The Inside Story of the Peace Conference Part 10

If Poland, which is a very much greater state than Bulgaria, can live and prosper with a single port, and that not her own--if Rumania, which is also a much more numerous and powerful nation, can thrive with a single issue to the sea, by what line of argument, M. Venizelos asked, can one prove that little Bulgaria requires three or four exits, and that her need justifies the abandonment to her tender mercies of seven hundred and fifty thousand Greeks and the violation of one of the fundamental principles underlying the new moral ordering.

Compliance with Bulgaria's demand would prevent Greece from including within her boundaries the three-quarters of a million Greeks who have dwelt in Thrace for twenty-five centuries, preserving their nationality intact through countless disasters and tremendous cataclysms. Further, the Greek Premier, taking a leaf from Wilson's book, turned to the aspect which the problem would a.s.sume in war-time. Bulgaria, he argued, is essentially a continental state, whose defense does not depend upon naval strength, whereas Greece contains an island population of nearly a million and a half and looks for protection against aggression chiefly to naval precautions. In case of war, Bulgaria, if her claim to an issue on the aegean were allowed, could with her submarines delay or hinder the transport and concentration in Macedonia of Greek forces from the islands and thus place Greece in a position of dangerous inferiority.

Lastly, if Greece's claims in Thrace were rejected, she would have a population of 1,790,000 souls outside her national boundaries--that is to say, more than one-third of the population which is within her state.

Would this be fair? Of the total population of Bulgarian and Turkish Thrace the Turks and Greeks together form 85 per cent., the Bulgars only 6 per cent., and the latter nowhere in compact ma.s.ses. Moreover--and this ought to have clinched the matter--the h.e.l.lenic population formed an absolute as well as a relative majority in the year 1919.

These arguments and various other considerations drawn from the inordinate ambitions, the savage cruelty,[119] and the Punic faith of the Bulgars convinced the British, French, and j.a.panese delegates of the soundness of Greece's pleas, and they sided with M. Venizelos. But Mr.

Wilson clung to his idea with a tenacity which could not be justified by argument, and was concurrently explained by motives irrelevant to the merits of the case. Whether the influence of Bulgarophil American missionaries and strong religious leanings were at the root of his insistence, as was generally a.s.sumed, or whether other considerations weighed with him, is immaterial. And yet it is worth recording that a Bulgarian journal[120] announced with the permission of the governmental censor that the American missionaries in Bulgaria and the professors of Robert College of Constantinople had so primed the American delegates at the Conference on the question of Thrace, and generally on the Bulgarian problem, that all M. Venizelos's pains to convince them of the justice of his contention would be lost labor."[121]

However this may be, Mr. Wilson's att.i.tude was the subject of adverse comment throughout Europe. His implied claim to legislate for the world and to take over its moral leadership earned for him the epithet of "Dictator," and provoked such epigrammatic comments among his own countrymen and the French as this: "Louis XIV said, 'I am the state!'

Mr. Wilson, outdoing him, exclaimed, 'I am all the states!'"

The necessity of winning over dissentient colleagues to his grandiose scheme of world reorganization and of satisfying their demands, which were of a nature to render that scheme abortive, was the most influential agency in impairing his energies and upsetting his plans.

This remark a.s.sumes what unhappily seems a fact, that those plans were mainly mechanical. It is certain that they made no provision for directly influencing the ma.s.ses, for giving them sympathetic guidance, and enabling them to suffuse with social sentiments the aspirations and strivings which were chiefly of the materialistic order, with a view to bringing about a spiritual transformation of the social basis. Indeed we have no evidence that the need of such a transformation of the basis of political thought, which was still rooted in the old order, was grasped by any of those who set their hand to the legislative part of the work.

These unfavorable impressions were general. Almost every step subsequently taken by the Conference confirmed them, and long before the Treaty was presented to the Germans, public confidence was gone in the ability of the Supreme Council to attain any of the moral victories over militarism, race-hatred, and secret intrigues which its leaders had encouraged the world to expect.

"The leaders of the Conference," wrote an influential press organ,[122]

"are under suspicion. They may not know it, but it is true. The suspicion is doubtless unjust, but it exists. What exists is a fact; and men who ignore facts are not statesmen. The only way to deal with facts is to face them. The more unpleasant they are the more they need to be faced.

"Some of the Conference leaders are suspected of having, at various times and in various circ.u.mstances, thought more of their own personal and political positions and ambitions than of the rapid and practical making of peace. They are suspected, in a word, of a tendency to subordinate policy to politics.

"In regard to some important matters they are suspected of having no policy. They are also suspected of unwillingness to listen to their own competent advisers, who could lay down for them a sound policy. Some of them are even suspected of being under the spell of some benumbing influence that paralyzes their will and befogs their minds, when high resolve and clear visions are needful."

Another accusation of the same tenor was thus formulated: "In various degrees[123] and with different qualities of guilt all the Allied and a.s.sociated leaders have dallied with dishonesty. While professing to seek naught save the welfare of mankind, they have harbored thoughts of self-interest. The result has been a progressive loss of faith in them by their own peoples severally, and by the Allied, a.s.sociated, and neutral peoples jointly. The tide of public trust in them has reached its lowest ebb."

At the Conference, as we saw, the President of the United States possessed what was practically a veto on nearly all matters which left the vital interests of Britain and France intact. And he frequently exercised it. Thus the dispute about the Thracian settlement lay not between Bulgaria and Greece, nor between Greece and the Supreme Council, but between Greece and Mr. Wilson. In the quarrel over Fiume and the Dalmatian coast it was the same. When the Shantung question came up for settlement it was Mr. Wilson alone who dealt with it, his colleagues, although bound by their promises to support j.a.pan, having made him their mouthpiece. The rigor he displayed in dealing with some of the smaller countries was in inverse ratio to the indulgence he practised toward the Great Powers. Not only were they peremptorily bidden to obey without discussion the behests which had been brought to their cognizance, but they were ordered, as we saw, to promise to execute other injunctions which might be issued by the Supreme Council on certain matters in the future, the details of which were necessarily undetermined.

In order to stifle any velleities of resistance on the part of their governments, they were notified that America's economic aid, of which they were in sore need, would depend on their docility. It is important to remember that it was the motive thus clearly presented that determined their formal a.s.sent to a policy which they deprecated. A Russian statesman summed up the situation in the words: "It is an ill.u.s.tration of one of our sayings, 'Whose bread I eat, his songs I sing.'" Thus it was reported in July that an agreement come to by the financial group Morgan with an Italian syndicate for a yearly advance to Italy of a large sum for the purchase of American food and raw stuffs was kept in abeyance until the Italian delegation should accept such a solution of the Adriatic problem as Mr. Wilson could approve. The Russian and anti-Bolshevists were in like manner compelled to give their a.s.sent to certain democratic dogmas and practices. It is also fair, however, to bear in mind that whatever one may think of the wisdom of the policy pursued by the President toward these peoples, the motives that actuated it were unquestionably admirable, and the end in view was their own welfare, as he understood it. It is all the more to be regretted that neither the arguments nor the example of the autocratic delegates were calculated to give these the slightest influence over the thought or the unfettered action of their unwilling wards. The arrangements carried out were entirely mechanical.

In the course of time after the vital interests of Britain, France, and j.a.pan had been disposed of, and only those of the "lesser states," in the more comprehensive sense of this term, remained, President Wilson exercised supreme power, wielding it with firmness and encountering no gainsayer. Thus the peace between Italy and Austria was put off from month to month because he--and only he--among the members of the Supreme Council rejected the various projects of an arrangement. Into the merits of this dispute it would be unfruitful to enter. That there was much to be said for Mr. Wilson's contention, from the point of view of the League of Nations, and also from that of the Jugoslavs, will not be denied. That some of the main arguments to which he trusted his case were invalidated by the concessions which he had made to other countries was Italy's contention, and it cannot be thrust aside as untenable.

At last Mr. Wilson ventured on a step which challenged the attention and stirred the disquietude of his friends. He despatched a note[124] to Turkey, warning her that if the ma.s.sacres of Armenians were not discontinued he would withdraw the twelfth of his Fourteen Points, which provides for the maintenance of Turkish sovereignty over undeniable Turkish territories. The intention was excellent, but the necessary effects of his action were contrary to what the President can have aimed at. He had not consulted the Conference on the important change which he was about to make respecting a point which was supposed to be part of the groundwork of the new ordering. This from the Conference point of view was a momentous decision, which could be taken only with the consent of the Supreme Council. Even as a mere threat it was worthless if it did not stand for the deliberate will of that body which the President had deemed it superfluous to consult. As it happened, the British authorities were just then organizing a body of gendarmes to police the Turkish territories in question, and they were engaged in this work with the knowledge and approval of the Supreme Council. Mr.

Wilson's announcement could therefore only be construed--and was construed--as the act of an authority superior to that of the Council.[125] The Turks, who are shrewd observers, must have drawn the obvious conclusion from these divergent measures as to the degree of harmony prevailing among the Allied and a.s.sociated Powers.

M. Clemenceau had a conversation on the subject with Mr. Polk, who explained that the note was informal and given verbally, and conveyed the idea only of one nation in connection with the Armenian situation.

This explanation, accepted by the French government, did not commend itself to public opinion, either in France or elsewhere. Moreover, the French were struck by another aspect of this arbitrary exercise of supreme power. "President Wilson," wrote an eminent French publicist, "throws himself into the att.i.tude of a man who can bind and loose the Turkish Empire at the very moment when the Senate appears opposed to accepting any mandate, European or Asiatic, at the moment when Mr.

Lansing declares to the Congress that the government of which he is a member does not desire to accept any mandate. But is it not obvious that if Mr. Wilson sovereignly determines the lot of Turkey he can be held in consequence to the performance of certain duties? We have often had to deplore the absence of policy common to the Allies. But has each one of them, considered separately, at least a policy of its own? Does it take action otherwise than at haphazard, yielding to the impulse of a general, a consul, or a missionary?"[126]

It soon became manifest even to the most obtuse that whenever the Supreme Council, following its leaders and working on such lines as these, terminated its labors, the ties between the political communities of Europe would be just as flimsy as in the unregenerate days of secret diplomacy, secret alliances, and secret intrigues, unless in the meanwhile the peoples themselves intervened to render them stronger and more enduring. It would, however, be the height of unfairness to make Mr. Wilson alone answerable for this untoward ending to a far resonant beginning. He had been accused by the press of most countries of enwrapping personal ambition in the attractive covering of disinterestedness and altruism, just as many of his foreign colleagues were said to go in fear of the "malady of lost power." But charges of this nature overstep the bounds of legitimate criticism. Motive is hardly ever visible, nor is it often deducible from deliberate action.

If, for example, one were to infer from the vast territorial readjustments and the still vaster demands of the various belligerents at the Conference, the motives that had determined them to enter the war, the conclusion--except in the case of the American people, whose disinterestedness is beyond the reach of cavil--would indeed be distressing. The President of the United States merited well of all nations by holding up to them an ideal for realization, and the mere announcement of his resolve to work for it imparted an appreciable if inadequate incentive to men of good-will. The task, however, was so gigantic that he cannot have gaged its magnitude, discerned the defects of the instruments, nor estimated aright the force of the hindrances before taking the world to witness that he would achieve it. Even with the hearty co-operation of ardent colleagues and the adoption of a sound method he could hardly have hoped to do more than clear the ground--perhaps lay the foundation-stone--of the structure he dreamt of.

But with the partners whom circ.u.mstance allotted him, and the gainsayers whom he had raised up and irritated in his own country, failure was a foregone conclusion from the first. The aims after which most of the European governments strove were sheer incompatible with his own.

Doubtless they all were solicitous about the general good, but their love for it was so general and so diluted with attachment to others'

goods as to be hardly discernible. The reproach that can hardly be spared to Mr. Wilson, however, is that of pusillanimity. If his faith in the principles he had laid down for the guidance of nations were as intense as his eloquent words suggested, he would have spurned the offer of a sequence of high-sounding phrases in lieu of a resettlement of the world. And his appeal to the peoples would most probably have been heard. The beacon once lighted in Paris would have been answered in almost every capital of the world. One promise he kept religiously: he did not return to Washington without a paper covenant. Is it more? Is it merely a paradox to a.s.sert that as war was waged in order to make war impossible, so a peace was made that will render peace impossible?

FOOTNOTES:

[91] In March.

[92] Quoted by _The Chicago Tribune_ (Paris edition), August 10, 1919.

[93] Delivered at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York on March 4, 1919.

[94] _The New York Herald_, March 19, 1919 (Paris edition).

[95] Cf. _The New York Herald_, July 8, 1919.

[96] The semi-official journals manifested a steady tendency to lean toward the Republican opposition in the United States, down to the month of August, when the amendments proposed by various Senators bade fair to jeopardize the Treaties and render the promised military succor doubtful.

[97] _Journal de Geneve_, May 18, 1919.

[98] _The New York Herald_ (Paris edition), August 14, 1919.

[99] Cf. Paris papers of February 2, 1919, and _The Public Ledger_ (Philadelphia), February 4, 1919.

[100] Cf. _L'Echo de Paris_, April 19, 1919.

[101] In April, 1919.

[102] About April 10,1919.

[103] On March 19, 1919.

[104] Cf. my cablegram published in _The Public Ledger_ (Philadelphia), January 12, 1919.

[105] Cf. _The Public Ledger_ (Philadelphia), February 5, 1919.

[106] Doctor Bunke, Councilor at the court of Dantzig, endeavors in _The Dantzig Neueste Nachrichten_ to prove that the problem of Dantzig was solved exclusively in the interests of the Naval Powers, America and Britain, who need it as a basis for their commerce with Poland, Russia, and Germany. Cf. also _Le Temps_, August 23, 1919

[107] _The New York Herald_ (Paris edition), March 1, 1919.

[108] Lysis, author of _Demain_, and many other remarkable studies of economic problems, and editor of _Le Democratie Nouvelle_, May 30, 1919.

[109] For an account of a.n.a.logous bargainings with Bela Kuhn, see the Chapter on Rumania.

[110] Bearing the number 3882.

[111] On October 12, 1918, and February 1, 1919

[112] On February 4, 1919.

[113] _La Democratie Nouvelle_, May 30, 1919

[114] See his admirable article in _The New York Herald_ (Paris edition) of May 21, 1919, from which the following extract is worth quoting: "I have said that certain great forces have steadily and occultly worked for a German peace. But I mean, in fact, one force--an international finance to which all other forces hostile to the freedom of nations and of the individual soul are contributory. The influence of this finance had permeated the Conference, delaying the decisions as long as possible, increasing divisions between people and people, between cla.s.s and cla.s.s, between peace-makers and peace-makers, in order to achieve two definite ends, which two ends are one and the same.

"The first end was so to manipulate the minds of the peace-makers, of their hordes of retainers and 'experts,' as to bring about, if possible, a peace that would not be destructive to industrial Germany. The second end was so to delay the Russian question, so to complicate and thwart every proposed solution, that, at last, either during or after the Peace Conference, a recognition of the Bolshevist power as the _de facto_ government of Russia would be the only possible solution."