They were said to be too busy dealing out what they considered rough and
ready justice to their enemies, and were impatient of the intervention
of their "friends." They seized rolling-stock, cattle, agricultural
implements, and other property of the kind that had been stolen from
their own people and sent the booty home without much ado. Work of this
kind was certain to be accompanied by excesses and the Conference
received numerous protests from the aggrieved inhabitants. But on the
whole Rumania, at any rate during the first few weeks of the occupation,
had the substantial sympathy of the largest and most influential
section of the world's press. People declared that they were glad to
see the haze of self-righteousness and cant at last dispelled by a whiff
of wholesome egotism. From the outspoken comments of the most widely
circulating journals in France and Britain the dictators in Paris, who
were indignant that the counsels of the strong should carry so little
weight in eastern Europe, could acquaint themselves with the impression
which their efforts at cosmic legislation were producing among the saner
elements of mankind.
In almost every language one could read words of encouragement to the
recalcitrant Rumanians for having boldly burst the irksome bonds in
which the peoples of the world were being pinioned. "It is our view,"
wrote one firm adherent of the Entente, "that having proved incapable of
protecting the Rumanians in their hour of danger, our alliance cannot
to-day challenge the safeguards which they have won for
themselves."[170]
"If liberty had her old influence," one read in another popular
journal,[171] "the Great Powers would not be bringing pressure to bear
on Rumania with the object of saving Hungary from richly deserved
punishment." "Instead of nagging the Rumanians," wrote an eminent French
publicist, "they would do much better to keep the Turks in hand. If the
Turks in despair, in order to win American sympathies, proclaim
themselves socialists, syndicalists, or laborists, will President Wilson
permit them to renovate Armenia and other places after the manner of
Jinghiz Khan?"[172]
But what may have weighed with the Supreme Council far more than the
disapproval of publicists were its own impotence, the undignified figure
it was cutting, and the injury that was being done to the future League
of Nations by the impunity with which one of the lesser states could
thus set at naught the decisions of its creators and treat them with
almost the same disrespect which they themselves had displayed toward
the Rumanian delegates in Paris. They saw that once their energetic
representations were ignored by the Bucharest government they were at
the end of their means of influencing it. To compel obedience by force
was for the time being out of the question. In these circumstances the
only issue left them was to make a virtue of necessity and veer round to
the Rumanian point of view as unobtrusively as might be, so as to tide
over the transient crisis. And that was the course which they finally
struck out.
Matters soon came to the culminating point. The members of the Allied
Military Mission had received full powers to force the commanders of the
troops of occupation to obey the decisions of the Conference, and when
they were confronted with M. Diamandi, the ex-Minister to Petrograd,
they issued their orders in the name of the Supreme Council. "We take
orders here only from our own government, which is in Bucharest," was
the answer they received. The Rumanians have a proverb which runs: "Even
a donkey will not fall twice into the same quicksand," and they may have
quoted it to General Gorton when refusing to follow the Allies after
their previous painful experience. Then the mission telegraphed to Paris
for further instructions.[173] In the meanwhile the Rumanian government
had sent its answer to the three notes of the Council. And its tenor was
firm and unyielding. Undeterred by menaces, M. Bratiano maintained that
he had done the right thing in sending troops to Budapest, imposing
terms on Hungary and re-establishing order. As a matter of fact he had
rendered a sterling service to all Europe, including France and
Britain. For if Kuhn and his confederates had contrived to overrun
Rumania, the Great Powers would have been morally bound to hasten to the
assistance of their defeated ally. The press was permitted to announce
that the Council of Five was preparing to accept the Rumanian position.
The members of the Allied Military Mission were informed that they were
not empowered to give orders to the Rumanians, but only to consult and
negotiate with them, whereby all their tact and consideration were
earnestly solicited.
But the palliatives devised by the delegates were unavailing to heal the
breach. After a while the Council, having had no answer to its urgent
notes, decided to send an ultimatum to Rumania, calling on her to
restore the rolling-stock which she had seized and to evacuate the
Hungarian capital. The terms of this document were described as
harsh.[174] Happily, before it was despatched the Council learned that
the Rumanian government had never received the communications nor
seventy others forwarded by wireless during the same period. Once more
it had taken a decision without acquainting itself of the facts.
Thereupon a special messenger[175] was sent to Bucharest with a note
"couched in stern terms," which, however, was "milder in tone" than the
ultimatum.
To go back for a moment to the elusive question of motive, which was not
without influence on Rumania's conduct. Were the action and inaction of
the plenipotentiaries merely the result of a lack of cohesion among
their ideas? Or was it that they were thinking mainly of the fleeting
interests of the moment and unwilling to precipitate their conceptions
of the future in the form of a constructive policy? The historian will
do well to leave their motives to another tribunal and confine himself
to facts, which even when carefully sifted are numerous and significant
enough.
During the progress of the events just sketched there were launched
certain interesting accounts of what was going on below the surface,
which had such impartial and well-informed vouchers that the chronicler
of the Conference cannot pass them over in silence. If true, as they
appear to be, they warrant the belief that two distinct elements lay at
the root of the Secret Council's dealings with Rumania. One of them was
their repugnance to her whole system of government, with its survivals
of feudalism, anti-Semitism, and conservatism. Associated with this was,
people alleged, a wish to provoke a radical and, as they thought,
beneficent change in the entire régime by getting rid of its chiefs.
This plan had been successfully tried against MM. Orlando and Sonnino in
Italy. Their solicitude for this latter aim may have been whetted by a
personal lack of sympathy for the Rumanian delegates, with whom the
Anglo-Saxon chiefs hardly ever conversed. It was no secret that the
Rumanian Premier found it exceedingly difficult to obtain an audience of
his colleague President Wilson, from whom he finally parted almost as
much a stranger as when he first arrived in Paris.
It may not be amiss to record an instance of the methods of the Supreme
Council, for by putting himself in the place of the Rumanian Premier the
reader may the more clearly understand his frame of mind toward that
body. In June the troops of Moritz (or Bela) Kuhn had inflicted a severe
defeat on the Czechoslavs. Thereupon the Secret Council of Four or Five,
whose shortsighted action was answerable for the reverse, decided to
remonstrate with him. Accordingly they requested him to desist from the
offensive. Only then did it occur to them that if he was to withdraw
his armies behind the frontiers, he must be informed where these
frontiers were. They had already been determined in secret by the three
great statesmen, who carefully concealed them not merely from an
inquisitive public, but also from the states concerned. The Rumanian,
Jugoslav and Czechoslovak delegates were, therefore, as much in the dark
on the subject as were rank outsiders and enemies. But as soon as
circumstances forced the hand of all the plenipotentiaries the secret
had to be confided to them all.[176] The Hungarian Dictator pleaded that
if his troops had gone out of bounds it was because the frontiers were
unknown to him. The Czechoslovaks respectfully demurred to one of the
boundaries along the river Ipol which it was difficult to justify and
easy to rectify. But the Rumanian delegation, confronted with the map,
met the decision with a frank protest. For it amounted to the
abandonment of one of their three vital irreducible claims which they
were not empowered to renounce. Consequently they felt unable to
acquiesce in it. But the Supreme Council insisted. The second delegate,
M. Misu, was in consequence obliged to start at once for Bucharest to
consult with the King and the Cabinet and consider what action the
circumstances called for. In the meantime, the entire question, and
together with it some of the practical consequences involved by the
tentative solution, remained in suspense.
When certain clauses of the Peace Treaty, which, although they
materially affected Rumania, had been drafted without the knowledge of
her plenipotentiaries, were quite ready, the Rumanian Premier was
summoned to take cognizance of them. Their tenor surprised and irritated
him. As he felt unable to assent to them, and as the document was to be
presented to the enemy in a day or two, he deemed it his duty to mention
his objections at once. But hardly had he begun when M. Clemenceau arose
and exclaimed, "M. Bratiano, you are here to listen, not to comment."
Stringent measures may have been considered useful and dictatorial
methods indispensable in default of reasoning or suasion, but it was
surely incumbent on those who employed them to choose a form which would
deprive them of their sting or make them less personally painful.
For whatever one may think of the wisdom of the policy adopted by the
Supreme Council toward the unprivileged states, it would be difficult to
justify the manner in which they imposed it. Patience, tact, and suasion
are indispensable requisites in men who assume the functions of leaders
and guides, yet know that military force alone is inadequate to shape
the future after their conception. The delegates could look only to
moral power for the execution of their far-reaching plans, yet they
spurned the means of acquiring it. The best construction one can put
upon their action will represent it as the wrecking of the substance by
the form. By establishing a situation of force throughout Europe the
Council created and sanctioned the principle that it must be maintained
by force.
But the affronted nations did not stop at this mild criticism. They
assailed the policy itself, cast suspicion on the disinterestedness of
the motives that inspired it, and contributed thereby to generate an
atmosphere of distrust in which the frail organism that was shortly to
be called into being could not thrive. Contemplated through this
distorting medium, one set of delegates was taunted with aiming at a
monopoly of imperialism and the other with rank hypocrisy. It is
superfluous to remark that the idealism and lofty aims of the President
of the United States were never questioned by the most reckless
Thersites. The heaviest charges brought against him were weakness of
will, exaggerated self-esteem, impatience of contradiction, and a naive
yearning for something concrete to take home with him, in the shape of a
covenant of peoples.
The reports circulating in the French capital respecting vast commercial
enterprises about to be inaugurated by English-speaking peoples and
about proposals that the governments of the countries interested should
facilitate them, were destructive of the respect due to statesmen whose
attachment to lofty ideals should have absorbed every other motive in
their ethico-political activity. Thus it was affirmed by responsible
politicians that an official representative of an English-speaking
country gave expression to the view, which he also attributed to his
government, that henceforth his country should play a much larger part
in the economic life of eastern Europe than any other nation. This, he
added, was a conscious aim which would be steadily pursued, and to the
attainment of which he hoped the politicians and their people would
contribute. So far this, it may be contended, was perfectly legitimate.
But it was further affirmed, and not by idle quidnuncs, that one of
Rumania's prominent men had been informed that Rumania could count on
the good-will and financial assistance of the United States only if her
Premier gave an assurance that, besides the special privileges to be
conferred on the Jewish minority in his country, he would also grant
industrial and commercial concessions to certain Jewish groups and firms
who reside and do business in the United States. And by way of taking
time by the forelock one or more of these firms had already despatched
representatives to Rumania to study and, if possible, earmark the
resources which they proposed to exploit.
Now, to expand the trade of one's country is a legitimate ambition, and
to hold that Jewish firms are the best qualified to develop the
resources of Rumania is a tenable position. But to mix up any commercial
scheme with the ethical regeneration of Europe is, to put it mildly,
impolitic. However unimpeachable the motives of the promoter of such a
project, it is certain to damage both causes which he has at heart. But
the report does not leave the matter here. It goes on to state that a
very definite proposal, smacking of an ultimatum, was finally presented,
which set before the Rumanians two alternatives from which they were to
choose--either the concessions asked for, which would earn for them the
financial assistance of the United States, or else no concessions and no
help.
At a Conference, the object of which was the uplifting of the life of
nations from the squalor of sordid ambitions backed by brutal force, to
ideal aims and moral relationship, haggling and chaffering such as this
seemed wholly out of place. It reminded one of "those that sold oxen and
sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting" in the temple of
Jerusalem who were one day driven out with "a scourge of small cords."
The Rumanians hoped that the hucksters in the latter-day temple of peace
might be got rid of in a similar way; one of them suggested boldly
asking President Wilson himself to say what he thought of the policy
underlying the disconcerting proposal....
The other alleged element of the Supreme Council's attitude needs no
qualification. The mystery that enwrapped the orders from the Conference
which suddenly arrested the march of the Rumanian and Allied troops,
when they were nearing Budapest for the purpose of overthrowing Bela
Kuhn, never perplexed those who claimed to possess trustworthy
information about the goings-on between certain enterprising officers
belonging some to the Allied Army of Occupation and others to the
Hungarian forces. One of these transactions is alleged to have taken
place between Kuhn himself, who is naturally a shrewd observer and hard
bargain-driver, and a certain financial group which for obvious reasons
remained nameless. The object of the compact was the bestowal on the
group of concessions in the Banat in return for an undertaking that the
Bolshevist Dictator would be left in power and subsequently honored by
an invitation to the Conference. The plenipotentiaries' command
arresting the march against Kuhn and their conditional promise to summon
him to the Conference, dovetail with this contract. These undeniable
coincidences are humiliating. The nexus between them was discovered and
announced before the stipulations were carried out.
The Banat had been an apple of discord ever since the close of
hostilities. The country, inhabited chiefly by Rumanians, but with a
considerable admixture of Magyar and Saxon elements, is one of the
richest unexploited regions in Europe. Its mines of gold, zinc, lead,
coal, and iron offer an irresistible temptation to pushing capitalists
and their governments, who feel further attracted by the credible
announcement that it also possesses oil in quantities large enough to
warrant exploitation. It was partly in order to possess herself of these
abundant resources and create an accomplished fact that Serbia, who also
founded her claim on higher ground, laid hands on the administration of
the Banat. But the experiment was disappointing. The Jugoslavs having
failed to maintain themselves there, the bargain just sketched was
entered into by officers of the Hungarian and Allied armies. For
concession-hunters are not fastidious about the nationality or character
of those who can bestow what they happen to be seeking.
This stroke of jobbery had political consequences. That was inevitable.
For so long as the Banat remained in Rumania or Serbian hands it could
not be alienated in favor of any foreign group. Therefore secession from
both those states was a preliminary condition to economic alienation.
The task was bravely tackled. An "independent republic" was suddenly
added to the states of Europe. This amazing creation, which fitted in
with the Balkanizing craze of the moment, was the work of a few
wire-pullers in which the easy-going inhabitants had neither hand nor
part. Indeed, they were hardly aware that the Republic of the Banat had
been proclaimed. The amateur state-builders were obliging officers of
the two armies, and behind them were speculators and concession-hunters.
It was obvious that the new community, as it contained a very small
population for an independent state, would require a protector. Its
sponsors, who had foreseen this, provided for it by promising to assign
the humanitarian rôle of protectress of the Banat Republic to democratic
France. And French agents were on the spot to approve the arrangement.
Thus far the story, of which I have given but the merest outline.[177]
In this compromising fashion then Bela Kuhn was left for the time being
in undisturbed power, and none of his friends had any fear that he would
be driven out by the Allies so long as he contrived to hit it off with
the Hungarians. Should these turn away from him, however, the
cosmopolitan financiers, whose cardinal virtues are suppleness and
adaptability, would readily work with his successor, whoever he might
be. The few who knew of this quickening of high ideals with low intrigue
were shocked by the light-hearted way in which under the ægis of the
Conference a discreditable pact was made with the "enemy of the human
race," a grotesque régime foisted on a simple-minded people without
consideration for the principle of self-determination, and the very
existence of the Czechoslovak Republic imperiled. Indeed, for a brief
while it looked as though the Bolshevist forces of the Ukraine and
Russia would effect a junction with the troops of Bela Kuhn and shatter
eastern Europe to shreds. To such dangerous extent did the Supreme
Council indirectly abet the Bolshevist peace-breakers against the
Rumanians and Czechoslovak allies.
It was at this conjuncture that a Rumanian friend remarked to me: "The
apprehension which our people expressed to you some months ago when they
rejected the demand for concessions has been verified by events. Please
remember that when striking the balance of accounts."
The fact could not be blinked that in the camp of the Allies there was a
serious schism. The partizans of the Supreme Council accused the
Bucharest government of secession, and were accused in turn of having
misled their Rumanian partners, of having planned to exploit them
economically, of having favored their Bolshevist invaders, and pursued a
policy of blackmail. The rights and wrongs of this quarrel had best be
left to another tribunal. What can hardly be gainsaid is that in a
general way the Rumanians--and not these alone--were implicitly classed
as people of a secondary category, who stood to gain by every measure
for their good which the culture-bearers in Paris might devise. These
inferior nations were all incarnate anachronisms, relics of dark ages
which had survived into an epoch of democracy and liberty, and it now
behooved them to readjust themselves to that. Their institutions must be
modernized, their Old World conceptions abandoned, and their people
taught to imitate the progressive nations of the West. What the
populations thought and felt on the subject was irrelevant, they being
less qualified to judge what was good for them than their
self-constituted guides and guardians. To the angry voices which their
spokesmen uplifted no heed need be paid, and passive resistance could be
overcome by coercion. This modified version of Carlyle's doctrine would
seem to be at the root of the Supreme Council's action toward the lesser
nations generally and in especial toward Rumania.
POLAND AND THE SUPREME COUNCIL
This frequent misdirection by the Supreme Council, however one may
explain it, created an electric state of the political atmosphere among
all nations whose interests were set down or treated as "limited," and
more than one of them, as we saw, contemplated striking out a policy of
passive resistance. As a matter of fact some of them timidly adopted it
more than once, almost always with success and invariably with impunity.
It was thus that the Czechoslovaks--the most docile of them
all--disregarding the injunctions of the Conference, took possession of
contentious territory,[178] and remained in possession of it for several
months, and that the Jugoslavs occupied a part of the district of
Klagenfurt and for a long time paid not the slightest heed to the order
issued by the Supreme Council to evacuate it in favor of the Austrians,
and that the Poles applied the same tactics to eastern Galicia. The
story of this last revolt is characteristic alike of the ignorance and
of the weakness of the Powers which had assumed the functions of
world-administrators. During the hostilities between the Ruthenians of
Galicia and the Poles the Council, taunted by the press with the
numerous wars that were being waged while the world's peace-makers were
chatting about cosmic politics in the twilight of the Paris conclave,
issued an imperative order that an armistice must be concluded at once.
But the Poles appealed to events, which swiftly settled the matter as
they anticipated. Neither the Supreme Council nor the agents it employed
had a real grasp of the east European situation, or of the rôle
deliberately assigned to Poland by its French sponsors--that of
superseding Russia as a bulwark against Germany in the East--or of the
local conditions. Their action, as was natural in these circumstances,
was a sequence of gropings in the dark, of incongruous behests,
exhortations, and prohibitions which discredited them in the eyes of
those on whose trust and docility the success of their mission depended.
Consciousness of these disadvantages may have had much to do with the
rigid secrecy which the delegates maintained before their desultory
talks ripened into discussions. In the case of Poland, as of Rumania,
the veil was opaque, and was never voluntarily lifted. One day[179] the
members of the Polish delegation, eager to get an inkling of what had
been arranged by the Council of Four about Dantzig, requested M.
Clemenceau to apprize them at least of the upshot if not of the details.
The French Premier, who has a quizzing way and a keen sense of humor,
replied, "On the 26th inst. you will learn the precise terms." But
Poland's representative insisted and pleaded suasively for a hint of
what had been settled. The Premier finally consented and said, "Tell the
General Secretary of the Conference, M. Dutasta, from me, that he may
make the desired communication to you." The delegate accordingly
repaired to M. Dutasta, preferred his request, and received this reply:
"M. Clemenceau may say what he likes. His words do not bind the
Conference. Before I consider myself released from secrecy I must have
the consent of all his colleagues as well. If you would kindly bring me
their express authorization I will communicate the information you
demand." That closed the incident.