The Peace Negotiations: A Personal Narrative

by Robert Lansing

CHAPTER III

GENERAL PLAN FOR A LEAGUE OF NATIONS

It appears, from a general review of the situation prior and subsequent to the assembling of the delegates to the Peace Conference, that President Wilson's decision to go to Paris and to engage in person in the negotiations was strongly influenced by his belief that it was the only sure way of providing in the treaty of peace for the organization of a League of Nations. While his presence in Paris was probably affected to an extent by other considerations, as I have pointed out, it is to be presumed that he was anxious to participate directly in the drafting of the plan of organization of the League and to exert his personal influence on the delegates in favor of its acceptance by publicly addressing the Conference. This he could hardly have done without becoming a delegate. It would seem, therefore, that the purpose of creating a League of Nations and obtaining the incorporation of a plan of organization in the treaty to be negotiated had much to do with the President's presence at the peace table.

From the time that the United States entered the war in April, 1917, Mr. Wilson held firmly to the idea that the salvation of the world from imperialism would not be lasting unless provision was made in the peace treaty for an international agency strong enough to prevent a future attack upon the rights and liberties of the nations which were at so great a cost holding in check the German armies and preventing them from carrying out their evil designs of conquest. The object sought by the United States in the war would not, in the views of many, be achieved unless the world was organized to resist future aggression. The essential thing, as the President saw it, in order to "make the world safe for democracy" was to give permanency to the peace which would be negotiated at the conclusion of the war. A union of the nations for the purpose of preventing wars of aggression and conquest seemed to him the most practical, if not the only, way of accomplishing this supreme object, and he urged it with earnestness and eloquence in his public addresses relating to the bases of peace.

There was much to be said in favor of the President's point of view. Unquestionably the American people as a whole supported him in the belief that there ought to be some international agreement, association, or concord which would lessen the possibility of future wars. An international organization to remove in a measure the immediate causes of war, to provide means for the peaceable settlement of disputes between nations, and to draw the governments into closer friendship appealed to the general desire of the peoples of America and Europe. The four years and more of horror and agony through which mankind had passed must be made impossible of repetition, and there seemed no other way than to form an international union devoted to the maintenance of peace by composing, as far as possible, controversies which might ripen into war.

For many years prior to 1914 an organization devoted to the prevention of international wars had been discussed by those who gave thought to warfare of the nations and who realized in a measure the precarious state of international peace. The Hague Conventions of 1899 and of 1907 had been negotiated with that object, and it was only because of the improper aspirations and hidden designs of certain powers, which were represented at those great historic conferences, that the measures adopted were not more expressive of the common desire of mankind and more effective in securing the object sought. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Ginn, now the World, Peace Foundation, and the American Peace Society, and later the Society for the Judicial Settlement of International Disputes, the League to Enforce Peace, and many other organizations in America and in Europe were actively engaged in considering ways and means to prevent war, to strengthen the bonds of international good-will, and to insure the more general application of the principles of justice to disputes between nations.

The outbreak of the war and the dreadful waste and suffering which followed impelled the societies and associations then organized to redoubled effort and induced the formation of new organizations. People everywhere began to realize that their objects were real and not merely sentimental or academic, that they were seeking practical means to remove the conditions which had made the Great War possible. Public opinion became more and more pronounced as the subject was more widely discussed in the journals and periodicals of the day and at public meetings, the divergence of views being chiefly in regard to the means to be employed by the proposed organization and not as to the creation of the organization, the necessity for which appeared to be generally conceded.

With popular sentiment overwhelmingly in favor of some sort of world union which would to an extent insure the nations against another tragedy like the one which in November, 1918, had left the belligerents wasted and exhausted and the whole world a prey to social and industrial unrest, there was beyond question a demand that out of the great international assembly at Paris there should come some common agency devoted to the prevention of war. To ignore this all-prevalent sentiment would have been to misrepresent the peoples of the civilized world and would have aroused almost universal condemnation and protest. The President was, therefore, entirely right in giving prominence to the idea of an international union against war and in insisting that the Peace Conference should make provision for the establishment of an organization of the world with the prevention of future wars as its central thought and purpose.

The great bulk of the American people, at the time that the President left the United States to attend the Peace Conference, undoubtedly believed that some sort of organization of this nature was necessary, and I am convinced that the same popular belief prevailed in all other civilized countries. It is possible that this assertion may seem too emphatic to some who have opposed the plan for a League of Nations, which appears in the first articles of the Treaty of Versailles, but, if these opponents of the plan will go back to the time of which I am writing, and avoid the impressions made upon them by subsequent events, they will find, I believe, that even their own views have materially changed since December, 1918. It is true that concrete plans had then been suggested, but so far as the public knew the President had not adopted any of them or formulated one of his own. He had not then disclosed the provisions of his "Covenant."

The mass of the people were only concerned with the general idea. There was no well-defined opposition to that idea. At least it was not vocal. Even the defeat of the Democratic Party in the Congressional elections of November, 1918, could not be interpreted to be a repudiation of the formation of a world organization. That election, by which both Houses of Congress became Republican, was a popular rebuke to Mr. Wilson for the partisanship shown in his letter of October addressed to the American people, in which he practically asserted that it was unpatriotic to support the Republican candidates. The indignation and resentment aroused by that injudicious and unwarranted attack upon the loyalty of his political opponents lost to the Democratic Party the Senate and largely reduced its membership in the House of Representatives if it did not in fact deprive the party of control of that body. The result, however, did not mean that the President's ideas as to the terms of peace were repudiated, but that his practical assertion, that refusal to accept his policies was unpatriotic, was repudiated by the American people.

It is very apparent to one, who without prejudice reviews the state of public sentiment in December, 1918, that the trouble, which later developed as to a League of Nations, did not lie in the necessity of convincing the peoples of the world, their governments, and their delegates to the Paris Conference that it was desirable to organize the world to prevent future wars, but in deciding upon the form and functions of the organization to be created. As to these details, which of course affected the character, the powers, and the duties of the organization, there had been for years a wide divergence of opinion. Some advocated the use of international force to prevent a nation from warring against another. Some favored coercion by means of general ostracism and non-intercourse. Some believed that the application of legal justice through the medium of international tribunals and commissions was the only practical method of settling disputes which might become causes of war. And some emphasized the importance of a mutual agreement to postpone actual hostilities until there could be an investigation as to the merits of a controversy. There were thus two general classes of powers proposed which were in the one case political and in the other juridical. The cleavage of opinion was along these lines, although it possibly was not recognized by the general public. It was not only shown in the proposed powers, but also in the proposed form of the organization, the one centering on a politico-diplomatic body, and the other on an international judiciary. Naturally the details of any plan proposed would become the subject of discussion and the advisability of adopting the provisions would arouse controversy and dispute. Thus unanimity in approving a world organization did not mean that opinions might not differ radically in working out the fundamental principles of its form and functions, to say nothing of the detailed plan based on these principles.

In May, 1916, President Wilson accepted an invitation to address the first annual meeting of the League to Enforce Peace, which was to be held in Washington. After preparing his address he went over it and erased all reference to the use of physical force in preventing wars. I mention this as indicative of the state of uncertainty in which he was in the spring of 1916 as to the functions and powers of the international organization to maintain peace which he then advocated. By January, 1917, he had become convinced that the use of force was the practical method of checking aggressions. This conversion was probably due to the fact that he had in his own mind worked out, as one of the essential bases of peace, to which he was then giving much thought, a mutual guaranty of territorial integrity and political independence, which had been the chief article of a proposed Pan-American Treaty prepared early in 1915 and to which he referred in his address before the League to Enforce Peace. He appears to have reached the conclusion that a guaranty of this sort would be of little value unless supported by the threatened, and, if necessary, the actual, employment of force. The President was entirely logical in this attitude. A guaranty against physical aggression would be practically worthless if it did not rest on an agreement to protect with physical force. An undertaking to protect carried with it the idea of using effectual measures to insure protection. They were inseparable; and the President, having adopted an affirmative guaranty against aggression as a cardinal provision—perhaps I should say the cardinal provision—of the anticipated peace treaty, could not avoid becoming the advocate of the use of force in making good the guaranty.

During the year 1918 the general idea of the formation of an international organization to prevent war was increasingly discussed in the press of the United States and Europe and engaged the thought of the Governments of the Powers at war with the German Empire. On January 8 of that year President Wilson in an address to Congress proclaimed his "Fourteen Points," the adoption of which he considered necessary to a just and stable peace. The last of these "Points" explicitly states the basis of the proposed international organization and the fundamental reason for its formation. It is as follows:

"XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike."

This declaration may be considered in view of subsequent developments to be a sufficiently clear announcement of the President's theory as to the plan of organization which ought to be adopted, but at the time the exact character of the "mutual guarantees" was not disclosed and aroused little comment. I do not believe that Congress, much less the public at large, understood the purpose that the President had in mind. Undoubtedly, too, a sense of loyalty to the Chief Executive, while the war was in progress, and the desire to avoid giving comfort of any sort to the enemy, prevented a critical discussion of the announced bases of peace, some of which were at the time academic, premature, and liable to modification if conditions changed.

In March Lord Phillimore and his colleagues made their preliminary report to the British Government on "a League of Nations" and this was followed in July by their final report, copies of which reached the President soon after they were made. The time had arrived for putting into concrete form the general ideas that the President held, and Colonel House, whom some believed to be the real author of Mr. Wilson's conception of a world union, prepared, I am informed, the draft of a scheme of organization. This draft was either sent or handed to the President and discussed with him. To what extent it was amended or revised by Mr. Wilson I do not know, but in a modified form it became the typewritten draft of the Covenant which he took with him to Paris, where it underwent several changes. In it was the guaranty of 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918, which, from the form in which it appeared, logically required the use of force to give it effect.

Previous to the departure of the American Commission for Paris, on December 4, 1918, the President did not consult me as to his plan for a League of Nations. He did not show me a copy of the plan or even mention that one had been put into writing. I think that there were two reasons for his not doing so, although I was the official adviser whom he should naturally consult on such matters.

The first reason, I believe, was due to the following facts. In our conversations prior to 1918 I had uniformly opposed the idea of the employment of international force to compel a nation to respect the rights of other nations and had repeatedly urged judicial settlement as the practical way of composing international controversies, though I did not favor the use of force to compel such settlement.

To show my opposition to an international agreement providing for the use of force and to show that President Wilson knew of this opposition and the reasons for it, I quote a letter which I wrote to him in May, 1916, that is, two years and a half before the end of the war:

"May 25, 1916

"My DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

"I had hoped to see you to-morrow at Cabinet meeting, but to-day the Doctor refused to allow me to leave the house this week. I intended when I saw you to say something about the purposes of the League to Enforce Peace, which is to meet here, and at the banquet of which I understand you are to speak on Saturday night. I would have preferred to talk the matter over with you, but as that is impossible I have taken the liberty to write you this letter, although in doing so I am violating the directions of the Doctor.

"While I have not had time or opportunity to study carefully the objects of the proposed League to Enforce Peace, I understand the fundamental ideas are these, which are to be embodied in a general treaty of the nations: First, an agreement to submit all differences which fail of diplomatic adjustment to arbitration or a board of conciliation; and, second, in case a government fails to comply with this provision, an agreement that the other parties will unite in compelling it to do so by an exercise of force.

"With the first agreement I am in accord to an extent, but I cannot see how it is practicable to apply it in case of a continuing invasion of fundamental national or individual rights unless some authoritative international body has the power to impose and enforce an order in the nature of an injunction, which will prevent the aggressor from further action until arbitration has settled the rights of the parties. How this can be done in a practical way I have not attempted to work out, but the problem is not easy, especially the part which relates to the enforcement of the order.

"It is, however, the second agreement in regard to the imposition of international arbitration by force, which seems to me the most difficult, especially when viewed from the standpoint of its effects on our national sovereignty and national interests. It is needless to go into the manifest questions arising when the modus operandi of the agreement is considered. Such questions as: Who may demand international intervention? What body will decide whether the demand should be complied with? How will the international forces be constituted? Who will take charge of the military and naval operations? Who will pay the expenses of the war (for war it will be)?

"Perplexing as these questions appear to me, I am more concerned with the direct effect on this country. I do not believe that it is wise to limit our independence of action, a sovereign right, to the will of other powers beyond this hemisphere. In any representative international body clothed with authority to require of the nations to employ their armies and navies to coerce one of their number, we would be in the minority. I do not believe that we should put ourselves in the position of being compelled to send our armed forces to Europe or Asia or, in the alternative, of repudiating our treaty obligation. Neither our sovereignty nor our interests would accord with such a proposition, and I am convinced that popular opinion as well as the Senate would reject a treaty framed along such lines.

"It is possible that the difficulty might be obviated by the establishment of geographical zones, and leaving to the groups of nations thus formed the enforcement of the peaceful settlement of disputes. But if that is done why should all the world participate? We have adopted a much modified form of this idea in the proposed Pan-American Treaty by the 'guaranty' article. But I would not like to see its stipulations extended to the European powers so that they, with our full agreement, would have the right to cross the ocean and stop quarrels between two American Republics. Such authority would be a serious menace to the Monroe Doctrine and a greater menace to the Pan-American Doctrine.

"It appears to me that, if the first idea of the League can be worked out in a practical way and an international body constituted to determine when steps should be taken to enforce compliance, the use of force might be avoided by outlawing the offending nation. No nation to-day can live unto itself. The industrial and commercial activities of the world are too closely interwoven for a nation isolated from the other nations to thrive and prosper. A tremendous economic pressure could be imposed on the outlawed nation by all other nations denying it intercourse of every nature, even communication, in a word make that nation a pariah, and so to remain until it was willing to perform its obligations.

"I am not at all sure that this means is entirely feasible. I see many difficulties which would have to be met under certain conditions. But I do think that it is more practical in operation and less objectionable from the standpoint of national rights and interests than the one proposed by the League. It does not appear to me that the use of physical force is in any way practical or advisable.

"I presume that you are far more familiar than I am with the details of the plans of the League and that it may be presumptuous on my part to write you as I have. I nevertheless felt it my duty to frankly give you my views on the subject and I have done so.

"Faithfully yours

"ROBERT LANSING

"THE PRESIDENT

"The White House"

The President, thus early advised of my unqualified opposition to any plan which was similar in principle to the one advocated by the League to Enforce Peace, naturally concluded that I would look with disfavor on an international guaranty which by implication, if not by declaration, compelled the use of force to give it effect. Doubtless he felt that I would not be disposed to aid in perfecting a plan which had as its central idea a guaranty of that nature. Disliking opposition to a plan or policy which he had originated or made his own by adoption, he preferred to consult those who without debate accepted his judgment and were in sympathy with his ideas. Undoubtedly the President by refraining from asking my advice spared himself from listening to arguments against the guaranty and the use of force which struck at the very root of his plan, for I should, if I had been asked, have stated my views with entire frankness.

The other reason for not consulting me, as I now realize, but did not at the time, was that I belonged to the legal profession. It is a fact, which Mr. Wilson has taken no trouble to conceal, that he does not value the advice of lawyers except on strictly legal questions, and that he considers their objections and criticisms on other subjects to be too often based on mere technicalities and their judgments to be warped by an undue regard for precedent. This prejudice against the legal profession in general was exhibited on more than one occasion during our sojourn at Paris. Looking back over my years of intercourse with the President I can now see that he chafed under the restraints imposed by usage and even by enacted laws if they interfered with his acting in a way which seemed to him right or justified by conditions. I do not say that he was lawless. He was not that, but he conformed grudgingly and with manifest displeasure to legal limitations. It was a thankless task to question a proposed course of action on the ground of illegality, because he appeared to be irritated by such an obstacle to his will and to transfer his irritation against the law to the one who raised it as an objection. I think that he was especially resentful toward any one who volunteered criticism based on a legal provision, precept, or precedent, apparently assuming that the critic opposed his purpose on the merits and in order to defeat it interposed needless legal objections. It is unnecessary to comment on the prejudice which such an attitude of mind made evident.

After the President's exceptionally strong address at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York on September 27, 1918, I realized the great importance which he gave to the creation of a League of Nations and in view of this I devoted time and study to the subject, giving particular attention to the British and French suggestions, both of which emphasized judicial settlement. Knowing that the President had been in consultation with Colonel House on the various phases of the peace to be negotiated as well as on the terms of the armistice, I asked the latter what he knew about the former's scheme for a League of Nations.

The Colonel discreetly avoided disclosing the details of the plan, but from our conversation I gained an idea of the general principles of the proposed organization and the way in which the President intended to apply them.

After the Colonel and his party had sailed for France and in expectation of being consulted on the subject by President Wilson, I put my thoughts on the League of Nations into writing. In a note, which is dated October 27, 1918, appears the following:

"From the little I know of the President's plan I am sure that it is impracticable. There is in it too much altruistic cooperation. No account is taken of national selfishness and the mutual suspicions which control international relations. It may be noble thinking, but it is not true thinking.

"What I fear is that a lot of dreamers and theorists will be selected to work out an organization instead of men whose experience and common sense will tell them not to attempt anything which will not work. The scheme ought to be simple and practical. If the federation, or whatever it may be called, is given too much power or if its machinery is complex, my belief is that it will be unable to function or else will be defied. I can see lots of trouble ahead unless impractical enthusiasts and fanatics are suppressed. This is a time when sober thought, caution, and common sense should control."

On November 22, 1918, after I had been formally designated as a Peace Commissioner, I made another note for the purpose of crystallizing my own thought on the subject of a League of Nations. Although President Wilson had not then consulted me in any way regarding his plan of organization, I felt sure that he would, and I wished to be prepared to give him my opinion concerning the fundamentals of the plan which might be proposed on behalf of the United States. I saw, or thought that I saw, a disposition to adopt physical might as the basis of the organization, because the guaranty, which the President had announced in Point XIV and evidently purposed to advocate, seemed to require the use of force in the event that it became necessary to make it good.

From the note of November 22 I quote the following:

"The legal principle [of the equality of nations], whatever its basis in fact, must be preserved, otherwise force rather than law, the power to act rather than the right to act, becomes the fundamental principle of organization, just as it has been in all previous Congresses and Concerts of the European Powers.

"It appears to me that a positive guaranty of territorial integrity and political independence by the nations would have to rest upon an open recognition of dominant coercive power in the articles of agreement, the power being commercial and economic as well as physical. The wisdom of entering into such a guaranty is questionable and should be carefully considered before being adopted.

"In order to avoid the recognition of force as a basis and the question of dominant force with the unavoidable classification of nations into 'big' and 'little,' 'strong' and 'weak,' the desired result of a guaranty might be attained by entering into a mutual undertaking not to impair the territorial integrity or to violate the political sovereignty of any state. The breach of this undertaking would be a breach of the treaty and would sever the relations of the offending nation with all other signatories."

I have given these two extracts from my notes in order to show the views that I held, at the time the American Commission was about to depart from the United States, in regard to the character of the guaranty which the President intended to make the central feature of the League of Nations. In the carrying out of his scheme and in creating an organization to give effect to the guaranty I believed that I saw as an unavoidable consequence an exaltation of force and an overlordship of the strong nations. Under such conditions it would be impossible to preserve within the organization the equality of nations, a precept of international law which was the universally recognized basis of intercourse between nations in time of peace. This I considered most unwise and a return to the old order, from which every one hoped that the victory over the Central Empires had freed the world.

The views expressed in the notes quoted formed the basis for my subsequent course of action as an American Commissioner at Paris in relation to the League of Nations. Convinced from previous experience that to oppose every form of guaranty by the nations assembled at Paris would be futile in view of the President's apparent determination to compel the adoption of that principle, I endeavored to find a form of guaranty that would be less objectionable than the one which the President had in mind. The commitment of the United States to any guaranty seemed to me at least questionable, though to prevent it seemed impossible in the circumstances. It did not seem politic to try to persuade the President to abandon the idea altogether. I was certain that that could not be done. If he could be induced to modify his plan so as to avoid a direct undertaking to protect other nations from aggression, the result would be all that could be expected. I was guided, therefore, chiefly by expediency rather than by principle in presenting my views to the President and in openly approving the idea of a guaranty.

The only opportunity that I had to learn more of the President's plan for a League before arriving in Paris was an hour's interview with him on the U.S.S. George Washington some days after we sailed from New York. He showed me nothing in writing, but explained in a general way his views as to the form, purpose, and powers of a League. From this conversation I gathered that my fears as to the proposed organization were justified and that it was to be based on the principle of diplomatic adjustment rather than that of judicial settlement and that political expediency tinctured with morality was to be the standard of determination of an international controversy rather than strict legal justice.

In view of the President's apparent fixity of purpose it seemed unwise to criticize the plan until I could deliver to him a substitute in writing for the mutual guaranty which he evidently considered to be the chief feature of the plan. I did not attempt to debate the subject with him believing it better to submit my ideas in concrete form, as I had learned from experience that Mr. Wilson preferred to have matters for his decision presented in writing rather than by word of mouth.