So finally the Supreme Council was boiled down to the four Chiefs of State, including Japan's representative on any questions not strictly confined to Western Europe; and the small Council began to meet alternately at Clemenceau's office in the War Ministry, at Mr. Lloyd George's house, and at Mr. Wilson's, which was just around the corner from the British Premier's. Then in March, shortly after President Wilson's second coming from the United States, he fell ill with the grippe. After a rather severe attack he was able to get on his feet again and to do business, but was warned by his vigilant friend and physician, Admiral Grayson, to keep within doors for a time. Mr. Lloyd George, M. Clemenceau, and Signor Orlando were glad to accommodate themselves to Mr. Wilson's necessities, and formed the habit of meeting regularly at his house. His large salon was much better adapted for these conferences than the room at Mr. Lloyd George's. So there it was they met during all the final weeks of the Conference, leading up to the very end.
A DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNCIL CHAMBER
In the middle of the salon, facing the row of windows looking out upon the Place, was a large yet most inviting fireplace. On the left of this, a little removed from it, President Wilson usually ensconced himself on a small sofa, where he made room for some one member of his delegation, whom, for the particular subject under discussion, he desired to have most available. On the other side of the fireplace sat Mr. Lloyd George in a rather high, old-fashioned chair of carved Italian maple, and at his left sat his experts. Opposite the fireplace, to the right of it, and about half-way across the room, sat M. Clemenceau, with such of his Ministers as he needed, and then between him and President Wilson was Signor Orlando with the Italians. This made a semi-circle around the fireplace, and whenever Viscount Chinda of the Japanese delegation was present, the circle was usually enlarged so as to give him a seat in the middle of it. Behind this first semi-circle was a second one, made up of secretaries and various technical experts, but the conference was always a limited one, and was not allowed to grow so large as to become unwieldy.
Directly in front of the fireplace, almost scorching his coat-tails, sat Professor Mantou, the official interpreter for the Big Four. Mantou is a Frenchman, Professor of French in the University of London, so he had a perfect mastery of both French and English, with a good working knowledge of Italian. Mantou was quite an extraordinary character, and the most vivid interpreter I have ever heard, or rather seen; for at times he entered into the spirit of the discussions more vigorously than the original actors. M. Clemenceau, for instance, might make a quiet, moderate statement, in French, of course; and when it became Mantou's time to interpret it into English, he would enliven and embellish it with his own unique gestures.
The Secretary of the Council was Sir Maurice Hankey, a British Army officer of great skill and tact, who had a marvelous aptitude for keeping everything straight, for taking perfectly adequate, and yet not too voluminous minutes, for seeing that no topic was left in the air without further reference, and in the last analysis, for holding the Chiefs of State with their noses to the grindstone. He knew French and Italian well, and was a distinct asset to the Council. I note that, in the honors and money-grants disbursed by Parliament to Marshal Haig, Admiral Beatty and others, Hankey received £25,000. Everybody who worked with him at Paris will be glad of this just recognition. I have described this Council Chamber in the President's house rather minutely because, as I have said, it formed the stage for all of the momentous decisions which went to make up the final peace settlement. At these conferences there was no formal presiding officer, but to President Wilson was usually accorded the courtesy of acting as moderator.
HOW THE TREATY WAS COMPOUNDED
What, then, is the Treaty? The answer is that it is a human document, a compound of all the qualities possessed by human beings at their best—and at their worst. People might expect a Treaty of Peace to be a formal, legal, mechanical sort of document; and undoubtedly an effort was made by some of the drafting lawyers, who bound all the different clauses together, to throw the Treaty into the mold of formality. But all the same, it is a compound quivering with human passion—virtue, entreaty, fear, sometimes rage, and above all, I believe, justice.
The reason fear enters into the Treaty must be manifest. Take, for instance, the case of France. France had lived under the German menace for half a century. Finally the sword of Damocles had fallen, and almost one-sixth of beautiful France had been laid waste. Her farms, her factories, her villages, had been destroyed; her women ravished and led captive; her children made homeless; her men folk killed. Do we realize that almost 60 per cent. of all the French soldiers under thirty-one years of age were killed in the war? Is it any wonder France could not believe that the German menace was gone forever, and that the world would never again allow German autocracy to overwhelm her? She could not believe it, and for that reason she felt it essential that the terms of the Treaty should be so severe as to leave Germany stripped for generations of any power to wage aggression against beautiful France. If her Allies pointed out that to cripple Germany economically was to make it impossible for Germany to repair the frightful damage she had wrought in France, France would in effect reply that this might be so, but never again could she endure such a menace as had threatened her eastern border for the previous half century. If certain of the Treaty clauses appear to some minds as unduly severe, it must be remembered that the Allies, little more than France, could bear the thought of letting Germany off so easily that within a few years she might again prepare for war.
There was fear, too, on the part of those new nations, which had been largely split off from the effete and outworn Austro-Hungarian Empire, that in some way their ancient oppressors would once more gain sway over them. And, every nation, great and small, was overshadowed with the constant terror of Bolshevism,—that dread specter which seemed to be stalking, with long strides, from eastern Europe west towards the Atlantic. Unless peace were hastened that evil might overtake all the Allies. Such apprehensions as these, far more than imperial ambition or greed, were factors in the Treaty decisions. Judgments that might take many months in the ripening could not with safety be awaited.