The Inside Story of the Peace Conference Part 12

I could have pointed out that, this being an a.s.sembly of nations which had waged war conjointly, there is no sound reason why its membership should be diluted with states which never drew the sword at all. I might have asked what has become of the doctrine preached when victory was still undecided, that a league of nations must repose upon a free consent of all sovereign states. And above all things else I could have inquired how it came to pa.s.s that the architect-in-chief of the society of nations which is to bestow a stable peace on mankind should invoke the argument of force, of militarism, against the pacific peoples who voluntarily made the supreme sacrifice for the cause of humanity and now only ask for a hearing. Twelve million fighting-men is an argument to be employed against the Teutons, not against the peace-loving, law-abiding peoples of Europe.

"Premier Clemenceau seemed to lay the blame for the waste of time on our shoulders, but the truth is that we were never admitted to the deliberations until yesterday; although two and one-half months have elapsed since the armistice was concluded, and although the progress made by these leading statesmen is manifestly limited, he grudged us forty-five minutes to give vent to our views and wishes.

"The French Tiger was admirable when crushing the enemies of civilization with his twelve million fighting-men; but gestures and actions which were appropriate to the battlefield become sources of jarring and discord when imported into a concert of peoples."

Much bitterness was generated by those high-handed tactics, whereupon certain slight concessions were made in order to placate the offended delegates; but, being doled out with a bad grace, they failed of the effect intended. Belgium received three delegates instead of two, and Jugoslavia three; but Rumania, whose population was estimated at fourteen millions, was allowed but two. This inexplicable decision caused a fresh wound, which was kept continuously open by friction, although it might readily have been avoided. Its consequences may be traced in Rumania's singular relations to the Supreme Council before and after the fall of Kuhn in Hungary.

But even those drastic methods might be deemed warranted if the policy enforced were, in truth, conducive to the welfare of the nations on whom it was imposed. But hastily improvised by one or two men, who had no claim to superior or even average knowledge of the problems involved, and who were constantly falling into egregious and costly errors, it was inevitable that their intervention should be resented as arbitrary and mischievous by the leaders of the interested nations whose acquaintanceship with those questions and with the interdependent issues was extensive and precise. This resentment, however, might have been not, indeed, neutralized, but somewhat mitigated, if the temper and spirit in which the Duumvirate discharged its self-set functions had been free from hauteur and softened by modesty. But the magisterial wording in which its decisions were couched, the abruptness with which they were notified, and the threats that accompanied their imposition would have been repellent even were the authors endowed with infallibility.

One of the delegates who unbosomed himself to me on the subject soon after the Germans had signed the Treaty remarked: "The Big Three are superlatively unsympathetic to most of the envoys from the lesser belligerent states. And it would be a wonder if it were otherwise, for they make no effort to hide their disdain for us. In fact, it is downright contempt. They never consult us. When we approach them they shove us aside as importunate intruders. They come to decisions unknown to us, and carry them out in secrecy, as though we were enemies or spies. If we protest or remonstrate, we are imperialists and ungrateful.

"Often we learn only from the newspapers the burdens or the restrictions that have been imposed on us."

A couple of days previously M. Clemenceau, in an unofficial reply to a question put by the Rumanian delegation, directed them to consult the financial terms of the Treaty with Austria, forgetting that the delegates of the lesser states had not been allowed to receive or read those terms. Although communicated to the Austrians, they were carefully concealed from the Rumanians, whom they also concerned. At the same time, the Rumanian government was called upon to take and announce a decision which presupposed acquaintanceship with those conditions, whereupon the Rumanian Premier telegraphed from Bucharest to Paris to have them sent. But his _loc.u.m tenens_ did not possess a copy and had no right to demand one.[140] Incongruities of this character were frequent.

One statesman in Paris, who enjoys a world-wide reputation, dissented from those who sided with the lesser states. He looked at their protests and tactics from an angle of vision which the unbiased historian, however emphatically he may dissent from it, cannot ignore. He said: "All the smaller communities are greedy and insatiable. If the chiefs of the World Powers had understood their temper and ascertained their aspirations in 1914, much that has pa.s.sed into history since then would never have taken place. During the war these miniature countries were courted, flattered, and promised the sun and the moon, earth and heaven, and all the glories therein. And now that these promises cannot be redeemed, they are wroth, and peevishly threaten the great states with disobedience and revolt. This, it is true, they could not do if the latter had not forfeited their authority and prestige by allowing their internal differences, hesitations, contradictions, and repentances to become manifest to all. To-day it is common knowledge that the Great Powers are amenable to very primitive incentives and deterrents. If in the beginning they had been united and said to their minor brethren: 'These are your frontiers. These your obligations,' the minor brethren would have bowed and acquiesced gratefully. In this way the boundary problems might have been settled to the satisfaction of all, for each new or enlarged state would have been treated as the recipient of a free gift from the World Powers. But the plenipotentiaries went about their task in a different and unpractical fashion. They began by recognizing the new communities, and then they gave them representatives at the Conference. This they did on the ground that the League of Nations must first be founded, and that all well-behaved belligerents on the Allied side have a right to be consulted upon that. And, finally, instead of keeping to their program and liquidating the war, they mingled the issues of peace with the clauses of the League and debated them simultaneously. In these debates they revealed their own internal differences, their hesitancy, and the weakness of their will. And the lesser states have taken advantage of that. The general results have been the postponement of peace, the physical exhaustion of the Central Empires, and the spread of Bolshevism."

It should not be forgotten that this mixture of the general and the particular of the old order and the new was objected to on other grounds. The Italians, for example, urged that it changed the status of a large number of their adversaries into that of highly privileged Allies. During the war they were enemies, before the peace discussions opened they had obtained forgiveness, after which they entered the Conference as cherished friends. The Italians had waged their war heroically against the Austrians, who inflicted heavy losses on them.

Who were these Austrians? They were composed of the various nationalities which made up the Hapsburg monarchy, and in especial of men of Slav speech. These soldiers, with notable exceptions, discharged their duty to the Austrian Emperor and state conscientiously, according to the terms of their oath. Their disposition toward the Italians was not a whit less hostile than was that of the common German man against the French and the English. Why, then, argued the Italians, accord them privileges over the ally who bore the brunt of the fight against them?

Why even treat the two as equals? It may be replied that the bulk of the people were indifferent and merely carried out orders. Well, the same holds good of the average German, yet he is not being spoiled by the victorious World Powers. But the Croats and others suddenly became the favorite children of the Conference, while the Germans and Teuton-Austrians, who in the meanwhile had accepted and fulfilled President Wilson's conditions for entry into the fellowship of nations, were not only punished heavily--which was perfectly just--but also disqualified for admission into the League, which was inconsistent.

The root of all the incoherences complained of lay in the circ.u.mstance that the chiefs of the Great Powers had no program, no method; Mr.

Wilson's pristine scheme would have enabled him to treat the gallant Serbs and their Croatian brethren as he desired. But he had failed to maintain it against opposition. On the other hand, the traditional method of the balance of power would have given Italy all that she could reasonably ask for, but Mr. Wilson had partially destroyed it. Nothing remained then but to have recourse to a _tertium quid_ which profoundly dissatisfied both parties and imperiled the peace of the world in days to come. And even this makeshift the eminent plenipotentiaries were unable to contrive single-handed. Their notion of getting the work done was to transfer it to missions, commissions, and sub-commissions, and then to take action which, as often as not, ran counter to the recommendations of these selected agents. Oddly enough, none of these bodies received adequate directions. To take a concrete example: a central commission was appointed to deal with the Polish frontier problems, a second commission under M. Jules Cambon had to study the report on the Polish Delimitation question, but although often consulted, it was seldom listened to. Then there was a third commission, which also did excellent work to very little purpose. Now all the questions which formed the subjects of their inquiries might be approached from various sides. There were historical frontiers, ethnographical frontiers, political and strategical and linguistic frontiers. And this does not exhaust the list. Among all these, then, the commissioners had to choose their field of investigation as the spirit moved them, without any guidance from the Supreme Council, which presumably did not know what it wanted.

As an example of the Council's unmethodical procedure, and of its slipshod way of tackling important work, the following brief sketch of a discussion which was intended to be decisive and final, but ended in mere waste of time, may be worth recording. The topic mooted was disarmament. The Anglo-Saxon plenipotentiaries, feeling that they owed it to their doctrines and their peoples to ease the military burdens of the latter and lessen temptations to acts of violence, favored a measure by which armaments should be reduced forthwith. The Italian delegates had put forward the thesis, which was finally accepted, that if Austria, for instance, was to be forbidden to keep more than a certain number of troops under arms, the prohibition should be extended to all the states of which Austria had been composed, and that in all these cases the ratio between the population and the army should be identical.

Accordingly, the spokesmen of the various countries interested were summoned to take cognizance of the decision and intimate their readiness to conform to it.

M. Paderewski listened respectfully to the decree, and then remarked: "According to the accounts received from the French military authorities, Germany still has three hundred and fifty thousand soldiers in Silesia." "No," corrected M. Clemenceau, "only three hundred thousand." "I accept the correction," replied the Polish Premier. "The difference, however, is of no importance to my contention, which is that according to the symptoms reported we Poles may have to fight the Germans and to wage the conflict single-handed. As you know, we have other military work on hand. I need only mention our strife with the Bolsheviki. If we are deprived of effective means of self-defense, on the one hand, and told to expect no help from the Allies, on the other hand, the consequence will be what every intelligent observer foresees.

Now three hundred thousand Germans is no trifle to cope with. If we confront them with an inadequate force and are beaten, what then?"

"Undoubtedly," exclaimed M. Clemenceau, "if the Germans were victorious in the east of Europe the Allies would have lost the war. And that is a perspective not to be faced."

M. Bratiano spoke next. "We too," he said, "have to fight the Bolsheviki on more than one front. This struggle is one of life and death to us.

But it concerns, if only in a lesser degree, all Europe, and we are rendering services to the Great Powers by the sacrifices we thus offer up. Is it desirable, is it politic, to limit our forces without reference to these redoubtable tasks which await them? Is it not inc.u.mbent on the Powers to allow these states to grow to the dimensions required for the discharge of their functions?" "What you advance is true enough for the moment," objected M. Clemenceau; "but you forget that our limitations are not to be applied at once. We fix a term after the expiry of which the strength of the armies will be reduced. We have taken all the circ.u.mstances into account." "Are you prepared to affirm,"

queried the Rumanian Minister, "that you can estimate the time with sufficient precision to warrant our risking the existence of our country on your forecast?" "The danger will have completely disappeared,"

insisted the French Premier, "by January, 1921." "I am truly glad to have this a.s.surance," answered M. Bratiano, "for I doubt not that you are quite certain of what you advance, else you would not stake the fate of your eastern allies on its correctness. But as we who have not been told the grounds on which you base this calculation are asked to manifest our faith in it by incurring the heaviest conceivable risks, would it be too much to suggest that the Great Powers should show their confidence in their own forecast by guaranteeing that if by the insurgence of unexpected events they proved to be mistaken and Rumania were attacked, they would give us prompt and adequate military a.s.sistance?" To this appeal there was no affirmative response; whereupon M. Bratiano concluded: "The limitation of armaments is highly desirable.

No people is more eager for it than ours. But it has one limitation which must, I venture to think, be respected. So long as you have a restive or dubious neighbor, whose military forces are subjected neither to limitation nor control, you cannot divest yourself of your own means of self-defense. That is our view of the matter."

Months later the same difficulty cropped up anew, this time in a concrete form, and was dealt with by the Supreme Council in its characteristic manner. Toward the end of August Rumania's doings in Hungary and her alleged designs on the Banat alarmed and angered the delegates, whose authority was being flouted with impunity; and by way of summarily terminating the scandal and preventing unpleasant surprises M. Clemenceau proposed that all further consignments of arms to Rumania should cease. Thereupon Italy's chief representative, Signor t.i.ttoni, offered an amendment. He deprecated, he said, any measure leveled specially against Rumania, all the more that there existed already an enactment of the old Council of Four limiting the armaments of all the lesser states. The Military Council of Versailles, having been charged with the study of this matter, had reached the conclusion that the Great Powers should not supply any of the governments with war material.

Signor t.i.ttoni was of the opinion, therefore, that those conclusions should now be enforced.

The Council thereupon agreed with the Italian delegate, and pa.s.sed a resolution to supply none of the lesser countries with war material. And a few minutes later it pa.s.sed another resolution authorizing Germany to cede part of her munitions and war material to Czechoslovakia and some more to General Yudenitch![141]

When the commissions to which all the complex problems had to be referred were being first created,[142] the lesser states were allowed only five representatives on the Financial and Economic commissions, and were bidden to elect them. The nineteen delegates of these States protested on the ground that this arrangement would not give them sufficient weight in the councils by which their interests would be discussed. These malcontents were headed by Senhor Epistacio Pessoa, the President-elect of the United States of Brazil. The Polish delegate, M.

Dmowski, addressing the meeting, suggested that they should not proceed to an election, the results of which might stand in no relation to the interests which the states represented had in matters of European finance, but that they should ask the Great Powers to appoint the delegates. To this the President-elect of Brazil demurred, taking the ground that it would be undignified for the lesser states to submit to have their spokesman nominated by the greater. Thereupon they elected five delegates, all of them from South American countries, to deal with European finance, leaving the Europeans to choose five from among themselves. This would have given ten in all to the communities whose interests were described as limited, and was an affront to the Great Powers.

This comedy was severely judged and its authors reprimanded by the heads of the Conference, who, while quashing the elections, relented to the extent of promising that extra delegates might be appointed for the lesser nations later on. As a matter of fact, the number of commissions was of no real consequence, because on all momentous issues their findings, unless they harmonized with the decisions of the chief plenipotentiaries, were simply ignored.

The curious att.i.tude of the Supreme Council toward Rumania may be contemplated from various angles of vision. But the safest coign of vantage from which to look at it is that formed by the facts.

Rumania's grievances were many, and they began at the opening of the Conference, when she was refused more than two delegates as against the five attributed to each of the Great Powers and three each for Serbia and Belgium, whose populations are numerically inferior to hers. Then her treaty with Great Britain, France, and Russia, on the strength of which she entered the war, was upset by its more powerful signatories as soon as the frontier question was mooted at the Conference. Further, the existence of the Rumanian delegation was generally ignored by the Supreme Council. Thus, when the treaty with Germany was presented to Count von Brockdorff-Rantzau, a mere journalist[143] at the Conference possessed a complete copy, whereas the Rumanian delegation, headed by the Prime Minister Bratiano, had cognizance only of an incomplete summary. When the fragmentary treaty was drafted for Austria, the Rumanian delegation saw the text only on the evening before the presentation, and, noticing inacceptable clauses, formulated reservations. These reservations were apparently acquiesced in by the members of the Supreme Council. That, at any rate, was the impression of MM. Bratiano and Misu. But on the following day, catching a glimpse of the draft, they discovered that the obnoxious provisions had been left intact. Then they lodged their reserves in writing, but to no purpose.

One of the obligations imposed on Rumania by the Powers was a promise to accept in advance any and every measure that the Supreme Council might frame for the protection of minorities in the country, and for further restricting the sovereignty of the state in matters connected with the transit of Allied goods. And, lastly, the Rumanians complained that the action of the Supreme Council was creating a dangerous ferment in the Dobrudja, and even in Transylvania, where the Saxon minority, which had willingly accepted Rumanian sway, was beginning to agitate against it.

In Bessarabia the non-Rumanian elements of the population were fiercely opposing the Rumanians and invoking the support of the Peace Conference.

The cardinal fact which, in the judgment of the Rumanians, dominated the situation was the _quasi_ ultimatum presented to them in the spring, when they were summoned unofficially and privately to grant industrial concessions to a pushing body of financiers, or else to abide by the consequences, one of which, they were told, would be the loss of America's active a.s.sistance. They had elected to incur the threatened penalty after having carefully weighed the advantages and disadvantages of laying the matter before President Wilson himself, and inquiring officially whether the action in question was--as they felt sure it must be--in contradiction with the President's east European policy. For it would be sad to think that abundant petroleum might have washed away many of the tribulations which the Rumanians had afterward to endure, and that loans accepted on onerous conditions would, as was hinted, have softened the hearts of those who had it in their power to render the existence of the nation sour or sweet.[144] "Look out," exclaimed a Rumanian to me. "You will see that we shall be spurned as Laodiceans, or worse, before the Conference is over." Rumania's external situation was even more perilous than her domestic plight. Situated between Russia and Hungary, she came more and more to resemble the iron between the hammer and the anvil. A well-combined move of the two anarchist states might have pulverized her. Alive to the danger, her spokesmen in Paris were anxious to guard against it, but the only hope they had at the moment was centered in the Great Powers, whose delegates at the Conference were discharging the functions which the League of Nations would be called on to fulfil whenever it became a real inst.i.tution. And their past experience of the Great Powers' mode of action was not calculated to command their confidence. It was the Great Powers which, for their own behoof and without the slightest consideration for the interests of Rumania, had constrained that country to declare war against the Central Empires[145] and had made promises of effective support in the shape of Russian troops, war material of every kind, officers, and heavy artillery. But neither the promises of help nor the a.s.surances that Germany's army of invasion would be immobilized were redeemed, and so far as one can now judge they ought never to have been made. For what actually came to pa.s.s--the invasion of the country by first-cla.s.s German armies under Mackensen--might easily have been foreseen, and was actually foretold.[146] The entire country was put to sack, and everything of value that could be removed was carried off to Hungary, Germany, or Austria. The Allies lavished their verbal sympathies on the immolated nation, but did little else to succor it, and want and misery and disease played havoc with the people.

After the armistice things became worse instead of better. The Hungarians were permitted to violate the conditions and keep a powerful army out of all proportion to the area which they were destined to retain, and as the Allies disposed of no countering force in eastern Europe, their commands were scoffed at by the Budapest Cabinet. In the spring of 1919 the Bolshevists of Hungary waxed militant and threatened the peace of Rumania, whose statesmen respectfully sued for permission to occupy certain commanding positions which would have enabled their armies to protect the land from invasion. But the Duumviri in Paris negatived the request. They fancied that they understood the situation better than the people on the spot. Thereupon the Bolshevists, ever ready for an opportunity, seized upon the opening afforded them by the Supreme Council, attacked the Rumanians, and invaded their territory.

Nothing abashed, the two Anglo-Saxon statesmen comforted M. Bratiano and his colleagues with the expression of their regret and the promise that tranquillity would not again be disturbed. The Supreme Council would see to that. But this promise, like those that preceded it, was broken.

The Rumanians went so far as to believe that the Supreme Council either had Bolshevist leanings or underwent secret influences--perhaps unwittingly--the nature of which it was not easy to ascertain. In support of these theories they urged that when the Rumanians were on the very point of annihilating the Red troops of Kuhn, it was the Supreme Council which interposed its authority to save them, and did save them effectually, when nothing else could have done it. That Kuhn was on the point of collapsing was a matter of common knowledge. A radio-telegram flashed from Budapest by one of his lieutenants contained this significant avowal: "He [Kuhn] has announced that the Hungarian forces are in flight. The troops which occupied a good position at the bridgehead of Gomi have abandoned it, carrying with them the men who were doing their duty. In Budapest preparations are going forward for equipping fifteen workmen's battalions." In other words, the downfall of Bolshevism had begun. The Rumanians were on the point of achieving it.

Their troops on the bank of the river Tisza[147] were preparing to march on Budapest. And it was at that critical moment that the world-arbiters at the Conference who had anathematized the Bolshevists as the curse of civilization interposed their authority and called a halt. If they had solid grounds for intervening they were not avowed. M. Clemenceau sent for M. Bratiano and vetoed the march in peremptory terms which did scant justice to the services rendered and the sacrifices made by the Rumanian state. Secret arrangements, it was whispered, had been come to between agents of the Powers and Kuhn. At the time n.o.body quite understood the motive of the sudden change of disposition evinced by the Allies toward the Magyar Bolshevists. For it was a.s.sumed that they still regarded the Bolshevist leaders as outlaws. One explanation was that they objected to allow the Rumanian army alone to occupy the Hungarian capital. But that would not account for their neglect to despatch an Inter-Allied contingent to restore order in the city and country. For they remained absolutely inactive while Kuhn's supporters were rallying and consolidating their scattered and demoralized forces, and they kept the Rumanians from balking the Bolshevist work of preparing another attack.

As one of their French critics[148] remarked, they dealt exclusively in negatives--some of them pernicious enough, whereas a positive policy was imperatively called for. To reconstruct a nation, not to say a ruined world, a series of contradictory vetoes is hardly sufficient. But another explanation of their att.i.tude was offered which gained widespread acceptance. It will be unfolded presently.

The dispersed Bolshevist army, thus shielded, soon recovered its nerve, and, feeling secure on the Rumanian front, where the Allies held the invading troops immobilized, attacked the Slovaks and overran their country. For Bolshevism is by nature proselytizing. The Prague Cabinet was dismayed. The new-born Czechoslovak state was shaken. A catastrophe might, as it seemed, ensue at any moment. Rumania's troops were on the watch for the signal to resume their march, but it came not. The Czechoslovaks were soliciting it prayerfully. But the weak-kneed plenipotentiaries in Paris were minded to fight, if at all, with weapons taken from a different a.r.s.enal. In lieu of ordering the Rumanian troops to march on Budapest, they addressed themselves to the Bolshevist leader, Kuhn, summoned him to evacuate the Slovak country, and volunteered the promise that they would compel the Rumanians to withdraw. This amazing line of action was decided on by the secret Council of Three without the a.s.sent or foreknowledge of the nation to whose interests it ran counter and the head of whose government was rubbing shoulders with the plenipotentiaries every day. But M.

Bratiano's existence and that of his fellow-delegate was systematically ignored. It is not easy to fathom the motives that inspired this supercilious treatment of the spokesman of a nation which was sacrificing its sons in the service of the Allies as well as its own.

Personal antipathy, however real, cannot be a.s.sumed without convincing grounds to have been the mainspring.

But there was worse than the contemptuous treatment of a colleague who was also the chief Minister of a friendly state. If an order was to be given to the Rumanian government to recall its forces from the front which they occupied, elementary courtesy and political tact as well as plain common sense would have suggested its being communicated, in the first instance, to the chief of that government--who was then resident in Paris--as head of his country's delegation to the Conference. But that was not the course taken. The statesmen of the Secret Council had recourse to the radio, and, without consulting M. Bratiano, despatched a message "to the government in Bucharest" enjoining on it the withdrawal of the Rumanian army. For they were minded scrupulously to redeem their promise to the Bolshevists. One need not be a diplomatist to realize the amazement of "the Rumanian government" on receiving this abrupt behest.

The feelings of the Premier, when informed of these underhand doings, can readily be imagined. And it is no secret that the temper of a large section of the Rumanian people was attuned by these petty freaks to sentiments which boded no good to the cause for which the Allies professed to be working. In September M. Bratiano was reported as having stigmatized the policy adopted by the Conference toward Rumania as being of a "malicious and dangerous character."[149]

The frontier to which the troops were ordered to withdraw had, as we saw, just been a.s.signed to Rumania[150] without the a.s.sent of her government, and with a degree of secrecy and arbitrariness that gave deep offense, not only to her official representatives, but also to those parliamentarians and politicians who from genuine attachment or for peace' sake were willing to go hand in hand with the Entente. "If one may cla.s.sify the tree by its fruits," exclaimed a Rumanian statesman in my hearing, "the great Three are unconscious Bolshevists. They are undermining respect for authority, tradition, plain, straightforward dealing, and, in the case of Rumania, are behaving as though their staple aim were to detach our nation from France and the Entente. And this aim is not unattainable. The Rumanian people were heart and soul with the French, but the bonds which were strong a short while ago are being weakened among an influential section of the people, to the regret of all Rumanian patriots."

The answer given by the "Rumanian government in Bucharest" to the peremptory order of the Secret Council was a reasoned refusal to comply.

Rumania, taught by terrible experience, declined to be led once more into deadly peril against her own better judgment. Her statesmen, more intimately acquainted with the Hungarians than were Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Wilson, and M. Clemenceau, required guaranties which could be supplied only by armed forces--Rumanian or Allied. Unless and until Hungary received a government chosen by the free will of the people and capable of offering guaranties of good conduct, the troops must remain where they were. For the line which they occupied at the moment could be defended with four divisions, whereas the new one could not be held by less than seven or eight. The Council was therefore about to commit another fateful mistake, the consequences of which it was certain to shift to the shoulders of the pliant people. It was then that Rumania's leaders kicked against the p.r.i.c.ks.

To return to the dispute between Bucharest and Paris: the Rumanian government would have been willing to conform to the desire of the Supreme Council and withdraw its troops if the Supreme Council would only make good its a.s.surance and guarantee Rumania effectually from future attacks by the Hungarians. The proviso was reasonable, and as a measure of self-defense imperative. The safeguard asked for was a contingent of Allied force. But the two supreme councilors in Paris dealt only in counters. All they had to offer to M. Bratiano were verbal exhortations before the combat and lip-sympathy after defeat, and these the Premier rejected. But here, as in the case of the Poles, the representatives of the "Allied and a.s.sociated" Powers insisted. They were profuse of promises, exhortations, and entreaties before pa.s.sing to threats--of guaranties they said nothing--but the Rumanian Premier, turning a deaf ear to cajolery and intimidation, remained inflexible.

For he was convinced that their advice was often vitiated by gross ignorance and not always inspired by disinterestedness, while the orders they issued were hardly more than the velleities of well-meaning gropers in the dark who lacked the means of executing them.

The eminent plenipotentiaries, thus set at naught by a little state, ruminated on the embarra.s.sing situation. In all such cases their practice had been to resign themselves to circ.u.mstances if they proved unable to bend circ.u.mstances to their schemes. It was thus that President Wilson had behaved when British statesmen declined even to hear him on the subject of the freedom of the seas, when M. Clemenceau refused to accept a peace that denied the Saar Valley and a pledge of military a.s.sistance to France, and when j.a.pan insisted on the retrocession of Shantung. Toward Italy an att.i.tude of firmness had been a.s.sumed, because owing to her economic dependence on Britain and the United States she could not indulge in the luxury of nonconformity.

Hence the plenipotentiaries, and in particular Mr. Wilson, a.s.serted their will inexorably and were painfully surprised that one of the lesser states had the audacity to defy it.

The circ.u.mstance that after their triumph over Italy the world's trustees were thus publicly flouted by a little state of eastern Europe was gall and wormwood to them. It was also a menace to the cause with which they were identified. None the less, they accepted the inevitable for the moment, pitched their voices in a lower key, and decided to approve the Rumanian thesis that Neo-Bolshevism in Hungary must be no longer bolstered up,[151] but be squashed vicariously. They accordingly invited the representatives of the three little countries on which the honor of waging these humanitarian wars in the anarchist east of Europe was to be conferred, and sounded them as to their willingness to put their soldiers in the field, and how many as to the numbers available.

M. Bratiano offered eight divisions. The Czechoslovaks did not relish the project, but after some delay and fencing around agreed to furnish a contingent, whereas the Jugoslavs met the demand with a plain negative, which was afterward changed to acquiescence when the Council promised to keep the Italians from attacking them. As things turned out, none but the Rumanians actually fought the Hungarian Reds. Meanwhile the members of the American, British, and Italian missions in Hungary endeavored to reach a friendly agreement with the criminal gang in Budapest.

The plan of campaign decided on had Marshal Foch for its author. It was, therefore, business-like. He demanded a quarter of a million men,[152]

to which it was decided that Rumania should contribute 120,000, Jugoslavia 50,000, and Czechoslovakia as many as she could conveniently afford. But the day before the preparations were to have begun,[153]

Bela Kuhn flung his troops[154] against the Rumanians with initial success, drove them across the Tisza with considerable loss, took up commanding positions, and struck dismay into the members of the Supreme Council. The Semitic Dictator, with grim humor, explained to the crestfallen lawgivers, who were once more at fault, that a wanton breach of the peace was alien to his thoughts; that, on the contrary, his motive for action deserved high praise--it was to compel the rebellious Rumanians to obey the behest of the Conference and withdraw to their frontiers. The plenipotentiaries bore this gibe with dignity, and decided to have recourse once more to their favorite, and, indeed, only method--the despatch of exhortative telegrams. Of more efficacious means they were dest.i.tute. This time their message, which lacked a definite address, was presumably intended for the anti-Bolshevist population of Hungary, whom it indirectly urged to overthrow the Kuhn Cabinet and receive the promised reward--namely, the privilege of entering into formal relations with the Entente and signing the death-warrant of the Magyar state. It is not easy to see how this solution alone could have enabled the Supreme Council to establish normal conditions and tranquillity in the land. But the Duumvirate seemed utterly incapable of devising a coherent policy for central or eastern Europe. Even when Hungary had a government friendly to the Entente they never obtained any advantage from it. They had had no use for Count Karolyi. They had allowed things to slip and slide, and permitted--nay, helped--Bolshevism to thrive, although they had brand-marked it as a virulent epidemic to be drastically stamped out. Temper, education, and training disqualified them for seizing opportunity and pressing the levers that stood ready to their hand.

In consequence of the vacillation of the two chiefs, who seldom stood firm in the face of difficulties, the members of the predatory gang which concealed its alien origin under Magyar nationality and its criminal propensities[155] under a political mask had been enabled to go on playing an odious comedy, to the disgust of sensible people and the detriment of the new and enlarged states of Europe. For the cost of the Supreme Council's weakness had to be paid in blood and substance, little though the two delegates appeared to realize this. The extent to which the ruinous process was carried out would be incredible were it not established by historic facts and doc.u.ments.

The permanent agents of the Powers in Hungary,[156] preferring conciliation to force, now exhorted the Hungarians to rid themselves of Kuhn and promised in return to expel the Rumanians from Hungarian territory once more and to have the blockade raised. At the close of July some Magyars from Austria met Kuhn at a frontier station[157] and strove to persuade him to withdraw quietly into obscurity, but he, confiding in the policy of the Allies and his star, scouted the suggestion. It was at this juncture that the Rumanians, pushing on to Budapest, resolved, come what might, to put an end to the intolerable situation and to make a clean job of it once for all. And they succeeded.

For Rumania's initial military reverse[158] was the result of a surprise attack by some eighty thousand men. But her troops rapidly regained their warlike spirit, recrossed the river Tisza, shattered the Neo-Bolshevist regime, and reached the environs of Budapest.

By the 1st of August the lawless band that was ruining the country relinquished the reins of power, which were taken over at first by a Socialist Cabinet of which an influential French press organ wrote: "The names of the new ... commissaries of the people tell us nothing, because their bearers are unknown. But the endings of their names tell us that most of them are, like those of the preceding government, of Jewish origin. Never since the inauguration of official communism did Budapest better deserve the appellation of Judapest, which was a.s.signed to it by the late M. Lueger, chief of the Christian Socialists of Vienna. That is an additional trait in common with the Russian Soviets."[159]

The Rumanians presented a stiff ultimatum to the new Hungarian Cabinet.

They were determined to safeguard their country and its neighbors from a repet.i.tion of the danger and of the sacrifices it entailed; in other words, to dictate the terms of a new armistice. The Powers demurred and ordered them to content themselves with the old one concluded by the Serbian Voyevod Mis.h.i.tch and General Henrys in November of the preceding year and violated subsequently by the Magyars. But the objections to this course were many and unanswerable. In fact they were largely identical with the objections which the Supreme Council itself had offered to the Polish-Ukrainian armistice. And besides these there were others. For example, the Rumanians had had no hand or part in drafting the old armistice. Moreover it was clearly inapplicable to the fresh campaign which was waged and terminated nine months after it had been drawn up. Experience had shown that it was inadequate to guarantee public tranquillity, for it had not hindered Magyar attacks on the Rumanians and Czechoslovaks. The Rumanians, therefore, now that they had worsted their adversaries, were resolved to disarm them and secure a real peace. They decided to leave fifteen thousand troops for the maintenance of internal order.[160] Rumania's insistence on the delivery of live-stock, corn, agricultural machinery, and rolling-stock for railways was, it was argued, necessitated by want and justified by equity. For it was no more than partial reparation for the immense losses wantonly inflicted on the nation by the Magyars and their allies.

Until then no other amends had been made or even offered. The Austrians, Hungarians, and Germans, during their two years' occupation of Rumania, had seized and carried off from the latter country two million five hundred thousand tons of wheat and hundreds of thousands of head of cattle, besides vast quant.i.ties of clothing, wool, skins, and raw material, while thousands of Rumanian homes were gutted and their contents taken away and sold in the Central Empires. Factories were stripped of their machinery and the railways of their engines and wagons. When Mackensen left there remained in Rumania only fifty locomotives out of the twelve hundred which she possessed before the war. The material, therefore, that Rumania removed from Hungary during the first weeks of the occupation represented but a small part of the quant.i.ties of which she had been despoiled during the war.

It was further urged that at the beginning the Rumanian delegates would have contented themselves with reparation for losses wantonly inflicted and for the rest.i.tution of the property wrongfully taken from them by their enemies, on the lines on which France had obtained this offset.