May 7, 1919

The ceremony this afternoon in the Trianon Palace Hotel in Versailles when the peace terms were handed over to the Germans was most certainly not a pleasant spectacle. Indeed it has proved almost as unpleasant for the victors as it must have been for the vanquished. The Tiger stood on his feet and was formal and dignified as he handed over the historic document, but unfortunately the attitude of the German plenipotentiary was contemptuous and the long rambling discourse which he read was in the worst possible taste. He remained seated throughout the ceremony and no explanation was offered for what many considered a gross discourtesy.

The general verdict seems to be that in the peace campaign the Germans have suffered another “defeat at the Marne.” As he listened intently to the diatribe of hate that issued from the trembling lips of the speaker the President’s face was a study. For the first time since he came to France it betrayed passion and at the end he is reported to have said, “Now I’m ready to admit that I hate the Germans.” “Beasts they were and beasts they are,” was Balfour’s comment. “How in the world can we contrive to live in the same world with them?”

House was greatly distressed and as is his habit tried to take a kindly view of the incident. “The man must be mad or ill or drunk. But what a calamity, whatever the explanation may be. He has played into the hands of those who would wipe the German people off the face of the earth and made the task of those of us who seek to establish an understanding that might lead to friendship simply impossible.”

I lean to the opinion that Brockdorff-Rantzau, German minister to Denmark throughout the war, was both ill and drunk. For weeks we have heard of the enormous quantities of cognac he consumes daily and but a glance at his deadly white face, his sunken chest, his hollow shoulders reveal what must have been his physical condition for a long time past. Cambon thinks that personal pique had something to do with the sorry exhibition. “He hoped to play the role of Talleyrand at the Vienna Congress and instead he was placed behind a stockade. How wise that precaution was he probably does not appreciate. When you recall the atrocities the Horde committed on French and Belgian soil it is almost a miracle that our Sûreté were able to protect this representative of frightfulness from what I can only admit would have been just retribution.”

The Colonel asked me to drive back with him from Versailles. “Our work is over,” he said, “although some details may have to be adjusted. Some of our demands are harsh, but if we remember what took place in Belgium, in northern France, and elsewhere they are only what was to be expected. I shall try to ‘iron things out’ [his favorite expression], but of course we shall not make a complete job of it until the League gets down to work under more favorable conditions.

“What I am now hearing from Washington is, I must admit, disquieting. What we have accomplished here is, I fear, not well understood there. I see some defects, too, and I am aware that in some respects we have not lived up to our ideals, but we have been dealing with men and not with angels. As the treaty carries with it the machinery for its correction, before it is ratified and before the Covenant is generally recognized as the hope of our civilization, I think it unwise to point out and dwell upon the defects and the shortcomings of our work, although I am aware at least of some of them. I had thought of going home myself, but the President told me yesterday that I must remain until the treaty is signed and that then he wanted me to go to London as his representative on the Mandate Commission: ‘I shall want you to curb the land-grabbers who will gather there,’ the President said.

“I want you to be with me,” added House, “and in the meantime in a few days I shall ask you to go to Washington, secure your discharge from the army, and above all keep your ears and your eyes open. When I reach London I shall cable you to join me, and I hope you will.”

I told the Colonel I would be glad to fall in with his plans. I had been separated from my family for more than a year and, as the war was over, I had hoped and indeed expected that normal conditions would be resumed. Mrs. Bonsai had not been allowed to come to Paris, the rule excluding the wives of those in the armed forces having been rigidly enforced. The Colonel said he was very grateful that I was willing to absent myself from the crowning day of our work, which would be when the Germans signed the treaty in Versailles. I told him to dismiss any thought of this from his mind; that I personally would prefer to be in Washington on the great day.

That evening I had a séance of an hour with the Colonel in which he emphasized the favorable aspects of the negotiations, which he wished me to impress upon senators and others. He read me excerpts from letters recently received from Philips of the State Department and from Tumulty in the White House; both were evidently depressed at the outlook for ratification and said so quite frankly. He told me to make what preparations were necessary and that in a few days he would ask Chaumont for my travel orders. I was delighted and walked on air for several days and then, as so often the case before, there ensued a period of uncertainty and delay.