question put by the Rumanian delegation, directed them to consult the
financial terms of the Treaty with Austria, forgetting that the
delegates of the lesser states had not been allowed to receive or read
those terms. Although communicated to the Austrians, they were carefully
concealed from the Rumanians, whom they also concerned. At the same
time, the Rumanian government was called upon to take and announce a
decision which presupposed acquaintanceship with those conditions,
whereupon the Rumanian Premier telegraphed from Bucharest to Paris to
have them sent. But his _locum tenens_ did not possess a copy and had no
right to demand one.[140] Incongruities of this character were frequent.
One statesman in Paris, who enjoys a world-wide reputation, dissented
from those who sided with the lesser states. He looked at their protests
and tactics from an angle of vision which the unbiased historian,
however emphatically he may dissent from it, cannot ignore. He said:
"All the smaller communities are greedy and insatiable. If the chiefs of
the World Powers had understood their temper and ascertained their
aspirations in 1914, much that has passed into history since then would
never have taken place. During the war these miniature countries were
courted, flattered, and promised the sun and the moon, earth and heaven,
and all the glories therein. And now that these promises cannot be
redeemed, they are wroth, and peevishly threaten the great states with
disobedience and revolt. This, it is true, they could not do if the
latter had not forfeited their authority and prestige by allowing their
internal differences, hesitations, contradictions, and repentances to
become manifest to all. To-day it is common knowledge that the Great
Powers are amenable to very primitive incentives and deterrents. If in
the beginning they had been united and said to their minor brethren:
'These are your frontiers. These your obligations,' the minor brethren
would have bowed and acquiesced gratefully. In this way the boundary
problems might have been settled to the satisfaction of all, for each
new or enlarged state would have been treated as the recipient of a free
gift from the World Powers. But the plenipotentiaries went about their
task in a different and unpractical fashion. They began by recognizing
the new communities, and then they gave them representatives at the
Conference. This they did on the ground that the League of Nations must
first be founded, and that all well-behaved belligerents on the Allied
side have a right to be consulted upon that. And, finally, instead of
keeping to their program and liquidating the war, they mingled the
issues of peace with the clauses of the League and debated them
simultaneously. In these debates they revealed their own internal
differences, their hesitancy, and the weakness of their will. And the
lesser states have taken advantage of that. The general results have
been the postponement of peace, the physical exhaustion of the Central
Empires, and the spread of Bolshevism."
It should not be forgotten that this mixture of the general and the
particular of the old order and the new was objected to on other
grounds. The Italians, for example, urged that it changed the status of
a large number of their adversaries into that of highly privileged
Allies. During the war they were enemies, before the peace discussions
opened they had obtained forgiveness, after which they entered the
Conference as cherished friends. The Italians had waged their war
heroically against the Austrians, who inflicted heavy losses on them.
Who were these Austrians? They were composed of the various
nationalities which made up the Hapsburg monarchy, and in especial of
men of Slav speech. These soldiers, with notable exceptions, discharged
their duty to the Austrian Emperor and state conscientiously, according
to the terms of their oath. Their disposition toward the Italians was
not a whit less hostile than was that of the common German man against
the French and the English. Why, then, argued the Italians, accord them
privileges over the ally who bore the brunt of the fight against them?
Why even treat the two as equals? It may be replied that the bulk of the
people were indifferent and merely carried out orders. Well, the same
holds good of the average German, yet he is not being spoiled by the
victorious World Powers. But the Croats and others suddenly became the
favorite children of the Conference, while the Germans and
Teuton-Austrians, who in the meanwhile had accepted and fulfilled
President Wilson's conditions for entry into the fellowship of nations,
were not only punished heavily--which was perfectly just--but also
disqualified for admission into the League, which was inconsistent.
The root of all the incoherences complained of lay in the circumstance
that the chiefs of the Great Powers had no program, no method; Mr.
Wilson's pristine scheme would have enabled him to treat the gallant
Serbs and their Croatian brethren as he desired. But he had failed to
maintain it against opposition. On the other hand, the traditional
method of the balance of power would have given Italy all that she could
reasonably ask for, but Mr. Wilson had partially destroyed it. Nothing
remained then but to have recourse to a _tertium quid_ which profoundly
dissatisfied both parties and imperiled the peace of the world in days
to come. And even this makeshift the eminent plenipotentiaries were
unable to contrive single-handed. Their notion of getting the work done
was to transfer it to missions, commissions, and sub-commissions, and
then to take action which, as often as not, ran counter to the
recommendations of these selected agents. Oddly enough, none of these
bodies received adequate directions. To take a concrete example: a
central commission was appointed to deal with the Polish frontier
problems, a second commission under M. Jules Cambon had to study the
report on the Polish Delimitation question, but although often
consulted, it was seldom listened to. Then there was a third commission,
which also did excellent work to very little purpose. Now all the
questions which formed the subjects of their inquiries might be
approached from various sides. There were historical frontiers,
ethnographical frontiers, political and strategical and linguistic
frontiers. And this does not exhaust the list. Among all these, then,
the commissioners had to choose their field of investigation as the
spirit moved them, without any guidance from the Supreme Council, which
presumably did not know what it wanted.
As an example of the Council's unmethodical procedure, and of its
slipshod way of tackling important work, the following brief sketch of a
discussion which was intended to be decisive and final, but ended in
mere waste of time, may be worth recording. The topic mooted was
disarmament. The Anglo-Saxon plenipotentiaries, feeling that they owed
it to their doctrines and their peoples to ease the military burdens of
the latter and lessen temptations to acts of violence, favored a measure
by which armaments should be reduced forthwith. The Italian delegates
had put forward the thesis, which was finally accepted, that if Austria,
for instance, was to be forbidden to keep more than a certain number of
troops under arms, the prohibition should be extended to all the states
of which Austria had been composed, and that in all these cases the
ratio between the population and the army should be identical.
Accordingly, the spokesmen of the various countries interested were
summoned to take cognizance of the decision and intimate their readiness
to conform to it.
M. Paderewski listened respectfully to the decree, and then remarked:
"According to the accounts received from the French military
authorities, Germany still has three hundred and fifty thousand soldiers
in Silesia." "No," corrected M. Clemenceau, "only three hundred
thousand." "I accept the correction," replied the Polish Premier. "The
difference, however, is of no importance to my contention, which is that
according to the symptoms reported we Poles may have to fight the
Germans and to wage the conflict single-handed. As you know, we have
other military work on hand. I need only mention our strife with the
Bolsheviki. If we are deprived of effective means of self-defense, on
the one hand, and told to expect no help from the Allies, on the other
hand, the consequence will be what every intelligent observer foresees.
Now three hundred thousand Germans is no trifle to cope with. If we
confront them with an inadequate force and are beaten, what then?"
"Undoubtedly," exclaimed M. Clemenceau, "if the Germans were victorious
in the east of Europe the Allies would have lost the war. And that is a
perspective not to be faced."
M. Bratiano spoke next. "We too," he said, "have to fight the Bolsheviki
on more than one front. This struggle is one of life and death to us.
But it concerns, if only in a lesser degree, all Europe, and we are
rendering services to the Great Powers by the sacrifices we thus offer
up. Is it desirable, is it politic, to limit our forces without
reference to these redoubtable tasks which await them? Is it not
incumbent on the Powers to allow these states to grow to the dimensions
required for the discharge of their functions?" "What you advance is
true enough for the moment," objected M. Clemenceau; "but you forget
that our limitations are not to be applied at once. We fix a term after
the expiry of which the strength of the armies will be reduced. We have
taken all the circumstances into account." "Are you prepared to affirm,"
queried the Rumanian Minister, "that you can estimate the time with
sufficient precision to warrant our risking the existence of our country
on your forecast?" "The danger will have completely disappeared,"
insisted the French Premier, "by January, 1921." "I am truly glad to
have this assurance," answered M. Bratiano, "for I doubt not that you
are quite certain of what you advance, else you would not stake the fate
of your eastern allies on its correctness. But as we who have not been
told the grounds on which you base this calculation are asked to
manifest our faith in it by incurring the heaviest conceivable risks,
would it be too much to suggest that the Great Powers should show their
confidence in their own forecast by guaranteeing that if by the
insurgence of unexpected events they proved to be mistaken and Rumania
were attacked, they would give us prompt and adequate military
assistance?" To this appeal there was no affirmative response; whereupon
M. Bratiano concluded: "The limitation of armaments is highly desirable.
No people is more eager for it than ours. But it has one limitation
which must, I venture to think, be respected. So long as you have a
restive or dubious neighbor, whose military forces are subjected neither
to limitation nor control, you cannot divest yourself of your own means
of self-defense. That is our view of the matter."
Months later the same difficulty cropped up anew, this time in a
concrete form, and was dealt with by the Supreme Council in its
characteristic manner. Toward the end of August Rumania's doings in
Hungary and her alleged designs on the Banat alarmed and angered the
delegates, whose authority was being flouted with impunity; and by way
of summarily terminating the scandal and preventing unpleasant surprises
M. Clemenceau proposed that all further consignments of arms to Rumania
should cease. Thereupon Italy's chief representative, Signor Tittoni,
offered an amendment. He deprecated, he said, any measure leveled
specially against Rumania, all the more that there existed already an
enactment of the old Council of Four limiting the armaments of all the
lesser states. The Military Council of Versailles, having been charged
with the study of this matter, had reached the conclusion that the Great
Powers should not supply any of the governments with war material.
Signor Tittoni was of the opinion, therefore, that those conclusions
should now be enforced.
The Council thereupon agreed with the Italian delegate, and passed a
resolution to supply none of the lesser countries with war material. And
a few minutes later it passed another resolution authorizing Germany to
cede part of her munitions and war material to Czechoslovakia and some
more to General Yudenitch![141]
When the commissions to which all the complex problems had to be
referred were being first created,[142] the lesser states were allowed
only five representatives on the Financial and Economic commissions, and
were bidden to elect them. The nineteen delegates of these States
protested on the ground that this arrangement would not give them
sufficient weight in the councils by which their interests would be
discussed. These malcontents were headed by Senhor Epistacio Pessoa, the
President-elect of the United States of Brazil. The Polish delegate, M.
Dmowski, addressing the meeting, suggested that they should not proceed
to an election, the results of which might stand in no relation to the
interests which the states represented had in matters of European
finance, but that they should ask the Great Powers to appoint the
delegates. To this the President-elect of Brazil demurred, taking the
ground that it would be undignified for the lesser states to submit to
have their spokesman nominated by the greater. Thereupon they elected
five delegates, all of them from South American countries, to deal with
European finance, leaving the Europeans to choose five from among
themselves. This would have given ten in all to the communities whose
interests were described as limited, and was an affront to the Great
Powers.
This comedy was severely judged and its authors reprimanded by the heads
of the Conference, who, while quashing the elections, relented to the
extent of promising that extra delegates might be appointed for the
lesser nations later on. As a matter of fact, the number of commissions
was of no real consequence, because on all momentous issues their
findings, unless they harmonized with the decisions of the chief
plenipotentiaries, were simply ignored.
The curious attitude of the Supreme Council toward Rumania may be
contemplated from various angles of vision. But the safest coign of
vantage from which to look at it is that formed by the facts.
Rumania's grievances were many, and they began at the opening of the
Conference, when she was refused more than two delegates as against the
five attributed to each of the Great Powers and three each for Serbia
and Belgium, whose populations are numerically inferior to hers. Then
her treaty with Great Britain, France, and Russia, on the strength of
which she entered the war, was upset by its more powerful signatories as
soon as the frontier question was mooted at the Conference. Further, the
existence of the Rumanian delegation was generally ignored by the
Supreme Council. Thus, when the treaty with Germany was presented to
Count von Brockdorff-Rantzau, a mere journalist[143] at the Conference
possessed a complete copy, whereas the Rumanian delegation, headed by
the Prime Minister Bratiano, had cognizance only of an incomplete
summary. When the fragmentary treaty was drafted for Austria, the
Rumanian delegation saw the text only on the evening before the
presentation, and, noticing inacceptable clauses, formulated
reservations. These reservations were apparently acquiesced in by the
members of the Supreme Council. That, at any rate, was the impression of
MM. Bratiano and Misu. But on the following day, catching a glimpse of
the draft, they discovered that the obnoxious provisions had been left
intact. Then they lodged their reserves in writing, but to no purpose.
One of the obligations imposed on Rumania by the Powers was a promise to
accept in advance any and every measure that the Supreme Council might
frame for the protection of minorities in the country, and for further
restricting the sovereignty of the state in matters connected with the
transit of Allied goods. And, lastly, the Rumanians complained that the
action of the Supreme Council was creating a dangerous ferment in the
Dobrudja, and even in Transylvania, where the Saxon minority, which had
willingly accepted Rumanian sway, was beginning to agitate against it.
In Bessarabia the non-Rumanian elements of the population were fiercely
opposing the Rumanians and invoking the support of the Peace Conference.
The cardinal fact which, in the judgment of the Rumanians, dominated the
situation was the _quasi_ ultimatum presented to them in the spring,
when they were summoned unofficially and privately to grant industrial
concessions to a pushing body of financiers, or else to abide by the
consequences, one of which, they were told, would be the loss of
America's active assistance. They had elected to incur the threatened
penalty after having carefully weighed the advantages and disadvantages
of laying the matter before President Wilson himself, and inquiring
officially whether the action in question was--as they felt sure it must
be--in contradiction with the President's east European policy. For it
would be sad to think that abundant petroleum might have washed away
many of the tribulations which the Rumanians had afterward to endure,
and that loans accepted on onerous conditions would, as was hinted, have
softened the hearts of those who had it in their power to render the
existence of the nation sour or sweet.[144] "Look out," exclaimed a
Rumanian to me. "You will see that we shall be spurned as Laodiceans,
or worse, before the Conference is over." Rumania's external situation
was even more perilous than her domestic plight. Situated between Russia
and Hungary, she came more and more to resemble the iron between the
hammer and the anvil. A well-combined move of the two anarchist states
might have pulverized her. Alive to the danger, her spokesmen in Paris
were anxious to guard against it, but the only hope they had at the
moment was centered in the Great Powers, whose delegates at the
Conference were discharging the functions which the League of Nations
would be called on to fulfil whenever it became a real institution. And
their past experience of the Great Powers' mode of action was not
calculated to command their confidence. It was the Great Powers which,
for their own behoof and without the slightest consideration for the
interests of Rumania, had constrained that country to declare war
against the Central Empires[145] and had made promises of effective
support in the shape of Russian troops, war material of every kind,
officers, and heavy artillery. But neither the promises of help nor the
assurances that Germany's army of invasion would be immobilized were
redeemed, and so far as one can now judge they ought never to have been
made. For what actually came to pass--the invasion of the country by
first-class German armies under Mackensen--might easily have been
foreseen, and was actually foretold.[146] The entire country was put to
sack, and everything of value that could be removed was carried off to
Hungary, Germany, or Austria. The Allies lavished their verbal
sympathies on the immolated nation, but did little else to succor it,
and want and misery and disease played havoc with the people.
After the armistice things became worse instead of better. The
Hungarians were permitted to violate the conditions and keep a powerful
army out of all proportion to the area which they were destined to
retain, and as the Allies disposed of no countering force in eastern
Europe, their commands were scoffed at by the Budapest Cabinet. In the
spring of 1919 the Bolshevists of Hungary waxed militant and threatened
the peace of Rumania, whose statesmen respectfully sued for permission
to occupy certain commanding positions which would have enabled their
armies to protect the land from invasion. But the Duumviri in Paris
negatived the request. They fancied that they understood the situation
better than the people on the spot. Thereupon the Bolshevists, ever
ready for an opportunity, seized upon the opening afforded them by the
Supreme Council, attacked the Rumanians, and invaded their territory.
Nothing abashed, the two Anglo-Saxon statesmen comforted M. Bratiano and
his colleagues with the expression of their regret and the promise that
tranquillity would not again be disturbed. The Supreme Council would see
to that. But this promise, like those that preceded it, was broken.
The Rumanians went so far as to believe that the Supreme Council either
had Bolshevist leanings or underwent secret influences--perhaps
unwittingly--the nature of which it was not easy to ascertain. In
support of these theories they urged that when the Rumanians were on the
very point of annihilating the Red troops of Kuhn, it was the Supreme
Council which interposed its authority to save them, and did save them
effectually, when nothing else could have done it. That Kuhn was on the
point of collapsing was a matter of common knowledge. A radio-telegram
flashed from Budapest by one of his lieutenants contained this
significant avowal: "He [Kuhn] has announced that the Hungarian forces
are in flight. The troops which occupied a good position at the
bridgehead of Gomi have abandoned it, carrying with them the men who
were doing their duty. In Budapest preparations are going forward for
equipping fifteen workmen's battalions." In other words, the downfall of
Bolshevism had begun. The Rumanians were on the point of achieving it.
Their troops on the bank of the river Tisza[147] were preparing to march
on Budapest. And it was at that critical moment that the world-arbiters
at the Conference who had anathematized the Bolshevists as the curse of
civilization interposed their authority and called a halt. If they had
solid grounds for intervening they were not avowed. M. Clemenceau sent
for M. Bratiano and vetoed the march in peremptory terms which did scant
justice to the services rendered and the sacrifices made by the Rumanian
state. Secret arrangements, it was whispered, had been come to between
agents of the Powers and Kuhn. At the time nobody quite understood the
motive of the sudden change of disposition evinced by the Allies toward
the Magyar Bolshevists. For it was assumed that they still regarded the
Bolshevist leaders as outlaws. One explanation was that they objected to
allow the Rumanian army alone to occupy the Hungarian capital. But that
would not account for their neglect to despatch an Inter-Allied
contingent to restore order in the city and country. For they remained
absolutely inactive while Kuhn's supporters were rallying and
consolidating their scattered and demoralized forces, and they kept the
Rumanians from balking the Bolshevist work of preparing another attack.
As one of their French critics[148] remarked, they dealt exclusively in
negatives--some of them pernicious enough, whereas a positive policy
was imperatively called for. To reconstruct a nation, not to say a
ruined world, a series of contradictory vetoes is hardly sufficient. But
another explanation of their attitude was offered which gained
widespread acceptance. It will be unfolded presently.