THE CONFERENCE
In Chapters IV. and V. I shall study in some detail the economic and
financial provisions of the Treaty of Peace with Germany. But it will be
easier to appreciate the true origin of many of these terms if we
examine here some of the personal factors which influenced their
preparation. In attempting this task, I touch, inevitably, questions of
motive, on which spectators are liable to error and are not entitled to
take on themselves the responsibilities of final judgment. Yet, if I
seem in this chapter to assume sometimes the liberties which are
habitual to historians, but which, in spite of the greater knowledge
with which we speak, we generally hesitate to assume towards
contemporaries, let the reader excuse me when he remembers how greatly,
if it is to understand its destiny, the world needs light, even if it is
partial and uncertain, on the complex struggle of human will and
purpose, not yet finished, which, concentrated in the persons of four
individuals in a manner never paralleled, made them, in the first months
of 1919, the microcosm of mankind.
In those parts of the Treaty with which I am here concerned, the lead
was taken by the French, in the sense that it was generally they who
made in the first instance the most definite and the most extreme
proposals. This was partly a matter of tactics. When the final result is
expected to be a compromise, it is often prudent to start from an
extreme position; and the French anticipated at the outset--like most
other persons--a double process of compromise, first of all to suit the
ideas of their allies and associates, and secondly in the course of the
Peace Conference proper with the Germans themselves. These tactics were
justified by the event. Clemenceau gained a reputation for moderation
with his colleagues in Council by sometimes throwing over with an air of
intellectual impartiality the more extreme proposals of his ministers;
and much went through where the American and British critics were
naturally a little ignorant of the true point at issue, or where too
persistent criticism by France's allies put them in a position which
they felt as invidious, of always appearing to take the enemy's part and
to argue his case. Where, therefore, British and American interests were
not seriously involved their criticism grew slack, and some provisions
were thus passed which the French themselves did not take very
seriously, and for which the eleventh-hour decision to allow no
discussion with the Germans removed the opportunity of remedy.
But, apart from tactics, the French had a policy. Although Clemenceau
might curtly abandon the claims of a Klotz or a Loucheur, or close his
eyes with an air of fatigue when French interests were no longer
involved in the discussion, he knew which points were vital, and these
he abated little. In so far as the main economic lines of the Treaty
represent an intellectual idea, it is the idea of France and of
Clemenceau.
Clemenceau was by far the most eminent member of the Council of Four,
and he had taken the measure of his colleagues. He alone both had an
idea and had considered it in all its consequences. His age, his
character, his wit, and his appearance joined to give him objectivity
and a, defined outline in an environment of confusion. One could not
despise Clemenceau or dislike him, but only take a different view as to
the nature of civilized man, or indulge, at least, a different hope.
The figure and bearing of Clemenceau are universally familiar. At the
Council of Four he wore a square-tailed coat of very good, thick black
broadcloth, and on his hands, which were never uncovered, gray suede
gloves; his boots were of thick black leather, very good, but of a
country style, and sometimes fastened in front, curiously, by a buckle
instead of laces. His seat in the room in the President's house, where
the regular meetings of the Council of Four were held (as distinguished
from their private and unattended conferences in a smaller chamber
below), was on a square brocaded chair in the middle of the semicircle
facing the fireplace, with Signor Orlando on his left, the President
next by the fireplace, and the Prime Minister opposite on the other side
of the fireplace on his right. He carried no papers and no portfolio,
and was unattended by any personal secretary, though several French
ministers and officials appropriate to the particular matter in hand
would be present round him. His walk, his hand, and his voice were not
lacking in vigor, but he bore nevertheless, especially after the attempt
upon him, the aspect of a very old man conserving his strength for
important occasions. He spoke seldom, leaving the initial statement of
the French case to his ministers or officials; he closed his eyes often
and sat back in his chair with an impassive face of parchment, his gray
gloved hands clasped in front of him. A short sentence, decisive or
cynical, was generally sufficient, a question, an unqualified
abandonment of his ministers, whose face would not be saved, or a
display of obstinacy reinforced by a few words in a piquantly delivered
English.[6] But speech and passion were not lacking when they were
wanted, and the sudden outburst of words, often followed by a fit of
deep coughing from the chest, produced their impression rather by force
and surprise than by persuasion.
Not infrequently Mr. Lloyd George, after delivering a speech in English,
would, during the period of its interpretation into French, cross the
hearthrug to the President to reinforce his case by some _ad hominem_
argument in private conversation, or to sound the ground for a
compromise,--and this would sometimes be the signal for a general
upheaval and disorder. The President's advisers would press round him, a
moment later the British experts would dribble across to learn the
result or see that all was well, and next the French would be there, a
little suspicious lest the others were arranging something behind them,
until all the room were on their feet and conversation was general in
both languages. My last and most vivid impression is of such a
scene--the President and the Prime Minister as the center of a surging
mob and a babel of sound, a welter of eager, impromptu compromises and
counter-compromises, all sound and fury signifying nothing, on what was
an unreal question anyhow, the great issues of the morning's meeting
forgotten and neglected; and Clemenceau silent and aloof on the
outskirts--for nothing which touched the security of France was
forward--throned, in his gray gloves, on the brocade chair, dry in soul
and empty of hope, very old and tired, but surveying the scene with a
cynical and almost impish air; and when at last silence was restored and
the company had returned to their places, it was to discover that he had
disappeared.
He felt about France what Pericles felt of Athens--unique value in her,
nothing else mattering; but his theory of politics was Bismarck's. He
had one illusion--France; and one disillusion--mankind, including
Frenchmen, and his colleagues not least. His principles for the peace
can be expressed simply. In the first place, he was a foremost believer
in the view of German psychology that the German understands and can
understand nothing but intimidation, that he is without generosity or
remorse in negotiation, that there is no advantage he will not take of
you, and no extent to which he will not demean himself for profit, that
he is without honor, pride, or mercy. Therefore you must never negotiate
with a German or conciliate him; you must dictate to him. On no other
terms will he respect you, or will you prevent him from cheating you.
But it is doubtful how far he thought these characteristics peculiar to
Germany, or whether his candid view of some other nations was
fundamentally different. His philosophy had, therefore, no place for
"sentimentality" in international relations. Nations are real things, of
whom you love one and feel for the rest indifference--or hatred. The
glory of the nation you love is a desirable end,--but generally to be
obtained at your neighbor's expense. The politics of power are
inevitable, and there is nothing very new to learn about this war or the
end it was fought for; England had destroyed, as in each preceding
century, a trade rival; a mighty chapter had been closed in the secular
struggle between the glories of Germany and of France. Prudence required
some measure of lip service to the "ideals" of foolish Americans and
hypocritical Englishmen; but it would be stupid to believe that there is
much room in the world, as it really is, for such affairs as the League
of Nations, or any sense in the principle of self-determination except
as an ingenious formula for rearranging the balance of power in one's
own interests.
These, however, are generalities. In tracing the practical details of
the Peace which he thought necessary for the power and the security of
France, we must go back to the historical causes which had operated
during his lifetime. Before the Franco-German war the populations of
France and Germany were approximately equal; but the coal and iron and
shipping of Germany were in their infancy, and the wealth of France was
greatly superior. Even after the loss of Alsace-Lorraine there was no
great discrepancy between the real resources of the two countries. But
in the intervening period the relative position had changed completely.
By 1914 the population of Germany was nearly seventy per cent in excess
of that of France; she had become one of the first manufacturing and
trading nations of the world; her technical skill and her means for the
production of future wealth were unequaled. France on the other hand had
a stationary or declining population, and, relatively to others, had
fallen seriously behind in wealth and in the power to produce it.
In spite, therefore, of France's victorious issue from the present
struggle (with the aid, this time, of England and America), her future
position remained precarious in the eyes of one who took the view that
European civil war is to be regarded as a normal, or at least a
recurrent, state of affairs for the future, and that the sort of
conflicts between organized great powers which have occupied the past
hundred years will also engage the next. According to this vision of the
future, European history is to be a perpetual prize-fight, of which
France has won this round, but of which this round is certainly not the
last. From the belief that essentially the old order does not change,
being based on human nature which is always the same, and from a
consequent skepticism of all that class of doctrine which the League of
Nations stands for, the policy of France and of Clemenceau followed
logically. For a Peace of magnanimity or of fair and equal treatment,
based on such "ideology" as the Fourteen Points of the President, could
only have the effect of shortening the interval of Germany's recovery
and hastening the day when she will once again hurl at France her
greater numbers and her superior resources and technical skill. Hence
the necessity of "guarantees"; and each guarantee that was taken, by
increasing irritation and thus the probability of a subsequent
_Revanche_ by Germany, made necessary yet further provisions to crush.
Thus, as soon as this view of the world is adopted and the other
discarded, a demand for a Carthaginian Peace is inevitable, to the full
extent of the momentary power to impose it. For Clemenceau made no
pretense of considering himself bound by the Fourteen Points and left
chiefly to others such concoctions as were necessary from time to time
to save the scruples or the face of the President.
So far as possible, therefore, it was the policy of France to set the
clock back and to undo what, since 1870, the progress of Germany had
accomplished. By loss of territory and other measures her population was
to be curtailed; but chiefly the economic system, upon which she
depended for her new strength, the vast fabric built upon iron, coal,
and transport must be destroyed. If France could seize, even in part,
what Germany was compelled to drop, the inequality of strength between
the two rivals for European hegemony might be remedied for many
generations.
Hence sprang those cumulative provisions for the destruction of highly
organized economic life which we shall examine in the next chapter.
This is the policy of an old man, whose most vivid impressions and most
lively imagination are of the past and not of the future. He sees the
issue in terms, of France and Germany not of humanity and of European
civilization struggling forwards to a new order. The war has bitten into
his consciousness somewhat differently from ours, and he neither expects
nor hopes that we are at the threshold of a new age.
It happens, however, that it is not only an ideal question that is at
issue. My purpose in this book is to show that the Carthaginian Peace is
not _practically_ right or possible. Although the school of thought from
which it springs is aware of the economic factor, it overlooks,
nevertheless, the deeper economic tendencies which are to govern the
future. The clock cannot be set back. You cannot restore Central Europe
to 1870 without setting up such strains in the European structure and
letting loose such human and spiritual forces as, pushing beyond
frontiers and races, will overwhelm not only you and your "guarantees,"
but your institutions, and the existing order of your Society.
By what legerdemain was this policy substituted for the Fourteen Points,
and how did the President come to accept it? The answer to these
questions is difficult and depends on elements of character and
psychology and on the subtle influence of surroundings, which are hard
to detect and harder still to describe. But, if ever the action of a
single individual matters, the collapse of The President has been one of
the decisive moral events of history; and I must make an attempt to
explain it. What a place the President held in the hearts and hopes of
the world when he sailed to us in the _George Washington!_ What a great
man came to Europe in those early days of our victory!
In November, 1918, the armies of Foch and the words of Wilson had
brought us sudden escape from what was swallowing up all we cared for.
The conditions seemed favorable beyond any expectation. The victory was
so complete that fear need play no part in the settlement. The enemy
had laid down his arms in reliance on a solemn compact as to the general
character of the Peace, the terms of which seemed to assure a settlement
of justice and magnanimity and a fair hope for a restoration of the
broken current of life. To make assurance certain the President was
coming himself to set the seal on his work.
When President Wilson left Washington he enjoyed a prestige and a moral
influence throughout the world unequaled in history. His bold and
measured words carried to the peoples of Europe above and beyond the
voices of their own politicians. The enemy peoples trusted him to carry
out the compact he had made with them; and the Allied peoples
acknowledged him not as a victor only but almost as a prophet. In
addition to this moral influence the realities of power were in his
hands. The American armies were at the height of their numbers,
discipline, and equipment. Europe was in complete dependence on the food
supplies of the United States; and financially she was even more
absolutely at their mercy. Europe not only already owed the United
States more than she could pay; but only a large measure of further
assistance could save her from starvation and bankruptcy. Never had a
philosopher held such weapons wherewith to bind the princes of this
world. How the crowds of the European capitals pressed about the
carriage of the President! With what curiosity, anxiety, and hope we
sought a glimpse of the features and bearing of the man of destiny who,
coming from the West, was to bring healing to the wounds of the ancient
parent of his civilization and lay for us the foundations of the future.
The disillusion was so complete, that some of those who had trusted most
hardly dared speak of it. Could it be true? they asked of those who
returned from Paris. Was the Treaty really as bad as it seemed? What had
happened to the President? What weakness or what misfortune had led to
so extraordinary, so unlooked-for a betrayal?
Yet the causes were very ordinary and human. The President was not a
hero or a prophet; he was not even a philosopher; but a generously
intentioned man, with many of the weaknesses of other human beings, and
lacking that dominating intellectual equipment which would have been
necessary to cope with the subtle and dangerous spellbinders whom a
tremendous clash of forces and personalities had brought to the top as
triumphant masters in the swift game of give and take, face to face in
Council,--a game of which he had no experience at all.
We had indeed quite a wrong idea of the President. We knew him to be
solitary and aloof, and believed him very strong-willed and obstinate.
We did not figure him as a man of detail, but the clearness with which
he had taken hold of certain main ideas would, we thought, in
combination with his tenacity, enable him to sweep through cobwebs.
Besides these qualities he would have the objectivity, the cultivation,
and the wide knowledge of the student. The great distinction of language
which had marked his famous Notes seemed to indicate a man of lofty and
powerful imagination. His portraits indicated a fine presence and a
commanding delivery. With all this he had attained and held with
increasing authority the first position in a country where the arts of
the politician are not neglected. All of which, without expecting the
impossible, seemed a fine combination of qualities for the matter in
hand.
The first impression of Mr. Wilson at close quarters was to impair some
but not all of these illusions. His head and features were finely cut
and exactly like his photographs, and the muscles of his neck and the
carriage of his head were distinguished. But, like Odysseus, the
President looked wiser when he was seated; and his hands, though capable
and fairly strong, were wanting in sensitiveness and finesse. The first
glance at the President suggested not only that, whatever else he might
be, his temperament was not primarily that of the student or the
scholar, but that he had not much even of that culture of the world
which marks M. Clemenceau and Mr. Balfour as exquisitely cultivated
gentlemen of their class and generation. But more serious than this, he
was not only insensitive to his surroundings in the external sense, he
was not sensitive to his environment at all. What chance could such a
man have against Mr. Lloyd George's unerring, almost medium-like,
sensibility to every one immediately round him? To see the British Prime
Minister watching the company, with six or seven senses not available to
ordinary men, judging character, motive, and subconscious impulse,
perceiving what each was thinking and even what each was going to say
next, and compounding with telepathic instinct the argument or appeal
best suited to the vanity, weakness, or self-interest of his immediate
auditor, was to realize that the poor President would be playing blind
man's buff in that party. Never could a man have stepped into the parlor
a more perfect and predestined victim to the finished accomplishments of
the Prime Minister. The Old World was tough in wickedness anyhow; the
Old World's heart of stone might blunt the sharpest blade of the bravest
knight-errant. But this blind and deaf Don Quixote was entering a cavern
where the swift and glittering blade was in the hands of the adversary.
But if the President was not the philosopher-king, what was he? After
all he was a man who had spent much of his life at a University. He was
by no means a business man or an ordinary party politician, but a man of
force, personality, and importance. What, then, was his temperament?
The clue once found was illuminating. The President was like a
Nonconformist minister, perhaps a Presbyterian. His thought and his
temperament wore essentially theological not intellectual, with all the
strength and the weakness of that manner of thought, feeling, and
expression. It is a type of which there are not now in England and
Scotland such magnificent specimens as formerly; but this description,
nevertheless, will give the ordinary Englishman the distinctest
impression of the President.
With this picture of him in mind, we can return to the actual course of
events. The President's program for the World, as set forth in his
speeches and his Notes, had displayed a spirit and a purpose so
admirable that the last desire of his sympathizers was to criticize
details,--the details, they felt, were quite rightly not filled in at
present, but would be in due course. It was commonly believed at the
commencement of the Paris Conference that the President had thought out,
with the aid of a large body of advisers, a comprehensive scheme not
only for the League of Nations, but for the embodiment of the Fourteen
Points in an actual Treaty of Peace. But in fact the President had
thought out nothing; when it came to practice his ideas were nebulous
and incomplete. He had no plan, no scheme, no constructive ideas
whatever for clothing with the flesh of life the commandments which he
had thundered from the White House. He could have preached a sermon on
any of them or have addressed a stately prayer to the Almighty for their
fulfilment; but he could not frame their concrete application to the
actual state of Europe.
He not only had no proposals in detail, but he was in many respects,
perhaps inevitably, ill-informed as to European conditions. And not only
was he ill-informed--that was true of Mr. Lloyd George also--but his
mind was slow and unadaptable. The President's slowness amongst the
Europeans was noteworthy. He could not, all in a minute, take in what
the rest were saying, size up the situation with a glance, frame a
reply, and meet the case by a slight change of ground; and he was
liable, therefore, to defeat by the mere swiftness, apprehension, and
agility of a Lloyd George. There can seldom have been a statesman of the
first rank more incompetent than the President in the agilities of the
council chamber. A moment often arrives when substantial victory is
yours if by some slight appearance of a concession you can save the face
of the opposition or conciliate them by a restatement of your proposal
helpful to them and not injurious to anything essential to yourself. The
President was not equipped with this simple and usual artfulness. His
mind was too slow and unresourceful to be ready with _any_ alternatives.
The President was capable of digging his toes in and refusing to budge,
as he did over Fiume. But he had no other mode of defense, and it needed
as a rule but little manoeuvering by his opponents to prevent matters
from coming to such a head until it was too late. By pleasantness and an
appearance of conciliation, the President would be manoeuvered off his
ground, would miss the moment for digging his toes in, and, before he
knew where he had been got to, it was too late. Besides, it is
impossible month after month in intimate and ostensibly friendly
converse between close associates, to be digging the toes in all the
time. Victory would only have been possible to one who had always a
sufficiently lively apprehension of the position as a whole to reserve
his fire and know for certain the rare exact moments for decisive
action. And for that the President was far too slow-minded and
bewildered.
He did not remedy these defects by seeking aid from the collective
wisdom of his lieutenants. He had gathered round him for the economic
chapters of the Treaty a very able group of business men; but they were
inexperienced in public affairs, and knew (with one or two exceptions)
as little of Europe as he did, and they were only called in irregularly
as he might need them for a particular purpose. Thus the aloofness which
had been found effective in Washington was maintained, and the abnormal
reserve of his nature did not allow near him any one who aspired to
moral equality or the continuous exercise of influence. His
fellow-plenipotentiaries were dummies; and even the trusted Colonel
House, with vastly more knowledge of men and of Europe than the
President, from whose sensitiveness the President's dullness had gained
so much, fell into the background as time went on. All this was
encouraged by his colleagues on the Council of Four, who, by the
break-up of the Council of Ten, completed the isolation which the
President's own temperament had initiated. Thus day after day and week
after week, he allowed himself to be closeted, unsupported, unadvised,
and alone, with men much sharper than himself, in situations of supreme
difficulty, where he needed for success every description of resource,
fertility, and knowledge. He allowed himself to be drugged by their
atmosphere, to discuss on the basis of their plans and of their data,
and to be led along their paths.
These and other various causes combined to produce the following
situation. The reader must remember that the processes which are here
compressed into a few pages took place slowly, gradually, insidiously,
over a period of about five months.
As the President had thought nothing out, the Council was generally
working on the basis of a French or British draft. He had to take up,
therefore, a persistent attitude of obstruction, criticism, and
negation, if the draft was to become at all in line with his own ideas
and purpose. If he was met on some points with apparent generosity (for
there was always a safe margin of quite preposterous suggestions which
no one took seriously), it was difficult for him not to yield on others.
Compromise was inevitable, and never to compromise on the essential,
very difficult. Besides, he was soon made to appear to be taking the
German part and laid himself open to the suggestion (to which he was
foolishly and unfortunately sensitive) of being "pro-German."
After a display of much principle and dignity in the early days of the
Council of Ten, he discovered that there were certain very important
points in the program of his French, British, or Italian colleague, as
the case might be, of which he was incapable of securing the surrender
by the methods of secret diplomacy. What then was he to do in the last
resort? He could let the Conference drag on an endless length by the
exercise of sheer obstinacy. He could break it up and return to America
in a rage with nothing settled. Or he could attempt an appeal to the
world over the heads of the Conference. These were wretched
alternatives, against each of which a great deal could be said. They
were also very risky,--especially for a politician. The President's
mistaken policy over the Congressional election had weakened his
personal position in his own country, and it was by no means certain
that the American public would support him in a position of
intransigeancy. It would mean a campaign in which the issues would be
clouded by every sort of personal and party consideration, and who could
say if right would triumph in a struggle which would certainly not be
decided on its merits? Besides, any open rupture with his colleagues
would certainly bring upon his head the blind passions of "anti-German"
resentment with which the public of all allied countries were still
inspired. They would not listen to his arguments. They would not be cool
enough to treat the issue as one of international morality or of the
right governance of Europe. The cry would simply be that, for various
sinister and selfish reasons, the President wished "to let the Hun off."
The almost unanimous voice of the French and British Press could be
anticipated. Thus, if he threw down the gage publicly he might be
defeated. And if he were defeated, would not the final Peace be far
worse than if he were to retain his prestige and endeavor to make it as
good as the limiting conditions of European politics would allow, him?
But above all, if he were defeated, would he not lose the League of
Nations? And was not this, after all, by far the most important issue
for the future happiness of the world? The Treaty would be altered and
softened by time. Much in it which now seemed so vital would become
trifling, and much which was impracticable would for that very reason
never happen. But the League, even in an imperfect form, was permanent;
it was the first commencement of a new principle in the government of
the world; Truth and Justice in international relations could not be
established in a few months,--they must be born in due course by the
slow gestation of the League. Clemenceau had been clever enough to let
it be seen that he would swallow the League at a price.
At the crisis of his fortunes the President was a lonely man. Caught up
in the toils of the Old World, he stood in great need of sympathy, of
moral support, of the enthusiasm of masses. But buried in the
Conference, stifled in the hot and poisoned atmosphere of Paris, no echo
reached him from the outer world, and no throb of passion, sympathy, or
encouragement from his silent constituents in all countries. He felt
that the blaze of popularity which had greeted his arrival in Europe
was already dimmed; the Paris Press jeered at him openly; his political
opponents at home were taking advantage of his absence to create an
atmosphere against him; England was cold, critical, and unresponsive. He
had so formed his _entourage_ that he did not receive through private
channels the current of faith and enthusiasm of which the public sources
seemed dammed up. He needed, but lacked, the added strength of
collective faith. The German terror still overhung us, and even the
sympathetic public was very cautious; the enemy must not be encouraged,
our friends must be supported, this was not the time for discord or
agitations, the President must be trusted to do his best. And in this
drought the flower of the President's faith withered and dried up.
Thus it came to pass that the President countermanded the _George
Washington_, which, in a moment of well-founded rage, he had ordered to
be in readiness to carry him from the treacherous halls of Paris back to
the seat of his authority, where he could have felt himself again. But
as soon, alas, as he had taken the road of compromise, the defects,
already indicated, of his temperament and of his equipment, were fatally
apparent. He could take the high line; he could practise obstinacy; he
could write Notes from Sinai or Olympus; he could remain unapproachable
in the White House or even in the Council of Ten and be safe. But if he
once stepped down to the intimate equality of the Four, the game was
evidently up.
Now it was that what I have called his theological or Presbyterian
temperament became dangerous. Having decided that some concessions were
unavoidable, he might have sought by firmness and address and the use of
the financial power of the United States to secure as much as he could
of the substance, even at some sacrifice of the letter. But the
President was not capable of so clear an understanding with himself as
this implied. He was too conscientious. Although compromises were now
necessary, he remained a man of principle and the Fourteen Points a
contract absolutely binding upon him. He would do nothing that was not
honorable; he would do nothing that was not just and right; he would do
nothing that was contrary to his great profession of faith. Thus,
without any abatement of the verbal inspiration of the Fourteen Points,
they became a document for gloss and interpretation and for all the
intellectual apparatus of self-deception, by which, I daresay, the
President's forefathers had persuaded themselves that the course they
thought it necessary to take was consistent with every syllable of the
Pentateuch.
The President's attitude to his colleagues had now become: I want to
meet you so far as I can; I see your difficulties and I should like to
be able to agree to what you propose; but I can do nothing that is not
just and right, and you must first of all show me that what you want
does really fall within the words of the pronouncements which are
binding on me. Then began the weaving of that web of sophistry and
Jesuitical exegesis that was finally to clothe with insincerity the
language and substance of the whole Treaty. The word was issued to the
witches of all Paris:
Fair is foul, and foul is fair,
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
The subtlest sophisters and most hypocritical draftsmen were set to
work, and produced many ingenious exercises which might have deceived
for more than an hour a cleverer man than the President.
Thus instead of saying that German-Austria is prohibited from uniting
with Germany except by leave of France (which would be inconsistent with
the principle of self-determination), the Treaty, with delicate
draftsmanship, states that "Germany acknowledges and will respect
strictly the independence of Austria, within the frontiers which may be
fixed in a Treaty between that State and the Principal Allied and
Associated Powers; she agrees that this independence shall be
inalienable, except with the consent of the Council of the League of
Nations," which sounds, but is not, quite different. And who knows but
that the President forgot that another part of the Treaty provides that
for this purpose the Council of the League must be _unanimous_.
Instead of giving Danzig to Poland, the Treaty establishes Danzig as a
"Free" City, but includes this "Free" City within the Polish Customs
frontier, entrusts to Poland the control of the river and railway
system, and provides that "the Polish Government shall undertake the
conduct of the foreign relations of the Free City of Danzig as well as
the diplomatic protection of citizens of that city when abroad."
In placing the river system of Germany under foreign control, the Treaty
speaks of declaring international those "river systems which naturally
provide more than one State with access to the sea, with or without
transhipment from one vessel to another."
Such instances could be multiplied. The honest and intelligible purpose
of French policy, to limit the population of Germany and weaken her
economic system, is clothed, for the President's sake, in the august
language of freedom and international equality.
But perhaps the most decisive moment, in the disintegration of the
President's moral position and the clouding of his mind, was when at
last, to the dismay of his advisers, he allowed himself to be persuaded
that the expenditure of the Allied Governments on pensions and
separation allowances could be fairly regarded as "damage done to the
civilian population of the Allied and Associated Powers by German
aggression by land, by sea, and from the air," in a sense in which the
other expenses of the war could not be so regarded. It was a long
theological struggle in which, after the rejection of many different
arguments, the President finally capitulated before a masterpiece of the
sophist's art.
At last the work was finished; and the President's conscience was still
intact. In spite of everything, I believe that his temperament allowed
him to leave Paris a really sincere man; and it is probable that to this
day he is genuinely convinced that the Treaty contains practically
nothing inconsistent with his former professions.
But the work was too complete, and to this was due the last tragic
episode of the drama. The reply of Brockdorff-Rantzau inevitably took
the line that Germany had laid down her arms on the basis of certain
assurances, and that the Treaty in many particulars was not consistent
with these assurances. But this was exactly what the President could not
admit; in the sweat of solitary contemplation and with prayers to God
he had done _nothing_ that was not just and right; for the President to
admit that the German reply had force in it was to destroy his
self-respect and to disrupt the inner equipoise of his soul; and every
instinct of his stubborn nature rose in self-protection. In the language
of medical psychology, to suggest to the President that the Treaty was
an abandonment of his professions was to touch on the raw a Freudian
complex. It was a subject intolerable to discuss, and every subconscious
instinct plotted to defeat its further exploration.
Thus it was that Clemenceau brought to success, what had seemed to be, a
few months before, the extraordinary and impossible proposal that the
Germans should not be heard. If only the President had not been so
conscientious, if only he had not concealed from himself what he had
been doing, even at the last moment he was in, a position to have
recovered lost ground and to have achieved some very considerable
successes. But the President was set. His arms and legs had been spliced
by the surgeons to a certain posture, and they must be broken again
before they could be altered. To his horror, Mr. Lloyd George, desiring
at the last moment all the moderation he dared, discovered that he could
not in five days persuade the President of error in what it had taken
five months to prove to him to be just and right. After all, it was
harder to de-bamboozle this old Presbyterian than it had been to
bamboozle him; for the former involved his belief in and respect for
himself.
Thus in the last act the President stood for stubbornness and a refusal
of conciliations.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] He alone amongst the Four could speak and understand both
languages, Orlando knowing only French and the Prime Minister and
President only English; and it is of historical importance that Orlando
and the President had no direct means of communication.