The Inside Story of the Peace Conference

, maxims, and methods which had stood them in good stead as parliamentary politicians. The betterment of the world was an ide

these sources of power, after which they proceeded to try their novel experiment on communities which they could coerce into obedience. Hence t

cted to the countries of the defeated peoples. From all "disannexations" not only the Allies' territories, but those of neutrals, were to be exempted. Repudiate this principle and the demands of Ireland, Egypt, India to the benefits of self-determination became unanswerable. Belgium's claim to Dutch Limburg and other

as tacitly relegated to the category of hostile and defeated peoples, and many of her provinces lopped off arbitrarily and without appeal. None of her repres

st its will. It is a frankly hostile act, and as such was rightly limited by the Conference to enemy countries. Why, then, was it extended to the ex-Ally? Is it not clear that if reconstituted Russia should regard the Allied states as enemies and choose the potential enemies of these as its friends, it will be legitimately applying the principles laid down by the Allies themselves? No expert in international law and no person of average common sense will seriously maintain that any of the decisions reached in Paris

e peace would be no peace so long as her hundred and fifty million inhabitants were left floundering in chaotic confusion, under the upas shade of Bolshevism. They

ers even worse than they are. From the outset the British government was for summoning Bolshevist delegates to the Conference. A note to this effect was sent by the London Foreign Office to the Allied governments about a fortnight before the delegates began their work of making peace. But the suggestion was withdrawn at the instance of the French, who doubted whether the services of systematic lawbreakers would materially conduce to the establishment of a new society of law-abiding states. Soon afterward another scheme cropped up, this time for the appointment of an Inter-Allied committee to watch over Russia's destinies and

all organized communities, yet they could not resolve to use joint action to extirpate it.[260] They recognized that so long as it lasted there was no hope of establishing a community of nations, but they discarded military intervention on grounds of their own internal policy, and because it ran counter to the principle of sel

ctories. Without chart or compass they drifted into strange and sterile courses, beginning with the Prinkipo incident and ending with the written examination to which they na?vely subjected Kolchak in order to legalize international relations, which could not truly be described as either war or peace. Neither the causes of Bolshevism in its morbid manifestations nor the unformula

guide to those who can see. Alone the Americans were equipped with carefully tabulated statistics and huge masses of facts which they poured out as lavishly as coal-heavers hurl the contents of their sacks into the cellar. But they put them to no practical use. Losing themselve

aid down were restricted and modified in accordance with their own countries' interests or their unavowed aims, without specific warrant or explanation. No account was taken of the historical needs or aspirations of the people for whom they were legislating, as thou

tary, explore Europe much as their forebears 'prospected' the Far West, and they look upon the most ancient nations of Europe as Iroquois, Comanches, or Aztecs. They are astounded at not finding everything on the old Continent as in New York or Chicago, and they set to work to reform Europe according to the rules in force in Oklahoma or Colorado. Now we venture respectfully to point out to them that methods differ with countries. In the United States the Colonists were wont to set fire to t

thout, and received detailed accounts of the changing conditions of the people, which, although conflicting in ma

the object of which was to hit upon such a modus vivendi with Russia as would enable her united peoples to enter upon a normal course of national existence without further delay. Incidentally it would have put an end to certain conversations then going forward with a view to a friendly understanding between Russia and Germany. It would also, I had reason to believe, have divided the speculative Bolshevist group from

had been exposed during the campaign to wholesale slaughter, or left to die in slow agonies where they fell, or were killed off by famine and disease, for the triumph of a cause which they never understood, but had recently been told was that of foreign capitalists. In the demoralization that ensued all restraints fell away. The entire social fabric, from groundwork to summit, was rent, and society,

t remote ideal. But the tendencies over the whole sphere of Russian social, moral, and political life had undergone remarkable and invigorating changes in the direction of "reasonable democracy." Many wholesome

king. They admitted a share of the responsibility for having set in motion a vast juggernaut chariot, which, however, they had arrested, but hoped to expiate past errors by future zeal. At the same time they urged that it was not they who had demoralized the army or abolished the death penalty or thrown open the sluice-gates to ana

moment no Russian of any party regarded or could regard the Allies without grounded suspicions, for while repudiating interference in domestic affairs, the French, Americans, and British were striving hard to influence every party in Russia, and were even believed to harbor designs on certain provinces, such as the Caucasus and Siberia. Color was imparted to these misgivings by the circumstance that the Allied governments were openly countenancing the dismemberm

quainted with Russia and Russian affairs, and enjoying the confidence of European peoples, to inquire into the conditions of the country and

ould vouch for, but I had some grounds for believing the move to be genuine and the promises overdone. No reasonable motive suggested itself for a vulgar hoax. Moreover, the overture disclosed two important facts, one of which was known at the time only to the Bolshevist government-namely, that

on with a view to action. Another to whom I unfolded it later thought it would be well if I myself started, together with two or three o

that Bolshevism, divested of its frenzied manifestations, was a rough and ready government calumniously blackened by unscrupulous enemies, criminal perhaps in its outbursts, but suited in its feasible aims to the peculiar needs of a peculiar people, and therefore as worthy of being recognized as any of the others. It was urged that it had already lasted a considerable time without provoking a counter-movement worthy of t

their own troops in Archangel, Odessa, and northern Russia to stop the onward march of Bolshevism. Some governments had publicly stigmatized the Bolshevists as cutthroats; one had pledged itself never to have relations with them, but the Prinkipo invitation bespoke a resolve to cancel thes

like a member of the little people of yore, who are reported to have consulted an oracle to ascertain what they must do to keep from laughing during certain debates on public affairs. It exposed its ingenuous authors to the ridicule of the world and made it clear to the dullest apprehension that from that quarter, at any rate, the Russian people, as a whole, must expect neither light nor leading, nor intelligent ap

ncy in the garb of spurious idealism, but of giving the fore place in political life to sordid interests, over which a cloak of humanitarianism had been deftly thrown. One official missive from the Bolshevist government to President Wilson is worth quoting from:[266] "We should like to learn with more precision how you conce

sion, in concert with our allies, of the following questions: (1) Are the French and English governments ready to give up exacting the blood of the Russian people if this people conse

r the exploitation of Russia, and in particular-as your French allies require-for forcing Russia to refund the milliards w

a blood feud. I suggested that the scheme should be thwarted at its inception, and that for this purpose I should be authorized by the representatives of the four[267] constructive governments in Russia to make known their decision. I was accordingly empowered to announce to the world that they would categorically refuse to send any representatives to confer with the assassins of their kinsmen and the destroyers of their country, and that under no circumstances would they swerve from that attit

contact with the slayers of their kindred; they would occupy different wings of the hotel at Prinkipo, and never meet their adversaries. The delegates would see to that. "Then why should we go there at all if discussion be superfluous?" asked the Russians. "Because the Allied governments desire to ascertain the condition of Russia and your conception of the measures that would contribute to ameliorate it," was the reply. "Prince's Islands is not the right place to study the Russian situation, nor is it reasonable to expect us to journey thither in order to tell subordinates, who have no knowledge of ou

lations with them. In spite of that, all the Allied governments have now offered to enter into relations with them. Now you admit that you made a slip, and you promise to correct it

the Sphinx question of Russia's future remained, and the penalties for failure to solve it aright waxed more and more deterrent. The supreme arbiters had cognizance of them, had, in fact, enumerated them when proclaiming the impossibility of establishing a durable peace or a solid League of Nations as long as Russia continued to be a prey to

rue. Only a Candide would expect to see her moved by altruism and self-denial, in a company which penalizes these virtues. Community of interests is the link that binds Japan to Britain. A like bond had subsisted between her and Tsarist Russia. I helped to create it. Her statesmen, who have no taste for sonorous phraseology, did not think it necessary to give it a more fashionable name. This did not prevent the Japanese from being chivalrously loyal to their allies under the strain of powerful temptations, true to the spirit and the letter of their engagements. But although they made no pretense to lofty purpose, their political maxims differ nowise from those of the great European states, whose territorial, economic, and military interests have been religiously safeguarded by the Treaty of Versailles. True, the statesmen of Tokio shrink from the hybrid combination of two contradictions linked together by a sentimental fallacy

equence of, the Allies' ill-considered invitation to Lenin and Trotzky to delegate representatives to Prinkipo. This convention, I have reason to believe, was actually drafted, and was about to be signed. And the adverse influence that suddenly made itself felt and hindered the compact came not from Russia, but from western Europe. It would be unfruitful to dwell further on this matter here, beyond recording the belief of

n,[268] but although the terms which Mr. Bullitt obtained were those which had in advance been declared satisfactory, he drew back as soon as they were agreed to. And he assigned no reason for this change of attitude. Whether the brightening of the prospects of Kolchak and Denikin had modified his judgment on the question of expediency

ns. This is so true that one may safely affirm that if Russian patriotism has been sustained by our velleities of action, Russian destructiveness has been encouraged by our vellei

onference chiefs by some casual manifestation of a frame of mind which was resented, perhaps a movement of independence, to which distance or the medium of transmission imparted a flavor of disresp

there were several irreconcilable policies, were powerful and constant. By the month of May the Conference had turned half-heartedly from Lenin and Trotzky to Kolchak and Denikin, but its mode of negotiating bore the mark peculiar to the diplomacy of the new era of "open covenants openly arrived at." The

y of a Treasury, wanted a receipt for expenditure abroad from the people that benefited by it. As a document of this character presupposes the existence of a state and a government, the official dispenser of food or money was loath to go to the aid of any nation which was not a state or which lacked a properly constituted government. Hence, in some cases the Conference had to create both on the spur of the moment. Thus the reason why Finland's independence received the hall-mark of the Powers when it did was because

plot. Secretly despatching a message to Admiral Kolchak, they put a number of questions to him which he was not qualified to answer without first consulting his official advisers in Paris. Yet these advisers were not apprised by the Secret Council of what was being done. Nay, more, the French Foreign Office was not notified. By the merest chance I got wind of the matter and published the official message.[271] It summoned the Admiral to bind himself to convene a Constituent Assembly as soon as he arrived in Moscow; to hold free elections; to repudiate definitely the old régime and all that it implied; to recognize the independence of Poland and Finland, whose frontiers would be det

s not ready to undertake, and he exposed himself time and again to risks greater far than any general should deliberately incur. Whether he succeeds or fails in his arduous enterprise, Kolchak, by his preterhuman patience and sustained energy and courage, has deserved exceptionally well of his country, and could afford to ignore the current legends that depict him in the crying colors of a reactionary, even though they were accepted for the time by the most exalted among the Great Unversed in Russian affairs. One may dissent from his policy and object to some of his lieutenants and to many of his partizans, but from the single-minded, patriotic soldier one cannot withhold a large meed of praise. Kolchak's defects are mostly exaggerations of his qualities. His re

aval, and asked them to join with him in a heroic endeavor to influence the course of things, in the direction of order and consolidation. He gaged aright the significance of the revolution and the impossibility of confining it within any bounds, political, moral, or geographical. But he reasoned that a band of resolute patriots mi

understandings and complicate the relations between Kolchak and his Paris agents. But he continued to give his confidence to his representatives, although they were denied that of the delegates. It would, of course, be grossly unfair to impute anything like disingenuousness to plenipotentiaries engaged upon issues of this magnitude, but it was an unfortunate coincidence that they were known to regard some of the members of the Russian Council in Paris with disfavor, and would have been glad to see them superseded. When Nansen's project to feed the starving population of Russia was first mooted, Kolchak's Ministers in Paris were approached on the subject, and the Allies' pl

not yet modified their former decision on the matter, and they deemed it their duty to report in this sense to their chief. Yet the plenipotentiaries, in their message on the subject to Kolchak, which was sent about the same time, assured him that the annexation of Karelia was no longer insisted upon, and that the Finns would not again put forward the claim! One hardly knows what to think of tactics like these. In their talks with the spokesmen of certain border states of Russia the official representatives of the three European Powers at the Conference employed language that gave rise to misunderstandings which may have untoward consequences in the future. One would like to believe that these misunderstandings were caused by mere slips of the tongue, which should not have been taken literally by those to whom they were addressed; but in the meanwhile they have become not only the source of high, possibly

nthesis of international life and ethics which they were engaged in realizing. It would be superfluous to investigate the effect upon the Russians, or, indeed, upon any of the peoples represented in Paris, of th

advantages, might secure a privileged position in the country and use it as a stepping-stone to material prosperity, military strength, and political as

mprehensive plan, they no longer possessed the means of executing it. But they devised none. "The fact is," one of

o be compelled to disinterest themselves in the affairs of Russia, with whose destinies their own are so closely bound up. But they soon realized that such

ally. Who will now thwart or check this process? Russia must live, and therefore buy and sell, barter and negotiate. Can a parchment treaty hinder or invalidate her dealings? Can it prevent an admixture of politics in commercial arrangements, seeing that they are but two aspects of one and the same transaction? It is worthy of note that a question which goe

n in the country have their faces ever turned toward the Fatherland. They are wont to buy and sell there. They always obtained their credit in Berlin, Dresden, or Frankfurt. They acted as commercial travelers, agents, brokers, bankers, for Russians and Germans. They are constantly going and coming between the two countries. How are these myriads to be fettered permanently and kept from eking out a livelihood in the future on the lines traced by nec

d to be considered as the devoted friends of their victims and the champions of right. Whereas the Brest-Litovsk Treaty provided for a federative Slav state, with provincial diets and a federal parliament, the system substituted by the Allies consisted in carving up Russia into an ever-increasing number of separate states, some of which cannot live by themselves, in debarring the inhabitants from a voice in the matter, in creating a permanent agency for foreign intervention, and ignoring Russia's right to reparation from the common enemy. The Russian

ade to some of their fellow-countrymen. How little likely Russians are to barter ideal boons for material advantages may be gathered from an incident w

and Esthonians were admittedly the most efficacious, conversations were begun with their leaders. They were ready to drive a bargain, but it must be a hard and lucrative one. They would march on Petrograd for a price. The principal condition which they laid down was the express and definite recognition of their complete independence within frontiers which it would be unfruitful here to discuss. The Kolchak government was ready to treat with the Finnish Cabinet, as the de facto government, and to recognize Finland's present status f

r to guarantee, will that body respond to the appeal of these and fly to their assistance? Russia, who has not been consulted, will not be as bound by the canons of the League, and one need not be a prophet to foretell the reluctance of Western armies to wage another war in order to prevent territories, of which some of the plenipotentiaries may have heard as litt

. As everything, even military strength, is relative, and as the armies of the rest of Europe will not be impatient to fight in the East, and will therefore count for considerably less than their numbers, there will be no real

ss their work by the standards of political science or of international ethics, or explain it as a series of well-meant expedients begotten by the practical logic of momentary convenience, we must confess that i

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llies, if it can be dignified with that name, seems to be a compound of weakne

ats, August 13, 1919. Art

ts, sciences, and elementary instruction. All reports from foreign travelers and from eminent Russians-one of these

British government, which decided as early as Marc

ly Telegraph, April 21, and The Public

have dissociated himself from

October, 1918, and to my knowl

ngel, and the Crimea. The last-

IV "Censorship and

n L'Echo de Pari

ade to a distinguished mem

, June 19, 1919, and in The

nized the independence of their country in principle. But this declara