THE PEACE CONFERENCE AT PARIS
Books about the famous conference of 1919 have multiplied so rapidly
that a man must have much space to shelve them all, and he can hope to
do little else if he has decided to read them thoroughly, with what
the critics have to say about them. For most of the cooks in the Paris
broth, after spoiling it, were unable to control the impulse to tell
the world why it was not their particular fault. Coming back to America
after the conference, I began to collect material about it, documents,
books, reports of speeches and debates, magazine articles, newspaper
cuttings of reviews of books and of letters about books and about the
criticisms of them. The material mounted alarmingly. And yet I kept on
reading. The general impression that comes from trying to get every
angle of criticism concerning the conference is not at all confused. On
the contrary, it is clear. The Paris Peace Conference, in retrospect,
has few defenders of its methods or its work. It is on record,
convicted by those who participated in it, as one of the most tragic
and monumental failures of history.
M. André Tardieu is the only writer of authority who believes that
the conference was conducted along proper lines and achieved results
inherently right and of a permanent nature. Against this virtually
solitary voice, the British premier, who signed the Treaty of
Versailles, and the Italian premier, who ordered his representatives
to sign it, have clamored to be heard on the other side, repudiating,
denouncing, ridiculing their own work. Other outstanding signatories,
notably Secretary Lansing, of the United States; Mr. Barnes, of Great
Britain; Minister of Justice Doherty, of Canada; General Smuts of
South Africa; Minister of Justice Vandervelde, of Belgium; and Premier
Bratiano of Rumania, have criticized the Paris settlement severely.
General Smuts protested against the treaty at the time he signed it,
and said later in the South African Parliament: “Frankly I did not
think that the treaty, even in its modified form, conformed to our
pre-armistice pledges.” Speaking for Mr. Wilson, Mr. Ray Stannard Baker
summed up the failure of Paris in the statement that there was “no
willingness to sacrifice anything, therefore no possibility of securing
real and just settlements based on coöperation. And this did not apply
only to France and Great Britain; it applied also to America.”
Most of the books written on the Peace Conference by those who had
a part in it offer, for the difficulties in the way of settlement,
explanations so elaborate and painstaking--and withal so true--that one
feels the force of the old French proverb: “Qui s’excuse s’accuse.”
But the world to-day, five years after the war, suffering from the
consequences of the failure to establish peace at Paris in 1919, is
not greatly interested in the host of reasons given for the failure.
Nor does the world care enough about the title to fame of any of the
actors in the great tragedy to seek to build up a case for or against
the European statesmen and their American colleague. What we want to
know is just what happened at Paris, without appraising the individual
measure of blame. The facts give us all we want just now to help us
in solving our present problem. We need only an objective account
of the work of the conference, without going into details, without
criticizing, without attempting to explain.
The proceedings began informally when the Italians arrived in Paris
on January 9 and held a preliminary conference with the French and
the Americans. The British arrived on the eleventh, and on January 12
a preliminary session was held at the Quai d’Orsay, in which France
proposed that only the representatives of the five great powers should
attend all the meetings of the conference, and that the minor states
should be represented only when questions immediately affecting them
were to be discussed. Among the minor states consideration should be
given in allotting representation to the amount of force exerted in the
defeat of Germany. After some discussion the basis of representation
outlined in the previous chapter was decided upon.
The first plenary session of the conference took place on Saturday,
January 18, the day having been especially chosen by the French
Government. It was the anniversary of the formal proclamation of the
German Empire at Versailles in 1870. President Poincaré declared the
conference opened, and M. Clemenceau was elected president on the
motion of Mr. Wilson, seconded by Mr. Lloyd George. M. Clemenceau said:
“The program of this conference has been laid down by President Wilson.
There is no question of territorial or continental peace. The peace
we have to make is a peace of peoples. No mere words are required.
That program stands upon its own feet. Let us work quickly and well.”
With these words the session was closed, the question of the League of
Nations having been placed on the agenda for the second sitting.
On January 22, at a meeting of the Supreme War Council, President
Wilson proposed that an invitation be sent to all warring factions
in Russia to meet at Prinkipo, in the Sea of Marmora, to talk peace
and to come into touch with the Paris Conference. The invitation was
actually issued, and some of the powers named delegates to meet the
Russians at Prinkipo. The factions opposed to the Bolshevists refused
to agree to a truce, however, and in this they were heartily supported
by the French press. It was the first open criticism of President
Wilson.
The American President still dominated the conference at the second
plenary session on January 25, when he moved the resolution that would
establish a commission to draw up a charter for “a League of Nations
created to promote international coöperation.” The second clause in
the resolution read: “This League should be treated as an integral
part of the general treaty of peace, and should be opened to every
civilized nation which can be relied on to promote its objects.” Both
parts of this clause proved to be the undoing of the league. At the
very beginning it was seen that Mr. Wilson was being manœuvered into a
position where he would agree to have the league made an instrument for
the enforcement of the treaty. From this group of states Germany and
Russia could be indefinitely excluded on the ground that they were not
to be “relied on to promote its objects.”
At the second plenary session, on the heels of the passage of the
resolution establishing a League of Nations, came an outburst from
the minor states that influenced radically the entire work of the
conference. M. Hymans of Belgium protested that the organization of
the conference put the real power--all the power--in the hands of the
United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan. He demanded
representation for Belgium on all the commissions. The delegates of
Brazil, Canada, Jugoslavia, Greece, Portugal, Czechoslovakia, and
Poland followed with similar protests and demands. Was the world going
to be ruled by five powers, which, because of their size, assumed the
right to dictate to all the other nations? Had not the war been fought
to refute the Prussian belief that might went before right?
M. Clemenceau would allow no debate. He pointed out that the five great
powers had won the war. It was their privilege to make the peace. They
could have done so without reference to the smaller states. But they
had graciously called these smaller states into consultation. The
great powers did not purpose to consult the smaller states except in
matters in which they were directly interested. Thus was notice served
upon the world that nineteenth-century principles of international
diplomacy had been adopted for the Paris conference. The peace treaties
were going to embody the results of bargains secretly arrived at among
the great powers by compromising their own national interests. The
smaller states were to be used as pawns in the old game. The program of
President Wilson, which M. Clemenceau had said was to be that of the
conference, was made impossible of fulfilment by the way the conference
was organized.[2]
The minor states understood the significance of M. Clemenceau’s answer
to their protest. M. Clemenceau made it clear that there were to be
no “open covenants, openly arrived at”; and his pronouncement was an
invitation to the statesmen of minor countries to engage in separate
negotiations with the delegates of the great powers, offering a _quid
pro quo_ for the big fellow’s support of their interests.
Let us take for example the case of M. Hymans of Belgium and M. Dmowski
of Poland. M. Clemenceau was on the friendliest terms with these
two men, but they thought they could do better for their country if
the interests of Belgium and Poland were advanced and maintained in
conference with the delegates of all the powers. But the French Foreign
Office had decided that Belgium and Poland were necessary allies for
France. Therefore, they were not to treat directly with the powers as
a whole. France was to become their spokesman and defender in the inner
council. This is what went on throughout the conference in regard to
the interests of all the minor states. They were encouraged, or rather
forced, by their very exclusion from the council table, to engage in
intrigues to advance their interests. After the second plenary session
Paris could not help becoming a typical nineteenth-century conference
of the great powers.
On the various commissions in which the new map of Europe was being
decided upon, the rival claims of the small states were upheld or
opposed by the representatives of the Entente Powers not on the merits
of the matter in hand but in accordance with orders issued by the
respective Governments to their delegates. What these orders were
depended upon the tractability of the smaller states in direct and
secret negotiations with the foreign offices of the Entente Powers.
On the commissions, only the American members, having no interests at
stake, were acting judicially; all the others were acting politically.
And, where smaller states were represented on the commissions, their
votes were frequently influenced by threats and bribes. Questions
like the Teschen dispute between Czechoslovakia and Poland, the Banat
dispute between Jugoslavia and Rumania, and the Hellenistic ambitions
of Greece were highly profitable for this purpose.
Mr. Wilson thought that the regulations, by which the minor states
were excluded, had been adopted to make possible a practicable working
committee; and he found reasonable, as did every one, M. Clemenceau’s
argument that, as the great powers had won the war and would have to be
responsible for the enforcement of peace, they must keep in their hands
the final decisions. But Mr. Wilson did not know how the game was being
played. Few of his colleagues suspected what was going on until the
conference entered its fourth month. When Mr. Wilson presided at the
sessions of the Commission on the League of Nations and found provision
after provision being changed and modified, little did he suspect that
the opposition he encountered on the part of some of the members of the
commission was due not to conviction but to deals that had been made
regarding questions that had nothing to do with the League.
On February 14 the League of Nations Covenant was submitted to a
conference at a plenary session, President Wilson reading the text and
commenting upon the clauses as he proceeded. The emasculation of the
original idea and the alteration of the original drafts had occurred
in the committee meetings. So the comment was perfunctory. It was the
impression of observers that the plenary session had been convoked,
just as had the others before it, as a matter of form. It was “throwing
the dog a bone.” I found that many of the delegates felt the same way.
One, a man of great power and influence in his own country, said to
me as we were leaving the Quai d’Orsay: “I do not know why I should
feel so humiliated and annoyed when I come to one of these sessions.
They are such farces--we ought to laugh. But the thinly veiled insult
rankles.”
When the armistice was renewed on February 16, the Germans were
required to evacuate the greater part of the province of Posen, thus
foreshadowing an important territorial decision months before the
treaty was signed. Mr. Wilson and Mr. Lloyd George returned home
for visits. When Mr. Wilson arrived back in France on March 13, he
discovered that during his absence there had been an effort to separate
the League of Nations scheme from the actual treaty. The reason given
for this was the impatience that was being felt over the delay in
imposing peace terms on Germany. Mr. Wilson saved the League, but at
the price of agreeing to finish the discussion and decisions in secret
meetings with the three Entente premiers. So the Council of Ten,
composed of two delegates from each of “the five principal Allied and
Associated Powers,” was replaced by a Council of Four.
From this moment, Mr. Wilson was lost altogether. At first he fought
valiantly for his peace program, but he gradually yielded on this
point and on that until there was nothing left of his Fourteen Points,
which were supposed to be the basis upon which peace was to be built.
He justified his concessions to practical international politics by
the expression of his firm belief in the corrective power of the
League of Nations. Whether Mr. Wilson acted wisely or was justified
in his sublime faith in the League Covenant are not questions that
enter into this narrative. The aftermath of one of his most criticized
yieldings to expediency, that of Shantung, has seemingly vindicated
this compromise. But there can be no question that the conference did
not use President Wilson’s “Fourteen Points and subsequent discourses,
notably that of September 27, 1918,” as the guiding principles of the
treaties.
The session of the Council of Four continued week after week, not
always harmoniously. Secrecy could not be maintained, for example,
in regard to Mr. Lloyd George’s refusal to accept the recommendation
of the Commission on Eastern Frontiers of Germany, which recommended
that large districts whose population was more than 90 per cent.
German be given to Poland. President Wilson was not interested in
self-determination for the Germans.[3] But he became a champion of
the Jugoslavs, opposed bitterly the Italian solution of the Adriatic
question, and finally attempted to appeal to the people of Italy on
the Fiume question over the head of their Government. This led to the
withdrawal of the Italian delegation.
Great Britain and France were bound to Italy by the treaty of 1915.
While Fiume was not included in the rewards promised Italy by that
treaty, northern Dalmatia was. The British and French advised the
Italians not to press all their claims, but declared that they were
ready to stand by their treaty engagements. Similarly, Mr. Wilson found
himself isolated when the question of Shantung came up. He made himself
the champion of China, but was confronted with the pledges given by the
three Entente Powers to Japan. Mr. Wilson later explained he had not
known of the existence of these treaties or of the agreements relating
to the Ottoman Empire. But they had been published as early as 1917!
Between the middle of January and the end of April there were only
five plenary sessions of the conference, three of them devoted to the
League of Nations and one to international labor. No important question
of peace had been brought before the conference as a whole, and most
of the delegates knew only what the newspapers printed concerning the
character of the treaty to be handed to the Germans. The delegates of
the nations vitally interested knew little or nothing about the terms
of the other treaties. The Council of Ten, and then the Big Four, had
assumed authority and responsibility. They had made the decisions on
all important questions: reparations, punishments, boundary-lines,
disarmament, transportation, and various economic matters. Far
East and Near East, the Pacific islands and Africa, as well as the
various questions of Europe, had passed in review before the three
Entente premiers and President Wilson. Details had been worked out
by commissions, but these in turn reflected the foreign policies of
the Entente powers. Only the League Covenant was given publicity and
submitted in its various stages to the delegates as a whole.
The sixth plenary session was a private one, held on May 5, when the
draft of the Treaty of Versailles was submitted to those who were
supposed to have made it. There were protests on minor points. The
major protest came from the Chinese, who declared that they could not
sign the treaty if it contained the Shantung provisions, and from
Marshal Foch, who announced that he considered the security given to
France inadequate from the military point of view. The representatives
of the smaller states were not asked, however, to approve the draft
treaty. It was simply communicated to them in the same way that it was
to be communicated to the Germans.
At three o’clock on the afternoon of May 7, 1919, the terms of the
treaty were delivered to the German delegation, which had been
summoned for that purpose to Versailles. M. Clemenceau said that any
observations would have to be made in writing within fifteen days, and
would be answered promptly.
The head of the German delegation, Count von Brockdorff-Rantzau,
replied with heat and force to M. Clemenceau’s implication that
Germany was a prisoner in the dock, solely responsible for the war
and its horrors. He declined the invitation to admit the unilateral
responsibility of Germany and the sole guilt of Germany for crimes
during the war. He reproached the Allies for having taken six months
to communicate their peace terms, during which they had maintained the
food blockade, which had cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of
German non-combatants. He reminded us that a pre-armistice agreement,
binding upon both parties to the war, existed, and that a peace which
could not be defended as just before the whole world would in the end
cause resistance to the terms imposed. “Nobody will be capable of
subscribing to it with a good conscience, for it will not be possible
of fulfilment. Nobody would be able to take upon himself the guarantee
of its execution which ought to lie in the signature.” Cold silence
greeted the count’s speech. M. Clemenceau arose, and the meeting ended.
But many who were present felt that they had not been witnessing the
beginning of an era of peace. The chill presentiment of a more horrible
war than the one that had just ended filled us.
On May 8 the press published a brief summary of the draft treaty. As
if there was something to be ashamed of, the document in full was not
printed, and it was impossible for public opinion to pass judgment
upon the practicability and wisdom, if not the justice, of its terms.
The folly of this rigorous censorship became apparent when German and
neutral newspapers published the full text in instalments. I went to
Frankfort ten days after the treaty was communicated to the Germans
and bought copies of the complete document in French and English at
a hotel newsstand. When I returned to Paris next day, I found that
it was considered lese-majesty at the American headquarters for a
private individual to have this document in his possession. Why?
No answer has ever been given to this question. Nor has it been
explained why President Wilson attached importance to keeping from the
American press--even from the Senate--a document that was being freely
circulated in European countries other than France. During the weeks
between the communication of the treaty and its signature, the press
published synopses of German observations and Allied replies. But how
was public opinion to understand this correspondence and approve the
Allied replies when it had not been informed exactly what the document
under discussion contained?
The Germans handed in voluminous notes. They contended that the
territorial provisions violated President Wilson’s Fourteen Points,
and declared that it would be a physical impossibility for Germany
to fulfil the economic clauses. Their experts wrote out an argument
to show that the failure to name a definite sum would jeopardize the
authority of the new German Government, would mean economic slavery
for the vanquished, and would involve all central Europe in ruin. They
pointed out that the tentative sums demanded exceeded the convertible
wealth of Germany, and that if the treaty were signed, with such
obligations forced upon them, default would be inevitable. They
presented a brief on the question of the responsibilty of the war,
which they were asked to acknowledge, pleading that such a matter
should be left to experts, with all the documents before them from the
official archives of the several countries involved. They asserted that
it would be impossible to force upon the German people international
control of waterways and other means of transportation without
reciprocity. They asked that alleged violations of the laws of war
should be tried before a neutral tribunal, and asserted that they had a
list of Allied war criminals against whom they could submit evidence as
damning as the Allies could submit against German officers and soldiers.
At the end of May they made counter-proposals, agreeing to disarmament
clauses, to the reduction of their army to one hundred thousand men,
and also to the abolition of their navy. They agreed that Dantzig
should be a free port, but rejected some of the territorial clauses
and the penal stipulations. They refused to confess their sole
responsibility for the war. They asked for plebiscites in territories
taken from them by the treaty. They agreed to pay for reparations a
total sum not exceeding 100,000,000,000 gold marks.
The Allies answered the German notes, one by one, in writing. No
honest effort was made to justify in detail the terms to which the
Germans objected by bringing arguments to refute the German arguments.
The attitude of the Allies, in every answer, was that the Germans
forgot that they had lost the war, a war for which they were solely
responsible and which had brought upon the world endless misery.
They were reminded of the fact that they had done more wrong than
the most unfavorable terms could atone for, and that the damages
due to their invasions of other countries and their diabolical
destruction of cities, factories, and mines had put them beyond the
pale of civilization. They ought to be glad that the terms were not
harder. The terms could easily have been made harder. In none of the
Allied replies was attention paid to the German claim that there
had been a pre-armistice agreement, and that the Allies were using
exactly opposite principles in deciding different points, invoking
self-determination to justify detaching territory from Germany where
there were alien majorities, and assigning historic and strategic
reasons where the majorities were German. In the replies nothing was
said about the unfairness of unilateral transport advantages in time of
peace.
After five years, a careful reading of the Allied replies to the
German observations on the Treaty of Versailles will convince one
that the attitude of mind of the victors toward the vanquished was
unstatesmanlike, to put it mildly. Many of the German arguments were
poor, and could have been refuted; others were sound, and should have
been ignored only if the victors felt that they could count upon
remaining united and ready to make use of their military superiority,
which was due only to their union, throughout the period of the
execution of the treaty.
Owing to the insistence of Mr. Lloyd George, certain modifications
were made in the proposed frontier with Poland, and plebiscites
were provided for Upper Silesia, Marienwerder, and Allenstein.
The arrangement for German repurchase of the Saar region was also
modified. The final concessions were given to the Germans on June 16,
subject to a five-day term for acceptance or rejection of the treaty
in its entirety. This led to the downfall of the German Government
and the withdrawal of von Brockdorff-Rantzau and his associates from
Versailles. A new Government, composed of elements that had never
before had the upper hand in Germany, was formed. Its chancellor, Herr
Bauer, won the support of the National Assembly in a submission policy.
The upper classes and the intellectuals in Germany were solidly opposed
to signing a treaty which, they said, would only keep central Europe
in turmoil indefinitely and lead to a war of revenge. They felt that
the best course for Germany to pursue would be to allow the victors to
denounce the armistice and occupy all of Germany.
This the victors were quite ready to do. The Allied armies on the
Rhine were held in readiness. But the Bauer Government, supported by a
demoralized and hunger-stricken people, succeeded in getting two men
who were willing to go to Versailles and put their names to the treaty.
On June 23 the German Government notified the Allies that it was ready
to sign.
The event that ought to have marked a new era for Europe and the world
took place in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles on Saturday afternoon,
June 28, on the spot where the German Empire had been proclaimed in
1870. Had the treaty been really based on Mr. Wilson’s program, as it
purported to be, had it contained a League of Nations Covenant along
the lines of the noble conception of its advocates, had one weight
and one measure been applied to all alike, there would have been some
hope of a European and world peace born in the hearts of men that day.
And, whether just or not, the treaty would have been practicable and
would have ushered in a new era had those who framed it been bound
together by common interests in its enforcement. But the great powers
were divided; and the small powers, not having had any part in the
treaty-making, did not consider it as theirs. Most of the people in the
room had had no opportunity to study the treaty, and many of them had
not been able to get hold of a copy to read it. But all who knew what
was in it realized the futility of the performance.
Most of the Frenchmen present had expressed in no uncertain terms their
idea that the treaty was not drastic enough, and that M. Clemenceau
had betrayed his country’s interests. The English, on the other hand,
thought it was too drastic. The Americans were divided, but I think
the majority shared the British sentiment. The Italians and Japanese
and most of the small powers had no particular interest in the treaty.
Fearing to be assassinated if they returned home after having put
China’s name to such a document, the Chinese at the last minute
refused to sign. Of the smaller states only the Belgians, Poles, and
Czechoslovaks were vitally interested, and none of these was satisfied.
Denmark received back Schleswig, but she had had to remonstrate
vehemently with the Allies to prevent them from giving her more than
she wanted! Russia, whose consent and coöperation were essential
for the enforcement in future years of a treaty of this character,
especially the supplementary Polish treaty, was not only absent but
had made it known that she considered the treaty null and void.
The ceremony was like a funeral; for a consciousness of failure was
present among the signatories. And among some was a consciousness of
shame. I talked to two of the principal signatories on the eve of
the ceremony, and they told me that they felt they were going to do
something dishonorable. Another signatory, representing one of the
British dominions, told me on the evening of June 28 that it had been
the saddest day of his life.
But the only delegate who protested openly was General Smuts of South
Africa. As I write I hold in my hand his mimeographed statement, which
was distributed at the moment he appended his signature. This copy was
given to me by Sir George Riddell as General Smuts got up to walk to
the table where the treaty lay. Said the general:
I feel that in the treaty we have not yet achieved the real peace
to which our peoples were looking, and I feel that the real work of
making peace will only begin after this treaty has been signed....
The promise of the new life, the victory of the great human ideals,
for which the peoples have shed their blood and their treasure
without stint, the fulfillment of their aspirations towards a new
international order, and a fairer, better world, are not written in
this treaty.... A new spirit of generosity and humanity, born in
the hearts of the peoples in this great hour of common suffering
and sorrow, can alone heal the wounds which have been inflicted on
the body of Christendom.... There are territorial settlements which
in my humble judgment will need revision. There are guarantees laid
down, which we all hope will soon be found out of harmony with the
new peaceful temper and unarmed state of our former enemy. There
are punishments foreshadowed, over most of which a calmer mood may
yet prefer to pass the sponge of oblivion. There are indemnities
stipulated, which cannot be exacted without grave injury to the
industrial revival of Europe, and which it will be in the interests
of all to render more tolerable and moderate. There are numerous
pin-pricks which will cease to pain under the healing influence of
the new international atmosphere.
The real peace of the peoples ought to follow, complete, and amend
the peace of the statesmen.... The enemy peoples should at the
earliest possible date join the League, and in collaboration with
the Allied peoples learn to practice the great lesson of this war,
that not in separate ambitions or in selfish domination, but in
common service for the great human causes, lies the true path of
national progress. This joint collaboration is especially necessary
to-day for the reconstruction of a ruined and broken world.
President Wilson also issued a statement after the signing of the
treaty, in which he asserted that it contained many things that others
failed to find in it. He spoke of it as “a great charter for a new
order of affairs.” From this time Mr. Wilson became an ardent champion
and defender of the treaty, taking in regard to it the attitude
that literal inspirationists take in regard to the Bible. He set
forth the theory on June 28, 1919, that the important feature of the
Treaty of Versailles was the League of Nations, which he believed
would immediately assume the dominant position in the conduct of
international affairs. Because of the Treaty of Versailles, declared
Mr. Wilson,
“backward nations, populations which have not yet come to political
consciousness, and peoples who are ready for independence but
not yet quite prepared to dispense with protection and guidance,
shall no more be subjected to the domination and exploitation of a
stronger nation, but shall be put under the friendly direction and
afforded the helpful assistance of governments which undertake to
be responsible to the opinion of mankind in the execution of their
task by accepting the direction of the League of Nations.”
Despite his seven months of daily contact with European statesmen, Mr.
Wilson had preserved his optimism, and was willing to go on record
as prophesying that the Entente Powers were going to interpret their
mandate trusteeships in this way.
While the Treaty of Versailles was being prepared, drafts were made
also of the proposed treaties with Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and
Turkey. It was intended that the five treaties be part of the same
general settlement, each beginning with the League of Nations
Covenant, and employing as far as possible the same order and the
same phraseology. What France and Belgium had suffered at the hands
of the Germans, the smaller allies had suffered at the hands of
Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Germany’s accomplices had been
guilty of as great devastation in their invasions, and of infinitely
greater atrocities and wrongs inflicted upon subject peoples. This
was especially true of Turkey. If a harsh treaty was just, on moral
grounds, when Germany was the culprit, there was greater justification
in imposing harsh treaties on the other countries that had helped
Germany in her formidable assault upon civilization.
But unanimity was harder to secure in the case of the other treaties.
There was some reason for allowing France to have the principal voice
in the treaty with Germany, and France’s interests were identical with
those of Belgium. The Treaty of Versailles involved only the creation
of one new state, Poland, which France powerfully godfathered. The
conflicting interests of the powers in the enforcement of the Treaty of
Versailles did not arise until after the Peace Conference.
The other treaties were a different matter. Here from the beginning
interests clashed, those of Italy and Jugoslavia in the treaty with
Austria; those of Jugoslavia, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, and Poland in
the treaty with Hungary; those of Jugoslavia and Greece in the treaty
with Bulgaria; and those of Greece and Italy, and of Italy, France,
and Great Britain, in the treaty with Turkey. The delegates of the
other enemy powers had all been summoned to Paris before the Treaty of
Versailles was signed, but the Allies were not ready for them.
It was felt, however, that the draft of the Austrian treaty, although
incomplete, should be given to the Austrians before the Treaty of
Versailles was signed. For the two treaties contained a similar
important provision forbidding the union of Austria with Germany. And
Austria, like Germany, was to make a large territorial contribution to
the resurrection of Poland. Then, too, the treaty with Austria was as
important to Italy as the treaty with Germany to France.
But the delegates of the states whose future was to be decided by the
treaties with Austria and Hungary had been showing much impatience
during May over the fact that they were having no part in making the
draft of the treaty. They did not know what the terms were to be! Two
of the Balkan premiers told me that the Conference of Paris, as far
as the Danubian states and the Balkan states were concerned, was
simply a repetition of the Conference of Berlin. The great powers were
drawing up the treaty with due regard to their own interests, and their
own interests alone. The smaller states were expected to gather up
gratefully the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. Was Italy
going to have her own way with Austria, disregarding Jugoslavic claims?
Italy had a voice in the secret conclaves; Jugoslavia did not. Were
the great powers going to write the economic clauses of the treaties
according to their own interests, and to give themselves privileges
on the Danube that were being denied to Germany on her own internal
waterways? During the last fortnight of May I was put in possession
of information that indicated beyond the shadow of a doubt the moral
bankruptcy of the conference and the mental weariness of President
Wilson.
What I had been told was confirmed in the last three days of the month.
Plenary sessions were held on May 29 and 31 to discuss the Austrian
draft treaty. It had been the intention of the Big Three (no longer
Big Four, because Signor Orlando had gone home in a huff) to make the
proceedings as meaningless and formal as those of the previous plenary
sessions. They had hoped to communicate an incomplete draft treaty, for
Italy had not yet been appeased, and to present it without further
delay to the Austrians, who were waiting at St.-Germain. But on May 29
Premier Bratiano and the other premiers of Succession and Balkan states
had annoyingly insisted upon being given a chance to read and study
the document in drafting which they were supposed to have collaborated
and which they would be expected to indorse and sign. They pointed out
the fact that the treaties with the remnants of the Hapsburg Empire
were vital to them. They wanted to have a voice in the political and
economic engagements they were to undertake. With bad grace, they were
allowed forty-eight hours.
The historic eighth plenary session was held on the afternoon of
May 31. Opening the proceedings, M. Clemenceau, speaking with an
air of weariness and impatience, intimated that the Big Three were
ready to listen to observations. Premier Bratiano of Rumania was the
first speaker. He complained that the text of the treaty had been
communicated only at six o’clock the evening before, and that there had
not been twenty-four hours to study it. He was interrupted immediately
by M. Clemenceau, who asked him to read what the Rumanians had to say.
M. Bratiano made a straightforward protest against the minority clauses
proposed, declaring that Rumania was ready to agree to any regulations
for the protection of minorities that all the members of the League of
Nations might adopt, but that the intervention of foreign countries in
her internal affairs could not be tolerated. If the League of Nations
was a reality and not a farce he argued that this body could be relied
upon to protect minorities by common agreement in all the states
members of the League. As the League existed, and as all powers were
to have equal rights and to be treated alike, why did “the principal
Allied and Associated Powers” arrogate to themselves the right to
intervene in the internal affairs of Rumania, coupled with economic
privileges of a special character?
M. Clemenceau answered that the powers were in a hurry to give the
draft treaty to the Austrians, but that he was in agreement with M.
Bratiano on the minorities question. Of course the League of Nations
could attend to this matter, and France was willing to submit to any
control the League proposed. M. Bratiano returned to the charge. He
pointed out to M. Clemenceau that the text of the treaty entrusted the
protection of minorities to the great powers and not to the League.
Admitting this, now that he was cornered, M. Clemenceau said that
there was nothing humiliating in the proposition that Rumania receive
“friendly counsels” from the Entente Powers and the United States.
M. Bratiano answered that the war had been fought to establish the
equality of states, irrespective of size, and that the Big Four had
disregarded this principle and had established different classes of
states, with varying degrees of sovereignty. This Rumania could not
admit. Messrs. Paderewski for Poland, Kramar for Czechoslovakia, and
Trumbich for Jugoslavia vigorously supported the thesis of M. Bratiano.
To the surprise and astonishment of every one, it was the American
President who came to the rescue of Old World diplomacy. Feeling that
his authority and judgment had been attacked, and not seeing the
“nigger in the wood-pile” (the desire for exclusive economic privileges
which had inspired his colleagues, not defense of minorities), Mr.
Wilson pointed out that it is force which is the final guarantee of
public peace. Mr. Wilson assumed that the United States and the Entente
Powers--not the League of Nations--were to stand together indefinitely
to guarantee the maintenance of the treaties that formed the Paris
settlement. According to the official minutes of this session, which
were passed upon and approved by the American delegation, Mr. Wilson
said:
If the world finds itself again troubled, if the conditions that
we all regard as fundamental are put in question, the guarantee
which is given you means that the United States will bring to this
side of the ocean their army and their fleet. Is it surprising
that in these conditions they desire to act in such a way that
the regulation of the different problems appear to them entirely
satisfactory?[4]
M. Bratiano told Mr. Wilson that he had missed the point, and repeated
his declaration, in which the other interested states concurred, that
the equality of all states, small and large, had been the corner-stone
of Mr. Wilson’s own principles and of the sword drawn in defense of
Serbia and Belgium. He pointed out that if the League of Nations were
entrusted with the task of protecting minorities in all countries, the
states interested in the Austrian treaty would be glad to submit to
a control that played no favorites. Then M. Bratiano asked Mr. Wilson
point-blank why Italy was not included in giving definite minority
pledges along with the other states who were to be successors of the
Hapsburg Empire. Are there degrees of sovereignty according to size?
Have large nations rights and privileges small nations do not possess?
If this was the idea of the Americans as well as of the other major
Allies, the statements they had made during the war were false. They
were not defending Serbia and Belgium; they were fighting for their own
interests, using the cause of these two small nations as a smoke-screen
for selfishness. But I am afraid that in the last two sentences I have
strayed from the minutes of the eighth plenary session! I have put
down what M. Bratiano told me he wanted to say in his answer to the
President.
The last to speak at this memorable session, M. Venizelos, suggested
that the legitimate anxieties of the states immediately affected by
the treaty with Austria ought to be considered, before the treaty was
presented to the Austrian delegation, in a special joint meeting of the
Big Four and the representatives of these states.
This was not done. The draft of the treaty was given to the Austrians
at St.-Germain on June 2. After lengthy exchange of notes some
concessions were made in the economic clauses, and an amended treaty
was handed to the Austrians on July 20. Negotiations were protracted,
not on account of the Austrians, who were powerless, but because the
interests of Italy had to be acknowledged, and because the small states
had to be appeased and bullied. The Treaty of St.-Germain was signed on
September 10. By that time, however, all interest in it had died down,
and, as far as its economic clauses were concerned, it was universally
recognized to be more absurd and impossible of fulfilment than the
Treaty of Versailles.
The Bulgarians were handed their treaty on September 19, and they
signed it at Neuilly on November 27. The Hungarian and Turkish treaties
had been drawn up at the same time as the others. But there was no
stable government in Hungary to sign the treaty, and the Entente Powers
were at loggerheads over the Turkish treaty. Before the treaties of
Trianon and Sèvres were presented to the Hungarians and Turks, the
Paris Peace Conference had gone out of existence, and was succeeded
by the three Entente premiers, who held a series of continuation
conferences frequently from January, 1920, to January, 1923.
It may be felt that I have written an unsympathetic account of
the Paris Conference. But how can one write otherwise concerning
an inglorious failure? It would be possible to explain plausibly,
convincingly, why it failed. But the chronicler of contemporary history
must pass on to an examination of the treaties, and then to judge them
by the only criterion he has the right to use: What has happened to the
world because of them? Did they bring us peace? Have they proved to be
practicable? Were they the beginning of a new order? Has the League
of Nations filled the rôle expected of it by those who said that its
birth alone justified the Paris peace settlement and would prove its
corrective?