THE PRELIMINARIES OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE
When the wild joy of the armistice celebration had spent itself, public
opinion in the victorious countries reacted against the terms of the
armistice, against the very fact that an armistice had been signed. It
was recognized that there had been no clean-cut, unquestioned military
victory, such as generally decides the fortunes of a war. The enemy’s
front was unbroken: he was still on the soil of France and had not been
driven out of Belgium. The armistice conditions provided for a gradual
withdrawal from France, Belgium, and Alsace-Lorraine, and the gradual
occupation by the victors of the Rhine provinces and bridge-heads. The
German army retired with artillery and arms and other war material, and
the method of advance of the victors deprived the armies of appearing
dramatically as liberators and conquerors. And then there were too many
victors! The details of the advance were as meticulously arranged among
allies as between the allies and the enemy.
It was felt that Germany, after four years of being the top dog, had
suddenly managed to “get out from under” before the storm broke that
would give her army and her people a taste of the medicine they had
been administering in big doses ever since 1914. Consequently there was
a determination that crying “Kamerad!” was not going to enable Germany
to avoid the disagreeable consequences of losing the war. There was far
more hatred, bitterness, resentment, than there would have been had
the Allied armies beaten the Germans in the field, chased them back to
their own country, and secured an unconditional surrender on German
soil. The very fact of so much hatred after the armistice indicated
that the military superiority of the victors had not been sufficiently
demonstrated. For hatred is born of fear and nourished by fear. After a
fight to the finish, the sane man with normal instincts simply cannot
hate. If he knows that he has knocked out his opponent, his natural
instinct is to extend a hand good-naturedly to help the other fellow to
his feet. No matter what the opponent may have done, he is considered
to have paid the penalty by the punishment he received in the losing
fight.
The trouble with the world in November, 1918, was that there had been
no knock-out. More than that, Germany had been worsted by a coalition
which was doomed to disruption after the fighting was over, unless all
its members should be willing to continue to grant to one another equal
opportunities and privileges and assume for one another equal burdens
and responsibilities, just as they had done during the war.
When the clamor arose to make Germany pay, Entente statesmen rode with
the tide of hysterical indignation instead of trying to stem it. They
did not point out from the beginning, as they should have done, that
Germany had not made an unconditional surrender, throwing herself upon
the mercy of her conquerors. However ignoble the motive that prompted
it, her submission had been contingent upon the definite promise that
a certain kind of peace, very clearly defined, would be made with her.
In return for the pre-armistice concessions, the Allies had transformed
suddenly a potential into an actual victory without having to shed
further blood for the liberation of France and Belgium or to wrest
Alsace-Lorraine from Germany. When Germany threw up the sponge, allowed
portions of her territory to be occupied, surrendered most of her naval
and much of her military equipment, and agreed to release prisoners of
war without reciprocity, she thought that she was letting the victors
discount their future military triumph by waiving their right to a
victors’ peace. Wilsonian ideas had spread all over Germany and had
helped to break down the morale of the army.
The world was so weary of war that strong men in Allied countries, men
with vision and a sense of honor, might have been able to carry public
opinion with them in favor of a durable world peace. But there were no
such men in Europe in positions of authority, and by going personally
to the Peace Conference President Wilson sacrificed the prestige and
influence which, exercised from afar, might have enabled him to become
and remain master of the situation.
Two months elapsed between the armistice and the opening of peace
negotiations. During that time the victorious powers worked out the
details of the military occupation of German territory. The French
took over Alsace-Lorraine as an integral part of France, restoring, so
far as the Germans and the outside world were concerned, the _status
quo_ of 1870. The victors had agreed to allow France a free hand in
reannexing her “lost provinces.” What problems France had to face were
to be solved as a purely internal French affair, and so the French went
ahead to change the régime without waiting for a treaty of peace. The
details of the military occupation of German territory, with the three
bridge-heads on the right bank of the Rhine, were worked out among
British and French and Americans, who established their headquarters
respectively at Cologne, Mainz, and Coblenz. The German Government
had no part in arranging for the Allied occupation. It was a military
affair, and all orders were given directly to the local authorities in
each of the zones.
Allied prisoners of war were released. The Germans surrendered their
fleet. Allied commissions, to watch over the fulfilment of the
armistice terms, were sent to all the defeated countries. For general
questions affecting Germany, an Armistice Commission was created, with
headquarters at Spa in Belgium.
Allied statesmen began to study the question of securing the confidence
of the electorates and parliaments of their respective countries,
without which they would be unable to act as plenipotentiaries. This
was an essential consideration; for the executive power in Europe,
unlike that of the United States, has no fixed tenure of office and
is always dependent upon a parliamentary vote of confidence. In the
two months between the armistice and the conference, the statesmen of
the European powers, large and small, had to secure a parliamentary
mandate, approving their general policy at the approaching conference.
As soon as the military terms of the armistice were fulfilled, so that
the defeated peoples were no longer in a position to renew the war,
an uncompromising attitude was adopted toward the Germans and their
allies. The pre-armistice agreement was ignored. The five enemy states
were told that they would have no part in the Peace Conference. The
victors were to decide upon the terms of the treaties, which would then
be communicated to the vanquished. In the meantime the food blockade
was to be maintained and enemy prisoners of war held. The only dealings
between the governments of the victors and of the vanquished were in
connection with the measures decided upon to carry out the conditions
of the armistices. The peace negotiations were to take the form simply
of adjusting and harmonizing the conflicting ideas and ambitions
and programs of the victorious powers, and were to be no concern of
the defeated nations. Our enemies were regarded as criminals, to be
arraigned and sentenced by men acting simultaneously as judges, jurors,
prosecutors, and jailers. Right to counsel and right of appeal were
alike denied.
Austrians and Hungarians were in a different situation from that of
Germans, Bulgarians, and Turks. The two countries of the Dual Monarchy,
in which they had been the dominant peoples, were separated at the
time of the armistice. Far-reaching decisions had already been made
before the Peace Conference met. The treaties dealing with the future
of the Hapsburg dominions would take into account _faits accomplis_:
(1) the political separation of Austria and Hungary; (2) the annexation
to Italy of regions defined in the secret Treaty of London of 1915;
(3) the resurrection of Poland; (4) the creation of Czechoslovakia;
(5) the aggrandizement of Serbia and Rumania. De facto recognition of
independence was granted to Poland and Czechoslovakia, and also to
the Hedjaz, detached from the Ottoman Empire. These three new states,
whose belligerency had been recognized as a war measure before the end
of hostilities, although boundaries were not defined, were invited to
participate in the Peace Conference.
The organization of the conference was undertaken by the four Entente
Powers, France, Great Britain, Japan, and Italy (who had signed the
Pact of London, obligating themselves not to make a separate peace), in
agreement with the United States. It was decided to make a distinction
between the “powers with general interests” and the “powers with
particular interests.” The former were the United States, the British
Empire, France, Italy, and Japan; and the latter were Belgium, Brazil,
the British Dominions and India, China, Cuba, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti,
Hedjaz, Honduras, Liberia, Nicaragua, Panama, Poland, Portugal,
Rumania, Serbia, Siam, and Czechoslovakia. The great powers were to
have five delegates; Belgium, Brazil, and Serbia, three; China, Greece,
Hedjaz, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Siam, and Czechoslovakia, two; Cuba,
Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Liberia, Nicaragua, and Panama, one; while
the British Dominions and India were allowed two delegates, with the
exception of New Zealand, which was to have one. Four powers that had
broken off diplomatic relations with Germany, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru,
and Uruguay, were granted one delegate each “in the sittings at which
questions concerning them are discussed.” Provision was made for the
possibility of admitting Montenegro, but the question of Russia was
left to be determined by the conference.
The most important of the preliminary measures was the one which
proposed to limit the decision upon the matters of settlement to a
central commission, on which the “five powers with general interests”
were alone represented. The various details were to be studied by
commissions of fifteen, two members each for the great powers and
five members representing all the other powers together, which were
to report to the central commission. The Supreme War Council at
Versailles, under Marshal Foch, was to continue to meet during the
Peace Conference to deal with the enforcement of the armistices and
with military problems concerning the enemy powers and the regions
whose status the Peace Conference was to settle.
There was something to be said both for the exclusion of enemy powers
from the Peace Conference and for the exclusion of the “powers with
particular interests” from the central commission. The victors of the
World War realized only too well that they would have great difficulty
in reconciling their own ambitions and in agreeing upon any common
program of peace, and they did not purpose to have Germany repeating
the rôle of France in the Conference of Vienna a hundred years earlier.
With delegates from thirty countries, some of which were parts of the
British Empire and other states that had only a technical right to be
represented, it was reasonable to expect that the organizers of the
conference would adopt regulations to make it a feasible working body.
Signs were not lacking to indicate that it was going to be hard enough
for the great powers to agree upon peace terms, even if they should be
free from the influence of enemy intrigues pitting one against another
and from being constantly hampered and blocked by the exaggerated and
rival claims of the smaller states, especially those created or greatly
enlarged by the war. And Paris, which had suffered so greatly for more
than four years under the constant menace of German bombardments (and
even of capture), was a poor place to hold a conference called together
to establish a durable world peace. The atmosphere was surcharged with
bitterness and prejudices. The burnt child continued to dread the fire
after the fire had been extinguished. French internal politics centered
in Paris, which was also the home of France’s economic interests and of
the French army.
Before the conference met, no effort had been made to create a
judicial attitude toward the great problems of peace. Posters on
the walls as well as the newspapers kept the French keyed up to a
degree of bitterness, tinged with apprehension, that made logical and
constructive thinking impossible. This state of mind was natural,
when one considers what the French had gone through and that complete
victory over Germany came as a miracle to the hard-pressed French and
their allies. But it was not conducive to the triumph of what Mr.
Wilson called the American Government’s “interpretation of its own duty
with regard to peace: _First_, the impartial justice meted out must
involve no discrimination between those to whom we wish to be just and
those to whom we do not wish to be just. It must be a justice that
plays no favorites and knows no standards but the equal rights of the
several peoples concerned.”
The demands of France against Germany and her allies had been outlined
in the first year of the war as follows: (1) punishment of those
responsible for the war; (2) reparation for losses during the war; (3)
guaranties against future aggression on the part of Germany and her
allies. In addition to these war aims, French statesmen consistently
announced the determination of France to support similar demands by
France’s allies and to sign no treaty of peace that did not emancipate
the nationalities subject to the enemies of France. In the course of
the war the French Government entered into agreements with several of
the Allies, justifying these as measures that seemed necessary to bring
the war to a successful conclusion. After the Russian revolution the
French Government promised the people to safeguard French investments
in Russia, which amounted to over four billions of dollars, almost
all representing little investments of peasants and tradespeople. In
preliminary discussions with President Wilson, Premier Clemenceau
declared the willingness of France to adopt the American program in
its entirety, including the society of nations; but he made it clear
that this willingness should not be construed as the abandonment of
the threefold program: “sanctions, réparations, garanties.” Nor could
France go back upon her signature to treaties and her promise to her
own people.
Believing that an idealistic program for peace, such as President
Wilson outlined, must be subordinated to the two considerations of
security and prosperity for their exhausted country, Premier Clemenceau
and Foreign Secretary Pichon warned President Wilson, in speeches
before the Chamber of Deputies in the last week of December, that they
were going into the Peace Conference with definite obligations, first
toward their own people, and then toward their allies--obligations that
transcended the Wilsonian principles when conflict arose. France had no
intention of subordinating her particular national interests to what
Mr. Wilson called general world interests. Bound by definite pledges,
she could not do so if she wanted to. Did not Mr. Wilson realize how
greatly France had suffered? Neither then nor later has any French
statesmen admitted that the idealism of President Wilson might have had
as its justification the literal acceptance of their own declarations
and promises during the war. Nor has any French statesmen admitted the
validity of the pre-armistice agreement with Germany. From the moment
the war ended down to the present time the French attitude has been
that the victors were amply justified in whatever steps they took
because, had Germany been victorious, she would have done the same.
Discarding entirely the Wilsonian principles as the basis for peace,
Premier Clemenceau told the Chamber of Deputies that he was still a
partisan of the “balance of power” to be maintained by alliances, and
that if the nations banded against Germany had been allies in 1914
Germany would not have dared to attack France. He admitted frankly that
he could not discuss with the Chamber the Government’s peace ideas
because he had a maximum and a minimum program and was going into
the conference to get for France all he could. This was an answer--a
gauntlet of defiance thrown down, if you will--to Mr. Wilson’s
Manchester speech four days earlier, when the American President
declared that the “balance of power” was an exploded theory, that the
United States would enter into no alliance which was not an alliance
of all nations for common good, and that the creation of a new world
required new methods of making peace.
M. Clemenceau did not have to appeal to the people. As the principal
artisan of victory, who had deserved well of the republic, he was
the national hero. Despite wide-spread dissatisfaction among the
politicians over matters of internal administration, the people were
so united in their demand for a punitive peace, which “the Tiger”
embodied, that no party leader dared contest his position.
It was otherwise in England. Mr. Lloyd George had come into power
during the war by deserting his old chief, Premier Asquith, and forming
a coalition cabinet, dependent upon a combined Liberal and Conservative
parliamentary majority. The coalition had been a war measure, born of
the feeling that the Asquith Government had been making a mess of the
conduct of the war, despite Mr. Asquith’s inclusion in his cabinet
of Conservatives and Laborites. Immediately the war was over, it was
necessary to go to the country for a new parliament. For a British
delegation could not have represented Great Britain adequately in the
Peace Conference with Parliament in so confused a state as to party
lines. By common agreement Parliament was dissolved on November 25,
and December 14 was fixed as polling-day. Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Bonar
Law, and Mr. Barnes, representing the three parties, decided to stand
together and ask the country to return Coalition members at the General
Election. The Labor Party, however, did not agree with Mr. Barnes.
They demanded a peace of justice, not a peace of revenge. A group of
Liberals, headed by Mr. Asquith, decided to put candidates in the
field, in opposition to the Coalition.
The British electorate was asked to choose between two programs for
the Peace Conference: a victor’s peace, which was supported by the
Conservatives and Coalition Liberals; and a Wilsonian peace, which was
supported by the Independent Liberals and the Laborites.
It is not too much to say that the main lines of the future treaty
with Germany were settled by the verdict of the British election. Mr.
Lloyd George and his associates, against their own better judgment and
convictions, appealed to the passions and prejudices of the masses to
secure a parliamentary majority. Since both Mr. Lloyd George and Mr.
Bonar Law have repeatedly repudiated by acts, speeches, and written
statements their own policies and arguments advanced in December, 1918,
there could be no doubt of the fairness and accuracy of this assertion.
On December 10 Mr. Lloyd George summed up the Coalition program in
the following points of treaty policy: (1) trial of the Kaiser; (2)
punishment of those responsible for atrocities; (3) fullest indemnities
from Germany. Speaking at Bristol the next day Mr. Lloyd George, on
the eve of the election, declared that “we propose to demand the whole
cost of the war from Germany,” that this was “an absolute right,” and
that a financial committee appointed by the British Cabinet believed
that all the costs of the war could be extracted from Germany. After
his triumphant return to power Mr. Lloyd George explained that the sole
guilt and responsibility of Germany for the war was to be the basis of
the peace treaty, and not Mr. Wilson’s principles. Nearly a year after
the Treaty of Versailles was signed (in May, 1920) he repeated that the
Treaty of Versailles was built upon the assumption of Germany’s sole
guilt and had no other jurisdiction. The practicability of trying the
Kaiser and of extracting from Germany the total expenses of the war was
not questioned by responsible British statesmen of the Coalition party
until long after the Treaty of Versailles had been made.
Italy’s entrance into the war in 1915 had been prompted by
considerations of national self-interest, safeguarded in the secret
Treaty of London, and recognized in the zones of occupation,
provided for in the armistice of November 3, 1918, that had been the
death-warrant of the Hapsburg Empire. But Italy was not satisfied
with all that had been offered her to abandon her neutrality. The
propaganda for the possession of Fiume and for rendering Greater Serbia
innocuous, economically and militarily, had already assumed formidable
proportions before the Peace Conference met. Italy did not consider
that the pre-armistice agreement with Germany affected in any way her
claims, which were signally at variance with President Wilson’s ideas.
She had been in the war two years longer than the United States, and
the Treaty of London constituted a sacred international obligation.
Had not the Allies gone to war to fight for the sanctity of treaties?
Similarly, Rumania’s intervention had been bought by definite promises
of territorial expansion, set down in a treaty. Japan had no secret
understanding with the other Entente Powers until 1917. But when the
Japanese Government realized that the United States was going to become
a belligerent, its diplomats at the Entente capitals secured a written
agreement giving Japan full rights to be considered Germany’s heir in
China.
In regard to the German colonies and Italy’s claims in the Tyrol and
the Adriatic coastlands, the four Entente Powers had a better argument
even than secret treaties to anticipate the decisions of the Peace
Conference. They were in possession! Great Britain, France, and Japan
had conquered Germany’s colonies and had ensconced themselves in them.
Nor was the future of the Ottoman Empire going to be decided by
the Peace Conference in accordance with Mr. Wilson’s ideas. Great
Britain and France had arranged their claims under the Sykes-Picot
agreement in 1916, and Entente spheres of influence had been definitely
outlined in 1915 and 1916. Great Britain had conquered Mesopotamia and
Palestine, and she had annexed Cyprus and proclaimed a protectorate
over Egypt (both of which countries she had occupied for forty years)
at the outbreak of the war in 1914. France took possession of Syria
and Cilicia immediately after the armistice with Turkey. The Entente
Powers were in joint occupation of Constantinople. The British had gone
into the Caucasus and Persia. A desultory war was being carried on
against Soviet Russia, in which the United States had become involved.
There were all sorts of agreements and understandings and intrigues in
eastern Europe to prevent the formulation of a common policy toward
Russia, which, as President Wilson put it, was to be “the acid test of
our sincerity.”
The new states, Czechoslovakia and Poland, the aggrandized states,
Rumania, Serbia, and Greece, and countries that had not been
belligerents but expected the conference to decide their future, such
as Egypt, Armenia, Persia, the Caucasus republics, Ukrainia, Lithuania,
Latvia, Esthonia, and Finland, were not bound, before the conference,
by special agreements with any of the great powers. They furnished the
most hopeful field for the application of the Wilsonian principles.
President Wilson, with his personally selected delegates, experts, and
secretaries, arrived in Paris more than a month before the conference
met. Mr. Wilson received an enthusiastic reception, which was repeated
in England and Italy during the holiday season. His aides and advisers
were men of great ability, who had prepared themselves in the minutest
details for their task. The President did not lack well informed and
well balanced collaborators. They organized their offices in such a way
that the peace delegation had available not only the data compiled in
America but also accurate information concerning conditions, as they
developed during the conference, in Europe and the Near East.
But the principal asset of success was lacking. The United States
had failed to make her coöperation in the war contingent upon the
acceptance by her associates of certain facts and well defined
principles. None of them was pledged to us. All of them were pledged
to one another in ways that were going to make futile the work that
President Wilson purposed to accomplish. The Peace Conference was not
going to bring to us “the moral leadership of the world.” None cared
for our leadership at the beginning; and during the conference, instead
of President Wilson’s imposing his ideals upon the other statesmen,
they imposed theirs upon him.