"MACHINERY OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS"

No one in official life has since made it his business to tell the story of the developments which followed so far as they relate to the present co-ordination in the Supreme War Council, which amounts to an international government for the purpose of pooling and distributing resources in the interest of a common victory. In the absence of details, however, we are fortunate to have accounts of its main lines of accomplishment and material for determining its significance in the words of actual participants.

"It would be rather interesting," said Premier Lloyd George of Great Britain in a review of the year for the House of Commons on December 28, 1917, "if it were possible to project ourselves into the year 2017, to look at the year 1917, and to observe the events of this particular year. I should like to know what in the opinion of many who are present here to-day would be the outstanding events a hundred years hence. There is no doubt that the Russian revolution would hold a very conspicuous position. . . . Another great fact of this year which will loom large in the future will be the advent of America for the first time, not into the war, but into world politics, a gigantic event in itself. . . .

"... Another event which will hold a conspicuous position in history, according to the use which is made of it, will be the setting up of the International Council at Versailles, where for the first time we have had provided the machinery of the League of Nations, where nations have come together to set up a complete machine which is a clearing house not merely in military matters and in naval matters, but for financial, for economic, for shipping, for food purposes, and for all the other things that are essential to the life of the nations. All these matters are raised there and are discussed there. Information on them all is classified there and interchanged; and, still more, the machinery is there not merely for registering or recording, but for decisions which affect all these nations. That in itself is going to be the beginning of something which will have a greater effect in international relations than anyone can imagine at this particular moment.

EXECUTIVES UNITED FOR VICTORY

349

"Perhaps the House, having had one or two discussions on that topic, would like to know something as to how that idea is being carried out. I am very glad to say that so far it has been a conspicuous success. Not merely has it been free from friction, but it has helped to remove friction. The general staffs of all the various countries have found in it a means of discussion and of interchanging views, and it has helped them to come to decisions, a means which they did not possess before. . . . They are using it freely and it has been helpful to them, and they are constantly resorting to it. And I have no doubt at all that if that great machinery already started, to which the four Governments have given some of their very best men and minds, goes on working as it does at the present moment and developing strength it will have a very potent influence in unifying the war direction, and not merely the war direction, but the economic direction of the four great countries which are represented on this council."

SCOPE OF THE COUNCIL

The Supreme War Council consists of the premiers of Great Britain, France and Italy, and the President of the United States, that is to say, of the executive heads of the four Governments. It decides finally upon recommendations made by interallied councils and committees where these have not been normally referred by national representatives on those bodies to their own Governments for transmission to the Supreme War Council, or for decision otherwise. In this way the Supreme War Council comes into contact with the Board of Military Representatives and the Allied Naval Council; the Allied Maritime Transport Council, and its subordinate Food and Munition Councils, the Program Committees and the Petroleum Conference; the Interallied Council on War Purchases and Finance, the Commission internationale de ravitaillement, the Allied Blockade Committee, the Interallied Scientific Food Commission, the Interallied Chartering Executive, and the Commission for Relief in Belgium.

Its object "is to create a real unity of policy in the conduct of the war-a unity of policy which takes account of all factors, economic and political, as well as purely military and naval, for the

1

one end of gaining the victory." But it is well to observe that it is composed of statesmen and not military men.

It is therefore the combined executive of four great states for definite purposes, which purposes can be increased in number whenever occasion demands.

The Supreme War Council itself is primarily a political body. It may be concluded that each member state has a single vote. The American ballot has been cast by the President by cable,2 while the British, French and Italian Governments customarily send a delegation to the meetings consisting of the premier and at least one cabinet minister. Those present at the sessions vary from meeting to meeting, experts on subjects under consideration being invited to lay their views before the council or being regularly attached to its staff.

PROGRESS OF THE COUNCIL

The advance made by this organization was described by Lord Milner, British secretary of state for war, in an address at Plymouth on February 20, 1918, and his words must suffice for the time as an internal picture of the operation of the Supreme War Council:

The co-ordination of effort among the allied nations, which in theory has always commended itself to all of us, is most uncommonly difficult to realize in practice. Indeed, you may take it that it will never be perfectly realized; yet I hold it to be the very first duty of statesmen to get as near it as we possibly can. More progress has been made in that direction in the last three months than in the preceding three years, and if a great deal remains to be done we have at last got something like reasonable machinery for doing it. It has been my duty, during the 15 1Reuter dispatch, February 3, 1918.

'This statement is made on the authority of the New York Times (October 14, 1918), quoting Newton D. Baker, secretary of war. The following questions in

the British Parliament are noted in this connection:

"The Chancellor of the Exchequer, asked by Mr. D. Mason whether the recent manifesto issued after the Versailles Conference represented the views of all the Allies, including the United States of America, said: The answer is in the affirmative.

"Mr. Chancellor: Was the President of the United States consulted? The Chancellor of the Exchequer: The President of the United States never had any opportunity of assenting or dissenting, but the diplomatic representative of the United States in conference was present." (London Times, February 15, 1918, page 10.)

PERMANENT BODY OF EXPERTS

351

months that I have been in office, to attend some half-dozen interallied conferences of generals and statesmen. All I can say is that the last one or two at which I had the honor to be present were incomparably more businesslike than those which I attended a year ago, and that I believe the improvement is certain to be progressive. The reason is that we have now got in the Supreme War Council a body which has a definite constitution, and regular, though not too frequent, meetings, where formerly there were only a number of scratch conferences, of uncertain composition, summoned on the spur of the moment, passing resolutions, which it was often nobody's special business to carry out, and with nothing to connect one such conference with another.

The essence of the present system is that there now exists, under the Supreme War Council, a permanent body of experts, always at work together, always studying war problems from the point of view of the alliance as a whole, not from the separate points of view of the several nations, preparing the agenda for the meetings of the council, and providing for continuity of deliberation and action. I remember a year ago being present at a conference which spent the greater part of two days discussing the transfer of a single division from one theater of war to another. When I think of the nature and importance of the business transacted at recent meetings of the Supreme Council I realize the immense distance we have traveled in the direction of doing real business and giving a concrete meaning to the conception of a single allied front.

Lord Milner's statement of the relation between the council and the military problems of the war suggests the relations between it and all interallied organizations. The council consists primarily of the executive heads of the Governments concerned, but the five principal boards are made up of men of cabinet rank or administrative officials, who of necessity are subordinate to premiers or other executives. It is consequently certain that all decisions on interallied affairs not capable of determination by any board are put up to the Supreme War Council. Evidence increases that the great mechanism of victory centered in the Supreme War Council as the highest executive power in the world to-day.

But while the Supreme War Council is the physical machine of the existing League of Nations, it is not all-inclusive. It comprises only the executives of France, Great Britain, Italy and the United States, whereas the Governments associated against Ger

many in the war number 21. Diplomatic interallied conferences are held when matters affecting them all are to be determined. In the intervals, the smaller Governments make their requisitions through the interallied organizations. Before these and the Supreme War Council existed such allied 1 or interallied conferences were the only means of taking executive decisions possessed by the whole group of nations at war with Germany.

PREVIOUS ALLIED CONFERENCES

Therefore, "during the early period of the war there were inter-governmental conferences at fairly frequent intervals whose purpose it was to adjust the plans of the different Allies. Indeed, from the beginning there has been a strongly marked tendency to substitute frequent personal meetings between members of Governments, ministers and departmental chiefs for the older and more formal channels of communication. Of late, however, the importance of treating the war as a single whole and the necessity for pooling the resources of the Allies so as to meet equitably the needs of all, as war demands increased and supplies diminished, had led to far closer and more frequent consultation. Thus, during 1917 there were conferences between the heads of the Governments or their specially delegated plenipotentiaries upon the major issues of diplomacy and the war in London, Paris, Rome, Petrograd, St. Jean de Maurienne, Calais, Folkestone and Rapallo."

"Intercommunication developed very rapidly during 1917. A special allied mission was sent to Russia by Great Britain in January to co-ordinate the preparations for the allied offensive, but its plans were disorganized by the Russian revolution. Immediately after the revolution, however, a member of the British War Cabinet went on a special mission of a political character to Petrograd, and this was followed by the visit of Arthur J. Balfour, British secretary of state for foreign affairs, to Washington, after

The adjective "allied" and the noun "Allies" in an accurate sense in the present war refer to the signatories of the declarations of September 5, 1914, and November 30, 1915, that is, France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan and Russia. The last recognized government in Russia was that headed by Kerenskii.