Bonsal, Stephen
Stories
1
Chapters
79
Words
88.4 K
Comments
0
Reading
7 h, 22 m
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…- 90.2 K • Completed
- Georges Mandel, regarded by some as Clemenceau’s fidus Achates (by those who like him not as the “Tiger’s jackal”), came in after lunch with an urgent message from the wounded Premier, and at two-thirty I accompanied Colonel House to his lair in the Rue Franklin, named after our Benjamin, who guided American diplomacy with such skill throughout the Revolution. It is in the Passy quarter where Franklin lived during his fruitful sojourn in Paris and is still redolent of memories of the truly great…
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- Balfour was in the Colonel’s office when the startling news came that Cottin had shot Clemenceau (February 19th) and his remark was: “Dear, dear, I wonder what that portends?” just as though someone had spilled a cup of tea. “I don’t know,” said the Colonel, “but we must find out.” He grabbed his hat and the lanky Balfour by the arm and hurried him into his car and sped away to the Rue Franklin. The Colonel did not know what it portended, but he meant to find out. How quickly men…
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- With the President on the high seas, with the first draft of his Covenant in his pocket, now no longer a secret document but, by the miracle of almost instant communications, already informally at least before the Congress and the world, the time has come to make what record I can of how what many regard as a miracle was wrought. The delegates, those who assembled from all over the world to take part in the Great Assizes, have had ten sessions in a large and spacious room on the third floor of the Hotel…
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- Last evening we all went to the Hotel Murat and from there escorted the President to the station which was beflagged in his honor. The red carpet was spread and the waiting rooms with palms and evergreen plants and flowers had been converted into a tropical garden; a cheering sight after the drizzling rain that had been falling all day. President Poincare and his lady were there and Clemenceau and his cabinet. All the American delegates were on hand and most of the foreign ambassadors and delegates. As the…
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- In his speech at the Plenary Session yesterday, moving the adoption of the League of Nations resolution, the President said things that were far from welcome to the ears of many listeners here as well as in Washington. He made it quite plain that he was not inclined to “pull his punches.” He repeated what he had said at the first Conclave but with increased emphasis. “The United States in entering the war never for a moment thought it was intervening in the politics of Europe, Asia, or of any part of…
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- The tenth and last meeting of the Drafting Commission, Lord Robert Cecil presiding in the absence of Mr. Wilson, was held on the afternoon of February 13th. It was marked by protracted debates on the French amendments. In the strongest form they called for an international force, a sheriff’s posse to enforce the decisions of the League Council. In the mildest form they provide an international staff to prepare for and to cope with military emergencies as they arise. They were all voted down, but the…
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- Absit omen! Some do think it ominous, but the Colonel and I are determined to laugh it off. Yet, it cannot be denied that yesterday, within a very few hours after signing the pact of peace and the Covenant, the members of the League of Nations Commission fell openly into inharmonious groups. The question that divided them was how and where their “counterfeit presentment” should be achieved. Of course this is an important matter. The faces of those who have fought for peace in this the first Parliament…
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- Today, on the eve of his departure, the President gave House, and in my presence, very definite instructions for his guidance while he was away. He said: “During my unavoidable absence I do not wish the questions of territorial adjustments or those of reparations to be held up.” I would have concluded from these words that the President left House in control, but House did not so interpret them. “The President does not mean that I am authorized to definitely settle anything,” he explained, “but…
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- Irritated by a statement in an English paper today to the effect that the disapproval of many Senators already formally, if not officially, expressed boded no good to the Covenant and made its acceptance by Congress uncertain, the President expressed his dissent—indeed his indignation. “Those Senators do not know what the people are thinking,” he insisted. “They are as far from the people, the great mass of our people, as I am from Mars. Indeed they are out of touch with the thinking,…
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