general set out for Buda-Pesth as representative of the Council of Four. But his name was not Mangin, but Smuts, and he went as conciliator, not as aggressor. His mission was quickly discharged. He formed the opinion at once that Bela Kun held no authority in the country generally, though Buda-Pesth itself was in his power. On the other hand there was no prospect of the establishment of any Hungarian Government strong enough to administer the country effectively. General Smuts returned at once to Paris and urged that the Allies should immediately despatch a capable administrator to direct Hungarian affairs till a permanent settlement could be reached. Bela Kun had not at this stage developed sufficient strength to resist such a proposal and it was known that the population generally would welcome it.

The Americans at Paris gave the proposal their strong support. The French and Italians did not. Nothing was done. Bela Kun was allowed to establish himself, encouraged by Lenin, with whom he had opened communication. In the middle of June a flutter of indignation and scandal was caused by the report that the Allies had invited Bela Kun to Paris. What had actually happened, it turned out, was that a message had been sent to Buda-Pesth warning the Communist leader that the now imminent invitation to him would be jeopardised unless he mended his ways. According to the wrathful French Press, the author of

a communication out of which Bela Kun was quite dexterous enough to make capital was a British official. The Allied policy was now to wait till the Communists fell. Unfortunately they did not fall. Things drifted on, till at the beginning of August a counter-revolution broke out, engineered by Rumanians and supported by Rumanian troops who marched into Buda-Pesth, pillaging as they went. As a climax, a Hapsburg prince, the Archduke Joseph, was placed at the head of the new Government. That was too much for the British and Americans at least. Mr. Hoover, who was on the point of leaving France for America, was hurried off to Hungary to investigate the situation.

The Director of Relief went straight to BudaPesth, made his enquiries, sized up the situation with his customary decision, and hurried back to Paris to urge on the Supreme Council the need for taking summary measures to get the Rumanians out of Buda-Pesth, and behind the agreed boundary line. The Council acted with unusual despatch. An ultimatum to Rumania was issued, as a result of which the invading troops were withdrawn and an undertaking given that the stipulations of the Allied Council should be complied with. At the same time Hungary was told that no Hapsburgs could be tolerated, and in the early part of September a Socialist, but not Bolshevik, Government was formed, charged with the task of satisfying the Allies that it was sufficiently respectable to negotiate with and sufficiently repre

sentative to hold its ground. At the end of September it was still passing through its indefinite period of probation and the treaty which the Allies had ready at Paris remained in M. Dutasta's drawer.

I

CHAPTER IX

BUILDING THE LEAGUE *

N many ways the creation of the League of
Nations was the greatest piece of construc-

tive work effected by the Conference. It was one of the first to be taken up and one of the first to be completed. The Commission entrusted with the task, the strongest that sat on any question throughout the Conference, applied itself to its work with resolution, and in spite of sharp differences on certain individual points the measure of agreement reached was notable.

The formal starting-point of the work of building the League was the last of President Wilson's Fourteen Points,-"a general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike." Building on that foundation began long before the Paris Conference opened. It had begun indeed before the Fourteen Points themselves were enunciated. In 1917, steps had been taken by the British Foreign Office, at the instance of Lord Robert Cecil, to have an outline scheme for a League of Nations * The Covenant of the League of Nations is reprinted in full in Appendix V, p. 222.

drawn up. A strong committee was appointed under the chairmanship of Lord Justice Phillimore, and by the middle of 1918 a draft of a League of Nations constitution had been evolved, which was sent at once to President Wilson in America. While he still had this under consideration, in December, 1918, a new plan for a League of Nations was published by General Smuts, which so impressed the President that he had the two schemes collated, largely by Col. House, and then discussed point by point with General Smuts and Lord Robert Cecil during the opening days of the Peace Conference, with the result that when the League of Nations Commission began its work it had before it, in addition to two statements of general principles submitted by France and Italy respectively, a detailed draft constitution agreed on in substance by both Great Britain and America.

The Commission was brought into being at the second Plenary Session of the Peace Conference, held at the Quai d'Orsay, on January 25th, when a resolution of which the salient clauses were as follows, was adopted:—

"It is essential to the maintenance of the world settlement which the Associated Nations are now met to establish, that a League of Nations be created to promote international cooperation, to ensure the fulfilment of accepted international obligations and to provide safeguards against war.