Cary T. Grayson Diary

Cary T. Grayson Diary

Grayson, Cary T. (Cary Travers), 1878-1938

WWP17107

1919 March 17

Cary T. Grayson Papers, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library, Staunton, Virginia

English

A decided sensation had been created overnight as the result of the weekly conference between Pichon and the American newspapermen. At this conference Pichon declared emphatically that the French would not care to the League of Nations being made a part of the preliminary peace conference. Pichon told the newspapermen that France intended forcing her original plans and having a treaty signed within the next ten days which would include the military and naval and economic conditions, and that there would be plenty of time after that to go ahead with the League of Nations program. As a matter of fact what Pichon and the other French representatives wanted, it subsequently developed, was a pa an opportunity to work their will in connection with the peace terms and later on to talk the League of Nations to death. At no time have the French delegates been sincere in their endorsement of the League of Nations. Their leading advocate, Bourgeois, who had represented France on the League of Nations, committee, had in reserve a plan whereby the League of Nations would really become a police body and would have at its disposal a big international army. This plan had been turned down and the result was that the French were entirely opposed to the League. When Pichon’s address was called to the attention of the President he immediately cabled to Tumulty at Washington, as follows:

Afterwards the President called attention to the fact that the Pleanary Conference was on record and a formal statement was issued dealing with that phase:

In the afternoon the President attended the session of the Supreme War Council at the Quai D’Orsay. All of the military, naval and economic proposals dealing with Germany were discussed at length and the majority were approved. However, the disposition of the Kiel Canal and the question of the Helgoland fortifications was deferred to be decided later on by the President and Premiers Lloyd-George and Clemenceau.

In order to get some badly needed exercise the President, Mrs. Wilson and myself walked from the new White House to the Foreign Office. The President asked Mrs. Wilson especially to buy him a map so that he could study out the streets and routes himself - which was done. We followed a course picked out by him this afternoon.

Diary