(_January 18, 1919_)
Gentlemen: France greets and thanks you for having chosen as the seat
of your labours the city which for more than four years the enemy has
made his principal military objective and which the valour of the
allied armies has victoriously defended against unceasingly renewed
offensives.
Permit me to see in your decision the homage of all the nations that
you represent toward a country which more than any other has endured
the sufferings of war, of which entire provinces have been transformed
into a vast battle-field and have been systematically laid waste by
the invader, and which has paid the human tribute in death. France has
borne these enormous sacrifices although she had not the slightest
responsibility for the frightful catastrophe which has overwhelmed the
universe, and at the moment when the cycle of horror is ending, all
the powers whose delegates are assembled here may acquit themselves
of any share in the crime which has resulted in such an unprecedented
disaster. What gives you the authority to establish a peace of justice
is the fact that none of the peoples of whom you are the delegates
has had any part in the injustice. Humanity can place confidence in
you because you are not among those who have outraged the rights of
humanity.
There is no need for further information or for special inquiries into
the origin of the drama which has just shaken the world. The truth,
bathed in blood, has already escaped from the Imperial archives. The
premeditated character of the trap is to-day clearly proved.
In the hope of conquering, first, the hegemony of Europe, and next, the
mastery of the world, the Central Empires, bound together by a secret
plot, found the most abominable of pretexts for trying to crush Serbia
and force their way to the East. At the same time they disowned the
most solemn undertakings in order to crush Belgium and force their way
into the heart of France.
These are the two unforgettable outrages which opened the way to
aggression. The combined efforts of Great Britain, France, and Russia
were exerted against that man-made arrogance.
Your nations entered the war successively, but came one and all to the
help of threatened right. Like Germany, Great Britain had guaranteed
the independence of Belgium. Germany sought to crush Belgium. Great
Britain and France both swore to save her. Thus from the very beginning
of hostilities there came into conflict the two ideas which for fifty
months were to struggle for the domination of the world--the idea of
sovereign force, which accepts neither control nor check, and the idea
of justice, which depends on the sword only to prevent or repress the
abuse of strength.
Faithfully supported by her dominions and colonies, Great Britain
decided that she could not remain aloof from a struggle in which the
fate of every country was involved. She has made, and her dominions and
colonies have made with her, prodigious efforts to prevent the war from
ending in a triumph for the spirit of conquest and destruction of right.
. . . . . . . . . .
The intervention of the United States was something more, something
greater, than a great political and military event. It was a supreme
judgment passed at the bar of history by the lofty conscience of a free
people, and their chief magistrate, on the enormous responsibilities
incurred in the frightful conduct which was lacerating humanity. It
was not only to protect themselves from the audacious aims of German
megalomania that the United States equipped fleets and created immense
armies, but also, and above all, to defend an ideal of liberty over
which they saw the huge shadow of the Imperial eagle encroaching
further every day.
. . . . . . . . . .
While the conflict was gradually extending over the entire surface of
the earth, the clanking of chains was heard here and there, and captive
nationalities from the depths of their age-long jails, cried out to
us for help. Yet more, they escaped to come to our aid. Poland came
to life again; sent us troops. The Czecho-Slovaks won their rights to
independence in Siberia, in France, in Italy. The Jugo-Slavs, the
Armenians, the Syrians, and the Lebanese, the Arabs, all oppressed
peoples, all the victims long helpless or resigned of great historic
deeds of injustice, all the martyrs of the past, all the outraged
consciences, all the strangled liberties, reviewed the clash of arms
and turned toward us as their natural defenders.
War gradually attained the fulness of its first significance and
became, in the fullest sense of the term, a crusade of humanity for
right; and if anything can console us, in part at least, for the
losses we have suffered, it is assuredly the thought that our victory
is also the victory of right. This victory is complete, for the enemy
only asked for the armistice to escape from an irretrievable military
disaster. In the interests of justice and peace, it now rests with you
to reap from this victory its full fruits.
. . . . . . . . . .
By establishing this new order of things, you will meet the
aspirations of humanity, which, after the frightful conclusions of
the blood-stained years, ardently wishes to free itself, protected by
a union of free peoples, against every possible revival of primitive
savagery. An immortal glory will attach to the names of the nations and
the men who have desired to co-operate in this grand work of faith and
brotherhood, and who have taken the pains to eliminate from the future
peace causes of disturbance and instability.
This very day, forty-eight years ago--on the 18th of January, 1871--the
German Empire was proclaimed by an army of invasion in the chateau at
Versailles. It was consecrated by the fate of two French provinces. It
was thus a violation from its origin and, by the fault of its founders,
it was born in injustice. It has ended in oblivion.
You are assembled in order to repair the evil that has been done, and
to prevent a recurrence of it. You hold in your hands the future of the
world. I leave you, gentlemen, to your grave deliberations, and declare
the Conference of Paris open.