The Inside Story of the Peace Conference

by Emile Joseph Dillon

For the "Big Four" this turn of events was a humiliation. The Ruthenian army, whose interests they had so taken to heart, had suddenly ceased to exist, and the future danger which it represented to Poland was seen to have been largely imaginary. Their judgment was at fault and their power ineffectual. Against M. Paderewski's impotence they blazed with indignation. He had given way to their decision and promptly gone to Warsaw to see it executed, yet the conditions were such that his words were treated as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. The Polish Premier, it is true, had tendered his resignation in consequence, but it was refused—and even had it been accepted, what was the retirement of a Minister as compared with the indignity put upon the world's lawgivers who represented power and interests which were alike unlimited? Angry telegrams were flashed over the wires from Paris to Warsaw and the Polish Premier was summoned to appear in Paris without delay. He duly returned, but no new move was made. The die was cast.

A noteworthy event in latter-day Polish history ensued upon that military victory over the Ruthenians of eastern Galicia. The Ukrainian[183] Minister at Vienna was despatched to request the Poles to sign a unilateral treaty with them after the model of that which was arranged by the two Anglo-Saxon states in favor of France. The proposal was that the Ukraine government would renounce all claims to eastern Galicia and place their troops under the supreme command of the Polish generalissimus, in return for which the Poles should undertake to protect the Ukrainians against all their enemies. This draft agreement, while under consideration in Warsaw, was negatived by the Polish delegates in Paris, who saw no good reason why their people should bind themselves to fight Russia one day for the independence of the Ukraine. Another inchoate state which made an offer of alliance to Poland was Esthonia, but its advances were declined on similar grounds. It is manifest, however, that in the new state system alliances are more in vogue than in the old, although they were to have been banished from it.

Throughout all the negotiations that turned upon the future status and the territorial frontiers of Poland the British Premier unswervingly stood out against the Polish claims, just as the President of the United States inflexibly countered those of Italy, and both united to negative those of the Rumanians. Whatever one may think of the merits of these controversies—and various opinions have been put forward with obvious sincerity—there can be but one judgment as to the spirit in which they were conducted. It was a dictatorial spirit, which was intolerant not merely of opposition, but of enlightened and constructive criticism. To the representatives of the countries concerned it seemed made up of bitter prejudice and fierce partizanship, imbibed, it was affirmed, from those unseen sources whence powerful and, it was thought, noxious currents flowed continuously toward the Conference. For none of the affronted delegates credited with a knowledge of the subject either Mr. Lloyd George, who had never heard of Teschen, or Mr. Wilson, whose survey of Corsican politics was said to be so defective. And yet to the activity of men engaged like these in settling affairs of unprecedented magnitude it would be unfair to apply the ordinary tests of technical fastidiousness. Their position as trustees of the world's greatest states, even though they lacked political imagination, knowledge, and experience, entitled them to the high consideration which they generally received. But it could not be expected to dazzle to blindness the eyes of superior men—and the delegates of the lesser states, Venizelos, Dmowski, and Benes, were undoubtedly superior in most of the attributes of statesmanship. Yet they were frequently snubbed and each one made to feel that he was the fifth wheel in the chariot of the Conference. No sacred fame, says Goethe, requires us to submit to contempt, and they winced under it. The Big Three lacked the happy way of doing things which goes with diplomatic tact and engaging manners, and the consequence was that not only were their arguments mistrusted, but even their good faith was, as we saw, momentarily subjected to doubt. "Bitter prejudice, furious antipathy" were freely predicated of the two Anglo-Saxon statesmen, who were rashly accused of attempting by circuitous methods to deprive France of her new Slav ally in eastern Europe. Sweeping recriminations of this character deserve notice only as indicating the spirit of discord—not to use a stronger term—prevailing at a Conference which was professedly endeavoring to knit together the peoples of the planet in an organized society of good-fellowship.

The delegates of the lesser states, to whom one should not look for impartial judgments, formulated some queer theories to explain the Allies' unavowed policy and revealed a frame of mind in no wise conducive to the attainment of the ostensible ends of the Conference. One delegate said to me: "I have no longer the faintest doubt that the firm purpose of the 'Big Two' is the establishment of the hegemony of the Anglo-Saxon peoples, which in the fullness of time may be transformed into the hegemony of the United States of North America. Even France is in some respects their handmaid. Already she is bound to them indissolubly. She is admittedly unable to hold her own without their protection. She will become more dependent on them as the years pass and Germany, having put her house in order, regains her economic preponderance on the Continent. This decline is due to the operation of a natural law which diplomacy may retard but cannot hinder. Numbers will count in the future, and then France's rôle will be reduced. For this reason it is her interest that her new allies in eastern Europe should be equipped with all the means of growing and keeping strong instead of being held in the leading-strings of the overlords. But perhaps this tutelage is reckoned one of those means?"

Against Britain in especial the Poles, as we saw, were wroth. They complained that whenever they advanced a claim they found her first delegate on their path barring their passage, and if Mr. Wilson chanced to be with them the British Premier set himself to convert him to his way of thinking or voting. Thus it was against Mr. Lloyd George that the eastern Galician problem had had to be fought at every stage. At the outset the British Premier refused Galicia to Poland categorically and purposed making it an entirely separate state under the League of Nations. This design, of which he made no secret, inspired the insistence with which the armistice with the Ruthenians of Galicia was pressed. The Polish delegates, one of them a man of incisive speech, left no stone unturned to thwart that part of the English scheme, and they finally succeeded. But their opponents contrived to drop a spoonful of tar in Poland's pot of honey by ordering a plebiscite to take place in eastern Galicia within ten or fifteen years. Then came the question of the Galician Constitution. The Poles proposed to confer on the Ruthenians a restricted measure of home rule with authority to arrange in their own way educational and religious matters, local communications, and the means of encouraging industry and agriculture, besides giving them a proportionate number of seats in the state legislature in Warsaw. But again the British delegates—experienced in problems of home rule—expressed their dissatisfaction and insisted on a parliament or diet for the Ukraine invested with considerable authority over the affairs of the province. The Poles next announced their intention to have a governor of eastern Galicia appointed by the President of the Polish Republic, with a council to advise him. The British again amended the proposal and asked that the governor should be responsible to the Galician parliament, but to this the Poles demurred emphatically, and finally it was settled that only the members of his council should be responsible to the provincial legislature. The Poles having suggested that military conscription should be applied to eastern Galicia on the same terms as to the rest of Poland, the British once more joined issue with them and demanded that no troops whatever should be levied in the province. The upshot of this dispute was that after much wrangling the British Commission gave way to the Poles, but made it a condition that the troops should not be employed outside the province. To this the Poles made answer that the massing of so many soldiers on the Rumanian frontier might reasonably be objected to by the Rumanians—and so the amoebean word-game went on in the subcommission. In a word, when dealing with the eastern Galician problem, Mr. Lloyd George played the part of an ardent champion of complete home rule.

To sum up, the Conference linked eastern Galicia with Poland, but made the bonds extremely tenuous, so that they might be severed at any moment without involving profound changes in either country, and by this arrangement, which introduced the provisional into the definitive, a broad field of operations was allotted to political agitation and revolt was encouraged to rear its crest.

The province of Upper Silesia was asked for on grounds which the Poles, at any rate, thought convincing. But Mr. Lloyd George, it was said, declared them insufficient. The subject was thrashed out one day in June when the Polish delegates were summoned before their all-powerful colleagues to be told of certain alterations that had been recently introduced into the Treaty which concerned them to know. They appeared before the Council of Five.[184] President Wilson, addressing the two delegates, spoke approximately as follows: "You claim Silesia on the ground that its inhabitants are Poles and we have given your demand careful consideration. But the Germans tell us that the inhabitants, although Polish by race, wish to remain under German rule as heretofore. That is a strong objection if founded on fact. At present we are unable to answer it. In fact, nobody can answer it with finality but the inhabitants themselves. Therefore we must order a plebiscite among them." One of the Polish delegates remarked: "If you had put the question to the inhabitants fifty years ago they would have expressed their wish to remain with the Germans because at that time they were profoundly ignorant and their national sentiment was dormant. Now it is otherwise. For since then many of them have been educated, and the majority are alive to the issue and will therefore declare for Poland. And if any section of the territory should still prefer German sway to Polish and their district in consequence of your plebiscite becomes German, the process of enlightenment which has already made such headway will none the less go on, and their children, conscious of their loss, will anathematize their fathers for having inflicted it. And then there will be trouble."

Mr. Wilson retorted: "You are assuming more than is meet. The frontiers which we are tracing are provisional, not final. That is a consideration which ought to weigh with you. Besides, the League of Nations will intervene to improve what is imperfect." "O League of Nations, what blunders are committed in thy name!" the delegate may have muttered to himself as he listened to the words meant to comfort him and his countrymen.

Much might have been urged against this proffered solace if the delegates had been in a captious mood. The League of Nations had as yet no existence. If its will, intelligence, and power could indeed be reckoned upon with such confidence, how had it come to pass that its creators, Britain and the United States, deemed them dubious enough to call for a reinforcement in the shape of a formal alliance for the protection of France? If this precautionary measure, which shatters the whole Wilsonian system, was indispensable to one Ally it was at least equally indispensable to another. And in the case of Poland it was more urgent than in the case of France, because if Germany were again to scheme a war of conquest the probability is infinitesimal that she would invade Belgium or move forward on the western front. The line of least resistance, which is Poland, would prove incomparably more attractive. And then? The absence of Allied troops in eastern Europe was one of the principal causes of the wars, tumults, and chaotic confusion that had made nervous people tremble for the fate of civilization in the interval between the conclusion of the armistice and the ratification of the Treaty. In the future the absence of strongly situated Allies there, if Germany were to begin a fresh war, would be more fatal still, and the Polish state might conceivably disappear before military aid from the Allied governments could reach it. Why should the safety of Poland and to some extent the security of Europe be made to depend upon what is at best a gambler's throw?

But no counter-objections were offered. On the contrary, M. Paderewski uttered the soft answer that turneth away wrath. He profoundly regretted the decision of the lawgivers, but, recognizing that it was immutable, bowed to it in the name of his country. He knew, he said, that the delegates were animated by very friendly feelings toward his country and he thanked them for their help. M. Paderewski's colleague, the less malleable M. Dmowski, is reported to have said: "It is my desire to be quite sincere with you, gentlemen. Therefore I venture to submit that while you profess to have settled the matter on principle, you have not carried out that principle thoroughly. Doubtless by inadvertence. Thus there are places inhabited by a large majority of Poles which you have allotted to Germany on the ground that they are inhabited by Germans. That is inconsistent." At this Mr. Lloyd George jumped up from his place and asked: "Can you name any such places?" M. Dmowski gave several names. "Point them out to me on the map," insisted the British Premier. They were pointed out on the map. Twice President Wilson asked the delegate to spell the name Bomst for him.[185] Mr. Lloyd George then said: "Well, those are oversights that can be rectified." "Oh yes," added Mr. Wilson, "we will see to that."[186] M. Dmowski also questioned the President about the plebiscite, and under whose auspices the voting would take place, and was told that there would be an Inter-Allied administration to superintend the arrangements and insure perfect freedom of voting. "Through what agency will that administration work? Is it through the officials?" "Evidently," Mr. Wilson answered. "You are doubtless aware that they are Germans?" "Yes. But the administration will possess the right to dismiss those who prove unworthy of their confidence." "Don't you think," insisted M. Dmowski, "that it would be fairer to withdraw one half of the German bureaucrats and give their places to Poles?" To which the President replied: "The administration will be thoroughly impartial and will adopt all suitable measures to render the voting free." There the matter ended.