The Inside Story of the Peace Conference

by Emile Joseph Dillon

This adverse note on Mr. Wilson's pet scheme to have religious equality proclaimed as a means of hindering sanguinary wars brought to its climax the reaction of the Conference against what it regarded as a systematic endeavor to establish the overlordship of the Anglo-Saxon peoples in the world. The plea that wars may be provoked by such religious inequality as still survives was so unreal that it awakened a twofold suspicion in the minds of many of Mr. Wilson's colleagues. Most of them believed that a pretext was being sought to enable the leading Powers to intervene in the domestic concerns of all the other states, so as to keep them firmly in hand, and use them as means to their own ends. And these ends were looked upon as anything but disinterested. Unhappily this conviction was subsequently strengthened by certain of the measures decreed by the Supreme Council between April and the close of the Conference. The misgivings of other delegates turned upon a matter which at first sight may appear so far removed from any of the pressing issues of the twentieth century as to seem wholly imaginary. They feared that a religious—some would call it racial—bias lay at the root of Mr. Wilson's policy. It may seem amazing to some readers, but it is none the less a fact that a considerable number of delegates believed that the real influences behind the Anglo-Saxon peoples were Semitic.

They confronted the President's proposal on the subject of religious inequality, and, in particular, the odd motive alleged for it, with the measures for the protection of minorities which he subsequently imposed on the lesser states, and which had for their keynote to satisfy the Jewish elements in eastern Europe. And they concluded that the sequence of expedients framed and enforced in this direction were inspired by the Jews, assembled in Paris for the purpose of realizing their carefully thought-out program, which they succeeded in having substantially executed. However right or wrong these delegates may have been, it would be a dangerous mistake to ignore their views, seeing that they have since become one of the permanent elements of the situation. The formula into which this policy was thrown by the members of the Conference, whose countries it affected, and who regarded it as fatal to the peace of eastern Europe, was this: "Henceforth the world will be governed by the Anglo-Saxon peoples, who, in turn, are swayed by their Jewish elements."

It is difficult to convey an adequate notion of the warmth of feeling—one might almost call it the heat of passion—which this supposed discovery generated. The applications of the theory to many of the puzzles of the past were countless and ingenious. The illustrations of the manner in which the policy was pursued, and the cajolery and threats which were said to have been employed in order to insure its success, covered the whole history of the Conference, and presented it through a new and possibly distorted medium. The morbid suspicions current may have been the natural vein of men who had passed a great part of their lives in petty racial struggles; but according to common account, it was abundantly nurtured at the Conference by the lack of reserve and moderation displayed by some of the promoters of the minority clauses who were deficient in the sense of measure. What the Eastern delegates said was briefly this: "The tide in our countries was flowing rapidly in favor of the Jews. All the east European governments which had theretofore wronged them were uttering their mea culpa, and had solemnly promised to turn over a new leaf. Nay, they had already turned it. We, for example, altered our legislation in order to meet by anticipation the legitimate wishes of the Conference and the pressing demands of the Jews. We did quite enough to obviate decrees which might impair our sovereignty or lessen our prestige. Poland and Rumania issued laws establishing absolute equality between the Jews and their own nationals. All discrimination had ceased. Immigrant Hebrews from Russia received the full rights of citizenship and became entitled to fill any office in the state. In a word, all the old disabilities were abolished and the fervent prayer of east European governments was that the Jewish members of their respective communities should be gradually assimilated to the natives and become patriotic citizens like them. It was a new ideal. It accorded to the Jews everything they had asked for. It would enable them to show themselves as the French, Italian, and Belgian Jews had shown themselves, efficient citizens of their adopted countries.

"But in the flush of their triumph, the Jews, or rather their spokesmen at the Conference, were not satisfied with equality. What they demanded was inequality to the detriment of the races whose hospitality they were enjoying and to their own supposed advantage. They were to have the same rights as the Rumanians, the Poles, and the other peoples among whom they lived, but they were also to have a good deal more. Their religious autonomy was placed under the protection of an alien body, the League, which is but another name for the Powers which have reserved to themselves the governance of the world. The method is to oblige each of the lesser states to bestow on each minority the same rights as the majority enjoys, and also certain privileges over and above. The instrument imposing this obligation is a formal treaty with the Great Powers which the Poles, Rumanians, and other small states were summoned to sign. It contains twenty-one articles. The first part of the document deals with minorities generally, the latter with the Jewish elements. The second clause of the Polish treaty enacts that every individual who habitually resided in Poland on August 1, 1914, becomes a citizen forthwith. This is simple. Is it also satisfactory? Many Frenchmen and Poles doubt it, as we do ourselves. On August 1st numerous German and Austrian agents and spies, many of them Hebrews, resided habitually in Poland. Moreover, the foreign Jewish elements there, which have immigrated from Russia, having lost—like everybody else before the war—the expectation of seeing Polish independence ever restored, had definitely thrown in their lot with the enemies of Poland. Now to put into the hands of such enemies constitutional weapons is already a sacrifice and a risk. The Jews in Vilna recently voted solidly against the incorporation of that city in Poland.[363] Are they to be treated as loyal Polish citizens? We have conceded the point unreservedly. But to give them autonomy over and above, to create a state within the state, and enable its subjects to call in foreign Powers at every hand's turn, against the lawfully constituted authorities—that is an expedient which does not commend itself to the newly emancipated peoples."

The Rumanian Premier Bratiano, whose conspicuous services to the Allied cause entitled him to a respectful hearing, delivered a powerful speech[364] before the delegates assembled in plenary session on this question of protecting ethnic and religious minorities. He covered ground unsurveyed by the framers of the special treaties, and his sincere tone lent weight to his arguments. Starting from the postulate that the strength of latter-day states depends upon the widest participation of all the elements of the population in the government of the country, he admitted the peremptory necessity of abolishing invidious distinctions between the various elements of the population there, ethnic or religious. So far, he was at one with the spokesmen of the Great Powers. Rumania, however, had already accomplished this by the decree enabling her Jews to acquire full citizenship by expressing the mere desire according to a simple formula. This act confers the full rights of Rumanian citizens upon eight hundred thousand Jews. The Jewish press of Bucharest had already given utterance to its entire satisfaction. If, however, the Jews are now to be placed in a special category, differentiated and kept apart from their fellow-citizens by having autonomous institutions, by the maintenance of the German-Yiddish dialect, which keeps alive the Teuton anti-Rumanian spirit, and by being authorized to regard the Rumanian state as an inferior tribunal, from which an appeal always lies to a foreign body—the government of the Great Powers—this would be the most invidious of all distinctions, and calculated to render the assimilation of the German-Yiddish-speaking Jews to their Rumanian fellow-citizens a sheer impossibility. The majority and the minority would then be systematically and definitely estranged from each other; and, seeing this, the elemental instincts of the masses might suddenly assume untoward forms, which the treaty, if ratified, would be unavailing to prevent. But, however baneful for the population, foreign protection is incomparably worse for the state, because it tends to destroy the cement that holds the government and people together, and ultimately to bring about disintegration. A classic example of this process of disruption is Russia's well-meant protection of the persecuted Christians in Turkey. In this case the motive was admirable, the necessity imperative, but the result was the dismemberment of Turkey and other changes, some of which one would like to forget.

The delegation of Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia, and Poland upheld M. Bratiano's contentions in brief, pithy speeches. President Wilson's lengthy rejoinder, delivered with more than ordinary sweetness, deprecated M. Bratiano's comparison of the Allies' proposed intervention with Russia's protection of the Christians of Turkey, and represented the measure as emanating from the purest kindness. He said that the Great Powers were now bestowing national existence or extensive territories upon the interested states, actually guaranteeing their frontiers, and therefore making themselves responsible for permanent tranquillity there. But the treatment of the minorities, he added, unless fair and considerate, might produce the gravest troubles and even precipitate wars. Therefore it behooved the Powers in the interests of all Europe, as of each of its individual members, to secure harmonious relations, and, at any rate, to remove all manifest obstacles to their establishment. "We guarantee your frontiers and your territories. That means that we will send over arms, ships, and men, in case of necessity. Therefore we possess the right and recognize the duty to hinder the survival of a set of deplorable conditions which would render this intervention unavoidable."

To this line of reasoning M. Bratiano made answer that all the helpful maxims of good government are of universal application, and, therefore, if this protection of minorities were, indeed, indispensable or desirable, it should not be restricted to the countries of eastern Europe, but should be extended to all without exception. For it is inadmissible that two categories of states should be artificially created, one endowed with full sovereignty and the other with half-sovereignty. Such an arrangement would destroy the equality which should lie at the base of a genuine League of Nations.

But the Powers had made up their minds, and the special treaties were imposed on the unwilling governments. Thereupon the Rumanian Premier withdrew from the Conference, and neither his Cabinet nor that of the Jugoslavs signed the treaty with Austria at St.-Germain.

What happened after that is a matter of history.

Few politicians are conscious of the magnitude of the issue concealed by the involved diplomatic phraseology of the obnoxious treaties, or of the dangers to which their enactment will expose the minorities which they were framed to protect, the countries whose hospitality those minorities enjoy, and possibly other lands, which for the time being are seemingly immune from all such perilous race problems. The calculable, to say nothing of the unascertained, elements of the question might well cause responsible statesmen to be satisfied with the feasible. The Jewish elements in Europe, for centuries abominably oppressed, were justified in utilizing to the fullest the opportunity presented by the resettlement of the world in order to secure equality of treatment. And it must be admitted that their organization is marvelous. For years I championed their cause in Russia, and paid the penalty under the governments of Alexander II and III.[365] The sympathy of every unbiased man, to whatever race or religion he may belong, will naturally go out to a race or a nation which is trodden underfoot, as were the ill-starred Jews of Russia ever since the partition of Poland. But equality one would have thought sufficient to meet the grievance. Full equality without reservation. That was the view taken by numerous Jews in Poland and Rumania, several of whom called on me in Paris and urged me to give public utterance to their hopes that the Conference would rest satisfied with equality and to their fear of the consequences of an attempt to establish a privileged status. Why this position should exist only in eastern Europe and not elsewhere, why it should not be extended to other races with larger minorities in other countries, are questions to which a satisfactory response could be given only by farther-reaching and fateful changes in the legislation of the world.