Cary T. Grayson Diary

Cary T. Grayson Diary

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

WWP17105

1919 March 15

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

English

After breakfast the President conferred with Premiers Lloyd-George and Clemenceau. The latter had called ostensibly to explain the agreements that had been reached in connection with the drafting of the German peace terms. It developed almost immediately that the President could not agree to the program that had been mapped out by Lloyd-George, Clemenceau and the other members of the “big ten.” Their program called for the side-tracking of the constitution of the League of Nations, for the preparing immediately of the military and naval and indemnity terms to be imposed upon Germany, and for the calling together of the Germans not later than the to present them with these terms. Colonel House had practically agreed to the proposition to side-track the League of Nations. This the President not only would not agree to but he made it very plain to Lloyd-George and Clemenceau that any such program would be a direct violation of the resolutions adopted at the initial Plenary Session at which all of the Allied delegates had agreed with the League of Nations must be the ininitial compelling paragraph of any peace treaty. The conference developed a unanimity of purpose after the President had explained his attitude personally to the two Premiers. He told them very frankly that there were so many collateral questions which must be referred to the League of Nations when created that its creation must be the first object, and that no traty could be agreed upon that would deal only with military, haval and financial matters. The President was opposed to a preliminary treaty. It would be in his opinion only a waste of time and his reasons were so sound that before Lloyd-George and Clemenceau left they had agreed that he was right, and it was also agreed that the President and Clemenceau and Orlando would unite in a personal letter to Lloyd-George asking him to sacrifice his own interests in England and remain in Paris until the general form of the initial peace treaty could be drafted. After the conference broke up the President sent word to the Supreme War Council that he would not be able to seit at a session arranged for that afternoon. Colonel House sat in his place. As a result of this an incident developed which gave rise to considerable feeling. The British press bureau representatives without making any effort whatever to determine why the President did not sit in at the Supreme War Council session put forth a story declaring that he was determined to “rule or ruin”, and that he had served notice on Clemenceau and Lloyd-George that they must follow his wishes and adopt the League of Nations program or he would have nothing further to fo with the work here. The actual facts in this case were that the President had not had the complete report of the proceedings of the Supreme War Council nor the military terms that were to be imposed upon Germany before him. In fact, they had not even been translated from the French into English, and the President realized that if he attended the meeting of the Supreme War Council he would be asked to cast a vote on a subject with which he was in no way familiar. Every other member of the Supreme War Council knew this and realized it, and it is only fair to say that the erroneous version made public by the British was done so without the knowledge or consent of either Lloyd-George or any of the other British representatives. However, it simply showed that the British themselves did not care whether their news accounts were or were not accurate so long as they did not seem to embarrass British interests. As a result of the President’s failure to attend the session of the Supreme War Council that body did not take up the final terms but left them to wait until the President had fully digested the reports which were hurriedly translated and sent to him.

The President spent the afternoon studying the reports which had been presented to him. Between six and seven o’clock he and Mrs. Wilson went for a long walk. After dinner the President went down to the Crillon where he talked in plain terms to the members of the American Commission and told them that there their acceptance of the French suggestions that a peace treaty could be made without any reference to a League of Nations not only was embarrassing in the United States but it was embarrassing in Great Britain, and he prophesied before many days were over this would be conclusively proven. The result of the President’s talk to the Commission was a distinct and decided change in their attitude, and from that time on there was no more talk of a “preliminary treaty.” On Saturday

Diary