One naturally asks how far the recommendations of these commissions and special committees were followed in framing the final draft of the treaty. To this it is hard to give a general answer, for in the nature of the case there was no uniform policy. The printed minutes of the commissions will some day be public and can then be compared with the several clauses of the treaty. In general, the territorial commissions were thought of in the first instance as gatherers and sifters of evidence, rather than as framers of treaty articles, questions of policy being reserved for the ultimate consideration of the Council of Ten. As time went on, the commissions tended to acquire more responsibility and to throw their reports into the form of specific articles or sections of a treaty. These naturally required coördination with the work of other bodies, such as the commissions on finance, reparation, or waterways, and a general correlation of the territorial reports was attempted by a Central Territorial Commission of five. Some final suggestions were also made by the Drafting Commission. The reports of the commissions were, however, first made directly to the Ten or the Four or the Five, as the case might be. Each report had its place on the docket, and the members of the commission were then present, each at the elbow of his principal, to furnish any necessary explanations in his ear, but not to speak out. Later in the summer members of the commissions were allowed to take part in the discussions of the Council of Five.
Sometimes the report, presented in print, would be accepted without debate. Sometimes a particular question would be considered at length, perhaps with the result of recommitting the report. Unanimous reports were likely to go through rapidly. A session of the Council of Four might take an important report clause by clause, with explanations from the committee and suggestions from members of the Council, but without fundamental modifications. On the other hand important changes in one chapter of the treaty were made at the last moment by the Four without any consultation of the commission concerned.
In general, the American delegation was disposed to trust its experts, both on matters of fact and on matters of judgment, and trusted them in greater measure as the Conference wore on. It did not dictate or even suggest their decisions, but left them free to form their opinions on the basis of the evidence. They could have been used to better advantage if they had been set to work earlier, and there were unfortunate instances where they were consulted too late; but in general this is to be explained by the haste and confusion inevitable in the rapid movement of events rather than by any desire to ignore the facts or the judgment based upon them. Certainly none of the chief delegates was more eager for the facts of the case than was the President of the United States, and none was able to assimilate them more quickly or use them more effectively in the discussion of territorial problems.
The treaty of Versailles, like the other treaties drawn up at Paris, is by no means a perfect instrument. Those who took part in framing it would be the last to believe it verbally inspired. It is necessarily a peace of compromise and adjustment, and that means that it does not embody completely the desires of any one person or any one country. It was also framed rapidly, not always with sufficient preliminary study, and in some places it bears the marks of haste. But it represents an honest effort to secure a just and durable settlement, and neither the Conference in general nor the United States in particular need be ashamed of it. It is easy to criticise in detail, easy to magnify the defects and forget the substantial results achieved, just as it was easy to criticise the Constitution of the United States when it issued from the Convention of 1787, and to discover therein dangers which history has shown to be imaginary. For one result of the Paris treaties, however, their framers are not responsible, namely the delays in ratification and enforcement. The treaties were drawn for the world of 1919 by men of 1919, on the assumption that what was needed was an early peace as well as a just settlement. The governing commissions and mandates were to begin at once, the plebiscites were to be held as soon as possible, the disarmament of Germany was to be prompt and real, the difficult work of reparation was to be taken up immediately. None of these expectations has been realized, and the responsibility lies less with the Peace Conference than with the failure of America to ratify the treaties and to take part in carrying out their provisions.
In one fundamental respect the treaties drawn up at Paris differ from all such instruments in the past: they do not pretend to be final. The treaty of Vienna lasted, in many respects, for a hundred years, and parts of it are still in force, unchanged by the war or the Conference. For all this the Congress of Vienna deserves its full measure of credit, but it must be remembered that it provided no method of change or adjustment. Only a new war could undo its provisions, and more than one such war proved necessary. At Paris it was recognized from the start that much of the treaty must be temporary and provisional. No one could determine in advance how peoples would vote, or just how much of an indemnity Germany could pay, or whether she would endeavor to execute or to avoid the obligations she there assumed, or what would happen in Austria or in Turkey. Some means of amendment, adjustment, correction, and supplementing was required, and this was found primarily in the League of Nations. In the League the treaties possess the possibility of their own betterment, the starting-point of a new development. Hence, unlike all previous treaties, those of 1919 are dynamic and not static: they are constructive and not merely restorative; they look to the future more than to the past.
Bibliographical Note
The published records of the Paris Conference are limited to the official reports of the plenary sessions and the official text of the treaties, in French and English, with authoritative maps, subject to correction after the frontiers have been fixed on the spot. The proceedings of the Council of Ten and the Council of Five were kept by a regular secretariat, those of the Council of Four less officially and systematically; these minutes were manifolded but not printed. The minutes of the various commissions, while printed, have not been made public.
The German and Austrian treaties and related documents are printed as supplements to the American Journal of International Law since July 1919. The German treaty is also printed as a Senate Document and as a publication of the American Association for International Conciliation. The entire series of treaties is best available in the British Parliamentary Papers, Treaty Series, 1919 and 1920. A bibliographical list of all these treaties by Denys P. Myers is to be published by the World Peace Foundation, League of Nations Series, iii, no. 1. Documents and Statements relating to Peace Proposals and War Aims, December 1916 to November 1918, have been edited by G. Lowes Dickinson (London and New York, 1919).
There is as yet no memoir literature by members of the Conference. Some confidential papers are printed in the Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Relations of the United States Senate (Washington, 1919), but these do not concern territorial problems. Some things touching France will be found in the report of the Barthou committee to the Chamber of Deputies, supplemented by the articles of A. Tardieu in L’Illustration since February 1920. The official German criticisms of the Treaty of Versailles were published in various languages and have been freely reproduced by pro-German writers in other countries. A Kommentar in six volumes has been prepared by one of the German delegates, Walter Schücking.