Crisis in Peace Parley Followed Return of the President to Paris

Title

Crisis in Peace Parley Followed Return of the President to Paris

Creator

Baker, Ray Stannard, 1870-1946

Identifier

WWP16065

Date

1919 November 2

Source

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

Language

English

Text

BY RAY STANNARD BAKER.

Article III.

THE second great crisis at the peace conference occurred immediately upon the return of President Wilson to Paris after his hasty trip to America to sign the bills passed by the Congress which adjourned on March 4. The two sea voyages on the comfortable George Washington gave the President a much needed opportunity to rest—and rest under the close care of Dr. Grayson. If it had not been for these respites during the heavy struggle at Paris one doubts whether the President would have been physically able to endure the strain as long as he did. He has the rare ability to rest completely, discharge all worry from his mind, and by exercise, deep breathing, fresh air and occasional amusing talks with his friends on every subject in the world except the business of the moment regain his strength. He reveals in these quiet and friendly relationships a side of him—human, genial, humorous side—which too few of his fellow citizens have seen. He and Mrs. Wilson were frequently on deck during the voyages, several times they took a hand at deck shuffle-board, and they came in quite regularly to the moving-picture shows or concerts in the evening. Sometimes after meals or even after evening entertainments several of their fellow passengers would join the President and Mrs. Wilson and have a good talk—very little of the problems—but talk, once, for example, of Lafayette, again of the French people and their characteristics—often of golf and golfing—with many stories and much laughter. The President is a past master at telling stories, especially Scotch stories. On several occasions the President invited members of the party in to luncheon or dinner, starting the meal invariably with a simple grace said in a low voice.

After one of these luncheons I heard a member of the party say:

“Well, I never knew the President was that kind of a man at all—so human and so simple.”

The President and Mrs. Wilson, in four voyages on the George Washington quite won the hearts of the officers and crew. It was almost like a big family. After the evening entertainment, before landing at Brest, just as we were about to break up, a group of the younger officers and crew in the back of the hall began to sing, “God Be With You ’Till We Meet Again.” Then the whole company, including the President, sang together, “Auld Lang Syne.” I wondered among what other people in the world there could develop just such relationships and such a spirit.

These voyages, I firmly believe, saved the President from wearing out far sooner than he did. For once in Paris again he found himself instantly precipitated into one of the hard struggles of the conference.

He had been absent from the deliberations for exactly one month. When he arrived in Paris on March 14 he discovered to his amazement the impression everywhere prevailing that a preliminary peace with Germany would soon be made which would contain no reference to the league of nations. Certain newspapers and all the opponents of the league were saying quite openly that the league was dead; for they well knew that if it were left for discussion to some future conference, after all the essential questions in the war with Germany had been settled, it would come to nothing; it would be talked to death. These opponents of the league were jubilant over the prospect.

And this was no mere popular impression—as the President soon found out. Though the details were not then known—and are not yet publicly known—a resolution, fathered by Mr. Balfour, had actually been adopted by the council of ten, sitting in President Wilson’s absence, providing for an immediate preliminary treaty containing practically all the settlements involved, not only military, but financial and economic, including the establishment of all new boundaries and determining responsibility for the war. Practically the only thing omitted was the league of nations.

Now, this whole procedure was contrary to the long held and often asserted policy of the President, and it endangered the most important of the fourteen points accepted by all nations as the basis of settlement, the fourteenth of which declares that “a general association of nations must be formed.”Before the close of the war, in his liberty loan speech at the Metropolitan Opera House, in September, 1918, the President had declared positively:

“The constitution of that league of nations and the clear definition of its objects must be a part, in a sense the most essential part, of the peace settlement itself. * * * It is not likely that it could be formed after the settlement. It is necessary to guarantee the peace; and the peace cannot be guaranteed as an after-thought.”

But this was not all, nor was it merely Mr. Wilson’s idea, for the policy of including the league of nations covenant in the treaty itself had been formally adopted at the first plenary session of the peace conference, held January 25, 1919, which contained these words:

“This league should be treated as an integral part of the general treaty of peace.”

When President Wilson found out what the situation really was he acted with stunning directness and audacity. On March 15, just twenty-four hours after he set foot in Paris, he authorized the press bureau of the peace conference, of which I was director, to issue at once the following statement:

“The President said today that the decision made at the peace conference in its plenary session, January 25, 1919, to the effect that the establishment of a league of nations should be made an integral part of the treaty of peace is of final force, and that there is no basis whatever for the reports that a change in this decision was contemplated.”

This bold act fell like a bombshell in Paris and in Europe. A shot from Big Bertha could not have caused greater consternation. It overturned the most important action of the conference during the President’s absence; and it apparently destroyed the popular expectation of an early peace, which not only rested upon a real passion of weariness, a real and deep desire to get the armies demobilized and the wheels of industry started again, but an expectation fostered by certain reactionary newspapers in both France and England. The policy of these papers was: Don’t bother about new principles or ideals; settle the war quickly; form a new military alliance among the allies, including America; divide up the spoils among the victors, excepting American, and get back home.Within a few days there was a wave of criticism of Wilson which made all former attacks look pale in comparison.

The Daily Express of London, for example, called it a “pyrrhic victory,” said it was a “hold-up” and demanded that the British government refuse to support the President. Pichon, the French foreign minister, gave an interview sharply critical of the President, which was hastily suppressed. All this criticism the President, though a highly sensitive man, had to bear in silence for there seemed no way of explaining or defending his course without breaking up the conference, and thereby losing all chance of getting a program of reconstruction adopted.

A brief survey of what had happened during the President’s absence will throw a vivid light upon the inner workings of the peace conference—show some of the influences really operating within that double-doored, sound-proof room of the French foreign office, and the kind of struggle the President had to face.When the President left Paris for America on February 15, the great problem of the moment was the renewal of the armistice terms with Germany, which expired February 17. Now, the French were always more interested and concerned in military terms than any other nation. The war was on French soil and the commander-in-chief was a Frenchman. Their effort was always to add more drastic terms to the armistice, and to keep the power strongly in the hands of the supreme military command. The French were impatient—quite naturally—and wanted speedier results. They wanted to force the Germans to pay faster. The peasants wanted their cattle back, the manufacturers wanted their machinery immediately restored. The French sought to get quick results by adding provisions to the armistice and using military pressure to bring them about.

Clemenceau also was afraid that if the treaty were delayed and the British and American troops went home—as they were going as rapidly as possible—that there was danger of a sudden new attack by the Germans which the exhausted French army could not meet.While neither the Americans nor the British wanted a piecemeal settlement Wilson saw the weight of the French position, and agreed, just before he left Paris, that a preliminary and temporary arrangement for the military and naval disarmament of Germany should be discussed. This was to make sure of safety for France while the allied troops were going home and the peace terms were being slowly threshed out.It will be remembered that Clemenceau was wounded by a would-be assassin soon after Wilson left Paris, and Lloyd-George went home to grapple with his own hard political problems. Those who remained, the secondary figures, when they began to discuss methods of disarming Germany discovered at once that the military, naval and air terms were inextricably bound up with all sorts of other questions. What about boundaries? What about reparations? Who were to be held accountable for the war? And what should be done with the colonies? The British especially were unwilling to have the military and naval terms even temporarily settled without also dealing with the economic terms which were so intimately bound up with them.

Now, throughout the peace conference each nation had its chief interests—or obsessions. The French were dominated by fear and wanted first of all military security for themselves, and after that speedy repayment for their stupendous losses. The British had their eyes most intently fixed on future sea power and on all economic and financial phases of the settlement. The chief Italian effort was to force a settlement with Austria at the same time that the settlement with Germany was made, and to make sure of Italian claims in the Adriatic. America had no special interests at all to serve, wanted nothing except a peace of justice and the adoption of some plan which would assure the future peace of the world and prevent us, as well as all other nations, from having to build armaments and maintain huge armies.When Wilson went away the whole idealistic bottom seemed to drop out of the peace conference. The league of nations was scarcely mentioned in the council of ten as a real or potent factor in the future settlement. Most of the French leaders never really believed in it at all unless it could be made a powerful alliance backed by an army. If the story about how Clemenceau, when he awakened each morning said to himself, “Now, Georges Clemenceau, you do believe in the league of nations,” is not literally true it well represents the skeptical French position. What the French wanted—and finally got!—was an alliance to protect them. The British were for the league—some of them like Gen. Smuts and Lord Robert Cecil, upon the highest grounds—but only if Great Britain and America stuck firmly together and formed a kind of backbone to support the whole structure. As for the Italians, their position was well expressed by one of them, who answered my question as to how Italy stood on the league of nations:

“Well, we believe in it, but we want the question of Fiume settled first.” The result of all the absence of Wilson, was to produce the resolution of which I have spoken to bring about a preliminary treaty with Germany, containing not only the military terms, but practically everything else except the league of nations. Gen. Foch argued persistently that the whole could and should be settled in two or three weeks, the boundary of Germany permanently established at the Rhine, and that allied armies should march to Russia and with the assistance of Polish, Lithuanian, and Cechoslovak forces quickly put down the bolshevists.In response to this proposal some one asked, “Who will pay the cost of this expedition?” and it appeared that America was the only source from which the money and supplies could be had.

They set March 8 (a week before President Wilson’s return) as the date for the final reports of the committees; and the military, naval, and air terms were actually in hand some days before the George Washington arrived at Brest.When the discussion of these militarty reports began a very remarkable situation developed. It was not surprising that the terms were found to be exceedingly drastic, for they were made by men who had just been fighting a dangerous foe. In their first form, for example they provided that Germany should never have an army of more than 100,000 men, and that all production, export and import of military material should be reported—without limit of time—to the allied and associated governments. Upon further examiniation it was discovered that the supervision and enforcement of all these terms, besides boundary and other questions inextricably bound up with them, would require a most complicated machinery of commissions and a vast organization, involving the permanent maintenance of the allied high command, with a military force to support its orders. It meant, in short, a continuing military dictatorship on the part of the allies. The Americans soon saw that this meant also a permanent participation of America in a military domination of Europe.It appeared clearly—more clearly the further the discussion developed—that some sort of organization was absolutely necessary to hold the allies together, secure the peace won from Germany, and start the world again on its way; and that this organization must be either military or civil.

It was either world organization or world anarchy.The President had clearly foreseen just this situation, and from the beginning had been for establishing an organization—a league of nations—at the very time that the peace terms were accepted. When he returned, therefore, and found quite other plans afoot he acted with the utmost promptness and vigor, I have shown. And in the first meetings of the peace conference afterward he showed, and showed with penetrating shrewdness, that methods of international control in all these matters had already been provided in the covenant of the league of nations and that if this covenant became a part of the treaty accepted by Germany the machinery of uture organization under civil control was there to be used. In this he had the support of Mr. Lloyd-George. It is significant that, although a great hullaballoo of criticism of Wilson and objection to the league and its incorporation in the treaty was heard outside of the conference, there was practically no fight at all within the conference after the President made his position clear, for it was the absolute logic of the situation. One hesitates to think what kind of a treaty might have been adopted if President Wilson had not been at Paris.

The next article in this series will deal with the third great crisis of the peace conference—that in which the President, growing utterly discouraged with the situation, ordered the George Washington to sail immediately for Brest, involving the possibility of American withdrawal from the conference.



Original Format

Letter

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Citation

Baker, Ray Stannard, 1870-1946, “Crisis in Peace Parley Followed Return of the President to Paris,” 1919 November 2, WWP16065, Cary T. Grayson Papers, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.