The Inside Story of the Peace Conference

by Emile Joseph Dillon

The French Minister of Finances, for example, drew a bright picture in the Chamber of the financial side of the Treaty, so far as it affected his country: "Within two years," he announced, "independently of the railway rolling stock, of agricultural materials and restitutions, we receive a part, still to be fixed, of the payment of twenty milliards of marks in gold; another share, also to be determined, of an emission of bonds amounting to forty milliard gold marks, bearing interest at the rate of 2 per cent.; a third part, to be fixed, of German shipping and dyes; seven million tons of coal annually for a period of ten years, followed by diminishing quantities during the following years; the repayment of the expenses of occupation; the right of taking over a part of Germany's interests in Russia, in particular that of obtaining the payment of pre-war debts at the pre-war rate of exchange, likewise the maintenance of such contracts as we may desire to maintain in force and the return of Alsace-Lorraine free from all incumbrances. Nor is that all. In Morocco we have the right to liquidate German property, to transfer the shares that represent Germany's interests in the Bank of Morocco, and finally the allotment under a French mandate of a portion of the German colonies free from incumbrances of any kind.... We shall receive four hundred and sixty-three milliard francs, payable in thirty-six years, without counting the restitutions which will have been effected. Nor should it be forgotten that already we have received eight milliards' worth of securities stolen from French bearers. So do not consider the Treaty as a misfortune for France."[310]

Soon after the outburst of joy with which the ingathering of the fruits of France's victory was celebrated, clouds unexpectedly drifted athwart the cerulean blue of the political horizon, and dark shadows were flung across the Allied countries. The second-and third-class nations fell out with the first-class Powers. Italy, for example, whose population is almost equal to that of her French sister, demanded compensation for the vast additions that were being made to France's extensive possessions. The grounds alleged were many. Compensation had been promised by the secret treaty. The need for it was reinforced by the rejection of Italy's claims in the Adriatic. The Italian people required, desired, and deserved a fair and fitting field for legitimate expansion. They are as numerous as the French, and have a large annual surplus population, which has to hew wood and draw water for foreign peoples. They are enterprising, industrious, thrifty, and hard workers. Their country lacks some of the necessaries of material prosperity, such as coal, iron, and cotton. Why should it not receive a territory rich in some of these products? Why should a large contingent of Italy's population have to go to the colonies of Spain, France, and Britain or to South American republics for a livelihood? The Italian press asked whether the Supreme Council was bent on fulfilling the Gospel dictum, "Whosoever hath, to him shall be given...."

One of the first demands made by Italy was for the port and town of Djibouti, which is under French sway. It was rejected, curtly and emphatically. Other requests elicited plausible explanations why they could not be complied with. In a word, Italy was treated as a poor and importunate relation, and was asked to console herself with the reflection that she was working in the vineyard of idealism. In vain eminent publicists in Rome, Turin, and Milan pleaded their country's cause. Adopting the principle which Mr. Wilson had applied to France and Britain, they affirmed that even before the war France, with a larger population and fewer possessions, had shown that she was incapable of discharging the functions which she had voluntarily taken upon herself. Tunis, they alleged, owed its growth and thriving condition to Italian emigrants. With all the fresh additions to her territories, the population of the Republic would be utterly inadequate to the task. To the Supreme Council this line of reasoning was distinctly unpalatable. Nor did the Italians further their cause when, by way of giving emphatic point to their reasoning, their press quoted that eminent Frenchman, M. d'Estournelles de Constant, who wrote at that very moment: "France has too many colonies already—far more in Asia, in Africa, in America, in Oceania than she can fructify. In this way she is immobilizing territories, continents, peoples, which nominally she takes over. And it is childish and imprudent to take barren possession of them, when other states allege their power to utilize them in the general interest. By acting in this manner, France, do what she may, is placing herself in opposition to the world's interests, and to those of the League of Nations. In the long run it is a serious business. Spain, Portugal, and Holland know this to their cost. Do what she would, France was not able before the war to utilize all her immense colonial domain ... for lack of population. She will be still less able after the war...."[311]

The discussion grew dangerously animated. Epigrams were coined and sent floating in the heavily charged air. A tactless comparison was made between the French nation and a bon vivant of sixty-five who flatters himself that he can enjoy life's pleasures on the same scale as when he was only thirty. Little arrows thus barbed with biting acid often make more enduring mischief than sledge-hammer blows. Soon the estrangement between the two sister nations unhappily became wider and led to marked divergences in their respective policies, which seem fraught with grave consequences in the future.

The Italy of to-day is not the Italy of May, 1915. She now knows exactly where she stands. When she unsheathed her sword to fight against the allies of the state that declared a treaty to be but a scrap of paper, she was heartened by a solemn promise given in writing by her comrades in arms. But when she had accomplished her part of the contract, that document turned out to be little more than another scrap of paper. Thus it was one of the piquant ironies of Fate, Italian publicists said, that the people who had mostly clamored against that doctrine were indirectly helping it to triumph. Mr. Wilson, unwittingly sapping public faith in written treaties, was held up as one of the many pictures in which the Conference abounded of the delegates refuting their words by acts. The unbiased historian will readily admit that the secret treaties were profoundly immoral from the Wilsonian angle of vision, but that the only way of canceling them was by a general principle rigidly upheld and impartially applied. And this the Supreme Council would not entertain.

With her British ally, too, France had an unpleasant falling out about Eastern affairs, and in especial about Syria and Persia. There was also a demand for the retrocession by Britain of the island of Mauritius, but it was not made officially, nor is it a subject for two such nations to quarrel over. The first rift in the lute was caused by the deposition of Emir Faisal respecting the desires of the Arab population. This picturesque chief, the French press complained, had been too readily admitted to the Conference and too respectfully listened to there, whereas the Persian delegation tramped for months over the Paris streets without once obtaining a hearing. The Hedjaz, which had been independent from time immemorial, was formally recognized as a separate kingdom during the war, and the Grand Sheriff of Mecca was suddenly raised to the throne in the European sense by France and Britain. Since then he was formally recognized by the five Powers. His representatives in Paris demanded the annexation of all the countries of Arabic speech which were under Turkish domination. These included not only Mesopotamia, but also Syria, on which France had long looked with loving eyes and respecting which there existed an accord between her and Britain. The project community would represent a Pan-Arab federation of about eleven million souls, over which France would have no guardianship. And yet the written accord had never been annulled. Palestine was excluded from this Pan-Arabian federation, and Syria was to be consulted, and instead of being handed over to France, as M. Clemenceau demanded, was to be allowed to declare its own wishes without any injunctions from the Conference. Mesopotamia would be autonomous under the League of Nations, but a single mandatory was asked for by the king of the Hedjaz for the entire eleven million inhabitants.

The comments of the French press on Britain's attitude, despite their studied reserve and conventional phraseology, bordered on recrimination and hinted at a possible cooling of friendship between the two nations, and in the course of the controversy the evil-omened word "Fashoda" was pronounced. The French Temps's arguments were briefly these: The populations claimed occupy such a vast stretch of territory that the sovereignty of the Hedjaz could hardly be more than nominal and symbolical. In fact, they cover an area of one-half of the Ottoman Empire. These different provinces would, in reality, be under the domination of the Great Power which was the real creator of this new kingdom, and the monarch of the Hedjaz would be a mere stalking-horse of Britain. This, it was urged, would not be independence, but a masked protectorate, and in the name of the higher principles must be prevented. Syria must be handed over to France without consulting the population. The financial resources of the Hedjaz are utterly inadequate for the administration of such a vast state as was being compacted. Who, then, it was asked, would supply the indispensable funds? Obviously Britain, who had been providing the Emir Faisal with funds ever since his father donned the crown. If this political entity came into existence, it would generate continuous friction between France and Britain, separate comrades in arms, delight a vigilant enemy, and violate a written compact which should be sacred. For these reasons it should be rejected and Syria placed under the guardianship of France.

The Americans took the position that congruously with the high ethical principles which had guided the labors of the Conference throughout, it was incumbent on its members, instead of bartering civilized peoples like chattels, to consult them as to their own aspirations. If it were true that the Syrians were yearning to become the wards of France, there could be no reasonable objection on the part of the French delegates to agree to a plebiscite. But the French delegates declined to entertain the suggestion on the ground that Syria's longing for French guidance was a notorious fact.

After much discussion and vehement opposition on the part of the French delegates an Inter-Allied commission under Mr. Charles Crane was sent to visit the countries in dispute and to report on the leanings of their populations. After having visited forty cities and towns and more than three hundred villages, and received over fifteen hundred delegations of natives, the commission reported that the majority of the people "prefer to maintain their independence," but do not object to live under the mandatory system for fifty years provided the United States accepts the mandate. "Syria desires to become a sovereign kingdom, and most of the population supports the Emir Faisal as king.[312] The commission further ascertained that the Syrians, "who are singularly enlightened as to the policies of the United States," invoked and relied upon a Franco-British statement of policy[313] which had been distributed broadcast throughout their country, "promising complete liberation from the Turks and the establishment of free governments among the native population and recognition of these governments by France and Britain."[314]

The result of the investigation by the Inter-Allied commission reminds one of the story of the two anglers who were discussing the merits of two different sauces for the trout which one of them had caught. As they were unable to agree they decided to refer the matter to the trout, who answered: "Gentlemen, I do not wish to be eaten with any sauce. I desire to live and be free in my own element." "Ah, now you are wandering from the question," exclaimed the two, who thereupon struck up a compromise on the subject of the sauce.