UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA LIBRARY THE GIFT OF EDWARD E. ROE WADE Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/sourcerecordsofg07newy BINDING Vol. VII The simple border design on this volume is a facsimile of the original on the official German copy of the Versailles Peace Treaty, which was signed by President Ebertand Premier Bauer and deposited in the Archives of the new German Government. he Pe^ vloyd-Gebj^ge, Orlando, Clemenceau ? arid WasoivS(from left to right) at the entrance toHlie Wilson residence in the Place des Et^ts Unis, in Paris GovemmBnt Wofc SOURCE RECORDS OF THE GREAT WAR A COMPREHENSIVE AND READABLE SOURCE RECORD OF THE WORLD'S GREAT WAR. EMPHASIZING THE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS. AND PRESENTING THESE AS COMPLETE NARRATIVES IN THE ACTUAL WORDS OF THE CHIEF OFFICIALS AND MOST EMINENT LEADERS NON-PARTISAN NON-SECTIONAL NON-SECTARIAN PRESENTING DOCUMENTS FROM GOVERNMENT ARCHIVES AND OTHER AUTHORITATIVE SOURCES, WITH OUTUNE NARRATIVES. INDICES. CHRONOLOGIES. AND COURSES OF READING ON SOaO- LOGICAL MOVEMENTS AND INDIVIDUAL NATIONAL ACTIVITIES EDITOR-IN-CHIEF CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D. DIRECTING EDITOR WALTER F. AUSTIN, LL.M. With a staff of specialists VOLUME FII i^ational illumni 3 'to Copyright, 1923, National Alumni Printed in U. S. A. The thaiJcs of the publishers are due for permission to incori>orate in this volume the following material: articles by Mme. Grouitch and C. Pergler, Copyright by the American Academy of Political and Social Science: by F. C. Howe, Copyright 1919 by Scribner's Sons: by G. Mason, Copyright 1919 by Outlook Co.: by S. Lauzanne, Copyright by North American Review Corporation: by W. J. Shepard, Copyright and reprinted by permission of American Political Science Review: and extracts from K. S. Baker, Copyright and re- printed by permission of Doubleday, Page & Co.: from E. Borchard, Copyright by Atlantic Monthly Press: from H. Hansen's "Adventures of the Fourteen Points, Copyright by The Century Co. CONTENTS VOLUME VII— 1918-1919 Reconstruction and the Peace Treaty PAGE An Outline Narrative of The First Steps in Rebuilding the World CHARLES F. HORNE. xiii I Occupation of the Rhineland Western Germany becomes a Subject Land . I GABRIEL HANOTAUX, French Academician PHILIP GIBBS, British official eye-witness. FREDERIC C. HOWE, American economist. GREGORY MASON, American observer. II The Union of Greater Serbia (Jan. j) Forming the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS. PRINCE ALEXANDER, of Serbia. MADAME GROUITCH, American observer. Ill The Opening of the Peace Conference (Jan. 18) The A Hies' Effort at the Reconstruction of the World 36 PRESIDENT POINCAR^, of France. PRESIDENT WILSON, of the United States. DAVID LLOYD GEORGE. Prime Minister of Britain. BARON SONNINO. Prime Minister of Italy. GEORGES CLEMENCEAU. Prime Minister of France. SISLEY HUDDLESTON, British eye-witness. STEPHANE LAUZANNE, French eye-witness. MAXIMH*IAN PARPEN, German editor £^14 patriot, Slovenes 22 ii CONTENTS PAGB IV Germany begins RepvbKcan Government {Feb. 6) Progress of the German Revolution ... 67 WALTER J. SHEPARD, American economist. GENERAL LUDENDORFF, German MiUtarist leader. GEORGE SAUNDERS, British eye-witness. SENOR AZHEITUAS, Spanish economist. PRESIDENT EBERT, of the German Republic. V The Rescue of Poland (Feb. 10) The First Meeting of a Polish National Assembly . 94 ALEXANDER KAKOWSKI, President of Poland's Council. JOSEPH PILSUDSKI, Dictator in Poland. IGNACE PADEREWSKI. Poland's Prime Minister. HERBERT HOOVER, head of the American relief organization. VI Germany Crushes Bolshevism {Mar. j-8) The General Strike and Spartacan Revolt . . ill F. S. DELMER, British economist, eye-witness. GEORGE YOUNG, British radical, eye-witness. L. E. MATTHEI, Teuton economist. VII Problems of the Peace Conference {April 7) The Open Threat of Rupture . . . .129 RAY S. BAKER, official American representative. EDWIN BORCHARD, Professor at Yale University. GUILLAUME MARTIN, French political authority. VIII The Republic of Czechoslovakia {June 28) The Peace Conference Formally Recognizes the New Democracy . . . . . .140 CZECHO-SLOVAK DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. ALPHONSE DE GUILLERVILLE, French eye-witness in Prague. THOMAS MASARYK, President of Czecho-Slovakia. CHARLES PERGLER, Czecho-Slovakian Representative in the United States. IX The Peace of Versailles {June 28) Germany Signs the Terms Dictated by the AlUes . 153 HARRY HANSEN, American eye-witness. VON BROCKDORFF-RANTZAU, head of German Delegation. GEORGES CLEMENCEAU, President of the Conference. GABRIEL HANOTAUX, French historian. KARL KAUTSKY, leading Teuton Socialist. PAUL ROHRBACH, German Junker leader. CONTENTS ix PAGB APPENDICES Pronouncing Vocabulary . . . . . .197 Chronology ........ 203 Bibliography . . . . . . . .213 INDEXES Subject Index ........ 228 General Index ........ 265 MAPS AND STATISTICS ILLUSTRATIONS VOLUME VII PAGE The Peace Makers Frontispiece Government Photograph The War Makers i6 Government Photograph Allied Troops Entering Germany , . . .186 Government Photograph xi 1918-1919 FROM ARMISTICE TO PEACE TREATY AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF THE FIRST STEPS IN REBUILDING THE WORLD BY CHARLES F. HORNE HUMAN progress moves as with the swing of some vast pendulum, each forward step reversing itself in some sharp reaction. Yet there is progress. Men who have studied that pendulous sweep throughout the ages, have learned to watch its backward swing without despair. They have built for themselves from history the same high and confident faith that spiritual souls have gathered from re- ligion, the faith that every forward step of the human race grows longer and stronger, and that each backward move is shortened, is indeed but the regaining of solid ground from which the divine impulse again sweeps us onward with a larger power. Some such faith we need in dwelling on the days of reaction that followed immediately on the Great War. On November ii, 1918, the world, or rather the peoples of the Allies, had reached a glory of such exalted spirit as mankind had not known for many centuries. That, at least, the Great War did for our generation. It gave to us a passion of energy, of self-sacrifice, of devotion to a high purpose, of noble thought and noble service, such as no generation had ever reached before, except through the ecstasy of some great religion. The steadfast opposition with which all peoples had defied autocratic savagery, the unyielding "Will to Right- eousness" displayed by our men and by our women, on the battle front and in the services of home, had been a revelation of the splendid height to which the universal human spirit can soar, the deeds it can accomplish. Unfortunately, however, the everyday life of our race holds no such mighty stimulus. That wondrous spirit of the xiii AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF war days faded somewhat, inevitably faded, after the armed victory was won. Those who had saved the world, wanted now to enjoy the world. As the call for love and service to mankind grew less intense, the voice of self-service and self- love grew strong again. Few men have such broad vision that they can see earth as a whole, can realize all the influ- ence of that which happens far in the East upon him who dwells perchance in the farthest West, In the months that followed on the Armistice, the thoughts of each ordinary man centered more and more upon his own nation, his own neigh- borhood, his own family, his own comfort. From the universal, therefore, men descended to the par- ticular. The Central Powers of Europe had surrendered. Some disposition of them must be made. They must not be allowed strength ever to disrupt the world again. But on the exact methods by which this was to be done, scarcely any two men agreed, and no two nations were anywhere near agreement. Each studied the future from the viewpoint of its own nationality. Britain was convinced that the best guarantee of a perma- nent peace lay in a mighty British Empire spreading a mighty fleet abroad over every ocean. France believed the guarantee should be a greater France extended to the Rhine and holding Germany in thrall by military force. Japan thought the peace path might lead by way of an acknowledgment of complete racial equality; that is, Japanese equality and Japanese su- premacy over Chinamen. Italy planned to dominate the Adriatic and the Balkans, and thus, as a wiser Austria, to hold under her control the ever-menacing racial antagonisms of southeastern Europe. Even Bolshevistic Russia had its blinded theory that if only the world were all ignorant and all proletarian it would be all at peace. In America people had escaped most of these antagonisms through the good fortune of possessing a half empty hemi- sphere of their own, and a blended ancestry, wise with the sufferings they had endured in every European land. Hence in America there persisted a real strength of purpose toward a broader reconstruction. Men dreamed of a union like that of their already "united states," only on a world-wide basis. THE FIRST STEPS IN REBUILDING xv an equal organization of all governments without the enlarge- ment of any one. But to the crowded eastern hemisphere this seemed only a dream, or more nearly a nightmare, de- structive of what each nation loved the best. While favorite hopes, and plans for future greatness, thus swayed each government from its once intense war- time concentration upon mere survival, all governments occu- pied themselves mainly with more immediate needs. Each studied, in accordance with the special pressure upon each, to save its people from the exhaustion and misery resultant from the War. That misery has been sharply impressed upon the memory of every thinking person, has been stamped hid- eously and unforgetably upon the vision of all those who "saw," all those who have endured and have survived their scars. Here we need only briefly review the consequences of the disaster. During four awful years, a large portion of the world had been swept by the brutalizing ravage of massacre and starvation and all the horde of diseases which civilization, in more prosperous days, had learned to hold in check. A "Black Death," more deadly than the terrible medieval plague so named, had once more burst every barrier built up by the wisdom of scientists and statesmen, had escaped all the chains slowly wrought by human effort, and had harried the human race. What the Horror's toll of lives had been in those ruined lands which had once rejoiced in the pompous names of Russian and Turkish Empires we can only guess; and from those regions as a center its curse had extended in a destruction but little less deadly over all western Asia and central Europe. In its passing, the scourge had not only destroyed human life and left to the bereaved a lasting and immeasurable grief ; it had also swept away all the garnered store of food and seed from former years, most of the domestic animals once counted on for future supplies, and much of that accumulated treasure of houses and tools and furnishings and clothes which represented the patient labor of many generations. Naked almost as Adam, a large portion of the human race had to recommence its toil in a world less tropically com- xvi AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF f ortable than Eden's garden, and with wants and desires far more complex than those of our primeval parents. So, while European diplomats discussed the terms of armistice and peace, their governments were far more im- mediately concerned with questions of food and labor and domestic finance. Many million people had to be carried over the threatening starvation period, until another auttimn should bring Nature's harvest once more to the support of man. In this work of relief America and also Britain gave generous aid. Herbert Hoover, the former director of Bel- gian relief, was now appointed the United States' commis- sioner for distributing supplies everywhere. American funds and American food, under his direction, became the chief factor in bringing to all Europe a temporary rescue. Yet even this last and greatest of the broad charities of the War, fostered misunderstandings and dissensions. Each continental nation was now looking mainly to its own needs ; and each asserted its own first claim to aid. In many lands the people were so exhausted both mentally and physically, so drained of hope and energy that they were content just to sit in idleness and be fed. They grew to look upon the supplies as a right; and at length the relief commissioners had to announce everywhere that they would help only such as helped themselves. Even in France, where during the War the gallantry of spirit had been most high and recogni- tion of the service of Britain and America most ready, even there the voice of business sounded louder than the voice of gratitude. For the first month or so after the Armistice this chang- ing temper of the peoples everywhere was scarcely felt. Vast military supplies had been gathered to support the armies through the coming winter of 19 18-19, and it was easy to transfer to the j>eoples some of these supplies, espe- cially of food and clothes. So November and even Decem- ber continued to be months of triumph. By the beginning of 1919, however, the reaction was complete. Only the United States and Britain retained any surplus of power and energy to be turned to other than im- THE FIRST STEPS IN REBUILDING xvii mediate affairs. In those lands the plans of reorganization proceeded rapidly and the people still found time to interest themselves in science, in the readjustments of capital and labor, and even in their sports. Half sporting and half scientific, for example, was the transatlantic flight by air machines. This was repeatedly attempted, and was first achieved by an American "sea-plane" on May 17th of 1919. THE TRIUMPH OVER GERMANY Continental Europe meanwhile was giving all its energies to the primal problem of self-preservation, the saving of civilization from the close approach of Bolshevism and star- vation. Following on the Armistice, the armies of Belgium, Britain, the United States, and France marched eagerly for- ward into Germany and settled down to that occupation of the Rhine lands which was to be turned by the Peace Treaty into a more permanent tenancy. To men who still thought along old lines, who recalled the boastful German march through Paris after the War of 1870, this expression of victory over Germany was not a very satisfying form of triumph. The French indeed strove to give to the investment an air of "La gloire," of soul-satis- fying vengeance; but to the other armies this was only the final plodding step in a hard and long extended task. Every- where the Ally soldiers found the Germans ready to receive them obediently, almost cordially. The German people were only too thankful to have escaped armed ravage and plunder, such as they had visited upon other lands.* Hence the investment proved no more than a military parade, followed by the military policing of a region which had indeed been drained bare of all military supplies but had still at command the necessities and most of the comforts of civilian life. Many of the more ignorant soldiers in the armies of occupation, looking around upon the peace and order and cleanliness that flourished along the Rhine, began even to question if this social organism of Germany were not better than their own. They failed to realize the crushing * See § I, "Occupation of the Rhine Land," by Hanotaux, Howe, etc. xviii AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF weight of that autocratic government which had sheltered these lands, failed to see how slavish was the spirit of sub- mission which alone had made such conditions possible. That blind obedience of the German masses had made all Ger- many's vaunted "organization" inferior, in the end, to the higher spirit of individual independence and initiative in the Frenchman. Beyond the Rhine, moreover, the German people were in far less happy condition. The revolution of November, which had driven the Kaiser into flight, had left the land without any assured government. The Socialist leaders in Berlin had declared the country a republic, and the old im- perial officials had quietly handed over their authority to the newly proclaimed President, "Fritz" Ebert, the Heidel- berg "saddle-maker." Thus the revolution had been a most orderly and even dignified affair, many of the former officials continuing their duties under the new authorities. This very orderliness, however, worked against the sud- denly reared republic. Its reality and its sincerity were doubted, both by the Allies abroad and by the discontented and turbulent working-classes at home. The more extreme revolutionists, the "Spartacans," as they called themselves, refused to believe that this was revolution at all. They wanted to go immeasurably further, to set up a government like that of Russia, to establish the "rule of the proletariat," with all the middle and upper classes exterminated or re- duced to servitude. There were tumults everywhere, and fierce uprisings only put down by military force. In January and again in March Berlin was torn by deadly warfare in her streets, and hun- dreds of the Spartacans were slain. The new govern- ment's chief of police, Noske, proved resolute and energetic in crushing each revolt ; but he only did so by invoking the very forces which his Socialist comrades had themselves condemned in other days as tyrannous and murderous. The leaders of the Spartacan movement. Dr. Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, were both slain while under arrest by Noske's police. When the whirligig of fortune swings into unexpected power, some tender-hearted proletarian THE FIRST STEPS IN REBUILDING xix idealist, the form of government which he himself adopts proves usually that of slaughtering his former "beloved brothers" as well as his "brutally tyrannous" opponents, with- out even the formality of a trial. Few human beings are built so strong as to withstand the temptations that attend upon unlimited power. ^ Gradually from out the German chaos there emerged a form of order. An election was held by universal suffrage; and on February 6th of 1919 a truly representative "Reichs- tag" or National Assembly convened. Its members were mainly Socialistic, but by no means impractical. Many had been well-known leaders in former Reichstags, and under their experienced hands the work of reorganization pro- gressed smoothly. President Ebert was by this Assembly confirmed in office; a constitution was prepared for the re- public; and a regular democratic government was formed. Twice at least this new government suppressed revolts both by the extreme radicals and by the extreme reactionaries, the latter seeking to restore the military empire. Thus by de- grees the Allies came to look upon the German Republic as a reality and as a stability ; they began to feel for it a confi- dence it had not at first inspired. If the new Germany be not perfect, it is at least far more free, far more honest, more democratic, and less vainglorious than the old.* DOWNFALL OF THE "MIDDLE EUROPE EMPIRE" The other lands from which Germany had hoped to mold her "Empire of Middle Europe" were less swift of recon- struction. Here too, however, the patient watcher of the pendulum will read hope and faith into the future, despite the superficial vision of anarchy and shame. Russia and her former provinces remained deep in misery ; but to the other Slavic peoples the giant outcome of the War was freedom, the freeing of all their cowed and "slavish" world from the Teuton yoke of centuries. That broad belt of submerged races between the Teuton and the Russian centers of power, once coveted and almost *See § VI, Germany Crushes Bolshevism," by Matthet, etc. ' See § IV, "Germany Begins Republican Government," by Ebert, etc. XX AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF wholly devoured by the two great rivals, now lay distracted, lordless, uncontrolled, tossing madly between present starva- tion and reawakened dreams of nationality and future power. The ill-bound Austrian domain, that merest catspaw and cloak of German expansion toward the southeast, exploded into fragments from within before ever an Ally regiment had crossed its borders. One dark picture follows there upon another, the horror deepening as we watch. Soldiers shot down their officers, and officers their men. Sailors drowned their captains. Whole divisions of the subject troops refused to advance to the front, and entrenching themselves in armed camps defied their government by force. Hungarian armies were reck- lessly disbanded by their generals far from their own homes ; and they marched across Austria in huge mobs, seizing food and plunder as they went, and leaving behind them strips of desert as bare as where the locust plague had passed of old. While loyal Austrian troops still stood beyond their out- most former frontier holding back the Serbian army in the Serbian mountains and the Italian army along the Italian rivers, the subject races within the heart of the empire broke into open revolt. The ancient Hapsburg bubble burst as utterly as had that still more swollen bubble of the Hohen- zoUems. In the northern Austrian provinces, on October 28, 19 1 8, the people of Prague, the ancient capital of Bo- hemia, the chief seat of the Czecho-Slavs or north Slavs, turned out their Austrian officials and assumed control of their own government. In the south the leaders of the Jugo- slavs or south Slavs did the same on October 29th. Hastily gathered committees met at the chief south Slavic cities, at Laibach, at Agram, and at Serajevo, where the War had been begun; and all declared the Austrian dominion was at an end forever. The Hungarians also sought to escape from sharing the doom of the shattered empire of which they had long been the fiercest and most warlike supporters. On October 31st the Hungarian "Diet" or parliament declared Hungary a wholly independent republic under the liberal democratic leader Count Karolyi. The helpless Hapsburg emperor, THE FIRST STEPS IN REBUILDING xxi Charles, abdicated early in November ; and the new republic hastened to claim from the Allies friendship, alliance, a re- lease from all responsibility for the former empire's mis- deeds, and an assurance that the Hungarian sovereignty over the surrounding Slavic races should be perpetuated. When Count Karolyi and the other nobles who had accepted his guidance found this lordly pose ignored by the Allies, they in March resigned office as a protest, appealing to "the peoples of all the world" for "justice." This was really an appeal to Russia, and a threat to the Allies that Hungary would turn Bolshevist. Indeed, a nomi- nally Bolshevistic government or "dictatorship of the pro- letariat" was promptly set up in April under the control of Bela Kun, a revolutionary soldier. The Bolshevism of Bela Kun was, however, free from the unreasoning blood- shed and fury against the upper classes which had been dis- played in Russia. As dictator he ruled Hungary not unsuc- cessfully, even conducting an effective military campaign to extend her borders. Finally, however, Bela Kun ventured to attack Rumania. This brought about the invasion of his country and his own complete defeat. In August of 1919 the Rumanians cap- tured Budapest, the Hungarian capital, and wrung a heavy toll from the entire land. After their withdrawal the wholly disillusioned Hungarian nobles returned to their old trust in the Hapsburgs and chose a member of the royal family, the Archduke Joseph, as their ruler. Him, the Allies or- dered out, being resolved that no Hapsburg should again build up an empire. So before the end of 1919 the much changed and changing Hungary was again a so-called re- public, but of most reactionary type, dominated by the rem- nant of its fierce nobility. A similar anarchy, only made up more of despair and less of arrogance, pervaded Austria itself. Even the long suf- fering populace of Vienna burst into revolt when the royal armies fled; and on November 10, 1918, Vienna saw a revo- lution similar to that of Berlin. Driving out the Hapsburgs, the people set up a Socialistic republic, and appealed to all the world for food. The food was .slow in coming, and the xxii AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF misery of the city folk of Austria became intense. In Janu- ary of 1919 the starving republic voted to unite itself to Germany; but this the Allies forbade, and Vienna still re- mains in desolation, a capital almost without a country, a great starving city having now little chance and little excuse for drawing its sustenance from the surrounding country. THE NEW NATIONS OF CENTRAL EUROPE While the forces of disintegration were thus rending into fragmentary and unreal republics the long planned "Em- pire of Middle Europe," there were other forces working in the region for reconstruction. The Bohemians or Czecho- slovaks, as they now named themselves, had long before built up an army in Russia to fight for the Ally cause. Of the remarkable exploits of this "army without a country" we have told in a previous volume, as also of the formation of an exile government of Czecho-Slovakia in Paris, under President Masaryk. The stanch courage of these men now met its reward. Czecho-Slovakian independence was imme- diately recognized by the Allies, the Paris government of President Masaryk was transferred to Prague, the Bohemian capital; and a remnant of the wandering army was ulti- mately restored to its home.^ All this northern section of the Austrian Empire thus became a new and important republic, Czecho-Slovakia, a mountain State in the heart of Europe, much larger and stronger than the similar mountain republic of Switzerland. Moreover, Czecho-Slovakia was from the start a democratic State. Its new president had been accounted a dreamer in the old days, a preacher of impossible extremes of peasant government. Yet it was upon the support of the Slavic peasantry that Masaryk builded his government. There was too much work to be done to pause for a general election then; and not until a year and a half later, in May of 1920, did a regularly elected Assembly meet to voice the people's will in Czecho-Slovakia. Yet when it did meet, it approved practically all that Masaryk and his supporters had done. It renamed him president, it confirmed the laws of the earlier * See § VIII, "The Republic of Czecho-Slovakia," by Masaryk, etc. THE FIRST STEPS IN REBUILDING xxiii irregular Assembly, which had abolished all titles of noWI- ity, and broken up all territorial estates. No proprietor in that resolute democracy can hold more than a square mile of land. On the other hand, the Czecho-Slovak laws are equally resolute against Bolshevism, the attempt to subju- gate brain beneath the weight of numbers and of ignorance. The interest in this new and boldly progressive European government, a democracy encircled by every form of tyranny and grasping force, is not confined to Europe. Far differently moved the forces of reconstruction in the Polish lands. The ancient Kingdom of Poland had been abolished, and its lands divided among neighboring kings more than a century before ; but the Polish spirit had never died. The national anthem of the Poles was still sung in secret. It opens with the cry, "Poland yet survives !" Dur- ing the early years of the War, the regions of Russian and Austrian Poland had been desolated more utterly than any other European land except Serbia. Then in 19 17 the ex- hausted remnant of the populace had obtained shelter under German domination, a peace of suppression and almost of starvation. The German part of Poland was in far better condition ; it had suffered but little more than other German lands, had been drained of its young manhood but had not been ravaged. So now, when the Armistice left the Poles to themselves, left them to build anew their ancient and beloved State, it was from the Germanized Poles that their strength chiefly came. Indeed Germany and Austria had already created from Russian Poland a "Kingdom of Poland" of their own, hav- ing it ruled by a "Regency Council" until they could select a proper Teuton princeling to set up as its kmg. In France the Allies had been supporting a Polish army, made up of exiled Poles who had rallied to the Ally cause from many lands. So the "Council" in Poland now asked for Ally sup- port ; and a new Polish Republic was set up, extending over Prussian, Austrian, and much of German Poland. A gen- eral election was held in January of 1919; and thus a truly Polish government, elected by the people, came into opera- AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF tion. It requested and promptly received representation at the Peace Conference.^ The men elected to the new Polish Assembly were how- ever, mainly upper class Poles, representmg the ancient aris- tocratic spirit of the land, rather than the masses of the people. These latter were far too crushed, too enfeebled, to think or act for themselves. Hence the new Polish Republic was set up rather from without than from within. It was the foster child of the Allies, rather than a spontaneous birth from the nation. It was the bulwark which Western Europe sought to build as a defense between anarchistic Russia and militaristic Germany Naturally the new Poland showed itself aggressive from the start. Its armies were hurriedly reenforced, received Ally supplies, and began to reach out in all directions, claim- ing all surrounding regions which had once belonged to Po- land, seeking to extend its frontiers at the expense of Russia and of the Ukraine and even of Czecho-Slovakia. There were rumors of military "pogroms," unprevented massacres of Polish Jews , and while investigation proved these charges to have been exaggerated, there remained to them a dark shadow of tragic truth. The new Poland has not pleased all lovers of the human race as has the new Czecho-Slovakia. The former seems only seeking to recreate the Past; the latter to have caught a definite vision of the Future. RECONSTRUCTION IN SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE In south-eastern Europe, the forces of reconstruction cen- tered mainly about Serbia and Rumania. These had been the Allies' champions and the Teutons' victims in the War. To them, or to such of their people as survived, belonged the future, upheld by the Allies. Few abler, stronger heroes had been brought out by the War than Prince Alexander of Serbia. As regent for his father, the aged, picturesque King Peter, Alexander had won the loyalty and admiration of all his people, and the trust of other nations too. It was to him that the Austrian south Slavs turned. They were chiefly of three kindred Slavic ' See § V, "The Rescue of Poland," Paderewski, Hoover, et al. THE FIRST STEPS IN REBUILDING xxv races, the Slovenes, an agricultural people, the Croats, a more cultured folk, and the Serbs of Bosnia and Herzego- vina, moimtaineers, long nominal subjects of the Turks. When these peoples had declared themselves independent of Austria, some of them, especially the Slovenes, desired to set up separate republics like those of their fellow Slavs in Czecho-Slovakia and Poland. But a large majority voted to imite themselves with the Serbians, the champions of the south Slav nationalities throughout the War. So on Decem- ber I, 1 918, a delegation from the various Austrian south Slavic peoples came to Prince Alexander in his ruined and now hastily reestablished capital of Belgrade, and asked to be united with his people in a "democratic kingdom" of all the south or Jugo-Slavs. The new kingdom, promptly organized, was formally announced to the world on Janu- ary 3, 1919, as the "Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes." ^ Even the Serbs of little Montenegro, the wild mountain land which had never lost its independence to either Turk or Teuton, now voted to join the other Serbs in this new kingdom of "greater Serbia." The Montenegrins deposed their own aged sovereign, despite his vigorous protests, and helped to make of all the Serbs a single kingdom, the domi- nant State of the future Balkan regions. As for Rumania, having submitted perforce to the Teu- tons early in 19 18, and having received from them a form of peace, she had been able during the last year of the War to reorganize a government This, immediately upon the Armistice, rallied all its forces and both by diplomacy and by arms began a vigorous effort for a "greater Rumania," as great as circumstances and the Allies might by any pos- sibility allow. Many regions of Rumanian race had been held subject to Austro-Hungary along its eastern frontier. Rumania justly claimed all these regions and other similar adjoining lands in Russia. But in addition to these, which she was well assured the Allies would restore to her, she wanted to take from the neighboring Hungarians all she could. Her armies, as we have already noted, invaded Hun- See § II, "Union of Greater Serbia," Prince Alexander, etc xxvi AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF gary and occupied its capital ; they refused to withdraw even when the Allies so commanded. They plundered Hungary and brought it as near to desolation as their own land had been, and only withdrew at the Allies' continuous insistance, when there was nothing left for them to carry off. Rumania thus achieved a vengeance after the ancient fashion, such as many of the Allies' peoples had longed to inflict on Germany. THE PEACE CONFERENCE While Middle Europe was thus discordantly rearranging itself, the Allies met in their great Peace Conference at Paris. Disappointing as the results of this may have seemed to the sentimentalist who demanded that the conferees should set- tle every problem of the universe, and each in accord with the sentimentalist's own pet theories, that Paris Conference was yet the most important political gathering ever held among the sons of men. No such assembly had ever shown before so broad a practical wisdom and so humble and toler- ant a brotherhood. These leaders were a unit in seeking some stable readjustment of the nations; but, as we have seen, each nation viewed this stability from its own angle, and on matters of detail the Allies were as little in accord as were their Middle Europe dependants. In the Conference, the United States delegation held a unique position, in that they had so much to give and so little to ask for their country. Hence their leader. President Wilson, stood out above all the other far-famed leaders of the Conference. He insisted, more broadly and more se- curely than any other could, upon a world policy of justice toward both friend and foe, and of equality for all mankind. These are noble thoughts, sure always of winning an easy, superficial approval ; but in just what way should these large ideas be expressed in concrete form ? To Woodrow Wilson they seemed mainly to demand the creation of a League of Nations; and he fought with unfailing resolution for such a league. Many wide-thinking statesmen, chiefly from Great Brit- ain, approved the Wilson purpose of a world-organiza- tion. A few idealistic writers in all lands upheld him and THE FIRST STEPS IN REBUILDING xxvii his efforts to the end. But within the Conference he met most determined opposition. Moreover, the Congress of his own country afterward repudiated his stand, so that he cannot be said to have had behind him the united voice of his own nation. His opponents did not question his high intention and sincerity; but European antagonists declared him obstinate and unpractical, while those of his homeland declared him misled by the "keener craft of Europe's diplo- mats." ^ Thus the Conference became the struggle of one reso- lute man with a vision of the future, against a mass of prac- tical statesmen swayed by the immediate desires of the pres- ent. The European leaders were driven by the fears or the ambitions or the hard necessities of their people to make incessant, ever-increasing demands. In the first flush of peace, after all those long years of agony and ever-darkening fear, the peace itself had seemed all that people wished for. When President Wilson first reached Europe in December of 1918, he was received every- where as the champion and savior of the human race. It was on his "Fourteen Points" that Germany had surrendered. They contented everybody, since everybody knew that the Allies were themselves to interpret the meaning of the points, and since these included restitution from Germany for the damage she had inflicted. There were three encouraging impulses in each rejoicing heart: peace was to last forever; Germany was to be the scapegoat who must suffer for all ; and every one was to receive back all that he had lost. Only by degrees did the stunning truth reach out to the mind of the common man, that Germany could not' pay. Hence there was to be no satisfying restitution. Destruction is so much easier than creation. So large a part of the ac- cumulated possessions of the world, its laboriously built up wealth of machinery, of public utilities, of ships and rail- roads and charities and institutions of learning and resources of every kind had been destroyed in the War that the whole of Germany did not possess and could not restore one-twen- 'See § III, "Opening of the Peace Conference," Wilson, Lloyd George, Harden, et al. xxviii AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF tieth part of what had perished. Nay, even if the loss were all charged up as a money debt against her and her chil- dren's children forever, and creditors seized all the profits from their toil for generations, the loss would never be made good to any now alive; and if interest were charged against the debt, then through each year the toil of the German peo- ples thus enslaved would not even pay that interest. Ger- many must remain a land of serfs forever, held under only by military force, and breeding hatred, poison, and at last universal destruction. Not on such a foundation could the world be recreated. Of course the leaders of the Allies had long foreknown this. Therefore they hastened to draw the distinction be- tween what Germany had been "justified" in destroying, in accordance with what they regarded as the established inter- national laws of war, and what she had destroyed "illegally," or in defiance of the rules of the game. Also they classed apart such destruction as had been caused by their own armies or governments. But a French farmer, for example, who hoped to have back his little farm with the barns and the stone fences and the herds that he had owned before, had suffered with equal severity whether his cows had been taken legally or no, and his barns destroyed by a French shell or a German mine. There, then, lay the root difficulty. Germany could not pay! To an American, comparatively little injured by the War, the philosophic conclusion came easily enough. "In that case, let her pay what she can. Cancel the rest." This easy critic was scarce prepared for the fierce European re- sponse, "Then, will you pay for her? Will you make good to us from your abundance ?" To the American this seemed only another demand for charity, and he had been already largely charitable. The European looked upon the situation in another light. He had suffered to save civilization, which included saving the American. The latter, after long pros- pering in trade from the War, had only joined it just at the end, and hence had done but a small part of his fair share. It was only just that he should now contribute money where the others had paid so much more heavily in blood. Here THE FIRST STEPS IN REBUILDING xxix came a widening breach between the European and the Amer- ican. Whatever the latter might do to aid, seemed to the former insufficient. Wherever America insisted on uphold- ing a principle, Europe said, "You have not counted on the cost — to me." Even the most courageous of Europe's leaders dared not meet their people frankly. The laboring classes, who had borne the main burden of the War, were beginning to de- mand release from their strenuous effort and privations. They, too, wanted now the pleasure and comfort of life. The shortage of everything was giving increased value to whatever property and stores remained, so prices mounted rapidly; and labor everywhere met this with a demand for higher wages. Then as men began to feel the actual pinch of the world's great poverty, their tempers naturally har- dened. If Germany, under the restrictions of the "fourteen points," could not be made to pay, except some small amounts for technically "illegal" damage, then away with the fourteen points. Instead of the statesmen leading the people now, the peo- ple drove the statesmen. Britain's Prime Minister, Lloyd George, returned temporarily from the Paris Conference to direct a British election, and found that his lack of severity toward Germany was likely to lose him his parliamentary control. The gradually changing tone of his speeches dur- ing that three weeks' election campaign makes a most in- teresting study. Before its close, he was pledging himself to exact from Germany a most tremendous indemnity, and to bring to punishment every German "war criminal" from the Kaiser down. Other premiers went through similar or more severe experiences. So little recompense was possible, that in every land the populace were soon vociferously de- manding the more than possible. When they failed to ob- tain it, the fault could always be laid to those "impractical Americans." And, in simple, saddest truth, the Americans did meet the situation impractically. Not within the Conference, but in their own home land, they ignored the need of harmony among themselves. Forgetting that all agreement must be XXX AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF founded upon compromise, they seemed to think that they were the only victors in the War, that while their President should dictate to none of them at home, they could and should dictate to the other Allies, and to the world, whatever Treaty each American preferred. They argued among them- selves over every item of the final document, seeking to turn each to their own pattern and protesting vehemently against points which touched them least Instead of recognizing that the Treaty was at least far more of American chan of European making and a closer approach to democratic ideals than any general organization ever before arranged, they opposed it because it was not wholly and solely what each defined in some different fashion as "American." To at- tempt to weigh the varying degrees of blame for this con- fusion, or to discuss how serious were the possible flaws within the Treaty, would be to enter regions of most violent partisanship. The obvious consequence remains. The United States threw away the leadership which might have been hers in the reconstruction of the world organism. THE OPPOSING DESIRES OF THE POWERS That is the real story of the Peace Treaty, When the Conference was formally opened on January i8, 1919, Presi- dent Wilson was still the idol of Europe and the hero of the hour. Over the main point, the German indemnity, there was no real dispute within the Conference. The United States delegates agreed with those of Europe that Germany should pay all she could ; and the share of the United States from any such payment would have been so small that she could well afford to resign it to more needy claimants. In this matter, the trouble lay, as we have seen, between the European governments and their hungry peoples. But as each new point arose by which the various gov- ernments tried to snatch some other compensating value from the War, President Wilson found himself opposing each one in turn. He held firmly to the idea upon which the pledge of peace had first been based, that it was to be a "peace of justice" and not a "peace of vengeance." These two catch- words serve as guiding points to all the discussions of the THE FIRST STEPS IN REBUILDING xxxi Conference. Never had delegates come to any such con- ference with fuller preparedness of information than was here possessed by the United States delegates. For two years past a commission had been gathering and arranging for them every possible item of knowledge on the European situation. As each nation claimed this or that, each found President Wilson fully informed and firmly set for what he accounted justice as opposed to its desires. Each oppo- nent in turn disagreed with him, and blamed him. Soon he had scarce a friendly champion in Europe. Each step in the long dispute was focused around some popular word by which the world understood or misunder- stood it. The first test was that of the "mandatories." The Europeans had found one pleasing way for making Germany pay in part to every government; that was by dividing up among themselves all Germany's colonies. But America here insisted that the "peace of justice" for all peoples obviously required that these colonies should not be held as private property, that they belonged each to its own inhabitants, that only those incapable of self-government should be governed by Europeans, and that even then the "mandatory" ruler should rule only for the colony's own good, and only until its people could learn to rule themselves. This was a severe blow, especially to Britain's empire; and the British long opposed it. They yielded only when the great main purpose of the Conference, the rescue of the world from desolation, made yielding necessary. There indeed lay the constant reason for the United States' control of the Conference. The other Powers needed her, and she did not need them. They needed her food, her money, her courage. Europe had to have peace quickly, be- fore starvation came, and anarchy. To the United States these daunting specters were still far off and vague. She could dare to delay, to argue; she could even, if antagonism grew too bitter, withdraw from the Conference altogether.^ At one time the opposition was so resolute that President Wilson openly threatened to do this, to leave Europe to settle her disputes without American aid. This course, Europe ' See § VII, "Problems of the Peace Conference," Borchaxd, etc. xxxii AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF knew, confronted her with the impossible. Perhaps what she needed above all else from America was that very de- tachment of interest which enabled the American delegates to weigh without prejudice the bitter problems of the older hemisphere. So anomalous was the situation that while each European diplomat disagreed with President Wilson, each trusted to him to arbitrate among them all, and to him alone. Thus when he actually ordered his ship and prepared on April 7th to leave for home, the other leaders accepted his policies once more. The "League of Nations" had been on that occasion the chief theme under dispute, and France was Wilson's main opponent. Prime Minister Clemenceau had frankly expressed his lack of faith in any such league; he would have erased it from the Peace Treaty altogether. Through all his length- ened life the "Tiger of France" had fought the German menace, and he had won the terrific fight at last. Could such a man, at such a moment, abandon the very method of his success! Let peace be maintained by keeping soldiers al- ways in Germany, as Napoleon would once have maintained it, if he could. As for wars among the European Allies themselves, their mutual interest in suppressing Germany would keep them bound together. As for a league to which everybody belonged, and to which even Germany might some day be admitted as an equal — the "Tiger" had treated it with courteous but open scorn. Still sharper opposition came when President Wilson championed "Greater Serbia" as against Italy in the "Fiume" dispute. He insisted that the Serbs must have free access to the Adriatic, while Italy dreamed of encircling the entire sea and making it, as ancient Venice once had made it, an Italian lake. In this dispute the Italian leaders even went so far as to withdraw from Paris; but when they found President Wilson was inflexible, they returned to the Con- ference, accepting, as Britain and France had accepted, the lesser disappointment for the greater need. They left to their more irresponsible compatriots, to the poet aviator, D'Annunzio, and his volunteer army, the seizure of Fiume THE FIRST STEPS IN REBUILDING xxxiii by force — a last appeal to the older methods of armed con- quest, a definite though feeble voice given to the belief still secretly held in many hearts that the German viewpoint was the true one, after all, that force is the final arbiter, that man's passions are mightier than his wisdom, and that in- tensity of individual desire will in the end prevail. The last of all the important controversies of the Peace Conference, and the one in which Wilson yielded most and has perhaps been most sharply blamed, was that with Japan. The Japanese delegates had come to the Conference with three points in view. They hoped to win more island colo- nies in the Pacific; they planned to confirm their hold upon Shantung, the Chinese region which they had captured from the Germans ; and they eagerly desired a declaration of race equality which should place them fully on a level with all Europeans in any diplomatic negotiation of the future. The first point they yielded early in the Conference, when Presi- dent Wilson's system of "mandatories" was accepted. The point of race equality the President could not grant ; he knew that his own people of the western United States would never consent to it. They had a practical dread of being overrun and even crowded from their homes by Japanese immigrants. So here the President had no choice but to accept the will of his own people, just as Lloyd George had bowed to his, and the other European premiers to theirs. To the Japanese at the Conference there remained, after these two refusals, only their third desire. Shantung. Since they already held it in possession and Germany had held it before during almost twenty years, the continuance of its temporary lease seemed a small concession to make to than. Moreover, the success of the entire Conference might easily have hung upon the refusal; for the strain of many an- tagonisms was already severe. The Japanese were in the same advantageous position as the Americans, in that they could afford to continue arguing indefinitely ; they had no im- mediate need for peace. So President Wilson yielded as to Shantung; and, except for helplessly protesting China, the Peace Treaty was agreed upon among the Allies. xxxiv AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE OF THE SIGNING OF THE TREATY Germany was now summoned to receive the treaty, and her commissioners on first reading it were so horrified at its severity, or they so declared themselves, that they refused to sign it. Rather might the Allies march their armies in triumph over helpless Germany and plunder as they would! Fortunately the German parliament took a less defiant view. The governing Socialistic ministry did indeed resign from office; but other Socialists took control, and despite wide public protest, the government declared that it would sign the peace. In doing so the government agreed with every other German in asserting that the details of the peace were practically impossible of fulfillment. Nevertheless, the ef- fort must be made. Other German commissioners were sent to Versailles, and on June 28th the Peace Treaty was signed.^ It was quickly ratified by all the European nations con- eerned. The United States Senate, however, refused its ratification of the Treaty ; and so the United States remained nominally, though not actually, at war with Germany through all the period here reviewed. The opposition to the Treaty in the United States was based partly on the Shantung issue, but mainly on that of the League of Nations, several points of which were regarded as favoring Britain unjustly, and several as being likely to involve America unduly in Euro- pean quarrels. EFFECTS OF THE TREATY The signing of the Treaty, and its ratification by at least the European powers, closed the first period of that gradual process of reconstruction which must occupy the world for years. The Treaty did not definitely settle that largest ques- tion as to just what Germany shall pay. A "Reparation Committee" was appointed with power to investigate and decide the amount, and the minimum total of this was set below fifteen billion dollars, a sum enormous for enfeebled Germany, but yet not beyond possibility of payment. This sum could only be enlarged by unanimous consent of the * See § IX, "The Peace of Versailles," Clemenceau, Kautsky, et aL THE FIRST STEPS IN REBUILDING xxxv "Reparation Committee" on which the United States had a member and seemed thus able to exercise its disinterested restraint. The American delay in ratifying the peace, how- ever, left this tremendously powerful committee wholly in European hands ; and it not only enlarged the minimum of Germany's debt, but by encouraging the hope of huge future payments it served as a means of soothing the impoverished European peoples. Beyond this perhaps inevitable financial vagueness, the Treaty accomplished important things. It confirmed the ex- istence of three new and wholly independent States, Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, and the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. It did not fix the terms of peace for what was left of Austria and Hungary, nor for Bulgaria and Turkey ; but it assured the continued existence of these nationalities. Minor details were left for future conference. The treaty with Austria, or rather with the tiny remaining Austrian Republic, was signed on September 20th, and with Bulgaria on November 27th ; those with Hungary and Turkey were delayed until the summer of 1920. All positively Bulgarian territory was left to the Bulgarians, and so also with the Austrians and Hungarians. Even the Turks were assured of the independence of regions where there was a clear Turk- ish majority; though never again were they to be allowed dominion over any Christian region such as Armenia, or indeed over any subject race. That, at least, the Great War had accomplished. The principle was universally accepted that men everywhere were to be free and self-governing, as soon as they were suffi- ciently civilized to be capable of self-government. The only anomaly remaining was in the rule of Ireland by the English ; and even there the English had accepted at least the principle, and had pledged themselves to the ultimate grant- ing of Irish self-government. THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS As to the League of Nations, the other great outcome of the War, it went into immediate partial operation despite the serious crippling of it by the refusal of the United States xxxvi THE FIRST STEPS IN REBUILDING to join what her President had created. Much of the sub- sequent dealings with Germany were carried on through the machinery of this League. It is not dead ; all men must hope that in some form some such association of the nations will survive. Whatever the wisdom or unwisdom of this par- ticular league, upon some such union must the future of the human race depend. If mankind cannot find a means of larger organization, then mankind must perish. "To divide is to destroy." So deadly has modern science now made war, that it is a far other thing than in those older days when it was lightly called "The Sport of Kings," and when men could even praise it as a developer of strength and heroism. It has become to-day the threatening oblivion of mankind. If not the next war, then some war soon beyond must see the extermination of our human race. Through long ages we have at last reached the point where man's destructive genius can accomplish extermination, and where it will ac- complish this, unless man's social genius for constructive harmony is rearoused and masters the destructive. With- out some union, inspired from above and wisely taught and well-policed, man will inevitably be expunged from the uni- verse, his own universe, as a mis-creation, a being too nar- rowly selfish, too stupidly contentious, too terribly potent, to be able to exist. OCCUPATION OF THE RHINELAND WESTERN GERMANY BECOMES A SUBJECT LAND The Armistice of November ii, 1918, arranged for the occupation by the Ally troops of all German territory west of the Rhine. This was to be the great symbol of Ally victory. It was also to make it impossible for Germany to renew her resistance if she objected to the peace terms imposed upon her. With this in view the Armistice also included in the region of "occupation" three large "bridge-heads," that is, three regions on the east bank of the Rhine covering the chief passages across it. Thus the Rhine remained no longer a German line of defense. The Allies, being already across it, could march into the heart of Germany, with no single fortress, no single natural obstacle, to delay or oppose them. These three bridge-heads were at Cologne, of which the British forces took possession, Coblenz, which the Americans held, and Mainz or Mayence, which France had long possessed in ancient days and now held once again. The Peace Treaty of June 28, 1919, turned the temporary occupa- tion of these lands into a more extended one. For fifteen years at least, the Allies were to hold the western Rhine-bank, meanwhile giv- ing up the bridge-heads one by one, Cologne first after only five years of occupancy. But the return of these regions to Germany was made conditional on her fulfilling every requirement of the Treaty. If she failed in this, as fail in some details she must, the occupation might extend indefinitely/. The actual entry of the Allies into Germany proper began on De- cember 1st of 1918, on which date the American armies crossed the border near Treves and began their march to Coblenz. The Britons crossed from Belgium on December 3d and were in full possession of Cologne by the 14th. French troops at the time of the Armistice held already some nominally German soil in Alsace, and they occupied Metz, the great stronghold of Lorraine on November 25th. The truly German territory beyond Lorraine was entered on December 2d; and by the 15th the French banners had crossed the Rhine at Mainz. Everywhere the Germans accepted the occupation quietly, even perhaps thankfully. It saved them from anarchy. When in 1919 the momentary investment was extended over years, it was accepted with equal calm. The Rhine provinces realized that they were fortunate W.. VOL. VII.— -1. I NOV. 23, I918-JUNE 28, I9I9 GABRIEL HANOTAUX FREDERIC C. HOWE PHILIP GIBBS GREGORY MASON 2 OCCUPATION OF THE RHINELAND to escape all the tumult and internal war which racked central Ger- many. In the following pages the picture of the French entry into Ger- many is drawn by Gabriel Hanotaux, the most noted of French con- temporary historians, specially summoned by his government to see and record the event. Philip Gibbs, most noted of British war-cor- respondents, depicts his people's entry; and the general government of the Allies is described by the American war correspondent, Gregory Mason. The economic conditions and results are briefly summarized by the noted American economist, Frederic C. Howe. BY GABRIEL HANOTAUX A GREAT, a very great leader said to me, "It is fitting that a French historian should witness the crossing of the Rhine by soldiers of France." It was at once an in- vitation and a command. I took my departure. Thanks to the generous facilities afforded me, I made the difficult voyage. At Metz I found everything ready and Commandant Henri Bordeaux commissioned to be my guide. We cross the frontier, leaving behind us the desolate scene of war, and arrive in that laughing valley of the Saar which assumes a look of tranquillity and civilization in meas- ure as it recedes from the war zone. We advance towards the Wald, towards the hilly region of Hundsriick. We de- scend into little valleys, we climb hills. Night falls. The shadows thicken, the horizon closes, we do a hundred kilo- meters in the dark. The headlights shine ahead on the unin- jured street, no more jolts or bounces; on and on goes the motor car. Now houses begin to come thick and fast, a suburb, fac- tories, chimneys still smoking, ateliers in which we see the silhouettes of men working behind a fire screen, wide streets. Suddenly we arrive in a square full of light ; the gleam of gay shop windows pours forth upon the sidewalks, a crowd gathers about the halted motor. Some are curious, some make advances, some are complacent. In a word, a city full of life, animation, and industry, it is Sarrebriich; we are having our first contact with war-time Germany. We are frankly surprised. The contrast is too violent; we have left the death of the front behind us and found life once more. But many kilometers yet remain to be covered before OCCUPATION OF THE RHINELAND 3 we shall reach our shelter. The motor car plunges into the night again. Narrow valleys, high hills, barred horizons. Our motor hums. Now we run alongside a huge convoy; now the beams of our lights reveal a poilu hunting for his quarters; then night again, the road, the hills, sentinels at barriers, cities, villages, towns, substantial and calm. A bar- rier rises before us; suddenly it falls, opens. A town with its lamps turned down. Kaiserlautern. We reach the quar- ters of the staff. Welcomed with the greatest friendliness by one of the noblest figures of the French army, we may be- gin immediately to note our first impressions, to ask some- thing about the first contact with the enemy. Commander-in-chief and poilu give us the same answer — their reception of the French is not hostile; our arrival is rather a relief for them. They were afraid of a revolu- tion. But under their reserve hides a hidden something. Is it hostility? Embarrassment? It is perhaps an attitude of waiting. They are willing enough to have us come, and are, in a fashion, prepared to model their behavior on ours. Listen to the discourse pronounced here this morning by the hilrgermeister. The discourse is a good one, skillfully put together, as they have it, but it is a little too much put together. The Mayor says, "We will concern ourselves with giving you satisfaction, although we have suffered greatly." You perceive the system — Solf 's system. "Do what you will with us, we are powerless to resist. And in case you ask too much, it will not be our fault if a good, reposeful peace should be swiftly followed by war." We do not meet with a single threat. We find only a state of resignation, from which complaints and reproaches may rise. There is not the slightest appearance of the revolution. A great fear, an exaggerated fear of some danger to German well-being, to the comfort of the German burgess, to German industry ; a good-will measured out drop by drop on the con- dition that it be profitable. Such is the secret of all one sees, the secret of a significant measure which has just reached our ears, vis., that this municipality, on the very day of the entrance of the French troops, made French a prescribed study in the elementary schools. 4 OCCUPATION OF THE RHINELAND On the following day at an early hour we walked about the streets. The factories and the schools were opening. It is then that one best studies the varied aspects of popular life. Children here, children there, children everywhere. They run towards us on all sides and gather themselves into an extraordinary crowd — well clad, well shod, comfortably bun- dled up, little rosy faces under crowns of yellow hair, some- times of brown hair (for brunettes are plentiful in this once Celtic countryside). All these little faces that stare at us, all these familiar, shining-eyed youngsters who throng about our motor car and look at our chauffeurs in uniform, all these children without a single exception are healthy looking. Their faces are full and round ; they have not suffered. When I compare them with the poor, pitiful haggard-eyed children of our invaded regions ! There are many, very many workmen, a large number of them being young men. Few women. We see the dif- ferent elements of a social life still intact, clergymen, school- masters, employees of the state and the city. In a word, all those who could decently keep out of the turmoil. All these watch us, wait for our coming. They reply willingly to our requests for information. They go out of their way; some salute. There is a marked but not excessive reserve. Along the streets our placid poilu strolls with his hand in his pockets, stopping before shop windows, asking his way from the girls for the fun of it. In a word, there is nothing particularly striking to this first meeting of Frenchman and foe. En route! Here we are in the full blaze of daylight hur- rying on through the country. We are going to Kreuz- nach, thence to Mainz by the shortest route along the valley. The city had surprised us a little by its tranquil air of not having suffered, by the "continuity" of its life. In the coun- tryside our surprise was to amount almost to stupefaction. This countryside is narrow and restricted. It lies along the valley and the road, a long alignment of fields and gar- dens. To the right and the left the climbing land rises to a double rampart of wooded hills. A stern land this, power- OCCUPATION OF THE RHINELAND 5 fully molded by Nature for military purposes. History has taught us all this, for we are in the famous lines of Kaiserlautern — that citadel of the Rhenish provinces which dominates all Germany's gates into France and forbids the entry of France into Germany. Who holds this land holds our gates. Alas, the world knows this only too well, for it was simply because of this fact that the negotiators of 1815 gave this territory to Prussia. In the villages and the towns more children, such a num- ber of children that the chauffeur is forever having to dodge and stop. But here our chauffeur's task grows even more complicated, for he must avoid the barrage of hens. How they flutter and run! In theory a hen is said to run under a wagon, but what are we to say when there are a thousand hens about ? And when we reflect that a hen lives on the same cereals as a human being? Well, we have something to pause over. Horses, attached to wagons, to plows, to agricultural ma- chines are to be seen everywhere on the streets and in the fields. I think of the state to which our French cavalry has been reduced. The fields are well kept and cultivated, not a meter of land has been allowed to lie waste. The vines are cultivated, pruned, and bound, not a twig lies on the ground. The straw lying about is fresh and clean. As far down the valley as the eye can see the squares of green and rose al- ternate in the fields. The well-rooted wheat shudders in the first chill of winter. I think of our fields, of our best fields, gone to waste and spotted with thistles. Haven't these peo- ple been at war? We advance. A watering place : Kreuznach. Another French staff gives us a second generous welcome. The "Emperor's" dining room, the "Emperor's" office, the "Em- peror's" table. He is far away now, the reprobate! We start once more. A new rendezvous. We arrive at dusk in a driving rain. We are at Mainz. And now approaches the historian's hour. Would that I might reawaken some memories of our history here. Mainz, Caesar, Napoleon, the siege by the French, the occupation. But the present does not allow us a return to the past. 6 OCCUPATION OF THE RHINELAND At first view, the town is scowling, somber, and dark under the rain. They have assigned us quarters in a private house, for they have wished us to have a glimpse of the townsman. A comfortable interior, carpets, carved wood, heavy curtains, richly decorated ceilings, chocolate-colored walls, caramel bric-a-bric, an air of gross and over-abundant bourgeois luxury. And copper, copper everywhere. Yet they stole all of ours they could put their hands on, under the pretext that Germany needed copper! And here on a little table are eight copper ash trays, on the mantelpiece are a number of those hideous copper ornaments in which Boche taste delights, little copper wells, little copper clocks. To think, good heavens, of all our lovely chandeliers, all our admirable church candlesticks, our baptismal fonts, our bells, our brass ware melted down to save these ordures! But take warning, all this has a symbolic meaning! Germany ended the war to save just these things. She has preserved her well-being. After having pillaged, she did not care to he sacked. I made these reflections while getting into an exceedingly comfortable bed belonging to a rich citizen of Mainz who, in very good French, protested against my intrusion. But I let him understand that I had no ear for his jests and that I had no intention of allowing myself to be put out in the street. "Monsieur, your folk came to my house, drank my wine, raided my cellar, carried off my furniture, my mat- tresses, my linen, my silver, my copper, and then they de- stroyed my house. This for the time being is my house. Don't worry, however, for I shall leave it as soon as I pos- sibly can. For your house, monsieur, is perfectly unspeak- able. Mine, in its lovely Louis XVI. delicacy, was a thing of exquisite beauty." He understands French, but I doubt if that penetrated his skull! Now we must sleep. For to-morrow, at the break of day, General Leconte has said to me, "The earliest hour must find you at the bridge." The St. Quentin regiment, the 287th, will be the first to cross the Rhine. We shall be there, mon General! At dawn we were at the bridge of Mainz. General Le- OCCUPATION OF THE RHINELAND 7 conte's division was to take possession of the other bank at seven o'clock. We decided to go ahead of it and await its coming. At Mainz the river wears a majestic aspect. It rolled on- wards, its gray and hurrying waves under a night-mist still clinging to the valley. Nevertheless, a pale glow strove to pierce its way through the clouds, and finally a rosy light, infinitely delicate, spread through the atmosphere and shone upon our troops drawn up along the bank. The movement on the long and narrow bridge was already active. That bridge, ornamented with pylons, flanked by four heavy pavilions, and leaping in eight arches across the stream. The general, accompanied by his staff, arrived on horse- back. He dismounted at the entrance to the bridge, walked to the sidewalk and gave orders that the bridge was to be closed to general travel. The crowd being blocked at both ends, the space between swiftly emptied. All awaited in silence the stroke of seven. General Caron and his staff had joined General Leconte. Seven o'clock! The drums beat> the bugles sound, the defile begins. The 287th regiment of infantry, the St. Quentin Regiment sets foot upon the bridge. In squads of eight, bayonets gleaming, their trampling step causing the great bridge to rumble, the soldiers surge forward towards the general who stands by the illuminating point of the cen- tral arch, his standard behind him. The regiment advanced, the band going first, pounding and blowing for all it was worth. It advanced, disappeared, and soon the whole valley rang with the long echoes of the military march. The two banks awoke, caught up the tune, and replied one to the other. The Sambre et Meiise marked the step of our heroes. The soldiers came nearer, the hardy faces could be distinguished. Then came cyclists and men with dogs on a leash. The captain of the first detachment to pass saluted with his sword. The men, their faces turned to the man with the golden visor, passed on, rank after rank. And how many of these masculine figures must have had 8 OCCUPATION OF THE RHINELAND hidden in his heart under the stern panoply of war, the smile that is born of the dream realized at last! As the flag was about to pass him, the general, saluting with sword, said in a quiet tone to the surrounding officers, "Gentlemen, let us not forget that our dead also are pass- ing by." For the dead were at hand. The flag had brought them there in its folds. The immense landscape, of a sudden, seemed swept with light. The bridge itself, having caught the cadence of the passing troops, began to tremble, and soon, marking the passing steps, appeared to dance. Bayonets gleaming, in ranks of eight, the soldiers passed. The staggering load of the infantryman on campaign bore but lightly that day upon their shoulders. Large and heavily built, they seemed that day to be nimble and alert. The bal- ancing bridge appeared to lift them up. The blue casques grew into a long snake of steel, whose spiny back was formed by myriads of bayonets. Companies succeeded companies; the morning sun poured down on the white faces and black mustaches. After the infantry came the cannons, the 75 's wrapped in their black mantles, and held in leash like hounds. After the cannons the convoy wagons, ambulances, the interminable file of worn wagons drawn by lean-bellied horses, scrubs with long, worn coats; rattling harnesses repaired with rope, all this equipage, covered with the dust and mud of long roads, rumbled on, still laboring to further that sacred task born of so many hopes and desperate efforts. While this formidable array was crossing from one bank to the other, the crowd assembled at both ends of the bridge remained apparently silent from stupor. What were they thinking of? What comparisons were struggling in their minds ? What overthrown dreams, what sorrows bare of consolation ? Or was it the reawakening of a dream? Did they understand? Did they realize? It would seem not. Necks craned forward, with bulging eyes they watched the spectacle. Beneath them the Rhine, majestic and dark, rolled onward the tides of histoiy. OCCUPATION OF THE RHINELAND BY PHILIP GIBBS British report from Malmedy in Germany, December 3, 1918 British troops crossed the Belgian frontier and entered Germany today. Here and there some small children, watch- ing from cottage windows or in their mothers' arms, waved their hands with the friendliness of childhood for all men on horses, and they were not rebuked. German school- boys in peaked caps, with their hands thrust in their pockets, stared without friendliness or unfriendliness. Some girls on a hillside above the winding road laughed and waved their handkerchiefs. There was no sense as yet of passing through a hostile country where we were not wanted. Round the hairpin turn we came down to Malmedy, lying in a narrow valley with some of its streets and houses chmb- ing up the hillsides. It was a typical little German town, with here and there houses of the chalet style and houses of the modern country type in Germany, with wooden balconies and low-pitched roofs, and beyond very neat and clean-looking factories on the outskirts of the town. The shops were bright, and I saw a display of wooden soldiers and flaxen- haired dolls and toy engines as though for the German Christ- mas which is coming, and in one little garden there was a figure of the little old gnomelike Rumpelstiltzkin in my old copy of Grimm's "Fairy Tales." It was surprising to hear that most of the people about one were speaking French. Some of us remembered then that Malmedy was not in Germany until after 181 5, and that for a long time it was an independent little town belonging to a Belgian Abbey of great wealth and power before it was de- stroyed in the French Revolution. The people here were not typically German, and many of them at least had the neutral spirit of people who live close to the frontier and speak two languages, or three, as at Malmedy, where everyone is equally familiar with German, French, and Walloon. At Malmedy there was no sign whatever of hostility ex- cept the sullen look on the faces of some men who stared through the windows of a clubhouse and the gravity of other men who turned their heads away when the cavalry passed, as 10 OCCUPATION OF THE RHINELAND though unaware of them. In many windows was a notice in German, which I read. It was an appeal by Burgomaster Kalpers, reading : "Citizens are earnestly requested to main- tain great calm and order on the entry of the Entente troops into our city and to receive them with courtesy and dignity." That wish was being carried out, and it was with polite- ness as well as dignity that the strangers were greeted in this first German town across the frontier. Report From Cologne, December 14th This morning at 10 o'clock our cavalry passed through the streets of Cologne, crossed the Hohenzollern Bridge, and went beyond the Rhine to take possession of the bridge-heads. For some days not many British soldiers had been seen in the City of Cologne, the troops being camped in the outskirts, and it was only yesterday afternoon that the British Governor made his entry and established his headquarters in one of the hotels which had been taken over for the purpose. Crowds of German people gathered to see the man who will control their way of life during the British occupation, and were kept back in a hollow square by their own police when the Governor's motor car drove in with an escort of lancers, while a band of Scottish pipers played a greeting. This morning the passing of the cavalry over the Rhine was an impressive sight for all the people of Cologne, and for the British was another historical episode on the long journey of this war, which has led at last to this river flowing now behind the British lines. To the German people the Rhine is the very river of their life, and down its tide come drifting all the ghost memories of their race, and its water is sacred to them as the fount from which their national legends, their old folk songs, and the sentiment that lies deep in their hearts have come forth in abundance. In military history the Rhine has been their last line of defense, the moat around the keep of German strength; so to-day when British troops rode across the bridge and passed beyond the Rhine to further outposts it was the supreme sign of victory for them and of German defeat. OCCUPATION OF THE RHINELA.ND BY FREDERIC C. HOWE The Germany of yesterday, armed, arrogant, imperialis- tic, is gone ; gone, I believe, never to return. The Germany of to-day is broken, faced with bankruptcy, and if work is not found for her vast industrial population, she may, and very probably will, drift quickly into revolution. Repentant ? That is a difficult question. I think it must be answered in the negative. That she believes her ruling caste. Kaiser, Junker, and big industrialists caused the war there seems no doubt. That the Kaiser was the tool, possibly the unwilling tool, of Ludendorff, von Tirpitz, and the Crown Prince is widely held. That Germany will have to pay is ac- cepted as inevitable. That she will come back for the recap- ture of Alsace-Lorraine and her indemnity is generally as- sumed by the French high military command. But these ad- missions do not spell repentance. They merely concede fail- ure. I have just returned from a fourteen days' motor trip through the occupied territories of South Germany. The tour was organized by the French Government immediately following the armistice. Its purpose was to witness the fes- tivities in connection with the French occupation of Alsace- Lorraine, and to study the economic and industrial conditions of the occupied territory, which is held by the Allied armies as the main gauge of the terms of the armistice. The route was from Nancy to Metz, then along the Rhine to Mayence, thence to Coblenz, where the American army is in occupation, then on to Cologne with the British Expeditionary Force, and then through the whole of Belgium and the devastated regions of northern France, from Ypres to Paris. It included visits to General Petain, who had just been made a Marshal of France ; to General Fayolle, the great French strategist, and, finally, to General Mangin, "the wildcat of the French Army," be- loved by all the soldiers and called in for impossible offensives on critical occasions. He is in command of the French ad- vance forces at Mayence on the Rhine. Along the national road which skirts the Moselle and the borders of France from Nancy to Metz, villages and farm- 12 OCCUPATION OF THE RHINELAND houses greeted us with French flags, while the people smiled contentedly from their doorways as the caravan of French anny motors flashed by. Metz, the capital city of Lorraine, for nearly fifty years vmder German occupation, was in gala attire, for Madame Poincare was holding a Christmas festiv- ity for four thousand school children, who gathered in the town-hall, clad in brilliant red and green Alsatian costumes, with short skirts, gay-colored silk shawls, and little white caps ornamented with the rosette of France. From the hands of the wife of the president these children received souvenirs of the reunion of Lorraine to France. Throughout the town of Metz were many signs of French occupation. German names had been stripped from the streets and German signs had been painted from store windows. Stores of questionable loyalty bore notices suggesting that the soldiers should not trade there. On the fagade of the cathedral above the market-place we observed a statue of William II., representing David. His hands had been manacled and below was the inscription: "Sic Transit Gloria Mundy." We were followed from the reception by troops of chil- dren. Chattering in French, they told us how one thirteen- year-old child had been imprisoned for speaking French on the streets. The girls, who quite naturally repeated the gos- sip of their parents, complained that American soldiers were fraternizing with German girls; they told us that one ofiicer had eloped with a German girl and that the soldiers accepted wine and food from the German residents. This story we heard continually in the occupied territory. But the frater- nizing was not confined to Americans. French ofiicers also danced with German girls in the cafes. So did the soldiers. Stringent rules have been laid down by the American com- manding authorities, but, as one of them said sympathetically, "You can't prevent American boys from playing with chil- dren," and this they were doing wherever we went. The boys had come from the penetrating cold of northern France, they had been living for months without comforts, without a bath, v/ithout a home or home surroundings of any kind, and Metz, Mayence, and Coblenz, with their restaurants, theaters, con- cert-halls, and (most important of all) comfortable billets in OCCUPATION OF THE RHINELAND well-heated houses, were a joyous relief from the misery of the trenches. There was in the spirit of the occasion something typical of the attitude of the French, British, and American armies. They were not there to humihate the people or to emphasize the fact of victory. Rather they were on German soil to see that the war was at an end, that the people were fed, and that the Ufe of the country should iiow as freely as was consistent with the terms of the armistice. One's feeling about war and about the hatreds of peoples was somewhat shaken, it is true, by the relations of the sol- diers of all the armies and of the people as well. There were no disturbances of any kind, no clash between the military and civil authorities, no conflicts with the people. One might, in fact, have been in Germany in peace times, so far as the relations of people were concerned. The soldiers were happy that the war was over. The German people accepted the pres- ence of the armies without protest, although there was an almost complete absence of well-to-do persons on the street when the troops went by. The people had a detachment from the whole business of war and peace. Their daily Hfe went on much as it always had. Theaters and opera-houses pre- sented productions of the same high order as before the war. The program of the symphony concerts at Mayence and in the Kursaal at Wiesbaden contained selections from French com- posers, wliile Mayence produced the opera, "If I were King," frankly admitting that it was from the French. There were crovv^ds of French soldiers in the theaters and at the concerts, as Vi^ell as in the shops and cafes, and they were treated with courtesy. They in turn were comporting themselves in a way to make friends for France, for there is a strong demand in the latter country that the frontiers shall be extended to the Rhine, to prevent the possibihty of another surprise attack by Germany, and that the territory of the left bank of the Rhine shall be a neutral zone in which no military operations or preparations for war shall be made by either country. Outside of Alsace-Lorraine the attitude of people seemed despondent. Hotel-keepers and business men said their coun- try had little to look forward to but debt and indemnities. 14 OCCUPATION OF THE RHINELAND There were few people in the shops. The formerly busy fac- tories in the Saarbriicken coal districts, as well as along the upper Rhine and at Mayence and Cologne, were empty of workers, although the fields along the highways were culti- vated as intensively as they had been before the war. Credit was unorganized, for the banks of Germany radiate out from Berlin, Dresden, and Frankfort, and there is little business communication between the two sides of the Rhine. The great iron deposits of Lorraine which were the source of much of Germany's wealth are now in the possession of France. The life-cord of Germany has been severed by the armistice, as it was by her blockade of the outside world. Not that Germany seems industrially exhausted. The shops in the cities are filled with all kinds of merchandise, especially such merchandise as Germany can manufacture from iron and steel, from lumber and from those raw mate- rials of which she has an abundance. But there is absolute exhaustion of many raw materials. I did not see a single German automobile in ten days' travel. There is no rubber in the country. It had been stripped for military purposes. Even the bicycles are on steel tires. Copper, too, is gone. To such an extent is this true that manufacturing plants, street- car lines, and other non-essential industries had been stripped of copper for military purposes. The industrial interdependence of the world is seen in the breakdown of German industry. Mills and factories cannot operate without copper, rubber, cotton, wool, silk, and other raw materials which come only from America, Africa, and Asia. And Germany has none of these. In consequence her industrial life is at a standstill. It can only come to life again when the embargo is lifted and raw materials are permitted to come in. In the meantime German workmen are out of Work. They are walking the streets. This is the human material from which the Spartacus movement recruits itself. The people on the streets seemed healthy and strong. They were well-clothed, although they maintained that the clothes they wore had been bought before the war. Milk is rationed carefully, as it is all over Europe, but the price at the OCCUPATION OF THE RHINELAND 15 milk stations was lower than in France and seemed adequate for rationing needs. The market-places, which are the center of every German town, were filled with vegetables of great variety from the rich bottom lands on the left bank of the Rhine, which are still cultivated like a garden. The prices were very low. The stories of food exhaustion in Germany seem to have been false, at least they have been exaggerated. And if the appearance of the people and the displays in the shops and market-places can be accepted as proof of anything, there is food in abundance for those who can buy. The trouble is not in an absence of food, but in an inability to buy food. The poor are out of work. The answer to the question, "What do people eat ?" was always the same^ — "Potatoes." Potatoes three times a day. There is very little fat. In addition to potatoes, the poor get a little bread and occasionally some meat. This was the condition in January and on the left bank of the Rhine. Food conditions in Prussia were worse, and Ger- man officials asserted that what food there was would be ex- hausted before spring, and the country would be in a starving condition before the next harvest could be gathered. Industrial collapse from the embargo on wool, cotton, silk, rubber, copper, and food products, closed the mills and fac- tories. This created destitution and suffering. For Ger- many, it is to be remembered, is primarily industrial. The supplies in the shops and the industries that were in opera- tion were in those lines in which Germany was self-sufficient, such as iron and steel, machines, cutlery, lumber, and art products. And this explains, in part at least, the military collapse of Germany. It was not only military, it was civil as welL While Marshal Foch was penetrating the German line and severing its connections the first week in October, the German soldiers in the reserve army and the people were being dis- rupted by disaffection, and by the activities of the Soldiers' and Workmen's Councils, which everywhere came into exist- ence as a result of hunger and the continued disillusion of the people. And in the days preceding the armistice the soldiers i6 OCCUPATION OF THE RHINELAND back home refused to fight ; they assembled in their barracks and dem.anded that the officers choose whether they would stand by the people or go with the army. And many of the officers chose the former alternative. Those who did not were permitted to go to the front. The soldiers stacked arms. They laid aside their military uniforms. The people decided that they would fight no longer. This was frankly admitted by people on the left bank of the Rhine. Every suggestion of militarism in the territories visited was gone. In ten days' time I saw but one officer and not a single soldier in uniform. Even the caps had disappeared. Not a single Iron Cross or other military distinction was to be seen. The people, apparently by common consent, had shed themselves of military trappings and settled down in a kind of despair, waiting for the terms of the armistice to be announced. Despair is not peculiar to Germany. Despair is universal among the common people. This is true of France, of Italy, of Belgium, and Great Britain. Europe is sitting as at a wake, waiting for politicians to quit talking and set the world to work. But little, if anything, is being done. This is the story that comes from all the countries. The promised in- demnities are like a great fund that has poured in upon a community after some devastating flood. The people will not go to work until the fund is exhausted. There have been ambitious investigations and reports. Plans have been made for placing the returning soldier on the land, for state undertakings on a large scale, for the building of workmen's homes; but the reports are already forgotten. Statesmen in these countries are discussing the terms of peace, when they should first have done their best to set their states in order. The rebuilding of homes, the organization of agri- culture, the development of credit to aid the farmer and the shopkeeper, and, most important of all, the demobilization of the army — all these problems are drifting aimlessly. The big problem in Europe is the thirty million men who have to be gotten to work. For revolution is a stomach disease. One needs only to inquire of a policeman, a street-car conductor, a street-cleaner, to hear the same tale in substantially the same OCCUPATION OF THE RHINELAND 17 terms. It is a story of potatoes for food, speculative prices, crushing taxes, and a distrust of governments. BY GREGORY MASON To disturb existing conditions as little as possible when compatible with the best interest of the general public is the principle which guides the Allies in governing the por- tions of German territory occupied by their troops under the terms of the armistice. The known admiration of the Ger- mans for intelligence in the adoption of rules and consistency in the application of them has made the Allies proceed very carefully. It would not do, they think, to issue an ordinance in haste and then be obliged to ignore or change its applica- tion, for that would mean to lose face before the people they are governing, so potent is the German reputation for the love of logic and efficiency. Whether the territory occupied is held b)^ French, British, Belgian, or American troops, the administration of it is es- sentially an inter- Allied matter. Local commanders are al- lowed a good deal of discretion, but all general principles are determined by reference to an inter-Allied military commis- sion or to Marshal Foch, as the head of the military forces of the Allies. Hence there is a great similarity in the way different sections of occupied Germany are administered, whether they are actually held by French, British, Belgians, or Americans. This unity of control is just as valuable in the administration of quasi-conquered territory as it was valu- able in the actual prosecution of battles. For instance, the intention is to make the administration of this territory as humane as possible. The Belgians wanted to apply to the Germans the same harsh regulations which the Germans had used on them, but the inter-Allied directorate wisely blocked Belgium's natural desire to have "an eye for an eye." This whole work of occupation goes through three phases : first, military occupation; second, the seizure of the means of administration; and, third, economic treatment of the occu- pied regions. The military occupation is essentially police work. By whatsoever troops, it is performed in pursuance of rules laid W.. VOL. VIL— J> i8 OCCUPATION OF THE RHINELAND down by Marshal Foch. It has followed the same military zones into which the Germans divided the territory now occu- pied by the Allies. I f Marshal Foch gave the word, the Allied army could advance instantly deep into Germany, Marshal Foch's police rules are strict but not harsh. They are aimed to protect the people of the occupied zones, and they are softened everywhere as soon as the conduct of the natives justifies such relaxation. For instance, one of the first gen- eral rules in all the occupied zones was that the inhabitants must remain indoors from eight o'clock in the evening until six o'clock in the morning, but local commanders were given authority to relax it as they saw fit. When I was in Coblenz, the Americans had already allowed the people an extra hour on the streets in the evening, and at Kaiserlauten the French had postponed curfew until half-past ten. The German gen- darmerie is purely local in all the occupied zones, and much use has been made of it. Wherever there were German army officers in positions of responsibility in the gendarmerie, they were removed, the Allied policy being generally to trust local functionaries and to leave them in office whenever they can be used, but to dismiss all officials who were appointed by BerHn. At first all use of telephones was forbidden to the inhabi- tants of occupied towns, but this rule has been relaxed also. In the French zone the natives are allowed telephone calls within their own city ; while in Coblenz the Americans allow this and also permit the use of five trunk lines from the occu- pied territory into Germany proper. Thus a German in Co- blenz may talk directly to a German in Berlin. Except in cases of extreme personal necessity, all such calls are supposed to be confined to the transaction of important business, and of course American army censors "listen in" on every call. This privilege was given to the Germans of Coblenz because it was found that the sudden and complete interruption of contact between the two banks of the Rhine caused a great deal of inconvenience and suffering. The control of mails, like the control of telephones, has been relaxed somewhat already where it seemed safe to do so, and a restricted amount of business correspondence is per- OCCUPATION OF THE RHINELAND 19 mitted between the left and right banks of the Rhine. But there has been no softening of the regulations in regard to the press and pubHc meetings. A strict censorship against anti- Ally or pro-Bolshevist articles in the press is maintained, and no public meetings of any kind are tolerated without the per- mission of the local commandant, the sole exception being in the case of the German churches, which are allowed to hold services as usual. As a matter of fact, through the churches the Germans might carry on not a little propaganda, because the Allies are not so attentive to the utterances of preachers as they might be. But it is doubtful if they are hurting them- selves much by this laxity. Indeed, a policy of broad tolera- tion toward the German churches is probably wise. One of the elements most bitter against the French, in particular, has been the German Catholic clergy, who have distrusted the French because of the fame of French liberalism in religious matters and the separation of Church and State in France. In fact, many German Catholic clergymen apparently have thought that all Frenchmen were pagans, and already their press is beginning to express their astonishment at learning that such is not the case. In approaching the problem of the civil administration of occupied Germany the Allies have, so far as practicable, made use of the existing German civil machinery of government. The proper judicial and economic measures for occupied Germany are being worked out very carefully. The French are using a number of special technical advisers — French pro- fessors, manufacturers, etc. These men are working in com- missions appointed to study particular subjects, and are also advising France on what her national economic policy ought to be. Special French economic commissions are with both the Eighth and Tenth French Armies, and are cooperating with a German economic commission. Subdivisions of these commissions are being established at sub-centers throughout the occupied zones. A good deal of confusion has been caused by the sudden severance of relations between the left and the right banks of the Rhine. For instance, the Court of Appeal for Mayence is at Leipzig, which is outside of the zone of occupation. 20 ■ OCCUPATION OF THE RHINELAND Therefore the French are arranging to have a special Court of Appeal created to meet this need. Similarly, some of the ecclesiastical authorities for churches on the left bank of the Rhine live on the right bank, and the armistice has thus inier- rupted German church routine. That part of the left bank which is held by the French is an industrial district whose chief products are coal and coke, and which produces Uttle of its own food. Deprive this re- gion of transportation and it would starve. The French, therefore, are not only sending in food by army truck trains, but are extending railways and Rhine shippmg. This region needs raw materials. The French allow these to be brought across the river from Germany, but they are very careful what they allow to go into Germany from the left bank. All applications for the right to ship goods eastward across the river have to be submitted to an inter-Allied commission, and no manufactured articles are permitted to be bought from Germany proper if the same things can be obtained from Bel- gium or France. Politics on the left bank of the Rhine are very amusing. The people have no such strong national feeling as the North Germans. This is partly becavise of a natural provincialism, and partly the result of history. Remember that all the coun- try up to the Rhine was French for a time under Napoleon I., and that some of the country aroimd Saarlouis and Saar- bruck was French for a considerable period. Consequently the thought of being parted from the German Empire is not such a shock to the people of these southern towns as it would be to the people of northern Germany. It was the Ebert Government with which the Allies con- cluded the armistice. They have therefore properly refused to deal with any other Government in Germany. They have disbanded the Soviets wherever they have found them, and they are not aware that the native population has felt much injured thereby. Before the Allies came into full control various hasty laws were passed by various local German gov- ernments. These are disregarded by the Allies, and of the laws and general decrees of the old Imperial Government only OCCUPATION OF THE RHINELAND 21 those are kept in force which are specifically approved by Foch. The people of the left bank are waiting on events. They are ready to jump either way. The inhabitants of Saarbruck elected two sets of delegates to the Constituent Assembly. They elected conservative Clerical delegates to represent them in case the French should stay in occupation of their city, and they elected men from the Spartacus or extreme radical wing of Socialism to represent them in case the French should withdraw. The whole Allied administration of the occupied zones is based on dignity, firmness, and a refusal to fraternize (theo- retically at least), coupled with a regard for the best interests of the inhabitants. In fact, so light is the heel of the con- queror on theier necks that some Germans do not believe that the AUies are conquerors at all. Their theory is that when the revolution came in Germany the German Government called in the Allies as trustees to care for its interests. As a proof of this some of these inhabitants of occupied Germany point to the easy conditions imder which they are allowed to live and say, "No conqueror ever treated the conquered like this." THE UNION OF "GREATER SERBIA" FORMING THE KINGDOM OF THE SERBS, CROATS AND SLOVENES JANUARY 3, JUNE 28, 1919 OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS PRINCE ALEXANDER MADAME GROUITCH One of the minor peculiarities of the reconstruction period fol- lowing on the Armistice was that Serbia, which had fought so gal- lantly throughout the War, took no part in the Peace Conference that followed. That is, she took no part as Serbia. On January 3, 1919, word Vv'as sent out from her capital, Belgrade, to all the Allies then assembling at Paris, that Serbia no longer existed under that name but had completed her reorganization as the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Under that name she participated in the Peace Conference; and the Conference, in the Peace Treaty signed on June 28, recognized for all Europe and confirmed the new name and the new kingdom. What the new name really meant was that little Serbia had at last achieved her dream of the days before the War, by uniting with herself all the Slavic provinces of Austria, a territory larger than her own. She had also been joined by the other Serb State, Montenegro. Of these added Slavic peoples, the race known as tlie Slovenes were the most northern, centering around the formerly Austrian city of Laibach, which in their language they now call Liubliana. The Croats inhabited the more southerly Austrian region centering on Agram, which they call Zagreb. While south of these again lay the more dis- tinctively Serbian peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina where the War had started. All of these peoples and the Montenegrins are known in common as the Jugo-Slavs or southern Slavs, and the new king- dom is often loosely called Jugoslavia. The Jugoslavs began their active movement toward this union by the "Declaration of Corfu," here given. It was signed on July 20, 1917, by the statesman Pashitch, acting leader of the exiled Serbian government at Corfu, and by Dr. Trumbic, the leader of the Aus- trian Slavs who dwelt in exile in Paris. As Austria began crumbling to pieces in 1918, her Slavic sub- jects dared to gather in a convention of their own at Laibach on August i6th. Early in October a committee chosen by this conven- tion proclaimed its intention of working for a free, democratic, united Jugoslav State. Hungarian and Austrian troops offered but little op- position, though there was some sharp fighting in Fiume. Then, on S2 THE UNION OF GREATER SERBIA October 29th both at Laibach, now Liubliana, and at Zagreb, these regions were declared independent of Austria and of Hungary. Meanwhile in Montenegro a similar desire for Jugoslavic unity resulted in decisive action by the Skupshtina or Great National As- sembly which was chosen by the people by universal suffrage. This, on December ist, passed the resolution here given, deposing its own king and seeking union with Serbia. On the same day a commission from the "National Council" of the formerly Austrian Jugoslavs vis- ited Belgrade and presented to the Serbian regent, Prince Alexander, a request voted by their Council on November 24th, asking Serbia for an equal democratic union under the aged hero King Peter of Serbia. Their request and the regent's historic response are given here. Following promptly upon this memorable meeting, the actual work of organizing the new kingdom was begun. Alexander was, of course, its Regent, and of its Prime Minister also there could be no ques- tion; for M. Pashitch, Serbia's Prime Minister, had been one of the great leaders of the War. With him was associated as Vice-Premier the president of the Zagreb Council, Dr. Koroshetz, a Slovene; and the cabinet included a Croatian, a Dalmatian, and afterward a Mon- tenegrin. It was this government which completed the organization of the new union and proclaimed it to the world on January sth. Some Montenegrins protested through devotion to their king whom the Skupshtina had deposed, and he himself denied their right to depose him. Some of the Austrian Slavs have expressed preference for a republic. But upon the whole the new kingdom, especially since its formal recognition by the Peace Treaty, seems destined to survive. THE DECLARATION OF CORFU The first step toward building the new State of Jugoslavia 1. The State of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, who are also known by the name of Southern Slavs or Jugoslavs, will be a free and independent kingdom, with an indivisible terri- tory and unity of power. This State will be a constitutional, democratic, and Parliamentary monarchy, with the Karageor- gevich dynasty, which has always shared the ideals and feel- ings of the nation in placing above everything else the national liberty and will at its head. 2. The name of this State will be the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, and the title of the sovereign will be King of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. 3. This State will have one coat-of-arms, only one flag, and one crown. 4. The four different flags of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes will have equal rights, and may be hoisted freely on 24 THE UNION OF GREATER SERBIA all occasions. The same will obtain for the four different coats-of-arms. 5. The three national denominations, the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, are equal before the law in all the territory of the kingdom, and each may freely use it on all occasions in public hfe and before all authorities. 6. The two Cyrillic and Latin alphabets also have the same rights and every one may freely use them in all the ter- ritory of the kingdom. The royal and local self-governing authorities have the rights and ought to employ the two al- phabets according to the desire of the citizens. 7. All reHgions are recognized, and may be free and pub- licly practiced. The Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Mus- sulman religions, which are most professed in our country, v/ill be equal, and will enjoy the same rights in relation to the State. In view of these principles, the Legislature will be careful to preserve the religious peace in conformity with the spirit and tradition of our entire nation, 8. The Gregorian calendar will be adopted as soon as possible. 9. The territory of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes will comprise all the territory where our nation lives in compact masses and without discontinuity, and where it could not be mutilated without injuring the vital interests of the commu- nity. Our nation does not ask for anything which belongs to others, and only claims that which belongs to it. It desires to free itself and estabHsh its unity. That is why it conscien- tiously and firmly rejects every partial solution of the prob- lem of its freedom from the Austro-Hungarian domination. 10. The Adriatic Sea, in the interests of Hberty and equal rights of all nations, is to be free and open to all and each. 11. All citizens throughout the territory of the kingdom are equal, and enjoy the same rights in regard to the State and the law. 12. The election of Deputies to the national representa- tion will take place xmder miiversal suffrage, which is to be equal, direct, and secret. The same will apply to the elections in the communes and other administrative institutions. A vote will be taken in each commune. THE UNION OF GREATER SERBIA 25 13. The Constitution to be established after the conclu- sion of peace by the Constituent Assembly elected by univer- sal, direct, and secret suffrage will serve as a basis for the life of the State. It will be the origin and ultimate end of all the powers and all rights by which the whole national life will be regulated. The Constitution will give the people the oppor- tunity of exercising its particular energies in local autonomies, regulated by natural, social, and economic conditions. The Constitution must be adopted in its entirety by a numerical majority of the Constituent Assembly, and all other laws passed by the Constituent Assembly will not come into force until they have been sanctioned by the King. Thus the united nation of Serbs, Croatians, and Slovenes v/ill form a State of twelve million inhabitants. This State will be a guarantee of their national independence and of their general national progress and civilization, and a powerful rampart against the pressure of the Germans, and an insep- arable ally of all civilized peoples and States. Having pro- claim.ed the principle of right and liberty and of international justice, it will form a worthy part of the new society of na- tions. Signed at Corfu, July 20, 1917, by the President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Serbia, Nikola Pashitch, and the President of the Jugoslav Committee, Dr. Anto Trumbic. DECREE OF THE MONTENEGRIN SKUPSHTINA Passed on December i, 1918 Taking into consideration the historical tendencies as well as political and economic interests of Montenegro, the Great Skupshtina, elected by the people of Montenegro and issembled at Podgoritza, has decided : 1. To depose the King, Nicholas Petrovich Niegush; 2. T J effect the union of Montenegro with Serbia under 'he Karageorgevich dynasty and its entrance into the com- mon fatherland of Serbians, Croatians, and Slovenes ; 3. To elect a national committee specifically charged with the conduct of the affairs of Montenegro united with Serbia, and 26 THE UNION OF GREATER SERBIA 4. To communicate this decision to former King Nich- olas and to the Government of the Kingdom of Serbia, as well as to the Governments of the Allied and neutral powers. ADDRESS FROM THE JUGOSLAV NATIONAL COUNCIL Sent from the Council at Zagreb on November 24, 1918, and delivered at Belgrade to the Regent of Serbia on December ist The National Council desires that a national representa- tion should be established by agreement with the National Council and the popular representatives of the Kingdom of Serbia, and that the Government should be made responsible, according to modern parhanientary principles, to this repre- sentation, which would sit in permanence until the Constit- uent. For the same reasons the former administrative and autonomous institutions would remain in vigor. In this pe- riod of transition it is in our opinion necessary to create the conditions for a definite organizaton of one unitary State. With this end in view, the Government should prepare the Constituent, which, according to the proposal of the National Council, would be elected on the basis of secret, universal, and proportional suffrage, and convoked at latest six months after the conclusion of peace. At this historic moment, when we appear before your Royal Highness as representatives of all the Jugoslav terri- tories of the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, we are profoundly grieved to observe that large portions of our na- tional soil are occupied by the troops of the Kingdom of Italy, which is allied with the Entente Powers, with whom we de- sire to live in friendly relations. But we cannot recognize any contract, not even that of London [the Treaty of April, 1915]. t>y virtue of which, in violation of the principle of nationalities, we should be obhged to surrender part of our nation to other States. We draw your Royal Highness's attention to the fact that the Italian occupation far exceeds the limits and regions pro- vided even by the clauses of the armistice, which was con- cluded with the Commander in Chief of the former Austro- Hungarian Army long after these territories had been de- clared an independent and integral portion of the State of the THE UNION OF GREATER SERBIA 27 Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Of this we will furnish proofs to the Government of your Royal Highness. In full conscience we express our hope that your Royal Highness, with our whole nation, will endeavor to secure that the final frontiers of our State shall be drawn in conformity with our ethnographic frontiers and with the principles put forward by President Wilson and the other Entente Powers. Long live his Majesty King Peter! Long live your Royal Highness! Long live the nation of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes ! Long live free and united Jugoslavia ! BY PRINCE ALEXANDER OF SERBIA His reply to the above Address It is only by the historic decision which the National Coun- cil of Zagreb has reached that we realize finally what was begun by the best sons of our race of three religions and three names on either side of the Danube, Save, and Drina, under the reigns of my grandfather. Prince Alexander, and of Prince Michael. We thus realize what corresponds to the wishes and desires of my people, and in the name of King Peter I proclaim the unity of Serbia with the provinces of the independent State of SerbSj Croats, and Slovenes, in the Uni- tary Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. May this great historic act be the best reward of all your efforts and of all who have shaken ofif the yoke of the foreigner by your bold revolution. I assure you that I and my Government and all who repre- sent Serbia will always be guided solely by brotherly love toward all that is most sacred in the souls of those whom you represent, and in the sense of the wishes which you have just expressed — wishes which we accept in their entirety — the Government will at once take steps to realize all you have said for the period of transition until the Constituent and for the elections. Faithful to my father's example, I shall only be the King of free citizens of the State of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, and I shall always remain loyal to the great constitutional, parliamentary, and democratic principles rest- ing upon universal law. I shall therefore ask your collabora- tion in forming the Government which is to represent our 28 THE UNION OF GREATER SERBIA united country, and this Government will always be in con- tact Vi^ith you all at first, and eventually with the national representation. It will work with it and be responsible to it. With the National Assembly and the whole nation, the Government's first duty will be to endeavor to secure respect for our nation's ethnographic frontiers. Together with you all, I have the right to hope that our great allies will form a just appreciation of our standpoint, for it corresponds to the principles which they themselves have proclaimed and for which they have shed so much blood, and I am sure that the world's hour of liberty will not be stained by placing under a fresh yoke so many of your valiant brothers. I hope also that this standpoint will be admitted by the Government of Italy, which also owes its birth to the same principles that have been so brilliantly interpreted by the pen and acts of its great sons of the last century. I venture to say that in the respect for these principles and traditions, and in the consciousness of our friendship, the Italian people will find greater well-being and security than in the realization of the Treaty of London, which was signed without you, never recognized on our part, and drawn up in circumstances when the fall of Austria-Hungary .was not foreseen. In this work and in all other respects I hope that our people will remain united and powerful to the end. It will enter the new life, proud and worthy of the greatness and happiness that await it. I beg you to give my royal greeting to all my dear brothers throughout free and united Jugo- slavia. Long live the whole people of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes! May our kingdom be ever happy and glorious! BY MADAME SLAVKO GROUITCH Being an American married to a Serbian and having spent my early years in Europe as a traveler and student, it was as a cosmopolitan that I came to Serbia. Here for the first time in my European wanderings I had the impression of reaching home, so very similar were the conditions of life to those of my native state. West Virginia. The resem- blance extended to the atmosphere of the home and to customs THE UNION OF GREATER SERBIA of farms and villages, but more particularly to that attitude of mind towards life which we consider peculiarly American, and which I may describe as liberty so great that it is not con- scious of laws. The Serbian people have a conception of duty toward the state and a public-spiritedness from choice which I have encoimtered elsewhere only in Switzerland and the United States. No change was necessary in order to meet the women and men of my adopted country. They knew more about America than America did of them. I soon learned that the singleness of patriotic purpose which had impressed me in my husband was peculiar to every one I met from King to peasant, from prime minister to goat's herdsman. All were dreaming, as their forefathers had dreamed for centuries, of a united Jugo-Slav kingdom which should include the whole 13,000,000 of their race. As I lis- tened I wondered. There were barely three and a half million souls in thv little Serbia of that day. To the south there was a region spoken of as Old Serbia, because there had arisen the Serbian kingdom of the eleventh century; beyond that was the region we speak of as Macedonia (and which in my mind, until I became Serbian, had not been associated geographically with the Balkans) containing a million and a half inhabitants of pure Serbian race still under Turkish rule. I learned very quickly of loyal little Montenegro — proud of the fact that in the veins of every peasant was the blood of the heroes who had survived from the great battle of Kossovo in 1389, in which the Serbian people had lost their independence, all but that one towering citadel. I learned of Croatia, which I had, in common with most people, always thought of as a province of Austria ; of Dalmatia with its republican traditions of the Adriatic, a kind of Floridian Indian River bordered with pleasure resorts for the opulent Viennese. Very few people had ever realized until lately that this inland sea was as essen- tial to the life of the peoples who bordered upon it as are the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to the United States. As I listened to statesmen and people making prophecies of the day when all these would be united to Serbia from that farthest point on the map, called Carinthia, to that extreme 30 THE UNION OF GREATER SERBIA point called Monastir — I felt it could happen only a long time after I should have passed away. Nevertheless, within the period of fifteen years I have seen these dreams come true. I myself have witnessed the tragedies — and there have been many — which have brought about the conquest of Old Serbia and of Macedonia, the liberation of Croatia, Bosnia, Herze- govina, Slovenia, and Dalmatia, and also the invasion of Serbia and Montenegro during the war. I have seen the miracle accomplished, and the wonder of it is that it was brought about by impulsions as irresistible as those which "rule the stars and tides." Every little child felt them ; every little child contributed; its mother tossed it playfully in the air naming the great Serbian battles in a nursery rhyme ; its mother put it to bed in poverty and simplicity, teaching it how to live humbly but to think grandly, sublimely, patriotically. As the years went by and my diplomatic home was in Russia and afterwards in England — the two countries to which Serbia looked for aid in the achievement of her dream — I came only from time to time to my adopted people. But always their first words were of this wonderful thing that was in the bud, waiting to happen — and yet, so far as I could see, with no preparation for it, any more than there is external action to hasten the coming of spring. In Serbia as well as in ail the allied countries at that time there were hopes for arbitration on the questions of liberty of peoples and terri- torial boundaries. It was the period when the Czar and Eng- land made the most intense concessions in settlement of an- cient disputes to unite in an Entente with France to prevent war. I watched this accord with a certain fear, because I felt that it surely would mean the buckling in of the aspirations of my adopted people. How Vv^ere the Jugo-Slavs all to be freed and united if there were an Entente to preserve that present state of injustice? The Great Entente was made in 1906. Shortly afterward I went home to Serbia. Naturally I talked with every one I met of the new conditions. No one showed depression. The answer invariably was, "It will come about. It is bound to come." I was in England when in 1908 Austria-Hungary, as an act of defiance to the Entente, forcibly annexed the two THE UNION OF GREATER SERBIA 31 provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The whole Jugo- slav nation went into mourning for a deed that seemed to fasten the chains of despotism that much more firmly upon the greater portion of its race, but did not cease to repeat, "The hour of our deliverance will soon be at hand." Then came the war of 1912. I was sent on a mission here to my own country as the representative of the Serbian Red Cross, to ask aid for the sick and wounded soldiers who filled our hospitals. As a child I had heard from American mission- aries of the horrors of the Turkish rule long before I had learned them from the stories of my adopted people who had suffered martyrdom at the hands of the Turks in Macedonia, and therefore I was astonished to find so little understanding of the causes of the Balkan war, so little sympathy for the suffering that was taking place in the Balkans. I believe the United States contributed ten times as much for relief to Turkey at that time as it contributed to any of the Balkan States. Again I asked myself, "Whence the help that is to liberate and unite Jugoslavia, if England, France, Russia, and America combine in the idea that no people shall ever again rise and call out for its own freedom?" In 1913 there came the terrible tragedy of the Serbian- Bulgarian war, when I saw our Balkan block torn asunder by the agonizing torment of civil war — for war between sister nations is surely civil war. It seemed to me then that the dream of liberty and union for the Jugo-Slavs would fade into yielding, as had been once before the case in Serbian history when the late King Milan declared that Serbia was in the position of a young woman who had a strong affection and inclination for one young suitor — in that case the suitor was Russia — but who must make a manage de raison with Aus- tria. A secret treaty that would afford to Serbia greater eco- nomic prosperity, at the expense of Jugo-Slav freedom, was concluded between the King, his ministers, and the Austro- Hungarian government. The result of that deflection from the dream was that the King had to abdicate, for the Serbian people repudiated a concession that should be for their mate- rial profit, but would enslave further their brethren in AuS tria-Hungary. $2 THE UNION OF GREATER SERBIA In 19 1 3, looking conditions in the face, I could not see the way out to freedom and union for the Slavs of Austria. The great nations of the Entente had decreed a long era of peace, for which the weak peoples must pay the price in self-restraint, humiliation, and degradation. Nowhere about me — in our own legation or in the allied countries — ^had I heard the suggestion that the liberty bells would ring in July, 19 14, for Jugoslavia as they had rung in July, 1776, for this country. But the dream began to come true. The first cannon shot across the Danube proclaimed that the hour had come ; that the beginning had been made, made by Austria-Hungary herself in an attack on the free peoples of Serbia. The beginning was not made by dreams of freedom, for the enslaved peoples of Austria-Hungary had never descended to plans for ruthless slaughter of women and children, as was done by the bombardment of the Serbian capital before its population could flee towards the interior of the country. In the months that followed — when three times the Ser- bian people, though unaided by their allies and with insuffi- cient ammunition for their cannon, resisted the invasion and overthrow of their country ; with the dead so close together that I had to step over them in our hospitals to reach the liv- ing soldiers lying on straw ; without any means of dressing wounds; with disease claiming thousands of victims — ^how could one hope for victory? And yet I saw hope on every face. No man in authority throughout those terrible months ever within my hearing spoke of a separate peace, of capitula- tion or surrender. And our splendid old prime minister when asked to capitulate on terms so advantageous to Serbia that it would have seemed at that time wisdom to accept them, re- plied : "Better to die in glory than to live in shame." In the month of December, 19 14, there happened a real miracle in Serbia, despite the fact that one-third of the coun- try, and that the best of the farming and industrial region, had been invaded by the enemy. With one single railway line from Salonika supplying its economic and military needs, the Serbian army maneuvered its forces until the enemy was routed and driven from its country. THE UNION OF GREATER SERBIA 33 For eight months longer Serbia maintained her own frontiers, Austria being powerless until Germany and Bul- garia joined with her in a fresh attempt at invasion. This time they succeeded in cutting the railway line, encircled our forces, and compelled a general retreat to the Adriatic coast. For three months, October, November and December, 191 5, we tramped over those terrible mountains of Albania without food, without shelter, leaving thousands of dead by the roadside. Day by day I watched the faces of the Serbian statesmen, officers, and soldiers who escorted the diplomatic caravans, in one of which I had been placed. With that curi- osity of the American intelligence to probe the very essence of other people's souls I eavesdropped at their minds to know v/hat they were thinking now that their country was invaded, their army forced to retreat, their women and children given over to martyrdom, and all that the army had accomplished in 1912 and 1913 lost by retreat. We were retracing the steps of the victorious army of 19 12 — retracing them as a defeated army. Where were their hopes of union now? The answer was, "We are bound for Salonika to join our allies and fight for the freedom of Serbia and of Jugoslavia." With their people scattered, their government living in a borrowed Greek island, it seemed futile to speak of Serbia as a nation. They were reduced to just a little group of men de- pending upon their allies for money to pay their army, to feed their prisoners of war, and the few thousands of their own people in exile all dependent upon the charity of the allied nations, including America, which, although not as yet an ally, had shown its sympathy and charity. Inside the country the women and children wept under the martyrdom meted out to a conquered people. They were tortured by the Bulgarians, and oppressed in every conceivable way by the Austro-Hun- garians, and yet the army and government dreamed and worked for the deliverance, not only of Serbia but of the whole Jugo-Slav nation. The prisoners in German camps, the martyrs under the Bulgarian lash dreamed of Jugo-Slav freedom. While America played a glorious and noble part in that deliverance, the action on the Western front was, of course, VOL. VIL— 34 THE UNION OF GREATER SERBIA the event that permitted the attack on the South. Was it not the will of Divine Justice, as well as by consent of the great Ally commander to whom we all owe so much, that the Ser- bian army, a few thousands of men, the remnant of the na- tion, should aim the first decisive blow of Allied victory? The advance of the Serbian troops over mountains so high that only eagles or aeroplanes could be supposed to cross them struck the final blow for Jugo-Slav liberty, and the blow struck in the Macedonian mountains resounded to the extreme limits of Jugoslavia. "Where are you going?" asked a general of the French army of a Serbian wounded soldier whom he met on the road bleeding from a wound in the head. "That's not the way to the hospital." 'T am not going to the hospital — I am going to Serbia and beyond that — I am going home to free Bosnia!" Within a month the face of every soldier of the Jugo-Slav forces was set towards home and the fight still to come for the liberation of the Slav provinces of Austria. There were men from Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, and Her- zegovina as well as from Serbia fighting in that army — ■ citizens all of a united kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the national trinity of the Southern Slav race. They found their country in a terrible condition. There were no roads ; the population which came out to meet them was in rags ; there was no fire ; roofs had been taken oif of the houses, floors had been torn up, even windowsills and door- sills had been burned by the enemy. The trees had been cut down in their cemeteries ; and in certain sections in an effort to prove that the population was other than Serbian, the very names had been erased from the tombstones. But what did it matter? That for which the Slav peoples had toiled and died throughout a thousand years of conscious history had been accomplished — their complete freedom and union, I, an adopted daughter, have lived this Gethsemane of a people — this apotheosis of a nation — as a Serbian woman; my heart beating with the wonder and the glory of the sacrifice. Now that this great inspiring gift of freedom and union has come to my adopted people, if we in Jugoslavia may look forward to a century of union and development of our mate- rial, ethical, and moral forces, and to the assimilation of THE UNION OF GREATER SERBIA 35 whatever foreign elements there may be within our borders, the decisions of our peoples to rule themselves cannot but aid to promote the peace of the world. The rights of self-deter- mination cannot apply to a single town, or one side of a street ; certain minorities must remain even after the wisest align- ment of frontiers. Unhappily one cannot ask for the freedom of all the Jugo-Slavs : there are Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes who must be content with other citizenship, although they have racial rights to be a part of this wonderful Jugoslavia. The broad lines of the Slav nationality with its open- minded religious tolerance offers guarantees to religious lib- erty : the Orthodox faith under the Patriarch of Constanti- nople is very like that of our own Episcopal Church. Among the Catholics of Croatia and Slovenia there exists a feeling of brotherhood towards the other religions of their nationality, as shown by the fact that many dignitaries of the Catholic Church in those states helped loyally to lead the movement for freedom. In no country in the world does the Jew have greater opportunity and honor than he has in Serbia and than he will have in the whole of the new Jugo-Slav kingdom if he proves himself as good a citizen there as he is in Serbia. For the Turk I have seen proofs of tolerance in the efforts to pre- serve Mosques, and Moslem schools, ordered by our Crown Prince. After the war of 191 2 every assistance was given to Turkish women from Macedonia who wanted to go to Turkey to look for their husbands, or for their bodies if dead. In my travels about Macedonia I have remarked the just treatment of the Serbian authorities towards the other na- tionalities, Greeks, Turks, Albanians, and Bulgars, and have discussed with them the fact that it is perfectly possible for people of different strains of blood to live together under the same flag and same government, if equal rights of citizenship are accorded to all their citizens. I believe firmly that we, the Slavs — if aided by America in this difficult hour of our transi- tion when we suffer physically and mentally from the ravages of war — ^will be able to construct quickly a United States of the Balkans, and that before many years we may yet hold that Educational Peace Conference at Vienna which was in- terrupted by the Austrian ultimatum. THE OPENING OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE THE ALLIES' EFFORT AT THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE WORLD The Peace Conference of Paris, which in 1919 began the work of reconstructing the shattered world, was unique in this: it was a con- ference representing only one party to the War. So complete had been the defeat of the Central Powers that they were given no voice in deciding the terms of peace. They were at the mercy of the Al- lies. In their surrender they had asked and had been promised that the terms should be based upon President Wilson's "fourteen points"; but the Allies had expressly warned them that the meaning of these points was to be interpreted solely by the Allies. Diplomats have always known, Germany herself knew well, that the words of any document can be so interpreted, so distorted, so misapplied as to mean almost anything. But Germany had no longer any choice. She placed herself wholly in the hands of the nations she had so deeply wronged. The first formal meeting of the Peace Conference was held in the splendid hall known as the Clock Salon in the great government building of the Quai d'Orsay in Paris. All the peace delegates from all the Ally Powers were there; and the meeting consisted only of the formal addresses here presented, beginning v/ith the welcoming address of Raymond Poincare, President of France, followed by the brief speeches of the chief representatives of the United States, Brit- ain and Italy naming Premier Clemenceau for President of the Con- ference, and closing with his speech of acceptance, after the formal- ity of his pre-arranged election. Following this actual reproduction of the opening words of the Conference, we present the vivid account of its difficulties by the British official observer present, Sisley Huddleston, and also the outline of its purposes by the celebrated French writer, Lauzanne. That Germany, though in no way present, may not be left entirely out of the picture, we close with the characteristic judgment and comment upon the Conference made at the time bj'^ that most out- spoken of German celebrities, Maximilian Harden. JANUARY 18, 1919 PRESIDENT POINCARE DAVID LLOYD GEORGE GEORGES CLEMENCEAU STEPHANE LAUZANNE SISLEY HUDDLESTON MAXIMILIAN HARDEN PRESIDENT WILSON BARON SONNINO OPENING OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE 37 THE OPENING SESSION OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE President Poincare's inaugural speech GENTLEMEN — France greets and welcomes you and thanks you for having unanimously chosen as the seat of your labors the city which, for over four years, the enemy has made his principal military objective and which the valor of the Allied armies has victoriously defended against un- ceasingly renewed offensives. Allow me to see in your decision the homage of all the nations that you represent towards a country which, still more than any others, has endured the sufferings of war, of which entire provinces, transformed into vast battlefields, have been systematically wasted by the invader, and which has paid the heaviest tribute to death. France has borne these enormous sacrifices without hav- ing incurred the slightest responsibility for the frightful cata- clysm which has overwhelmed the universe, and at the mo- ment Avhen this cycle of horror is ending, all the Powers whose delegates are assembled here may acquit themselves of any share in the crime which has resulted in so unprecedented a disaster. What gives yovi authority to establish a peace of justice is the fact that none of the peoples of whom you are the delegates has had any part in injustice. Humanity can place confidence in you because you are not among those who have outraged the rights of humanity. There is no need of further information or for special in- quiries into the origin of the drama which has just shaken the world. The truth, bathed in blood, has already escaped from the Imperial archives. The premeditated character of the trap is to-day clearly proved. In the hope of conquering, first, the hegemony of Europe and next the mastery of the world, the Central Empires, bound together by a secret plot, found the most abominable pretexts for trying to crush Ser- bia and force their v^^ay to the East. At the same time they disowned the most solemn undertakings in order to crush Belgium and force their way into the heart of France. These are the two unforgetable outrages which opened the way to aggression. The combined efforts of Great Britain, France, 38 OPENING OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE and Russia broke themselves against that mad arrogance. If, after long vicissitudes, those who wished to reign by the sword have perished by the sword, they have but them- selves to blame ; they have been destroyed by their own blind- ness. What could be more significant than the shameful bar- gains they attempted to offer to Great Britain and France at the end of July, 1914, when to Great Britain they suggested: "Allow us to attack France on land and we will not enter the Channel" ; and when they instructed their Ambassador to say to France: "We will only accept a declaration of neutrality on your part if you surrender to us Briey, Toul, and Ver- dun" ? It is in the light of these memories, gentlemen, that all the conclusions you will have to draw from the war will take shape. Your nations entered the war successively, but came, one and all, to the help of threatened right. Like Germany, Great Britain and France had guaranteed the independence of Bel- gium. Germany sought to crush Belgium. Great Britain and France both swore to save her. Thus, from the very be- ginning of hostilities, came into conflict the two ideas which for fifty months were to struggle for the dominion of the world — the idea of sovereign force, which accepts neither control nor check, and the idea of justice, which depends on the sword only to prevent or repress the abuse of strength. Faithfully supported by her Dominions and Colonies, Great Britain decided that she could not remain aloof from a struggle in which the fate of every country was involved. She has made, and her Dominions and Colonies have made with her, prodigious efforts to prevent the war from ending in the triumph of the spirit of conquest and the destruction of right. Japan, in her turn, only decided to take up arms out of loyalty to Great Britain, her great Ally, and from the con- sciousness of the danger in which both Asia and Europe would have stood, for the hegemony of which the Germanic Empires had dreamt. Italy, who from the first had refused to lend a helping hand to German ambition, rose against an age-long foe only to answer the call of oppressed populations and to destroy at OPENING OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE 39 the cost of her blood the artificial political combination which took no account of human liberty. Rumania resolved to fight only to realize that national unity which was opposed by the same pov/ers of arbitrary force. Abandoned, betrayed, and strangled, she had to sub- mit to an abominable treaty, the revision of which you will exact. Greece, whom the enemy for many months tried to turn from her traditions and destinies, raised an army only to escape attempts at domination, of which she felt the growing threat. Portugal, China, and Siam abandoned neutrality only to escape the strangling pressure of the Central Powers. Thus it was the extent of German ambitions that brought so many peoples, great and small, to form a league against the same adversary. And what shall I say of the solemn resolution taken by the United States in the spring of 1917 under the auspices of their illustrious President, Mr. Wilson, whom I am happy to greet here in the name of grateful France, and, if you will allow me to say so, gentlemen, in the name of all the nations represented in this room ? What shall I say of the many other American Powers which either declared themselves against Germany — Brazil, Cuba, Panama, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Haiti, Honduras — or at least broke ofif diplomatic relations — Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Uruguay? From north to south the New World rose with indignation when it saw the em- pires of Central Europe, after having let loose the war with- out provocation and without excuse, carry it on with fire, pillage, and massacre of inoffensive beings. The intervention of the United States was something more, something greater, than a great political and military event : it was a supreme judgment passed at the bar of history by the lofty conscience of a free people and their Chief Mag- istrate on the enormous responsibilities incurred in the fright- ful conflict which was lacerating humanity. It was not only to protect themselves from the audacious aims of German megalomania that the United States equipped fleets and cre- ated immense armies, but also, and above all, to defend an ideal of liberty over which they saw the huge shadow of the Imperial Eagle encroaching farther every day. America, the 40 OPENING OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE daughter of Europe, crossed the ocean to wrest her mother from the humiliation of thraldom and to save civilization. The American people wished to put an end to the greatest scandal that has ever sullied the annals of mankind. Autocratic governments, having prepared in the secrecy of the Chancelleries and the General Staff a map program of universal domination, at the time fixed by their genius for intrigue let loose their packs and sounded the horns for the chase, ordering science at the very time when it was begin- ning to abolish distances, bring men closer, and make life sweeter, to leave the bright sky towards which it was soaring and to place itself submissively at the service of violence, lowering the religious idea to the extent of making God the complacent auxiliary of their passions and the accomplice of their crimes ; in short, counting as naught the traditions and wills of peoples, the lives of citizens, the honor of women, and all those principles of public and private morality which we for our part have endeavored to keep unaltered through the war and which neither nations nor individuals can repu- diate or disregard with impunity. While the conflict was gradually extending over the en- tire surface of the earth the clanking of chains was heard here and there, and captive nationalities from the depths of their age-long jails cried out to us for help. Yet more, they escaped to come to our aid. Poland came to life again and sent us troops. The Czecho-Slovaks won their right to in- dependence in Siberia, in France, and in Italy. The Jugo- slavs, the Armenians, the Syrians and Lebanese, the Arabs, all the oppressed peoples, all the victims, long helpless or re- signed, of great historic deeds of injustice, all the martyrs of the past, all the outraged consciences, all the strangled lib- erties revived at the clash of our arms, and turned towards us, as their natural defenders. Thus the war gradually at- tained the fullness of its first significance, and became, in the fullest sense of the term, a crusade of humanity for Right; and if anything can console us in part at least, for the losses we have suffered, it is assuredly the thought that our victory is also the victory of Right. This victory is complete, for the enemy only asked for OPENING OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE 41 the armistice to escape from an irretrievable military disaster. In the interest of justice and peace it now rests with you to reap from this victory its full fruits in order to carry out this immense task. You have decided to admit, at first, only the Allied or associated Powers, and, in so far as their interests are involved in the debates, the nations which remained neu- tral. You have thought that the terms of peace ought to be settled among ourselves before they are communicated to those against whom we have together fought the good fight. The solidarity which has united us during the war and has enabled us to win military success ought to remain unim- paired during the negotiations for, and after the signing of, the Treaty. It is not only governments, but free peoples, who are rep- resented here. Through the test of danger they have learned to know and help one another. They want their intimacy of yesterday to assure the peace of to-morrow. Vainly would our enemies seek to divide us. If they have not yet renounced their customary maneuvers, they will soon find that they are meeting to-day, as during the hostilities, a homogeneous block which nothing will be able to disintegrate. Even before the armistice you placed that necessary unity under the standard of the lofty moral and political truths of which President Wil- son has nobly made himself the interpreter. And in the light of those truths you intend to accomplish your mission. You will, therefore, seek nothing but justice, "justice that has no favorites," justice in territorial problems, justice in financial problems, justice in economic problems. But justice is not inert, it does not submit to injustice. What it demands first, when it has been violated, are restitution and reparation for the peoples and individuals who have been de- spoiled or maltreated. In formulating this lawful claim, it obeys neither hatred nor an instinctive or thoughtless desire for reprisals. It pursues a twofold object — to render to each his due, and not to encourage crime through leaving it un- punished. What justice also demands, inspired by the same feeling, is the punishment of the guilty and effective guaran- ties against an active return of the spirit by which they were tempted; and it is logical to demand that these guaranties 42 OPENING OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE should be given, above all, to the nations that have been, and might again be most exposed to aggressions or threats, to those who have many times stood in danger of being sub- merged by the periodic tide of the same invasions. What justice banishes is the dream of conquest and im- perialism, contempt for national will, the arbitrary exchange of provinces between states as though peoples were but ar- ticles of furniture or pawns in a game. The time is no more when diplomatists could meet to redraw with authority the map of the empires on the corner of a table. If you are to remake the map of the world it is in the name of the peoples, and on condition that you shall faithfully interpret their thoughts, and respect the right of nations, small and great, to dispose of themselves, and to reconcile it with the right, equally sacred, of ethnical and religious minorities — a for- midable task, which science and history, your two advisers, will contribute to illumine and facilitate. You will naturally strive to secure the material and moral means of subsistence for all those peoples who are consti- tuted or reconstituted into states ; for those who wish to unite themselves to their neighbors; for those who divide them- selves into separate units; for those who reorganize them- selves according to their regained traditions ; and, lastly, for all those whose freedom you have already sanctioned or are about to sanction. You will not call them into existence only to sentence them to death immediately. You would like your work in this, as in all other matters, to be fruitful and lasting. While thus introducing into the world as much harmony as possible, you will, in conformity with the fourteenth of the propositions unanimously adopted by the Great Allied Pow- ers, establish a general League of Nations, which will be a supreme guarantee against any fresh assaults upon the right of peoples. You do not intend this International Association to be directed against anybody in future. It will not of set purpose shut out anybody, but, having been organized by the nations that have sacrificed themselves in defense of Right, it will receive from them its statutes and fundamental rules. It will lay down conditions to which its present or future ad- herents will submit, and, as it is to have for its essential aim OPENING OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE 43 to prevent, as far as possible, the renewal of wars, it will, above all, seek to gain respect for the peace which you will have established, and will find it the less difficult to maintain in proportion as this peace will in itself imply greater realities of justice and safer guaranties of stability. By establishing this new order of things you will meet the aspiration of humanity, which, after the frightful convulsions of these bloodstained years, ardently wishes to feel itself pro- tected by a union of free peoples against the ever-possible re- vivals of primitive savagery. An immortal glory will attach to the names of the nations and the men who have desired to cooperate in this grand work in faith and brotherhood, and who have taken pains to eliminate from the future peace causes of disturbance and instability. This very day forty-eight years ago, on January 18, 1871, the German Empire was proclaimed by an army of invasion in the Chateau at Versailles. It was consecrated by the theft of two French provinces ; it was thus vitiated from its origin and by the fault of the founders; born in injustice, it has ended in opprobrium. You are assembled in order to repair the evil that it has done and to prevent a recurrence of it. You hold in your hands the future of the world. I leave you, gentlemen, to your grave deliberations, and I declare the Conference of Paris open. President Wilson's Speech Nominating M. Clemenceau as President of the Conference I have the great honor to propose as definitive president of this conference the French Premier, M. Clemenceau. I do so in conformity with usage. I should do it even if it were only a question of paying homage to the French Republic, but I do it also because I desire, and you certainly desire with me, to pay homage to the man himself. France, as it is, would alone deserve this honor, but we are to-day in her capital, and it is here that this great Conference has met. France, by her sufferings and sacrifices during the war, deserves a special tribute. Moreover, Paris is her ancient and splendid capital, where more than once these great assemblages, on which the fate of the world has depended, have met. 44 OPENING OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE I am happy to think that the meeting which is beginning crowns the series of these meetings. This Conference may be considered in some respects as the final crowning of the diplomatic history of the world up to this day, for never have so many nations been represented at the same time to solve problems which in so high a degree interest the whole world. Moreover, this meeting signifies for us the end of this ter- rible war, which threatened to destroy civilization and the world itself. It is a delightful sensation for us to feel that we are meeting at a moment when this terrible menace has ceased to exist. But it is not only to France, it is to the man who is her great servant that we wish to pay homage and to do honor. We have learned, since we have had relations with him, and since he has been at the head of the French Government, to admire the power of his direction and the force and good sense of his actions. But, more than this, those who know him, those who have worked in close connection with him, have acquired for him a real affection. Those who, like our- selves, have seen him work in these recent times know how much he is united with us, and with what ardor he is working for that which we ourselves desire. For we all desire the same thing. We desire before all to lift from the shoulders of humanity the frightful weight which is pressing on them, so that humanity, released from this weight, may at last re- turn joyfully to work. Thus, gentlemen, it is not only to the Premier of the French Republic, it is to M. Clemenceau that I propose you should give the presidency of this assemblage. Mr. Lloyd George's Speech Seconding the Nomination Gentlemen, it is not only a pleasure for me, but a real privilege, to support in the name of the British Empire the motion which has been proposed by President Wilson. I shall do it for the reasons which the President has just expressed with so much eloquence. It is homage to a man that we wish to pay before all. When I was at school M. Clemenceau was already one of the moving forces in French politics. Already his renown had spread far. And, were it not for this mem- ory of my childhood, I should be tempted to believe the legend OPENING OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE 45 which is commonly spread abroad of the eternal youth of M. Clemenceau. In all the conferences at which we have been present the most alert, the most vigorous, in a word, the youngest man, was always M. Clemenceau. By the freshness of his mind and his indefatigable energy he displayed his youth at every moment. He is indeed "the grand young man" of France. But nothing will give us greater pleasure than to see him take the place which we propose that he should accept. No one is better qualified for that place. We have often had discussions together. We have often been in agree- ment and sometimes we have disagreed, and in that case we have always been in the habit of expressing our opinions with all the force and vigor which belong to tv/o Celts like our- selves. I believe that in the debates of this Conference there will at first inevitably be delays, but I guarantee from my knowl- edge of M. Clemenceau that there will be no time wasted. That is indispensable. The world is thirsting for peace. Mil- lions of men are waiting to return to their normal life, and they will not forgive us too long delays. I am sure that M. Clemenceau will not allow useless delays to occur. He is one of the greatest living orators, but he knows that the finest eloquence is that which gets things done and that the worst is that which delays them. Another reason for congratulat- ing him on occupying the place which we are about to give him is his indomitable courage, of which he has given proof in days of difficulty. In these days his energy and presence of mind have done more than all the acts of us others to ensure victory. There is no man of whom one can say that he has contributed more to surmount those terrible difficulties which were so close to the final triumph. He represents the admirable energy, courage and resource of his great people, and that is why I desire to add my voice to that of President Wilson and to ask for his election to the presidency of the Peace Conference. Baron Sonnino's Speech Seconding the Nomination Gentlemen, on behalf of the Italian Delegation, I asso- ciate myself cordially with the proposal of President Wilson, 46 OPENING OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE supported by Mr. Lloyd George, and I ask you to give the presidency of the Peace Conference to M. Clemenceau. I am happy to be able in these circumstances to testify to my good will and admiration for France and for the eminent statesman who is at the head of her Government. Opening Address of M. Clemenceau Gentlemen, you would not understand it if, after listening to the words of the two eminent men who have just spoken, I were to keep silent. I cannot elude the necessity of express- ing my lively gratitude, my deep gratitude, both to the illus- trious President Wilson and to the Prime Minister of Great Britain, as well as to Baron Sonnino, for the words which they have uttered. In the past, in the days of my youth — long ago now, as Mr. Lloyd George has reminded me — when I traveled over America and England, I used always to hear the French blamed for that excess of politeness which led them beyond the boundaries of the truth. Listening to the American statesman and the British statesman, I asked my- self whether in Paris they had not acquired our national vice of flattering urbanity. It is necessary, gentlemen, to point out that my election is due necessarily to lofty international tradition, and to the time-honored courtesy shown toward the country which has the honor to welcome the Peace Conference in its capital. The proofs of "friendship" — as they will allow me to call it — of President Wilson and Mr. Lloyd George touched me profoundly, because in these proofs may be seen a new force for all three of us which will enable us, with the help of this entire Conference, to carry through the arduous task en- trusted to us. I draw new confidence from it for the success of our efforts. President Wilson has good authority for his remark that we have here for the first time a collection of delegates from all the civilized peoples of the earth. The greater the san- guinary catastrophe which devastated and ruined one of the richest regions of France, the more ample and more splendid should be the reparation — not merely the reparation for ma- terial acts, the ordinary reparation, if I may venture to say OPENING OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE 47 so, which is due to us — but the nobler and loftier reparation we are going to try to secure, so that the peoples may at last escape from this fatal embrace, which, heaping up ruins and sorrows, terrorizes the populations and prevents them from devoting themselves freely to their work for fear of the ene- mies who may spring up at any moment. It is a great and noble ambition that has come to us all. We must hope that success will crown our efforts. This can only be if we have our ideas clear-cut and well defined. I said in the Chamber of Deputies some days ago, and I make a point of repeating the statement here, that success is possible only if we remain firmly united. We have come here as friends. We must pass through that door as brothers. That is the first reflection which I am anxious to express to you. Everything must be subordinated to the necessity for 1 closer and closer union between the peoples which have taken part in this great war. The Society of Nations has its being here, it has its being in you. It is for you to make it live, and for that there is no sacrifice to which we are not ready to con- sent. I do not doubt that as you are all of this disposition we shall arrive at this result, but only on condition that we exer- cise impartial pressure on ourselves to reconcile what in ap- pearance may be opposing interests in the higher view of a greater, happier, and better humanity. That, gentlemen, is what I had to say to you. I am touched beyond all expression by the proof of con- fidence and regard which you have been kind enough to give me. The program of the Conference, the aim marked out by President Wilson, is no longer merely peace for the terri- tories, great and small, with which we are directly concerned ; it is no longer merely a peace for the continents, it is peace for the peoples. This program speaks for itself; there is nothing to be added to it. Let us try, gentlemen, to do our work speedily and well. I am handing to the Bureau the rules of procedure of the Conference, and these will be dis- tributed to you all. I come now to the order of the day. The first question is as follows : "The responsibility of the authors of the war." The second is thus expressed: "Penalties for crimes com- 48 OPENING OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE mitted during the war." The third is : "International legis- lation in regard to labor." The Powers whose interests are only in part involved are also invited to send in memoranda in regard to matters of all kinds — territorial, financial, or economic — which affect them particularly. These memoranda should be addressed to the general secretariat of the Conference. This system is som.e- what novel. Our desire in asking you to proceed thus is to save time. All the nations represented here are free to pre- sent their claims. You will kindly send in these memoranda as speedily as possible, as we shall then get on with the work which we shall submit for your consideration. You can deal with the third question from the standpoint of the organiza- tion of labor. It is a very vast field. But we beg of you to begin by ex- amining the question as to the responsibility of the authors of the war. I do not need to set forth our reasons for this. If we wish to establish justice in the world we can do so now, for we have won victory and can impose the penalties de- manded by justice. We shall insist on the imposition of pen- alties on the authors of the abominable crimes committed during the war. Has any one any question to ask in regard to this? If not, I would again remind you that every dele- gation should devote itself to the study of this first question, which has been made the subject of reports by eminent jurists, and of a report which will be sent to you entitled, "An Inquiry into the Criminal Responsibility of the Emperor William II." The perusal of this brochure will, without doubt, facili- tate your work. In Great Britain and in America studies on this point have also been published. No one having any re- mark to make, the program is adopted. It only remains for me to say, gentlemen, that the order of the day for our next sitting will begin with the question of the Society oFNations. Our order of the day, gentlemen, is now brought to an end. Before closing the sitting, I should like to know whether any delegate of the Powers represented has any question to submit to the Bureau. As we must work in complete agreement, it is to be desired that members of the Conference shall submit all the obsei'vations they consider OPENING OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE 49 necessary. The Bureau will welcome the expression of opin- ions of all kinds- and will answer all questions addressed to it. No one has anything further to say ? The sitting is closed. BY SISLEY HUDDLESTON The Peace Conference formally opened on Saturday, January i8th, in the Salle de I'Horloge at the French For- eign Ministry. But for some weeks before there had been a mustering of statesmen from the four corners of the world in Paris, and the French capital, which with its comings and goings of statesmen and generals had for so long been the Capital of the War, was prepared to become the Peace Head- quarters. I think that the strongest criticism that can be made of the Allies is that they permitted two months to slip away be- fore they even proceeded to consider the peace which the armistice promised. There were two things to do, each of which depended on the other. One was to make a temporary treaty which would give us a working relationship with Ger- many. The other was, not only to make peace in the diplo- matic sense, but to pacify Europe. We increased our diffi- culties with Germany by the long delay. We could in the first flush of victory have imposed our maximum terms almost without protest on the crushed people ; and it would have had an excellent effect to modify them later on. But we mud- dled, because Clemenceau wanted one sort of peace, Lloyd George another, and Wilson a third. We got in each other's way. The fact is that the Foreign Offices could not agree. The conflict on the question of admitting Russia was particularly heated between the British and the French. The Quai d'Or- say, which is singularly blind to realities and sometimes al- lows itself to be maneuvered by foreign reactionaries, de- clared hotly against Mr. Lloyd George's and Mr, Balfour's views that Lenine should be invited to make peace and send delegates to Paris. This inability to come to an accord on the most elemen- tary matters pursued the Allies ; and it was no wonder that Mr. Wilson, yAio had been in France for nearly a month, W.. VOL, VII— 4. 50 OPENING OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE wasting his time, protesting now and again to M. Clemen- ceau, grew very impatient, and urged an instant beginning. At this time the contradiction between the point of view of the American President and that of the French Premier was flat and flagrant. A deadlock was threatened at the outset. The two men remained courteous, but there was certainly no friendly feeling between them. 'Tf you can persuade me that your plans are better for the peace of the world, I am willing to listen and to learn," said Mr. Wilson. "And if you can persuade me, so much the better," replied M. Clemen- ceau. "Only — ^you cannot!" The scenery, the stage setting, was not very impressive in those rainy days of January, when Paris was drenched in constant showers. There is no season of the year when the city looks more dismal. The leafless boulevards and the wet pavements reflecting faintly at night the feeble illuminations make a picture without color. But in the busy interiors of the buildings that were devoted to the preparations for peace there was an almost feverish activity. The Pressmen from all parts of the world gathered in great clouds ready to swarm down upon any one who could furnish them with the smallest tit-bit of information. Motor-cars dashed to and fro under the leaden skies, stopping at the door of this hotel and at the porch of that Government Department, The last touches were put to the arrangements. The papers stacked in prodi- gious number were classified. Facts and figures about al- most every country in Europe, and statistics about every con- tinent of the world, were available. In short, the supreme moment had arrived when the most immense consultation of Powers and of peoples that the world has ever seen was about to begin. If you had occasion to come within the shadow of these buildings, whose placid front concealed such prodigious labor and such stupendous compilations, you felt the gravity of the coming events. There were assembled those upon whose wis- dom or folly, upon whose vigilance or blindness, upon whose good-will or antipathies, the whole future of the world hung. The fate of mankind was poised by a thread. When you came into the sphere of these proceedings you could not avoid OPENING OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE 51 a feeling of awe at the terrible responsibilities shouldered by the statesmen, as they were yesterday shouldered by the cap- tains of the Allies and of their associates. The British took up their quarters in the Hotel Majestic and in the Hotel Astoria — two huge establishments which are close to the fitoile. The strictest guard was kept, lest there should be a betrayal of secrets. What secrets there were left to betray after the members of the Conference had given away all they knew — except their own quarrels, and those too, wherever it suited them to hint that Mr. So-and-so was preventing an agreement on such-and-such a subject — I really do not know. For my part, I never learnt of anything of any importance through official channels that I had not known before either by personal contact with some member or through the newspapers. There never was such a ridicu- lous bogy as this fear of publicity, and I am only surprised that the Press did not laugh it to scorn. There were not only men from the Foreign Office but men from Scotland Yard, and the emptying of the waste-paper baskets was a highly important business! In these buildings the delegates lived and worked and played — for the social side of life was developed by the younger folk at the Hotel Majestic. If it was permissible to dance on the eve of Waterloo it was surely permissible to dance on the eve of Versailles ; and the amateur theatricals and the concerts and the dinner parties and the afternoon teas in the Hall of the Hotel Majestic made peace-making a fairly pleasant job, provided you were not too busy. Nevertheless, it is not at all fair to speak scornfully of this army of officials. They really worked after their fash- ion exceedingly well. They prepared reports, they put the text of documents in shape, they did the fagging for the British team. Only — the delegates afterwards disregarded what they had done and much of their work was wasted. There was an early outcry about their numbers, but it must be remembered that it was difficult to estimate how large a staff would be required; and, besides, a number came over for only a week or two. A tribute should be paid to the many girl assistants, who in docketing and filing were su- 52 OPENING OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE perior to the men. Responsible positions were given to women. The uniforms of the young girl messengers soon became familiar to Parisians and were celebrated in song. Most of the decisions with regard to the methods of pro- cedure were taken in the week preceding the Conference proper. It was arranged that the big Powers alone were to lay down the general lines and the smaller States to be called in afterwards, while the enemy Powers were to come in at the end of the deliberations to receive their sentences at Versailles. There was a feeling in some quarters that it would have been better that everybody should have been united in a big conference to agree first on the principles to be applied, and to work out the details in smaller groups. Questions of procedure cannot be regarded as trivial. They have gone very far to make the results of the Conference what they are. The opening day recalled an event which colored the subsequent history of Europe. It was the anniversary of that day in 1871 when the German Empire was proclaimed by an army of invasion in the Chateau at Versailles. It was consecrated by the theft of two French provinces, and, as M. Poincare said, was thus vitiated from its origin by the fault of its founders. Born in injustice, it ended in opprobrium. The scene in the Salon de I'Horloge at the Quai d'Orsay when the seventy delegates met for the first time was an impressive one. The Salle is magnificent, a suitable setting for the drama which was then begun. Look- ing out on the swollen Seine was M. Bratiano, the Rumanian Premier, in company with M. Pashitch of Serbia. All the Balkan problems which had been hitherto insoluble seemed to be represented by these two men. The picturesque figure of the Emir Feysal, son of the King of the Hedjaz, with his flowing turban falling on his shoulders, reminded one of the tremendous differences of opinion and of interests in the Near East. M. Dmowski and M. Kramarcz, from Po- land and from Czecho-Slovakia, evoked the difficulties and the troublous times ahead of the new States. One foresaw the Adriatic quarrel when Baron Sonnino entered. M. Veni- zelos incarnated Greek aspirations and M. Vandervelde car- OPENING OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE 53 ried us in imagination to suffering Belgium. Marshal Foch, Mr. Wilson, President Poincare, Mr. Lloyd George and M. Clemenceau formed a group whose points of view it seemed hardly possible to reconcile. After all, when one looked and remembered "so many men, so many minds," it seemed hopeless to expect that they could all be satisfied. I think in view of the subsequent restilts it is as well to recall the salient passage of M. Poincare's speech. "You will," he said, "seek nothing but justice — justice that has no favorites — justice in territorial problems, justice in financial problems, justice in economic problems. "The time is no more when diplomatists could meet to redraw with authority the map of the Empires on the corner of a table. If you are to remake the map of the world it is in the name of the peoples and on condition that you shall faithfully interpret their thoughts and respect the right of nations, small and great, to dispose of themselves, provided that they observe the rights equally sacred of ethical and religious minorities. "While thus introducing into the world as much har- mony as possible, you will, in conformity with the four- teenth of the propositions unanimovisly adopted by the Great Allied Powers, establish a general League of Nations which will be a supreme guarantee against any fresh assaults upon the right of peoples." How far has this purpose been fulfilled? He would be a bold man who would pretend that the high mission has been carried out without deflection and without conspicuous fail- ures. The actual representation of the Powers, big and little, was not settled without many protests, and it is now no secret that great discontent was aroused by the allocation of the number of seats to each nation. Mr. Lloyd George soon found an opportunity for his gift of conciliation, since there was indeed much that was arbitrary in the arrange- ments dictated by material interests. The first intention that Belgium should have fewer representatives than Brazil displeased many commentators. The British delegation was regarded as unfair, since Canada, Australia and India, and 54 OPENING OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE other parts of the Empire, helped to strengthen the British point of view. The question of the Dominions was certainly a difficult one, for they are entirely British, and yet could not be assimilated. It was obvious that separate representa- tion was due for their great and gallant part in the war, but the clear-sighted French observed the preponderance of the British element thus given, and asked for (and were re- fused) representatives from Algeria, Cochin-China and Mo- rocco. The Jugo-Slavs, as such, were not to have a place. The Serbians, who, with their neighbors composing the new nation, were to have so much to say with regard to the Italian claims, had two representatives, and could not there- fore speak for three nationalities. The differences among the Asiatic nations were even more fundamental. BY STEPHANE LAUZANNE "I leave you to your weighty deliberations. The Peace Conference is declared open." M. Raymond Poincare uttered these words at three o'clock on January i8, 19 19, with extraordinary earnest- ness, and a touch of emotion in his voice which his hearers are not accustomed to find there. And at once a wave of joy seemed to surge through the entire assembly who had listened standing to the opening speech of the President of the Republic, in the great "Salon de I'Horloge" of the Quai d'Orsay, It was an extraordinary assembly, unlike any other known to history. The sixty-five men present belonged to every race, to every country. Some came from the uttermost ends of the earth, delegates sent by China and Japan. Others from parts little known, vaguely shown on geography maps — for instance, the two representatives of the King of Hed- jaz, who arrived at the eleventh hour and were admitted at the last minute. Some were very old — Mr. Pashitch, for one — ^with his enormous white beard; others, such as the envoys of certain South American Republics, quite young. From the corner of the hall where I was, my attention never wandered from them all during the half-hour the speech of the President of the Republic lasted, as I tried to OPENING OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE 55 read on their faces something of the feelings that were cer- tainly stirring below. But evei^y countenance, whether pale or dark-hued, reflected only pride and joy. And prouder, more joyous perhaps than any of the others, was Presi- dent Wilson. His smile seemed to dominate and lighten up the entire assembly. When M. Poincare spoke his closing words : "I leave you to your weighty deliberations. The Peace Conference is declared open," he was the first to spon- taneously clap his hands and give the others the signal of applause. And now the Peace Conference is open and the Allies are trying to rebuild the world. One question predominates in the vast work to be ac- complished: Will the Allies agree, and will they agree to the end? The question has been asked in America more than elsewhere perhaps. Cablegrams, some sensational, others pessimistic, have been sent to the American press on this subject. These cables came from newspapermen whose information was not always as reliable as it was prompt. Paris is a strange and difficult city for the reporter who does not know it. A city of rumors, of gossip, of talkers and faultfinders. Every one knows all there is to be known without ever having heard anything. The newspaper man who has not understood its psychology is in an unfortunate position ! He is at the mercy of any lobbyist of the Palace Bourbon who whispers in his ear an account of the most secret meeting of the Cabinet, and he will take it for history in the making. He is at the mercy of any restaurant waiter who speaks disparagingly of every man in the Government — and he will take it as a true index of the feeling of the Parisian crowd. He sees the moving surface, the lights, women passing in the streets — and he will imagine all of France is before his eyes! Truly, a misguided person the newspaper man who listens too much and does not think enough ! Let us take as an example the question of the League of Nations, which certain American correspondents have striven to describe as one of the main points of divergence among the Allies. It is characteristic of the errors of in- 56 OPENING OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE terpretation which can be made by a newspaper man in- sufficiently acquainted with France, when he tries to give an account of French opinion. What has been cabled to New York, Chicago, Boston and elsewhere? Nine times out of ten, this : "M. Clemenceau is opposed to the pro- posed League of Nations of President Wilson, and France will have none of it." And nine Americans out o-f ten are convinced to-day that opposition to the League of Nations came entirely from France. What is the truth of the matter? The truth is that French public opinion — that of the nation, of the people, of the army — has never been op- posed to a League of Nations; it is merely skeptical re- garding the results of such a League — an entirely different matter. Skepticism is one thing, opposition is another. There is not a Frenchman living who would delay by one hour the dawning of that radiant day when nations will have the understanding of sisters, and when universal peace will reign permanently on our earth. But there are many Frenchmen who believe that day will never dawn as long as men are men, and cupidity, stupidity, and ill-nature are still to be found here. So Frenchmen are not antagonistic to the League; they are simply incredulous about it. Again, the truth is that M. Clemenceau, who incarnates every feeling, every fear, every hope of France, shares on this point, as on many others, the opinion of four-fifths of the French people. But if, deep down in his heart, M. Cle- menceau does not believe in a League of Nations, he is so little opposed to one that less than a fortnight after he became Premier of France, in 19 17, he appointed a commis- sion for the purpose of preparing the draft of a League of Nations, and as members of this commission he selected not only some of the most eminent jurists of France, but also men who were most in favor of the idea of arbitration among nations, of peace among peoples, of conciliation among gov- ernments. M. Leon Bourgeois, who is the oldest and most prominent pacifist of France, in the highest and noblest sense of the word "pacifist," was appointed chairman of the com- mission. Further, the truth is that the commission appointed by OPENING OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE 57 M. Clemenceau worked so hard and to such good purpose for two years, that it had ready an entire series of drafts showing to the last detail the working of such a league, the constitution of international courts of arbitration, the penal- ties to be resorted to in case of conflict, etc. One part of the work, done by that great authority on international law. Professor Andre Weiss, even went so far as to give a list of the financial, marine, economic and monetary penalties which could be enforced, if a war were to threaten, against the nation that should be indicated as the author of the trouble. To quote M. Leon Bourgeois: "It is the most marvelous and formidable arsenal that can be imagined: the League will only have to stoop to pick up arms against war." The day the Peace Conference opened, France was the first country to propose that the League of Nations should be one of the subjects of discussion, and she was the one and only nation to place on the Conference table a concrete and practical draft for such a League. Other divergences occurred, at the very outset of the Conference, which since have been smoothed away. They deserve to be mentioned here only because they raised ques- tions of principles, and questions of principles are often most difficult. Among others, there was the question of language and the question of representation of the smaller nations. The question of language is one that France feels deeply about. The question is in what language the final instrument of the Conference — the peace treaty — shall be drawn up. From time immemorial, international treaties of peace have been drawn up in the French language, and that is what is meant when French is described as the language of diplo- macy. Even in 18 15, after Waterloo, when France was in^ vaded and crushed by Europe, the peace treaty of Vienna was drawn up in French. Even in 1 871, after Sedan, when France was invaded and crushed by Prussia, the Frankfort treaty of peace was drawn up in French. France cannot admit, therefore, that after the Marne and Verdun, the treaty of peace that will be signed in Paris should be in any other tongue than French. Translations may and should be 58 OPENING OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE made in every other idiom, but in accordance with a tradi- tion that goes back centuries, the original must be a French original. The representation of certain smaller nations, whose conduct was so heroic during the war, was a question about which France felt at least as deeply as about the question of language. In the course of a preliminary meeting, it had first been decided that Belgium and Serbia would have only two dele- gates at the Conference, whereas at the request of the United States it was decided Brazil should have three. No one in France contests the importance of the services rendered by the noble Brazilian people in the cause of the Allies, but for us who are French, among many precious memories, one will always stand out : the memory of blood shed in common on the battlefield. What has made the friendship of the United States sacred to France is not so much the money lent, the munitions sent, the hospitals built, the ports enlarged, as the two million men who came to her and the fifty thou- sand boys who sleep their last sleep in our French ceme- teries. . . . Belgium and Serbia, too, gave their blood for the cause of civilization. They gave it from the very first day — and they gave it until the very last hour. This makes them in our eyes the equals of the great nations of the earth. This was enough to earn for them five delegates each to the Conference, like France, or England, or America. In no case should it have earned for them fewer delegates than a nation not one of whose soldiers ever suffered in our trenches. At the urgent and pressing request of France, the Conference altered its first decision and assigned three dele- gates each to Serbia and Belgium. Three is not much, but it is better than two. Would it not have been preferable to have done at once what common fairness made us do later ? All this is slight enough, and simply shows the necessity of examining, and thinking, and taking into consideration the traditions and feelings of the various peoples. Other divergences will occur. What has not been said, telegraphed