Bonsal, Stephen
Stories
1
Chapters
81
Words
89.4 K
Comments
0
Reading
7 h, 27 m
By a coincidence, which I trust will prove a happy one, the seat of the League of Nations, to impose peace and safeguard the pursuit of happiness in this troubled world, was announced today, which is also my birthday. The Committee on Location met this morning in the Colonel’s office and within five minutes the decision was reached and the delegates dispersed to their various pursuits. It was a meeting after the Colonel’s heart, but truth to tell caucusing had been going on for weeks and there have…- 91.2 K • Completed
- Yesterday’s session of the Commission was stormy, and little was accomplished. Lord Robert Cecil was in a belligerent mood; his patience is often sorely tried by the little Belgian who is so frequently spoken of as the “pestiferous Hymans.” Yesterday Hymans exasperated Cecil by voicing his old complaint. He said: “The Great Powers are bullying the little States; they are not showing the proper respect for our national rights. With reason, the people of Belgium are suspicious, and we shall insist…
- 91.2 K • Completed
- M. Larnaude, while admitting that his dear colleague, M. Bourgeois, had talked for two hours yet merely skimmed the surface of the vital subject, now whirled in with, “We shall astonish and depress an expectant world if we say, or merely imply, that we are making an experiment for a period of ten years. The world wants something definite and final.” Wilson: “I—none of us have the most remote idea of limiting the life or the duration of the League. Yet Sovereign States cannot be permanently…
- 91.2 K • Completed
- I am probably the only person in the Crillon who is not working on a draft of the reservation which the Senate demands on the Monroe Doctrine and which the President will see to it is inserted in the Covenant. Excellent draftsman that he is I’m surprised that the President does not take the matter in hand himself. But he doesn’t, and my explanation is that the whole business disgusts him and he will have nothing to do with it except to see that it goes in—because it must. And scores of people outside…
- 91.2 K • Completed
- The first of the meetings of the Commission, since the return of the President from Washington, to review and indeed to revise the draft of February 14th, was held on March 22d in the afternoon and it lasted from three to seven. The Preamble and the first eight Articles were simply read, rather than discussed, yet it was quite apparent that the atmosphere of the future sessions was to be quite different from that which had prevailed in the past. While, as to the main points, the antagonists did not unmask…
- 91.2 K • Completed
- Since my return I find much misinformation in circulation, and in circles which should be well informed, with regard to the wishes of the Austrian Germans toward the Anschluss, the union with the German Reich which, as I was instructed to tell Renner, is to be forbidden in formal terms by the Versailles Treaty. I am well aware that an opinion based upon but a few days’ stay in Vienna is not very convincing and should not be accepted without further study, but, on the other hand, it should be taken into…
- 91.2 K • Completed
- In my first talk since my return with General Smuts today, he was not as reticent as to his bout with Kun as he had been in Vienna, but even so what he did say was not very enlightening. He evidently did not regard the incident as a diplomatic triumph and soon the conversation turned to other fields. He admitted, however, that he had told Kun that the scattered forces, more or less under his control, on the Czech frontier were violating the terms of the Armistice and that sooner or later this attitude…
- 91.2 K • Completed
- Yesterday I paid my farewell visit to Princess Metternich; her palace out on the Rennweg is dark and gloomy and oh, so cold. Once the meeting place of the noblesse, it is now dreary and deserted. No equipages block the driveway, and all the bedizened flunkeys have vanished. A crippled retainer took in my card. Like everyone else the Princess, once the toast in Paris and supreme in Vienna, has fallen upon evil days, and she has fallen farther than most, for her place was very high. “Die Pauline,”…
- 91.2 K • Completed
- Having heard that I was leaving, Herr Karl Renner came in this afternoon for a few last words. Obviously, and how natural it was, he wished to draw me out, but of course I stood by my instructions. “I came with a message and I have delivered it. Of course I shall be pleased to carry to Paris any suggestions you may care to make. I am sure they will be considered sympathetically by Colonel House and I believe by others who fully appreciate your unfortunate position.” This pleased him and he…
- 91.2 K • Completed
- Another request came today from Ballplatz, this time in official form, asking me to move to the Hofburg and occupy at least a wing of it. Again I declined, stating I would not do so unless instructions to that effect came from Paris. But a few hours later I was beset by a temptation that was much more difficult to resist than the previous invitations. The major-domo of Duke Philip of Coburg put in an appearance at my dismal quarters in the hotel. He came with letters from Admiral Hohnel and a card from…
- 91.2 K • Completed
- Previous 1 2 3 4 … 9 Next
