When Mr. Wilson first arrived in Europe huge crowds acclaimed him, and, making due allowance for the cynical, the curious and indifferent, these crowds contained a far from insignificant proportion of ardent, enthusiastic spirits, who welcomed him not as a President or a politician, but as the bearer of a message, not as a Rabbi with a doctrine made up of teachings in the synagogues, but as a latter-day Messiah come to drive forth the money-changers and intriguers from the temple of a righteous peace. Eager idealists believed that the victory of democracy had set a period to the evils resulting from autocratic forms of government, that with the termination of the war the topmost block had been placed on a pyramid of errors, that a real master-builder had appeared, who would lay the foundations of a cleaner, better world. They saw in him the champion of decency and morality, a doughty champion, strong in the backing of millions of free people, who had seen liberty in danger, and had sent their men across an ocean to fight for freedom in an older world in torment. They were grateful and offered him their services, loyally and unreservedly, asking but one thing—to be shown the way. History contains no parallel to this movement. Savanarola and Rienzi had appealed to local, or at most national feeling. Here was a man who stood for something universal and inspiring, who was more than a heroic priest, more than the Tribune of a people, a man who, while enjoying personal security, could speak and act for the welfare of all peoples in the name of right. For such causes, men in the past have suffered persecution and have been faithful unto death.
No Peace Conference has ever undertaken a more stupendous task than that which confronted the delegates of the Allied States in Paris in January, 1919. Central Europe was seething with revolution and slowly dying of starvation. Beyond lay Russia, unknown yet full of portents, more terrible to many timorous souls than ever Germany had been. The war had come to a sudden and unexpected end, and enemy territory had not been invaded save at extremities which were not vital points. The Central Empires and their Allies had collapsed from internal causes. Germany and Austria could not, for the moment, oppose invasion, which had lost all its terrors for distracted populations, who hoped that French and British soldiers would, by their presence, maintain law and order and ensure supplies of food. On the other hand, neither the Serbs nor the Rumanians had had their territorial aspirations satisfied during the progress of the war. Both races had followed the usual Balkan custom by invading the territories they claimed during the armistice; this method, when employed against Hungarians, involved the use of force; it also embittered relations between themselves where, as in the Banat, their claims clashed and overlapped. Further north, the Czecho-Slovaks had proclaimed their independence, and Poland was being resurrected; the frontiers of both these States were vague and undefined, but their appetites were unlimited, and Teschen, with its coalfields, was a pocket in dispute.
Not only had the Peace Conference to endeavour to prevent excessive and premature encroachment on enemy territory by Allied States, it had also to compose serious differences between the Western Powers in regard to the Adriatic coast, Syria, and Asia Minor arising out of secret treaties.
These considerations, though embarrassing for the representatives of Great Britain, France and Italy, did not affect President Wilson to the same extent; in fact they rather strengthened his position and confirmed the expectation that he would be the real arbiter of the Conference. His speeches had, in the opinion of innumerable men and women, indicated the only solution of the world-problem. The “Fourteen Points” had outlined, without inconvenient precision, a settlement of international questions; he was the head of a State untrammelled by secret treaties, the only State not on the verge of bankruptcy, a State which could furnish both moral and material aid. When M. Albert Thomas said that the choice lay between Wilson and Lenine, he may have been guilty of exaggeration, but he expressed a feeling which was general and real. Whether that feeling was justified, the future alone will show.
In the Declaration of September 27, 1918, President Wilson stated: “All who sit at the Peace table must be ready to pay the price, and the price is impartial justice, no matter whose interest is crossed.” Later on in the same Declaration he added: “the indispensable instrumentality is a ‘League of Nations,’ but it cannot be formed now.” Five conditions of peace were set forth; of these, the third laid down that there could be no alliances or covenants within the League of Nations, and the Declaration concluded with an appeal to the Allies: “I hope that the leaders of the Allied Governments will speak as plainly as I have tried to speak, and say whether my statement of the issues is in any degree mistaken.”
The inference, drawn by the ordinary man after perusing this Declaration, was that its author expected the Conference to deal with each and every question on its merits, that the “League of Nations” would eventually be the instrument employed in reaching the final settlement, and that, following on the establishment of the League, all previous alliances would cease to exist and future alliances would be precluded. The questioning form of the concluding sentence suggested doubts as to the attitude of the Associated Powers, but the presence of the President at the peace table served as presumptive evidence that those doubts had been set at rest.
A “League of Nations” was, undoubtedly, the ideal instrument for achieving a just settlement of the many and varied questions which confronted the Peace Conference, but a “League,” or “Society of Nations” as defined by Lord Robert Cecil,[46] could not be created before the conclusion of a Preliminary Peace with Germany and her Allies, with, as its corollary, the inclusion of, at least, Germany, Austria, and Hungary within the League. In the words of Lord Robert Cecil, such a Society would be incomplete, and proportionately ineffective, unless every civilized State joined it.
The formation of a full-fledged League required time. Further, in the frame of mind which prevailed in all the Allied and Associated States, a real “Society of Nations,” implying “friendly association” with the enemy peoples, as distinguished from their late “irresponsible Governments,” was impossible. An alternative did, however, exist—an alternative for which a precedent could be found and which needed moral leadership rather than cumbrous machinery for its application. This alternative would have consisted of three processes: the conclusion of a Preliminary Peace with Germany and her Allies, combined with suspension of blockade; the admission to the Peace Conference of delegates representing the different parts of the German Empire, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey; collaboration with these delegates in the settlement of territorial readjustments in accordance with the principles enunciated in President Wilson’s speeches and the “Fourteen Points.” The Congress of Vienna had set the precedent by admitting to its councils Talleyrand, the representative of a conquered State which had changed its form of government in the hour of defeat. The conclusion of a “Preliminary Peace” presented no difficulty. Germany had reached the lowest pitch of weakness; her military and naval forces had ceased to exist, her population was dependent on the Allies for supplies of food, she was torn by internal dissensions, and the Socialist and Democratic parties had gained the upper hand. Bavaria was showing separatist tendencies, and her example might be followed by other German States. The same conditions prevailed in the other enemy countries to an even more marked degree. In short, the Allies could have counted on acceptance of any preliminary peace terms which they might have chosen to impose. They could have ensured their fulfilment, not only by the maintenance of military forces on provisional and temporary frontiers, but also by the threat of a reimposition of an effective blockade. In an atmosphere free from the blighting influences of an armistice, dispassionate treatment of a mass of ethnical questions would have been possible. An appeal could have been made to the common sense and interests of the enemy peoples, through their statesmen and publicists, which would have disarmed reaction, and which would have made it possible to utilize the more enlightened elements in the key-States of Central Europe for the attainment of a durable peace. A Peace Conference so composed would have been the embryo of a true “Society of Nations,” a fitting instrument for the practical application of theories not new nor ill-considered, whose development had been retarded in peaceful, prosperous times, and which now were imperatively demanded by multitudes of suffering people weighed down by sorrow and distress.
Mr. Wilson does not seem to have considered any alternative to the immediate formulation of a covenant of the “League of Nations.” He left the all-important question of peace in abeyance, and devoted his energies to the preparation of a document which would serve as an outward and visible sign of personal success. Perhaps he was dismayed by the opposition, in reactionary Allied circles, to moral theories considered by officials to be impracticable and even dangerous, however useful they might once have been for purposes of propaganda. He may have been paralysed amid unaccustomed surroundings where he was not the supreme authority. At any rate, he neglected to use a weapon whose potency he, of all rulers, should have known—the weapon of publicity, which was, as ever, at his service and would have rallied to the causes he espoused the support and approval of sincere reformers in every class. He worked in secret and secured adhesion to a draft of the covenant of the “League of Nations,” whose colourless and non-committal character betrayed official handiwork.