Italy's chief delegate. His reputation as one of Europe's principal
statesmen was already firmly established; he had spent several years in
Paris as Ambassador, and he and the late Di San Giuliano and Giolitti
were the men who broke with the Central Empires when these were about to
precipitate the World War. In French nationalist circles Signor Tittoni
had long been under a cloud, as the man of pro-German leanings. The
suspicion--for it was nothing more--was unfounded. On the contrary, M.
Tittoni is known to have gone with the Allies to the utmost length
consistent with his sense of duty to his own country. To my knowledge he
once gave advice which his Italian colleagues and political friends and
adversaries now bitterly regret was disregarded. The nature of that
counsel will one day be disclosed....
Of Japan's delegates, the Marquis Saionji and Baron Makino, little need
be said, seeing that their qualifications for their task were
demonstrated by the results. Mainly to statesmanship and skilful
maneuvering Japan is indebted for her success at the Paris Conference,
where her cause was referred by Mr. Lloyd George and M. Clemenceau to
Mr. Wilson to deal with. The behavior of her representatives was an
illuminating object-lesson in the worth of psychological tactics in
practical politics. They hardly ever appeared in the footlights,
remained constantly silent and observant, and were almost ignored by the
press. But they kept their eyes fixed on the goal. Their program was
simple. Amid the flitting shadows of political events they marched
together with the Allies, until these disagreed among themselves, and
then they voted with Great Britain and the United States. Occasionally
they went farther and proposed measures for the lesser states which
Britain framed, but desired to second rather than propose. Japan, at the
Conference, was a stanch collaborator of the two English-speaking
principals until her own opportunity came, and then she threw all her
hoarded energies into her cause, and by her firm resolve dispelled any
opposition that Mr. Wilson may have intended to offer. One of the most
striking episodes of the Conference was the swift, silent, and
successful campaign by which Japan had her secret treaty with China
hall-marked by the puritanical President of the United States, whose
sense of morality could not brook the secret treaties concluded by Italy
and Rumania with the Greater and Greatest Powers of Europe. Again, it
was with statesman-like sagacity that the Japanese judged the Russian
situation and made the best of it--first, shortly before the invitation
to Prinkipo, and, later, before the celebrated eight questions were
submitted to Admiral Kolchak. I was especially struck by an occurrence,
trivial in appearance, which demonstrated the weight which they rightly
attached to the psychological side of politics. Everybody in Paris
remarked, and many vainly complained of, the indifference, or rather,
unfriendliness, of which Russians were the innocent victims. Among the
Allied troops who marched under the Arc de Triomphe on July 14th there
were Rumanians, Greeks, Portuguese, and Indians, but not a single
Russian. A Russian general drove about in the forest of flags and
banners that day looking eagerly for symbols of his own country, but for
hours the quest was fruitless. At last, when passing the Japanese
Embassy, he perceived, to his delight, an enormous Russian flag waving
majestically in the breeze, side by side with that of Nippon. "I shed
tears of joy," he told his friend that evening, "and I vowed that
neither I nor my country would ever forget this touching mark of
friendship."
Japanese public opinion criticized severely the failure of their
delegates to obtain recognition of the equality of races or nations.
This judgment seems unjust, for nothing that they could have done or
said would have wrung from Mr. Wilson and Mr. Hughes their assent to the
doctrine, nor, if they had been induced to proclaim it, would it have
been practically applied.
In general, the lawyers were the most successful in stating their cases.
But one of the delegates of the lesser states who made the deepest
impression on those of the greater was not a member of the bar. The head
of the Polish delegation, Roman Dmowski, a picturesque, forcible
speaker, a close debater and resourceful pleader, who is never at a loss
for an image, a comparison, an _argumentum ad hominem_, or a repartee,
actually won over some of the arbiters who had at first leaned toward
his opponents--a noteworthy feat if one realizes all that it meant in an
assembly where potent influences were working against some of the
demands of resuscitated Poland. His speech in September on the future of
eastern Galicia was a veritable masterpiece.
M. Dmowski appeared at the Conference under all the disadvantages that
could be heaped upon a man who has incurred the resentment of the most
powerful international body of modern times. He had the misfortune to
have the Jews of the world as his adversaries. His Polish friends
explained this hostility as follows. His ardent nationalist sentiments
placed him in antagonism to every movement that ran counter to the
progress of his country on nationalist lines. For he is above all things
a Pole and a patriot. And as the Hebrew population of Poland,
disbelieving in the resurrection of that nation, had long since struck
up a cordial understanding with the states that held it in bondage, the
gifted author of a book on the _Foundations of Nationalism_, which went
through four editions, was regarded by the Hebrew elements of the
population as an irreconcilable enemy. In truth, he was only the leader
of a movement that was a historical necessity. One of the theses of the
work was the necessity of cultivating an anti-German spirit in Poland as
the only antidote against the Teuton virus introduced from Berlin
through economic and other channels. And as the Polish Jews, whose idiom
is a corrupted German dialect and whose leanings are often Teutonic,
felt that the attack upon the whole was an attack on the part, they
anathematized the author and held him up to universal obloquy. And there
has been no reconciliation ever since. In the United States, where the
Jewish community is numerous and influential, M. Dmowski found spokes in
his wheel at every stage of his journey, and in Paris, too, he had to
full-front a tremendous opposition, open and covert. Whatever unbiased
people may think of this explanation and of his hostility to the Germans
and their agents, Roman Dmowski deservedly enjoys the reputation of a
straightforward and loyal fighter for his country's cause, a man who
scorns underhand machinations and proclaims aloud--perhaps too
frankly--the principles for which he is fighting. Polish Jews who
appeared in Paris, some of them his bitterest antagonists, recognized
the chivalrous way in which he conducts his electoral and other
campaigns. Among the delegates his practical acquaintanceship with East
European polities entitled him to high rank. For he knows the world
better than any living statesman, having traveled over Europe, Asia, and
America. He undertook and successfully accomplished a delicate mission
in the Far East in the year 1905, rendering valuable services to his
country and to the cause of civilization.
"M. Dmowski's activity," his friends further assert, "is impassioned and
unselfish. The ambition that inspires and nerves him is not of the
personal sort, nor is his patriotism a ladder leading to place and
power. Polish patriotism occupies a category apart from that of other
European peoples, and M. Dmowski has typified it with rare fidelity and
completeness. If Wilsonianism had been realized, Polish nationalism
might have become an anachronism. To-day it is a large factor in
European politics and is little understood in the West. M. Dmowski lives
for his country. Her interests absorb his energies. He would probably
agree with the historian Paolo Sarpi, who said, 'Let us be Venetians
first and Christians after.' Of the two widely divergent currents into
which the main stream of political thought and sentiment throughout the
world is fast dividing itself, M. Dmowski moves with the national away
from the international championed by Mr. Wilson. The frequency with
which the leading spirits of Bolshevism turn out to be Jews--to the
dismay and disgust of the bulk of their own community--and the ingenuity
they displayed in spreading their corrosive tenets in Poland may not
have been without effect upon the energy of M. Dmowski's attitude toward
the demand of the Polish Jews to be placed in the privileged position of
wards of the League of Nations. But the principle of the protection of
minority--Jewish or Gentile--is assailable on grounds which have nothing
to do with race or religion." Some of the most interesting and
characteristic incidents at the Conference had the Polish statesman for
their principal actor, and to him Poland owes some of the most solid and
enduring benefits conferred on her at the Conference.
Of a different temper is M. Paderewski, who appeared in Paris to plead
his country's cause at a later stage of the labors of the Conference.
This eminent artist's energies were all blended into one harmonious
whole, so that his meetings with the great plenipotentiaries were never
disturbed by a jarring note. As soon as it was borne in upon him that
their decisions were as irrevocable as decrees of Fate, he bowed to them
and treated the authors as Olympians who had no choice but to utter the
stern fiat. Even when called upon to accept the obnoxious clause
protecting religious and ethnic minorities against which his colleague
had vainly fought, M. Paderewski sunk political passion in reason and
attuned himself to the helpful role of harmonizer. He held that it would
have been worse than useless to do otherwise. He was grieved that his
country must acquiesce in that decree, he regretted intensely the
necessity which constrained such proven friends of Poland as the Four to
pass what he considered a severe sentence on her; but he resigned
himself gracefully to the inevitable and thanked Fate's executioners for
their personal sympathy. This attitude evoked praise and admiration from
Messrs. Lloyd George and Wilson, and the atmosphere of the conclave
seemed permeated with a spirit that induced calm satisfaction and the
joy of elevated thoughts. M. Paderewski made a deep and favorable
impression on the Supreme Council.
Belgium sent her most brilliant parliamentarian, M. Hymans, as first
plenipotentiary to the Conference. He was assisted by the chief of the
Socialist party, M. Vandervelde, and by an eminent authority on
international law, M. Van den Heuvel. But for reasons which elude
analysis, none of the three delegates hit it off with the duumvirate
who were spinning the threads of the world's destinies. M. Hymans,
however, by his warmth, sincerity, and courage impressed the
representatives of the lesser states, won their confidence, became their
natural spokesman, and blazed out against all attempts--and they were
numerous and deliberate--to ignore their existence. It was he who by his
direct and eloquent protest took M. Clemenceau off his guard and
elicited the amazing utterance that the Powers which could put twelve
million soldiers in the field were the world's natural arbiters. In this
way he cleared the atmosphere of the distorting mists of catchwords and
shibboleths.
How decisive a role internal politics played in the designation of
plenipotentiaries to the Conference was shown with exceptional clearness
in the case of Rumania. That country had no legislature. The Constituent
Assembly, which had been dissolved owing to the German invasion, was
followed by no fresh elections. The King, with whom the initiative thus
rested, had reappointed M. Bratiano Chief of the Government, and M.
Bratiano was naturally desirous of associating his own historic name
with the aggrandizement of his country. But he also desired to secure
the services of his political rival, M. Take Jonescu, whose reputation
as a far-seeing statesman and as a successful negotiator is world-wide.
Among his qualifications are an acquaintanceship with European countries
and their affairs and a rare facility for give and take which is of the
essence of international politics. He can assume the initiative in
_pourparlers_, however uncompromising the outlook; frame plausible
proposals; conciliate his opponents by showing how thoroughly he
understands and appreciates their point of view, and by these means he
has often worked out seemingly hopeless negotiations to a satisfactory
issue. M. Clemenceau wrote of him, "C'est un grand Européen."[54]
M. Bratiano's bid for the services of his eminent opponent was coupled
with the offer of certain portfolios in the Cabinet to M. Jonescu and to
a number of his parliamentary supporters. While negotiations were slowly
proceeding by telegraph, M. Jonescu, who had already taken up his abode
in Paris, was assiduously weaving his plans. He began by assuming what
everybody knew, that the Powers would refuse to honor the secret treaty
with France, Britain, and Russia, which assigned to Rumania all the
territories to which she had laid claim, and he proposed first striking
up a compromise with the other interested states, then compacting
Rumania, Jugoslavia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Greece into a solid
block, and asking the Powers to approve and ratify the new league. Truly
it was a genial conception worthy of a broad-minded statesman. It aimed
at a durable peace based on what he considered a fair settlement of
claims satisfactory to all, and it would have lightened the burden of
the Big Four. But whether it could have been realized by peoples moved
by turbid passions and represented by trustees, some of whom were
avowedly afraid to relinquish claims which they knew to be exorbitant,
may well be doubted.
But the issue was never put to the test. The two statesmen failed to
agree on the Cabinet question; M. Jonescu kept aloof from office, and
the post of second delegate fell to Rumania's greatest diplomatist and
philologist, M. Mishu, who had for years admirably represented his
country as Minister in the British capital. From the outset M.
Bratiano's position was unenviable, because he based his country's case
on the claims of the secret treaty, and to Mr. Wilson every secret
treaty which he could effectually veto was anathema. Between the two
men, in lieu of a bond of union, there was only a strong force of mutual
repulsion, which kept them permanently apart. They moved on different
planes, spoke different languages, and Rumania, in the person of her
delegates, was treated like Cinderella by her stepmother. The Council of
Three kept them systematically in the dark about matters which it
concerned them to know, negotiated over their heads, transmitted to
Bucharest injunctions which only they were competent to receive,
insisted on their compromising to accept future decrees of the
Conference without an inkling as to their nature, and on their admitting
the right of an alien institution--the League of Nations--to intervene
in favor of minorities against the legally constituted government of the
country. M. Bratiano, who in a trenchant speech inveighed against these
claims of the Great Powers to take the governance of Europe into their
own hands, withdrew from the Conference and laid his resignation in the
hands of the King.
One of the most remarkable debaters in this singular parliament, where
self-satisfied ignorance and dullness of apprehension were so hard to
pierce, was the youthful envoy of the Czechoslovaks, M. Benes. This
politician, who before the Conference came to an end was offered the
honorable task of forming a new Cabinet, which he wisely declined,
displayed a masterly grasp of Continental politics and a rare gift of
identifying his country's aspirations with the postulates of a settled
peace. A systematic thinker, he made a point of understanding his case
at the outset. He would begin his _exposé_ by detaching himself from all
national interests and starting from general assumptions recognized by
the Olympians, and would lead his hearers by easy stages to the
conclusions which he wished them to draw from their own premises. And
two of them, who had no great sympathy with his thesis, assured me that
they could detect no logical flaw in his argument. Moderation and
sincerity were the virtues which he was most eager to exhibit, and they
were unquestionably the best trump cards he could play. Not only had he
a firm grasp of facts and arguments, but he displayed a sense of measure
and open-mindedness which enabled him to implant his views on the minds
of his hearers.
Armenia's cause found a forcible and suasive pleader in Boghos Pasha,
whose way of marshaling arguments in favor of a contention that was
frowned upon by many commanded admiration. The Armenians asked for a
vast stretch of territory with outlets on the Black Sea and the
Mediterranean, but they were met with the objections that their total
population was insignificant; that only in one province were they in a
majority, and that their claim to Cilicia clashed with one of the
reserved rights of France. The ice, therefore, was somewhat thin in
parts, but Boghos Pasha skated over it gracefully. His description of
the Armenian massacres was thrilling. Altogether his _exposé_ was a
masterpiece, and was appreciated by Mr. Wilson and M. Clemenceau.
The Jugoslav delegates, MM. Vesnitch and Trumbitch, patriotic,
tenacious, uncompromising, had an early opportunity of showing the stuff
of which they were made. When they were told that the Jugoslav state was
not yet recognized and that the kingdom of Serbia must content itself
with two delegates, they lodged an indignant protest against both
decisions, and refused to appear at the Conference unless they were
allowed an adequate number of representatives. Thereupon the Great
Powers compromised the matter by according them three, and with stealthy
rage they submitted to the refusal of recognition. They were not again
heard of until one day they proposed that their dispute with Italy
about Fiume and the Dalmatian coast should be solved by submitting it to
President Wilson for arbitration. The expedient was original. President
Wilson, people remembered, had had an animated talk on the subject with
the Italian Premier, Orlando, and it was known that he had set his face
against Italy's claim and against the secret treaty that recognized it.
Consequently the Serbs were running no risk by challenging Signor
Orlando to lay the matter before the American delegate. Whether, all
things considered, it was a wise move to make has been questioned.
Anyhow, the Italian delegation declined the suggestion on a number of
grounds which several delegates considered convincing. The Conference,
it urged, had been convoked precisely for the purpose of hearing and
settling such disputes as theirs, and the Conference consisted, not of
one, but of many delegates, who collectively were better qualified to
deal with such problems than any one man. Europeans, too, could more
fully appreciate the arguments, and the atmosphere through which the
arguments should be contemplated, than the eminent American idealist,
who had more than once had to modify his judgment on European matters.
Again, to remove the discussion from the international court might well
be felt as a slight put upon the men who composed it. For why should
their verdict be less worth soliciting than that of the President of the
United States? True, Italy's delegates were themselves judges in that
tribunal, but the question to be tried was not a matter between two
countries, but an issue of much wider import--namely, what frontiers
accorded to the embryonic state of Jugoslavia would be most conducive to
the world's peace. And nobody, they held, could offer a more complete or
trustworthy answer than they and their European colleagues, who were
conversant with all the elements of the problem. Besides--but this
objection was not expressly formulated--had not Mr. Wilson already
decided against Italy? On these and other grounds, then, they decided to
leave the matter to the Conference. It was a delicate subject, and few
onlookers cared to open their minds on its merits.
Albania was represented by an old friend of mine, the venerable Turkhan
Pasha, who had been in diplomacy ever since the Congress of Berlin in
the 'seventies of last century, and who looked like a modernized Nestor.
I made his acquaintance many years ago, when he was Ambassador of Turkey
in St. Petersburg. He was then a favorite everywhere in the Russian
capital as a conscientious Ambassador, a charming talker, and a
professional peace-maker, who wished well to everybody. The Young Turks
having recalled him from St. Petersburg, he soon afterward became Grand
Vizier to the Mbret of Albania. Far resonant events removed the Mbret
from the throne, Turkhan Pasha from the Vizierate, and Albania from the
society of nations, and I next found my friend in Switzerland ill in
health, eating the bitter bread of exile, temporarily isolated from the
world of politics and waiting for something to turn up. A few years more
gave the Allies an unexpectedly complete victory and brought back
Turkhan Pasha to the outskirts of diplomacy and politics. He suddenly
made his appearance at the Paris Conference as the representative of
Albania and the friend of Italy.
Another Albanian friend of mine, Essad Pasha, whose plans for the
regeneration of his country differed widely from those of Turkhan, was
for a long while detained in Saloniki. By dint of solicitations and
protests, he at last obtained permission to repair to Paris and lay his
views before the Conference, where he had a curious interview with Mr.
Wilson. The President, having received from Albanians in the United
States many unsolicited judgments on the character and antecedents of
Essad Pasha, had little faith in his fitness to introduce and popularize
democratic institutions in Albania. And he unburdened himself of these
doubts to friends, who diffused the news. The Pasha asked for an
audience, and by dint of patience and perseverance his prayer was heard.
Five minutes before the appointed hour he was at the President's house,
accompanied by his interpreter, a young Albanian named Stavro, who
converses freely in French, Greek, and Turkish, besides his native
language. But while in the antechamber Essad, remembering that the
American President speaks nothing but pure English, suggested that
Stavro should drive over to the Hôtel Crillon for an interpreter to
translate from French. Thereupon one of the secretaries stopped him,
saying: "Although he cannot speak French, the President understands it,
so that a second interpreter will be unnecessary." Essad then addressed
Mr. Wilson in Albanian, Stavro translated his words into French, and the
President listened in silence. It was the impression of those in the
room that, at any rate, Mr. Wilson understood and appreciated the gist
of the Pasha's sharp criticism of Italy's behavior. But, to be on the
safe side, the President requested his visitor to set down on paper at
his leisure everything he had said and to send it to him.
PRESIDENT WILSON