abundant pabulum
for the cynic and valuable data for the psychologist. The example might be
followed in Great Britain. The title is : " Anthologie du Bourrage de Cr4ne."
It began in the month of July, 1919.
100
Censorship and Secrecy
known since the Third Empire as was kept up under the rule
of the great tribune whose public career had been one con-
tinuous campaign against every form of coercion. This twofold
policy of secrecy on the part of the Delegates and censorship
on the part of the authorities proved incongruous as well as
dangerous, for, upheld by the eminent statesmen who had laid
down as part of the new gospel the principle of " open covenants
openly arrived at," it furnished the world with a fairly correct
standard by which to interpret the entire phraseology of the
latter-day reformers. Events showed that only by applying
that criterion could the worth of their statements of fact and
their promises of amelioration be gauged. And it soon became
clear that most of their utterances like that about open covenants
were to be construed according to the maxim of lucus a non
lucendo.
It was characteristic of the system that two American citizens
were employed to read the cablegrams arriving from the United
States to French newspapers. The object was the suppression
of such messages as tended to throw doubt on the useful behef
that the people of the Great American RepubUc were solid
behind their President, ready to approve his decisions and acts,
and that his cherished Covenant, sure of ratification, would
serve as a safe guarantee to all the States which the apphcation
of his various principles might leave strategically exposed. In
this way many interesting items of intelligence from the United
States were kept out of the newspapers, while others were
mutilated and almost all were delayed. Protests were un-
availing. Nor was it until several months had gone by that the
French public became aware of the existence of a strong current
of American opinion which favoured a critical attitude towards
Mr. Wilson's policy and justified misgivings as to the finality
of his decisions. It was a sorry expedient and an unsuccessful
one.
On another occasion strenuous efforts are reported to have
been made through the intermediary of President Wilson to delay
the publication in the United States of a cablegram to a journal
there until the Prime Minister of Britain should deliver a speech
lOI
The Peace Conference
in the House of Commons. An accident baulked these exertions
and the message appeared.
Publicity was none the less strongly advocated by the pleni-
potentiaries in their speeches and writings. These were as sign-
posts pointing to roads along which they themselves were in-
capable of moving. By their own accounts they were inveterate
enenues of secrecy and censorship. The President of the United
States had publicly said that he " could not conceive of any-
thing more hurtful than the creation of a system of censorship
•that would deprive the people of a free republic such as ours of
their undeniable right to criticize public officials." M. Clemen-
ceau, who suffered more than most publicists from systematic
repression, had changed the name of his newspaper from the
L'Homme Libre to L'Homme Enchaine, and had passed a severe
judgment on " those friends of Uberty " (the Government)
who tempered freedom with preventive repression measured
out according to the mood uppermost at the moment.* But
as soon as he himself became head of the Government,
he changed his tactics and called his journal L'Homme Libre
again. In the Chamber he announced that " publicity for the
' debates ' of the Conference was generally favoured," but in
practice he rendered the system of gagging the Press a bye-word
in Europe. Drawing his own line of demarcation between the
permissible and the illicit, he informed the Chamber that so
long as the Conference was engaged on its arduous work " it
must not be said that the head of one Govenmient had put
forward a proposal which was opposed by the head of another
Government."! As though the disagreements, the bickerings
and the serious quarrels of the heads of the Governments could
long be concealed from the peoples whose spokesmen they were !
That bargainings went on at the Conference which a plain-
dealing world ought to be apprised of is the conclusion which
every unbiassed outsider will draw from the singular expedients
resorted to for the purpose of concealing them. Before the
Foreign Relations Committee in Washington, State-Secretary
• Cf. New York Herald (Paris Edition], 2nd June, 1919.
t Cf. The Daily Mail (Paris Edition], 17th January, 1919.
102
Gensorsbip and Secrecy
Lansing confessed that when after the Treaty had been signed
the French Senate called for the minutes of the proceedings on
the Commission of the League of Nations, President Wilson
telegraphed from Washington to the Peace Commission request-
ing it to withhold them. He further admitted that the only
written report of the discussions in existence was left in Paris,
outside the jurisdiction of the United States Senate. When
questioned as to whether in view of this system of concealment
the President's promise of " open covenants openly arrived
at " could be said to have been honestly redeemed, Mr. Lansing
answered : " I consider that was carried out."* It seems
highly probable that in the same and only in the same sense
will the Treaty and the Covenant be carried out in the spirit or
the letter.
During the fateful days of the Conference preventive censor-
ship was practised with a degree of rigour equalled only by its
senselessness. As late as the month of June, the columns of
the newspapers were chequered with blank spaces. " Scarcely
a newspaper in Paris appears uncensored at present," one Press
organ wrote. " Some papers protest, but protests are vain."t
" Practically not a word as to the nature of the Peace terms that
France regards as most vital to her existence appears in the
French papers this morning," complained a journal at the time
when even the Germans were fully informed of what was being
enacted. On one occasion Bonsoir was seized for expressing
the view that the Treaty embodied an Anglo-Saxon peace ;J
on another for reproducing an interview with Marshal Foch
that had already appeared in a widely-circulated Paris news-
paper.§ By way of justifying another of these seizures the
French Censor alleged that an article in the paper was deemed
uncomplimentary to Mr. Lloyd George. The Editor replied in a
letter to the British Premier affirming that there was nothing
in the article but what Mr. George could and should be proud
of. In fact, it only commended him " for having served the
* Cf. Chicago Tribune, 27th August, 1919.
t Cf. New York Herald (Paxis Edition), loth June, 1919.
{ Cf. Bonsoir, 20th June, 1919.
§ On April 27th.
103
The Peace Conference
interests of his country most admirably, and having had pre-
cedence given to them over all others." The letter concluded :
" We are apprehensive that in the whole business there is but
one thing truly uncomplimentary, and that is that the French
Censorship, for the purpose of strangling the French Press, should
employ your name, the name of him who aboHshed censorship
many weeks ago."*
Even when British journalists were dealing with matters as
unhkely to cause trouble as a description of the historic pro-
ceedings at Versailles at which the Germans received the Peace
Treaty the Censor held back their messages from five o'clock
in the afternoon till three the next morning.f Strange though
it may seem, it was at first decided that no newspaper-men
should be allowed to witness the formal handing of the Treaty
to the enemy delegates ! For it was deemed advisable in the
interests of the world that even that ceremonial should be secret. J
These singular methods were impressively illustrated and sum-
marized in a cartoon representing Mr. Wilson as " The new
wrestling champion," throwing down his adversary, the Press,
whose garb, composed of journals, was being scattered in scraps
of paper to the floor, and under the picture was the legend :
" It is forbidden to publish what Marshal Foch says. It is
forbidden to publish what Mr. George thinks. It is forbidden
to publish the Treaty of Peace with Germany. It is forbidden
to publish what happened at . . . and to make sure that
nothing else will be pubhshed, the Censor systematically delays
the transmission of every telegram. "§
In the Chamber the Government was adjured to suppress the
institution of censorship once the Treaty was signed by the
Germans, and Ministers were reminded of the diatribes which
they had pronounced against that institution in the years of their
ambitions and strivings. In vain Deputies described and
deplored the process of demoralization that was being furthered
by the methods of the Government. " In the provinces as well
* Bonsoir, 21st June, 1919.
t New York Herald, isth May, 1919.
X New York Herald (Paris Edition), 3rd May, 1919.
§ New York Herald, 6th June, 1919.
104
Censorship and Secrecy
as in the capital, the journals that displease are seized, eaves-
droppers listen tb telephonic conversations, the secrets of private
letters are violated. Arrangements are made that certain
telegrams shall arrive too late, and spies are delegated to the
most private meetings. At a recent gathering of members of
the National Press, two spies were surprised, and another was
discovered at the Federation of the Radical Committees of the
Oise."* But neither the signature of the Treaty nor its rati-
fication by Germany occasioned the slightest modification in the
system of restrictions. Paris continued in a state of siege, and
the censors were the busiest bureaucrats in the capital.
One undesirable result of this r6gime of keeping the public
in the dark and indoctrinating it in the views always narrow,
and sometimes mischievous, which the authorities desired it to
hold, was that the absurdities which were allowed to. appear
with the hallmark of censorship were often believed to emanate
directly from the Government. Britons and Americans versed
in the books of the New Testament were shocked or amused
when told that the Censor had allowed the following passage
to appear in an eloquent speech delivered by the Ex-Premier,
M. Painleve : "As Hall Caine, the great American poet, has put
it, ' O death, where is thy sting ? O grave, where is thy
victory ? ' "f
Every conceivable precaution was taken against the leakage
of information respecting what was going on in the Council of
Ten. Notwithstanding this, the French papers contrived now
and again, during the first couple of months, to publish scraps
of news calculated to convey to the public a faint notion of the
proceedings, until one day a Nationalist organ boldly announced
that the British Premier had disagreed with the expert com-
mission and with his own colleagues on the subject of Dantzig
and refused to give way. This paragraph irritated the British
Statesman, who made a scene at the next meeting of the Council.
" There is," he is reported to have exclaimed, " someone among
* Cf. Le Matin, 9th July, 1919. The chief speakers alluded to were MM.
Renaudel, Deshayes, Lafont, Paul Meunier, Vandame.
t New York Herald (Paris Edition], 29th April, 1919.
103
The Peace Conference
us here who is unmindful of his obligations," and while uttering
these and other much stronger words, he eyed severely a certain
mild individual who is said to have trembled all over during the
philippic. He also launched out into a violent diatribe against
various French journals which had criticized his views on Poland
and his method of carrying them in council, and he went so far
as to threaten to have the Conference transferred to a neutral
country. In conclusion he demanded an investigation into the
origin of the leakage of information and the adoption of severe
disciplinary measures against the journaUsts who published
the disclosures.* Thenceforward the Council of Ten was sus-
pended and its place taken by a smaller and more secret conclave
of Five, Four or Three, according as the state of the plenipo-
tentiaries' health, the requirements of their home politics, or
their relations among themselves caused one or two to quit
Paris temporarily.
This measure insured relative secrecy, fostered nmiours and
gossip, and rendered criticism, whether helpful or captious,
impossible. It also drove into outer darkness those allied
States whose interests were described as limited, as though the
interests of Italy, whose Delegate was nominally one of the privi-
leged five, were not being treated as more limited still. But the
point of this last criticism would be blunted, if, as some French
and Italian observers alleged, the deliberate aim of the " repre-
sentatives of the twelve million soldiers " was indeed to enable
peace to be concluded and the world resettled congruously
with the conceptions and in harmony with the interests of the
Anglo-Saxon peoples. But the supposition is gratuitous. There
was no such deliberate plan. After the establishment of the
Council of Five, Mr. George and Mr. Wilson made short work
of the reports of the expert commissions whenever these put
forward reasoned views differing from their own. In a word,
they became the world's supreme and secret arbiters without
ceasing to be the official champions of the freedom of the lesser
states and of " open covenants openly arrived at." They con-
stituted, so to say, the living synthesis of contradictories.
* Quoted in the Paris Temps of the 28th March, 1919.
I06
Censorship and Secrecy
The Council of Five then was a superlatively secret body. No
secretaries were admitted to its gatherings and no oificial minutes
of its proceedings were recorded. Communications were never
issued to the Press. It resembled a gang of benevolent con-
spirators, whose debates and resolutions were swallowed up by
darkness and mystery. Even the most modest meeting of a
provincial tax-payers' association keeps minutes of its dis-
cussions. The world-Parliament kept none. Eschewing tradi-
tional usages, as became naive shapers of the new world, and
ignoring history, the Five, Four or Three shut themselves up in
a room, talked informally and disconnectedly without a common
principle, programme or method, and separated again without
having reached a conclusion. It is said that when one put
forth an idea, another would comment upon it, a third might
demur, and that sometimes an appeal would be made to geo-
graphy, history or ethnography, and as the data were not imme-
diately accessible, either competent specialists were sent for
or the conversation took another turn. They very naturally
refused to allow these desultory proceedings to be put on record,
the only concession which they granted to the curiosity of future
generations being the fixation of their own physical features
by photography and painting. When the sitting was over,
therefore, no one could be held to aught that he had said ; there
was nothing to bind any of the individual Delegates to the views
he had expressed, nor was there anything to mark the line to
which the council as a whole had advanced. Each one was
free to dictate to his secretary his recollections of what had gone
on, but as these precis were given from memory they necessarily
differed one from the other on various important points. On
the following morning, or a few days later, the world's workers
would meet again, and either begin at the beginning, travelling
over the same familiar field, or else break fresh ground. In
this way in one day they are said to have skimmed the problems
of Spitzbergen, Morocco, Dantzig and the feeding of the enemy
populations, leaving each problem where they had found it.
The moment the discussion of a contentious question approached
a climax, the spectre of disagreement deterred them from pur-
107
The Peace Conference
suing it to a conclusion, and they passed on quickly to some
other question. And when after months had been spent in these
Penelopean labours definite decisions respecting the peace had
to be taken lest the impatient people should rise up and wrest
matters into their own hands, the Delegates referred the various
problems which they had been unable to solve to the wisdom
and tact of the future League of Nations.
When misunderstandings arose as to what had been said or
done it was the ofificial translator, M. Paul Mantoux — one of the
most brilliant representatives of Jewry at the Conference — ^who
was wont to decide, his memory being reputed superlatively
tenacious. In this way he attained the distinction of which
his friends are justly proud, of being a living record — ^indeed,
the sole available record — of what went on at the historic coun-
cil. He was the recipient and is now the only repository of all
the secrets of which the plenipotentiaries were so jealous, lest,
being a kind of knowledge which is in verity power, it should
be used one day for some dubious purpose. But M. Mantoux
enjoyed the esteem and confidence, not only of Mr Wilson, but
also of the British Prime Minister, who, it was generally believed,
drew from his entertaining narratives and shrewd appreciations
whatever information he possessed about French politics and
politicians. It was currently affirmed that, being a man of
method and foresight, M. Mantoux committed everything to
writing for his own behoof. Doubts, however, were entertained
and publicly expressed as to whether affairs of this magnitude,
involving the destinies of the world, should have been handled
in such secret and unbusinesslike fashion. But on the supposi-
tion that the general outcome if not the preconceived aim of
the policy of the Anglo-Saxon plenipotentiaries was to confer
the beneficent hegemony of the world upon its peoples, there
could, it was argued, be no real danger in the procedure followed.
For united those nations have nothing to fear.
Although the translations were done rapidly, elegantly and
lucidly, allegations were made that they lost somewhat by imdue
compression and even by the process of toning down, of which
the praiseworthy object was to spare delicate susceptibilities,
io8
Censorship and Secrecy
For a limited number of delicate susceptibilities were treated
considerately by the Conference. A defective rendering made a
curious impression on the hearers once, when a Delegate said :
" My country, unfortunately, is situated in the midst of States
which are anything but peace-loving — in fact, the chief danger
to the peace of Europe emanates from them." M. Mantoux'
translation ran : " The country represented by M. X. unhappily
presents the greatest danger to the peace of Europe."
On several occasions passages of the discourses of the pleni
potentiaries underwent a certain transformation in the well-
informed brain of M. Mantoux before being done into another
language. They were plunged, so to say, in the stream of
history before their exposure to the light of day. This was
especially the case with the remarks of the English-speaking
Delegates, some of whom were wont to make extensive use of the
licence taken by their great national poet in matters of geo-
graphy and history. One of them, for example, when alluding
to the ex-Emperor Franz Josef and his successor, said : " It
would be unjust to visit the sins of the father on the head of
his innocent son. Charles I. should not be made to suffer ' for
Franz Josef." M. Mantoux rendered the sentence : " It would
be unjust to visit the sins of the uncle on the innocent nephew,"
and M. Clemenceau, with a merry twinkle in his eye, remarked
to the ready interpreter : " You will lose your job if you go on
making these wrong translations."
But those details are interesting, if at all, only as means of
eking out a mere sketch which can never become a complete and
faithful picture. It was the desire of the eminent law-givers
that the source of the most beneficent reforms chronicled in
history should be as weU hidden as those of the greatest boon
bestowed by Providence upon man. And their motives appear
to have been sound enough.
The pains thus taken to create a haze between themselves
and the peoples whose implicit confidence they were continuously
craving constitute one of the most striking ethico-psychological
phenomena of the Conference. They demanded unreasoning
faith as well as blind obedience. Any statement, however
109
The Peace Conference
startling, was expected to carry conviction once it bore the
of&cial hall-mark. Take, for example, the demand made by the
Supreme Four to Bela Kuhn to desist from his offensive against
the Slovaks. The Press expressed surprise and disappoint-
ment that he, a Bolshevist, should have been invited even
hypothetically by the " deadly enemies of Bolshevism " to
delegate representatives to the Paris Conference from which
the leaders of the Russian constructive elements were excluded.
Thereupon the Supreme Four, which had taken the step in secret,
had it denied categorically that such an invitation had been
issued. The Press was put up to state, that, far from making
such an undignified advance, the Council had asserted its
authority and peremptorily summoned the misdemeanant
Kuhn to withdraw his troops immediately from Slovakia
under heavy pains and penalties.
Subsequently, however, the official correspondence was pub-
lished, when it was seen that the implicit invitation had really
been issued, and that the denial ran directly counter to fact.
By this exposure the Council of Four, which still sued for the
full confidence of their peoples, was somewhat embarrassed.
This embarrassment was not allayed when what purported to
be a correct explanation of their action was given out and
privately circulated by a group which claimed to be initiated.
It was summarized as follows : " The Israelite, Bela Kuhn,
who is leading Hungary to destruction has been heartened by
the Supreme Council's indulgent message. People are at a
loss to understand, why, if the Conference believes, as it has
asserted, that Bolshevism is the greatest scourge of latter-day
humanity, it ordered the Roumanian troops, when nearing
Budapest for the purpose of overthrowing it in that stronghold,
first to halt, and then to withdraw.* The clue to the mystery
has at last been found in a secret arrangement between Kuhn
and a certain financial group concerning the Banat. About
this more will be said later. In one of my own cablegrams to
the United States, I wrote : " People are everywhere murmur-
* This explanation deals exculsively with the first advance of the Roumanian
Army into Hungary.
IIO
Censorship and Secrecy
ing and whispering that beneath the surface of things, powerful
undercurrents are flowing which invisibly sway the policy of
the secret council, and the public believes that this accounts
for the sinister vacillation and delay of which it complains."*
In the fragmentary utterances of the Governments and their
Press organs nobody placed the slighest confidence. Their
testimony was discredited in advance, on grounds which they
were unable to weaken. The following example is at once
amusing and instructive. The French Parliamentary Com-
mittee of the Budget, having asked the Government for com-
munication of the section of the Peace Treaty dealing with
finances, were told that their demand could not be entertained,
every clause of the Treaty being a State secret. The Committee
on Foreign Affairs made a like request with the same result.
The entire Chamber next expressed a similar wish, which elicited
a firm refusal. The French Premier, it should be added, alleged
a reason which was at least specious. " I should much like,"
he said, " to communicate to you the text you ask for, but I
may not do so until it has been signed by the President of the
Republic. For such is the law as embodied in Article 8 of the
Constitution." Now nobody believed that this was the true
groiind for his refusal. His explanation, however, was con-
strued as a courteous conventionality, and as siKh was accepted.
But once alleged, the fiction should have been respected, at any
rate by its authors. It was not. A few weeks later the Premier
ordered the publication of the text of the Treaty, although, in
the meantime, it had not been signed by M. Poincare. " The
excuse founded upon Article 8 was, therefore, a mere humbug,"
flippantly wrote an influential journal. t
An amusing joke, which tickled all Paris, was perpetrated
shortly afterwards. The editor of the Bonsoir imported six
hundred copies of the forbidden Treaty from Switzerland, and
sent them as a present to the deputies of the Chamber, where-
upon the Parliamentary authorities posted up a notice inform-
ing all deputies who desired a copy to call at the questor's
* Cabled to the Public Ledger of Philadelphia, 20th ^pril, 1919.
f Bonsoir, 21st June, 1919.
m
The Peace Conference
office, where they would receive it gratuitously as a present from
the Bonsoir. Accordingly the deputies, including the Speaker
Deschanel, thronged to the questor's office. Even solemn-faced
Ministers received a copy of the thick volume which I possessed
ever since the day it was issued.
Another glaring instance of the lack of straightforwardness
which vitiated the dealings of the Conference with the public
turned upon the Bullitt mission to Russia. Mr. Wilson, who in
the depths of his heart seems to have cherished a vague fond-
ness for the Bolshevists there, which he sometimes manifested
in utterances that startled the foreigners to whom they were
addressed, despatched, through Col. House, some fellow-country-
men of his to Moscow to ask for peace proposals which, according
to the Moscow Government, were drafted by himself and MM.
House and Lansing, and presented to Lenin by MM. Bullitt,
Steffens and Petit. Mr. Bullitt, however, who must know, affirms
that the draft was written by Mr. George's secretary, Mr. Philip
Kerr, and himself. If the terms of this document should prove
acceptable the American envoys were empowered to promise
that an official invitation to a new peace conference would be
sent to them as well as to their opponents by the 15th April.
The conditions — eleven in number — ^with a few slight modi-
fications in which the Americans acquiesced — ^were accepted
by the Dictator, who was bound, however, not to permit their
publication. The facts remained secret until Mr. Bulhtt, thrown
over by Mr. Wilson, who recoiled from taking the final and
decisive step, resigned, and in a letter^reproduced by the Press
set forth the reasons for his decision.*
Now, vague reports that there was such a mission had found
its way into the Paris newspapers at a relatively early date.
But an authoritative denial was published without delay. The
statement, the public was assured, was without foundation.
And the public believed the assurance, for it was confirmed
authoritatively in England. Sir Samuel Hoare, in the House
of Commons, asked for information about a report that " two
Americans have recently returned from Russia bringing offers
• Cf. The Daily News, sth July, 1919. L'Humaniti, 8th July, 1919,
112
Censorship and Secrecy
of peace from Lenin," and received from Mr. Bonar Law this
noteworthy reply : " I have said already that there is not the
shadow of foundation for this information, otherwise I would
have known it. Moreover, I have communicated with Mr.
Lloyd George in Paris, who also declares that he knows nothing
about the matter."* E pur si muove. Mr. Lloyd George knew
nothing about President Wilson's determination to have the
Covenant inserted in the Peace Treaty, even after the an-
nouncement was published to the world by the Havas Agency,
and the confirmation given to pressmen by Lord Robert Cecil.
The system of reticence and concealment, coupled with the
indifference of this or that Delegation to questions in which it
happened to take no special interest, led to these unseemly air-
tight compartments.
From this rank soil of secrecy, repression and unveracity
sprang noxious weeds. False reports and mendacious insinua-
tions were launched, spread and credited, impairing such prestige
as the Conference still enjoyed, while the fragmentary announce-
ments ventured on now and again by the Delegates, in sheer
self-defence, were summarily dismissed as " eye wash " for the
public.
For a time the disharmony between words and deeds passed
unnoticed by the bulk of the masses, who were edified by the
one and unacquainted with the other. But gradually the
lack of consistency in policy and of manly straightforwardness
and moral wholeness in method became apparent to all and
produced untoward consequences. Mr, Wilson, whose authority
and influence were supposed to be paramount, came in for the
lion's share of criticism, except in the Polish policy of the Con-
ference, which was traced to Mr. Lloyd George and his unofficial
prompters. The American Press was the most censorious of
all. One American journal appearing in Paris gave utterance
to the following comments on the President's role if
" President Wilson is conscious of his power of persuasion.
That power enables him to say one thing, do another, describe
* Cf. The New York Herald (Paris Edition], 4th April, 1919.
The Chicago Tribune (PariB Edition), 31st July, 1919.
113 8
The Peace Conference
the act as conforming to the idea, and, with act and idea in exact
contradiction to each other, convince the people, not only that
he has been consistent throughout, but that his act cannot be
altered without peril to the nation and danger to the world.
" We do not know which Mr. Wilson to follow — the Mr. Wilson
who says he will not do a thing or the Mr. Wilson who does that
precise thing.
" A great many Americans have one fixed idea. That idea
is that the President is the only magnanimous, clear-visioned,
broad-minded statesman in the United States, or the entire
world, for that matter.
" When he uses his powers of persuasion Americans become
as the children of Hamelin Town. Inasmuch as Mr. Wilson of
the word and Mr. Wilson of the deed seem at times to be two
distinct identities, some of his most enthusiastic supporters for
the League of Nations, being unfortunately gifted with memory
and perception, are fairly standing on their heads in dismay."
And yet Mr. Wilson himself was a victim of the policy of
reticence and concealment to which the Great Powers were
incurably addicted. At the time when they were moving heaven
and earth to induce him to break with Germany and enter the
war, they withheld from him the existence of their secret
treaties. Possibly it may not be thought fair to apply the test
of ethical fastidiousness to their method of bringing the United
States to their side, and to their unwillingness to run the risk
of alienating the President. But it appears that until the close
of hostility the secret was kept inviolate, nor was it until Mr.
Wilson reached the shores of Europe for the purpose of executing
his project that he was faced with the huge obstacles to his
scheme arising out of those far-reaching commitments. With
this depressing revelation and the British non possumus to his
demand for the freedom of the seas, Mr. Wilson's practical diffi-
culties began. It was probably on that occasion that he resolved,
seeing that he could not obtain everything he wanted, to content
himself with the best he could get. And that was not a society
of peoples, but a rough approximation to the hegemony of the
Anglo-Saxon nations.
114
CHAPTER V
AIMS AND METHODS
THE policy of the Anglo-Saxon plenipotentiaries was never
put into words. For that reason it has to be judged
by their acts, despite the circumstance that these were deter-
mined by motives which varied greatly at different times, and
so far as one can conjecture were not often practical corollaries
of fundamental principles. From these acts one may draw a
few conclusions which will enable us to reconstruct such pohcy
as there was. One is that none of the sacrifices imposed upon
the members of the League of Nations was obligatory on the
Anglo-Saxon peoples. These were beyond the reach of all the
new canons which might clash with their interests or run
counter to their aspirations. They were the givers and adminip-
trators of the saving law rather than its observers. Conse-
quently they were free to hold all that was theirs, however
doubtful their title, nay, they were besought to accept a good
deal more under the mandatory system, which was moulded
on their own methods of governance. It was especially taken
for granted, that the architects would be called to contribute
nought to the new structure but their ideas, and that they need
renounce none of their possessions, however shady its origin,
however galling to the population its retention. It was in
deference to this implicit doctrine that President Wilson with-
drew without protest or discussion his demand for the freedom
of the seas, on which he had been wont to lay such stress.
Another way of putting the matter is this. The principal
aim of the Conference was to create conditions favourable to the
115 8*
The Peace Conference
progress of civilization on new lines. And the seed-bearers of
true, as distinguished from spurious, civilization and culture
being the Anglo-Saxons, it is the realization of their broad con-
ceptions, the furtherance of their beneficent strivings that are
most conducive to that ulterior aim. The men of this race in
the widest sense of the term are therefore, so to say, independent
ends in themselves, whereas the other peoples are to be utilized
as means. Hence the difference of treatment meted out to the
two categories. In the latter were implicitly included Italy and
Russia. Unquestionably the influence of Anglo-Saxondom is
eminently beneficial. It tends to bririg the rights and the dignity
as well as the duties of humanity into broad day. The further
it extends by natural growth, therefore, the better for the human
race. The Anglo-Saxon mode of administering colonies, for in-
stance, is exemplary, and for this reason was deemed worthy to
receive the hall-mark of the Conference as one of the institutions
of the future League. But even benefits may be transformed
into evils if imposed by force.
That, in brief, would seem to be the clue — one can hardly
speak of any systematic conception — to the unordered im-
provisations and incongruous decisions of the Conference.
I am not now concerned to discuss whether this unformulated
maxim, which had strong roots that may not always have
reached the realm of consciousness, calls for approval as an
instrument of ethico-political progress or connotes an impoverish-
ment of the aims originally propounded by Mr. Wilson. Ex-
cellent reasons may be assigned why the two EngUsh-speaking
Statesmen proceeded without deliberation on these lines and
no other. The matter might have been raised to a higher plane,
but for that the Delegates were not prepared. All that one
need retain at present is the orientation of the Supreme Council,
inasmuch as it imparts a sort of relative unity to seemingly
heterogeneous acts. Thus, although the conditions of the Peace
Treaty in many respects ran directly counter to the provisions
of the Covenant, none the less the ultimate tendency of both
was to converge in a distant point, which, when clearly dis-
cerned, will turn out to be the moral guidance of the world by
ii6
Aims and Methods
Anglo-Saxondom as represented at any rate in the incipient
stage by both its branches. Thus the discussions among the
members of the Conference were in last analysis not contests
about mere abstractions. Beneath the high-sounding principles
and far-resonant reforms which were propounded but not
realized, lurked concrete racial strivings which a patriotic temper
and robust faith might easily identify with the highest interests
of humanity.
When the future historian defines, as he probably will, the
main result of the Conference's labours as a tendency to place
the spiritual and political direction of the world in the hands of
the Anglo-Saxon race, it is essential to a correct view of things
that he should not regard this trend as the outcome of a deliberate
concerted policy. It was anything but this. Nobody who
conversed with the Statesmen before and during the Conference
could detect any sure tokens of such ultimate aims, nor, indeed,
of a thorough understanding of the lesser problems to be settled.
Circumstance led, and the Statesmen followed. The historian
may term the process drift, and the humanitarian regret that
such momentous issues should ever have been submitted to a
body of uninformed politicians out of touch with the people
for whose behoof they claimed to be legislating. To liquidate
the war should have been the first as it was the most urgent task.
But it was complicated, adjourned and finally botched by inter-
weaving it with a mutilated scheme for the complete readjust-
ment of the politico-social forces of the planet. The result was
a tangled skein of problems most of them still unsolved, and
some insoluble by Governments alone. Out of the confusion
of clashing forces towered aloft the two dominant Powers who
command the economic resources of the world, and whose
democratic institutions and internal ordering are unquestionably
more conducive to the large humanitarian end than those of any
other, and gradually their over-lordship of the world began to
assert itself. But this tendency was not the outcome of de-
liberate endeavour. Each representative of those vast States
was solicitous in the first place about the future of his own
country, and then about the regeneration of the human race
117
The Peace Conference
One would like to be able to add that all were wholly in-
accessible to the promptings of party interests and personal
ambitions.
Planlessness naturally characterized the exertions of the Anglo-
Saxon Delegates from start to finish. It is a racial trait. Their
hosts, who were experts in the traditions of diplomacy, had before
the opening of the Conference prepared a plan for their behoof,
which at the lowest estimate would have connoted a vast improve-
ment on their own desultory way of proceeding. The French
proposed to distribute all the preparatory work among eighteen
commissions, leaving to the chief plenipotentiaries the requisite
time to arrange preliminaries and become acquainted with the
essential elements of the problems. But MM. Wilson and
George are said to have preferred their informal conversations,
involving the loss of three and a half months, during which no
results were reached in Paris, while turmoil, bloodshed and
hunger fed the smouldering fires of discontent throughout the
world.
The British Premier, like his French colleague, was solicitous
chiefly about making peace with the enemy and redeeming as
far as possible his election pledges to his supporters. To that
end everything else would appear to have been subordinated.
To the ambitious project of a world reform he and M. Clemenceau
gave what was currently construed as a nominal assent, but for
a long time they had no inkling of Mr. Wilson's intention to inter-
weave the peace conditions with the Covenant. So far, indeed,
were they both from entertaining the notion that the two Premiers
expressly denied — and allowed their denial to be circulated in
the Press — that the two documents were or could be made mutu-
ally inter-dependent. M. Pichon assured a group of journaUsts
that no such intention was harboured.* Mr. Lloyd George is
understood to have gone further and to have asked what degree
of relevancy a Covenant for the members of the League could
be supposed to possess to a treaty concluded with a nation
which for the time being was denied admission to that sodality.
And as we saw he was incurious enough not to read the narrative
* In March.
zi8
Aims and Methods
of what had been done by his American colleague even after the
Havas Agency announced it.
To President Wilson, on the other hand, the League was the
magnum opus of his life. It was to be the crown of his political
career, to mark the attainment of an end towards which all that
was best in the human race had for centuries been consciously
or unconsciously wending without moving perceptibly nearer.
Instinctively he must have felt that the Laodicean support given
to him by his colleagues would not carry him much further
and that their fervour would speedily evaporate once the Con-
ference broke up and their own special aims were definitely
achieved or missed. With the shrewdness of an experienced
politician he grasped the fact that if he was ever to present his
Covenant to the world clothed with the authority of the mightiest
states, now was his opportunity. After the Conference it would
be too late. And the only contrivance by which he could surely
reckon on success was to insert the Covenant in the Peace Treaty
and set before his colleagues an irresistible incentive for elaborat-
ing both at the same time.
He had an additional motive for these tactics in the attitude
of a section of his own countrymen. Before starting for Paris
he had, as we saw, made an appeal to the electorate to return
to the legislature only candidates of his own party to the exclusion
of Republicans, and the result fell out contrary to his expecta-
tions. Thereupon the oppositional elements increased in numbers
and displayed a marked combative disposition. Even moderate
Republicans complained in terms akin to those employed by
Senator Taft of Mr. Wilson's " partisan exclusion of Republicans
in dealing with the highly important matter of settling the
results of the war. He solicited a commission in which the
Republicans had no representation and in which there were no
prominent Americans of any real experience and leadership of
public opinion."*
The leaders of this opposition sharply watched the policy
of the President at the Conference and made no secret of their
resolve to utilize any serious slip as a handle for revising or
* Quoted by the Chicago Tribune (Paris Edition), loth August, 1919.
119
The Peace Conference
rejecting the outcome of his labours. Seeing his cherished cause
thus trembling in the scale Mr. Wilson hit upon the expedient
of linking the Covenant with the Peace Treaty and making of
the two an inseparable whole. He announced this determination
in a forcible speech* to his own countrymen, in which he said :
" When the 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,''
This scheme was denounced by Mr. Wilson's opponents as a
trick, but the historian will remember it as a manoeuvre, which,
however blameless or meritorious its motive, was fraught with
lamentable consequences for all the peoples for whose interests
the President was sincerely solicitous. To take but one exaiiple.
The misgivings generated by the Covenant delayed the ratifica-
tion of the Peace Treaty by the United States Senate, in con-
sequence of which the Turkish problem had to be postponed
until the Washington Government was authorized to accept
or compelled to refuse a mandate for the Sultan's dominions,
and in the meanwhile mass massacres of Greeks and Armenians
were organized anew.
A large section of the Press and the majority of the Delegates
strongly condemned the interpolation of the Covenant in the
Peace Treaty. What they demanded was first the conclusion
of a solid peace and then the estabUshment of suitable interna-
tional safeguards. For to be safeguarded, peace must first
exist. " A suit of armour without the warrior inside is but a
useless ornament," wrote one of the American journals.f
But the course advocated by Mr. Wilson was open to another
direct and telling objection. Peace between the belligerent
adversaries was, in the circumstances, conceivable only on the
old lines of strategic frontiers and military guarantees. The
Supreme Council implied as much in its official reply to the
criticisms offered by the Austrians to the conditions imposed
on them, making the admission that Italy's new northern frontiers
• Delivered at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York on March 4th, 1919.
t Niw York Hirald, 19th March, 1919 (Paris Edition).
120
Aims and Methods
were determined by considerations of strategy. The plan for
the governance of the world by a league of pacific peoples on the
other hand postulated the abolitior) of war preparations including
strategic frontiers. Consequently the more satisfactory the
Treaty, the more unfavourable would be the outlook for the moral
reconstitution of the family of nations, and vice versa. And to
interlace the two would be to necessitate a compromise which
would necessarily mar both.
In effect the split among the Delegates respecting their aims
and interests led to a tacit understanding among the leaders on
the basis of give-and-take, the French and British acqtiiescing
in Mr. Wilson's measures for working out his Covenant — the
draft of which was contributed by the British — and the President
giving way to them on matters said to affect their countries'
vital interests. How smoothly this method worked when great
issues were not at stake may be inferred from the perfunctory
way in which it was decided that the Kaiser's trial should take
place in London. A few days before the Treaty was signed there
was a pause in the proceedings of the Supreme Council during
which the secretary was searching for a mislaid document. Mr.
George, looking up casually and without addressing anyone in
particular, remarked : "I suppose none of you has any objec-
tion to the Kaiser being tried in London ? " M. Clemenceau
shrugged his shoulders, Mr. Wilson raised his hand and the matter
was assumed to be settled. Nothing more was said or written
on the subject. But when the news was announced after the
President's departure from France, it took the other American
Delegates by surprise and they disclaimed all knowledge of any
such decision. On inquiry, however, they learned that the
venue had in truth been fixed in this offhand way.*
Mr. Wilson fqund it a hard task at first to obtain acceptance
for his ill-defined tenets by France, who dechned to accept the
protection of his League of Nations in heu of strategic frontiers
and military guarantees. Insurmountable obstacles barred his
way. The French Government and people, while moved by
♦^Cf. New York Herald, 8th July, 1919.
121
The Peace Conference
decent respect for their American benefactors* to assent to the
establishment of a League, flatly refused to trust themselves
to its protection against Teuton aggression. But they were
quite prepared to second Mr. Wilson's endeavours to oblige
some of the other states to content themselves with the guarantees
it offered, only, however, on condition that their own country
was first safeguiarded in the traditional way. Territorial equili-
brium and military protection were the imperative provisos on
which they insisted. And as France was specially favoured by
Mr. Wilson on sentimental grounds which outweighed his doc-
trine, and as she was also considered indispensable to the Anglo-
Saxon peoples as their Continental executive, she had no difficulty
in securing their support. On this point too, therefore, the
President found himself constrained to give way. And not only
did he abandon his humanitarian intentions and allow his
strongest arguments to be lightly brushed aside, but he actually
recoiled so far into the camp of his opponents that he gave his
approval to an indefensible clause in the Treaty which would
have handed over to France the German population of the Saar
as the equivalent of a certain sum in gold ! Coming from the
world-reformer who, a short time before, had hurled the thunder-
bolts of his oratory against those who would barter human beings
as chattels, this amazing compromise connoted a strange falling
off. Incidentally it was destructive of all faith in the spirit
that had actuated his world crusade. It also went far to con-
vince unbiassed observers that the only framework of ideas
with decisive reference to which Mr. Wilson considered every
project and every objection as it arose, was that which centred
round his own goal — ^the establishment if not of a League of
Nations cemented by brotherhood and fellowship, at least of the
nearest approach to that which he could secure, even though it
fell far short of the original design. These were the first fruits
of the interweaving of the Covenant with the Treaty.
In view of this readiness to split differences and sacrifice
* The semi-official journals manifested a steady tendency to lean towards the
Republican opposition in the United States, down to the month of August, when
the amendments proposed by various Senators bade fair to jeopardize the
Treaties and render the promised military succour doubtful.
122
Aims and Methods
principles to expediency it became impossible even to the least
observant of Mr. Wilson's adherents in the old world to cling any
longer to the belief that his cosmic policy was inspired by firm
intellectual attachment to the subUme ideas of which he had made
himself the eloquent exponent and had been expected to make
himself the uncompromising champion. In every such surrender
to the Great Powers, as in every stern enforcement of his principles
on the lesser States, the same practical spirit of the professional
politician visibly asserted itself. One can hardly acquit him
of having lacked the moral courage to disregard the veto of
interested statesmen and governments and to appeal directly
to the peoples when the consequence of this attitude would have
been the sacrifice of the makeshift of a Covenant which he was
ultimately content to accept as a substitute for the complete
reinstatement of nations in their rights and dignity.
The general tendency of the labours of the Conference then
was shaped by those two practical maxims, the immunity of
the Anglo-Saxon peoples and of their French ally from the
restrictions to be imposed by the new politico-social ordering
in so far as these ran counter to their national' interests, and the
determination of the American President to get and accept
such a League of Nations as was feasible under extremely in-
auspicious conditions and to content himself with that. '
To this estimate exception may be taken on the ground that
it underrates an effort which, however insufficient, was well meant
and did at any rate point the way to a just resettlement of secular
problems which the war had made pressing and that it fails to
take account of the formidable obstacles encountered. The
answer is, that like efforts had proceeded more than once before
from rulers of men whose will, seeing that they were credited
with possessing the requisite power, was assumed to be adequate
to the accomplishment of their aim, and that they had led to
nothing. The two Tsars, Alexander I. at the Congress of Vienna,
and Nicholas II. at the first Conference of The Hague, are in-
structive instances. They> also, like Mr. Wilson, it is assumed,
would fain have inaugurated a golden age of international right
and moral fellowship if verbal exhortations and arguments could
123
The Peace Conference
have done it. The only kind of fresh attempt which after the
failure of those two experiments could fairly lay claim to uni-
versal sympathy was one which should withdraw the proposed
politico-social rearrangement from the domain alike of rhetoric
and of empiricism and substitute a thorough systematic reform
covering all the aspects of international intercourse, including all
the civilized peoples on the globe, harmonizing the vital interests
of these and setting up adequate machinery to deal with the needs
of this enlarged and unified State-system. And it would be
fruitless to seek for this in Mr. Wilson's handiwork. Indeed,
it is hardly too much to affirm that empiricism and opportunism
were among the principal characteristics of his policy in Paris,
and that the outcome was what it must be.
Disputes and delays being inevitable, the Conference began
its work at leisure and was forced to terminate it in hot
haste. Having spent months chaffering, making compromises
and unmaking them again while the peoples of the world
were kept in painful suspense, all of them condemned to
incur ruinous expenditure and some to wage sanguinary wars,
the springs of industrial and commercial activity being kept
sealed, the Delegates, menaced by outbreaks, revolts and mu-
tinies, began, after months had been wasted, to speed up and get
through their work without adequate deUberation. They
imagined that they could make up for the errors of hesitancy
and ignorance by moments of lightning-like improvisation.
Improvisation and haphazard conclusions were among their
chronic failings. Even in the early days of the Conference they
had promulgated decisions, the import and bearings of which
they missed, and when possible they cancelled them again.
Sometimes, however, the error committed was irreparable.
The fate reserved for Austria was a case in point. By some
curious process of reasoning it was found to be not incompatible
with the Wilsonian doctrine that German-Austria should be
forbidden to throw in her lot with the German Republic, this
prohibition being -in the interest of France, who could not brook
a powerful united Teuton State. The wishes of the Austrian-
Germans and the principle of self-determination accordingly
124
Aims and Methods
went for nothing. The representations of Italy, who pleaded
for that principle, were likewise brushed aside.
But what the Delegates appear to have overlooked was the
decisive circumstance that they had already " on strategic
grounds " assigned the Brenner hne to Italy and together with
it 220,000 Tyrolese of German race living in a compact mass —
although a much smaller alien element was deemed a bar to
annexation in the case of Poland. And what was more to the
point, this allotment deprived Tyrol of an independent economic
existence, cutting it ofE from the southern valley and making it
tributary to Bavaria. Mr. Wilson, the public was credibly
informed, " took this grave decision without having gone deeply
into the matter, and he repents it bitterly. None the less, he
can no longer go back."*
Just as Tyrol's loss of Botzen and Meran made it dependent
on Bavaria, so the severance of Vienna from Southern Moravia
— the source of its cereal supplies, situated at a distance of only
thirty-six miles — transformed the Austrian capital into a head
without a body. But on the eminent anatomists who were to
perform a variety of unprecedented operations on other States
this spectacle had no deterrent effect.
Whenever a topic came up for discussion which could not
be solved offhand, it was referred to a commission and in many
cases the commission was assisted by a mission which proceeded
to the country concerned and within a few weeks returned with
data which were assumed to supply materials enough for a
decision, even though most of its members were unacquainted
with the language of the people whose condition they had been
studying. How quick of apprehension these envoys were sup-
posed to be may be inferred from the task with which
the American mission under General Harbord was charged, and
the space of time accorded him for achieving it. The members
of this mission started from Brest in the last decade of August
for the Caucasus, making a stay at Constantinople on the way,
and were due back in Paris early in October. During the few
intervening weeks " the mission," General Harbord said, " will
* Journal de Genhe, i8th May, 1919.
125
The Peace Conference
go into every phase of the situation, poUtical, racial, economic,
financial and commercial. I shall also investigate highways,
harbours, agricultural and mining conditions, the question of
raising an Armenian army, policing problems and the raw ma-
terials of Armenia."* Only specialists who have some practical
acquaintanceship with the Gaucasus, its conditions, peoples,
languages and problems can appreciate the herculean effort
needed to tackle intelligently any one of the many subjects all
of which this improvised commission under a military general
undertook to master in four weeks. Never was a chaotic world
set right and reformed at such a bewildering pace.
Bad blood was caused by the distribution of places on the
various commissions. The Delegates of the lesser nations,
deeming themselves badly treated, protested vehemently and for
a time passion ran high. Squabbles of this nature, intensified
by fierce discussions within the Council, tidings of which reached
the ears of the public outside, disheartened those who were anxious
for the speedy restoration of normal conditions in a world that
was fast decomposing. But the optimism of the three principal
plenipotentiaries was beyond the reach of the most depressing
stumbles and reverses. Their buoyant temper may be gauged
from Mr. Balfour's words reported in the Press : " It is true
that there is a good deal of discussion going on, but there is no
real discord about ideas or facts. We are agreed on the principal
questions and there only remains to find the words that embody
the agreements."! These tidings were welcomed at the time,
because whatever defects were ascribed to the distinguished
statesmen of the Conference by faultfinders, a lack of words was
assuredly not among them. This cheery outlook on the future
reminded me of the better grounded composure of Pope Pius IX.
during the stormy proceedings at the Vatican Council. A layman
having expressed his disquietude at the unruly behaviour of the
prelates, the Pontiff repUed that it had ever been thus at eccle-
siastical councils. " At the outset," he went on to explain,
* New York Herald (Paris Edition), 14th August, 1919.
t Cf. Paris papers of 2nd February, 1919, and the Public Ledger (Philadelphia),
4th February, 1919.
126
Aims and Methods
" the members behave as men, wrangle and quarrel, and nothing
that they say or do is worth much. That is the first act. The
second is ushered in by the Devil, who intensifies the disorder
and muddles things bewilderingly. But happily there is always
a third act in which the Holy Ghost descends and arranges
ever5^1iing for the best."
The two first phases of the Conference's proceedings bore
a strong resemblance to the Pope's description, but as, unlike
ecclesiastical councils, it had no claim to infallibility and, there-
fore, no third act, the consequences to the world were deplorable.
The Supreme Council never knew how to deal with an emergency
and every week unexpected incidents in the world outside were
calling for prompt action. Frequently it contradicted itself
within the span of a few days and sometimes at one and the same
time its principal representatives found themselves in complete
opposition to each other. To give but one example : In April
M. Clemenceau was asked whether he approved the project of
relieving famine-stricken Russia. His answer was affirmative,
and he signed the document authorizing it. His colleagues,
MM. Wilson, George and Orlando, followed suit and the matter
seemed to be settled definitely. But at the same time Mr. Hoover,
who had been the ardent advocate of the plan, ofiicially received
a letter from the French Minister of Foreign Affairs signifying
the refusal of the French Government to acquiesce in it.* On
another occasionf the Supreme Council thought fit to despatch
a mission to Asia Minor in order to ascertain the views of the
populations of Sjnria and Mesopotamia on the regime best
suited to them. France, whose secular relations with Syria,
where she maintains admirable educational establishments, are
said to have endeared her to the population, objected to this
expedient as superfluous and mischievous. Superfluous because
the Francophil sentiments of the people are supposed to be beyond
all doubt, and mischievous because plebiscites or substitutes
for plebiscites could have only a bolshevizing effect on Orientals.
Seemingly yielding to these considerations the Supreme Council
* Cf. L'Echo de Paris, 19th April, 1919.
t In April, 1919.
127
The Peace Conference
abandoned the scheme and the members of the mission made
other plans.* After several weeks' further reflection, however,
the original idea was carried out and the mission visited the East.
The reader may be glad of a momentary glimpse of the interior
of the historic assembly afforded by those who were privileged
to play a part in it before it was transformed into a secret conclave
of five, four or three. Within the doors of the chambers whence
fateful decrees were issued to the four corners of the earth the
Delegates were seated, mostly according to their native languages,
within earshot of the special pleaders. M. Clemenceau, at the
head of the table, has before him a Delegate charged with con-
ducting the case, say, of Greece, Poland, Serbia or Czecho-Slov-
akia. The Delegate, standing in front of the stem but mobile
Premier, and encircled by other more or less attentive plenipo-
tentiaries, looks like a nervous schoolboy appearing before exact-
ing examiners struggling with difficult questions and eager to
answer them satisfactorily. Suppose the first language spoken
is French. As many of the plenipotentiaries do not understand
it, they cannot be blamed for' relaxing attention while it is being
employed, and keeping up a desultory conversation among them-
selves in idiomatic English, which forms a running bass accom-
paniment to the voice, often finely modulated, of the orator.
Owing to this embarrassing language difficulty, as soon as a
Delegate pauses to take his breath his arguments and appeals
are done by M. Mantoux into Enghsh, and then it is the turn of
the French plenipotentiaries to indulge in a quiet chat until
some question is put in Enghsh, which has forthwith to be ren-
dered into French, after which the French reply is translated
into English, and so on unendingly, each group resuming its
interrupted conversations alternately.
One Delegate who passed several hours undergoing this ordeal
said that he felt wholly out of sympathy with the atmosphere
of the Conference Hall, adding : " While arguing or appealing
to my country's arbiters I felt I was addressing only a minority
of the distinguished judges, while the thoughts of the others were
far away. And when the interpreter was rendering quickly,
* About the loth April, 1919.
128
Aims and Methods
mechanically and summarily my ideas without any of the ex-
plosive passion that shot them from my heart, I felt discouraged.
But suddenly it dawned on me that no judgment would be
uttered on the strength of anything that I had said or left unsaid.
I remembered that everything would be referred to a commission,
and from that to a sub-commission, then back again to the dis-
tinguished plenipotentiaries."
Another Delegate remarked : " Many years have elapsed since
I passed my last examination, but it came back to me in all its
vividness when I walked up to Premier Clemenceau and looked into
his restless, flashing eyes. I said to myself : When last I was
examined I was painfully conscious that my professors knew a
lot more about the subject than I did, but now I am painfully
aware that they know hardly anything at all and I am fervently
desirous of teaching them. The task is arduous. It might,
however, save time and labour if the Delegates would receive our
typewritten dissertations, read them quietly in their respective
hotels and endeavour to form a judgment on the data they
supply. Failing that, I should like at least to provide them with a
criterion of truth, for after me will come an opponent who will
flatly contradict me, and how can they sift truth from error
when the winnow is wanting ? It is hard to feel that one is
in the presence of great satraps of destiny, but I made an act
of faith in the possibilities of genial quaUties lurking behind
those everyday faces and of a sort of magic power of calling
into being new relations of peace and fellowship between individual
classes and peoples. It was an act of faith."
If the members of the Supreme Council lacked the graces
with which to draw their humbler colleagues and were incapable
of according hospitality to any of the more or less revolutionary
ideas floating in the air, they were also utterly powerless to
enforce their behests in Eastern Europe against serious opposition.
Thus, although they kept considerable inter-allied forces in Ger-
many, they failed to impose their decrees there, notwithstanding
the circumstance that Germany was disorganized, nearly dis-
armed and distracted by internal feuds. The Conference gave
way when Germany refused to let the PoUsh troops disembark
139 9
The Peace Conference
at Dantzig although it had proclaimed its resolve to insist on their
using that port. It allowed Odessa to be evacuated and its
inhabitants to be decimated by the bloodthirsty Bolsheviki.
It ordered the Ukrainians and the Poles to cease hostilities,*
but hostihties went on for months afterwards. An American
General was despatched to the warring peoples to put an end to the
fighting, but he returned despondent, leaving things as he had
found them. General Smuts was sent to Budapest to strike up
an agreement with Kuhn and the Magyar Bolshevists, but he, too,
came back after a fruitless conversation. The Supreme Council's
writ ran in none of those places.
About the igth March the inter-allied commission gave Erz-
berger twenty-four hours in which to ratify the convention
between Germany and Poland and to carry out the conditions of
the armistice. But Erzberger declined to ratify it and the
Allies were unable or unwilling to impose their will on him.
From this state of things the Roumanian Delegates drew the
obvious corollary. Exasperated by the treatment they received,
they quitted the Conference, pursued their own policy, occupied
Budapest, presented their own peace conditions to Hungary,
and relegated, with courteous phrases and a polite bow to the
Council, the directions elaborated for their guidance to the
region of pious counsels.
In these ways the well-meant and well-advertised endeavours
to substitute a moral relationship of nations for the state of
latent warfare known as the balance of power were steadily
wasted. On the one side the subtle skill of old-world diplomacy
was toiling hard and successfully to revive under specious names
its lost and failing causes, while on the other hand the new-world
pohcy, naively ignoring historical forces and secular prejudices,
was boldly reaching out towards rough and ready modes of
arranging things and taking no account of concrete circum-
stances. Generous idealists were thus pitted against old diplo-
matic stagers and both secretly strove to conclude hastily-driven
bargains outside the Council chamber with their opponents.
As early as the first days of January I was present at some informal
* On 19th March, 1919.
130
Aims and Methods
meetings where such transactions were being talked over and I
afterwards gave it as my impression that " if things go forward
as they are moving to-day the outcome will fall far short of
reasonable expectations. The first striking difference between
the Transatlantic idealists and the old-world politicians lies in
their different ways of appreciating expeditiousness on the one
hand and the bases of the European state-system on the other
hand. A statesman when dealing with urgent, especially revo-
lutionary, emergencies should never take his eyes from the clock.
The politicians in Paris hardly ever take account of time or
opportunity. The overseas reformers contend that the territorial
and political balance of forces has utterly broken down and must
be definitely scrapped in favour of a League of Nations, and the
diplomatists hold that the principle of equiUbrium, far from having
spent its force, still affords the only groundwork of international
stability and requires to be further intensified."*
Living in the very centre of the busy world of destiny-weavers
who were generously, if unavailingly, devoting time and labour
to the fabrication of machinery for the good government of
the entire human race out of scanty and not wholly suitable
materials, a historian in presence of the manifold conflicting
forces at work would have found it difficult to survey them all
and set the daily incidents and particular questions in correct
perspective. The earnestness and goodwill of the plenipoten-
tiaries were highly praiseworthy and they themselves, as we saw,
were most hopeful. Nearly all the Delegates were characterized
by the spirit of compromise, so valuable in vulgar poUtics, but so
perilous in embodying ideals. Anxious to reach unanimous
decisions even when unanimity was lacking, the principal states-
men boldly had recourse to ingenious formul^e and provisional
agreements, which each party might construe in its own way,
and paid scant attention to what was going on outside. I wrote
at the time :f
" But parallel with the Conference and the daily lectures
• Cf. My cablegram published in the Public Ledger (Philadelphia), 12th Jan-
uary, 19 19.
t Cf. The Public Ledger (Philadelphia], 5th February, 1919.
131 9*
The Peace Conference
which its members are receiving on geography, ethnography and
history there are other councils at work, some publicly, others
privately, which represent the vast masses who are in a greater
hurry than the political world to have their urgent wants supplied.
For they are the millions of Europe's inhabitants who care httle
about strategic frontiers and much about life's necessaries which
they find it increasingly difficult to obtain. Only a visitor
from a remote planet could fully realize the significance of the
bewildering phenomena that meet one's gaze here every day
without exciting wonder. . . . The sprightly people who form
the rind of the politico-social world . . . are wont to launch
winged words and coin witty epigrams when characterizing what
they irreverently term the efforts of the Peace Conference to square
the circle ; they contrast the noble intentions of the Delegates
with the grim realities of the workaday world, which appear to
mock their praiseworthy exertions. They say that there never
were so many wars as during the deliberations of these famous
men of peace. Hard fighting is going on in Siberia ; victories
and defeats have just been reported from the Caucasus ; battles
between Bolshevists and peace-lovers are raging in Esthonia ;
blood is flowing in streams in the Ukraine ; Poles and Czechs have
only now signed an agreement to sheath swords until the Con-
ference announces its verdict ; the Poles and the Germans, the
Poles and the Ukrainians, the Poles and the Bolshevists are still
decimating each others' forces on territorial fragments of what
was once Russia, Germany or Austria."
Sinist^ rumours were spread from time to time in Paris,
London and elsewhere, which wherever they were credited tended
to shake public confidence not only in the dealings of the Su-
preme Council with the smaller countries but also in the nature
of the occult influences that were believed to be occasionally
causing its decisions to swerve from the orthodox direction. And
these reports were believed by many even in Conference circles.
Time and again I was visited by Delegates complaining that this
or that decision was or would be taken in response to the prompt-
ings not of land-grabbing Governments but of wealthy capitalists
or enterprising captains of industry. " Why do you suppose
132
Aims and Methods
that there is so much talk now of an independent little State
centring around Klagenfurt ? " one of them asked me. " I
will tell you : for the sake of some avaricious capitalists. Already
arrangements are being pushed forward for the establishment
of a bank of which most of the shares are to belong to X."
Another said : " Dantzig is needed for poUtico-commercial
reasons. Therefore it will not be made part of Poland.* Al-
ready conversations have begun with a view to giving the owner-
ship of the wharves and various lucrative concessions to Enghsh-
speaking pioneers of industry. If the city were Polish no such
liens could be held on it because the State would provide every-
thing needful and exploit its resources." The part played
in the Banat Republic by motives of a money-making character
is described elsewhere.
A friend and adviser of President Wilson publicly affirmed
that the Fiume problem was twice on the point of being settled
satisfactorily for all parties when the representatives of com-
mercial interests cleverly interposed their influence and pre-
vented the scheme from going through in the Conference. I
met some individuals who had been sent on a secret mission to
have certain subjects taken into consideration by the Supreme
Council and a man was introduced to me whose aim was to
obtain through the Conference a modification of financial legis-
lation respecting the repayment of debts in a certain republic
of South America. This optimist, however, returned as he had
come and had nothing to show for his plans. The following sig-
nificant passage appeared in a leading article in the principal
American journal published in Parisf on the subject of the
Prinkipo project and the postponement of its execution :
" From other sources it was learned that the doubts and
delays in the matter are not due so much to the declination [sic]
of several of the Russian groups to participate in a conference
* Dr. Bunke, Councillor at the Court of Dantzig, endeavours in the Dantzig
Neueste Nachrichien to prove that the problem of Dantzig was solved exclusively
in the interests of the Naval Powers, America and Britain, who need it as a basis
for their commerce with Poland, Russia and Germany. Cf . also Le Temps, 23rd
August, 1919.
t New York Herald (Paris EditionJ, ist March, 1919.
The Peace Conference
with the Bolshevists but to the pulling against each other of the
several interests represented by the Allies. Among the Americans
a certain very influential group backed by powerful financial
interests which hold enormously rich oil, mining, railway and
timber concessions, obtained under the old regime, and which
purposes obtaining further concessions, is strongly in favour
of recognizing the Bolshevists as a de facto Government. In
consideration of the visa of these old concessions by Lenin and
Trotzky" and the grant of new rights for the exploitation of
rich mineral territory, they would be willing to finance the
Bolshevists to the tune of forty or fifty million dollars. And
the Bolshevists are surely in need of money. President Wilson
and his supporters, it is declared, are decidedly averse from
this pretty scheme."
That President Wilson would naturally set his face against
any such deliberate compromise between Mammon and lofty
ideals it was superfluous to affirm. He stood for a vast and
beneficent reform and by exhorting the world to embody it in
institutions awakened in some people — ^in the masses were already
stirring — thoughts and feelings that might long have remained
dormant. But beyond this he did not go. His tendencies, or
say rather velleities — for they proved to be hardly more — ^were
excellent, but he contrived no mechanism by which to convert
them into institutions and when pressed by gainsayers abandoned
them.
An economist of mark in France whose democratic principles
are well known* communicated to the French pubUc the gist
of certain curious documents in his possession. They let in
an unpleasant light on some of the whippers-up of lucre at the
expense of principle, who flocked around the dwelling-places of
the great continent-carvers and law-givers in Paris. His article
bears this repellent heading : " Is it true that English and
American financiers negotiated during the war in order to
secure lucrative concessions from the Bolsheviki ? Is it true
that these concessions were granted to them on the 4th February,
♦ Lysis, author of " Demain,'' and many other remarkable studies of economic
problems, and Editor of the Democratie Nouvtlle. joth May, 1919.
Aims and Methods
1919 ? Is it true that the Allied Governments played into their
hands ? "*
The facts alleged as warrants for these questions are briefly
as follows. On 4th February, 1919, the Soviet of the People's
Commissaries in Moscow voted the bestowal of a concession for a
railway linking Ob-Kotlass-Saroka and Kotlass-Svanka, in a
resolution which states " (i) that the project is feasible ; (2) that
the transfer of the concession to representatives of foreign capital
may be effected if production will be augmented thereby ;
(3) that the execution of this scheme is indispensable and (4) that
in order to accelerate this solution of the question the persons
desirous of obtaining the concession shall be obliged to produce
proofs of their contact with Allied and neutral enterprises, and of
their capacity to financing the work and supply the materials
requisite for the construction of the said line." On the other
hand it appears from an official document bearing the date of
the 26th June, 1918, that a demand for the concession of this
Une was lodged by two individuals : the painter A. A. Borissoff
(who many years ago received from me a letter of introduction
to President Roosevelt asking him to patronize this gentleman's
exhibition of paintings in the United States) and Herr Edvard
Hannevig. Desirous of ascertaining whether these petitioners
possessed the qualifications demanded, the Bolshevist authorities
made inquiries and received from the Royal Norwegian Consulate
at Moscow a certificate f setting forth that " citizen Hannevig
was a co-associate of the large banks Hannevig situated in
London and in America." Consequently negotiations might
go forward. The document adds : "In October Borissoff and
Hannevig renewed their request, whereupon the journals Pravda,
Izvestia and Ekonomitsheskaya Shizn discussed the subject with
animation. At a sitting held on the 12th October the project
was approved with certain modifications and on ist February,
1919, the Supreme Soviet of National Economy approved it
anew."
* For an account of analogous bargainings with Bela Kuhn see the Chapter on
Roumania.
t Bearing the number 3882.
135
The Peace Conference
The magnitude of the concession may be inferred from the
circumstance that one of its clauses concedes " the exploitation
of eight million dessiatines of forest land which even to-day, despite
existing conditions, can bring in a revenue of three hundred million
roubles a year."
. What it comes to therefore, assuming that these ofi&cial docu-
ments are as they seem, based on facts, is that from 26th June,
that is to say during the war, the Bolshevist Government was
petitioned to accord an important railway concession and also
the exploitation of a forest capable of yielding three hundred mil-
lion roubles a year to a Russian citizen who alleged that he was
acting on behalf of English and American capitalists and that
Edvard Hannevig having proved that he was really the man-
datory of these great allied financier^, the concession was first
approved by two successive Commissions* and then definitely
conferred by the Soviet of the People's Commissaries.f
The eminent author of the article proceeds to ask whether
this can indeed be true ; whether English and American capitalists
petitioned the Bolsheviki for vast concessions during the war ;
whether they obtained them while the Conference was at its work
and soldiers of their respective countries were fighting in Russia
against the Bolsheviki who were bestowing them. " Is it true,"
he makes bold to ask further, " that that is the explanation of
the incredible friendliness displayed by the Allied Governments
towards the Bolshevist bandits with whom they were willing
to strike up a compromise, whom they were minded to recognize
by organizing a conference on the Princes' Islands ? . . . Many
times already rank-smelling whiffs of air have blown upon us :
they suggested the belief that behind the Peace Conference there
lurked not merely what people feared but something still worse :
an immense political Panama. If this is not true, gentlemen,
deny it. Otherwise one day you will surely have an ex-
plosion."!
Whether these grave innuendoes, together with the statement
• On i2th October, 1918, and the ist February, 1919.
t On 4th February, 1919.
i La Democratie Nouvelle, 30th May, 1919.
136
Aims and Methods
made by Mr. George Herron,* the incident of the Banat Republic
and the ultimatum respecting the oil-fields unofficially presented
to the Roumanians suffice to establish a prima facie case may
safely be left to the judgment of the public. The conscientious
and impartial historian, however firm his faith in the probity of
the men representing the powers, both of unUmited and limited
interests, cannot pass them over in silence.
One of the shrewdest Delegates in Paris, a man who allowed
himself to be breathed upon freely by the old spirit of nationalism,
but was capable withal of appreciating the passionate enthusiasm
of others for a more altruistic dispensation, addressed me one
evening as follows : " Say what you will, the Secret Council
is a Council of Two, and the Covenant a charter conferred upon
the EngUsh-speaking peoples for the government of the world.
The design — ^if it be a design — ^may be excellent but it is not
relished by the other peoples. It is a less odious hegemony
than that of imperialist Germany would have been, but it is a
hegemony and odious. Surely in a quest of this kind after the
most effectual means of overcoming the difficulties and obviating
the dangers of international intercourse, more even than in the
choice of a political regime, the principle of self-determination
should be allowed free play. Was that not to have been one of
the choicest fruits of victory ? But no ; force is being set in
motion, professedly for the good of all, but only as their good is
understood by the ' all-powerful Two.' And to all the others it
* See his admirable article in the New York Herald (Paris Edition) of May 21st,
1919, from which the following extract is worth quoting : " I have said that
certain great forces have steadily and occultly worked for a German peace.
But I mean, in fact, one force — an international finance to which all other forces
hostile to the freedom of nations and of the individual soul are contributory. The
influence of this finance has permeated the Conference, delaying the decisions as
long as possible, increasing divisions between people and people, between class
and class, between peacemakers and peacemakers, in order to achieve two definite
ends ; which two ends are one and the same.
" The first end was so to manipulate the minds of the peacemakers, of their
hordes of retainers and ' experts,' as to bring about, if possible, a peace that would
not be destructive to industrial Germany. The second end was so to delay the
Russian question, so to complicate and thwart every proposed solution, that, at
last, either during or after the Peace Conference, a recognition of the Bolshevist
power as the de facto Government of Russia would be the only possible solution."
The Peace Conference
is force and nothing more. Is it to be wondered at that there
are so many discontented people or that some of them are
already casting about for an alternative to the Anglo-Saxon
hegemony misnamed the Society of Nations ? "
It cannot be gainsaid that the two predominant partners
behaved throughout as benevolent despots, to whom despotism
came more easily than benevolence. As we saw they kept their
colleagues of the lesser States as much in the dark as the general
public and claimed from them also implicit obedience to all their
behests. They went further and demanded unreasoning ac-
quiescence in decisions to be taken in the future, and a promise
of prompt acceptance of their injunctions — a pretension such as
was never before put forward outside the CathoUc Church
which, at any rate, claims infallibility. Asked why he had
not put up a better fight for one of the States of Eastern Europe
a sharp-tongued Delegate irreverently made answer : " What
more could you expect than I did, seeing that I was opposed by
one colleague who looks upon himself as Napoleon and by another
who beheves himself to be the Messiah."
Among the many epigrammatic sayings current in Paris about
the Conference, the most original was ascribed to the Emir
Faissal, the son of the King of the Hedjaz. Asked what he
thought of the world's areopagus he is said to have answered :
" It reminds me somewhat of one of the sights of my own country.
My country, as you know, is the desert. Caravans pass through
it that may be likened to the armies of Delegates and experts
at the Conference — caravans of great camels solemnly trudging
along one after the other, each bearing its own load. They all
move not whither they will but whither they are led. For they
have no choice. But between the two there is this difference :
that whereas the big caravan in the desert has but one leader —
a little ass — the Conference in Paris is led by two Delegates who
are the great Ones of the earth." In effect, the leaders were two
and no one can say which of them had the upper hand. Now it
seemed to be the British Premier, now the American President.
The former scored the first victory, on the freedom of the seas,
before the Conference opened. The latter won the next, when
138
Aims and Methods
Mr. Wilson firmly insisted on insertitig the Covenant in the Treaty
and finally over-rode the objections of Mr. Lloyd George and
M. Clemenceau, who scouted the idea for a while as calculated to
impair the value of both charters. There was also a moment when
the two were reported to have had a serious disagreement and Mr.
George, having suddenly quitted Paris for rustic seclusion, was
likened to Achilles sulking in his tent. But one of the two always
gave way at the last moment, just as both had given way to M.
Clemenceau at the outset. When the difference between Japan
and China cropped up, for example, the other Delegates made
Mr. Wilson their spokesman. Despite M. Clemenceau's resolve
that the pubUc should not " be apprised that the head of one
Government had ever put forward a proposal which was opposed
by the head of another Government " it became known that they
occasionally disagreed among themselves, were more than once
on the point of separating, and that at best their unanimity was
often of the verbal order failing to take root in identity of views.
To those who would fain predicate political tact or statesmanship
of the men who thus undertook to set human progress on a new
and ethical basis the story of these bickerings, hasty improvisa-
tions and amazing compromises is distressing. The incertitude
and suspense that resulted were disconcerting. Nobody ever
knew what was coming. A sub-commission might deliver a
reasoned judgment on the question submitted to it and this might
be unanimously confirmed by the commission, but the Four or
Three or Two or even One could not merely quash the report
but also reverse the practical consequences that followed. This
was done over and over again.
And there were other performances still more amazing.
When, for example, the Polish problem became so pressing that it
could not be safely postponed any longer the first Delegates
were at their wits' ends. Unable to agree on any of the solu-
tions mooted they conceived the idea of obtaining further data
and a lead from a special commission. The commission was
accordingly appointed. Among its members were Sir Esme
Howard, who has since become ambassador in Rome, the American
General Kernan and M. Noulens, the ex-ambassador of France
139
The Peace Conference
in Petrograd. These envoys and their colleagues set out for
Poland to study the problem on the spot. They exerted
themselves to the utmost to gather data for a serious judgment
and returned to Paris after a sojourn of some two months legi-
timately proud of the copious and well-sifted results of their
research. And then they waited. Days passed and weeks, but
nobody took the slightest interest in the envoys. They were
ignored. At last the Chief of the Commission, M. Noulens, taking
the initiative, wrote direct to M. Clemenceau, informing him that
the task entrusted to him and his colleagues had been achieved and
requesting to be permitted to make their report to the Conference.
The reply was an order dissolving the commission unheard.
Once when the relations between MM. Wilson and George were
somewhat spiced by antagonism of purpose and incompatibility
of methods, a political friend of the latter urged him to make a
firm stand. But the British Premier, feeling, perhaps, that
there were too many unascertained elements in the matter, or
identifying the President with the United States, drew back.
More than once, too, when a certain Delegate was stating his case
with incisive emphasis Mr. Wilson, who was Ustening with
attention and in silence, would suddenly ask : "Is this an
ultimatum ? " The American President himself never shrank
from presenting an ultimatum when sure of his ground and
morally certain of victory. On one such occasion a proposal
had been made to Mr. Lloyd George, who approved it whole-
heartedly. But it failed to receive the placet of the American
statesman. Thereupon the British Premier was strongly urged
to stand firm. But he recoiled, his plea being that he had re-
ceived an ultimatum from his American colleague, who spoke
of quitting France and withdrawing the American troops unless
the point were conceded. And Mr. Wilson had his way. One
might have thought that this success would hearten the President
to other and greater achievements. But the leader who in-
carnated in his own person the highest strivings of the age, and
who seemed destined to acquire pontifical ascendancy in a re-
generated world, lacked the energy to hold his own when matters
of greater moment and high principle were at stake.
140
Aims and Methods
These battles waged within the walls of the palace on the Quai
d'Orsay were discussed out of doors by an interested and watchful
public, and the conviction was profound and widespread that the
President, having set his hand to the plough so solemnly and
publicly, and having promised a harvest of far-reaching reforms,
would not look back, however intractable the ground and how-
ever meagre the crop. But confronted with serious obstacles,
he flinched from his task, and therein, to my thinking, lay his
weakness. If he had come prepared to assert his personal
responsibility, to unfold his scheme, to have it amply and publicly
discussed, to reject pusillanimous compromise in the sphere of
execution, and to appeal to the peoples of the world to help him
to carry it out, the last phase of his policy would have been worthy
of the first, and might conceivably have inaugurated the triumph
of the ideas which the indolent and the men of little faith rejected
as incapable of realization. To this hardy course, which would
have challenged the approbation of all that is best in the world,
there was an alternative : Mr. Wilson might have confessed that
his judgment was at fault, mankind not being for the moment
in a fitting mood to practise the new tenets, that a speedy peace
with the enemy was the first and most pressing duty, and that
a world-parUament should be convened for a later date to prepare
the peoples of the universe for the new ordering. But he chose
neither alternative. At first it was taken for granted that in
the twilight of the Conference hall he had fought valiantly for
the principles which he had propounded as the groundwork of
the new politico-social fabric, and that it was only when he found
himself confronted with the insuperable antagonism of his col-
leagues of France and Britain that he reluctantly receded from
his position and resolved to show himself all the more unbending
to the envoys of the lesser countries. But this assumption was
refuted by State-Secretary Lansing, who admitted to the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the President's
fourteen points, which he had vowed to carry out, were
not even discussed at the Conference. The outcome of this
attitude — one cannot term it a policy — ^was to leave the best
of the ideas which he stood for in solution, to embitter every
141
The Peace Conference
ally except France and Britain, and to scatter explosives all
over the world.
To this dwarfing parliamentary view of world-policy Mr. George
likewise fell a victim. But his fault was not so glaring. For it
should in fairness be remembered that it was not he who first
preached the advent of the millennium. He had only given it a
tardy and cold assent, qualified by an occasional sally of keen
pleasantry. Down to the last moment, as we saw, he not only
was unaware that the Covenant would be inserted in the Peace
Treaty, but he was strongly of the opinion, as indeed were M.
Pichon and others, that the two instruments were incompatible.
He also apparently inclined to the belief that spiritual and moral
agencies, if not wholly impotent to bring about the requisite
changes in the politico-social world, could not effect the trans-
formation for a long while to come, and that in the interval it
behoved the Governments to fall back upon the old system of
so-called equilibrium, which, after Germany's collapse, meant
an informal kind of Anglo-Saxon overlordship of the world and
a pax Britannica in Europe. As for his action at the Conference,
in so far as it did not directly affect the well-being of the British
Empire, which was his first and main care, one might describe
it as one of general agreement with Mr. Wilson. He actually
threw it into that formula when he said that whenever the
interests of the British Empire permitted he would like to find
himself at one with the United States. It was on that occasion
that the person addressed warned him against identifying the
President with the people of the United States.
In truth, it was difficult to follow the distinguished American
idealist, because one seldom knew whither he would lead.
Neither, apparently, did he himself. Some of his own coimtry-
men in Paris held that he had always been accustomed to follow,
never to guide. Certainly at the Conference his practice was to
meet the more powerful of his contradictors on their own ground
and come to terms with them, so as to get at least a part of what
he aimed at, and that he accepted, even when the instalment
was accorded to him not as such, but as a final settlement. So
far as one can judge by his public acts and by the admissions of
14a
Aims and Methods
State-Secretary Lansing, he cannot have seriously contemplated
staking the success of his mission on the reaUzation of his fourteen
points. The manner in which he dealt with his Covenant, with
the French demand for concrete miUtary guarantees and with
secret treaties, all afford striking illustrations of his easy temper.
Before quitting Paris for Washington he had maintained that
the Covenant as drafted was satisfactory, nay, he contended that
" not even a period could be changed in the agreement." The
Monroe Doctrine he held needed no special stipulation. But as
soon as Senator Lodge and others took issue with him on the
subject, he shifted his position and hedge"d that doctrine round
with defences which cut off a whole Continent from the purview
of the League, which is nothing if not cosmic in its functions.*
Again, there was to be no alliance. The French Premier foretold
that there would be one. Mr. Wilson, who was in England at
the time, answered him in a speech declaring that the United
States would enter into no alliance which did not include all the
world : " no combination of power which is not a combination
of all of us." Well, since then he became a party to a kind of
triple alliance and in the judgment of many observers it con-
stitutes the main result of the Conference. In the words of an
American Press organ : " Clemenceau got virtually everything
he asked. President Wilson virtually dropped his own programme,
and adopted the French and British, both of them imperialistic, "f
Again, when the first commission of experts reported upon
the frontiers of Poland the British Premier objected to a section
of the " corridor," on the ground that as certain districts con-
tained a majority of Germans their annexation would be a danger
to the future peace and therefore to Poland herself, and also on
the ground that it would run counter to one of Mr. Wilson's
fundamental points; the President, who at that time dissented
from Mr. George, rose and remarked that his principles must not
be construed too literally. " When I said that Poland must be
* " What confidence can be commanded by men who, asserting one week that
the ultimate of human wisdom has been attained in a document, confess the next
week that the document is frail ? When are we to believe that their confessions
are at an end ? " — Chicago Tribune (Paris Edition), August 23rd, 1919.
■f Chicago Tribune (Paris Edition), 31st July, 1919.
143
The Peace Conference
restored, I meant that everything indispensable to her restoration
must be accorded. Therefore, if that should involve the incor-
poration of a number of Germans in Polish territory, it cannot
be helped, for it is part of the restoration. Poland must have
access to the sea by the shortest route, and everything else which
that implies." None the less, the British Premier, whose atti-
tude towards the claims of the Poles was marked by a degree of
definiteness and persistency which could hardly be anticipated
in one who had never even heard of Teschen before the year
1919, maintained his objections with emphasis and insistence
until MM. Wilson and Clemenceau gave in.
Or take the President's way of dealing with the non-belligerent
States. Before leaving Paris for Washington, Mr. Wilson,
officially questioned by one of his colleagues at an official sitting
as to whether the neutrals would also sign the Covenant, replied
that only the Allies would be admitted to affix their signatures.
" Don't you think it would be more conducive to the firm estab-
lishment of the League if the neutrals were also made parties
to it now ? " insisted the plenipotentiary. " No, I do not,"
answered the President. " I think that it would be conferring too
much honour on them, and they don't deserve it." The Dele-
gate was unfavourably impressed by this reply. It seemed
lacking in breadth of view. Still, it was tenable on certain narrow,
formal grounds. But what he could not digest was the eager-
ness with which Mr. Wilson on his return from Washington aban-
doned his way of thinking and adopted the opposite view.
Towards the end of April the Delegates and the world were sur-
prised to learn that not only would Spain be admitted to the
orthodox fold, but that she would have a voice in the manage-
ment of the flock with a seat in the Council. The chief of the
Portuguese delegation* at once delivered a trenchant protest
against this abrupt departure from principle, and as a juris con-
sult stigmatized the promotion of Spain to a voice in the Council
as an irregularity, and then retired in high dudgeon.
Thus the grave reproach cannot be spared Mr. Wilson of having
* M. Affonso Costa, who shortly before had succeeded the Minister of Foreign
Affairs, M. Monas Egiz.
144
Aims and Methods
been weak, vague, and inconsistent with himself. He constituted
himself the supreme judge of a series of intricate questions
affecting the organization and tranquillity of the European
Continent, as he had previously done in the case of Mexico, with
the results we know. This authority was accorded to him —
with certain reservations — ^in virtue of the exalted position which
he held in a State disposing of vast financial and economic re-
sources, shielded from some of the dangers that continually over-
hang European nations, and immune from the immediate
consequences of the mistakes it might commit in international
politics. For every Continental people in Europe is in some
measure dependent on the good will of the United States, and
therefore anxious to deserve it by cultivating the most friendly
relations with its Chief. This predisposition on the part of his
wards was an asset that could have been put to good account.
It was a guarantee of a measure of success which would have
satisfied a generous ambition ; it would have enabled him to
effect by a wise policy what revolution threatened to accomplish
by violence, and to canalize and lead to fruitful fields the new-
found strength of the proletarian masses.
The compulsion of working with others is often a wholesome
corrective. It helps one to realize the need of accommodating
measures to people's needs. But Mr. Wilson deliberately
segregated himself from the nations for whose behoof he was
labouring, and from some of their authorized representatives.
And yet the aspirations and conceptions of a large section of
the masses differed very considerably from those of the two
statesmen with whom he was in close collaboration. His avowed
aims were at the opposite pole to those of his colleagues. To
reconcile internationalism and nationalism was sheer impossible.
Yet instead of upholding his own, taking the peoples into
his confidence, and sowing the good seed which would certainly
have sprouted up in the fullness of time, he set himself, together
with his colleagues, to weld contradictories and contributed to
produce a synthesis composed of disembodied ideas, disintegrated
communities, embittered nations, conflicting states, frenzied
classes and a seething mass of discontent throughout the world.
145 10
The Peace Conference
Mr. Wilson has fared ill with his critics, who when in quest of
explanations of his changeful courses, sought for them, as is
the wont of the average politician, in the least noble parts of
human nature. In his case they felt especially repelled by his
imperial aloofness, the secrecy of his deliberations and the magis-
terial tone of his judgments, even when these were in flagraitt
contradiction with each other. Obstinacy was also included
among the traits which were commonly ascribed to him. As a
matter of fact he was a very good listener, an intelligent ques-
tioner, and amenable to argument whenever he felt free to give
practical effect to the conclusions. When this was not the case,
arguments necessarily failed of their effect, and on these occasions
considerations of expediency proved a lever sufficient to sway his
decision. But, like his more distinguished colleagues, he had to
rely upon counsel from outside, and in his case, as in theirs, the
official adviser was not always identical with the real prompter.
He, too, as we saw, set aside the findings of the commissions
when they disagreed with his own. In a word, Mr. Wilson's
fatal stumble was to have sacrificed essentials in order to score
on issues of secondary moment ; for while success enabled him
to obtain his paper covenant from his co-delegates in Paris, and
to bring back tangible results to Washington, it lost him the
leadership of the world. The cost of this deplorable weakness
to mankind can be estimated only after its worst effects have been
added up and appraised.
In matters affecting the destinies of the lesser States Mr.
Wilson was firm as a rock. From the position once taken up
nothing could move him. Their economic dependence on his own
country rendered their arguments pointless and lent irresistible
force to his injunctions. Greece's dispute with Bulgaria was a
classic instance. The Bulgars repaired to Paris more as claimants
in support of indefeasible rights than as vanquished enemies
summoned to learn the conditions imposed on them by the nations
which they had betrayed and assailed. Victory alone could
have justified their territorial pretensions ; defeat made them
grotesque. All at once, however, it was bruited abroad that
President Wilson had become Bulgaria's intercessor and favoured
146
Aims and Methods
certain of her exorbitant claims. One of these was for the
annexation of part of the coast of Western Thrace, together with
a seaport at the expense of the Greeks, the race which had resided
on the seaboard for two thousand five hundred consecutive
years. M. Venizelos offered them instead one commercial
outlet* and special privileges in another, and the plenipoten-
tiaries of Great Britain, France and Japan considered the offer
adequate. '
But Mr. Wilson demurred. A commercial outlet through
foreign territory, he said, might possibly be as good as a direct
outlet through one's own territory in peace time, but not in time
of war, and after all, one must bear in mind the needs of a
country during hostilities. In the mouth of the champion of
universal peace that was an unexpected argument. It had been
employed by Italy in favour of her claim to Fiume. Mr. Wilson
then met it by invoking the economic requirements of Yugoslavia,
and by declaring that the treaty was being devised for peace,
not for war, that the League of Nations would hinder wars, or at
the very least supply the deficiencies of those States which had
sacrificed strategical positions for humanitarian aims. But
in the case of Bulgaria he was taking what seems the opposite
position, and transgressing his own principle of nationality in
order to maintain it.
Mr. Wilson, pursuing his line of argument, further pointed out
that the Supreme Council had not accepted as sufficient for
Poland an outlet through German territory, but had created the
City-State of Dantzig in order to confer a greater degree of
security upon the Polish republic. To that M. Venizelos replied
that there was no parity between the two instances. Poland
had no outlet to the sea except through Dantzig, and could not
therefore allow that one to remain in the hands of an unfriendly
nation, whereas Bulgaria already possessed two very commodious
ports, Varna and Burgas, on the Black Sea, which becomes a
free sea in virtue of the internationalization of the straits. The
possession of a third outlet on the ^gean could not therefore
' Dedeagatcli.
147 10*
The Peace Conference
be termed a vital question for his protegee. Thus the comparison
with Poland was irrelevant.
If Poland, which is a very much greater State than Bulgaria,
can live and prosper with a single port, and that not her own —
if Roumania, which is also a much more numerous and powerful
nation, can thrive with a single issue to the sea, by what Une of
argument, M. Venizelos asked, can one prove that little Bulgaria
requires three or four exits, and that her need justifies the aban-
donment to her tender mercies of 750,000 Greeks and the viola-
tion of one of the fundamental principles underlying the new
moral ordering ?
Compliance with Bulgaria's demand would prevent Greece
from including within her boundaries the three-quarters of a
million Greeks who have dwelt in Thrace for twenty-five cen-
turies, preserving their nationality intact through countless
disasters and tremendous cataclysms. Further, the Greek
Premier, taking a leaf from Mr. Wilson's book, turned to the
aspect which the problem would assume in war time. Bulgaria,
he argued, is essentially a continental State, whose defence does
not depend upon naval strength, whereas Greece contains an
island population of nearly a million and a half, and looks for
protection against aggression chiefly to naval precautions. In
case of war, Bulgaria, if her claim to an issue on the iEgean were
allowed, could with her submarines delay or hinder the transport
and concentration in Macedonia of Greek forces from the islands
and thus place Greece in a position of dangerous inferiority.
Lastly, if Greece's claims in Thrace were rejected, she would
have a population of 1,790,000 souls outside her national boun-
daries, that is to say, more than one third of the population
which is within her State. Would this be fair ? Of the total
population of Bulgarian and Turkish Thrace the Tiurks and
Greeks together form eighty-five per cent., the Bulgars only six
per cent., and the latter are nowhere in compact masses. How-
ever — and this ought to have clinched the matter — the Hellenic
population formed an absolute as well as a relative majority in
the year 1919.
These arguments and various other considerations drawn from
148
Aims and Methods
the inordinate ambitions, the savage cruelty* and the Punic
faith of the Bulgars convinced the British, French and Japanese
delegates of the soundness of Greece's pleas, and they sided with
M. Venizelos. But Mr. Wilson clung to his idea with a tenacity
which could not be justified by argument, and was currently
explained by motives irrelevant to the merits of the case.
Whether the influence of Bulgarophil American missionaries
and strong religious leanings were at the root of his insistence, as
was generally assumed, or whether other considerations weighed
with him, is immaterial. And yet it is worth recording that a
Bulgarian journalf announced with the permission of the govern-
mental censor that the American missionaries in Bulgaria and the
professors of Robert College of Constantinople had so primed the
American delegates at the Conference on the question of Thrace,
and generally on the Bulgarian problem, that all M. Venizelos'
pains to convince them of the justice of his contention would be
lost labour.|
However this may be, Mr. Wilson's attitude was the subject
of adverse comment throughout Europe. His implied claim to
legislate for the world and to take over its moral leadership
earned for him the epithet of " Dictator," and provoked such
epigrammatic comments among his own countrymen and the
French as this : " Louis XIV. said : ' I am the State ! ' Mr.
Wilson, outdoing him, exclaimed : ' I am all the States ! ' "
The necessity of winning over dissentient colleagues to his
grandiose scheme of world reorganization and of satisfying their
demands, which were of a nature to render that scheme abortive,
was the most influential agency in impairing his energies and
upsetting his plans. This remark assumes what unhappily
• See " Rapports et Enqu6tes de la Commission Interalli^e sur les Violations
du droit des gens commises en Macedoine Orientale par les Armies bulgares."
The conclusion of the report is one of the most terrible indictments ever drawn up
by impartial investigators against what is practically a whole people.
t Zora, nth August. Cf. Le Temps, 28th August, 1919.
I Mr. Charles House published a statement in the Press of Salonica to the efiect
that the Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions forbids missionaries to
take an active part in politics. He added that if this injunction was transgressed
— and in Paris the current belief was that it had been — it would not be tolerated
by the Missionary Board, nor recognized by the American Government. . . .
149
The Peace Conference
seems a fact, that those plans were mainly mechanical. It is
certain that they made no provision for directly influencing the
masses, for giving them sympathetic guidance, and enabling them
to suffuse with social sentiments the aspirations and strivings
which were chiefly of the materialistic order, with a view to
bringing about a spiritual transformation of the social basis.
Indeed we have no evidence that the need of such a transforma-
tion of the basis of political thought, which was still rooted in the
old order, was grasped by any of those who set their hand to the
legislative part of the work.
These unfavourable impressions were general. Almost every
step subsequently taken by the Conference confirmed them, and
long before the Treaty was presented to the Germans, public
confidence was gone in the ability of the Supreme Council to
attain any of the moral victories over militarism, race-hatred,
and secret intrigues which its leaders had encouraged the world
to expect.
" The leaders of the Conference," wrote an influential Press
organ*, " are under suspicion. They may not know it, but it is
true. The suspicion is doubtless unjust, but it exists. What
exists, is a fact ; and men who ignore facts are not statesmen.
The only way to deal with facts is to face them. The more un-
pleasant they are, the more they need to be faced.
" Some of the Conference leaders are suspected of having, at
various times and in various circumstances, thought more of
their own personal and political positions and ambitions than of
the rapid and practical making of peace. They are suspected,
in a word, of a tendency to subordinate policy to politics.
" In regard to some important matters they are suspected of
having no policy. They are also suspected of unwillingness to
listen to their own competent advisers, who could lay down for
them a sound policy. Some of them are even suspected of being
under the spell of some benumbing influence, that paralj^ses their
will and befogs their minds when high resolve and clear visions
are needful."
Another accusation of the same tenor was thus formulated :
* Daily Mail (Paris Edition), 31st March, 1919.
150
Aims and Methods
" In various degrees* and with different qualities of guilt all
the AUied and Associated leaders have dallied with dishonesty.
While professing to seek nought save the welfare of mankind,
they have harboured thoughts of self-interest. The result has
been a progressive loss of faith in them by their own peoples
severally, and by the Allied, Associated and Neutral peoples
jointly. The tide of public trust in them has reached its lowest
ebb."
At the Conference, as we saw, the President of the United
States possessed what was practically a veto on nearly all matters
which left the vital interests of Britain and France intact. And
he frequently exercised it. Thus the dispute about the Thracian
settlement lay not between Bulgaria and Greece, nor between
Greece and the Supreme Council, but between Greece and Mr.
Wilson. In the quarrel over Fiume and the Dalmatian coast it
was the same. When the Shantung question came up for settle-
ment it was Mr. Wilson alone who dealt with it, his colleagues,
although bound by their promises to support Japan, having made
him their mouthpiece. The rigour he displayed in dealing with
some of the smaller countries was in inverse ratio to the indulg-
ence he practised towards the Great Powers. Not only were
they peremptorily bidden to obey without discussion the behests
which had been brought to their cognizance, but they were ordered,
as we saw, to promise to execute other injunctions which might
be issued by the Supreme Council on certain matters in the future,
the details of which were necessarily undetermined.
In order to stifle any velleities of resistance on the part of their
Governments they were notified that America's economic aid,
of which they were in sore need, would depend on their docility.
It is important to remember that it was the motive thus clearly
presented that determined their formal assent to a policy which
they deprecated. A Russian statesman summed up the situation
in the words : " It is an illustration of one of our sajdngs : ' Whose
bread I eat, his songs I sing.' " Thus it was reported in July
that an agreement come to by the financial group Morgan with
an Italian syndicate for a yearly advance to Italy of a large sum
* Daily Mail (Paris Edition), 6tii April, 1919.
The Peace Conference
for the purchase of American food and raw stuffs was kept in
abeyance until the Italian delegation should accept such a solu-
tion of the Adriatic problem as Mr. Wilson could approve. The
Russian anti-Bolshevists were in like manner compelled to give
their assent to certain democratic dogmas and practices. It is
also fair, however, to bear in mind that whatever one may think
of the wisdom of the policy pursued by the President towards
these peoples, the motives that actuated it were unquestionably
admirable, and the end in view was their own welfare, as he
understood it. It is all the more to be regretted that neither the
arguments nor the example of the autocratic delegates were
calculated to give these the slightest influence over the thought
or the unfettered action of their unwilling wards. The arrange-
ments carried out were entirely mechanical.
In the course of time after the vital interests of Britain, France
and Japan had been disposed of, and only those of the " lesser
States," in the more comprehensive sense of this term, remained,
President Wilson exercised supreme power, wielding it with firm-
ness and encountering no gainsayer. Thus the peace between
Italy and Austria was put off from month to month because
he — and only he — among the members of the Supreme Council
rejected the various projects of an arrangement. Into the merits
of this dispute it would be unfruitful to enter. That there was
much to be said for Mr. Wilson's contention, from the point of
view of the League of Nations, and also from that of the Yugo-
slavs, will not be denied. That some of the main arguments
to which he trusted his case were invalidated by the concessions
which he had made to other countries was Italy's contention,
and it cannot be thrust aside as untenable.
At last Mr. Wilson Ventured on a step which challenged the
attention and stirred the disquietude of his friends He de-
spatched a Note* to Turkey, warning her that if the massacres
of Armenians were not discontinued he would withdraw the
twelfth of his Fourteen Points, which provides for the main-
tenance of Turkish sovereignty over undeniable Turkish terri-
* Somewhere between the I7th-20th August, 1919. It was transmitted by
Admiral Bristol, American member of the Inter-Allied Inquiry Mission at Smyrna.
Aims and Methods
tories. The intention wis excellent, but the necessary effects of
his action were contrary to what the President can have aimed at.
He had not consulted the Conference on the important change
which he was about to make respecting a point which was supposed
to be part of the groundwork of the new ordering. This from the
Conference point of view was a momentous decision, which could
be taken only with the consent of the Supreme Council. Even
as a mere threat it was worthless if it did not stand for the deli-
berate will of that body which the President had deemed it
superfluous to consult. As it happened, the British authorities
were just then organizing a body of gendarmes to poHce the
Turkish territories in question, and they were engaged in this
work with the knowledge and approval of the Supreme Council.
Mr. Wilson's announcement could therefore only be construed —
and was construed — ^as the act of an authority superior to that
of the Council.* The Turks, who are shrewd observers, must
have drawn the obvious conclusion from these divergent measures
as to the degree of harmony prevailing among the allied and
associated Powers.
M. Clemenceau had a conversation on the subject with Mr.
Polk, who explained that the Note was informal and given
verbally, and conveyed the idea only of one nation in connection
with the Armenian situation. This explanation, accepted by the
French Government, did not commend itself to public opinion,
either in France or elsewhere. Moreover, the French were struck
by another aspect of this arbitrary exercise of supreme power.
" President Wilson," wrote an eminent French publicist, " throws
himself into the attitude of a man who can bind and loose the
Turkish Empire at the very moment when the Senate appears
opposed to accepting any mandate, European or Asiatic, at the
moment when Mr. Lansing declares to the Congress that the
Government of which he is a member does not desire to accept
any mandate. But is it not obvious that if Mr. Wilson sovereignly
determines the lot of Turkey he can be held in consequence to the
performance of certain duties ? We have often had to deplore
the absence of policy common to the Allies. But has each one
• Cf. L'Echo de Paris, 28th August, 1919. Article by Pertinax,
153
The Peace Conference
of them, considered separately, at least a policy of its own ?
Does it take action otherwise than at haphazard, yielding to the
impulse of a general, a consul, or a missionary ? "*
It soon became manifest even to the most obtuse that when-
ever the Supreme Council, following its leaders and working on
such hues as these, terminated its labours, the ties between the
political communities of Europe would be just as flimsy as in the
unregenerate days of secret diplomacy, secret alliances, and secret
intrigues, unless in the meanwhile the peoples themselves inter-
vened to render them stronger and more enduring. It would,
however, be the height of unfairness to make Mr. Wilson alone
answerable for this untoward ending to a far resonant begiiming.
He has been accused by the Press of most countries of enwrapping
personal ambition in the attractive covering of disinterestedness
and altruism, just as many of his foreign colleagues were said to
go in fear of the " malady of lost power." But charges of this
nature overstep the bounds of legitimate criticism. Motive is
hardly ever visible, nor is it often deducible from deliberate
action. If, for example, one were to infer from the vast terri-
torial readjustments and the still vaster demands of the various
belligerents at the Conference, the motives that had determined
them to enter the war, the conclusion — except in the case of the
American people, whose disinterestedness is beyond the reach of
cavil — would indeed be distressing. The President of the United
States merited well of all nations by holding up to them an ideal
for realization, and the mere announcement of his resolve to work
for it imparted an appreciable if inadequate incentive to men of
good will. The task, however, was so gigantic that he cannot
have gauged its magnitude, discerned the defects of the instru-
ments, nor estimated aright the force of the hindrances before
taking the world to witness that he would achieve it. Even
with the hearty co-operation of ardent colleagues and the adoption
of a sound method he could hardly have hoped to do more than
clear the ground — perhaps lay the foundation-stone — of the
structure he dreamt of. But with the partners whom circum-
stance allotted him, and the gainsayers whom he had raised up
* Ibidem, Echo de Paris, 28th August, 1919. Article by Pertinax.
Aims and Methods
and irritated in his own country, failure was a foregone conclusion
iroxn the first. The aims after which most of the European
Governments strove were sheer incompatible with his own.
Doubtless they all were solicitous about the general good, but
their love for it was so general and so diluted with attachment to
others' goods as to be hardly discernible. The reproach that can
hardly be spared to Mr. Wilson, however, is that of pusillanimity.
If his faith in the principles he had laid down for the guidance of
nations were as intense as his eloquent words suggested he would
have spurned the offer of a sequence of high-spunding phrases in
Ueu of a resettlement of the world. And his appeal to the peoples
would most probably have been heard. The beacon once lighted
in Paris would have been answered in almost every capital of the
world. One promise he kept religiously : he did not return to
Washington without a paper covenant. Is it more ? Is it
merely a paradox to assert that as war was waged in order to
make war impossible, so a peace was made that will render peace
impossible ?
1.55
CHAPTER VI
THE LESSER STATES
BEFORE the Anglo-Saxon statesmen thus set themselves to
re-arrange the complex of interests, forces, policies,
nationalities, rights and claims which constituted the poUtico-
social world of 1919, they were expected to deal with all the allied
and associated nations, without favour or prejudice, as members
of one family. This expectation was not fulfilled. It may not
have been warranted. From the various discussions and deci-
sions of which we have knowledge, a number of Delegates drew
the inference that France was destined for obvious reasons to
occupy the leading position in Continental Europe, under the
protection of Anglo-Saxondom ; and that a privileged status
was to be conferred on the Jews in Eastern Europe and in Pales-
tine, while the other States were to be in the leading-strings of the
four. This view was not lightly expressed, however inadequately
it may prove to have been then supported by facts. As to the
desirability of forming this rude hierarchy of States, the principal
plenipotentiaries were said to have been in general agreement,
although responding to different motives. There was but one
discordant voice — that of France — who was opposed to the various
limitations set to Poland's aggrandizement, and also to the clause
placing the Jews under the direct protection of the League of
Nations, and investing them with privileges which the races
among whom they reside are not allowed to participate. Bul-
garia had a position unique in her class, for she was luckier than
most of her peers in having enlisted on her side the American
Delegation and Mr. Wilson as leading counsel and special pleader
for her claim to an outlet to the JEgeaxi Sea.
156
The Lesser States
At the Conference each State was dealt with according to its
class. Entirely above the new law, as we saw, stood its creators,
the Anglo-Saxons. To all the others, including the French, the
Wilsonian doctrine was applied as fully as was compatible with
its author's main object, the elaboration of an instrument which
he could take back with him to the United States as the great
world-settlement. Within these limits the President was evi-
dently most anxious to apply his fourteen points, but he kept well
within these. Thus he would, perhaps, have been quite ready
to insist on the abandonment by Britain of her supremacy on the
seas, on a radical change in the international status of Egypt and
Ireland, and much else, had these innovations been compatible
with his own special object. But they were not. He was ap-
parently minded to test the matter by announcing his resolve to
moot the problem of the freedom of the seas, but when admonished
by the British Government that they would not even brook its
mention, he at once gave it up, and presumably drawing the
obvious inference from this downright refusal, applied it to the
Irish, Egyptian and other issues, which were forthwith eliminated
from the category of open or international problems. But France's
insistent demand, on the other hand, for the Rhine frontier met
with an emphatic refusal.*
The social reformer is disheartened by the one-sided and in-
exorable way in which maxims proclaimed to be of universal
application were restricted to the second-class nations.
Russia's case abounds in illustrations of this arbitrary, unjust
and impolitic pressure. The Russians had been our allies. They
had fought heroically at the time when the people of the United
States were, according to their President, " too proud to fight."
They were essential factors in the Allies' victory, and conse-
quently entitled to the advantages and immunities enjoyed by the
Western Powers. In no case ought they to have been placed on
the same level as our enemies, and in lieu of recompense con-
demned to punishment. And yet this latter conception of their
deserts was not wholly new. Soon after their defection, and when
the Allies were plunged in the depths of despondency, a current
* In February, 1919.
The Peace Conference
of opinion made itself felt among certain sections of the allied
peoples tending to the conclusion of peace on the basis of compen-
sations to Germany, to be supplied by the cession of Russian terri-
tory. This expedient was advocated by more than one states-
man, and was making headway when fresh factors arose which
bade fair to render it needless.
At the Paris Conference the spirit of this conception may still
have survived and prompted much that was done and much that
was left unattempted. Russia was under a cloud. If she was
not classed as an enemy she was denied the consideration reserved
for the Allies and the neutrals. Her integrity was a matter of
indifference to her former friends, almost every people and nation-
ality in the Russian State which asked for independence found a
ready hearing at the Supreme Council. And some of them before
they had lodged any such claim were encouraged to lose no time
in asking for separation. In one case a large sum of money and
a mission were sent to " create the independent State of the
Ukraine," so impatient were peoples in the West to obtain a
substitute for the Russian ally whom they had lost in the East,
and great was their consternation when their protegees misspent
the funds and made common cause with the Teutons.
Disorganized Russia was in some ways a godsend to the world's
administrators in Paris. To the advocate of alliances, territorial
equilibrium and the old order of things it offered a facile means
of acquiring new helpmates in the East by emancipating its
various peoples in the name of right and justice. It held out
to the capitalists who deplored the loss of their milliards a poten-
tial source whence part of that loss might be made good.* To the
zealots of the League of Nations it offered an unresisting body
on which all the requisite operations from amputation to tre-
panning might be performed without the use of anaesthetics.
The various border States of Russia were thus quietly lopped
off without even the foreknowledge, much less the assent, of the
patient, and without any pretence at plebiscites. Finland,
* The French Minister of Foreign Affairs, M. Pichon, undertook to recognize
in principle the independence of Esthonia, provided that Esthonia would take
over her part of tjje Rjj§?}aB debt.
158
The Lesser States
Esthonia, Latvia, Georgia were severed from the chaotic Slav
State offhandedly, and the warrant was the doctrine propounded
by President Wilson — that every people shall be free to choose
its own mode of living and working. Every people ? Surely
not, remarked unbiassed onlookers. The Egyptians, the Irish,
the Austrians, the Persians, to name but four among many, are
disqualified for the exercise of these indefeasible rights. Perhaps
with good reason ? Then modify ^the doctrine. Why this differ-
ence of treatment ? they queried. Is it not because the supreme
judge knows full well that Great Britain would not brook the
discussion of the Egyptian or the Irish problem, and that France,
in order to feel quite secure, must hinder the Austrian Germans
from coalescing with their brethren of the Reich ? But if
Britain and France have the right to veto every self-denying
measure that smacks of disruption or may involve a sacrifice,
why is Russia bereft of it ? If the principle involved be of any
value at all, its application must be universal. To an equal all-
round distribution of sacrifice the only alternative is the supre-
macy of force in the service of arbitrary rule. And to this force,
accordingly, the Supreme Council had recourse. The only cases
in which it seriously vindicated the rights of oppressed or dis-
satisfied peoples to self-determination against the will of the ruUng
race or nation were those in which that race or nation was power-
less to resist. Whenever Britain or France's interests were
deemed to be imperilled by the putting in force of any of the four-
teen points, Mr. Wilson desisted from its application. Thus
it came about that Russia was put on the same plane as Germany,
and received similar, in some respects, indeed, sterner, treatment.
The Germans were at least permitted to file objections to the
conditions imposed and to point out flaws in the arrangements
drafted, and their representations sometimes achieved their end.
It was otherwise with the Russians. They were never consulted.
And when their representatives in Paris respectfully suggested
that all such changes as might be decided upon by the Great
Powers during their country's political disablement should be
taken to be provisional and be referred for definite settlement to
the future constituent assembly, the request was ignored.
159
The Peace Conference
Of psychological rather than political interest was Mr. Wilson's
conscientious hesitation as to whether the nationalities which he
was preparing to liberate were sufficiently advanced to be en-
trusted with self-government. As stated elsewhere, his first
impulse would seem to have been to appoint mandatories to
administer the territories severed from Russia. The mandatory
arrangement under the ubiquitous League is said to have been
his own. Presumably he afterwards acquired the beUef that the
system might be wisely dispensed with in the case of some of
Russia's border States, for they soon afterwards received promises
of independence and implicitly of protection against future
encroachments by a resuscitated Russia.
In this connection a scene is worth reproducing which was
enacted at the peace table before the system of administering
certain territories by proxy was fully elaborated. At one of
the sittings the Delegates set themselves to determine what
countries should be thus governed,* and it was understood that
the mandatory system was to be reserved for the German colonies
and certain provinces of the Turkish Empire. But in the course
of the conversation Mr. Wilson casually made use of the expres-
sion : " The German colonies, the territories of the Turkish Empire
and other territories." One of the Delegates promptly put the
question : " What other territories ? " To which the President
replied unhesitatingly : " Those of the late Russian Empire."
Then he added by way of explanation : " We are constantly
receiving petitions from peoples who lived hitherto under the
sceptre of the Tsars — Caucasians, Central Asiatic peoples and
others — who refuse to be ruled any longer by the Russians and
yet are incapable of organizing viable independent States of their
own. It is meet that the desires of these nations should be con-
sidered." At this the Czech Delegate, Dr. Kramarcz, flared up
and exclaimed : " Russia ? Cut up Russia ? But what about
her integrity ? Is that to be sacrificed ? " But his words died
away without evoking a response. " Was there no one," a
Russian afterwards asked, " to remind those representatives of
• In the first version of the Covenant, Article XIX. deals with this subject.
Jn the revised version it is Article XXI.
i6o
The Lesser States
the Great Powers of their righteous wrath with Germany when
the Brest-Litovsk treaty was promulgated ? "
Towards Italy, who, unhke Russia, was not treated as an
enemy, but was relegated to the category of Jesser States, the
attitude of President Wilson was exceptionally firm and uncom-
promising. On the subject of Fiume and Dalmatia he refused to
yield an inch. In vain the Italian Delegation argued, appealed
and lowered its claims. Mr. Wilson was adamant. It is fair to
admit that in no other way could he have contrived to get even
a simulacrum of a League. Unless the weak States were awed
into submitting to sacrifices for the great aim which he had made
his own, he must return to Washington as the champion of a
manifestly lost cause. On the other hand, it cannot be denied
that his thesis was not destitute of arguments to support it.
Accordingly the deadlock went on for months, until the Italian
Cabinet fell and people wearied of the Adriatic problems.
Poland was another of the communities which had to bend
before Anglo-Saxon will, represented in her case mainly by Mr.
Lloyd George, not, however, without the somewhat tardy backing
of his colleague from Washington. It is important for the his-
torian and the political student to observe that as the British
Premier was not credited with any profound or original ideas
about the severing or soldering of East European territories, the
authorship of the powerful and successful opposition to the allot-
ting of Dantzig to Poland was rightly or wrongly ascribed not to
him but to what is euphemistically termed " international finance "
lurking in the background, whose interest in Poland was obviously
keen, and whose influence on the Supreme Council, although
less obvious, was believed to be far-reaching. The same explana-
tion was currently suggested for the fixed resolve of Mr. Lloyd
George not to assign Upper Silesia to Poland without a plebiscite.
His own account of the matter was that although the inhabitants
were Polish — they are as two to one compared with the Germans
— it was conceivable that they entertained leanings towards the
Germans, and might therefore desire to throw in their lot with
these. When one compares this scrupulous respect for the likes
and dislikes of the inhabitants of that province with the curt
i6i II
The Peace Conference
refusal of the same men at first to give ear to the ardent desire of
the Austrians to unite with the Germans, or to abide by a plebiscite
of the inhabitants of Fiume or Teschen, one is bewildered. The
British Premier's wish was opposed by the official body of experts
appointed to report on the matter. Its members had no mis-
givings. The territory, they said, belonged of right to Poland,
the great majority of its population was unquestionably Polish,
and the practical conclusion was that it should be handed over
to the Polish Government as soon as feasible. Thereupon the
staff of the commission was changed, and new members were
substituted for the old.* But that was not enough. The British
Premier still encountered such opposition among his foreign
colleagues that it was only by dint of wordy warfare and stub-
bornness that he finally won his point.
The stipulation for which the first British Delegate toiled
thus laboriously was that within a fortnight after the ratification
of the Treaty the German and Polish forces should evacuate the
districts in which the plebiscite was to be held^ that the Workmen's
Councils there should be dissolved, and that the League of
Nations should take over the government of the district so as to
allow the population to give full expression to its will But the
League of Nations did not exist and could not be constituted for
a considerable time. It was therefore decidedf that some
temporary substitute for the League should be formed at once,
and the Supreme Council decided that inter-aUied troops should
occupy the districts. That was the first instalment of the price
to be paid for the British Premier's tenderness for plebiscites,
which the expert commissions deprecated as unnecessary, and
which, as events proved in this case, were harmful.
In the meanwhile Bolshevist — some said German — agents
were stirring up the population by suasion and by terrorism until
it finally began to ferment. Thousands of working men responded
to the goad, " turned down " their tools and ceased work. There-
upon the coalfields of Upper Silesia, the productipn of which had
already dropped by fifty per cent, since the preceding November.
• Cf. L'Echo de Paris, 19th August, 1919.
t In July, 1919.
162
The Lesser States
ceased to produce anything. This consummation grieved the
Supreme Council, which turned for help to the inter-allied armies.
For the Silesian coalfields represented about one-third of Ger-
many's production,' and both France and Italy were looking to
Germany for part of their fuel supply. The French Press per-
tinently asked whether it would not have been cheaper, safer and
more efficacious to have foregone the plebiscite and relied on the
Polish troops from the outset.* For, however ideal the inten-
tions of Mr. Lloyd George may have been, the net result of his
insistence on a plebiscite was to enable an ex-newspaper vendor
named Hoersing, who had undertaken to prevent the detachment
of Upper Silesia from Germany, to set his machinery for agitation
in motion and cause general unrest in the Silesian and Dombrova
coal-mining districts. When the strike was declared the work-
men, who are Poles to a man, rejected all suggestions that they
should refer their grievances to arbitration courts. For these
tribunals were conducted by Germans. The consequence of
Mr. George's spirited intervention was, in the words of an un-
biassed observer, to " raise the spectres of starvation, freezing
and Bolshevism in Eastern Europe " during the ensuing winter —
a heavy price to pay for pedantic adherence to the letter of an
irrelevant ordinance, at a moment when the spirit of basic prin-
ciples was being allowed to evaporate.
Roumania was chastened and qualified in severer fashion for
admission to the sodality of nations until her Delegates quitted
the Conference in disgust, struck out their own policy and cour-
teously ignored the Great Powers. Then the Supreme Council
changed its note for the moment and abandoned the position
which it had taken up respecting the armistice with Hungary,
to revert to it shortly afterwards.f The joy with which the up-
shot of this revolt was hailed by all the lesser States was an evil
omen. For their antipathy towards the Supreme Council had long
• L'Echo de Paris, 19th August, 1919.
t The armistice concluded with Hungary was grossly violated by the Hun-
garians and had lost its force. The Roumanians when occupying the country
demanded a new one and drafted it. The Supreme Council at first demurred,
and then desisted from dictation. But its attitude underwent further changes
later.
163 11
*
The Peace Conference
before hardened into a sentiment much more intense, and any
stick seemed good enough to break the rod of the self-constituted
governors of the planet.
The concrete result of this tinkering and cobbling could only
be a ramshackle structure, built without any reference to the
canons of political architecture. It was shaped neither by the
fourteen points nor by the canons of the balance of power and
territory. It was hardly more than an abortive attempt to make a
synthesis of the two. Created by force, it could be perpetuated
only by force ; but if symptoms are to be trusted, it is more likely
to be broken up by force. As an American press organ remarked
in August : " The Council of Five complains that no one now
condescends to recognize the League of Nations. Even the small
nations are bujdng war material, quite oblivious of the fact that
there are to be no more wars, now that the League is there to
prevent them. Sweden is buying large supplies from Germany,
and Spain is sending a commission to Paris to negotiate for some
of France's war equipment."*
Belgium, too, was treated with scant consideration. The
praise lavished on her courageous people during the war was
apparently deemed an adequate recompense for the sacrifices
she had made and the losses she endured. For the revision of
the treaties of 1839, indispensable to the economic development
of the country, no diplomatic preparation was made down to May,
and among the Treaty clauses then drafted Belgium's share of
justice was so slight and insufficient that the unbiassed Press
published sharp strictures on the forgetfulness or egotism of the
Supreme Council. " The little that has leaked out of the decisions
taken regarding the conditions which affect Belgium," wrote one
journal, " has caused not only bitter disappointment in Belgium,
but also indignation everywhere. . . . The Allies having decided
not to accord moral satisfaction to Belgium (they chose Geneva
as the capital of the League of Nations), it was perhaps to be
expected that they would not accord her material satisfaction.
And such expectations are being fulfilled. The Limburg province,
annexed to Holland in 1839, the province which gave the retreat
♦ New York Herald, 20th August, 1919 (Paris Edition).
164
The Lesser States
ing enemy unlawful refuge in 1918, a rank violation of Dutch
neutrality, is apparently not to be restored to Belgium, Even the
right, vital to the safety and welfare of Belgium, the right of un-
impeded navigation of the Scheldt between Antwerp and the sea,
has not yet been conceded. And the raw material that is indis-
pensable if Belgian industry is to be revived is withheld ; the
Allies, however, are quite willing to flood the country with manu-
factured articles."*
And yet Belgium's demands were extremely modest, f They
were formulated, not as the guerdon for her heroic defence of
civilization, but as a plain corollary flowing direct from each
and every principle officially recognized by the heads of the
Conference : right, nationality, legitimate guarantees and
economic requirements. Tested by any or all of these accepted
touchstones, everything asked for was reasonable and fair in
itself, and seemingly indispensable to the durability of the
new world-structure which the statesmen were endeavovuing
to raise on the ruins of the old. Belgium's forlorn pohtical
and territorial plight embodied all the worst vices of the old
balance of power stigmatized by President Wilson : the mutila-
tion of the country ; the forcible separation of sections of its
population from each other ; the distribution of these lopped,
ethnic fragments among alien States and dynasties ; the control
of her waterways handed over to commercial rivals ; the trans-
formation of cities and districts that were obviously destined
to figure among her sources of national well-being and centres
of culture into dead towns that paralyse her effort and hinder
her progress. In a word, Belgium had had no political existence
for her own behoof. She was not an organic unit in the sodality
of nations, but a mere cog in the mechanism of European
equilibrium.
Ruined by the war, Belgium was sorely tried by the Peace
Conference. She complained of two open wounds which
poisoned her existence, stunted her economic growth, and
* New York Herald, 4th May, 1919 (Paris Edition).
•f I discussed Belgium's demands in a series of special articles published in the
London Daily Telegraph and the Philadelphia Public Ledger in the a*nths of
January, February and March, 1919.
165
The Peace Conference
rendered her self-defence an impossibility : the vast gap of
Limburg on the east and the blocking of the Scheldt on the
west. The great national reduit, Antwerp, cut off from the
sea, inaccessible to succour in case of war, on the one side, and
Limburg opening to Germany's armies the road through Central
Belgium on the other — these were the two standing dangers
which it was hoped would be removed. How dangerous they
are events had demonstrated. In October, 1914, Antwerp fell
because Holland had closed the Scheldt and forbidden the
entrance to warships and transports, and in November, 1918, a
German army of over seventy thousand men eluded pursuit by
the Allies by passing through Dutch Limburg, carrying with
them vast war materials and booty. Militarily Belgium is
exposed to mortal perils so long as the treaties which ordained
this preposterous division of territories are maintained in vigour.
Economically, too, the consequences, especially of the status
of the Scheldt, are admittedly baleful. To Holland the river
is practically useless — ^indeed, the only advantage it could
confer would be the power of impeding the growth and prosperity
of Antwerp for the benefit of its rival Rotterdam. All that
the Belgians desired there was the complete control of their
national river, with the right of carrying out the works neces-
sary to keep it navigable. A like demand was put forward for
the canal of Temeuzen, which links the city of Ghent with the
Scheldt ; and the suppression of the checks and hindrances to
Belgium's free communications with her hinterland — i.e., the
basins of the Meuse and the Rhine. From every point of view,
including that of international law, the claims made were at
once modest and grounded. But the Supreme Council had no
time to devote to such subsidiary matters, and, like more
momentous issues, they were adjourned.
The Belgian Delegation did not ask that Holland's territory
should be curtailed. On the contrary, they would have wel-
comed its increase by the addition of territory inhabited by
people of her own idiom, under German sway.* But the Dutch
deniurred, as Denmark had done in the matter of the third
* In Frisia and Ghelderland.
166
The Lesser States
Schleswig zone, for fear of offending Germany. And the Supreme
Council acquiesced in the refusal. Again, when issues were
under discussion that turned upon the Rhine country and
affected Belgian interests, her Delegates were never consulted.
They were systematically ignored by the Conference. When
the capital of the League of Nations was to be chosen, their
hopes that Brussels would be deemed worthy of the honour
were blasted by President Wilson himself. One of the American
Delegates informed a foreign colleague " that the capital of the
League must be situate in a tranquil country, must have a steady
settled population and a really good climate." " A good climate ? "
asked a Continental statesman. " Then why not choose Monte
Carlo ? "
But the decision in favour of Geneva was sent by courier from
Switzerland ready made to President Wilson. The chief grounds
which lent colour to the belief that rehgious bias played a larger
part in the Conference's decisions than was apparent were the
following : It was from Geneva that the spirit of religious and
political liberty first went forth to be incarnated among the
various nations of the world. It is to John Calvin, rather than
to Martin Luther, that the birth of the Scotch Covenanters and
of English Puritanism is traceable. Hence Geneva is the parent
of New England. So, too, it was Rousseau — a true child of
Calvin — who was the author of America's Declaration of Inde-
pendence. Again, one of the first pacifists and advocates of
international arbitration was born in Geneva. John Knox sat
for two years at the feet of Calvin. Consequently the Puritan
Revolution, the French Revolution and the American Revolu-
tion all had their springs in Geneva.
These were the considerations which weighed with President
Wilson when he refused to fix his choice on Brussels. In vain
the Belgians argued and pleaded, urging that if the Conference
were to vote for London, Washington, or Paris, they would
receive the announcement with respectful acquiescence, but
that among the lesser States they conceived that their country's
claims were the best grounded. To the Americans who objected
that Switzerland's mountains and lakes, being free from hateful
167
The Peace Conference
war memories, offer more fitting surroundings for the capital
of the League of Peace than Brussels, where vestiges of the
odious struggle will long survive, they answered that they could
only regret that Belgium's resistance to the lawless invaders
should be taken to disqualify her for the honour.
It is worth while pursuing this matter a step further. The
Federal Council in Berne having soon afterwards officially
recommended* the nation to enter the League which guarantees
it neutrality,! ^^ illuminating discussion ensued. And it was
elicited that as there is an obligation imposed on all member-
states to execute the decrees of the League for the coercion of
rebellious fellow-members, it follows that in such cases Switzer-
land, too, would be obliged to take an active part in the struggle
between the League and the recalcitrant country. From mUi-
tary operations, however, Switzerland is dispensed, but it would
certainly be bound to adopt economic measures of pressure, and
to this extent abandon its neutrality. Now not only would that
attitude be construed by the disobedient nation as unfriendly,
and the usual consequences drawn from it, but as Switzerland
is freed from military co-operation, it follows that the League
could not fix the headquarters of its military command in its
own capital, Geneva, as that would constitute a violation of
Swiss neutrality. And, if it did, Switzerland would in self-
defence be bound to oppose the decision !
The Belgians were discouraged by the disdainful demeanour
and grudging disposition of the Supreme Council, and irritated
by the arbitrariness of its decrees and the indefensible way
in which it applied principles that were propounded as sacred.
Before restoring the diminutive cantons of Eupen and Malmedy
to Belgium, for example, Mr. Wilson insisted on ascertaining the
will of the population by plebiscite. In itself the measure was
reasonable, but the position of these little districts was sub-
stantially on all fours with Alsace-Lorraine, which was restored
to France without any such test. In Fiume, also, the will of
the inhabitants went for jnothing, Mr. Wilson refusing to consult
* In August, 1919.
t By Article 21 of the Covenant and Article 435 of the Treaty.
168
The Lesser States
them. Further, Austria, whose people were known to favour
union with Germany, was systematically jockeyed into ruinous
isolation. " Now what in the light of these conflicting judg-
ments," asked the Belgians, " is the true meaning of the prin-
ciple of self-determination ? " The only reply they received was
that Mr. Wilson was right when he told his fellow-countrymen
that his principles stood in need of interpretation, and that
as he was the sole authorized interpreter, his presence was
required in Europe.
In money matters, too, the chief plenipotentiaries can hardly
be acquitted of something akin to niggardliness towards the
country which had saved theirs from a catastrophe. Down to
the month of May, 1921, two and a half milUard francs was the
maximum sum allotted to Belgium by the Supreme Council.
And for the work of restoring the devastated country, which
the Great Powers had spontaneously promised to accomplish,
it was alleged by experts to be wholly inadequate. Other
financial grievances were ignored — for a time. Further, it was
decided that Germany should surrender her African colonies
to the Great Powers ; yet Belgium, who contributed materially
to their conquest, was not to be associated with them.
Irritated by this illiberality, the Belgian Delegation, having
consulted with M. Renkin, to whose judgment in these matters
special weight attached, resolved to make a firm stand, and
refused to sign the Treaty unless at least certain modest finan-
cial, economic and colonial claims, which ought to have been
settled spontaneously, were accorded under pressure. And the
Supreme Council, rather than be arraigned before the world on
the charge of behaving unjustly as well as ungenerously towards
Belgium, ultimately gave way, leaving, however, an impression
behind which seemed as indelible as it was profound. . . .
The domination which is now being exercised by the principal
Powers over the remaining States of the world is fraught with
consequences which were not foreseen, and have not yet been
realized by those who established it. Among the least momentous
but none the less real is one to which Belgium is exposed.
Hitherto there was a language problem in that heroic country
169
The Peace Conference
which, being an internal controversy, could be settled without
noteworthy perturbations by the goodwill of the Walloons and
the Flemings. The danger, which one fervently hopes will
be warded off, consists in the possible transformation of that
dispute into an international question, in consequence of possible
accords of a military or economic nature. The subject is too
delicate to be handled by a foreigner, and the Belgian people are
too practical and law-loving not to avoid unwary steps that
might turn a linguistic problem into a racial issue.
The Supreme Council soon came to be looked upon as the proto-
type of the future League, and in that light its action was
sharply scrutinized by all whom the League concerned. Fore-
most among these were the representatives of the lesser States,
or, as they were termed, " States with limited interests." This
band of patriots had pilgrimaged to Paris full of hope for their
respective countries, having drunk in avidly the unstinted
praise and promises which had served as pabulum for their
attachment to the Allied cause during the war. But their illu-
sions were short-lived. At one of their first meetings with the
Delegates of the Great Powers a storm burst which scattered
their expectations to the winds. When the sky cleared, it was
discovered that from indispensable fellow-workers they had
shrunk to dwarfish protegees, mere units of an inferior category,
who were to be told what to do and would be constrained to
do it thoroughly if not unmurmuringly.
At the historic sitting of January 26th the Delegates of the
lesser States protested energetically against the purely decora-
tive part assigned to them at a Conference in the decisions of
which their peoples were so intensely interested. The Canadian
Minister, having spoken of the " proposal " of the Great Powers,
was immediately corrected by M. Clemenceau, who brusquely
said that it was not a proposal, but a decision which was there-
fore definitive and final. Thereupon the Belgian Delegate,
M. Hymans, delivered a masterly speech, pleading for genuine
discussion in order to elucidate matters that so closely con-
cerned them all, and he requested the Conference to allow the
smaller belligerent Allies more than two Delegates. Their
170
The Lesser States
demand was curtly rejected by the French Premier, who in-
formed his hearers that the Conference was the creation of the
Great Powers, who intended to keep the direction of its labours
in their own hands. He added significantly that the smaller
nations' representatives would probably not have been invited
at all if the special problem of the League of Nations had not
been mooted. Nor should it be forgotten, he added, that the
five Great Powers represented no less than twelve million fight-
ing men. ... In conclusion, he told them that they had better
get on with their work in lieu of wasting precious time in speech-
making. These words produced a profound and lasting effect,
which, however, was hardly the kind intended by the French
statesman.
" Conferential Tsarism " was the term applied to this magis-
terial method by one of the offended Delegates. He said to me
on the morrow : " My reply to M. Clemenceau was ready, but
fear of impairing the prestige of the Conference prevented me
from uttering it. I could have emphasized the need for unani-
mity in the presence of vigilant enemies, ready to introduce a
wedge into every fissure of the edifice we are constructing. I
could have pointed out that this being an assembly of nations
which had waged war conjointly, there is no sound reason why
its membership should be diluted with States which never drew
the sword at all. I might have asked what has become of the
doctrine preached when victory was still undecided, that a
league of nations must repose upon a free consent of all sovereign
States. And above aU things else, I could have inquired
how it came to pass that the architect-in-chief of the society of
nations which is to bestow a stable peace on mankind, should
invoke the argument of force, of militarism, against the pacific
peoples, who voluntarily made the supreme sacrifice for the
cause of humanity and now only ask for a hearing. Twelve
million fighting men is an argument to be employed against the
Teutons, not against the peace-loving, law-abiding peoples of
Europe."
" Premier Clemenceau seemed to lay the blame for the waste
of time on our shoulders, but the truth is that we were never
171
The Peace Conference
admitted to the deliberations untU yesterday; although two
and one-half months have elapsed since the armistice was
concluded, and although the progress made by these leading
statesmen is manifestly limited, he grudged us forty-five minutes
to give vent to our views and wishes."
" The French Tiger was admirable when crushing the enemies
of civilization with his twelve million fighting men ; but gestures
and actions which were appropriate to the battle-field become
sources of jarring and discord when imported into a concert of
peoples."
Much bitterness was generated by those high-handed tactics,
whereupon certain slight concessions were made in order to
placate the offended Delegates ; but being doled out with a bad
grace, they failed of the effect intended. Belgium received three
delegates instead of two, and Yugo-Slavia three ; but Roumania,
whose population was estimated at fourteen millions, was
allowed but two. This inexplicable decision caused a fresh
wound, which was kept continuously open by friction, although
it might readily have been avoided. Its consequences may be
traced in Roumania 's singular relations to the Supreme Council
before and after the fall of Kuhn in Hungary.
But even those drastic methods might be deemed warranted
if the policy enforced were, in truth, conducive to the welfare
of the nations on whom it was imposed. But hastily improvised
by one or two men, who had no claim to superior or even average
knowledge of the problems involved, and who were constantly
falling into egregious and costly errors, it was inevitable that
their intervention should be resented as arbitrary and mis-
chievous by the leaders of the interested nations whose acquaint-
anceship with those questions and with the interdependent
issues was extensive and precise. This resentment, however,
might have been not, indeed, neutralized, but somewhat miti-
gated, if the temper and spirit in which the Duumvirate dis-
charged its self-set functions had been free from hauteur and
softened by modesty. But the magisterial wording in which
its decisions were couched, the abruptness with which they were
notified, and the threats that accompanied their imposition would
17a
The Lesser States
have been repellent even were the authors endowed with
infallibility.
One of the Delegates who unbosomed himself to me on the
subject soon after the Germans had signed the Treaty remarked :
" The Big Three are superlatively unsympathetic to most of
the envoys from the lesser belligerent States. And it would be
a wonder if it were otherwise, for they make no effort to hide
their disdain for us. In fact, it is downright contempt. They
never consult us. When we approach them, they shove us
aside as importunate intruders. They come to decisions
unknown to us, and carry them out in secrecy as though we
were enemies or spies. If we protest or remonstrate, we are
imperialists and ungrateful.
" Often we learn only from the newspapers the burdens or the
restrictions that have been imposed on us." A couple of days
previously M. Clemenceau, in an unofficial reply to a question
put by the Roumanian Delegation, directed them to consult the
financial terms of the Treaty with Austria, forgetting that the
Delegates of the lesser States had not been allowed to receive
or read those terms. Although communicated to the Austrians,
they were carefully concealed from the Roumanians, whom they
also concerned. At the same time, the Roumanian Government
was called upon to take and announce a decision which presup-
posed acquaintanceship with those conditions, whereupon the
Roumanian Premier telegraphed from Bucharest to Paris to
have them sent. But his locum tenens did not possess a copy
and had no right to demand one !* Incongruities of this
character were frequent.
One statesman in Paris, who enjoys a world-wide reputation,
dissented from those who sided with the lesser States. He
looked at their protests and tactics from an angle of vision which
the unbiassed historian, however emphatically he may dissent
from it, cannot ignore. He said : " All the smaller communities
are greedy and insatiable. If the chiefs of the World-Powers
had understood their temper, and ascertained their aspirations
in 1914, much that has passed into history since then would
* I was in possession of a complete copy.
The Peace Conference
never have taken place. During the war these miniature
countries were courted, flattered and promised the sun and the
moon, earth and heaven, and all the glories therein. And now
that these promises cannot be redeemed, they are wroth, and
peevishly threaten the Great States with disobedience and
revolt. This, it is true, they could not do if the latter had not
forfeited their authority and prestige by allowing their internal
differences, hesitations, contradictions and repentances to
become manifest to all. To-day it is common knowledge that
the Great Powers are amenable to very primitive incentives and
deterrents. If in the beginning they had been united and
said to their minor brethren : ' These are your frontiers. These
your obligations,' the minor brethren would have bowed and
acquiesced gratefully. In this way the boundary problems
might have been settled to the satisfaction of all, for each new
or enlarged State would have been treated as the recipient of
a free gift from the World-Powers. But the plenipotentiaries
went about their task in a different and unpractical fashion.
They began by recognizing the new communities, and then they
gave them representatives at the Conference. This they did on
the ground that the League of Nations must first be founded,
and that all well-behaved belligerents on the Allied side have
a right to be consulted upon that. And, finally, instead of
keeping to their programme and liquidating the war, they
mingled the issues of peace with the clauses of the League and
debated them simultaneously. In these debates they revealed
their own internal differences, their hesitancy, and the weakness
of their will. And the lesser States have taken advantage of
that. The general results have been the postponement of peace,
the physical exhaustion of the Central Empires, and the spread
of Bolshevism."
It should not be forgotten that this mixture of the general
and the particular of the old order and the new was objected to
on other grounds. The Italians, for example, urged that it
changed the status of a large number of their adversaries into
that of highly privileged allies. During the war they were
enemies, before the peace discussions opened they had obtained
174
The Lesser States
forgiveness, after which they entered the Conference as
cherished friends. The Italians had waged their war heroically
against the Austrians, who inflicted heavy losses on them. Who
were these Austrians ? They were composed of the various
nationalities which made up the Hapsburg Monarchy, and in
especial of men of Slav speech. These soldiers, with notable
exceptions, discharged their duty to the Austrian Emperor and
State conscientiously, according to the terms of their oath. Their
disposition towards the Italians was not a whit less hostile
than was that of the common German man against the French
and the English. Why, then, argued the Italians, accord them
privileges over the ally who bore the brunt of the fight against
them ? Why even treat the two as equals ? It may be replied
that the bulk of the people were indifferent and merely carried
out orders. Well, the same holds good of the average German,
yet he is not being spoiled by the victorious World-Powers. But
the Croats and others suddenly became the favourite children
of the Conference, while the Germans and Teuton Austrians,
who in the meanwhile had accepted and fulfilled President
Wilson's conditions for entry into the fellowship of nations,
were not only punished heavily — ^which was perfectly just —
but also disqualified for admission into the League, which was
inconsistent.
The root of all the incoherences complained of lay in the cir-
cumstance that the chiefs of the Great Powers had no programme,
no method ; Mr. Wilson's pristine scheme would have enabled
him to treat the gallant Serbs and their Croatian brethren as he
desii'ed. But he had failed to maintain it against opposition.
On the other hand, the traditional method of the balance of
power would have given Italy all that she could reasonably ask
for, but Mr. Wilson had partially destroyed it. Nothing
remained then but to have recourse to a tertium quid which
profoundly dissatisfied both parties and imperilled the peace of
the world in days to come. And even this makeshift the eminent
plenipotentiaries were unable to contrive single-handed. Their
notion of getting the work done was to transfer it to missions,
commissions and sub-commissions, and then to take action
The Peace' Conference
which, as often as not, ran counter to the recommendations of
these selected agents. Oddly enough, none of these bodies
received adequate directions. To take a concrete example :
A central commission was appointed to deal with the Polish
frontier problems, a second commission under M. Jules Cambon
had to study the report on the Polish Delimitation question,
but although often consulted, it was seldom listened to. Then
there was a third commission, which also did excellent work to
very little purpose. Now all the questions which formed the
subjects of their inquiries might be approached from various sides.
There were historical frontiers, ethnographical frontiers, political
and strategical and linguistic frontiers. And this does not
exhaust the list. Among all these, then, the commissioners
had to choose their field of investigation as the spirit moved
them, without any guidance from the Supreme Council, which
presumably did not know what it wanted.
As an example of the Council's unmethodical procedure, and
of its slipshod way of tackling important work, the following
brief sketch of a discussion which was intended to be decisive
and final, but ended in mere waste of time, may be worth
recording. The topic mooted was disarmament. The Anglo-
Saxon plenipotentiaries, feeling that they owed it to their
doctrines and their peoples to ease the miUtary burdens of the
latter and lessen temptations to acts of violence, favoured a
measure by which armaments should be reduced forthwith.
The Italian Delegates had put forward the thesis, which was
finally accepted, that if Austria, for instance, was to be forbidden
to keep more than a certain number of troops under arms, the
prohibition should be extended to all the States of which Austria
had been composed, and that in all these cases the ratio between
the population and the army should be identical. Accordingly
the spokesmen of the various countries interested were sum-
moned to take cognizance of the decision and intimafe their
readiness to conform to it. '
M. Paderewski listened respectfully to the decree, and then
remarked : " According to the accounts received from the
French military authorities, Germany still has 350,000 soldiers
176
The Lesser States
in Silesia." " No," corrected M. Clemenceau, " only 300,000."
" I accept the correction," replied the Polish Premier. " The
diiierence, however, is of no importance to my contention,
which is that according to the symptoms reported wc Poles
may have to fight the Germans and to wage the conflict single-
handed. As you know, we have other military work on hand :
I need only mention our strife with the Bolsheviki. If we are
deprived of effective means of self-defence on the one hand,
and told to expect no help from the Allies on the other hand,
the consequence will be what every intelligent observer foresees.
Now 300,000 Germans is no trifle to cope with. If we confront
them with an inadequate force and are beaten, what then ? "
" Undoubtedly," exclaimed M. Clemenceau, " if the Germans
were victorious in the east of Europe the Allies would have lost
the war. And that is a perspective not to be faced."
M. Bratiano spoke next. " We, too," he said, " have to fight
the Bolsheviki on more than one front. This struggle is one
of life and death to us. But it concerns, if only in a lesser
degree, all Europe, and we are rendering services to the Great
Powers by the sacrifices we thus offer up. Is it desirable, is it
politic, to limit our forces without reference to these redoubtable
tasks which await them ? Is it not incumbent on the Powers
to allow these States to grow to the dimensions required for the
discharge of their functions ? " " What you advance is true
enough for the moment," objected M. Clemenceau ; " but you
forget that our limitations are not to be applied at once. We
fix a term after the expiry of which the strength of the armies
will be reduced. We have taken all the circumstances into
account." " Are you prepared to affirm," queried the Rou-
manian Minister, " that you can estimate the time with sufficient
precision to warrant our risking the existence of our country on
your forecast ? " " The danger will have completely disap-
peared," insisted the French Premier, " by January, 1921." " I
am truly glad to have this assurance," answered M. Bratiano,
" f or I doubt not that you are quite certain of what you advance,
else you would not stake the fate of your eastern allies on its
correctness. But as we who have not been told the grounds on
177 I a
The Peace Conference
which you base this calculation are asked to manifest our faith
in it by incurring the heaviest conceivable risks, would it be too
much to suggest that the Great Powers should show their con-
fidence in their own forecast by guaranteeing that if by the
insurgence of unexpected events they proved to be mistaken
and Roumania were attacked, they would give us prompt and
adequate military assistance ? " To this appeal there was no
affirmative response ; whereupon M. Bratiano concluded :
"The limitation of armaments is highly desirable. No people
is more eager for it than ours. But it has one limitation which
must, I venture to think, be respected. So long as you have a
restive or dubious neighbour, whose military forces are subjected
neither to limitation nor control, you cannot divest yourself
of your own means of self-defence. That is our view of the
matter."
Months later the same dififtculty cropped up anew, this time
in a concrete form, and was dealt with by the Supreme Council
in its characteristic manner. Towards the end of August
Roumania's doings in Hungary and her alleged designs on the
Banat alarmed and angered the Delegates, whose authority was
being flouted with impunity ; and by way of summarily ter-
minating the scandal and preventing unpleasant surprises, M.
Clemenceau proposed that all further consignments of arms to
Roumania should cease. Thereupon Italy's chief representa-
tive, Signor Tittoni, offered an amendment. He deprecated,
he said, any measure levelled specially against Roumania aU
the more that there existed already an enactment of the old
Council of Four limiting the armaments of all the lesser States.
The MiUtary Council of Versailles, having been charged with
the study of this matter, had reached the conclusion that the
Great Powers should not supply any of the Governments with
war material. Signor Tittoni was of opinion, therefore, that
those conclusions should now be enforced.
The Council thereupon agreed with the Italian Delegate, and
passed a resolution to supply none of the lesser countries with
war materials. And a few minutes later it passed another
resolution authorizing Germany to cede part of her munitions
178
The Lesser States
and war material to Czecho-Slovakia and some more to General
Yudenitch !*
When the commissions to which all the complex problems had
to be referred were being first created,! the lesser States were
allowed only five representatives on the Financial and Economic
Commissions, and were bidden to elect them. The nineteen
delegates of these States protested on the ground that this arrange-
ment would not give them sufficient weight in the councils by
which their interests would be discussed. These malcontents
were headed by Senhor Epistacio Pessoa, the President Elect of
the United States of Brazil. The Pohsh Delegate, M. Dmowski,
addressing the meeting, suggested that they should not proceed
to an election, the results of which might stand in no relation
to the interests which the States represented had in matters of
European finance, but that they should ask the Great Powers
to appoint the delegates. To this the President Elect of Brazil
demurred, taking the ground that it would be undignified for
the lesser States to submit to have their spokesman nominated
by the greater. Thereupon they elected five delegates, all of
them from South American countries, to deal with European
finance, leaving the Europeans to choose five from among them-
selves. This would have given ten in all to the communities
whose interests were described as hmited, and was an affront
to the Great Powers.
This comedy was severely judged and its authors reprimanded
by the heads of the Conference, who, while quashing the elections,
relented to the extent of promising that extra delegates might
be appointed for the lesser nations later on. As a matter of fact,
the number of commissions was of no real consequence, because
on all momentous issues their findings, unless they harmonized
with the decisions of the chief plenipotentiaries, were simply
ignored.
The curious attitude of the Supreme Council towards Rou-
mania may be contemplated from various angles of vision.
But the safest coign of vantage from which to look at it is that
formed by the facts.
• Cf. Corriere delta Sera, 24th August, 1919. f In February.
179 12*
The Peace Conference
Roumania's grievances were many, and they began at the
opening of the Conference, when she was refused more than two
delegates as against the five attributed to each of the Great
Powers and three each for Serbia and Belgium, whose popula-
tions are numerically inferior to hers. Then her treaty with
Great Britain, France and Russia, on the strength of which
she entered the war, was upset by its more powerful signatories
as soon as the frontier question was mooted at the Conference.
Further, the existence of the Roumanian Delegation was gener-
ally ignored by the Supreme Council. Thus, when the treaty
with Germany was presented to Count von Brockdorff-Rantzau,
a mere journalist* at the Conference possessed a complete copy,
whereas the Roumanian Delegation, headed by the Prime Minister
Bratiano, had cognizance only of an incomplete summary.
When the fragmentary treaty was drafted for Austria, the
Roumanian Delegation saw the text only on the evening before
the presentation and noticing inacceptable clauses, formulated
reservations. These reservations were apparently acquiesced
in by the members of the Supreme Council. That, at any rate,
was the impression of MM. Bratiano and Misu. But on the
.following day, catching a gUmpse of the draft, they discovered
that the obnoxious provisions had been left intact. Then they
lodged their reserves in writing, but to no purpose. One of
the obligations imposed on Roumania by the Powers was a
promise to accept in advance any and every measure that the
Supreme Council might frame for the protection of minorities
in the country, and for further restricting the sovereignty of the
State in matters connected with the transit of allied goods. And,
lastly, the Roumanians complained that the action of the Supreme
Council was creating a dangerous ferment in the Dobrudja,
and even in Transylvania, where the Saxon minority, which had
willingly accepted Roumanian sway, was beginning to agitate
against it. In Bessarabia the non-Roumanian elements of the
population were fiercely opposing the Roumanians, and invoking
the support of the Peace Conference. The cardinal fact which,
♦ Cf. Chapter: "Censorship and Secrecy," page ii2. The writer of these
pages was the journalist.
i8o
The Lesser States
in the judgment of the Roumanians, dominated the situation
was the quasi ultimatum presented to them in the spring,*
when they were summoned unofficially and privately to grant
industrial concessions to a pushing body of financiers, or else to
abide by the consequences, one of which, they were told, would
be the loss of America's active assistance. They had elected to
incur the threatened penalty after having carefully weighed the
advantages and disadvantages of lajdng the matter before
President Wilson himself, and inquiring officially whether the
action in question was — as they felt sure it must be — in contra-
diction with the President's East European policy. For it
would be sad to think that abundant petroleum might have
washed away many of the tribulations which the Roumanians
had afterwards to endure, and that loans accepted on onerous
conditions would, as was hinted, have softened the hearts of
those who had it in their power to render the existence of the
nation sour or sweet. f " Look out," exclaimed a Roumanian
to me. " You wiU see that we shall be spurned as Laodiceans,
or worse, before the Conference is over." Roumania's external
situation was even more pe(rilous than her domestic plight.
Situated between Russia and Hungary, she came more and
more to resemble the iron between the hammer and the anvil.
A well-combined move of the two anarchist States might have
pulverized her. Alive to the danger, her spokesmen in Paris
were anxious to guard against it, but the only hope they had
at the moment was centred in the Great Powers, whose delegates
at the Conference were discharging the functions which the
League of Nations would be called on to fulfil whenever it became
a real institution. And their past experience of the Great
Powers' mode of action was not calculated to command their
confidence. It was the Great Powers which, for their own behoof
and without the slightest consideration for the interests of
Roumania, had constrained that country to declare war against
the Central Empires, J and had made promises of effective sup-
port in the shape of Russian troops, war material of every kind
* See page 183 of this Chapter. ■\Temps, 8th July, 1919.
J At the close of August, 1916.
181
The Peace Conference
officers and heavy artillery. But neither the promises of help
nor the assurances that Germany's army of invEision would be
immobilized were redeemed, and so far as one can now judge
they ought never to have been made. For what actually came
to pass — the invasion of the country by first-class German
armies under Mackensen — might easily have been foreseen and,
was actually foretold.* The entire country was put to sack,
and everything of value that could be removed was carried
off to Hungary, Germany, or Austria. The AlUes lavished their
verbal sympathies on the immolated nation, but did Uttle else
to succour it, and want and misery and disease played havoc
with the people.
After the armistice things became worse instead of better.
The Hungarians were permitted to violate the conditions and
keep a powerful army out of all proportion to the area which
they were destined to retain, and as the Allies disposed of no
countering force in Eastern Europe, their commands were scoffed
at by the Budapest Cabinet. In the spring of 1919 the Bol-
shevists of Hungary waxed militant and threatened the peace
of Roumania, whose statesmen respectfully sued for permission
to occupy certain commanding positions which would have
enabled their armies to protect the land from invasion. But the
duumviri in Paris negatived the request. They fancied that
they understood the situation better than the people on the
spot. Thereupon the Bolshevists, ever ready for an oppor-
tunity, seized upon the opening afforded them by the Supreme
Council, attacked the Roumanians, and invaded their territory.
Nothing abashed, the two Anglo-Saxon statesmen comforted
M. Bratiano and his colleagues with the expression of then
regret, ^.nd the promise that tranquilUty would not again be
disturbed. The Supreme Council would see to that. But this
promise, like those that preceded it, was broken.
The Roumanians went so far as to beUeve that the Supreme
Council either had Bolshevist leanings or underwent secret
* I was one of those who at the time maintained that even in the Allies' in-
terests Roumania ought not to enter the war at that conjuncture, and anticipa-
tion of that invasion was one of the reasons I adduced.
182
The Lesser States
influences — ^perhaps unwittingly — the nature of which it was
not easy to ascertain. In support of these theories they urged
that when the Roumanians were on the very point of annihilating
the Red troops of Kuhn, it was the Supreme Council which
interposed its authority to save them, and did save them effectu-
ally, when nothing else could have done it. That Kuhn was on
the point of collapsing was a matter of common knowledge.
A radio-telegram flashed from Budapest by one of his lieutenants
contained this significant avowal : "He (Kuhn) has announced
that the Hungarian forces are in flight. The troops which
occupied a good position at the bridge-head of Gomi have aban^
doned it, carrying with them the men who were doing their
duty. In Budapest preparations are going forward for equipping
fifteen workmen's battalions." In other words, the downfall
of Bolshevism had begun. The Roumanians were on the point
of achieving it. Their troops on the bank of the river Tisza*
were preparing to march on Budapest. And it was at that
critical moment that the world arbiters at the Conference who
had anathematized the Bolshevists as the curse of civilization,
interposed their authority and called a halt. If they had solid
grounds for intervening they were not avowed. M. Clemenceau
sent for M. Bratiano and vetoed the march in peremptory
terms which did scant justice to the services rendered and the
sacrifices made by the Roumanian State. Secret arrangements,
it was whispered, had been come to between agents of the Powers
and Kuhn. At the time nobody quite understood the motive of
the sudden change of disposition evinced by the Allies towards
the Magyar Bolshevists. For it was assumed that they stUl
regarded the Bolshevist leaders as outlaws. One explanation
was that they objected to allow the Roumanian Army alone to
occupy the Hungarian capital. But that would not account for
their neglect to dispatch an inter-alUed contingent to restore
order in the city and country. For they remained absolutely
inactive while Kuhn's supporters were rallying and consolidating
their scattered and demoralized forces; and they kept the
Roumanians from baulking the Bolshevist work of preparing
* Also known by the German name of Theiss.
183
The Peace Conference
another attack. As one of their French critics* remarked,
they dealt exclusively in negatives — some of them pernicious
enough, whereas a positive policy was imperatively called for.
To reconstruct a nation, not to say a ruined world, a series of
contradictory vetos is hardly sufficient. But another explana-
tion of their attitude was offered which gained widespread
acceptance. It will be unfolded presently.
The dispersed Bolshevist array, thus shielded, soon recovered
its nerve, and feeling secure on the Roumanian front, where the
Allies held the invading troops immobilized, attacked the
Slovaks and overran their country. For Bolshevism is by
nature proselytizing. The Prague Cabinet was dismayed. The
new-born Czecho-Slovak State was shaken. A catastrophe
might, as it seemed, ensue at any moment. Roumania's troops
were on the watch for the signal to resume their march, but it
came not. The Czecho-Slovaks were soliciting it prayerfully.
But the weak-kneed plenipotentiaries in Paris were minded to
fight, if at all, with weapons taken from a different arsenal.
In lieu of ordering the Roumanian troops to march on Budapest,
they addressed themselves to the Bolshevist leader, Kuhn,
summoned him to evacuate the Slovak country, and volun-
teered the promise that they would compel the Roumanians to
withdraw. This amazing line of action was decided on by the
secret Coucil of Three without the assent or foreknowledge of
the nation to whose interests it ran counter, and the head of
whose Government was rubbing shoulders with the plenipoten-
tiaries every day. But M, Bratiano's existence and that of his
fellow-delegate was systematically ignored. It is not easy to
fathom the motives that inspired this supercilious treatment of
the spokesman of a nation which was sacrificing its sons in the
service of the AUies as well as its own. Personal antipathy,
however real, cannot be assumed without convincing grounds
to have been the mainspring.
But there was worse than the contemptuous treatment of a
colleague who was also the Chief Minister of a friendly State.
If an order was to be given to the Roumanian Government to
• Cf. Le Timps, aSth July, 1919.
184
The Lesser States
recall its forces from the front which they occupied, elementary
courtesy and political tact as well as plain common sense would
have suggested its being communicated, in the first instance,
to the Chief of that Government — ^who was then resident in
Paris — as head of his country's delegation to the Conference.
But that was not the course taken. The statesmen of the
Secret Council had recourse to the radio, and without consulting
M. Bratiano, dispatched a message " to the Government in
Bucharest " enjoining on it the withdrawal of the Roumanian
Army. For they were minded scrupulously to redeem their
promise to the Bolshevists. One need not be a diplomatist to
realize the amazement of " the Roumanian Government " on
receiving this abrupt behest. The feelings of the Premier, when
informed of these underhand doings, can readily be imagined.
And it is no secret that the temper of a large section of the
Roumanian people was attuned by these petty freaks to senti-
ments which boded no good to the cause for which the Allies
professed to be working. In September M. Bratiano was
reported as having stigmatized the policy adopted by the Con-
ference towards Roumania as being of a " malicious and dan-
gerous character."*
The frontier to which the troops were ordered to withdraw
has, as we saw, just been assigned to Roumania* without the
assent of her Government, and with a degree of secrecy and
arbitrariness that gave deep offence, not only to her official
representatives, but also to those parUamentarians and politi-
cians who from genuine attachment or for peace' sake were
willing to go hand in hand with the Entente. " If one may
classify the tree by its fruits," exclaimed a Roumanian statesman
in my hearing, " the great Three are unconscious Bolshevists.
They are undermining respect for authority, tradition, plain,
straightforward dealing, and, in the case of Roumania, are
behaving as though their staple aim were to detach our nation
from France and the Entente. And this aim is not unattainable.
The Roumanian people were heart and soul with the French, but
• Cf. Daily Mail (Paris Edition), September 5th, 1919.
t On June 13th, 1919.
185
The Peace Conference
the bonds which were strong a short while ago are being
weakened among an influential section of the people to the regret
of all Roumanian patriots."
The answer given by the " Roumanian Government in
Bucharest " to the peremptory order of the Secret Council was
a reasoned refusal to comply. Roumania, taught by terrible
experience, declined to be led once more into deadly peril against
her own better judgment. Her statesmen, more intimately
acquainted with the Hungarians than were Mr. Lloyd George,
Mr. Wilson and M. Clemenceau, required guarantees which
could be supplied only by armed forces — Roumanian or AlUed.
Unless and until Hungary received a government chosen by the
free will of the people and capable of offering guarantees of good
conduct, the troops must remain where they were. For the line
which they occupied at the moment could be defended with four
divisions, whereas the new one could not be held by less than
seven or eight. The Council was therefore about to commit
another fateful mistake, the consequences of which it was
certain to shift to the shoulders of the pliant people. It was
then that Roumania's leaders kicked against the pricks.
To return to the dispute between Bucharest and Paris : the
Roumanian Government would have been willing to conform to
the desire of the Supreme Council and withdraw its troops if the
Supreme Council would only make good its assurance and
guarantee Roumania effectually from future attack by the
Hungarians. The proviso was reasonable, and as a measure of
self-defence imperative. The safeguard asked for was a contin-
gent of Allied forces. But the two supreme councillors in Paris
dealt only in counters. All they had to offer to M. Bratiano
were verbal exhortations before the combat and lip-sjnupathy
after defeat, and these the Premier rejected. But here, as in
the case of the Poles, the representatives of the " AUied and
Associated " Powers insisted. They were profuse of promises,
exhortations and entreaties before passing to threats — of
guarantees they said nothing — ^but the Roumanian Premier,
turning a deaf ear to cajolery and intimidation, remained
inflexible. For he was convinced that their advice was often
i86
The Lesser States
vitiated by gross ignorance, and not always inspired by dis-
interestedness, while the orders they issued were hardly more
than the velleities of well-meaning gropers in the dark who lacked
the means of executing them.
The eminent plenipotentiaries thus set at naught by a little
State ruminated on the embarrassing situation. In all such
cases their practice had been to resign themselves to circum-
stances if they proved unable to bend circumstances to their
schemes. It was thus that President Wilson had behaved when
British statesmen dechned even to hear him on the subject of
the freedom of the seas, when M. Clemenceau refused to accept
a peace that denied the Saar Valley and a pledge of military
assistance to France, and when Japan insisted on the retrocession
of Shantung. Towards Italy an attitude of firmness had been
assumed, because owing to her economic dependence on Britain
and the United States she could not indulge in the luxury of
non-conformity. Hence the plenipotentiaries, and in parti-
cular Mr. Wilson, asserted their will inexorably, and were pain-
fully surprised that one of the lesser States had the audacity
to defy it.
The circumstance that after their triumph over Italy the
world's trustees were thus publicly flouted by a little State of
Eastern Europe was gall and wormwood to them. It was also
a menace to the cause with which they were identified. None
the less, they accepted the inevitable for the moment, pitched
their voices in a lower key, and decided to approve the Rou-
manian thesis that Neo-Bolshevism in Hungary must be no
longer bolstered up,* but be squashed vicariously. They
accordingly invited the representatives of the three little
countries on which the honour of waging these humanitarian
wars in the anarchist east of Europe was to be conferred, and
sounded them as to their willingness to put their soldiers in the
field, and how many as to the numbers available. M. Bratiano
offered eight divisions. The Czecho-Slovaks did not rehsh the
project, but after some delay and fencing around agreed to
* On July nth, 1919, some days later, the decision was suspended owing to
the opinion of General Bliss, who disagreed with Foch<
187
The Peace Conference
furnish a contingent, whereas the Yugo-Slavs met the demand
with a plain negative, which was afterwards changed to
acquiescence when the Council promised to keep the Italians
from attacking them. As things turned out, none but the
Roumanians actually fought the Hungarian Reds. Meanwhile,
the members of the American, British and Italian missions in
Hungary endeavoured to reach a friendly agreement with the
criminal gang in Budapest.
The plan of campaign decided on had Marshal Foch for its
author. It was therefore business-like. He demanded a quarter
of a million men,* to which it was decided that Roumania should
contribute 120,000, Yugo-Slavia 50,000, and Czecho-Slovakia
as many as she could conveniently afford. But the day before
the operations were to have begun, f Bela Kuhn flung his troops J
against the Roumanians with initial success, drove them across the
Tisza with considerable loss, took up commanding positions and
struck dismay into the members of the Supreme Coimcil. The
Semitic Dictator, with grim humour, explained to the crestfallen
law-givers, who were once more at fault, that a wanton breach of
the peace was alien to his thought ; that, on the contrary, his
motive for action deserved high praise — ^it was to compel the
rebellious Roumanians to obey the behest of the Conference
and withdraw to their frontiers. The plenipotentiaries bore this
gibe with dignity, and decided to have recourse once more to
their favourite, and, indeed, only method — the dispatch of
exhortative telegrams. Of more efficacious means they were
destitute. This time their message, which lacked a definite
address, was presumably intended for the anti-Bolshevist popu-
lation of Hungary, whom it indirectly urged to overthrow the
Kuhn Cabinet and receive the promised reward, namely, the
privilege of entering into formal relations with the Entente
and signing the death warrant of the Magyar State. It is not
easy to see how this solution alone could have enabled the
Supreme Council to establish normal conditions and tranquillity
in the land. But the duumvirate seemed utterly incapable of
devising a coherent policy for Central or Eastern Europe. Even
• On July 17th, 1919. t On July 20th. } Estimated at 85,000.
188
The Lesser States
when Hungary had a Government friendly to the Entente they
never obtained any advantage from it. They had had no use
for Count Karolyi. They had allowed things to slip and slide,
and permitted — ^nay, helped — Bolshevism to thrive, although they
had brandmarked it as a virulent epidemic to be drastically
stamped out. Temper, education and training disqualified
them for seizing opportunity and pressing the levers that stood
ready to their hand.
In consequence of the vacillation of the two chiefs, who seldom
stood firm in the face of difficulties, the members of the predatory
gang which concealed its alien origin under Magyar nationality
and its criminal propensities* under a political mask had been
enabled to go on playing an odious comedy, to the disgust of
sensible people and the detriment of the new and enlarged States
of Europe. For the cost of the Supreme Council's weakness had
to be paid in blood and substance, little though the two Delegates
appeared to realize this. The extent to which the ruinous process
was carried out would be incredible were it not established by
historic facts and documents.
The permanent agents of the Powers in Hungary,! preferring
conciliation to force, now exhorted the Hungarians to rid them-
selves of Kuhn and promised in return to expel the Roumanians
from Hungarian territory once more and to have the blockade
raised. At the close of July some Magyars from Austria met
Kuhn at a frontier stationf and strove to persuade him to with-
draw quietly into obscurity, but he, confiding in the policy of the
Allies and his star, scouted the suggestion. It was at this juncture
that the Roumanians, pushing on to Budapest, resolved, come
what might, to put an end to the intolerable situation and to
make a clean job of it once for all. And they succeeded.
♦ Moritz Kuhn, who altered his name to Bela Kuhn, was a vulgar criminal.
Expelled from school for larceny, he underwent several terms of imprisonment, and
is alleged to have pilfered frona a fellow prisoner. Even among some thieves there
is no honour.
■f Italy was represented by Lieut.-Colonel Romanelli, who resided in Buda-
pest ; Britain by Colonel Sir Thomas Cunningham, who was in Vienna, as was
also Prince Livio Borghese. Later on the Powers delegated Generals to be
members of a military mission to the Hungarian capital.
} At Bruck.
189
The Peace Conference
For Roumania's initial military reverse* was the result ot a
surprise attack by some eighty thousand men. But her troops
rapidly regained their warlike spirit, recrossed the river Tisza,
shattered the Neo-Bolshevist regime and reached the environs of
Budapest.
By the ist of August the lawless band that was ruining the
country relinquished the reins of power, which were taken over
at first by a socialist cabinet of which an influential French press
organ wrote : " The names of the new . . . commissaries of
the people tell us nothing, because their bearers are unknown.
But the endings of their names tell us that most of them are,
like those of the preceding Government, of Jewish origin. Never
since the inauguration of official communism did Budapest better
deserve the appellation of Judapest which was assigned to it by
the late M. Lueger, chief of the Christian Socialists of Vienna.
That is an additional trait in common with the Russian soviets."f
The Roumanians presented a stiff ultimatum to the new
Hungarian Cabinet. They were determined to safeguard their
country and its ndghbomrs from a repetition of the danger and of
the sacrifices it entailed, in other words to dictate the terms of
a new armistice. The Powers demurred and ordered them to
content themselves with the old one concluded by the Serbian
Voyevod Mishitch and General Henrys in November of the pre-
ceding year and violated, subsequently by the Magyars. But the
objections to this course were many and unanswerable. In
fact they were largely identical with the objections which the
Supreme Council itself had offered to the Polish-Ukrainian
armistice. And besides these there were others. For example,
the Roumanians had had no hand or part in drafting the old
armistice. Moreover it was clearly inapplicable to the fresh
campaign which was waged and terminated nine months after
it had been drawn up. Experience had shown that it was in-
adequate to guarantee public tranquillity, for it had not hindered
Magyar attacks on the Roumanians and Czecho-Slovaks« The
Roumanians, therefore, now that they had worsted their ad-
* On the 20th July.
t Le Journal des Dibais, 4th August, 1919.
190
The Lesser States
versaries were resolved to disarm them and secure a realjpeace.
They decided to leave fifteen thousand troops for the maintenance
of internal order.* Roumania's insistence on the delivery of live
stock, corn, agricultural machinery and rolling stock for railways
was, it was argued, necessitated by want and justified by equity.
For it was no more than partial reparation for the immense losses
wantonly inflicted on the nation by theJMagyars and their allies.
Until then no other amends had been made or even offered.
The Austrians, Hungarians and Germans during their two years'
occupation of Roumania had seized and carried off from the
latter country 2,500,000 tons of wheat and hundreds of thousands
head of cattle, besides vast quantities of clothing, wool, skins
and raw material, while thousands of Roumanian homes were
gutted and their contents taken away and sold in the Central
Empires. Factories were stripped of their machinery and the
railways of their engines and waggons. When Mackensen left
there remained in Roumania only 50 locomotives out of the
1,200 which she possessed before the war. The material, there-
fore, that Roumania removed from Hungary during the first
weeks of the occupation represented but a small part of the
quantities of which she had been despoiled during the war.
It was further urged that at the beginning the Roumanian
Delegates would have contented themselves with reparation for
losses wantonly inflicted and for the restitution of the property
wrongfully taken from them by their enemies, on the lines on
which France had obtained this offset. They had asked for this,
but were informed that their request could not be complied with.
They were not even permitted to send a representative to Germany
to point out to the inter-alli«^ authorities the objects of which
their nation had been robbed, as though the plunderers would
voluntarily give up their ill-gotten stores ! It was partly because
of these restrictions that the Roumanian authorities resolved to
take what belonged to them without more ado. And they could
not, they said, afford to wait because they were expecting an
attack by the Russian Bolsheviki and it behoved them to have
♦ This is a larger proportion than was left to the Germans by the Treaty of
Versailles.
191
The Peace Conference
done with one foe before taking on another. These explanations
irritated in lieu of calming the Supreme Council.
" Possibly," wrote the well-informed Temps, " Roiunania
would have been better treated if she had closed with certain
proposals of loans on crushing terms or complied with certain
demands for oil concessions."* Possibly. But surely problems
of justice, equity and right ought never to have been mixed up
with commercial and industrial interests, whether with the con-
nivance or by the carelessness of the holders of a vast trust who
needed and should have merited unlimited confidence. It is
neither easy nor edifying to calculate the harm which trans-
actions of this nature, whether completed or merely inchoate,
are capable of inflicting on the great community for whose moral
as well as material welfare the Supreme Council was labouring
in darkness against so many obstacles of its own creation. Is it
surprising that the States which suffered most from these weak-
nesses of the potent Delegates should have resented their mis-
direction and endeavoured to help themselves as best they could ?
It may be blameworthy and anti-social, but it is unhappily natural
and almost unavoidable. It is sincerely to be regretted that the
art of stimulating the nations — about which the Delegates were so
solicitous — to enthusiastic readiness to accept the Council as the
" moral guide of the world " should have been exercised in such
bungling fashion.
The Supreme Council then feeling impelled to assert its dignity
against the wilfulness of a small nation decided on ignoring aUke
the service and the disservice rendered by Roumania's action.
Accordingly it proceeded without reference to any of the recent
events except the disappearance of the Bolshevist gang. Four
Generals were accordingly told off to take the conduct of Hun-
garian affairs into their hands despite their ignorance of the actual
conditions of the problem. | They were ordered to disarm the
Magyars, to deliver up Hungary's war material to the Allies, of
whom only the Roumanians and the Czecho-Slovaks had taken
* Le Temps, 8th July, 1919.
■f- It was the habitual practice of the Conference to entrust missions abroad to
Generals who knew nothing whatever about the countries to which they wer«
sent.
192
The Lesser States
the field against the enemy since the conclusion of the armistice
the year before, and they were also to exercise their authority
over the Roumanian victors and the Serbs, both of whom occupied
Hungarian territory. The Temps significantly remarked that the
Supreme Council, while not wishing to deal with any Hungarian
Government but one qualified to represent the country, " seems
particularly eager to see resumed the importation of foreign wares
into Hungary. Certain persons appear to fear that Roumania,
by retaking from the Magyars waggons and engines, might check
the resumption of this traffic."*
What it all came to was that the Great Powers who had left
Roumania to her fate when she was attacked by the Magyars,
intervened the moment the assailed nation, helping itself, got the
better of its enemy, and then they resolved to baulk it of the
fruits of victory and of the safeguards it would fain have created
for the future. It was to rely upon the Supreme Council once
more, to take the broken reed for a solid staff. That the Powers
had something to urge in support of their interposition will not be
denied. They rightly set forth that Roumania was not Hungary's
only creditor. Her neighbours also possessed claims that must
be satisfied as far as feasible, and equity prompted the pooling
of all available assets. This plea could not be refuted. But the
credit which the pleaders ought to have enjoyed in the eyes of the
Roumanian nation was so completely sapped by their ante-
cedents, that no heed was paid to their reasoning, suasion or
promises.
Roumania therefore in requisitioning Hungarian property was
formally in the wrong. On the other hand it should be borne
in mind that she, like other nations, was exasperated by the high-
handed action of the Great Powers, who proceeded as though her
good will and loyalty were of no consequence to the pacification of
Eastern Europe.
After due deliberation the Supreme Council agreed upon the
wording of a conciliatory message, not to the Roumanians, but to
the Magyars, to be despatched to Lieutenant-Colonel Romanelli.
The gist of it was the old refrain : "to carry out the terms of the
* Le Temps, 8th August, 1919.
193 13
The Peace Conference
armistice* and respect the frontiers traced by the Supreme
Councilf and we will protect you from the Roumanians, who
have no authority from us. We are sending forthwith an inter-
allied military commissionj to superintend the disarmament and
see that the Roumanian troops withdraw."
It cannot be denied that the Roumanian conditions were
drastic. But it should be remembered that the provocation
amounted almost to justification. And as for the crime of
disobedience, it will not be gainsaid that a large part of the
responsibility fell on the shoulders of the law-givers in Paris,
whose decrees, coming oracularly from Olympian heights without
reference to local or other concrete circumstances, inflicted
heavy losses in blood and substance on the ill-starred people of
Roumania. And to make matters worse, Roimiania's official
representatives at the Conference had been not merely ignored,
but reprimanded like naughty school children by a harsh dominie
and occasionally humiliated by men whose only excuse was
nervous tenseness in consequence of overwork combined with
morbid impatience at being contradicted in matters which they
did not understand. Other States had contemplated open
rebellion against the big ferrule of the " bosses," and more than
once the resolution was taken to go on strike unless certain
concessions were accorded them. Alone the Roimianians exe-
cuted their resolve.
I Naturally the destiny-weavers of peoples and nations in Paris
were dismayed at the prospect and apprehensive lest the Rou-
manians should end the war in their own way. They despatched
three Notes in quick succession to the Bucharest Government, one
of which reads§ like a peevish indictment hastily drafted before
the evidence had been sifted or even carefully read. It raked
up many of the old accusations that had been levelled against
the Roumanians, tacked them on to the crime of insubordination,
and without waiting for an answer — assuming, in fact, that there
* Armistice of the 13th November, 1918, which had become void.
t On 13th June, 1919.
{ Composed of four members, one each for Britain, the United States, France
and Italy.
§ On the 20th July.
194
The Lesser States
could be no satisfactory answer — summoned them to prove
publicly by their acts that they accepted and were ready to
execute in good faith the policy decided upon by the Conference.
That Note seemed unnecessarily offensive and acted on the
Roumanians as a powerful irritant,* besides exposing the active
members of the Supreme Council to scathing criticism. The
Roumanians asked their Entente friends in private to outline
the policy which they were accused of countering and were told
in reply that it was beyond the power of the most ingenious hair-
splitting casuist to define or describe. " As for us," wrote one
of the staunchest supporters of the Entente in French journalism,
" who have followed with attention the labours and the utterances,
written and oral, of the Four, the Five, the Ten, of the Supreme and
Superior Councils, we have not yet succeeded in discovering
what was the ' policy decided by the Conference.' We have
indeed heard or read countless discourses pronounced by the
choir-masters. They abound in noble thoughts, in eloquent ex-
positions, in protests and in promises. But of aught that could
be termed a policy we have not found a trace."t This verdict
will be endorsed by the historian.
The Roumanians seemed in no hurry to reply to the Council's
three Notes. They were said to be too busy dealing out what
they considered rough and ready justice to their enemies, and were
impatient of the intervention of their " friends." They seized
rolling stock, cattle, agricultural implements and other property
of the kind that had been stolen from their own people and sent
the booty home without more ado. Work of this kind was certain
to be accompanied by excesses and the Conference received
numerous protests from the aggrieved inhabitants. But on the
whole Roumanian at any rate during the first few weeks of the
occupation, had the substantial sympathy of the largest and most
influential section of the world's Press. People declared that
they were glad to see the haze of self-righteousness and cant at
last dispelled by a whiff of wholesome egotism. From the out-
* Paris journals ascribed it to Mr. Balfour, although it does not bear the hall-
mark of a diplomatist,
•f Journal des Dibals, 13th August, 1919.
195 13*
The Peace Conference
spoken comments of the most widely circulating journals in France
and Britain the dictators in Paris, who were indignant that the
counsels of the strong should carry so little weight in Eastern
Europe, could acquaint themselves with the impression which
their efforts at cosmic legislation were producing among the saner
elements of mankind.
In almost every language one could read words of encourage-
ment to the recalcitrant Roumanians for having boldly burst
the irksome bonds in which the peoples of the world were being
pinioned. '* It is our view," wrote one firm adherent of the
Entente, " that having proved incapable of protecting the Rou-
manians in their hour of danger, our alliance cannot to-day
challenge the safeguards which they have won for themselves."*
" If liberty had her old influence," one read in another popular
journal,! " the Big Powers would not be bringing pressure to
bear on Roumania with the object of saving Hungary from
richly deserved punishment." " Instead of nagging the Rou-
manians," wrote an eminent French publicist, " they would do
much better to keep the Turks in hand. If the Turks in despair,
in order to win American sjrmpathies, proclaim themselves
socialists, syndicalists or labourists, wiU President Wilson permit
them to renovate Armenia and other places after the manner of
Jinghiz Khan ? "J
But what may have weighed with the Supreme Council far more
than the disapproval of publicists were its own impotence, the
undignified figure it was cutting, and the injury that was being
done to the future League of Nations by the impunity with which
one of the lesser States could thus set at nought the decisions of
its creators and treat them with almost the same disrespect which
they themselves had displayed towards the Roumanian Delegates
in Paris. They saw that once their energetic representations
were ignored by the Bucharest Government they were at the end
of their means of influencing it. To compel obedience by force
was for the time being out of the question. In these circimistances
♦ Pertinax in the Echo de Paris, loth August, 1919.
•f The New York Herald (Paris Edition), loth August, 1919.
I Journal dts Dibats, 13th August, 1919. Article by Auguste Gauvain.
Z96
The Lesser States
the only issue left them was to make a virtue of necessity and
veer round to the Roumanian point of view as unobtrusively as
might be, so as to tide over the transient crisis. And that was
the course which they finally struck out.
Matters soon came to the culminating point. The members of
the Allied MiUtary Mission had received full powers to force the
commanders of the troops of occupation to obey the decisions
of the Conference, and when they were confronted with M.
Diamandi, the ex-minister to Petrograd, they issued their orders
in the name of the Supreme Council. " We take orders here only
from our own Government, which is in Bucharest," was the answer
they received. The Roumanians have a proverb which runs :
" Even a donkey will not fall twice into the same quicksand," and
they may have quoted it to General Gorton when refusing to follow
the Allies after their previous painful experience. Then the
mission telegraphed to Paris for further instructions.* In the
meanwhile the Roumanian Government had sent its answer to
the three Notes of the Council. And its tenor was firm and un-
5delding. Undeterred by menaces, M. Bratiano maintained that
he had done the right thing in sending troops to Budapest, im-
posing terms on Hungary and re-establishing order. As a matter
of fact he had rendered a sterling service to all Europe, including
France and Britain. For if Kuhn and his confederates had con-
trived to overrun Roumania, the Great Powers would have been
morally bound to hasten to the assistance of their defeated ally.
The Press was permitted to announce that the Council of Five was
preparing to accept the Roumanian position. The members of
the Allied Military Mission were informed that they were not
empowered to give orders to the Roumanians, but only to consult
and negotiate with them, whereby all their tact and consideration
were earnestly solicited.
But the palliatives devised by the Delegates were unavailing
to heal the breach. After a while the Council, having had no
answer to its urgent Notes, decided to send an ultimatum to
Roumania, calhng on her to 'restore the rolling stock which she
had seized and to evacuate the Hungarian capital. The terms
* General Gorton is the one who is said to have despatched the telegram.
197
The Peace Conference
of this document were described as harsh.* Happily before it
was despatched the Council learned that the Roumanian Govern-
ment had never received the communications nor seventy others
forwarded by wireless during the same period. Once more it had
taken a decision without acquainting itself of the facts. There-
upon a special messengerf was sent to Bucharest with a Note
" couched in stern terms," which, however, was " milder in tone "
than the ultimatum.
To go back for a moment to the elusive question of motive,
which was not without influence on Roumania's conduct. Were
the action and inaction of the plenipotentiaries merely the result
of a lack of cohesion among their ideas ? Or was it that they were
thinking mainly of the fleeting interests of tlie moment and un-
willing to precipitate their conceptions of the future in the form
of a constructive policy ? The historian will do well to leave
their motives to another tribunal and confine himself to facts,
which even when carefully sifted are numerous and significant
enough.
During the progress of the events just sketched there were
launched certain interesting accounts of what was going on below
the surface, which had such impartial and well-informed vouchers
that the chronicler of the Conference cannot pass them over in
silence. If true, as they appear to be, they warrant the belief
that two distinct elements lay at the root of the Secret Council's
dealings with Roumania. One of them was their repugnance to
her whole system of government, with its survivals of feudaUsm,
anti-semitism and conservatism. Associated with this was,
people alleged, a wish to provoke a radical and as they thought
beneficent change in the entire regime by getting rid of its chiefs.
This plan had been successfully tried against MM. Orlando and
Sonnino in Italy. Their solicitude for this latter aim may have
been whetted by a personal lack of sympathy for the Roumanian
Delegates, with whom the Anglo-Saxon chiefs hardly ever con-
versed. It was no secret that the Roumanian Premier found it
exceedingly difficult to obtain an audience of his colleague
* In the beginning of September, 1919.
■f The French Government having prudently refused to furnish an envoy, the
British chose Sir George Clerk.
198
The Lesser States
President Wilson, from whom he finally parted almost as much
a stranger as when he first arrived in Paris.
It may not be amiss to record an instance of the methods
of the Supreme Council, for by putting himself in the place of the
Roumanian Premier the reader may the more clearly understand
his frame of mind towards that body. In June the troops of Moritz
(or Bela) Kuhn had inflicted a severe defeat on the Czecho-Slavs.
Thereupon the Secret Council of Four or Five, whose shortsighted
action was answerable for the reverse, decided to remonstrate with
him. Accordingly they requested him to desist from the offensive.
Only then did it occur to them that if he was to withdraw his
armies behind the frontiers, he must be informed where these
frontiers were. They had already been determined in secret
by the three great statesmen, who carefully concealed them not
merely from an inquisitive public but also from the States con-
cerned. The Roumanian, Yugo-Slav and Czecho-Slovak Delegates
were therefore as much in the dark on the subject as were rank
outsiders and enemies. But as soon as circumstances forced the
hand of the plenipotentiaries the secret had to be confided to
them all.* The Hungarian Dictator pleaded that if his troops
had gone out of bounds it was because the frontiers were unknown
to him. The Czecho-Slovaks respectfully demurred to one of the
boundaries along the river Ipol which it was difficult to justify
and easy to rectify. But the Roumanian Delegation, confronted
with the map, met the decision with a frank protest. For it
amounted to the abandonment of one of their three vital irre-
ducible claims which they were not empowered to renounce.
Consequently they felt unable to acquiesce in it. But the
Supreme Council insisted. The second Delegate, M. Misu, was
in consequence obliged to start at once for Bucharest to consult
with the King and the Cabinet and consider what action the cir-
cumstances called for. In the meantime the entire question, and
together with it some of the practical consequences involved by
the tentative solution, remained in suspense.
When certain clauses of the peace treaty, which although they
materially affected Roumania had been drafted without the
* On June loth, 1919.
199
The Peace Conference
knowledge of her plenipotentiaries, were quite ready, the Rou-
manian Premier was summoned to take cognizance of them.
Their tenor surprised and irritated him. As he felt unable to
assent to them, and as the document was to be presented to the
enemy in a day or two, he deemed it his duty to mention his
obj ections at once. But hardly had he begun when M. Clemenceau
arose and exclaimed : " M. Bratiano, you are here to listen, not
to comment." Stringent measures may have been considered
'useful and dictatorial methods indispensable in default of
reasoning or suasion, but it was surely incumbent on those who
employed them to choose a form which would deprive them of
their sting or make them less personally painful.
For whatever one may think of the wisdom of the policy
adopted by the Supreme Council towards the unprivileged States,
it would be difficult to justify the manner in which they imposed
it. Patience, tact and suasion are indispensable requisites in
men who assume the functions of leaders and guides, yet know
that military force alone is inadequate to shape the future after
their conception. The Delegates could look only to moral power
for the execution of their far-reaching plans, yet they spurned the
means of acquiring it. The best construction one can put upon
their action will represent it as the wrecking of the substance by
the form. By establishing a situation of force throughout
Europe the Council created and sanctioned the principle that it
must be maintained by force.
But the affronted nations did not stop at this mild criticism.
They assailed the poUcy itself, cast suspicion on the disinterested-
ness of the motives that inspired it, and contributed thereby to
generate an atmosphere of distrust in which the frail organism
that was shortly to be called into being could not thrive. Con-
templated through this distorting medium, one set of Delegates
were taunted with aiming at a monopoly of imperialism and the
other with rank hypocrisy. It is superfluous to remark that the
idealism and lofty aims of the President of the United States
were never questioned by the most reckless Thersites. The
heaviest charges brought against him were weakness of will,
exaggerated self-esteem, impatience of contradiction and a naive
200
The Lesser States
yearning for something concrete to take home with him, in the
shape of a covenant of peoples.
The reports circulating in the French capital respecting vast
commercial enterprises about to be inaugurated by English-
speaking peoples and about proposals that the Governments
of the countries interested should facilitate them, were destructive
of the respect due to statesmen whose attachment to lofty ideals
should have absorbed every other motive in their ethico-political
activity. Thus it was affirmed by responsible politicians that
an official representative of an English-speaking country gave
expression to the view, which he also attributed to his Govern-
ment, that henceforth his country should play a much larger
part in the economic life of Eastern Europe than any other nation.
This, he added, was a conscious aim which would be steadily
pursued and to the attainment of which he hoped the politicians
and their people would contribute. So far this, it may be con-
tended, was perfectly legitimate.
But it was further affirmed, and not by idle quidnuncs, that
one of Roumania's prominent men had been informed that
Roumania could count on the good will and financial assistance
of the United States only if her Premier gave an assurance that,
besides the special privileges to be conferred on the Jewish
minority in his country, he would also grant industrial and com-
mercial concessions to certain Jewish groups and firms who reside
and do business in the United States. And by way of taking
time by the forelock one or more of these firms had already
despatched representatives to Roumania to study and, if possible,
earmark the resources which they proposed to exploit.
Now to expand the trade of one's country is a legitimate
ambition, and to hold that Jewish firms are the best qualified
to develop the resources of Roumania is a tenable position.
But to mix up any commercial scheme with the ethical regenera-
tion of Europe is, to put it mildly, impolitic. However un-
impeachable the motives of the promoter of such a project, it
is certain to damage both causes which he has at heart. But
the report does not leave the matter here. It goes on to state
that a very definite proposal, smacking of an ultimatum, was
201
The Peace Conference
finally presented which set before the Roumanians two alterna-
tives from which they were to choose : either the concessions
asked for, which would earn for them the financial assistance of
the United States, or else no concessions and no help.
At a Conference the object of which was the uplifting' of the
life of nations from the squalor of sordid ambitions backed by
brutal force to ideal aims and moral relationship, haggling and
chaffering such as this seemed wholly out of place. It reminded
one of " those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the
changers of money sitting " in the temple of Jerusalem who were
one day driven out with " a scourge of small cords." The
Roumanians hoped that the hucksters in the latter-day temple
of peace might be got rid of in a similar way ; one of them sug-
gested boldly asking President Wilson himself to say what he
thought of the policy underl5dng the disconcerting proposal. . . .
The other alleged element of the Supreme Council's attitude
needs no qualification. The mystery that enwrapped the
orders from the Conference which suddenly arrested the march
of the Roumanian and Allied troops, when they were nearing
Budapest for the purpose of overthrowing Bela Kuhn, never
perplexed those who claimed to possess trustworthy information
about the goings-on between certain enterprising ofiicers belong-
ing some to the Allied Army of Occupation and others to the
Hungarian forces. One of these transactions is alleged to have
taken place between Kuhn himself, who is naturally a shrewd
observer and hard bargain-driver, and a certain financial group
which for obvious reasons remained nameless. The object of
the compact was the bestowal on the group of concessions in the
Banat in return for an undertaking that the Bolshevist Dictator
would be left in power and subsequently honoured by an invita-
tion to the Conference. The plenipotentiaries' command arresting
the march against Kuhn and their conditional promise to summon
him to the Conference, dovetail with this contract. These un-
deniable coincidences are humiliating. The nexus between
them was discovered and announced before the stipulations were
carried out.
The Banat had been an apple of discord ever since the close
20Z
The Lesser States
of hostilities. The country, inhabited chiefly by Roumanians,
but with a considerable admixture of Magyar and Saxon elements,
is one of the richest unexploited regions in Europe. Its mines
of gold, zinc, lead, coal and iron offer an irresistible temptation
to pushing capitalists and their Governments, who feel further
attracted by the credible announcement that it also possesses
oil in quantities large enough to warrant exploitation. It was
partly in order to possess herself of these abundant resources
and create an accomplished fact that Serbia, who also founded
her claim on higher ground, laid hands on the administration of the
Banat. But the experiment was disappointing. The Yugo-Slavs
having failed to maintain themselves there the bargain just sketched
was entered into by officers of the Hungarian and Allied armies.
For concession-hunters are not fastidious about the nationality or
character of those who can bestow what they happen to be seeking.
This stroke of jobbery had political consequences. That was
inevitable. For so long as the Banat remained in Roumanian
or Serbian hands it could not be alienated in favour of any foreign
group. Therefore secession from both those States was a pre-
liminary condition to economic alienation. The task was bravely
tackled. An " independent republic " was suddenly added to
the States of Europe. This amazing creation, which fitted in
with the Balkanizing craze of the moment, was the work of a
few wirepullers in which the easy-going inhabitants had neither
hand nor part. Indeed, they were hardly aware that the Republic
of the Banat had been proclaimed. The amateur state-builders
were obliging officers of the two armies, and behind them were
speculators and concession-hunters. It was obvious that the
new community, as it contained a very small population for an
independent State, would require a protector. Its sponsors,
who had foreseen this, provided for it by promising to assign
the humanitarian role of protectress of the Banat Republic
to . democratic France. And French agents were on the spot
to approve the arrangement. Thus far the story, of which I
have given but the merest outline.*
* The actors in this episode were not all officers and eivil servants. They
included some men in responsible positions.
203
The Peace Conference
rjin this compromising fashion then Bela Kuhn was left for the
time being in undisturbed power, and none of his friends had any
fear that he would be driven out by the Allies so long as he
contrived to hit it off with the Hungarians. Should these turn
away from him, however, the cosmopolitan financiers, whose
cardinal virtues are suppleness and adaptability, would readily
work with his successor, whoever he might be. The few who
knew of this quickening of high ideals with low intrigue were
shocked by the lighthearted way in which under the aegis of the
Conference a discreditable pact was made with the " enemy
of the human race," a grotesque regime foisted on a simple-
minded people without consideration for the principle of self-
determination, and the very existence of the Czecho-Slovak
Republic imperilled. Indeed, for a brief while it looked as though
the Bolshevist forces of the Ukraine and Russia would effect
a junction with the troops of Bela Kuhn and shatter Eastern
Europe to shreds. To such dangerous extent did the Supreme
Council indirectly abet the Bolshevist peace-breakers against
the Roumanian and Czecho-Slovak allies.
It was at this conjuncture that a Roumanian friend remarked to
me : " The apprehension which our people expressed to you
some months ago when they rejected the demand for concessions
has been verified by events. Please remember that when
striking the balance of accounts."
The fact could not be blinked that in the camp of the Allies
there was a serious schism. The partisans of the Supreme Council
accused the Bucharest Government of secession, and were ac-
cused in turn of having misled their Roumanian partners, of
having planned to exploit them economically, of having favoured
their Bolshevist invaders and pursued a poUcy of blackmail.
The rights and wrongs of this quarrel had best be left to another
tribunal. What can hardly be gainsaid is that in a general
way the Roumanians — and not these alone — were implicitly
classed as people of a secondary category, who stood to gain
by every measure for their good which the culture-bearers in
Paris might devise. These inferior nations were all incarnate
anachronisms, relics of dark ages which had survived into an
204
The Lesser States
epoch of democracy and liberty, and it now behoved them to
readjust themselves to that. Their institutions must be modern-
ized, their old-world conceptions abandoned, and their people
taught to imitate the progressive nations of the West. What
the populations thought and felt on the subject was irrelevant,
they being less qualified to judge what was good for them than
their self-constituted guides and guardians. To the angry
voices which their spokesmen uplifted no heed need be paid,
and passive resistance could be overcome by coercion. This
modified version of Carlyle's doctrine would seem to be at the
root of the Supreme Council's action towards the lesser nations
generally and in especial towards Roumania.
Poland and the Supreme Council
This frequent misdirection by the Supreme Council, however
one may explain it, created an electric state of the political
atmosphere among all nations whose interests were set down or
treated as " limited," and more than one of them, as we saw,
contemplated striking out a policy of passive resistance. As
a matter of fact some of them timidly adopted it more than once,
almost always with success and invariably with impunity. It
was thus that the Czecho-Slovaks — the most docile of them all —
disregarding the injunctions of the Conference, took possession
of contentious territory,* and remained in possession of it for
several months, and that the Yugo-Slavs occupied a part of the
district of Klagenfurt and for a long time paid not the slightest
heed to the order issued by the Supreme Council to evacuate
it in favour of the Austrians, and that the Poles applied the same
tactics to Eastern Galicia. The story of this last revolt is charac-
teristic alike of the ignorance and of the weakness of the Powers
which had assumed the functions of world administrators.
During the hostilities between the Ruthenians of Galicia and the
Poles the Council, taunted by the Press with the numerous wars
that were being waged while the world's peace-makers were
chatting about cosmic politics in the twilight of the Paris Con-
* In Teschen.
ao5
The Peace Conference
clave, issued an imperative order that an armistice must be
concluded at once. But the Poles appealed to events, which
swiftly settled the matter as they anticipated. Neither the
Supreme Council nor the agents it employed had a real grasp
of the East European situation, or of the role deliberately assigned
to Poland by its French sponsors — that of -superseding Russia
as a bulwark against Germany in the East — or of the local con-
ditions. Their action, as was natural in fliese circumstances,
was a sequence of gropings in the dark, of incongruous behests,
exhortations and prohibitions which discredited them in the
eyes of those on whose trust and docility the success of their
mission depended.
Consciousness of these disadvantages may have had much
to do with the rigid secrecy which the Delegates maintained
before their desultory talks ripened into discussions. In the
case of Poland as of Roumania the veil was opaque and was never
voluntarily lifted. One day* the members of the Pohsh Delega-
tion, eager to get an inkling of what had been arranged by the
Council of Four about Dantzig, requested M. Clemenceau to
apprise them at least of the upshot if not of the details. The
French Premier, who has a quizzing way and a keen sense of
humour, replied, " On the 26th inst. you will learn the precise
terms." But Poland's representative insisted and pleaded
suasively for a hint of what had been settled. The Premier
finally consented and said : " Tell the General Secretary of the
Conference, M. Dutasta, from me, that he may make the desired
communication to you." The Delegate accordingly repaired
to M. Dutasta, preferred his request and received this reply :
" M. Clemenceau may say what he likes. His words do not
bind the Conference. Before I consider myself released from
secrecy I must have the consent of all his colleagues as well.
If you would kindly bring me their express authorization I will
communicate the information you demand." That closed the
incident.
When the Council finally agreed to a solution, the Delegates
were convoked to learn its nature and to make a vow of obedience
* On Friday, the i8th April, 1919.
206
The Lesser States
to its decisions. During the first stage of the Conference the
representatives of the lesser States had sometimes been per-
mitted to put questions and present objections. But later on
even this privilege was withdrawn. The following description
of what went on may serve as an illustration of the Council's
mode of procedure. One day the Polish Delegation was sum-
moned before the Special Commission to discuss an armistice
between the Ruthenians of Galicia and the Polish Republic.
The late General Botha, a shrewd observer, whose valuable
experience of political affairs, having been confined to a country
which had not much in common with Eastern Europe, could
be of little help to him in solving the complex problems with
which he was confronted, was handicapped from the outset.
Unacquainted with any languages but Enghsh and Dutch, the
General had to surmount the additional difficulty of carrying
on the conversation through an interpreter. The form it took
was somewhat as follows :
" It is the wish of the Supreme Council," the chairman began,
" that Poland should conclude an armistice with the Ruthenians,
and under new conditions, the old ones having lost their force.*
Are you prepared to submit your proposals ? " " This is a
military matter," replied the Polish Delegate, " and should be
dealt with by experts. One of our most competent military
authorities will arrive shortly in Paris with full powers to treat
with you on the subject. In the meantime, I agree that the
old conditions are obsolete and must be changed. I can also
mention three provisos without which no armistice is possible :
(i) The Poles must be permitted to get into permanent contact
with Roumania. That involves their occupation of Eastern
Galicia. The principal grounds for this demand are that our
frontier includes that territory and that the Roumanians are a
law-abiding, pacific people whose interests never clash with ours
and whose main enemy — Bolshevism — is also ours. (2) The
Allies shall purge the Ukrainian Army of the Bolshevists, German
and other dangerous elements that now pervade it and render
* The Roumanians, on the contrary, had been ordered to keep to the old con-
ditions, although they, too, had lost their force.
207
The Peace Conference
peace impossible. (3) The Poles must have control of the oil-
fields were it only because these are now being treated as military
resources and the Germans are receiving from Galicia, which
contains the only supplies now open to them, all the oil they
require and are giving the Ruthenians munitions in return,
thus perpetuating a continuous state of warfare. You can
realize that we are unwilling to have our oil-fields employed
to supply our enemies with war material against ourselves."
General Botha asked : " Would you be satisfied if, instead of
occupying all Eastern Galicia at once in order to get into touch
with the Roumanians, the latter were to advance to meet you."
" Quite. That would satisfy us as a provisional measure."
" But now suppose that the Supreme Council rejects your three
conditions — a probable contingency — ^what course do you pro-
pose to take ? " " In that case our action would be syyayed by
events, one of which is the hostility of the Ruthenians, which
would necessitate measures of self-defence and the use of our
army. And that would bring back the whole issue to the point
where it stands to-day."* To the suggestions made by the
Polish Delegate that the question of the armistice be referred to
Marshal Foch the answer was returned that the Marshal's views
carried no authority with the Supreme Council.
General Botha thereupon adopting an emotional tone said :
" I have one last appeal to make to you. It behoves Poland to
lift the question from its present petty surroundings and set it
in the larger frame of world issues. What we are aiming at is
the overthrow of militarism and the cessation of bloodshed.
As a civilized nation Poland must surely see eye to eye with the
Supreme Council how incumbent it is on the Allies to put a
stop to the misery that warfare has brought down on the world,
and is now inflicting on the populations of Poland and Eastern
GaUcia." " Truly," replied the Polish Delegate, " and so
thoroughly does she realize it that it is repugnant to her to be
satisfied with a sham peace, a mere pause during which a bloodier
war may be organized. We want a settlement that really con-
* That is exactly what happened in the end. But the Delegates would not
believe it until it became an accomplished facta
208
The Lesser States
notes peace, and our intimate knowledge of the circumstances
enables us to distinguish between that, and a mere truce. That
is the ground of our insistence."
" Bear well in mind." insisted the Boer General, " the friendly
attitude of the Great Allies towards your country at a cjatical
period of its history. They restored it. They meant and
mean to help it to preserve its status. It behoves the Poles to
show their appreciation of this friendship in a practical way by
deferiring to their wishes. Everything they ordain is for your
good. Realize that and carry out their schemes." " For their
help we are and will remain grateful," was the answer, " and we
will go as far towards meeting their wishes as is feasible without
actually imperilling their contribution to the restoration of our
State. But we cannot blink the facts that their views are some-
times mistaken and their power to realize them generally imag-
inary. They have made numerous and costly mistakes already,
which they now frankly avow. If they persisted in their present
plan they would be adding another to the list. And as to their
power to help us positively, it is nil. Their initial omission
to send a formidable military force to Poland was an irreparable
blunder, for it left them without an executive in Eastern Europe
where they now can help none of their protegees against their
respective enemies. Poles, Roumanians, Yugo-Slavs are all
left to themselves. From the Allies they may expect inspiriting'
telegrams, but little else. In fact, the utmost they can do is
to issue decrees that may or may not be obeyed. Examples
are many. They obtained for us by the armistice the right of
disembarking troops at Dantzig, and we were unspeakably
grateful to them. But they failed to make the Germans respect
that right and we had to resign ourselves to abandon it. They
ordered the Ukrainians to cease their numerous attacks on us
and we appreciated their thoughtfulness. But the order was
disobeyed ; we were assailed and had no one to look to for help
but ourselves. Still we are most thankful for all that they could
do. But if we concluded the armistice which you are pleading
for, this is what would happen : We should have the Ruthenians
arrayed against us on one side and the Germans on the other.
209 14
The Peace Conference
Now if the Ruthenians have brains, their forces will attack us
at the same time as those of the Germans do. That is sound
tactics. But if their strength is only on paper, they will give
admission to the Bolsheviki. That is the two-fold danger which
you, in the name of the Great Powers, are unwittingly endeavour*
ing to conjure up against us. If you admit its reality you cannot
blame our reluctance' to incur it. On the other hand, if you
regard the peril as imaginary, will you draw the obvious conse-
quences and pledge the word of the Great Powers that they will
give us military assistance against it should it come ? "
If clear thinking and straightforward action had counted for
anything, the matter would have been settled satisfactorily
then and there. But the Great Powers operated less with argu-
ment than with more forcible stimuli. Holding the economic
and financial resources of the world in their hands, they some-
times merely toyed with reasoning and proceeded to coerce where
they were unable to convince or persuade. One day the chief
Delegate of one of the States " with limited interests " said to
me : " The unvarnished truth is that we are being coerced.
There is no milder term to signify the procedure. Thus we are
told that unless we endorse the decrees of the Powers, whose in-
terests are unlimited like their assurance, they will withhold
from us the supplies of food, raw materials and money, without
which our national existence is inconceivable. Necessarily
we must give way, at any rate for the time being." Those words
sum up the relations of the lesser to the greater Powers.
In the case of Poland the conversation ended thus : General
Botha, addressing the Delegate, said : "If you disregard the
injunctions of the Big Four, who cannot always lay before you the
grounds of their policy, you run the risk of being left to your
own devices. And you know what that means. Think well
before you decide ! " Just then, as it chanced, only a part of
General Haller's soldiers in France had been transported to their
own country,* and the Poles were in mortal terror lest the work
of conveying the remainder should be interrupted. This, then,
was an implicit appeal to which they could not turn a wholly
'About 25,000 had already left France.
210
The Lesser States
deaf ear. " Well, what is it that the Big Fqur ask of us ? " in-
quired the Delegate. " The conclusion of an armistice with the
Ruthenians, also that Poland — as one of the newly created
States — should allow the free transit of all allied goods through
her territory." The Delegate expressed a wish to be told why
this measure should be restricted to the newly-made States.
The answer was because it was in the nature of an experiment
and should, therefore, not be tried over too large an area. " There
is also another little undertaking which you are requested to
give, namely, that you will accept and act upon the future de-
cisions of the Commission whatever they may be." " Without
an inkling of their character ? " "If you have confidence in
us you need have no misgivings as to that." In spite of the
deterrents the Polish Delegation at that interview met all these
demands with a firm non possumus. It upheld the three con-
ditions of the armistice, rejected the free transit proposal
and demurred to the demand for a promise to bow to all
future decisions of a fallible Commission. " When the
Polish dispute with the Czecho-Slovaks was submitted to a
Commission we were not asked in advance to abide by its
decision. Why should a new rule be introduced now ? "
argued the Polish Delegates. And there the matter rested, for
a brief while.
But the respite lasted only a few days, at the expiry of which
an envoy called on the members of the Polish Delegation and
Veopened the discussion on new lines. He stated that he spoke on
behalf of the Big Four, of whose views and intentions he was the
authorized exponent. And doubtless he thought he was. But
as a matter of fact the French Government had no cognizance of
his visit or mission or of the conversation to which it led. He
presented arguments before having recourse to deterrents.
Poland's situation, he said, called for prudence. Her secular
enemy was Germany, with whom it would be difficult, perhaps
impossible, ever to cultivate such terms as would conciliate
her permanently. All the more reason, therefore, to deserve
and win the friendship of her other neighbours, in particular
of the Ruthenians. The Polish plenipotentiary met the argument
2JI 14*
The Peace Conference
in the usual way, whereupon the Envoy exclaimed: "Well,
to make a long story short, I am here to say that the line of
action traced out for your country emanates from the inflexible
will of the Great Powers. To this you must bend. If it should
lead to hostilities on the part of your neighbours you could,
of course, rely on the help of your protectors. Will this not
satisfy you ? " " If the protection were real it certainly would.
But where is it ? Has it been vouchsafed at any moment since
the armistice ? Have the Allied Governments an executive in
Eastern Europe ? Are they likely to order their troops thither
to assist any of their protegees ? And if they issued such an
order, would it be obeyed ? They cannot protect us as we
know to our cost. That is why we are prepared, in our interests
— also in theirs — to protect oifrselves."
This remarkable conversation was terminated by the an-
nouncement of the penalty of disobedience. " If you persist
in refusing the proposals I have laid before you, I am to tell you
that the Great Powers will withdraw their aid from your country
and may even feel it to be their duty to modify the advantageous
status which they had decided to confer upon it." To which
this answer was returned : " For the assistance we are receiving
we are and will ever be truly grateful. But in order to benefit
by it the Polish people must be a living organism and your
proposals tend to reduce us to^ a state of suspended vitality.
They also place us at the mercy of our numerous enemies, the
greatest of whom is Germany."
But lucid intelligence backed by unflagging wiU were of no
avail against the threat of famine. The Poles had to give way.
M. Paderewski pledged his word to MM. Lloyd George and
Wilson that he would have an armistice concluded with the
Ruthenians of Eastern Galicia, and the duumvirs rightly placed
implicit confidence in his word as in his moral rectitude. They
also felt grateful to him for having facilitated their arduous task
by accepting the inevitable. To my knowledge President Wilson
himself addressed a letter to him towards the end of April thanking
him cordially for the broadminded way in which he had co-
operated with the Supreme Council in its efforts to reconstitute
212
The Lesser States
his country on a solid basis. Probably no other representative
of a State " with limited interests " received such high mark of
approval.
M. Paderewski left Paris for Warsaw, there to win over the
Cabinet. But in Poland, where the authorities were face to fade
with the concrete elements of the problem, the Premier found no
support. Neither the Cabinet nor the Diet nor the Head of the
State found it possible to redeem the promise made in their
name. Circumstance was stronger than the human will. M.
Paderewski resigned. The Ruthenians delivered a timely
attack on the Poles, who counter-attacked, captured the towns
of Strya, Tarnapol, Stanislau, and occupied the enemy
country right up to Roumania, with which they desired to
be in permanent contact. Part of the Ruthenian Army crossed
the Czech frontier and was disarmed, the remainder melted
away and there remained no enemy with whom to conclude
an armistice.
For the " Big Four " this turn of events was a humiliation.
The Ruthenian Army, whose interests they had so taken to heart,
had suddenly ceased to exist, and the future danger which it
represented to Poland was seen to have been largely imaginary.
Their judgment was at fault and their power ineffectual. Against
M. Paderewski's impotence they blazed with indignation. He
had given way to their decision and promptly gone to Warsaw
to see it executed, yet the conditions were such that his words
were treated as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. The
Polish Premier, it is true, had tendered his resignation in conse-
quence, but it was refused — and even had it been accepted, what
was the retirement of a Minister as compared with the indignity
put upon the world's law-givers who represented power and
interests which were alike unlimited ? Angry telegrams were
flashed over the wires from Paris to Warsaw and the Polish
Premier was summoned to appear in Paris without delay. He
duly returned, but no new move was made. The die was
cast
A noteworthy event in latter-day Polish history ensued upon
that military victory over the Ruthenians of Eastern Galicia.
213
The Peace Conference
The Ukrainian* Minister at Vienna was despatched to request
the Poles to sign a unilateral treaty with them after the model
of that which was arranged by the two Anglo-Saxon States in
favour of France. The proposal was that the Ukraine Govern-
ment would renounce all claims to Eastern Galicia and place their
troops under the supreme command of the Polish generalissimus,
in return for which the Poles should undertake to protect the
Ukrainians against all their enemies. This draft agreement,
while under consideration in Warsaw, was negatived by the
Polish Delegates in Paris, who saw no good reason why their
people should bind themselves to fight Russia one day for the
independence of the Ukraine. Another inchoate State which
made an offer of alliance to Poland was Esthonia, but its advances
were declined on sinailar grounds. It is manifest, however, that
in the new State system alliances are more in vogue than in the
old, although they wefe to have been banished from it.
Throughout all the negotiations that turned upon the future
status and the territorial frontiers of Poland the British Premier
unswervingly stood out against the Polish claims, just as the Presi-
dent of the United States inflexibly countered those of Italy, and
both united to negative those of the Roumanians. Whatever
one may think of the merits of these controversies — and various
opinions have been put forward with obvious sincerity — ^there
can be but one judgment as to the spirit in which they were
conducted. It was a dictatorial spirit, which was intolerant
not merely of opposition but of enlightened and constructive
criticism. To the representatives of the countries concerned it
seemed made up of bitter prejudice and fierce partisanship,
imbibed, it was affirmed, from those unseen sources whence power-
ful and, it was thought, noxious currents flowed continuously
towards the Conference. For none of the affronted Delegates
credited with a knowledge of the subject either Mr. George, who
had never heard of Teschen, or Mr. Wilson, whose survey of Corsi-
can politics was said to be so defective. And yet to the activity
* The Ruthenians, Ukrainians and Little Russians are racially the same people,
just as those who speak German in North- Western Germany, Dutch in Holland,
and Flemish in Belgium, are racially close kindred. The main distinctions
'between the members of each branch are political.
214
The Lesser States
of men engaged like these in settling affairs of unprecedented
nxagnitudeit would be unfair to apply the ordinary tests of techni-
cal fastidiousness. Their position as trustees of the world's
greatest States, even though they lacked political imagination,
knowledge and experience, entitled them to the high consideration
which they generally received. But it could not be expected to
dazzle to blindness the eyes of superior men — and the Delegates
of the lesser States, Venizelos, Dmowski, and Benes, were
undoubtedly superior in most of the attributes of statesman-
ship. Yet they were frequently snubbed and each one made
to feel that he was the fifth wheel in the chariot of the Conference.
No sacred fame, says Goethe, requires us to submit to contempt,
and they winced under it. The Big Three lacked the happy way
of doing things which goes with diplomatic tact and engaging
manners, and the consequence was that not only were their
arguments mistrusted but even their good faith was, as we saw,
momentarily subjected to doubt. " Bitter prejudice, furious
antipathy " were freely predicated of the two Anglo-Saxon
statesmen, who were rashly accused of attempting by circuitous
methods to deprive France of her new Slav ally in Eastern
Europe. Sweeping recriminations of this character deserve notice
only as indicating the spirit of discord-^not to use a stronger
term — prevailing at a Conference which was professedly
endeavouring to knit together the peoples of the planet in an
organized society of good fellowship.
The Delegates of the lesser States, to whom one should not
look for impartial judgments, formulated some queer theories
to explain the Allies' unavowed policy and revealed a frame of
mind no wise conducive to the attainment of the ostensible ends of
the Conference. One Delegate said to me : "I have no longer
the faintest doubt that the firm purpose of the ' Big Two ' is the
establishment of the hegemony of the Anglo-Saxon peoples, which
in the fullness of time may be transformed into the hegemony
of the United States of North America. Even France is in some
respects their handmaid. Already she is bound to them in-
dissolubly. She is admittedly unable to hold her own without
their protection. She will become more dependent on them as
215
The Peace Conference
the years pass and Germany, having put her house in order, re-
gains her economic preponderance on the Continent. This decline
is, due to the operation of a natural law which diplomacy may
retard but cannot hinder. Numbers will count in the future,
and then France's role will be reduced. For this reason it is her
interest that her new allies in Eastern Europe should be equipped
with all the means of growing and keeping strong instead of being
held in the leading-strings of the overlords. But perhaps this
tutelage is reckoned one of those means ? "
Against Britain in especial the Poles, as we saw, were wroth.
They complained that whenever they advanced a claim they
found her first Delegate on their path barring their passage, and
if Mr. Wilson chanced to be with them the British Premier set
himself to convert him to his way of thinking or voting. Thus
it was against Mr. L. George that the Eastern Galician problem
had had to be fought at every stage. At the outset the British
Premier refused Galicia to Poland categorically and purposed
making it an entirely separate State under the League of Nations.
This design, of which he tnade no secret, inspired the insistence
with which the armistice with the Ruthenians of Galicia was
pressed. The Polish Delegates, one of them a man of incisive
speech, left no stone unturned to thwart that part of the English
scheme and they finally succeeded. But their opponents con-
trived to drop a spoonful of tar in Poland's pot of honey by
ordering a plebiscite to take place in Eastern Galicia within
ten or fifteen years. Then came the question of the Galician
Constitution. The Poles proposed to confer on the Ruthenians
a restricted measure of home rule with authority to arrange
in their own way educational and religious matters, local com-
munications and the means of encouraging industry and agri-
culture, besides giving them a proportionate number of seats in
the State legislature in Warsaw. But again the British Delegates
— experienced in problems of home rule — expressed their dis-
satisfaction and insisted on a parliament or Diet for the Ukraine
invested with considerable authority over the affairs of the
province. The Poles next announced their intention to have
a Governor of Eastern Galicia appointed by the President of the
216
The Lesser States
Polish Republic with a council to advise him. The British again
amended the proposal and asked that the Governor should be
responsible to the Galician parliament, but to this the Poles de-
murred emphatically, and finally it was settled that only the mem-
bers of his council should be responsible to the provincial legis-
lature. The Poles having suggested that military conscription
should be applied to Eastern Galicia on the same terms as to the
rest of Poland, the British once more joined issue with them and
demanded that no troops whatever should be levied in the province.
The upshot of this dispute was that after much wrangling the
British Commission gave way to the Poles, but made it a condition
that the troops should not be employed outside the province.
To this the Poles made answer that the massing of so many
soldiers on the Roumanian frontier might reasonably be objected
to by the Roumanians — and so the amoebaean word-game went
on in the sub-commission. In a word, when dealing with the
Eastern Galician problem, Mr. L. George played the part of an
ardent champion of complete home rule.
To sum up, the Conference linked Eastern Galicia with Poland,
but made the bonds extremely tenuous, so that they might be
severed at any moment without involving profound changes in
either country, and by this arrangement which introduced the
provisional into the definitive, a broad field of operations was
allotted to political agitation and revolt was encouraged to rear
its crest.
The province of Upper Silesia was asked for on grounds wliich
the Poles, at any rate, thought convincing. But Mr. Lloyd
George, it was said, declared them insufficient. The subject
was thrashed out one day in June when the Polish Delegates
were summoned before their all-powerful colleagues to be told
of certain alterations that had been recently introduced into the
Treaty which concerned them to know. They appeared before
the Council of Five.* President Wilson, addressing the two
Delegates, spoke approximately as follows : " You claim Silesia
* MM. Wilson, George, Clemenceau, Barons Makino and Sonnino. M. Clemen-
ceau wj,s the nominal chairman, but in reality it was President Wilson who con
dijcted the proceedings.
/ 217
The Peace Conference
on the ground that its inhabitants are Poles and we have given
your demand careful consideration. But the Germans tell us
that the inhabitants, although Polish by race, wish to remain
under German rule as heretofore. That is a strong objection
if founded on fact. At present we are unable to answer it.
In fact, nobody can answer it with finality but the inhabitants
themselves. Therefore we must order a plebiscite among' them."
One of the Polish Delegates remarked : "If you had put the
question to the inhabitants fifty years ago they would have ex-
pressed their wish to remain with the Germans because at that
time they were profoundly ignorant and their national sentiment
was dormant. Now it is otherwise. For since then many of
them have been educated, and the majority are alive to the
issue and will therefore declare for Poland. And if any section
of the territory should still prefer German sway to PoUsh and their
district in consequence of your plebiscite becomes German, the
process of enlightenment which has already made such headway
will none the less go on, and their children, conscious of their
loss, will anathematize their fathers for having inflicted it. And
then there will be trouble."
Mr. Wilson retorted : " You are assuming more than is meet.
The frontiers which we are tracing are provisional, not final.
That is a consideration which ought to weigh with you. Besides
the League of Nations will intervene to improve what is im-
perfect." " O League of Nations, what blunders are committed
in thy name ! " the Delegate may have muttered to himself as he
listened to the words meant to comfort him and his countrjnnen.
Much might have been urged against this proffered solace if
the Delegates had been in a captious mood. The League of
Nations had as yet no existence. If its will, intelligence and
power could indeed be reckoned upon with such confidence, how
had it come to pass that its creators, Britain and the United States,
deemed them dubious enoiigh to call for a reinforcement in the
shape of a formal alliance for the protection of France ? If this
precautionary measure, which shatters the whole Wilsonian
system, was indispensable to one Ally it was at least equally in-
dispensable to another. And in the case of Poland it was more
218
The Lesser (States
urgent than in the case of France, because if Germany were again
to scheme a war of conquest the probabihty is infinitesimal that
she would invade Belgium or move forward on the Western front.
The line of least resistance, which is Poland, would prove incom-
parably more attractive. And then ? The absence of AUied
troops in Eastern Europe was one of the principal causes of the
wars, tumults and chaotic confusion that had made nervous
people tremble for the fate of civilization in the interval between
the conclusion of the armistice and the ratification of the Treaty;
In the future the absence of strongly situated Allies there if
Germany were to begin a fresh war would be more fatal still,
and the Polish State might conceivably disappear before mili-
tary aid from the Allied Governments could reach it. Why
should the safety of Poland and to some extent the security of
Europe be made to depend upon what is at best a gambler's throw ?
But no counter-objections were offered. On the contrary,
M. Paderewski uttered the soft answer that turneth away wrath.
He profoundly regretted the decision of the law-givers, but
recognizing that it was immutable bowed to it in the name of his
country. He knew, he said, that the Delegates were animated
by very friendly feelings towards his country and he thanked
them for their help. M. Paderewski's colleague, the less malleable
M. Dmowski, is reported to have said : " It is my desire to be
quite sincere with you, gentlemen. Therefore I venture to submit
that while you profess to have settled the matter on principle,
you have not carried out that principle thoroughly. Doubtless by
inadvertence. Thus there are places inhabited by a large
majority of Poles which you have allotted to Germany on the
ground that they are inhabited by Germans. That is incon-
sistent." At this Mr. Lloyd George jumped up from his place
and asked : " Can you name any such places ? " M. Dmowski
gave several names. " Point them out to me on the map,"
insisted the British Premier. They were pointed out on the
map. Twice President Wilson asked the Delegate to spell
the name Bomst for him.* Mr. George then said : " Well, those
* Bomst is a canton in the former Province (Regierungs-besirkj of Posen, with
about 60,000 inhabitants.
219
The Peace Conference
are oversights that can be rectified." "Oh, yes,", added Mr.
Wilson, " we will see to that."* M. Dmowski also questioned the
President about the plebiscite, and under whose auspices the
voting would take place, and was told that there would be an
inter-alUed administration to superintend the arrangements
and ensure perfect freedom of voting. " Through what agency
will that administration work ? Is it through the officials ? "
" Evidently," Mr. Wilson answered. " You are doubtless aware
that they are Germans ? " " Yes. But the administration will
possess the right to dismiss those who prove unworthy of their
confidence." " Don't you think," insisted M. Dmowski, " that
it would be fairer to withdraw one half of the German bureaucrats
and give their places to Poles ? " To which the President
replied : " The administration will be thoroughly impartial and
will adopt all suitable measures to render the voting free." There
the matter ended.
The two potentates in council, tackling the future status of
Lithuania, settled it in an off-hand and singular fashion which
at any rate bespoke their good intentions. The principle of
self-determination, or what was facetiously termed the Balkaniza-
tion of Europe, was at first applied to that territory and a semi-
independent State created in petto which was to contain eight
million inhabitants and be linked with Poland. Certain obstacles
were soon afterwards encountered which had not been foreseen.
One was that all the Lithuanians number only two millions, or
say at the most two millions and one hundred thousand. Out
of these even the Supreme Council could not make eight millions.
In Lithuania there are two and a half million Poles, one and a half
million Jews, and the remainder are White Russians.f It was
recognized that a community consisting of such disparate elements,
situated where it now is, could hardly live and thrive as an in-
dependent State. The Lithuanian Jews, however, were of a
different way of thinking, and they opposed the Polish claims
* Minutes of this conversation exist.
t An interesting Russian tribe, dwelling chiefly in the provinces of Minsk and
Grodno (excepting the extreme south), a small part of Suvalki, Vilna (excepting
the north-west corner), the entire provinces of Vitebsk and Moghilefi, the west
part of Smolensk, and a few districts of Tshernigoff.
220
The Lesser States
with a degree of steadfastness and animation which wounded
Poland's national pride and left rankling sores behind.
It is worth noting that the representatives of Russia, who
are supposed to clutch convulsively at all the States which once
formed part of the Tsardom, displayed a degree of political
detachment in respect of Lithuania which came as a pleasant
surprise to many. The Russian Ambassador in Paris, M. Makla-
koff, in a remarkable address before a learned assembly* in the
French capital, announced that Russia was henceforward dis-
interested in the status of Lithuania
That the Poles were minded to deal very liberally with the
Lithuanians became evident during the Conference. General
Pilsudski on his own initiative visited Vilna and issued a pro-
clamation to the Lithuanians announcing that elections would
be held, and asking them to make known their desires which would
be realized by the Warsaw Government. One of the many curious
documents of the Conference is an official missive signed by the
General Secretary, M. Dutasta, and addressed to the first Polish
Delegate, exhorting him to induce his Government to come
to terms with the Lithuanian Government as behoves two neigh-
bouring States. Unluckily for the soundness of that counsel
there was no recognized Lithuanian State or Lithuanian Govern-
ment to come to terms with.
As has been often enough pointed out, the actions and utter-
ances of the two world-menders were so infelicitous as to lend
colour to the belief — shared by the representatives of a number
of humiliated nations — that greed of new markets was at the
bottom of what purported to be a poUcy of pure humanitarianism.
Some of the Delegates were currently supposed to be the unwit-
ting instruments of elusive capitalistic influences. Possibly they
would have been astonished were they told this : Great Britain
was suspected of working for complete control of the Baltic and
its seaboard in order to oust the Germans from the markets of
that territory and to have potent levers for action in Poland,
Germany and Russia. The achievement of that end would mean
* La Society des Etudes Politiques. The discx)urse in question was printed
and published.
221
The Peace Conference
command of the Baltic, which had theretofore been a German
lake.* It would also entail, it was said, the separation of Dantzig
from Poland, and the attraction of the Firms, Esthonians, Letts
and Lithuanians from Germany's orbit into that of Great Britain.
In vain the friends of the Delegates declared that economic
interests were not the mainspring of their deliberate action and
that nothing was further from their intention than to angle for a
mandate for those countries. The conviction was deeprooted
in the minds of many that each of the Great Powers was plajdng
for its own hand. That there was some apparent foundation for
this assumption cannot, as we saw, be gainsaid. Widely and un-
favourably commented was the circumstance that in the heat
of those discussions at the Conference a man of confidence of the
Allies put this significant and impolitic question to one of the
plenipotentiaries : " How would you take it if England were
to receive a mandate for Lithuania ? "
" The Great Powers," observed the most outspoken of the
Delegates of the lesser States, " are bandits, but as their opera-
tions are on a large scale they are entitled to another and more
courteous name. Their gaze is fascinated by markets, conces-
sions, monopolies. They are now making preparations for a great
haul. At this politicians cannot affect to be scandalized. For
it has never been otherwise since men came together in ordered
communities. But what is irritating and repellent is the perfume
of altruism and philanthropy which permeates this decom-
position. We are told that already they are purchasing the
wharves of Dantzig, making ready for ' big deals ' in Libau, Riga
and Reval, founding a bank in Klagenfurt and negotiating for
oil-wells in Roumania. Although deeply immersed in the ethics
of politics they have not lost sight of the worldly goods to be
picked up and appropriated on the wearisome journey towards
ideal goals. The atmosphere they have thus renewed is peculiarly
favourable to the growth of cant and tends to accelerate the
* In Germany and Russia the same view was generally taken of the motives
that actuated the policy of the Anglo-Saxon peoples. The most elaborate attempt
to demonstrate its correctness was made by Cr. Bunke, in the DanUiger
Neuesie Nachrichten, aJreOidy mentioned in this book.
222
The Lesser States
process of moral and social dissolution. And the effects of this
mephitic air may prove more durable than the contribution of
its creators to the political reorganization of Europe. If we
compare the high functions which they might have fulfilled in
relation to the vast needs and the unprecedented tendencies of
the new age with those which they have unwittingly and de-
liberately performed as sophists of sentimental morality and
destroyers of the wheat together with the tares, we shall have to
deplore one of the rarest opportunities missed beyond retrieve."
In this criticism there is a kernel of truth. The ethico-social
currents to which the war gave rise had a profoundly moral
aspect, and if rightly canalized might have fertilized many lands
and have led to a new and healthy State-system. One indispens-
able condition, however, was that the peoples of the world should
themselves be directly interested in the process, that they should
be consulted and listened to, and helped or propelled into new
grooves of thought and action. Instead of that the Delegates
contented themselves with giving new names to old institutions
and tendencies which stood condemned, and with teaching law-
less disrespect for every check and restraint except such as they
chose to acknowledge. They were powerful advocates for right
and justice, democracy and publicity, but their definitions of
these abstract nouns made plain-speaking people gasp. Self-
interest and material power were the idols which they set them-
selves to pull down, but the deities which they put in their places
wore the same familiar looks as the idols, only they were
differently coloured.
233
CHAPTER VII
POLAND'S OUTLOOK IN THE FUTURE
CASTING a parting glance at Poland as she looked when
emerging from the Conference in the leading-strings of
the Great Western Powers, after having escaped from the Bol-
shevist dangers that compassed her round, we behold her about
to begin her national existence as a semi-independent nation,
beset with enemies domestic and foreign. For it would be an
abuse of terms to affirm that Poland, or, indeed, any of the
lesser States, is fully independent in the old sense of the word.
The special treaty imposed on her by the Great Two obliges her
to accord free transit to Allied goods and certain privileges to
her Jewish and other minorities ; to accept the supervision and
intervention of the League of Nations, which the Poles contend
means in their case an Anglo-Saxon- Jewish association ; and,
at the outset, at any rate, to recognize the French generalissimus
as the supreme commander of her troops.
Poland's frontiers and general status ought, if the scheme of
her French protectors had been executed, to have been accommo-
dated to the peculiar functions which they destined her to fill
in New Europe. France's plan was to make of Poland a wall
between Germany and Russia. The marked tendency of the
other two Conference leaders was to transform it into a bridge
between those two countries. And the outcome of the com-
promise between them has been to construct something which,
without being either, combines all the disadvantages of both.
It is a bridge for Germany and a wall for Bolshevist Russia.
That is the verdict of a large number of Poles. Although the
224
Poland's Outlook in the Future
Europe of the future is to be a pacific and ethically constituted
community, whose members will have their disputes and quarrels
with each other settled by arbitration courts and other concilia-
tory tribunals, war and efficient preparation for it were none
the less uppermost in the minds of the circumspect law-givers.
Hence the Anglo-Saxon agreement to defend France against
unprovoked aggression. Hence, too, the solicitude displayed
by the French to have the Polish State, which is to be their
mainstay in Eastern Europe, equipped with every territorial
and other guarantee necessary to qualify it for the duties. But
what the French Government contrived to obtain for itself,
it failed to secure for its new Slav ally. Nay, oddly enough it
voted with the Anglo-Saxon Delegates for keeping all the lesser
States under the tutelage of the League. The duumvirs having
made the requisite concessions to France, were resolved in
Poland's case to avoid a further recoU towards the condemned
forms of the old system of equilibrium. Hence the various
plebiscites, home-rul^ charters, sub-divisions of territory and
other evidences of a struggle for reform along the line of least
resistance, as though in the unavoidable future conflict between
timidly propounded theories and pohtico-social forces the former
had any serious chance of surviving. In politics, as in coinage
it is the debased metal that ousts the gold from circulation.
Poland's situation is difficult, some people would call it pre-
carious. She is surrounded by potential enemies abroad and
at home — by Germans, Russians, Ukrainians, Magyars and
Jews. A considerable number of Teutons are incorporated in
her republic to-day, and also a large number of people of
Russian race. Now, Russia and Germany, even if they renounce
all designs of reconquering the territory which they misruled
for such a long span of time, may feel tempted one day to
recover their own kindred, and what they consider to be
their own territory. And irredentism is one of the worst
political plagues for all the three parties who usually suffer from
it. If then Germany and Russia were to combine and attack
Poland, the consequences would be serious. That democratic
Germany would risk such a wild adventure in the near future is
235 15
The Peace Conference
inconceivable. But history operates with long periods of time,
and it behoves statesmanship to do likewise.
A Polish statesman would start from the assumption that, as
Russia and Germany have for the time being ceased to be efficient
members of the European State-system, a good understanding
may be come to with both of them, and a close intimacy culti-
vated with one. Resourcefulness and statecraft will be requisite
to this consummation. For some Russians are still uncom-
promising, and would fain take back a part of what the revolu-
tionary wave swept out of their country's grasp, but circumstance
bids fair to set free a potent moderating force in the near future.
Already it is incarnated in statesmen of the new tj^je. In this
connection it is instructive to pass in review the secret man-
oeuvres by which the recognition of Poland's independence was,
so to say, extorted from a Russian Minister, who was reputed
at the time to be a Democrat of the Democrats. As some
Governments have now become champions of publicity, I venture
to hope that this disclosure will be as helpful to those whom it
concerns as was the systematic suppression of my articles and
telegrams during the space of four years.*
On the outbreak of the Russian revolution Poland's repre-
sentatives in Britain, who had been ceaselessly working for the
restoration of their country, approached the British Government
with a request that the opportunity should be utilized at once,
and the new democratic cabinet in Petrograd requested to issue
a proclamation recognizing the independence of Poland. The
reasons for this move having been propounded in detail, orally
and in writing, the Foreign Secretary despatched at once a tele-
gram to the Ambassador in the Russian capital, instructing him
to lay the matter before the Russian Foreign Minister, and urge
him to lose no time in establishing the claim of the Polish Pro-
visional Government to the sjmipathies of the world, and the
redress of its wrongs by Russia. Sir George Buchanan called
* Most of my articles written during the last half of the war, and some during
the armistice, were held back on grounds which were presumably patriotic. I
share with those who were instrumental in keeping them from the public the
moral portion of the reward which consists in the assumption that some high
purpose was served by the suppression.
226
Poland's Outlook In the Future
on Professor Milyukoff, then Minister of Foreign Affairs and
President of the Constitutional Democratic Party, and pro-
pounded to him the views of the British Government, which
agreed with those of France and Italy, and hoped he would see
his way to profit by the opportunity. The answer was prompt
and definite, and within forty-eight hours of Mr. Balfour's de-
spatch it reached the Foreign Office. The gist of it was that
the Minister of Foreign Affairs regretted his inability to deal
with the problem at that conjuncture, owing to its great com-
plexity and various bearings, and also because of his appre-
hension that the Poles would demand the incorporation of Russian
lands in their reconstituted State. From this answer many
conclusions might fairly be drawn respecting persons, parties
and principles on the surface of revolutionary Russia. But to
his credit, Mr. Balfour did not accept it as final. He again tele-
graphed to the British Ambassador, instructing him to insist
upon the recognition of Poland, as the matter was urgent, and
to exhort the Provisional Government to give in good time the
desired proof of the democratic faith that is to save Russia.
Sir George Buchanan accomplished the task expeditiously.
M. Milyukoff gave way, drafted and issued the proclamation.
Mr. Bonar Law welcomed it in a felicitous speech in the House
of Commons,* and the Entente Press lauded to the skies the
generous spirit of the new Russian Government. The Russian
people and their leaders have travelled far since then, and have
rid themselves of much useless ballast.
As Slavs the Poles might have been naturally predisposed to
live in amity with the Russians, were it not for the spectre of
the past that stands between them. But now that Russia is a
democracy in fact as well as in name, this is much more feasible
than it ever was before, and it is also indispensable to the
Russians. In the first place, it is possible that Poland may
have consolidated her forces before her mighty neighbour has
recovered the status corresponding to her numbers and resources.
If the present estimates are correct, and the frontiers, when
definitively traced, leave Poland a .republic with some thirty-
* On 26th April, 1917.
227 X5*
The Peace Conference
five million people, such is her extraordinary birth-rate and
the territorial scope it has for development, that in the not
far distant future her population may exceed that of France.
Assuming for the sake of argument that armies and other national
defences will count in pohtics as much as hitherto, Poland's
specific weight will then be considerable. She will have become not
indeed a world-power (to-day there are only two such), but a Euro-
pean Great Power whose friendship will be well worth acquiring.
In the meanwhile Polish statesmen — the Poles have one in
Roman Dmowslci — may strike up a friendly accord with Russia,
abandoning definitively and formally all claims to so-called
historic Poland, disinteresting themselves in all the Baltic
problems which concern Russia so closely, and envisaging the
Ukraine from a point of view that harmonizes with hers. And
if the two peoples could thus find a common basis of friendly
association, Poland would have solved at least one of her Sphinx
questions.
As for the internal development of the nation, it is seemingly
hampered with as many hindrances as the international. It
may be likened to the world after creation, bearing marks of the
chaos of the eve. The German Poles differ considerably from
the Austrian, while the Russian Poles are differentiated from
both. The last-named still show traces of recent servitude in
their every-day avocations. They lack the push and the energy
of purpose so necessary nowadays in the struggle for life. The
Austrian Poles in general are reputed to be hkewise easy-going,
lax and more brilliant than solid, while their administrative
qualities are said to be impaired by a leaning towards Oriental
methods of transacting business. The Polish inhabitants of
the provinces hitherto under Germany are people of a different
temperament. They have assimilated some of the best qualities
of the Teuton without sacrificing those which are inherent in
men of their own race. A thorough grasp of detail and a gift
for organization characterize their conceptions, and precision,
thoroughness and conscientiousness are predicated of their
methods. If it be true that the first reform peremptorily called
for in the new republic is an administrative purge, it follows
228
Poland's Outlook in the Future
thaf it can be most successfully accomplished with the whole-
hearted co-operation of the German Poles, whose superior educa-
tion fits them to conform their schemes to the most urgent needs
of the nation and the epoch.
The next measure will be internal colonization. There are
considerable tracts of land in what once was Russian Poland,
the population of which, owing to the havoc of war, is abnormally
sparse. Some districts, like that of the Pripet marshes, which,
even at the best of times had but five persons to the kilometre,
are practically deserts. For the Russian Army, when retreating
before the Germans, drove before it a huge population computed
at eight millions, who inhabited the territory to the east of
Brest-Litovsk and northward between Lida and Minsk. Of these
eight millions many perished on the way. A large percentage
of the survivors never returned.* Roughly spealdng, a couple
of millions (mostly Poles and Jews) went back to their ruined
homes. Now the Poles, who are one of the most prolific races
in Europe, might be encouraged to settle on these thinly-popu-
lated lands, which they could convert into ethnographically
Polish districts within a relatively short span of time. These,
however, are merely the ideas of a friendly observer, whose opinion
cannot lay claim to any weight.
To-day Poland's hope is not as it has been hitherto, the noble-
man, the professor and the publicist, but the peasant. The
members of this class are the nucleus of the new nation. It is
from their midst that Poland's future representatives in politics,
arts and science will be drawn. Already the peasants are having
their sons educated in high schools and universities, of which the
Republic has a fair number well supplied with qualified teacheis,f
* Mainly White Russians.
t The Poles have universities in Cracow, Warsaw, Lvofi (Lemberg), Liublin,
and will shortly open one in Posen. One Polish statesman entertains a novel
and useful idea which will probably be tested in the university of Posen.
Noticing that the greater the progress of technical knowledge the less is the
advance made in the knowledge of men, which is perhaps the most pressing need
of the new age, this statesman proposes to create a new type of university,
where there would be two principal sections, one for the study of natural sciences
and mathematics, and the other for the study of men, which would include
biology, psychology, ethnography, sociology, philology, history, etc.
229
The Peace Conference
and they are resolute adversaries of every movement tainted
with Bolshevism.
Thus the difficulties and dangers with which New Poland will
have to contend are redoubtable. But she stands a good chance
of overcqming them and reaching the goal where lies her one
hope of playing a noteworthy part in reorganized Europe. The
indispensable condition of success is that the current of opinion
and sentiment in the country shall buoy up reforming statesmen.
These must not only understand the requirements of the new
epoch and be alive to the necessity of penetrating public opinion,
but also possess the courage to place high social aims at the head
of their life and career. Statesmen of this temper are rare to-day,
but Poland possesses at least one of them. Her resources warrant
the conviction which her chiefs firmly entertain that she may
in a relatively near future acquire the economic leadership of
Eastern Europe, and in population, military strength and area
equal France.
Parenthetically it may be observed that the enthusiasm of the
Poles for British institutions and for intimate relations with
Great Britain has perceptibly cooled.
In the limitations to which she is now subjected, her more
optimistic leaders discern the temporarily unavoidable condition
of a beneficent process of working forward towards indefinite
amelioration. Their people's faith, that may one day raise the
country above the highest summit of its past historical develop-
ment, if it does not reconcile them to the present, may nerve
them to the effort which shall realize that high consummation
in the future.
230
CHAPTER VIII
ITALY
OF all the problems submitted to the Conference, those
raised by Italy's demands may truly be said to have
been among the easiest. Whether placed in the light of the
fourteen points or of the old system of the rights of the victors,
they would fall into their places almost automatically. But
the peace criteria were identical with neither of those principles.
They consisted of several heterogeneous maxims which were
invoked alternately, Mr. Wilson deciding which was applicable
to the particular case under discussion. And from his judgment
there was no appeal.
It is of the essence of statesmanship to be able to put oneself
in the place — one might almost say in the skin — of the foreign
peoples and governments with which one is called upon to deal.
But the feat is arduous and presupposes a variety of conditions
which the President was unable to fulfil. His conception of
Europe, for example, was much too simple. It has been aptly
likened to that of the, American economist who once remarked
to the manager of an English railway : " You Britishers are
handicapped by having to build your railway lines through cities
and towns. We go to work differently : we first construct the
road and create the cities afterwards."
And Mr. Wilson happened just then to be in quest of a fulcrum
on which to rest his idealistic lever. For he had already been
driven by egotistic governments from several of his command-
ing positions, and people were gibingly asking whether the new
political gospel was being preached only as a foil for backslidings.
231
The Peace Conference
Thus he abandoned the freedom of the seas ... on which he
had taken a determined stand before the world. Although he
refused the Rhine frontier to France, he had reluctantly given
way to M. Clemenceau in the matter of the Saar Valley, assenting
to a monstrous arrangement by which the German inhabitants
of that region were to be handed over to the French Republic
against their expressed will, as a set-oft for a sum in gold which
Germany would certainly be unable to pay.* He doubtless
foresaw that he would also yield on the momentous issue of
Shantung and the Chino- Japanese secret treaty. In a word,
some of his more important abstract tenets professed in words
were being brushed aside when it came to acts, and his position
was truly unenviable. Naturally, therefore, he seized the first
favourable occasion to apply them vigorously and unswervingly.
This was supplied by the dispute between Italy and Yugo-
slavia, two nations which he held, so to say, in the hollow of his
hand.
The latter State, still in the making, depended for its frontiers
entirely on the fiat of the American President backed by the
Premiers of Britain and France. And of this backing Mr. Wilson
was assured. Italy, although more powerful militarily than
Yugo-Slavia, was likewise economically dependent upon the
good will of the two English-speaking communities, who were
assured in advance of the support of the French Republic. If,
therefore, she could not be reasoned or cajoled into obeying
the injunctions of the supreme council, she could easily be made
malleable by other means. In her case, therefore, Mr. Wilson's
ethical notions might be fearlessly applied. That this was the
idea which Underlay the President's policy is the obvious infer-
ence from the calm, unyielding way in which he treated the
Italian Delegation. In this connection it should be borne in
mind that there is no more important distinction between all
former peace settlements and that of the Paris Conference than
the unavowed but indubitable fact that the latter rests upon the
* This clause which figured in the draft Treaty, as presented to the Germans,
provoked such emphatic protests from all sides that it was struck out in the
revised version.
232
Italy
hegemony of the EngUsh-speaking communities of the world,
whereas the former were based upon the balance of power. So
immense a change could not be effected without discreetly
throwing out as useless ballast some of the highly-prized dogmas
of the accepted political creeds, even at the cost of impairing the
solidarity of the Latin races. This was effected incidentally.
As a matter of fact, the French are not properly speaking a Latin
race, nor has their solidarity with Italy or Spain ever been a
moving political force in recent times. Italy's refusal to fight
side by side with her Teuton allies against France and her backers
may conceivably be the result of racial affinities, but it has
hardly ever been ascribed to that sentimental source. Senti-
ment in politics is a myth. In any case, M. Clemenceau discerned
no pressing reason for making painful efforts to perpetuate the
Latin union, while solicitude for national interests hindered
him from making costly concessions to it.
Naturally the cardinal innovation of which this was a corollary
was never invoked as the ground for any of the exceptional
measures adopted by the Conference. And yet it was the motive
for several, for although no allusion was made to the hegemony
of Anglo-Saxondom, it was ever operative in the subconsciousness
of the two plenipotentiaries. And in view of the omnipotence
of these two nations, they temporarily sacrificed consistency to
tactics, probably without conscientious qualms, and certainly
without political misgivings. That would seem to be a partial
explanation of the lengths tg which the Conference went in the
direction of concessions to the Great Powers' imperialist demands.
France asked to be recognized and treated as the personification
of that civilization for which the allied peoples had fought.
And for many reasons, which it would be superfluous to discuss
here, a large part of her claim was allowed. This concession was
attacked by many as connoting a departure from principle, but
the deviation was more apparent than real, for under all th*'
wrappings of idealistic catch-words lay the primaeval doctrine of
force. The only substantial difference between the old system
and the new was to be found in the wielders of the force and the
ends to which they intended to apply it. Force remains the
233
The Peace Conference
granite foundation of the new ordering, as it had been of the old.
But its employment, it was believed, would be different in the
future from what it had been in the past. Concentrated in the
hands of the English-speaking peoples, it would become so for-
midable a weapon that it need never be actually wielded.
Possession of overwhelmingly superior strength would suffice to
enforce obedience to the decrees of its possessors, which always
will, it is assumed, be inspired by equity. An actual trial of
strength would be obviated, therefore, at least so long as the
relative military and economic conditions of the world States
underwent no sensible change. To this extent the war spectre
would be exorcised and crjning abuses abolished.
That those views were expressly formulated and thrown into
the clauses of a secret programme is unlikely. But it seems to
be a fact that the general outlines of such a policy were con-
ceived and tacitly adhered to. These outlines governed the
action of the two world-arbiters, not only in the dictatorial
decrees issued in the name of political idealism and its fomleen
points, which were so bitterly resented as oppressive by Italy,
Roumania, Yugo-Slavia, Poland and (^reece, but hkewise in
those other concessions which scandalized the poUtical puritans
and gladdened the hearts of the French, the Japanese, the Yugo-
slavs and the Jews. The dictatorial decrees were inspired by
the Delegates' fundamental aims, the concessions by their tactical,
needs — the former, therefore, were meant to be permanent, the
latter transient.
All other explanations of the ItaUan crisis, however well they
may fit certain of its phases, are, when appUed to the pith of
the matter, beside the mark. Even if it were true, as the
dramatist, Sam Benelli, wrote, that " President Wilson evidently
considers our people as on the plane of an African colony,
dominated by the will of a few ambitious men," that would not
account for the tenacious determination with which the President
held to his slighted theory.
Italy's position in Europe was in many respects peculiar.
Men still living remember ,the time when her name was scarcely
more than a geographical expression which gradually, diuring
234
Italy
the last sixty years, came to connote a hard-working, sober,
patriotic nation. Only little by Uttle did she recover her finest
provinces and her capital, and even then her unity was not fvilly
achieved. Austria still held many of her sons, not only in the
Trentino but also on the other shore of the Adriatic. But for
thirty years her desire to recover these lost children was para-
lyzed by international conditions. In her own interests, as well
as in those sf peace. She had become the third member of an
Alliance which constrained her to suppress her patriotic feelings,
and allowed her to bend all her energies to the prevention of a
European conflict.
When hostilities broke out, the attitude of the Italian Govern-
ment was a matter of extreme moment to France and the
Entente. Much, perhaps the fate of Europe, depended on
whether they would remain neutral or throw in their lot with
the Teutons. They chose the former alternative and literally
saved the situation. The question of motive is wholly irrel-
evant. Later on they were urged to move a step further and
take an active part against their former allies. But a powerful
body of opinion and sentiment in the country was opposed to
military co-operation, on the ground that the sum total of the
results to be obtained by quiescence would exceed the guerdon
of victory won by the side of the Entente. The correctness of
this estimate depended upon many incalculable factors, among
which was the duration of the struggle. The consensus of
opinion was that it would be brief, in which case the terms
dangled before Italy's eyes by the Entente would, it was believed
by the Cabinet, greatly transcend those which the Central Powers
were prepared to offer. Anyhow they were accepted and the
compact was negotiated, signed and ratified by men whose
idealism marred their practical sense, and whose policy of sacred
egotism, resolute in words and feeble in action, merely impaired
the good name of the Government without bringing any corres-
ponding compensation to the country. The world struggle lasted
much longer than the statesmen had dared to anticipate ; Italy's
obligations were greatly augmented by Russia's defection, she
had to bear the brunt of all, instead of a part of Austria's forces,
235
The Peace Conference
whereby the sacrifices demanded of her became proportionately
heavier. Altogether it is fair to say that the difficulties to be
overcome and the hardships to be endured before the Italian
people reached their goal were and still are but imperfectly
realized by their Allies. For the obstacles were gigantic, the
effort heroic ; alone the results shrank to disappointing
dimensions.
The war over, Italian statesmen confidently beUeved that
those supererogatory exertions would be appropriately recog-
nized by the Allies. And this expectation quickly crystalhzed
into territorial demands. The Press which voiced them ruffled
the temper of Anglo-Saxondom by clamouring for more than
it was ever likely to concede and buoyed up their own nation
with illusory hopes, the non-fulfilment of which was certain to
produce national discontent. Curiously enough both the Govern-
ment and the Press laid the main stress upon territorial expan-
sion, leaving economic advantages almost wholly out of account.
It was at this conjuncture that Mr. Wilson made his appear-
ance and threw all the pieces on the poUtical chessboard into
weird confusion. " You," he virtually said, " have been fight-
ing for the dismemberment of your secular enemy, Austria.
Well, she is now dismembered and you have full satisfaction.
Your frontiers shall be extended at her expense, but not at the
expense of the new States which have arisen on her ruins. On
the contrary their rights will circumscribe your claims and hmit
your territorial aggrandizement. Not only can you not have all
the additional territory you covet, but I must refuse to allot even
what has been guaranteed to you by your secret treaty. I refuse
to recognize that because the United States Government was no
party to it, was, in fact, wholly unaware of it until recently.
New circumstances have transformed it into a mere scrap of
paper."
This language was not understood by the Italian people.
For them the sacredness of treaties was a dogma not to be
questioned, and least of all by the champion of right, justice
and good faith. They had welcomed the new order preached by
the American statesman, but were unable to reconcile it with the
236
Italy
tearing up of existing conventions, the repudiation of legal rights,
the dissolution of alliances. In particular their treaty with France,
Britain and Russia had contributed materially to the victory
over the common enemy, had in fact saved the Allies. " It
was Italy's intervention," said the Chief of the Austrian General
Staff, Conrad von Hoetzendorff, " that brought about the
disaster. Without that the Central Empires would infalUbly
have won the war."* And there is no reason to doubt his
assertion. In truth Italy had done all she had promised to the
Allies and more. She had contributed materially to save France
— ^wholly gratuitously. It was also her neutrality, which she
could have bartered but did not,t that turned the scale at
Bucharest against the military intervention of Roumania on
the side of the Teutons. J And without the neutrality of both
these countries at the outset of hostilities the course of the struggle
and of European history would have been widely different from
what they have been. And now that the AUies had achieved
their aim they were to refuse to perform their part of the com-
pact in the name, too, of a moral principle from the operation
of which three great Powers were dispensed. That was the
hght in which the matter appeared to the unsophisticated mind
of the average Italian, and not to him alone. Others accus-
tomed to abstract reasoning asked whether the best preparation
for the future regime of right and justice and all that these imply
is to transgress existing rights and violate ordinary justice, and
what difference there is between the demoralizing influence of this
procedure and that of professional Bolshevists. There was but
one adequate answer to this objection, and it consisted in the
whole-hearted and rigid application of the Wilsonian tenets to
* In an interview given to the Correspondenz Bureau of Vienna by Conrad von
HoetzendorflE. Cf. he Tempi, 19th July, 1919.
t The Prime Minister, Salandra, declared that to have made neutrality a matter
of bargaining would have been to dishonour Italy.
% King Carol was holding a crown council at the time. Bratiano had spoken
against the King's proposal to throw in the country's lot with Germany. Carp
was strongly for carrying out Roumania's treaty obligations. Some others
hesitated, but before it could be put to the vote a telegram was brought in
announcing Italy's resolve to maintain neutrality. The upshot was Roumania's
refusal to follow her allies.
237
The Peace Conference
all nations without exception. But even the author of these
tenets did not venture to make it.
The essence of the territorial question lay in the disposal
of the eastern shore of the Adriatic* The YugO'-Slavs claimed
all Istria and Dalmatia and based their claim partly on the
principle of nationalities and partly on the vital necessity of
having outlets on that sea, and in particular Fiume, the most
important of them all, which they described as essentially
Croatian and indispensable as a port. The Italian Delegates,
joining issue with the Yugo-Slavs and claiming a section of the
seaboard and Fiume, argued that the greatest part of the East
Adriatic shore would still remain Croatian, together with all the
ports of the Croatian coast and others in Southern Dalmatia—
in a word, twelve ports including Spalato and Ragusa and a
thousand kilometres of seaboard. The Yugo-Slavs met this
assertion with the objection that the outlets in question were
inaccessible, all except Fiume and Metkovitch. As for Fiume.f
the Italian Delegates contended that although not promised to
Italy by the Treaty of London, it was historically hers, because
having been for centuries an autonomous entity and having as
such religiously preserved its Italian character, its inhabitants
had exercised their rights to manifest by plebiscite their desire
to be united with the mother-country. They further denied
that it was indispensable to the Yugo-Slavs because these would
receive a dozen other ports and also because the traf&c between
Croatia and Fiume was represented by only 7 per cent, of the
whole, and even that of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia combined
by only 13 per cent. Further, Italy would undertake to give aJl
requisite export facilities in Fiume to the Yugo-Slavs.
The latter traversed many of these statements, and in particulai
that which described Fiume as a separate autonomous entity
and as an essentially Italian city. Archives were ransacked by
both parties, ancient documents produced, analysed, condemned
* On the Eastern Adriatic, the Treaty of London allotted to Italy the peninsula
of Istria, without Fiume, most of Dalmatia, exclusive of Spalato, the chief Dal-
matian islands and the Dodecannesus.
t The present population of Fiume is computed at 45,227 souls, of whom 33,000
are Italians, 10,927 Slavs and 1,300 Magyars.
238
Italy
as forgeries or appealed to as authentic proofs, chance phrases
were culled from various writers of bygone days and offered as evi-
dence in support of each contention. Thus the contest grew heated.
It was further inflamed by the attitude of Italy's Alhes, who ap-
peared to her as either covertly unfriendly or at best lukewarm.
M. Clemenceau, who maintained during the peace negotiations
the epithet " Tiger " which he had earned long before, was alleged
to have said in the course of one of those conversations which
were misnamed private, " For Italy to demand Fiume is to ask
for the moon."* Officially he took the side of Mr. Wilson, as
did also the British Premier, and Italy's two Allies signified but
a cold assent to those other claims which were covered by their
own treaty. But they made no secret of their desire to see that
instrument wholly set aside. Fiume they would not bestow on
their Ally, at least, not unless she was prepared to offer an equiva-
lent to the Yugo-Slavs, and to satisfy the President of the United
States.
This advocacy of the claims of the Yugo-Slavs was bitterly
resented by the Italians. For centuries the two peoples had been
rivals or enemies, and during the war the Yugo-Slavs fought with
fury against the Italians. For Italy the arch-enemy had ever
been Austria and Austria was largely Slav. " Austria," they say,
" was the official name given to the cruel enemy against whom
we fought, but it was generally the Croatians and other Slavs
whom our gallant soldiers found facing them, and it was they who
were guilty of the misdeeds from which our armies suffered."
Official documents prove this.f Orders of the day issued by
the Austrian Command eulogize " the Serbo-Croatian battalions
who vied with the Austro-German and Hungarian soldiers in
resisting the pitfalls dug by the enemy to cause them to swerve
from their fidehty and take the road to treason. "{ In the last
* Another Delegate is reported to have answered : " As we need Italy's friend-
ship we should pay the moderate price asked, and back her claim to have the
moon."
t A number of orders of the day eulogizing individual Slav ofhcers and
collective military entities were quoted by the advocates of Italy's cause at the
Conference.
} Official communique of the lyth June, 1918.
239
The Peace Conference
battle which ended the existence of the Austro-Hungarian
Monarchy a large contingent of excellent Croatian troops fought
resolutely against the Italian armies.
In Italy an impressive story is told which shows how this
transformation of the enemy of yesterday into the ally of to-day
sometimes worked out. The son of an Italian citizen who was
fighting as an aviator was killed towards the end of the war, in
a duel fought in the air, by an Austrian combatant. Soon after
the armistice was signed the sorrowing father repaired to the
place where his son had fallen. He there found an ex-Austrian
officer, the lucky victor and slayer of his son, wearing in his
buttonhole the Yugo-Slav cocarde, who advancing towards him
with extended hand uttered the greeting : " You and I are now
allies."* The historian may smile at the naivete of this anecdote,
but the statesman will acknowledge that it characterized the
relations between the inhabitants of the new State and the
Italians. One can divine the feelings of these when they were
exhorted to treat their ex-enemies as friends and alUes.
" Is it surprising, then," the Italians asked, " that we cannot
suddenly conceive an ardent affection for the ruthless ' Aus-
trians ' of whose cruelties we were bitterly complaining a few
months back ? Is it strange that we cannot find it in our hearts
to cut off a slice of Italian territory and make it over to them
as one of the fruits of — our victory over them ? If Italy had
not first adopted neutrality and then joined the Allies in the
war there would be no Yugo-Slavia to-day. Are we now to pay
for our altruism by sacrificing Italian soil and Italian souls to the
secular enemies of our race ? " In a word, the armistice trans-
formed Italy's enemy into a friend and ally for whose sake she
was summoned to abandon some of the fruits of a hard-earned
victory and a part of her secular aspirations. What, asked the
Italian Delegates, would France answer if she were told that
the Prussians whom her matchless armies defeated must hence-
forth be looked upon as friends and endowed with some new
colonies which would otherwise be hers ? The Italian dramatist
^em Benelli put the matter tersely. " The collapse of Austria
* Journal it Genive, 25th April, 1919.
240
Italy
transforms itself therefore into a play of words, so much so that
our people, who are much more precise because they languished
under the Austrian yoke and the Austrian scourge, never call
the Austrians by this name ; they call them always Croatians,
knowing well that the Croatians and the Slavs who constituted
Austria were our fiercest taskmasters and most cruel execu-
tioners. It is naive to think that the ineradicable characteristics
and tendencies of peoples can be modified by a change of name
and a new flag."
But there was another way of looking at the matter, and the
Allies, together with the Yugo-Slavs, made the most of it. The
Slav character of the disputed territory was emphasized, the
principle of nationality invoked and the danger of incorporating
an unfriendly foreign element which could not be assimilated was
solemnly pointed out. But where sentiment actuates, reason is
generally impotent. The policy of the Italian Government, like
that of all other Governments, was frankly nationalistic ; whether
it was also statesmanlike may well be questioned — indeed the
question has already been answered by some of Italy's principal
Press organs in the negative.* They accuse the Cabinet of having
deliberately let loose popular passions which it afterwards vainly
sought to allay, and the facts which they allege in support of the
charge have never been denied.
It was certainly to Italy's best interests to strike up a friendly
agreement with the new State, if that were feasible, and some of
the men in whose hands her destinies rested, feeling their re-
sponsibility, made a laudable attempt to come to an understanding.
Signor Orlando, whose sagacity is equal to his resourcefulness, was
one. In London he had talked the subject over with the Croatian
leader M. Trumbic, and favoured the movement towards recon-
ciliationf which Baron Sonnino, his colleague, as resolutely dis-
couraged. A congress was accordingly held in RomeJ and an
accord projected. The reciprocal relations became amicable.
The Yugo-Slav Committee in the Italian capital congratulated
* Cf. // Corriere della Sera and // Secolo of May 26th, 1919.
t In the Senate he defended this attitude on 4th March, 1919, and expressed
a desire to dispel the misunderstanding between the two peoples.
X In April, 1919.
241 16
The Peace Conference
Signer Orlando on the victory of the Piave. But owing to
various causes, especially to Baron Sonnino's opposition, these
inchoate sentiments of neighbourliness quickly lost their warmth
and finally vanished. No trace of them remained at the Paris
Conference, where the Delegates of the two States did not converse
together nor even salute each other.
President Wilson's visit to Rome, where, to use an Italian
expression, he was welcomed by DeHrium, seemed to brighten
Italy's outlook on the future. Much was afterwards made by the
President's enemies of the subsequent change towards him in
the sentiments of the Italian people. This is commonly ascribed
to his failure to fulfil the expectations which his words or attitude
aroused or warranted. Nothing could well be more misleading.
Mr. Wilson's position on the subject of Italy's claims never
changed, nor did he say or do aught that would justify a doubt
as to what it was. In Rome he spoke to the Ministers in exactly
the same terms as in Paris at the Conference. He apprised them
in January of what he proposed to do in April and he even con-
templated issuing a declaration of his Italian policy at once. But
he was earnestly requested by the Ministers to keep his counsel
to himself and to make no public allusion to it during his sojourn
in Italy.* It was not his fault, therefore, if the ItaUan people
cherished illusory hopes. In Paris Signor Orlando had an impor-
tant encounter with Mr. Wilson.f who told him plainly that the
allotment of the northern frontiers traced for Italy by the London
Treaty would be confirmed, while that of the territory on the
Eastern Adriatic would be quashed. The division of the spoils of
Austria there must, he added, be made congruously with a map
which he handed to the Italian Premier. It was proved on examina-
ion to be identical with one already published by the New
Europe. % Signor Orlando glanced at the map and in courteous
* This fact has since been made public by Enrico Ferri in a remarkable dis-
course pronounced in the parliament at Rome (9th July, 1919). It was Baron
Sonnino who deprecated the publication of any statement on the subject by
President Wilson. Cf. La Stampa, loth July, 1919.
I On loth January, 1919.
} It gave Eastern Friuli to Italy, including Gorizia, split Istria into two parts,
and assigned Trieste and Pola also to Italy, but under such territorial conditions
that they would be exposed to enemy projectiles in case of war.
242
Italy
phraseology unfolded the reasons why he could not entertain
the settlement proposed. He added that no Italian parliament
would ratify it. Thereupon the President turned the discussion
to politico-ethical lines, pointed out the harm which the annexa-
tion of an alien and unfriendly element could inflict upon Italy,
the great advantages which cordial relations with her Slav
neighbour would confer on her and the ease with which she
might gain the markets of the new State. A young and small
nation like the Yugo-Slavs would be grateful for an act of gene-
rosity and would repay it by lasting friendship — a return worth
far more than the contentious territories. " Ah, you don't know
the Yugo-Slavs, Mr. President," exclaimed Signer Orlando. " If
Italy were to cede to them Dalmatia, Fiume and Eastern Istria
they would forthwith lay claim to Trieste and Pola and, after
Trieste and Pola, to Friuli and Gorizia."
After some further discussion Mr. Wilson said : " Well, I am
unable to reconcile with my principles the recognition of secret
treaties, and as the two are incompatible I uphold the principles."
" I, too," rejoined the Italian Premier, " condemn secret treaties
in the future when the new principles will have begun to regulate
international politics. As for those compacts which were con-
cluded during the war they were all secret, not excluding those to
which the United States was a party." The President demurred
to this reservation. He conceived and put his case briefly
as follows : Italy, like her Allies, had had it in her power to
accept the fourteen points, reject them or make reserves. Britain
and France had taken exception to those clauses which they
were determined to reject, whereas Italy signified her adhesion
to them all. Therefore she was bound by the principles under-
lying them, and had forfeited the right to invoke a secret treaty.
The settlement of the issues turning upon Dalmatia, Istria, Fiume
and the Islands must consequently be taken in hand without
reference to the clauses of that instrument. Examined on their
merits, and in the light of the new arrangements, Italy's claims
could not be upheld. It would be unfair to the Yugo-Slavs who
inhabit the whole country to cut them off from their own sea-
board. Nor would such a measure be helpful to Italy herself,
243 16*
The Peace Conference
whose interest it was to form a homogeneous whole, consolidate
her dominions and prepare for the coming economic struggle
for national well-being. The principle of nationaUty must, there-
fore, be allowed full play.
As for Fiume, even if the city were, as alleged, an independent
entity and desirous of being incorporated in Italy, one would
still have to set against these facts Yugo-Slavia's imperative
need of an outlet to the sea. Here the principle of economic
necessity outweighs those of nationality and free determination.
A country must Uve, and therefore be endowed with the where-
withal to support life. On these grounds, judgment should
be entered for the Yugo-Slavs.
The Italian Premier's answer was equally clear, but he could
not unburden his mind of it all. His Government had, it was true,
adhered to the fourteen points without reservation. But the
assumptions on which it gave this undertaking were that it
would not be used to upset past compacts, but would be reserved
for future settlements; that even had it been otherwise ih?.
maxims in question should be deemed relevant in Italy's case
only if applied impartially to all States, and that the entire work
of reorganization should rest on this ethical foundation. A
regime of exceptions, with privileged and unprivileged nations,
would obviously render the scheme futile and inacceptable.
Yet this was the system that was actually being introduced.
If secret treaties were to be abrogated, then let the convention
between Japan and China be also put out of court, and the dispute
between them adjudicated upon its merits. If the fourteen points
are binding, let the freedom of the seas be proclaimed. If equal
rights are to be conferred upon all States, let the Monroe doctrine
be repealed. If disarmament is to become a reality, let Britain
and America cease to build warships. Suppose for a moment
that to-morrow Brazil or Chili were to complain of the conduct
of the United States, the League of Nations, in whose name Mr.
Wilson speaks, would be hindered by the Monroe doctrine from
intervening, whereas Britain and the United States in analogous
conditions may intermeddle in the affairs of any of the lesser
States. When Ireland or Egypt or India uplifts its voice against
244
Italy
Britain, it is but a voice in the desert which awakens no echo.
If Fiume were inhabited by American citizens who, with a like
claim to be considered a separate entity, asked to be allowed
to live under the Stars and Stripes, what would President Wil-
son's attitude be then ? Would he turn a deaf ear to their prayer ?
Surely not. Why, in the case of Italy, does he not do as he would
be done by ? What it all comes to is that the new ordering
under the flag of equality is to consist of superior and inferior
nations, of which the former, who speak English, are to possess
unlimited power over the latter, to decide what is good for them
and what is bad, what is licit and what is forbidden. And against
their fiat there is to be no appeal. In a word, it is to be the
hegemony of the Anglo-Saxon race.
It is worth noting that Signor Orlando's arguments were all
derived from the merits of the case, not from the terms or the
force of the London Treaty. Fiume, he said, had besought Italy
to incorporate it, and had made this request before the armistice,
at a moment when it was risky to proclaim attachments to the
Kingdom.* The inhabitants had invoked Mr. Wilson's own
words : " National aspirations must be respected. . . . Self-
determination is not a mere phrase." " Peoples and provinces
are not to be bartered about from sovereignty to sovereignty
as if they were mere chattels and pawns in a game. Every
territorial settlement involved in this war must be made in the
interest and for the benefit of the populations concerned, and not
as a part of any adjustment for compromise of claims among rival
States." And in his address at Mount Vernon, the President
had advocated a doctrine which is peculiarly applicable to
Fiume, i.e. :
" The settlement of every question, whether of territory, of
sovereignty, of economic arrangement or of poUtical relationship,
upon the basis of the free acceptance of that settlement by the
people immediately concerned, and not upon the basis of material
interest or advantage of any other nation or people which may
desire a different settlement, for the sake of its own exterior
* The National Council of Fiume issued its proclamation before it had become
known that the Battle of Vittorio Veneto was begun, i.e., 30th October, 1918.3 f j j
245
The Peace Conference
influence or mastery."* These maxims laid down by Mr.
Wilson implicitly aUot Fiume to Italy. ^
Finally as to the objection that Italy's claims would entail
the incorporation of a number of Slavs, the answer was that the
percentage was negUgible as compared with the number of foreign
elements annexed by other States. The Poles, it was estimated,
would have some 30 per cent, of aliens, the Czechs not less,
Roumania 17 per cent., Yugo-Slavia 11 per cent., France 4 per
cent., and Italy only 3 per cent.
In February the Yugo-Slavs made a strategic move which many
admired as clever, and others blamed as unwise. They proposed
that all differences between their country and Italy should be
submitted to Mr. Wilson's arbitration. Considering that the
President's mind was made up on the subject from the beginning,
and that he had decided against Italy, it was natural that the
Delegation in whose favour his decision was known to incline
should be eager to get it accepted by their rivals. As neither
side was ignorant of what the result of the arbitration would be,
only one of the two could be expected to close with the offer, and
the most it could hope by doing this was to embarrass the other.
The Italian answer was ingenious. Their dispute, they said,
was not with Serbia, who alone was represented at the Conference,
it concerned Croatia, who had no official standing there, and whose
frontiers were not yet determined, but would in due time be traced
by the Conference, of which Italy was a member. The decision
would be krrived at after an exhaustive study and its probable
consequences to Europe's peace would be duly considered. As
extreme circumspection was imperative before formulating a
verdict, five plenipotentiaries would seem better quaUfied than
any one of them, even though he were the wisest of the group.
To remove the question from the competency of the Conference,
which was expressly convoked to deal with such issues, and
submit it to an individual, would be felt as a slight on the Supreme
Council. And so the matter dropped.
Signor Orlando knew that if he had adopted the suggestion,
and made Mr. Wilson arbiter, Italy's hopes would have been
* Speech delivered at Mount Vernon on 4th July, 1918.
246
Italy
k ■ — — - »«____——•
promptly extinguished in the name of the fourteen points, and
her example held up for all the lesser States to imitate. The
President was, however, convinced that the Italian people
would have ratified the arrangement with alacrity. It is worth
recording that he was so sure of his own hold on the ItaHan masses
that, when urging Signor Orlando to relinquish his demand for
Fiume and the Dalmatian coast, he volunteered to provide him
with a message written by himself to serve as the Premier's justi-
fication. Signor Orlando was to read out this document in Par-
liament in order to make it clear to the nation that the renuncia-
tion had been demanded by America, that it would most effica-
ciously promote Italy's best interests and should for that reason
be ratified with alacrity. Signor Orlando, however, dechned the
certificate and things took their course.
In Paris the Italian Delegation made httle headway. Every-
one admired, esteemed and felt drawn towards the first Delegate,
who, left to himself, would probably have secured for his country
advantageous conditions even though he might be unable to add
Fiume to those secured by the secret treaty. But he was not
left to himself. He had to reckon with his Minister of Foreign
Affairs, who was as mute as an oyster and almost as unsociable.
Baron Sonnino had his own pohcy, which was immutable, almost
unutterable. At the Conference he seemed unwilling to pro-
pound, much less to discuss it, even with those foreign colleagues
on whose co-operation or approval its realization depended.
He actually shunned Delegates who would fain have talked over
their common interests in a friendly, informal way, and whose
bxisiness it was to strike up an agreement. In fact, results which
could be secured only by persuading indifferent or hostile people
and capturing their goodwill he expected to attain by holding
aloof from all and leading the life of a hermit, one might almost
say of a misanthrope. One can imagine the feehngs, if one may
not reproduce the utterances, of English-speaking officials,
whose legitimate desire for a free exchange of views with Italy's
official spokesman was thwarted by the idiosyncrasies of her own
Minister of Foreign Affairs. In Allied circles Baron Sonnino was
distinctly impopular, and his unpopularity produced a marked
247
The Peace Conference
effect on the cause he had at heart. He was wholly destitute
of friends. He had, it is true, only two enemies, but they
were himself and the foreign element who had to work with him.
Italy's cause was therefore inadequately served.
Several months' trial showed the unwisdom of Baron Sonnino's
attitude, which tended to defeat his own policy. Italy was paid
back by her Allies in her own coin, aloofness for aloofness. After
she had declined the Yugo-Slavs' ingenious proposal to refer their
dispute to Mr. Wilson the three Delegates* agreed among them-
selves to postpone her special problems until peace was signed
with Germany, but, Signor Orlando having got wind of the
matter, moved every lever to have them put into the forefront
of the agenda. He went so far as to say that he would not sign
the Treaty unless his country's claims were first settled, because
that document would make the League of Nations^-and there-
fore Italy as a member of the League — the guarantor of other
nations' territories, whereas she herself had no defined territories
for others to guarantee. She would not undertake to defend the
integrity of States which she had helped to create while her own
frontiers were indefinite. But in the art of procrastination the
triumvirate was unsurpassed, and, as the time drew near for
presenting the Treaty to Germany, neither the Adriatic, the
colonial, the financial nor the economic problems on which Italy's
future depended were settled or even broached. In the mean-
while the plenipotentiaries in secret council, of whom four or
five were wont to deliberate and two to take decisions, had dis-
agreed on the subject of Fiume. Mr. Wilson was inexorable in
his refusal to hand the city over to Italy, and the various com-
promises devised by ingenious weavers of conflicting interests
failed to rally the ItaUan Delegates, whose inspirer was the
taciturn Baron Sonnino; The Italian Press, by insisting on Fiume
as a sine qua non of Italy's approval of the peace treaty and by
announcing that it would undoubtedly be accorded, had made it
practically impossible for the Delegates to recede. The circum-
stance that the Press was inspired by the Government is immaterial
to the issue. President Wilson, who had been frequently told
* Of the United States, France and Britain,
248
Italy
. — ^n ...... , , , M - - I I — -
that a word from him to the peoples of Europe would fire their
enthusiasm and carry them whithersoever he wished, even against
their own Governments, now purposed wielding this unique
power against Italy's plenipotentiaries. , As we saw, he would
have done this during his sojourn in Rome, but was dissuaded
by Baron Sonnino . His intention now was to compel the Delegates
to go home and ascertain whether their inflexible attitude corre-
sponded with that of their people and to draw the people into the
camp of the " idealists." He virtually admitted this during his
conversation with Signor Orlando. What he seems to have over-
looked, however, is that there are time-limits to every policy, and
that only the same causes can be set in motion to produce the
same results. In Italy the President's name had a very different
sound in April from the clarion-like tones it gave forth in January,
and the secret of his popularity even then was the prevalent
faith in his firm determination to bring about a peace of justice,
irrespective of all separate interests, not merely a peace with
indulgence for the strong and rigour for the weak. The time
when Mr. Wilson might have summoned the peoples of Europe
to follow him had gone by irrevocably. It is worth noting that
the American statesman's views about certain of Italy's claims,
although originally laid down with the usual emphasis as im-
mutable, underwent considerable modifications which did not tend
to reinforce his authority. Thus at the outset he had proclaimed
the necessity of dividing Istria between the two claimant nations,
but, on further reflection, he gave way in Italy's favour, thus
enabling Signor Orlando to make the point that even the Presi-
dent's solutions needed corrections. It is also a fact that when
the Italian Premier insisted on having the Adriatic problems
definitely settled before the presentation of the Treaty to the
Germans* his colleagues of France and Britain assured him that
this reasonable request would be complied with. The circum-
stance that this promise was disregarded did not tend to smooth
matters in the Council of Five.
The decisive duel between MM. Orlando and Wilson was
fought out in April, and the overt acts which subsequently marked
* Between the 5th and^i2th of April.
249
The Peace Conference
their tense relations were but the practical consequences of that.
On the historic day each one set forth his programme with a
ne varietur attached, and the President of the United States
gave utterance to an estimate of Italian public opinion which
astonished and pained the Italian Premier, who, having con-
tributed to form it, deemed himself a more competent judge of
its trend than his distinguished interlocutor. But Mr. Wilson
not only refused to alter his judgment but announced his intention
to act upon it and issue an appeal to the Italian nation. The gist
of this document was known to MM. Clemenceau and Lloyd
George. It has been alleged, and seems highly probable, that
the British Premier was throughout most anxious to bring about
a workable compromise. Proposals were therefore put forward
respecting Fiume and Dalmatia, some of which were not inaccept-
able to the Italians, who lodged counter proposals about the others.
On the fate of these counter proposals everything depended.
On 23rd April I was at the H6tel Edouard VII., the head-
quarters of the Italian Delegation, discussing the outlook and
expecting to learn that some agreement had been reached. In
an adjoining room the members of the Delegation were sitting in
conference on the burning subject, painfully aware that time
pressed, that the Damocles' sword of Mr. Wilson's declaration
hung by a thread over their heads, and that a spirit of large com-
promise was indispensable. At three o'clock Mr. George's
secretary brought the reply of the Council of Three to Italy's
maximum of concessions. Only one point remained in dispute,
I was told, but that point hinged upon Fiume, and, by a strange
chance, it was not mentioned in the reply which the secretary
had just handed in. The Italian Delegation at once telephoned to
the British Premier asking him to receive the Marquis Imperiali,
who, calling shortly afterwards, learned that Fiume was to be
a free city and exempt from control. It was when the Marquis
had just returned that I took leave of my hosts and received the
assurance that I should be informed of the result. About half an
hour later, on receipt of an urgent message, I hastened back to the
Italian headquarters, where consternation prevailed, and I learned
that hardly had the Delegates begun to discuss the contentious
250
Italy
clause, when a copy of the Temps was brought in, containing MTr.
Wilson's appeal to the Italian people " over the heads of the
Italian Government."
The publication fell like a powerful explosive. The public
were at a loss to fit in Mr. Wilson's unprecedented action with
that of his British and French colleagues. For if in the morning
he sent his appeal to the newspapers, it was asked, why did he
allow his Italian colleagues to go on examining a proposal on which
he manifestly assumed that they were no longer competent to
treat ? Moreover a rational desire to settle Italy's Adriatic
frontiers, it was observed, ought not to have lessened his concern
about the larger issues which his unwonted procedure was bound
to raise. And one of these was respect for authority, the loss of
which was the taproot of Bolshevism. Signer Orlando replied to
the appeal in a trenchant letter which was at bottom a reasoned
protest against the assumed infallibility of any individual and,
in particular, of one who had already committed several radical
errors of judgment. What the Italian Premier failed to note
was the consciousness of overwhelming power and the will to use
it which imparted its specific mark to the whole proceeding.
Had he realized this element, his subsequent tactics would perhaps
have run on different lines.
The suddenness with which the President carried out his purpose
was afterwards explained as the outcome of misinformation. In
various Italian cities, it had been reported to him, posters were
appearing on the walls announcing that Fiume had been annexed.
Moreover it was added there were excellent grounds for believing
that at Rome the Italian Cabinet were about to issue a decree
incorporating it officially, whereby things would become more
tangled than ever. Some French journals gave credit to these
allegations, and it may well be that Mr. Wilson, believing them
too and wanting to be beforehand, took immediate action. This,
however, is at most an explanation, it hardly justifies the
precipitancy with which the Italian plenipotentiaries were held
up to the world as men who were misrepresenting their people.
As a matter of fact careful inquiry showed that all those reports
which are said to have alarmed the President were groundless.
25±
The Peace Conference
Mr. Wilson's sources of information respecting the countries, on
which he was sitting in judgment were often as Httle to be de-
pended on as presumably were the decisions of the special com-
missions which he and Mr. George so unceremoniously brushed
aside.
On the following morning MM. Orlando and Sonnino called on
the British Premier in response to his urgent invitation. To
their surprise they found MM. Wilson and Clemenceau also
awaiting them, ready, as it might seem, to begin the discussion
anew, curious in any case to observe the effect of the declaration.
But the Italian Premier burned his boats without delay or hesi-
tation. " You have challenged the authority of the Italian
Government," he said, " and appealed to the Italian people.
Be it so. It is now become my duty to seek out the represen-
tatives of my people in Parliament and to call upon them to decide
between Mr. Wilson and me." The President returned the only
answer possible : " Undoubtedly, that is your duty." " I shall
inform Parliament then that we have Allies incapable of agreeing
among themselves on matters that concern us vitally." Dis-
quieted by the militant tone of the Minister, Mr. Lloyd George
uttered a suasive appeal for moderation and expressed the hope
that, in his speech to the Italian Chamber, Signer Orlando would
not forget to say that a satisfactory solution may yet be found.
He would surely be incapable of jeopardizing the chances of such
a desirable consummation. " I will make the people arbiters
of the whole situation," the Premier announced, " and in order to
enable them to judge with full knowledge of the data, I herewith
ask your permission to communicate my last memorandum to
the Council of Four. It embodies the pith of the facts which it
behoves the Parliament to have before it. In the meantime, the
Italian Government withdraws from the Peace Conference."
On this the painful meeting terminated and the principal Italian
plenipotentiaries returned to Rome.
In France a section of the Press sympathized with the Italians,
while the Government, and in particular M. Clemenceau, joined
Mr. Wilson, who had promised to restore the sacredness of treaties,*
♦ In his address to the representatives of organized labour in January, 1918.
25a
Italy
in exhorting Signer Orlando to give up the Treaty of London.
The clash between Mr. Wilson and Signor Orlando and the depar-
ture of the Italian plenipotentiaries coincided with the arrival of
the Germans in Versailles, so that the Allies were faced with the
alternative of speeding up their desultory talks and improvising
a definite solution or giving up all pretence at unanimity in the
presence of the enemy. One important Paris journal found
fault with Mr. Wilson and his " Encyclical " and protested em-
phatically against his way of filling every gap in his arrangements
by wedging into it his League of Nations. " Can we harbour any
illusion as to the net worth of the League of Nations when the
revised text of the Covenant reveals it shrunken to the merest
shadow, incapable of thought, will, action or justice ? . . .
Too often have we made sacrifices to the Wilsonian Doctrine.". . *
Another Press organ compared Fiimie to the Saar Valley and
sympathized with Italy, who relying on the solidarity of her Allies,
expected to secure the city.f
While those wearisome word-battles — ^in which the personal
element played an undue part — ^were being waged in the twilight
of a secluded Valhalla, the Supreme Economic Council decided
that the seized Austrian vessels must be pooled among all the
Allies. When the untoward consequences of this decision was
flashed upon the ItaUans and the Yugo-Slavs, the rupture between
{hem was seen to be injurious to both and profitable to third
parties. For if the Austrian vessels were distributed among all
the Allied peoples, the share that would fall to those two would
be of no account. Now for the first time the adversaries bestirred
themselves. But it was not their diplomatists who took the
initiative. Eager for their respective countries' share of the
spoils of war, certain business men on both sides met,f deliberated
and worked out an equitable accord which gave four-fifths of the
tonnage to Italy and the remainder to the Yugo-Slavs, who other-
wise would not have obtained a single ship.§ They next set
* Echo de Paris, 29th April, 19 19.
■f Le Gaulois, 29th April, 1919.
J These meetings were held from the 28th March till the 23rd April, 1919.
5 See Marco Borsa's article in the Secolo, i8th June, 1919 ; also Corriere delta
Sera, 19th June, 1919.
253
The Peace Conference
about getting the resolution of the Economic Council repealed,
and went on with their conversations.* The American Delegation
was friendly, promised to plead for the repeal, and added that
" if the accord could be extended to the Adriatic problem Mr.
Wilson would be delighted and would take upon himself to
ratify it even without the sanction of the Conference."^ Encouraged
by this promise, the Delegates made the attempt, but as the
Italian Premier had for some una vowed reason limited the inter-
course of the negotiators to a single day, on the expiry of which
he ordered the conversation to cease,f they failed. Two or
three days later the Delegates in question had quitted Paris.
What this exchange of views seems to have demonstrated to
open-minded Italians was that the Yugo-Slavs, whose reputation
for obstinacy was a dogma among all their adversaries and some
of their friends, have chinks in their panoply through which
reason and suasion may penetrate.
When the Italian Premier withdrew from the Conference he
had ample reason for believing that in his absence peace could
not be signed, and many thought that, by departing, he was
giving Mr. Wilson a Roland for his Oliver. But this supposed
tactical effect formed no part of Orlando's deliberate plan. It
was a coincidence to be utilized, nothing more. Mr. Wilson
had left him no choice but to quit France and solicit the verdict
of his countrymen. But Mr. Wilson's colleagues were aghast
at the thought that the Pact of London, by which none of the
Allies might conclude a separate peace, rendered it indispensable
that Italy's recalcitrant plenipotentiaries should be co-signatories,
or at any rate consenting parties. About this interpretation
of the Pact there was not the slightest doubt. Hence everyone
feared that the signing of the Peace Treaty would be postponed
indefinitely because of the absence of the Italian plenipoteniaries
from the Conference. That certainly was the beUef of the re-
maining Delegates. There was no doubt anjrwhere that the
presence or the express assent of the Italians was a sine qua non
of the legality of the Treaty. It certainly was the conviction
* From the 5th to the i6th May, 1919* f // Secolo, 19th June, 1919.
X On April 23rd, 1919.
254
Italy
of the French Press, and was borne out by the most eminent
jurists throughout the world.* That the Italian Delegates
might refuse to sign, as Signor Orlando had threatened, until Italy's
affairs were arranged satisfactorily was taken for granted, and the
remaining members of the inner Council set to work to checkmate
this potential mancEuvre and dispense with her co-operation.
This aim was attained during the absence of the Italian Dele-
gation by the decree that the signature of any three of the allied
and associated governments would be deemed adequate. The
legality and even the morality of this provision were challenged
by many.
But it may be maintained that the imperative nature of the
task which confronted the Conference demanded a chart of ideas
and principles different from that by which old world diplomacy
had been guided and that respect for the letter of a compact
should not be allowed to destroy its spirit. There is much to
be said for this contention, which was, however, rejected by
Italian jurists as destructive of the sacredness of treaties. They
also urged that even if it were permissible to dash formal ob-
stacles aside in order to clear the path for the furtherance of a
good cause, it is also indispensable that the result should be
compassed with the smallest feasible sacrifice of principle. Hopes
were accordingly entertained by the Italian Delegates that, on
their return to Paris, at least a formal declaration might be made
that Italy's signature was indispensable to the validity of the
Treaty. But they were not, perhaps could not, be fulfilled at
that conjuncture.
Advantage was taken in other ways of the withdrawal of
* " Can and will our Allies treat our absence as a matter of no moment ? Can
and will they violate the formal undertaking which forbids the belligerents to
conclude a diplomatic peace ? . . . The London Declaration prohibits cate-
gorically the conclusion of any separate peace with any enemy State. France and
England cannot sign peace with Germany if Italy does not sign it. . . . The
situation is grave and abnormal, for our Allies it is also grave and abnormal.
Italy is isolated, and nations, especially those of Continental Europe, which are
not over rich, flee solitude as nature abhors a vacuum." — Corriere della Sera,
36th April, 1919. Again : " ' The Treaty of London ' restrains France and Eng-
land from concluding peace without Italy. And Italy is minded not to conclude
peace with Germany before she herself has received satisfaction." — Journal de
Genive, 25th April, 1919.
The Peace Conference
Italy's representatives from the Conference. For example, a
clause of the Treaty with Germany dealing with reparations
was altered to Italy's detriment. Another which turned upon
Austro-German relations was likewise modified. Before the
Delegates left for Rome, it had been settled that Germany should
be bound over to respect Austria's independence. This obli-
gation was either superfluous, every State being obliged to respect
the independence of every other, or else it had a cryptic meaning
which would only reveal itself in the application of the clause.
As soon as the Conference was freed from the presence of the
Italians the formula was modified, and Germany was plainly
forbidden to unite with Austria, even though Austria should
expressly desire amalgamation. As this enactment runs directly
counter to the principle of self-determination, the Italian
Minister Crespi raised his voice in energetic protest against this
and the financial changes,* whereupon the triumvirs, giving way
on the latter point, consented to restore the primitive text of the
financial condition, f Germany is obliged to supply France with
seven million tons of coal every year by way of restitution for
damage done during the war. At the price of fifty francs a ton,
the money value of this tribute would be three hundred and fifty
million francs, of which Italy would be entitled to receive thirty
per cent. But during the absence of the Italian representatives a
supplementary clause was inserted in the TreatyJ conferring a
special privilege on France which renders Italy's claim of little
or no value. It provides that Germany shall deliver annually
to France an amount of coal equal to the difference between the
pre-war production of the mines of Pas de Calais and the Nord,
destroyed by the enemy, and the production of the mines of the
same area during each of the coming years, the maximum limit
to be twenty million tons. As this contribution takes precedence
of all others, and as Germany, owing to insufficiency of transports
and other causes, will probably be unable to furnish it entirely,
Italy's claim is considered practically valueless.
The reception of the Delegates in Rome was a triumph, their
* On May 6th, 1919, at Versailles. f Cf. Corriere della Sera, lOth May, 1919.
J Annex W. of the Revised Treaty.
256
Italy
return to Paris a humiliation. For things had been moving fast
in the meanwhile, and their trend, as we said, was away from
Italy's goal. Public opinion in their own country likewise began
to veer round, and people asked whether they had adopted the
right tactics, whether, in fine, they were the right men to represent
their country at that crisis of its history. There was no gainsaying
the fact that Italy was -completely isolated at the Conference.
She had sacrificed much and had garnered in relatively little.
The Yugo-Slavs had offered her an alliance — ^although this kind
of partnership had originally been forbidden by the Wilsonian
discipline — the offer was rejected and she was now certain of their
lasting enmity. Venizelos had also made overtures to Baron
Sonnino for an understanding, but they elicited no response, and
Italy's relations with Greece lost whatever cordiality they might
have had. Between France and Italy the threads of friendship
which companionship in arms should have done much to strengthen
were strained to the point of snapping. And worst perhaps of
all, the Italian Delegates had approved the clause forbidding
Germany to unite with Austria.
That the fault did not lie wholly in the attitude of the Allies
is obvious. The Italian Delegates' lack of method, one might say
of unity, was unquestionably a contributory cause of their failure
to make perceptible headway at the Conference. A curious and
characteristic incident of the slipshod way in which the work
was sometimes done occurred in connection with the disposal of
the Palace Venezia, in Rome, which had belonged to Austria,
but was expropriated by the Italian Government soon after
the opening of hostilities. The heirs of the Hapsburg Crown
put forward a claim to proprietary rights which was traversed
by the Italian Government. As the dispute was to be laid before
the Conference, the Roman Cabinet invited a juris consult versed
in these matters to argue- Italy's case. He duly appeared, un-
folded his claim congruously with the views of his Government,
but suddenly stopped short on observing the looks of astonish-
ment on the faces of the Delegates.. It appears that on the pre-
ceding day another Delegate of the Economic Conference, also
an Italian, had unfolded and defended the contrary thesis, namely,
257 17
The Peace Conference
that Austria's heirs had inherited her right to the Palace of
Venezia.*
Passing to more momentous matters, one may pertinently ask
whether too much stress was not laid by the first Italian Dele-
gation upon the national and sentimental sides of Italy's interests,
and too little on the others. Among the Great Powers Italy is
most in need of raw materials. She is destitute of coal, iron,
cotton and naphtha. Most of them are to be had in Asia Minor.
They are indispensable conditions of modern life and progress.
To demand a fair share of them as guerdon for having saved
Europe, and to put in her claim at a moment when Europe was
being reconstituted, could not have been construed as im-
perialism. The other Allies had possessed most of those neces-
saries in abundance long before the war. They were adding
to them now as the fruits of a victory which Italy's sacrifices had
made possible. Why, then, should she be left unsatisfied?
Bitterly though the nation was disappointed by failure to have
its territorial claims allowed, it became still more deeply grieved
when it came to realize that much more important advantages
might have been secured if these had been placed in the forefront
of the nation's demands. Emigration ground for Italy's surplus
population, which is rapidly increasing, coal and iron for her
industries might perhaps have been obtained if the Italian plan
of campaign at the Conference had been rightly conceived and
skilfully executed. But this realistic aspect of Italy's interests
was almost wholly lost sight of during the waging of the heated
and unfruitful contests for the possession o| towns and ports,
which although sacred symbols of Italianism, could not add
anything to the economic resources which will play such a pre-
dominant part in the future struggle for material well-being
among the new and old States. There was a marked propensity
among Italy's leaders at home and in Paris to consider each of the
issues that concerned their country as though it stood alone,
instead of envisaging' Italy's economic, financial and military
position after the war as an indivisible problem and proving
* This incident was revealed by Enrico Ferri, in his remarkable speech in the
Italian Parliament on pth July, 1919. Cf. La Stampa, loth July, 1919, page a.
258
Italy
that it behoved the Allies in the interests of a European peace
to solve it satisfactorily, and to provide compensation in one
direction for inevitable gaps in the other. This, to my thinking,
was the fundamental error of the Italian and Allied statesmen
for which Europe may have to suffer. That Italy's policy cannot
in the near future return to the hues on which it ran ever since
the establishment of her national unity, whatever her Allies may
do or say, will hardly be gainsaid. Interests are decisive factors
of foreign policy, and the action of the Great Powers has de-
termined Italy's orientation.
Italy undoubtedly gained a great deal by the war, into which
she entered mainly for the purpose of achieving her unity and
securing strong frontiers. But she signed the peace treaty
convinced that she had not succeeded in either purpose, and that
her Allies were answerable for her failure. It was certainly
part of their policy to build up a strong State on her frontier
out of a race which she regards as her adversary and to give it
command of some of her strategic positions. And the over-
bearing manner in which this policy was sometimes carried out
left as much bitterness behind as the object it aimed at. It is
alleged that the Italian Delegates were treated with an economy
of consideration which bordered on something much worse,
while the arguments of&cially invoked to non-suit them appeared
to them in the light of bitter sarcasms. Presfdent Wilson, they
complained, ignored his far resonant principle of self-determin-
ation when Japan presented her claim for Shantung, but refused
to swerve from it when Italy relied on her treaty rights in Dal-
matia. And when the inhabitants of Fiume voted for union
with the mother country, the President abandoned that principle
and gave judgment for Yugo-Slavia on other grounds. He was
right but disappointing, they observed, when he told his fellow
citizens that his presence in Europe was indispensable in order
to interpret his conceptions, for no other rational being could
have construed them thus.
The withdrawal of the Italian Delegates was construed as an
act of insubordination, and punished as such. The Marquis de
Viti de Varche has since disclosed the fact that the Allied Govern-
259 17*
The Peace Conference
ments forthwith reduced the credits accorded to Italy during
hostilities, whereupon hardships and distress were aggravated
and the peasantry over a large area of the country suffered in-
tensely.* For Italy is more dependent on her Allies than ever,
owing to the sacrifices which she offered up during the war, and
she was made to feel her dependence painfully. The military
assistance which they had received from her was fraught with
financial and economic consequences which have not yet been
realized by the unfortunate people who must endure them.
Italy at the close of hostilities was burdened with a foreign debt
of twenty milliards of lire, an internal debt of fifty millions, and
a paper circulation four times more than what it was in pre-war
days.f Raw materials were exhausted, trafiic and production
were stagnant, navigation had almost ceased, and the expenditure
of the State had risen to eleven milliards a year. J
According to the figures published by the Statistical Society
of Berne, the general rise in prices attributed to the war hit
Italy much harder than any of her AUies.§ The consequences
of this and other perturbations were sinister and immediate.
The nation, bereft of what it had been taught to regard as its
right, humiliated in the persons of its Chiefs, subjected to foreign
guidance, insufficiently clad, under-fed, and with no tangible
grounds for expecting speedy improvement, was seething with
discontent. Frequent strikes merely aggravated the general
suffering, which finally led to riots, risings and the shedding of
blood. The economic, political and moral crisis was unprece-
dented. The men who drew Italy into the war were held up to
public opprobrium because in the imagination of the people the
victory had cost them more and brought them in less than neu-
• Cf. Morning Post, 9th July, 1919.
t On loth July the Italian Finance Minister, in his financial statement, an-
nounced that the total cost of the war to Italy would amount to one hundred
milliard lire. He added, however, that her share of the German indemnity would
wipe out her foreign debt, while a progressive tax on all but small fortunes would
meet her internal obligations. Cf. Corriere delta Sera, nth and :2th July, 1919.
} Cf. Avanti, 19th July, 1919.
i Shown in percentages, the rise in the cost of living was : United States, 220
per cent. ; England, 240 per cent. ; Switzerland, 257 per cent. ; France, 368
per cent. ; Italy, 481 per centi
300
^_^ Italy
trality would have done. One of the principal orators of the
Opposition, in a trenchant discourse in the Italian ParUament,
said : " The Salandra-Sonnino Cabinet led Italy into the war
blindfolded."*
After the return of the Italian Delegation to Paris various
fresh combinations were devised for the purpose of grappling
with the Adriatic problem. One commended itself to the Italians
as a possible basis for discussion. In principle it was accepted;
A declaration to this effect was made by Signor Orlando and
taken cognizance of by M. Clemenceau, who undertook to lay
the matter before Mr. Wilson, the sole arbitrator in Italian affairs.
He played the part of Fate throughout. Days went by after
this without bringing any token that the Triumvirate were in-
terested in the Adriatic. At last the Italian Premier reminded
his French colleague that the latest proposal had been accepted
in principle, and the Italian plenipotentiaries were awaiting Mr.
Wilson's pleasure in the matter. Accordingly M. Clemenceau un-
dertook to broach the matter to the American statesman without
delay. The reply, which was promptly given, dismayed the Ital-
ians. It was in the form of one of those interpretations which,
becoming associated with Mr. Wilson's name, shook public
confidence in certain of the statesmanlike qualities with which
he had at first been credited. The construction which he now
put upon the mode of voting to be applied to Fiume, including
this city — in a large district inhabited by a majority of Yugo-
slavs — ^imparted to the project as the Italians had understood it
a wholly new aspect. They accordingly declared it inacceptable.
As after that there seemed to be nothing more for the Italian
Premier to do in Paris, he left, was soon afterwards defeated in
the Chamber and resigned together with his Cabinet. The vote
of the Itahan Parliament, which appeared to the Continental
Press in the light of a protest of the nation against the aims and
the methods of the Conference, closed for the time being the
chapter of Italy's endeavour to complete her unity, secure strong
frontiers and perpetuate her political partnership with France
and her intimate relations with the Entente. Thenceforward
* Enrico Ferri, on pth July, 1919. Cf. La Stampa, loth July, 1919.
a6i
The Peace Conference
the English-speaking States might influence her overt acts, compel
submission to their behests and generally exercise a sort of
guardianship over her, because they are the dispensers of econo-
mic boons, but the union of hearts, the mutual trust, the cement
supplied by common aims are lacking.
One of the most teUing arguments employed by President
Wilson to dissuade various States from claiming strategic posi-
tions, and in particular Italy from insisting on the annexation
of Fiume and the Dalmatian coast, was the effective protection
which the League of Nations would confer on them.* Strategical
considerations would, it was urged, lose all their value in the new
era, and territorial guarantees become meaningless and ciunber-
some survivals of a dead epoch. That was the principal weapon
with which he had striven to parry the thrusts of M. Clemenceau
and the touchstone by which he tested the sincerity of all pro-
fessions of faith in his cherished project of compacting the nations
of the world in a vast league of peace-loving, law-abiding com-
munities. But the faith of France's leaders differed little from
unbelief. Guarantees first and the protection of the League
afterwards was the French formula, around which many fierce
battles-royal were fought . In the end Mr. Wilson, having obtained
the withdrawal of the demand for the Rhine frontier, gave in,
and the covenant was reinforced by a compact which in the last
analysis is a military undertaking, a unilateral Triple AUiance,
Great Britain and the United States undertaking to hasten to
France's assistance should her territory be wantonly invaded by
Germany. The case thus provided for is extremely improbable.
The expansion of Germany, when the auspicious hour strikes, will
presumably be inaugurated on wholly new lines, against which
armies, even if they can be mobilized in time, will be of little avail.
But if force were resorted to, it is almost certain to be used in
the direction where the resistance is least — against France's
ally Poland. This, however, is by the way. The point made
* At a later date the President reiterated the grounds of his decision. In his
Columbus speech (4th September, 1919), he asserted that " Italy desired Fiume
for strategic military reasons, which the League of Nations would make un-
necessary." {New York Herald (Paris Edition), 6th September, 1919). But the
League did not render strategic precautions unnecessary to France,
2^9
Italy
by the Italians was that the League of Nations being thus ad-
mittedly powerless to discharge the functions which alone could
render strategic frontiers unnecessary, can consequently no
longer be relied upon as an adequate protection against the
dangers which the possession of the strongholds she claimed on
the Adriatic would effectively displace. Either the League,
it was argued, can, as asserted, protect the countries which give
up commanding positions to potential enemies or it cannot. In
the former hypothesis, France's insistence on a military conven-
tion is mischievous and immoral — in the latter Italy stands
in as much need of the precautions devised as her neighbour.
But her spokesmen were stillr plied with the threadbare arguments
and bereft of the countervailing corrective. And faith in the
efficacy of the League was sapped by the very men who were
professedly seeking to spread it.
The Press of Rome, Turin and Milan pointed to the loyalty
of the Itahan people, brought out, they said, in sharp relief by the
discontent which the exclusive character of that triple miUtary
accord engendered among them. As kinsmen of the French it
was natural for Italians to expect that they would be invited
to become a party to this League within the League. As loyal
AUies of Britain and France they felt desirous of being admitted
to the alliance. But they were excluded. Nor was their exas-
peration allayed by the assurance of their Press that this was no
alliance but a state of tutelage. An alliance, it was explained,
is a compact by which two or more parties agree to render each
other certain services under given conditions, whereas the con-
vention in question is a one-sided undertaking on the part of
Britain and the United States to protect France if wantonly
attacked, because she is unable efficaciously to protect herself.
It is a benefaction. But this casuistry fell upon deaf ears. What
the people felt was the disesteem — the term in vogue was stronger
— ^in which they were held by the Allies whom they had saved
perhaps from ruin.
By slow degrees the sentiments of the Italian nation under-
went a disquieting change. All parties and classes united in
stigmatizing the behaviour of the Allies in terms which even the
263
The Peace Conference
literary eminence of the poet d' Annunzio could not induce the
censors to let pass. "The peace treaty," wrote Italy's most
influential journal, " and its correlate forebode for the near future
the Continental hegemony of France countersigned by the
Anglo-American alliance."* Another widely circulated and
respected organ described the policy of the Entente as a solvent
of the social fabric, constructive in words, corrosive in acts,
" mischievous if ever there was a mischievous policy. For while
raising hopes and whetting appetites, it does nothing to satisfy
them ; on the contrary, it does much to disappoint them. In
words : a struggle for liberty, for nations, for the equality of
peoples and classes, for the well-being- of all ; in acts — the sup-
pression of the most elementary and constitutional liberty,
the overlordship of certain nations based on the humiliation
of others, the division of peoples into exploiters and exploited
— the sharpening of social differences — ^the destruction of collec-
tive wealth, and its accumulation in a few bloodstained hands,
universal misery and hunger. f"
Although it is well understood that Italy's defeat at the Con-
ference was largely the handiwork of President Wilson, the re-
sentment of the Italian nation chose for its immediate objects
the representatives of France and Britain. The American
" associates " were strangers, here to-day and gone to-morrow,
but the Allies remain, and if their attitude towards Italy, it was
argued, had been different, if their loyalty had been real, she
would have fared proportionately as well as they, whatever the
American statesmen might have said or done.
The Italian Press breathed fiery wrath against its French
ally, who so often at the Conference had met Italy's sohcitations
with the odious word " impossible." Even moderate organs
of public opinion gave free vent to estimates of France's policy
and anticipations of its consequences which disturbed the equani-
mity of European statesmen. " It is impossible," one of these
journals wrote, " for France to become the absolute despot of
Europe without Italy, much less against Italy. What tran-
"■ Corriere delta Sera, ii May, 1919.
t La Stampa, i6th July, 1919.
264
Italy
scended the powers of Richelieu, who was a hon and fox com-
bined, and was beyond the reach of Bonaparte, who was both
an eagle and a serpent, cannot be achieved by Tiger Clemenceau
in circumstances so much less favourable than those of yore.
We, it is trtie, are isolated, but then France is not precisely
embarrassed by the choice of friends." The peace was described
as " Franco-Slav domination with its headquarters in Prague,
and a branch of&ce in Agram." M. Clemenceau was openly
charged with striving after the hegemony of the Continent for
his country by separating Germany from Austria and surrounding
her with a ring of Slav States, Poland, Yugo-Slavia, Czecho-Slo-
vakia, and perhaps the non-Slav kingdom of Roumania. All these
States would be in the leading-strings of the French Republic,
and Austria would be linked to it in a different guise. And in
order to effect this resuscitation of the Habsburg State under the
name of " Danubian federation," Mr. Wilson, it was asserted,
had authorized a deliberate violation of his own principle of self-
determination, and refused to Austria the right of adopting the
regime which she preferred. It was in truth an odd compromise,
these critics continued, for an idealist of the President's calibre,
on whose every political action the scrutinizing gaze of the world
was fixed. One could not account for it as a sacrifice made for
a high ethical aim — one of those ends which, according to the
old maxim, hallows the means. It seemed an open response
to a secret instigation or impulse which was unconnected with
any recognized or avowable principle. Even the Socialist organs
swelled the chorus of the accusers. Avanti wrote: "We are
Socialists, yet we have never believed that the American Presi-
dent with his fourteen points entered into the war for the highest
aims of humanity and for the rights of peoples, any more than we
believe at present that his opposition to the aspirations of the
ItaUan State on the Adriatic are inspired by motives of idealism."*
The fate of the disputed territories on the Adriatic was to be
the outcome of self-determination. Poland's claims, were to
be left to the self-determination of the Silesian and Ruthenian
populations. Roumania was told that her suit must remain
* Avand, Z7th April, 1919. Cf. Le Temps, 28th April, 1919.
265
The Peace Gohference
in abeyance until it could be tested by the same principle, which
would be applied in the form of a plebiscite. For self-deter-
mination was the cornerstone of the League of Nations, the holiest
boon for which the progressive peoples of the world had been
pouring ovit their life-blood and substance for nearly five years.
But when Italy invoked self-determination, she was promptly
non-suited. When Austria appealed to it she was put out of
court. And to crown all, the world was assured that the fourteen
points had been triumphantly upheld. This depravation of
principles by the triumph of the little prudences of the hour
spurred some of the more impulsive critics to ascribe it to influ-
ences less respectable than those to which it may fairly.be at-
tributed.
The directing Powers were hypersensitive to the oft repeated
charge of meddling in the internal affairs of other nations. They
were never tired of protesting their abhorrence of an5^hing that
smacked of interference. Among the numerous facts, however,
which they could neither deny nor reconcile with their professions,
the following was brought forward by the Italians, who had a
special interest to draw public attention to it. It had to do with
the abortive attempt to restore the Habsburg Monarchy in Hun-
gary as the first step towards the formation of a Danubian federa-
tion. " It is certain," wrote the principal Italian journal, " that
the Archduke Joseph's coup d'etat did not take place, indeed
(given the conditions in Budapest) could not take place without
the Entente's connivance. The official communiques of Budapest
and Vienna, dated 9th August, recount on this point precise
details which no one has hitherto troubled to deny. The Pe|dl
Government was scarcely three days in power, and, therefore,
was not in a position to deserve either trust or distrust, when the
heads of the ' order-loving organizations' put forward, to justify
the need of a new crisis, the complaints of the heads of the En-
tente Missions as to the anarchy prevaiUng in Hungary and the
urgency of finding ' someone ' who could save the country from
the abyss. Then a commission repaired to Alscuth, where it
easily persuaded the Archduke to come to Budapest. Here
be at once visited all the heads of missions and spent the whole
366
Italy
day in negotiations. ' As a result of negotiations with Entente
representatives, the Archduke Joseph undertook a solution of the
crisis.' He then called together the old State police and a volun-
teer army of 8,000 men. The Roumanian garrison was kept
ready. The Peidl Government naturally did not resist at all.
At 10 p.m. on 7th August all the Entente Missions held a meeting,
to which the Archduke Joseph and the new Premier were invited.
General Gorton presided. The Conference lasted two hours and
reached an agreement on all questions. All the Heads of Missions
assured the new Government of their warmest support."*
Another case of unwarranted interference which 'stirred the
Italians to bitter resentment turned upon the obligation imposed
on Austria to renounce her right to unite with Germany. " It
is difficult to discern in the policy of the Entente towards Austria
anything more respectable than obstinacy coupled with stu-
pidity," wrote the same journal. " But there is something
still worse. It is impossible not to feel indignant with a coali-
tion which, after having triumphed in the name of the loftiest
ideas . . . treats German-Austria no better than the Holy
Alliance treated the petty states of Italy. But the Congress
of Vienna acted in harmony with the principle of legitimism which
it avowed and professed, whereas the Paris Conference violates
without scruple the canons by which it claims to be guided.
" Not a whit more decorous is the intervention of the Supreme
Council in the internal affairs of Germany — a State which, ac-
cording to the spirit and the letter of the Versailles Treaty, is
sovereign and not a protectorate. The Conference was qualified
to dictate peace terms to Germany, but it wanders beyond the
bounds of its competency when it construes those terms and
arrogates to itself — on the strength of forced and equivocal
interpretations — the right of imposing upon a nation which is
neither militarily nor juridically an enemy a constitutional
reform. Whether Germany violates the Treaty by her constitu-
tion is a question which only a judicial finding of the League of
Nations can fairly determine."t
* Corriere della Sera, pth August, 1919.
I Corriere della Sera, 3rd September, 1919. "
367
The Peace Conference
It would be impolitic to overlook and insincere to belittle
the effects of this incoherency upon the relations between France
and Italy. Public opinion in the Peninsula characterized the
attitude of France as deliberately hostile. The Italians at the
Conference eagerly scrutinized every act and word of their French
colleagues with a view to discovering grounds for dispelling this
view. But the search is reported to have been worse than vain.
It revealed data which, although susceptible of satisfactory ex-
planations, would if disclosed at that moment have aggravated
the feeling of bitterness against France, which was fast gather-
ing. Signor Orlando had recourse to the censor to prevent
indiscretions, but the intuition of the masses triumphed over
repression, and the existing tenseness merged into resentment.
The way in which Italians accounted for M. Clemenceau's atti-
tude was this. Although Italy has ceased to be the important
political factor she once was when the Triple Alliance was in
being, she is still a strong Continental Power, capable of placing
a more numerous army in the field than her repubUcan sister,
and her population continues to increase at a high rate. In a
few years she will have outstripped her rival. France, too, has
perhaps lost those elements of her power and prestige which
she derived from her alliance with Russia. Again, the Slav
ex-ally Russia may become the enemy of to-morrow. In view
of these contingencies France must create a substitute for the
Roumanian arid Italian allies. And as these have been found
in the new Slav States, Poland, Czecho-Slovakia and Yugo-Slavia,
she can afford to dispense with making painful sacrifices to keep
Italy in countenance.
A trivial incident which affords a glimpse of the spirit pre-
vailing between the two kindred peoples occurred at St. Ger-
main-en-Laye, where the Austrian Delegates were staying. They
had been made milch of in Vienna by the Envoy of the French
Republic there, M. AUiz^, whose mission it was to hinder Austria
from uniting with the Reich. Italy's policy was on the contrary
to apply Mr. Wilson's principle of self-determination and allow the
Austrians to do as they pleased in that respect. A fervent
advocate of the French orthodox doctrine — a publicist — ^repaired
268
Italy
to the Austrian headquarters at St. Germain for the purpose, it
is supposed, of discussing the subject. Now intercourse of any
kind between private individuals and the enemy Delegates was
strictly forbidden, and when M. X. presented himself, the Italian
officer on duty refused him admission. He insisted. The officer
was inexorable. Then he produced a written permit signed by
the Secretary of the Conference, M. Dutasta. How and why this
exception was made in his favour when the rule was supposed
to admit of no exceptions was not disclosed. But the Italian
officer, equal to the occasion, took the ground that a military pro-
hibition cannot be cancelled by a civilian, and excluded the
would-be visitor.
The general trend of France's European policy was repugnant
to Italy. She looked on it as a well-laid scheme to assume a
predominant role on the Continent. That, she believed, was
the ultimate purpose of the veto on the union of Austria and
Germany, of the miUtary arrangements with Britain and the
United States, and of much else that was obnoxious to Italy.
Austria. was to be reconstituted according to the Federative plans
of the late Archduke Franz Ferdinand, to be made stronger
than before as a counterpoise to Italy, and to be at the beck and
call of France. Thus the friend, ally, sister of yesterday became
the potential enemy of to-morrow. That was the refrain of most
of the Italian journals, and none intoned it more fervently than
those which had been -foremost in bringing their country into
the war. One of these, a Conservative organ of Lombardy,
wrote : " Until yesterday, we might have considered that two
paths lay open before us, that of an alliance with France and
that of an independent policy. But we can think so no longer.
To offer our friendship to-day to the people who have already
chosen their own road and established their solidarity with our
enemies of yesterday and to-morrow would not be to strike out
a policy, but to decide on an unseemly surrender. It would be
tantamount to reproducing in an aggravated form the situation
we occupied in the alliance with Germany, Once again we should
be engaged in a partnership of which one of the partners was in
reality our enemy. France taking the place of Germany, and
269
The Peace Conference
Yugo-Slavia that of Austria, the situation of the old Triple Alliance
would be not merely reproduced but made worse in the repro-
duction, because the Triplice at least guaranteed us against a
conflict which we had grounds for apprehending, whereas the
new alliance would tie our hands for the sake of a little Balkan
State which singlehanded we are well able to keep in its place.
" We have had enough of a policy which has hitherto saddled
us with all the burdens of the Alliance without bestowing on us
any advantage — which has constrained us to favour all the peoples
whose expansion dovetailed with French schemes and to combat
or neglect those others whose consolidation corresponded to our
interests — which has led us to support a great Poland and a
great Bohemia and to combat the Ukraine, Hungary, Bulgaria,
Roumania, Spain, to whose destinies the French but not we were
indifferent."* A Press organ of Bologna denounced the atrocious
and ignominious sacrifice " which her allies imposed on Italy
by means of economic blackmailing and violence with a whip
in one hand and a chunk of bread in the other."t
Sharp comments were provoked by the heavy tax on strangers
in Tunisia imposed by the French Government, J on strangers,
mostly Itahans, who theretofore had enjoyed the same rights
as the French and Tunisians. " Suddenly," writes the principal
Italian journal, " and just when it was hoped that the common
sacrifices they had made had strengthened the ties between the
two nations, the Governor of Tunisia issued certain orders which
endanger the interests of foreigners and the effects of which will
be felt mainly by ItaUans, of whom there are 120,000 in Tunisia.§
First there came an order forbidding the use of any language
but French in the schools. Now the tax referred to in the House
of Lords gives the Tunisian Government power to levy an impost
on the buying and selling of property in Tunisia. The new tax,
which is to be levied over and above pre-existing taxes, ranged
from 59 per cent, of the value when it is not assessed at a higher
sum than 100,000 lire to 80 per cent, when its estimated value
* Quoted in the La Stampa of 20th July, 1919.
■f Ibidem.
t Corriere d' Italia, 29th June, 1919.
§Cf. "Modern Italy," 12th July, 1919 (page 298).
270
Italy ^_^
is more than 500,000 lire." The article terminates with the
remark that boycotting is hardly a suitable epilogue to a war
waged for common ideals and interests.
These manifestations irritated the French, and were taken to
indicate Italy's defection. It was to no purpose that a few
level-headed men pointed out that the French Government was
largely answerable for the state of mind complained of. " Per-
tinax," in the Echo de Paris, wrote " that the Alliance, in order
to subsist and flourish, should have retained its character as
an Anti-German League, whereas it fell into the error of masking
itself as a Society of Nations, and arrogated to itself the right of
bringing before its tribunal all the quarrels of the planet."*
Italy's Allies undoubtedly did much to forfeit her sympathies
and turn her from the Alliance. It was pointed out that when
the French troops arrived in Italy the Bulletin of the ItaUan
command eulogized their efforts almost daily, but when the
Italian troops went to France, the communiques of the French
command were most chary of allusions to their exploits, yet the
Italian Army contributed more dead to the French front than did
the French Army to the Italian front, f At the Peace Con-
ference, as we saw, when the terms with Germany were being
drafted, Italy's problems were set aside on the grounds that there
was no nexus between them. The Allies' interests, which were
dealt with as a whole during the war, were divided after the Ar-
mistice into essential and secondary interests, and those of Italy
were relegated to the latter class. Subsequently France, Britain
and the United States, without the co-operation or fore-knowledge
of their Italian friends, struck up an aUiance from which they
excluded Italy, thereby vitiating the only arguihents that could
be invoked in favour of such a coalition. When peace was about
to be signed they one-sidedly revoked the treaty which they had
concluded in London, rendering the consent of all AUies necessary
to the validity of the document, and decreed that Italy's absten-
tion would make no difference. When the instrument was finally
signed, Mr. Wilson returned to the United States, Mr. Lloyd
* Echo de Paris, yth. July, 1919.
f Cf. " An Italian Expos6," published by the Morning Post, 5th July, 1919.
271
The Peace Conference
George to England, and the Marquis of Saionji to Japan, without
having settled any of Italy's problems. Italy, her needs, her
claims and her policy thus appear as matters of little account
to the Great Powers. Naturally, the Italian people were dis-
appointed, and desirous of seeking new friends, the old ones having
forsaken them.
It would be difficult to exaggerate the consequences which this
attitude of the Allies towards Italy may have on European
politics generally. Her most eminent statesman, Signor Tittoni,
who succeeded Baron Sonnino, transcending his country's mortifi-
cations, exerted himself tactfully and not unsuccessfully to lubri-
cate the mechanism of the Alliance, to ease the dangerous friction
and to restore the tone. And he seems to have accompUshed in
these respects everything which a'sagacious statesman could do.
But to arrest the operation of psychological laws is beyond the
power of any individual. In order to appreciate the Italian point
of view, it is nowise necessary to approve the exaggerated claims
put forward by her Press in the spring of 1919. It is enough
to admit that in the light of the Wilsonian doctrine they were not
more incompatible with that doctrine than the claims made by
other Powers and accorded by the Supreme Council.
To sum up, Italy acquired the impression that association with
her recent Allies means for her not only sacrifices in their hour
of need, but also further sacrifices in their hour of triumph. She
became reluctantly convinced that they regard interests which
she deems vital to herself as unconnected with their own. And
that was unfortunate. If at some fateful conjuncture in the
future her AUies on their part should gather the impression that
she has adjusted her policy to those interests which are so far
removed from theirs, they will have themselves to blame.
272
CHAPTER IX
JAPAN
AMONG the solutions of the burning questions which exer-
cised the ingenuity and tested the good faith of the
leading Powers at the Peace Conference, none was more rapidly
reached there, or more bitterly assailed outside, than those in
which Japan was specially interested. The storm that began to
rage as soon as the Supreme Council's decision on the Shantung
issue became known did not soon subside. Far from that, it
threatened for a time to swell into a veritable hurricane. This
prdblem, like most of those which were submitted to the forum
of the Conference, may be envisaged from either of two opposite
angles of survey : from that of the future society of justice-
loving nations, whose members are to forswear territorial ag-
grandizement, special economic privileges, and political sway
in, or at the expense of, other countries ; or from the traditional
point of view which has always prevailed in international politics
and which cannot be better described than by Signor Salandra's
well-known phrase " sacred egotism." Viewed in the former
light, Japan's demand for Shantung was undoubtedly as much a
stride backwards as were those of the United States and France
for the Monroe doctrine and the Saar Valley respectively. But as
the three Great Powers had set the example, Japan was resolved
from the outset to rebel against any decree relegating her to the
second or third class nations. The position of equality occupied
by her Government among the Governments of other Great
Powers did not extend to the Japanese nation among the other
nations. But her statesmen refused to admit this artificial in-
feriority as a reason for descending another step in the intema-
273 i8
The Peace Conference
tional hierarchy and they invoked the principle of which Britain,
France and America had already taken advantage.
The Supreme Council, like Janus of old, possessed two faces,
one altruistic and the other egotistic, and also like that son of
Apollo, held a key in its right hand and a rod in its left. It
applied to the various States, according to its own interest or
convenience, the principles of the old or the new Covenant, and
would fain have dispossessed Japan of the fruits of the campaign,
and allotted to her the r61e of working without reward in the
vineyard of the millennium, were it not that this policy was
excluded by reasons of present expediency and previous commit-
ments. The expediency was represented by President Wilson's
determination to obtain before returning to Washington some
kind of a compact that might be described as the constitution of
the future society of nations, and by his belief that this instrument
could not be obtained without Japan's adherence, which was
dependent on her demand for Shantung being allowed. And
the previous commitments were the secret compacts concluded
by Japan with Britain, France, Russia and Italy before the
United States entered the war.
Nippon's role in the war and the circumstances that shaped it
are scarcely realized by the general pubUc. They have been
purposely thrust in the background. And yet a knowledge of
them is essential to those who wish to understand the significance
of the dispute about Shantung, which at bottom was the problem
of Japan's international status. Before attempting to analyse
them, however, it may not be amiss to remark that during the
French Press campaign conducted in the years 1915-1916, with
the object of determining the Tokyo Cabinet to take part in the
military operations in Europe, the question of motive was dis-
cussed with a degree of tactlessness which it is difficult to account
for. It was affirmed, for example, that the Mikado's people
would be overjoyed if the Allied Governments vouchsafed them
the honour of participating in the great civilizmg crusade against
the Central Empires. That was proclaimed to be such an enviable
privilege that to pay for it no sacrifice of men or money would be
exorbitant. Again, the degree to which Germany is a menace
274
Japan
to Japan was another of the texts on which Entente publicists
relied to scare Nippon into drastic action, as though she needed
to be told by Europeans where her vital interests lay, from what
quarters they were jeopardized, and how they might be safe-
guarded most successfully. So much for the question of tact
and form. Japan has never accepted the doctrine of altruism
in politics which her Western allies have so zealously preached.
Until means have been devised and adopted for substituting
moral for military force in the relations of State with State,
the only reconstruction of the world in which the Japanese can
believe is that which is based wpor\, treaties and the pledged
word. That is the principle which underlies the general policy
and the present strivings of our Far Eastern ally.
One of the characteristic traits of all Nippon's dealings with
her neighbours is loyalty and trustworthiness. Her intercourse
with Russia before and after the Manchurian campaign offers a
shining example of all the qualities which one would postulate
in a true-hearted neighbour and a staunch and chivalrous ally.
I had an opportunity of watching the development of the rela-
tions between the two Governments for many years before they
quarrelled, and subsequently down to 1914, and I can state that
the praise lavished by the Tsar's Ministers on their Japanese
colleagues was well deserved. And for that reason it may be
taken as an axiom that whatever developments the present
situation may bring forth, the Empire of Nippon will carry out
all its engagements with scrupulous exactitude, in the spirit as
well as the letter.
To be quite frank, then, the Japanese are what we should term
realists. Consequently their foreign policy is inspired by the
maxims which actuated all nations down to the year 1914, and
still move nearly all of them to-day. In fact, the only Powers
that have fully and authoritatively repudiated them as yet are
Bolshevist Russia and to a large extent the United States.
Holding thus to the old dispensation, Japan entered the war in
response to a definite demand made by the British Government.
The day before Britain declared war against Germany the British
Ambassador at Tokyo officially inquired whether his Government
273 18*
The Peace Conference
could count upon the active co-operation of the Mikado's forces
in the campaign about to begin. On August 4th Baron Kato,
having in the meanwhile consulted his colleagues, answered in
the affirmative. Three days later another communication reached
Tokyo from London, requesting the immediate co-operation of
Japan, and on the following day it was promised. The motive
for this haste was credibly asserted to be Britain's apprehension
lest Germany should transfer Kiao Chow to China, and reserve
to herself, in virtue of Article V. of the Convention of 1898, the
right of securing after the war " a more suitable territory "jn
the Middle Empire or Republic. Thereupon they began opera-
tions which were at first restricted to the China Seas, but were
afterwards extended to the Pacific and Indian oceans, and finally
to the Mediterranean. The only task that feU to their lot on
land was that of capturing Kiao Chow. But whatever they set
their hands to they carried out thoroughly, and to the complete
satisfaction of their European aUies.
For many years the people of Nippon have been wending
slowly, but with tireless perseverance and unerring instinct,
towards their far-off goal, which to the unbiassed historian will
seem not merely legitimate but praiseworthy. Their inter-
course with Russia was the story of one long laborious endeavour
to found a common concern which should enable Japan to make
headway on her mission. Russia was just the kind of partner
whose co-operation was especially welcome, seeing that it could
be had without the hitches and set-backs attached to that of most
other Great Powers. The Russians were never really intolerant
in racial matters, nor dangerous in commercial rivalry. They
intermarried freely with all the so-called inferior races and tribes
in the Tsardom, and put all on an equal footing before the law.
Twenty-three years ago I paid a visit to my friend. General
Tomitch, the Military Governor of Kars, and I found myself
sitting at his table beside the Prefect of the city, who was a Mo-
hammedan. The individual Russian is generally free from racial
prejudices ; he has no sense of the " yellow peril," and no objec-
tion to receive the Japanese as a comrade, a colleague, or a son-
in-law,
276
Japan
And the advances made by Ito and others would have been
reciprocated by Witte and Lamsdorff, were it not that the Tsar,
interested in Bezobrazoff's Yalu venture, subordinated his policy
to those vested interests, and compelled Japan to fight. The
master-idea of the policy of Ito, with whom I had two interesting
conversations on the subject, was to strike up a close friendship
with the Tsardom, based on community of durable interests, and
to bespeak Russia's help for the hour of storm and stress which
one day might strike. The Tsar's Government was inspired by
analogous motives. Before the war was terminated I repaired
to London on behalf of Russia, in order to propose to the Japanese
Government, in addition to the treaty of peace which was about
to be discussed at Portsmouth, an offensive and defensive alliance,
and to ask that Prince Ito be sent as first plenipotentiary, invested
with full powers to conclude such a treaty.
M. Izvolsky's policy towards Japan, frank and statesmanlike,
had an offensive and a defensive alliance for its intended culmina-
tion, and the treaties and conventions which he actually con-
cluded with Viscount Motono, in drafting which I played a
modest part, amounted almost to this. The Tsar's opposition
to the concessions which represented Russia's share of the
compromise was a tremendous obstacle, which only the threat
of the Minister's resignation finally overcame. And Izvolsky's
energy and insistence hastened the conclusion of a treaty be-
tween them to maintain and respect the status quo in Man-
churia, and, in case it were menaced, to concert with each other
the measures they might deem necessary for the maintenance
of the status quo. And it was no longer stipulated, as it had been
before, that these measures must have a pacific character. They
were prepared to go further. And I may now reveal the fact
that the treaty had a secret clause, providing for the action which
Russia afterwards took in Mongolia.
These transactions one might term the first act of the inter-
national drama which is still proceeding. They indicate, if they
did not shape, the mould in which the bronze of Japan's poUtical
programme was cast. It necessarily differed from other politics,
although the maxims underlying it were the same. Japan,
277
The Peace Conference
having become a Great Power after her war with China, was
slowly developing into a world Power, and hoped to establish her
claim to that position one day. It was against that day that she
would fain have acquired a puissant and trustworthy aUy, and
she left nothing undone to deserve the whole-hearted support
of Russia. In the historic year 1914, many months before the
storm-cloud broke, the War Minister Sukhomlinoff transferred
nearly all the garrisons from Siberia to Europe, because he had
had assurances from Japan which warranted him in thus denuding
the eastern border of troops. During the campaign, when the
Russian offensive broke down, and the armies of the enemy were
driving the Tsar's troops like sheep before them, Japan hastened
to the assistance of her neighbour, to whom she threw open her
military arsenals and many private establishments as well.
And when the Petrograd Cabinet was no longer able to meet
the financial liabilities incurred, the Mikado's advisers devised
a generous arrangement on lines which brought both countries
into still closer and more friendly relations.
The most influential daily Press organ in the Tsardom, the
Novoye Vremya, wrote : " The war with Germany has supphed
our Asiatic neighbour with an opportunity of proving the sin-
cerity of her friendly assurances. She behaves not merely like
a good friend, but like a staunch military ally. ... In the
interests of the future tranquil development of Japan a more
active participation of the Japanese is requisite in the war of the
nations against the world-beast of prey. An alliance with Russia
for the attainment of this object would be an act of immense
historic significance."*
Ever since her entry into the community of progressive nations,
Japan's main aspiration and striving has been to play a leading
and a civilizing part in the Far East, and in especial to determine
China by advice and organization to move into hne with herself,
adopt Western methods and apply them to Far-Eastern aims.
And this might well seem a legitimate as well as a profitable
policy, and a task as noble as most of those to which the world
is wont to pay a tribute of high praise. It appeared all the more
* Novoye Vremya, June i3-26th, 1915.
278
Japan
licit that the Powers of Europe, with the exception of Russia,
had denied full political rights to the coloured alien. He was
placed in a category apart — an inferior class member of humanity.
" In Japan, and as yet in Japan alone, do we find the Asiatic
welcoming European culture, in which, if a tree may fairly be
judged by its fruit, is to be found the best prospect for the human
personal liberty, in due combination with restraints of law suffi-
cient to, but not in excess of, the requirements of the general wel-
fare. In this particular distinctiveness of characteristic, which
has thus differentiated the receptivity of the Japanese from that
of the continental Asiatic, we may perhaps see the influence of the
insular environment that has permitted and favoured the evolu-
tion of a strong national personality ; and in the same condition
we may not err in finding a promise of power to preserve and to
propagate, by example and by influence, among those akin to her,
the new policy which she has adopted, and by which she has
profited, affording to them the example which she herself has found
in the development of European peoples."*
Now that is exactly what the Japanese aimed at accomplishing.
They were desirous of contributing to the intellectual and moral
advance of the Chinese and other backward peoples of the Far
East, in the same way as France is laudably desirous of aiding
the Syrians, or Great Britain the Persians. And what is more,
Japan undertook to uphold the principle of the open door, and
generally to respect the legitimate interests of European peoples
in the Far East.
But the white races had economic designs of their own on China,
and one of the preliminary conditions of their execution was that
Japan's aspirations should be foiled. Witte opened the cam-
paign by inaugurating the process of peaceful penetration, but
his remarkable efforts were neutralized and defeated by his own
Sovereign. The Japanese, after the Manchurian campaign, which
they had done everything possible to avoid, contrived wholly to
eliminate Russian aggression from the Far East. The feat was
arduous and the masterly way in which it was tackled and achieved
sheds a lustre on Japanese statesmanship as personified by Vis-
♦ Cf. " The Problem of Asia " (Capt. A. T. Mahan), pp. 150-151.
279
The Peace Conference
count Motono. The Tsardom, in lieu of a potential enemy, was
transformed into a staunch and powerful friend and ally, on whom
Nippon could, as she believed, rely against future aggressors.
Russia came to stand towards her in the same political relation-
ship as towards France. Japanese statesmen took the alliance with
the Tsardom as> solid and durable postulate of their foreign policy.
All at once the Tsardom fell to pieces like a house of cards,
and the fragments that emerged from the ruins possessed neither
the will nor the power to stand by their Far Eastern neighbours.
The fruits of twelve years' statesmanship and heavy sacrifices
were swept away by the Russian Revolution, and Japan's diplo-
matic position was therefore worse beyond coftipare than that
of the French Repubhc in July, 1917, because the latter was forth-
with sustained by Great Britain and the United States, with
such abundance of military and economic resources as made up
in the long run for that of Russia. Japan, on the other hand, has
as yet no substitute for her prostrate ally. She is still alone
among Powers some of whom decline to recognize her equality,
while others are ready to thwart her policy and disable her for
the coming race.
The Japanese are firm believers in the law of causaUty. Where
they desire to reap, there they first sow. They invariably strive
to deal with a situation while there is still time to modify it, and
they take pains to render the means adequate to the end. Un-
like the peoples of Western Europe and the United States, the
Japanese show a profound respect for the principles of authority
and inequality, and reserve the higher functions in the community
for men of the greatest ability and attainments. It is a fact,
however, that individual liberty has made perceptible progress
in the population, and is still growing, owing to the increase of
economic well-being and the spread of general and technical
education. But although Socialism is likewise spreading fast, I
feel inclined to think that in Japan a high grade of instruction
and of social development on latter-day lines will be found
compatible with that extraordinary cohesiveness to which the
race owes the position which it occupies among the communities
of the world. The soul of the individual Japanese may be said
280
Japan
to float in an atmosphere of collectivity, which, while leaving his
intellect intact, sways his sentiments and modifies his character
by rendering him impressible to motives of an order which has the
weal of the race for its object.
Japan has borrowed what seemed to her leaders to be the
best of everything in foreign countries. They analyzed the
military, political and industrial successes of their friends and
enemies, satisfactorily explained and duly fructified them. They
use the school as the seed-plot of the State, and inculcate con-
ceptions there which the entire community endeavours later on
to embody in acts and institutions. And what the elementary
school has begun, the intermediate, the technical and the high
schools develop and perfect, aided by the Press, which is encour-
aged by the State.
Japan's ideal cannot be off-handedly condemned as immoral,
pernicious or illegitimate. Its partisans pertinently invoke
every principle which their Allies applied to their own aims and
strivings. And men of deeper insight than those who preside
over the fortunes of the Entente to-day recognize that Europeans
of high principles and discerning minds, who perceive the central
issues, would, were they in the position of the Japanese statesmen,
likewise bend their energies to the achievement of the same aims.
The Japanese argue their case somewhat as follows :
" We are determined to help China to put herself in line with
ourselves, and to keep her from falling into anarchy. And no one
can honestly deny our qualifications. We and they have very
much in common, and we understand them as no Anglo-Saxon
or other foreign people can. On the one hand our own past
experience resembles that of the Middle Kingdom, and on the
other our method of adapting ourselves to the new international
conditions challenged and received the ungrudging admiration
of a world disposed to be critical. The Pekin treaties of May,
1915, between China and Japan, and the pristine drafts of them
which were modified before signature, enable the outsider to
form a fairly accurate opinion of Japan's economic and political
programme, which amounts to the application of a Far-Eastern
Monroe Doctrine.
281
The Peace Conference
" What we seek to obtain in the Far East is what the Western
Powers have secured throughout the remainder of the globe :
the right to contribute to the moral and intellectual progress of
our backward neighbours, and to profit by our exertions. China
needs the help which we are admittedly able to bestow. To our
mission no cogent objection has ever been offered. No Cabinet
in Tokyo has ever looked upon the Middle Realm as a possible
colony for the Japanese. The notion is preposterous, seeing that
China is already over-populated. What Japan sorely needs are
sources whence to draw coal and iron for industrial enterprise.
She also needs cotton and leather."
In truth, the ever-ready command of these raw materials at
their sources, which must be neither remote nor subject to po-
tential enemies, is indispensable to the success of Japan's develop-
ment. But for the moment the English-speaking nations have
a veto upon them, in virtue of possession, and the embargo put
by the United States Government upon the export of steel during
the war caused a profound emotion in Nippon. For the ship-
building works there had increased in number from nine before
the war to twelve in 1917, and to twenty-eight at the beginning
of 1918, with 100 slips capable of producing 600,000 tons of net
register. The effect of that embargo was to shut down between
70 and 80 per cent, of the shipbuilding works of the country, and
to menace with extinction an industry which was bringing io
immense profits.
It was with these antecedents and aims that Japan appeared
before the Conference in Paris and asked, not for something which
she lacked before, but merely for the confirmation of what she
already possessed by treaty. It must be admitted that she had
damaged her cause by the manner in which that treaty had been
obtained. To say that she had intimidated the Chinese, instead
of coaxing them, or bargaining with them, would be a truism.
The fall of Tsingtao gave her a favourable opportunity, and she
used and misused it unjustifiably. The demands in themselves
were open to discussion, and if one weighs all the circumstances,
would not deserve a classification different from some of those—
the protection of minorities or the transit proviso, for example—
282
Japan
imposed by the greater on the lesser nations at the Conference.
But the mode in which they were pressed irritated the susceptible
Chinese and belied the professions made by the Mikado's Minis-
ters. The secrecy, too, with which the Tokyo Cabinet endea-
voured to surround them warranted the worst construction.
Yuan Shi Kai* regarded the procedure as a deadly insult to him-
self and his country. And the circumstance that the Japanese
Government failed either to foresee or to avoid this amazing psy-
chological blunder lent colour to the objections of those who
questioned Japan's qualifications for the mission she had set
herself. The wound inflicted on China by that exhibition of
insolence will not soon heal. How it reacted may be inferred
from the strenuous and well-calculated opposition of the Chinese
Delegation at the Conference.
Nor was that all. In the summer of 1916 a free fight occurred
between Chinese and Japanese soldiers in Cheng-Cha-tun, the
rights and wrongs of which were, as is usual in such cases, obscure.
But the Okuma Cabinet, assuming that the Chinese were to blame,
pounced upon the incident and made it the base of fresh demands
to China, f two of which were manifestly excessive. That China
would be better off than she is or is otherwise likely to become
under Japanese guidance is in the highest degree probable. But
in order that that guidance should be effective it must be
accepted, and this can only be the consequence of such a policy
of cordiality, patience and magnanimity as was outlined by my
friend the late Viscount Motono.J
At the Conference the policy of the Japanese Delegates was
clear-cut and coherent. It may be summarized as follows :
The Japanese Delegation decided to give its entire support to the
Allies in all matters concerning the future relations of Germany
and Russia, Western Europe, the Balkans and the African colonies,
as well as financial indemnities and reparations. The fate of the
* The late President of the Chinese Republic.
t These demands were (ij an apology from the Chinese authorities ; (2) an
indemnity for the killed and wounded ; (3) the policing of certain districts of
Manchuria by the Japanese and (4) the employment of Japanese officers to train
Chinese troops in Manchuria.
J Minister of Foreign Affairs. He repudiated his predecessor's policy.
283
The Peace Conference
Samoan Archipelago must be determined in accord with Britain
and the United States. New Guinea should be allotted to Aus-
tralia. As the Marshall, Caroline and Ladrone Islands, although
of no intrinsic value, would constitute a danger in Germany's
hands, they should be taken over by Japan. Tsingtao and the
port of Kiao Chow should belong to Japan, as well as the Tainan
railway. Japan would co-operate with the AUies in maintaining
order in Siberia, but no Power should arrogate to itself a prepon-
derant voice in the matter of obtaining concessions or other
interests there. Lastly, the principle of the open door was to
be upheld in China, Japan being admittedly the Power which
is the most interested in the establishment and maintenance of
peace in the Far East.
At the Conference, when the Kiao Chow dispute came up for
discussion, the Japanese attitude, according to their Anglo-Saxon
and French colleagues, was calm and dignified, their language
courteous, their arguments were put with studied moderation
and their resolve to have their treaty rights recognized was in-
flexible. Their case was simple enough, and under the old order-
ing unanswerable. The only question was whether it would be
invahdated by the new dispensation. But as the United States
had obtained recognition for its Monroe doctrine, Britain for the
supremacy of the sea, and France for the occupation of the Saar
Valley and the suspension of the right of self-determination in
the case of Austria, it was obvious that Japan had abundant and
cogent arguments for her demands, which were that the Chinese
territory once held by Germany, and since wrested from that
Power by Japan, be formally retroceded to Japan, whose claim
to it rested upon the right of conquest and also upon the faith
of treaties which she had concluded with China. At the same
time she expressly and spontaneously disclaimed the intention of
keeping that territory for herself. Baron Makino said at the
peace table :
" The acquisition of territory belonging to one nation which
it is the intention of the country acquiring it to exploit to its sole
advantage is not conducive to amity or good will." Japan,
although by the fortune of war Germany's heir to Kiao Chow
284
Japan
did not purpose retaining it for the remaining term of the lease,
she had, in fact, already promised to restore it to China. She
maintained, however, that the conditions of retrocession should
form the subject of a general settlement between Tokyo and
Pekin.
The Chinese Delegation, which worked vigorously and indefatig-
ably and won over a considerable number of backers, argued that
Kiao Chow had ceased to belong to Germany on the day when
China declared war on that State, inasmuch as all their treaties,
including the lease of Kiao Chow, were abrogated by that declara-
tion, and the ownership of every rood of Chinese territory held
by Germany reverted in law to China, and should therefore be
handed over to her, and not to Japan. To this plea Baron Makino
returned the answer that with the surrender of Tsingtao to
Japan in 1914* the whole imperial German Protectorates of
Shantung had passed to that Power, China being still a neutral.
Consequently the entry of China into the war in 1917 could not
affect the status of the province which already belonged to Nippon
by right of conquest. As a matter of alleged fact, this capture
of the protectorates by the Japanese had been specially desired
by the British Government, in order to prevent Germany from
ceding it to China. If that move meant anything, therefore, it
meant that neither China nor Germany had or could have any
hold on the territory once it was captured by Japan. Further,
this conquest was effected at the cost of vast sums of money, and
two thousand Japanese lives.
Nor was that all. In the year 1915! China signed an agree-
ment with Japan, undertaking " to recognize all matters that
may be agreed upon between the Japanese Government and the
German Government respecting the disposition of all the rights,
interests and concessions which in virtue of treaties or otherwise,
Germany possesses vis-d-vis China, in relation to the province of
Shantung." This treaty, the Chinese Delegates answered,
was extorted by force. Japan, having vainly sought to obtain
it by negotiations that lasted nearly four months, finally presented
an ultimatumj, giving China forty-eight hours in which to accept
* 8th November. f ^Sth May, 1915. { On 6tli May, 1915.
285
The Peace Conference
it. She had no alternative. But at least she made it known
to the world that she was being coerced. It was on the day on
which that document was signed that the Japanese representa-
tive in Pekiri sent a spontaneous declaration to the Chinese
Minister of Foreign Affairs, promising to return the leased terri-
tory to China, on condition that all Kiao Chow be opened as a
commercial port, that a Japanese settlement be estabUshed, and
also an mtemational settlement, if the Powers desired it, and that
an arrangement be made beforehand between the Chinese and
Japanese Governments with regard to " the disposal of German
pubhc estabUshments and populations, and with regard to other
conditions and procedures."
The Japanese further invoked another and later agreement
which was, they alleged, signed by the Chinese without demur.*
This accord, coming after the entry of China into the war, was
tantamount to the renunciation of any rights which China might
have believed she possessed as a corollary of her belligerency.
It also disposed, the Japanese argued, of her contention that the
territory in question is indispensable and vital to her — a conten-
tion which Japan met -with the promise to dehver it up— and
which was invalidated by China's refusal to fight for it in the year
1914. This latter argument was controverted by the Chinese
assertion that they were ready and willing to declare war against
Germany at the outset, but that their co-operation was refused
by the Entente, and subsequently by Japan. This allegation
is credible, if we remember the eagerness exhibited by the British
Government that Japan should lose no time in co-operating with
her allies, the representations made by the British Ambassador
to Baron Kato on the subject,! and the alleged motive to prevent
the retrocession of Shantung to China by the German Govern-
ment.
The arguments of China and Japan were summarily put in
the following questions by a Delegate of each country. " Yes
or no, does Kiao Chow, whose population is exclusively Chmese,
form an integral part of the Chinese State ? Yes or no, was Kiao
Chow brutally occupied by the Kaiser in the teeth of right and
♦ On September 24*^ «Sll8- t On August 7th. 1914-
286
Japan
justice, and to the detriment of the peace of the Far East, and it
may be of the world ? Yes or no, did Japan enter the war against
the aggressive imperialism of the German Empire, and for the
purpose of arranging a lasting peace in the Far East ? Yes or
no, was Kiao Chow captured by the English and Japanese troops
in 1914 with the sole object of destroying a dangerous naval base ?
Yes or no, was China's co-operation against Germany, which was
advocated and offered by President Yuan Shi Kai in August,
1914, refused at the instigation of Japan ? "*
The Japanese catechism ran thus : " Yes or no, was Kiao Chow
a German possession in the year 1914 ? Yes or no, was the world,
including the United States, a consenting party to the occupation
of that province by the Germans ? Why did China, who to-day
insists that that port is indispensable to her, cede it to Germany ?
Why in 1914 did she make no effort to recover it, but leave this
task to the Japanese army ? Further, who can maintain that
juridically the last war abolished ipso facto all the cessions of
territory previously effected ? Turkey formerly ceded Cyprus to
Great Britain. Will it be argued that this cession is abrogated,
and that Cyprus must return to Turkey directly and uncondi-
tionally ? The Conference announced repeatedly that it took its
stand on justice and the welfare of the peoples. It is in the
name of the welfare of the peoples, as well as in the name of
justice, that we assert our right to take over Kiao Chow. The
harvest to him whose hands soweth the seed."t
If we add to all these conflicting data the circumstance that
Great Britain, France and Russia had undertaken^ to support
Japan's demands at the Conference, and that Italy had promised
to raise no objection, we shall have a tolerable notion of the various
* Cf. Le Matin, 25th April, 1919.
I Le Matin, 23rd April, 1919.
J " His Majesty's Government accede with pleasure to the requests of the
Japanese Government for assurances 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 a Peace Conference, it being understood
that the Japanese Government will, in the event of a peace settlement, treat
in the same spiiit Great Britain's claims to German islands south of the Equator."
(Signed) Conyngham Greene, British Ambassador, Tokyo, February i6th, 1917.
France gave a similar assurance in writing on March ist, 1917, and the Russian
Government had made a like declaration on February 20th, 1917.
287
The Peace Conference
factors of the Chino- Japanese dispute, and of its bearings on the
peace treaty and on the principles of the Covenant. It was one
of the many illustrations of the incompatibility of the Treaty
and the Covenant, the respective scopes of which were radically
and irreconcilably different. The Supreme Council had to
adjudicate upon the matter from the point of view either of the
Treaty or of the Covenant ; as part of a vulgar bargain of the
old, unregenerate days, or as an example of the self-renuncia-
tion of the new ethical system. The majority of the Council
was pledged to the former way of contemplating it, and having
already promulgated a number of decrees running counter to the
Covenant doctrine in favour of their own peoples, could not logi-
cally nor politically make an exception to the detriment of Japan.
What actually happened at the peace table is still a secret,
and President Wilson, who knows its nature, holds that it is in
the best interests of humanity that it should so remain ! The
little that has as yet been disclosed comes mainly from State-
Secretary Lansing's answers to the questions put by the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee. America's second Delegate, in
answer to the questions with which he was there plied, afi&rmed
that " President Wilson alone approved the Shantung decision,
that the other members of the American Delegation made no
protest against it, and that President Wilson alone knows whether
Japan has guaranteed to return Shantung to China."* Another
eminent American, who claims to have been present when Presi-
dent Wilson's act was officially explained to the Chinese Dele-
gates, states that the President, disclosing to them his motives,
pleaded that political exigencies, the menace that Japan would
abandon the Conference, and the rumour that England herself
might withdraw, had constrained him to accept the Shantung
settlement in order to save the League, f Rumours appear to
* As a matter of fact, the entire world knew and knows that she had guaran.
teed the retrocession. Baron Makino declared it at the Conference. Cf. The
(Londonj Times, 13th February, 1919 ; also on May Sth, 1919 ; and Viscount
Uchida confirmed it on May 17th, 1919. It had also been stated in the Japanese
ultimatum to Germany, August isth, 1914, and repeated by Viscount Uchida
at the beginning of August, 1919.
t Mr. Thomas Millard, some of whose letters were published by the New York
Times. Cf. Le Temps, July 29th, 1919.
288
Japan
have played an undue part in the Conference, influencing the judg-
ment or the decisions of the Supreme Council. The reader will
remember that it was a rumour to the effect that the "Italian
Government had already published a decree annexing Fiume
that is alleged to have precipitated the quarrel between Mr.
Wilson and the first Italian Delegation. It is worth noting that
the alleged menace that Japan would quit the Conference if her
demands were rejected was not regarded by Secretary Lansing
as serious. " Could Japan's signature to the League have been
obtained without the Shantung decision ? " he was asked. " I
think so," he answered.
The decision caused tremendous excitement among the Chinese
and their numerous friends. At first they professed scepticism
and maintained that there must be some misunderstanding, and
finally they protested and refused to sign the Treaty. One of the
American journals published in Paris wrote : " Shantung was
at least a moral explosion. It blew down the front of the
temple, and now everybody can see that behind the front there
was a very busy market. The morals were the morals of a horse
trade. If the muezzin were loud and constant in his calls to
prayer, it probably was to drown the sound of the dickering in
the market. There is no longer any obligation upon this nation
to accept the Covenant as a moral document. It is not."*
All that may be perfectly true, but it sounds odd that the dis-
covery should not have been made until Japan's claim was ad-
mitted formally to take over Shantung, after she had solemnly
promised to restore it to China. The Covenant was certainly
transgressed long before this, and much more flagrantly than by
President Wilson's endorsement of Japan's demand for the formal
retrocession of Shantung. But by those infractions nobody
seemed scandalized. Quod licet Jovi non licet bovi. Debts of
gratitude had to be paid at the expense of the Covenant, and
people closed their eyes or their lips. It was not until the
Japanese asked for something which all her European allies con-
sidered to be her right that an outcry was raised and moral
principles were invoked.
* Chicago Tribune (Paris EditionJ, 20th August, 1919.
289 19
The Peace Conference
The Japanese Press was nowise jubilant over the finding of the
Supreme Council. The journals of all parties argued that
their country was receiving no more than had already been
guaranteed to it by China, and ratified by the AlUes before the
Peace Conference met, and to have obtained what was already
hers by rights of conquest and of treaties was anything but a
triumph. What Japan desired, was to have herself recognized
practically, not merely in theory, as the nation which is the most
nearly interested in China, and therefore deserving of a special
status there. In other words, she aimed at the proclamation of
something in the nature of a Far Eastern doctrine analogous to
that of Monroe. As priority of interest had been conceded to her
by the Ishii-Lansing Agreement with the United States, it was in
this sense that her Press was fain to construe the clause respecting
non-interference with " regional understandings."
That policy is open. The principles underlsdng it, always
tenable, were never more so than since the Peace Conference set
the Great Powers to direct the lesser States. Moreover, Japan,
it is argued, knows by experience that China has always been a
temptation to the Western peoples. They sent expeditions to fight
her and divided her territory into zones of influence, although
China was never guilty of an aggressive attitude towards them,
as she was towards Japan. They were actuated by land greed,
and all that that implies, and if China were abandoned to her own
resources to-morrow, she would surely fall a prey to her Western
protectors. In this connection they point to an incident which
took place during the Conference, when Signor Tittoni demanded
that Italy should receive the Austrian concession in Tientsin,
which adjoins the Italian concession. But Viscount Chinda
protested and the demand was ruled out. To sum up, the broad
maxim underlying Japan's policy as defined by her own repre-
sentatives is that in the resettlement of the world, the principle
adopted, whether the old or the new, shall be applied fairly and
impartially at least to all the Great Powers.
Every world conflict has marked the close of one epoch and the
opening of another. Into the melting-pot on the fire kindled by
the war many momentous problems have been flung, any one of
290
Japan
which would have sufficed to bring about a new political, economic
and social constellation. Japan's advance along the road of
progress is one of these far-ranging innovations. She became a
Great Power in the wars against China and Russia, and is qualify-
ing for the part of a world-Power to-day. And her statesmen
affirm that in order to achieve her purpose she will recoil from no
sacrifice except those of honour and of truth.
291 19*
CHAPTER X
ATTITUDE TOWARDS RUSSIA
IN their dealings with Russia the principal plenipotentiaries
consistently displayed the qualities and employed the
standards, maxims and methods which had stood them in good
stead as parliamentary politicians. The betterment of the world
was an idea which took a separate position in their minds, quite
apart from the other political ideas with which they usually
operated. Overflowing with verbal altruism, they first made
sure of the political and economic interests of their own coun-
tries, safeguarding or extending these sources of power, after
which they proceeded to try their novel experiment on communi-
ties which they could coerce into obedience. Hence the aversion
and opposition which they encountered among all the nations
which had to submit to the yoke, and more especially among the
Russians.
Russia's opposition, widespread and deep-rooted, is natural,
and history will probably add that it was justified. It starts
from the assumption which there is no gainsaying, that the
Conference was convoked to make peace between the belligerents
and that whatever territorial changes it might introduce must
be restricted to the countries of the defeated peoples. From all
" disannexations " not only the Allies' territories but those of
neutrals were to be exempted. Repudiate this principle and
the demands of Ireland, Egypt, India to the benefits of self-
determination became unanswerable. Belgium's claim to Dutch
Limburg and other territorial oddments must Ukewise be allowed.
Indeed, the plea actually put forward against these was that the
293
Attitude towards Russia
Conference was incompetent to touch any territory actually
possessed by either neutral or allied States. Ireland, Egypt,
and Dutch Limburg were all domestic matters with which the
Conference had no concern.
Despite this fundamental principle Russia, the whilom ally,
without whose superhuman efforts and heroic sacrifices her
partners would have been pulverized, was tacitly relegated to the
category of hostile and defeated peoples, and many of her pro-
vinces lopped off arbitrarily and without appeal. None of her
representatives were convoked or consulted on the subject,
although all of them, Bolshevist and anti-Bolshevist, were at one
in their resistance to foreign dictation.
The Conference repeatedly disclaimed any intention of meddling
in the internal affairs of any other State, and the Irish, the Egyp-
tian, and several other analogous problems were for the purposes
of the Conference included in this category. On what intelli-
gible grounds, then, were the Finnish, the Lettish, the Esthonian,
the Georgian, the Ukrainian problems excluded from it ? One
cannot conceive a more flagrant violation of the sovereignty
of a State than the severance and disposal of its territorial pos-
sessions against its will. It is a frankly hostile act, and as such
was rightly limited by the Conference to enemy countries. Why,
then, was it extended to the ex-ally ? Is it not clear that if
reconstituted Russia should regard the Allied States as enemies and
choose the potential enemies of these as its friends, it will be legiti-
mately applying the principles laid down by the Allies them-
selves ? No expert in international law and no person of average
common sense will seriously maintain that any of the decisions
reached in Paris are binding on the Russia of the future. No
problem which concerns two equal parties can be rightfully
decided by only one of them. The Conference which declared
itself incompetent to impose on Holland the cession to Belgium,
even of a small strip of territory on one of the banks of the Belgian
river Scheldt, cannot be deemed authorized to sign away vast
provinces that belonged to Russia. Here the plea of the self-
determination of peoples possesses just as much or as little cogency
as in the case of Ireland and Egypt.
293
The Peace Conference
President Wilson and Mr. Lloyd George had inaugurated their
East European policy by publicly proclaiming that Russiawas the
key to the world situation, and that the peace would be no peace
so long as her hundred and fifty million inhabitants were left
floundering in chaotic confusion, under the upas shade of Bol-
shevism. They had also held out hopes to their great ex-ally of
efficient help and practical counsel. And there ended what may
be termed the constructive side of their conceptions.
It was followed by no coherent action. Discourses, promises,
manoeuvres and counter-manoeuvres were continuous and bewil-
dering, but of systematic policy there was none. Statesmanship
in the higher sense of the word was absent from every decision
the Delegates took, and from every suggestion they proffered.
Nor was it only by omission that they sinned. Their invincible
turn for circuitous methods, to which severer critics give a less
sonorous name, was manifested ad nauseam. They worked out
cunning little schemes which it was hard to distinguish from
intrigues, and which, if they had not been foiled in time, would
have made matters even worse than they were. From the outset
the British Government was for summoning Bolshevist delegates
to the Conference. A Note to this effect was sent by the London
Foreign Office to the Allied Governments about a fortnight before
the Delegates began their work of making peace. But the sug-
gestion was withdrawn at the instance of the French, who doubted
whether the services of systematic law-breakers would materially
conduce to the establishment of a new society of law-abiding
States. Soon afterwards another scheme cropped up, this time
for the appointment of an inter-allied committee to watch over
Russia's destinies and serve as a sort of board of Providence.
The representatives of the anti-Bolshevist Governments resented
this notion bitterly. They remarked that they could not be
fairly asked to respect decisions imposed on them exactly as
though they were vanquished enemies like the Germans. The
British and American Delegates were swayed in their views
mainly by the assumptions that all Central Russia was in the
power of Lenin ; that his army was well disciplined and power-
ful ; that he might contrive to hold the reins of government and
294
Attitude towards Russia
maintain anarchism indefinitely, and that the so-called construc-
tive elements were inclined towards reactioa
In other words, the Delegates accepted two sets of premisses,
from which they drew two wholly different sets of conclusions.
Now they felt impelled to act on the one, now on the other, but
they could never make up their minds to carry out either. They
agreed that Bolshevism is a potent solvent of society, fraught
with peril to all organized communities, yet they could not resolve
to use joint action to extirpate it.* They recognized that so
long as it lasted there was no hope of establishing a community
of nations, but they discarded military intervention on grounds
of their own internal policy, and because it ran counter to the
principle of self-determination. Over against that principle,
however, one had to set the circumstance that they were already
intermeddling in Russian affairs in Archangel, Murmansk,
Odessa and elsewhere, and that they ended by creating a new
State and Government in North- Western Russia, against which
Koltchak and Denikin vehemently protested.
In mitigation of judgment it is only fair to take into account
the tremendous difficulties that faced them ; their unfamiliarity
with the Russian problem ; the want of a touchstone by which
to test the overwhelming mass of conflicting information which
poured in upon them ; their constitutional lack of moral courage,
and the circumstance that they were striving to reconcile contra-
dictories. Without chart or compass, they drifted into strange
and sterile courses, beginning with the Prinkipo incident and
ending with the written examination to which they naively sub-
jected Koltchak in order to legalize international relations,
which could not truly be described as either war or peace. Neither
the causes of Bolshevism in its morbid manifestations nor the
unformulated ideas underlying whatever positive aspect it may be
supposed to possess, nor the conditions governing its slow but
perceptible evolution, were so much as glanced at, ' much less
studied, by the statesmen who blithely set about dealing with it
* " From whatever angle this Russian business is viewed, the policy of the
Allies, if it can be dignified with that name, seems to be a compound of weakness,
ineptitude, and shilly-shally." — Cf. Westminster Gazette, July 5th, 1919.
295
The Peace Conference
now by military force, now by economic pressure, and fitfully by
tentative forbearance and hints to its leaders of forthcoming
recognition.
One cannot thus play fast and loose with the destinies of a
community composed of 150,000,000 people, whose members
are but slackly linked together by a few tenuous social bonds,
without forfeiting the right to offer them real guidance. And a
blind man is a poor guide to those who can see. Alone the
Americans were equipped with carefully tabulated statistics and
huge masses of facts which they poured out as lavishly as coal-
heavers hurl the contents of their sacks into the cellar. But they
put them to no practical use. Losing themselves in a labjnrinth
of details, they failed to get a comprehensive view of the whole.
The other Delegations lacked both data and general ideas. And
all the Allies were destitute of a powerful army in the East, and
therefore of the means of asserting the authority which they
assumed.
They one and all dealt in vague theories and deceptive analo-
gies, paying little heed to the ever-shifting necessities of time,
place and peoples, and indeed to the only conditions under which
any new maxims could be fruitfully applied. And even such
rules as they laid down were restricted and modified in accordance
with their own countries' interests or their unavowed aims,
without specific warrant or explanation. No account was taken
of the historical needs or aspirations of the people for whom they
were legislating, as though all nations were of the same age, capable
of the same degree of culture and impressible to identical motives.
It never seemed to have crossed their minds that races and peoples,
like individuals, have a soul, or that what is meat to one may be
poison to another.
One of the most Ententophil and moderate Press organs in
France put the matter forcibly and plainly as follows : " The
Governments of Washington and of London are aware that we
are immutably attached to the alliance with them. But we owe
them the truth. Far too often they make a bad choice of the
agents whose business it is to keep them informed, and they
affect too much disdain for friendly suggestions which emanate
296
Attitude towards Russia
from any other source. American agents, in particular, civil
as well as military, explore Europe much as their forbears
' prospected ' the Far West, and they look upon the most
ancient nations of Europe as Iroquois, Comanches or Aztecs.
They are astounded at not finding everything on the old Conti-
nent as in New York or Chicago, and they set to work to reform
Europe according to the rules in force in Oklahoma or Colorado.
Now we venture respectfully to point out to them that methods
differ with countries. In the United States the colonists were
wont to set fire to the forests in order to clear and fertilize the
land. Certain American agents recommend the employment in
Europe of an analogous procedure in political matters. They
rejoice to behold the Russian and Hungarian forests burst into
flame. In Lenin, Trotzky, Bela Kuhn they appreciate useful
pioneers of the new civilization. We crave their permission to
view these things from another side. In old Europe one cannot
set fire to the forests without at the same time burning villages
and cities."*
Before and during the armistice, I was in almost constant touch
with all Russian parties within the country and without, and
received detailed accounts of the changing conditions of the
people, which, although conflicting in many details, enabled me
to form a tolerably correct picture of the trend of things and to
forecast what was coming.
Among other communications I received proposals from Moscow
with the request that I should present them to one of the British
Delegates, who was supposed to be then taking an active interest,
or at any rate playing a prominent part, in the reconstruction of
Russia, less for her own sake than for that of the general peace.
But as it chanced, the eminent statesman lacked the leisure to
take cognizance of the proposal, the object of which was to hit
upon such a modus vivendi with Russia as would enable her
united peoples to enter upon a normal course of national exist-
ence without further delay. Incidentally it would have put an
end to certain conversations then going forward with a view to a
friendly understanding between Russia and Germany. It would
* Cf. Journal des Dibats, 13th August, 1919. Artie e by M. Auguste Gauvain.
297
The Peace Conference
also, I had reason to believe, have divided the speculative Bol-
shevist group from the extreme bloodthirsty faction, produced a
complete schism in the party, and secured an armistice which
would have prevented the Allies' subsequent defeats at Murmansk,
Archangel and Odessa. Truth prompts me to add that these
desirable by-results, although held out as inducements and
characterized as readily attainable, were guaranteed only by the
unofficial pledge of men whose good faith was notoriously doubtful.
The document submitted to me is worth summarizing. It
contained a lucid, many-sided and plausible account of the Russian
situation. Among other things, it was a confession of the enor-
mity of the crimes perpetrated, on both sides, it said, which it
ascribed largely to the brutalizing effects of the world war, waged
under disastrous conditions unknown in other lands. Myriads
of practically unarmed men had been exposed during the cam-
paign to wholesale slaughter, or left to die in slow agonies where
they fell, or were killed off by famine and disease, for the triumph
of a cause which they never understood, but had recently been
told was that of foreign capitalists. In the demoralization that
ensued all restraints fell away. The entire social fabric, from
groundwork to summit, was rent, and society, convulsed with
bestial passions, tore its own members to pieces. Russia ran
amok among the nations. That was the height of war frenzy.
Since then, the document went on, passion had abated sensibly
and a number of well-intentioned men who had been swept on-
ward by the current were fast coming to their senses, while other?
were already sane, eager to stem it and anxious for moral sym-
pathy from outside.
From out of the revolutionary welter, the expose continued,
certain hopeful phenomena had emerged sjnnptomatic of a new
spirit. Conditions conducive to equality existed, although
real equality was still a somewhat remote ideal. But the ten-
dencies over the whole sphere of Russian social, moral and poUti-
cal life had undergone remarkable and invigorating changes in
the direction of " reasonable democracy." Many wholesome
reforms had been attempted, and some were partially reahzed,
especially in elementary instruction, which was being spread
298
Attitude towards Russia
clumsily, no doubt, as yet, but extensively and equally, being
absolutely gratuitous.*
Various other so-called ameliorations were enumerated in this
obviously partial expose, which was followed by an apology for
certain prominent individuals, who, having been swept off their
feet by the revolutionary floods, would gladly get back to firm
land and help to extricate the nation from the Serbonian bog in
which it was sinking. They admitted a share of the responsi-
bility for having set in motion a vast juggernaut chariot, which,
however, they had arrested, but hoped to expiate past errors by
future zeal. At the same time they urged that it was not they
who had demoralized the army or abolished the death penalty,
or thrown open the sluice-gates to anarchist floods. On the
contrary they claimed to have reorganized the national forces,
re-introduced the severest discipUne ever known, appointed
experienced officers and restored capital punishment. Nor was
it they, but their predecessors, they added, who had ruined the
transport service of the country and caused the food scarcity.
These individuals would, it was said, welcome peace and
friendship with the Entente, and give particularly favourable
consideration to any proposal coming from the English-speaking
peoples, in whom they were disposed to place confidence under
certain simple conditions. The need for these conditions would
not be gainsaid by the British and American Governments if they
recalled to mind the treatment which they had theretofore meted
out to the Russian people. At that moment no Russian of any
party regarded or could regard the Allies without grounded sus-
picions, for while repudiating interference in domestic affairs,
the French, Americans and British were striving hard to influence
every party in Russia, and were even believed to harbour designs
on certain provinces, such as the Caucasus and Siberia. Colour
was imparted to these misgivings by the circumstance that the
Allied Governments were openly countenancing the dismember-
* There can be no doubt that the Bolshevist Government under Lunatcharsky
has made a point of furthering the arts, sciences and elementary instruction.
All reports from foreign travellers and from eminent Russians — ons of these my
University fellow-student, now perpetual Secretary of the Academy — agree about
this sUver lining to a dark cloud.
299
The Peace Conference
ment of the country by detaching non-Russian and even Russian
elements from the main body. It behoved the AUies to dissi-
pate this mistrust by issuing a statement of their poUcy in un
mistakable terms, repudiating schemes for territorial gains,
renouncing interference in domestic affairs and complicity in the
work of disintegrating the country, Russia and her affairs must
be left to Russians, who would not grudge economic concessions
as a reasonable quid pro quo.
The proposal further insisted that the declaration of poUcy
should be at once followed by the dispatch of two or three well-
known persons acquainted with Russia and Russian affairs, and
enjoying the confidence of European peoples, to inquire into the
conditions of the country and make an exhaustive report. This
mission, it was added, need not be official, it might be entrusted
to individuals unattached to any Government.
If a satisfactory answer to this proposal were returned within
a fortnight, an armistice and suspension of the secret pourparlers
with Germany would, I was told, have followed. That this
compact would have led to a settlement of the Russian problems
is more than anyone, however well-informed, could vouch for,
but I had some grounds for believing the move to be genuine and
the promises over done. No reasonable motive suggested itself
for a vulgar hoax. Moreover, the overture disclosed two impor-
tant facts, one of which was known at the time only to the Bol
shevist Government — namely, that secret pourparlers were going
forward between Berlin and Moscow for the purpose of arriving
at a workable understanding between the two Governments;
and that the Allied troops at Odessa, Archangel and Murmansk
were in a wretched plight and in direr need of an armistice than
the Bolsheviki.*
I mentioned the matter summarily to one of the Delegates, who
evinced a certain interest in it, and promised to discuss it at
length later on with a view to action. Another to whom I un-
folded it later thought it would be well if I myself started, together
with two or three others, for Moscow, Petrograd, Ekaterinodar and
• This latter fact was doubtless known to the British Government, which
ecided as early as March to recall the British troops from Northern Russia.
300
Attitude towards Russia
other places, and reported on the situation. But weeks went by
and nothing was done.*
I ha,d interesting talks with some influential Delegates on the
eve of the invitation issued to all ie facto governments of Russia
to foregather at Prinkipo for a symposium. They admitted
frankly at the time that they had no policy and were groping
in the dark, and one of them held to the dogma that no light
from outside was to be expected. They gave me the impression
that underlying the impending summons was the conviction
that Bolshevism, divested of its frenzied manifestations, was a
rough and ready government calumniously blackened by un-
scrupulous enemies, criminal perhaps in its outbursts, but suited
in its feasible aims to the peculiar needs of a peculiar people,
and therefore as worthy of being recognized as any of the others.
It was urged that it had already lasted a considerable time with-
out provoking a counter-movement worthy of the name ; that
the stories circulating about the horrors of which it was guilty
were demonstrably exaggerated ; that many of the bloody
atrocities were to be ascribed to crazy individuals on both sides ;
that the witnesses against Lenin were partial and untrustworthy ;
that something should be done without delay to solve a pressing
problem, and that the Conference could think of nothing better,
nor, in fact, of any alternative.
To me the principal scheme seemed a sinister mistake, both
in form and substance. In form, because it nulhfied the motives
which determined the help given to the Greeks, Poles and Serbs,
who were being urged to crush the Bolshevists, and left the Allies
without good grounds for keeping their own troops in Archangel,
Odessa and Northern Russia, to stop the onward march of Bol-
shevism. Some Governments had publicly stigmatized the
Bolshevists as cut-throats ; one had pledged itself never to have
relations with them, but the Prinkipo invitation bespoke a
resolve to cancel these judgments and declarations and change
their tack as an improvement on doing nothing at all. The
scheme was also an error in substance, because the sole motive
* I published the facts in the Daily Telegraph, 21st April, and the Public Ledger
of Philadelphia 10th April, 1919.
301
The Peace Conference
that could warrant it was the hope of reconciling the warring
parties. And that hope was doomed to disappointment from
the outset.
According to the Prinkipo project, which was attributed to
President Wilson,* an invitation was to be issued to all organized
groups exercising or attempting to exercise poUtical authority
or mihtary control in Siberia and Northern Russia, to send
representatives to confer with the Delegates of the Allied and
Associated Powers on Prince's Islands. It is difficult to discuss
the expedient seriously. One feels Uke a member of the Uttle
people of yore, who are reported to have consulted an oracle
to ascertain what they must do to keep from laughing during
certain debates on public affairs. It exposed its ingenuous
authors to the ridicule of the world and made it clear to the
dullest apprehension that from that quarter, at any rate, the
Russian people, as a whole, must expect neither light nor leading,
nor intelUgent appreciation of their terrible plight. There is a
sphere of influence in the human intellect between the reason
and the imagination, the boundary Une of which is shadowy..
That sphere would seem to be the source whence some of the
most extraordinary notions creep into the minds of men who
have suddenly come into a position of power which they are
not quaUfied to wield — the nouveaux puissants of the world of
politics.
To the credit of the Supreme Council it never let offended
dignity stand between itself and the triumph of any of the various
causes which it successively took in hand. Time and again
it had been addressed by the Russian Bolshevist Government
in the most opprobrious terms, and accused not merely of clothing
political expediency in the garb of spurious ideaHsm but of
giving the fore-place in political Ufe to sordid interests, over
which a cloak of humanitarianism had been deftly thrown. One
official missive from the Bolshevist Government to President
Wilson is worth quoting from.f " We should like to learn with
* Colonel House is said to have dissociated himself from the President on this
occasion.
t It was sent at the end of October, 1918, and to my knowledge was not
published in full.
302
Attitude towards Russia
more precision how you conceive the Society of Nations ? When
you insist on the independence of Belgium, of Serbia, of Poland,
you surely mean that the masses of the people are everywhere
to take over the administration of the country. But it is odd
that you did not also require the emancipation of Ireland, of
Egypt, of India, and of the Philippines. . . .
" As we concluded peace with the German Kaiser, for whom
you have no more consideration than we have for you, so we
are minded to make peace with you. We propose, therefore,
the discussion, in concert with your Allies, of the following
questions : (i) Are the French and English Governments ready
to give up exacting the blood of the Russian people if this
people consent to pay them ransom, and to compensate them
in that way ? (2) If the answer is in the affirmative, what
ransom would the Allies want (railway concessions, gold mines
or territories) ?
" We also look forward to your telling us exactly whether the
future Society of Nations will be a joint stock enterprise for the
exploitation of Russia, and in particular — as your French Allies
require — for forcing Russia to refund the milliards which their
bankers furnished to the Tsarist Government, or whether the
Society of Nations will be something different. . . ."
As soon as the Prinkipo motion was passed by the Delegates
I was informed by telephone, and I lost no time in communicating
the tidings to Russia's official representatives in Paris. The
plan astounded them. They could hardly beUeve that while
hopefully negotiating with the anti-Bolshevists, the Conference
was desirous at the same time of opening pourparlers with the
Leninists, between whom and them antagonism was not merely
political but personal and vindictive, like that of two Albanians
in a blood feud. I suggested that the scheme should be thwarted
at its inception, and that for this purpose I should be authorized
by the representatives of the four* constructive governments
in Russia to make known their decision. I was accordingly em-
powered to announce to the world that they would categorically
* Omsk, Ekaterinodar, Archangel and the Crimea. The last-named disap
peared soon afterwards.
303
The Peace Conference
refuse to send any representatives to confer with the assassins
of their kinsmen and the destroyers of their country, and that
under no circumstances would they swerve from that attitude.
Having received the authorization, I cabled to the United States
and Britain that the projected meeting would come to nought,
owing to the refusal of all constructive elements to agree to
any compromise with the Bolsheviki, that in the opinion of
Russia's representatives in Paris the advance made by the
plenipotentiaries would strengthen the Bolshevist movement,
render the civil war more merciless than before, and raise up
formidable difficulties to the estabUshment of the League of
Nations.
But the plenipotentiaries did not yet give up their cause as
lost. By way of " saving their face," they unofficially approached
the Russian Ministers in Paris, whom they had not deigned to
consult on the subject before making the plunge, and exhorted
them to give at least a formal assent to the proposal, which
would commit them to nothing and would enable them to with-
draw without loss of dignity. They, on their part, tmdertook
to smooth the road to the best of their abiUty. Thus it would
be unnecessary, they explained, for the Ministers of the con-
stiuctive governments or their substitutes to come into contact
with the slayers of their kindred : they would occupy different
wings of the hotel at Prinkipo, and never meet their adversaries.
The Delegates would see to that. " Then why should we go
there at all if discussion be superfluous ? " asked the Russians.
" Because the Allied Governments desire to ascertain the con-
dition of Russia and your conception of the measures that would
contribute to ameliorate it," was the reply. " Prince's Islands
is not the right place to study the Russian situation, nor is it
reasonable to expect us to journey thither in order to tell sub-
ordinates, who have no knowledge of our country, what we can
tell them and their principals in Paris in greater detail and with
confirmatory documents. Moreover, the Delegates you have
appointed have no quahfication to judge of Russia's plight and
potentialities. They know neither the country nor its language,
nor its people nor its politics, yet you want us to travel all the
304
Attitude towards Russia
way to Turkey to tell them what we think, in order that they
should return from Turkey to Paris and report to your Ministers
what we said and what we could have unfolded directly to the
Ministers themselves long ago, and are ready to propound to
them to-day or to-morrow.
" The project is puerile and your tactics are baleful. Your
Ministers branded the Bolshevists as criminals, and the French
Government pubhcly announced that it would enter into no
relations with them. In spite of that, all the Allied Governments
have now offered to enter into relations with them. Now you
admit that you made a slip, and you promise to correct it if
only we consent to save your face and go on a wild-goose chase
to Prinkipo. But for us that journey would be a recantation
of our principles. That is why we are unable to make it."
The Prinkipo incident, which began in the region of high politics
ended in comedy. A number of more or less witty epigrams
were coined at the expense of the plenipotentiaries, the scheme
set in a stronger light than it was meant to endure assumed
a grotesque shape, and its promoters strove to consign it as
best they could to oblivion. But the Sphinx question of Russia's
future remained, and the penalities for failure to solve it aright
waxed more and more deterrent. The supreme arbiters had
cognizance of them, had, in fact, enumerated them when pro-
claiming the impossibility of estabhshing a durable peace or a
sohd League of Nations as long as Russia continued to be a prey
to anarchy. But even with the prizes and penalties before their
eyes to entice and spur them, they proved unequal to the task
of devising an inteUigent policy. Fitful and incoherent, their
efforts were either incapable of being reahzed, or, when feasible,
were mischievous. Thus, by degrees, they hardened the great
Slav nation against the Entente.
The reader will be prepared to learn that the overtures made
to the Bolshevik! kindled the anger of the patriotic Russians
at home, who had been looking to the Western nations for sal-
vation, and making veritable holocausts in order to merit it.
Every observer could perceive the repercussion of this sentiment
in Paris, and I received ample proofs of it from Siberia. There
305 20
The Peace Conference
the leaders and the population unhesitatingly turned for assist-
ance to Japan. For this there were excellent reasons. The
only Government which throughout the war knew its own
mind and pursued a consistent and an inteUigible poUcy towards
Russia was that of Tokyo. This point is worth making at a
time when Japan is regarded as a Laodicean convert to the
invigorating ideas of the Western peoples, at heart a backslider
and a potential schismatic. She is charged with making interest
the mainspring of her action in her intercourse with other nations.
The charge is true. Only a Candide would expect to see her
moved by altruism and self-denial, in a company which penalizes
these virtues. Community of interests is the Hnk that binds
Japan to Britain. A like bond had subsisted between her and
Tsarist Russia. I helped to create it. Her statesmen, who
have no taste for sonorous phraseology, did not think it necessary
to give it a more fashionable name. This did not prevent the
Japanese from being chivalrously loyal to their Allies under the
strain of powerful temptations, true to the spirit and the letter
of their engagements. But although they made no pretence to
lofty purpose, their political maxims differ nowise from those
of the great European States, whose territorial, economic and
military interests have been reUgiously safeguarded by the
Treaty of Versailles. True, the statesmen of Tokyo shrink from
the hybrid combination of two contradictions Unked together
by a sentimental fallacy. Their unpopularity among Anglo-
Saxons is the result of speculations about their future intentions ;
in other words, they are being punished, as certain of the Dele-
gates at the Conference have been eulogized, not for what they
actually did, but for what it is assumed they are desirous of
achieving. Towards Russia they played the same game that
their Allies were playing there and in Europe, only more frankly
and systematically. They applied the two principal maxims
which lie at the root of international politics to-day : do ut des,
and the nation that is capable of leading others has the right
and the duty to lead them. And they estabUshed a valuable
reputation for fulfilling their compacts conscientiously. Nippon,
then, would have helped her Russian neighbours, and she ex
306
Attitude towards Russia
pected to be helped by them in return. Have not the AUies,
she asked, compelled Poland, Czecho-Slovakia and Yugo-Slavia
to pay them in cash for their emancipation ?
Russians, who have no colour prejudices, hit it off with the
Japanese, by whom they are Uked in return. That the two
peoples should feel drawn to each other politically is, therefore,
natural, and that they will strike up economic agreements in
the future seems to many inevitable and legitimate. One such
agreement was on the point of being signed between them and
the anti-Bolshevists of Omsk immediately after, and in con-
sequence of, the Allies' ill-considered invitation to Lenin and
Trotzky to delegate representatives to Prinkipo. This con-
vention, I have reason to believe, was actually drafted, and was
about to be signed. And the adverse influence that suddenly
made itself felt and hindered the compact came not from Russia
but from Western Europe. It would be unfruitful to dwell
further on this matter here, beyond recording the belief of many
Russians that the zeal of the English-speaking peoples for the
well-being of Siberia, where they intend to maintain troops
after having withdrawn them from Europe, is the counter move
to Japan's capacity and wish to co-operate with the population
of that rich country. This assumption may be groundless, but
it will surprise only those who fail to note how often the flag of
principle is unfurled over economic interests.
The Delegates were not all discouraged by their discomfiture
over the Prinkipo project. Some of them still hankered after
an agreement with the Bolshevists which would warrant them
in including the Russian problem among the tasks provisionally
achieved. President Wilson despatched secret envoys to Moscow
to strike up an accord with Lenin,* but although the terms
which Mr. Bullitt obtained were those which had in advance
been declared satisfactory, he drew back as soon as they were
agreed to. And he assigned no reason for this change of atti-
tude. Whether the brightening of the prospects of Koltchak
and Denikin had modified his judgment on the question of
expediency must remain a matter of conjecture. It is hardly
* See Chapter IV., " Censorship and Secrecy,'' p. 112.
307 zo""
The Peace Conference
necessary, however, to point out once more that this sudden
improvisation of schemes which were abandoned again at the
last moment tended to lower the not particularly high estimate-
set by the ethnic wards of the Anglo-Saxon peoples on the moral
guidance of their self-constituted guardians.
An ardent champion of the Allied nations in France wrote :
" We have never had a Russian policy which was all of one
piece. We have never synthetized any but contradictory con-
ceptions. This is so true that one may safely affirm that if
Russian patriotism has been sustained by our velleities of action,
Russian destructiveness has been encouraged by our velleities
of desertion. We joined, so to say, both camps, and our velleities
of desertion occasionally getting the upper hand of our velleities
of action ... we carry out nothing."*
Towards Koltchak and Denikin the attitude of the Supreme
Council varied considerably. It was currently reported in Paris
that the Admiral had had the misfortune to arouse the dis-
pleasure of the two Conference Chiefs by some casual mani-
festation of a frame of mind which was resented, perhaps a
movement of independence, to which distance or the medium
of transmission imparted a flavour of disrespect. Anyhow, the
Russian leader was for some time under a cloud, which darkened
the prospects of his cause. And as for Denikin, he appeared to
the other great Delegate as a self-advertising braggart.
These mental portraits were retouched as the fortune of war
favoured the pair. And their cause benefited correspondingly.
To this improvement influences at work in London contributed
materially. For the anti-Bolshevist currents which made
themselves felt in certain State departments in that capital,
where there were several irreconcilable policies, were powerful
and constant. By the month of May the Conference had turned
half-heartedly from Lenin and Trotzky to Koltchak and Denikin,
but its mode of negotiating bore the mark pecuhar to the
diplomacy of the new era of " open covenants openly arrived
at." The Delegates in Paris communicated with the two leaders
in Russia " over the heads " and without the knowledge of their
* Pertinax in the Echo de Paris, 5th July, 1919.
308
Attitude towards Russia
authorized representatives in Paris, just as they had issued
peremptory orders to " the Roumanian Government at
Bucharest " over the heads of its chiefs, who were actually in
the French capital.
The proximate motives that determined several important
decisions "of the Secret Council, although of no political moment,
are of sufficient psychological interest to warrant mention.
They shed a Ught on the concreteness, directness and simplicity
of the workings of the statesmen's minds when engaged in
transacting international business. For example, the particular
moment for the recognition of new communities as States was
fixed by wholly extrinsical circumstances. A food distributor,
for instance, or the Secretary of a Treasury, wanted a receipt
for expenditure abroad from the people that benefited by it.
As a document of this character presupposes the existence of a
State and a Government, the official dispenser of food or money
was loth to go to the aid of any nation which was not a State
or which lacked a properly constituted Government. Hence,
in some cases the Conference had to create both on the spur of
the moment. Thus the reason why Finland's independence
received the hallmark of the Powers when it did, was because
the United States Government was generously preparing to give
aid to the Finns, and had to get in return proper receipts signed
by competent authorities representing the State.* Had it not
been for this immediate need of valid receipts, the act of recogni-
tion might have been postponed in the same way as was the
marking off of the frontiers. And Uke considerations led to
like results in other cases. Czecho-Slovakia's independence was
formally recognized for the same reason, as one of its leading
men frankly admitted.
One of the serious worries of the Conference Chiefs in their
deahngs with Russia was the lack of a recognized Government
there, quahfied to sign receipts for advances of money and
munitions. And as they could not resolve to accord recognition
to any of the existing administrations, they hit upon the middle
course, that of promoting the anti-Bolshevists to the rank of a
* This admission w s made to a distinguished member of the Diplomatic Corps.
309
The Peace Conference
community, not indeed sovereign or independent, but deserving
of every kind of assistance except the despatch of AlUed troops.
Assistance was already being given Hberally, but the necessity
was felt for justifying it formally. And the two Delegates went
to work as though they were hatching some dark and criminal
plot. Secretly despatching a message to Admiral Koltchak,
they put a number of questions to him which he was not qualified
to answer without first consulting his official advisers in Paris.
Yet these advisers were not apprised by the Secret Council of
what was being done. Nay, more, the French Foreign Office
was not notified. By the merest chance I got wind of the matter,
and published the official message.* It summoned the Admiral
to bind himself to convene a Constituent Assembly as soon as
he arrived in Moscow ; to hold free elections ; to repudiate
definitively the old regime and all that it imphed ; to recognize
the independence of Poland and Finland, whose frontiers would
be determined by the League of Nations ; to avail himself of the
advice and co-operation of the League in coming to an under-
standing with the border States, and to acquiesce in the decision
of the Peace Conference respecting the future status of Bessarabia.
Koltchak's answer was described as clear when " decipherable,"
and to his credit he frankly declined to forestall the will of the
Constituent Assembly respecting those border States which
owed their separate existence to the initiative of the victorious
Governments. But the Secret Council of the Conference
accepted his answer, and relied upon it as an adequate reason
for continuing the assistance which they had been giving him
theretofore.
About the person of Koltchak it ought to be superfluous to
say more than that he is an upright citizen of energy and reso-
lution, as patriotic as Fabricius, as disinterested and unambitious
as Cincinnatus. To his credit account, which is considerable,
stands his wonder-working faith in the recuperative forces of
his country when its fortunes were at their lowest ebb. With
buoyancy and confidence he set himself the task of rescuing his
• In the Daily Telegraph, June 19th, 19 19, and in the Public Ledger of Phila-
delphia.
310
Attitude towards Russia
fellow countrymen when it looked as hopeless as that of Xeno-
phon at Gunaxa. He created an army out of nothing, induced
his men by argument, suasion and example to shake off the
virus of indiscipline and sacrifice their individual judgment
and will to the well-being of their fellows. He enjoined nothing
upon others that he himself was not ready to undertake, and
he exposed himself time and again to risks greater far than any
general should deliberately incur. Whether he succeeds or fails
in his arduous enterprise, Koltchak, by his preterhuman patience,
and sustained energy and courage, has deserved exceptionally
well of his country, and could afford to ignore the current legends
that depict him in the crying colours of a reactionary, even
though they were accepted for the time by the most exalted
among the Great Unversed in Russian affairs. One may dissent
from his policy and object to some of his Ueutenants and to
many of his partisans, but from the single-minded, patriotic
soldier one cannot withhold a large meed of praise. Koltchak's
defects are mostly exaggerations of his qualities. His remark-
able versatility is purchased at the price of fitfulness, his energy
displays itself in spurts, and his impulsiveness impairs at times
the successful execution of a plan which requires unflagging
constancy. His judgment of men is sometimes at fault, but
he would never hesitate to confer a high post upon any man
who deserved it. He is democratic in the current sense of the
word, but neither a doctrinaire nor a faddist. A disciplinarian
and a magnetic personality withal, he charms as effectually as
he commands his soldiers. He is enlightened enough, Uke the
great Western world-menders in their moments of theorizing,
to discountenance secrecy and hole-and-corner agreements,
and what is still more praiseworthy, he is courageous enough to
practise the doctrine.
When the Revolution broke out, Koltchak was at Sebastopol.
The telegram conveying the sensational tidings of the outbreak
was kept secret by all military commanders — except himself.
He unhesitatingly summoned the soldiers and sailors, apprised
them of what had taken place, gave them an insight into the
true meaning of the violent upheaval, and asked them to join
3"
The Peace Conference
with him in an heroic endeavour to influence the course of things,
in the direction of order and consolidation. He gauged aright
the significance of the Revolution and the impossibility of
confining it within any bounds, political, moral or geographical.
But he reasoned that a band of resolute patriots might contrive
to wrest something for the country from the hands of Fate.
It was with this faith and hope that he set to work, and soon his
valiant army, the reclaimed provinces and the improved Russian
outlook, were eloquent witnesses to his worth, whose testimony no
legendary reports, however well received in the West, could weaken.
How ingrained in the plenipotentiaries was their proneness
for what for want of a better word may be termed conspirative
and circuitous action may be inferred from the record of their
official and unofficial conversations and acts. When holding
converse with Koltchak's authorized agents in Paris they would
lay down hard conditions, which were described as immutable ;
and yet when communicating with the Admiral direct, they
would submit to him terms considerably less irksome, unknown
to his Paris advisers, thus mystifying both and occasioning
friction between them. In many cases the contrast between
the two sets of demands was disconcerting, and in all it tended
to cause misunderstandings and complicate the relations between
Koltchak and his Paris agents. But he continued to give his
confidence to his representatives, although they were denied
that of the Delegates. It would, of course, be grossly unfair
to impute anything like disingenuousness to plenipotentiaries
engaged upon issues of this magnitude, but it was an unfor-
tunate coincidence that they were known to regard some of the
members of the Russian Council in Paris with disfavour, and
would have been glad to see them superseded. When Nansen's
project to feed the starving population of Russia was first mooted,
Koltchak's Ministers in Paris were approached on the subject,
and the AUies' plan was propounded to them so defectively or
vaguely as to give them the impression that the co-operation of
the Bolshevist Government was part of the programme. They
were also allowed to think that during the work of feeding the
people, the despatch of munitions and other military necessaries
312
Attitude towards Russia
to Koltchak and his army would be discontinued. Naturally,
the scheme, weighted with these two accompaniments, was
unacceptable to Koltchak's representatives in Paris. But, strange
to say, in the official notification which the plenipotentiaries
telegraphed at the same time to the Admiral direct, neither of
these obnoxious riders was included, so that the proposal assumed
a different aspect.
Another example of these singular tactics is supplied by
their pourparlers with the Admiral's delegates about the future
international status of Finland, whose help was then being
solicited to free Petrograd from the Bolshevist yoke. The
Finns insisted on the prehminary recognition of their complete
independence by the Russians. Koltchak's representatives
shrank from bartering any territories which had belonged to the
State on their own sole responsibility. None the less, as the
subject was being theoretically threshed out in all its bearings,
the members of the Russian Council in Paris inquired of the
Allies whether the Finns had at least renounced their pretensions
to the province of Karelia. But the spokesmen of the Con-
ference replied elusively, giving them no assurance that the
claim had been relinquished. Thereupon they naturally con-
cluded that the Finns either still maintained their demand, or
else had not yet modified their former decision on the matter,
and they deemed it their duty to report in this sense to their
chief. Yet the plenipotentiaries, in their message on the subject
to Koltchak, which was sent about the same time, assured him
that the annexation of Karelia was no longer insisted upon, and
that the Finns would not again put forward the claim ! One
hardly knows what to think of tactics like these. In their talks
with the spokesmen of certain border states of Russia the official
representatives of the three European Powers at the Conference
employed language that gave rise to misunderstandings which
may have untoward consequences in the future. One would
like to believe that these misunderstandings were caused by mere
slips of the tongue, which should not have been taken literally
by those to whom they were addressed ; but in the meanwhile
they have become, not only the source of high, possibly delusive
313
The Peace Conference
hopes, but the basis of elaborate policies. For example,
Esthonian and Lettish Ministers were given to understand that
they would be permitted to send diplomatic legations to Petro-
grad as soon as Russia was reconstituted, a mode of intercourse
which presupposes the full independence of all the countries
concerned. A constitution was also drawn up for Esthonia
by one of the Great Powers, which started with the postulate
that the people was to be its own master. Consequently, the two
nations in question were warranted in looking forward to re-
ceiving that complete independence. And if such was, indeed,
the intention of the Great Powers, there is nothing further to
be said on the score of straightforwardness or precision. But
neither in the terms submitted to Koltchak nor in those to
which his Paris agents were asked to give their assent was
the independence of either country as much as hinted at.*
These may perhaps seem trivial details, but they enable us to
estimate the methods and the organizing arts of the statesmen
upon whose skill in resource and tact in dealing with their
fellows depended the new synthesis of international life and
ethics which they were engaged in realizing. It would be super-
fluous to investigate the effect upon the Russians, or, indeed,
upon any of the peoples represented in Paris, of the Secret
Council's conspirative deliberations and circuitous procedure,
which were in such strong contrast to the " open covenants
openly arrived at " to which in their public speeches they paid
such high tribute.
The main danger, which the Allies redoubted from failure to
restore tranquillity in Russia, was that Germany might accom-
plish it, and owing to her many advantages might secure a
privileged position in the country, and use it as a stepping-stone
to material prosperity, military strength and political ascen-
dancy. This feat she could accomplish against considerable
odds. She would achieve it easily if the Allies unwittingly helped
her, as they were doing.
* In July M, Pichon told the Esthonian delegates that France recognized the
independence of their country in principle. But this declaration was not taken
seriously, either by the Russians or the French.
314
Attitude towards Russia
Unfortunately the Allied Governments had not much hope
of succeeding. If they had been capable of elaborating a com-
prehensive plan, they no longer possessed the means of executing
it. But they devised none. " The fact is," one of the Conference
leaders exclaimed, " we have no policy towards Russia. Neither
do we possess adequate data for one."
They strove to make good this capital omission by erecting
a paper wall between Germany and her great Slav neighbour.
The plan was simple. The Teutons were to be compelled to dis-
interest themselves in the affairs of Russia, with whose destinies
their own are so closely bound up. But they soon realized
that such a partition is useless as a breakwater against the
tidal wave of Teutondom, and Germany is still destined to play
the part of Russia's steward and major-domo.
How could it be otherwise ? Germany and Russia are near
neighbours. Their economic relations have been continuous for
ages, and the Allies have made them indispensable in the future ;
Russia is ear-marked as Germany's best colony. The two
peoples are become interdependent. The Teuton will recognize
the Slav as an ally in economics, and will pay himself politically.
Who will now thwart or check this process ? Russia must
live, and therefore buy and sell, barter and negotiate. Can a
parchment treaty hinder or invahdate her dealings ? Can it
prevent an admixture of politics in commercial arrangements,
seeing that they are but two aspects of one and the same trans-
action ? It is worthy of note that a question which goes to the
quick of the matter was never mooted. It is this : Is it an
essential element of the future ordering of the world that Germany
shall play no part whatever in its progress ? Is it to be assumed
that she will always content herself with being treated as the
incorrigible enemy of civiUzation ? And, if not, what do all
these checks and barriers amount to ?
In Russia there are millions of Germans conversant with the
language, laws and customs of the people. Many of them
have been settled there for generations. They are passionately
attached to their race, and neither unfriendly nor useless to the
country of their adoption. The trade, commerce and industry
315
The Peace Conference
of the European provinces is largely in their hands and in those
of their forerunners and helpers, the Jews. The Russo-German
and Jewish middlemen in the country have their faces ever
turned towards the Fatherland. They are wont to buy and
sell there. They always obtained their credit in Berlin, Dresden,
or Frankfurt. They acted as commercial travellers, agents,
brokers, bankers for Russians and Germans. They are con-
stantly going and coming between the two countries. How are
these myriads to be fettered permanently and kept from eking
out a livelihood in the future on the lines traced by necessity or
interest in the past ? The Russians, on their side, must live,
and therefore buy and sell. Has the Conference or the League
the right or power to dictate to them the persons or the people
with whom alone they may have dealings ? Can it narrow the
field of Russia's political activities ? Some people flatter them-
selves that it can. In this case the League of Nations must
transform itself into an alliance for the suppression of the German
race.
Burning indignation and moral reprobation were the senti-
ments aroused among the high-minded Allies by the infamous
treaty of Brest-Litovsk. For that mockery of a peace, even
coming from an "enemy, transcended the bounds of human ven-
gance. It was justly anathematized by all Entente peoples
as the loathsome creation of a frenzied people. But shortly
afterwards the Entente Governments themselves, their turn
having come, wrought what Russians of all parties regard as a
political patchwork of variegated injustice more odious far,
because its authors claimed to be considered as the devoted
friends of their victims and the champions of right. Whereas
the Brest-Litovsk treaty provided for a federative Slav State,
with provincial diets and a federal parliament, the system sub-
stituted by the Allies consisted in carving up Russia into an ever-
increasing number of separate States, some of which cannot live
by themselves, in debarring the inhabitants from a voice in the
matter, in creating a permanent agency for foreign intervention,
and ignoring Russia's right to reparation from the common
enemy. The Russians were not asked even informally to say
3^6
Attitude towards Russia
what they thought or felt about what was being done. This
province and that were successively lopped off in a lordly way
by statesmen who aimed at being classed as impartial dispensers
of justice and sowers of the seeds of peace, but were unacquainted
with the conditions and eschewed investigation. Here, at all
events, the usual symptoms of hesitancy and procrastination
were absent. Swift resolve and thoroughness marked the dis-
integrating action by which they unwittingly prepared the battle-
fields of the future.
Nobody acquainted with Russian psychology imagines that
the feelings of a high-souled people can be transformed by gifts
of food, money or munitions made to some of their fellow-country-
men. How little likely Russians are to barter ideal boons for
material advantages may be gathered from an incident worth
noting that occurred in the months of April and May, when the
fall of the capital into the hands of the anti-Bolshevists was
confidently expected.
At that time, as it chanced, the one thing necessary for their
success against Bolshevism was the capture of Petrograd. If that
city, which, despite its cosmopolitan character, still retained its
importance as the centre of political Russia, could be wrested
from the tenacious grasp of Lenin and Trotzky, the fall of the
anarchist dictators was, people held, a foregone conclusion.
The friends of Koltchak accordingly pressed every lever to set
the machinery in motion for the march against Peter's city.
And as, of all helpers, the Finns and Esthonians were admittedly
the most efficacious, conversations were begun with their leaders.
They were ready to drive a bargain, but it must be a hard and
lucrative one. They would march on Petrograd for a price.
The principal condition which they laid down was the express
and definitive recognition of their complete independence within
frontiers which it would be unfruitful here to discuss. The
Koltchak Government was ready to treat with the Finnish
Cabinet, as the de facto Government, and to recognize Finland's
present status for what it is in international law ; but as they
could not give what they did not possess, their recognition must,
they explained, be like their own authority, provisional. A
317
The Peace Conference
similar reply was made to the Esthonians ; to this those peoples
demurred. The Russians stood firm and the negotiations fell
through. . Is it to be supposed that when they have recovered
their former status they will prove more amenable to the blan-
dishments of the Allies than they were to the powerful bribe
dangled before their eyes by the Esthonians and the Finns ?
But if the improvised arrangements entailing dismemberment
which the Great Powers imposed on Russia during her cataleptic
trance are revised, as they may be, whenever she recovers
consciousness and strength, what course will events then foUow ?
If she seeks to regather under her wing some of the peoples
whose complete independence the League of Nations was so
eager to guarantee, will that body respond to the appeal of
these and fly to their assistance ? Russia, who has not been
consulted, will not be as bound by the canons of the League,
and one needs not be a prophet to foretell the reluctance of
Western armies to wage another war in order to prevent terri-
tories, of which some of the plenipotentiaries may have heard as
little as of Teschen, becoming again integral parts of the
Slav state. Europe may then see its political axis once more
shifted and its outlook obscured. Thus the system of equilibrium,
which was theoretically abolished by the fourteen points, may
be re-established by the hundred-and-one economico-political
changes which Russia's recovery will contribute to bring about.
A decade is but a twinkhng in the history of a nation. Within
a few years Russia may once more be united. The army that
will have achieved this feat will constitute a formidable weapon
in the hands of the State that wields it. As everything, even
military strength, is relative, and as the armies of the rest of
Europe will not be impatient to fight in the East, and will there-
fore count for considerably less than their numbers, there will
be no real danger of an invasion. Russia is a country easy to
get into, but hard to get out of, and military success against its
armies there would in verity be a victory without glory, annexa-
tion, indemnities or other appreciable gains.
It is hard to believe that the distinguished statesmen of the
Conference took these eventualities fully into account before
318
Attitude towards Russia
attempting to reshape amorphous Russia after their own vague
ideal. But whether we assess their work by the standards of
political science or of international ethics, or explain it as a
series of well-meant expedients begotten by the practical logic
of momentary convenience, we must confess that its gifted
authors lacked a direct eye for the wajrward tides of national and
international movements ; were, in fact, smitten by political
blindness, and did the best they could in these distressing cir-
cumstances.
319
CHAPTER XI
BOLSHEVISM
WHAT is Bolshevism? A generic term, that stands for
a number of things which have little in common. It
varies with the countries where it appears. In Russia it is the
despotism of an organized and unscrupulous group of men in a
disorganized community. It might also be termed the frenzy
of a few epileptics running amok among a multitude of paralytics.
It is not so much a political doctrine or a socialist theory as a
psychic disease of a section of the community which cannot be
cured without leaving permanent traces, and perhaps modify-
ing certain organic functions of the society affected. For some
students at a distance who make abstraction from its methods
— as a critic appreciating the performance of Hamlet might make
abstraction from the part of the Prince of Denmark — it is a modifi-
cation of the theory of Karl Marx, the newest contribution to
latter-day social science. In Russia, at any rate, the general
condition of society from which it sprang was characterized,
not by the advance of social science, but by a physic disorder,
the germs of which, after a century of incubation, were brought
to the final phase of development by the war. In its origins it
is a pathological phenomenon.
Four and a half years of an unprecedented campaign which
drained to exhaustion the financial and economic resources of
the European belligerents upset the psychical equilibrium of
large sections of their populations. Goaded by hunger and
disease to lawless action, and no longer held back by legal
deterrents or moral checks, they followed the instinct of self-
320
Bolshevism
preservation to the extent of criminal lawlessness. Familiarity
with death and suffering dispelled the fear of human punishment,
while numbness of the moral sense made them insensible to the
less immediate restraints of a religious character. These pheno-
mena are not unusual concomitants of protracted wars. History
records numerous examples of the home-coming soldiery turning
the weapons destined for the foreign foe against political parties
or social classes in their own country. In other European
communities for some time previously a tendency towards
root-reaching and violent change was perceptible, but as the
State retained its hold on the army, it remained a tendency.
In the case of Russia — the country where the State, more than
ordinarily artificial and ill-balanced, was correspondingly weak
— Fate had interpolated a bloodstained page of red and white
terror in the years 1906-1908. Although fitful, unorganized and
abortive, that wild splutter was one of the foretokens of the
impending cataclysrA, and was recognized as such by the writer
of these pages. During the foregoing quarter of a century he
had watched with interest the sowing of the dragon's teeth from
which was one day to spring up a race of armed and frenzied
men. Few observers, however, even in the Tsardom, gauged
the strength or foresaw the effects of the anarchist propaganda
which was being carried on suasively and perseveringly, oftentimes
unwittingly, in the nursery, the school, the church, the university,
and with eminent success in the army and the navy. Hence the
widespread error that the Russian revolution was preceded
by no such era of preparation as that of the encylopsedists in
France.
Recently, however, publicists have gone to the other extreme
and asserted that Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Gorky, and a host of
other Russian writers were apostles of the tenets which have
since received the name of Bolshevism, and that it was they
who prepared the Russian upheaval just as it was the authors of
the "Encyclopaedia" who prepared the French Revolution.
In this sweeping form the statement is misleading. Russian •
literature during the reigns of the last three Tsars— with few
exceptions like the writings of Leskoff— was unquestionably a
321 21
The Peace Conference
vehicle for the spread of revolutionary ideas. But it would be
a gross exaggeration to assert that the end deliberately pursued
was that form of anarchy which is known to-day as Bolshevism,
or, indeed, genuine anarchy in any form. Tolstoy and Gorky
may be counted among the forerunners of Bolshevism, but
Dostoyevsky, whom I was privileged to know, was one of its
keenest antagonists. Nor was it only anarchism that he com-
bated. Like Leskoff, he was an inveterate enemy of political
radicaUsm, and we University students bore him a grudge in
consequence. In his masterly delineation* of a group of
" reformers," in particular of Verkhovensky — ^whom psychic
tendency, intellectual anarchy and political crime bring under
the category of Bolshevists — ^he foreshadowed the logical con-
clusion, and likewise the political consummation of the corrosive
doctrines which in those days were associated with the name of
Bakunin. In the year 1905-6, when the upshot of the conflict
between Tsarism and the Revolution was still doubtful. Count
Witte and I often admired the marvellous intuition of the great
novelist, whose gallery of portraits in the " Devils " seemed to
have become suddenly endowed with life, and to be conspiring,
shooting and bomb-throwing in the streets of Moscow, Peters-
burg, Odessa and Tiflis. The seeds of social revolution sown by
the novelists, essayists and professional guides of the nation were
forced by the wars of 1904 and 1914 into rapid germination.
As far back as the year 1892, in a work published over a pseu-
donym, the present writer described the rotten condition of the
Tsardom,, and ventured to foretell its speedy collapse, f The
French historian Michelet wrote with intuition marred by
exaggeration and acerbity : "A barbarous force, a law-hating
world, Russia sucks and absorbs all the poison of Europe and
then gives it off in greater quantity and deadlier intensity. When
we admit Russia, we admit the cholera, dissolution, death.
That is the meaning of Russian propaganda. Yesterday she
said to us : ' I am Christianity.' To-morrow she will say : 'I
• In the Biessy (Devils}.
t Russian Characteristics, by E. B. Lanin (Eblanin =. a Russian word which
means, native of Dublin = Eblana].
322
Bolshevism
am Socialism.' It is the revolting idea of a demagogy without
an idea, a principle, a sentiment, of a people which would march
towards the West with the gait of a blind man, having lost its
soul and its will and killing at random, of a terrible automaton
like a dead body which can still reach and slay.
" It might commove Europe and bespatter it with blood, but
that would not hinder it from plunging itself into nothingness
in the abysmal ooze of definite dissolution."
Russia then led by domiciled ahens without a fatherland may be
truly said to have been wending steadily towards the revolution-
ary vortex long before the outbreak of hostilities. Her progress
was continuous and perceptible. As far back as the year 1906
the late Count Witte and myself made a guess at the time-
distance which the nation still had to traverse, assuming the rate
of progress to be constant, before reaching the abyss. This,
however, was mere guesswork, which one of the many possi-
bilities — and in especial change in the speed-rate — ^might belie.
In effect, events moved somewhat more quickly than we antici-
pated, and it was the world war and its appalling concomitants
that precipitated the catastrophe.
As circumstance willed it, certain layers of the people of
Central Europe were also possessed by the revolutionary spirit
at the close of the world war. In their case hunger, hardship,
disease and moral shock were the avenues along which it moved
and reached them. This coincidence was fraught with results
more impressive than serious. The governments of both those
great peoples had long been the mainstays of monarchic tradi-
tion, military discipHne and the principle of authority. The
Teutons, steadily pursuing an ideal which lay at the opposite
pole to anarchy, had risked every worldly and well-nigh every
spiritual possession to realize it. It was the hegemony of the
world. This aspiration transfigured, possessed, fanaticized
them. Teutondom became to them what Islam is to Moham-
medans of every race, even when they shake off religion. They
eschewed no means, however iniquitous, that seemed to lead to
the goal. They ceased to be human in order to force Europe to
become German. Offering up the elementary principles of
323 21*
The Peace Conference
morality on the altar of patriotism, they staked their all upon
the single venture of the war. It was as the throw of a gambler
playing for his soul with the Evil One. Yet the faith of these
materialists waxed heroic withal like their self-sacrifice. And
in the fiery ardour of their enthusiasm, hard concrete facts
were dissolved and set floating as illusions in the ambient mist.
Their wishes became thoughts and their fears were dispelled as
fancies. They beheld only what they yearned for, and when at
last they dropped from the dizzy height of their castles in cloud-
land their whole world, era, and ideal was shattered. Unavail-
ing remorse, impotent rage, spiritual and intense physical ex-
haustion completed their demoralization. The more harried
and reckless among them became frenzied. Turning first against
their rulers, then against each other, they finally started upon
a work of wanton destruction relieved by no creative idea. It
was at this time-point that they endeavoured to join hands
with their tumultuous Eastern neighbours, and that the one
word Bolshevism connoted the revolutionary wave that swept
over some of the Slav and German lands. But only for a
moment. One may safely assert, as a general proposition, that
the same undertaking, if the Germans and the Russians set their
hands to it, becomes forthwith two separate enterprises, so
different are the conceptions and methods of these two peoples.
Bolshevism was almost emptied of its contents by the Germans,
and little left of it but the empty shell.
Comparisons between the orgasms of collective madness which
accompanied the Russian welter, on the one hand, and the French
Revolution on the other, are unfruitful and often misleading.
It is true that at the outset those spasms of dehrium were in
both cases violent reactions against abuses grown well-nigh
unbearable. It is also a fact that the revolutionists derived their
praeterhuman force from historic events which had either
denuded those abuses of their secular protection or inspired their
victims with wonder-working faith in their power to sweep them
away. But after this initial stage the likeness vanishes. The
French Revolution, which extinguished feudalism as a system
and the nobility as a privileged class, speedily ceased to be a
324
Bolshevism
mere dissolvent. In its latter phases it assumed a constructive
character. Incidentally it created much that was helpful in
substance if not beautiful in form, and from the beginning it
adopted a positive doctrine as old as Christianity, but new in
its application to the political sphere. Thus, although it up-
rooted quantities of wheat together with the tares, its general
effect was to prepare the ground for a new harvest. It had a
distinctly social purpose, which it partially realized. Nor
should it be forgotten that in the psychological sphere it kindled
a transient outburst of quasi-religious enthusiasm among its
partisans, imbued them with apostolic zeal, inspired them with
a marvellous spirit of self-abnegation, and nerved their arms to
far-resonant exploits. And the forces which the Revolution
thus set free changed many of the forms of the European world,
but without re-shaping it after the image of the ideal.
Has the withering blight known as Bolshevism any such
redeeming traits to its credit account ? The consensus of
opinion down to the present moment gives an emphatic, if sum-
mary, answer in the negative. Every region over which it
swept is blocked with heaps of unsightly ruins. It has depre-
ciated all moral values. It passed like a tornado, spending its
energies in demolition. Of construction hardly a trace has been
discerned, even by indulgent explorers.* One might liken it to
a so-called possession by the spirit of evil, wont of yore to use
the human organs as his own for words of folly and deeds of
iniquity. Bolshevism has operated uniformly as a quick solvent
of the social organism. Doubtless European society in 1917
sorely needed purging by drastic means, but only a fanatic would
say that it deserved annihilation.
It has been variously affirmed that the political leaven of
these destructive ferments in Eastern and Central Europe was
wholesome. Slavs and Germans, it is argued, stung by the
* Educational reforms have been mentioned among its achievements, and
attributed to Lunatcharsky. That he exerted himself to spread elementary
instruction must be admitted. But this progress and the effective protection
and encouragement which he has undoubtedly extended to arts and sciences
would seem to exhaust the list of items in the credit account of the Bolshevist
regime.
325
The Peace Conference
bankruptcy of their political systems, resolved to alter them on
the lines of universal suffrage and its corollaries, but were carried
further than they meant to go. This mild judgment is based on
a very partial survey of the phenomena. The improvement in
question was the work, not of the Bolshevists, but of their adver-
saries, the moderate reformers. And the political strivings of
these had no organic nexus with the doctrine which emanated
from the. nethermost depths in which vengeful pariahs, outlaws
and benighted nihilists were floundering before suffocating in
the ooze of anarchism. Neither can one discern any degree
of kinship between Spartacists like Eichorn or Lenin and
moderate reformers as represented, say, by Theodor Wolff and
Boris Savinkoff. The two pairs are sundered from each other
by the distance that separates the social and the anti-social
instinct. Those are vulgar iconoclasts, these are would-be world
builders. That the Russian, or, indeed, the German constitu-
tional reformers should have hugged the delusion that while
thrones were being hurled to the ground, and an epoch was
passing away in violent convulsions, a few alterations in the
electoral law would restore order and bring back normal con-
ditions to the agonizing nations, is an instructive illustration of
the blurred vision which characterizes contemporary statesmen.
The Anglo-Saxon Delegates at the Conference were under a
similar delusion when they undertook to regenerate the world
by a series of merely political changes.
No one who has followed attentively the work of the con-
stitution-makers in Weimar can have overlooked their readiness
to adopt and assimilate the positive elements of a movement
which was essentially destructive. In this respect they dis-
played a remarkable degree of open-mindedness and recep-
tivity. They showed themselves avid of every contribution
which they could glean from any source to the work of national
reorganization, and even in Teutonized Bolshevism they appa-
rently found helpful hints of timely innovations. One may
safely hazard the prediction that these adaptations, however
little they may be relished, are certain to spread to the Western
peoples, who will be constrained to accept them in the long run,
326
Bolshevism
and Germany may end by becoming the economic leader of
democratic Europe. The law of politico-social interchange and
assimilation underlying this phenomenon, had it been under-
stood by the statesmen of the Entente, might have rendered them
less desirous of seeing the German organism tainted with the
germs of dissolution. For what Germany borrows from Bol-
shevism to-day Western Europe will borrow from Germany
to-morrow. And foremost among the new institutions which
the revolution will impose upon Europe is that of the Soviets,
considerably modified in form and limited in functions.
" In the conception of the Soviet system," writes the most in-
fluential Jewish-German organ in Europe, " there is assuredly
something serviceable, and it behoves us to familiarize ourselves
therewith. Psychologically, it rests upon the need felt by the
working man to be something more than a mere cog in the
industrial mechanism. The first step would consist in confer-
ring upon labour committees juridical functions consonant with
latter-day requirements. These functions would extend beyond
those exercised by the labour committees hitherto. How far
they could go without rendering the industrial enterprise im-
possible is a matter for investigation. . . . This is not merely
a wish of the extremists ; it is a psychological requirement, and
therefore it necessitates the establishment of a closer nexus
between legislation and practical life which unhappily is become
so complicated And this need is not confined to the labouring
class. It is universal. Therefore, what is good for the one is
meet for the other."*
The Soviet system adapted to modern existence is one — and
probably the sole — legacy of Bolshevism to the new age.
During the Peace Conference Bolshevism played a large part
in the world's affairs. By some of the eminent law-givers there
it was feared as a scourge ; by others it was wielded as a weapon,
and by a third set it was employed as a threat. Whenever
a Delegate of one of the lesser States felt that he was losing
ground at the peace table, and that his country's demands were
about to be whittled down as extravagant, he would point
♦ Frankfurter Zeitung, 28th February, 1919.
The Peace Conference
significantly to certain " foretokens " of an outbreak of Bol-
shevism in his country and class them as an inevitable con-
sequence of the nation's disappointment. Thus the represen-
tative of nearly every State which had a territorial programme
declared that that programme must be carried out if Bolshevism
was to be averted there. " This or else Bolshevism " was the
peroration of many a Delegate's expose. More redoubtable than
political discontent was the proselytizing activity of the leaders
of the movement in Russia.
Of the two pillars of Bolshevism one is a Russian, the other
a Jew, the former, Ulianoff (better known as Lenin), the brain ;
the other, Braunstein (called Trotzky), the arm of the sect.
Trotzky is an unscrupulous despot, in whose veins flows the
poison of malignity. His element is cruelty, his special gift is
organizing capacity. Lenin is a Utopian, whose fanaticism,
although extensive, has well-defined limits. In certain things
he disagrees profoundly with Trotzky. He resembles a religious
preacher in this, that he created a body of veritable disciples,
around himself. He might be likened to a 'Pope with a college
of international cardinals. Thus he has French, British, German,
Austrian, Czech, Itahan, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, Hindu,
Chinese, Buryat, and many other followers, who are chiefs of
proselytizing sections charged with the work of spreading the
Bolshevik evangel throughout the globe, and are working hard
to discharge their duties. Lenin, however, dissatisfied with the
measure of success already attained, is constantly stimulating
his disciples to more strenuous exertions. He shares with other
sectarian chiefs who have played a prominent part in the world's
history that indefinable quahty which stirs emotional suscep-
tibility, and renders those who approach him more easily
accessible to ideas towards which they began by manifesting
repugnance. Lenin is credibly reported to have made several
converts among his Western opponents.
The plenipotentiaries, during the first four months, approached
Bolshevism from a single direction, unvaried by the events
which it generated or the modifications which it underwent.
They tested it solely by its accidental bearings on the one aim
328
Bolshevism
which they were intent on securing — a formal and provisional
resettlement of Europe capable of being presented to their
respective parliaments as a fair achievement. With its real
character, its manifold corollaries, its innovating tendencies
over the social, political and ethnical domain, they were for the
time being unconcerned. Without the slightest reference to any
of these considerations they were ready to find a place for it
in the new State system with which they hoped to endow the
world. More than once they were on the point of giving it
official recognition. There was no preliminary testing, sifting,
or examining by these empiricists, who, finding Bolshevism on
their way, and discerning no facile means of dislodging or trans-
forming it, signified their willingness under easy conditions to
hall-mark and incorporate it as one of the elements of the new
ordering. From the crimes laid to its charge they were prepared
to make abstraction. The barbarous methods to which it owed
its very existence they were willing to consign to oblivion.
And it was only a freak of circumstance that hindered this
embodiment of despotism from becoming one of their accepted
means of rendering the world safe for democracy.
Political students outside the Conference, going further into
the matter, inquired whether there was any kernel of truth in
the doctrines of Lenin, any social or pohtical advantage in the
practices of Braunstein (Trotzky), and the conclusions which
they reached were negative.* But inquiries of this theoretical
nature awakened no interest among the Empiricists of the
Supreme Council. - For them Bolshevism meant nothing more
than a group of politicians, who directed, or misdirected, but
certainly represented the bulk of the Russian people, and who,
if won over and gathered under the cloak of the Conference,
would facilitate its task and bear witness to its triumph. This
inference, drawn by keen observers from many countries and
parties, is borne out by the curious admissions and abortive
acts of the principal plenipotentiaries themselves.
* A succinct but interesting study of this question appeared in the ttandeh-
Zeitung of the Berliner TageUatt, over the signature of Dr. Felix Pinner 20th
July, 191 8.
329
The Peace Conference
In its milder manifestations on the social side Russian Bol-
shevism resembles communism, and may be described as a social
revolution effected by depriving one set of people — the ruling
and inteUigent class — of power, property and civil rights, putting
another and less qualified section in their place, and maintaining
the top-heavy structure by force ruthlessly employed. Far-
reaching though this change undoubtedly is, it has no nexus
with Marxism or kindred theories. Its proximate causes were
many : such, for example, as the breakdown of a tyrannical
system of government, state indebtedness so vast that it swal-
lowed up private capital, the depreciation of money, and the
corresponding appreciation of labour. It is fair, therefore, to
say that a rise in the cost of production and the temporary sub-
stitution of one class for another mark the extent to which
political forces revolutionized the social fabric. Beyond these
Umits they did not go. The notion had been widespread in most
countries, and deep-rooted in Russia, that a political upheaval
would effect a root-reaching and lasting alteration in the forces
of social development. It was adopted by Lenin, a fanatic of
the Robespierre type, but far superior to Robespierre in will-
power, insight, resourcefulness and sincerity, who, having seized
the reins of power, made the experiment.
It is no easy matter to analyse Lenin's economic pohcy.
because of the veil of mist that conceals so much of Russian con-
temporary history. Our sources are confined to the untrust-
worthy statements of a censored press and travellers' tales.
But it is common knowledge that the Bolshevist dictator
requisitioned and " nationalized " the banks, took factories,
workshops and plant from their owners and handed them over
to the workmen, deprived landed proprietors of their estates and
allowed peasants to appropriate them. It is in the matter of
industry, however, that his experiment is most interesting as
showing the practical value of Marxism as a policy and the
ability of the Bolsheviki to deal with deUcate social problems.
The historic decree issued by the Moscow Government on the
nationalization of industry after the opening experiment had
broken down contains data enough to enable one to af&rm
330
Bolshevism
that Lenin himself judged Marxism inapphcable even to Russia,
and left it where he had found it — among the ideals of a millennial
future. That ukase ordered the gradual nationalization of all
private industries with a capital of not less than one million
roubles^ but allowed the owners to enjoy the gratuitous usufruct
of the concern, provided that they financed and carried it on as
before. Consequently, although in theory the business was
transferred to the State, in reality the capitalist retained his place
and his profits as under the old system. Consequently, the principal
aims of SociaUsm, which are the distribution of the proceeds of
industry among the community and the retention of a certain
surplus by the State, were missed. In the Bolshevist procedure
the State is wholly ehminated except for the purpose of upholding
a fiction. It receives nothing from the capitalist, not even a
royalty.
The Slav is a dreamer whose sense of the real is often defective.
He loses himself in vague generahties and pithless abstractions.
Thus, before opening a school he will spin out a theory of universal
education, and then bemoan his lack of resources to realize it.
True, many of the chiefs of the sect— for it is undoubtedly a sect
when it is not a criminal conspiracy, and very often it is both
—were not Slavs, but Jews who, for the behoof of their kindred,
dropped their Semitic names and adopted sonorous Slav sub-
stitutes. But they were most unscrupulous peculators in-
capable of taking an interest in the scientific aspect of such
matters, and hypnotized by the dreams of lucre which the
opportunity evoked. One has only to call to mind some of the
shabby transactions in which the Semitic Dictator of Hungary,
Kuhn, or Cohen, and Braunstein (Trotzky) of Petrograd, took
an active part. The former is said to have offered for sale the
historic crown of St. Stephen of Hungary— which to him was
but a plam gold headgear adorned with precious stones and a
jewelled cross— to an old curiosity dealer of Munich,* and when
solemnly protesting that he was living only for the Soviet-
Republic and was ready to die for it, he was actively engaged
* Cf. Bomoir. 29th July, 1919. The price was not fixed, but the minimum was
specified. It was 100,000 kronen.
331
The Peace Conference
in smuggling out of Hungary into Switzerland fifty million kronen
bonds, thirty-five kilogrammes of gold, and thirty chests filled
with objects of value.f His colleague Szamuelly's plunder is
a matter of history.
To such adventurer's as those science is a drug. They are
primitive beings impressible mainly to concrete motives of the
basest kind. The dupes of Lenin were people of a different
type. Many of them fancied that the great political clash must
inevitably result in an equally great and salutary social up-
heaval. This assumption has not been borne out by events.
Those fanatics fell into another error : they were in a hurry,
and would fain have effected their great transformation as by
the waving of a magician's wand. Impatient of gradation, they
scorned to traverse the distance between the point of departure
and that of the goal, and by way of setting up the new social
structure without delay, they rolled away all hindrances regard-
less of consequences. In this spirit of absolutism they abolished
the service of the national debt, struck out the claims of Russia's
creditors to their capital or interest, ?ind turned the shops and
factories over to labour boards. That was the initial blunder
which the ukase alluded to was subsequently issued to rectify.
But it was too late. The equilibrium of the forces of production
had been definitely upset and could no longer be righted.
One of the basic postulates of profitable production is the
equilibrium of all its essential factors — such as the labourer's
wages, the cost of the machinery and the material, the adminis-
tration. Bring discord into the harmony and the entire
mechanism is out of gear.
The Russian workman, who is at bottom an illiterate peasant
with the old roots of serfdom still clinging to him, has seldom
any bowels for his neighbour .and none at all for his employer.
" God Himself commands us to despoil such gentry," is one of
his sayings. He is in a hurry to enrich himself, and he cares
about nothing else. Nor can he realize that to beggar his
neighbours is to impoverish himself. Hence he always takes
and never gives, as a peasant he destroys the forests, hewing
t Cf. Der Tag, Vienna, 13th August, 1919. Echo de Paris, isth August, 1919.
Bolshevism
trees and planting none, and robs the soil of its fertility. On
analogous lines he would fain deal with the factories, exacting
exorbitant wages that eat up all profit, and najively expecting
the owner to go on paying them as though he were the trustee
of a fund for enriching the greedy. The only people to profit
by the system, and even they only transiently, were the manual
labourers. The bulk of the skilled, intelligent and educated
artisans were held up to contempt and ostracized, or killed as an
odious aristocracy. That, it has been aptly pointed out,* is
far removed from Marxism. The Marxist doctrine postulates
the adhesion of intelligent workers to the social revolution,
whereas the Russian experimenters placed them in the same
category as the capitalists, the aristocrats, and treated them
accordingly. Another Marxist postulate not realized in Russia
was that before the State could profitably proceed to nation-
alization the country must have been in possession of a well-
organized, smooth-running industrial mechanism. And this
was possible only in those lands in which capitaUsm had had a
long and successful innings, not in the great Slav country of
husbandmen.
By way of glozing over these incongruities Lenin's ukase
proclaimed that the measures enacted were only provisional,
and aimed at enabling Russia to realize the great transformation
by degrees. But the impression conveyed by the history of the
social side of Lenin's activity is that Marxism, whether as under-
stood by its author or as interpreted and twisted by its Russian
adherents, has been tried and found impracticable. One is
further warranted in' saying that neither the visionary workers
who are moved by misdirected zeal for spcial improvement nor
the theorists who are constantly on the look out for new and
stimulating ideas are likely to discover in Russian Bolshevism
any aspect but the one alluded to abovef worthy of their serious
consideration.
A much deeper mark was made on the history of the century
by its methods.
* By Dr. F. Pinner, H. Vorst, and others,
t Cf . page 327 of this Chapter.
333
The Peace Conference
Compared with the soul-searing horrors let loose during the
Bolshevist fit of frenzy, the worst atrocities recorded of Deputy
Carrier and his noyades during the French Revolution were but
the freaks of compassionate human beings. In Bolshevist Russia
brutality assumed forms so monstrous that the modern man
of the West shrinks from conjuring up a faint picture of them in
imagination. Tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands were done
to death in hellish ways by the orders of men and of women.
Eyes were gouged out, ears hacked off, arms and legs torn from
the body in presence of the victims' children or wives, whose
agony was thus begun before their own turn came. Men and
women and infants were burned alive. Chinese executioners
were specially hired to inflict the awful torture of the " thousand
slices."* Of&cers had their limbs broken and were left for
hours in agonies. Many victims ^re credibly reported to have
been buried alive. History, from its earliest dawn down to the
present day, has recorded nothing so profoundly revolting as the
nameless cruelties in which these human fiends revelled. One
gruesome picture of the less loathsome scenes enacted will live in
history on a level with the Noyades of Nantes. I have seen
several moving descriptions of it in Russian jomrnals. The
following account is from the pen of a French marine officer :
" We have two armed cruisers outside Odessa. A few weeks
ago one of them, having an investigation to make, sent a diver
down to the bottom. A few minutes passed and the alarm
signal was heard. He was hauled up and quickly reUeved of his
accoutrements. He had fainted away. When he came to, his
teeth were chattering and the only articulate sounds that could be
got from him were the words : ' It is horrible ! It is awful ! '
A second diver was then lowered with the same procedure and
* The condemned man is tied to a post or a cross, his mouth gagged, and the
execution is made to last several hours. It usually begins with a slit on the fore-
head and the pulling down of the skin towards the chin. After the lapse of a
certain time the nose is severed from the face. An interval follows, then an ear
is lopped off, and so the devilish work goes on with long pauses. The skill of the
executioner is displayed in the length of time during which the victim remains
conscious.
334
Bolshevism
a like result. Finally a third was chosen, this time a sturdy lad
of iron nerves, and sent down to the bottom of the sea. After
the lapse of a few minutes the same thing happened as before,
and the man was brought up. This time, however, there was
no fainting fit to record. On the contrary, although pale with
terror, he was able to state that he had beheld the sea-bed
peopled with human bodies standing upright, which the swaying
of the water, still sensible at this shallow depth, softly rocked
as though they were monstrous algse, their hair on end bristling
vertically, and their arms raised towards the surface. . . . All
these corpses, anchored to the bottom by the weight of stones,
took on an appearance of eerie life resembling, one might say,
a forest of trees moved from side to side by the wind and eager
to welcome the diver come down among them. . . . There were,
he added, old men, children numerous beyond count, so that one
could but compare them to the trees of a forest."*
From published records it is known that the Bolshevist
Thugs, when tired of using the rifle, the machine gun, the cord
and the bayonet, expedited matters by drowning their victims by
hundreds in the Black Sea, in the Gulf of Finland and in the
great rivers. Submarine cemeteries was the name given to these
last resting-places of some of Russia's most high-minded sons
and daughters.f It is not in the French Revolution that those
deeds of wanton destruction and revolting cruelty which are
indissolubly associated with Bolshevism find a parallel, but in
Chinese history, which offers a striking and curious prefiguration
of the Leninist structure.^ Towards the middle of the tenth
century, when the Empire was plunged in dire confusion,
mystical sect was formed there for the purpose of destroying by
force every vestige of the traditional social fabric, and estab .
lishing a system of complete equality without any State organiza
* Cf. Le Figaro, 1 8th' February, 1919.
1 1 do not suggest that these crimes were ordered by Lenin. But it will not
be gainsaid that neither he nor his colleagues punished the mass murderers or
even protested against their crimes. Neither can it be maintained that massacres
were confined to any one party.
{This pre-Bolshevist movement is described in an interesting study on the
Socialist movement and systems, down to the year 1848, by El. Luzatto. Cf,
Der Bund, 16th August, 1918
335
The Peace Conference
tion whatever, after the manner advocated by Leo Tolstoy.
Some of the dicta of these sectarians have a decidedly Bolshevist
flavour. This, for example : " Society rests upon law, property,
religion and force. But law is injustice and chicane ; property
is robbery and extortion ; religion is untruth and force is ini-
quity." In those days Chinese political parties were at strife
with each other, and none of them scorned any means, however
brutal, to worst its adversaries, but for a long while they were
divided among themselves and without a capable chief.
At last the Socialist party unexpectedly produced a leader,
Wang Ngan Shen, a man of parts, who possessed the gift of
drawing and swajdng the multitude. Of agreeable presence, he
was resourceful and unscrupulous, soon became popular, and
even captivated the Emperor, Shen Tsung, who appointed him
Minister. He then set about applying his tenets and realizing
his dreams. Wang Ngan Shen began by 'making commerce
and trade a State monopoly, just as Lenin had done, " In order,"
he explained, " to keep the poor from being devoured by the
rich." The State was proclaimed the sole owner of all the wealth
of the soil ; agricultural overseers were dispatched to each dis-
trict to distribute the land among the peasants, each of these
receiving as much as he and his family could cultivate. The
peasant obtained also the seed, but this he was obliged to return
to the State after the ingathering of the harvest. The power of
the overseer went further ; it was he who determined what crops
the husbandman might sow and who fixed day by day the price of
every saleable commodity in the district. As the State reserved
to itself the right to buy all agricultural produce, it was bound
in return to save up a part of the profits to be used for the benefit
of the people in years of scarcity, and also at other times to be
employed in works needed by the community. Wang Ngan
Shen also ordained that only the wealthy should pay taxes, the
proceeds of which were to be employed in reheving the wants of
the poor, the old and the unemployed. The theory was smooth
and attractive.
For over thirty years those laws are said to have remained
in force, at any rate on paper. To what extent they were carried
336
Bolshevism
out is problematical. Probably a beginning was actually made,
for during Wang's tenure of office confusion was worse confounded
than before, and misery more intense and widespread. The
opposition to his regime increased, spread, and finally got the
upper hand. Wang Ngan Shen was banished, together with
those of his partisans who refused to accept the return to the
old system. Such would appear to have been the first appear-
ance of Bolshevism recorded in history.
Another less complete parallel, not to the Bolshevist theory,
but to the plight of the country which it ruined may be found in
the Chinese rebellion organized in the year 1850 by a peasant,*
who having become a Christian, fancied himself called by God
to regenerate his people. He accordingly got together a band
of stout-hearted fellows whom he fanaticized, disciplined and
transformed into the nucleus of a strong army to which brigands,
outlaws and malcontents of every social layer afterwards flocked.
They overran the Yangtse valley, invaded twelve of the richest
provinces, seized six hundred cities and towns, and put an end
to twenty million people in the space of twelve years by fire,
sword and f amine.f To this bloody expedition Hung Sew Tseuen,
a master of modern euphemism, gave the name of Crusade of
the Great Peace. For twelve years this " Crusade " lasted, and
it might have endured much longer had it not been for the help
given by outsiders. It was there that " Chinese " Gordon won
his laurels and accomplished a beneficent work.
There were politicians at the Conference who argued that Russia
being in a position analogous to that Of China in 1854, ought,
like her, to be helped by the Great Powers. It was, they held,
quite as much in the interests of Europe as in hers. But however
forcible their arguments, they encountered an insurmountable
obstacle in the fear entertained by the chiefs of the leading
Governments lest the extreme oppositional parties in their
respective countries should make capital out of the move and turn
them out of office. They invoked the interests of the cause of
* Hung Sew Tseuen. The rebellion lasted from 1850 to 1864.
t The superb city of Nankin, with its temples and porcelain towers, was
destroyed,
337 23
The Peace Conference
which they were the champions for declining to expose them-
selves to any such risk. It has been contended with warmth,
and possibly with truth, that if at the outset the Great Powers
had intervened they might with a comparatively small army
have crushed Bolshevism and re-established order in Russia.
On the other hand, it was objected that even heavy guns will not
destroy ideas, and that the main ideas which supplied the revo-
lutionary movement with vital force were too deeply rooted to
have been extirpated by the most formidable foreign army.
That is true. But these ideas were not especially characteristic
of Bolshevism. Far from that, they were incompatible with it :
the bestowal of land on the peasants, an equitable reform of the
relations between workmen and employers, and the abolition of
the hereditary principle in the distribution of everything that
confers an unfair advantage on the individual or the class are
certainly not postulates of Lenin's party. It is a tenable pro-
position that timely military assistance would have enabled the
constructive elements of Russia to restore conditions of normal
life, but the worth of timeliness was never realized by the heads
of the Governments who undertook to make laws for the world.
They ignored the maxim that a statesman, when appl5dng
measures, must keep his. eye on the clock, inasmuch as the
remedy which would save a nation at one moment may hasten
its ruin at another.
The expedients and counter-expedients to which the Con-
ference had recourse in their fitful struggles with Bolshevism
were so many siurprises to everyone concerned, and were at times
redolent of comedy. But what was levity and ignorance on
the part of the Delegates meant death, and worse than death,
to tens of thousands of their prot6g6s. In Russia their agents
zealously egged on the order-loving population to rise up against
the Bolsheviki, and attack their strong positions, promising them
immediate military help if they succeeded. But when these
exploits having been duly achieved, the agents were asked how
soon the foreign reinforcements might be expected, they repUed
calling for patience. After a time the Bolsheviki assailed the
temporary victors, generally defeated them, and then put a
338
Bolshevism
multitude of defenceless people to the sword. Deplorabl*
incidents of this nature, which are said to have occurred several
times during the spring of 1919, shook the credit of the Allies,
and kindled a feeling of just resentment among all classes of
Russians.
339 »a*
CHAPTER XII
HOW BOLSHEVISM WAS FOSTERED
THE Allies, then, might have solved the Bolshevist problem
by making up their minds which of the -two alternative
politics — war against, or tolerance of, Bolshevism — they pre-
ferred, and by taking suitable action in good time. If they had
handled the Russian tangle with skill and repaid a great sacrifice
with a small one before it was yet too late, they might have hoped
to harvest in abundant fruits in the fulness of time. But they
belonged to the class of the undecided, whose members contin-
ually suffer from the absence of a middle word between yes and
no, connoting what is neither positive nor negative. They let
the opportunity slip. Not only did they withhold timely succour
to either side, but they visited some of the most loyal Russians
in Western Europe with the utmost rigour of coercion laws. They
hounded them down as enemies. They cooped them up in cages
as though they were Teuton enemies. They encircled them with
barbed wire. They kept many of them hungry and thirsty,
deprived them of life's necessaries for days, and in some cases
reduced the discontented — and who in their place would not
be discontented ? — to pick their food in dust-bins among garbage
and refuse. I have seen officers and men in France who had
shed their blood joyfully for the Entente cause gradually con-
verted to Bolshevism by the misdeeds of the Allied authorities.
In whose interests ? With what helpful results ?
I watched the development of anti-Ententism among those
Russians with painful interest, and in favourable conditions for ob
servation, and I say without hesitation that rancour against the
340
How Bolshevism was Fostered
Allies burns as vehemently and intensely among the anti-Bol-
shevists as among their adversaries. " My country as a whole
is bitterly hostile to her former allies," exclaimed an eminent
Russian, " for as soon as she had rendered them inestimable ser-
vices, at the cost of her political existence, they turned their
backs upon her as though her agony were no affair of theirs.
To-day the nation is divided on many issues. Dissensions and
quarrels have riven and shattered it into shreds. But in one
respect Russia is still united : in the vehemence of her sentiment
towards the Allies, who first drained her lifeblood and then
abandoned her prostrate body to beasts of prey. Some part of
the hatred engendered might have been mitigated if representa-
tives of the provisional Russian Government had been admitted
to the Conference. A statesman would have insisted upon
opening at least this little safety valve. It would have helped
and could not have harmed the Allies. It would have bound the
Russians to them. For Russia's Delegates, the men sent or
empowered by Koltchak and his colleagues to represent them,
would have been the exponents of a helpless community hovering
between life and death. They could and would have gone far
towards conciliating the world-dictators, to whose least palatable
decisions they might have hesitated to offer unbending opposi-
tion. And this acquiescence, however provisional, would have
tended to relieve the Allies of a sensible part of their load of re-
sponsibility. It would also have linked the Russians, loosely,
perhaps, but perceptibly, to the Western Powers. It would have
imparted a settled Ententophil direction to Koltchak's policy,
and communicated it to the nation. In short, it might have dis-
pelled some of the storm clouds that are gathering in the East of
Europe."
But the AUies, true to their wont of drifting, put off all decisive
action, and let things slip and slide, for the Germans to put in
order. There were no Russians, therefore, at the Conference,
and there lies no obligation on any political group or party in the
anarchist Slav State to hold to the Allies. But it would be
an error to imagine that they have a white sheet of paper on which
to trace their Une of action, and write the names of France and
341
The Peace Conference
Britain as their future friends. They are filled with angry disgust
against these two ex-allies, and of the two the feehng against
France is especially intense.*
It is a truism to repeat in a different form what MM. Lloyd
George and Wilson repeatedly affirmed, but apparently without
reaUzing what they said : that the peace which they regard as
the crowning work of their lives deserves such value as it may
possess from the assumption that Russia, when she recovers
from her cataleptic fit, will be the ally of the Powers that have
dismembered her. If this postulate should prove erroneous,
Germany may form an anti-alUed league of a large number of
nations which it would be invidious to enumerate here. But it is
manifest that this consummation would imperil Poland, Czecho-
slovakia and Yugo-Slavia, and sweep away the last vestiges of
the peace settlement. And although it would be rash to make a
forecast of the policy which new Russia will strike out, it would
be impolitic to blink the conclusions towards which recent events
significantly point.
In April a Russian statesman said to me : " The Allied Dele-
gates are unconsciously thrusting from them the only means by
which they can still render peace durable and a fellowship of the
nations possible. Unwittingly they are augmenting the forces of
Bolshevism and raising political enemies against themselves.
Consider how they are behaving towards us. Recently a number
of Russian prisoners escaped from Germany to Holland, where-
upon the Allied representatives packed them off by force and
against their will to Dantzig, to be conveyed thence to Libau,
where they have become recruits of the Bolshevist Red Guards.
Those men might have been usefully employed in the AlUed
countries, to whose cause they were devoted, but so exasperated
were they at their forcible removal to Libau that many of them
declared that they would join the Bolshevist forces.
" Even our official representatives are seemingly included in
• It is right to say that during the summer months a considerable section of
the anti-Bolshevists modified their view of Britain's policy, and expressed
gratitude for the aid bestowed on Koltchak, Denikin and Yudenitch, without
which their armies would have collapsed.
342
How Bolshevism was Fostered
the category of suspects. Our Minister in Pekin was refused the
right of sending ciphered telegrams and our charge d'affaires in
a European capital suffered the same deprivation, while the
Bolshevist envoy enjoyed this diplomatic privilege. A coun-
cillor of embassy in one Allied country was refused a passport
visa for another until he declared that if the refusal were upheld
he would return a high order which for extraordinary services
he had received from the Government whose embassy was vetoing
his visa. On the national festival of a certain Allied country
the charge d'affaires of Russia was the only member of the
diplomatic corps who received no official invitation."
One day in January, when a crowd had gathered on the Quai
d'Orsay, watching the Delegates from the various countries —
British, American, Italian, Japanese, Roumanian, etc. — enter
the stately palace to safeguard the interests of their respective
countries and legislate for the human race, a Russian officer
peLssed, accompanied by an illiterate soldier, who had seen hard
service first under the Grand Duke Nicholas, and then in a
Russian brigade in France. The soldier gazed wistfully at the
palace, then, turning to the officer, asked : " Are they letting any
of our people in there ? " The officer answered evasively
" They are thinking it over Perhaps they will," whereupon his
attendant blurted out :
" Thinking it over ! What thinking is wanted ? Did we not
fight for them till we were mowed down like grass ? Did not
millions of I^ussian bodies cover the fields, the roads and the
camps ? Did we not face the German great guns with only
bayonets and sticks ? Have we done too little for them ?
What more could we have done to be allowed in there with the
others ? I fought since the war began, and was twice wounde^l.
My five brothers were called up at the same time as myself, and
all five have been killed, and now the Russians are not wanted !
The door is shut in our faces. ..."
Sooner or later Russian anarchy, like that of China, will come
an end, and the leaders charged with the reconstitution of
the country, if men of knowledge, patriotism and character,
will adopt a programme conducive to the well-being of the nation.
343
The Peace Conference
To what extent, one may ask, is its welfare compatible with the
status quo in Eastern Europe, which the AUies, distracted by con-
flicting principles and fitful impulse, left or created and hope to
perpetuate by means of a parchment instrument ?
The zeal with which the French authorities went to work to
prevent the growth of Bolshevism in their country, especially
among the Russians there, is beyond dispute. Unhappily it
proved inefficacious. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that
it defeated its object and produced the contrary effect. For
attention was so completely absorbed by the aim that no con-
sideration remained over for the means of attaining it. A few
concrete examples will bring this home to the reader. The
following narratives emanate from an eminent Russian, who is
devoted to the Allies.
There were scores of thousands of Russian troops in France.
Most of them fought valiantly, others half-heartedly, and a few
refused to fight at all. But, instead of making distinctions, the
French authorities, moved by the instinct of self-preservation,
and preferring prevention to cure, tarred them all with the same
brush. " Give a dog a bad name and hang him," says the pro-
verb, and it was exemplified in the case of the Russians, who soon
came to be regarded as a tertium quid between enemies of public
order and suspicious neutrals. They were profoundly mistrusted.
Their officers were deprived of their authority over their own men
and placed under the command of excellent French ofl&cers, who
cannot be blamed for not understanding the temper of the Slavs
nor for rubbing them against the grain. The privates, seeing
their superiors virtually degraded, concluded that they had for-
feited their claim to respect, and treated them accordingly. That
gave the death-blow to discipline. The officers, most of whom
were devoted heart and soul to the cause of the Allies, with which
they had fondly identified their own, lost heart. After various
attempts to get themselves reinstated, their feelings towards the
nation, which^ was nowise to blame for the excessive zeal of its
public servants, underwent a radical change. Blazing indigna-
tion consumed whatever affection they had originally nurtured for
the French, and in many case also for the other AlUes, and they
344
How Bolshevism was Fostered
went home to communicate their animus to their countrymen.
The soldiers, who now began to be taunted and vilipended as
boches, threw all discipline to the winds, and feeling every hand
raised against them, resolved to raise their hands against every
man. These were the beginnings of the process of " bolsheviza-
tion."
This anti-Russian spirit grew intenser as time lapsed. Thou-
sands of Russian soldiers were sent out to work for private
employers, not by the War Ministry, but by the Ministry of Agri-
culture, under whom they were placed. They were fed and paid
a wage which under normal circumstances should have contented
them, for it was more than they used to receive in pre-war days
in their own country. But the circumstances were not normal.
Side by side with them worked Frenchmen, many of whom were
unable physically to compete with the sturdy peasants from Perm
and Vyatka. .And when propagandists pointed out to them that
the French worker was paid a hundred per cent, more, they
brooded over the inequality, and labelled it as they were told.
For overwork, too, the rate of pay was still more unequal. One
result of this differential treatment was the estrangement of the
two races as represented by the two classes of workmen, and the
growth of mutual dislike. But there was another. When they
learned, as they did in time, that the employer was selling the
produce of their labour at a profit of four and five hundred per
cent., they had no hesitation about repeating the formulas sug-
gested to them by Socialist propagandists : " We are working for
bloodsuckers. The bourgeois must be exterminated." In this
way bitterness against the Allies and hatred of the capitalists
were inculcated in tens of thousands of Russians, who a few
months before were honest, simple-minded peasants and well-
disciplined soldiers. Many of these men, when they returned to
their country, joined the Red Guards of Bolshevism with
spontaneous ardour. They needed no pressing.
There was one young officer of the Guards in particular, named
G , who belonged to a very good family, and was an excep-
tionally cultured gentleman. Music was his recreation, and he
was a virtuoso on the violin. In the war he had distinguished
345
The Peace Conference
himself first on the Russian front and then on the French. He
had given of his best, for he was grievously wounded, had his left
hand paralysed, and lost his power of playing the violin for ever.
He received a high decoration from the French Government. For
the English nation he professed and displayed great affection,
and in particular he revered King George, perhaps because of his
physical resemblance to the Tsar.- And when King George was
to visit Paris, he rejoiced exceedingly at the prospect of seeing
him. Orders were issued for the troops to come out and line
the principal routes along which the monarch would pass. The
French naturally had the best places, but the Place de I'Etoile
was reserved for the Allied forces. G , delighted, went to
his superior officer, and inquired where the Russians were to
stand. The General did not know, but promised to ascertain.
Accordingly he put the question to the French Commander, who
replied, " Russian troops ? There is no place for any Russian
troops." With tears in his eyes G recounted this episode,
adding, " We, who fought and bled, and lost our lives, or were
crippled, had to swallow this humihation, while Poles and
Czecho-Slovaks, who had only just arrived from America in their
brand-new uniforms, and had never been under fire, had places
allotted to them in the pageant. Is that fair to the troops
without whose ejqiloits there would have been no Polish or Czecho-
slovak officers, no French victory, no triumphal entry of King
George V. into Paris ? "
346
CHAPTER XIII '
SIDELIGHTS ON THE TREATY
FROM the opening of the Conference fundamental differ-
ences sprang up which split the Delegates into two main
parties, of which one was solicitous mainly about the resettle-
ment of the world, and its future mainstay, the League of
Nations, and the other about the furtherance of national interests,
which, it maintained, was equally indispensable to an enduring
peace. The latter were ready to welcome the League on condi-
tion that it was utilized in the service of their national purposes,
but not if it countered them. To bridge the chasm between the
two was the task to which President Wilson courageously set his
hand. Unluckily, by way of qualifying for the experiment, he
receded from his own strong position, and having cut his moorings
from one shore, failed to reach the other. His pristine idea was
worthy of a world-leader, had, in fact, been entertained and advo-
cated by some of the foremost spirits of modern times. He
purposed bringing about conditions under which the pacific
progress of the world might be safeguarded in a very large measure
and for an indefinite time. But being very imperfectly acquainted
with the concrete conditions of European and Asiatic peoples —
he had never before felt the pulsation of international life — his
ideas about the ways and means were hazy, and his calculations
bore no real reference to the elements of the problem. Conse-
quently with what seemed a wide horizon and a generous ambition
his grasp was neither firm nor comprehensive enough for such
a revolutionary undertaking. In no case could he make head-
way without the voluntary co-operation of the nations themselves,
who in their own best interests might have submitted to heavy
347
The Peace Conference
sacrifices, to which their leaders, whom he treated as true expo-
nents of their will, refused their consent. But he scouted the
notion of a world parliament. Whenever, therefore, contem-
plating a particular issue, not as an independent question in itself,
but as an integral part of a larger problem, he made a suggestion
seemingly tending towards the ultimate goal, his motion encoun-
tered resolute opposition in the face of which he frequently
retreated.
At the outset, on which so much depended, the peoples as dis-
tinguished from the Governments appeared to be in general
sympathy with his principal aim, and it seemed at the time that
if appealed to on a clear issue, they would have given him their
whole-hearted support, provided always that, true to his own
principles, he pressed these to the fullest extent, and admitted
no such invidious distinctions as privileged and unprivileged
nations. This belief was confirmed by what I heard from men of
mark, leaders of the labour people and three Prime Ministers.
They assured me that such an appeal would have evoked an
enthusiastic response in their respective countries. Convinced
that the principles laid down by ^he President during the last
phases of the war would go far to meet the exigencies of the con-
juncture, I ventured to write on one of the occasions, when neither
party would yield to the other : " The very least that Mr. Wilson
might now do, if the deadlock continues, is to publish to the world
the desirable objects which the United States are disinterestedly,
if not always wisely, striving for, and leave the judgment to the
peoples concerned."*
But he recoiled from the venture. Perhaps it was already
too late. In the judgment of many, his assent to the suppression
of the problem of the freedom of the seas, however imavoidable
as a tactical expedient, knelled the political world back to the
unregenerate days of strategical frontiers, secret alliances, mili-
tary preparations, financial burdens and the balance of power.
On that day, his grasp on the banner relaxing, it fell, to be raised,
it may be, at some future time by the peoples whom he had
aspired to lead. The contests which he waged after that first
* The Daily Ttlegraph, 28th March, 1919.
348
Sidelights on tlie Treaty
defeat had little prospect of success, and soon the pith and
marrow of the issue completely disappeared. The utmost he
could still hope for was a paper covenant — which is a different
thing from a genuine accord — to take home with him to Wash-
ington. And this his colleagues did not grudge him. They were
operating with a different cast of mind upon a wholly different
set of ideas. Their aims, which they pursued with no less energy
and with greater perseverance than Mr. Wilson displayed, were
national. Some of them implicitly took the ground that Germany,
having plunged the world in war, would persist indefinitely in her
nefarious machinations, and must therefore, in the interests of
general peace, be crippled militarily, financially, economically and
politically for as long a time as possible, while her potential
enemies must for the same reason be strengthened to the utmost
at her expense, and that this condition of things must be upheld
through the beneficent instrumentality of the League of Nations.
On these conflicting issues ceaseless contention went on from
the start, yet for lack of a strong personality of sound, over-ruling
judgment the contest dragged on without result. For months
the demon of procrastination seemed to have possessed the souls
of the principal Delegates, and frustrated their professed inten-
tions to get through the work expeditiously. Even unforeseen
incidents led to dangerous delay. Every passing episode became
a ground for postponing the vital issue, although each day lost
increased the difficulties of achieving the principal object, which
was the conclusion of peace. For example, the committee dealing
with the question of reparations would reach a decision, say, that
Germany must pay a certain sum, which would entail a century of
strenuous effort, accompanied with stringent thrift and self-denial ;
while the Economic Committee decided that her supply of raw
material should be restricted within such narrow limits as to
put such payment wholly out of her power. And this difference
of view necessitated a postponement of the whole issue. Mr.
Hughes, the Premier of Austrailia, commenting on this shilly-
shallying, said with truth :* " The minds of the people are
* In a speech delivered at a dinner given in Paris on April 19th, 1919, by the
Commonwealth of Australia to Australian soldiers.
349
The Peace Conference
grievously perturbed. The long delay, coupled with fears lest
that the Peace Treaty, when it does come, should prove to be a
peace unworthy, unsatisfactory, unenduring, has made the hearts
of the people sick. We were told that the peace treaty would
be ready in the coming week, but we look round and see half a
world engaged in war, or preparations for war. Bolshevism is
spreading with the rapidity of a prairie fire. The Allies have been
forced to retreat from some of the most fertile parts of Southern
Russia, and Allied troops, mostly British, at Murmansk and Arch-
angel are in grave danger of destruction. Yet we were told that
peace was at hand, and that the world was safe for liberty and
democracy. It is not fine phrases about peace, Uberty and
making the world safe for democracy that the world wants, but
deeds. The peoples of the Allied countries justifiably desire to
be reassured by plain, comprehensible statements, intsead of
long-drawn-out negotiations and the thick veil of secrecy in which
these are shrouded."
It requires an effort to believe that procrastination was raised
to the level of a theory by men whose experience of political
affairs was regarded as a guarantee of the soundness of their judg-
ment. Yet it is an incontrovertible fact that dilatory tactics
were seriously suggested as a policy at the Conference. It was
maintained that far from running risks by postponing a settle-
ment, the Entente nations were, on the contrary, certain to find
theground better prepared the longer the day of reckoning was put
oft. Germany, they contended, had recovered temporarily from
the Bolshevik fever, but the improvement was fleeting. The
process of decomposition was becoming intenser day by day,
although the symptoms were not always manifest. Lack of
industrial production, of foreign trade and sound finances, was
gnawing at the vitals of the Teuton Republic. The army of
unemployed and discontented was swelling. Soon the sinister
consequences of this stagnation would take the form of rebellions
and revolts, followed by disintegration. And this conjunction
would be the opportunity of the Entente Powersy who could then
step in, present their bills, impose their restrictions, and knead
the Teuton dough ifltq dfly shape they relished. Then it would
350
Sidelights on the Treaty
be feasible to prohibit the Austrian-Germans from ever entering
the RepubUc as a federated State. In a word, the Allied Govern-
ments need only command, and the Teutons would hasten to
obey. It is hardly credible that men of experience in foreign
politics should build upon such insecure foundations as
these. It is but fair to say the Conference rejected this
singular programme in theory while unintentionally carrying
it out.
Although everybody admitted that the liquidation of the world
conflict followed by a return to normal conditions was the one
thing that pressed for settlement, so intent were the plenipoten-
tiaries on preventing wars among unborn generations that they
continued to overlook the pressing needs of their contemporaries.
It is at the beginning and end of an enterprise that the danger of
failure is greatest, and it was the opening moves of the Allies
that proved baleful to their subsequent undertakings. Ger-
many, one would think, might have been deprived summarily of
everythingwhichwasto.be ultimately and justly taken from her,
irrespective of its final destination. The first and most impor-
tant operation being the severance of the provinces allotted to
other peoples, their redistribution might safely have been left
until afterwards. And hardly less important was the despatch
of an army to Eastern Europe. Then Germany, broken in spirit,
with Allied troops on both her fronts, between the two jaws of a
vice, could not have said nay to the conditions. But this method
presupposed a plan which unluckily did not exist. It assumed
that the peace terms had been carefully considered in advance,
whereas the Allies prepared for war during hostihties, and for
peace during the negotiations. And they went about this in a
leisurely, lackadaisical way, whereas expedition was the key to
success.
As for a durable peace, involving general disarmament, it
should have been outlined in a comprehensive programme,
which the Delegates had not drawn up, and it would have become
feasible only if the will to pursue it proceeded from principle, not
from circumstances. In no case could it be accomplished with-
out the knowledge and co-operation of the peoples themselves,
351
The Peace Conference
nor within the time-lin^iits fixed for the work of the Conference.
For the abolition of war and the creation of a new ordering, like
human progress, is a long process. It admits of a variety of
beginnings, but one can never be sure of the end, seeing that it
presupposes a radical change in the temper of the peoples, one
might almost say a remodelling of human nature. It can only
be the effect of a variety of causes, mainly moral, operating over
a long period of time. Peace with Germany was a matter for
the Governments concerned ; the elimination of war could only
be accomplished by the peoples. The one was in the main a
political problem, the other social, economical and ethical.
Mr. Balfour asserted optimistically* that the work of concluding
peace with Germany was a very simple matter. None the less
it took the Conference over five months to arrange it. So des-
perately slow was the progress of the Supreme Council that on
the 213th day of the Peace Conference.f two months after the
Germans had signed the conditions, not one additional treaty
had been concluded, nay, none was even ready for signature.
The Italian plenipotentiary, Signor Tittoni, thereupon addressed
his colleagues frankly on the subject and asked them whether
they were not neglecting their primary duty, which was to conclude
treaties with the various enemies who had ceased to fight in
November of the previous year and were already waiting for over
nine months to resume normal life, and whether the Delegates
were justified in seeking to discharge the functions of a supreme
board for the government of all Europe. He pointed out that
nobody could hope to profit by the state of disorder and paralysis
for which this procrastination was answerable : the economic
effects making themselves felt sooner or later in every country.
He added that the cost of the war had been calculated for every
month, every week, every day, and that the total impressed
everyone profoundly; but that nobody had thought it worth
his while to count up the atrocious cost of this incredibly slow
peace and of the waste of wealth caused every week and month
that it dragged on. Italy, he lamented, felt this loss more
Jceenly than her partners because her peace had not yet been
• In March, 1919. t ^9^^ August, 1919.
Sidelights on the Treaty
concluded. He felt moved, therefore, he said, to tell them that
the business of governing Europe to which the Conference had
been attending all those months was not precisely the work for
which it was convoked.*
This sharp and timely admonition was the preamble of a
motion. The Conference was just then about to separate for a
" well-earned holiday," during which its members might renew
their spent energies and return in October to resume their labours,
the peoples in the meanwhile bearing the cost in blood and sub-
stance. The Italian Delegate objected to any such break and
adjured them to remain at their posts. Why, he asked, should
ill-starred Italy, which had already sustained so many and such
painful losses, be condemned to sacrifice further enormous sums
in order that the Delegates who had been frittering away their
time tackling irrelevant issues, and endeavouring to rule all
Europe, might have a rest ? Why should they interrupt the
session before making peace with Austria, with Hungary, with
Bulgaria, with Turkey, and enabling Italy to return to normal
life ? Why should time and opportunity be given to the Turks
and Kurds for the massacre of Armenian men, women and chil-
dren ? This candid reminder is said to have had a sobering effect
on the versatile Delegates yearning for a holiday. The situation
that evoked it will arouse the passing wonder of level-headed
men.
It is worth recording that such was the atmosphere of suspicion
among the Delegates that the motives for this holiday were be-
lieved by some to be less the need of repose than an unavowable
desire to give time to the Hapsburgs to recover the Crown of
St. Stephen as the first step towards seizing that of Austria.-}-
The Austrians desired exemption from the obligation to make
reparations and pay crushing taxes, and one of the Delegates, with
a leaning for that country, was not averse to the idea. As the
States that arose on the ruins of the Hapsburg monarchy were
not considered enemies by the Conference, it was suggested that
Austria herself should enjoy the same distinction. But the
* Cf. Corriere delta Sera, 20th August, 1919.
■f Ibidem (Corriere della Sera, 20th August, 1919].
333 23
The Peace Conference
Italian plenipotentiaries objected and Signor Tittoni asked :
" Will it perhaps be asserted that there was no enemy against
whom we Italians fought for three years and a half, losing half a
million slain and incurring a debt of eighty thousand millions ? "
A French journal, touching on this Austrian problem, wrote :*
" Austria-Hungary has been killed and now France is striving to
raise it to Ufe again. But Italy is furiously opposed to every-
thing that might lead to an understanding among the new States
formed out of the old possessions of the Hapsburgs. That, in
fact, is why our transalpine allies were so favourable to the
union of Austria with Germany. France on her side, whose one
overruUng thought is to reduce her vanquished enemy to the most
complete impotence, France who is afraid of being afraid, will not
tolerate an Austria joined to the German Federation." Here
the principle of self-determination went for nothing.
Before the Conference had sat for a month it was angrily
assailed by the peoples who had hoped so much from its love of
justice — ^Egyptians, Coreans, Irishmen from Ireland and from
America, Albanians, Frenchmen from Mauritius and Syria,
Moslems from Aderbeidjan, Persians, Tartars, Kirghizes and a
host of others, who have been aptly likened to the halt and maimed
among the nations waiting round the diplomatic pool of Siloam
for the miracle of the moving of the waters that never came.f
These peoples had heard that a great and potent world-
reformer had arisen whose mission it was to redress secular griev-
ances and confer liberty upon oppressed nations, tribes and
tongues, and they sent their envoys to plead before him. And
these wandered about the streets of Paris seeking the inter-
cession of delegates, ministers and journalists who might obtain
for them admission to the presence of the new Messiah or his
apostles. But all doors were closed to them. One of the peti-
tioners, whose language was vernacular EngUsh, as he was about
to shake the dust of Paris from his boots, quoting Sydney Smith,
remarked : " They, too, are Pharisees. They would do the
good Samaritan, but without the oil and two pence. How has it
come to pass that the Jews without an official delegate commanded
• L'Humaniti, tist May, 1919. f ^** Nation, «3rd August, 1919.
3S4
Sidelights on the Treaty
the support — the militant support — of the Supreme Council,
which did not hesitate to tyrannize Eastern Europe for their
sake ? "
Involuntarily the student of poHtics called to mind the report
written to Baron Hager* by one of his secret agents during
the Congress of Vienna : " Pubhc opinion continues to be un-
favourable to the Congress. On all sides one hears it said that
there is no harmony, that they are no longer solicitous about the
re-establishment of order and justice, but are bent only on forcing
each other's hands, each one grabbing as much as he can. ... It
is said that the Congress will end because it must, but that it will
leave things more entangled than it found them. . . . The peoples,
who in consequence of the success, the sincerity and the noble-
mindedness of this superb coalition had conceived such esteem
for their leaders and such attachment to them, and now perceive
how they have forgotten what they solemnly promised — ^justice,
order, peace founded on the equilibrium and legitimacy of their
possessions — ^will end by losing their affection and withdrawing
their confidence in their principles and their promises."
Those words, written a hundred and five years ago, might have
been penned any day since the month of February, 1919.
The leading motive of the pohcy pursued by the Supreme
Council and embodied in the Treaty was aptly described at
the time as the systematic protection of France against
Germany. Hence the creation of the powerful barrier States,
Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Yugo-Slavia, Greater Roumania and
Greater Greece. French nationalists pleaded for further pre-
cautions more comprehensive still. Their contention was that
France's economic, strategic, financial, and territorial welfare
being the corner-stone of the iuture European edifice, every
measure proposed at the Conference, whether national or
general, should be considered and shaped in accordance with
that, and consequently that no possibihty should be accorded
to Germany of rising again to a commanding position because, .
if she once recovered her ascendancy in any domain what-
soever, Europe would inevitably be thrust anew into the
• Chief of the Austrian Police at Vienna Congress in the years 1814-1815.
355 23*
The Peace Conference
horrors of war. Territorially, therefore, the dismemberment of
Germany was obligatory ; the annexation of the Saar Valley,
together with its 600,000 Teuton inhabitants, was necessary to
France, and either the annexation of the left bank of the Rhine
or its transformation into a detached State to be occupied and
administered by the French until Germany pays the last farthing
of the indemnity. Further, Austria must be deprived of the right
of determining her own mode of existence and constrained to
abandon the idea of becoming one of the Federated States of the
German Republic, and if possible. Northern Germany should be
kept entirely separate from Southern. The Allies should divide
the Teutons in order to sway them. All Germany's other fron-
tiers should be dehmitated in a like spirit. And at the same
time the work of knitting together the peoples and nations of
Europe and forming them into a friendly sodality was to go
forward without interruption.
" How to promote our interests in the Rhineland," wrote M.
Maurice Barres,* " is a hfe and death question for us. We are
going to carry to the Rhine our military and, I hope, our economic
frontier. The rest will follow in its own good time. The future
will not fail to secure for us the acquiescence of the population
of the Rhineland, who will live freely under the protection of our
arms, their faces turned towards Paris."
Financially it was proposed that the Teutons should be forced
to indemnify France, Belgium and the other countries for all the
damage they had inflicted upon them ; to pay the entire cost of
the war, as well as the pensions to widows, orphans and the
mutilated. And the military occupation of their country should
be maintained until this huge debt is wholly wiped out.
A Nationalist organ, f in a leading article, stated with brevity
and clearness the prevailing view of Germany's obUgations.
Here is a characteristic passage : " She is rich, has reserves
derived from many years of former prosperity ; she can work to
produce and repair all the evil she has done, rebuild all the
ruins she has accumulated, and restore all the fortunes she has
* In the Echo de Paris, and March, 1919. Cf . The Daily Telegraph, 4th March,
t Le Gaulois, 8th March, 1919, Cf. The Daily Telegraph, loth March.
Sidelights on the Treaty
destroyed, however irksome the burden." After analysing Dr.
Helfferich's report pubUshed six years ago, the article concluded :
" Germany must pay ; she disposes of the means because she
is rich ; if she refuses we must compel her without hesitation and
without ruth."
As France, whose cities and towns and very soil were ruined,
could not be asked to restore these places at her own expense and
tax herself drastically like her Allies, the Americans and British,
the prior and privileged right to receive payment on her share of
the indemnity should manifestly appertain to her. Her AlUes and
associates should, it was argued, accordingly waive their money
claims until hers were satisfied in full. Moreover, as France's
future expenditure on her army of occupation, on the administra-
tion of her colonies and of the annexed territories must necessarily
absorb huge sums for years to come, which her citizens feel they
ought not to be asked to contribute, and as her internal debt
was already overwhelming, it is only meet and just that her
wealthier partners should pool their war debts with hers and share
their financial resources with her and all their other Allies. This,
it was argued, was an obvious corollary of the war alliance.
Economically, too, the Germans, while permitted to resume their
industrial occupations on a sufficiently large scale to enable them
to earn the wherewithal to live and discharge their financial
obligations, should be denied free scope to outstrip France,
whose material prosperity is admittedly essential to the main-
tenance of general peace and the permanence of the new ordering.
In this connection, it was further contended, our chivalrous Ally
was entitled to special consideration because of her low birth-rate,
which is one of the mainsprings of her difficulties. This may
permanently keep her population from rising above the level
of 40,000,000, whereas Germany, by the middle of the century,
will have reached the formidable total of 80,000,000, so that com-
petition between them would not be on a footing of equality.
Hence the chances should be evenly balanced by the action of
the Conference, to be continued by the League. Discriminating
treatment was therefore a necessity. And it should be so intro-
duced that France should be free to maintain a protective tariff,
357
The Peace Conference
of which she had sore need for her foreign trade, without causing
umbrage to her AUies. For they could not gainsay that her
position deserved special treatment.
Some of the Anglo-Saxon Delegates took other ground, feeling
unable to countenance the postulate underljdng those demands,
namely, that the Teuton race was to be forever anathema. They
looked far enough ahead to make due allowance for a future when
conditions in Europe will be very different from what they are
to-day. The German race, they felt, being numerous and virile,
will not die out and cannot be suppressed. And as it is also
enterprising and resourceful, it would be a mistake to render it
permanently hostile by the Allies overstepping the bounds of
justice, because in this case neither national nor general interests
would be furthered. You may hinder Germany, they argued,
from acquiring the hegemony of the world, but not from becoming
the principal factor in European evolution. If thirty years hence
the German population total 80,000,000 or more, will not their
attitude and their sentiment towards their neighbours constitute
an alHmportant element of European tranquillity and will not
the trend of these be to a large extent the outcome of the Allies'
policy of to-day ? The present, therefore, is the time for the
Delegates to deprive that sentiment of its venomous, anti-aUied
sting, not by renouncing any of their countries' rights but by
respecting those of others.
That was the reasoning of those who believed that national
striving should be subordinated to the general good, and that the
present time and its aspirations should be considered in strict
relation to the future of the whole community of nations. They
further contended that while Germany deserved to suffer condignly
for the heinous crimes of unchaining the war and waging it ruth-
lessly, as many of her own people confessed, she should not be
wholly crippled or enthralled in the hope that she would be ren-
dered thereby impotent for ever. Such hope was vain. With
her waxing strength her desire of vengeance would grow, and
together with it the means of wreaking it. She might yet knead
Russia into such a shape as would make that Slav people a
serviceable instrument of revenge, and her endeavours might
358
Sidelights on tlie Treaty
conceivably extend further than Russia. The one-sided re-
settlement of Europe charged with explosives of such incal-
culable force would frustrate the most elaborate attempts to
create not only a real League of Nations, but even such a rough
approximation towards one as might in time and under favour-
able circumstances develop into a trustworthy war preventive.
They concluded that a League of Nations would be worse than
useless if transformed into a weapon to be wielded by one group
of nations against another, or as an artificial makeshift for dis-
pensing peoples from the observance of natural laws.
At the same time all the Governments of the Alhes were sincere
and unanimous in their desire to do everything possible to show
their appreciation of France's heroism, to recognize the vast-
ness of her sacrifices, and to pay their debt of gratitude for her
services to humanity. All were actuated by a resolve to contri-
bute in the measure of the possible to compensate her for such
losses as were still reparable and to safeguard her against the
recurrence of the ordeal from which she had escaped terribly
scathed. The only limits they admitted to this work of reparation
were furnished by the aim itself and by the means of attaining
it. Thus MM. Wilson and Lloyd George held that to incorporate
in renovated France millions or even hundreds of thousands of
Germans would be to introduce into the poUtical organism the
germs of fell disease, and on this ground they firmly refused to
sanction the Rhine frontier, which the French were thus obHged
to rehnquish. The French Delegates themselves admitted that
if granted it could not be held without a powerful body of inter-
national troops ever at the beck and call of the Republic, vigilantly
keeping watch and ward on the banks of the Rhine and with no
reasonable prospect of a term to this servitude. For the real
ground of this dependence upon foreign forces is the dispropor-
tion between the populations of Germany and France and between
the resources of the two nations. The ratio of the former is at
present about six to four and it is growing perceptibly towards
seven, to four. The organizing capacity in commerce and industry
is said to be even greater. If, therefore, France cannot stand alone
to-day, still less could she stand alone in ten or fifteen years, and
359
The Peace Conference
the necessity of protecting her against aggression, assuming that
the German people does not become reconciled to its status of
forced inferiority, would be more urgent and less practicable with
the lapse of time. For, as we saw, it is largely a question of the
birth-rate. And as neither the British nor the American people,
deeply though they are attached to their gallant comrades in
arms, would consent to this arrangement, which to them would
be a burden and to the Germans a standing provocation, their
representatives were forced to the conclusion that it would be the
height of folly to do aught that would give the Teutons a con-
venient handle for a war of revenge. Let there be no annexa-
tion of territory, they said, no incorporation of unwilhng German
citizens. The Americans further argued that an indefinite occupa-
tion of German territory by a large body of international troops
would be a direct encouragement to militarism.
The indemnities for which the French yearned, and on which
their responsible financiers counted, were large. The figures
employed were astronomical. Hundreds of miUiards of frjincs
were operated with by eminent publicists in an offhand manner
that astonished the survivor of the expiring budgetary epoch
and rejoiced the hearts of the Western taxpayers. For it was not
only journalists who wrote as though a stream of wealth were to
be turned into these countries to fertilize industry and com-
merce there and enable them to keep well ahead of their pushing
competitors. Responsible Ministers likewise hallmarked these
forecasts with their approval. Before the fortune of war had
decided for the Allies, the finances of France had sorely em-
barrassed the Minister, M. Klotz, of whom his chief, M. Clemen-
ceau, is reported to have said : " He is the only IsraeUte I have
ever known who is out of his element when dealing with money
matters." Before the armistice, M. Klotz, when talking of the
complex problem and sketching the outlook, exclaimed : " If
we win the war, I undertake to make both ends meet, far though
they now seem apart. For I will make the Germans pay the
entire cost of the war." After the armistice he repeated his
promise and undertook not to levy fresh taxation.
Thus, despite fitful gleams of idealism, the atmosphere of the
360
Sidelights on the Treaty
Paris Conclave grew heavy with interests, passions and ambitions.
Only people in bUnkers could miss the fact that the elastic formulas
launched and interpreted by President Wilson were being stretched
to the snapping-point so as to cover two mutually incompatible
pohcies. The chasm between his original projects and those of
his foreign associates they both conscientiously endeavoured to
ignore, and after a time they hit upon a tertium quid between terri-
torial equilibrium and a sterihzed League tempered by the Mon-
roe doctrine and a military compact. This composite resultant
carried with it the concentrated evils of one of these systems and
was deprived of its redeeming features by the other. At a con-
juncture in the world's affairs which postulated internationalism
of the loftiest kind, the Delegates increased and multiplied nations
and states which they deprived of sovereignty and yoked to the
first-class races. National ambitions took precedence of larger
interests ; racial hatred was raised to its highest power. In a
word, the world's State-system was so oddly pieced together that
only economic exhaustion followed by a speedy return to mili-
tarism could ensure for it a moderate duration.
Territorial self-sufficiency, military strength and advantageous
alliances were accordingly looked to as the mainstays of the new
ordering, even by those who paid lip tribute to the Wilsonian
ideal. The ideal itself underwent a disfiguring change in the
process of incarnation. The Italians asked how the Monroe
doctrine could be reconciled with the charter of the League of
Nations, seeing that the League would be authorized to intervene
in the domestic aifairs of other member-States, and if necessary
to dispatch troops to keep Germany, Italy and Poland in order ;
whereas if the United States were guilty of tyrannical aggression
against Brazil, the Argentine Republic or Mexico, the League,
paralyzed by that doctrine, must look on inactive. The Germans,
alleging capital defects in the WUsonian Covenant, which was
adjusted primarily to the Allies' designs, went to Paris prepared
with a substitute which, it must in fairness be admitted, was
considerably superior to that of their adversaries, and incidentally
fraught with greater promise to themselves.
It is superfluous to add that the Continental view prevailed,
361
The Peace Conference
but Mr. Wilson imagined that, while abandoning his principles
in favour of Britain, France and Bulgaria, he could readjust the
balance by applying them with rigour to Italy and exaggerating
them when dealing with Greece. He afterwards communicated
his reasons for this belief in a message published in Washington.*
The alliance — ^he was understood to have been opposed to all
partial alliances on principle — which guarantees military succour
to France, he had signed, he said, in gratitude to that country, for
he seriously doubted whether the American Republic could have
won its freedom against Britain's opposition without the gallant
and friendly aid of" France. " We recently had the privilege
of assisting in driving enemies, who also were enemies of the world,
from her soil, but that does not pay our debt to her. Nothing
can pay such a debt." His critics retorted that that is a senti-
mental reason which might with equal force have been urged
by France and Britain in justification of their promises to Italy
and Roumania, yet was rejected as irrelevant by Mr. Wilson in
the name of a higher principle.
The President of the United States, it was further urged, is
a historian, and history tells him that the help given to his country
against England neither came from the French people nor was
actuated by sympathy for the American cause. It was the vin-
dictive act of one of those kings whose functions Mr. Wilson is
endeavouring to abolish. The monarch who helped the Americans
was merely utilizing a favourable opportunity for depriving with
a minimum of effort his adversary of lucrative possessions. More-
over the debt which nothing can pay was already due when in
the years 1914-1916 France was in imminent danger of being
crushed by a ruthless enemy. But at that time Mr. Wilson owed
his re-election largely to his refusal to extricate her from that
peril. Instead of calling to mind the debt that can never be
repaid he merely announced that he could not understand what
the belligerents were fighting for and that in any case France's
grateful debtor was too proud to fight. The motive which finally
brought the United States into the world-war may be the noblest
* Cf. Chieago Tribun* (Paris Edition], 21st August, 1919.
362
Sidelights on the Treaty
that ever yet actuated any State, but no student oi history will
allow that Mr. Wilson has correctly described it.
The fact is that the French Delegates and their supporters were
consistent and, except in their demand for the Rhine frontier,
unbending. They drew up a programme and saw that it was
substantially carried out. They declared themselves quite ready
to accept Mr. Wilson's project, but only on condition that their
own was also realized, heedless of the incompatibility of the two.
And Mr. Wilson felt constrained to make their position his own,
otherwise he could not have obtained the Covenant he yearned for.
And yet he must have known that acquiescence in the demands
put forward by M. Clemenceau would lower the practical value
of his Covenant to that of a sheet of paper.
A blunt American journal, commenting on the handiwork of the
Conference, gave utterance to views which while making no
pretence to courtly phraseology are symptomatic of the way in
which the average man thought and spoke of the Covenant which
emanated from the Supreme Council. " We are convinced," it
said, " that the elder statesmen of Europe, typified by Clemenceau,
consider it a hoax. Clemenceau never before was so extremely
bored by anything in his life as he was by the necessity of making
a pious pretence in the Covenant when what he wanted was the
assurance of the Triple Alliance. He got that assurance, which,
along with the French watch on the Rhine, the French in the
Saar Valley and in Africa, with German money going into French
coffers, makes him tolerably indulgent of the altruistic rhe-
toricians.
" The English, the intelligent English, we know have their
tongues in their cheeks. The Italians are petulant imperialists,
and Japan doesn't care what happens to the League so long as
Japan says what shall happen in Asia."*
Peace was at last signed, not on the basis of the fourteen
points nor yet entirely on the lines of territorial equilibrium,
but on those of a compromise which, missing the advantages of
each, combined many of the evils of both and of others which were
generated by their conjunction, and laid the foundations of the
* a. The Chicago Tribune (Paris Edition], August 23rd, 191 *
363
The Peace Conference
new State fabric on quicksands. That was at bottom the view
to which Italy, Roumania and Greece gave utterance when com-
plaining that their claims were being dealt with on the principle
of self-denial, whereas those of France had been settled on the
traditional basis of territorial guarantees and military alliances.
Further, the Treaty failed to lay an axe to the roots of war, did
in fact increase their number while purporting to destroy
them. Far from that : germs of future conflicts not only
between the late belligerents but also between the recent
Allies were plentifully scattered and may sprout up in the
fulness of time.
The Paris Press expressed its satisfaction with France's share
of the fruits of victory. For the provisions of the Treaty went
as far as any merely political arrangement could go to check
the natural inequality, numerical, economical, industrial and
financial, between the Teuton and the French peoples. To many
this problem seemed wholly insoluble, because its solution in-
volved a suspension or a corrective of a law of nature. Take
the birth-rate in France, for example. Before the war it had
long been declining at a rate which alarmed thoughtful French
patriots. And, according to official statistics, it is falling off
still more rapidly to-day, whereas the increase in other countries
is greater than ever before.* Thus, whereas in the year 1911
there were 73,599 births in the Seine department, there were
only 47,480 in 1918. Wet nurses, too, are disappearing. Of
these, in the year 1911, in the same territory there were 1,363,
but in 1918 only 65. The mortality among foundlings rose
from 5 per cent, before the war to 40 per cent, in the year igiSf.
M. Bertillon calculates that for France to increase merely at the
same rate as other nations — not to recover the place among
them which she has already lost, but only to keep her present one
— she needs 500,000 more births than are registered at present.
A statistical table, which he drew up of the birth-rate of four
European nations during five decades, beginning with the year
• Report of Dr. Jacques Bertillon. Cf. L' Information, aoth January, 1919.
t Cf. L$ Matin, 13th August, 1919.
364
Sidelights on the Treaty
1861, is unpleasant reading* for the friends of that heroic and
artistic people. France, containing in round numbers 40,000,000
inhabitants, ought to increase annually by 500,000. Before
the war the total number of births in Germany was computed
at 1,950,000, but hardly more than 1,000,000 of the children
born were viable, f The general conclusion to be drawn from
these figures and from the circumstance that the falhng off in
the French population still goes on unchecked, is disquieting
for those who desire to see the fine French race continue; to play
the leading part in Continental Europe. One of the shrewdest
observers in contemporary Germany — himself a distinguished
Semite — commented on this decisive fact as follows :f " Within
ten years Germany will contain seventy million inhabitants,
and in the torrent of her fecundity will drown anaemic and ex-
hausted France. . . . The French nation is dying of exhaustion.
There is no reason, however, for the world to get alarmed . . .
for before the French will have vanished from the earth, other
races, virile and healthy, will have come to their country to take
their place." That is what is actually happening, and it is
impressively borne in upon the visitor to various French cities
by the vast number of exotic names over houses of business
and in other ways.
With this formidable obstacle, then, the three members of
the Supreme Council strenuously coped by exercising to the
fullest extent the power conferred on the victors over the van-
quished. And the result of their combinations challenged and
* Excess of births over deaths (yearly average]. — Cf. V Information, 20th
January, 1919 :
Germany. Great Britain.
1861-70 408,333 365.499
1871-80 511,034 43 1 436
1881-90 551,308 442,112
1891-1900 730,265 430,000
1901-10 866,338 484,822
t Professor L. Marchand. Cf. La Democratie Nouve-lle, 26th April, 1919.
J Dr. Walter Rathenau, in a book entitled " The Death of France." I have
not been able to procure a copy of this book. The extracts given above are taken
from a statement published by M. Brudenne in the Matin of the i6th of February,
1919.
Italy.
France.
183,196
93.515
191.538
64.063
307,082
66,982
339.409
23,961
369.959
46,524
The Peace Conference
received the unstinted approval of all those numerous enemies
of Teutondom who believe the Germans to be incapable of con-
tributing materially to human progress, unless they are kept in
leading-strings by one of the superior races. The Treaty repre-
sents the potential realization of France's dream, achieved semi-
miraculously by the very statesman on whom the Teutons were
rels^ng to dispel it. Defeated, disarmed, incapable of miUtary
resistance and devoid of friends, Germany thought she could
discern her sheet-anchor of salvation in the Wilsonian gospel,
and it was the preacher of this gospel himself who impUcitly
characterized her salvation as more difficult than the passage of
a camel through the eye of a needle. The crimes perpetrated
by the Teutons were unquestionably heinous beyond words,
and no punishment permitted by the human conscience is too
drastic to atone for them. How long this punishment should
endure, whether it should be inflicted on the entire people as
well as on their leaders, and what form should be given to it,
were among the questions confronting the Secret Council, and
they implicitly answered them in the way we have seen.
People who consider the answer adequate and justified, give
as their reason that it presupposes and attains a single object —
the efficacious protection of France as the sentinel of civiUzation
against an incorrigible arch-enemy. And in this they may be
right. But if you enlarge the problem till it covers the moral
fellowship of nations, and if you postulate that as a safeguard
of future peace and neighbourliness in the world, then the out-
come of the Treaty takes on a different colouring. Between
France and Germany it creates a sea of bitterness which no
rapturous exultation over the new ethical ordering can sweeten.
The latter nation is assumed to be smitten with a fell moral
disease, to which, however, the physicians of the Conference
have applied no moral remedy, but only measures of coercion,
mostly powerful irritants. The reformed state of Europe is
consequently a state of latent war between two groups of nations,
of which one is temporarily prostrate, and both are naively ex-
horted to join hands and play a helpful part in an idyllic society
of nations. This expectation is the delight of cynics and the
366
Sidelights on the Treaty
despair of those serious reformers who are not, interested politi-
cians. Heretofore the most inveterate optimists in politics
were the revolutionaries. But they have since been outdone
by the Paris world-reformers, who tempt Providence by calling
on it to accomplish by a miracle an object which they have
striven hard and successfully to render impossible by the
ordinary operation of cause and effect. Thus the Covenant mars
the Treaty, and the Treaty the Covenant.
In Weimar and Berlin the Treaty was termed the death sen-
tence of Germany, not only as an Empire, but as an independent
political community. Henceforward her economic efforts, beyond
a certain limit, will be struck with barrenness, her industry
will be hindered from outstripping or overtaking that of the
neighbouring countries, and her population will be indirectly
kept within definite bounds. For, instead of exporting
manufactures, she will be obliged to export human beings,
whose intellect and skill will be utilized by such rivals of
her own race as vouchsafe to admit them. Already before
the Conference was over they began to emigrate Eastwards.
And those who remain at home will not be masters in their
own house, for the doors will be open to various foreign com-
missions.
The assumption on which the Treaty-framers proceeded is
that the abominations committed by the German military and
civil authorities were constructively the work of the entire nation,
for whose reformation within a measurable period hope is vain.
This view predominated among the ruling classes of the Entente
peoples with a few exceptions. If it be correct, it seems super-
fluous to constrain the enemy to enter the league of law-abiding
Nations, which is to be cemented only by voluntary adherence
and by genuine attachment to liberty, right and justice. Hence
the Covenant, by b'eing inserted in the Peace Treaty, necessarily
lost its value as an eirenicon, and became subsequent to that
instrument, and seems likely to be used as an anti-German
safeguard. But even then its efficacy is doubtful and mani-
festly so ; otherwise the reformers, who at the start set out to
abolish alliances as recognized causes of war, would not have
367
The Peace Conference
ended by setting up a new Triple Alliance, which involves mili-
tary, naval and aerial establishments, and the corresponding
financial burdens inseparable from these. An alliance of this
character, whatever one may think of its economic and financial
aspects, runs counter to the spirit of the Covenant, but was an
obvious corollary of the AlUes' attitude as mirrored in the Treaty.
And the spirit of the Treaty destroys the letter of the Covenant.
For the world is there implicitly divided into two camps — the
friends and the enemies of liberty, right and justice ; and the
main functions of the League as narrowed by the Treaty will be
to hinder or defeat the machinations of the enemies. More-
over, the deliberate concessions made by the Conference to such
agencies of the old ordering as the grouping of two or three
Powers into defensive alliances, bids fair to be extended in
time. For the stress of circumstance is stronger than the
will of man. At this rate the last state may be worse than
the first.
The world situation, thus formally modified, remained essen-
tially unchanged, and will so endure until other forces are
released. The League of Nations forfeited its ideal character
under the pressure of national interests, and became a coalition
of victors against the vanquished. By the insertion of the
Covenant in the Treaty, the former became a means for the
execution of the latter. For even Mr. Wilson, faced with realities
and called to practical counsel, affectionately dismissed the high-
souled speculative projects in which he delighted during his
hours of contemplation. Although the German Delegates
signed the Treaty, no one can honestly say that he expects them
to observe it longer than constraint presses, however solemn
the obligations imposed.
In the Press organ of the most numerous and powerful poUtical
party in Germany one might read in an article on the Germans
in Bohemia annexed by Czecho-Slovakia : " Assuredly their
destiny will not be determined for all time by the Versailles
peace of violence. It behoves the German nation to cherish its
affection for its oppressed brethren, even though it be powerless
to succour them immediately. What then can it do ? Italy
368
Sidelights on the Treaty
has given it a marvellous lesson in the policy of irredentism,
which she pursued in respect of the Trentino and Trieste."*
With the Treaty as it stands, nationahst France of this
generation has reason to be satisfied. One of its framers, him-
self a shrewd business man and politician, publicly set forth the
grounds for this satisfaction.f Alsace and Lorraine, reunited
to the metropolis, he explained, will assist France materially
with an industrious population and enormous resources in the
shape of mineral wealth and a fruitful soil. Germany's former
colonies, Cameroon and Togoland, are become French, and
will doubtless offer a vast and attractive field for the expansion
and prosperity of the French population. Morocco, freed from
German enterprise, can henceforth be developed by the French
population alone and without let or hindrance, for the benefit
of the natives and in the true sense of Mr. Wilson's humanitarian
ordinances. The potash deposits, to which German agriculture
largely owed its prosperity, will henceforward be utilized in the
service of French agriculture. " In iron ore the wealth of
France is doubled, and her productive capacity as regards pig-
iron and steel immensely increased. Her production of textiles
is greater than before the war by about a third."J In a word,
a vast area of the planet inhabited by various peoples will
look to the French people for everything that makes their col-
lective life worth living.
The sole arrangement which for a time caused heartburnings
in France was that respecting the sums of money which Ger-
many should have been made to pay to her victorious enemies.
For the opinions on that subject held by the average man, and
connived at or approved by the authorities, were wholly fan-
tastic, just as were some of the expectations of other Allied
States. The French people differ from their neighbours in
many respects — and in a marked way in money matters. They
will sacrifice their lives rather than their substance. They
* Germania, nth August, 1919. Cf. Le Temps, 9th September, 1919.
■f M. Andrfe Tardieu in a speech delivered on 17th August, 1919. Cf. Paris
newspapers of following two days, and in particular New York Herald, 19th
August.
{ Cf. Speecti delivered by M. Andri Tardieu on 17th Augqit, 1919.
369 24
The Peace Conference
will leave a national debt for their children and their children's
children, instead of making a resolute effort to wipe it out or
lessen it by amortization. In this respect the British, the Ameri-
cans and also the Germans differ from them. These peoples
tax themselves freely, create sinking funds, and make heavy
sacrifices to pay off their money obligations. .This habit is
ingrained. The contrary system is become second nature to
the French, and one cannot change a nation's habits over nigfit.
The education of the people might, however, have been under-
taken during the war with considerable chances of satisfactory
results. The Government might have preached the necessity
of relinquishing a percentage of the war gains to the State.
It was done in Britain and Germany. The amount of money
earned by individuals during the hostilities was enormous. A
considerable percentage of it should have been requisitioned by
the State, in view of the peace requirements and of the huge
indebtedness which victory or defeat must inevitably bring in
its train. But no Minister had the courage necessary to brave
the multitude and risk his share of popularity or tolerance. And
so things were allowed to slide. The people were assured that
victory would recompense their efforts, not only by positive
territorial gains, but by relieving them of their new financial
obligations.
That was a sinister mistake. The truth is that the French
nation, if defeated, would have paid any sum demanded. That
was almost an axiom. It would and could have expected no
ruth. But, victorious, it looked to the enemy for the means of
refunding the cost of the war. The Finance Minister — M.
Klotz — often declared to private individuals that if the Allies
were victorious he would have all the new national debt wiped
out by the enemy, and he assured the nation that milliards
enough would be extracted from Germany to balance the credit
and debit accounts of the Republic. And the people naturally
believed its professional expert. Thus it became a dogma that
the Teuton State was to provide all the cost of the war. In
that illusion the nation lived, and worked and spent money freely,
nay, wasted it woefully.
370
Sidelights on the|Treaty
And yet M. Klotz should have known better. For he was
supphed with definite data to go upon. In October, 1918, the
French Government, in doubt about the full significance of that
one of Mr. Wilson's fourteen points which dealt with repara-
tions, asked officially for explanations, and received from Mr.
Lansing the answer by telegraph that it involved the making
good by the enemy of all losses inflicted directly and lawlessly
upon civilians, but none other. That surely was a plain answer
and a just principle. But, in accordance with the practice of
secrecy in vogue among Allied European Governments, the
nation was not informed of these restrictive conditions, but was
allowed to hug dangerous delusions.
But the Ministers knew them, and M. Klotz was a Minister.
Not only, however, did he not reveal what he knew, but he
behaved as though his information was of a directly contrary
tenor, and he also stated that Germany must also refund the war
indemnities of 1870, capitalized down to November, 1918, and
he set down the sum at fifty milliards of francs. This procedure
was not what reasonably might have been expected from the
leader of an heroic nation stout-hearted enough to face un-
pleasant facts. Some of the leading spirits in the country, despite
the intensity of their feelings towards Germany, disapproved
this .kind of book-keeping, but M. Klotz did not relinquish his
method of keeping accounts. He drew up a bill against the
Teutons for 1,086 milliards of francs.
The Germans at the Conference maintained that if the
wealth of their nation were realized and liquid, it would amount
at most to four hundred milliards, but that to realize it would
involve the stripping of the population of everything — of its
forests, its mines, its railways, its factories, its cattle, its houses,
its furniture, and its ready money. They further pleaded that
the territorial clauses of the Treaty deprived them of important
resources, which would reduce their solvency to a greater degree
than the Allies realized. These clauses dispossessed the nation
of 21 per cent, of the total crops of cereals and potatoes. A
further falling off in the quantities of food produced would
result from the restrictions on the importation of raw materials
371 24*
The Peace Conference
for the manufacture of fertilizers. Of her coal, Germany was
forfeiting about one third ; three-fourths of her iron ore were
also being taken away from her ; her total zinc production would
be cut down by over three-fifths. Add to this the enormous
shortage of tonnage, machinery and man-power, the total loss
of her colonies, the shrinkage of available raw stuffs and the
depreciation of the mark.
At the Conference the Americans maintained their ground.
Invoking the principle laid down by Mr. Wilson, and clearly
formulated by Mr. Lansing, they insisted that reparations should
be claimed only for damage done to civilians directly and law-
lessly. After a good deal of fencing, rendered necessary by the
pledges given by European statesmen to their electors, it was
decided that the criteria provided by that principle should be
applied. But even with that limitation the sums claimed were
huge. It was alleged by the Germans that some of the demands
were for amounts that exceeded the total national wealth of the
country filing the claim. And as no formula could be devised
that would satisfy all the claimants, it was resolved in principle
that although Germany should be obliged to make good only
certain classes of losses, the Conference would set no limits to
the sums for which she would thus be liable.
At this juncture M. Loucheur suggested that a minimum siim
should, be demanded of the enemy, leaving the details to be
settled by a commission. And this was the solution which was
finally adopted.* It was received with protests and lamenta-
tions, which, however, soon made place for self-congratulations,
official and private.
The French Minister of Finances, for example, drew a bright
picture in the Chamber of the financial side of the Treaty, so far
as it affected his country : " Within two years," he announced,
" independently of the railway rolling stock, of agricultural
materials and restitutions, we receive a part, still to be fixed, of
the payment of twenty miUiards of marks in gold ; another
share, also to be determined, of an emission of bonds amounting
* On this subject of reparations the Journal de Genive published several in
teresting articles at various times, as, for example, on May 15th, 1919.
Sidelights on the Treaty
to forty milliard gold marks, bearing interest at the rate of two
per cent. ; a third part, to be fixed, of German shipping and dyes ;
seven million tons of coal annually for a period of ten years,
followed by diminishing quantities during the following years ;
the repayment of the expenses of occupation ; the right of taking
over a part of Germany's interests in Russia, in particular that
of obtaining the payment of pre-war debts at the pre-war rate
of exchange, likewise the maintenance of such contracts as we
may desire to maintain in force and the return of Alsace-
Lorraine free from all encumbrances. Nor is that all. In
Morocco we have the right to liquidate German property, to
transfer the shares that represent Germany's interests in the
Bank of Morocco, and finally the allotment under a French
mandate of a portion of the German colonies free from en-
cumbrances of any kind. . . . We shall receive four hundred and
sixty-three milliard francs, payable in thirty-six years, without
counting the restitutions which will have been effected. Nor
should it be forgotten that already we have received eight milliards
worth of securities stolen from French bearers. So do not
consider the Treaty as a misfortune for France."*
Soon after the outburst of joy with which the ingathering of
the fruits of France's victory was celebrated, clouds unexpectedly
drifted athwart the cerulean blue of the political horizon, and dark
shadows were flung across the AlUed countries. The second
and third class nations fell out with the first-class Powers. Italy,
for example, whose population is almost equal to that of her
French sister, demanded compensation for the vast additions
that were being made to France's extensive possessions. The
gi'ounds alleged were many. Compensation had been promised
by the secret treaty. The need for it was reinforced by the
rejection of Italy's claims in the Adriatic. The Italian people
required, desired and deserved a fair and fitting field for legi-
timate expansion. They are as numerous as the French, and
have a large annual surplus population, which has to hew wood
and draw water for foreign peoples. They are enterprising,
* Speech of M. Klotz in the Chamber on 5 th September, 1919. Ct, Echode
Paris, 6th September, 1919.
373
The Peace Conference
industrious, thrifty and hard workers. Their country lacks some
of the necessaries of material prosperity, such as coal, iron and
cotton. Why should it not receive a territory rich in some
of these products ? Why should a large contingent of Italy's
population have to go to the colonies of Spain, France and
Britain or to South American Republics for a livelihood ? The
Italian Press asked whether the Supreme Council was bent on
fulfilling the Gospel dictum : Whosoever hath, to him shall be
given. . . .
One of the first demands made by Italy was for the port and
town of Djibouti, which is under French sway. It was rejected,
curtly and emphatically. Other requests elicited plausible
explanations why they could not be complied with. In a word,
Italy was treated as a poor and importunate relation, and was
asked to console herself with the reflection that she was working
in the vineyard of idealism. In vain eminent publicists in Rome,
Turin and Milan pleaded their country's cause. Adopting the
principle which Mr. Wilson had applied to France and Britain,
they affirmed that even before the war France, with a larger popu-
lation and fewer possessions, had showed that she was incapable
of discharging the functions which she had voluntarily taken
upon herself. Tunis, they alleged, owed its growth and thriving
condition to Italian emigrants. With all the fresh additions
to her territories, the population of the Republic would be
utterly inadequate to the task. To the Supreme Council this
line of reasoning was distinctly unpalatable. Nor did the
Italians further their cause, when, by way of giving emphatic
point to their reasoning; their Press quoted that eminent French-
man, M. d'Estournelle de Constant, who wrote at that very
moment : " France has too many colonies already, far more in
Asia, in Africa, in America, in Oceania than she can fructify.
In this way she is immobilizing territories, continents, peoples,
which nominally she takes over. And it is childish and im-
prudent to take barren possession of them, when other States
allege their power to utilize them in the general interest. By
acting in this manner, France, do what she may, is placing
herself in opposition to the world's interests, and to those of the
374
Sidelights on the Treaty
League of Nations. In the long run it is a serious business.
Spain, Portugal and Holland know this to their cost. Do what
she would, Frjtnce was not able before the war to utilize all her
immense colonial domain ... for lack of population. She
will be still less able after the war. . . .*
The discussion grew dangerously animated. Epigrams were
coined and sent floating in the heavily-charged air. A tactless
comparison was made between the French nation and a bon
vivant of sixty-five who flatters himself that he can enjoy life's
pleasures on the same scale as when he was only thirty. Little
arrows thus barbed with biting acid often make more enduring
mischief than sledge-hammer blows. Soon the estrangement
between the two sister nations unhappily became wider, and led
to marked divergences in their respective policies which seem
fraught with grave consequences in the future.
The Italy of to-day is not the Italy of May, 1915. She now
knows exactly where she stands. When she unsheathed her
sword to fight against the Allies of the State that declared a
treaty to be but a scrap of paper, she was heartened by a solemn
promise given in writing by her comrades in arms. But when
she had accomplished her part of the contract, that document
turned out to be little more than another scrap of paper. Thus
it was one of the piquant ironies of Fate, Italian publicists said,
that the people who had most loudly clamoured against that
doctrine were indirectly helping it to triumph. Mr. Wilson,
unwittingly sapping public faith in written treaties, was held
up a3 one of the many pictures in which the Conference abounded
of the Delegates refuting their words by acts. The unbiassed his-
torian will readily admit that the secret treaties were profoundly
immoral from the Wilsonian angle of vision, but that the only
way of cancelHng them was by a general principle rigidly upheld
and impartially applied. And this the Supreme Council would
not entertain.
With her British ally too France had an unpleasant falling-
out about Eastern affairs, and in especial about Syria and Persia.
* D'Estournelles de Constant. Bulletin des Droits de I'Homme, 15th May, 1919,
p. 466.
375
The Peace Conference
There was also a demand for the retrocession by Britain of the
island of Mauritius, but it was not made officially, nor is it a sub-
ject for two such nations to quarrel over. The first rift in the
lute was caused by the deposition of Emir Faisal respecting the
desires of the Arab population. This picturesque chief, the
French Press complained, had been too readily admitted to the
Conference, and too respectfully listened to there, whereas the
Persian Delegation tramped for months over the Paris streets
without once obtaining a hearing. The Hedjaz, which had been
independent from time immemorial, was formally recognized
as a separate kingdom during the war, and the Grand Sheriff
of Mecca was suddenly raised to the throne in the European sense
by France and Britain. Since then he was formally recognized
by the five Powers. His representatives in Paris demanded the
annexation of all the countries of Arabic speech which were
under Turkish domination. These included not only Meso-
potamia, but also Syria, on which France had long looked with
loving eyes and respecting which there existed an accord
between her and Britain. The projected community would
represent a Pan-Arab Federation of about eleven milUon souls,
over which France would have no guardianship. And yet the
written accord had never been annulled. Palestine was ex-
cluded from this Pan-Arabian Federation, and Syria was to be
consulted, and instead of being handed over to France, as M.
Clemenceau demanded, was to be allowed to declare its own
wishes without any injunctions from the Conference. Mesopo-
tamia would be autonomous under the League of Nations, but
a single mandatory was asked for by the King of the Hedjaz for
the entire eleven million inhabitants.
The comments of the French Press on Britain's attitude,
despite their studied reserve and conventional phraseology,
bordered on recrimination and hinted at a possible cooling
of friendship between the two nations, and in the course of
the controversy the evil-omened word " Fashoda " was pro-
nounced. The French Temps' arguments were briefly these :
The populations claimed occupy such a vast stretch of territory
that the sovereignty of the Hedjaz could hardly be more than
376
Sidelights on the Treaty
nominal and symbolical. In fact, they cover an area of one-
half of the Ottoman Empire. These different provinces would,
in reality, be under the domination of the Great Power which
was the real creator of this new Kingdom, and the Monarch of the
Hedjaz would be a mere stalking-horse of Britain. This, it was
urged, would not be independence, but a masked protectorate,
and in the name of the higher principles must be prevented.
Syria must be handed over to France without consulting the
population. The financial resources of the Hedjaz are utterly
inadequate for the administration of such a vast State as was
being compacted. Who, then, it was asked, would supply the
indispensable funds ? Obviously Britain, who had been pro-
viding the Emir Faisal with funds ever since his father donned
the crown. If this political entity came into existence, it would
generate continuous friction between France and Britain,
separate comrades in arms, delight a vigilant enemy and violate
a written compact which should be sacred. For these reasons
it should be rejected, and Syria placed under the guardianship
of France.
The Americans took the position that congruously with the
high ethical principles which had guided the labours of the Con-
ference throughout, it was incumbent on its members, instead of
bartering civilized peoples like chattels, to consult them as to
their own aspirations. If it were true that the S5n:ians were
yearning to become the wards of France, there could be no reason-
able objection on the part of the French Delegates to agree to a
plebiscite. But the French Delegates declined to entertain
the suggestion on the ground that Syria's longing for French
guidance was a notorious fact.
After much discussion and vehement opposition on the part
of the French Delegates an Inter-Allied Commission under Mr.
Charles Crane was sent to visit the countries in dispute and to
report on the leanings of their populations. After having visited
forty cities and towns and more than three hundred villages, and
received over 1,500 delegations of natives, the Commission re-
ported that the majority of the people " prefer to maintain their
independence," but do not object to live under the mandatory
377
The Peace Conference
system for fifty years provided the United States accepts the mandate.
" Syria desires to become a sovereign kingdom, and most of the
population supports the Emir Faisal as king."* The Commission
further ascertained that the Syrians, " who are singularly en-
lightened as to the policies of the United States," invoked and
relied upon a Franco-British statement of policyf which had been
distributed broadcast throughout their country " promising
complete liberation from the Turks and the establishment of free
governments among the native population and recognition of
these governments by France and Britain."!
The result of the investigation by the Inter-Allied Commission
reminds one of the story of the two anglers who were discussing
the merits of two different sauces for the trout which one of them
had caught. As they were unable to agree they decided to
refer the matter to the trout, who answered : " Gentlemen, I do
not wish to be eaten with any sauce. I desire to live and be
free in my own element." " Ah, now you are wandering from
the question," exclaimed the two, who thereupon struck up a
compromise on the subject of the sauce.
The tone of this long-drawn out controversy, especially in the
Press, was distinctly acrimonious. It became dangerously bitter
when the French political world was apprised one day of the
conclusion of a treaty between Britain and Persia as the outcome
of secret negotiations between London and Teheran. And
excitement grew intenser when shortly afterwards the authentic
text of this agreement was disclosed. In France, Italy, Germany,
Russia and the United States the Press unanimously declared
that Persia's international status as determined by the new
diplomatic instrument could best be described by the evU-
sounding words " protectorate " and the violation of the Manda-
tory system adopted by the Conference.
This startling development shed a strong light upon the new
ordering of the world and its relation to the Wilsonian Gospel,
complicated with secret negotiations, protectorates without
mandates and the one-sided abrogation of compacts.
' Chicago Tribune (Paris Edition), 34th August, 1919.
I Issued on November 9th, 1918.
% See Chicago Tribun* (Paris Edition], 30th August, 1919.
378
Sidelights on the Treaty
Persia is one of the original members of the League of Nations,*
and as such was entitled, the French argued, to a hearing at the
Conference. She had grievances that called for redress : her
neutrality had been violated, many of her subjects had been put
to death, and her titles to reparation were undeniable. President
Wilson, the comforter of small States and oppressed nationalities,
having proclaimed that the weakest communities would command
the same friendly treatment as the greatest, the Persian Delegates
repaired to Paris in the belief that this treatment would be ac-
corded them. But there they were disillusioned. Fpr them there
was no admission. Whether if they had been heard and helped
by the Supreme Council they would have contrived to exist as
an independent State is a question which cannot be discussed
here. The point made by the French was that on its own show-
ing the Conference was morally bound to receive the Persian
Delegation. The utmost it obtained was that the Persian
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Momalek, who was head of the Dele-
gation, had a private talk with President Wilson, Colonel House
and Mr. Lansing. These statesmen unhesitatingly promised to
help Persia to secure full sovereign rights, or at any rate to enable
her Delegates to unfold their country's case and file their protests
before the Conference. The Delegates were comforted and felt
sure of the success of their mission. ,They told the American
plenipotentiaries that the United States would be Persia's creditor
for this help and that she would invite American financiers to put
her money matters in order, American engineers to develop her
mining industries and the American oil firms to examine and
exploit her petrol deposits. f In a word Persia would be Amer-
icanized. This naive announcement of the role reserved for
American benefactors in the land of the Shah might have im-
pressed certain commercial and financial interests in the United
States, but was wholly alien to the only order of motives that could
properly move the American plenipotentiaries to interpose in
favour of their would-be wards.
* An American Senator uncharitably conjectured that she received this
honourable distinction in order to contribute an additional vote to the British.
f Cf. Interview with a, Persian oflScial, published in the Paris edition of the
Chicago Tribune, loth August, 1919.
379
The Peace Conference
The promises made by MM. Wilson, House and Lansing came
to nothing. For months the Persian envoys lived in hope which
was strengthened by the assurances of various members of the
Conference that the intervention of Mr. Wilson would infallibly
prove successful. But events belied this forecast, whereupon
the Head of the Persian Delegation, after several months of hopes
deferred, quitted France for Constantinople, and his country's
position among the nations was settled in detail by the new agree-
ment.
That position does undoubtedly resemble very closely Egypt's
status before the outbreak of the world-war. And Egypt's status
could hardly be termed independence^ Henceforward Great
Britain has a strong hold on the Persian Customs, the control of
the waterways and carriage routes, the rights of railway con-
struction, the oilfields — these were ours before — the right to
organize the army and direct the foreign policy of the kingdom.
And it may fairly be argued that this arrangement may prove a
greater blessing to the Persians than the realization of their
own ambitions. That, at any rate, is my own personal belief,
which for many years I have held and expressed. None the
less it runs diametrically counter to the letter and the spirit of Wil-
sonianism, which is now seen to be a wall high enough to keep out
the dwarf-States but which the giants can easily clear at a boimd.
Against this violation of the new humanitarian doctrine French
publicists flared up. The glaring character of the transgression
revolted them, the plight of the Persians touched them, and the
right of self-determination strongly appealed to them. Was it
not largely for the assertion of that right that all the alhed peoples
had for five years been making unheard of sacrifices ? What
would become of the League of Nations if such secret and selfish
doings were connived at ? In a word, French sympathy for
the victims of British hegemony waxed as strong as the British
fellow-feeling for the Sjrrians who objected to be drawn into the
orbit of the French. Those sharp protests and earnest appeals,
it may be noted, were the principal, perhaps the only, symptoms
of tenderness for unprotected peoples which were evoked by the
great ethical movement headed by the Conference.
380
Sidelights on the Treaty
The French further pointed out that the system of Mandates
had been specially created for countries as backward and helpless
as Persia was assumed to be, and that the only agency qualified
to apply it was either the Supreme Council or the League of
Nations. The British Press answered that no such humiliating
assumption about the Shah's people was being made, that the
Foreign Office had distinctly disclaimed the intention of es-
tablishing a protectorate over Persia, who is, and will, remain a
sovereign and independent State. But these explanations
failed to convince our indignant Allies. They argued, from ex-
perience, that no trust was to be placed in those official assurances
and euphemistic phrases, which are generally belied by subsequent
acts.* They further lamented that the long and secret negotiations
which were going forward in Teheran while the Persian Delegation
was wearily and vainly waiting in Paris to be allowed to plead
its country's cause before the great world-dictators was not a
good example of loyalty to the new cosmic legislation. Had not
Mr. Wilson proclaimed that peoples were no longer to be bartered
and swopped as chattels ? Here the Italians and Roumanians
chimed in, reminding their kinsmen that it was the same American
statesmen who in the peace conditions first presented to Count
Brockdorff-Rantzau made over the German population of the
Saar Valley to France at the end of fifteen years as the fair equi-
valent of a sum of money payable in gold, and that France at any
rate had raised no objection to the barter nor to the principle at
the root of it. They reasoned that if the principle could be applied
to one case it should be deemed equally apphcable to the other,
and that the only persons or States that could with propriety
demur to the Anglo-Persian arrangements were those who them-
selves were not benefiting by similar transactions.
At last the Paris Press, laying due weight on the alliance with
Britain, struck a new note. " It seems that these last Persian
bargainings offer a theme for conversations between our
Government and that of the Allies," one influential journal
• " Unfortunately Mr. Lloyd George, who has stripped the Foreign Office of
real power, has frequently given assurances of this nature, and his acts have
always contradicted them. As a proof his last interview with M. Clemenceau
will serve." Cf. Echo de Paris, isth August, 1919, article by Pertinax.
381
The Peace Conference
wrote.* At once the amicable suggestion was taken up by the
British Press. The idea was to join the Syrian with the Persian
transactions and make French concessions on the one an
equivalent for British concessions on the other. This com-
promise would compose an ugly quarrel and settle everything
for the best. For France's intentions towards the people of
Syria were, it was credibly asserted, to the fuU as disinterested
and generous as those of Britain towards Persia, and if the
Syrians desired an English-speaking nation rather than the
French to be their Mentor, it was equally true that the Persians
wanted Americans rather than British to superintend and
accelerate their progress in civilization. But instead of heark-
ening to the wishes of only one it would be better to ignore those
of both. By this prudent compromise all the demands of right
and justice, for which both Governments were earnest sticklers,
would thus be amply satisfied.
Our American associates were less easily appeased. In sooth
there was nothing left wherewith to appease them. Their Press
condemned the " protectorate " as a breach of the Covenant.-
Secretary Lansing let it be knownf that the United States Dele-
gation had striven to obtain a hearing for the Persians at the
Conference but had " lost its fight." A Persian, when apprised
of this utterance, said : " When the United States Delegation
strove to hinder Italy from annexing Fiume and obtaining the
territories promised her by a secret treaty, they accompUshed
their aim because they refused to give way. Then they took care
not to lose their fight. When they accepted a brief for the Jews
and imposed a Jewish semi-State on Roumania and Poland,
they were firm as the granite rock and no amount of opposition,
no future deterrents made any impression on their wiU. Accord-
ingly they had their way. But in the cause of Persia they lost
the fight although logic, humanity, justice and the ordinances
solemnly accepted by the Great Powers were all on their side."
. . . One American Press organ termed the Anglo-Persian
accord " a coup which is a greater violation of the Wilsonian
• L* Journal des Dibats, 15th August, 1919.
t In Washington on the i6th Auguat, 1919,
382
Sidelights on the Treaty
fourteen points than the Shantung award to Japan, as it makes
the whole of Persia a mere protectorate for Britain."*
Generally speaking, illustrations of the meaning of non-inter-
vention in the home affairs of other nations were numerous and
somewhat perplexing. Were it not that Mr. Wilson had come
to Europe for the express purpose of interpreting as well as en-
forcing his own doctrine, one would have been warranted in
assuming that the Supreme Council was frequently travestying
it. But as the President was himself one of the leading members
of that Council, whose decisions were unanimous, the utmost that
one can take for granted is that he strove" to impose his tenets on
his intractable colleagues and " lost the fight."
Here is a striking instance of what would look to the average
man very like intervention in the domestic politics of another
nation — ^well-meant and it may be beneficent intervention — ^were
it not that we are assured on the highest authority that it is
nothing of the sort. It was devised as an expedient for getting
outside help for the capture of Petrograd by the Antibolshevists.
The end, therefore, was good, and the means seemed effectual to
those who employed them. The Koltchak-Denikin party could,
it was believed, have taken possession of that capital long before,
by obtaining the military co-operation of the Esthoiiians. But
the price asked by these was the recognition of their complete
independence by the non-Bolshevist Government in the name
of all Russia. Koltchak, to his credit, refused to pay this price,
seeing that he had no powers to do so, and only a dictator would
sign away the territory by usurping the requisite authority.
Consequently the combined attack on Petrograd was not under-
taken. The Admiral's refusal was justified by the circumstances
that he was the spokesman only of a large section of the Russian
people, and that a thoroughly representative assembly must be
consulted on the subject previous to action being taken. The
military stagnation that ensued lasted for months. Then one day
the Press brought the tidings that the difficulty was ingeniously
overcome. This is the shape in which the intelligence was
communicated to the world : " Colonel Marsh, of the British
• CMiago Tribuni (Parii EditionJ, 19th August, 1919.
383
The Peace (Jonierence
Army, who is representing General Gough, organized a republic
in north-west Russia at Reval, August 12, within forty-five minutes.
General Judenitch being nominally the head of the new Govern-
ment, which is aifiliated with the Koltchak Government. North
west Russia opposes the Esthonian Government only in principle
because it wants guarantees that the Esthonians will not be the
stepping-stone for some big power like Germany to control the
Russian outlet through the Baltic. If the Esthonians give such
guarantees, the north-western Russians are perfectly willing to
let them become an independent State."*
Here then was a " British Colonel " who in addition to his military
duties was, according to this account, willing and able to create
an independent repubUc without any Supreme Council to assist
him, whereas professional diplomatists and military men of other
nations had been trying for months to found a Rhine republic
under Dorten and had failed. Nor did he, if the newspaper report
be correct, waste much time at the business. From the moment of
its inception until north-western Russia stood forth'an independent
State, promulgating and executing grave decisions in the sphere of
international politics, only forty-five minutes are said to have
elapsed. Forty-five minutes by the clock. It was almost as quick
a feat as the drafting of the Covenant of Nations. Further, the
resourceful statemaker forged a repubhc which was qualified to
transfer sovereignly Russian territory to unrecognized States
without consulting the nation or obtaining authority from any one.
More marvellous than any other detail, however, is the circum-
stance that he did his work so well that it never amounted to
intervention, f
One cannot affect surprise if the distinction between this
amazing exploit of diplomatico-military prestidigitation and
intermeddling in the internal affairs of another nation prove too
subtle for the mental grasp of the average unpolitical individual.
It is practices like these which ultimately determine the worth
* Chicago Tribune (Paris Edition), 24th August, 1919.
t After the above was written, a French journal, the Echo de Paris of Sep-
tember 19th, 1 91 9, announced that General Marsh declares that his agents acted
without his ilistructions, but none the less it holds him responsible for this
Baltic policy.
384
Sidelights on the Treaty
of the treaties and the Covenant which Mr. Wilson was content
to take back with him to Washington as the final outcome of
what was to have been the most superb achievement of historic
man. Of the new ethical principles, of the generous renunciation
of privileges, of the righting of secular wrongs, of the respect
that was to be shown for the weak, which were to have cemented
the union of peoples into one pacific if not blissful family, there
remained but the memory. No such bitter draught of dis-
appointment was swallowed by the nations since the world
first had a political history. Many of the resounding phrases
that once foretokened a new era of peace, right and equity were
not merely emptied of their contents but made to connote their
opposites. Freedom of the seas became supremacy of the seas,
which may possibly turn out to be a blessed consummation for
all concerned, but should not have been smuggled in under a
gross misnomer. The abolition of war means, as British and
American and French generals and admirals have since told their
respective fellow citizens, thorough preparations for the next war,
which are not to be confined as heretofore to the so-called military
States, but are to extend over all Anglo-Saxondom.* " Open
covenants openly arrived at " signify secret conclaves and con-
spirative deliberations carried on in impenetrable, secrecy which
cannot be dispensed with even after the whole business has
passed into history, f The self-determination of peoples finds
its limit in the rights of every Great Power to, hold its subject
nationalities in thrall on the ground that their reciprocal relations
♦ Marshal Douglas Haig, Lord French, the American pacifist, Sydney Baker,
Senator Chamberlain, Representative Kahn, and a host of others have been
preaching universal military training. The Press, too, with inconsiderable ex-
ceptions, favours the movement. " We want a democratized army, which
represents all the nation, and it can be found only in universal service. . . . Uni-
versal service is our best guarantee of peace." Cf. the Chicago Tribune (Paris
Edition), 22nd August, 1919.
■f President Wilson, when asked at the close of his conference with the
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations — at the White House — how the
United States had voted on the Japanese resolution in favour of race equality,
replied : " I am not sure of being free to answer the question, because it aSects
a large number_of points that were discussed in Paris, and in the interest of in-
ternational harmony, I think I had better not reply." — Daily Mail (Paris
Edition), 22nd August, 1919.
385 25
The Peace' Conference
appertain to the domestic policy of the-State. It means, further,
the privilege of those who wield superior force to put irresistible
pressure upon those who are weak, and the lever which it places
in their hands for the purpose is to be known under the attractive
name of the protection of minorities. Abstention from inter-
ference in the home affairs of a neighbouring community is made
to cover intermeddling of the most irksome and humiliating
character in matters which have no nexus with international
law, for if they had, the rule would be applicable to all nations.
The lesser peoples must hearken to injunctions of the Greater
States respecting their mode of treating alien immigrants and must
submit to the control of foreign bodies which are ignorant of the
situation and its requirements. Nor is it enough that those States
should accord to the members of the Jewish and other races
all the rights which their own citizens enjoy — they must go further
and invest them with special privileges, and for this purpose
renounce a portion of their sovereignty. They must Ukewise
allow their more powerful Allies to dictate to them their legis-
lation on matters of transit and foreign commerce.* For the
Great Powers, however, this law of minorities was not written.
They are above the law. Their warrant is force. In a word,
force is the trump card in the political game of the future as
it was in that of the past. And M. Clemenceau's reminder to
the petty States at the opening of the Conference that the wielders
of twelve million troops are the masters of the situation was
appropriate. Thus the war which was provoked by the trans-
formation of a solemn treaty into a scrap of paper was con-
cluded by the presentation of two scraps of paper as a treaty and
a Covenant for the moral renovation of the world.
* In virtue of Article 60 of the Treaty with Austria.
386
CHAPTER XIV
THE TREATY WITH GERMANY
TO discuss in detail the peace terms which after many
months' desultory talk were finally presented to Count
Brockdorff-Rantzau would transcend the scope of these pages.
Like every other act of the Supreme Council, they may be viewed
from one of two widely sundered angles of survey : either as the
exercise by a victorious State of the power derived from victory
over the vanquished enemy or as one of the measures by which
the peace of the world is to be enforced in the present and con-
solidated in the future. And from neither point of view can it
command the approval of unbiassed political students. At
first the Germans, and not they alone, expected that the con-
ditions would be based on the fourteen points, while many
of the Allies took it for granted that they would be inspired
by the resolve to cripple Teutondom for all time. And for
each of these anticipations there were good formal grounds.
The only legitimate motive for interweaving the Covenant
with the Treaty was to make of the latter a sort of corollary
of the former and to moderate the instincts of vengeance by
the promptings of higher interests. On this ground, and only
on this, did the friends of far-ranging reform support Mr. Wilson
in his contention that the two documents should be rendered
mutually interdependent. Reparation for the damage done in
violation of international law and sound guarantees against its
recurrence are of the essence of every peace treaty that follows
a decisive victory. But reparation is seldom this and nothing
more. The lower instincts of human nature, when dominant
387 25*
The Peace Conterence
as they are during a bloody war and in the hour of victory,
generally outweigh considerations not only of right but also of
enlightened egotism, leaving justice to naerge into vengeance.
And the fruits are treasured wrath and a secret resolve on the
part of the vanquished to pay out his victor at the first oppor-
tunity. The war-loser of to-day aims at becoming the war-
winner of to-morrow. And this frame of mind is incompatible
with the temper needed for an era of moral fellowship such as
Mr. Wilson was supposed to be intent on estabhshing. Conse-
quently a peace treaty unmodified by the principles underljdng
the Covenant is necessarily a negation of the main possibilities
of a society of nations based upon right and a decisive argument
against joining together the two instruments.
The other kind of peace which Mr. Wilson was believed to
have at heart consisted not merely in the Uquidation of the war
but in the uprooting of its permanent causes, in the renunciation
by the various nations of sanguinary conflicts as a means of
determining rival claims, and in such an amicable rearrange-
ment of international relations as would keep such disputes
from growing into dangerous quarrels. Right, or as near an
approximation to it as is attainable, would then take the place
of violence, whereby military guarantees would become not
only superfluous but indicative of a spirit irreconcilable with
the main purpose of the League. Each nation would be entitled
to equal opportunity within the limits assigned to it by Nature
and widened by its own mental and moral capacities. Thus
permanently to forbid a numerous, growing and territorially
cramped nation to possess overseas colonies for its superfluous
population while overburdening others with possessions which
they are unable to utilize, would constitute a negation of one
of the basic principles of the new ordering.
Those were the grounds which seemed to warrant the beUef
that the Treaty would be not only formally but substantially
and in its spirit an integral part of the general settlement based
on the fourteen points.
This anticipation turned out to be a delusion. Wilsonianism
proved to be a very different system from that of the fourteen
388
The Tfeaty with Germany
points, and its author played the part not only of an inter-
preter of his tenets but also of a sort of political Pope alone com-
petent to annul the force of laws binding on all those whom he
should refuse to dispense from their observance. He had to
do with patriotic politicians permeated with the old ideas, desirous
of providing in the peace terms for the next war and striving
to secure the maximum of advantage over the foe presumptive,
by dismembering his territory, depriving him of colonies, making
him dependent on others for his supplies of raw stuffs and arti-
ficially checking his natural growth. Nearly all of them had
principles to invoke in favour of their claims and some had
nothing else. And it was these tendencies which Mr. Wilson
sought to combine with the ethical ideals to be incarnated in
the Society of Nations. Now this was an impossible synthesis.
The spirit of vindictiveness — for that was well represented at
the Conference — ^was to merge and lose itself in an outflow of
magnanimity ; precautions against a hated enemy were to be
interwoven with implicit confidence in his generosity ; a military
occupation would provide against a sudden onslaught, while an
approach to disarmament would bear witness to the absence
of suspicion. Thus Poland would discharge the function of
France's ally against the Teutons in the East, but her frontiers '
were to leave her inefficiently protected against their future
attacks from the West. Germany^ was dismembered, yet she
was credited with self-discipline and generosity enough to steel
her against the temptation to profit by the opportunity of join-
ing together again what France had dissevered. The League
of Nations was to be based upon mutual confidence and good
fellowship, yet one of its most powerful future members was so
distrusted as to be declared permanently unworthy to possess
any overseas colonies. Germany's territory in the Saar Valley
is admittedly inhabited by Germans, yet for fifteen years there
is to be a foreign administration there, and at the end of it
the people are to be asked .whether they would like to cut the
bonds that link them with their own State and place themselves
under French sway, so that a premium is offered for French immi-
gration into the Saar Valley.
389
The Peace Conference
Those are a few of the consequences of the mixture of the
two irreconcilable principles.
That Germany richly deserved her punishment cannot be
gainsaid. Her crime was without precedent. Some of its
most sinister consequences are irremediable. Whole sections
of her people are still unconscious not only of the magnitude
but of the criminal character of their misdeeds. None the less
there is a future to be provided for, and one of the safest pro-
visions is to influence the potential enemy's will for evil if his
power cannot be paralysed. And this the Treaty failed to do.
The Germans, when they learned the conditions, discussed
them angrily, and the keynote was refusal to sign the document.
The financial clauses were stigmatized as masked. slavery. The
Press argued that during the war less than one-tenth of France's
territory had been occupied by their countrymen and that even
of this only a fragment was in the zone of combat. The entire
wealth of France, they alleged, had been estimated before the war
at from 350 to 400 milliard francs, consequently for the devastated
provinces hardly more than one-twentieth of that sum could
fairly be demanded as reparation, whereas the claim set forth was
incomparably more. They objected to the loss of their colonies
Taecause the justification alleged — ^that they were disqualified
to administer them because of their former cruelties towards
the natives — ^was groundless, as the Allies themselves had ad-
mitted imphcitly by offering them the right of pre-emption in
the case of the Portuguese and other overseas possessions on the
very evs of the war.
But the most telling objections turned upon the clauses that
dealt with the Saar Valley. Its population is entirely German,
yet the treaty-makers provided for its occupation by the French
for a term of fifteen years and its transference to them if, after
that term, the German Government were unable to pay a certain
sum in gold for the coal mines it contained. If that sum were
not f orthcpming the population and the district were to be handed
over to France for all time, even though the former should vote
unanimously for reunion with Germany. Count Brockdorff-
Rantzau remarked in his Note on the Treaty " that in the history
390
The Treaty with Germany
of modern times {here is no other example of a civilized Power
obliging a State to abandon its people to foreign domination as
an equivalent for a cash payment." One of the most influential
Press organs complained that the Treaty " bartered German
men, women and children for coal ; subjected some districts
with a thoroughly German population to an obligatory plebiscite*
under interested supervision ; severed others without any con-
sultation from the Fatherland ; delivered over the proceeds of
German industry to the greed of foreign capitaHsts for an in-
definite period . . . spread over the whole country a network
of alien commissions to be paid by the German nation ; withdrew
streams, rivers, railways, the air service, numerous industrial
estabhshments, the entire economic system from the sovereignty
of the German State by means either of internationaUzation or
financial control ; conferred on foreign inspectors rights such as
only the satraps of absolute monarchs in former ages were em-
powered to exercise ; in a word, they put an end to the existence
of the German nation as such. Germany would become a colony
of white slaves. . . ."f
Fortunately for the AUies the reproach of exchanging human
beings for coal was seen by their leaders to be so damaging that
they modified the odious clause that warranted it. Even the
comments of the friendly neutral Press were extremely pungent.
They found fault with the Treaty on grounds which unhappily
cannot be reasoned away. " Why dissimulate it," writes the
foremost of these journals, " this peace is not what we were led
to expect. It dislodges the old dangers but creates new ones.
Alsace and Lorraine are, it is true, no longer in German hands,
but . . . irredentism has only changed its camp. In 1914
Germany put her faith in force because she herself wielded
it. But crushed down under a peace which appears to violate
the promises made to her, a peace which in her heart of hearts
she will never accept, she will turn towards force anew. It will
* One of the three districts of Schleswig. A curious phenomenon was this zeal
of the Supreme Council for Denmark's interests, as compared with Denmark's
refusal to profit by it. The champions of self-determination urging the Danes
to demand a district, as Danish, which the Danes knew to be German !
f Das Berliner Ta^eblait, 4th June, 1919.
The Peace Conference
stand out as the great misfortune of this Treaty that it has
tainted the victory with a moral blight and caused the course
of the German revolution to swerve. . . . The fimdamental error
of the instrument lies in the circumstance that it is a com-
promise between two incompatible frames of mind. It was
feasible to restore peace to Europe by pulling down Germany
definitely. But in order to accomplish this it would have been
necessary to crush a people of seventy millions and to incapacitate
them from rising to their feet again. Peace could also have
been secured by the sole fotce of right. But in this case Ger-
many would have had to be treated so considerately as to leave
her no grievance to brood over. M. Clemenceau hindered Mr.
Wilson from displaying sufficient generosity to get the moral
peace, and Mr. Wilson on his side prevented M. Clemenceau from
exercising severity enough to secure the material peace. And
so the result, which it was easy to foresee, is a regime devoid
of the real guarantees of durabihty."*
The judgment of the French syndicalists was still more severe.
" The Versailles peace," exclaimed M. Verfeuil, " is worse than the
peace of Brest-Litovsk . . . annexations, economic servitudes, over-
whelming indemnities and a caricature of the Society of Nations
— ^these constitute the balance of the new poHcy."t The
Deputy Marcel Cachin said : " The AUied Armies fought to make
this war the last. They fought for a just and lasting peace,
but none of these boons has been bestowed on us. We are
confronted with the failure of the policy of the one man in whom
our party had put its confidence : President Wilson. The peace
conditions . . . are inacceptable from various points of view,
financial, territorial, economic, social, and human."{
It is in this Treaty far more than in the Covenant that the
principles to which Mr. Wilson at first committed himself are
in decisive issue. True, he was wont after every surrender he
made during the Conference to invoke the Covenant and its
concrete realization — the League of Nations — as the corrective
* Le Journal de Genive, 24th June, 1919.
I Cf. L'Echo de Paris, 12th May, 19 19.
} Ibidem.
392
The Treaty with Germany
which would set everything right in the future. But the fact
can hardly be blinked that it is the Treaty and its effects that
impress their character on the Covenant and not the other way
round. As an eminent Swiss Professor observed : " No League
of Nations would have hindered the Belgian people in 1830
from separating from Holland. Can the future League of Nations
hinder Germany from reconstituting its geographical unity?
Can it hinder the Germans of Bohemia from smiting the Czech ?
Can it prevent the Magyars, who at present are scattered, from
working for their reunion ? "*
These potential disturbances are so many dangers to France.
For if war should break out in Eastern Europe, is it to be sup-
posed that the United States, the British Colonies, or even Britain
herself will send troops to take part in it ? Hardly. Suppose,
for instance, that the Austrians, who ardently desire to be merged
in Germany, proclaim their union with her, as I am convinced
they will one. day, does any statesman believe that democratic
America will despatch troops to coerce them back ? If the
Germans of Bohemia secede from the Czecho-Slovaks or the Croats
from the Serbs, will British armies cross the sea to uphold the
union which those peoples repudiate ? And in the name of
which of the fourteen points would they undertake the task ?
That of self-determination ? France's interests, and hers alone,
would be affected by such changes. And France would be
left to fight single-handed. For what ?
It is interesting to note how the conditions imposed upon
Germany were appreciated by an influential body of Mr. Wilson's
American partisans who had pinned their faith to his fourteen
points. Their view is expressed by their Press organ as follows :f
" France remains the strongest Power on the Continent. With
her military establishment intact she faces a Germany without
a general staff, without conscription, without universal military
training, with a strictly limited amount of light artillery, with
no air service, no fleet, with no domestic basis in raw materials
for armament manufacture, with her whole western border fifty
♦ In a monograph entitled " Plus Jamais."
I Cf. The New Republic, August 13th, 19T9, p. 43.
393
The Peace Conference
kilometres east of the Rhine demilitarized. On top of this
France has a system of military alliances with the new States that
touch Germany. On top of this she secured permanent repre-
sentation in the Council of the League from which Germany is
excluded. On top of that economic terms which, while they
cannot be fulfilled, do cripple the industrial life of her neighbour.
With such a balance of forces France demands for herself a form
of protection which neither Belgium, nor Poland, nor Czecho-
slovakia, nor Italy is granted."
394
CHAPTER XV
THE TREATY WITH BULGARIA
AMONG all the strange products of the many-sided outbursts
of the leading Delegates' reconstructive activity, the
Treaty with Bulgaria stands out in bold relief. It reveals the
high-water mark reached by those secret, elusive and decisive
influences which swayed so many of the mysterious decisions
adopted by the Conference. As Bulgaria disposed of an abundant
source of those influences, her chastisement psirtakes of some
of the characteristics of a reward. Not only did she not fare
as the treacherous enemy that she showed herself but she emerged
from the ordeal much better off than several of the victorious
States. Unlike Serbia, Roumania, France and Belgium, she
escaped the horrors of a foreign invasion and she possessed and
fructified all her resources down to the day when the armistice
was concluded. Her peasant population made huge profits
during the campaign and her armies despoiled Serbia, Roumania,
and Greek Macedonia and sent home enormou^ booty. In a
word, she is richer and more prosperous than before she entered
the arena against her protectors and former allies.
For, owing to the intercession of her powerful friends, she was
treated with a degree of indulgence which, although expected by
all who were initiated into the secrets of " open diplomacy,"
scandalized those who were anxious that at least some simulacrum
of justice should be maintained. Germany was forced to sign a
blank cheque which her enemies will one day fill in. Austria was
reduced to the status of a parasite living on the bounty of the
Great Powers and denied the right of self-determination. Even
393
The Peace Conference
France, exhausted by five years' superhuman efforts, beholds
with alarm her financial future entirely dependent upon the
ability or inability of Germany to pay the damages to which
she was condemned.
But the Prussia of the Balkans, owing to the intercession of
influential anonjonous friends, had no such consequences to
deplore. Although she contracted heavy debts towards Germany
she was relieved of the effort to pay them. Her financial obli-
gations were first transferred* to the Allies and then magnani-
mously wiped out by these, who then limited all her liabilities
for reparations to two and a quarter milliard francs. An inter-
allied commission in Sofia is to find and return the loot to its
lawful owners, but it is to charge no indemnity for the damage
done. Nor will it contain representatives of the States whose
property the Bulgars abstracted. Serbia is allowed neither in-
demnity nor reparation. She is to receive a share which the
Treaty neglected to fix of the two and a quarter milliard francs
on a date which has also been left undetermined. She is not
even to get back the herds of cattle of which the Bulgars robbed
her. The law-givers in Paris considered that justice would
be met by obliging the Bulgars to restore 28,000 head of cattle
in lieu of the 3,200,000 driven off, so that even if the ill-starred
Serbs should identify, say, one million more, they would have
no right to enforce their claim. f
Nor is that the only disconcerting detail in the Treaty. The
Supreme Council, which sanctioned the military occupation of a
part of Germany as a guarantee for the fulfilment of the peace
Conditions, dispenses Bulgaria from any such irksome conditions.
Bulgaria's good faith appeared sufficient to the politicians who
drafted the instrument. " For reasons which one hardly dares
touch upon," writes an eminent French publicist J, "several of
the Powers that constitute the famous world areopagus count on
the future co-operation of Bulgaria. We shrink in dismay from
the perspective thus opened to our gaze."§
* In June, 1919.
t The comments on these terms, published by M. Gauvain in the Journal des
Dibats (September 20th, 1919), are well worth reading.
} M. Auguste Gauvain. § Journal des Dibats, September aoth, 1919.
396
The Treaty with Bulgaria
The territorial changes which the Prussia of the Balkans was
condemned to undergo are neither very considerable nor unjust.
Roumania receives no Bulgarian territory, the frontiers of 1913
remaining unaltered. Serbia nets some on grounds which cannot
be called in question, and a large part of Thrace which is in-
habited, not by Bulgars, but mainly by Greeks and Turks, was
taken from Bulgaria but allotted to no State in particular. The
upshot of the Treaty, as it appeared to most of the leading publi-
cists on the Continent of Europe, was to leave Bulgaria, whose
cruelty and desf ructiveness are described by official and unofficial
reports as unparalleled, in a position of economic superiority
to Serbia, Greece and Roumania. And in the inter-allied com-
mission Bulgaria is to have a representative, while Serbia, Greece
and Roumania, a part of whose stolen property the commission
has to recover, will have none.
A comparison between the indulgence lavished upon Bulgaria
and the severity displayed towards Roumania is calculated
to disconcert the staunchest friends of the Supreme Council.
The Roumanian Government, in a dignified Note to the Con-
ference, explained its refusal to sign the Treaty with Austria by
enumerating a series of facts which amount to a scathing con-
demnation of the work of the Supreme Council. On the one hand
the Council pleaded the engagements entered into between Japan
and her European allies as a cogent motive for handing over
Shantung to Japan. For treaties must be respected. And the
argument is sound. On the other hand they were bound by a
similar treaty* to give Roumania the whole Banat, the Rou-
manian districts of Hungary and the Bukovina as far as the river
Pruth. But at the Conference they repudiated this engage-
ment. In igi6 they stipulated that if Roumania entered the
war they would co-operate with ample military forces. They
failed to redeem their promise. And they further undertook
that " Roumania shall have the same rights as the Allies in the
peace preliminaries and negotiations and also in discussing the
issues which shall be laid before the Peace Conference for its
decisions." Yet, as we saw, she was denied these rights, and her
* Concluded in the year 1916,
The Peace Conference
Delegates were not informed of the subjects under discussion
nor allowed to see the terms of peace, which were in the hands of
the enemies, and were only twice admitted to the presence of the
Supreme Council.
It has been observed in various countries and by the allied
and the neutral Press that between the German view about the
sacredness of treaties and that of the Supreme Council there is
no substantial difference.* Comments of this nature are all
the more distressing that they cannot be thrust aside as calumni-
ous. Again it will not be denied that Roumania rendered in-
estimable services to the Allies. She sacrificed 300,000 of her
sons to their cause. Her soil was invaded and her property stolen
or ruined. Yet she has been deprived of part of her sovereignty
by the Allies to whom she gave this help. The Supreme Council,
not content with her law conferring equal rights on all her citizens,
to whatever race or religion they may belong, ordered her to
submit to the direction of a foreign board in everything con-
cerning her minorities and demanded from her a promise of obe-
dience in advance to their future decrees respecting her policy
in matters of international trade and transit. These stipulations
constitute a noteworthy curtailment of her sovereignty.
That any set of public men should be carried by extrinsical
motives thus far away from justice, fair play and good faith would
be a misfortune under any circumstances, but that at a con-
juncture like the present it should befall the men who set up
as the moral guides of mankind and wield the power to loosen
the fabric of society is indeed a dire disaster.
* Cf. Daily Mail (Paris Edition), September 21st, 19 19.
398
CHAPTER XVI
THE COVENANT AND MINORITIES
IN Mr. Wilson's scheme for the establishment of a society
of nations there was nothing new but his pledge to have it
realized. And that pledge has still to be redeemed under con-
ditions which he himself has made much more unfavourable
than they were. The idea itself — floating in the political atmo-
sphere for ages — has come to seem less vague and unattainable
since the days of Kant. The only heads of States who had set
themselves to embody it in institutions before President Wilson
took it up not only disappointed the peoples who believed in
them, but discredited the idea itself.
That a merely mechanical organization such as the American
statesman seems to^have had in mind, formed by parliamentary
politicians deliberating in secret, could bind nations and peoples
together in moral fellowship is conceivable in the abstract. But
if we turn to the reality, we shall find that in that direction
nothing durable can be effected without a radical change in the
ideas, aspirations and temper of the leaders who speak for the
nations to-day, and, indeed, in those of large sections of the
nations themselves. For to reorganize society on those un-
familiar lines is to modify some of the deepest-rooted instincts
of human nature. And that cannot be achieved overnight,
certainly not in the span of thirty hours, which sufficed for
the drafting of the Covenant. The bulk of mankind might not
need to be converted, but whole classes must first be educated,
and in some countries re-educated, which is perhaps still more
difficult. Mental and moral training must complement and
399
The Peace Conference
reinforce each other, and each poUtical unit be brought to reahze
that the interests of the vaster community take precedence over
those of any part of it. And to impress these novel views upon
the peoples of the world takes time.
An indispensable condition of successs is that the compact
binding the members together must be entered into by the
peoples, not merely by their governments. For it is upon the
masses that the burden of the war lies heaviest. It is the bulk
of the population that supplies the soldiers, the money and the
work for the belligerent states, and endures the hardships and
makes the sacrifices requisite to sustain it. Therefore, the
peoples are primarily interested in the abolition of the old
ordering and the forging of the new. Moreover, as latter-day
campaigns are waged with all the resources of the warring
peoples, and as the possession of certain of these resources is
often both the cause of the conflict and the objective of the
aggressor, it follows that no mere political enactments will meet
contemporary requirements. An association of nations renounc-
ing the sword as a means of settling disputes must also reduce
as far as possible the surface over which friction with its neigh-
bours is likely to take place. And nowadays most of that
surface is economic. The possession of raw materials is a more
potent attraction than territorial aggrandizement. Indeed, the
latter is coveted mainly as a means of securing or safeguarding
the former. On these and other grounds, in drawing up a
charter for a society of nations, the political aspect should play
but a subsidiary part. In Paris it was the only aspect that
counted for anything.
A parliament of peoples, then, is the only organ that can
impart viability to a society of nations worthy of the name.
By joining the Covenant with the Peace Treaty, and turning
the former into an instrument for the execution of the latter,
thus subordinating the ideal to the egotistical, Mr. Wilson
deprived his plan of its sole justification, and for the time being
buried it. The philosopher Lichtenberg* wrote : " One man
• A contemporary of Goethe. His worlcs were republished by Herzog in the
year 1907.
400
The Covenant and Minorities
brings forth a thought, another holds it over the baptismal font,
the third begets offspring with it, the fourth stands at its death-
bed and the fifth buries it." Mr. Wilson has discharged the
functions of gravedigger to the idea of a pacific society of nations,
just as Lenin has done to the system of Marxism, the only differ-
ence being that Marxism is as dead as a doornail, whereas the
society of nations may rise again.
It was open, then, to the three principal Delegates to ensure
the peace of the world by moral means or by force. Having
eschewed the former by adopting the doctrines of Monroe,
abandoning the freedom of the seas, and by according to
France strategic frontiers and other privileges of the militarist
order, they might have enlarged and systematized these con-
cessions to expediency and forged an alliance of the three States
or of two, and undertaken to keep peace on the planet against
all marplots. I wrote at the time : " The Delegates are becoming
conscious of the existence of a ready-made League of Nations
in the shape of the Anglo-Saxon States, which, together with
France, might hinder wars, promote good-fellowship, remould
human destinies ; and they are delighted thus to possess solid
foundations on which a noble edifice can be raised in the fulness
of time. Tribunals will be created, with full powers to adjudge
disputes ; facilities will be accorded to litigious States, and
even an obligation will be imposed to invoke their arbitration.
And the sum total of these reforms will be known to contem-
porary annals as an inchoate League of Nations. The Delegates
are already modestly disavowing the intention of realizing the
ideal in all its parts. That must be left to coming generations ;
but what with the exhaustion of the peoples, their aversion from
warfare, and the material obstacles to the renewal of hostilities
in the near future, it is calculated that the peace will not soon
be violated. Whether more salient results will be attained or
attempted by the Conference nobody can foretell."*
This expedient, even had it been deliberately conceived and
skilfully wrought out, would not have been an adequate solution
of the world's difficulties, nor would it have commended itself
♦ Daily Telegraph, 28th. January, 1919.
401 36
The Peace Conference
to all the States concerned. But it would at least have been
a temporary makeshift capable of being transmuted under favour-
able circumstances into something less material and more
durable. But the amateur world reformers could not make up
their minds to choose either alternative. And the result, is one
of the most lamentable failures recorded in human history.
I placed my own opinion on record at the time as frankly as
the censorship which still existed for me would permit. I wrote :
" What every Delegate with sound political instinct will ask him-
self is, whether the League of Nations will ehminate wars in
future, and, if not, he will feel conscientiously bound to adopt
other relatively sure means of providing against them, and these
consist of alliances, strategic frontiers and the permanent dis-
ablement of the potential enemy. On one or other of these
alternative lines the resettlement must be devised. To combine
them would be ruinous. Now of what practical use is a League
of Nations devoid of supernational forces and faced by a
numerous, virile and united race, smarting under a sense of
injustice, thirsting for the opportunities for development denied
to it, but granted to nations which it despises as inferior ?
Would a league of nations combine militarily against the gradual
encroachments or sudden aggression of that Power against its
weaker neighbours. Nobody is authorized to answer this
question affirmatively. To-day the Powers cannot agree to
intervene against Bolshevism, which they deem a scourge of
the world, nor can they agree to tolerate it.
" In these circumstances, what compelling motives can be laid
before those Delegates who are asked to dispense with strategic
frontiers, and rely upon a League of Nations for their defence ?
Take France's outlook. Peace once concluded, she will be con-
fronted with a secular enemy who numbers some seventy millions
to her forty-five. In ten years the disproportion will be still
greater. Discontented Russia is almost certain to be taken in
hand by Germany, befriended, reorganized, exploited and enlisted
as an ally."*
Conscious of these reefs and shoals the French Government,
♦ Daily Telegraph, 31st January, 1919.
402
The Covenant and Minorities
which was at first contemptuous of the Wilsonian scheme, dis-
cerned the use it might be put to as a mihtary safeguard, and
sought to convert it into that. " The French," wrote a Fran-
cophil Enghsh journal published in Paris, " would like the
League to maintain what may be called a permanent military
General Staff. The duties of this organization would be to kleep
a hawk-like eye on the misdemeanours, actual or threatened, of
any State or group of States, and to be empowered with authority
to call into instant action a great international military force
for the frustration or suppression of such aggression. The
French have frankly in mind the possibility that an unrepentant
and unregenerate Germany is the most likely menace not only
to the security of France, but to the peace of the world in
general."*
And other States cherished analogous hopes. The spirit of
right and justice was to be evoked like the spirit that served
Aladdin, and to be compelled to enter the service of nationalism
and militarism, and accomplish the task of armies.
The paramount Powers prescribed the sacrifices of sovereignty
which membership of the League necessitated, and forthwith
dispensed themselves from making them. The United States
Government maintained its Monroe doctrine for America —
nay, it went further, and identified its interests with the Hay
doctrine for the Far East.f It decided to construct a powerful
navy for the defence of these political assets, and to give the
youth of the country a semi-military training.J Defence pre-
supposes attack. War, therefore, is not excluded — nay, it is
admitted by the world-reformers, and preparations for it are
indispensable. Equally so are the burdens of taxation. But
* Daily Mail (Paris Edition), 13th February, 1919.
t State Secretary Hay addressed a Note to the Powers in September, 1899,
setting forth America's attitude towards China. It is known as the doctrine of
the " open door." In a subsequent Note (July 3rd, 1900), he enlarged its scope
and promulgated the integrity of China. But Russia ignored it and flew her flag
over the Chinese customs in Newchwang. It was Japan who, on that occasion,
assorted and enforced the doctrine without outside help.
I General March intimated when testifying before the House Military Com-
mittee that President Wilson approved of universal training, endorsing the War
Department's army programme. {New York Herald, Paris Edition).
403 26*
The Peace Conference
if liberty of defence be one of the rights of two or three Powers,
by what law is it confined to them and denied to the others ?
Why should the other communities be constrained to remain
open to attack ? Surely they, too, deserve to live and thrive,
and make the most of their opportunities. Now if in lieu of a
misnamed League of Nations we had an Anglo-Saxon board for
the better government of the world, these unequal weights and
measures would be intelligible on the principle that special
obligations and responsibilities warrant exceptional rights.
But no such plea can be advanced under an arrangement pro-
fessing to be a society of free nations. All that can with truth
be said is what M. Clemenceau told the Delegates of the lesser
States at the opening of the Conference : that the three great
belligerents represent twelve million soldiers, and that their
supreme authority derives from that. The role of the other
peoples is to listen to the behests of their guardians, and to
accept and execute them without murmur. Might is still a
source of right.
It is fair to say that the disclosure of the true base of the
new ordering, as blurted out by M. Clemenceau at that historic
mfeeting, caused little surprise among the initiated. For there
was no reason to assume that he, or, indeed, the bulk of the
Continental statesmen were converts to a doctrine of which its
own apostle accepted only those fragments which commended
themselves to his country or his party. Had not the French
Premier scoffed at the League in pubUc as in private ? Had he
not said in the Chamber : " I do not beheve that the Society
of Nations constitutes the necessary conclusion of the present
war. I will give you one of my reasons. It is this : if to-
morrow you were to propose to me that Germany should enter
into this society, I would not consent."*
" I am certain," wrote one of the ablest and most ardent
champions of the League in France, Senator d'Estoumelles de
Constant, " I am certain that he (M. Clemenceau) made an
effort against himself, against his entire past, against his whole
life, against all his convictions, to serve the Society of Nations.
• Journal Ofjiciel, 21st November, 1917.
404
The Covenant and Minorities
And his Minister of Foreign Afairs followed him."* Exactly.
And as with M. Clemenceau, so it was with the majority of
European statesmen ; most of them made strenuous, and, one
may add, successful efforts against their convictions. And the
result was inevitable.
" The Governments," we read in the organ of Sjmdicalists,
who had supported Mr. Wilson as long as they believed him
determined to redeem his promises, " the Governments have
acquiesced in the fourteen points. . . . Hjrpocrisy. Each one
cherished mental reservations. Virtue was exalted and vice
practised. The poltroon eulogized heroism ; the imperialist
lauded the spirit of justice. For the past month we have been
picking up ideas about the worth of the adhesions to the fourteen
points, and never before has a more sinister or a more odious
comedy been played. Territorial demands have been heaved
one upon the other ; contempt of the rights of peoples — the only
right that we can recognize — has been expressed in striking
terms ; the last restraints have vanished ; the masks have
fallen."t
From eVery country in Europe the same judgment came
pitched in varying keys. The Italian Press condemned the pro-
ceedings of the Conference in language to the full as strong as
that of the German or Austrian journals. The Stampa
affirmed that those who, like Bissolati, were in the beginning
for placing their trust in one of the two coteries at the Conference
were guilty of a fatal mistake. " The mistake lay in their belief
in the ideal strivings of one of the parties, and in the horror
with which the cupidity of the others was contemplated, whereas
both of them were fighting for . . . their interests. ... In
verity France was no less militarist or absolutist than Germany,
nor was England less avid than either. And the proof is
enshrined in the peace treaties which have masked the results
of their respective victories. Versailles is a Brest-Litovsk,
aggravated in the same proportion as the victory of the Entente
over Germany is more complete than was that of Germany over
♦ Bulletin des Droits de I'Homme, No. lo, isth May, 1919.
j Lt Populaire, 16th February, 1919.
405
The Peace Conference
Russia. Cupidity does not alter its character, even when it
seeks to conceal itself under a Phrygian cap rather than wear
a helmet."*
M. Clemenceau's opening utterance about the twelve million
men, and the unUmited right which such formidable armies
confer on their possessors to sit in judgment on the tribes and
peoples of the planet, was the true keynote to the Conference.
After that the leading statesmen trimmed their ship, touched
the rudder, and sailed towards downright absolutism.
The effect of such utterances and acts on the minds of the
peoples are distinctly mischievous. For they tend to obliterate
the sense of public right, which is the main foundation of inter-
national intercourse among -progressive nations.
And already it had been shaken and weakened by the cam-
paigns of the past fifty years, and in particular by the last war.
In the relations of nation to nation there were certain principles
— derivatives of ethics diluted with maxims of expediency —
which kept the various Governments from too flagrant breaches
of faith. These checks were the only substitute for morality in
politics. Their highest power was connoted by the word Euro-
peanism, which stood for a supposed feeling of solidarity among
all the peoples of the old Continent, and for a certain respect
for the treaties on which the State-system reposed. But it
existed mainly among defeated nations when apprehensive of
being isolated or chastised by their victors. None the less,
the idea marked a certain advance towards an ethical bond of
union.
Now this embryonic sense, together with respect for the
binding force of a nation's plighted troth, were numbed by the
demoralizing influence of the wars of the last fifty years. And
one of the first and peremptory needs of the world was their
restoration. This could be effected only by bringing the peoples,
not merely of Europe, but of the world, more closely together,
by engrafting on them a feeling of close solidarity, and impress-
ing them with the necessity of making common cause in the
one struggle worth their while waging — resistance to the forces
* La Stampa, nth June, 1919. Cf. L'Humaniti, 13th June, 1919.
406
The Covenant and Minorities
that militate against human welfare and progress. The feeling
was widespread that the way to effect this was by some form of
internationaUsm, by the broadening, deepening and quickening
all that was implied by Europeanism, by co-ordinating the
collective energies of all progressive peoples, and causing them
to converge towards a common and worthy goal. For the
working classes this conception in a restricted form had long
possessed a commanding attraction. What they aimed at,
however, was no more than the catholicity of labour. They
fancied that after the passage of the tidal wave of destructiveness
the ground was cleared of most of the obstacles which had encum-
bered it, and that the forward advance might begin forthwith.
What they failed to take sufficiently into account was the
vis inertia, the survival of the old spirit among the ruling orders
whose members continued to live and move in the atmosphere
of use and wont, and the spirit of hate and bitterness infused
into all the political classes, to dispel which was a herculean task.
It was exclusively to the leaders of those classes that Mr. Wilson
confided the realization of the abstract idea of a society of
nations, which he may at first have pictured to himself as a vast
family conscious of common interests, bent on moral and
material self-betterment, and willing to eschew such partial
advantages as might hinder or retard the general progress.
But, judging by his attitudp and his action, he had no real
acquaintance with the materials out of which it must be
fashioned, no notion of the difficulties to be met, and no staying
power to encounter and surmount them. And his first move
entailed the failure of the scheme.
As a matter of fact, Mr. Wilson came to the Conference with
a home-made charter for the Society of Nations, which, accord-
ing to the evidence of Mr. Lansing, " was never pressed." The
State Secretary added that " the present league Covenant is
superior to the American plan." And as for the fourteen
points : " They were not even discussed at the Conference."*
Suspecting as much, I wrote at the time if " The President has
* Cf. The Chicago Tribune (Paris Edition), 27th August, 1919.
•f In the Daily Telegraph, 8th February, 1919..
407
The Peace Conference
pinned himself down to no concrete scheme whatever. His
method is eclectic, choosing what is helpful and beneficent in
the projects of others, and endeavouring to obtain from the
dissentients a renunciation of ideas belonging to the old national
currents and adherence to the doctrines he deems salutary. It
is, however, already clear that the highest ideal now attainable
is not a League of Nations, as the masses understand it, which
will abolish wars and likewise put an end to the costly prepara-
tions for them, but only a coalition of victorious nations, which
may hope, by dint of economic inducements and deterrents,
to draw the enemy peoples into its camp in the not too distant
future. This result would fall very short of the expectations
aroused by the far-resonant promises made at the outset ; but
even it will be unattainable without an international compact
binding all the members of the coalition to make war simul-
taneously upon the nation or group of nations which ventures
to break the peace. I am disposed to believe that nothing less
than such an express covenant will be regarded by the Conti-
nental Powers of the Entente as an adequate substitute for
certain territoiial readjustments which they otherwise consider
essential to secure them from sudden attack.
" Whether such a condition would prevent future wars is a
question that only experience can answer. Personally, I am
profoundly convinced, with Mr. Taft, that a genuine League
of Nations must have teeth in the guise of supernational, not
international, forces. In these remarks I make abstraction from
the larger question which wholly absorbs this, namely, whether
the masses for whose behoof the lavish expenditure of time,
energy and ingenuity is undertaken, will accept a coalition of
victorious Governments against unregenerate peoples as a sub-
stitute for the Society of Nations as at first conceived."
The supposed object of the League was the substitution of
right for force, by debarring each individual State from employ-
ing violence against any of the others, and by the use of arbitra-
tion as a means of settling disputes. This entails the suppression
of the right to declare war and to prepare for it, and, as a corol-
lary, a system of deterrents to hinder and of penalties to punish
408
The Covenant and Minorities
rebellion on the part of a community. That in those cases where
the law is set at naught efficacious means should be available
to enforce it will hardly be denied ; but whether economic
pressure would suffice in all cases is doubtful. To me it seems
that without a supernational army, under the direct orders of
the League, it might under conceivable circumstances become
impossible to uphold the decisions of the tribunal, and that,
on the other hand, the co-existence of such a military force
with national armaments would condemn the undertaking to
failure.
An analysis of the Covenant lies beyond the limits of my task,
but it may not be amiss to point out a few of its inherent defects.
One of the principal organs of the League will be the Assembly
and the Council. The former, a very numerous and mainly
political body, will necessarily be out of touch with the peoples,
their needs and their aspirations. It will meet at most three
or four times a year. And its members alone will be invested
with all the power, which they will be chary of delegating. On
the other hand the Council, consisting at first of nine members,
will meet at least once a year. The members of both bodies will
presumably be appointed by the Governments,* who will cer-
tainly not renounce their sovereignty in a matter that concerns
them so closely. Such a system may be wise and conducive to
the highest aims, but it can hardly be termed democratic. The
military Powers who command twelve million soldiers will
possess a majority in the Council.t The Secretariat alone will
be permanent, and will naturally be appointed by the Great
Powers.
Instead of abolishing war, the Conference described its aboli-
tion as beyond the power of man to compass. Disarmament,
which was to have been one of its main achievements, is eUmi-
nated from the Covenant. As the war that was to have been
the last will admittedly be followed by others, the Delegates of
the Great Powers worked conscientiously, as behoved patriotic
statesmen, to obtain in advance all possible advantages for
* The Covenant leaves the mode of recruiting them undetermined,
t Article IV.
The Peace Conference
their respective countries by way of preparing for it. The new
order, which in theory reposes upon right, justice and moral
fellowship, in reality depends upon powerful armies and navies.
France must remain under arms, seeing that she has to keep
watch on the Rhine. Britain and the United States are to go
on building warships and aircraft, besides training their youth
for the coming Armageddon. The article of the Covenant
which lays it down that " the Members of the League recognize
that the maintenance of peace requires the reduction of national
armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety,"*
is, to use a Russian simile, written on water with a fork. Britain,
France and the United States are already agreed that they will
combine to repel unprovoked aggression on the part of Ger-
many. That evidently signifies that they will hold themselves
in readiness to fight, and will therefore make due preparation.
This arrangement is a substitute for a supernational army, as
though prevention were not better than cure ; that it will prove
efficacious in the long run very few believe. One clear-visioned
Frenchman writes : " The inefficacity of the organization aimed
at by the Conference constrains France to live in continual and
increasing insecurity owing to the falling off of her population."!
He adds : " It follows from this abortive expedient-^if it is
to remain definitive — that each member-state must protect
itself, or come to terms with the more powerful ones as in the
past. Consequently we are in presence of the maintenance of
militarism and the regime of armaments."^ This writer goes
further, and accuses Mr. Wilson of having played into the hands
of Britain. " President Wilson," he affirms, " has more or less
sacrificed to the English Government the society of nations and
the question of armaments, that of the colonies and that of the
freedom of the seas. . . ."§ This, however, is an over-state-
ment. It was not for the sake of Britain that the American
statesman gave up so much ; it was for the sake of saving
something of the Covenant. It was in the spirit of Sir
• Article VIII.
t M. D'Estournelles de Constant, Bulletin des Droits de I' Homme, May 15th,
1919. P- 450.
J Ibidem. § Ibidem, p. 457.
410
The Covenant and Minorities
Boyle Roche, whose attachment to the British Constitution
was such, that to save a part of it he was wiUing to sacrifice the
whole.
The arbitration of disputes is provided for by one of the
articles of the Covenant ;* but the parties may go to war three
months later with a clear conscience and an appeal to right,
justice, self-determination, and the usual abstract nouns.
In a word, the directors of the Conference disciplined their
political intelligence on lines of self-hypnotization along which
common sense finds it impossible to follow them. There were
also among the Delegates men who thought and spoke in terms
of reason and logic, but their voices evoked no echo. One of
them summed up his criticism somewhat as follows :
" During the war our professions of democratic principles were
far resonant and emphatic. We were fighting for the nations
of the world, especially for those who could not successfully fight
for themselves. All the peoples, great and small, were exhorted
to make the most painful sacrifices to enable their respective
Governments to conquer the enemy. Victory unexpectedly
smiled on us, and the peoples asked that those promises should
be made good. Naturally, expectations ran high. What has
happened ? The Governments now answer in effect : ' We will
promote your interests, but without your co-operation or assent.
We will make the necessary arrangements in secret behind closed
doors. The machinery we are devising will be a state machinery,
not a popular one. All that we ask of you is implicit trust.
You complain of our action in the past. You have good cause.
You say that the same men are about to determine your future.
Again you are right. But when you affirm that we are sure
to make the like mistakes, you are wrong, and we ask yo to
take our word for it. You complain that we are pohticians
who feel the weight of certain commitments and the fetters of
obsolete traditions from which we cannot free ourselves ; that
we are mainly concerned to protect and further the interests
of our respective countries, and that it is inconceivable we
should devise an organization which looks above and beyond
* Article XII.
411
The Peace Conference
those interests. We ask you, are you willing, then, to abandon
the heritage of our fathers to the foreigner ?
" That the downtrodden peoples in Austria and Germany
have been emancipated is a moral triumph. But why has
the beneficent principle that is said to have inspired the deed
been restricted in its application ? Why has the experiment
been tried only in the enemies' countries ? Or are things quite
in order everywhere else ? Is there no injustice in other quarters
of the globe ? Are there no complaints ? If there be, why are
they ignored ? Is it because all acts of oppression are to be per-
petuated which do not take place in the enemy's land ? What
about Ireland and about a dozen other countries and peoples ?
Are they skeletons not to be touched ?
" By debarring the masses from participation in a grandiose
scheme, the success of which depends upon their assent, the
Governments are indirectly but surely encouraging secret com-
bined opposition, and in some cases Bolshevism. The masses
resent being treated as children after haVing been appealed to
as arbiters and rescuers. For four and a half years it was
they who bore the brunt of the war, they who sacrificed their
sons and their substance. In the future it is they to whom the
States look for the further sacrifices in blood and treasure which
will be necessary in the struggles which they evidently anticipate.
Well, some of them refuse these sacrifices in advance. They
challenge the right of the Goverrmients to retain the power of
making war and peace. That power they are working to get
into their own hands and to wield in their own way, or at
any rate to have a say in its exercise. And in order to secure
it, some sections of the peoples are making conunon cause
with the Socialist revolutionaries while others have gone the
length of Bolshevism. And that is a serious danger. The
agitation now going on among the people, therefore, starts
with a grievance. The masses have many other grievances
besides the one just sketched, the survivals of the feudal age,
the privileges of class, the inequality of opportunity. And the
kernel formed by these is the element of truth and equity which
imparts force to all those underground movements, and enables
412
The Covenant and Minorities
them to subsist and extend. Error is never dangerous by
itself ; it is only when it has an admixture of truth that it
becomes powerful for evil. And it seems a thousand pities that
the Governments, whose own interests are at stake, as well as
those of the communities they govern, should go out of their
way to provide an explosive element for Bolshevism and its less
sinister variants."
The League was treated as a living organism before it existed.
All the problems which the Supreme Councillors found in-
soluble were reserved for its judgment. Arduous functions
were allotted to it before it had organs to discharge them. For-
midable tasks were imposed upon it before the means of achie-vdng
them were devised. It is an institution so elusive and elastic,
that the French regard it as capable of being used as a handy
instrument for coercing the Teutons, who, in turn, look upon it
as a means of recovering their place in the world ; the Japanese
hope it may become a bridge leading to racial equality, and the
Governments which devised it are bent on emplo3ang it as a
lever for their own politico-economic aims, which they identify
with the progress of the human race. How the peoples look
upon it the future will show.
On the Monroe doctrine in connection with the League of
Nations the less said the soonest mended. But one cannot well
say less than this : that any real society of peoples such as
Mr. Wilson first conceived and advocated is as incompatible
with " regional understandings like the Monroe doctrine " as are
the maintenance of national armaments and the bartering of
populations. It is immaterial whether one concludes that a
Society of Nations is therefore impossible in the present con-
juncture, or that all those survivals of the old State system are
obsolescent and should be abolished. The two are unquestion-
ably irreconcilable.
It would be a mistake to infer from the unanimity with which
Mr. Wilson's Covenant was finally accepted that it expressed
the Delegates' genuine conceptions or sentiments. Mr. Bullitt,
one of the expert advisers to the American Peace Delegation,
testified before the Senate Committee in Washington that State-
413
The Peace Conference
Secretary Lansing remarked to him : " I consider the League
of Nations at present as entirely useless. The Great Powers
have simply gone ahead and arranged the world to suit them-
selves. England and France, in particular, have gotten out of
the Treaty everything they wanted. The League of Nations
can do nothing to alter any unjust clauses of the Treaty except
by the unanimous consent of the League members. The Great
Powers will never consent to changes in the interests of weaker
peoples."*
This opinion which Mr. Bullitt ascribed to Mr. Lansing was,
to my knowledge, that of a large number of the representatives
of the nations at the Conference. Among them all I have met
very few who had a good word to say of the scheme, and of the
few one had helped to formulate it, another had assisted him.
And the unfavourable judgments of the remainder were deUvered
after the Covenant was signed.
One of those leaders, in conversation with several other Dele-
gates and myself, exclaimed one day : " The League of Nations
indeed ! It is an absurdity. Who among thinking men believes
in its reality ? " "I do," answered his neighbour ; " but, like
the devils, I believe and tremble. I hold that it is a corrosive
poison, which destroys much that is good, and will further much
that is bad." A statesman who was not a Delegate demurred.
" In my opinion," he said, " it is a response to a demand put
forward by the peoples of the globe, and because of this oriign
something good will ultimately come of it. Unquestionably
it is very defective, but in time it may be — nay, must be —
changed for the better." The first speaker replied : "If you
imagine that the League will help Continental peoples, you are,
I am convincfed, mistaken. It took the United States three
years to go to the help of Britain and France. How long do
you suppose it will take her to mobilize and dispatch troops
to succour Poland, Routnania, or Czecho-Slovakia ? I am
acquainted with British Colonial public opinion and sentiment
— too often misunderstood by foreigners — and I can tell you that
they are misconstrued by those who fancy that they would
♦ Cf. New Yorli Herald (Paris Edition), 14th September, 1919.
414
The Covenant and Minorities
determine action of that kind. If England tells the Colonies
that she needs their help, they will come, because their people
are flesh of her flesh and blood of her blood, and also because
they depend for their defence upon her navy, and if she were to
go under they would go under too. But the Continental nations
have no such claims upon the British Colonies, which would not
be in a hurry to make sacrifices in order to satisfy their appetites
or their passions."
The second speaker then said : " It is possible, but nowise
certain, that the future League may help to settle these disputes
which professional diplomatists would have arranged, and in
the old way, but it will not affect those others which are the real
causes of wars. If a nation believes it can further its 'vital
interest ' by breaking the peace, the League cannot stop it. How
could it ? It lacks the means. There will be no army ready.
It would have to create one. Even now, when such an army,
powerful and victorious, is in the field, the League — for the
Supreme Council is that and more — cannot get its orders obeyed.
How then will its behest be treated when it has no troops at its
beck and call ? It is redrawing the map of Central and Eastern
Europe, and is very satisfied with its work. But as we know,
the peoples of those countries look upon its map as a sheet of
paper covered with hnes and blotches of colour to which no
reality corresponds."
The Constitution of the League was termed by Mr. Wilson a
Covenant, a word redolent of Biblical and Puritanical times,
which accorded well with the motives that decided him to prefer
Geneva to Brussels as the seat of the League, and to adopt
other measures of a supposed poUtical character. The first
draft of this document was, as we saw, completed in the incredibly
short space of some thirty hours, so as to enable the President
to take it with him to Washington. As the Ententophil Echo
de Paris remarked : " By a fixed date the merchandise has to
be consigned on board the George Washington."*
The discussions that took place after the President's return
from the United States were animated, interesting and symp-
* L'Echo de Paris, February 17th, 1919.
The Peace Conference
tomatic. In April the Commission had several sittings, at
which various amendments and alterations were proposed, some
of which would cut deep into international relations, while
others were of slight moment and gave rise to amusing salUes.
One day the proposal was mooted that each member-State
should be free to secede on giving two years' notice. M. Lar-
naude, who viewed membership as something sacramentally
inalienable, seemed shocked, as though the suggestion bordered
on sa:crilege, and wondered how any Government should feel
tempted to take such a step. Signor Orlando was of a different
opinion. " However precious the privilege of membership
may be," he said, " it would be a comfort always to know that
you could divest yourself of it at will. I am shut up in my room
all day working. I do not go into the open air any oftener than
a prisoner might. But I console myself with the thought that
I can go out whenever I take it into my head. And I am sure
a similar reflection on membership of the League would be
equally soothing. I am in favour of the motion."
The centre of interest during the drafting of the Covenant lay
in the clause proclaiming the equaUty of religions, which Mr.
Wilson was bent on having passed at all costs, if not in one
form, then in another. This is one example of the occasional
visibility of the religious thread which ran through a good deal
of his pei'sonal work at the Conference. For it is a fact — ^not
yet realized even by the Delegates themselves — that distinctly
religious motives inspired much that was done by the Conference
on what seemed political or social grounds. The strategy
adopted by the eminent American statesman to have his stipu-
lation accepted proceeded in this case on the lines of a humani-
tarian resolve to put an end to sanguinary wars rather than on
those which the average reformer, bent on cultural progress,
would have traced. Actuality was imparted to this simple and
yet thorny topic by a concrete proposal which the President
made one day. What he is reported to have said is briefly
this : " As the treatment of religious confessions has been in
the past, and may again in the future be a cause of sanguinary
wars, it seems desirable that a clause should be introduced into
416
The Covenant and Minorities
the Covenant establishing absolute liberty for creeds and con-
fessions." " On what, Mr. President," asked the first Polish
Delegate, " do you found your assertion that wars are still
brought about by the differential treatment meted out to reli-
gions ? Does contemporary history bear out this statement ?
And, if not, what likelihood is there that religious inequality will
precipitate sanguinary conflicts in the future ? " To this pointed
question Mr. Wilson is said to have made the characteristic
reply that he considered it expedient to assume this nexus
between religious inequality and war as the safest way of bring-
ing the matter forward. If he were to proceed on any other
lines, he added, there would be truth and force in the objection
which would doubtless be raised, that the Conference was
intruding upon the domestic affairs of sovereign States. As
that charge would damage the cause, it must be rebutted in
advance. And for this purpose he deemed it prudent to
approach the subject from the side he had chosen.
This reply was listened to in silence and unfavourably com-
mented upon later. The alleged relation between such religious
inequality as has survived into the twentieth century and such
wars as are waged nowadays is so obviously fictitious that one
can hardly understand the line of reasoning that led to its
assumption, or the effect which the fiction could be supposed
to have on the minds of those legislators who might be opposed
to the measure on the ground that it involved undue inter-
ference in the internal affairs of sovereign States. The motion
was referred to a Commission, which in due time presented a
report. Mr. Wilson was absent when the report came up for
discussion, his place being taken by Colonel House. The atmo-
sphere was chilly, only a couple of the Delegates being disposed
to support the clause — Rouinania's representative, M. Diamandi,
was one, and another was Baron Makino, whose help Colonel
House would gladly have dispensed with, so inacceptable was
the condition it carried with it.
Baron Makino said that he entirely agreed with Colonel House
and the American Delegates. The equality of religious con-
fessions was not merely desirable,, but necessary to the smooth
417 27
The Peace Conference
working of a Society of Nations such as they were engaged in
establishing. He held, however, that it should be extended
to races, that extension being also a corollary of the principle
underlying the new international ordering. He would therefore
move the insertion of a clause proclaiming the equality of
races and religions. At this Colonel House looked pensive.
Nearly all the other opinions were hostile to Colonel House's
motion.
The reasons alleged by each of the dissenting law-givers were
interesting. Lord Robert Cecil surprised many of his colleagues
by informing them that in England the Catholics, who are
fairly treated as things are, could not possibly be set on a footing
of perfect equality with their Protestant fellow-citizens, because
the Constitution forbids it. Nor could the British people be
asked to alter their Constitution. He gave as instances of the
slight inequdity at present enforced the circumstance that no
CathoUc can ascend the throne as monarch, nor sit on the Wool-
sack as Lord Chancellor in the Upper House.
M. Lamaude, speaking in the name of France, stated that his
country had passed through a sequence of embarrassments
caused by legislation on the relations between the Catholics
and the State, and that the introduction of a clause enacting
perfect equality might revive controversies which were happily
losing their sharpness. He considered it, therefore, inadvisable
to settle this delicate matter by inserting the proposed declara-
tion in the Covenant. Belgium's first Delegate, M. Hymans,
pointed out that the objection taken by his Government was
of a different but equally cogent character. There was reason
to apprehend that the Flemings might avail themselves of the
equality clause to raise awkward issues and to sow seeds of dis-
sension. On those grounds he w^ould like to see the proposal
waived. Signer Orlando half seriously, half jokingly, reminded
his colleagues that none of their countries had, like his, a Pope
in their capital. The Italian Government must therefore pro-
ceed in religious matters with the greatest circumspection, and
could not lightly assent to any measure capable of being manipu-
lated to the detriment of the public interest. Hence he was
418
The Covenant and Minorities
unable to give the motion his support. It was finally suggested
that both proposals be withdrawn. To this Colonel House
demurred, on the ground that President Wilson, who was un-
avoidably absent, attached very great weight to the declaration,
to which he hoped the Delegates would give their most favour-
able consideration. One of the members then rose and said :
" In that case we had better postpone the voting until Mr. Wilson
can attend." This suggestion was adopted. When the matter
came up for discussion at a subsequent sitting, the Japanese
substituted " nations " for " races."
In the meantime the usual arts of parliamentary emergency were
practised outside the Conference to induce the Japanese to with-
draw their proposal altogether. They were told that to accept
or refuse it would be to damage the cause of the future League
without furthering their own. But the Marquis Saionji and
Baron Makino refused to yield an inch of their ground. A con-
versation then took place between the Premier of Australia
on the one side, and Baron Makino and Viscount Chinda on the
other, with a view to their reaching a compromise. For Mr.
Hughes was understood to be the leader of those who opposed
any declaration of racial equality. The Japanese statesmen
showed him their amendment, and asked him whether he could
suggest a modification that would satisfy himself and them.
The answer was in the negative. To the arguments of the
Japanese Delegates the Australian Premier is understood to
have replied : " I am willing to admit the equality of the
Japanese as a nation, and also of individuals man to man. But
I do not admit the consequence that we should throw open our
country to them. It is not that we hold them to be inferior to
ourselves, but simply that we do not want them. Economically
they are a perturbing factor, because they accept wages much
below the minimum for which our people are willing to work.
Neither do they blend well with our people. Hence we do not
want them to marry our women. Those are my reasons. We
mean no offence. Our restrictive legislation is not aimed specially
at the Japanese. British subjects in India are affected by it in
exactly the same way. It is impossible that we should formu-
419 27*
The Peace Conference
late any modifications of your amendment, because there is no
modification conceivable that would satisfy us both."
The Japanese Delegates were understood to say that they
would maintain their motion, and that unless it passed they
would not sign the document. Mr. Hughes retorted that if it
should pass he would refuse to sign. Finally the Austrahan
Premier asked Baron Makino whether he would be satisfied with
the following qualifying proviso : " This affirmation of the prin-
ciple of equality is not to be applied to immigration or nation-
alization." Baron Makino and Viscount Chinda both answered
in the negative and withdrew.
The final act* is described by «ye-witnesses as follows. Con-
gruously with the order of the day. President Wilson having
moved that the city of Geneva be selected as the capital of the
future League, obtained a majority, whereupon he announced
that the motion had passed.
Then came the burning question of the equality of nations, f
The Polish Delegate arose and opposed it on the formal ground
that nothing ought to be inserted in the preamble which was
not dealt with also in the body of the Covenant, as otherwise
it would be no more than an isolated theory devoid of organic
connection with the whole. The Japanese Delegates delivered
speeches of cogent argument and impressive debating power.
Baron Makino made out a very strong case for the equality of
nations. Viscount Chinda followed in a trenchant discourse,
which was highly appreciated by his hearers, nearly all of whom
recognized the justice of the Japanese claim. The Japanese
Delegates refused to be dazzled by the circumstance that Japan
was to be represented on the Executive Council as one of the
five Great Powers, and that the rejection of the proposed amend-
ment could not therefore be construed as a diminution of her
prestige. This consideration, they retorted, was wholly irre
levant to the question whether or no the nations were to be recog-
nized as equal. They ended by refusing to withdraw their
• On April nth, 1919.
f The wording of the final Japanese amendment was : " By the endorsement
of the principle of equality of nations and just treatment of their nationals."
420
The Covenant and Minorities
modified amendment and calling for a vote. The result was a
majority for the amendment. Mr. Wilson thereupon announced
that a majority was insufficient to justify its adoption, and that
nothing less than absolute unanimity could be regarded as
adequate. At this a Delegate objected : " Mr. Wilson, you have
just accepted a majority for your own motion respecting Geneva,
on what grounds, may I ask, do you refuse to abide by a
majority vote on the amendment of the Japanese Delegation ? "
" The two cases are different," was the reply. " On the subject
of the seat of the League unanimity is unattainable." This
closed the official discussion.
Some time later, it is asserted, the Roumanians, who had
supported Mr. Wilson's motion on religious equality, were
approached on the subject, and informed that it would be agree-
able to the American Delegates to have the original proposal
brought up once more. Such a motion, it was added, would
come with especial propriety from the Roumanians, who, in the
person of M. Diamandi, had advocated it from the outset. But
the Roumanian Delegates hesitated, pleading the invincible
opposition of the Japanese. They were assured, however, that
the Japanese would no longer discountenance it. Thereupon
they broached the matter to Lord Robert Cecil, but he, with his
wonted caution, replied that it was a delicate subject to handle,
especially after the experience they had already had. As for
himself, he would rather leave the initiative to others. Could
the Roumanian Delegates not open their minds to Colonel House,
who took the amendment so much to heart ? They acted on
this suggestion and called on Colonel House. He, too, however,
declared that it was a momentous as well as a thorny topic, and
for that reason had best be referred to the head of the American
Delegation. President Wilson having originated the amend-
ment, was the person most qualified to take direct action. It
is further affirmed that they sounded the President as to the
advisability of mooting the question anew, but that he declined
to face another vote, and the matter was dropped for good —
in that form.
It was pubUcly asserted later on that the Japanese decided
421
The Peace Conference
to abide by the rejection of their amendment, and to sign the
Covenant as the result of a bargain on the Shantung dispute.
This report, however, was pulverized by the Japanese Delega-
tion, which pointed out that the introduction of the racial clause
was decided upon before the Delegates left Japan, and when no
difficulties were anticipated respecting Japan's claim to have
that province ceded to her by Germany, and that the discussion
on the amendment terminated on April nth, consequently before
the Kiao Chow issue came up for discussion. As a matter of fact,
the Japanese publicly announced their intention tb adhere to the
League of Nations two days* before a decision was reached
respecting their claims to Kiao Chow.
This adverse vote on Mr. Wilson's pet scheme to have religious
equality proclaimed as a means of hindering sanguinary wars
brought to its climax the reaction of the Conference against
what it regarded as a systematic endeavour to establish the
overlordship of the Anglo-Saxon peoples in the world. The
plea that wars may be provoked by such religious inequality as
still survives was so unreal that it awakened a twofold suspicion
in the minds of many of Mr. Wilson's colleagues. Most of them
believed that a pretext was being sought to enable the leading
Powers to intervene in the domestic concerns of all the other
States, so as to keep them firmly in hand, and use them as
means to their own ends. And these ends were looked upon as
anything but disinterested. Unhappily this conviction was
subsequently strengthened by certain of the measures decreed
by the Supreme Council between April and the close of the Con-
ference. The misgivings of other Delegates turned upon a
matter which at first sight may apj^ear so far removed from any
of the pressing issues of the twentieth century as to seem wholly
imaginary. They feared that a religious — some would call it
racial — bias lay at the root of Mr. Wilson's policy. It may
seem amazing to some readers, but it is none the less a fact that
a considerable number of Delegates believed that the real
influences behind the Anglo-Saxon peoples were Semitic.
They confronted the President's proposal on the subject of
* On April aSth, 1919.
422
The Covenant and Minorities
religious inequality, and, in particular, the odd motive alleged
for it, with the measures for the protection of minorities which
he subsequently imposed on the lesser States, and which had for
their kejmote to satisfy the Jewish elements in Eastern Europe.
And they concluded that the sequence of expedients framed and
enforced in this direction were inspired by the Jews, assembled
in Paris for the purpose of realizing their carefully thought-out
programme, which they succeeded in having substantially
executed. However right or wrong these Delegates may have
been, it would be a dangerous mistake to ignore their views,
seeing that they have since become one of the permanent
elements of the situation. The formula into which this policy
was thrown by the members of the Conference, whose countries
it affected, and who regarded it as fatal to the peace of Eastern
Europe, was this : " Henceforth the world will be governed
by the Anglo-Saxon peoples, who, in turn, are swayed by their
Jewish elements."
It is difficult to convey an adequate notion of the warmth of
feeling — one might almost call it the heat of passion — ^which
this supposed discovery generated. The applications of the
theory to many of the puzzles of the past were countless and
ingenious. The illustrations of the manner in which the policy
was pursued, and the cajolery and threats which were said to
have been employed in order to ensure its success, covered the
whole history of the Conference, and presented it through a new
and possibly distorted medium. The morbid suspicions current
may have been the natural vein of men who had passed a great
part of their lives in petty racial struggles ; but according to
common account, it was abundantly nurtured at the Conference
by the lack of reserve and moderation displayed by some of the
promoters of the minority clauses who were deficient in the sense
of measure. What the Eastern Delegates said was briefly this :
" The tide in our countries was flowing rapidly in favour of the
Jews. All the East European Governments which had there-
tofore wronged them were uttering their mea culpa, and had
solemnly promised to turn over a new leaf. Nay, they had
already turned it. We, for example, altered our legislation in
423
The Peace Conference
order to meet by anticipation the legitimate wishes of the Con-
ference and the pressiiig demands of the Jews. We did quite
enough to obviate decrees which might impair our sovereignty
or lessen our prestige. Poland and Roumania issued laws estab-
lishing absolute equality between the Jews and their own nationals.
All discrimination had ceased. Immigrant Hebrews from Russia
received the full rights of citizenship and became entitled to
fill any ofiftce in the State. In a word, all the old disabilities were
abolished and the fervent prayer of East European Govern-
ments was that the Jewish members of their respective com-
munities should be gradually assimilated to the natives and
become patriotic citizens like them. It was a new ideal. It
accorded to the Jews everything they had asked for. It would
enable them to show themselves as the French, Italian and Bel-
gian Jews had shown themselves, efficient citizens of their
adopted countries.
" But in the flush of their triumph, the Jews, or rather their
spokesmen at the Conference, were not satisfied with equaUty.
What they demanded was inequality to the detriment of the
races whose hospitality they were enjoying and to their own
supposed advantage. They were to have the same rights as the
Roumanians, the Poles and the other peoples among whom they
lived, but they were also to have a good deal more. Their reli-
gious autonomy was placed under the protection of an alien
body, the League, which is but another name for the Powers
which have reserved to themselves the governance of the world.
The method is to oblige each of the lesser States to bestow on
6ach minority the same rights as the majority enjoys, and also
certain privileges over and above. The instrument imposing
this obligation is a formal treaty with the Great Powers which
the Poles, Roumanians, and other small States were summoned
to sign. It contains twenty-one articles. The first peirt of the
document deals with minorities generally, the latter with the
Jewish elements. The second clause of the Polish treaty enacts
that every individual who habitually resided in Poland on
August 1st, 1914, becomes a citizen forthwith. This is simple.
Is it also satisfactory ? Many Frenchmen and Poles doubt it,
424
The Covenant and Minorities
as we do ourselves. On August ist numerous German and
Austrian agents and spies, " many of them Hebrews, resided
habitually in Poland. Moreover, the foreign Jewish elements
there, which have immigrated from Russia, having lost — like
everybody else before the war — the expectation of seeing Polish
independence ever restored, had definitively thrown in their lot
with the enemies of Poland. Now to put into the hands of such
enemies constitutional weapons is already a sacrifice and a risk.
The Jews in Vilna recently voted solidly against the incorpor-
ation of that city in Poland.* Are they to be treated as loyal
Polish citizens ? We have conceded the point unreservedly.
But to give them autonomy over and above, to create a State
within the State, and enable its subjects to call in foreign
Powers at every hand's turn, against the lawfully constituted
authorities — that is an expedient which does not commend itself
to the newly-emancipated peoples."
The Roumanian Premier Bratiano, whose conspicuous services
to the Allied cause entitled him to a respectful hearing, delivered
a powerful speechf before the Delegates assembled in plenary
session on this question of protecting ethnic and religious
minorities. He covered ground unsurveyed by the framers of the
special treaties, and his sincere tone lent weight to his argu-
ments. Starting from the postulate that the strength of latter-
day States depends upon the widest participation of all the
elements of the population in the government of the country,
he admitted the peremptory necessity of abolishing invidious
distinctions between the various elements of the population there,
ethnic or reUgious. So far, he was at one with the spokesmen
of the Great Powers. Roumania, however, had already accom-
plished this by the decree enabling her Jews to acquire full
citizenship by expressing the mere desire according to a simple
formula. This act confers the full rights, of Roumanian citizens
upon 800,000 Jews. The Jewish Press of Bucharest had already
* The Jewish coalition in Vilna inscribed on its programme the union of Vilna
with Russia. . . . There was an overwhelming majority in favour of its reten-
tion by Poland. L$ Temps, September 14th, 1919. The election took place on
September 7th.
t On Saturday, May 31st, 1919.
The Peace Conference
given utterance to its entire satisfaction. If, however, the
Jews are now to be placed in a special category, differentiated and
kept apart from their fellow-citizens by having autonomous
institutions, by the maintenance of the German- Yiddish dialect,
which keeps alive the Teuton anti-Roumanian spirit, and by
being authorized to regard the Roumanian State as an inferior
tribunal, from which an appeal always lies to a foreign body —
the Government of the Great Powers — this would be the most
invidious of all distinctions, and calculated to render the assimila-
tion of the German- Yiddish speaking Jews to their Roumanian
fellow-citizens a sheer impossibility. The majority and the
minority would then be systematically and definitively estranged
from each other ; and seeing this, the eleniental instincts of the
masses might suddenly assume untoward forms, which the treaty,
if ratified, would be unavailing to prevent. But however bane-
ful for the population, foreign protection is incomparably worse
for the State, because it tends to destroy the cement that holds
the Government and people together, and ultimately to bring
about disintegration. A classic example of this process of dis-
ruption is Russia's well-meant protection of the persecuted
Christians in Turkey. In this case the motive was admirable,
the necessity imperative, but the result was the dismemberment
of Turkey and other changes ; some of which one would like to
forget.
The Delegates of Czecho-Slovakia, Yugo-Slavia and Poland
upheld M. Bratiano's contentions in brief pithy speeches. Presi-
dent Wilson's lengthy rejoinder, delivered with more than
ordinary sweetness, deprecated M. Bratiano's comparison of the
Allies' proposed intervention with Russia's protection of the
Christians of Turkey, and represented the measure as emanating
from the purest kindness. He said that the Great Powers were
now bestowing national existence or extensive territories upon
the interested States, actually guaranteeing their frontiers, and
therefore making themselves responsible for permanent tran-
quillity there. But the treatment of the minorities, he added,
unless fair and considerate, might produce the gravest troubles
and even precipitate wars. Therefore it behoved the Powers
426
The Covenant and Minorities
in the interests of all Europe, as of each of its individual members,
to secure harmonious relations, and, at any rate, to remove all
manifest obstacles to their establishment. " We guarantee
your frontiers and your territories. That means that we will
send over arms, ships and men in case of necessity. Therefore
we possess the right and recognize the duty to hinder the survival
of a set of deplorable conditions which would render this inter-
vention unavoidable."
To this line of reasoning M. Bratiano made answer that all
the helpful maxims of good government are of universal applica-
tion, and, therefore, if this protection of minorities were, indeed,
indispensable or desirable, it should not be restricted to the
countries of Eastern Europe, but should be extended to all
without exception. For it is inadmissible that two categories of
States should be artificially created, one endowed with full
sovereignty and the other with half-sovereignty. Such an
arrangement would destroy the equality which should lie at the
base of a genuine League of Nations.
But the Powers had made up their minds, and the special
treaties were imposed on the unwilling Governments. There-
upon the Roumanian Premier withdrew from the Conference,
and neither his Cabinet nor that of the Yugo-Slavs signed
the treaty with Austria at St. Germain.
What happened after that is a matter of history.
Few politicians are conscious of the magnitude of the issue
concealed by the involved diplomatic phraseology of the
obnoxious treaties, or of the dangers to which their enactment
will expose the minorities which they were framed to protect,
the countries whose hospitality those minorities enjoy, and
possibly other lands, which for the time being are seemingly
immune from all such perilous race problems. The calculable,
to say nothing of the unascertained, elements of the question
might well cause responsible statesmen to be satisfied with the
feasible. The Jewish elements in Europe, for centuries abomin-
ably oppressed, were justified in utilizing to the fullest the oppor-
tunity presented by the resettlement of the world in order to
secure equality of treatment. And it must be admitted that
427
The Peace Conference
their organization is marvellous. For years I championed their
cause in Russia, and paid the penalty under the Governments of
Alexander II. and III.* The sympathy of every unbiassed
man, to whatever race or religion he may belong, will naturally
go out to a race or a nation which is trodden under foot, as
were the ill-starred Jews of Russia ever since the partition of
Poland. But equality one would have thought suflftcient to meet
the grievance. Full equality without reservation. That was
the view taken by numerous Jews in Poland and Roumania,
several of whom called on me in Paris, and urged me to give pubUc
utterance to their hopes that the Conference would rest satisfied
with equality and to their fear of the consequences of an attempt
to establish a privileged status. Why this position should exist
only in Eastern Europe and not elsewhere, why it should not
be extended to other races with larger minorities in other
countries, are questions to which a satisfactory response could
be given only by further-reaching and fateful changes in the
legislation of the world.
One of the statesmen of Eastern Europe made a forcible appeal
to have the minority clauses withdrawn. He took the ground
that the principal aim pursued in conferring full rights on the
Jews who dwell among us is to remove the obstacles that
prevent them from becoming true and loyal citizens of the State,
as their kindred are in France, Italy, Britain and elsewhere. " If
it is reasonable," he said, " that they should demand all the rights
possessed by their Roumanian and Polish fellow-subjects, it is
equally fair that they should take over and fulfil the correlate
duties, as does the remainder of the population. For the
gradual assimilation of all the ethnic elements of the commtmity
is our ideal, as it is the ideal of the French, English, Italian and
other States.
" Isolatipn and particularism are the negation of that ideal,
and operate like a piece of iron or wood in the human body
which produces ulceration and gangrene. All our institutions
* I published several series of articles in the Daily Telegraph, the Fortnightly
Review, and other English as well as American periodicals, and a long chapter
in my book entitled " Russian Characteristics."
The Covenant and Minorities
should therefore be calculated to encourage assimilation. If we
adopt the opposite policy, we inevitably alienate the privileged
from the unprivileged sections of the community, generate
enmity between them, cause endless worries to the administration
and paralyse in advance our best-intentioned endeavours to fuse
the various ethnic ingredients of the nation into a homogeneous
whole.
"This argument applies as fully to the other national frag-
ments in our midst as to the Jews. It is manifest, therefore,
that the one certain result of the minority clause will be to
impose domestic enemies on each of the States that submits
to it, and that it can commend itself only to those who approve
the maxim divide et impera.
" It also entails the noteworthy diminution of the sovereignty
of the State. We are to be liable to be haled before a foreign
tribunal whenever one of our minorities formulates a complaint
against us.* How easily, nay, how wickedly such complaints
were filed of late may be inferred from the heartrending accounts
of pogroms in Poland, which have since been shown by the Allies'
own confidential envoys to be utterly fictitious. Again, with
whom are we to make the obnoxious stipulations ? With the
League of Nations ? No. We are to bind ourselves towards
the Great Powers, who themselves have their minorities which
complain in vain of being continually coerced. Ireland, Egypt
and the negroes are three striking examples. None of their
Delegates were admitted to the Conference. If the principle
which those Great Powers seek to enforce be worth anything, it
should be applied indiscriminately to all minorities, not restricted
to those of the smaller States, who already have difficulties enough
to contend against."
The trend of Continental opinion was decidedly opposed to
this policy of continuous control and periodic intervention.
It would be unfruitful to quote the sharp criticisms of the status
* Poland agrees that any member of the Council of the League of Nations shall
have the right to bring to the attention of the Council any infraction, or any
danger of infraction, of any of these obligations, and that the Council may there
upon take such action and give such direction as it may deem proper and e£Eective
in the circumstances." Article XII. of the Special Treaty with Poland)
429
The Peace Conference
of the negroes in the United States.* But it will not be amiss
to cite the views of two moderate French publicists who have
ever been among the most fervent advocates of the Allied cause.
Their comments deal with one of the articlesf of the special
Minority Treaty which Poland has had to sign. It runs thus :
" Jews shall not be compelled to perform any act which con-
stitutes a violation of their Sabbath, nor shall they be placed
under any disability by reason of their refusal to attend courts
of law or to perform any legal business on their Sabbath. This
provision, however, shall not exempt Jews from such obligations
as shall be imposed upon all other Polish citizens for the neces-
sary purposes of military service, national defence, or the pre-
servation of public order.
" Poland declares her intention to refrain from ordering or
permitting elections, whether general or local, to be held on a
Saturday, nor will registration for electoral or other purposes be
compelled to be performed on a Saturday."
M. Gauvain writes : " One may put the question, why respect
for the Sabbath is so peremptorily imposed, when Sunday is
ignored among several of the AUied Powers. In France Christians
are n©t dispensed from appearing on Sundays before the Assize
courts. Besides, Poland is further obliged not to order or
authorize elections on a Saturday. What precautions these are
in favour of the Jewish religion as compared with the legislation
of many Allied States which have no such ordinances in favour
of Catholicism ! Is the same procedure to be adopted towards
the Moslems ? Shall we behold the famous Mussulmans of
India, so opportunely drawn from the shade by Mr. Montagu,
demanding the insertion of clauses to protect Islam ? Will the
Zionists impose their dogmas in Palestine ? Is the Ufe of a
nation to be suspended two, three or four days a week, in order
that religious laws may be observed ? Catholicism has adapted
itself in practice to laic legislation and to the exigencies of modern
life. It may well seem that Judaism in Poland could do hke-
wise. In Roumania, the Jews met with no obstacle to the
* Cf. La Gazette dc Lausanne, April 24th, 1919.
t Article XI. of the Special Treaty, L'Etoile Beige, August 17th, 1919.
430
The Covenant and Minorities
exercise of their religion. Indeed, they had contrived in the
locaUties to the north of Moldavia, where they formed a majority,
to impose their own customs on the rest of the population.
Jewish guardians of toll-bridges are known to have barred the
passage of these bridges on Saturdays, because, on the one hand,
their religion forbade them to accept money on that day, and,
on the other hand, they could allow no one to pass without
paying. The Big Four might have given their attention to
matters more useful or more pressing than enforcing respect for
the Sabbath.
" It is comprehensible that M. Bratiano should have refused
to accept in advance the conditions which the Four or the Five
may dictate in favour of ethnic and religious minorities. Rou-
mania before the war was a free country governed congruously
with the most modern principles. The restrictions which she
had enacted respecting foreigners in general, and which were on
the point of being repealed, did not exceed those which the
United States and the Dominion of Australia still apply with
remarkable tenacity. Why should the Cabinets of London and
Washington take so much to heart the lot of ethnic and religious
minorities in certain European countries, while they themselves
refuse to admit in the Covenant of the Society of Nations the
principle of the equality of races ? Their conduct is awakening
among the States ' whose interests are limited ' the belief that
they are the victims of an arbitrary policy. And that is not
without danger."*
Another eminent Frenchman, M. Denis Cochin, who until quite
recently was a Cabinet Minister, wrote : " The Conference by
imposing laws in favour of minorities has uselessly and unjustly
offended our Allies. These laws oblige them to respect the
usages of the Jews, to maintain schools for them. ... I have
spent a large part of my career in demanding for French Catholics
exactly that which the Conference imposes elsewhere. The
Catholics pay taxes in money and taxes in blood. And yet
there is no budget for those schools in which their religion is
taught ; no liberty for those schoolmasters who wear the eccle-
* Le Journal des Dibats, July ytt, 1919s.
The Peace Conference
siastical habit. I have seen a doctor-in-letters, fellow of the
University, driven from his class because he was a Marist brother
and did not choose to repudiate the vocation of his youth. He
died of grief. I have seen young priests after the long, laborious
preparation necessary before they could take part in the com-
petition for a University fellowship, thrust aside at the last
moment and debarred from the competition because they wore
the garb of priests. Yet a year later they were soldiers. I have
seen Father Schell presented unanimously by the Institute and
the Professorial Corps as worthy to receive a chair at the College
de France, and refused by the Minister. Yet I hereby affirm that
if foreigners, even though they were allies, even friends, were to
meddle with imposing on us the abrogation of these iniquitous
laws, my protest would be uphfted against them, together with
that of M. Combes.* I would exclaim Uke Sganarelle's wife :
' And what if I wish to be beaten ? ' I hold tyranny in horror,
but I hold foreign intervention in greater horror still. Let us
combat bad laws with all our strength, but among ourselves."!
The Minority Treaties tend to transform each of the States
on which it is imposed into a miniature Balkans, to keep Europe
in continuous turmoil and hinder the growth of the new and
creative ideas from which alone one could expect that union of
collective energy with individual freedom, which is essential to
peace and progress. Modern history affords no more striking
example of the force of abstract bias over the teachings of
experience than this amateur legislation which is scattering
seeds of mischief and conflict throughout Europe.
Casting a final glance at the results of the Conference, it would
be ungracious not to welcome as a precious boon the destruction
of Prussian militarism, a consummation which we owe to the
heroism of the armies rather than to the sagacity of the law-
givers in Paris. The restoration of a PoUsh State and the creation
or extension of the other free communities at the expense of the
» M. Emile Combes was the author of the laws which banished religious con-
gregations from France.
-f Le Figaro, August aist, 1919. Echo de Paris, August 22nd, 1919.
432
The Covenant and Minorities
Central Empires are also most welcome changes, which, however,
ought never to have been marred by the disruptive wedge of the
Minority legislation. Again, although the League is a mill whose
sails uselessly revolve, because it has no corn to grind, the
mere fact that the necessity of internationalism was solemnly
proclaimed as the central idea of the new ordering, and that an
effort, however feeble, was put forth to realize it in the shape
of a covenant of social and moral fellowship, marks an advance
from which there can be no retrogression.
Actuality was thereby imparted to the idea, which is destined
to remain in the forefront of contemporary politics until the
peoples themselves embody it in viable institutions. What the
Delegates failed to realize is the truth that a programme of
a League is not a League.
On the debit side much might be added to what has already
been said. The important fact to bear in mind — which in itself
calls for neither praise nor blame — is that the world-parliament
was at bottom an Anglo-Saxon assembly whose language, political
conceptions, self-esteem and disregard of everything foreign
were essentially English. When speaking, the faces of the prin-
cipal Delegates were turned towards the future, and when acting
they looked towards the past. As a thoroughly English Press
organ, when alluding to the League of Nations, puts it : " We
have done homage to that entrancing ideal by spatchcocking
the Convention into the Treaty. There it remains as a finger-
post to point the way to a new heaven on earth. But we
observe that the. Treaty itself is a good old eighteenth-century
piece, drawing its inspirations from mundane and practical
considerations, and pa5dng a good deal more than lip service
to the principle of the balance of power."*
That is a fair estimate of the work achieved by the Delegates.
But they sinned in their way of doing it. If they had deliberately
and professedly aimed at these results, and had led the world
to look for none other, most of the criticisms to which they have
rendered themselves open would be pointless. But they raised
hopes which they refused to realize, they weakened if they did
* Morning Post, July 21st, 1919.
433 28
The Peace Conference
not destroy faith in public treaties, they intensified distrust and
race hatred throughout the world, they poured strong dissolvents
upon every State on the European Continent, and they stirred
up fierce passions in Russia, and then left that ill-starred nation
a prey to unprecedented anarchy. In a word, they gathered up
all the widely scattered explosives of imperialism, nationalism
and internationalism, and having added to their destructiveness,
passed them on to the peoples of the world as represented by the
League of Nations. Some of them deplored the mess in which
they were leaving the nations, without, however, admitting the
causal nexus between it and their own achievements.
General Smuts, before quitting Paris for South Africa, frankly
admitted that the peace treaty will not give us the real peace
which the peoples hoped for, and that peace-making would not
begin until after the signing of the Treaty. The Echo de Paris
wrote : " As for us, we never believed in the Society of Nations."*
And again : " The Society of Nations is now but a bladder, and
nobody would venture to describe it as a lantern, "f The Bol-
shevist dictator Lenin termed it "an organization to loot the
world."+
The Allies themselves are at sixes and sevens. The French
are suspicious of the British. A large section of the American
people is profoundly dissatisfied with the part played by the
English and the French at the Conference ; Italy is stung to the
quick by the treatment she received from France, Britain and
the United States ; Roumania loathes the very names of those
for whom she staked her all and sacrificed so much ; in Poland
and Belgium the English have lost the consideration which they
enjoyed before the Conference ; the Greeks are wroth with the
American Delegates ; the majority of Russians literally execrate
their ex-Allies and turn to the Germans and the Japanese.
" The resettlement of Central Europe," writes an American
journal,§ " is not being made for the tranquillity of the liberated
principles, but for the purposes of the Great Powers, among
* Echo de Paris, April 29th, 1919.
t Echo de Paris, April I4tb, 1919.
{ Chicago Tribune (Paris Edition), September 17th, 1919.
5 The New Republic, August 6th, 1919.
434
The doveiiant and Minorities
whom France is the active and America and Britain the passive
partners. In Germany its purpose is the permanent elimination
of the German nation as a factor in European pohtics. . . . We
cannot save Europe by playing the sinister game now being
played. There is no peace, no order, no security in it. . . .
What it can do is to aggravate the mischief and intensify the
schisms."
A distinguished American, who is a consistent friend of
England,* in a review article, affirmed that the proposed League
of Nations is slowly undermining the Anglo-American Entente.
" There is in America a growing sense of irritation that she
should be for ever entangled in the spider-web of European
politics." . . . And if the Senate in the supposed interests of
peace should ratify the League, he adds : " In my judgment
no greater harm could result to Anglo-American unity than
such reluctant consent."!
Some of Mr. Wilson's fellow-countrymen who gave him their
whole-hearted support when he undertook to establish a regime
of right and justice sum up the result of his labours in Paris as
follows :J
" His solemn warning against special alliances emerged as a
special alliance with Britain and France. His repeated con-
demnations of secret treaties emerges as a recognition that
' they could not honourably be brushed aside,' even though they
conflicted with equally binding public engagements entered into
after they had been written. Openly arrived at covenants
were not openly arrived at. The removal, so far as possible, of
all economic barriers was applied to German barriers, and accom-
panied by the blockade of a people with whom we have never
been at war. The adequate guarantees to be given and taken
as respects armaments were taken from Germany and given to
no one. The ' unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for
the independent determination of her own political development '
promised to Russia, and defined as the ' acid test,' has been
* Mr. James B. Beck.
f The North American Review, June, 1919.
J Cf. The New Republic, August 6th, 1919, pp. 5-6.
435
The Peace uonierence
worked out by Mr. Wilson and others to a point where so cautious
a man as Mr. Asquith says he regards it with ' bewilderment and
apprehension.' The righting of the wrong done in 1871 emerges
as a concealed annexation of the boundary of 1814. The
' clearly recognizable lines of nationality ' which Italy was to
obtain has been wheedled into annexations which have moved
Viscount Bryce to denounce them. ' The freest opportunity of
autonomous development ' promised the peoples of Austria-
Hungary failed to define the Austrians as peoples. ..."
Whatever the tests one applies to the work of the Conference
— ethical, social or political — they reveal it as a factor eminently
calculated to sap high interests, to weaken the moral nerve of
the present generation, to fan the flames of national and racial
hatred, to dig an abyss between the classes and the masses,
and to throw open the sluice-gates to the inrush of the waves
of anarchist internationalities. Truth, justice, equity and
liberty have been twisted and pressed into the service of econo-
mico-political boards. In the United States the people who
prided themselves on their aloofness are already fighting over
European [interests. In Europe every nation's hand is raised
against its neighbours, and every people's hand against its ruUng
class. Every Government is making its policy subservient to the
needs of the future war which is universally looked upon as an un-
avoidable outcome of the Versailles peace. Imperialism and mili-
tarism are striking roots in soil where they were hitherto unknown.
In a word, Prussianism, instead of being destroyed, has been
openly adopted by its ostensible enemies, and the huge sacri-
fices offered up by the heroic armies of the foremost nations
are being misused to give one-half of the world just cause to
rise up against the other half.
436
INDEX
Albania, 74, 75.
Anglo- American Entente, 435.
Anglo-Saxondom, 39.
Antwerp, 166.
Armenia, 8, 72.
Army of Occupation, 43.
Austria, 266, 268, 353.
Ban AT, The, 203.
Belgium, 70, 164, 172, 292.
Benes, M., 72, 215.
Birth-rate (EVench), 304.
Bolshevism and the Bolshevists,
8, 10, 69, no, 112, 134, 135,
177, 182, 187, 251, 275, 295,
320, 327, 413.
definition of, 320, 331 ; lite-
rary forerunners of, 321, 322 ;
economic and psychological
causes of, 322, 323 ; and French
Revolution, 325 ; and the Confer-
ence, 329 ; economic policy of,
330> 331. 332 ; excesses of,
334 ; in France, 344.
Borissoff, A. A., 135.
Botha, General, 207, 209, 210.
Botzen, 125.
Bratiano, M., 70, 184, 185.
Brest-Litovsk Treaty, 161, 229,
392.
Mission, 112.
Bulgaria, 8, 64, 146, 395 et seq.
Bullitt, 413.
Cambon, M. Jules, 89.
Censor, 33, 34, 100, 102, 103 et seq.
China, 44, 278 et seq., 285, 335,
403 ■
Chinda, Viscount, 420.
Clemenceau, M., 57, 85, 171, 404,
406.
characterization of, 56, 59 ;
Premier, 57 ; patriot, 58 ; pohcy
of, 58.
Cost of living, 21, 29, 30, 36.
Covenant of Nations, 120, 122, 139,
155, 274, 288, 289, 363, 387, 399,
et seq.
Czecho-Slavia, 72, 199, 265, 309.
Dalmatia, 161, 243.
Dantzig, 133, 161.
Danubian Confederation, 61.
Denikin, 295, 307, 308.
Diamajidi, M., 421.
Dmowski, 67, 68, 179, 215, 219,
228.
Economic conditions, 22, 23, 26,
27. 44. 45. 92, 152, 163, 258,
259, 282, 315. 316, 349.
Eichom, 326.
Essad Pasha, 75.
Esthonia, 158, 159, 384.
Enpen, 168.
Faissal, Emir, 138, 377.
Finance, 169, 370, 371 et seq.
Finns, 222, 313.
Fiume, 73, 133, 147, 238, 243, 245,
251, 261.
Foch, Marshal, 57, 208.
Force, Doctrine of, 232, 233, 262,
386, 404, 410.
Fourteen points, 51, 81, 97, 98,
232, 243, 244, 265, 382, 407.
437
29
Index
GaIicia, 205, 208, 216.
Geneva, 168.
Gentz, Von, 19.
Greece, 64, 146, 257.
Hannevig, Herr E., 135.
Harbord, General, 125.
Hedjaz, The, 138, 376.
Hegemony of Anglo-Saxons, 232,
245, 401.
House, Colonel, 112.
Hungary, 182, 183 etseq., 193.
Hymans, M., 70, 170.
Influence of capitalists, 133, 134,
136, 201, 203, 222.
Internationalism, 244, 284, 407.
Isabey, 20.
Isvolsky, M., 277.
Italy, 231 et seq.
expectation of, from Confer-
ence, 64 ; and Austria, 125, 235,
241 ; and war, 235, 236, 237,
261 ; and Yugo-Slavia, 232, 240,
241 ; AUies and, 239, 248, 249,
252, 255, 256, 259, 260, 263 ;
and Austrian Fleet, 253 ; and
France, 252, 271.
Japan, 66, 273 et seq., 278, 279.
policy of, 272, 275, 283, 290 ;
and Shantung, 274, 289 ; and
Russia, 275, 276 ; and Kiao-
Chow, 276, 284 et seq. ; and
China, 280, 281, 284 ; and
Siberia, 305.
Jews, their position and influence,
10, ir, 67, 69, 190, 201, 422-427.
Jofire, Marshal, 57.
Kaiser, Trial of, 121.
Klotz, M., 370.
Koltchak, 295, 307, 308, 310 et seq.,
383.
Kuhn, Bela, no, 183, 189, 199, 331.
Lansing, Secretary, 288, 289, 384,
407, 414.
League of Nations, 17, 50, 72, 77,
103, 108, 115, 121, 123, 147, 218,
244, 262, 349, 359. 368, 408
et seq., 435.
Lenin, 9, 41, 134, 294, 328.
Letts, 222, 314.
Limburg, 164.
Lithuania, 220.
Lloyd George, Mr., 49, 50 et seq.,
83, 85, 106, 118, 137, 142, 189,
215. 295, 342.
parliamentarian, 52 ; peace-
negotiator, 53 ; opportunist, 53 ;
policy of, 56, 142 ; ignorance of,
53. 54. 56, 89, 90, 95. ; insin-
cerities of, 113, 140; arbitrary
self-opinion of, 90, 91 ; incon-
sistency of, 96, 162.
Making, Baron, 65.
MalakofE, M., 221.
Malmedy, 168.
Mantoux, M., 108, 109.
Marxism. See under Bolshevist
Economic Policy.
Meran, 125.
Minorities Treaties, 417-432.
Misu, M., 199.
Momalek, 379.
Moravia, 125.
Nicholas, King, 6.
Nostitz, Von, 18, 19.
Orlando, Signor, 64, 73, 85, 241,
242 et seq.
Orpen, Sir William, 20.
Paderewski, M., 69, 212, 219.
Painlev6, M., 105.
Persia, 378 et seq., 382.
Pichon, M., 60.
Poland, 67, 147, 205, 207 et seq.,
213, 224, 225 et seq., 229, 265.
Prinkipo Conference, 133, 301, 302,
303. 305-
Profiteering, 30, 31.
Psychological aspects, 24, 38, 39
et seq., 47, 62, 66, 100, 113, 228,
251, 264, 268, 272, 280, 282, 296,
309. 317. 323. 324-
Racial and religious equality, 417-
422.
Renkin, M., 168.
438
Index
Roumania, 70, iio, 170, 172, 173,
180 et seq., 192, 265.
Russia, 8, 13, 14, 15, 40, 41, 127,
157. 158 et seq., 297 et seq., 318.
and Japan, 276, 278, 307 ;
democracy in, 227 ; Bolshevism
in, 227, 293, 294, 297 et seq.,
302, 307, 320, 321, 330, 333,
338 ; Allies and, 292, 293,
304. 338, 340. 342. 346; and
Finland, 317 ; and Esthonia,
317-
Ruthenia, 205, 207.
Saar Valley, 232, 390.
Saionji, Marquis, 65.
Savinkofi, Boris, 326.
Scheldt, The, 166.
Sidonia Paes, Signor, 8.
Silesia, 162, 177, 217.
Sonnino, Baron, 64, 247, 252.
Spain, 164.
Sweden, 164.
Syria, 376.
Tardieu, M., 60.
Thrace, 64, 147.
Tittoni, Signor, 61, 65, 170, 272,
352-
Treaty of Versailles, 255, 256, 306,
347-386.
(Poland), 224.
(Roumania), 71.
(Japan and China), 66, 232,
244, 281.
of London, 64, 236, 242, 245,
253. 254, 375.
— with Austria, 173.
— with Bulgaria, 395-398.
— with Germany, 387-394.
Trombitch, M., 73.
Trotsky, 134, 328, 331.
Tunis, 270, 374.
Turkhan Pasha, 74.
Ukraine, 138.
United States, loi, 103, 114, 119,
202, 243, 275, 362, 378, 403.
Unrecognized States, 159, 244, 292.
Venizelos, M., 63, 64, 147, 215.
Vesnitch, M., 73.
Vienna Congress, 13, 14, 15, 354.
Welti, 42.
Wilson, President, i6, 83, 85, 106,
112, ti8. 135, 137, 140, 155, 159
160, 189, 200, 212, 215, 219, 231,
247, 249, 254, 295, 302, 342, 348
et seq., 362, 375, 383, 385, 389,
400, 407, 410.
-^ — and Fiume, 73, 133, 147, 236,
242, 243, 245, 250, 261 ; and
Mexico, 76 ; and Austria, 256 ;
and Corsica, 93 ; and Turkey,
152 ; and Lenin, 307 ; and
Persia, 379 ; precedent reputa-
tion of, 76, 78, 79 ; charac-
terization, 76, 113, 146; politi-
cian, 77 ; inconsistencies of,
77, 78, 80, 81, 95, 96 et seq.,
98, 122, 124, 1^25, 141, 142, 144,
150, 162, 187, 218, 232, 253,
262, 265, 380.
Wire-pulling, 9, 55. 63, 99, loi,
268, 379.
WolfE, 326.
Yugo-Slavia, 73, 147, 172, 232,
238, 239, 243, 246, 253. 257, 265.
439
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