THE FAILURE OF THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES TO WIN POPULAR APPROVAL
From the moment of its signature, the Treaty of Versailles had “a bad
press” throughout the world. Ratification by the parliaments of most
of the contracting nations seemed assured, but in no country did those
who favored ratification support their case by any other argument
than that of expediency. It was an inadequate treaty, disappointing
along practical as well as idealistic lines, its supporters admitted;
but what else was there to do than to make it, imperfect as it was,
the foundation of peace? After all, the compromises among the Entente
Powers left them with substantial gains; and Belgium and Poland were
decidedly the winners. The weak features of the treaty could be
remedied in later conferences. And yet, despite the reasonableness
of this argument, to all nations that participated in the conference
except Great Britain and China it was a problem, what attitude they
should adopt toward the Treaty of Versailles.
China solved the problem by not accepting the treaty at all. Her
delegates refused to sign the document that put millions of their
fellow-citizens of the sacred and historic province of Shantung into
the hands of Japan. At the command of the President of the United
States, the American Minister to China had formally invited the Chinese
to participate in the World War for the triumph of certain definite
principles which had been clearly set forth in detail by the President,
who said he spoke on behalf of the American people. Believing in
President Wilson’s good faith, the Chinese came into the war. When
they discovered that in the councils of the Big Four their confidence
had been betrayed, they would have nothing to do with the Treaty of
Versailles. In his spectacular trip west to defend the treaty, when
it was before the Senate, President Wilson tried to explain away the
Shantung arrangements. But he could not do it to the satisfaction of
China.
The British Parliament ratified the treaty without debate. Naturally.
For, like the Treaty of Vienna a hundred years earlier, it added
greatly to Great Britain’s already overwhelming world power. The
continental powers were weak and disrupted, incapable of threatening in
the near future “the peace of the world” as Downing Street understands
that term; that is, of contesting with the mistress of the seas
extra-European markets and intercontinental carrying-trade. German
naval power was destroyed. German colonial and commercial ambitions had
received a serious setback. Russia was no longer a menace to British
supremacy in Asia. The Treaty of Versailles established new safeguards
to India by recognizing the British protectorate over Egypt, by
ignoring the plea of Persia to be a signatory or at least a beneficiary
of the treaty, by making no provision for the future of Asiatic and
Transcaucasian Russia, and by giving international sanction to British
secret treaties, no matter what unknown provisions those treaties
might contain. It made Great Britain the dominant power in Africa.
It accepted the right of the British cabinet to speak, and sign, for
the 300,000,000 inhabitants of India. Above all, it provided that the
United States should underwrite the aggrandized British Empire, with
a self-governing population of only 60,000,000, by entering a League
of Nations in which the British were to have six votes and the United
States, with its self-governing population of 100,000,000, one vote. It
was not until later that British public opinion began to realize the
danger of a weak Germany in Europe--the danger to prosperity, through
disorganization of trade, and the danger to security, through the
looming up of another would-be dominant power in Europe.
The Treaty of Versailles was subject to long and penetrating criticism
in the French Senate and Chamber of Deputies. Clear-headed and
far-sighted men did not cease to protest against the treaty on the same
ground as American senators: (1) fear that national interests had been
sacrificed to questionable international advantages; (2) uncertainty as
to the adequacy of the means of enforcing the provisions in the treaty;
(3) dissatisfaction with the League of Nations Covenant as it stood in
the treaty; (4) doubt as to the wisdom of having incorporated in one
document the solution of two different questions, imposing peace upon
Germany and setting up the machinery of a new world order.
During the Conference of Paris I had the privilege of coming into
intimate contact with all classes of Frenchmen. They did not deceive
themselves. They knew well enough where they would have been after
a few months of war, had they been facing Germany alone. Now that
Germany was temporarily disabled, they wanted either a free hand to
take strategic precautions against a renewal of German aggression,
which meant the Rhine frontier, or a new defensive alliance in place
of the Russian alliance. They had no faith whatever in the League of
Nations. M. Clemenceau had been persuaded to give up the Rhine frontier
in exchange for an agreement by the terms of which Great Britain and
the United States were to come to the aid of France in case of German
aggression. At the best, owing to the geographical position of the new
proposed defenders, the Anglo-American guarantee was not a very certain
one. After the American Senate began to attack Article X of the League
of Nations Covenant, the French saw that they had been deceived. The
Anglo-American guarantee was an illusion. The Treaty of Versailles, in
itself, provided no permanent security for France.
In Belgium I found ratification of the treaty regarded as a painful
necessity. There was no enthusiasm for it, and no hope that a new order
would be born of it. The prime ministers of Greece and Rumania told
me that the Versailles Treaty could not be pronounced either good or
bad by their countries until the other treaties with enemy countries
were included. But they both felt that not peace but a series of new
wars was likely to be the result of the secret _pourparlers_ among the
Big Four that gave birth to the Treaty of Versailles. The minister of
foreign affairs of another small nation expressed to me his belief that
the incorporation of the League of Nations in the Treaty of Versailles
killed the League’s chances of success.
“How could international machinery for righting injustice and
establishing a new international morality belong in a document that
furnishes numerous instances of just the sort of thing the League of
Nations was created to abolish?” he cried. I can see him now as he
walked up and down the room, shaking both arms with elbows bended, and
saying, “Pooling of interests, renunciation of special privileges,
refusal to transfer territories from one sovereignty to another
without consulting their inhabitants, recognition of the right of
self-determination--bah! _bah!_ BAH!” The poor man had just been shown
a draft of the clauses relating to his country that were to be put into
the Treaty of St.-Germain.
The statesmen of most of the smaller countries, including the neutrals
invited to become charter members of the League, were afraid that
the inclusion of the League of Nations in the Treaty of Versailles
would make their position in this organization embarrassing. For
Mr. Wilson had succeeded in his determination to connect the league
inextricably with the treaty. Here was a punitive treaty, imposed upon
a defeated nation, which gave great advantages to a few countries. But
many countries--in fact, almost all the countries of the world--were
supposed to join in the responsibility of enforcing the Treaty of
Versailles, in whose advantages and loot they were not sharing. Some
of them had not even been enemies of Germany. Several of them, like
Holland, Denmark, and Switzerland, had common boundaries with Germany
and did most of their business with her. Others, like Sweden, Finland,
and Lithuania, not only had closer cultural relations with Germany than
with the Entente Powers, but also were vitally interested in not having
Germany remain in the position of economic serfdom to which the Treaty
of Versailles doomed her. When the draft treaty was published, the
press in all the countries neighboring on Germany, which for the most
part had been unsympathetic or even actually hostile during the war,
pronounced its terms impracticable and war-breeding.
In Italy the spirit of revolt against the League of Nations and a
punitive treaty imposed upon Germany had begun before the Treaty of
Versailles was signed. Signor Orlando was replaced in the premiership
by Signor Nitti while the Germans were still debating whether they
should sign or not. Italian public opinion was inflamed over the
injustice of denying to Italy “sacred treaty rights,” when Japan
and Poland and France (there was much talk in Italy about the Saar
Valley) were granted territorial gains in defiance of the principle of
self-determination. But Italy could not have Fiume! And yet the British
could have Egypt! Italian newspapers declared that Italy was coming out
at the small end of the horn. The Treaty of Versailles recognized and
guaranteed in every way all British demands and selfish interests, and
in almost every way French demands and selfish interests. What Japan
wanted she got in defiance of Wilsonian principles. Why should Italy
ratify a treaty so much to the advantage of the other Entente nations
before she was sure that the Treaty of St.-Germain and the other
treaties were going to give her as much loot as Great Britain, France,
and Japan received from the Treaty of Versailles?
Japan was profoundly dissatisfied. It was certain that the United
States, put into a hole by Mr. Wilson’s compromise, would try to
wring a definite promise of restitution of Shantung to China, with
a date set. But the Japanese people did not attach vital importance
to the Shantung clauses of the Treaty of Versailles. They blamed
their negotiators for not having made the promise of willingness
to give Shantung back to China contingent upon the surrender by
European Powers of footholds, concessions, and special economic and
political privileges in China. What was good for the goose was good
for the gander. If there was to be an open door in China, said the
Japanese press, let it be really open. Morally speaking, the Treaty
of Versailles, with its emasculated League of Nations Covenant, was a
deception to the Japanese. They suffered in their pride by our refusal
to recognize racial equality. But the worst feature of the Treaty
of Versailles was the continued mortgaging it consecrated of the
colonizable areas of the world by the white race. They had little hope
that the League of Nations, as it was conceived in the treaty, would
bring about a world-wide state of peace. For it begged the question
of recognizing the world-wide rights of peoples to reciprocal and
equal privileges and opportunities. The whole spirit of the Treaty of
Versailles made the Japanese feel that Asiatic peoples would never get
a square deal without fighting Europe for it.
Among Latin American delegates at Paris two strong currents were
battling for mastery. Ought the Treaty of Versailles, giving birth to
the League of Nations, to be welcomed in Central and South America
and the West Indies as the document by which the other states of the
western hemisphere were emancipated from Yankee overlordship? Or ought
the Latin-American republics to fear the abandonment of the Monroe
Doctrine by their entry into a world federation built upon European
ideals and European atmosphere?
The League might prove a means of resisting Yankee imperialism.
On the other hand, it might open the doors to something worse.
The transplanting to America of the doctrine of European eminent
domain would be deadly to the self-respect and prosperity of weak
non-European nations. A distinguished South American jurist said to
me at Paris: “I think you do not need to be worried about our taking
this League of Nations business too seriously. For the first time in my
life, since I have been sitting in this conference, I have been made to
feel that I represent what Kipling calls the ‘lesser breeds without the
law.’ It frightens me!”
The modified form of Article XXI of the Covenant, inserted to
preserve the Monroe Doctrine, was an ambiguous sop thrown to American
public opinion to quiet the apprehensions born of our traditional
instincts.[6] The belief, expressed several times by President Wilson
in his speeches justifying the Treaty of Versailles, that the United
States would have the leadership in the League was not shared by the
representatives of Latin America. They could not take home with them
any such curious notion. For they saw how the United States, with all
the personal prestige of Mr. Wilson, had no real influence in the
conference. Proof of this statement will be found in comparing Mr.
Wilson’s war speeches with the Treaty of Versailles. Had we reason to
think that our influence, after our army was disbanded and we were
sitting at Geneva, would be greater than immediately after a victory
won because of our aid? If the Treaty of Versailles was the result of
what American prestige at its zenith was able to accomplish in leading
the world morally, how could any thinking man suppose that we were
going to lead the world along paths of peace in later years?
It was never true that the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles
without reservation by the United States would have brought peace to
Europe. It was never true that “the heart of the world” was yearning
for the kind of a League of Nations that was established by the Treaty
of Versailles. Our associates in the World War were eager to have a
real ally in the United States, whose continued military and financial
support would have enabled them to put into execution the Treaty of
Versailles. For our moral leadership they cared nothing. They were not
thinking about being “morally led” by any one.
General Sir Ian Hamilton, in the Manchester “Guardian” and the
historian, Signor G. Ferrero, in the Rome “Secolo,” have pointed out
the fallacy of considering the League of Nations of the Versailles
Treaty a bona fide effort toward international organization and
coöperation. General Hamilton believes that “the abstention of the
United States is less damaging to the decisions of the so-called League
of Nations than the exclusion of Germany; what Europe should have
quickly is a true League of European nations, where a German can state
his case and then cast his vote.” Signor Ferrero is of the opinion
that the present League of Nations is doomed because of its partizan
character, which its connection with the Treaty of Versailles makes it
impossible to shake off. Signor Ferrero writes:
The Treaty of Versailles subjects Germany to the collective
protectorate of Italy, France, and England. To imagine that the
nation which, up to November, 1918, was the most powerful in the
world may be thrust over night under the guardianship of three
powers, each weaker than itself, is to imagine not along the
lines of political realism, but of political futurism. The truth
of this statement is apparent in the fact that four years after
the armistice France and Belgium are caught in the snarl of this
impossible protectorate and involved in coercive measures that will
ruin Germany without saving her enemies.
It was a sad and startling fact that the ratification of the Treaty
of Versailles and the merits of the proposed League of Nations
became a party question immediately after the return of Mr. Wilson.
Administration and anti-administration forces were pitted against each
other in the Senate. Most senators voted on party lines. The Republican
opponents of unreserved ratification and advocates of rejection charged
that the obligations imposed upon us by the treaty were incompatible
with the Constitution. President Wilson answered that the Republicans
were Bolshevists, narrow-minded, out of tune with the world of to-day,
contemptible quitters, German sympathizers, betrayers of the trust put
in them by our soldiers, provokers of new wars to draw our boys across
seas, and unconscious but none the less responsible agents of Armenian
massacres, who should be “hanged high as Haman.” Denouncing the Senate
for performing its duty under the Constitution; imputing unworthy
motives to every senator who did not show an inclination to accept the
treaty without examination, discussion, or investigation; ridiculing
the members of our upper house; threatening or attempting to influence
them by an appeal to their constituents; insinuating that opponents
of immediate and unqualified ratification were pro-German--all this
campaign of passion detracted singularly from the solemnity and spirit
of earnestness that should have surrounded the choice of the people of
the United States to abandon or to preserve unbroken the traditions
that had been maintained since the birth of the republic.
Of course treaty ratification became the issue in the Presidential
Campaign a year later. President Wilson announced that the election
of 1920 should be a solemn referendum. The result was an overwhelming
victory for the Republican party, despite the efforts of some eminent
Republicans to defend the League of Nations. The new Congress
terminated war with Germany and Austria by resolution, which was
signed by President Harding on July 2, 1921. Six weeks later a brief
peace treaty was signed in Berlin, in which Germany agreed to give the
United States all the rights and advantages stipulated in the Treaty
of Versailles, with the exception of certain portions specifically
mentioned as excluded at the volition of the United States. The
repudiated portions were: the Covenant of the League of Nations; the
boundaries of Germany; the political clauses for Europe; the sections
concerning German rights outside Germany, with the exception of the
cession of the German colonies “in favor of the Principal Allied and
Associated Powers”; and the provisions concerning the organization of
labor. By these omissions the United States dissociated itself from
the other signatories of the treaty in regard to the responsibility
of the war, the trial of war criminals, and the guarantees for the
fulfilment of the treaty. The right was reserved to be represented on
the Reparations Commission or any other commission established under
the Treaty of Versailles. But “the United States is not bound to
participate in any such commission unless it shall elect to do so.”
The defection of the United States was an accepted fact in Paris when
the Senate failed to ratify the treaty in November, 1919, a year before
the presidential election put the stamp of popular approval upon this
action. So when the Peace Conference broke up the United States was
already counted out of European affairs. We did not enter at all into
the other treaties.
There were three serious consequences of the failure of the United
States to ratify the Treaty of Versailles: destroying the authority of
the treaty as the basis of a new political and economic order; reducing
the League of Nations to impotence as a tool of the Entente Powers; and
making the French people realize that the Anglo-American guarantee
of security, proposed as the alternative to the Rhine frontier, was
worthless. Of the Rhine frontier we shall speak in a later chapter;
for the problem of the security of France has dominated all other
considerations in post-bellum Europe. At this point we have only to
consider the effect upon public opinion throughout the world of the
abstention of the United States from any part in enforcing the Treaty
of Versailles.
The war could not have been won without the aid of the United States.
The treaty could not have been imposed upon Germany without the aid
of the United States. Could the treaty be enforced without the aid
of the United States? Thinking men everywhere realized that the
logical result of the failure of the American Senate to ratify the
Treaty of Versailles would be the scrapping of the treaty. British
public opinion, which had begun to turn against the treaty because of
its heavy responsibilities and its supposed connection with British
unemployment, clamored for revision of the treaty and the League,
drastically if need be, in order to get the United States back into
European affairs. French public opinion demanded that the French
Government be prepared to use its army to collect reparations and
destroy the unity of Germany, a policy which should end in a new
treaty, directly between France and Germany, in which France was to
dictate the terms mistakenly abandoned or modified during the Paris
Conference.