Chapter 10

WAYS OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE

On Friday, December 13, 1918, the _George Washington_ steamed slowly into Brest harbor through a long double line of gray battleships and destroyers, greeted by the thunder of presidential salutes and the blare of marine bands. Europe thrilled with emotion, which was half curiosity and half genuine enthusiasm: it was to see and applaud the man who during the past eighteen months had crystallized in speech the undefined thought of the Allied world, who represented (at least in European eyes) the strength and idealism of America, and who stood, for the moment, as the political Messiah to liberals in every country of the Old World, victors or defeated. The intensity of the curiosity as well as the sincerity of the enthusiasm was attested on the following day, when President Wilson drove through the streets of Paris, welcomed by the vociferous plaudits of the close-packed crowd. It was for him a public triumph, no greater than that accorded to King Albert of Belgium and certainly less demonstrative than the jubilations of armistice night, but nevertheless undeniably sweet to the President, who looked to popular opinion as the bulwark upon which he must rely during the difficult days ahead.

Further triumphs awaited him in his trips to England and to Italy. In London and Rome, as in Paris, he was the object of demonstrations which at times became almost delirious; more than once his admirers must have been reminded of the Biblical phrase that alludes to the honor of a prophet outside his own country. The emotion of Europe is not difficult to understand. The man in the street was ready to shout, for the war was finished and the miseries of the peace that was no peace were not yet realized, Wilson stood for Justice above everything, and the people of each country believed whole-heartedly that their particular demands were just; the President, therefore, must stand with them. To Frenchmen it was obvious that he must approve the "simple justice" of the claim that Germany pay the entire cost of the war; Italians were convinced that he would sanction their "just" demand for the annexation of Fiume. So long as Justice remained something abstract his popularity remained secure. Could he retain it when concrete issues arose? As early as the beginning of January ebullitions of approval became less frequent. Discordant voices were audible suggesting that Wilson was too prone to sacrifice the material necessities of the war-burdened nations to his idealistic notions. People asked why he failed to visit Belgium and the devastated regions of France, so as to see for himself what sufferings had been endured. And the historian may well inquire if it were because he had not gauged the depth of feeling aroused by German war practices, or because he had determined to show the Germans that he would not let his judgment be clouded by emotion. Whatever the explanation, his popularity suffered.

Without question the original strength of President Wilson's position, resting in part upon the warmth of popular feeling, which is ever uncertain, was undermined by the delays that marked the opening of the Peace Conference. Such delays may have resulted in part from the purpose of the Allied leaders, who wished to permit public enthusiasm for Wilson to cool; they may also have been caused in part by the differences that developed over the incorporation of the League of Nations in the Treaty. But a prime cause of delay is to be found in the fact that a Peace Conference of this character was a new experience and the statesmen assembled were not quite sure how to conduct it. Too little thought had been given to the problem of organization, and the plans which had been drawn up by the French and Americans were apparently forgotten. The host of diplomatic attachés and technical advisers, who crowded the Quai d'Orsay and the hotels of Paris, had only a vague notion as to their duties and waited uneasily, wondering why their chiefs did not set them to work. In truth the making of peace was to be characterized by a looseness of organization, a failure to coördinate, and a waste of time and energy resulting from slipshod methods. In the deliberations of the Conference there was a curious mixture of efficiency and ineffectiveness; a wealth of information upon the topics under discussion and an inability to concentrate that information. Important decisions were made and forgotten in the welter of conferential disorganization.

No one could complain that delays were caused by the kind of gay frivolity that characterized the Vienna Congress a hundred years ago. The atmosphere of the Paris Conference was more like that of a convention of traveling salesmen. The Hotel Crillon, home of the American Commission, was gray and gaunt as the State, War, and Navy Building in Washington. Banquets were rare; state balls unheard of. The President who had separate headquarters, first in the Parc Monceau and later on the Place des États Unis, avoided the orthodox diversions of diplomacy and labored with an intensity that was destined to result in physical collapse. The very dress of the delegates mirrored their businesslike attitude: high silk hats were seldom seen; Lloyd George appeared in the plainest of bowlers and Colonel House in his simple, black felt. Experts worked far into the early morning hours in order that principals might have statistics; principals labored even on Easter Day, and were roused from their beds at four in the morning to answer telegrams. Unique departure in the history of diplomacy: this was a working Peace Conference!

Each of the different commissions had brought to Paris a staff of attachés and experts, upon whom the principal delegates were to rely in questions of fact, and who were themselves to decide points of detail in drafting the economic and political clauses of the treaties and in determining new boundaries. The expert staff of the American Commission had been carefully selected and was generally regarded as equal to that of any other power. Compared with the foreign experts, its members lacked experience in diplomatic methods, no doubt, but they were as well or better equipped with exact information. There is an instance of an American expert on a minor commission asking that a decision be altered in view of new facts just brought to light, and offering to place those facts in detail before the commission. "I suggest," said a foreign delegate, "that we accept the amendment without investigation. Hitherto the facts presented by the Americans have been irrefutable; it would be waste of time to investigate them."

Such men as Hoover, Hurley, and Gompers were at hand to give their expert opinions on questions which they had mastered during the course of the war. Norman Davis and Thomas Lamont acted as financial advisers. Baruch and McCormick brought the wealth of experience which resulted from their administration of the War Industries and War Trade Boards. The foresight of Colonel House, furthermore, had gathered together a group of men who, organized since the summer of 1917 in what had been called "The Inquiry," had been studying the conditions that would determine new political boundaries on the basis of justice and practicability. The principal delegates could not be expected to know the details that would decide the disposition of Danzig, the fate of Fiume, the division of the Banat of Temesvar. They would need some one to tell them the amount of coal produced in the Saar Basin, the location of mines in Teschen, the ethnic character of eastern Galicia, the difference between Slovaks and Ruthenians. It was all very well to come to the Conference with demands for justice, but our commissioners must have cold facts to support those demands. The fact that exact information was available, and played a rôle in the decisions of the Conference, marks a step forward in the history of diplomatic relations.

Contrary to general expectation and rumor, Wilson, although he disregarded the American Commissioners, except Colonel House, made constant use of the various experts. On the _George Washington_ he had told a group of them that he would rely absolutely upon the results of their investigations. "Tell me what's right," he had said, "and I'll fight for it. Give me a guaranteed position." During the negotiations he called in the experts for daily consultations; they sat behind him at the sessions of the Council of Ten and on the sofa beside him in the Council of Four. Their advice was not always followed to the letter; in the Shantung issue it was reluctantly discarded; but in such important matters as the Fiume problem, Wilson rested his case wholly upon the knowledge and opinions of the experts.

In defiance of the example of the Congress of Vienna, which never formally gathered in plenary session, the Paris Conference met with all delegates for the first time, on January 18, 1919. It was a picturesque scene, cast in the long Clock Room of the Quai d'Orsay, the conventional black of the majority of delegates broken by the horizon-blue uniform of Marshal Foch, the natty red-trimmed khaki of British staff officers, and the white flowing robes and golden headdress of the Arabian Emir Faisal; down the center of the room ran the traditionally diplomatic green baize tables behind which sat the delegates; attachés and press correspondents crowded into the corners or peered around the curtains of adjoining rooms; at the end, in front of the white marble fireplace, sat the dominating personalities of the Allied world. But such plenary sessions were not to witness the actual work of the Conference, nor was Wilson's demand for "open covenants openly arrived at" to be translated literally into accomplishment. To conduct the Peace Conference by sessions open to the public was obviously not feasible. There were too many delegates. Time, which was precious beyond evaluation, would be lost in the making of speeches for home consumption. More time would be lost in translation of the Babel of languages. Frankness and directness of negotiation would be impossible, for if the papers should print what the delegates said about each other there would be a national crisis every day. Finally, a congress is by nature ill-adapted for the study of intricate international problems, as was later to be illustrated in the history of the United States Senate.

The representatives of the larger European Powers had assumed that the direction of the Conference would be taken by a small executive committee, corresponding to the Supreme War Council, and to this President Wilson agreed. Such a committee would necessarily meet in secret, in order that it might not be hampered by formalities and that there might be frank speech. Only a brief communiqué, stating the subject of discussion and the decision reached, would be issued to the press. The committee would provide for the executive measures that must be taken to oppose the growth of economic and political anarchy in central and southeastern Europe, would distribute the problems that were to be studied by special commissions, and would formulate or approve the solutions to those problems. It would supervise the drafting of the treaties and present them to the plenary conference in practically final form. Since the bulk of the fighting had been carried by the major powers and since they would guarantee the peace, this supreme council of the Conference was composed of two representatives of the major five, France, Great Britain, the United States, Italy, and Japan, the last-named now entering the sacred coterie of "Great Powers." Among the delegates of the smaller powers there was lively dissatisfaction at the exclusion from the inner council of such states as Belgium and Serbia, which had been invaded by the enemy and had made heavy sacrifices in the war: they complained also that the number of delegates allotted them was insufficient. Already, it was whispered, the phrases that dealt with the "rights of small nations" were being forgotten, and this peace congress was to be but a repetition of those previous diplomatic assemblies where the spoils went to the strong. But Wilson, who was regarded as the defender of the rights of the small states, agreed with Clemenceau that practical necessity demanded an executive council of restricted numbers, and felt that such a body could be trusted to see that effective justice was secured. In truth the President was almost as much impressed by the extreme nationalistic ardor of the small powers, as a source of future danger, as he was by the selfishness of the large.

The Supreme Council, during the early days of the Conference, was generally known as the Council of Ten. It met in the study of Stephane Pichon, the French Foreign Minister, which opened on to the garden of the French Foreign Office, and which, with its panelled walls, covered with gorgeous Gobelins picturing Ruben's story of Marie de' Medici, its stately brocaded chairs, and old-rose and gray Aubusson carpets, was redolent of old-time diplomacy. In the center, behind a massive desk, sat the president of the Conference, Georges Clemenceau--short, squat, round-shouldered, with heavy white eyebrows and mustache serving perfectly to conceal the expression both of eyes and of mouth. Ordinarily he rested immobile, his hands folded in the eternal gray gloves, on his face an expression of bored tolerance, the expression of a man who, after half a century in the political arena of France, had little to learn either of men or of affairs, even from a Peace Conference. Skeptical in attitude, a cold listener, obviously impermeable to mere verbiage and affected by the logic of facts alone, he had a ruthless finger ready to poke into the interstices of a loosely-woven argument. Clemenceau spoke but rarely, in low even tones, with a paucity and awkwardness of gesture surprising in a Latin; he was chary of eloquence, disdaining the obvious arts of the rhetor, but he had at his command an endless string of biting epigrams, and his satire wounded with a touch so sharp that it was scarcely felt or seen except by the unfortunate recipient. Upon infrequent occasion, in the course of hot debate, some one would pierce his armor and touch him upon the unguarded quick; then the man was transformed, the eyebrows would shoot up, the eyes flash, the mustache bristle, the voice vibrate, and the invective which he poured forth scalded like molten lead. One understood at such a moment why he was called "the Tiger." But such outbursts were rare. More characteristic of his method of debate was the low-voiced ironical phrase, when his arid humor crackled like a wireless message.

Clemenceau dwarfed the other French delegates, with a single exception, not alone by the magic of his personality but by the grip which he had on the imagination of France. The people remembered that long career, beginning with the early days of the Republic and culminating with the miracle of the political salvation he brought to France in the dark days of 1917, when the morale of the nation was near the breaking-point, and which made possible the military victory of Foch. France was grateful. He had no political party in the Chamber upon which to rely, but the nation was behind him, at least for the moment. "If I should die now," he is reported to have said during the early days of the Conference, "France would give me a great funeral. If I live six months, no one knows what may happen." For Clemenceau was a realist; he did not permit himself the luxury of being deceived even by the good qualities of his own countrymen. If he feared anything it was the domination of politics by the impractical. Mankind must be taken as it is and not as we should like it to be. He was troubled by what he called the "noble simplicity" of Wilson. Statesmen must be inspired by the sacred egotism which provides for the material safety and progress of their own nation. Above all, in his mind, France was particularly vulnerable and thus must insist upon particular means of defense against the secular enemy across the Rhine.

Behind Clemenceau, in the Council, hovered his friend and Foreign Secretary, Stephane Pichon. More in evidence, however, was André Tardieu, who alone of the French delegates remained undwarfed by the Prime Minister. Journalist, politician, captain of Blue Devils, Franco-American Commissioner, now the youngest of the French peace commission, Tardieu, more than any one else supplied the motive energy that carried the treaty to completion. Debonair and genial, excessively practical, he was the "troubleman" of the Conference: when difficulties arose over the Saar, or Fiume, or reparations, Tardieu was called in to work with a special committee and find a compromise. Not a regular member of the Council of Ten, he was nevertheless at Clemenceau's elbow, and especially after the attempt on the latter's life, he labored day and night on the details which were too much for the strength and time of the older man.

On Clemenceau's right, and half facing him, sat the two American delegates, Wilson and Lansing. The President, to the surprise of many, was by no means the awkward college professor lost among practical politicians. His speech was slow and his manner might almost be called ponderous, but the advisers who whispered over his shoulder, during the course of the debate, attested the rapidity with which his mind operates and his skill in catching the points suggested. There was far less of the dogmatic doctrinaire in his attitude than had been looked for. Occasionally his remarks bordered upon the sententious, but he never "orated," invariably using a conversational tone; many of his points were driven home by humorous allusions or anecdotes rather than by didactic logic. Like that of the other delegates his manner was informal. During the cold days of late January he walked about the room during discussions in order to keep his feet warm. Indeed the proceedings of the Council of Ten were characterized by a noted absence of stiffness. It was evidently expected that the prestige which Wilson possessed among the masses would evaporate in this inner council; but nothing of the kind was apparent. It was not uninteresting to note that when a point was raised every one looked involuntarily to see how it would be taken by the President; and when the delegates of the smaller Powers appeared before the Council they addressed their remarks almost directly at him. Lansing spoke seldom, but then with force and conviction, and was evidently more troubled than Wilson by the compromises with expediency which the Americans were compelled to make. His attention was never distracted by the sketches which he drew without ceasing, during the course of the debates--grotesque and humorous figures, much in demand by every one present as mementos of the Conference.

Next on the right sat David Lloyd George, with thick gray hair and snapping Celtic eyes. Alert and magnetic, he was on the edge of his chair, questioning and interrupting. Frankly ignorant of the details of continental geography and politics, naïve in his inquiries, he possessed the capacity for acquiring effective information at lightning speed. Unfortunately he was not over-critical and the source of his information was not invariably the highest authority; he was prone to accept the views of journalists rather than those of his own Foreign Office. Effervescent as a bottle just rid of its cork, he was also unstable, twisting and veering in his suggestions; not so much blown about by the winds of hostile criticism, to which he paid but little attention, as carried on by the shifting tides of political events at home. For his eye was always across the Channel, calculating the domestic effect of each treaty provision. Few could resist his personal magnetism in conversation and no one would deny him the title of master-politician of his age. During the first weeks of the Conference, Wilson seems to have fallen under the spell of Lloyd George to some extent, who showed himself quite as liberal as the President in many instances. But Wilson was clearly troubled by the Welshman's mercurial policy, and before he finally left for America, found relief in the solid consistency of Clemenceau. He always knew where the French Premier stood, no matter how much he might differ from him in point of view.

Beside Lloyd George, a perfect foil, sat Arthur J. Balfour, assuming the attitude habitual to him after long years in the House of Commons--head on the back of his chair, body reclining at a comfortable angle, long legs stretched in front, hands grasping the lapels of his coat, eyes at frequent intervals closed. Rising, he overtopped every one present, white and bent though he was, in physical stature as he did also in pure intellectual power. Graceful in tone and expression his outlook was the philosophical, possibly over-tolerant for the exigencies of the situation, although upon occasion his judgment proved a valuable counterweight to the hasty enthusiasm of Lloyd George. But Balfour, like Lansing, was sometimes treated with scant consideration by his chief and by no means exercised the influence which his experience and capacity would lead one to expect.

On the right of the British delegates sat the two Japanese, silent, observant, their features immobile as the Sphinx. It was a bold man who would attempt to guess the thoughts masked by their impassive faces. They waited for the strategic moment when they were to present their special claims; until then they attended all meetings, scarcely speaking a word, unwilling to commit themselves. Upon one occasion, in a minor commission, the Japanese delegate held the deciding vote, the other four delegations being tied; when asked by the chairman how he voted, whether with the French and Americans or with the British and Italians, the Japanese responded simply, "Yes." Next the Japanese, but facing Clemenceau and about twelve feet from him, were the Italians: Sonnino with his close-cropped white bullet head and heavy drooping mustache, his great Roman nose coming down to meet an equally strong out-jutting chin, his jaw set like a steel latch. The hawklike appearance of the man was softened in debate by the urbanity of his manner and the modulations of his voice. Orlando was less distinctive in appearance and character. Eloquent and warm-hearted, he was troubled by the consciousness that failure to secure the full extent of Italian claims spelled the downfall of his ministry in Rome. It is of some historical importance that Sonnino, who spoke perfect English with just a trace of Etonian inflection, was the more obstinate in his demands; Orlando, who showed himself inclined to compromise, spoke no English and therefore could come into intellectual contact with Wilson and Lloyd George only through the medium of an interpreter.

Proceedings were necessarily in both French and English, because none of the big men except Clemenceau and Sonnino used the two languages with comfort. The interpreter, Mantoux, who sat behind Clemenceau, was no mere translator. A few notes scribbled on a pad were sufficient for him to render the sense of a speech with keen accuracy and frequently with a fire and a pungency that surpassed the original. He spoke always in the first person as though the points made in debate were his own, and the carrying of each particular point the ideal nearest his heart. Behind the principals, the "Olympians," as they came to be called, were the experts and attachés, with long rolls of maps and complex tables of statistics, ready to answer questions of detailed facts. In truth there was more reference to sources of exact information by the chief delegates than would have been expected by the student of former diplomatic practices.

In the center of the room, facing the Olympians, stood or sat the particular claimant or expert witness of the séance. Now it might be Marshal Foch, with wrinkled, weary, war-worn visage, and thin rumpled hair, in shabby uniform, telling of Germany's failure to fulfill the armistice conditions; one would meet him later in the corridor outside--like Grant, he was apt to have the stump of a black cigar in the corner of his mouth--usually shaking his head ominously over the failure of the politicians to treat Germany with the requisite severity. Or the claimant before the Ten might be the grave, self-contained Venizelos, once outlaw and revolutionary, now, after many turns of fortune's wheel, master of Greece and perhaps the greatest statesman of them all. Then again would appear the boyish Foreign Minister of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, Edward Benes, winning friends on all sides by his frank sincerity and ready smile; or, perfect contrast, the blackbearded Bratiano of Rumania, claiming the enforcement of the secret treaty that was to double the area of his state. Later, Paderewski came from Warsaw, his art sacrificed on the altar of patriotism, leonine in appearance, but surprisingly untemperamental in diplomatic negotiation.

To each of these and to many others who presented problems for immediate settlement the Council listened, for it had not merely to draw up treaties and provide for the future peace of the world, but also to meet crises of the moment. The starving populations of central and southeastern Europe must be fed; tiny wars that had sprung up between smaller nationalities must be attended to and armistice commissions dispatched; the rehabilitation of railroads and river transportation demanded attention; coal mines must be operated and labor difficulties adjusted. This economic renaissance had to be accomplished in face of nationalistic quarrels and the social unrest that threatened to spread the poison of communistic revolution as far west as the Rhine and the Adriatic.

From the beginning it was clear that the actual drafting of the treaty clauses would have to be undertaken by special commissions. The work could never be completed except by a subdivision of labor and the assignment of particular problems to especially competent groups. As the Council of Ten faced the situation, they decided that the number of the commissions must be increased. By the beginning of February the work was largely subdivided. There was a commission headed by President Wilson working on the League of Nations, while others studied such problems as responsibility for the war, reparations, international labor legislation, international control of ports, waterways, and railways, financial and economic problems, military, naval, and aerial questions. When the Council of Ten found themselves puzzled by the conflicting territorial claims of different Allied nations, they decided to create also special territorial commissions to study boundaries and to report their recommendations back to the Supreme Council. It was President Wilson, chafing at the early delays of the Conference, who eagerly adopted a suggestion of Colonel House to the effect that time might be saved if the experts of the different states attacked boundary problems and thus relieved the strain upon the time and nerves of the Olympians, who could not be expected to know or understand the details of each question. The suggestion was approved by the chiefs of the Allied governments. There were five such territorial commissions, which were in turn subdivided, while a single central territorial commission was appointed to coördinate the reports.

The more important commissions, such as that upon the League of Nations, were composed of plenipotentiaries and included generally representatives from the smaller states. The reparations, financial, and labor commissions were made up of business men and financiers, the American representatives including such figures as Lamont, Norman Davis, Baruch, and McCormick. The territorial commissions were composed of the representatives of the four principal Powers; most of the European delegates, who were in some cases also plenipotentiaries, were chosen from the staffs of the Foreign Offices, and included such men as Sir Eyre Crowe, Jules Cambon, Tardieu, and Salvago Raggi. The American delegates were generally members of the Inquiry, men who had been working on these very problems for more than a year. The special commissions worked with care and assiduity, and their decisions rested generally on facts established after long discussion. To this extent, at least, the Paris Conference was characterized by a new spirit in diplomacy.

Upon the reports of these commissions were based the draft articles of the treaties, which were then referred back to the Supreme Council. By the time the reports were finished, that body had divided into two smaller bodies: the Council of Foreign Ministers, and the Council of Premiers, composed of Clemenceau, Lloyd George, Wilson, and Orlando. The latter body, which came to be known as the Council of Four, or, colloquially, the "Big Four," naturally assumed complete direction. It was unfortunate certainly that a congress which had started with the cry of "open covenants" should thus find itself practically resolved into a committee of four. Disappointed liberals have assumed that the inner council was formed with the object of separating President Wilson from contact with popular ideas and bringing him to acceptance of the old-style peace desired by Clemenceau. In reality the Council of Four was simply a revival of the informal committee which had sat during the autumn of 1918, when Colonel House, Lloyd George, and Clemenceau had met by themselves to formulate the policy to be adopted when Germany presented her demand for an armistice. When Wilson left Paris in February, Colonel House, who became chiefly responsible for the American side of negotiations, found the Council of Ten unwieldy. It was attended by as many as thirty or forty persons, some of whom seemed inclined to spread colored accounts of what was going on, and the very size of the meeting tended toward the making of speeches and the slowing-down of progress. Furthermore, at that time Clemenceau, confined to his house by the wound inflicted by a would-be assassin, was unable to attend the sessions of the Council of Ten. It was natural, therefore, that the three statesmen who had worked so effectively the preceding autumn should now renew their private conferences. When Wilson returned to Paris in March, and learned from Colonel House how much more rapidly the small committee was able to dispose of vexatious questions, he readily agreed to it. Nor is there any valid evidence extant to show that his influence was seriously impaired by the change, although the sessions of the Council of Four took on a greater appearance of secrecy than had been desired by Colonel House.

The Council of Four acted as a board of review and direction rather than of dictators. When the reports of the expert commissions were unanimous they were generally accepted with little or no alteration. When a divided report was sent up, the Four were compelled to reach a compromise, since every delay threatened to give new opportunity to the forces of social disorder in Germany and southeastern Europe. The Council met ordinarily in the house used by President Wilson, on the Place des États-Unis. Some of the conferences were held in a small room downstairs without the presence of secretaries or advisers; frequently, however, the experts were called in to meet with the chiefs in the large front room upstairs, and would often monopolize the discussion, the Four playing the part of listeners merely. Formality was dispensed with. During a debate upon the southern boundary of Austria, President Wilson might have been seen on all fours, kneeling on the floor and tracing out the suggested frontier on a huge map, while other peace commissioners and experts surrounded him, also on their hands and knees. Hours of labor were long. There was, certainly, much discussion that hinged upon selfish nationalist interests, but also much that was inspired by a sincere desire to secure the solution that would permanently restore the tranquillity of Europe.

The presence of President Wilson did much to maintain the idealism that jostled national self-seeking in the final drafting of the treaties. Though he lacked the political brilliance of Lloyd George and had not the suppressed but irresistible vehemence that characterized Clemenceau, his very simplicity of argument availed much. He was not destined to carry through the full programme of idealism as set out in the Fourteen Points, at least not as interpreted by most liberals. He could not secure the peace of reconciliation which he had planned, but even with his popularity in France, Belgium, and Italy lost, and his prestige dimmed, he retained such a strong position in the Council of Four that he was able to block some of the more extreme propositions advanced by imperialist elements, and, more positively, to secure what he had most at heart, the League of Nations. Whether he yielded more than he gained is a question which demands more detailed consideration.