February 23d

It is not news that misfortunes never come singly, but that saying does not make the budget of today any easier to bear. A few hours after the shooting of Clemenceau we heard of the murder of Kurt Eisner in Munich. Then came the beetle-browed Bratiano with his Job’s post, and hardly had he gone when Premier Voldemar Priene, the envoy of Lithuania, appeared, and he, too, was draped in the garments of woe. While of course it was not so intended, the clause in the Armistice prolongation of February 17th, by which the Germans are ordered to clear out of Lithuanian territory, practically turns the country over to the by-no-means-tender mercies of the Bolsheviki. He insists that the resulting deplorable situation can only be remedied by an exceptional ruling, in fact a new interpretation of this clause; it should be limited to the German-Polish frontier and should not apply to the German-Lithuanian situation. To avert otherwise inevitable conflicts he asks that the Supreme War Council announce that Section XII of the Armistice convention is in force, and will be enforced, except where the German-Lithuanian frontier is involved.

Two Poles came in then, recent arrivals from Warsaw, and said things looked dark along the Silesian border where the Germans were massing large bodies of troops, and also along the Vistula where several factions of the Poles were fighting among themselves. They said: “Paddy wants help.” Then Butter¹ came in with a long memo from Benes. Apparently even he, as a rule the most cheerful man of the Conference, is perturbed by the outlook. After reading the somber memo which I submitted to him, the Colonel grew thoughtful and said: Unlike the good farm horse our panaceas do not seem to work well in ‘every spot and place.’ There is a certain individuality in the troubled zones and that we shall have to take into consideration.”