The Inside Story of the Peace Conference

by Emile Joseph Dillon

A lesser but also a serious disadvantage of the delegation of government chiefs made itself felt in the procedure. Embarrassing delays were occasioned by the unavoidable absences of the principal delegates whom pressure of domestic politics called to their respective capitals, as well as by their tactics, and their colleagues profited by their absence for the sake of the good cause. Thus all Paris, as we saw, was aware that the European chiefs, whose faith in Wilsonian orthodoxy was still feeble at that time, were prepared to take advantage of the President's sojourn in Washington to speed up business in their own sense and to confront him on his return with accomplished facts. But when, on his return, he beheld their handiwork he scrapped it, and a considerable loss of time ensued for which the world has since had to pay very heavily.

Again, when Premier Orlando was in Rome after Mr. Wilson's appeal to the Italian people, a series of measures was passed by the delegates in Paris affecting Italy, diminishing her importance at the Conference, and modifying the accepted interpretation of the Treaty of London. Some of these decisions had to be canceled when the Italians returned. These stratagems had an undesirable effect on the Italians.

Not the least of the Premiers' disabilities lay in the circumstance that they were the merest novices in international affairs. Geography, ethnography, psychology, and political history were sealed books to them. Like the rector of Louvain University who told Oliver Goldsmith that, as he had become the head of that institution without knowing Greek, he failed to see why it should be taught there, the chiefs of state, having attained the highest position in their respective countries without more than an inkling of international affairs, were unable to realize the importance of mastering them or the impossibility of repairing the omission as they went along.

They displayed their contempt for professional diplomacy and this feeling was shared by many, but they extended that sentiment to certain diplomatic postulates which can in no case be dispensed with, because they are common to all professions. One of them is knowledge of the terms of the problems to be solved. No conjuncture could have been less favorable for an experiment based on this theory. The general situation made a demand on the delegates for special knowledge and experience, whereas the Premiers and the President, although specialists in nothing, had to act as specialists in everything. Traditional diplomacy would have shown some respect for the law of causality. It would have sent to the Conference diplomatists more or less acquainted with the issues to be mooted and also with the mentality of the other negotiators, and it would have assigned to them a number of experts as advisers. It would have formed a plan similar to that proposed by the French authorities and rejected by the Anglo-Saxons. In this way at least the technical part of the task would have been tackled on right lines, the war would have been liquidated and normal relations quickly re-established among the belligerent states. It may be objected that this would have been a meager contribution to the new politico-social fabric. Undoubtedly it would, but, however meager, it would have been a positive gain. Possibly the first stone of a new world might have been laid once the ruins of the old were cleared away. But even this modest feat could not be achieved by amateurs working in desultory fashion and handicapped by their political parties at home. The resultant of their apparent co-operation was a sum in subtraction because dispersal or effort was unavoidably substituted for concentration.

Whether one contemplates them in the light of their public acts or through the prism of gossip, the figures cut by the delegates of the Great Powers were pathetic. Giants in the parliamentary sphere, they shrank to the dimensions of dwarfs in the international. In matters of geography, ethnography, history, and international politics they were helplessly at sea, and the stories told of certain of their efforts to keep their heads above water while maintaining a simulacrum of dignity would have been amusing were the issues less momentous. "Is it after Upper or Lower Silesia that those greedy Poles are hankering?" one Premier is credibly reported to have asked some months after the Polish delegation had propounded and defended its claims and he had had time to familiarize himself with them. "Please point out to me Dalmatia on the map," was another characteristic request, "and tell me what connection there is between it and Fiume." One of the principal plenipotentiaries addressed a delegate who is an acquaintance of mine approximately as follows: "I cannot understand the spokesmen of the smaller states. To me they seem stark mad. They single out a strip of territory and for no intelligible reason flock round it like birds of prey round a corpse on the field of battle. Take Silesia, for example. The Poles are clamoring for it as if the very existence of their country depended on their annexing it. The Germans are still more crazy about it. But for their eagerness I suppose there is some solid foundation. But how in Heaven's name do the Armenians come to claim it? Just think of it, the Armenians! The world has gone mad. No wonder France has set her foot down and warned them off the ground. But what does France herself want with it? What is the clue to the mystery?" My acquaintance, in reply, pointed out as considerately as he could that Silesia was the province for which Poles and Germans were contending, whereas the Armenians were pleading for Cilicia, which is farther east, and were, therefore, frowned upon by the French, who conceive that they have a civilizing mission there and men enough to accomplish it.

It is characteristic of the epoch, and therefore worthy of the historian's attention, that not only the members of the Conference, but also other leading statesmen of Anglo-Saxon countries, were wont to make a very little knowledge of peoples and countries go quite a far way. Two examples may serve to familiarize the reader with the phenomenon and to moderate his surprise at the defects of the world-dictators in Paris. One English-speaking statesman, dealing with the Italian government[61] and casting around for some effective way of helping the Italian people out of their pitiable economic plight, fancied he hit upon a felicitous expedient, which he unfolded as follows. "I venture," he said, "to promise that if you will largely increase your cultivation of bananas the people of my country will take them all. No matter how great the quantities, our market will absorb them, and that will surely make a considerable addition to your balance on the right side." At first the Italians believed he was joking. But finding that he really meant what he said, they ruthlessly revealed his idea to the nation under the heading, "Italian bananas!"

Here is the other instance. During the war the Polish people was undergoing unprecedented hardships. Many of the poorer classes were literally perishing of hunger. A Polish commission was sent to an English-speaking country to interest the government and people in the condition of the sufferers and obtain relief. The envoys had an interview with a Secretary of State, who inquired to what port they intended to have the foodstuffs conveyed for distribution in the interior of Poland. They answered: "We shall have them taken to Dantzig. There is no other way." The statesman reflected a little and then said: "You may meet with difficulties. If you have them shipped to Dantzig you must of course first obtain Italy's permission. Have you got it?" "No. We had not thought of that. In fact, we don't yet see why Italy need be approached." "Because it is Italy who has command of the Mediterranean, and if you want the transport taken to Dantzig it is the Italian government that you must ask!"[62]

The delegates picked up a good deal of miscellaneous information about the various countries whose future they were regulating, and to their credit it should be said that they put questions to their informants without a trace of false pride. One of the two chief delegates wending homeward from a sitting at which M. Jules Cambon had spoken a good deal about those Polish districts which, although they contained a majority of Germans, yet belonged of right to Poland, asked the French delegate why he had made so many allusions to Frederick the Great. "What had Frederick to do with Poland?" he inquired. The answer was that the present German majority of the inhabitants was made up of colonists who had immigrated into the districts since the time of Frederick the Great and the partition of Poland. "Yes, I see," exclaimed the statesman, "but what had Frederick the Great to do with the partition of Poland?" ... In the domain of ethnography there were also many pitfalls and accidents. During an official _exposé_ of the Oriental situation before the Supreme Council, one of the Great Four, listening to a narrative of Turkish misdeeds, heard that the Kurds had tortured and killed a number of defenseless women, children, and old men. He at once interrupted the speaker with the query: "You now call them Kurds. A few minutes ago you said they were Turks. I take it that the Kurds and the Turks are the same people?" Loath to embarrass one of the world's arbiters, the delegate respectfully replied, "Yes, sir, they are about the same, but the worse of the two are the Kurds."[63]

Great Britain's first delegate, with engaging candor sought to disarm criticism by frankly confessing in the House of Commons that he had never before heard of Teschen, about which such an extraordinary fuss was then being made, and by asking: "How many members of the House have ever heard of Teschen? Yet," he added significantly, "Teschen very nearly produced an angry conflict between two allied states."[64]

The circumstance that an eminent parliamentarian had never heard of problems that agitate continental peoples is excusable. Less so was his resolve, despite such a capital disqualification, to undertake the task of solving those problems single-handed, although conscious that the fate of whole peoples depended on his succeeding. It is no adequate justification to say that he could always fall back upon special commissions, of which there was no lack at the Conference. Unless he possessed a safe criterion by which to assess the value of the commissions' conclusions, he must needs himself decide the matter arbitrarily. And the delegates, having no such criterion, pronounced very arbitrary judgments on momentous issues. One instance of this turned upon Poland's claims to certain territories incorporated in Germany, which were referred to a special commission under the presidency of M. Cambon. Commissioners were sent to the country to study the matter on the spot, where they had received every facility for acquainting themselves with it. After some weeks the commission reported in favor of the Polish claim with unanimity. But Mr. Lloyd George rejected their conclusions and insisted on having the report sent back to them for reconsideration. Again the commissioners went over the familiar ground, but felt obliged to repeat their verdict anew. Once more, however, the British Premier demurred, and such was his tenacity that, despite Mr. Wilson's opposition, the final decision of the Conference reversed that of the commission and non-suited the Poles. By what line of argument, people naturally asked, did the first British delegate come to that conclusion? That he knew more about the matter than the special Inter-Allied commission is hardly to be supposed. Indeed, nobody assumed that he was any better informed on that subject than about Teschen. The explanation put in circulation by interested persons was that, like Socrates, he had his own familiar demon to prompt him, who, like all such spirits, chose to flourish, like the violet, in the shade. That this source of light was accessible to the Prime Minister may, his apologists hold, one day prove a boon to the peoples whose fate was thus being spun in darkness and seemingly at haphazard. Possibly. But in the meanwhile it was construed as an affront to their intelligence and a violation of the promise made to them of "open covenants openly arrived at." The press asked why the information requisite for the work had not been acquired in advance as these semi-mystical ways of obtaining it commended themselves to nobody. Wholly mystical were the methods attributed to one or other of the men who were preparing the advent of the new era. For superstition of various kinds was supposed to be as well represented at the Paris Conference as at the Congress of Vienna. Characteristic of the epoch was the gravity with which individuals otherwise well balanced exercised their ingenuity in finding out the true relation of the world's peace to certain lucky numbers. For several events connected with the Conference the thirteenth day of the month was deliberately, and some occultists added felicitously, chosen. It was also noticed that an effort was made by all the delegates to have the Allies' reply to the German counter-proposals presented on the day of destiny, Friday, June 13th. When it miscarried a flutter was caused in the dovecotes of the illuminated. The failure was construed as an inauspicious omen and it caused the spirits of many to droop. The principal clairvoyante of Paris, Madame N——, who plumes herself on being the intermediary between the Fates that rule and some of their earthly executors, was consulted on the subject, one knows not with what result.[65] It was given out, however, as the solemn utterance of the oracle in vogue that Mr. Wilson's enterprise was weighted with original sin; he had made one false step before his arrival in Europe, and that had put everything out of gear. By enacting fourteen commandments he had countered the magic charm of his lucky thirteen. One of the fourteen, it was soothsaid, must therefore be omitted—it might be, say, that of open covenants openly arrived at, or the freedom of the seas—in a word, any one so long as the mystic number thirteen remained intact. But should that be impossible, seeing that the Fourteen Points had already become house-hold words to all nations and peoples, then it behooved the President to number the last of his saving points 13a.[66]