1Since writing this chapter, my attention has been called to a remarkably clear and frank article contributed by General Tasker H. Bliss, American military member of the Supreme Council, in the September, 1922, “Journal of International Law.” General Bliss quotes copiously from his own notes and correspondence to show that the Allied Premiers had begun to discuss the armistice on October 8, and that the French, British, and Italian military advisers were subject to higher political authority in fixing the terms of the armistice. General Bliss protested on purely military grounds. He believed that whether the Germans consented or not, no armistice should be proposed that did not render the enemy immediately impotent. The Entente Powers, according to General Bliss, allowed the military and naval terms of peace, which could have been communicated to the Germans within a few weeks after the armistice, to be withheld until the final treaty was ready seven months later. The unmilitary character of the armistice and peace negotiations was due to the fact that the Entente Powers were “out for loot,” as the General puts it, and were constantly suspicious of one another. From the beginning there were programs—but no common program!

2In his last great speech, on September 27, 1918, speaking of the work of the conference ahead, Mr. Wilson had said: “There must be a full acceptance of the principle that the interest of the weakest is as sacred as the interest of the strongest. That is what we mean when we speak of a permanent peace.”

3Many observers, like myself, marveled at the change that came over Mr. Wilson between January and May. His vindictiveness, as brought out in the discussions over Polish frontiers, puzzled the British as well as the Americans. He had traveled far from the spirit of his message to Congress of December 4, 1917, in which he had said: “No nation or people shall be robbed or punished because the irresponsible rulers of a single country have themselves done deep and abominable wrong.... The wrongs ... committed in this war ... cannot and must not be righted by the commission of similar wrongs against Germany and her allies.”

4Shortly before the election of 1920, Mr. Wilson, in a public statement, denied having made any such statement. The words had been attributed to Mr. Wilson by Senator Spencer of Missouri, who was running for reËlection on the Republican ticket. The denial was given at St. Louis, thus showing that it was meant to influence the campaign. Because Senator Spencer had quoted from one of my articles in “The Century Magazine,” I was called upon to substantiate the citation. This I was able to do from the minutes of the eighth plenary session, a complete copy of which is in my possession. A curious refutation was attempted in the form of a newspaper despatch from Chicago purporting to give the exact transcription of the notes of Mr. Wilson’s confidential stenographer. But the official minutes did not misquote Mr. Wilson. They had been established very carefully, and had not been filed in French in M. Dutasta’s office at the secretariat of the conference until they had been submitted to the American delegation and approved by it. The words quoted here are what Mr. Wilson wanted to have put on official record as expressing his sentiment at the time. The whole context of Mr. Wilson’s speech, moreover, bears witness to the accuracy of the sentiment expressed in this extract.

5The comparatively trifling value of the Saar coal, when one thinks of the violence done to the sentiments of over half a million people, was first brought to my attention by a group of Alsatians, all of them thoroughly loyal to France, but who were opposed to the Saar clauses of the treaty. They told me in December, 1918, that the propaganda for separating the Saar from Germany was ill advised, both from the political and economic points of view. Politically, they were afraid of the reunited provinces being swamped with more Germans, who could easily cross the frontier from the Saar valley. Economically, they declared that the coal was of little value and that the clamor for the Saar mines was simply a prelude to the annexation of the Rhine provinces by France, to which all Alsatians were opposed. What they told me is borne out by an article in “The New York Times,” March 25, 1923, in which a consulting engineer, Mr. Walter Graham, says: “The Saar coal basin is almost useless; for the coal makes a very inferior coke and the mines are deep and gaseous, the veins thin, and the coal impure.”

6One hundred years of trial have made Americans feel that the Monroe Doctrine is not to be unthinkably and lightly surrendered. The Senators who questioned the Covenant of the League of Nations were on unassailable ground when they insisted upon a reservation to make clear Article XXI. How poorly this article was drafted is shown by a comparison of the English and French texts, which have quite a different meaning. One cannot be called a translation of the other. The French text reads: “Les engagements internationaux, tels que les traitÉs d’arbitrage, et les ententes rÉgionales, comme le doctrine de MonrÖe, qui assurent le maintien de la paix, ne sont considÉrÉs comme incompatibles avec aucune des dispositions du prÉsente pacte.” The English text says: “Nothing in this Covenant shall be deemed to effect the validity of international engagements, such as treaties of arbitration or regional understandings like the Monroe Doctrine, for securing the maintenance of peace.” Which text is right? The defenders of the League are necessarily silent on this point. Of one thing we are sure, that from the American viewpoint, the Monroe Doctrine is neither an “entente rÉgionale” or a “regional understanding.” It is simply a unilateral declaration of purpose, valid only because of our determination and ability to enforce it.

7The assertion, so often made, that the United States was offered a share in the exploitation of the Ottoman Empire, and that the opportunity to aid effectively in the solution of the Near Eastern problem was rejected by our refusal to accept President Wilson’s mandate scheme, is without foundation. No such offer was ever made by the Entente Powers. It was not their intention to grant us any mandate like their own in Asiatic Turkey. Within narrow limits that excluded the plains, the mines, the timber, and the oil-fields, the British, French, and Italian premiers would have been glad to see created an Armenian state, financed and protected by the Americans, to which they might deport the Armenians remaining in Asia Minor, Syria, and Mesopotamia, and which would serve as a buffer between their sphere of influence and Soviet Russia. This purpose is revealed in a memorandum of General Franchet d’EspÉrey to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in which he summed up the resources of the regions inhabited by the Armenians. Citing the figures of agricultural and mining engineers, military observers, and railway experts, the general advocated the retention by France of Cilicia and the upper valley of the Euphrates, on the ground that this part of Armenia was a rich country that could be profitably exploited and easily defended, while it was geographically accessible from the Gulf of Alexandretta on the Mediterranean. The bare mountains of Armenia he declared to be without economic value and costly from the points of view of defense or the establishment of communications. He recommended that these regions should therefore be given to the United States!

8This statement is sure to be challenged by those who believe that Communism would have its fairest test in a small thickly populated industrial country like Belgium or larger industrial nations such as Germany and England. But we must remember that Communism does not appeal as strongly to Occidental peoples as to Slavs and peoples of Central Asiatic origin. In an Occidental industrial country the Bolshevist theory would have taken the form of State Socialism demanding to be immediately applied, and the suddenness and insistence of the challenge would have led to crushing failure within a few months, followed by a counter-revolution.

9The most bitter of Russian reactionaries were jealous of the unity of Russia. General Yudenitch, for instance, could never be induced to recognize the independence of Esthonia, even though he needed its military aid when he was using Esthonian territory as a base for operations against Petrograd. General Denikin sacrificed a chance to overthrow the Moscow Soviet in order to fight separatism in the Caucasus and the Ukraine. Admiral Kolchak could not be persuaded to use the bait of Siberian independence to help along his cause. In 1919 the Entente Powers and the United States felt they could not risk dampening the ardor of the Russian reactionaries by revealing their eventual policy. This is the explanation for the delay in answering Rumania’s pleas concerning Bessarabia.

10De facto recognition was eventually given to the Baltic republics, and their unofficial missions at Washington were changed to legations. But only Finland is as yet regarded by our State Department as on a footing with sovereign states.

11In fairness to the Polish Government it must be stated that the Diet, in anticipation of the Ambassadors’ action, passed a law in September, 1922, granting autonomy to Eastern Galicia. According to Count Skrzynski, the Polish Foreign Minister, interviewed in London on April 13, 1923, by a correspondent of the “Christian Science Monitor,” there are to be three local parliaments in Eastern Galicia, with two chambers, one of which must be composed of members of the Ukrainian community. Permanent officials will be appointed by the governor in a way corresponding “with the actual requirements of the two nationalities.” Governmental and judicial affairs are to be conducted in the Polish language, but the county parliaments may determine their own official language. These measures seem to me (I am familiar with local conditions) calculated to prevent the Ukrainians from voicing their national aspirations, and for this reason to be the granting of autonomy in name only. The law contains two good provisions, however, the promise of the establishment and maintenance of a Ukrainian university out of state funds, and the prohibition of colonization in Eastern Galicia.

12“Perhaps the severest blow to the prospects of peace in Europe and its economic recovery,” is how a number of British economists characterized the Upper Silesian decision in an open letter to the press. They pointed out that the loss of KÖnigshÜtte, Kattowitz, Rybnik, and Pless made inevitable the day of German default in reparation payments.

13The assassin was disclaimed by his party, the National Democrats, as an irresponsible neurotic, and was executed on January 31. But ever since his death the Nationalists have regarded him as a martyr. Contributions to “place a wreath on the grave of Niewiadomski” were solicited in the press; and all over Poland mass was said, in the presence of distinguished congregations, “for the pure soul of Eligius Niewiadomski, who by the sacrifice of his own life has awakened the spirit of the nation.” According to the Warsaw correspondent of “The Manchester Guardian” (April 6, 1923), in many places shops were forced to close when these services were held; and the movement gained such volume in the churches that the Roman Catholic episcopate of Poland saw itself forced to intervene and declare that “although it is laudable to pray for the souls of the dead, the Holy Mass should not be made to serve purposes of political propaganda and demonstration.”

14The United States, however, owing to the skilful diplomacy of Dr. Slavko Grouitch, aided powerfully by his American wife, had recognized the union of the Jugoslavic portions of the defunct Hapsburg Empire with Serbia in January, 1919, and received Dr. Grouitch at Washington as “minister of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.” Throughout the Peace Conference Jugoslavia had American support, and President Wilson did not hesitate to risk wrecking the Conference to protect the Jugoslavs against the territorial greed of Italy.

15My Rumanian friends have sent me lengthy criticisms of the new constitution. Their objections seem to me not well taken; for their complaints are rather against the methods used in framing and securing the adoption of the constitution rather than on the contents of the document. The truth of the matter is that in Rumania as in Jugoslavia the new provinces are unwilling to lose their identity by being incorporated, without safeguards of local autonomy, in Greater Rumania and Greater Serbia. This same tendency I found last year among the Greeks of Asia Minor and Constantinople, and the Athens Government would have had troubles similar to those that are confronting the Belgrade and Bucharest Governments, had their military efforts against Turks ended in the liberation of Ottoman Greeks.

16The most striking example of Mussolini’s unhesitating determination to use the iron fist rather than tolerate lack of discipline in the ranks of Fascismo occurred on May 23, 1923, when he ordered the expulsion from the Fascist party of Captain Padovani, Commander of the Neapolitan district. Padovani was not only a dear friend of Mussolini, but also the acknowledged leader of the movement in southern Italy. In the expulsion decree the names of a dozen other leading followers of Mussolini in Naples appeared along with that of Padovani.

17Mussolini felt very sure of the loyalty of the younger members of the Catholic Party. Father Don Sturzo, leader of the Catholics, found that he could not count upon the willingness of the bulk of his followers to put Catholic interests above Fascist principles. Fascismo has so strong a hold upon even the most devout, who are in sympathy with the objects for which Don Sturzo has been fighting in a country that is still politically anti-Clerical, that there is a movement on foot to form a Fascist Catholic Party, which will give whole-hearted support to Mussolini.

18The members of the Raed van Vlaenderen, who were charged with making the independence of Flanders the real object of their demand for equality of language and higher education, and certain Activists, convicted of assisting the enemy by their work for this movement during the war, were sentenced to death for high treason. But they had already escaped to Holland, where they were well received by both the Government and the public. Dutch newspapers declared that these men had in what they considered a patriotic duty to their own country not aided Germany, wittingly or unwittingly, but were engaged of composite race.

19French policy is endeavoring to find a means of preventing Germany from developing her aËrial activities, even after the five-year period provided for in the Treaty of Versailles has expired. An aviation convention, between France and Czechoslovakia, signed at the beginning of April, 1923, stipulates that the two nations bar Germans from landing in, or flying across, their respective countries. Germany retaliated by refusing permission of French and Czechoslovak airmen to land in and fly across her territory. That she was in earnest in affirming her right to reciprocity was indicated on May 19, when a French aviator, having to come down on German territory, was promptly thrown in jail and his airplane confiscated. When the French protested the Germans replied that they were doing as they were being done by. The only way such theses can be maintained is by the virtual continuance of European nations at war with one another.

20According to the “Annual Register” for 1921 (London), p. 180, Poland obtained almost exactly half of the two million inhabitants, although she had less than 40 per cent of the votes, and her share of the industrial region was far out of proportion to her voting strength. Poland got 49½ out of 61 coal-mines; all the iron-mines; 22 out of 37 furnaces; 400,000 out of 570,000 tons of pig-iron per annum; 12 out of 16 zinc- and lead-mines; and the three important cities of KÖnigshÜtte, Kattowitz, and Tarnowitz, which had voted by large majorities to Germany.

21So far as productive capacity is concerned German shipyards have more than returned to their pre-war position. The new Deutschland, just completed, was the largest vessel launched in the world in 1922. In 1922 Germany was an easy second to Great Britain in building, her shipyards turned out 187 vessels of 526,000 tons. Not excepting Great Britain, every country except Germany turned out a smaller tonnage in 1922 than in 1921. In 1928, if the record of 1922 is kept up, Germany will have completely recovered from the effects of the war on her shipping. Similar reports from credible sources have come to me concerning airplane building. Germany is again leading the world in production of light motors, and has invented a new Diesel engine. The activity of Germany in Russia is emphasized by the concessions agreement signed at Moscow on May 18, 1923, by which the German Eastern Relations Society received 2,000,000,000 acres of forest land and the exploitation of the Moscow-Rybinsk Railway. German firms lead the field in export and import privileges in Russia.

22These figures, and more, are given in the London “Saturday Review” (March 3, 1923) to show that German industrialists have been taxed so heavily since the war that they “have gone to the limit in payment of what private enterprise can bear without breaking down altogether.”

23Italy welcomed the evidences of internal weakness and suicidal political strife indicated by the return of Constantine. The vote against Venizelos in November and the plebiscite in favor of the King in December helped the Italian Government to find the excuse that had been sought ever since San Remo to refuse to ratify the Treaty of SÈvres and to recognize the agreements made between Venizelos and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For fear that the Greeks might recover their senses, Italy promptly recognized Constantine.

24In the interior of Asia Minor in the spring of 1922 I found many influential Turks who were bitterly opposed to the Nationalist movement, and the opposition was still more marked in Constantinople. The summary action of the Angora Assembly against the Sultan was used by intelligent anti-Kemalists to excite the peasants, with the result that a Central Revolutionary Committee was formed in January, 1923, to overthrow Kemalism. With the coming of summer bands formed in many parts of Asia Minor and the guerilla warfare became formidable.

25The treaties recommended by the Washington Conference were:

(1) A five-power treaty involving the scrapping of sixty-eight capital ships, the restriction of the tonnage of navies and of fortification in the Far East, and a ten-year naval holiday.

(2) A five-power treaty outlawing the use of submarines as an agency of attack on merchant ships and prohibiting the use of poison-gas.

(3) A nine-power treaty stabilizing the conditions in the Far East and reiterating the open-door principle in regard to China.

(4) A nine-power treaty making a beginning of the division of Chinese customs, abolishing foreign post-offices, and releasing the Chinese Government from the obligation to keep funds lying idle in foreign banks.

(5) A four-power treaty binding the principal Pacific powers to respect one another’s territory in the Pacific and to confer when the peace of the Pacific is threatened. (This treaty abrogated the existing Anglo-Japanese treaty.)

(6) An agreement between Japan and China for the restoration of the German lease in Shantung, coupled with declaration of the willingness of Great Britain to renounce the lease of Wei-hai-wei and of France to renounce the lease of Kwang-chau-Wan.

26For a fuller discussion of Russia’s rÔle at Genoa and the reasons actuating the attitude of the Entente Powers, see Chapter X, “The Internal Evolution and Foreign Policy of Russia under the Soviets.”

27“Everywhere there are ruins, but as for men, they are not in ruins, and, in the same fashion as the French have astonished the world in war, they will astonish it again in peace.”

28Just how far French and German nationals have parted with their American investments is an open question; and many well informed Americans dissent vigorously from the conventional statement of New York banking circles, which, for lack of specific data to the contrary, I have been inclined to accept at its face-value.