IN Paris we found an entirely different state of affairs from that at Cannes. I was drawn almost immediately into the maelstrom of the Peace Conference: it was a rude awakening. Instead of men who were freely utilizing their individual attainments for the general good, this was a battle of conflicting interests, petty rivalries and schemes for national aggrandizement. Each group of all the world’s ablest and craftiest statesmen and politicians was seeking advantages for its own political entity and resorting to every old, and many new, methods to gain its ends.

The representatives of the various countries had come expecting to find an international court of justice, where a set of supermen would rearrange the earth, settle all disputes, terminate all grievances, and make a new world-map along fair ethnological and national lines. Yet nobody knew how this was to be done. The little nations looked to the big, but the big were too much concerned with their own affairs, and with the division of the spoils, to be able suddenly to convert themselves into impartial judges. Loyalty to their own countries overshadowed their interest in the general good. There was just so much benefit to be divided, and in the struggle of everyone to secure a larger share for himself, many failed to get anything, and almost nothing was left for the common good.

Nearly all were scheming to weaken the arch-enemy, Germany, by despoiling her of territory and creating strong safeguards around her. The best comparison that comes to my mind is that of a legal contest over the terms of a will disposing of a large estate. All the possible heirs were here in Paris: the legitimate, the illegitimate, and such posthumous children as Czecho-Slovakia and Poland were crowding into court. Five trustees had, indeed, been appointed to effect a just division—the representatives of Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and the United States—but these, with the exception of America, were themselves claimants, and the pleas were so conflicting that no human genius, or group of them, could have rendered a decision to the satisfaction of all. President Wilson realized this, and partly because of it proposed a League of Nations as a permanent court to settle what could not be settled at the Peace Conference.

My observations were made from an advantageous position. The hopes and ambitions of the various powers were centred in President Wilson; their representatives were courting him and his friends, and as I had, at the request of the United States commissioners, joined William H. Buckler in studying the Turkish problem, my rooms at the hotel were soon transformed into a sort of office and general meeting-place for some of the most interesting figures at the Conference.

Kerenski was one of these. He was not apparently the consumptive figure pictured by the daily press; on the contrary, he was a burly man with a thick neck and a mighty voice. When he pleaded his case, he waxed so eloquent, and his tones reached such a pitch, that I had to close the windows for fear outsiders might think there was a fight in my rooms.

Although representing no established government and personifying the Russian rÉgime that had overthrown Czarism, only to be itself supplanted by the Bolsheviki, Kerenski felt that the services of the real Russian people to the Allied cause entitled his party to a hearing at the Peace Conference. Prophetically, he told me that the extremists did not represent the Russian people, and that they were forcing things too far ever to succeed. I remember almost his exact words:

“Russia is finished with the past, but is by no means ready to go to its antithesis. I myself represent the middle course, and the world will some day realize that my government was evolutionary, not revolutionary.”

Kerenski was especially hurt by the fact that “even the Americans” would not listen to him. With fiery phrases, he explained convincingly that there could be no general peace until Russian affairs were adjusted, and that 160,000,000 people who had so manfully contributed their full share against Prussianism could not justly, or even safely, be ignored.

“I am not the spokesman of them all,” he admitted; “but I do represent the political sentiment that must eventually prevail.”

Dr. Robert Lord was in charge of Russian affairs for the American delegation. I had him meet Kerenski the next day in my rooms, and from this meeting an invitation to the Crillon followed.

A more pathetic picture was that presented by the Chinese delegation. They gave a dinner to a number of Americans, including Thomas Lamont, Edward A. Filene, Senator Hollis, Charles R. Crane, Professor Taussig, and myself. The affair may have been hopefully conceived, but, on that very day, Ray Stannard Baker came to them with President Wilson’s message that he had to consent to the Japanese pretensions in Shantung.

We had gone for a banquet; we remained for a wake. The Chinese delegates frankly feared that their failure to secure a proper adjustment with Japan might so exasperate their people at home as to lead to personal harm to them. They felt that their treatment by the Conference would arouse their nation from its ancient lethargy and transform it into a military power that might eventually avenge its injured pride. One of them said to me:

“We have a much firmer moral foundation than Japan, and we have a population of 400,000,000 as against its 56,000,000. We possess as much latent power as the Japanese, and I dread to contemplate what may happen if it is ever aroused.”

To look into the eyes of those Chinamen as they talked to us and to observe their bearing under the trying circumstances of that evening was to learn a lesson in restraint. The gravity of their situation was freely admitted, and yet they were perfect hosts to us Americans whose leader had just disappointed them.

Even more pathetic than the Chinese discouragement was the hopeless case of the Persian delegates. Having come thousands of miles to present their plea for a new opportunity to achieve national regeneration, they were denied even a hearing by the peace commissioners. They pleaded for a release from the British-Russian yoke. They told us wonderful stories of their natural resources that could be developed promptly and with great profit if they could only be assured of security, or if they could feel secure from the interference by the larger nations, and assured of the coÖperation of, instead of exploitation by, foreign capital. They alluded to iron and coal, copper, lead, and manganese. The stories they told reminded one of the descriptions of Mexico and Peru before they were conquered by Cortez and Pizarro. Those cases involved all the risks of conquest in an unknown country, and the voyages thither were fraught with grave danger, while here was a nation whose resources were not in doubt, but could be examined at leisure, and by experts, and their existence proven; and the Persians who had been educated abroad and knew European conditions fairly implored us to bring within the reach of Persia the benefits of the progress made by these other countries during the last few hundred years, while Persia was allowed to remain untouched and unbenefited by those wonderful recent inventions that have enriched all the countries that utilized them. Ali Kuli Khan, with his charming American wife, whom I had known previously, told me that, at a large dinner which the Persians had given, one of our American Peace Commissioners publicly promised them that the United States delegation would help them to a hearing; relying on this promise, Ali Kuli Khan had transmitted the news to his home government, only to have his hopes speedily dashed to pieces.

Bratiano, the Roumanian premier, was anxious to secure American influence against a clause in the Roumanian treaty recognizing the rights of minority peoples resident in his country. He invited my wife and me to dine with him and two royal princesses of his native land, Elizabeth and Marie, who have since respectively become the wives of the Crown Prince of Greece and the King of Serbia. When I told him that the United States was absolutely pledged to securing the equal rights for minorities everywhere, and that I heartily favoured this, he showed his disappointment and said that Roumania would never consent to it. He declared:

“I would rather resign as premier than sign such a treaty.”

When the time came, he made good his word.

In contrast to this unyielding ultra-conservative’s point of view was the Duc de VendÔme’s, the Bourbon, and as such, of the royal blood of France. He was married to the sister of the King of Belgium. It is rather an amusing story to tell how I became acquainted with him. While we were at Cannes in the midst of the conferences, one day, Colonel Strong interrupted me at lunch to introduce me to a Miss Curtis from Boston, who invited some of us to lunch with her in order to meet some of the residents of Cannes. We accepted and met, among others, Lady Waterlow, an American, whose husband had been Lord Mayor of London. This acquaintance resulted in her inviting us to a tea at her home, and I there met the Duchess of VendÔme, and at that meeting she invited me to call on them in Paris, as her husband desired to make my acquaintance.

I saw the Vendomes several times, and at a reception which they gave the guests were all bewildered as to when they had the right to sit down. They could not sit if any of the royalties were standing, and as five were at the reception, it was quite a task to watch until all were seated. The Duke saw my embarrassment and took me into a private room, which no other royalty was apt to invade, and we sat there and he opened his heart to me. He seemed convinced of the justice of the new order of things, and thought that royalty would soon be a lost profession. He was extremely anxious to be permitted to share in the work of the League of Nations, and asked me to arrange for him an opportunity to meet Colonel House, whom he, like many others in Paris at that time, thought would be the chief of the representatives of the United States in the League of Nations. The dinner was arranged, and it was somewhat amusing, and my democratic spirit smiled at the spectacle of a duke and brother-in-law of one of the few remaining kings in Europe acting like an American politician and wire-pulling for an opportunity to render public service.

Still more striking was the freer manner of Vesnitz, the gatherings at whose house were thoroughly cosmopolitan. He had been Serbian Minister in Paris, and now represented there the new Jugo-Slavia, which he had helped to create. Whereas Bratiano had represented only the aristocracy, Vesnitz represented all the Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes. He wanted this new nation to be self-supporting, with its own seaport and sufficient hinterland. He, too, was married to an American, and thought and talked like one. He spoke perfect English, was a man of much learning, and his country suffered a great loss when he died.

Another outstanding Old-World democrat at the Peace Conference was Venizelos. The Greek Premier was anxious to impress us with the justice of his country’s claims, and through Mr. Politis, his Foreign Minister, and Dr. Metaxa, whom I had known in New York, we met soon after my return to Paris.

Born in the Isle of Crete, Venizelos had participated in the Revolution that freed his island from Turkey and made it a part of Greece. He started the Progressive movement in Greece, and became the leader of that group which prevented King Constantine from joining with Germany in the war. Later, despite the efforts of Queen Olga, the Kaiser’s sister, this forceful lawyer brought Greece into the war on the side of the Allies.

Because of his charm of manner, his assertiveness, and his persuasive powers, he accomplished wonders in Paris. The fact that he spoke English was a great help to him. It was a common saying that when Venizelos left Colonel House’s room, the map-makers were sent for to re-draw the map. He asked for more than he expected, and got it nearly all. He possessed the suavity and diplomatic skill of a Benjamin Franklin and the constructive statesmanship of an Alexander Hamilton. He had a firm grip of all the ramifications and complications of international affairs. Nations, no matter what their government may be, are still ungrateful. Greece eventually preferred Constantine to Venizelos!

When discussing with Henry White the Greek invasion of Smyrna, I told him that the Greeks were making a mistake and that they would be drawn into a tedious struggle with the Turks. They would have to draw heavily on their resources and on their people’s patience, which would be severely strained if, as I feared, the war lasted for years. White was deeply impressed.

“I want you to tell that to Venizelos,” he said.

He knew everybody, and his bringing people together was not the least of his services to our Commission. He invited the Greek Premier to his rooms in the Crillon, and there I repeated my opinion.

I told him in great detail the changes that had taken place in Turkey since the beginning of the war, and described to him the characters of the men that were now in power. I also explained to him the great importance they put on retaining possession of the Port of Smyrna, now that they had lost most of their other ports on the Mediterranean. I felt certain that they would draw the Grecian Army back into their hinterland, and away from their base of supplies, and then would continue to fight them by legitimate, or even guerrilla, methods, until they exhausted them. I reminded him how the Turks not only forbade their own people to employ Greeks, but even insisted that the American firms could not use Grecian workmen to collect the licorice root, or the Singer Manufacturing Company continue to have Greeks in charge of their Turkish agencies. I also alluded to the difficulties of governing Smyrna from Athens, as Constantinople would divide their country, and the cost of administration would be beyond the present and prospective resources of Greece, and, finally, I reminded him that they would antagonize Italy and said: “You know better than I do what that means for Greece.”

Venizelos listened patiently to my elaboration of this theme.

“Perhaps we have acted too hastily,” he said, “and if all you say is true, it may have been unwise for us to send an army into Smyrna, but now that the army is there, it would be more unwise to withdraw it—to do so would admit military, and court political, defeat. The Monarchists are plotting constantly against me in Athens, and they are backed by the merchants and shipping men who are over-ambitious and want new territory for their operations.”

Venizelos admitted that he favoured the annexation of Thrace and of Smyrna proper. His explanation satisfied me that it was pressure from Greek financiers that made him continue to enlarge his demands.

My meeting with the subsequent premier of France came later. Stephen Lausanne, editor of that powerful journal, Le Matin, asked me to lunch with Bunau-Varilla, the Matin’s owner, a power in French politics. I was surprised to find present quite a number of people, among whom were the Belgian financier, Count Aupin, and the heavily moustached, stoop-shouldered man that headed the French delegation to the Washington Disarmament Conference. We discussed the future attitude of the United States toward France, and, when the party was breaking up, Lausanne detained me.

“Don’t go,” he said: “Briand wants to talk with you.”

Aristide Briand, who had five times been Prime Minister of France, was then, as always, at the head of a strong political faction. Once the friend, he had now long been the rival of Clemenceau, could almost at any moment have overthrown the Clemenceau Cabinet, and was puzzling many people by his delay in executing such a manoeuvre. What he wanted of me was information concerning a matter that directly affected this situation.

France’s financial troubles were the stumbling block: The country’s tax-payers were already overburdened, yet a larger revenue must be raised. Briand and his friends felt that the man who, as Premier, attempted to set those troubles right, and who failed in the difficult endeavour, would not remain Premier for long. They considered leaving the ungrateful job to Clemenceau, unless they could put through the Chamber of Deputies their brilliant idea.

They wanted to pay off the French war debt by means of a lottery loan. There would be daily prizes. They contemplated one as high as a million francs. And they expected to sell a large proportion of the tickets in America!

What, they asked, did I think of the plan?

“Gentlemen,” I said, “you are evidently unaware that there is a law against lotteries in the United States.”

“But this lottery,” said Briand, “would be in France; we would merely sell tickets in America through the mails.”

“It was precisely by forbidding the use of the mails for such purposes,” I explained, “that we stopped lotteries. It is a criminal offence to sell lottery-tickets in the United States or to use our mails for that purpose.”

I shall never forget the expression of disappointment with which Briand and Count Aupin greeted this announcement. It meant that their scheme must be abandoned and that Briand must still longer postpone the overthrow of Clemenceau.

Much of what was passing behind the scenes at the Conference it would not be proper for me to tell. Part of that is the story of “The Passing of the Third-Floor Front,” when the meetings of the American Commissioners were transferred from Colonel House’s room on the third floor of the Crillon to Secretary Lansing’s rooms on the first floor. But there is an anecdote that I do venture to repeat because it throws a light on the character and careful methods of Lloyd George.

Even the British Premier was keen to gain favour with those close to President Wilson, and one night he invited to dine with him Admiral Cary T. Grayson, whom he knew to be not only Mr. Wilson’s physician, but one of his personal confidants as well. Now, Grayson was a Southerner of the Southerners; he was born in Virginia’s Culpepper County, and studied at William and Mary College. Consequently, he pricked up his ears when Lloyd George’s entire table conversation confined itself to that America which lies south of Mason-and-Dixon’s line. The Premier showed himself specially familiar with the career of Stonewall Jackson, for whom he professed a warm admiration. Finally, the dinner ended, Mr. Lloyd George’s niece went to the piano, and sang—American Southern melodies!

This was too much for Grayson.

“How is it,” he said, “that you all have such an intimate knowledge of my part of America?”

Perhaps this direct query took the Premier by surprise. Anyhow, he confessed:

“Well, you see I have just finished reading Henderson’s ‘Life of Stonewall Jackson.’”

Grayson’s response was in the good old American fashion:

“My dear sir, no matter what office you run for, you’ll have my vote!”

There was one interlude to my activities in Paris that should be mentioned if only for the sake of the stir it created back home. This was my speech at Coblenz, when I told the American soldiers there that another war impended.

It was in May of 1919 that we took a trip to the occupied territory and visited Coblenz, Cologne, and Wiesbaden. I remember that we were at first much impressed by the unbending dignity of the young captain who was our escort until, one day, we stopped at Treves for lunch. We had just seated ourselves when a woman’s voice called out:

“Why, hello Pinky!”

We all turned round, but the Captain jumped. He had red hair, and the woman who greeted him by the nickname that his hair had won him before he achieved his military dignity was Peggy Shaw, of New York, who soon showed us her soldiers’ theatre and rest-room in a barn where she served lemonade out of buckets to the Army of Occupation. Thenceforward, the Captain was “Pinky” to us all.

At Coblenz we were billeted at the house of Von Grotte, the German president of the Rhineland provinces, and when I woke that first morning I could not help thinking of the changes that had taken place in my life between my birth at Mannheim in 1856 and this day at Coblenz in 1919. Soon I was seated in the Coblenzer-Hof partaking of a good American breakfast of oatmeal, eggs, bacon, wheat-cakes and molasses, and no doubt a better meal than any German had that day, and looking at “Old Glory” afloat over Ehrenbreitstein. How full historically the interim had been! How strange to see the American flag above this fortress on the Rhine, while, below, a bronze statue of William I looked on in woeful contemplation of the wreckage to his Empire that his grandson had wrought.

Anxious to learn the true state of mind of the German people, I asked an American Military Intelligence officer to arrange for me to talk with some of the leading citizens of Coblenz. He did so at the home of the best known lawyer of the city, where, besides our host, were a prominent doctor, the largest local paper manufacturer, an export merchant, and several others.

It took a couple of bottles of Rhine wine to loosen their tongues. Finally, one said:

“Here we are in the afternoon of life, each of us a leader in his calling. We all had accumulated a competency when the war came but some 20 per cent. of this has been taken in taxes, and the remainder is to-day worth scarcely one fifth of its original value. [A mark was then worth about five cents.] We have scarcely one sixth of what we formerly possessed in actual wealth. Instead of yielding us a sufficient annual income on which to live, our principal now amounts to only three years’ normal income.”

They all said that their business prospects were at an end.

“But surely your profession goes right on,” I protested to the physician.

“I am as badly off as the others,” he answered, “three of these men are my best and oldest patients: how can I charge them any more than I did before the war? Moreover, many of my patients I can’t charge anything at all.”

As one of the company expressed it, they felt that France wanted to turn them into galley-slaves: “She has put us into the hold of a ship; the hatches are battened down, and on them are sitting a lot of politicians from Paris to make sure that we never get out.”

The manufacturers said that the young men of ability and energy would not submit to “such slavery.” They would seek other fields of activity, and eventually drift to a country like Russia, where skilled managers and intelligence were at a premium.

All the Coblenzers present maintained the belief that the war had been forced upon their country by the French and the Russians combining to crush them. I could not convince them that their own war-lords had brought about the catastrophe, and that the German people, including even their socialists, were responsible because their representatives in Parliament voted for the war-credits. They had been told that this was a war of self-defense, and they believed it. Now that the autocrats and junkers had been overthrown, they thought that the people should not be held responsible for the mistakes of the militarists. They felt that Germany should be permitted to enter the family of nations and given a chance to recover and pay her debts.

A few days later, I gave a talk to the American soldiers in the Liberty Hut at Coblenz, to which reference has been made.

“At present,” I said, “we are enjoying only a suspension of hostilities. Please don’t go home and tell the people that this war is over. We have got to prepare for a greater conflict, a greater sacrifice, a greater responsibility. The young men of America will again have to fight. The manifold and conflicting demands of all nations at the Peace Conference are impossible of fulfillment. Many delegates to the Conference will leave Paris with their demands unsatisfied. The nations are going to have further quarrels and disputes. I believe that within fifteen years America will be called upon really to save the world.”

“The battle between democracy and anarchy,” I argued, “will continue and will result in the bankruptcy of the participating nations. It is necessary for the United States to prepare, so that when a crisis comes, we shall be able to create a coÖperative spirit between our capital and labour, and thus be so united and so strong that we can save civilization from annihilation.”

Cabled home, these words attracted some attention, yet the views that they expressed were not based entirely upon my own observations. I had talked with General Bliss, the military member of our Peace Commission, and with other American officers of high rank: they held opinions similar to mine.

Bliss, on several occasions, told me that he thought we had just ended the first seven years of another Thirty Years’ War which had begun with the Balkan conflict of 1912.

Was he right? The answer rests hidden in the years immediately ahead of us.

Whatever that answer may be, I saw the signing of the Peace Treaty intended to end the latest war. General Pershing and I sat next to each other, and I discussed these very matters with him at Versailles on that momentous 28th of June. The affixing of the signatures was not an impressive spectacle. There was no enthusiasm, and but little excitement. People moved about and chatted in subdued voices. Mrs. Wilson, Mrs. Lansing, and Colonel House sat in the row next to me, and I talked to Clemenceau, Lloyd George, and Presidents PoincarÉ and Wilson. The only solemn moment was that when the Germans walked to the table; they betrayed mental suffering, and one of them showed the results of physical hardship: his clothes hung on him so loosely that it was apparent he must have lost quite forty pounds since they were made. After the signatures had been affixed, we all walked up to the Treaty and looked at it, like mourners taking farewell of a corpse—but we were mourners without tears.

That night the negotiations for the appointment of the memorable Harbord Commission to Armenia were concluded. In these I had played a considerable part; their termination marked the end of my semi-official activities before embarking on my Polish expedition.

Passing mention has been made of the arduous study of the Turkish question, which our Commissioners had asked me to undertake jointly with W. H. Buckler. This task brought me again into contact with Mr. Hoover, because of the relief work of his Commission in Armenia, and, besides renewing my pleasant relations with Sir Louis Mallet, who had been the British Ambassador to Constantinople while I was there, it involved, among a mass of other details, many interviews with the Armenian and French representatives and the spokesmen of the other interested parties. The French were determined to have Cilicia; the Armenians would not consider my advice that they should surrender it, and, by this concession, win French support for their other ambitions. Buckler, Professor Philip M. Brown, and I made a report[1] to President Wilson, recommending a triple mandate: one to cover Armenia, another Anatolia, and a third the Constantinople district, where the chief administrator would reside, with an administrator in each of the other territories; we expressed the opinion that there should be an Armenian parliament in Armenia and a Turkish parliament in Anatolia, with the probable Turkish capital at Konia. Thus we would banish the Turk from Europe and limit him to Anatolia, where, however, he would be permitted to govern himself. The triple mandate, we recommended, should be assumed by the United States.

Our report was submitted in the latter part of June. Nevertheless, the conflicting claims of the French and the Armenians and the woeful conditions of the districts involved, left something more to be done. I favoured the appointment of an American Army officer to go to Armenia as Commissioner for the Allied and Associated Nations, and to protect the Armenians. I had a high regard for the ability of Major-General Harbord, General Pershing’s Chief-of-Staff, and thought him exactly the man for such a post; but I was told that he was not in Paris, and nobody seemed to know just where he was or when he would return.

At the last moment, fate played into my hands. On Tuesday, June 24th, I went to a dinner given by Homer H. Johnson to Assistant Secretary of War Benjamin Crowell, and found General Harbord there. To my great satisfaction I was seated next to him. This gave us several hours to discuss the Armenian question, and I urged him to undertake the task. Next morning he sent me a remarkable letter, which showed his masterly grasp of the situation, but ended with the statement that he would not care to accept the Commissionership unless he could have a proper military staff to aid him.

On Thursday, I had an appointment with the President to discuss the Polish Mission. We disposed of this very quickly, as I shall tell later on. I then seized upon the remaining minutes allotted me to present to the President our proposal of a Commission to Armenia. The President was profoundly interested and told me that he had but little time left to do anything in the matter, as the Peace Treaty was to be signed on Saturday. And he added:

“As you probably know, I shall sail for home that evening, but if you can come to an agreement with Hoover and let me have what you two recommend by nine o’clock to-morrow morning, I will try to put it through.”

I went straight to Hoover’s office from my interview and we drafted a letter to the President containing the following joint recommendations to be brought by him to the attention of the Big Four before his departure:

Two days later, the President sailed for America. As he was taking the Brest train from Paris, he turned to Harbord, who had come to the station:

“We have passed that matter about you,” he said.

What matter he referred to, Harbord could not guess. There was no time to inquire of Mr. Wilson, and the General being wholly in the dark, did not think of inquiring of me. For some days, I was to remain in ignorance.

On June 30th, though it was dated “June 28th,” there arrived at the American Peace Commission’s headquarters a cable addressed to Mr. Wilson—now at sea—which, in the light of future events, bore signatures that appear rather startling in such a connection. How differently people act when seeking power than they do when in authority! The message called “immediate” relief for Armenia “a sacred duty” and urged upon Woodrow Wilson:

The first three signatures were those of Charles Evans Hughes, Elihu Root, and Henry Cabot Lodge! The next was John Sharp Williams. How strange it would be if Oscar Underwood had been asked and had signed in his place. We would then have had all four American delegates to the Disarmament Conference.

Mr. Hoover called on me with a copy of this message in his hands. He said that Lansing, House, and White wanted us to draft a reply to it.

In the composition of that reply, Hoover’s opinions as to details again diverged from mine. He continued in his antagonism to an American Regular Army officer on the active list, as an administrator of Caucasus relief-work and evinced firm opposition to America taking a mandate. He argued good-temperedly, but strongly, to win me to his point of view; I was not convinced, and we at last reached another compromise, settling on such statements as we could both subscribe to. The reply was dated July 2nd, and was in part:

At about this point, Hoover’s opposition to America assuming a mandate manifests itself in the message. We agreed that he should add a few lines, expressly and explicitly on his own responsibility. So the message, after the joint signature of “Hoover-Morgenthau,” continued:

When that portion of the message was suggested, I said to Mr. Hoover:

“The inclusion of Mesopotamia in the proposition would absolutely destroy all chances of America taking the mandate.”

“Well,” said Hoover, “I wouldn’t object if that was the effect of it.”

The “effect” has now long since passed into history.

Mandate or no mandate, the matter of a commission to Armenia suffered no retarding except in the detail of personnel. I was still in the dark about what President Wilson had done regarding it, but an odd chance soon enlightened me.

It was after one o’clock when I rushed from Hoover’s office to 23 Rue Minot to attend a luncheon given by the Hon. Arthur J. Balfour. At the table were Lord d’Abernon who, as Sir Edgar Vincent, had been manager of the Imperial Ottoman Bank at Constantinople, and now is British Ambassador in Berlin; Sir Maurice Hankey and his wife; and Mr. Balfour’s niece. We at once plunged into a discussion of Turkish affairs. Mr. Balfour said he favoured the United States taking a mandate over the Constantinople district and Armenia, but not over Anatolia. A general discussion of the economic difficulties followed, and I outlined the plan of a triple mandate that I had submitted to the President, and went so far as to hope that it might lead to a Balkan federation. Then, to our great surprise, Sir Maurice turned to Mr. Balfour:

“Why, Mr. Balfour,” he said, “don’t you know that the Hoover-Morgenthau plan for a resident commission in the Caucasus was acted upon by the Big Four on Saturday at Versailles just after the signing of the Peace Treaty? They passed it in principle and referred it to you to work out the details. It is on your desk now on top of that pile of papers with a red slip on it.”

We now beheld Balfour in one of his well-known attitudes, when he slightly raises his eyebrows, drops his right shoulder, and looks at you with a smile that almost talks. He then said to me: “You see how Lloyd George does things. This information that Hankey has given us is absolutely as new to me as it is to you.”

Sir Maurice offered to stay over and help Balfour arrange the details. The latter said that it would not be necessary, but asked me to request Mr. Lansing to do his part toward putting the affair into shape.

Harbord was still unwilling to go without the assistance of a military staff, for which he had originally stipulated. President Wilson had left word that in such an event, Hoover and I were to name a substitute. Hoover suggested Colonel William N. Haskell, who had represented the American Relief Commission in Roumania; and as Haskell was to also represent the Near East Relief, of which I was then vice-chairman, I assented to his selection in both capacities, and Haskell set out for Armenia shortly thereafter.

That appointment, I felt, would help to take care of the relief phase of the situation, but there was left the need of a report of a strictly army man on the military side of the Armenian matter before the question of America assuming the proposed mandate could be thoroughly answered. Harbord was, therefore, doubly welcome when, within a few days, he came to me with a suggestion:

“Don’t you think,” he asked, “it would be advisable that either Pershing or myself, or both, be sent to investigate and report on the conditions in the Trans-Caucasus, because the question of an American mandatory in Turkey promises almost immediately to become urgent, and we should know military conditions there before the Government acts in the matter.”

As this completely coincided with my views, I immediately consulted Hoover, and we jointly sent a wireless to President Wilson, which elicited a prompt approval of the idea, and the order that it be left to Pershing to decide who should make the trip.

The Harbord Mission and its very able report on Armenia resulted. Complete impartiality, and a total lack of prejudice, were shown by the manner in which he ended his report. He stated thirteen reasons for the United States adopting a mandate and thirteen reasons against it, and they were placed in parallel columns, so that everyone who read them could come to his own conclusions, and with General Harbord’s permission I am including them here.

The Harbord Commission constituted itself attorney for both sides to the controversy, and expected the people of America to act as the jury to determine this question.

My own opinion as to the duties of the United States toward Turkey is elaborately outlined in an article on “Mandates or War?” which I contributed to the New York Times on November 9, 1919, and which appears in the appendix of this volume, and I hope that those of my readers who are really interested in this problem will take the trouble to read it.