Wilson

by A. Scott Berg

  An even more cunning political animal was David Lloyd George, at fifty-six the youngest of the Big Four. Born in 1863, and losing his father the following year, he put himself on a fast track of law and politics and never deviated, becoming a Member of Parliament at twenty-seven and rising steadily in the government. In 1916 he became the first and only Welsh Prime Minister of England. With an outsider’s eagerness to please, he proved unusually adroit in speaking and writing his second language, English; and few men could read a room as insightfully as Lloyd George. He held the unfortunate position of head of a coalition government, forced to juggle the wishes of all sides in matters of colonies and concessions. In a sketch he wrote but withheld for years, Keynes said, “Lloyd George is rooted in nothing; he is void and without content.” And yet, he granted, the Prime Minister had highly sensitive political instincts. “To see the British Prime Minister watching the company, with six or seven senses not available to ordinary men, judging character, motive, and subconscious impulse, perceiving what each was thinking and even what each was going to say next, and compounding with telepathic instinct the argument or appeal best suited to the vanity, weakness, or self-interest of his immediate auditor,” he wrote, “was to realize that the poor President would be playing blind man’s buff in that party.” Lloyd George traveled to Paris with a personal secretary, who was also his mistress and whom he addressed in their private correspondence as “My dear Pussy.” Dr. Grayson thought Lloyd George was “as slippery as an eel.”

  The commedia dell’arte featured a favorite stock character—the Capitano—a braggart and coward who carried a sword he never used and who burst into emotional fits when challenged. Vittorio Orlando—who was Italy’s third Prime Minister during its four years of war—filled that role whenever he appeared. Clemenceau would soon call this stumpy Sicilian-born lawyer with Mafia ties “the Weeper.” Italy wanted a place at the table, like the other victors of the war, and expected its spoils as spelled out in a secret pact, the Treaty of London.

  Then there was the President of the United States—tall, trim, with fine-cut features—hailed not only as a victor but also a prophet. “In addition to this moral influence the realities of power were in his hands,” young Keynes perceived.

  The American armies were at the height of their numbers, discipline, and equipment. Europe was in complete dependence on the food supplies of the United States; and financially she was even more absolutely at their mercy. Europe not only already owed the United States more than she could pay; but only a large measure of further assistance could save her from starvation and bankruptcy. Never had a philosopher held such weapons wherewith to bind the princes of this world.

  These four men and their associates gathered on the garden side of the Quai d’Orsay, in the Bureau du Ministre, the office of Stéphen Pichon. It was a large salon lined with eighteenth-century Gobelins tapestries and high bow windows and double-doors that opened onto a magnificent rose garden. Clemenceau sat before its great fireplace, facing all the others, who sat classroom style in chairs before him.

  They began by considering the many matters of representation, providing a small sample of the conundrums that lay ahead. Montenegro, for example, was in the process of formation; the United States recognized the government of its king, and Wilson urged its accreditation. There were questions about the British Empire—whether Australia, for example, deserved greater representation than, say, New Zealand. While Wilson’s “heart bled” for Belgium and Serbia, he wanted to limit their participation because neither had “made a voluntary sacrifice” in the war. Japan had been invited to bring five delegates to the Conference, even though, Clemenceau said, she “had not done very much in the War, and what she had done had been mainly in her own interests.” Russia, in the midst of its civil war, would not be represented at all. Then, just as the leaders were making genuine headway, uniformed servants appeared to serve afternoon tea. Wilson had to restrain himself from voicing his surprise that with the weighty affairs of the world’s future under discussion, the Conference should be interrupted by such triviality. But he honored the custom, even as he realized it was a political ploy, a way for the host to stage-manage every detail of the proceedings.

  When these preliminary talks resumed, Grayson opened one of the windows, and Lloyd George remarked that it was the room’s first breath of fresh air since the reign of Louis XIV. Clemenceau and his team immediately waved their hands in disapproval. They were embroiled in a heated argument with Italy’s Foreign Minister, Sidney Sonnino, and Grayson had hoped the breeze might cool their tempers. But complaints from the French resulted in their closing the window. The repeated French objections to the open window, it appeared, were less about ventilation than about controlling the atmospherics of the peace talks. At the end of that first session, Wilson realized the Conference would be operating at a pace considerably slower than he had anticipated. That evening, he commented to his wife’s social secretary, Edith Benham, that the first day reminded him “of an old ladies’ tea party.”

  At the Council of Ten meeting on January 13, the leaders began to prepare the agenda for the Conference by proposing the topics they would consider. They included: new states; frontiers and territorial changes; and colonies—most especially the outposts of the German Empire, over which Japan, Great Britain, and Italy were already slavering. Because Wilson believed the dispensation of those colonies should fall under the jurisdiction of the League of Nations, he urged the establishment of that body as their primary order of business.

  Every group encounter revealed more of each nation’s desires. At the same day’s meeting of the Supreme War Council, British Foreign Minister Balfour expressed his wish to seize Germany’s navy; he suggested telling the vanquished, “If you want food you must hand over your ships.” French Minister of Industrial Reconstruction Louis Loucheur announced that the French had no interest in Germany’s reparations being paid in kind, and they expected the return of all stolen goods. Wilson consistently argued that “so long as hunger continued to gnaw, the foundations of government would continue to crumble,” and that food, therefore, should be distributed promptly to friends and enemies, if only to ward off Bolshevism. On January 15, the great powers debated which should be the official language of the Conference. The hosts naturally argued for their native tongue; Lloyd George thought French and English should be considered equally official, and Wilson concurred. Without denying the precision of French in diplomatic matters, he argued that English was the diplomatic language of the Pacific and was comprehended by more people—including Clemenceau—than any other language represented at the Conference. Orlando indicated that he spoke no English. It was late afternoon before they agreed that the Conference would be trilingual. It promised to be a very long conference.

  Five days before the commencement of the full summit, Wilson raised the problem he believed would be the ultimate fly in the ointment—Italy. While mindful of treating Orlando as an equal in the Council of Ten (if not as one of the Big Four), the President pre-emptively pointed out that the secret “Treaty of London”—under which Italy was to receive territory for joining the Allies—could not be considered binding. Wilson said the anticipated boundaries in that agreement had been laid down to protect Italy from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and that empire no longer existed. Furthermore, the empire had been broken up into a number of states no one of which would be strong enough to menace Italy. Thus, both the basis and the purpose of that treaty no longer existed. Before facing the Conference at large, Wilson wanted to assure Orlando that Italy’s frontiers with its new neighbors would be fair, and he invited Orlando to step up as the representative of a great power in the new world order by sacrificing petty national interests for greater global principles. In this reasonable and direct manner, Wilson steadily asserted his authority. Herbert Bayard Swope, ace reporter for the New York World, suggested that the Conference was beginning with Wilson as “the central figure in t
he room, the others paying him marked deference.” Those who had thought him cold at first now “thawed under his influence.”

  Hundreds of petitioners who had come to Paris in hopes of a moment on the world stage had requests for the President. The provisional government of Lithuania, to name one, sent Wilson a plea—not for a seat at the table but only for “standing room back against the wall��where we have stood so long—waiting to be heard when the question of our fate is to be determined.” Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann wrote Wilson that the “Jewries of nearly every country” had assembled just across the Channel and were “united in favour of a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine and that a large majority of them have already definitely pronounced themselves in favour of a British Trusteeship of Palestine.” And Wilson was asked to address a congress of women workers at the Trocadéro Palace—which made Clemenceau object to any further demonstrations honoring him. That included any events that might glorify America’s part in the war or endorse the League of Nations.

  That did not stop anyone from trying to capture Wilson’s attention. W. E. B. Du Bois had organized a Pan-African Congress with fifty-seven “representatives of the Negro race” and hoped to be heard. Samuel Gompers met with the President to discuss the international labor situation, particularly “to what extent it would be possible for the League of Nations to devise and control a labor plan that would prevent worldwide economic unrest and trade disturbances.” Wilson informed the head of a delegation from Armenia that it was difficult to “assign representatives to political units which have not yet been received into the family of nations.” And Nguyen Tat Thanh, a twenty-nine-year-old from Indochina, who eked out a living cooking, teaching Chinese, and colorizing photographs when he was not converting to Marxism, received no response to his asking Wilson to recognize his homeland. He would soon adopt the pseudonym Ho Chi Minh—which meant “He Who Enlightens”—and then spend the rest of his life seeking proper acknowledgment of Vietnam. “Paris is now filling up with all sorts of people from all the little corners of the earth, leaders of ambitious new nations, awaiting the coming peace conference,” Ray Stannard Baker jotted in his notebook. “About every second man of this type one meets, fishes out of his pocket a copy of a cablegram that he or his committee has just sent to President Wilson. It is marvellous indeed how all the world is turning to the President! The people believe he means what he says, and that he is a just man, set upon securing a sound peace.”

  The opening weekend of the Conference began with torrential rains, and the President awakened that Saturday morning—January 18, 1919—with a cold that kept him in bed until noon. At 2:30, limousines began to arrive at the Quai d’Orsay, bearing small flags of their nations on their hoods or bunting in Allied colors across the tops of their windshields. Two thousand people lining the Quai cheered as Wilson’s car pulled up at 2:50, its passenger sufficiently reenergized. Ten minutes later the ruffle of drums and blare of trumpets announced the arrival of President Poincaré, who joined the plenary session. The signature element in the small palace’s gorgeous white and gold hall—with frescoed cupids dancing on high—was an imposing fireplace and its mantelpiece. A beautiful round clock set within the mantel gave the room its official name, the Salon de l’Horloge. Above the clock, in a large niche, stood a marble statue of France holding the torch of civilization. Four magnificent chandeliers, reflected in large mirrors, illuminated the chamber. Although the French renamed the grand hall the Salle de la Paix for the duration of the talks, Clemenceau had seen to it that they officially began on the forty-eighth anniversary of Bismarck’s achieving national unification, which had set Franco-Prussian relations on the path to war.

  The lesser powers believed they would be treated the same as the mighty but promptly realized that the table in the Salle de la Paix was not round. Each of the delegates found his designated crimson leather–covered chair at a great three-sided arrangement—a head table with two long arms, all covered in green baize. Seating indicated a country’s standing. Clemenceau sat at top center, Lloyd George and his delegation and the other Commonwealth nations on his left, Wilson and the Americans on his right. Around that bend, as far from the center of power as Czechoslovakia and Serbia but not as far down as Belgium or Brazil, sat Premier Orlando, one of seventy representatives from thirty countries. Secretariats lined the four walls. Everyone rose for Poincaré and remained standing for his brief welcoming remarks, in French—which were translated—after which he withdrew.

  Clemenceau asked for nominations of a permanent chairman of the Conference, and Wilson proposed Clemenceau. The President generously offered that this was no mere tribute to their host nation but was because “we have learnt to admire him and those of us who have been associated with him have acquired a genuine affection for him.” Lloyd George and Sonnino seconded the motion, which was adopted unanimously. Although this small ceremony was the only business of the day, Clemenceau used his acceptance speech as an opportunity to stake some ground.

  “President Wilson has special authority for saying that this is the first occasion on which a delegation of all civilised peoples of the world has been seen assembled,” he said. And then he laid his objectives on the table:

  The greater the bloody catastrophe which has devastated and ruined one of the richest parts of France, the ampler and more complete should be the reparation . . . so that the peoples may be able at last to escape from this fatal embrace, which, piling up ruin and grief, terrorises populations, and prevents them from devoting themselves freely to their work for fear of enemies who may arise against them at any moment.

  While baring his hatred for the enemy, Clemenceau spoke repeatedly of the amicable relationships among those assembled, suggesting that “success is only possible if we all remain firmly united.” He said, “We have come here as friends; we must leave this room as brothers.” Toward that end, he did not let this first session close without an offering to Wilson.

  “Everything must yield to the necessity of a closer and closer union among the peoples who have taken part in this great war,” Clemenceau said. “The League of Nations is here. It is in yourselves; it is for you to make it live; and for that it must be in our hearts. As I have said to President Wilson, there must be no sacrifice which we are not ready to accept.” After his remarks, Clemenceau invited the delegates to submit memoranda detailing the crimes and punishments to be assigned to “the authors of the war.”

  Every posture of these talks would be fraught with the politics of leadership, every gesture a play for power. In observing just a few perfunctory motions, young British diplomat Harold Nicolson already sensed Clemenceau’s high-handedness, especially with the smaller powers. Whenever asking if there were any objections, he merely said with machine-gun rapidity, “Non? . . . Adopté.” Two days later, Nicolson dined with Balfour, who told him that Clemenceau had worn a bowler to the opening session. Balfour apologized to the “old Tiger” for his own top hat, saying, “I was told . . . that it was obligatory to wear one.” Replied Clemenceau, “So was I.”

  From the moment of Wilson’s arrival in Paris, Poincaré and Clemenceau and almost every other Frenchman urged the President to visit the war sites so that he could see the devastation the enemy had inflicted. It was a bald attempt to win his sympathies and influence his judgments as to the compensation France deserved. In truth, the repeated suggestion offended him, just as his refusals perturbed his hosts. One night after weeks of the entreaties, an American friend having nothing to do with the Conference casually asked the President when he intended to visit the devastated regions. “Et tu, Brute?” he said, only half joking. “I don’t want to see the devastated regions,” he replied, using a quirky archaic pronunciation of the word and offering an explanation:

  As a boy, I saw the country through which Sherman marched to the sea. The pathway lay right through my people’s properties. I know what happened, and I know the bitterness and hatreds which were eng
endered. I don’t want to get mad over here because I think there ought to be one person at that peace table who isn’t mad. I’m afraid if I visited the devastated areas I would get mad, too, and I’m not going to permit myself to do so.

  Steadily, the French convinced themselves that Wilson had grown unsympathetic to their cause; and, noted Edith Wilson’s private secretary, Edith Benham, “they are fearful he may give too good terms to Germany if he doesn’t see the horror of the war and is prejudiced in their favor.” Dr. Grayson, who virtually shadowed the President, could see that the French simply did not understand Wilson’s equanimity. “They did not realize that he as much as any of them hated Germany and all her ways,” he observed, “but that he was holding himself in hand because he knew that peace terms drawn up in furious rage would defeat their own ends, that to destroy Germany economically would make just reparations impossible.” Wilson continued to draw a distinction between the former German Imperial government and the German people. The people had done evil, but it was done under wrong leadership. He felt that “to keep cool” was the first essential to the making of “a peace of justice,” that whipping himself into “a passion of rage” would render him unfit for the present task. Germany must be punished, he asserted, “but in justice, not in frenzy.”