CHAPTER VII

THE PEACE CONFERENCE

TUESDAY, January 7, 1919, found the President back at Paris. Eight weeks had then passed since the November morning when the armistice was signed; yet no meeting of the Peace Conference had been held. Indeed, some of the Powers had not named all their delegates. Time, however, was not wasted, for issues of great importance had been freely discussed, at home and abroad, in the press, and by statesmen, by party leaders, and by men of affairs. Some thought a general peace should be the first business of the Conference, leaving the territorial settlement of the Balkans, the freedom of the seas, and the League of Nations to be decided after peace was made. This was the wish of the French and British. Others thought the League of Nations was of the utmost importance, and should be among the first matters taken up for settlement. This was understood to be the opinion of President Wilson. Discussion of the League brought forth many plans. Lieutenant General Smuts of the British War Cabinet had one; Lord Robert Cecil another, and M. Leon Bourgeois a third, said to be the French idea. The American plan had not been announced, when, on Sunday, the twelfth of January, the Supreme War Council, composed of President Wilson, and the Premiers and Foreign Ministers of Great Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, held its first informal meeting. No official statement of what happened was made public. Nevertheless, it was understood that the method of procedure for the conference about to open, how many delegates each power should be allowed, and the conditions on which the armistice, about to expire on January 17, should be extended, were all deliberately considered.

What should be done to Germany was of pressing importance, for she had been slow in delivering war material required to be given up by the terms of the armistice, and was reported to be hindering the Poles in the organization of their government, and in defending themselves against the advancing Bolshevist forces.

Proceedings on the second day, Monday the thirteenth, were in two sessions. In the morning military and naval men, financiers and economists, met and determined on what new terms the armistice should be extended. They included, the official report announced, "naval clauses, financial clauses, conditions of supply, and provisions for the restitution of material and machinery stolen from France and Belgium by the Germans," and were laid before the Council when it assembled in the afternoon. Delegates from Japan then attended. Methods of procedure were also discussed, and the decision reached, "that the first full session of the Peace Conference should take place on Saturday, January 18." "We finished first of all," said Premier Clémenceau, "with the armistice, and there, I think, we did good work. Then we continued our examination of the procedure for the conference, notably the representation of the small powers. As to the conference itself which should meet on Thursday, it had to be postponed until Saturday on account of the absence of the Italian Premier, Signor Orlando." A cabinet crisis had forced him to return to Rome. Rumor had it that the new terms for prolonging the armistice would require the punishment of the Germans for the murder and ill-treatment of Allied prisoners of war; the removal of £100,000,000 in gold to a safe place, and its protection while on the way from Bolshevists; the surrender of all U-boats on the stocks and a guarantee that not another one should be constructed. One hundred and seventy, it was said, were under construction in German yards. No official orders having been received to stop building, the work went on automatically, despite the armistice, and the knowledge that they must in the end be delivered to the Allies.

How many delegates each nation should have was determined on Wednesday, and what was of far more immediate importance, word was given out that nothing about the doings of the Peace Conference was to be disclosed save what was contained in the daily communiqué, and that, by a gentlemen's agreement, the delegates would neither discuss, nor in any way give information about, the proceedings of the meetings of the Council. Correspondents of British journals at once drew up a protest, and put it in the hands of Lloyd George; the American newspaper men joined in a protest to President Wilson. On Friday the Supreme Council yielded, and ruled that representatives of the press should "be admitted to the meetings of the full conference," but, when necessary, deliberations might "be held in camera," and gave its reasons. Proceedings of a Peace Conference resembled more closely those of a Cabinet than those of a legislature. Nobody had ever suggested that cabinet meetings be held in public. Representatives of the Allied powers were holding conversations in order to solve questions of vital "importance to many nations, and on which they might hold many different views." These deliberations could not proceed by the method of a majority vote. No nation could be bound save by the free vote of its own delegates. Decisions must be reached by the difficult process of agreement which would be hindered if every disputed question were attended by a premature public controversy, in each nation. Give and take, on the part of delegates, so essential to successful negotiations, would become most difficult, proceedings would be protracted, and the delegates forced to concern themselves, not merely with the business before the Conference, but also with the controversies raised outside by the account of their proceedings.

At home the matter was taken up in the United States Senate, and after Senators of both parties had denounced secrecy at the peace conference as an abandonment of the first of the President's fourteen points, it was agreed that, should the Conference persist in its decision to hold secret sessions, a resolu

tion demanding open sessions would be presented, adopted, and sent to Versailles.

On Saturday, the nineteenth, at three o'clock in the afternoon, the long desired Peace Conference was formally opened in the gorgeous Salle de Paix of the Foreign Ministry, and to this representatives of the press of all nations were freely admitted. Proceedings on that day were confined to an address of welcome by President Poincaré; speeches by President Wilson, Lloyd George, Baron Sonnino, and Premier Clémenceau; and to the election of a President of the Conference.

At precisely three o'clock, the delegates having assembled in the Council Chamber, a roll of drums and blare of trumpets announced the arrival of President Poincaré, who was escorted to the head of the great horseshoe-shaped table, and at once addressed the standing delegates. When he finished speaking President Wilson nominated as permanent chairman M. Clémenceau. Premier Lloyd George seconded the nomination; M. Clémenceau was unanimously elected, and in turn made a speech, which closed the session.

Daily sittings of the Conference were not to be held. The program of proceedings, M. Clémenceau stated, would cover three main subjects: Responsibility of the authors of the war; responsibility for the crimes committed during the war; legislation in regard to international labor. All powers represented would be requested to present memoranda on these subjects, and the powers specially concerned other memoranda on territorial, financial and economic questions. On these memoranda the Supreme Council of the five great powers would deliberate, decide at once, or invite the delegates of the powers most concerned to discuss the issues with the Council. The League of Nations, he said, would be the first question considered when the Peace Conference met again.

On Monday, January 21, the Supreme Council resumed its sittings and in the course of a few days, having listened to a description of conditions in Russia, by the French Ambassador just returned from Archangel, and by the Danish Minister fresh

from Petrograd, announced the policy of the Allies towards Russia. In their discussions, they said, the sole object of the Associated Powers had been to help, not to hinder, the Russian people, not to interfere in any manner with their right to settle their own affairs in their own way. The Allies had no desire to exploit or make use of Russia. They recognized the revolution without reservation, and would in no way, and under no circumstances, give countenance to a counter revolution, nor favor, nor aid any one of the organized groups contending for the leadership of Russia. The associated powers had no other purpose than to bring to Russia peace, and an opportunity to find a way out of the troubles that beset her. They were engaged in the solemn duty of establishing peace in Europe, and in the world; but there could be no peace in Europe and in the world while there was strife in Russia. To this end, therefore, they invited every organized group exercising, or seeking to exercise, political authority, or military control, anywhere in Siberia, or anywhere within the boundaries of Russia as she was before the war, Finland alone excepted, to send not more than three representatives each to meet, on February 15, delegates from the associated Powers, on the Island of Prinkipo, one of the group known as the Princes' Islands in the Sea of Marmora, some eight miles southeast of Constantinople. These groups were the Lenine Bolshevist Government, the Representative Constituent Assembly, the Government of Omsk, the Kieff Government, the Esthonian, Lithuanian, and Lettish Governments, Denikin's Government, the Archangel Government, the Tiflis Government, the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Socialist Party, the League of Russian Regeneration, the Representative Central Committee of the Social Democratic Party, and certain bodies in the Caucasus. Meantime there must be a truce of arms amongst the parties invited, and all armed forces sent against any people or territory within the bounds of old Russia, against Finland, against any people or territory, "whose autonomous action" was "in contemplation in the fourteen ar