“At present,” I said, “we are enjoying only a suspension of hostilities. Please don’t go home and tell the people that this war is over. We have got to prepare for a greater conflict, a greater sacrifice, a greater responsibility. The young men of America will again have to fight. The manifold and conflicting demands of all nations at the Peace Conference are impossible of fulfillment. Many delegates to the Conference will leave Paris with their demands unsatisfied. The nations are going to have further quarrels and disputes. I believe that within fifteen years America will be called upon really to save the world.”
“The battle between democracy and anarchy,” I argued, “will continue and will result in the bankruptcy of the participating nations. It is necessary for the United States to prepare, so that when a crisis comes, we shall be able to create a coöperative spirit between our capital and labour, and thus be so united and so strong that we can save civilization from annihilation.”
Cabled home, these words attracted some attention, yet the views that they expressed were not based entirely upon my own observations. I had talked with General Bliss, the military member of our Peace Commission, and with other American officers of high rank: they held opinions similar to mine.
Bliss, on several occasions, told me that he thought we had just ended the first seven years of another Thirty Years’ War which had begun with the Balkan conflict of 1912.
Was he right? The answer rests hidden in the years immediately ahead of us.
Whatever that answer may be, I saw the signing of the Peace Treaty intended to end the latest war. General Pershing and I sat next to each other, and I discussed these very matters with him at Versailles on that momentous 28th of June. The affixing of the signatures was not an impressive spectacle. There was no enthusiasm, and but little excitement. People moved about and chatted in subdued voices. Mrs. Wilson, Mrs. Lansing, and Colonel House sat in the row next to me, and I talked to Clemenceau, Lloyd George, and Presidents Poincaré and Wilson. The only solemn moment was that when the Germans walked to the table; they betrayed mental suffering, and one of them showed the results of physical hardship: his clothes hung on him so loosely that it was apparent he must have lost quite forty pounds since they were made. After the signatures had been affixed, we all walked up to the Treaty and looked at it, like mourners taking farewell of a corpse—but we were mourners without tears.
That night the negotiations for the appointment of the memorable Harbord Commission to Armenia were concluded. In these I had played a considerable part; their termination marked the end of my semi-official activities before embarking on my Polish expedition.
Passing mention has been made of the arduous study of the Turkish question, which our Commissioners had asked me to undertake jointly with W. H. Buckler. This task brought me again into contact with Mr. Hoover, because of the relief work of his Commission in Armenia, and, besides renewing my pleasant relations with Sir Louis Mallet, who had been the British Ambassador to Constantinople while I was there, it involved, among a mass of other details, many interviews with the Armenian and French representatives and the spokesmen of the other interested parties. The French were determined to have Cilicia; the Armenians would not consider my advice that they should surrender it, and, by this concession, win French support for their other ambitions. Buckler, Professor Philip M. Brown, and I made a report[1] to President Wilson, recommending a triple mandate: one to cover Armenia, another Anatolia, and a third the Constantinople district, where the chief administrator would reside, with an administrator in each of the other territories; we expressed the opinion that there should be an Armenian parliament in Armenia and a Turkish parliament in Anatolia, with the probable Turkish capital at Konia. Thus we would banish the Turk from Europe and limit him to Anatolia, where, however, he would be permitted to govern himself. The triple mandate, we recommended, should be assumed by the United States.
Our report was submitted in the latter part of June. Nevertheless, the conflicting claims of the French and the Armenians and the woeful conditions of the districts involved, left something more to be done. I favoured the appointment of an American Army officer to go to Armenia as Commissioner for the Allied and Associated Nations, and to protect the Armenians. I had a high regard for the ability of Major-General Harbord, General Pershing’s Chief-of-Staff, and thought him exactly the man for such a post; but I was told that he was not in Paris, and nobody seemed to know just where he was or when he would return.
At the last moment, fate played into my hands. On Tuesday, June 24th, I went to a dinner given by Homer H. Johnson to Assistant Secretary of War Benjamin Crowell, and found General Harbord there. To my great satisfaction I was seated next to him. This gave us several hours to discuss the Armenian question, and I urged him to undertake the task. Next morning he sent me a remarkable letter, which showed his masterly grasp of the situation, but ended with the statement that he would not care to accept the Commissionership unless he could have a proper military staff to aid him.