But the most obvious flaws in the treaty are to be found in the economic clauses. It was a mistake to compel Germany to sign a blank check in the matter of reparations. Germany and the world needed to know the exact amount that was to be paid, in order that international commerce might be set upon a stable basis. The extent of control granted to the Allies over German economic life was unwise and unfair.
Complete justice certainly was not achieved by President Wilson at Paris, and it may be questioned whether all the decisions can be regarded even as expedient. The spirit of the Fourteen Points, as commonly interpreted, had not governed the minds of those who sat at the council table. The methods adopted by the Council of Ten and the Council of Four were by no means those to which the world looked forward when it hailed the ideal expressed in the phrase, "Open covenants openly arrived at." The "freedom of the seas," if it meant the disappearance of the peculiar position held by Great Britain on the seas, was never seriously debated, and Wilson himself, in an interview given to the London Times, sanctioned "Britain's peculiar position as an island empire." Adequate guarantees for the reduction of armaments were certainly not taken at Paris; all that was definitely stipulated was the disarmament of the enemy, a step by no means in consonance with the President's earlier policy which aimed at universal disarmament. An "absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims" was hardly carried out by granting the German colonies to the great powers, even as mandatories of the League of Nations.
Nevertheless the future historian will probably hold that the Peace Conference, with all its selfish interests and mistakes, carried into effect an amazingly large part of President Wilson's programme, when all the difficulties of his position are duly weighed. The territorial settlements, on the whole, translated into fact the demands laid down by the more special of Wilson's Fourteen Points. France, Belgium, and the other invaded countries were, of course, evacuated and their restoration promised; Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France and the wrong of 1871 thus righted; an independent Poland was recognized and given the assured access to the sea that Wilson had insisted upon; the subject nationalities of Austria-Hungary received not merely autonomy but independence. Even as regards the larger principles enunciated in the Fourteen Points, it may at least be argued that President Wilson secured more than he lost. Open diplomacy in the sense of conducting international negotiations in an open forum was not the method of the Peace Conference; and it may not be possible or even desirable. The article in the Covenant, however, which insists upon the public registration of all treaties before their validity is recognized, goes far towards a fulfillment of the President's pledge of open covenants, particularly if his original meaning is liberally interpreted. Similarly the Covenant makes provision for the reduction of armaments. If the treaty did not go far in assuring the "removal of economic barriers," at all events the Conference did much to provide for an international control of traffic which would ensure to all European countries, so far as possible, equal facilities for forwarding their goods.
Apart from the Fourteen Points Wilson had emphasized two other principles as necessary to a just and permanent peace. The first of these was that the enemy should be treated with a fairness equal to that accorded to the Allies; the second was the principle that peoples should have the right to choose the government by which they were to be ruled—the principle of self-determination. Neither of these principles received full recognition in the peace settlement. Yet their spirit was infused more completely throughout the settlement than would have been the case had not Wilson been at Paris, and to that extent the just and lasting qualities of the peace were enhanced. In the matter of German reparations the question of justice was not the point at issue; the damage committed by Germany surpassed in value anything that the Allies could exact from her. As to frontiers, the unbiased student will probably admit that full justice was done Germany when the aspirations of France for annexation of the Saar district and the provinces on the left bank of the Rhine were disappointed; it was the barest justice to France, on the other hand, that she should receive the coal mines of the former district and that the latter should be demilitarized. In the question of Danzig, and the Polish corridor to the sea, it was only fair to Poland that she receive the adequate outlet which was necessary to her economic life and which had been promised her, even if it meant the annexation of large German populations, many of which had been artificially brought in as colonists by the Berlin Government; and in setting up a free city of Danzig, the Conference broke with the practices of old style diplomacy and paid a tribute to the rights of peoples as against expediency. The same may be said of the decision to provide for plebiscites in East Prussia and in upper Silesia. On the other hand, the refusal to permit the incorporation of the new, lesser Austria within Germany was at once unjust and unwise—a concession to the most shortsighted of old-style diplomatic principles.
In the reorganization of the former Hapsburg territories, Wilsonian principles were always in the minds of the delegates, although in a few cases they were honored more in the breach than in the observance. Wilson himself surrendered to Italy extensive territories in the Tyrol south of the Brenner which, if he had followed his own professions, would have been left to Austria. A large Jugoslav population on the Julian Alps and in Istria was placed under Italian rule. The new Czechoslovak state includes millions of Germans and Magyars. The boundaries of Rumania were extended to include many non-Rumanian peoples. Bulgars were sacrificed to Greeks and to Serbs. In the settlement of each problem the balance always inclined a little in favor of the victors. But the injustices committed were far less extensive than might have been expected, and in most cases where populations were included under alien rule, the decision was based less on political considerations than on the practical factors of terrain, rivers, and railroads which must always be taken into consideration in the drawing of a frontier. Wherever the issue was clean-cut, as for example between the selfish nationalism of the Italians in their Adriatic demands and the claim to mere economic life of the Jugoslavs, the old rule which granted the spoils to the stronger power was vigorously protested.
Whatever the mistakes of the Conference, Wilson secured that which he regarded as the point of prime importance, the League of Nations. This, he believed, would remedy the flaws and eradicate the vices of the treaties. No settlement, however perfect at the moment, could possibly remain permanent, in view of the constantly changing conditions. What was necessary was an elasticity that would permit change as change became necessary. If the disposition of the Saar basin, for example, proved to be so unwise or unjust as to cause danger of violence, the League would take cognizance of the peril and provide a remedy. If the boundaries of eastern Germany gave undue advantage to the Poles, the League would find ways and means of rectifying the frontier peacefully. If Hungary or Czechoslovakia found themselves cut off from sea-ports, the League could hear and act upon their demands for freedom of transit or unrestricted access to fair markets. That the League was necessary for such and other purposes was recognized by many notable economic experts and statesmen besides the President. Herbert Hoover insisted upon the necessity of a League if the food problems of central Europe were to be met, and Venizelos remarked that "without a League of Nations, Europe would face the future with despair in its heart." Because he had the covenant of such an association incorporated in the German treaty, Wilson accepted all the mistakes and injustices of the treaty as minor details and could say of it, doubtless in all sincerity, "It's a good job." Conscious of victory in the matter which he had held closest to his heart, the President embarked upon the George Washington on the 29th of June, the day after the signing of the treaty, and set forth for home. All that was now needed was the ratification of the treaty by the Senate.
CHAPTER XIII
THE SENATE AND THE TREATY
Neither President Wilson nor those who had been working with him at Paris seriously feared that, after securing the point of chief importance to him at the Conference, he would fail to win support for the League of Nations and the treaty at home. They recognized, of course, that his political opponents in the Senate would not acquiesce without a struggle. The Republicans were now in the majority, and Henry Cabot Lodge, the new chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, had gone far in his efforts to undermine Wilson's policy at Paris. He had encouraged the Italians in their imperialistic designs in the Adriatic and had done his best to discredit the League of Nations. Former Progressive Senators, such as Johnson and Borah, who like Lodge made personal hostility to Wilson the chief plank in their political programme, had declared vigorously their determination to prevent the entrance of the United States into a League. The Senators as a whole were not well-informed upon foreign conditions and Wilson had done nothing to enlighten them. He had not asked their advice in the formulation of his policy, nor had he supplied them with the facts that justified the position he had taken. Naturally their attitude was not likely to be friendly, now that he returned to request their consent to the treaty, and the approach of a presidential election was bound to affect the action of all ardent partisans.