Europe Since 1918

by Herbert Adams Gibbons

Allied prisoners of war were released. The Germans surrendered their fleet. Allied commissions, to watch over the fulfilment of the armistice terms, were sent to all the defeated countries. For general questions affecting Germany, an Armistice Commission was created, with headquarters at Spa in Belgium.

Allied statesmen began to study the question of securing the confidence of the electorates and parliaments of their respective countries, without which they would be unable to act as plenipotentiaries. This was an essential consideration; for the executive power in Europe, unlike that of the United States, has no fixed tenure of office and is always dependent upon a parliamentary vote of confidence. In the two months between the armistice and the conference, the statesmen of the European powers, large and small, had to secure a parliamentary mandate, approving their general policy at the approaching conference.

As soon as the military terms of the armistice were fulfilled, so that the defeated peoples were no longer in a position to renew the war, an uncompromising attitude was adopted toward the Germans and their allies. The pre-armistice agreement was ignored. The five enemy states were told that they would have no part in the Peace Conference. The victors were to decide upon the terms of the treaties, which would then be communicated to the vanquished. In the meantime the food blockade was to be maintained and enemy prisoners of war held. The only dealings between the governments of the victors and of the vanquished were in connection with the measures decided upon to carry out the conditions of the armistices. The peace negotiations were to take the form simply of adjusting and harmonizing the conflicting ideas and ambitions and programs of the victorious powers, and were to be no concern of the defeated nations. Our enemies were regarded as criminals, to be arraigned and sentenced by men acting simultaneously as judges, jurors, prosecutors, and jailers. Right to counsel and right of appeal were alike denied.

Austrians and Hungarians were in a different situation from that of Germans, Bulgarians, and Turks. The two countries of the Dual Monarchy, in which they had been the dominant peoples, were separated at the time of the armistice. Far-reaching decisions had already been made before the Peace Conference met. The treaties dealing with the future of the Hapsburg dominions would take into account faits accomplis: (1) the political separation of Austria and Hungary; (2) the annexation to Italy of regions defined in the secret Treaty of London of 1915; (3) the resurrection of Poland; (4) the creation of Czechoslovakia; (5) the aggrandizement of Serbia and Rumania. De facto recognition of independence was granted to Poland and Czechoslovakia, and also to the Hedjaz, detached from the Ottoman Empire. These three new states, whose belligerency had been recognized as a war measure before the end of hostilities, although boundaries were not defined, were invited to participate in the Peace Conference.

The organization of the conference was undertaken by the four Entente Powers, France, Great Britain, Japan, and Italy (who had signed the Pact of London, obligating themselves not to make a separate peace), in agreement with the United States. It was decided to make a distinction between the “powers with general interests” and the “powers with particular interests.” The former were the United States, the British Empire, France, Italy, and Japan; and the latter were Belgium, Brazil, the British Dominions and India, China, Cuba, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Hedjaz, Honduras, Liberia, Nicaragua, Panama, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Serbia, Siam, and Czechoslovakia. The great powers were to have five delegates; Belgium, Brazil, and Serbia, three; China, Greece, Hedjaz, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Siam, and Czechoslovakia, two; Cuba, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Liberia, Nicaragua, and Panama, one; while the British Dominions and India were allowed two delegates, with the exception of New Zealand, which was to have one. Four powers that had broken off diplomatic relations with Germany, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Uruguay, were granted one delegate each “in the sittings at which questions concerning them are discussed.” Provision was made for the possibility of admitting Montenegro, but the question of Russia was left to be determined by the conference.

The most important of the preliminary measures was the one which proposed to limit the decision upon the matters of settlement to a central commission, on which the “five powers with general interests” were alone represented. The various details were to be studied by commissions of fifteen, two members each for the great powers and five members representing all the other powers together, which were to report to the central commission. The Supreme War Council at Versailles, under Marshal Foch, was to continue to meet during the Peace Conference to deal with the enforcement of the armistices and with military problems concerning the enemy powers and the regions whose status the Peace Conference was to settle.

There was something to be said both for the exclusion of enemy powers from the Peace Conference and for the exclusion of the “powers with particular interests” from the central commission. The victors of the World War realized only too well that they would have great difficulty in reconciling their own ambitions and in agreeing upon any common program of peace, and they did not purpose to have Germany repeating the rôle of France in the Conference of Vienna a hundred years earlier. With delegates from thirty countries, some of which were parts of the British Empire and other states that had only a technical right to be represented, it was reasonable to expect that the organizers of the conference would adopt regulations to make it a feasible working body.

Signs were not lacking to indicate that it was going to be hard enough for the great powers to agree upon peace terms, even if they should be free from the influence of enemy intrigues pitting one against another and from being constantly hampered and blocked by the exaggerated and rival claims of the smaller states, especially those created or greatly enlarged by the war. And Paris, which had suffered so greatly for more than four years under the constant menace of German bombardments (and even of capture), was a poor place to hold a conference called together to establish a durable world peace. The atmosphere was surcharged with bitterness and prejudices. The burnt child continued to dread the fire after the fire had been extinguished. French internal politics centered in Paris, which was also the home of France’s economic interests and of the French army.

Before the conference met, no effort had been made to create a judicial attitude toward the great problems of peace. Posters on the walls as well as the newspapers kept the French keyed up to a degree of bitterness, tinged with apprehension, that made logical and constructive thinking impossible. This state of mind was natural, when one considers what the French had gone through and that complete victory over Germany came as a miracle to the hard-pressed French and their allies. But it was not conducive to the triumph of what Mr. Wilson called the American Government’s “interpretation of its own duty with regard to peace: First, the impartial justice meted out must involve no discrimination between those to whom we wish to be just and those to whom we do not wish to be just. It must be a justice that plays no favorites and knows no standards but the equal rights of the several peoples concerned.”

The demands of France against Germany and her allies had been outlined in the first year of the war as follows: (1) punishment of those responsible for the war; (2) reparation for losses during the war; (3) guaranties against future aggression on the part of Germany and her allies. In addition to these war aims, French statesmen consistently announced the determination of France to support similar demands by France’s allies and to sign no treaty of peace that did not emancipate the nationalities subject to the enemies of France. In the course of the war the French Government entered into agreements with several of the Allies, justifying these as measures that seemed necessary to bring the war to a successful conclusion. After the Russian revolution the French Government promised the people to safeguard French investments in Russia, which amounted to over four billions of dollars, almost all representing little investments of peasants and tradespeople. In preliminary discussions with President Wilson, Premier Clemenceau declared the willingness of France to adopt the American program in its entirety, including the society of nations; but he made it clear that this willingness should not be construed as the abandonment of the threefold program: “sanctions, réparations, garanties.” Nor could France go back upon her signature to treaties and her promise to her own people.