Bonsal, Stephen
Stories
2
Chapters
255
Words
240.5 K
Comments
0
Reading
20 h, 2 m
Yesterday House told me that he now realized that the only possible peace would not be the ideal settlement he had hoped for. “One of our handicaps is that, at least in the eyes of Europe, the President has been in a measure discredited by the result of the November election. The American Congress is now in the hands of those who do not view the situation eye to eye with the President; and worse, much worse, the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate is, to say the least, unfriendly to the Wilson…- 113.7 K • Completed
- A busy week, but as far as I can see nothing, or next to nothing, has been accomplished. In the matter of prestige, and nothing can be more important, I fear the Supreme Council has lost out. Germany refused to let Haller and the new Polish army disembark in Danzig and the Council did not insist—although it blustered and said it would. It ordered the Poles and the Ukrainians to stop their destructive and most uncivilized warfare, and yet it goes on tragically. It is now apparent that Smuts went to…
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- Even those of us who are so fortunate as not to be directly involved (we who are only plagued by the repercussions) are well aware that the Armistice commissioners who meet at least once a month at Spa to clarify, implement, renew, and also extend the terms of that document are facing squalls. It is not too much to say that Marshal Foch himself is so disgusted, at least so say his military aides such as Generals Dupont and Mordacq, that he is seriously thinking of dropping the historic instrument into…
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- The Colonel has asked me to “clarify” the situation on the Eastern Front and more particularly in Southeastern Europe, a large order surely. I have sat at the feet of the tacticians and the strategists of the Supreme War Council both in Versailles and on the Place des Invalides, but the result is a crazy quilt. Of one thing only am I convinced, and that is, even these wise men do not know all the answers. It is quite clear, however, that the French are increasingly nervous over the continued advance…
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- Wellington Koo came in this morning. Talked for nearly an hour with the Colonel. I was called in to give my testimony as to the meeting. In the end Koo said: “If Peking orders me to sign the treaty, I will sign—otherwise not.” “When the Japanese move out of Shantung bag and baggage, as they have promised to do, you will be the hero of the hour,” said the Colonel encouragingly. “But I’ll be a dead hero,” answered Koo. “If I sign the treaty—even under orders from Peking—I shall…
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- At his urgent request, I again called on Dr. Morison from Peking who has been advising the Chinese delegation. He is ill with the jaundice and is evidently in a serious condition, but he hopes to leave for England in a few days. He said he did not wish to express his personal opinion, but he thought we ought to know that the members of the Chinese delegation were more furious with Wilson than they were with Balfour, whom they regarded as his cat’s-paw. Koo and all of them insist that Wilson said, “You…
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- A Chinese manifesto, in many languages, is being circulated with the connivance and perhaps even with the authorization of Mr. Koo and the delegation. Some of it has gotten into the Paris papers. The anonymous author says that China has been stabbed to the heart in the house of its friends. “We are surprised, grieved and nonplussed,” runs the statement. “After nibbling at the question for weeks, the Big Four turned the matter over to Mr. Balfour, a surprising ineptitude, as he is the sponsor if…
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- The Shantung affair is res adjudicata, at least temporarily, like everything else. The President and Balfour have agreed to accept the personal promise of Makino and Chinda to the effect that Japan will withdraw from the province of Confucius once they are assured that she will not be discriminated against; that her people will retain the same rights and privileges that the Great Powers of the West enjoy—that is, consular jurisdiction under the capitulations, treaty port extraterritoriality, and so on.…
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- This afternoon Makino and Chinda appeared by appointment, as solemn a pair of Dromios as I have ever seen. And only a few hours before we had learned that Orlando had run out on the Conference and was speeding to Rome. Makino said he had come in all frankness to announce that Japan would not sign the Treaty unless her informal promise to return Shantung to China, after receiving a pledge from the Chinese government that Japan would enjoy the same privileges in the returned province as are enjoyed by the…
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- In the early days of the Conference, on one of my walks with Colonel House, I told him that during the years I spent in Tokyo as secretary of our legation I had enjoyed rather close relations with both Count Makino and Prince Saionji. Colonel House said nothing, but, as is now apparent, stowed this information away in his capacious mental archives to be used later if a favorable occasion should be presented. And the occasion came some weeks later, when the French press raised the question of whether or…
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