Europe Since 1918 E-Book

Herbert Adams Gibbons

• Herausgeber: Publisher s11838
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Europe Since 1918 written by Herbert Adams Gibbons who  was an American journalist .  This book was published in 1923. And now republish in ebook format. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy reading this book.

Leseprobe

Europe Since 1918

By

Herbert Adams Gibbons

Table of Contents

FOREWORD

EUROPE SINCE 1918

CHAPTER I. THE ARMISTICE OF NOVEMBER 11, 1918

CHAPTER II. THE PRELIMINARIES OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE

CHAPTER III. THE PEACE CONFERENCE AT PARIS

CHAPTER IV. THE MAIN FEATURES OF THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES

CHAPTER V. THE FAILURE OF THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES TO WIN POPULAR APPROVAL

CHAPTER VI. NEW LIGHT ON THE TRAGEDY OF PARIS

CHAPTER VII. THE TREATIES OF ST.-GERMAIN AND TRIANON

CHAPTER VIII. THE BALKAN SETTLEMENT AND ITS EFFECT UPON BULGARIA AND ALBANIA

CHAPTER IX. THE PROPOSED DEVOLUTION OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

CHAPTER X. THE INTERNAL EVOLUTION AND FOREIGN POLICY OF RUSSIA UNDER THE SOVIETS

CHAPTER XI. THE NEW BALTIC REPUBLICS

CHAPTER XII. THE RESURRECTION OF POLAND

CHAPTER XIII. THE CREATION OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA

CHAPTER XIV. THE EVOLUTION OF SERBIA INTO JUGOSLAVIA

CHAPTER XV. GREATER RUMANIA

CHAPTER XVI. THE TABLES TURNED ON HUNGARY

CHAPTER XVII. AUSTRIA WITHOUT HER PROVINCES

CHAPTER XVIII. FROM GIOLITTI TO MUSSOLINI IN ITALY

CHAPTER XIX. BELGIUM AFTER THE WORLD WAR

CHAPTER XX. GERMANY FROM 1918 TO 1923

CHAPTER XXI. THE EXPANSION AND DEBACLE OF GREECE

CHAPTER XXII. THE TURKISH NATIONALIST MOVEMENT

CHAPTER XXIII. THE ENTENTE POWERS AND THE QUESTION OF THE STRAITS

CHAPTER XXIV. THE EASTERN QUESTION BEFORE THE LAUSANNE CONFERENCE

CHAPTER XXV. THE DISARMAMENT QUESTION BEFORE THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE

CHAPTER XXVI. THE CONTINUATION CONFERENCES FROM 1920 TO 1923

CHAPTER XXVII. THE UNSHEATHED SWORD OF FRANCE

CHAPTER XXVIII. FRANCE AND BELGIUM IN THE RUHR

CHAPTER XXIX. INTERALLIED DEBTS

CHAPTER XXX. THE NEXT MOVES IN THE INTERNATIONAL GAME

FOOTNOTES

TOHENRY MORGENTHAU

Who does not share my lack of faith in the Versailles Covenant and whose judgments of men and events are less harsh and sweeping than mine, because he is older and wiser than the writer and because he has not allowed the dark clouds of these days to obscure his vision of the goal.

FOREWORD

The world of 1914, as we see it now, reminds us of Humpty Dumpty. Having climbed upon its wall with difficulty, to keep from being involved in every petty quarrel between nations and coalitions, the world had somehow managed to sit there for a hundred years. The status quo was revised here and there occasionally by violence. But the violence did not set back the hands of the clock, defy economic laws, or, with the exception of Alsace-Lorraine, make for international political instability. The developments of the nineteenth century were a logical growth, the result of the working out of economic laws, which means that thoughtful men and strong men led virile national groups successfully because they knew how to adapt their foreign policies to, and shape them by, changing political, economic, and social world conditions.

None was satisfied with Humpty Dumpty, but, for fear of the consequences, all bolstered him up and steadied him whenever he showed signs of toppling. When he did fall, the first dismay gave way to rejoicing. Now was our chance to make him over again into what we wanted him to be.

We forgot our nursery-rime. A new world order became our battle-cry. The Central Empires stood for the old order; the Entente Allies were determined to make a clean sweep of the international conditions that caused wars. Glibly repeated from mouth to mouth “A war to end war” was the phrase that appealed to our imagination. How? By emancipating subject races, by resurrecting submerged nations, by guaranteeing collectively the independence of weak states and the sanctity of treaties and international law.

We forgot our nursery-rime, I say. Some of us had no intention of actually letting Humpty Dumpty fall to pieces, and all of us thought we could put him together again according to our own plan and in a way that would suit us. But when we entered the fray idealistic principles and formulæ became weapons and not goals. Before November 11, 1918, we used our principles solely to break down the morale of our enemies; and since the defeat of Germany instead of making peace we have continued to juggle with our ideals as we did in war-time. So the world is still actually at war. The treaties forced upon the vanquished enemies have not been taken seriously. One of them has already come up for drastic revision and the others are not being fully enforced.

In justification of their unwillingness to apply in making peace the principles they had solemnly pledged themselves to use as the basis of the treaties, Entente statesmen had no grounds for claiming either (a) that the American President and his nation, late comers in the war, wrongly interpreted and formulated the Entente war aims, or (b) that the fulfilment of their promises was contingent upon American coöperation. Self-determination, the resurrection of subject nations, the rectification of frontiers to satisfy irredentist aspirations, may have been doctrines promulgated in a small measure as a gallery appeal to public opinion at home and abroad; but the main reason was to break down the internal military unity of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey. These doctrines were not inspired by President Wilson or other American ideologues, nor were they proclaimed with the idea that the United States would help to carry them out.

It was not intended that they should be carried out. But the new forces set loose were too strong to control. Peoples all over the world clamored for rights and privileges that it was the purpose to grant only to peoples that had been subject to the vanquished powers. To this cause of confusion, unrest, conspiracy, and open rebellion, were added the falling out of the victors over the spoils of war and the determination of France and some of the smaller nations to apply the law of retaliation to their now defenseless oppressors.

These are the three reasons why Europe since 1918 has not found peace. The League of Nations is impotent, with or without the United States as a member, to restore Europe to peace until the three Furies—Vanity, Greed, and Revenge—cease raging.

After the World War the movement in the United States to induce the American people to underwrite the Paris peace settlement did not succeed. The overwhelming rejection of their panacea for the ills of the world did not discourage the supporters of the Versailles Covenant. After four years they are returning to the campaign for American participation in the Versailles League. Since they cannot disguise the seriousness of conditions in Europe as the fourth year of the functioning of the League of Nations draws to a close, the earnest League propagandists, to get away from the remorseless logic of “By their fruits ye shall know them,” now assert that Europe’s troubles are our fault. We refused to ratify the treaty and enter the League of Nations; ergo, all these things have happened.

The writer, an observer and student of European affairs for fifteen years, has never had an ax to grind or theories and national causes to advance and champion. In the Near East during the years leading up to the World War, in Paris during the World War and the Peace Conference, and following the aftermath of the war since the treaties were signed, his sole ambition has been to record what he has observed. He is not pro-anything. He feels, as he did when he wrote “The New Map of Europe” in 1914, “The New Map of Africa” in 1916, and “The New Map of Asia” in 1919, that a host of people are seeking an unbiased presentation of contemporary events, so that sentimentality will not obscure common sense in forming their opinion on the important problem of America’s place in the world and America’s duty toward the world. We must know how things actually are in order that we may help effectively to make them what they ought to be.

Herbert Adams Gibbons.

Princeton, September, 1923.

EUROPE SINCE 1918

The great World War, which has just closed, was born of the feeling on the part of the Germans that they had not been given their share of the world’s loot. So far as it is possible to see, the struggle has taught us nothing, and we are to go on sowing dragons’ teeth.

Melville E. Stone.General Manager of The Associated Press,in “Collier’s Weekly,” March 26, 1921.

The war was not a deliberate crime. It was something that flowed out of the conditions of European life. The Treaty of Versailles was a voluntary destruction of civilization. French civilization depends upon European civilization, and there will be no civilization in Europe until the Treaty of Versailles is revised.

Anatole France.

Undoubtedly we shall from this time forward have a much more adequate conception of the essential unity of the whole story of mankind, and a keener realization of the fact that all its factors must be weighed and appraised if any of them are to be accurately estimated and understood. I feel strongly that such a broader view of history, if it can be planted in the community’s mind through the efforts of educators and writers, will contribute greatly to uphold the hands and strengthen the efforts of those who have to deal with the great problems of human destiny, particularly with those of preserving peace and outlawing war.

Warren G. Harding.

CHAPTER I. THE ARMISTICE OF NOVEMBER 11, 1918

October, 1918, brought a sweeping and unexpected change in the fortunes of Germany. In London and Paris it was not believed that the crash would come so soon. British and French political and journalistic circles were discussing the all-absorbing subject of Foch’s forward movement on the western front. During the war, already lasting over four years, there had been so little of military victories to record and comment upon that none seemed to be thinking of the inevitable day of Germany’s collapse. The armistices with Bulgaria, Turkey, and Austria-Hungary were regarded as military agreements, and the newspapers were silent about post-armistice events in southeastern Europe and the Ottoman Empire.

Public opinion, therefore, was unprepared for Germany’s direct and definite demand for an armistice based upon the acceptance by all belligerents of President Wilson’s peace program.

The speech of President Wilson at the opening of the Fourth Liberty Loan Campaign on September 27 was made the day after the collapse of Bulgaria. The superiority of numbers had already begun to tell against Germany on the western front. The President of the United States weighed fully every word uttered on that occasion. It was clear that the enemies of Germany had reached no understanding as to their attitude in case Germany should express the willingness to lay down her arms and confess that she was beaten. When, two days later, Bulgaria signed an armistice, and the Germans knew they could no longer hope for a drawn battle, it was excellent strategy to make the request for peace in the form of a direct appeal to President Wilson in which the Imperial German Government expressed its willingness to make peace “on the basis of President Wilson’s Fourteen Points and subsequent discourses, notably that of September 27.”

When the news of this appeal was published in Paris, a French statesman who had been at the head of the Government at one time during the war said to me: “France is as unprepared for peace as she was for war. In 1914 we had no definite understanding with any other nation than Russia. You remember how nervous we were about England’s attitude during those awful first three days. In 1918, with the military victory ours, we and our numerous allies have no terms of peace, agreed upon in common by us all, to impose upon our enemies. It looks as if we shall soon have power to dictate peace, but we are not ready to state to the enemy—and to our own people, for that matter—what terms we propose to dictate. Nor is there any overwhelming public sentiment to guide us. The speeches of your Wilson have had a splendid effect in demoralizing the Germans. For this reason, it would have been folly for any French or British statesman to differ publicly with Mr. Wilson. We must not give German statesmen and generals ammunition to use in fighting the demoralization that is so evident on their front as well as in their rear. On the other hand, because of this silence, we are in danger of being stampeded into agreeing to accept Mr. Wilson’s ideas of peace, which are altogether ridiculous.”

Unpreparedness for peace was not due to lack of foresight on the part of Entente statesmen. Up to the end, Germany was a redoubtable enemy who hoped for a military stalemate through lack of harmony among the members of the coalition. She knew that the nations banded against her had only one common interest, her defeat. The Entente Powers themselves realized that they were not going to think alike about terms of peace, as they were interested in the war in varying degrees and for different reasons. So they wisely stuck by the old adage, “First catch your hare!” In order to catch the hare, the enemies of Germany had been going the limit in abandonment of prejudices, sacrifice of pride, change of national habits, and repression of national instincts. Mutual forbearance was taxed to the uttermost in keeping up and coördinating the military effort. Loans were arranged without discussion as to interest charges and method of amortization. The coalition would not have stood the additional test of having to try to agree upon a common peace policy.

The demand for the armistice came too soon after the tide had turned. With the danger of weakening or disrupting military effort by frictions and misunderstanding scarcely behind them, the members of the Supreme Council at Versailles were suddenly confronted with the problem of making an armistice that contained definite obligations as to the general tenor of the peace settlement. The Allies had had no time to work out a common program to present to the conquered foes. The embarrassment at Versailles was great. Every one was willing to end the war immediately to save further bloodshed and expense. But none was willing to connect the question of an armistice with that of peace. And yet the inquiry in Germany’s demand for an armistice could not be ignored!

The Turkish and Bulgarian armistices had been imposed without involving the principles of the peace settlement. They were concluded without the participation of the United States. But in the Austro-Hungarian and German armistices we entered directly. Numerous questions arose which compromised the interests or admitted the pretensions of each of the Allies. How make an armistice with Austria-Hungary without taking into consideration Italia Irredenta and the conflicting aspirations of the nations we had promised to free from the Hapsburg yoke? How make an armistice with Germany without defining our attitude toward British naval and colonial ambitions and French contentions as to adequate guarantees and reparations?

These considerations put the American delegates at Versailles in an unenviable and delicate position. The general lines of American policy were already announced. When we entered the war, President Wilson drew a distinction between the German Government and the German people, a distinction heartily approved at the time by the major portion of the American press and by American public opinion. In official speeches and official notes, specific statements had been made, reiterated, and elaborated concerning the objects for which we were fighting and the principles we intended to follow in reëstablishing peace. It could not be argued that new conditions had arisen to change our attitude. The United States came into the war a long time after its issues were clearly defined. From the beginning we had recognized that Germany and Austria-Hungary were the aggressors. We were aware of their violations of international law, of their cruelties on land and sea, of the martyrdom imposed by them upon Belgium, Northern France, and Serbia. We knew all about the destruction wrought by their armies, airplanes, and submarines. We had been stirred with indignation by the Armenian massacres. We knew their ideas of peace, had they been victorious. For the treaties of Bucharest and Brest-Litovsk had been signed and published.

No argument or explanation that has been brought to bear to justify the treaties imposed upon our enemies at Paris is built upon facts that have come to light since the armistice. The responsibility of Germany and the heinousness of her crimes were known and felt by the members of the Supreme Council at Versailles, to whom President Wilson referred Germany’s request for an armistice. To the Supreme Council Mr. Wilson left the decision. Were the Entente Powers willing to grant Germany an armistice with the understanding that after she had rendered herself defenseless peace would be concluded “on the basis of the Fourteen Points and President Wilson’s subsequent discourses, notably that of September 27, 1918”? It was not the American Government that had suggested this understanding as to the nature of the peace. Nor did the American Government attempt to influence the decision of the Supreme Council. Marshal Foch and his advisers had it in their power to reject the German plea unconditionally and continue the war. Of all the armies in the field that of the United States was the least willing to quit. Or the Supreme Council could have declared openly its inability to agree upon an eventual peace treaty along Wilsonian lines. This need not have been done baldly. Diplomatic formulæ could have been found to make the rejection noncommittal, thus avoiding a frank declaration of disagreement with American ideals.

Colonel House and General Bliss, enjoying the confidence of President Wilson, were in a position to point out to their colleagues what they all knew, that during eighteen months the will and energy of a hundred million Americans had been concentrated upon bringing Germany to her knees, and that it was because of the American effort that Germany was suing for peace. The events of October, 1918, were not a miracle. They were not due to an unexpected turn in the fortunes of battle. For until the American armies in France had passed the million mark Germany was able to help her allies and at the same time to hold the position she had established in France and Belgium in 1914. Were not the defection of Bulgaria, Turkey, and Austria-Hungary and the retreat of the German army from France and Belgium the result primarily of the uninterrupted growth of the American Expeditionary Force? Was it not also true that President Wilson had simply taken Entente statesmen at their word, relying upon the sincerity of their own definition of their objects in the war, when he elaborated his Fourteen Points? What was more natural, then, than that the German demand for an armistice should come through Washington and be coupled with the condition that peace be made in conformity with the avowed common ideals of the victors?

But our delegates at Versailles showed admirable tact and diplomatic correctness. It was true that American intervention had turned the scales in favor of the Entente. But it was equally true that our associates had born the brunt of the battle for three years without our military aid, holding the Central Empires in check by sacrificing the best of their blood. Countries invaded and ravaged, civilian population maltreated, cities and factories and mines destroyed, debts beyond belief—all this had been suffered to make possible the common victory. The popular resentment against Germany was as great in the United States as in Europe. We were holding no brief for Germany. If the Supreme Council should be of the opinion that it would be best to continue the war and go to Berlin, the United States would not stand in the way. It was intimated that we were willing to do our part. No pressure of any kind, direct or indirect, was exercised by the American Government or its representatives at Versailles to induce the Entente Powers to grant Germany’s plea.

The accusations that have since been freely made to the effect that the United States provoked and encouraged the German demand for an armistice and insisted that the Wilsonian program be adopted as a basis of the Paris settlement in the pre-armistice negotiations are unsupported by any evidence. Volumes have been written to defend or explain the armistice with Germany. It is popularly regretted as premature and as due to a mistaken idealism inspired by Americans. The factors in the decision of the Supreme Council are not obscure. Italy did not want the war to go on any longer; her objectives had been gained by the antecedent armistice of November 3 with Austria-Hungary, and her statesmen were bent upon using all their troops to occupy “unredeemed Italy” and the Dalmatian islands and coast. Great Britain and France were more exhausted, materially and morally, than they cared to admit. If Germany accepted the naval and military clauses of the armistice they had in mind to propose, it would be foolish to continue to exhaust themselves.

Given the attitude of Italy, with which it was impossible to find fault, British and French statesmen and generals were virtually unanimous in believing that, if they could get what they wanted by the terms of the armistice, carrying the war into Germany would be a game not worth the candle. For they were not at all sure that a speedy military victory was possible. Another winter of fighting would involve tremendous sacrifices. Discontent in the rear had to be reckoned with. And, above all, it might happen that the final act in the great drama would find the American army holding the center of the stage. This would be disastrous to French and British prestige and would give President Wilson the upper hand in formulating the peace treaties. As one eminent Englishman put it when I was talking over the situation with him the first week of November: “There is that parable about the laborers in the vineyard. We know well enough that Berlin ought to be the end of the day. But if we work till nightfall, you, who came in at the eleventh hour, would get the same reward as the rest of us—perhaps all the pennies!”1

The pre-armistice agreement was carefully considered. There was nothing hasty about the action of the Supreme Council. The British and French knew just what they were doing. The British excluded Mr. Wilson’s point on the freedom of the seas. This we agreed to. The French and Belgians insisted upon a definition of the stipulation that “the invaded territories must be restored as well as evacuated and freed.”

On November 5, 1918, the Entente Powers sent to Washington the following message:

The Allied Governments have given careful consideration to the correspondence which has passed between the President of the United States and the German Government.

Subject to the qualifications which follow, they declare their willingness to make peace with the Government of Germany on the terms of peace laid down in the President’s Address to Congress of January 8, 1918, and the principles of settlement enunciated in his subsequent Addresses. They must point out, however, that Clause 2, relating to what is usually described as the freedom of the seas, is open to various interpretations, some of which they could not accept. They must, therefore, reserve to themselves complete freedom on this subject when they enter the Peace Conference.

Further, in the conditions of peace laid down in his Address to Congress of January 8, 1918, the President declared that the invaded territories must be restored as well as evacuated and freed, and the Allied Governments feel that no doubt ought to be allowed to exist as to what this provision implies. By it they understand that compensation will be made by Germany for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allies, and their property, by the aggression of Germany by land, by sea, and from the air.

This answer was immediately communicated to Germany by the United States. In an accompanying note, Mr. Lansing said:

I advised you that the President had transmitted his correspondence with the German authorities to the Governments with which the Government of the United States is associated as a belligerent, with the suggestion that, if those Governments were disposed to effect peace upon the terms and principles indicated, their military advisers and the military advisers of the United States be asked to submit to the Governments associated against Germany the necessary terms of such an armistice as would fully protect the interest of the peoples involved, and ensure to the associated Governments the unrestricted power to safeguard and enforce the details of the peace to which the German Government had agreed, provided they deemed such an armistice possible from the military point of view.

I am instructed by the President to say that he is in agreement with the interpretation set forth in the last paragraph of the memorandum above quoted.

I am further instructed by the President to request you [he was writing to the Swiss Minister at Washington through whom the negotiations were carried on] to notify the German Government that Marshal Foch has been authorized by the Government of the United States and the Allied Governments to receive properly accredited representatives of the German Government, and to communicate to them the terms of an armistice.

On November 6 an armistice commission was appointed by Germany, which received the Allied military conditions at the Allied General Headquarters on November 8. Seventy-two hours were given for acceptance or rejection. At 5 A. M. on November 11 the armistice that ended the World War was signed at Rethondes in the Forest of Compiègne.

The armistice provided for the cessation of hostilities at eleven o’clock on the day of signature; the evacuation of Belgium, northern France, Luxemburg, and Alsace-Lorraine in fifteen days; repatriation of civilian and military prisoners; abandonment of a large quantity of artillery and airplanes; evacuation of the left bank of the Rhine, with three bridge-heads on the right bank, within a month; evacuation of the countries occupied in eastern and southeastern Europe; annulment of the treaties of Bucharest and Brest-Litovsk; evacuation of German forces in East Africa; reparation of damages; restitution of money and securities taken from Belgium; surrender of Russian and Rumanian gold to the Allies; delivery of all submarines and most of the German Navy in Allied ports; release of Russian war-ships and all merchant-ships; and cancellation of restrictions placed upon neutral shipping and trade by the German Government and private German firms. Two additional stipulations of prime importance in bringing pressure to bear upon Germany were that the blockade of Germany be maintained throughout the Peace Conference and that there be no reciprocity in the liberation of prisoners of war.

The acceptance of the armistice terminated the hostilities and prevented the invasion of Germany. It left Germany defenseless. Under no circumstances would she be able to renew the war. For the sake of avoiding worse evils the German Government signed these humiliating conditions. On the other hand, the Germans felt that they gained the assurance of a peace such as President Wilson had outlined, in which, to use the President’s own words, “the impartial justice meted out must involve no discrimination between those to whom we wish to be just and those to whom we do not wish to be just: it must be a justice that plays no favorites and knows no standard but the equal rights of the several peoples concerned.”

What the Germans failed to grasp was the fact that the long and bitter struggle had drawn their enemies down to their level, and that their own faithlessness was going to be met by a desire for revenge on the part of those who had originally drawn the sword in the defense of the pledged word among nations.

CHAPTER II. THE PRELIMINARIES OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE

When the wild joy of the armistice celebration had spent itself, public opinion in the victorious countries reacted against the terms of the armistice, against the very fact that an armistice had been signed. It was recognized that there had been no clean-cut, unquestioned military victory, such as generally decides the fortunes of a war. The enemy’s front was unbroken: he was still on the soil of France and had not been driven out of Belgium. The armistice conditions provided for a gradual withdrawal from France, Belgium, and Alsace-Lorraine, and the gradual occupation by the victors of the Rhine provinces and bridge-heads. The German army retired with artillery and arms and other war material, and the method of advance of the victors deprived the armies of appearing dramatically as liberators and conquerors. And then there were too many victors! The details of the advance were as meticulously arranged among allies as between the allies and the enemy.

It was felt that Germany, after four years of being the top dog, had suddenly managed to “get out from under” before the storm broke that would give her army and her people a taste of the medicine they had been administering in big doses ever since 1914. Consequently there was a determination that crying “Kamerad!” was not going to enable Germany to avoid the disagreeable consequences of losing the war. There was far more hatred, bitterness, resentment, than there would have been had the Allied armies beaten the Germans in the field, chased them back to their own country, and secured an unconditional surrender on German soil. The very fact of so much hatred after the armistice indicated that the military superiority of the victors had not been sufficiently demonstrated. For hatred is born of fear and nourished by fear. After a fight to the finish, the sane man with normal instincts simply cannot hate. If he knows that he has knocked out his opponent, his natural instinct is to extend a hand good-naturedly to help the other fellow to his feet. No matter what the opponent may have done, he is considered to have paid the penalty by the punishment he received in the losing fight.

The trouble with the world in November, 1918, was that there had been no knock-out. More than that, Germany had been worsted by a coalition which was doomed to disruption after the fighting was over, unless all its members should be willing to continue to grant to one another equal opportunities and privileges and assume for one another equal burdens and responsibilities, just as they had done during the war.

When the clamor arose to make Germany pay, Entente statesmen rode with the tide of hysterical indignation instead of trying to stem it. They did not point out from the beginning, as they should have done, that Germany had not made an unconditional surrender, throwing herself upon the mercy of her conquerors. However ignoble the motive that prompted it, her submission had been contingent upon the definite promise that a certain kind of peace, very clearly defined, would be made with her. In return for the pre-armistice concessions, the Allies had transformed suddenly a potential into an actual victory without having to shed further blood for the liberation of France and Belgium or to wrest Alsace-Lorraine from Germany. When Germany threw up the sponge, allowed portions of her territory to be occupied, surrendered most of her naval and much of her military equipment, and agreed to release prisoners of war without reciprocity, she thought that she was letting the victors discount their future military triumph by waiving their right to a victors’ peace. Wilsonian ideas had spread all over Germany and had helped to break down the morale of the army.

The world was so weary of war that strong men in Allied countries, men with vision and a sense of honor, might have been able to carry public opinion with them in favor of a durable world peace. But there were no such men in Europe in positions of authority, and by going personally to the Peace Conference President Wilson sacrificed the prestige and influence which, exercised from afar, might have enabled him to become and remain master of the situation.

Two months elapsed between the armistice and the opening of peace negotiations. During that time the victorious powers worked out the details of the military occupation of German territory. The French took over Alsace-Lorraine as an integral part of France, restoring, so far as the Germans and the outside world were concerned, the status quo of 1870. The victors had agreed to allow France a free hand in reannexing her “lost provinces.” What problems France had to face were to be solved as a purely internal French affair, and so the French went ahead to change the régime without waiting for a treaty of peace. The details of the military occupation of German territory, with the three bridge-heads on the right bank of the Rhine, were worked out among British and French and Americans, who established their headquarters respectively at Cologne, Mainz, and Coblenz. The German Government had no part in arranging for the Allied occupation. It was a military affair, and all orders were given directly to the local authorities in each of the zones.

Allied prisoners of war were released. The Germans surrendered their fleet. Allied commissions, to watch over the fulfilment of the armistice terms, were sent to all the defeated countries. For general questions affecting Germany, an Armistice Commission was created, with headquarters at Spa in Belgium.

Allied statesmen began to study the question of securing the confidence of the electorates and parliaments of their respective countries, without which they would be unable to act as plenipotentiaries. This was an essential consideration; for the executive power in Europe, unlike that of the United States, has no fixed tenure of office and is always dependent upon a parliamentary vote of confidence. In the two months between the armistice and the conference, the statesmen of the European powers, large and small, had to secure a parliamentary mandate, approving their general policy at the approaching conference.

As soon as the military terms of the armistice were fulfilled, so that the defeated peoples were no longer in a position to renew the war, an uncompromising attitude was adopted toward the Germans and their allies. The pre-armistice agreement was ignored. The five enemy states were told that they would have no part in the Peace Conference. The victors were to decide upon the terms of the treaties, which would then be communicated to the vanquished. In the meantime the food blockade was to be maintained and enemy prisoners of war held. The only dealings between the governments of the victors and of the vanquished were in connection with the measures decided upon to carry out the conditions of the armistices. The peace negotiations were to take the form simply of adjusting and harmonizing the conflicting ideas and ambitions and programs of the victorious powers, and were to be no concern of the defeated nations. Our enemies were regarded as criminals, to be arraigned and sentenced by men acting simultaneously as judges, jurors, prosecutors, and jailers. Right to counsel and right of appeal were alike denied.

Austrians and Hungarians were in a different situation from that of Germans, Bulgarians, and Turks. The two countries of the Dual Monarchy, in which they had been the dominant peoples, were separated at the time of the armistice. Far-reaching decisions had already been made before the Peace Conference met. The treaties dealing with the future of the Hapsburg dominions would take into account faits accomplis: (1) the political separation of Austria and Hungary; (2) the annexation to Italy of regions defined in the secret Treaty of London of 1915; (3) the resurrection of Poland; (4) the creation of Czechoslovakia; (5) the aggrandizement of Serbia and Rumania. De facto recognition of independence was granted to Poland and Czechoslovakia, and also to the Hedjaz, detached from the Ottoman Empire. These three new states, whose belligerency had been recognized as a war measure before the end of hostilities, although boundaries were not defined, were invited to participate in the Peace Conference.

The organization of the conference was undertaken by the four Entente Powers, France, Great Britain, Japan, and Italy (who had signed the Pact of London, obligating themselves not to make a separate peace), in agreement with the United States. It was decided to make a distinction between the “powers with general interests” and the “powers with particular interests.” The former were the United States, the British Empire, France, Italy, and Japan; and the latter were Belgium, Brazil, the British Dominions and India, China, Cuba, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Hedjaz, Honduras, Liberia, Nicaragua, Panama, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Serbia, Siam, and Czechoslovakia. The great powers were to have five delegates; Belgium, Brazil, and Serbia, three; China, Greece, Hedjaz, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Siam, and Czechoslovakia, two; Cuba, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Liberia, Nicaragua, and Panama, one; while the British Dominions and India were allowed two delegates, with the exception of New Zealand, which was to have one. Four powers that had broken off diplomatic relations with Germany, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Uruguay, were granted one delegate each “in the sittings at which questions concerning them are discussed.” Provision was made for the possibility of admitting Montenegro, but the question of Russia was left to be determined by the conference.

The most important of the preliminary measures was the one which proposed to limit the decision upon the matters of settlement to a central commission, on which the “five powers with general interests” were alone represented. The various details were to be studied by commissions of fifteen, two members each for the great powers and five members representing all the other powers together, which were to report to the central commission. The Supreme War Council at Versailles, under Marshal Foch, was to continue to meet during the Peace Conference to deal with the enforcement of the armistices and with military problems concerning the enemy powers and the regions whose status the Peace Conference was to settle.

There was something to be said both for the exclusion of enemy powers from the Peace Conference and for the exclusion of the “powers with particular interests” from the central commission. The victors of the World War realized only too well that they would have great difficulty in reconciling their own ambitions and in agreeing upon any common program of peace, and they did not purpose to have Germany repeating the rôle of France in the Conference of Vienna a hundred years earlier. With delegates from thirty countries, some of which were parts of the British Empire and other states that had only a technical right to be represented, it was reasonable to expect that the organizers of the conference would adopt regulations to make it a feasible working body.

Signs were not lacking to indicate that it was going to be hard enough for the great powers to agree upon peace terms, even if they should be free from the influence of enemy intrigues pitting one against another and from being constantly hampered and blocked by the exaggerated and rival claims of the smaller states, especially those created or greatly enlarged by the war. And Paris, which had suffered so greatly for more than four years under the constant menace of German bombardments (and even of capture), was a poor place to hold a conference called together to establish a durable world peace. The atmosphere was surcharged with bitterness and prejudices. The burnt child continued to dread the fire after the fire had been extinguished. French internal politics centered in Paris, which was also the home of France’s economic interests and of the French army.

Before the conference met, no effort had been made to create a judicial attitude toward the great problems of peace. Posters on the walls as well as the newspapers kept the French keyed up to a degree of bitterness, tinged with apprehension, that made logical and constructive thinking impossible. This state of mind was natural, when one considers what the French had gone through and that complete victory over Germany came as a miracle to the hard-pressed French and their allies. But it was not conducive to the triumph of what Mr. Wilson called the American Government’s “interpretation of its own duty with regard to peace: First, the impartial justice meted out must involve no discrimination between those to whom we wish to be just and those to whom we do not wish to be just. It must be a justice that plays no favorites and knows no standards but the equal rights of the several peoples concerned.”

The demands of France against Germany and her allies had been outlined in the first year of the war as follows: (1) punishment of those responsible for the war; (2) reparation for losses during the war; (3) guaranties against future aggression on the part of Germany and her allies. In addition to these war aims, French statesmen consistently announced the determination of France to support similar demands by France’s allies and to sign no treaty of peace that did not emancipate the nationalities subject to the enemies of France. In the course of the war the French Government entered into agreements with several of the Allies, justifying these as measures that seemed necessary to bring the war to a successful conclusion. After the Russian revolution the French Government promised the people to safeguard French investments in Russia, which amounted to over four billions of dollars, almost all representing little investments of peasants and tradespeople. In preliminary discussions with President Wilson, Premier Clemenceau declared the willingness of France to adopt the American program in its entirety, including the society of nations; but he made it clear that this willingness should not be construed as the abandonment of the threefold program: “sanctions, réparations, garanties.” Nor could France go back upon her signature to treaties and her promise to her own people.

Believing that an idealistic program for peace, such as President Wilson outlined, must be subordinated to the two considerations of security and prosperity for their exhausted country, Premier Clemenceau and Foreign Secretary Pichon warned President Wilson, in speeches before the Chamber of Deputies in the last week of December, that they were going into the Peace Conference with definite obligations, first toward their own people, and then toward their allies—obligations that transcended the Wilsonian principles when conflict arose. France had no intention of subordinating her particular national interests to what Mr. Wilson called general world interests. Bound by definite pledges, she could not do so if she wanted to. Did not Mr. Wilson realize how greatly France had suffered? Neither then nor later has any French statesmen admitted that the idealism of President Wilson might have had as its justification the literal acceptance of their own declarations and promises during the war. Nor has any French statesmen admitted the validity of the pre-armistice agreement with Germany. From the moment the war ended down to the present time the French attitude has been that the victors were amply justified in whatever steps they took because, had Germany been victorious, she would have done the same.

Discarding entirely the Wilsonian principles as the basis for peace, Premier Clemenceau told the Chamber of Deputies that he was still a partisan of the “balance of power” to be maintained by alliances, and that if the nations banded against Germany had been allies in 1914 Germany would not have dared to attack France. He admitted frankly that he could not discuss with the Chamber the Government’s peace ideas because he had a maximum and a minimum program and was going into the conference to get for France all he could. This was an answer—a gauntlet of defiance thrown down, if you will—to Mr. Wilson’s Manchester speech four days earlier, when the American President declared that the “balance of power” was an exploded theory, that the United States would enter into no alliance which was not an alliance of all nations for common good, and that the creation of a new world required new methods of making peace.

M. Clemenceau did not have to appeal to the people. As the principal artisan of victory, who had deserved well of the republic, he was the national hero. Despite wide-spread dissatisfaction among the politicians over matters of internal administration, the people were so united in their demand for a punitive peace, which “the Tiger” embodied, that no party leader dared contest his position.

It was otherwise in England. Mr. Lloyd George had come into power during the war by deserting his old chief, Premier Asquith, and forming a coalition cabinet, dependent upon a combined Liberal and Conservative parliamentary majority. The coalition had been a war measure, born of the feeling that the Asquith Government had been making a mess of the conduct of the war, despite Mr. Asquith’s inclusion in his cabinet of Conservatives and Laborites. Immediately the war was over, it was necessary to go to the country for a new parliament. For a British delegation could not have represented Great Britain adequately in the Peace Conference with Parliament in so confused a state as to party lines. By common agreement Parliament was dissolved on November 25, and December 14 was fixed as polling-day. Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Bonar Law, and Mr. Barnes, representing the three parties, decided to stand together and ask the country to return Coalition members at the General Election. The Labor Party, however, did not agree with Mr. Barnes. They demanded a peace of justice, not a peace of revenge. A group of Liberals, headed by Mr. Asquith, decided to put candidates in the field, in opposition to the Coalition.

The British electorate was asked to choose between two programs for the Peace Conference: a victor’s peace, which was supported by the Conservatives and Coalition Liberals; and a Wilsonian peace, which was supported by the Independent Liberals and the Laborites.

It is not too much to say that the main lines of the future treaty with Germany were settled by the verdict of the British election. Mr. Lloyd George and his associates, against their own better judgment and convictions, appealed to the passions and prejudices of the masses to secure a parliamentary majority. Since both Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Bonar Law have repeatedly repudiated by acts, speeches, and written statements their own policies and arguments advanced in December, 1918, there could be no doubt of the fairness and accuracy of this assertion.

On December 10 Mr. Lloyd George summed up the Coalition program in the following points of treaty policy: (1) trial of the Kaiser; (2) punishment of those responsible for atrocities; (3) fullest indemnities from Germany. Speaking at Bristol the next day Mr. Lloyd George, on the eve of the election, declared that “we propose to demand the whole cost of the war from Germany,” that this was “an absolute right,” and that a financial committee appointed by the British Cabinet believed that all the costs of the war could be extracted from Germany. After his triumphant return to power Mr. Lloyd George explained that the sole guilt and responsibility of Germany for the war was to be the basis of the peace treaty, and not Mr. Wilson’s principles. Nearly a year after the Treaty of Versailles was signed (in May, 1920) he repeated that the Treaty of Versailles was built upon the assumption of Germany’s sole guilt and had no other jurisdiction. The practicability of trying the Kaiser and of extracting from Germany the total expenses of the war was not questioned by responsible British statesmen of the Coalition party until long after the Treaty of Versailles had been made.

Italy’s entrance into the war in 1915 had been prompted by considerations of national self-interest, safeguarded in the secret Treaty of London, and recognized in the zones of occupation, provided for in the armistice of November 3, 1918, that had been the death-warrant of the Hapsburg Empire. But Italy was not satisfied with all that had been offered her to abandon her neutrality. The propaganda for the possession of Fiume and for rendering Greater Serbia innocuous, economically and militarily, had already assumed formidable proportions before the Peace Conference met. Italy did not consider that the pre-armistice agreement with Germany affected in any way her claims, which were signally at variance with President Wilson’s ideas. She had been in the war two years longer than the United States, and the Treaty of London constituted a sacred international obligation. Had not the Allies gone to war to fight for the sanctity of treaties? Similarly, Rumania’s intervention had been bought by definite promises of territorial expansion, set down in a treaty. Japan had no secret understanding with the other Entente Powers until 1917. But when the Japanese Government realized that the United States was going to become a belligerent, its diplomats at the Entente capitals secured a written agreement giving Japan full rights to be considered Germany’s heir in China.

In regard to the German colonies and Italy’s claims in the Tyrol and the Adriatic coastlands, the four Entente Powers had a better argument even than secret treaties to anticipate the decisions of the Peace Conference. They were in possession! Great Britain, France, and Japan had conquered Germany’s colonies and had ensconced themselves in them.

Nor was the future of the Ottoman Empire going to be decided by the Peace Conference in accordance with Mr. Wilson’s ideas. Great Britain and France had arranged their claims under the Sykes-Picot agreement in 1916, and Entente spheres of influence had been definitely outlined in 1915 and 1916. Great Britain had conquered Mesopotamia and Palestine, and she had annexed Cyprus and proclaimed a protectorate over Egypt (both of which countries she had occupied for forty years) at the outbreak of the war in 1914. France took possession of Syria and Cilicia immediately after the armistice with Turkey. The Entente Powers were in joint occupation of Constantinople. The British had gone into the Caucasus and Persia. A desultory war was being carried on against Soviet Russia, in which the United States had become involved. There were all sorts of agreements and understandings and intrigues in eastern Europe to prevent the formulation of a common policy toward Russia, which, as President Wilson put it, was to be “the acid test of our sincerity.”

The new states, Czechoslovakia and Poland, the aggrandized states, Rumania, Serbia, and Greece, and countries that had not been belligerents but expected the conference to decide their future, such as Egypt, Armenia, Persia, the Caucasus republics, Ukrainia, Lithuania, Latvia, Esthonia, and Finland, were not bound, before the conference, by special agreements with any of the great powers. They furnished the most hopeful field for the application of the Wilsonian principles. President Wilson, with his personally selected delegates, experts, and secretaries, arrived in Paris more than a month before the conference met. Mr. Wilson received an enthusiastic reception, which was repeated in England and Italy during the holiday season. His aides and advisers were men of great ability, who had prepared themselves in the minutest details for their task. The President did not lack well informed and well balanced collaborators. They organized their offices in such a way that the peace delegation had available not only the data compiled in America but also accurate information concerning conditions, as they developed during the conference, in Europe and the Near East.

But the principal asset of success was lacking. The United States had failed to make her coöperation in the war contingent upon the acceptance by her associates of certain facts and well defined principles. None of them was pledged to us. All of them were pledged to one another in ways that were going to make futile the work that President Wilson purposed to accomplish. The Peace Conference was not going to bring to us “the moral leadership of the world.” None cared for our leadership at the beginning; and during the conference, instead of President Wilson’s imposing his ideals upon the other statesmen, they imposed theirs upon him.

CHAPTER III. THE PEACE CONFERENCE AT PARIS

Books about the famous conference of 1919 have multiplied so rapidly that a man must have much space to shelve them all, and he can hope to do little else if he has decided to read them thoroughly, with what the critics have to say about them. For most of the cooks in the Paris broth, after spoiling it, were unable to control the impulse to tell the world why it was not their particular fault. Coming back to America after the conference, I began to collect material about it, documents, books, reports of speeches and debates, magazine articles, newspaper cuttings of reviews of books and of letters about books and about the criticisms of them. The material mounted alarmingly. And yet I kept on reading. The general impression that comes from trying to get every angle of criticism concerning the conference is not at all confused. On the contrary, it is clear. The Paris Peace Conference, in retrospect, has few defenders of its methods or its work. It is on record, convicted by those who participated in it, as one of the most tragic and monumental failures of history.

M. André Tardieu is the only writer of authority who believes that the conference was conducted along proper lines and achieved results inherently right and of a permanent nature. Against this virtually solitary voice, the British premier, who signed the Treaty of Versailles, and the Italian premier, who ordered his representatives to sign it, have clamored to be heard on the other side, repudiating, denouncing, ridiculing their own work. Other outstanding signatories, notably Secretary Lansing, of the United States; Mr. Barnes, of Great Britain; Minister of Justice Doherty, of Canada; General Smuts of South Africa; Minister of Justice Vandervelde, of Belgium; and Premier Bratiano of Rumania, have criticized the Paris settlement severely. General Smuts protested against the treaty at the time he signed it, and said later in the South African Parliament: “Frankly I did not think that the treaty, even in its modified form, conformed to our pre-armistice pledges.” Speaking for Mr. Wilson, Mr. Ray Stannard Baker summed up the failure of Paris in the statement that there was “no willingness to sacrifice anything, therefore no possibility of securing real and just settlements based on coöperation. And this did not apply only to France and Great Britain; it applied also to America.”

Most of the books written on the Peace Conference by those who had a part in it offer, for the difficulties in the way of settlement, explanations so elaborate and painstaking—and withal so true—that one feels the force of the old French proverb: “Qui s’excuse s’accuse.”

But the world to-day, five years after the war, suffering from the consequences of the failure to establish peace at Paris in 1919, is not greatly interested in the host of reasons given for the failure. Nor does the world care enough about the title to fame of any of the actors in the great tragedy to seek to build up a case for or against the European statesmen and their American colleague. What we want to know is just what happened at Paris, without appraising the individual measure of blame. The facts give us all we want just now to help us in solving our present problem. We need only an objective account of the work of the conference, without going into details, without criticizing, without attempting to explain.

The proceedings began informally when the Italians arrived in Paris on January 9 and held a preliminary conference with the French and the Americans. The British arrived on the eleventh, and on January 12 a preliminary session was held at the Quai d’Orsay, in which France proposed that only the representatives of the five great powers should attend all the meetings of the conference, and that the minor states should be represented only when questions immediately affecting them were to be discussed. Among the minor states consideration should be given in allotting representation to the amount of force exerted in the defeat of Germany. After some discussion the basis of representation outlined in the previous chapter was decided upon.

The first plenary session of the conference took place on Saturday, January 18, the day having been especially chosen by the French Government. It was the anniversary of the formal proclamation of the German Empire at Versailles in 1870. President Poincaré declared the conference opened, and M. Clemenceau was elected president on the motion of Mr. Wilson, seconded by Mr. Lloyd George. M. Clemenceau said: “The program of this conference has been laid down by President Wilson. There is no question of territorial or continental peace. The peace we have to make is a peace of peoples. No mere words are required. That program stands upon its own feet. Let us work quickly and well.” With these words the session was closed, the question of the League of Nations having been placed on the agenda for the second sitting.

On January 22, at a meeting of the Supreme War Council, President Wilson proposed that an invitation be sent to all warring factions in Russia to meet at Prinkipo, in the Sea of Marmora, to talk peace and to come into touch with the Paris Conference. The invitation was actually issued, and some of the powers named delegates to meet the Russians at Prinkipo. The factions opposed to the Bolshevists refused to agree to a truce, however, and in this they were heartily supported by the French press. It was the first open criticism of President Wilson.

The American President still dominated the conference at the second plenary session on January 25, when he moved the resolution that would establish a commission to draw up a charter for “a League of Nations created to promote international coöperation.” The second clause in the resolution read: “This League should be treated as an integral part of the general treaty of peace, and should be opened to every civilized nation which can be relied on to promote its objects.” Both parts of this clause proved to be the undoing of the league. At the very beginning it was seen that Mr. Wilson was being manœuvered into a position where he would agree to have the league made an instrument for the enforcement of the treaty. From this group of states Germany and Russia could be indefinitely excluded on the ground that they were not to be “relied on to promote its objects.”

At the second plenary session, on the heels of the passage of the resolution establishing a League of Nations, came an outburst from the minor states that influenced radically the entire work of the conference. M. Hymans of Belgium protested that the organization of the conference put the real power—all the power—in the hands of the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan. He demanded representation for Belgium on all the commissions. The delegates of Brazil, Canada, Jugoslavia, Greece, Portugal, Czechoslovakia, and Poland followed with similar protests and demands. Was the world going to be ruled by five powers, which, because of their size, assumed the right to dictate to all the other nations? Had not the war been fought to refute the Prussian belief that might went before right?