official translator, M. Paul Mantoux--one of the most brilliant
representatives of Jewry at the Conference--who was wont to decide, his
memory being reputed superlatively tenacious. In this way he attained
the distinction of which his friends are justly proud, of being a living
record--indeed, the sole available record--of what went on at the
historic council. He was the recipient and is now the only repository of
all the secrets of which the plenipotentiaries were so jealous, lest,
being a kind of knowledge which is in verity power, it should be used
one day for some dubious purpose. But M. Mantoux enjoyed the esteem and
confidence not only of Mr. Wilson, but also of the British Prime
Minister, who, it was generally believed, drew from his entertaining
narratives and shrewd appreciations whatever information he possessed
about French politics and politicians. It was currently affirmed that,
being a man of method and foresight, M. Mantoux committed everything to
writing for his own behoof. Doubts, however, were entertained and
publicly expressed as to whether affairs of this magnitude, involving
the destinies of the world, should have been handled in such secret and
unbusiness-like fashion. But on the supposition that the general
outcome, if not the preconceived aim, of the policy of the Anglo-Saxon
plenipotentiaries was to confer the beneficent hegemony of the world
upon its peoples, there could, it was argued, be no real danger in the
procedure followed. For, united, those nations have nothing to fear.
Although the translations were done rapidly, elegantly, and lucidly,
allegations were made that they lost somewhat by undue compression and
even by the process of toning down, of which the praiseworthy object was
to spare delicate susceptibilities. For a limited number of delicate
susceptibilities were treated considerately by the Conference. A
defective rendering made a curious impression on the hearers once, when
a delegate said: "My country, unfortunately, is situated in the midst of
states which are anything but peace-loving--in fact, the chief danger to
the peace of Europe emanates from them." M. Mantoux's translation ran,
"The country represented by M. X. unhappily presents the greatest danger
to the peace of Europe."
On several occasions passages of the discourses of the plenipotentiaries
underwent a certain transformation in the well-informed brain of M.
Mantoux before being done into another language. They were plunged, so
to say, in the stream of history before their exposure to the light of
day. This was especially the case with the remarks of the
English-speaking delegates, some of whom were wont to make extensive use
of the license taken by their great national poet in matters of
geography and history. One of them, for example, when alluding to the
ex-Emperor Franz Josef and his successor, said: "It would be unjust to
visit the sins of the father on the head of his innocent son. Charles I
should not be made to suffer for Franz Josef." M. Mantoux rendered the
sentence, "It would be unjust to visit the sins of the uncle on the
innocent nephew," and M. Clemenceau, with a merry twinkle in his eye,
remarked to the ready interpreter, "You will lose your job if you go on
making these wrong translations."
But those details are interesting, if at all, only as means of eking out
a mere sketch which can never become a complete and faithful picture. It
was the desire of the eminent lawgivers that the source of the most
beneficent reforms chronicled in history should be as well hidden as
those of the greatest boon bestowed by Providence upon man. And their
motives appear to have been sound enough.
The pains thus taken to create a haze between themselves and the peoples
whose implicit confidence they were continuously craving constitute one
of the most striking ethico-psychological phenomena of the Conference.
They demanded unreasoning faith as well as blind obedience. Any
statement, however startling, was expected to carry conviction once it
bore the official hall-mark. Take, for example, the demand made by the
Supreme Four to Bela Kuhn to desist from his offensive against the
Slovaks. The press expressed surprise and disappointment that he, a
Bolshevist, should have been invited even hypothetically by the "deadly
enemies of Bolshevism" to delegate representatives to the Paris
Conference from which the leaders of the Russian constructive elements
were excluded. Thereupon the Supreme Four, which had taken the step in
secret, had it denied categorically that such an invitation had been
issued. The press was put up to state that, far from making such an
undignified advance, the Council had asserted its authority and
peremptorily summoned the misdemeanant Kuhn to withdraw his troops
immediately from Slovakia under heavy pains and penalties.
Subsequently, however, the official correspondence was published, when
it was seen that the implicit invitation had really been issued and that
the denial ran directly counter to fact. By this exposure the Council of
Four, which still sued for the full confidence of their peoples, was
somewhat embarrassed. This embarrassment was not allayed when what
purported to be a correct explanation of their action was given out and
privately circulated by a group which claimed to be initiated. It was
summarized as follows: "The Israelite, Bela Kuhn, who is leading Hungary
to destruction, has been heartened by the Supreme Council's indulgent
message. People are at a loss to understand why, if the Conference
believes, as it has asserted, that Bolshevism is the greatest scourge of
latter-day humanity, it ordered the Rumanian troops, when nearing
Budapest for the purpose of overthrowing it in that stronghold, first to
halt, and then to withdraw.[85] The clue to the mystery has at last been
found in a secret arrangement between Kuhn and a certain financial group
concerning the Banat. About this more will be said later. In one of my
own cablegrams to the United States I wrote: "People are everywhere
murmuring and whispering that beneath the surface of things powerful
undercurrents are flowing which invisibly sway the policy of the secret
council, and the public believes that this accounts for the sinister
vacillation and delay of which it complains."[86]
In the fragmentary utterances of the governments and their press organs
nobody placed the slightest confidence. Their testimony was discredited
in advance, on grounds which they were unable to weaken. The following
example is at once amusing and instructive. The French Parliamentary
Committee of the Budget, having asked the government for communication
of the section of the Peace Treaty dealing with finances, were told that
their demand could not be entertained, every clause of the Treaty being
a state secret. The Committee on Foreign Affairs made a like request,
with the same results. The entire Chamber next expressed a similar wish,
which elicited a firm refusal. The French Premier, it should be added,
alleged a reason which was at least specious. "I should much like," he
said, "to communicate to you the text you ask for, but I may not do so
until it has been signed by the President of the Republic. For such is
the law as embodied in Article 8 of the Constitution." Now nobody
believed that this was the true ground for his refusal. His explanation,
however, was construed as a courteous conventionality, and as such was
accepted. But once alleged, the fiction should have been respected, at
any rate by its authors. It was not. A few weeks later the Premier
ordered the publication of the text of the Treaty, although, in the
meantime, it had not been signed by M. Poincaré. "The excuse founded
upon Article 8 was, therefore, a mere humbug," flippantly wrote an
influential journal.[87]
An amusing joke, which tickled all Paris was perpetrated shortly
afterward. The editor of the _Bonsoir_ imported six hundred copies of
the forbidden Treaty from Switzerland, and sent them as a present to
the Deputies of the Chamber, whereupon the parliamentary authorities
posted up a notice informing all Deputies who desired a copy to call at
the questor's office, where they would receive it gratuitously as a
present from the _Bonsoir._ Accordingly the Deputies, including the
Speaker, Deschanel, thronged to the questor's office. Even solemn-faced
Ministers received a copy of the thick volume which I possessed ever
since the day it was issued.
Another glaring instance of the lack of straightforwardness which
vitiated the dealings of the Conference with the public turned upon the
Bullitt mission to Russia. Mr. Wilson, who in the depths of his heart
seems to have cherished a vague fondness for the Bolshevists there,
which he sometimes manifested in utterances that startled the foreigners
to whom they were addressed, despatched through Colonel House some
fellow-countrymen of his to Moscow to ask for peace proposals which,
according to the Moscow government, were drafted by himself and Messrs.
House and Lansing. Mr. Bullitt, however, who must know, affirms that the
draft was written by Mr. Lloyd George's secretary, Mr. Philip Kerr, and
himself and presented to Lenin by Messrs. Bullitt, Steffins, and Petit.
If the terms of this document should prove acceptable the American
envoys were empowered to promise that an official invitation to a new
peace conference would be sent to them as well as to their opponents by
April 15th. The conditions--eleven in number--with a few slight
modifications in which the Americans acquiesced--were accepted by the
dictator, who was bound, however, not to permit their publication. The
facts remained secret until Mr. Bullitt, thrown over by Mr. Wilson, who
recoiled from taking the final and decisive step, resigned, and in a
letter reproduced by the press set forth the reasons for his
decision.[88]
Now, vague reports that there was such a mission had found its way into
the Paris newspapers at a relatively early date. But an authoritative
denial was published without delay. The statement, the public was
assured, was without foundation. And the public believed the assurance,
for it was confirmed authoritatively in England. Sir Samuel Hoare, in
the House of Commons, asked for information about a report that "two
Americans have recently returned from Russia bringing offers of peace
from Lenin," and received from Mr. Bonar Law this noteworthy reply: "I
have said already that there is not the shadow of foundation for this
information, otherwise I would have known it. Moreover, I have
communicated with Mr. Lloyd George in Paris, who also declares that he
knows nothing about the matter."[89] _E pur si muove_. Mr. Lloyd George
knew nothing about President Wilson's determination to have the Covenant
inserted in the Peace Treaty, even after the announcement was published
to the world by the Havas Agency, and the confirmation given to pressmen
by Lord Robert Cecil. The system of reticence and concealment, coupled
with the indifference of this or that delegation to questions in which
it happened to take no special interest, led to these unseemly air-tight
compartments.
From this rank soil of secrecy, repression, and unveracity sprang
noxious weeds. False reports and mendacious insinuations were launched,
spread, and credited, impairing such prestige as the Conference still
enjoyed, while the fragmentary announcements ventured on now and again
by the delegates, in sheer self-defense, were summarily dismissed as
"eye-wash" for the public.
For a time the disharmony between words and deeds passed unnoticed by
the bulk of the masses, who were edified by the one and unacquainted
with the other. But gradually the lack of consistency in policy and of
manly straightforwardness and moral wholeness in method became apparent
to all and produced untoward consequences. Mr. Wilson, whose authority
and influence were supposed to be paramount, came in for the lion's
share of criticism, except in the Polish policy of the Conference, which
was traced to Mr. Lloyd George and his unofficial prompters. The
American press was the most censorious of all. One American journal
appearing in Paris gave utterance to the following comments on the
President's rôle:[90]
President Wilson is conscious of his power of persuasion. That
power enables him to say one thing, do another, describe the act as
conforming to the idea, and, with act and idea in exact
contradiction to each other, convince the people, not only that he
has been consistent throughout, but that his act cannot be altered
without peril to the nation and danger to the world.
We do not know which Mr. Wilson to follow--the Mr. Wilson who says
he will not do a thing or the Mr. Wilson who does that precise
thing.
A great many Americans have one fixed idea. That idea is that the
President is the only magnanimous, clear-visioned, broad-minded
statesman in the United States, or the entire world, for that
matter.
When he uses his powers of persuasion Americans become as the
children of Hamelin Town. Inasmuch as Mr. Wilson of the word and
Mr. Wilson of the deed seem at times to be two distinct identities,
some of his most enthusiastic supporters for the League of Nations,
being unfortunately gifted with memory and perception, are fairly
standing on their heads in dismay.
And yet Mr. Wilson himself was a victim of the policy of reticence and
concealment to which the Great Powers were incurably addicted. At the
time when they were moving heaven and earth to induce him to break with
Germany and enter the war, they withheld from him the existence of their
secret treaties. Possibly it may not be thought fair to apply the test
of ethical fastidiousness to their method of bringing the United States
to their side and to their unwillingness to run the risk of alienating
the President. But it appears that until the close of hostility the
secret was kept inviolate, nor was it until Mr. Wilson reached the
shores of Europe for the purpose of executing his project that he was
faced with the huge obstacles to his scheme arising out of those
far-reaching commitments. With this depressing revelation and the
British _non possumus_ to his demand for the freedom of the seas, Mr.
Wilson's practical difficulties began. It was probably on that occasion
that he resolved, seeing that he could not obtain everything he wanted,
to content himself with the best he could get. And that was not a
society of peoples, but a rough approximation to the hegemony of the
Anglo-Saxon nations.
FOOTNOTES:
[70] The French Minister of Finances made this the cornerstone of his
policy and declared that the indemnity to be paid by the vanquished
Teutons would enable him to set the finances of France on a permanently
sound basis. In view of this expectation new taxation was eschewed.
[71] A selection of the untruths published in the French press during
the war has been reproduced by the Paris journal, _Bonsoir_. It contains
abundant pabulum for the cynic and valuable data for the psychologist.
The example might be followed in Great Britain. The title is:
"Anthologie du Bourrage de Crâne." It began in the month of July, 1919.
[72] Cf. _The New York Herald_ (Paris edition), June 2, 1919.
[73] Cf. _The Daily Mail_ (Paris edition), January 17, 1919.
[74] Cf. _The Chicago Tribune_, August 27, 1919.
[75] Cf. _The New York Herald_ (Paris edition), June 10, 1919.
[76] Cf. _Bonsoir_, June 20, 1919.
[77] On April 27th.
[78] _Bonsoir_, June 21, 1919.
[79] _The New York Herald_, May 15. 1919.
[80] _The New York Herald_ (Paris edition), May 3,1919.
[81] _The New York Herald_, June 6, 1919.
[82] Cf. _Le Matin_, July 9, 1919. The chief speakers alluded to were
MM. Renaudel, Deshayes, Lafont, Paul Meunier, Vandame.
[83] _The New York Herald_ (Paris edition), April 29, 1919.
[84] Quoted in the Paris _Temps_ of March 28,1919.
[85] This explanation deals exclusively with the first advance of the
Rumanian army into Hungary.
[86] Cabled to _The Public Ledger_ of Philadelphia, April 20,1919.
[87] _Bonsoir_, June 21, 1919.
[88] Cf. _The Daily News_, July 5,1919. _L'Humanité_, July 8, 1919.
[89] Cf. _The New York Herald_ (Paris edition), April 4, 1919.
[90] _The Chicago Tribune_ (Paris edition), July 31, 1919.
V
AIMS AND METHODS
The policy of the Anglo-Saxon plenipotentiaries was never put into
words. For that reason it has to be judged by their acts, despite the
circumstance that these were determined by motives which varied greatly
at different times, and so far as one can conjecture were not often
practical corollaries of fundamental principles. From these acts one may
draw a few conclusions which will enable us to reconstruct such policy
as there was. One is that none of the sacrifices imposed upon the
members of the League of Nations was obligatory on the Anglo-Saxon
peoples. These were beyond the reach of all the new canons which might
clash with their interests or run counter to their aspirations. They
were the givers and administrators of the saving law rather than its
observers. Consequently they were free to hold all that was theirs,
however doubtful their title; nay, they were besought to accept a good
deal more under the mandatory system, which was molded on their own
methods of governance. It was especially taken for granted that the
architects would be called to contribute naught to the new structure but
their ideas, and that they need renounce none of their possessions,
however shady its origin, however galling to the population its
retention. It was in deference to this implicit doctrine that President
Wilson withdrew without protest or discussion his demand for the freedom
of the seas, on which he had been wont to lay such stress.
Another way of putting the matter is this. The principal aim of the
Conference was to create conditions favorable to the progress of
civilization on new lines. And the seed-bearers of true, as
distinguished from spurious, civilization and culture being the
Anglo-Saxons, it is the realization of their broad conceptions, the
furtherance of their beneficent strivings, that are most conducive to
that ulterior aim. The men of this race in the widest sense of the term
are, therefore, so to say, independent ends in themselves, whereas the
other peoples are to be utilized as means. Hence the difference of
treatment meted out to the two categories. In the latter were implicitly
included Italy and Russia. Unquestionably the influence of
Anglo-Saxondom is eminently beneficial. It tends to bring the rights and
the dignity as well as the duties of humanity into broad day. The
farther it extends by natural growth, therefore, the better for the
human race. The Anglo-Saxon mode of administering colonies, for
instance, is exemplary, and for this reason was deemed worthy to receive
the hall-mark of the Conference as one of the institutions of the future
League. But even benefits may be transformed into evils if imposed by
force.
That, in brief, would seem to be the clue--one can hardly speak of any
systematic conception--to the unordered improvisations and incongruous
decisions of the Conference.
I am not now concerned to discuss whether this unformulated maxim, which
had strong roots that may not always have reached the realm of
consciousness, calls for approval as an instrument of ethico-political
progress or connotes an impoverishment of the aims originally propounded
by Mr. Wilson. Excellent reasons may be assigned why the two
English-speaking statesmen proceeded without deliberation on these lines
and no other. The matter might have been raised to a higher plane, but
for that the delegates were not prepared. All that one need retain at
present is the orientation of the Supreme Council, inasmuch as it
imparts a sort of relative unity to seemingly heterogeneous acts. Thus,
although the conditions of the Peace Treaty in many respects ran
directly counter to the provisions of the Covenant, none the less the
ultimate tendency of both was to converge in a distant point, which,
when clearly discerned, will turn out to be the moral guidance of the
world by Anglo-Saxondom as represented at any rate in the incipient
stage by both its branches. Thus the discussions among the members of
the Conference were in last analysis not contests about mere
abstractions. Beneath the high-sounding principles and far-resonant
reforms which were propounded but not realized lurked concrete racial
strivings which a patriotic temper and robust faith might easily
identify with the highest interests of humanity.
When the future historian defines, as he probably will, the main result
of the Conference's labors as a tendency to place the spiritual and
political direction of the world in the hands of the Anglo-Saxon race,
it is essential to a correct view of things that he should not regard
this trend as the outcome of a deliberate concerted policy. It was
anything but this. Nobody who conversed with the statesmen before and
during the Conference could detect any sure tokens of such ultimate
aims, nor, indeed, of a thorough understanding of the lesser problems to
be settled. Circumstance led, and the statesmen followed. The historian
may term the process drift, and the humanitarian regret that such
momentous issues should ever have been submitted to a body of uninformed
politicians out of touch with the people for whose behoof they claimed
to be legislating. To liquidate the war should have been the first, as
it was the most urgent, task. But it was complicated, adjourned, and
finally botched by interweaving it with a mutilated scheme for the
complete readjustment of the politico-social forces of the planet. The
result was a tangled skein of problems, most of them still unsolved, and
some insoluble by governments alone. Out of the confusion of clashing
forces towered aloft the two dominant Powers who command the economic
resources of the world, and whose democratic institutions and internal
ordering are unquestionably more conducive to the large humanitarian end
than those of any other, and gradually their overlordship of the world
began to assert itself. But this tendency was not the outcome of
deliberate endeavor. Each representative of those vast states was
solicitous in the first place about the future of his own country, and
then about the regeneration of the human race. One would like to be able
to add that all were wholly inaccessible to the promptings of party
interests and personal ambitions.
Planlessness naturally characterized the exertions of the Anglo-Saxon
delegates from start to finish. It is a racial trait. Their hosts, who
were experts in the traditions of diplomacy, had before the opening of
the Conference prepared a plan for their behoof, which at the lowest
estimate would have connoted a vast improvement on their own desultory
way of proceeding. The French proposed to distribute all the preparatory
work among eighteen commissions, leaving to the chief plenipotentiaries
the requisite time to arrange preliminaries and become acquainted with
the essential elements of the problems. But Messrs. Wilson and Lloyd
George are said to have preferred their informal conversations,
involving the loss of three and a half months, during which no results
were reached in Paris, while turmoil, bloodshed, and hunger fed the
smoldering fires of discontent throughout the World.
The British Premier, like his French colleague, was solicitous chiefly
about making peace with the enemy and redeeming as far as possible his
election pledges to his supporters. To that end everything else would
appear to have been subordinated. To the ambitious project of a world
reform he and M. Clemenceau gave what was currently construed as a
nominal assent, but for a long time they had no inkling of Mr. Wilson's
intention to interweave the peace conditions with the Covenant. So far,
indeed, were they both from entertaining the notion that the two
Premiers expressly denied--and allowed their denial to be circulated in
the press--that the two documents were or could be made mutually
interdependent. M. Pichon assured a group of journalists that no such
intention was harbored.[91] Mr. Lloyd George is understood to have gone
farther and to have asked what degree of relevancy a Covenant for the
members of the League could be supposed to possess to a treaty concluded
with a nation which for the time being was denied admission to that
sodality. And as we saw, he was incurious enough not to read the
narrative of what had been done by his own American colleagues even
after the Havas Agency announced it.