FOOTNOTES TO THE PEACE CONFERENCE
Three days before the Armistice was signed I went to Paris with
representatives of the Office of Works and the Foreign Office to
secure premises for the British Delegation in the Peace Negotiations.
I believe that Brussels and Geneva were both considered as
meeting-places, but for reasons, chiefly of lack of accommodation, were
dismissed as unsuitable. The Majestic and the Astoria Hotels, the one
for housing the people and the other for office accommodation, both
near the Arc de Triomphe, seemed to be the only possible buildings
available, and in due course the British Ambassador called on Monsieur
Clemenceau to ask that they should be commandeered. He asked how
many people had to be housed, and was told that the number would be
approximately four hundred, on which followed the quick comment, ‘Ah,
then the demobilisation of the British Army has already begun!’
We spent Sunday afternoon, 10th November, driving about Paris with M.
Clemenceau’s A.D.C. to inspect premises for the accommodation of the
Foreign Office printing staff. I noticed late in the afternoon that
the Champs Elysée was full of a holiday crowd carrying flags rolled
tightly round the stick. All Paris was waiting for the news that the
Germans had signed the Armistice. I had not seen the terms, but knowing
that they were hard, I asked the French officer whether he thought
that the Germans would accept them. He replied, ‘Oui, les conditions
sont dures, mais ils signeront.’ I was in Boulogne by 11 A.M. on
Armistice morning, and I had the news of the Armistice when I reached
my daughter’s hospital at Wimereux. The news had not then reached the
French. At the entrance to the hospital I had to stand aside to let
a party of German prisoner orderlies pass. They were laughing and
singing, though the news had not actually reached the hospital by
telephone at that time. No doubt they were banking upon the rumours of
revolution in Germany. When our steamer sailed two hours later every
whistle and siren was in full blast; the quays were lined with waving
and cheering crowds; the sleepy old town was awake for once.
When the delegation was installed at the Hôtel Majestic and the two
subsidiary hotels, if one could believe the newspapers, the members
spent their time in eating and drinking, in music, theatricals, and
dancing. But one could not believe the newspapers. No doubt in the
early days of those protracted negotiations the staff was too big for
the work, and in the later stages the work was too big for the staff,
but considering the enormous number of experts who had to be consulted
on the whole range of human endeavour, political, naval, military,
geographical, racial, and industrial, it cannot be said that the staff
was too numerous or that it did less than a day’s work. Its recreations
were certainly not excessive, seeing that for many dancing was the only
possible exercise. It may well be asked what a police officer had to
do with peace negotiations. He had nothing whatever to do with them.
As Chief Security Officer, my function was to prevent if possible the
leakages of information that took place during the Peace Conference
in Vienna, and for this purpose I took over with me a body of Special
Branch officers to control the doors, and see that no unauthorised
person obtained access to the buildings. If occasionally they wounded
susceptible feelings, they were of great use to visitors in the matter
of passports and travelling facilities. There were arduous moments in
their service. On one occasion I was asked to furnish the escort for a
furniture van which was to be packed with papers of so secret a nature
that the escort must remain with it night and day until it arrived in
Paris. The van was packed and sealed in London, and a very zealous
young police officer left with it for Havre _via_ Southampton. At Havre
the French railway officials positively refused to attach the truck on
which it was loaded to the express: it must proceed by the slow train.
The escort telephoned this news quite cheerfully, though the rain was
coming down in torrents. We made frequent inquiries at the Gare St.
Lazare, receiving conflicting accounts of the progress of the truck,
until at last late on a Saturday afternoon we heard that it had arrived
some hours before, and had been shunted into a goods shed, where it
would remain until the following Monday. Feeling sure that our zealous
policeman had not deserted it, we sent the senior inspector to the
station-master. He was adamant; the rules must be observed; even if an
English policeman starved, the van must stay where it was till Monday.
But the inspector was a man of resource: he was a Freemason and so,
as it now appeared, was the station-master. So potent was this appeal
that the shed was opened, and there was our man wet through, stiff and
faint for want of food. We took him and his van to the hotel, and under
restoratives and a hot bath he soon recovered. So far I can vouch for
the story. The sequel may be less authenticated. The seals were broken;
the van was opened, and lo! so the story ran, it contained nothing but
the ninth edition of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_. In London some one
had blundered.
My principal duties being in London, I made flying visits of inspection
to Paris at intervals of about a fortnight--flying in the literal
sense occasionally--and it was curious to see how the amenities of
the Hôtel Majestic were modified as time went on. In the early days
there was a full staff of House of Commons waiters and waitresses,
who found so much to grumble at that they were soon sent home. Apart
from the inevitable epidemic of influenza, the sick ward was always
filled: at least two broken legs were being mended, besides minor
accidents. Gradually the scale of entertainment became more Spartan,
the edges began to wear off tempers, the spirit of criticism to rear
its head, and in my last visit the glory of the great Peace Conference
had departed. Curious folk of every colour came as deputations from
nearly every race under the sun to have their grievances redressed.
They vanished as unobtrusively as they came, elated or disappointed
according to their reception.
The Americans had established an excellent system of intelligence
throughout Europe, and, as we had been closely associated before,
we agreed to pool our information. At that time there was not much
happening in the underworld of Europe and America that we did not know.
How admirably the Americans had profited by their experience probably
few know so well as I.
It was very interesting to note the decline and fall of President
Wilson’s prestige among the French. At first he was expected to remedy
all the evils from which Paris was suffering: he was to lower prices
and raise the exchange; the maidservant thought that he would raise her
wages. Week followed week, and he did nothing sensational to justify
these great expectations. When he announced the establishment of the
League of Nations it was too late; his star was in eclipse, and nothing
he could say or do would ever bring him back to public favour. It is
the fate of all mortals from whom too much is expected. I confess that
his speech at the League of Nations plenary session disappointed me
both in substance and delivery. When I said so to two of my American
colleagues that evening one of them said: ‘There are only two men at
the Peace Conference who could have carried it off--Mr. Balfour and
Lord Reading.’
One of my friends, in whose cranium the bump of Veneration has been
atrophied, wrote the following witty lines:--
HÔTEL MAJESTIC! Gaze in reverent awe
Upon the Fane of Peace--above whose door
It’s clear to me the legend should appear
‘Abandon Peace, all ye who enter here.’
Pass the gyrating door and, once within,
Detectives, hall-marked by their diamond pin,
Will put you through a strict interrogation--
Your birthmarks, age, religion, and vocation:
Remembering that there’s nothing like the truth
To rouse suspicion in your super-sleuth,
Answer at random--and they’ll pass you through.
Proceed, and Paradise is yours to view.
A stately hall, replete with every sign
Of true refinement (viz. Bosche-Argentine):
Luxurious straight-backed chairs: two spreading shrubs,
Two metres tall, in tasty Teuton tubs:
While the mere waving of some magic wand,
Either of Selfridge or, it may be, Mond,
Has given the final touch we else should lack,
That classic harmony, the UNION JACK.
Here’s where the Foreign Office wage their war,
And though the hours are, strictly, ten to four,
Even at five amid the tea-cups’ clatter
Sit men who count discussing things that matter.
Birth, brains, and beauty throng the crowded tables:
The typists, clad in silver fox and sables;
Second Division clerks, too proud by far
To go to work except by motor-car
(And Balham’s happiness is incomplete
Without a bathroom and a first-floor suite):
Colonial Premiers, Rajahs, Plenipotentiaries,
True Britons, who have not been Jews for centuries,
Generals (but since they helped to _win_ the War
No one can guess what _they_’ve been brought here for,
Unless some kindly soul leapt at the chance
Of letting soldiers sample life in France,
And for the Navy thought it only fair
To give them ninety minutes’ _mal de mer_):
Immaculate æsthetes, clad in perfect taste--
Unruffled voice and hair, and _such_ a waist
(The spelling’s optional: I don’t suggest
Any alternative--but you’ll judge best);
Taking from tortoise spectacles and speed
(Who’s seen them run--except, of course, to seed?);
Epitomising Foreign Office lore
In three short words--Ignore--Deplore--Encore.
At last the Peace Treaty was signed at Versailles. We know what
contemporaries think of it; we can only guess at the verdict of
posterity. We see through a glass darkly that a rearrangement of
frontiers which includes a corridor, a reduction of Austria to such
proportions that she cannot feed herself, will not stand. The epigram
ascribed to Herr Rathenau that the Treaty of Versailles set out to
Europeanise the Balkans and has succeeded only in Balkanising Europe
will gather truth with every month we live.