The Peace Negotiations Part 10

DIFFERENCES AS TO THE LEAGUE RECAPITULATED

The differences between the President's views and mine in regard to the character of the League of Nations and to the provisions of the Covenant relating to the organization and functions of the League were irreconcilable, and we were equally in disagreement as to the duties of the League in carrying out certain provisions of the Treaty of Peace as the common agent of the signatory Powers. As a commissioned representative of the President of the United States acting under his instructions I had no alternative but to accept his decisions and to follow his directions, since surrender of my commission as Peace Commissioner seemed to me at the time to be practically out of the question. I followed his directions, however, with extreme reluctance because I felt that Mr. Wilson's policies were fundamentally wrong and would unavoidably result in loss of prestige to the United States and to him as its Chief Magistrate. It seemed to me that he had endangered, if he had not destroyed, his preeminent position in world affairs in order to obtain the acceptance of his plan for a League of Nations, a plan which in theory and in detail was so defective that it would be difficult to defend it successfully from critical attack.

The objections to the terms of the Covenant, which I had raised at the outset, were based on principle and also on policy, as has been shown in the preceding pages; and on the same grounds I had opposed their hasty adoption and their inclusion in the Peace Treaty to be negotiated at Paris by the Conference. These objections and the arguments advanced in their support did not apparently have any effect on President Wilson, for they failed to change his views or to modify the plan which he, with General s.m.u.ts and Lord Robert Cecil, had worked out for an international organization. They did not swerve him one jot from his avowed purpose to make the creation of the League of Nations the princ.i.p.al feature of the negotiations and the provisions of the Covenant the most prominent articles in the Treaties of Peace with the Central Powers.

Instead of accomplishing their designed purpose, my efforts to induce the President to change his policy resulted only in my losing his confidence in my judgment and in arousing in his mind, if I do not misinterpret his conduct, doubts of my loyalty to him personally. It was characteristic of Mr. Wilson that his firm conviction as to the soundness of his conclusions regarding the character of the League of Nations and his fixity of purpose in seeking to compel its adoption by the Peace Conference were so intense as to brook no opposition, especially from one whom he expected to accept his judgment without question and to give support in thought and word to any plan or policy which he advocated. In view of this mental att.i.tude of the President it is not difficult to understand his opinion of my course of action at Paris. The breach in our confidential relations was unavoidable in view of my conviction of the duty of an official adviser and his belief that objections ought not to be urged as to a matter concerning which he had expressed his opinion. To give implied a.s.sent to policies and intentions which seemed to me wrong or unwise would have been violative of a public trust, though doubtless by remaining silent I might have won favor and approval from the President and retained his confidence.

In summarizing briefly the subjects of disagreement between the President and myself concerning the League of Nations I will follow the order of importance rather than the order in which they arose. While they also divide into two cla.s.ses, those based on principle and those based on policy, it does not seem advisable to treat them by cla.s.ses in the summary.

The most serious defect in the President's Covenant was, in my opinion, one of principle. It was the practical denial of the equality of nations in the regulation of international affairs in times of peace through the recognition in the Executive Council of the League of the right of primacy of the Five Great Powers. This was an abandonment of a fundamental principle of international law and comity and was destructive of the very conception of national sovereignty both as a term of political philosophy and as a term of const.i.tutional law. The denial of the equal independence and the free exercise of sovereign rights of all states in the conduct of their foreign affairs, and the establishment of this group of primates, amounted to a recognition of the doctrine that the powerful are, in law as well as in fact, ent.i.tled to be the overlords of the weak. If adopted, it legalized the mastery of might, which in international relations, when peace prevailed, had been universally condemned as illegal and its a.s.sertion as reprehensible.

It was this doctrine, that the possessors of superior physical power were as a matter of right the supervisors, if not the dictators, of those lacking the physical power to resist their commands, which was the vital element of ancient imperialism and of modern Prussianism. Belief in it as a true theory of world polity justified the Great War in the eyes of the German people even when they doubted the plea of their Government that their national safety was in peril. The victors, although they had fought the war with the announced purpose of proving the falsity of this pernicious doctrine and of emanc.i.p.ating the oppressed nationalities subject to the Central Powers, revived the doctrine with little hesitation during the negotiations at Paris and wrote it into the Covenant of the League of Nations by contriving an organization which would give practical control over the destinies of the world to an oligarchy of the Five Great Powers. It was an a.s.sumption of the right of supremacy based on the fact that the united strength of these Powers could compel obedience. It was a full endors.e.m.e.nt of the theory of "the balance of power" in spite of the recognized evils of that doctrine in its practical application. Beneath the banner of the democracies of the world was the same sinister idea which had found expression in the Congress of Vienna with its purpose of protecting the monarchical inst.i.tutions of a century ago. It proclaimed in fact that mankind must look to might rather than right, to force rather than law, in the regulation of international affairs for the future.

This defect in the theory, on which the League of Nations was to be organized, was emphasized and given permanency by the adoption of a mutual guaranty of territorial integrity and political independence against external aggression. Since the burden of enforcing the guaranty would unavoidably fall upon the more powerful nations, they could reasonably demand the control over affairs which might develop into a situation requiring a resort to the guaranty. In fact during a plenary session of the Peace Conference held on May 31, 1919, President Wilson stated as a broad principle that responsibility for protecting and maintaining a settlement under one of the Peace Treaties carried with it the right to determine what that settlement should be. The application to the case of responsible guarantors is obvious and was apparently in mind when the Covenant was being evolved. The same principle was applied throughout the negotiations at Paris.

The mutual guaranty from its affirmative nature compelled in fact, though not in form, the establishment of a ruling group, a coalition of the Great Powers, and denied, though not in terms, the equality of nations. The oligarchy was the logical result of entering into the guaranty or the guaranty was the logical result of the creation of the oligarchy through the perpetuation of the basic idea of the Supreme War Council. No distinction was made as to a state of war and a state of peace. Strongly opposed to the abandonment of the principle of the equality of nations in times of peace I naturally opposed the affirmative guaranty and endeavored to persuade the President to accept as a subst.i.tute for it a self-denying or negative covenant which amounted to a promise of "hands-off" and in no way required the formation of an international oligarchy to make it effective.

In addition to the foregoing objection I opposed the guaranty on the ground that it was politically inexpedient to attempt to bind the United States by a treaty provision which by its terms would certainly invite attack as to its const.i.tutionality. Without entering into the strength of the legal argument, and without denying that there are two sides to the question, the fact that it was open to debate whether the treaty-making power under the Const.i.tution could or could not obligate the Government of the United States to make war under certain conditions was in my judgment a practical reason for avoiding the issue. If the power existed to so bind the United States by treaty on the theory that the Federal Government could not be restricted in its right to make international agreements, then the guaranty would be attacked as an unwise and needless departure from the traditional policies of the Republic. If the power did not exist, then the violation of the Const.i.tution would be an effective argument against such an undertaking.

Whatever the conclusion might be, therefore, as to the legality of the guaranty or as to whether the obligation was legal or moral in nature, it did not seem possible for it to escape criticism and vigorous attack in America.

It seemed to me that the President's guaranty was so vulnerable from every angle that to insist upon it would endanger the acceptance of any treaty negotiated if the Covenant was, in accordance with the President's plan, made an integral part of it. Then, too, opposition would, in my opinion, develop on the ground that the guaranty would permit European Powers to partic.i.p.ate, if they could not act independently, in the forcible settlement of international quarrels in the Western Hemisphere whenever there was an actual invasion of territory or violation of sovereignty, while conversely the United States would be morally, if not legally, bound to take part in coercive measures in composing European differences under similar conditions. It could be urged with much force that the Monroe Doctrine in the one case and the Washington policy of avoiding "entangling alliances" in the other would be so affected that they would both have to be substantially abandoned or else rewritten. If the American people were convinced that this would be the consequence of accepting the affirmative guaranty, it meant its rejection. In any event it was bound to produce an acrimonious controversy. From the point of view of policy alone it seemed unwise to include the guaranty in the Covenant, and believing that an objection on that ground would appeal to the President more strongly than one based on principle, I emphasized that objection, though in my own mind the other was the more vital and more compelling.

The points of difference relating to the League of Nations between the President's views and mine, other than the recognition of the primacy of the Great Powers, the affirmative guaranty and the resulting denial in fact of the equality of nations in times of peace, were the provisions in the President's original draft of the Covenant relating to international arbitrations, the subordination of the judicial power to the political power, and the proposed system of mandates. Having discussed with sufficient detail the reasons which caused me to oppose these provisions, and having stated the efforts made to induce President Wilson to abandon or modify them, repet.i.tion would be superfluous. It is also needless, in view of the full narrative of events contained in these pages, to state that I failed entirely in my endeavor to divert the President from his determination to have these provisions inserted in the Covenant, except in the case of international arbitrations, and even in that case I do not believe that my advice had anything to do with his abandonment of his ideas as to the method of selecting arbitrators and the right of appeal from arbitral awards. Those changes and the subst.i.tution of an article providing for the future creation of a Permanent Court of International Justice, were, in my opinion, as I have said, a concession to the European statesmen and due to their insistence.

President Wilson knew that I disagreed with him as to the relative importance of restoring a state of peace at the earliest date possible and of securing the adoption of a plan for the creation of a League of Nations. He was clearly convinced that the drafting and acceptance of the Covenant was superior to every other task imposed on the Conference, that it must be done before any other settlement was reached and that it ought to have precedence in the negotiations. His course of action was conclusive evidence of this conviction.

On the other hand, I favored the speedy negotiation of a short and simple preliminary treaty, in which, so far as the League of Nations was concerned, there would be a series of declarations and an agreement for a future international conference called for the purpose of drafting a convention in harmony with the declarations in the preliminary treaty.

By adopting this course a state of peace would have been restored in the early months of 1919, official intercourse and commercial relations would have been resumed, the more complex and difficult problems of settlement would have been postponed to the negotiation of the definitive Treaty of Peace, and there would have been time to study exhaustively the purposes, powers, and practical operations of a League before the organic agreement was put into final form. Postponement would also have given opportunity to the nations, which had continued neutral throughout the war, to partic.i.p.ate in the formation of the plan for a League on an equal footing with the nations which had been belligerents.

In the establishment of a world organization universality of international representation in reaching an agreement seemed to me advisable, if not essential, provided the nations represented were democracies and not autocracies.

It was to be presumed also that at a conference entirely independent of the peace negotiations and free from the influences affecting the terms of peace, there would be more general and more frank discussions regarding the various phases of the subject than was possible at a conference ruled by the Five Great Powers and dominated in its decisions, if not in its opinions, by the statesmen of those Powers.

To perfect such a doc.u.ment, as the Covenant of the League of Nations was intended to be, required expert knowledge, practical experience in international relations, and an exchange of ideas untrammeled by immediate questions of policy or by the prejudices resulting from the war and from national hatreds and jealousies. It was not a work for politicians, novices, or inexperienced theorists, but for trained statesmen and jurists, who were conversant with the fundamental principles of international law, with the usages of nations in their intercourse with one another, and with the successes and failures of previous experiments in international a.s.sociation. The President was right in his conception as to the greatness of the task to be accomplished, but he was wrong, radically wrong, in believing that it could be properly done at the Paris Conference under the conditions which there prevailed and in the time given for consideration of the subject.

To believe for a moment that a world const.i.tution--for so its advocates looked upon the Covenant--could be drafted perfectly or even wisely in eleven days, however much thought individuals may have previously given to the subject, seems on the face of it to show an utter lack of appreciation of the problems to be solved or else an abnormal confidence in the talents and wisdom of those charged with the duty. If one compares the learned and comprehensive debates that took place in the convention which drafted the Const.i.tution of the United States, and the months that were spent in the critical examination word by word of the proposed articles, with the ten meetings of the Commission on the League of Nations prior to its report of February 14 and with the few hours given to debating the substance and language of the Covenant, the inferior character of the doc.u.ment produced by the Commission ought not to be a matter of wonder. It was a foregone conclusion that it would be found defective. Some of these defects were subsequently corrected, but the theory and basic principles, which were the chief defects in the plan, were preserved with no substantial change.

But the fact, which has been repeatedly a.s.serted in the preceding pages and which cannot be too strongly emphasized by repet.i.tion, is that the most potent and most compelling reason for postponing the consideration of a detailed plan for an international organization was that such a consideration at the outset of the negotiations at Paris obstructed and delayed the discussion and settlement of the general terms necessary to the immediate restoration of a state of peace. Those who recall the political and social conditions in Europe during the winter of 1918-19, to which reference has already been made, will comprehend the apprehension caused by anything which interrupted the negotiation of the peace. No one dared to prophesy what might happen if the state of political uncertainty and industrial stagnation, which existed under the armistices, continued.

The time given to the formulation of the Covenant of the League of Nations and the determination that it should have first place in the negotiations caused such a delay in the proceedings and prevented a speedy restoration of peace. Denial of this is useless. It is too manifest to require proof or argument to support it. It is equally true, I regret to say, that President Wilson was chiefly responsible for this.

If he had not insisted that a complete and detailed plan for the League should be part of the treaty negotiated at Paris, and if he had not also insisted that the Covenant be taken up and settled in terms before other matters were considered, a preliminary treaty of peace would in all probability have been signed, ratified, and in effect during April, 1919.

Whatever evils resulted from the failure of the Paris Conference to negotiate promptly a preliminary treaty--and it must be admitted they were not a few--must be credited to those who caused the delay. The personal interviews and secret conclaves before the Commission on the League of Nations met occupied a month and a half. Practically another half month was consumed in sessions of the Commission. The month following was spent by President Wilson on his visit to the United States explaining the reported Covenant and listening to criticisms.

While much was done during his absence toward the settlement of numerous questions, final decision in every case awaited his return to Paris.

After his arrival the Commission on the League renewed its sittings to consider amendments to its report, and it required over a month to put it in final form for adoption; but during this latter period much time was given to the actual terms of peace, which on account of the delay caused in attempting to perfect the Covenant had taken the form of a definitive rather than a preliminary treaty.

It is conservative to say that between two and three months were spent in the drafting of a doc.u.ment which in the end was rejected by the Senate of the United States and was responsible for the non-ratification of the Treaty of Versailles. In view of the warnings that President Wilson had received as to the probable result of insisting on the plan of a League which he had prepared and his failure to heed the warnings, his persistency in pressing for acceptance of the Covenant before anything else was done makes the resulting delay in the peace less excusable.

Two weeks after the President returned from the United States in March the common opinion was that the drafting of the Covenant had delayed the restoration of peace, an opinion which was endorsed in the press of many countries. The belief became so general and aroused so much popular condemnation that Mr. Wilson considered it necessary to make a public denial, in which he expressed surprise at the published views and declared that the negotiations in regard to the League of Nations had in no way delayed the peace. Concerning the denial and the subject with which it dealt, I made on March 28 the following memorandum:

"The President has issued a public statement, which appears in this morning's papers, in which he refers to the 'surprising impression'

that the discussions concerning the League of Nations have delayed the making of peace and he flatly denies that the impression is justified.

"I doubt if this statement will remove the general impression which amounts almost to a conviction. Every one knows that the President's thoughts and a great deal of his time prior to his departure for the United States were given to the formulation of the plan for a League and that he insisted that the 'Covenant' should be drafted and reported before the other features of the peace were considered. The _real_ difficulties of the present situation, which had to be settled before the treaty could be drafted, were postponed until his return here on March 13th.

"In fact the real bases of peace have only just begun to receive the attention which they deserve.

"If such questions as the Rhine Provinces, Poland, reparations, and economic arrangements had been taken up by the President and Premiers in January, and if they had sat day and night, as they are now sitting _in camera,_ until each was settled, the peace treaty would, I believe, be to-day on the Conference's table, if not actually signed.

"Of course the insistence that the plan of the League be first pushed to a draft before all else prevented the settlement of the other questions. Why attempt to refute what is manifestly true? I regret that the President made the statement because I do not think that it carries conviction. I fear that it will invite controversy and denial, and that it puts the President on the defensive."

The views expressed in this memorandum were those held, I believe, by the great majority of persons who partic.i.p.ated in the Peace Conference or were in intimate touch with its proceedings. Mr. Wilson's published denial may have converted some to the belief that the drafting of the Covenant was in no way responsible for the delay of the peace, but the number of converts must have been very few, as it meant utter ignorance of or indifference to the circ.u.mstances which conclusively proved the incorrectness of the statement.

The effect of this attempt of President Wilson to check the growing popular antipathy to the League as an obstacle to the speedy restoration of peace was to cause speculation as to whether he really appreciated the situation. If he did not, it was affirmed that he was ignorant of public opinion or else was lacking in mental acuteness. If he did appreciate the state of affairs, it was said that his statement was uttered with the sole purpose of deceiving the people. In either case he fell in public estimation. It shows the unwisdom of having issued the denial.

CHAPTER XV

THE PROPOSED TREATY WITH FRANCE

There is one subject, connected with the consideration of the mutual guaranty which, as finally reported by the Commission on the League of Nations, appears as Article 10 of the Covenant, that should be briefly reviewed, as it directly bears upon the value placed upon the guaranty by the French statesmen who accepted it. I refer to the treaties negotiated by France with the United States and Great Britain respectively. These treaties provided that, in the event of France being again attacked by Germany without provocation, the two Powers severally agreed to come to the aid of the French Republic in repelling the invasion. The joint nature of the undertaking was in a provision in each treaty that a similar treaty would be signed by the other Power, otherwise the agreement failed. The undertakings stated in practically identical terms in the two treaties const.i.tuted, in fact, a triple defensive alliance for the preservation of the integrity of French territory and French independence. It had the same object as the guaranty in the Covenant, though it went even further in the a.s.surance of affirmative action, and was, therefore, open to the same objections on the grounds of const.i.tutionality and policy as Article 10.

In a note, dated March 20, stating my "Impressions as to the Present Situation," I discussed the endeavors being made by the President to overcome opposition and to remove obstacles to the acceptance of his plan for a League of Nations by means of compromises and concessions. In the note appears the following:

"An instance of the lengths to which these compromises and makeshifts are going, occurred this morning when Colonel House sent to Mr.

White, General Bliss, and me for our opinion the following proposal: That the United States, Great Britain, and France enter into a formal alliance to resist any aggressive action by Germany against France or Belgium, and to employ their military, financial, and economic resources for this purpose in addition to exerting their moral influence to prevent such aggression.

"We three agreed that, if that agreement was made, the chief reason for a League of Nations, as now planned, disappeared. So far as France and Belgium were concerned the alliance was all they needed for their future safety. They might or might not accept the League.

Of course they would if the alliance depended upon their acceptance.

They would do most anything to get such an alliance.

"The proposal was doubtless made to remove two provisions on which the French are most insistent: _First_, an international military staff to be prepared to use force against Germany if there were signs of military activity; _second_, the creation of an independent Rhenish Republic to act as a 'buffer' state. Of course the triple alliance would make these measures needless.

"What impressed me most was that to gain French support for the League the proposer of the alliance was willing to destroy the chief feature of the League. It seemed to me that here was utter blindness as to the consequences of such action. There appears to have been no thought given as to the way other nations, like Poland, Bohemia, and the Southern Slavs, would view the formation of an alliance to protect France and Belgium alone. Manifestly it would increase rather than decrease their danger from Germany since she would have to look eastward and southward for expansion. Of course they would not accept as sufficient the guaranty in the Covenant when France and Belgium declined to do it.

"How would such a proposal be received in the United States with its traditional policy of avoiding 'entangling alliances'? Of course, when one considers it, the proposal is preposterous and would be laughed at and rejected."

This was the impression made upon me at the time that this triple alliance against Germany was first proposed. I later came to look upon it more seriously and to recognize the fact that there were some valid reasons in favor of the proposal. The subject was not further discussed by the Commissioners for several weeks, but it is clear from what followed that M. Clemenceau, who naturally favored the idea, continued to press the President to agree to the plan. What arguments were employed to persuade him I cannot say, but, knowing the shrewdness of the French Premier in taking advantage of a situation, my belief is that he threatened to withdraw or at least gave the impression that he would withdraw his support of the League of Nations or else would insist on a provision in the Covenant creating a general staff and an international military force and on a provision in the treaty establishing a Rhenish Republic or else ceding to France all territory west of the Rhine. To avoid the adoption of either of these provisions, which would have endangered the approval of his plan for world organization, the President submitted to the French demand. At least I a.s.sume that was the reason, for he promised to enter into the treaty of a.s.sistance which M.

Clemenceau insisted should be signed.

It is of course possible that he was influenced in his decision by the belief that the knowledge that such an agreement existed would be sufficient to deter Germany from even planning another invasion of France, but my opinion is that the desire to win French support for the Covenant was the chief reason for the promise that he gave. It should be remembered that at the time both the Italians and j.a.panese were threatening to make trouble unless their territorial ambitions were satisfied. With these two Powers disaffected and showing a disposition to refuse to accept membership in the proposed League of Nations the opposition of France to the Covenant would have been fatal. It would have been the end of the President's dream of a world organized to maintain peace by an international guaranty of national boundaries and sovereignties. Whether France would in the end have insisted on the additional guaranty of protection I doubt, but it is evident that Mr.

Wilson believed that she would and decided to prevent a disaster to his plan by acceding to the wishes of his French colleague.

Some time in April prior to the acceptance of the Treaty of Peace by the Premiers of the Allied Powers, the President and Mr. Lloyd George agreed with M. Clemenceau to negotiate the treaties of protective alliance which the French demanded. The President advised me of his decision on the day before the Treaty was delivered to the German plenipotentiaries stating in substance that his promise to enter into the alliance formed a part of the settlements as fully as if written into the Treaty. I told him that personally I considered an agreement to negotiate the treaty of a.s.sistance a mistake, as it discredited Article 10 of the Covenant, which he considered all-important, and as it would, I was convinced, be the cause of serious opposition in the United States. He replied that he considered it necessary to adopt this policy in the circ.u.mstances, and that, at any rate, having pa.s.sed his word with M. Clemenceau, who was accepting the Treaty because of his promise, it was too late to reconsider the matter and useless to discuss it.