Bonsal, Stephen
Stories
2
Chapters
255
Words
240.5 K
Comments
0
Reading
20 h, 2 m
The Japanese delegation has suffered in the last week a loss of prestige which most certainly they do not relish. The Council of Ten, composed of the ministers for foreign affairs, has been superseded in favor of the Council of Four (the “Big Four” for short). One of the delegates from the Rising Sun Empire sits in with the Council of Ambassadors and one or the other, generally Makino, sits in with the other important commissions, but they have no place in the Big Four. The explanation is that this…- 113.7 K • Completed
- I strayed from my accustomed beat today and lunched with Baron Makino at the Hotel Bristol where the Japanese delegation, of which he is the leading member (for Prince Saionji never appears), occupies very sumptuous quarters. My excuse for trespassing is that at long last we at the Conference are hearing the East a-calling and also that I came to know the Baron quite intimately when I was secretary at our legation in Tokyo, 1895-1896. Indeed it was Makino who at that time proposed me as an associate member…
- 113.7 K • Completed
- Mr. Kim, the unrecognized delegate from Korea, came in today to say good-by. He is naturally very depressed and he has not had even a word from his fellow delegate, and my old friend, General Pak, who apparently is still marooned in the waste places of Siberia. I did my best to send him off with a word of cheer. While I have the lowest possible opinion of the Yangbans, the official and gentry class of his country, the peasants (and there are nearly twenty million of them) are fine, honest people. They…
- 113.7 K • Completed
- “The beautiful, the halcyon days of Aranjuez are over,” as the poet sang. A delegate has arrived from what was once known as the Land of the Morning Calm, and so this Naboth’s vineyard of the East Asian coast must be classed with the other troubled zones which present so many apparently insoluble problems. In any event it is no longer one of the few sections of the globe to which I can lead my Colonel without the least danger of becoming involved in the labyrinthine discussions of the Conference. The…
- 113.7 K • Completed
- Once again the German propaganda machine is in full operation, and strange as it may seem its bare-faced lies and misrepresentations are carrying conviction in many quarters. The charge of bad faith is hurled at the Powers who signed the Versailles Treaty and, in view of their failure to evacuate the Rhinelands and the other occupied territories, the Germans claim that they are released from the obligations which they entered upon in “good faith.” They chose to forget that as plainly stated in the…
- 113.7 K • Completed
- Much to our surprise Clemenceau, unannounced, dropped in on House this morning. He looked rather shaky (he had been shot on the nineteenth) but was in fine spirits. “I have come to pay homage to the American delegation on the birthday of our joint father, the immortal George. Of course I had planned to come on the twenty-second, that is a date I shall never forget, but was prevented by an ‘unpleasant incident over which the police had no control.’“ The Tiger was in a rollicking humor and gave…
- 113.7 K • Completed
- The problem of the Rhine is now the order of the day. Tardieu came in this morning and had a long talk with the Colonel who asked me to be present and, when he left, to draw up a memo of what was said. He admitted that by the Armistice arrangements the Fourteen Points had become binding on France, but he asserted they should be interpreted in the light of what he called “antecedent circumstances.” He went into what he called the historique of the Rhine problem for the purpose of showing that the…
- 113.7 K • Completed
- Yesterday Clemenceau came in for what he called a friendly informal talk. Both he and the Colonel asked me to stay, “to keep us old fellows from straying too far afield” was the way the Tiger put it. He began by explaining the expression of noble candeur as applied to the President in his recent speech in the Chamber, to which many ascribe an offensive meaning. “Nothing was farther from my thoughts than that,” explained the Tiger; “I used the words in their English sense. I was applauding his…
- 113.7 K • Completed
- This tactful behavior, however, did not save the Danes from the midnight aggression which they suffered in the midst of World War II. Once again the Germans showed they had not changed their spots. They were still the wild beasts of the prophecy inscribed on the church tower of Flensborg four hundred years ago. The Kiel Canal and the districts that command it consequently remained in German control. It should of course have been returned to the Danes from whom it was taken by right of conquest as was…
- 113.7 K • Completed
- The plebiscites in the disputed districts of Schleswig, which Bismarck promised by the Treaty of Prague as long ago as 1866, were carried out by the victorious Allies in the spring of 1920 after a moratorium of more than fifty years, and apparently with a minimum of rioting and disorder. They were divided into three zones and separate elections were ordered held in each of them. The northern zone voted almost unanimously to return to Denmark, the mother country. The vote in the middle zone revealed a large…
- 113.7 K • Completed
- Previous 1 … 5 6 7 … 26 Next
